61 - How eligible can a man get?

My people, who I love:

I asked that these words be conveyed to all Yeola-e after my death, so that the question of why I chose to decline approval as semanakraseye will be answered. I said that it was to devote myself entirely to war, but I also admitted that was not all of the truth, and I know that was a matter of concern to many in Yeola-e.

Sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 of the Statute semanakraseyeni decree that an anaraseye must reveal any information that might cast doubt on his suitability for the office of semanakraseye, and accept approval only if he knows of no such information.

I stated my intent to decline approval, and so effectively resigned as anaraseye, so as to comply to this law. I didn’t know whether what I knew proved me unsuitable or not, but the law is worded, “might cast doubt,” just for such cases.

What I knew was that I was going to die before the age of thirty years. As is known in Vae Arahi, my mother has a gift of prescience, which I somewhat inherited. I had a vision of my own corpse on the day of my father’s assassination, and understood its meaning as prescient.

At the age of eighteen I decided it was best to decline the semanakraseyesin and devote myself to war so as to give Yeoli the full service of my best ability. As well, my death would not come so much as a shock, nor incur the grief on the part of the nation that a semanakraseye’s death does.

I felt this was right, and I hope that when history judges me it will agree.

Chevenga Aicheresa, once Fourth—


I could not write more, tears changing the ink and paper to a grey blur in my eyes. It felt like throwing myself away. Usually when I cry, I am not so undone that I have to lie down on the floor. This time I did, pressing my cheek against the sheepskin carpet. My tears often bring clarity afterward, when they are fully exhausted; this time they did not. I had a heart full of pain that was only slightly dulled. I couldn’t even go back to my mother, not so soon after the last time.

You don’t have to choose now. Even not with me, my mother was with me. I had two years. I will grow more mature again… and it’s two years in which something can happen or reveal itself to make my choice more clear.

Best thing to do, I saw, was throw myself into study, go at the books like the enemy lines. I did that, and then in the evenings looked for love.

Having already made myself a reputation at twelve—people never forget these things—I had to be cautious. I envied men of those nations in which it’s expected that the man will make the first move.

“You know, I can’t begin to understand it,” Mana said to me, one day after yet another winter evening he’d spent with someone beautiful and charming but not quite perfect. “Krero, Sach and I have plenty of butterflies hovering around us, looking for our nectar. You… Kahara, how eligible can a man get? The anaraseye all Yeola-e can hardly wait to see become semanakraseye, champion, war-hero, intelligent, passionate, beautiful, single but must marry… you have it all, Cheng. They should be hunting you unmercifully, but there you are, spending yet another evening with your books and your sword-hand… it baffles me.”

“I know what it is,” Krero said. “They’re all unnerved. Each one is thinking, ‘the great Chevenga… he’d never choose tiny inconsequential me.’ They all think that, and you’re left with your sword-hand. You are an extraordinary man; you are going to get an extraordinary woman, because only an extraordinary woman will dare.”

I felt my heart sink and blackness seep into my mind. He’s right, I thought. So what does that cut it down to… one in a hundred? A thousand? And of those vanishing few, what if it’s one in a hundred who’ll cast with me after I tell her—or one in a thousand, since extraordinary women will choose freely what is best for them?

I couldn’t be sure of all this, though. Love, as the saying goes, is like water; it can come from the least expected places, and find the oddest paths in. So I told myself. In my heart, I thought, it will take a miracle. And not one of my making, else I could know I had a chance of pulling it off, as in war.

“Else you’re too picky, I think that’s part too,” said Sachara. “Remember when we were at Henora’s the other night, that gorgeous auburn-haired girl from Hirina who was visiting cousins? She wanted to talk to you plenty, but you gave her the cold shoulder; was she not quick enough or something?”

“No, she was plenty quick,” I said. “It just wasn’t that kind of talk.”

