229 - Treason of the heart

“Kallijas…!” I let go his wrist. “The healer said not less than an eight-day, right? It’s been five days… well, six if you count the day of the duel… all right, five and a half. I said I wouldn’t kill you with love. Solas, show some discipline!”

He drew the hand away, taking a deep breath, like a child who heaves a sigh to show you just how hard the thing you have asked is.

“You made me do things I didn’t think I could do,” he said. “You make me someone I didn’t think I was.”

“You… do the same to me. I… have to meet with someone.” I threw my arms around him for a moment, and then fled.

3 Egis 4974 | Somewhere south of Terera

Dear Mamin: file note

We’re on the march now, all today and we’ll go all day tomorrow. We are chasing the Arkans before us. We’ll keep chasing them at a march pace, Chevenga says, until they turn and fight us. I guess that means we might chase them all the way across the border, and the war will be over with no more casualties. He doesn’t expect that, though.

When we march, he sometimes walks and sometimes rides, doing paperwork on that little box-desk of his. He’ll summon this person and meet with that one, and everyone is free to come to him with whatever problem they want solved, as if he were in an office. People on the command council tried to persuade him to hand the semanakraseye’s work back to his sister Artira so that he can concentrate solely on the war, but he insisted on keeping it. “What’s there to concentrate on in the war when you’re, say, marching?” he said to them. I think he doesn’t want to be bored.

Mamin, it’s true. Not only does Chevenga love Kallijas, but Kallijas loves Chevenga. It’s easy to tell. When I check either of them right after they’ve been together, his pulse is elevated the way you get from emotion, and his face is bright as if he’s just been laughing, and a little flushed, and he talks as if everything in the world is good. I learned the symptoms of being in love in Emotional Healing class, and I’m seeing most if not all of them.

I know, I know, Mamin. You want me to feel them, one of these days. You and my employer-patient.

What I don’t understand is how they can fall in love with someone on the other side. Or maybe my question is more this: if they can fall in love with someone on the other side, why are they fighting in the first place? Why is there war at all? I thought they had to see each other as inhuman.

I asked Chevenga about it, after one evening he was with Kallijas, and came out with that look on his face. His eyes widened a little, in alarm. “Kanincha… how do you know? Were you talking to my mother?”

I told him what I wrote above, about the symptoms. “If I weren’t a good enough healer that it wasn’t obvious to me, you should fire me,” I said. I didn’t admit that I’d overheard him talking with his mother.

“Obvious…! Is it that obvious? Kyash, do I... how different do I look?”

He’s worried about what his people will think about him feeling this way toward an enemy soldier. “You look happy,” I said. “But if anyone asks, couldn’t you just say you’re in a good mood because you are winning?”

“Not if I’m showing it the most right after I’ve been with him. Curse it… I’m used to concealing when I’m nervous or unsure, not when I’m in love. I feel like someone who’s cheating on his spouse.”

“Well,” I said, “I understand how it is with Shainano-e and Etana, that they are a couple, but you’re affianced to Niku, right?”

He stared at me, frozen to stillness, and his cheeks gradually flushed, especially the two proscribed areas that tend to redden the most. “Kanincha…” His eyes flashed to the other room of the tent where Kallijas is for a moment, then closed, as if from pain. He sat for a while on his bed, his face buried in his hands. “I… the only right thing to do here is to tell her… when she gets here,” he finally said, in a voice barely more than a whisper, “and then make the choices that cause the least pain. Somehow.”

It seemed like anything I said here would be overstepping, and I’d already overstepped enough, I realized. He hired me as a healer, not to tell him how to behave. So I said nothing, just went on checking him, and gave him his medicines. Maybe I’ll ask him how he can fall in love with someone on the other side later.

I wish I knew how to help him in this situation, because it is causing him suffering. But I don’t understand enough about these things to counsel him. Perhaps one thing I can do is learn what other people are saying, when I am lancing their boils or giving them medicines for colds or whatever, and pass that back to him so that he knows.

Probably it’s for the best that Niku is going to arrive later than they were expecting. I don’t think I mentioned that before, Mamin: her healer on Ibresi felt she should wait another month, to ensure her concussion was fully healed, because it was so severe. So with the time she’ll take to prepare and travel once she’s cleared, Chevenga doesn’t expect to see her for a half-moon. Maybe he’ll have decided what to do about Kallijas then.

