The Wild Road by Jennifer Roberson Page A

if a woman wishes to marry a man, she unbraids her hair. If he accepts her suit, she then unbraids his.”
    â€œAnd then you braid it back again?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo whoever unbraided your hair was asking you to marry her?”
    â€œI was unconscious.”
    That sounded suspiciously like an excuse. “So you have said.”
    â€œShe didn’t know what it meant.”
    â€œSweet Mother, Rhuan, just say it, would you?”
    â€œAudrun.”
    â€œ Audrun ?” She stared at him. “The farmsteader’s wife?”
    â€œThe storm took us together. I led her to safety. Well, eventually—first I had to wrestle with a demon who wanted the infant.”
    â€œWhat infant? What demon? Rhuan—”
    He placed two fingers against her lips. “If we are to have this conversation, may we have it in your wagon? For privacy’s sake?”
    She removed his fingers from her mouth. “Yes, we shall, but first one thing.”
    â€œAugh, Ilona, not another thing —”
    He was so anxious, so worried, that Ilona had to stifle laughter. “If I have it right, then according to your people, you’re married, aren’t you? You and Audrun?”
    Hastily he said, “It doesn’t mean anything. Not here. It’s not a human ritual. It’s what the primaries do, but it means nothing here. Nothing at all.”
    She raised her brows and spoke with an overly dramatic tone. “But you’ve asked me to braid your hair. Here. So obviously there is some significance to the ritual, even by human terms. Yes?”
    The conflict in his face was clear. “But we’re not married. Not here. Audrun’s already married, here. So I am free, here.”
    â€œHere, here, and here. But the primaries think otherwise.”
    â€œI’m not there, Ilona. I’m here.” He stretched out his arms. “ Here .”
    She laughed, tugged gently on the lock of his hair still grasped in her hand, then tugged harder. He followed the pressure on his scalp until their faces were level. She rested her forehead against his. “Yes, you are. Here.” She pointed to the wagon. “But let’s go there .”

Chapter 7
    B ETHID WAS SOUND asleep until the earth shuddered and the tent fell down. It startled her so much that she sat up, thrashing, and got herself entangled in billows of heavy canvas. What she uttered was in no way polite. And then, “Sweet Mother, the lantern!” Timmon and Alorn were absent, staying late at Mikel’s ale-tent, and it was routine to leave a lantern burning until all couriers returned to the tent. She smelled oil and smoke. “Where—?” It was difficult to make her way through the yardage of canvas. “Oh Mother . . . Brodhi? Are you here?” She had glimpsed him as she’d rolled up in her bedding. “The lantern’s fallen. Brodhi?”
    From somewhere came his voice, clear and concise, unmuffled by fallen tent. “I have it.”
    Relief. Now she could afford to be frustrated instead of worried. On hands and knees she made her way through folds and billows until at last she reached an edge of fabric and stuck her head out, yanking canvas aside. The settlement animals, yet again, were in an uproar. Across the grove, throughout the ranks of tents, she saw banked fires glowing. Above, the moon shed enough luminance to see shadowy bulks of nearby tents. She wondered if any others had fallen or just the one she slept in.
    The earth stilled. Bethid crawled out from under the edge of fallen canvas and rose. Not far from her stood Brodhi, who had already made his escape. The extinguished lantern hung from his hand. She tried to restrain her tone, but failed. “How many more times is this going to happen?”
    â€œAlisanos does as it does. It will take time for the land to ease.”
    â€œNo, I don’t mean that. I mean: how many more times is the tent going to