18 - Love-making killed and come back rotten

Parochial though it must sound, it first seemed to me, seeing the Lakan envoy’s party in Assembly Hall, that they had painted their skin brown, pulled their hair straight and dipped it in ink. Even after I had seen their hands stay brown though many dippings in finger-bowls, it still defied credence to my eyes. Of course in the village where the Shae-Tyucheral lived I saw people who had hair in waves instead of true curls, and dark skin, being part Lakan.

Likely you do not know the name Shae-Tyuchera. I have found that few know it, though many students of the sword can recount the story stroke by stroke, sometimes even accurately.

So I shall give all their names to you. The eldest was Binchera, who was in her sixties; with her lived her daughter Rigratora-e and her husband Osilaha Shae-Chini, and their four children, Bukini, who was nineteen and Nainano-e, who was fifteen, both of them blooded, Kicharesa, who was eleven, and Ini-lai, who was ten. They are the family on whose farm I stayed for a month away the summer I was thirteen, near the village of Krisae, and so close to the border they were almost in the shadow of the circle-stone.

As always, I was one of the children, no more, no less, except that my accent was inland and Nainano-e took it upon herself, on my urging, to further my education in things sexual, even doing that which would make children in the time of the month that we would not. I was a head smaller than her, but my face was lengthening and my arms had a little more meat on them than before.

The first time, I wanted to go up on the mountain, but she took me to the vegetable patch instead. “We shouldn’t go too far from the house, in case the Lakans come,” she said, and we lay down together between the grapes and the tomatoes. It was something to hear for me, from deep inland, the lack of fear in her voice, only a caution that was a matter of course, as against drinking suspect water or eating meat that had been uncooked too long. I decided to take it as calmly as it was given; the thought of a raid was as distant as a dream to me.

There'd been talk at home that it was too risky to send me to live unguarded in such a place, but those who favoured it, led by my shadow-father, had won the debate, barely. My orders were to get as far away from any danger as fast as I could.

Once I asked her about her blooding; I expected a grand telling, but she just said, “They raided the Raseyels’, but we knew they were coming, so a gang of us hid behind the barn and took them from behind. I stuck the one I killed beside the codpiece—he’d turned around—then put him out of his pain. Then we got in trouble for not fetching enough grown-ups. Oh, stop asking questions; you unblooded people never want to talk about anything else; don’t you think we have better things to do?”

In the third quarter of the month, in the dead of night, the dog started barking as if he’d gone mad. Though most people didn’t sleep as lightly as I did even then, everyone was suddenly up. Then through the stone walls came the second sound, one such as men might have made in the pits of time before thought: a long furious deep howl, like a wolf-pack baying all together, but full of rage and intent as wolves never sound. It froze me entirely, the Shae-Tyucheral only for a moment. It seemed like the echo in my mind of some terrible dream, except that they were all moving. I hadn’t yet learned how to wake fighting.

Osilaha, Bukini and Naina had all leapt to throw on armour; they knew where it was even in the dark. But now my month-father said, “No… it’s too many. Let’s run.”

“The anaraseye goes first!” Binchera cried in her cracked voice. Rigra drew me in her two strong hands to the window of the children’s room, furthest from the door. But we saw the shutter with its carven wheat-sheaf struck so hard it shook, and a man’s voice outside shouted chopped harsh words I couldn’t understand. Lakan, I thought dully. He had a spear; I sensed its point, aimed at me as no true steel ever had been, with killing intent, in my life. They had ringed the house. Through the chamber door, I saw Osilaha looking at us, his strong face full of despair.

Then his eyes took on resolve. “Buk, Naina,” he said, quietly. “All-Spirit asks. Follow me.” I saw Naina’s pale fierce eyes, a flash of anger turning to resolution, sharpening the resemblance to her father’s; she tightened her hand on the long shaft of the spear she held, and took a long deep fighting-breath, just as I would do in training. Osilaha shot the thick worn wooden bar with a bang and threw open the door, and the three sprang out together with a long war-cry.

No! I thought. Stand in the door and then they’ll only be able to come at you one or two at a time! For the first time in my life I felt the stab in the heart of seeing a move ill-made that will cost more dearly than I could bear, and could not believe what it would mean even as I knew. But as the clanging of fighting started—just the same as training, but so different—the spear at the window was gone, the Lakans all running to the front door. I saw why Osilaha had ordered as he had.

Naina must have understood. I know now what that anger was, so fleeting; that she would never finish the sweater she was knitting, never lie with a boy in the vegetable patch again, never grow up.

Rigra threw the shutters open. “Chevenga, run to the village and get the warriors, go!” She held back her two youngest, and Binchera waited for me, too. I threw my leg over the sill. Outside, the stars danced above the mountain, and in the embrace of its shadow was a thousand man-lengths of safety, and rescue, that I'd been ordered to, and my legs itched, to run to. My heart couldn’t.

“Go, boy! What’s taking you?” Rigra’s voice was hoarse; she pushed, and I clung. Kicharesa shrieked, “I’ll get them, mama!” squeezed by me and was gone, her small legs flashing away. A scream came from the door, with more outpouring of life in its length than I had ever heard before, because, I saw slowly, it was a life’s last expression, its farewell to itself. The voice was Osilaha’s. A moment later, Bukini screamed likewise, from closer, inside. Naina I heard nothing of, though the clutch of swords no longer seemed to be striking. The Lakans were in the hearth-room. I swung my leg back over and said, “I’ll go last.” That was some measure of respect, at least.

