Tarashana Page 19

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Do not say sorcerer, Raga.”

  “Everyone already knows—”

  “Raga,” I said. He stopped at once, bowing his head in apology, and I said, “Call him by his name, or say the Lau lord, or Lord Gaur.”

  “I will do as you say,” he agreed. He said to Tano, “I came here too late to eat anything last night, so I will be glad to show you where the food is stored.”

  Tano glanced at me for permission and then followed Raga. Once they were too far away to hear, I said to Arayo, “I thank you for your kindness to Tano. I wonder whether Garoyo has said anything to you regarding the young man.”

  “Nothing,” Arayo told me. “But he will not say anything until he has decided what to say. This is something he will not decide quickly.”

  He looked at me for a moment, measuringly. He was the youngest of the three young men, only this spring a man, but I thought he seemed the oldest. His father, a proud and honorable man, had taught him everything a boy should know, and after that my eldest brother had taken him in hand. Also, for more than a year he had faced every challenge that came of being an inKera boy given to inGara. I was not surprised he seemed older than his years. He said finally, “Raga was kind to me when I first came to the inGara.”

  I nodded. My younger brother’s nature was kind, but also, he would not have seen any reason to be anything but kind to a young warrior. Boys close to the same age fight and compete and strive to be first in everything, but a boy who knows young he will be a poet and not a warrior will stand outside all those quarrels and contests.

  All this time I had been watching Aras, and now, as he lowered his hands and turned to regard the wakening camp, I tilted my head that way and said to Arayo, “Do you wish to break your fast with us?”

  Arayo said at once, “I would be pleased to join you and your Lau, Ryo. This Lau lord met my father in the summer country, is that not so?”

  “He did,” I agreed, smiling, and went on as we began to walk toward Aras, “They learned very quickly to respect one another. Aras will tell you how it happened, I am sure.”

  “Arayo inKera,” Aras said, smiling in his turn. “I am glad to see you well. Ryo is right to say I respect your father. Hokino inKera is a brave man, and generous. I will be glad to tell you the tale. Part of it my soldiers do not know, so they may be interested as well.”

  The other Lau had by now also come to this place at the eastern edge of the camp, except Lalani, who would be with my mother and sister and the other women. Suyet said at once, in his good taksu, “Yes, very interested! Hokino is the inKera warleader we took in that battle, is that not so, lord? You met him again in the winter country? Ryo never said this.”

  I had never said anything of that time. Parts of it I did not remember well, and other parts I did not like to think of. But I did not mind if Aras told the tale.

  Raga and Tano brought food for everyone, meat from the previous night and bread made of barley with a little wheat. It was not bread such as the Lau make, being flat and chewy rather than made into a round loaf, but it was bread, and the Lau, who preferred to eat more grain than meat, were glad to have it. Everyone sat down to eat.

  “So,” Aras said, “I met Hokino inKera when I caught him raiding in the summer country, and then I met him again some days later when he caught me trespassing in the winter country. We both chose to be generous, fortunately, or many things might have happened differently.” He was smiling. Both memories were good ones, now.

  Aras made a tale of it, with little emphasis on the difficulties any of us had suffered and much on Hokino’s courage and generosity. By the time he finished, my father and Garoyo and some other people had come to that side of the camp and were waiting for us to join them.

  “So I will always be grateful for those boots!” Aras finished. He glanced along the lake, up the broad slope of the mountain, toward my father and the others, and got to his feet to lead the way toward them. The steep wall of the mountain rose up to the north, with the early light of the Sun casting rainbows through the mist where the waterfalls that fed the lake came down in a lively tumult. High above, an eagle drifted through the cloudless sky.

  “If Hokino had not been so generous, I probably could not have brought Aras alive to inGeiro lands,” I added, gesturing the young men to come with us.

  “You were extremely determined, Ryo. I think you would have managed,” Aras said. “But I grant, the journey would have been even more difficult.” He asked Raga, “How far is the place where your Tarashana visitor lives?”

