9 - Telling my mother

I don’t believe such a claim could ever actually be proven. The world is too big. Nevertheless, Esora-e set himself to the task of making me it. Azaila was never party to this, nor any other war-teachers, but if Esora-e took me off for extra work, that was his business.

It was hard. The first few days he made me do so much I got dizzy and sick. There were other privations, such as letting me serve myself from the common pot then pulling away half, for several days running, or making me go without water for a day, to teach me how to override the body’s wants and thus be free of them. Once he locked me in a cellar chamber of the Hearthstone that was pitch-dark and soundless, with only a blanket and a flask of water, for three days; that was to get used to what was in my own mind.

Yet he never did anything without a reason that inspired me. He taught me pride in doing, or enduring, what I had thought was impossible. He never let me forget he loved me. He never let up on me and allowed it to be too easy, and, on my honour, neither did I. It should be understood, my shadow-father was one of those people who speak gravely of the hardship of war, how we only do it out of necessity, how it is sacred and so forth, but one can tell enjoys both the act and the thought of being a warrior.

To this day I question his choosing an ambition for me, and at times I have resented it. But I cannot say, had he asked my consent, that I wouldn’t have agreed at least to aspire to be the best in Yeola-e. In the end more good has come out of it than bad. I’d be dead several times over if not for that hard training.

†

The mourning custom in Yeola-e is, for those very close, to take off the black head-ribbon a year after at the latest. My mother kept hers on until the very day. I’d decided I should tell her of my foreknowledge a little while after she took it off, so I waited perhaps a month.

Now I have children of my own, I know how it was for her, and I feel for her, faced with an eight-year-old wanting to talk about some serious matter, thinking it was about a scrap with a friend or the loss of some precious toy, and instead hearing him say what I did.

Hand in hand, we went out into the garden, for privacy, because I’d told her it was a secret. She sat down; I didn’t want to, so I stayed standing. “Something happened the day Daddy got killed,” I said. “I’m going to die when I’m still young, too.” In the way of women, she was strong, showing nothing more than a tensing and a stunned silence.

“How do you know?” she said finally, and I explained, about seeing the black-haired corpse I knew was mine through her hand, and his age, and how I’d known in my heart.

“I knew I was seeing into the future… twenty-two years from now, since thirty minus eight is twenty-two. I just thought, since you’re my mama, you ought to know.” She didn’t disbelieve. It had the ring of truth to her. I’d be a warrior-demarch, just as Tennunga had been. Only in Haiu Menshir is life less harsh. All I’d got was a glimpse into the normal tragedy of life that people usually hide from ourselves so as to maintain happiness.

She opened her arms to me, though I wasn’t sure why. To see one’s children die is the normal order of life inverted, of course, but I was too young to understand that yet. I suddenly felt I’d done something wrong after all, telling her, and upsetting her.

“I know what I have to do,” I said quickly, throwing my arms around her. “I already realized, and I swore an oath: I’m going to do two times as many things and love everyone two times as hard as everyone else.” I didn’t even have a choice in war-training; Esora-e already had me practicing with double-weight swords and staves and tunics when the other students didn’t have to.

“Chevenga…” She looked at me piercingly, suddenly. “That was more than a year ago. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“You were grieving for Daddy. I didn’t want to make you sadder.”

Her eyes widened a little. “You… you didn’t tell me today because you wanted comfort… you told me because you thought I should know.”

“Yes. One day in twenty-two years, you’ll get a horrible feeling like you did before Daddy died. But you’ll know why, you’ll know it’s going to be me, so it won’t be so bad.”

Her eyes closed for a moment, a bit like someone who is being stabbed but is resolved to keep her silence. I shouldn’t have said that, I thought.. But finally she said, through set teeth, “Yes. It’s easier to take that which is expected. And now you’ve told me you will have someone to come to, when it troubles you.” I didn’t see why it would, but I also knew she was a grown-up, who’d been through life, and so knew much better than me what going through life would be for me.

She picked up her crystal between thumb and forefinger, and took my face between her hands, her fingers twining in the curls on the sides of my head, the kindest feeling, as always. “You swore an oath; I will too. I will love you twice as much, All-Spirit be witness and second Fire come if I forswear.”

“You can love me twice as much? But you love me so much already!”

That made her smile, and pull me into a proper hug. “My precious child! I have a goal I’ve set for myself then, just as you have.”

“You don’t have to do anything, mama. I can bear it.” When I think about it, in my piping eight-year-voice it must have had the same tone as, “I can reach that shelf now,” or “I can multiply up to fifteen.”

“I will nonetheless.” She smoothed my forelock from my brow, and pressed her lips to my face. “My child of pure steel! What a life lies before you… Chevenga, have you told anyone else?” I signed charcoal. “All right… you are going to have to choose who and when to tell, if anyone else, or ever. Just remember this: once out, it can’t be called back. Consider the implications very carefully when that choice comes, both for your own sake and for others. And if you’re not sure, you know you can come to me.”

About five years later I would realize what she must have been thinking. An anaraseye doesn’t just become semanakraseye; you have to be approved by Assembly. Would the people want another one who’d last only ten years and then leave them in grief like a sword-stroke in the heart? Yet if I went on with the semanakraseye’s education and being dedicated to it, I might be a good enough one to be worth it. I wasn’t old enough to make that choice well yet. If it came out it might be taken away from me before I was.

I promised I’d do as she said. We went back to her room. That night she let me stay up past my bedtime, and I fell asleep under her wicker chair, now that I was too big to curl there, with her hand ceaselessly caressing my hair.