Tarashana Rachel Neumeier (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

not as well as I liked his elder brother, but I thought, young or not, Iro was already a warrior to respect. Perhaps Etta’s light heart and quick friendliness were better balanced by a man whose nature was more serious.

We both sat down by the fire again, letting other young men take up the practice weapons. I was not very interested in watching those contests, so when Etta went down to the lake to get water, I jumped up and went with her before Iro could get to his feet.

“I know!” Etta said, the moment we were far enough away from the fire that no one could overhear what we said. “You are not certain you like him. He is too much like you, Ryo, that is why you feel that way.” I stared at her, and she added, “He is more like you were before you were given to the Lau as a tuyo. You always wanted everyone to behave properly. You still want that, but I think you are kinder now. Iro is like you were before: strict with himself and with everyone else. But that severity is why everyone trusts you. Everyone trusts Iro too.”

“I was never so serious as that,” I protested, ignoring the rest of her words, though I knew I would think about them later.

She laughed at me. “Of course you were, Ryo! You still are. Iro is not serious all the time. You intimidate him.”

“I think that is unlikely.”

“I promise you! He hopes for your good regard, but he is afraid you will dislike him. He is used to everyone preferring Rakasa. His brother is a fine warrior and a good man. No one settles hard tempers in a camp better than Rakasa. But Iro is the one who will be lord one day, if no mischance comes to him.”

This surprised me again. “Lord?” I asked her. “Not warleader, after his father?”

“Lord,” she said firmly. “Bara will be warleader.”

“Bara?” His father was no one important, nor his grandfather. That was one reason her suggestion surprised me. Also, the lord of a tribe is usually much older than the warleader; that was another reason. Seldom are the two close in age. At first my sister’s prediction seemed unlikely to me. Both her predictions. But when I thought about the matter more carefully, I could see she might be right. “Rakasa is so easy-tempered,” I said finally. “You think he will step back. Then Iro and Bara will look to him to keep peace between them when they cannot agree, especially because Iro is the younger? Perhaps it might happen that way.”

“If no mischance comes to them and they all live, it will happen exactly that way. Wait and see, Ryo.” Etta looked at me sidelong, smiling. “You may never be friends with Iro, but I think you will respect him. That is more important.”

“I do not dislike him, and I respect him already,” I told her. But I added, “The next time I spar with him, I will win.”

“Perhaps. And perhaps he will surprise you again. He surprised you tonight.”

I smiled at her. “He did.”

We had come to the edge of the lake, picking our steps carefully as we crossed the marshy ground to a rocky place where we could stand to dip up water. Etta filled the waterskins and handed them to me, then took my hand and let me steady her as she stepped up to drier ground. As we began to make our way back toward the fires, I asked her, “During the most recent Convocation, did you meet the poet from the east?”

She brightened at once. “Oh, yes! Elaro inPorakario.” She rolled the name off her tongue. “He is so interesting, Ryo! He knows many tales no one here has heard before. Raga likes him very much. Everyone likes him. He is easy to like, even for a poet.”

I made a noncommittal sound, and she looked at me a different way, suddenly realizing why I had asked. “Ah. Well, I do not know whether he means to settle here or continue his journey into the west. I did not hear him discuss that decision with anyone.”

“Is he good to look upon?” I asked. That was not a question I would have wanted to ask our mother, but I could ask my sister.

Etta did not laugh at me now. She answered me seriously. “I think many women would probably consider him so. His face is broad and his bones strong. His eyes are set wide and his hair has a little red color to it that I have not seen before. He is quick of wit, but he knows when to hold his tongue. His temper is easy, but he will fight if he is provoked. He has thirty winters, I think. Maybe one or two more than that.”

A man who had come to the prime of his life. I did not like that. I did not like much that Etta told me.

“I think perhaps the elder son of our mother should visit the inKarano before he returns to the summer country,” my sister suggested.

“Yes. Though it seems to me that if I return to the summer country, a woman would have every reason to look elsewhere. A woman should have a husband who comes to her tent more than once in two winters.”

Etta answered me even more seriously. “Perhaps a woman might prefer that. But that is something you should ask her, Ryo, not something you should decide yourself.”

I could not disagree with that. We walked the rest of the way back to the fires without speaking, both of us thinking our own thoughts. Once we came to the camp, I went to the fire where Aras was sitting with Geras and my father and my mother and some of the older people who had ridden out