Their women had to ask permission to enter the long house. She had seen it enough times to know. After the shadowplays the men stayed and the women left. She wondered if they would even consent to her using the puppets afterward. To consort with Soter. He was a man, too, however besotted, and to practice she must enter his house. They would brand her a mispel for that, most certainly. No, they would never allow it, maybe not even if Koombrun accompanied her. She could imagine the pleasure Agmeon would take in controlling her, the same as Gousier. There wasn’t a soul on the island who wasn’t allied against her.
She stood considering long enough that Agmeon circled her. “What’s the matter with you? Leave!”
“Not without him.”
Agmeon looked as if he would strike her then. Soter suddenly lurched upright and stumbled in between them, slurring his words: “What’s all this nonsense, you two? Agmeon, this is Leodora, you know who she is. Lea, what is so urgent?” He hung there like a great tortoise, with his head pushed out and swinging back and forth. When he received no reply from either of them, and the two continued to stare each other down, he waved his hands loosely and said, “All right, all right, I’ve had too much hospitality anyway. I’d get lost on the way home without a guide. Come on, child, help me with my goods and let’s go.”
Agmeon’s glance flicked between them. He seemed to weigh the matter. She could almost hear him thinking that at least with Soter she would be gone. He released an exasperated sigh and sharply withdrew, allowing the two of them to collect Soter’s payment. She gathered up loaves of bread, dried seaweed, and a shirt, stuffing them into his net bag along with a few empty jugs. He shuffled up beside her carrying his own jug and nothing else. For once she didn’t mind being his drudge. He kept turning and bidding everyone good night the whole length of the house.
Outside they had barely gone a dozen steps when he said quite soberly, “Now, what was all that business about, Agmeon not letting you in? What did he mean, you’re betrothed?”
By the time they reached his hut, she’d told him the whole story and he had launched into his own verbal assault upon Gousier: “The utter fool. Does he truly believe the village will warm to him for this? Or to you? Link with his family? They can’t possibly have told him that. He’s made it up from what they didn’t tell him.”
He stumbled approaching his hut, quickly caught himself, then stopped and stared at his own feet for a moment. “Some of us are foolish,” he said, “you from youth and I from drink. And we try to compensate for our weaknesses when we’re not giving in to them. But your uncle, Lea, is the worst kind of fool—the cocksure fool. Malicious and proud in his certainty. No one can tell him anything, and the more he stands on his points, the more wrong he is. And the more vicious.”
He entered the hut, then spun around to face her, his arms flung wide. The jug in his hand tugged him sideways. “Look at your mother!”
Not following his train of thought, she glanced about. “Where?”
“On the spans, of course!” He set down the jug. “Your uncle chased all over trying to locate her. Would not be dis…dis…wouldn’t be put off from it. Never once did he consider she might not wish to be found, and that he could’ve better used his time selling his damned fish. Idiot. Idiot.” He collapsed on a stool, repeating the word now almost as if chiding himself.
She put down the netful of crockery. “Soter,” she asked, drawing closer.
“Mmm?”
“You have to tell me now, no more dodging. No more maneuvers.”
“What?” He looked up. Though she was right in front of him, he seemed to have to search for her.
“You have to tell me now, am I any good.”
He said, “Dunno what you mean.”
Apprehension colored his attempt to fall back upon being drunk as an escape. His eyes glistened with such fear that she found herself glancing around, expecting to discover the ghosts of his conscience condensing behind her. Those ghosts, whether she saw them or not, would keep him in check unless she rattled his world enough to dissolve them. She said, “I have to know, Soter, because no matter what the answer, I’m leaving the island. Now.