301 - Truly transformed

hyerasora 7, 1550

Dear Daddy:

In your last letter, you said my little sister is really learning how to talk now that she’s one. Why is she with you and I’m not? It’s not fair! I asked shadow-mama about it and she said it’s because her blood-mama is there and she’s still on the breast. And that Kima and Kila are still too little to be away from their blood-mamas, too. But I’m away from my blood-mama. So why can’t I be with you? I know it’s an army but I swear second Fire come I will follow orders and not get in anyone’s way and learn a lot. I love you and I miss you!

Love,
Fifth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e,
Ascendant of Yeola-e.

It was written in the neater-then-their-age script that bright children use, with only a mistake or two in spelling. Had someone helped him? If so, that person—Shaina? Etana?—apparently was not opposed to his request enough to persuade him not to make it, or even append their own letter. It had come in its own packet.

He would have me for more of my life, I thought. In his six years, he’d had me near for only one and a half, and at best there were only seven left. Why not? Even once we started fighting again; we were keeping Vriah. Something in my heart was resistant, though.

I showed Niku the letter. “A six-year-old here, too,” I said, taking Vriah to give her arm a rest. “What do you think?”

“You know him better than I. Is he well-behaved? There are things six-year-olds can do that one-year-olds wouldn’t dream of.” I wonder what that might be?, I thought. The back room of my tent still smelled like patchouli.

“You forget, love; I was in the Mezem, not raising him as I should have been. So I don’t know him very well.” What a thing to have to say, of my own child. “But, yes, by all accounts.”

“Well, why not, then? It’s not as if there’s even a chance of Arkans overrunning us, right now. You can send him back home in spring… that is, if he can even get here from Vae Arahi now.” It would be tricky—he might have to ski or be carried on skis for some of it—but it was not impossible.

“There’s still danger,” I said. No one had tried to assassinate me yet this winter, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t try tomorrow, and they’d take great delight in getting him too, or even him instead, if my weapon-sense kept them from getting me. “Because he’s my heir.”

“But you want him here, and he needs you; he’s made it clear. Omores... I know what you are thinking.” She put her arms around me, so we held Vriah in a cradle of muscle.

“You mean you know what I am feeling,” I said. “Which I am feeling too much to think straight, possibly.”

“Then you should speak to your mother,” she said. Obvious. I should have thought of it. When I’d held Vriah long enough, I went to my mother’s room.

“He’d be in no more danger than Vriah is,” she said. “And she’s been here even during fighting season. I had thought you’d talked to him back in Kefara, and he wanted to stay with Shaina and Etana.”

“No,” I said. “I just thought that was best… Maybe it’s because I was never in a war camp so young myself. Vriah’s still on the breast.”

Her eyes searched mine. It was almost as if she could draw whatever I was hiding in my mind into hers through the resemblance. “Chevenga… you remember what your father was to you?”

It seemed an odd question. It wasn’t as if I’d ever hidden it from her. It was a preamble, plainly. I went along. “Everything.”

“Yes. And you remember how it was when you lost him.” I signed chalk. “I wonder if you are trying not to be everything to your own children, so it will not hurt them so much.”

Freezing without cold seemed to spread all through me, deep as my bones.

“It’s not why you were in Arko, of course,” she added. “But it’s as I said; I thought the only reason you didn’t have Fifth here was that he didn’t want it. Did you ask him?”

I signed charcoal, not trusting words not to fail me. The two points of my cheeks were on fire. Seeing the look on my face, she put her hands on my shoulders, almost around my neck, smoothing my collar. “It was best for him, you were telling yourself; but maybe this was in your heart, underneath.” By the burning of tears wanting to fall, I knew it must be true.

I whispered the other thing I knew was true. “I am everything to them anyway.” I clenched my eyes shut. The internal ache of pure emotional pain burned inside, in my cheekbones, my throat, my chest. She took my face between her hands, and stroked my brow, but still said, “Yes.”

They’d be best off if I died right now. Or if they’d all been raised just by their other parents, and never saw my face. I itched to feel a blade in a vital spot. She tenderly smoothed back my hair.

“Love, when you die, they will cease receiving from you what they receive. But they will still have all that you gave them while you were alive, and will carry that into their lives, with all the benefit it brings. If, that is, you give it to them.” I felt myself flinch, as if she’d hit me. Her touch, and the love in it, were unwavering.

