Chapter Text
The stranger had evaded her questions all the way back to Kunthala, hiding behind his uncle. Devasena had more important things to worry about, surely, but some part of her kept wondering about him. She wanted to press further, but she sensed a genuine shyness and reticence in him rather than a desire to deceive, so she decided to leave it be—for now.
He was very committed to his ruse, she would give him that. The morning after they arrived, she saw him in the palace grounds avidly listening to Kumara Varma explain to him how to swing a sword. Then he wielded it so clumsily, tapping the flat side of it against the wood with a dull thud, that she had to laugh. Even an idiot could do better than that. Didn’t he know that he was fooling no one?
Well, except perhaps Kumara Varma. That made Devasena smile to herself. She loved her cousin-in-law, despite his absurdities. Not enough to marry him, of course, but enough to put up with his vanity and his theatrics. Now there were three times the theatrics to deal with: Kumara, the uncle, and the stranger she still didn’t know the name of.
…Who, seemingly, in the second when Devasena was looking away, had cut a tree stump in half with one stroke. The uncle was heaping Kumara with flattery, saying he had done it. Clearly, he had not.
Devasena narrowed her eyes, looking at the man next to him, who was hunching his broad shoulders as if he thought it would make him appear smaller. Why he would go to all this trouble to avoid attention, she wasn’t sure. Humility couldn’t be the only explanation. There was something strange about all of it.
She was intrigued.
Not long after, she saw him surrounded by a gaggle of the palace children, laughing and hopping and clapping along with them as he joined in their game. So even what he said before about the girls excluding him from hopscotch wasn’t true. Once he reached the end of the row, they started pulling on his arms and begging to be carried, and she smiled, observing him out of the corner of her eyes.
She realized with a pang of annoyance that she knew nothing about him, followed by a second pang of annoyance that he was taking up so many of her thoughts.
Why? She chided herself. His looks? She hadn’t failed to notice how handsome he was, or how his shyness did nothing to disguise his quiet charm. His desire to remain a mystery only made her more curious about him.
She approached him briskly and the children scampered off. He watched them go, beaming.
“Why did your family drive you out?” she asked.
“Hmm?” He clasped his hands apologetically. “I mean. I’m sorry, devarani. I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
She raised an eyebrow. If he really had forgotten his own alleged backstory this quickly, then it would be easy to catch him in a lie.
“Your uncle told me your family threw you out,” she reminded him. “Why would they do that?”
He shook his head to placate her perceived anger at the injustice. “Amma didn’t drive me out. She wanted me to see more of the world, so she told me to leave home for a while. She sent mama with me so I wouldn’t have to travel alone.”
“I see,” she said. “And where is your home?”
“S-south,” he replied.
He was evading her again. Was he really so flustered by her questions?
They walked through the palace grounds together, her ladies-in-waiting following a ways behind.
“You were supposed to see the world. Then I assume you haven’t been to Kunthala before?” she asked. “What do you think of it?”
“Yes, this is the first time,” he murmured. “It’s... very beautiful.”
Travelers from other lands were always stunned by Kunthala’s natural beauty, its wild forests and mountains and rivers, its endless waterfalls.
As they walked, the green walls of the valley were visible through the openings in the colonnade, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her even once. Devasena hid a smile.
“You and your uncle are welcome to stay here as long as you want,” she said. “He mentioned that you would like to learn some new skill—what would that be? Other than what Kumara was teaching you before…”
He smiled at her joke, then he wrung his hands. “Anything. I just want to be useful. Tell me what I should do.”
“Well, what do you do at home? Any trade?”
“Just what amma tells me to do,” he said meekly.
Devasena huffed. Another non-answer. “Then at least you can follow instructions.”
She grabbed his wrist and led him down a flight of stairs towards the kitchens. He was not a small man, but he let her drag him along after her like a sack of flour.
“They’ll put you to work down here.”
“Thank you, devarani—”
She glanced at him pointedly, cutting him off. She wouldn’t call his bluff quite yet, but she wanted him to know that she knew that he was hiding something. She would win their little game of hide and seek sooner or later.
A small smile pulled at his lips. “Thank you so much for your kindness.” He bowed, and then disappeared into the kitchens.
To her even greater annoyance, despite her sharpness with him, his comment hadn’t even been sarcastic; it had been sincere.
She watched him go, and then shook herself. It didn’t matter how his eyes twinkled when he smiled, or how pleasing his deep voice was to her ears, or how his wrist felt in her hand, like it belonged there—she needed to stop thinking about this. She didn’t even know his name.
If she happened to pass by the kitchens later, and saw him with his sleeves rolled up, churning butter, she didn’t find that at all distracting. But as long as he stayed working there, she would ever find out what he was hiding. And she needed to find out.
Devasena saw him again in the evening, hiding behind his uncle as if that would allow him to escape her notice. It was odd, she thought, that neither of them had introduced themselves properly yet. When Kumara handed him his sword, he held it clumsily—too clumsily.
She announced that they would go hunting tomorrow. When she looked at the object of her curiosity, he shrank from her gaze. “Bring him also.”
“Even a rat will make him scurry,” his uncle protested. “Why do you want to take him along?”
“How will he learn if he’s always in the kitchen?” she snapped. “If he accompanies us, only then we will know how useful he can be. Bring him.”
Turning on her heel and walking out of the room, she allowed herself to break into a devious grin. A rat would make him scurry? She would like to see that. And soon enough, she might. She would set a trap for her little mouse—and catch him.