Something struck my ear so hard my eyes went a little black, and my ear stung like fire: Binchera’s hard-tendoned hand. “You little ingrate, they’ve given their lives, all three, to make you this chance—go!!” Little Ini slipped past me into the night, and ran whimpering; then I was flying. My month-mother had picked me up by the hair and leg and flung me headlong out the window. I rolled out of it and stood up.

Through the black sky, hails of yellow sparks flowed in the air, coming wreathed in thatch-smoke; they’d set the barn on fire, but the terror-stricken bleating of the sheep was from closer; Kicharesa, I imagine, had unlatched the gate; the spirit to save what one can is well-ingrained in people who live near borders. I looked back; Rigra’s leg had swung over the sill. I would have expected Binchera, but I learned later that it’s customary among border people for the elderly to wait till last, since they have only a short time left to them anyway. My month-mother fixed her eyes on me, readying herself to kick me all the way to the village if she had to, as she began to swing her other leg over. Then torchlight filled the room, her eyes widened and she was jerked backwards, gone.

What I remember, I remember as in a dream. There was the feel of the night air on my face, and the dog still barking frantically; he was the kind to make noise from out of reach rather than fight, and so lived. There was the smell of thatch-smoke, the sound of the sheep’s hooves tamping the packed earth, more distant, my ear still stinging. It seemed I perceived all these things from a distance, like daylight from the bottom of a well.

I knew it all by the sounds. Her first yells, war-yells, pure and tearless, the rustling and grunt of struggle, the Lakans’ laughter; then blows, some sharp and cracking, some thumping bone-deep, and her brave cries breaking into sobs. Teeth-set silence and more laughter and words in Lakan; the tearing of cloth, the creaking of the bed, hoarse deep breaths, quickening, mingled with higher strangled panting, a choking cough.

What would they want of me now, and what was required of me? To be safe, I thought; but I am. I felt so, crouching here free, while this happened to her. To see and learn their lives, as an anaraseye on a month away is supposed to do… I raised my head so that my eyes were just higher than the sill.

They had hung their lights on the wall-hooks and laid down their weapons to free their hands. They were splattered with blood, reminding me of my father’s assassination. Like the Lakan envoys, they were earth-brown, their straight black hair never cut, oiled slick and tied back with long leather thongs; but they were lean rather than soft, the smaller one’s muscles like rope on the outside of his arms, their wide breeches stained and leathern cuirasses worn: two brigands with bad teeth who carried the eternal shame in themselves Laka requires its poor to feel in their very souls, and who, therefore, as rich Lakans would holds themselves above law, held themselves beneath honour. I would understand all this later; I only saw its signs now, something previously unimaginable to me.

But they were men, with faces that wore expressions, where I had thought to see, and thought I should see, monsters; one could read them as one read Yeoli faces. There was the fire of exertion, ruddy on brown cheeks, hidden fear, rage unleashed, joy at what they’d found here. For the smaller, hunger sated; he was gnawing on a goose-bone from our pot. They were young men, sons of pioneers whose crops looked to be weak this year perhaps.

But their humanity made what they did now all the more terrible. I wonder if it would have been easier if I’d been raised on the border. For all the veracity of training, for all the dares and boasting and vying that had been my childhood, I had never in my life seen true violence done.

I watched, and thought sluggishly, “So this is what it looks like.” Rigratora-e lay half-stunned; it takes a fair amount of beating of a strong woman, it seems, to force her legs apart. One had taken his turn; now the other pulled down his breeches. What my eyes least believed was his member, brown as the rest of him, standing high and hard. I had never thought much about this, and had childishly imagined that men who did it had to force themselves to feel pleasure before, perhaps with their hand, to enable themselves to do it.

But the Lakan took pleasure in Rigra’s very pain, throwing himself on her with the force of an attack, thrusting as hard as he could, making of that part of himself a weapon as a warrior does with his hands when fighting unarmed, but against someone helpless, as a true warrior never does. When she closed her eyes and set her teeth to will herself away in mind, he struck her or clamped his fingers around her throat until her mind was drawn back and she suffered enough for his pleasure once more. In the way of a child naming the things of the world, I thought, “This is love-making killed and come back rotten.”

My shock turned to rage. I’d never wanted to kill before; now I wanted to do worse, make him suffer as terribly as she was suffering, but ending with him in shreds, starting with the part he stabbed her so joyously with.

But it is for children to rely on adults to act. I was three years away from my wristlets. My helplessness twisted like a blade in my heart; as before a mirror I screamed to myself again, “Grow! Grow!” Why were the warriors of Krisae taking so long, where were they, who were sworn to save us, to fight those who have no ears for our words of justice and sense so that we may sow peaceful fields? I am three years away! I remembered feeling my hands move a wooden blade with their first skill, flexing my forearm and finding a new ridge there, my arrow striking the eye dead centre, the crowd roaring as I play-fought as All-Seeing Rao. Through my tears as through crystal I saw the sword of Saint Mother rising in my tiny hand, Esora-e, the finger-wrestling, the darkness of the cellar, all the things that had tempered me. Where were the warriors? Would they ever come? Three years! Rigra couldn’t wait that long.

The world changed, becoming weightless. Then rising through me sang the wind, and the harmonic singer. I ceased feeling my smallness, or anything of myself at all. The large Lakan’s sword was propped naked against the bed; I felt it before I saw it, amber with his groundless hate. The other had his back to me. Neither were looking. I crept over the sill, sprang across and snatched the sword up.