29 - Whose fault it was

It is the nature of war that a person can be reduced from greatness to nothing, or a scrap of what he was, in an instant; but it is the nature of life too.

–Anchora Tesa

Linen, camphor, Haian soap, I smelled. I heard my parents talking, “I feel for… but it was… he’s on the floor with his hands locked in that Arkan donkey-ear prayer-sign… sorry, Kallijas, and Skorsas… how long…” A steady hissing, fairly close, kept me from hearing the words clearly. Krero, clearer: “He’s coming out of it soon, healer?”

“Yes, soon.”

“Because there are some questions I have that he’d kyashin well better have answers for.”

“Kraseye Krero, it may well be that he can hear you even if he cannot show that he can, so I caution you to say only what you would have him hear. You might have noticed I have been speaking to him as if he could hear right from the start; I did all through the surgery too. Sometimes people can remember; sometimes they cannot, but at some level they always hear. That’s why I keep telling him how it went and how he’ll be.”

“Tell me again,” I said. It seemed vaguely like an appropriate question for the moment. He didn’t answer, and I got the impression that I hadn’t actually spoken; my words had seemed much closer to me than all of theirs, which were at a great distance. I felt hands; not under me, but on my head, my shoulders, my arms, even one on one foot, full of loving warmth. My spirit drank it in.

“Well, if he heard that, fine—it’ll let him know what he’s in for.”

“Do you know how to check if someone is awake after anaesthetic?” I heard Skorsas say, as if to an apprentice. “Hearing comes back before vision, and often before they can open their eyes. You wrap his hand around yours...” I wondered vaguely which poor anaesthetized wretch he was talking about, while my hand felt a grip I knew: Surya’s. “Then you ask him to give a clench if he can hear you.”

I said, “He doesn’t need to do that, he can see it in my aura.” Or thought I did; it was clearer to me now I had not heard the sound of my own voice, nor felt my lips or tongue move. That was why they weren’t laughing, though I’d thought it was screamingly funny. Despite appearances, I was still a long way away from where I was; there was nothing to do but wait. “Chivinga,” Kaninjer said, “you’re all closed up, inside and out, everything went well, if you lose function it will be little, you’ll be all right.”

“Chevenga.” Later; or was it? I thought I might have dozed, but couldn’t tell. “If you can hear me, grip my hand.” Surya; he was here. A-e kras. “There, he did it that time. Chevenga, come back to this world.” I worked on it. A while, or an instant, later, I heard Skorsas say, “He has his eyes open but he can’t see straight. You can tell by the way he’s squinting and blinking. Another effect of anaesthetic.” I can confirm that, I am an expert, I tried to say, but again heard nothing of my voice. All this wit, gone to waste.

I gradually drew together the wide-flung bits of my senses, and took an account of all the pains and pinches, voices and sounds, touches and smells, recent memories and the taste of blood in my mouth. By a slow and painstaking analysis, I assembled them all into the overall truth of my situation. I was in the Marble Palace infirmary, lying half-sitting and thoroughly Haian-rigged—pure-air mask, vein-needle, tube in my chest, tube in my penis, and probably others—with three of my parents, my three loves, Kaninjer, one of his apprentices keeping his thumb on my wrist-pulse, Surya, Krero and possibly others all around my bed. I’d got here because somehow, in training, Idiesas Firnean’s sword had ended up through my chest—I remembered seeing it there—for reasons that right now I should not think about.

“Chivinga, clench my hand if you heard and understood that you’ll be all right and if you lose any function it will be little,” said Kaninjer. I did. “Good. Now don’t fight, you don’t have to, you’ll come out of it naturally.”

He and Surya talked quietly to each other, a little away from the bed. Surya had seen little of surgery; this was a gem of a learning opportunity for him, and I could be glad for having provided it. Some of his words drifted into clarity. “Of course, it’s my specialty we’ll be asked for. Everyone knows how it happened; what everyone’ll want to know now is why.” He didn’t sound like he didn’t know.

†

By what they told me was early evening, my head was much clearer. Kaninjer gave me the exact anatomy of the wound, and the course of the surgery, which had taken three beads. “You will have a scar that’s much longer than the sword-blade is wide; that’s because I had to cut you much more open to repair inside. Emao-e, Binchera and the ministers will split your obligations, as long as necessary. Krero and Tyirian are handling the writers, who aren’t going to see a hair of you for four days at the very least. Not a speck of work until then, even in bed, and you’re working nowhere but in bed for a few days after that. You understand this is a very severe one, yes? Tell me you do.”

