Tarashana Read online

  She gave me a raisin pastry and an exasperated look. “Hardly anything. Not enough.” Grabbing my arm, she pulled me out of the courtyard, to the open side where the barracks opened out to the pastures and hills and cliffs beyond the town. Flowers and small trees and shrubs had been planted all along that side of the courtyard. Everyone pretended they could not see through or past or over the plants. Lalani had had to explain this courtesy to me, since it made no sense at all.

  Trees had been left in the open country there, for shade, and benches stood under the trees. Ordinarily women and men would sit there in the shade, or more likely on the grass in the sun, but never at the same time. At this hour the women were busy and the men were eating, so no one was there except the horses beyond the fence. Lalani pulled me into the shade and demanded, “All right, what is Esau doing this time? Is it dangerous? Is that why he left without telling me anything about his mission?”

  “No,” I promised her. I had known she would ask me—she was very protective of her file, and she liked Esau very much. I had thought about what I could tell her. I said, “I know what he is supposed to do and I think it is not dangerous at all.” I had looked at a map, so I could add, “I think it may take him fifteen or twenty days, maybe more, to go to the place he is supposed to go. I do not know how long his task may take or whether he will return immediately. He may not return for some time.”

  Lalani listened to this and nodded because she knew I would tell her only the truth, but she asked, “If it’s not dangerous, then why wouldn’t he tell me anything?”

  “I think he may be supposed to do things that could be considered to go against the law. I am certain of it.”

  “Oh!” She was quiet for a moment, thinking about this.

  I ate the pastry and brushed the crumbs off my hands. I knew Aras had meant me not to speak of the young woman in Pitasosa, so I should not. Even so, I thought Lalani should know that Esau meant to marry that woman. I said, “Perhaps you should ask Aras about the task he gave Esau. I think you should ask him.”

  She looked at me sharply. A soldier would never have asked Aras anything of the kind, even if he were Esau’s friend. But a woman followed different rules. I was not certain the Lau would think it right for Lalani to ask Aras such a question, but I thought she might ask him if I suggested it. Though I would say nothing of the matter, I thought Aras should tell her the truth.

  “Fine, I’ll ask him,” she said. “Certainly I’d like to know what kind of incredibly secret task Aras sent Esau to do for him.” She sat down on the nearest bench and patted it, inviting me to sit with her. She would not have done that if anyone were watching. Probably some of the other women could see us, but they would pretend they did not see anything improper. If a man happened to see us, he would not say anything either. No one wanted to irritate Esau Karuma or the men of his file ... and no one wanted to offend me, either. I would not kill any soldier sworn to Aras, but now and then, if I had reason, I fought someone in earnest and not for training.

  I sat down. Lalani looked at me, a searching look. “People are saying you had an argument with Aras.”

  His talon commanders sometimes—often—called him by name. So did I. His soldiers and the people in the town did not, even when no one important was listening. But when they were alone, the women often called him by name, except those who were afraid of him. Lalani was not afraid of anyone. She was like my younger sister in that way, if not in many other ways.

  I said, “They overspeak. We disagree about what he should do with the assassin’s family. That is not an argument.”

  She nodded, understanding. “That’s why you’ve been staying away from him. Because you don’t want it to turn into the kind of disagreement you’d have to call an argument.” She tucked her bare feet onto the bench, underneath her skirt. She was wearing the kind of very simple dress Lau women wear, sleeveless, falling from shoulder to ankle, gathered with a cord that crossed between her breasts and wrapped around her waist. Though the dress was simple and plain, it was a pretty color, a light milky blue. The cord was a darker blue, with copper beads to weight the ends, and today she wore three copper bangles on her left arm and two on her right. Her ears were pierced and the long twisted copper wires of her earrings gave her features added delicacy and accented the slender length of her throat. I thought Lau would consider her beautiful. I thought her so, though her beauty was very different from the rounded beauty of Ugaro women.

  She said, “If all those people have to be executed, he’ll do it.” Then, because she was observant and intelligent and had known me for more than a year, she said, “That’s what you don’t like.” She gave me a look. “I thought you barbarian Ugaro were so fierce until I knew you, Ryo.”

  “My people can be cruel,” I told her. “You should think about how I came here.” I waited for her to remember I had been—I still was—a tuyo, given to Lord Aras to put to death in any way that pleased him. I waited for her to remember this was a custom of my people, not hers. Her eyes widened a little and she looked at me in a different way. I said, “From one day to the next, you Lau are gentler. But when you are cruel, it is a different kind of cruelty.” I thought about this, considering the words that might give shape to this thought. Then I said, “This is a dispassionate cruelty. I did not understand that word until I came to know your people. I understand it now. I do not know if the cruelty your law requires is worse than what Ugaro might do. Perhaps it is not worse. But Aras should not do it.”

  “Of course, you’re right, I see that now,” she said, which is what Lau women say to men whether they agree or disagree. Only women much older than Lalani would disagree with a man. But after thinking about what I had said for a little while, she said in taksu, “I think perhaps that could be so.” That, she would not have said just to be polite.

  She had been quick to learn taksu, quicker than Suyet. Of course, one expects a woman to learn such things more easily than a man.

