236 - I love you both

…

So we just held him, and he cried and cried. I don’t know whether you’d have seen it, Piatsri, but Chevenga is a very emotional man. Yeoli men are generally free with emotions, but he feels them so intensely, it’s huge, like a storm or an earthquake… maybe I’m making it sound as if feeling makes him an idiot, as it does some people. It doesn’t. It’s as if he knows he’s an idiot when he’s in the grip of it, and doesn’t make decisions then. But when he comes out of it, his mind is clear like the sky after a storm. He has some of his best ideas and makes some of his best decisions then.

In fact, it’s not even that he’s more emotional than others. Because, really, anyone in the situations that he has been in would feel just as intensely. It’s just that… you know how you dance with life, Piatsri? You take a step, it takes a step, you feel what you feel because of it, and you take the next step, all through your life? And you take the steps you feel are right and can handle? He does that, but because he is who he is, his steps cross mountains, and when life steps back millions of people feel it. He knows that, so he feels his own dance in that huge way.

Then there was a tap on the tent-pole, and his mother was there. Kallijas and I (ha—isn’t that funny—‘Kallijas and I’?) had done what we could do best to help him; the best person to do the talking part of it is her. So we both kissed him—she didn’t seem surprised at all—and got up to go.

But then—where to go? He’s stuck in Chevenga’s tent, in effect. And I wanted to talk to him, and figured I had time before preparing my people for the briefing we were going to do with Chevenga’s command council tonight. So we both slipped into Kallijas’s little tent-room, which has nothing but a cot and a folding night-table.

Kallijas may be Arkan, but he is undeniably a very handsome man, if you like that pale blondness. He is tall, about four fingerwidths taller than Chevenga, and… well, I haven’t seen him undressed, but I can tell just by what I see underneath as well as the shape of his neck and wrists and hands that he looks just like the hero-monuments you see on the Avenue of Statuary in Arko. His face is very serious, almost stern, so it’s almost like a surprise every time he smiles. First thing he did as we were going was whip his gloves back on. As if I didn’t just see him doing what Arkans take their gloves off for, or care in the slightest since I’m not an Arkan anyway. “I’m a little past embarrassment here,” I said.

“I… guess I am, too,” he says, and blushes a brilliant pink. It’s just as Chevenga said.

I sit on one end of the bed, he sits on the other, and we talk. He wishes me and Chevenga the best for our wedding, we both spit on Abatzas, I tell him a bit about Chevenga’s shulpiteh—Kallijas is very religious himself—and we agree that Chevenga would never have thought of the idea of doing that to Abatzas himself. It was fascinating watching the colour come and go on Kallijas’s skin. He is more tanned than Skorsas but it’s still very clear.

I say I’m glad Chevenga has both of us here to remind him he is not corrupt, and there’s kind of an awkward silence. “I know I should not be here, though,” he says. “No one need worry that I am not clear on that.”

“I’m glad you are,” I say again. “He needed you to deal with the dark face of Arko, because you are so much the opposite, but still Arkan, and love as strong as he does.” I kind of can’t help but smile. “We worked well together, I thought.”

“Um…” Piatsri, that blushing of his is indeed gorgeous. The woman I am doesn’t fail to notice the man he is. He smells so good, even though he smells like an Arkan with all that beef they eat… somehow it’s good on him. “Yes, we did,” he said. “I am glad you were here, too.” Chocolate coated on him would stand out just as nicely on his skin as it does on Chevenga’s, I think.

“That’s good to know.” I throw a cloth over my hand and offer it to him. He takes it, his touch very formal-feeling. There’s another bit of awkward silence. He is not a silver-tongued man at all, quite the opposite. I get the feeling he’s much more comfortable with weapons than words.

“So is it true you wanted to enter the Mezem?” Chevenga told me, but I wanted to see Kallijas blush all the way red instead of that pink.

It happened, just like I planned. “Yes… it’s… it’s true. He asked me that too. I gather people who’ve been in the Ring themselves… find it amusing.” I ask him why and he says he was young and foolish.

I tell him how it was. “The Mezem is the most vile, corrupt expression of the warrior’s art that I’ve ever been forced to endure. The most horrific battlefield is far better. It is the most wasteful of people’s lives and souls, devouring them for nothing but some empty noise from the crowd and turning our blood into gold chains in someone else’s pocket. It’s very much like a mouth of your Hayel on earth. I’m glad you did not do that.”

He sat in silence for a while. Just taking it in. “Shefen-kas told me a little, but he was never quite so… vivid,” he finally said. “I… am sorry… that both you and he were there.”

