70 - I believe in you

As soon as the passes were open, I set off on my state visits. The Enchians, Lakans, Schvait and Brahvnikians all treated me properly and far too well for a semanakraseye as foreigners invariably do, with lavish meals and gifts and so forth.

I thanked Astalaz for freeing my son, and his mouth gradually gaped more and more open as I recounted how Tanazha had approached me, what she and I had said to each other, and how Fifth was now my heir. In the Lakan mind, of course, he was tainted for life with having been born a slave and of a slave, and thus unfit to be a head of state, whatever natural ability he had or however he was raised.

Meanwhile, I’d sent a letter to Kurkas. An answer came within three-quarters of a moon, good time from the City Itself, in a packet of silk with the sun-clasping Arkan eagle all over it. I had not thought such curlicues possible on stationery, nor gold ink.

He would be delighted to meet me, he wrote, welcoming me with all proper honors to the Marble Palace. As I had asked, there were five copies of his oath of safe-conduct, in Arkan and Enchian. My request had been something of a test; if he’d shown displeasure at my suspicion, I would not have gone.

I kept one to carry, put one in the archive, and sent the other three to Astalaz, Kranaj and Ivahn; let them be witness, if—when—something went amiss.

I’d thought I’d go by ship, but Kurkas promised me overland would not be much slower, and wrote that he’d have a twenty-man escort waiting for me at the border of Roskat, a number I was welcome to match with mine; in the orderly Empire, he assured me, that should be defense enough. Arko’s roads are famous, of course, built smooth, wide and ever-lasting from one end of the empire to the other. He wants to show them off, I thought, to let me see how fast his armies could get to our border, if ordered. Well, no knowledge hurts.

The hardest thing was picking my escort. I told myself that every warrior in Yeola-e was in danger, if Jinai had seen true. My escort might be safer than those we left behind, for all I knew.

Senala-e and Naiga were the only sibs of mine who wanted to go who I thought were old enough, the rest calling me a flaming hypocrite. I felt I should exclude any of the Elite because it was a peace mission; that should have eliminated Krero, Sachara and Mana all, but Mana insisted on coming, saying I owed him for the marriage, with which I could not argue. The rest I drew from those of the Demarchic Guard who volunteered. I took nineteen in all, to remind Kurkas that I could be counted as a warrior; no Arkan Imperator had fought with his own hands for better than two hundred years.

The night before we left, after we had all the little ones kissed and settled in bed, my closest family and friends gathered in my parents’ parlour with a flask of wine. “To a safe and fruitful state visit,” they toasted. I tried not to share any sadly knowing glances with my mother, lest someone else notice.

“I will toast to your safety,” Esora-e said, making sure everyone heard him, when he was enough into his cups to lose any shyness. “But I’m not going to pretend I am not still against this, Fourth Chevenga.”

I have information you don’t; why don’t you just trust it’s something like that? “I know, shadow-father,” I said, “but it will be for the best. I know it in my heart.”

“We’ve never had reason not to trust him, love,” my mother said to him, gently.

“Oh, I know, I know… You are wise for your years, for all I’ve said, lad; this is why I can’t understand why you’re doing this bone-headed thing.”

“Shadow-father,” I said, “will you quit acting like you have to start planning my funeral?” That got a laugh, as I’d hoped. “It’s not going to be for a while yet.”

Esora-e got up, and caught me in a hard hug. “Yes, I am scared for you, shadow-son,” he whispered in my ear. “The idea of losing you…” His arms tightened, and I knew my father was in his mind. There was nothing to do but comfort him.

Since I would be leaving early in the morning, we all turned in before very late. As I took up Fifth, fast asleep, from my mother’s bed, she caught my eye. I want to talk to you so badly; I want to be with someone else who knows. It must have shown on my face, for she said, “I’ll walk you back to your room, love.” It felt like weakness to accept her touch, but she put her arm around me too firmly to refuse.

