Ocean's Breath Plateau [m] snow goose

the man of scars offered a tongue recognizable to cen as northern, but with nothing more than that. before he could telegraph his unsurety with even this new language, red leaf was chattering boldly at his side — in sharadoii.

silent, he stared back bleakly when his wife looked to him. how like babble her ugly valley words must be to this man of the wilds, for it was even so to his own ears, and he understood all she said.

when red leaf had finished, cen was quiet, for he was thinking of the name she had given. it was her own, not the way his lanzadoii mind had translated her to be. black stick had said, 'she is red leaves upon a long tree before the winds come,' but cen had made her red leaf.

he had stopped beating her and now she spoke not only out of turn but in the words he had forbidden her. had lanzadoii ever come so smoothly to her traitorous mouth?

cen was enraged, and now darkly determined to put red leaf beneath his control once more. "my woman," he laughed to the village-man, as if it was a joke between them, "she think you hear. not know we have talk this way. we alone, many time," the caribou hunter added with a shrug, as if her behavior was something desperate that could be explained away.