135 - Her husband's killer

The next morning light was more visible, and less painful, again. As Skorsas salved my cuts, he said, “We’ve got to deal with the spoils, Shefen-ka.”

“Spoils?” I’d forgotten, no doubt because my mind shied from the implications: a fighter is entitled to all the possessions of the man he has killed. When Mana had killed Suryar, he’d acquired a roomful of clothes good enough for princes, none of which fit him, a house in the solas quarter, five slaves including three concubines, and a horse. He’d freed the slaves and sold everything else.

Riji had been even richer than Suryar. Without intending it, I now was a slave-owner. I could imagine what could be made of that, if it ever got back to Yeola-e.

But he’d been married, which I thought would make it simple. “Manumit the slaves and sign everything else over to his wife,” I told Skorsas.

“To his wife?” he said now. “You bizarre Yeoli. She’s a woman. She’s spoils herself, so are his children. You’re her husband, and their father. You could sell them all to brothels, as any man can do with his wife and his children if he so feels. Do you want to do that?”

Who kills, becomes. Already weakened, I felt nausea come up faster than it should. I could imagine her, a delicate Aitza woman, in her house with the two little boys gathered near her, waiting to find out their fate from her husband’s killer.

It would have to start with knowing what I had. I sent Skorsas for Riji’s books. It turned out he’d hired out his accounting, so I called in the accountant. I saw in a moment even without my eyes that he was looking to bilk an ignorant woman and a slow-witted barbarian out of whatever he could; it started with his trying to charge me for this visit. I dismissed him right then and there.

The next day my sight was back enough that I could be up and around, with the dark spectacles on; the day after that I could, with some pain, check the figures. Luckily it was all in Enchian, and the bankers Riji had dealt with used that tongue.

His funeral was the day after that. The notice in the Pages said only those he had known were welcome; he had known me, so I went. I’ve been asked many times why I did, when he had brought me, and thus Yeola-e, so close to grief, for no good reason. My answer is simply that he was a fighter I killed. I would have gone to the funeral of every fighter I killed, had they been held. His was the only one.

I wore my hooded cloak, and let no one else see me when I greeted the man who held the temple door. He looked at me as if I were a child-raper, and drew breath to cry out, to guards perhaps. “Think, if you reveal me, what a scene this will be,” I whispered, fast. Behind me, there were three writers trying to wangle their way in. “You’re his friend, I understand; I will hide in the gallery and make absolutely sure no one sees me. Second Fire come if I lie.” With lips pressed tight, he said, “Very well, sword-buck. But take good care. If a hair of you is seen, I’ll have you murdered. Don’t think I don’t have ways.” I just nodded, and he let me in.

As the saying goes, nothing reveals a person so well as his funeral. Elegies were spoken by his philosopher colleagues, by Koree, by the Mezem writer Roras Jaenenem; but no living fighters, or boys. His paintings lined the wall, the music and verses were all ones he had written; one had to marvel.

His corpse was covered to the neck, and wore a wig that matched his hair, to hide its desecration. A wreath of chains, fifty-eight no doubt, shone on the shroud, though the original ones had surely been snatched; someone was spending, out of love.

By the many words of sympathy addressed to his wife, I learned her name was Sora. That was the last word he’d said. The man who was the intellectual and the beast by turns had turned purely into the man, in the end.

I slipped out before the rite was finished, so as not to be seen by others forming the processional to the burying-yard, which was outside of the city.

To my mind, Sora would be better off never seeing my face again; but Skorsas assured me that she expected me, and in fact until I spoke to her in person, would live in fear. So I steeled myself, and went to the house, borrowing two Mezem guards to beat off the fans.

It was a medium Aitzas place, but all Enchian inside, the woodwork plain and dark, a sweet spice incense in the air, the walls full of paintings, most in the style that I had come to know was his, though I could not see them well through the dark grey of my spectacles.

Everything was quality. I was shown into the great-room with all courtesy by the butler. Their hair blackened entirely with mourning dye, Sora and her sons came in. With her eyes down, never on me, she knelt at my feet; the two boys stayed back, silent, the younger clutching the arm of the elder, who was about ten, and had Riji’s face in small. I remember the look, when his eyes, of the same pale green, met mine: “When I come of age, you are dead.” True enough, I thought; I would be.

They were out of school for this appointment. “Let them miss no more of their learning,” I said. A slave appeared instantly to attend them, with a bow to me as to the master of the house, and Sora and I were alone.

She had the flawless ivory skin, jewel-blue eyes and slender ankles of an Aitzas woman whose family have been breeding for the Arkan ideal of beauty for centuries; no doubt her hair was brilliant white-blond under the dye. She wore a deep red satin dress with roses embroidered in gold and green thread that clung close to her slender body and was one piece with her gloves. It was buttoned primly tight at the neck. I couldn’t imagine her father had preferred this marriage, to a foreigner; perhaps she was a fourth or fifth daughter and he’d run out of eligible men from other Aitzas houses. And yet Riji had loved her, to his last breath.

