The Godspeaker Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page A

not understanding, he shook his head. “He never taught you that much, your father?”
    Father. He meant the man? She shrugged. “She-brats like goats. Who want teach goats?”
    “Only godforsaken fools,” muttered Yagji.
    Abajai shot him a dark look. “What of your mother?”
    She sniggered. “Woman not teach. Man beat woman if she talk she-brats.” She sipped from the cup carefully, not sadsa this time, but tea. It was cool enough to drink. She gulped, suddenly thirsty. “Woman try. Talk a little, when man gone.”
    “Did anybody else talk to you?”
    “Sometimes.” She shrugged. “Man not like. But Hekat listen to man. To man’s boys. To men visit man. Hekat learn words. Learn counting.”
    Abajai smiled. “Clever Hekat.” He lifted the jug again. “Honey is sweet. You know sweet?”
    She shook her head, staring as Abajai poured a sticky gold stream onto her corncakes. “Eat,” he said, still smiling. “Use your fingers.”
    “I thought you wanted it civilized,” protested Yagji.
    “That will come,” said Abajai, as she put down the cup and balanced the plate more firmly in her lap. “For now let her touch the world with her fingers. Let it become real. Something to be embraced, not feared. If she is to make my fortune, she—”
    “ Our fortune,” said Yagji, and pointed at her plate. “You heard Aba, monkey. Eat! If you don’t eat there’ll be no meat on your bones and the good coin we paid for you will have been wasted!”
    More goat words from Yagji. She would listen to Abajai. She folded a corncake in half and shoved it into her mouth. Her eyes popped as the sticky gold honey melted on her tongue. This was sweet? This—this—
    Abajai and Yagji were laughing at her. “So? You like honey, Hekat?” said Abajai.
    She chewed. Swallowed. Looked down at the other honey-soaked corncakes. Cold now, but she didn’t care about that. “Hekat like.”
    “You should say thank you,” said Yagji, sniffing. “Only savages and monkeys have no manners. Say: Thank you, Yagji and Abajai.”
    Her tongue yearned for more sweet. “Thank you, Abajai and Yagji.” She smiled, for Abajai alone. “Thank you for honey.”
    Abajai patted her cheek. “You are welcome, Hekat. Now eat. The sun flies up. We must go.”
    As she obeyed his word, stuffing sweet corncakes into her mouth, Yagji took the honey jar from Abajai and poured it over his own food. “Educate it if you must, Aba, but do refrain from fondling. As slaves go it might be quick-witted but your pet does not understand as much as you think.”
    Abajai laughed, and drank his tea.
    After breakfast they climbed onto the white camels and the caravan continued, traveling slowly but steadily beneath the hot blue sky. Every highsun Abajai taught Hekat proper Mijaki speech, and Yagji grumbled. Soon after newsun on the sixteenth day the land changed from flat to uneven, with ravines and steep hillsides. Four fingers after the nineteenth highsun they reached a road that twisted and turned like a snake, then plunged downward over a sharp jutting edge. Tall spindly trees with whippy branches crowded close on either side, flogging their faces and arms and legs. The camels complained with every step, and Abajai tightened his arm around Hekat’s middle, leaning back, as they shuffled to the bottom.
    She gasped when they reached it. Here was green land spread before them! Thick grass wherever she looked, and more flowering bushes than ever grew in the village. Springs of water, bursting from underground. Aieee! She wished they could stop, she wanted to touch the bubbling water, to run with bare feet in all the growing grass, but lowsun was casting its long thin shadows. They would have to camp soon. Yagji was asleep already, trusting his camel to keep pace with Abajai.
    Abajai woke him. “We have reached the lands of Jokriel warlord, Yagji. The savage north is left behind.”
    Grunting, snuffling, Yagji straightened from his sleeping slouch. “At last. I never