I can see one reason why he and Kallijas get along. All through as Kallijas has been healing, he’s been saying, “I want to be up,” or “I want to be up longer,” or “it’s not hurting” when it obviously is or “when does that needle come out of my hand?” Or, most often, “I feel fine; can’t you clear me for exertion now? Does it have to be eight days?” In that way, he and Chevenga are two peas in a pod.

Spirit of Life - this has to be a file-note, too. Wishes in spirit from your son who is feeling all the symptoms of mother-love for you, Kaninjer.

Sachara and Krero were usually all but inseparable, but the night we got to Siriha, where Abatzas met reinforcements that had been sent from Tinga-e, Sach drew me aside alone. “Cheng,” he asked, almost as if it were some intellectual query he was fascinated with, “are you in love with Kallijas?”

If you are honest, there’s no point in hesitating with the truth in these situations. And yet for some reason we insist on looking pole-axed for a bit and standing there silent, staring at the questioner, as the burning comes up on our cheeks, as if delaying the inevitable somehow eases it. I felt myself do that, before I signed chalk, and told him how it had happened.

“I’m not condemning you, heart’s brother,” he said. “Though I can speak for no one else in that. And my lips are sealed… well, except maybe to Krero, but he can keep a secret.”

“Krero will want to skin me,” I said.

“Probably. But you have rank on him, so he’ll just have to swallow it. Over the sword with Kallijas Itrean… I’m remembering what Hurai said about swearing that he’d allow nothing you did to surprise him, and you making hash of that in a day. And yet… in a way, it doesn’t surprise me at all. You love greatness. You always have.”

“My mother said something like that too,” I said. “If it’s any comfort, it was as much a surprise to me as to anyone else. Sach, how did you catch me?”

“Remember yesterday when we were talking about him, and you were making the case that there’s no reason to fear him any more, so there’s no reason to hate him, and you were going on about how honourable he is and so on? You had the same goofy look on your face as you’d get with Nyera and Komona, before they dumped you, and Niku when we were on Haiu Menshir and then Niah-lur-ana,” he said. “It’s not hard to spot for someone who knows you well. You spend a lot of time with him, too.”

“You probably don’t need to tell Krero, then,” I said. “He’ll already be sharpening up his skinning-knife.”

“Probably. I’ll just be confirming it. But, Cheng, what are you going to do when Niku comes? You can hardly have both of them in your tent.”

“Make the choices that cause the least pain,” I said dully. “Somehow.”

“Chevenga… I will tell you what worries me most about this, in truth.” He pursed his lips, as he considered how to say what he was thinking, which was not like him; he usually was articulate without effort. “Remember what you told us about why you were challenging him, that he would be weakened by his own shame, by the divisions within himself? That applies to you, too.”

I felt myself flinch at the truth of this, and my mind ran a little ahead of his words as he went on. “Think of what state your heart has been in for the last few days. A lot of shame, yes? And fear? Feeling as if you must conceal things? And being torn? It’s haunting you, weighing on your heart; those of us who know you well can see that, too. At the very least it’s a distraction; at worst it’s a weakness. That is not how it should be for you. We—Yeola-e—needs you clear-eyed and confident and free of doubt.”

“You think I’m losing my touch?” I said. “Did it seem so, last battle?” I didn’t mean to sound angry, but heard the edge of it in my voice.

“No, no, no, Cheng, not at all! But… the more time goes by with this burden on you, the more it will… affect you. It’s also… well, all right, I have a second worry. Divisions among us if it gets out—between ourselves, those who understand and those who absolutely don’t, or, worst, between us and you. You’ve already had to blow off Krena’s sister; she’d be foaming at the mouth if she found out, and there are many other people who would be, too. What would that do to our morale? I know it hasn’t got out; but it could. What are you planning to do with him?”

I held my breath, set my teeth, and said what I must, the truth. “I don’t know.”

“Kyash, Cheng… even that bothers you, always—not knowing what to do. You’ve got to decide; because decision is the way of power, that’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel yourself again, and be your best, which Yeola-e can’t do without. You don’t want to kill him, I know, and he won’t give up his thumb; may I suggest sending him to somewhere remote in Yeola-e as a prisoner?”

“You may suggest whatever you wish… oh Sach, don’t take that as it sounds, I’m sorry. I hear you. You are right, on how it’s been touching me.” What else could I say? Hearing his words had made me see it in myself much more clearly. “I… will do that, send him somewhere. Not… quite yet, but soon.” After we have given ourselves to each other once, I thought. Just once… “It’s a good idea. Thank you.”