“Perhaps your mighty self wishes refreshment, husband,” she said to me, still keeping her eyes downcast. “In that cabinet is nakiti.” It was Kiaji’s, the finest. While women serve men food in Arko, the privilege of pouring nakiti is a man’s. I poured two cups, handed her one, and threw back half of mine in one draught. That might be the only way I could get through this.

“Take a chair, and drink… and look at me… or not… whatever you wish,” I said, wanting none of it to be a command. She sat quickly but stiffly, like a soldier obeying. “My intention…” I threw back the other half. “…is that you and your children should lose nothing, and live in no less comfort, except… that which cannot be replaced.”

I waited for her to say something, but she did not. At the first sip of nakiti, she sputtered and gasped and said wretchedly, “Forgive this miserable one.” She had indeed taken my permission to drink as command. It had never occurred to me this might be the first nakiti in her life. “It’s all right, you don’t have to.” She put down the cup with relief.

I went on about investments and liquid assets and manumitting the slaves but keeping them on for a wage, or hiring someone else if one or more of them left, and how I would give her my own money if there were no other way. To my own ears my voice sounded distant, and my words hopelessly lame. She didn’t answer a word. Of course, I thought, this is all men’s business. Why hadn’t I brought Skorsas? I wasn’t sure how we’d do it; Riji’s Mezem gold had all gone to the house, books and art, of which I’d just promised to sell none; it was on his professor’s pay he’d sustained the family, including the education and war-training of his sons.

What I could not bring myself to raise, she did. “This one prays, husband,” she said with her eyes hidden behind the black locks of hair, “your mighty self finds her pleasing.” One could not imagine a murmur in a voice more cold and weak. Sickness cut through the nakiti-glow; I itched to dash out the door, and never think of this again.

“It’s death, not love, that binds us,” I said. You’d rather die than touch me, I wanted to say, and I can understand that; but by Arkan law she must not feel that, so on my lips it would be an accusation. “As I said, I will not make you suffer,” I said, finally. “You needn’t worry about that.”

She nodded tightly, and said, “Perhaps your strong self wishes to see what is his.” Not knowing what else to do, I followed her. In my discomfort, I’d drunk enough nakiti to be slightly unsteady.

Only in the library did I want to linger. His collection was as impressive as you’d expect. There is nothing else I want here, but let me at least read these books. I had no wish to look into the children’s rooms, or hers. She didn’t show me the kitchen as a matter of course, that being a woman’s place.

Is it because it is the man’s places she’s showing me, I thought, that Riji’s presence seems everywhere? In his studio, which had a great window to let in light, stood an easel with a painting of a battle scene, that would now never be finished. Beyond that was a gallery full of portraits, some sketched, some in full oils, of fighters.

Sora ventured to speak unbidden. “When he killed them,” she said, “he’d hang them here.” I didn’t know what this meant in full until we went to his room. There, next to the bed, where one should put the image of a loved one, hung a painting, based on the sketch he’d done, of me.

I forgot courtesy; or perhaps felt I deserved an answer. “Why did he do this?”

Her gloved hands pulled at the hem of her peplum. “This one is only a woman, husband, who knows nothing of art and swordcraft.”

“Did he ever say anything… that you heard?”

“To concentrate his attention, he said. If he could paint a man, he could capture his spirit, and so beat him. So he said.”

I lifted it in my hands, and held it for a long time, gazing. Finally I said, “I would take nothing else from you. But this, you cannot want. May I?” Casting her eyes down, she said, “Why does your great self ask? This one will wrap it.”

Without the nakiti which had turned her cheeks bright red, I doubt she would have asked what she did then.

“This one didn’t think your mighty self would want it… why?”

Not knowing what else to do, I answered, “It captures my spirit.”

“Not well enough,” she whispered under her breath. Then looking up, knowing I’d heard, she covered her mouth with her hands in dread.

“It’s great art,” I said. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” She shook her head, and her slip of the tongue was a stone vanished in a dark pool.

As I was leaving, with the painting under my arm, I considered apologizing and asking forgiveness, for everything. But it seemed too insufficient to try, and none of it had been my fault in the first place.

In the end, as she had finished her formal goodbye, I just said, “I chose this no more than you did,” forgetting that one bereaved wants to blame someone other than the lost.

“This one will do her duty,” she said thickly, her eyes down again, “whatever your victorious self decrees that to be. But forgive this one for what is beyond her strength. This one will always hate your magnificent self.”

She saw me down to the doorstep. Now was the time to say it, so I would be able to turn and go, sparing her from my presence if tears seized her. “I should tell you the last word he said. It was your name.” I spun on my heel on the doorstep and walked away fast, making the Mezem guards stretch their stride to keep up. I heard only one faint strangled sob.

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