“I understand this is a very severe one,” I rasped through the mask. My throat was scraped; of course they’d put an air-tube down it.

“What’s most important now for your recovering fast is that you stay relaxed and don’t lift or tense your sword-arm”—I signed chalk with my shield-arm—“that you speak quietly and not too much, and if we speak of a subject that gets you too excited, we change it.”

“Such as why this happened,” I said, quietly.

“Exactly that sort of subject.”

“Well. Lovely weather we’re having.”

Surya gave Kaninjer a look that asked, “Is he always like this when he’s wounded?” and Kaninjer returned one that answered a long-suffering “Yes.”

“We have to talk about what happened, for long enough to decide how we’re going to present it, at least,” said Krero. “Everyone knows you had a training accident that everyone who knows anything about fighting knows was impossible. I truth-drugged Idiesas, in front of the writers, so he came clean very publicly that there was no intent. How in the Garden Orbicular do we explain it?”

“We save it until later,” Kaninjer said, the delicate tone getting a touch pointed. “It’s not as if it’s going to go away.”

Idiesas—I flinched, at least mentally, imagining how he must feel. “Where is he?” I rasped. “Is he all right?”

“He’s right outside that door, praying, has been the whole time,” said Krero. “And tearing himself up, ‘If only I’d tried a little harder to pull it, shifted it a little this way, been able to tell something was wrong,’ you know how it is.”

“Kyash—get him in here. Where’s his sword? We should give it back to him if we haven’t already.”

“You aren’t strong enough to take visitors,” Kaninjer said. “You’re barely off the anaesthetic.”

“Get him in here right now—he needs to see me, he needs to hear what I must tell him.” I felt sick with it, enough to stand out stark against everything else I felt. Idiesas was the kind of spear-straight Arkan warrior that can be ruined by something like this. I could easily imagine him saying he wanted to be alone with his thoughts; then we’d find his body hanging from the rafters, or with his short-sword through the heart, and a flawlessly-scribed, formally-worded note about solas honour requiring this and how he loved his wife and children. “I’ll go to him if he doesn’t come to me,” I said, and clutched the side of the bed with my sword-hand, to make the point. Pain shot searing through the muscles that had been cut.

Kaninjer took in a sharp breath. “Anamun… you are so much easier to take care of unconscious, why do I let you wake up? Fine, let him in! If you really want to kill yourself, no mere Haian can stop you.”

I didn’t see Idiesas right away; he’d been lying flat on the floor outside the door, so he crawled in, and I had to track his movements by the eyes of the others looking at him. I’d gotten every Arkan I trained with to quit flinging himself in the dirt before me, until now. “Gehit,” I said. I so wanted to say, “Gods don’t need catheters.”

He’d been tearing at his hair, and I saw eight nailmarks on his square-jawed face, four on each side, something he’d have to take off his gloves to do. His eyes looked like he’d been tortured.

“Two things, Idiesas,” I said. “First of all—I’ll be fine. I have the world’s best healers, and the Haian tells me I’ll heal entire.”

His voice was not much less gravelly than mine. “I heard that, Imperator. But it’s a blessing to see and hear, You Whose Life is the World’s Good Fortune.” He’d been calling me Shefen-kas for three and a half years.

“Second—Idiesas, tell me true. Whose fault was this?”

His blue eyes went white all around; I could tell he’d frozen right down to his toes. “You know the truth of it because you were there, just as I do, because I was, and there is no other explanation,” I said. “So what is it?” Better that I have him say the truth and then confirm it, than just say it myself.

The whole room was silent; no one knew quite what to say, except probably Surya, who knew what I was thinking, as always, but chose to say nothing.

“I know why you can’t speak,” I whispered. “You are afraid I don’t or won’t know the truth, and so it’s not safe to say it. But at the same time you are too honest and strong to do yourself the injustice of the lie.” Something seemed to flash through him. “Idiesas, we are friends. There need be no lies between us. Nor hard feelings. You and I both need to hear you say the truth. Whose fault?”

I thought he might whisper it, but it came out fully voiced. “Yours.”

I hadn’t known quite what I’d feel, when he did say it. My eyes were suddenly full of tears. “Yes,” I said through them. “I admit it, and I am sorry for what I’ve done to you by it, for everything you’ve suffered. When I’m cleared to speak publicly, I’ll acknowledge it and absolve you.”