Abatzas was back up to twenty-thousand at Siriha, and they’d put up a palisade around the town, no doubt getting work out of the residents by use of the ten-beaded whip. We came in close to dark, and camped in the field to the west, upstream. Once we’d eaten, Esora-e came to me, and asked to speak with me alone. “Very alone,” he said. “There’s a copse of trees a little beyond the edge of camp. I trust your weapon-sense to guard us.” Both his eyes and his voice were unnaturally flat, as if whatever connection joins heart to face and voice were cut. I wondered if he needed to see Kaninjer.

Once we were among the trees, in utter darkness other than the light of the campfires flickering weakly through leaves, he stood facing me. I expected it so little, I barely heard his hand whistling through air, and my head was a crashing of stars. Keep your feet, keep your feet, I told myself as I struggled to discern up from down. Don’t let it be the blow of shame. Something hard hit the top of my shoulder and the side of my head; I grabbed for it, found the roughness of bark in my hands, and clung to stay up. His hand closed on my shoulder and whirled me around, then both were on my collar, throwing me up against the tree and holding me there.

“I didn’t want to think it could be so, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e,” he said, his voice gravelly with rage. “I didn’t want to think I had a hand in raising a traitor. But what else can I call it, if what I heard is true? And I heard it from someone honest.

“You are our semanakraseye. How can you have anything but hate in your heart for anyone who harmed your people? How can you even contemplate the… travesty, the blasphemy, it would be, to feel… something… for any of them, any one of those inhuman child-rapers who have so hurt your people… especially… the single one who hurt us the worst, other than that general?

“Beautiful things happen when you fight, of course, and the greater the warrior, the greater the beauties, but… Fourth Chevenga… God-in-Me, let me have knocked sanity into your head! Who are we to you, those you were born and sworn to serve? Are we nothing? Do the deaths of those he killed and the agony of those he bereaved and helped doom to slavery mean nothing to you, that you could have even sympathy for this dog of an Arkan? Is this my child? The child of Seventh Tennunga? The child I raised to be the greatest warrior? Was it this he left us with when he died?”

I found my tongue. “I am not a traitor, shadow-father.”

“What else can I call it? Not in action, no—it’s treason of the heart. But what’s in the heart becomes action.”

“I am not a traitor, shadow-father.” I was suddenly so angry my voice went deadly quiet, and I was afraid what I might do to him. Don’t move, I told myself. Something trickled down the side of my cheek that I realized could only be blood. He’d hit me with his wristlet, again.

“But if you… love… Kalicha Ityirian… All-Spirit—I never dreamed I’d pine for your loving that chocolate woman!” He set his teeth. “No one knows. It was told me in confidence. But it will get out. Chevenga… kill him. Kill him, and it need not get out.”

“Are you blackmailing me, my shadow-father?” I asked him.

“You know kyashin well how it is in an army camp!” he growled. “Three people can keep a secret just fine so long as two of them are dead. And everyone can see how often and long you are with that stinking child-raper. I don’t need to blackmail you… I shouldn’t.”

“I’m going to keep him prisoner,” I said. “Somewhere out of sight in Yeola-e. I am not going to kill him.”

He took in a hissing, quivering breath. “You are surely going to have him reamed out for all his secrets with truth-drug, the way they did you?” I hadn’t even thought of that. “Then kill him… or send him, kyash on it, he should be dead. But… what’s most important is that you get him away from you.”

“I hear you, shadow-father.” I was shaking all over, I realized. He let go my collar. I grabbed his wrist, and brought his hand up so that his fingers touched where he’d hit me. “I’d have heard you just as well if you hadn’t done that. I’ll refer Kaninjer to you when he asks.”

“You are so grand now, Fourth Chevenga, that no one else would have the nerve,” he said. “So it had to be me.” I flung his hand away from me, and turned to walk back to camp.

As usual everyone was gathered round their campfires. I wanted no one’s company. I lay face-down on my bed. No—there was one whose company I wanted, who sat just beyond a wall of canvas. “I’m sorry, Kall,” I said, in Arkan. “I can’t be with you tonight.”

“It’s all right, Sheng,” he said softly. “I understand.”

That night, Sishana woke me up at the death-hour. My head hurt. “No Arkan attack,” she said, as she must say first. “But some people saying they’re allies just came in. The leader swore second Fire come that you’d want to be awakened, since she’s earlier than she thought she would be. Her name is Ni… Niko? Nikao… something like that.”