He has this way of taking everything on to himself. Like the Mezem, and Chevenga being tortured, was somehow his fault. I argued with him about it for a bit, as I gather Chevenga has a few times. “You’d be a better Imperator than Kurkas”—ha ha! No words can make an Arkan squirm and blush more than those.

So then I ask him, “After the war, are you going to come back to him? When you can?”

“I have no idea,” he says. “I am less certain what the future holds for me now than I have ever been in my life. I am entrusting myself to my God, and to him.”

“At least you know that if you do, if you can—whatever happens—I will not be against it.”

He looks at me, and I can tell he’s wondering if this is really true. “Truly?” he finally asks me. “I know… I could not help but overhear… you and he had an… argument. I didn’t understand a word, of course. I know you are not an Arkan woman, I know your ways are different… would it truly be so easy for you?”

“Well… you heard how heated our argument was, even if you don’t understand the tongue,” I say. “It has not been easy. I was afraid that you were a rival as opposed to an ally. He reassured me. And the way you and I worked together today reassured me… fahkad! Even just talking to you afterwards is reassuring. I like you. Even if you are Arkan.”

He takes a while to take this in, too, as if he’s turning each word over to look at it both front and back in his mind. He never seems to say anything without thinking about it. He must not fight like that, or he could not be a champion. I’d love to spar him. Someone as good as Chevenga, but different? How often do you find that? But I’m not sure where or how. Krero doesn’t want to see a blade even near his hand.

“Even so, you don’t feel he betrayed you? I know, for you, with you and him, it is true love, like two Arkan men.”

You know how they are; a man and a woman can’t really love each other because they’re too… different, or something. “I initially worried about that, but he didn’t, not in that Arkan way. After all, he’s not going to drop me for you, or you for me. He truly loves us both in different ways, and feelings of betrayal rise out of fear. ‘Is he better than me? Does he want him more than me?’ If that is set aside as mere fear, where is the love-treason?”

His blond brows knit at that. Some of the hairs in them look like spun gold. “I suppose,” he says. “I have to admit, I have very little experience with affairs of the heart. Well… in all honesty, none. Until now.”

“Really? None? A man as good-looking and famous as you? How is that possible?”

“You know,” he said, “you and Shefen-kas think alike. He asked me exactly that same question. I… I have just lived my life… dedicated to war. And I don’t have the appetites that other men have. At least… until now.” He gets this look like he doesn’t understand how it happened.

“Given that most Arkan men’s appetites run in what I consider bad directions, I’m not surprised,” I say. “It would be easier to be chaste. Do you feel as though your chastity on some level was to balance out some of the corruption?”

He looks like he’s had a revelation. “I… I never thought of it that way, but… there might be something to that, when I think about it. I know that I have always felt revulsion for what many around me were willing to do. And what repels you, you turn even further away from—true?”

“Very true.”

“But Shefen-kas… he was very different from any of that. He has none of that in him.”

“So many Arkans use sex in an evil way, you’ve forgotten it can be just purely good,” I say. “Chevenga doesn’t, and never did. It’s not about power or use or abasement, for him.”

“No,” he says. “When I tried to offer myself as vanquished to victor, as we do, he would have nothing of it. When I was cleared for exertion he… em… never mind.” Oh, there it was again, the bloom of red on his face. I’ve never seen a man so inclined to blush, Piatsri. He’s transparent as a jellyfish.

“He pleased himself and you both, hmmm? He really is most comfortable speaking equal to equal, even in bed.”

“Em… well… yes. No. Er… I mean… he was going to please himself but we got, em… interrupted.” He goes even redder. “She’s a very striking child, your little daughter. I congratulate you.”

“Striking… and inquisitive, hmm?” I couldn’t help grinning at him, Piat. “If you keep on blushing that hard, Kallijas, you might faint one day.” He pressed his white-gloved hands to his face, as if he could hide it that way.

Clearly he needed pehahka, and neither of us had any pressing work. In our room, Chevenga and his mother sat together, and I saw them share a smile. They were nearly done talking. I slipped in around the corner where my things were, hauled out the flask and two of my little shell tumblers.

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” Kallijas said when I came back. “Well, I can’t say I never have, but generally I don’t.”

“Have you ever tasted this?”

“Unless it’s wine… um… no… the only drink I’ve ever had is wine…”

“Even our children drink this, sometimes, and you needn’t drink the whole thing if you don’t want to.”

“Well… all right.” He picked one, took a sip, sputtered and gasped and coughed. “Your… children… drink this?”