  “Three bowshots, four bowshots,” Raga told him. He added, showing off, “Perhaps a Lau would say something close to a mile, but a little less. Three-quarters of a mile.”

  “You can count and figure with our numbers! Very good. Ryo has learned that.”

  “I am slow, and I do not like to do it,” I said. “Raga could count in that way when he had half as many winters as he has now. He is vain about it, so you should not encourage him.”

  My brother grinned at me. “I had no hope that I would ever match Ryo with any weapon, so I learned to count. It has seldom been a useful skill, but perhaps someday it may prove otherwise.”

  We had come to my father now. Ignoring all the foolishness of young men, he said gravely to Aras, “We gave the avila woman a wagon set beside the lake, in a place where the curve of the mountain makes a quiet place. It is not far. Perhaps two fingers of time to walk that far. My wife will meet us there, with her guest. They have gone down to the lake this morning with some of the other women, so they will take a different path, close along the lakeshore.” He gestured for Aras to walk beside him, with Garoyo, leaving the rest of us to follow. A handful of other inGara men joined us as well as we walked, older men, respected warriors, and the inVotaro warriors.

  “I admit I’m excited,” Suyet said in darau. “A Tarashana! I never thought I’d see one.”

  “Serve Lord Gaur and you never know what you might see,” Geras said. “Lakasha-erra on one hand and Ugaro on the other. I grant you, I didn’t expect ever to bump into a Tarashana either.”

  “She is just as the tales say,” Raga volunteered in the same language, glancing at me for permission to speak. “Very small, filled with starlight, with patterns drawn on her face and eyes that may be every color of the sky. One sees why tales say the avila are people who belong to the sky as much as the earth. This woman is so small, one can imagine a wind blowing her away.”

  My father, too dignified to hurry, had set an easy pace. I would have liked to walk more quickly, but only children would do anything so improper as run ahead of my father, so we all kept his pace.

  Then Aras paused. My father stopped too, looking at him, his eyebrows rising. For a long moment, Aras stared along the lake the way we had been walking, toward the waterfalls, but then he turned to look in a different direction, up the slope that ran steeply toward the pass. Higher on the mountain, the stone was broken and rough; soil had gathered in sheltered places and small plants grew there, a kind with wiry stems and pink flowers. Other than that, there was nothing to see until the stone ran steeply up and up into the sky.

  “Before we go on to see this Tarashana,” Aras said to my father, “I think there is something else, regarding a different matter, that I should probably tell you. I am not entirely certain. Although this is something I know because of sorcery, I do not think it is wrong for me to tell you. And I think this is something you would want to know.” He was not smiling, but his mouth was ready to smile and the corners of his eyes had crinkled in a way that meant he was laughing inwardly.

  My father looked at him. “This is something I should know? Even though you learned it by means of sorcery?”

  “I think so,” Aras said again. “If you were Lau, but everything else were the same, then to keep silent would be a shameful failure of my duty as your guest. But because I learned this by means of sorcery, I am not perfectly certain what I should do.” He added, “You may be angry whe
n you learn it, lord, but I think not very angry.”

  Everyone was staring at him now, baffled. I was also baffled. I could not imagine what Aras might have realized. “Should you tell me first?” I asked in darau.

  “Maybe I should have,” Aras admitted in the same language. “But it’s too late now.” His eyes crinkled a little more. “It should be all right—I think.”

  My father gave us both a quelling look and said to Aras, “You may tell me of this thing if you choose. If you should not have done so, I will correct you for your mistake. Knowing this, do you think you should speak?”

  “I will accept your decision,” Aras said. “And I think I had better.” He nodded toward the empty slope. “Hokino inKera is lying up there, concealed, watching all that happens here.”