“Chevenga…” His eyes narrowed. “You are the one who knows where I’m going to do my sword-stroke before I do, when we spar, and can smell a lie ten days’ journey away...! You’re telling me you missed the way her eyes glowed all moony in the torchlight when she looked at you? Or the hand on your shoulder? Come on… none of the rest of us did.”

“It’s important to us,” said Mana, grinning. “So as to know when to move in.”

I stood speechless, in horror. I was missing chances? “But she didn’t seem… she just wanted to ask me about how Assembly works and all the departments and the legal wing, and all that sort of thing… so I just kept telling her.”

They swapped raised-brows glances with each other, their eyes clearly saying, I can’t believe he’s that stupid. “You really think a luscious young woman from out of town wants to know all that boring political kyash?” said Sachara. “She just wanted to keep you there.”

“Maybe she’s looking to run for office,” I said. “You can’t know. Busybodies.” It occurred to me, if they were right, that she might have thought me a fool, and if she did, others might too, and I might get a name for it; that was almost more unbearable than missing chances.

“Oh, we can,” said Mana. “You might gather from what I said before that she and I had a lovely conversation afterward. There was nary a word on politics, trust me.”

“Of course not,” I snapped. “She’d had her fill of it by then.”

“She’d had her fill of all but your voice and your face and the rest of you a word or two in—trust me, heart’s brother. We’d barely started speaking when she said, ‘Chevenga must have his eye on someone.’ I hadn’t the heart to tell her you didn’t.” I stood speechless in horror again.

“Or is it,” said Sachara, more gently, “that you are still heart-bruised, from Nyera and Komona? That was a long time ago, Cheng… you’ve got to will your confidence back, if it isn’t just coming naturally. All-Spirit… how can you, out of everyone in the world, not have confidence?”

My guts had turned to water. All-Spirit… what can people tell… what are they thinking? I wanted to flee them, run up the mountain, find a cliff. “I… I don’t know… maybe it’s that,” I said weakly, hoping it would sound credibly doubtful. “I…” A little truth always helps in a lie, of course, making it more convincing. “I have been worried… I’d never be able to keep one.”

They answered as I should have known they would. “Cheng! Everyone loves and loses, spurns and gets spurned, at that age. It’s part of growing up. You steady down, they steady down… of course you’ll be able to keep one. Come on!”

Next time we went into town, I was resolved not to miss the signs, and didn’t. That got me sex from more than my sword-hand, but nothing more. We’d tell each other we wanted to meet again, but then she’d go back to her home-town, her visit finished, without happening to run into me again, or she’d clearly have her eye on someone else, or she’d say she’d wanted only what we’d had.

This was deeper than my friends could help with, except to counsel patience. “It’ll happen when it happens. It’s not like it has to be tomorrow, or in a year, or in five years,” Mana said to me. So often, when I talked about personal matters, I had to not say something.

Spring and summer passed, and I turned nineteen. By tradition, an anaraseye whose taking the office is scheduled goes on a speaking tour of the nation shortly beforehand; it was assumed I’d go next summer. But if I do that, it’s as good as declaring I will accept approval. I felt sick. I couldn’t go on putting off choosing.

The night after my nineteenth birthday I couldn’t sleep. There are two kinds of sleeplessness—staying awake, and waking too early—and at my worst I get both. Now my mind would not relax and fade into the sweet darkness; the thoughts would not stop, the feel in my limbs of desperate restlessness would not end. I lay awake in the sweating dark, silent with everyone else’s slumber, right to exhaustion, and then beyond, the point at which you know sleep is not just elusive but impossible, and you feel the strange trembling rustle in your body.

I gave up trying then, and got up to pace. I was long past the point at which tomorrow morning would be ruined anyway. This is my own soul forbidding me putting it off longer, I thought. When I decide, or come up with some plan for aiding in decision, I will sleep.

I got the flash shortly after that. I suppose it was fear that made me take so long to come to it. I would ask Jinai Oru.