She didn't invite them inside straight away.
She led them instead to a covered pavilion at the village's center, open on all sides, where a low table already held a pot of something steeping and cups enough for four. Indra took his leave there, a brief exchange with the old woman that Rama couldn't follow, and then the soldiers dispersed toward whatever lodging the village kept for patrols, leaving the family alone with her for the first time.
"Sartika," she said, touching her own chest the way Indra had. Then, unexpectedly, in halting but genuine trade-tongue considerably more fluent than Wayan's own: "You will sit. You will drink. We will talk plainly, as plainly as words allow."
Sekar's eyebrows lifted a fraction before she caught it.
"You speak the coast tongue," Sekar said.