“Sometimes. They normally get it cut heavily with milk or cream, or more chocolate.” He takes another sip and this time doesn’t choke on it, but I can see how hard he has to work not to.

From the other room I hear Chevenga say, “Thanks, Mama, but I think I should go join them by myself. I’ve leaned on you enough today.” I sign to Kallijas that he’s coming, but he doesn’t understand what the gestures mean—Arkans, you know—so I say in Enchian, “Omores, you know where my little cups are? We have two in here already, bring one for yourself.”

“Niku, you’re not giving him pehahka, are you?” he says in Yeoli. “All-Spirit help us.” I hear him throwing on some clothes.

“Of course I’m giving him pehahka. I didn’t want to open up the shakiri,” I say, in Enchian. Kallijas looks from me to his cup and back to me and down at his cup again and then lays it delicately on the night-table. “So, you were saying,” I say, “he was going to please himself but you were interrupted?”

He stares at me, eyes wide. “You… wanton woman… no wonder they call you wild… shush!”

I blink innocently at him. “Wanton? Me? I’ve seen you with my husband-to-be with gloves off.”

“I’ve seen you with your mouth…” Ha ha, Piatsri, he couldn’t bring himself to say more than that. The held-in words seemed to transform into pure facial redness. Just then Chevenga came in, a cup in his hand.

“I think I need a good draught of that,” he said, snatched up the flask, poured himself a full one, knocked it back in one gulp, and poured himself another, while Kallijas stared amazed.

“Sometime, omores, you should show Kallijas what I did with you and the pehahka yesterday. I think he’d like it.” Oh my, Piat, sometimes I’m so awful. But this was so beautiful. I managed to get both of them blushing at the same time. Chevenga gets those spots of red on his cheeks and over his eyebrows, while Kallijas floods his whole face right up to the hairline. And I didn’t even have to actually go on, just let Chevenga’s memory and Kallijas’s imagination work.

“I gather you’ve been having an enjoyable conversation,” Chevenga finally says in his fluid Arkan. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want any of his army to overhear.

“I’ve enjoyed it,” I say.

“I too,” Kallijas says.

Chevenga took another hefty belt of his pehahka. “I…” There was nowhere to sit but the middle of Kallijas’s bed, between us. He did, with a sigh. “I should just say, thank you. To both of you.”

“You’re welcome, omores,” I said, and Kallijas said, “Sheng, it was necessary,” both at once. “You’re feeling better now?”

“Yes. Thank you. I don’t care how much they ask and vote next time. I’m never doing that again.”

“You didn’t know how much it was going to bother you,” says Kallijas.

“I… well, I knew it was going to bother me, but no, I didn’t know how much.”

“Vaimoy… I sincerely hope they never ask you to do that again.”

“Me too, because I’ll say no.”

“Chevenga’s Niah name is Vaimoy Sala,” I explain to Kallijas. “Remember I told you our Gods met him? He was honoured by Aba Tyriah… our Sky Father… named him.” Looking at me so Kallijas can’t see his face, Chevenga raises one eyebrow high at me.

“What does it mean?” Kallijas asks.

“New Sails in Sunlight.”

“Truly. That’s beautiful. Though I’m not sure when he’ll next get a chance to be shipboard.”

“It’s more metaphorical than anything,” I said. Chevenga takes a deep breath, and gives me this look like, ‘You like taking risks, don’t you?’

“I can’t believe the turn my life has taken,” he says. “If you’d asked me if I’d be sitting with… you know, the whole situation… and today… a month ago, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it.”

I grin and sip my pehahka. “The dance of life keeps taking unexpected steps, for you. Didn’t it always?”

He sighs, closing his eyes just for a moment, showing those black eyelashes I love to run my fingers along. “I love both of you.”

We couldn’t have rehearsed it better if we’d tried. “I love you too,” was in unison, I said ‘Vaimoy’ and Kallijas said ‘Shefen-kas’. I looked at him and started giggling.

Chevenga throws back another whole pehahka, and starts giggling with me. “I love you, Niku,” he says in Niah. “I love you, Kallijas,” he says in Arkan. Kallijas is stifling his laughter, trying to stay stiff and proper, and not entirely succeeding, his face turning cormorant-eye red. Then Chevenga reaches out both arms and hauls the two of us into a three-person hug, burying his face in our two shoulders as they press together. “I don’t deserve either of you, I’m sorry, I love you.”

I end up with my nose buried in Chevenga’s curls and eye-to-eye with Kallijas, whose slightly-nervous look finally slips into a close-lipped smile. Our four arms lock around him and thus each other, a snug knot of warm muscle.

It felt all good to me, Piatsri.

