The Name of the Wind

I frowned. “Dianne. Denna. She’s the one I told you about before. The one who sang with me. She goes by a lot of different names. I don’t know why.”

Wilem gave me a flat look. “ That’s your girl?” he asked, his voice thick with disbelief.

“Deoch’s girl,” Simmon amended gently.

It seemed to be the case. Handsome, muscular Deoch was talking to her in that easy way he had. Denna laughed and put an arm around him in a casual embrace. I felt a heavy weight settle in my chest as I watched them talk.

Then Deoch turned and pointed. She followed his gesture, met my eyes, and lit up as she smiled at me. I returned the smile by reflex alone. My heart began to beat again. I waved her over. After a quick word to Deoch she began to make her way through the crowd toward us.

I took a quick drink of scutten as Simmon turned to look at me with an almost reverent disbelief.

I had never seen Denna dressed in anything other than traveling clothes. But tonight she was wearing a dark green dress that left her arms and shoulders bare. She was stunning. She knew it. She smiled.

The three of us stood as she approached. “I was hoping to find you here,” she said.

I gave a small bow. “I was hoping to be found. These are two of my best friends. Simmon.” Sim smiled sunnily and brushed his hair away from his eyes. “And Wilem.” Wil nodded. “This is Dianne.”

She lounged into a chair. “What brings such a group of handsome young men out on the town tonight?”

“We’re plotting the downfall of our enemies,” Simmon said.

“And celebrating,” I hurried to add.

Wilem raised his glass in a salute. “Confusion to the enemy.”

Simmon and I followed suit, but I stopped when I remembered Denna didn’t have a glass. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I was hoping you would buy me dinner,” she said. “But I would feel guilty about stealing you away from your friends.”

My mind raced as I tried to think of a tactful way to extricate myself.

“You’re making the assumption that we want him here,” Wilem said with a straight face. “You’d do us a favor if you took him away.”

Denna leaned forward intently, a smile brushing the pink corners of her mouth. “Really?”

Wilem nodded gravely. “He drinks even more than he talks.”

She darted a teasing look at me. “That much?”

“Besides,” Simmon chimed in innocently. “He’d sulk for days if he missed a chance to be with you. He’ll be completely worthless to us if you leave him here.”

My face grew hot and I had the sudden urge to throttle Sim. Denna laughed sweetly. “I suppose I’d better take him then.” She stood with a motion like a willow wand bending to the wind and offered me her hand. I took it. “I hope to see you again, Wilem, Simmon.”

They waved and we started to make our way to the door. “I like them,” she said. “Wilem is a stone in deep water. Simmon is like a boy splashing in a brook.”

Her description startled a laugh from me. “I couldn’t have said it better. You mentioned dinner?”

“I lied,” she said with an easy delight. “But I would love the drink you offered me.”

“How about the Taps?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Too many old men, not enough trees. It is a good night to be out of doors.”

I gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”

She did. I basked in her reflected light and the stares of envious men. As we left the Eolian, even Deoch looked a little jealous. But as I passed him I caught a glimmer of something other in his eye. Sadness? Pity?

I spared no time for it. I was with Denna.

We bought a loaf of dark bread and a bottle of Avennish strawberry wine. Then found a private place in one of the many public gardens scattered throughout Imre. The first of autumn’s falling leaves danced along the streets beside us. Denna removed her shoes and danced lightly through the shadows, delighting in the feel of the grass beneath her feet.

We settled on a bench beneath a great spreading willow, then abandoned it and found more comfortable seats on the ground at the foot of the tree. The bread was thick and dark, and tearing chunks of it gave us distraction for our hands. The wine was sweet and light, and after Denna kissed the bottle it left her lips wet for an hour.

It had the desperate feel of the last warm night of summer. We spoke of everything and nothing, and all the while I could hardly breathe for the nearness of her, the way she moved, the sound of her voice as it touched the autumn air.

“Your eyes were far away just then,” she said. “What were you thinking?”

I shrugged, buying a moment to think. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I knew every man must compliment her, bury her in flattery more cloying than roses. I took a subtler path. “One of the masters at the University once told me that there were seven words that would make a woman love you.” I made a deliberately casual shrug. “I was just wondering what they were.”

“Is that why you talk so much? Hoping to come on them by accident?”