  “Hokino inKera?” my father said in astonishment. He turned and stared up the slope. Arayo inKera jerked forward a step. Then he caught himself and stood still, but his eyes were wide. Raga looked from Arayo to my father, obviously concerned, but Tano watched me to see what he should do. I was trying not to laugh. I thought Aras was completely right to say my father would be angry, but not very angry. I was more concerned regarding my brother’s temper. Garoyo was the man who would take this as an offense and an insult.

  My brother’s eyes had narrowed. “The warleader of the inKera is observing us from a place of concealment?” He looked up the slope, then back at Aras, and demanded, “How long has this been so?”

  “You may ask him that,” said my father, and raised his voice in a roar. “Hokino inKera! Come face me!”

  Before the echoes of my father’s words had died away, someone stood up on that slope, though by all I could see nothing larger than a fox should have been able to hide there. He was easily close enough that he must have seen the Lau come this way with my father, then one of the Lau pause and look directly toward his hiding place. He had probably expected my father’s command. Certainly he did not hesitate, but began to make his way down the slope toward us. When he came to the bottom of the slope, Hokino inKera did not look at Aras nor at his son nor at Garoyo nor at anyone else. He walked straight to my father, knelt, and bowed to the ground.

  My father stared down at him for some time. Finally he said, “When the warleader of another tribe comes secretly to spy upon a camp, usually that means he wishes to see all the strengths and weaknesses of that camp so that he may later lead a very serious raid. Is that why you have come here, warleader of the inKera?”

  Hokino straightened, kneeling back on his heels. His hands rested on his thighs, open and relaxed. There was no tension in his shoulders or back. He should have kept his gaze lowered, but he looked up instead to meet my father’s eyes. He said, his tone resigned, “You know it is not that, lord. Please do not address me as warleader. I came here entirely on my own. Besides, after this, my brother will probably give my sword to someone else.”

  My father did not smile, but the corner of his mouth tucked in a little. “A man may plan for every kind of difficulty, yet not expect the kind of difficulty that comes from sorcery. I think your brother will not judge your mistake too harshly, if you live long enough to explain it to him. Tell me why you came to spy on this camp, inKera.”

  Hokino sighed. “I wanted to see my son. I had no other reason, lord. He became a man this spring. I wanted to look at him and go back and tell my wife that he has become a young man a father could be proud of. He belongs to the inGara now and I have no right to intrude in this way, so I thought I would come quietly and look and then go away again. But I saw the avila here and I was curious. I thought I would wait a little to see if anything else interesting happened here.” He glanced at Aras and then turned back to my father. “As you say, lord, I did not expect a sorcerer to reveal my presence. Now I am completely embarrassed.”

  My father nodded. He had expected all this, or almost all of it. He said, “You are not the only one who is embarrassed,” and looked at Garoyo.

  My brother had been standing to one side, frowning. Now, as everyone looked at him, he shifted his weight, took his sword from his back, walked forward, knelt, and laid the sheathed weapon on the rocky ground at my father’s feet. He said, “Lord, I had no idea anyone was there. My failure disgraces me and shames our people. I ask you to take back my sword and give it to someone more worthy.”

  “You may keep your sword,” my father told him. “When an ally or a friend shows you that you have made a serious mistake, this is a gift for a man wise enough to correct his mistakes and do better. An occasional failure makes a man attentive where he may have been careless.” To Hokino, he said, “Give me your knife.”

  Hokino took his knife, still sheathed, from his belt. He held it out to my father, who took it and weighed it in his hand.

  Then my father held it out to Garoyo. “Warleader,” he said formally. “Take this knife. At some time when you find the moment convenient, return it to Hokino inKera, in his own camp.”

  That made people smile. My brother did not smile. He said, his tone flat, “I will do that, lord.” Then he tucked the knife away and rose to his feet. His expression when he looked at Hokino was hard to read.