  She started to say something else, in darau this time, but from within the courtyard, Sarai called out loudly, “Does anyone know where Ryo might have gone?”

  They all knew where I was, only no one would be so impolite as to notice that Lalani and I had gone apart to speak privately. Sarai would not call out in that way unless she had some important reason to do so. I stood up, lifted Lalani easily to her feet, and we both walked back to the courtyard.

  “Ah, Ryo! There you are!” Sarai said when I stepped back through the line of shrubs. “Good! Here’s Ias just come looking for you.”

  Iasara was one of the boys who ran errands for Talon Commander Sharet, young enough that he could come and go in the woman’s courtyard. Someone had given him a raisin pastry, but now he hastily brushed the crumbs off his hands and stood straight to talk to me. Ias was probably a soldier’s son, though sometimes boys came to the talon in other ways—orphaned, some of them, or preferring a soldier’s life to that of a farmer. However he had come to the talon, Iasara would be a soldier himself someday, but he had only eleven summers now and the Lau do not consider that a boy becomes a man until he is nineteen, so that would not be for some time. He said, “Lord Gaur orders you to come, Ryo. He said now, immediately.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “That was what he said?”

  The boy nodded solemnly. “Talon Commander Sharet told your guards. They’ll meet you at the main door.”

  I turned to Lalani. “I am sorry. I must go. I will tell you if I hear something you should know.” Then I headed for the main door of the barracks. I did not run, but I walked fast.

  Aras gave few orders. He especially gave me very few orders. He preferred to ask. By the time I came to the main entrance, I was jogging.

  My guards were waiting for me as Iasara had said—tonight it was Suyet, with Rasas, his file leader, and Eroen, another trooper who belonged to that file. I nodded to them, but I did not say anything, only led the way out of the barracks and set the pace toward the other side of the town.

&
nbsp; There are times I envy the length of Lau limbs. My guards could have come there in half the time. Probably less. I jogged the whole way through the town while they only had to walk to keep the same pace. We passed the guards posted at the gate of the courtyard and then into the house and up the stairs. That was more than far enough to jog in the warmth; I was glad the Sun had by this time stepped low in the sky or it would have been much warmer.

  When I came to the top of the stairs, one of the servants pointed to show me where to go, and I went that way, still trying to think of what might have happened. I probably thought of everything except the thing that had truly happened.

  I came to the room, and the door was open, and I heard voices, Aras and someone else, a voice I knew but did not stop to recognize. I was walking fast, and so I think I was at the door before I realized they were speaking taksu.

  Then I was through the door. I stopped, astonished and suddenly afraid. The person who had come here was Rakasa inGeiro, son of the inGeiro warleader. Rakasa, and also his friend Bara—young men, but respected warriors—were here, on this side of the river, in this house, speaking with Aras. I could not imagine any good reason that the inGeiro would have sent them from the winter country to find me here. I did not want to imagine any reason so terrible that the inGeiro and not my own people would have sent anyone to find me.

  -4-

  “Nothing’s wrong, Ryo,” Aras said swiftly. “That is, nothing’s amiss with your family. Everyone’s perfectly all right. I do apologize; I should have told Ias to make that clear.”

  I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding. Then I walked across the room and shoved Rakasa hard, pushing him back a step before he braced against me. “You should have told me that! I think my heart stopped beating! I might have fallen into the land of the shades! Why did you come, if not to tell me something important had happened?”

  Not at all offended, Rakasa shoved me back, grinning. “If your heart stopped for nothing, you would deserve that fall, Ryo. Next time I will remember your fragile heart, but we did not come to see you. My mother and your mother wanted someone to carry a letter to Aras. My father and your father decided Bara and I could bring it. My father said a very long journey might keep us both out of trouble for the rest of the warm season.”

  I was so immensely relieved that I could not help grinning back at Rakasa, who was an easy-tempered man and impossible to be angry with. “So, was that your father’s hope? What had you done?” He started to answer me, but I realized I had begun with a question that was not important and waved his answer away before he could make it. “What is this matter that involves both inGara and inGeiro?” I asked instead. Our peoples were close allies, so this was not entirely astonishing, but I still could not imagine what this could be.

  Aras handed me the letter. “There’s a problem your people seem to believe a sorcerer might solve. See what you think.”

  I took the paper and looked at it. The hand was my mother’s; I saw that at once. Her writing was as meticulous in darau as in taksu. She had headed the letter as though writing to another woman or to a poet: My friend Aras Eren Samaura. Addressing Aras that way rather than by any title meant that she did not consider this a matter for lords, nor a matter for warriors. She might mean she did not consider it a matter for men. I began to read what she had written. We have encountered a problem here that we do not know how to solve, so I ask whether in your wisdom you may see a solution. This is how it happened: the eldest brother of my elder son led some of our warriors into the far north beyond the mountains to see if they could determine by means of a more determined exploration what fate it was that came to the people of the starlit country—

  “The starlit lands!” I exclaimed, looking up. “Garoyo went there? Did you go with him?” I was envious at once. I had never been to the starlit country. Stories of that land describe it as marvelous, a place where the music of the uncountable stars can be heard, where forests of trees shimmer with a radiance of their own and the breeze is always soft and warm. The people there, the avila, were small and delicate, a peaceful folk, but they had disappeared some years previously.