Now his eyes filled with tears. “You forgive me?”

“No, because forgiveness is only for when someone has done something wrong… You did nothing—it’s as you and I both know, it was my doing. I… I don’t have the nerve to ask you to forgive me, yet.”

Idiesas sat and I lay in silent tears for a moment, and then I felt his gloved hand on my arm. “Shefen-kas… why?”

I looked at Surya, but of course he wouldn’t speak for me. Something he said came back to mind; all my other wounds had been my fault, too. I wanted to close my eyes, and sink into the bed and non-existence. “You more than anyone deserve an answer to that,” I whispered. “When I have one, when I understand it, I give you my word, you’ll be among the first to know.”

He just said, “Thank you.”

The need for something else from him pulled at me. I nerved myself up and asked if he’d do me a favour. “Anything, You Whose—Shefen-kas,” he said. “Even if it kills me.”

“I wouldn’t ask something that would kill you.” Careful of the tubes, I took his sword-hand with my shield-hand, and laid it on the wound. It would have been better if he hadn’t been wearing gloves, but he was Arkan. “Will you send me healing?” Though it was my fault, to my body and his it was still his hand that had run the sword through me. This would be healing for both of us.

“I’m not a healer,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy,” I said, though I didn’t know where the words were coming from. “You are a warrior; you know how you put your intent in your hand. All that is in your heart—the love of those you defend, the proof of your honour, the hatred of injustice, everything you fight for—you put into your hands when you do, yes? This is just the same, except it’s your love for me, your wish to see me whole, your sympathy for my pain, your wish you could undo what’s done, and so on. This is as close as you can get to undoing it. You just make all of that into intent and send it into me through your hand.”

I caught a glance at Surya. For some reason, he was looking at me as I’d never seen him look at me before: amazed. I had no idea why.

“I will do my best,” said Idiesas.

“You know,” said Krero, pursing his lips. “Everyone who saw it says it was your fault, too. They aren’t saying it loudly, but they can’t say anything else. Fourth Chevenga, what was going through your head at that moment?”

“No.” Now Kaninjer’s voice had the tone that allowed no brooking. “This is not the time. Captain Krero, thank you for the honour of your visit, when you must have so much to do elsewhere. The weather has been lovely, hasn’t it, Surya?”

Idiesas’s best, no surprise, was very good; I closed my eyes and next thing I knew I’d gone so loose all over I knew where I’d been tight, and was filled with warmth, coming in through the wound. Peace reached deeper and deeper into my heart, and my thoughts faded. From a distance I heard him say, “Am I doing anything?” and Surya answer, “Yes. Trust me, you’re cutting days off his recovery.” He won’t kill himself now, I thought, and my next thoughts came with sunlight in the morning; I’d fallen asleep and stayed that way all night, solid, though Kaninjer hadn’t thought I would.

The next day was misery, though. Despite everything Kaninjer did, even half-pickling my mind on numbing-juice, pain got its claws into me worse than usual. Much worse than usual, by noon; it began to seize my mind, as if all my being wanted to wrap itself around the wound, make itself nothing but wound. We’d been planning to let Tawaen and Vriah, those of my children who were in Arko and old enough for this, visit me, just the thought of which made me feel better; but I hurt so much I knew it must show on my face, and I didn’t want them to see that. “It’s the oddest thing,” Kaninjer said at one point. “It’s almost as if you’re feeling it not like a warrior, but like a normal person.”

Despite everything, I couldn’t help a smirk; Surya snorted. “There’s what you get for aspiring to become a normal person,” said Kallijas, with a little grin.

“As if it were even possible for you to sink so low,” said Skorsas, down his nose.

“Book me into the House of Dis-integrity,” I whispered. “Normalcy hurts too much.”

“In all seriousness...” Surya stroked sweated hair off my brow, letting me feel a touch of air that was sweet and cool. “It is because of your healing. It used to be that you accepted your wounds as just punishment for all that you meted out. Now, it seems, you don’t any more; that’s why it hurts so. You know, don’t you, what your flesh is trying to tell you?”

I didn’t. Kaninjer’s Haian lilt cut into the silence, with passion that was surprising in him. “I know the answer to that, it’s easy.” He leaned over close, his nose barely a finger-width from mine. “Quit getting them.”




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