Niku and I had meant to do this the night before, but we’d been too busy quarrelling. Now it was post-battle and people wanted to celebrate. Those who we chose would have to wait. We’d thrashed it out and settled on Emao-e, my second-in-command, in case something happened to me, Krero, the commander of the elite darya semanakraseyeni, my second-in-command there, Achanga, my commander of scouts, and Hurai, my third-in-command, for good measure.

When we’d eaten dinner and the sun was lowering, I summoned them all, and Niku handed off Vriah to my mother and summoned her pilots. The A-niah were all tense. It was one thing to learn that it was already done; it was another thing to be the Niah whose lips broke the secret to non-Niah. I went to them, put my arms around Suku and Baska, and Niku and I gathered them all in close. “Narianty, ta saho zalo msah,” I said. “Remember the Wasteega, the shulpiteh. We are sept Yeola-e.” --“Foa-een, Vaimoy,” Suku whispered. It helped.

“I have told you all that the A-niah a special importance for a secret reason,” I said to mine. “I alone know, but it’s best that more of the command know, for contingency, and the A-niah have agreed to this. Tonight you will find out exactly what they do. Prepare to be more amazed than you ever have been in your life. But you must all swear silence, in their witness.” They all did that, on crystals and second Fire come.

Krero didn’t like us going out unguarded into country where clutches of fled Arkan warriors might be lurking, but we were all armed and I had my weapon-sense. We climbed the side of Tamahin as night fell, to a cliff I knew from spending a month-away here. The day had cleared, and there was good upward air, ridge-lift and thermal both, Niku could tell. “Why are they each shouldering a rolled-up tent?” Krero asked me under his breath as we went. “They’re not tents,” I said. “You’ll see.”

Niku had the other A-niah set up the wings in a line, as she explained. My people froze, seeing them snap open. “Kerel,” she said. “My people have kept this secret down from mouth to mouth in our stories and our making, since the time of the Fire. These are called a-moyawa. Choose one of us and stand with them.”

I went to her, to laughter from the A-niah. “What… are these things?” Emao-e, who’d chosen Baska, said.

“We use them to fly.”

With their four-strong gasp I remembered my own gasp when she’d told me, and the thrill in my heart.

“To fly?” rasped Hurai, who was with Suku.

“Yes,” Niku and I said at once. “I first did it in Arko,” I said. “We built one, for Niku to use to escape; that’s how she did it. I learned much more on Niah-lur-ana… now you are going to know, I’ll have to tell you the true story of how we sank twenty-one Arkan ships… sorry love, continue.”

“Harness up, enshachik,” she ordered. My four started asking questions fast—how they worked, do you flap their wings, how high can you go, and so on. “We’re going to take off from the cliff.”

“What,” said Krero, who was with Raikal. “You mean, we’re just going to… jump off…? And fly?”

“We’ll go first and show you,” I said, though we’d be ready last, Niku checking everyone’s straps and pulling their noses forward to do the enshachik. “Fly? I can’t believe this,” my people kept saying. “The ancients flew… since then we’ve only dreamed…”

“We have eyes where before we were blind,” I said. “That’s how I knew the Schvait were at Chegra.” Achanga took a huge deep breath. “We’ve scouted this way for kings and generals before,” Niku said. “You are the first to know how.”

Niku and I took our moyawa up on our shoulders. “Once we are in the air everyone must be quiet,” Niku said. “Since sound carries so well from the air.”

“No screaming or whooping or sobbing with joy,” I said. “Though I promise you it will be very hard. But it’s too soon for the Arkans, or even our own, to know there are people in the sky. So that’s an order.”

“You bring this to world… after keeping it for all that time,” said Hurai. “And we are the first… Niku, I realize, this is honour beyond honour.”

“It was time,” she said. “Welcome to the world where people fly again. After tonight you will all be flyers. Everyone ready?” They sounded off down the line as A-niah do, and then she and I drew back from the cliff to give ourselves some running room. “Aiiii Chevengaaaaah…” I heard Krero’s voice fading behind me as we ran, dropped off the edge and then were lifted skyward. “I ordered you, no yelling!” I snapped as we rose past him again. One at a time, they all followed.

It wasn’t too bad; there was the odd whoop and yell, Hurai said “I’m not going to make a souaaaaaaaah!” as he went off the edge, and I only had to yell “Don’t you people follow orders!?” once. There was plenty of swearing, and Achanga and Krero both fell to sobbing. Upwards we spiraled on the warm breath of the land, each Yeoli asking each Niah questions and listening rapt to the answers, into the future of our war and our world. Nothing bad seemed possible.