Vessel by Lisa T. Cresswell Page B

me. All I wanted was to sleep and to know I was safe. If I lay very still, the pain became a thing separate from me. I could float away from it, drift into unconsciousness, into my own river. I fell asleep long before his tea brewed, but it was waiting for me when I woke up.
    The tea was bitter on my tongue, like medicine. I thought of the hippa but this was different. Its warmth soothed my throat and woke me up enough to realize Recks wasn’t within sight. The horse chewed on some grass by the lake, so I knew he couldn’t be far. I munched a small cake of seeds he’d left by the tea and waited for him to return.
    After awhile, I went down to the lake to wash my face and hands. The morning was so still the water reflected my image like glass. Recks said I was beautiful. The left side of my face was unblemished, the skin smooth, the eye perfectly shaped. The right was burned almost beyond recognition; the tight skin around my eye could barely open. My once full lips were even thicker there. I wasn’t sure which side was truly me. I only knew I was unique. There was no one like me. I wasn’t as frightening as I’d been told, though. Weevil was much scarier than I. My hair was still thick and straight like a horse’s mane. At least I had that, some piece of what I’d been before.
    Recks finally returned with a hodgepodge of wild food for breakfast—three brown duck eggs, mushrooms, and a few fern shoots.
    “Thank you for the tea,” I said, eyes down.
    Recks sighed as he set the food down by the fire, which smoldered with charred wood now. “You’ve got to stop that. You’ll attract attention.”
    “Stop what?” I asked as I moved to stoke the fire.
    “Stop staring at the ground when you speak to people. Look at me.” I did as I was told and waited.
    “Now smile,” said Recks. The corners of his mouth turned up as he said it.
    I struggled with how to do the same thing, my lips moving in uncomfortable ways. The pained expression on Recks’s face told me it wasn’t going well.
    “Okay, never mind about smiling. Just look up from now on.”
    “Yes, Master Recks.”
    “And for Mother’s sake! Don’t call me Master. People will know you’re a slave in an instant.” Recks shook his head and gingerly placed the eggs in the hot ashes of the fire to cook. “Maybe we need to disguise you.”
    “I lost my billa when you stole me,” I said, watching him as I’d been instructed to. He was slender, with long legs bent as he crouched by the fire. A tiny bit of hair sprouted from his chin, but otherwise he appeared clean-shaven.
    “Good riddance to that thing! That was no disguise.”
    “No one in Roma knows what I look like without it, except Dine. He’d look at me sometimes.”
    “Then we’d better disguise you.”
    “How?”
    “We’ll be getting to Tingrad soon. There are a lot of people there, Reticents too. If they sent word from Roma, they’ll be looking for a woman with long, black hair. They wouldn’t suspect two boys traveling together. What if we cut your hair? You could probably pass for a boy.”
    “Cut my hair?” I felt myself recoil from him the way I had when I thought he’d force himself on me. The horror must have been plain on my face because his expression softened.
    “It would be safer for you. Not all men are like me. It’d just be until we get beyond the Black Sea. It’ll grow back.”
    “Yes, I suppose it will.” I ran a hand over my long locks, pulling it across my lips, a gesture that’d become habit long ago. I couldn’t help looking away from Recks, even though he’d told me not to.
    “Are you crying?” he asked.
    “No,” I insisted, even though I felt the hard spot in my throat and the wetness in the corners of my eyes.
    Recks crawled over to me on his knees and sat next to me. “Does it mean that much to you?” he asked softly.
    I nodded. I knew if I spoke I wouldn’t be able to stop my tears.
    “Maybe there’s another way. We could find you a