I laid Fifth in my bed and kissed him. He groaned slightly, smacked his lips, and then sighed back deeper into sleep as I stroked his hair. How big will you be, precious one, when I see you again? I’d said goodbye to him already; he probably wouldn’t be awake in time in the morning to see me off.

My parlour was a bit of a mess, my shirts and kilts strewn here and there, my home-desk messy with papers. I bustled around for a bit, picking up, and lit some incense. When I was done, I found myself facing her, and we both stood in silence for a moment, eyes locked.

“Chevenga.” The lowest curl of my forelock was almost in one eye; she feather-touched it to between them. “If I could fill you up with my love before you go into this, I would.”

“Mama…” I caught her hand and kissed it. “You are filling me up with your love. You have all my life. You’ve had more of a hand than anyone else in making me. I just… I guess I just wanted to be with the one person who knows.”

We stood for a moment again with a silence between us so full it shimmered in the air.

“You are a strong enough person to make the hard choices, love, and as much as my heart cries out that I don’t want you hurt, you’re a warrior.”

“Hard choices?” I shrugged. “The other two forks were both unthinkable. But not only do you have to trust my strength; I do. And so does Yeola-e, however much no one knows it yet. They’re not going to kill me in Arko, if there’s truth in the reading. Or at least it’s likely they won’t.” The word of an augurer is true, I’d been taught, but never certain.

“If reports come of your death I won’t believe them.” Yet they may be true… She was always more certain than I. “Kurkas might seize you and tell us you are dead.”

“If he seizes me, he’ll offer me for ransom. If that happens—kyash, I should have planned for this earlier!—if he does, what Tyeraha, sorry, Artira should do is stall… stall for all she’s worth, to give me a chance to escape on my own.”

“Or send Ikal.”

“Yes, that too, but stall nonetheless. Can you tell her… no, I’ll put it in writing.” I wrote the note fast in Athali, sealed it with the signet and gave it to her.

“I hope I never need give it to Ardi, but I’ll keep it safe for if I do.”

“Mama…” Let us live in the truth, a wiser voice whispered to me. “You probably will have to give it to her.”

“I know.”

I took a deep breath, forcing the quivers out of it. “I am not sure which is worse, not knowing the future, or knowing a scrap of it,” I said. “Then again, maybe knowing all of it exact would be the worst of all.”

As she tucked the letter in her shirt, with the tenderness you’d expect for something going from one child of hers to another, we wordlessly gazed at each other again.

It’s a child who, in the face of danger or challenge, needs a parent to say, “You can do it; I believe in you.” So I should not ask her; but I was still close enough to childhood that it seized me, making me feel that yawning need. I said nothing; but of course, even though I had not been a boy who had needed that a lot, she could read it on my face.

“My child,” she said. “If I could choose the one person who would be the best in all Yeola-e to do this, it would be you. And I think I would think that even if I were not your mother. There is a reason you have the knowledge no one else does; you sought it, because you could bear it. And you knew in your heart you could make the correct choice from it.” My tongue locked, no words coming to me. She laid her hand on my cheek. “You can do it, Chevenga. I believe in you.”

I closed my eyes and let it echo through me for a bit, drawing nurturance as well from the tenderness of her palm and fingers. She straightened my forelock again, with a touch barely harder than a breath.

“Of course, if war is happening here while I’m stuck there,” I said, “I’ll be ripping my hair out about not being here. But then I have to trust you too. My people are not weaklings.”

“No. We aren’t.”

“It will all turn out well in the end… so the third fork seemed. In that sense, none of us have anything to fear.”

“We’ll know what we don’t know now. Foresight always makes far less sense than hindsight.”

“And, knowing how these things go, maybe I’ll be glad I didn’t know what I was in for, as I might have chickened out, so it’s just as well.” I managed a grin with this, for her, and she gave me one back.

“I love you, my strong son.”

“I love you, too, my wise mother.”

We wrapped our arms around each other, and clung, hard, eyes closed. In her touch, I felt her intention, “I want to heal you, in advance, of everything you’ll suffer.” I was intending the same. Remember this when you are in the depth of darkness. Take strength from it. We stayed there a long time.