  Rakasa gestured agreement. “This is one reason Bara and I were asked to carry that letter, so that we could tell you. A lot of us were curious to see that land, Ryo—I certainly was—and your brother thought it would be good to take a party of young warriors through the pass. Some of the young men had become restless and foolish—”

  “Yes, some,” Bara said, his tone mocking.

  “Yes, I already said you were right!” Rakasa told him. He went on to me, “Immediately after the end of the Convocation, I led some young men of both our tribes on a raid against the inVotaro that did not end in any useful way—”

  “The inVotaro?” I was astonished. No one raids the inVotaro. That is not an ordinary tribe, and not likely to be gentle with any young man they caught in such temerity.

  “He meant to steal Royova’s favorite pony, as a trinket was not enough for him,” Bara told me. “He had a clever idea for how to do it.”

  I had to laugh. “The warleader’s own favorite, Rakasa? Perhaps this proved too ambitious.”

  “Yes, Ryo, I thought we could do it, but as you have surmised, this was a mistake,” Rakasa agreed ruefully. “Iro and Bara and I worked out the plan together, but then Iro said there were too many ways it could go wrong. He told me all those ways, but I said we could do it. Of course Iro was right. He is a most provoking brother.”

  Iro was six winters younger than Rakasa. I did not know him at all well, though he had begun courting my sister two winters past, while she was still a girl. I was not certain whether that courtship prospered now that Etta had become a woman. I wanted to ask Rakasa about that, but set that thought aside for later.

  Rakasa was saying, “Fortunately, Bara and Iro managed to get the other young men away, so that no one was too much embarrassed—”

  “—almost no one was too much embarrassed—”

  “Be quiet, Bara! So, Ryo, after that, many of us were glad to go through the pass to see the starlit lands, if only to get away from the hard looks our fathers kept giving us. My mother wanted someone to look much more carefully at the starlit country, and your mother also thought that wise. Now that we are not to raid the Lau, everyone thought it wise to look again to the north, as carefully and thoroughly as we could. So Garoyo said he would lead anyone who wanted to go and he would try to stop us from doing anything too stupid.”

  “Also, who would not want to see those lands?” Bara added. “But that is just the beginning and not important. Read the rest of the letter, Ryo.”

  I bent my attention back to my mother’s letter. She wrote, The homes and fields and all the places where the avila used to live still lie abandoned. Our warriors saw there were no people anywhere, so they came away again. But as they returned to the winter lands, someone followed them across the mountains. This was a woman of the avila people. We have this woman in our keeping now, but we can understand nothing of her. She does not speak. She will not write, or perhaps does not have the art. She is very frightened. We do not know what happened in the starlit lands, but we think this woman knows. My husband considers that what happened there could be dangerous to us if it is a thing that could cross the mountains, so he says this is a matter for warriors. I do not like what happened there even if it cannot cross the mountains. Our people traded with the avila and now they are gone. That is a matter for women. The inGeiro and the inGara agree that this is not something we should set aside and forget. We ask you to come and look at this woman of the avila and determine by your arts—I paused there.

  My mother had not used the word for sorcery, nor had she used the word for forbidden acts. This would not be chance. My mother was always precise with her words. That she did not use those words suggested to me she had sent a copy of this letter somewhere else as well as sending a copy to Aras.

  I read the rest of the letter slowly. We ask you to come and look
at this woman of the avila and determine by your arts what happened to her and to her people. My husband suggests that a scepter-holder of the summer king should not come into the winter lands without permission from Koro inKarano, but if the summer king agrees to send his nephew into the winter country for this purpose, then the winter king would not be offended. I think perhaps a nephew of the summer king may agree with me that this is something we should all understand. I ask you to agree and to come.

  She had signed the letter with her name, Marag inGara, as she would have signed it when writing to a friend. Lutra inGeiro had signed it as well. That told me something. So did the way she did not write the word for sorcery anywhere. So did the way she was careful to say that she and my father both agreed and that inGeiro and inGara both agreed So did those last lines, where she referred to the summer king. I said to Rakasa, “My mother and your mother sent a copy of this letter to Darra inKarano.”

  “She did,” he agreed. “How did you know?”

  I shrugged, but I said to Aras, “Will you go? It would be a long journey. My mother and Lutra inGeiro and everyone concerned in this matter will be far north, beyond the forest, far across the steppe, where the great mountains that lie between the winter country and the starlit country sink their roots through the lands of the living into the land of the shades.”

  Aras was leaning back in his chair, tracing the gold inlay on his scepter absently with a fingertip. “How long would that journey take, Ryo?”

  I thought about this. “Perhaps twenty days to come to the steppe. At least twice as many days to cross the full width of the steppe to the great mountains. It might be faster for a small number of men riding Lau horses. That is good country for horses, but we do not usually ride all that way fast, so I do not know how many days such a journey might require.”

  He nodded and switched to taksu, asking Rakasa, “How long did it take you to come from that place all the way to this place?”