  Hokino bowed his head. He said, “Warleader of the inGara, your mistakes were small. No enemy could easily come against the inGara here, in the heart of your territory, where your tombs overlook the tents of your people. The mountains defend you, and the inGeiro guard your flank as you guard theirs. One man may come quietly to look at your people; the land is so broken and rough, especially near the place where the waterfalls come down from the mountains, that there are many places there where a man can conceal himself. A raid here would be difficult, but a determined enemy might hurt your people badly if one man after another came to hide nearby, approaching over some days, and then they all attacked at the right moment. I will not apologize for making this clear, but I am aware my actions constitute an affront. I will take your blow if you wish.”

  “You are due no punishment for correcting my mistakes,” Garoyo told him. “How long have you been here, watching this camp?”

  “Two handfuls of days. A little more. Eleven days. I will show you all the places I concealed myself, warleader.”

  Garoyo nodded, still expressionless.

  Hokino said, “When you return my knife, I ask that you come into the camp of the inKera afterward as our guest and explain to me the failures that let you do it.”

  My brother’s manner eased at that. He said, “I will remember your request.”

  “So,” said my father, meaning that he thought that subject finished. He said to Hokino, “Hokino inKera, if you have something else to say, I will hear you.”

  Hokino bowed low, touching his face to the earth. “Lord of the inGara, I apologize for trespassing on the lands of your people. I apologize most humbly. I swear before the gods, the inKera are glad to count the inGara among their allies and do not wish to offend. I ask you to punish me in whatever way you see fit, but to set no fault against the lord of the inKera or any other inKera person.”

  My father regarded him. “That seems a reasonable request. You may ask me for more generosity than that. You may ask me for mercy.”

  “Lord, I ask you to be merciful,” Hokino said promptly.

  “I grant your request. Your actions are not forgotten, but I forgive them.” My father paused.

  Hokino straightened and looked up, but he said nothing, only waited.

  My father gave him a little nod and went on. “Hokino inKera, however you came here or for whatever reason, I say you are now a guest of the inGara. Obviously an inKera warrior has no right to interest himself in any possession of inGara, but everyone knows young men benefit from the advice and example of respected warriors. While you are our guest, you may therefore instruct or correct any of our young men if you wish. You may stand.”

  Hokino bowed once more and said, “Lord, I am grateful for your generosity.” Then he got to his feet.

  My father looked at Aras. “I hope
,” he said, “That you have nothing else to tell me.”

  “Not at the moment, lord,” Aras assured him. My father nodded and turned away to walk on up the slope.

  -12-

  Hokino did not look at his son. Instead, he came to walk beside Aras. He said wryly, “That was uncomfortable. But I set no fault against you for it.”

  Aras smiled, sudden and vivid. “You know you have no reason to set fault against me, Hokino inKera. You know very well you should have come down the moment you saw me.”

  “That would have been less embarrassing,” Hokino agreed. “You are entirely correct, but fortunately, embarrassment does a man no lasting harm, especially when he has earned it through some foolish mistake. I do not look forward to Garoyo inGara returning my knife. I am sure he is clever enough to do it in a way that embarrasses me again. Then my brother will have something to say to me. And he will say enough already.” He paused to let the subject turn. Then he said, “You came here to speak to the avila? Of course you did.” He glanced at my younger brother, still not looking at his son, who had come to walk on Raga’s other side. Arayo ignored his father with equal care. Hokino said to Raga, “I have seen you much with her, young warrior.”

  Raga grinned at him. “You have, and I am glad it was not an enemy watching because I never guessed anyone was there. I am also glad I am not a warrior, as then that failure would embarrass me. Embarrassment may do no lasting harm, but I would not have enjoyed listening to my father pointing out my mistakes.”

  “Ah.” Hokino looked at him keenly. “Young poet. You are a son of Marag inGara, I think.”

  “Yes,” agreed Raga, but immediately went on. “The avila does not speak. I have taught her some taksu, so she understands something of what I and other people say to her, but she does not speak in our tongue. I have learned a little of the avila tongue—a very little—but she does not speak that either. I may not pronounce the words correctly, but I do not think that is the difficulty. I think she either cannot or will not speak in any language.”