Only much later, after they had been wrenched apart, did it occur to him that she had wanted him to say he cared for more than her welfare. She had wanted to hear him say that he cared for her. By then, it was too late. Shale knew little about girls. There had been none around his own age in the shanties of Wash Drybone, and the girls who lived in proper houses in the settle certainly had nothing at all to do with the family of Galen the sot. Terelle didn't simper or giggle as the settle girls often had, and he was grateful for that, but she did have the knack of making him thick-tongued and clumsy. He even found himself flushing simply because of the way she sometimes looked at him: with eyebrows raised and an expression that said, "You can't really be as stupid as that, can you?"
He was never able to predict just what would prompt that reaction in her. She did it when he told her one of her paintings was pretty. She did it when he said that just because they didn't like Jomat, it didn't necessarily mean he was evil. She did it when he remarked that Nealrith was lucky because he was married to someone who must surely be the loveliest woman in all the Quarter. She did it when he said that he couldn't see anything wrong with owning ziggers. Sometimes, the more logical the statement was to him, the higher her eyebrows went. Even when he tried to pay her a compliment, it could go awry. When he said one of her tunics suited her, she said scathingly, "This? You think I look good in this?"
Still, there were other times when he thought she was better company than Mica had ever been. She laughed more. She made him laugh. Without his being actively aware of it, she insinuated herself into his waking thoughts and night-time dreams, and the results were pleasant. Just thinking about her stirred his body. He found himself looking forward to her company. He was happier when she was in the room than when she wasn't. He wanted to touch her but never dared.
One day he told her as much as he could remember about Mica and then asked, "Do you-do you think it would be possible for you to paint him? I mean, a picture where-where he and I meet up again, or something?"
She thought about that. "I don't know what he looks like," she said finally. "Even if you were to describe him… No, I'm sorry, Shale; I don't think it would work. I'll ask Russet, though."
He nodded, resigned. He had not really expected anything else. "You cheated!"
"I did not!"
Shale tilted his head in disbelief. "There were four shells in that hollow. You dropped another in and then transferred them. You could skip the lady's hollow because of the purple shell, but you had to have five shells, which means the last one had to-"
She started to laugh. She had taught him how to play a board game called Lords and Shells, which involved trying to collect all your opponent's shells from the many hollows on their side of the carved board and distribute them into your own hollows, using strategy that involved farsighted interpretation of how the game was going to go. They argued long and hard about just how much luck was involved and how much of the outcome was indeed due to planning; sometimes a single game would go on well into the night. It helped to pass the time. No, more than that, it was fun. And it was hard to get angry with Terelle when she tried to get the better of him by cheating. She would look so innocent and wide-eyed, he always knew she must have done something, but sometimes it was hard trying to work out exactly what. That, he decided, was one of the things he liked about her: she was never dull. Her company made the waiting, the necessity of his Reduner disguise and his virtual imprisonment bearable.
The news she relayed from Vato the waterseller and the bazaars was worrying. There was unrest everywhere. Searches and harassment had become a part of life on their level, and people did not like it. When the waterless lived on the sufferance of those above, they kept many secrets. Spot searches and sudden raids had an uncomfortable way of uncovering them. According to Vato, rumour said the red dunes were divided and at war, with one side led by a woman warrior called Vara Redmane, who had once been a sandmaster's wife. Besides fighting this rebellion against his rule, Davim ran raids into the White Quarter, seized quarried salt and harried the Alabasters.
Terelle frowned over that. "But that's silly," she said. "If the 'Basters don't get any profit from selling salt because the Reduners always steal it first, then they won't quarry it."
Shale thought about that before replying. "Davim will force them," he said finally. "Quarry salt, or die. He intends to rule the north. Just as Taquar aimed to rule the whole of the Scarpen and the Gibber."
"Taquar did? Using what forces?"
"Reduners, I reckon. Davim's men. In exchange for water… which I was supposed to supply. Taquar wanted to control the Gibber gem, mineral and resin trade as well as the whole of the Scarpen. Davim wanted control of the north: the Reduners and the Alabasters." In his anger, his voice deepened. "An evil pact between two evil men."
"Taquar told you that?"
"In a sort of roundabout way, yes. Only he said it was someone else, not him. Highlord Nealrith or Rainlord Kaneth. And I believed him. Blighted eyes, Terelle, I saw what happened to Wash Drybone Settle, and he could look me straight in the eye and talk about the wickedness of the rogue rainlord, when all the time it was him."
She sat quietly, watching him. "And now? After Taquar has lost you?"
"Davim may not know that yet. I can only guess what Taquar will do, but knowing him, he will keep it quiet as long as he can, hoping all the while he'll find me again. He will never give up. Never. There's no place I'll ever be safe in Scarcleft."
"Cloudmaster Granthon and Highlord Nealrith will protect you," she said softly. "All you have to do is get to them. They need you. The whole of the Quartern needs you."
Her words didn't cheer him, but he accepted their truth and prepared himself to accept all they implied about his future. Both Taquar and Feroze had told Shale that Cloudmaster Granthon had stopped sending regular storms to both the White and the Gibber Quarters, and tendrils of rumour saying the same thing had insinuated themselves into the bazaar gossip. The rumour was confirmed when one of the waterpriests gave an official explanation from the pulpit. Storms were still being sent to the two quarters, he said, whenever possible. Unfortunately, they would not be enough to sustain the present level of population.
Terelle came back from the market with the news. She was tight-lipped, but that only lasted until she saw Shale. "What will happen to all those people?" she raged. "What do they mean, 'present level of population'?"
Russet entered the room behind her, his arms full of parcels, and he replied before Shale could think of anything to say. "Settles with water saved in cisterns soon be fighting off those with none. Raids, marauders-groves robbed, destroyed. The Gibber be finished. The settles soon be as barren as the plains themselves." His tone contained a distasteful avidity that sickened Shale.
Terelle's frown hardened; she couldn't accept what he said. "Are people really so stupid?" she asked Shale as she sat down at the table and started to unwrap her parcels.
"Don't waste your water," Russet said, regarding the beginning of tears in Terelle's eyes. "They be not worthy of it."
"My family are Gibber people," she protested.
The laugh he gave was harsh with sarcasm. "Ye don't have a drop of Gibber blood, ye silly frip."
"My father-" she began.
"Ye be already living within your mother before that Gibberman find her. Ye be Watergiver through and through."
There was a long silence. Then, "It is time you told me who I am, if you really know."
"Of course I know. Scoured the Quartern looking for your mother. My mistake. I shuffled her likeness into waterpaintings, thinking to bring her to me, not knowing she be dead. I thought she be using her power to resist the power of the painting. I wasted years." He gave a grunt of frustration. "Your mother foolish, headstrong, wilful, stupid."