“You swore to love twice as much,” she said. “You are not breaking that, because it is loving to save someone suffering. But you are applying it unwisely, here. Don’t deny yourself to anyone, to save them suffering. Because they will suffer anyway, and you can give them so much.” I suddenly felt so weak I had to lean on her, my head in her neck. She wrapped her arms around me.

“I’ll send a pigeon,” I whispered. He should have a tutor, here; I’d find one in the city. I’d pick up his war-training, at least in part, and the demarchic things he should be learning at his age. I had time. Kima, it should be her, too, which meant Shaina and Etana; they’d have to take time off, if they were willing. We would all be together, as a family should be. Could Fifth keep a secret? If he could, I’d do it now, if not, it would be later, but either way, I’d teach him to fly.

About three-quarters of a moon after the solstice each winter, I always notice the days just beginning to grow longer, the first sign of spring. This winter, it sent my mind ahead.

Mamoka strategy; what would I do with them now, other than soak their fur before every battle? Release those who went through the fire back to Laka, swapping them out for ones who have not? The A-niah numbers so depleted, should I have Niku send home for reinforcements? Taking Hirina had cut our numbers dearly, but that was being solved in part already by the Three-Moon School, and once we took Thara-e, if we managed to grab the treasury this time, we’d be able to afford more mercenaries.

The School was coming to the end of its three moons, at least for the first batch of students. I was there fairly frequently, to teach and inspire and see how they were doing; once Fifth was with us (just him; Shaina and Etana decided to stay in Vae Arahi with the younger ones) I was there every day with him. Esora-e wanted to train him—I’d got him to put meat back on his bones by telling him he wouldn’t be officially reinstated to the darya semanakraseyeni until he was a reasonable weight, and then, when he had flesh again and his face didn’t look like a death’s head, I’d done it with little pomp, which was his own preference—but I told him we would give Fifth his choice, and he chose me. I did not try to get Niku and Esora-e to the same dinner, not yet.

At the end of the three months, the students had truly transformed, all muscle where they’d been flab before, fast and graceful where they’d been sluggish and clumsy. Azaila asked me to try commanding them in maneuvers, and they did very well, looking for all the world as if they’d trained for two or three years. Then he asked me to spar some of those, picked at random, who were graduates, having deemed ready for the field by him, though since we weren’t fighting yet they’d get more training before their blooding.

“I don’t know if he is among those you chose, but,” I said, then pitched my voice to carry across the assembled thousands, “Is Boralaer among the graduates?” There was a whooping buzz of encouragement, and there he was, trotting forward, drawing a cheer out of the whole host. I’d been fairly sure he would not wash out, but he’d won the respect and love of the other students, obviously, as well.

The transformation was more astonishing in him than anyone else. A Haian, built like a warrior… Looking at him, now deep-chested and sinewy with the muscles and veins standing out on his olive-skinned arms, as he drew his sword and I drew Chirel, I kept wanting to blink and shake my head. In the perceptive way of Haians, he saw it on my face, and laughed. He looked horrifyingly, at least to part of me, happy. To spar him, I had to do what everyone else did to train with him: simply forget his nationality, even when I heard his accent in his war-cry.

How do Haians fight? I felt a precision in him, that, were he to continue training, would become what no word could describe better than surgical.

When I’d tested him enough with sword and shield, he said, “Chivinga, may we go unarmed?” There was a buzz of approval and relishing laughter from the crowd as he and I both handed off our weapons. I remembered what Sansera had told me. He presses a point on my arm and next thing I can’t tell up from down or lift my arms, and he has to hold me up to keep me from falling on my face! He’s using some Haian healing thing… What was I in for? They all knew.

I resolved not to let him touch me any way Kaninjer ever did. That was easy enough, until I footswept him to the ground and leapt on him to grapple him. I wanted to see what would happen. I wasn’t even sure where or how he touched me, but next thing I knew I was lying flat on my back, staring at the sky, with him kneeling next to me, holding my arm with his thumb pressed into one part of it, and a big grin on his face.

I tried to get up, but couldn’t even lift my head; it wasn’t even paralysis so much as an intense need not to move. That’s the best way I can describe it. The whole Three-Moon School was roaring, a mix of laughter and cheers. “You’re going to teach me that,” I said, when he let go, and started stroking other parts along the energy-lines to undo whatever he’d done, enough that I could speak. “That’s an order.” There had been reference to it before, and I’d given an order that he should be asked to teach, but it had slipped my mind; feeling it for myself was something else again. A whole world of things that a Haian warrior could teach the rest of us opened up in my mind.