86 - The letter from Esora-e

This was the chance I’d been waiting for. I fought soft, light, flowing, water more than rock, and handed them all a drubbing. With each one her eyes seemed to brighten and warm more towards me. Finally she faced me herself. It was like sparring a twenty-years-older and stiffer Esora-e who’d never had benefit of Azaila. Not that she didn’t stretch me at all, for she did, but I got in three kill-touches for her every one.

Now I was the apple of her eye. When we broke for lunch she insisted I sit at her right hand, and for the rest of the day she gave her five best students to me to teach, and we had a wonderful time. After class was done, she invited me up to her own chambers for dinner.

They were narrow and austere, the walls plain stone, not even plastered, nor softened anywhere with cloth or artwork or anything decorative, unless one counts mounted weapons as decoration; each wall had one, precisely centred. The place smelled like a garrison barracks, except less sweaty.

“Rao,” she said, even as she was wasting no time showing me to a chair, and seizing two onions and a knife to start cooking dinner, “how can it be that I don’t know your name?”

“You do,” I said. “I have a confession to make, and I hope you will forgive me now that I give you truth.” She looked up sharply. “My name is not Rao Kyavinara, shadow-grandmother. It is Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e.”

She had been bent over the chopping-board; now she drew herself up spear-straight, and slapped the knife down. Once she’d mastered her amazement, her face seemed to settle, all warmth falling out of it, to leave only an ancient, ice-cold pride.

“Well,” she said softly. “I see now the resemblance to your blood-father. In looks, and in deviousness. I’ll have you know, you are only here because I invited you while under your deception.”

“Then I will leave, if you wish. I was hoping to speak, though.”

“How is it you have such a name for honesty, semanakraseye—by lying only to those you would award a rare honour?”

“Shadow-grandmother, I thought my chances to win your liking were best if I could show you myself as I am, without my name and all its connections entering into it.”

“A polite way of saying you knew I might slam the door in your face if I knew the truth.”

“I judged rightly, it seems.” I stood to go.

“Well... I suppose I should not send off the semanakraseye without dinner.” I offered to help make it, and she thrust the knife and a stalk of fennel at me, and commanded, “One-bite pieces.”

We chopped together, our knife-edges smacking sharply against our chopping-boards. “You are a very fine warrior,” she said after a bit, “one of the greatest if not the greatest... but you know that, all too well. And a fighting commander, out of the ancient mold. Well, all the world knows what you have done and I am sure you hear yourself praised far too much. Did you come just to show off, or for some other purpose?”

“Call me Chevenga,” I said. “We are family. I came to meet you.”

She turned away to light the fire, wordlessly, and I went on chopping fennel.

I said, “I know that if Esora-e had known I was going to be here, he’d send his regards.”

She did not answer.

“He doesn’t know, though.”

Silence yawned, but for my knife chopping and the first crackling of the kindling.

“He has not forgotten you. How can he?”

She blew on the fire, patiently.

“So is the weather always so lovely here?”

“If you are looking to broker a reconciliation, semanakraseye... I should let you know, I am not one you can manipulate.”

“Chevenga, please, shadow-grandmother. No reconciliation can possibly happen without your freely choosing it, of course.”

“I suppose I should be slaveringly grateful that you so honour me by allowing me to call you by name.”

“No, it’s just wrong to let kin call me by title.”

“Give me that fennel.” The water was far from boiling, but I handed her the board with the cut chunks. “Now the parsnips, one-bite pieces.”

“Yes, shadow-grandmother,” I said, swallowing the urge to snap out A-e kras.

We cooked in silence for a time. I said, “He wonders about you.”

“Tell me about your training,” she said.

“From the start? My first war-teacher was Esora-e.”

“Is it true that in your teens they’d make you spar on a beam while mock-leading a battle?”

“Yes, often with Esora-e as my sparring-opponent.”

“Your months away, you must have had some of a military nature.”

“Yes; Esora-e was instrumental in getting me to the one where I was blooded because the Lakans raided, and he was ecstatic to see me get my wristlets.”

“Tell me about studying war under Azaila Shae-Chila.”

I wondered if we would have wine with dinner; perhaps I could get her drunk by topping up her cup while she wasn’t looking, and some humanity might creep into her that way.

No such luck; she poured no wine. I told her about training with Azaila as we ate, and then we swapped war-stories. That loosened and warmed her, not unlike wine; being back on the battlefield, it seemed, with a listener who was all appreciation, was the one thing that would bring a sparkle to those eyes. We even shared a little laughter.

I was talking about the surrender of the Lakans in Nikyana, and being in the thumbing crew, when something came to me that she’d have to answer. “Did you know Esora-e was thumbed by Lakans?”

“Yes, I knew.”

And didn’t even send a letter... Still, she knew; that meant she was following news of him to some extent. She steered the subject away from him again. It would be like this all night, I saw, unless I took the bull by the horns.

“Shadow-grandmother, is there no wish in your heart at all, to see your only child before you die?”

Her eyes fixed me, as if I’d drawn sword against her. A drawn sword would have been less chilling.

“You may be who you are, but you still may not judge me.”

“I am not judging. I am asking.”

“You cannot know my pain.”

I was too startled to have an answer for that. She stood up suddenly, turning to me her spear-straight back. “I must be up very early, bed calls. You sleep there.” She thrust her hand at a door that was opposite to her own. “Take this lamp in there if you wish, otherwise, blow it out. Good night, semanakraseye.”

“Chevenga, shadow-grandma.”

“Good night.” She closed her door firmly.

It was far too early to sleep. I saw lamplight come on through the crack under her door; she meant to read, or write. I took the lamp she’d assigned me into the room.

On the centre of one wall where there should be a weapon, there was an empty hook. On the others, prizes: sword-forms, unsword, breaker of hearts, wrestling—all inscribed with Esora-e’s name. This had been his room; it was as if it still were. The wardrobe and the drawers still held the clothes of a youth. In thirty-odd years, she had dusted the room, but otherwise not touched it.

On the dresser stood a chest, which I opened. It was full of papers, all carefully dated and ordered by date: announcements with his name in them, scribed accounts of his deeds, and more recently, clippings from the Pages and spawn-press publications with mentions of his name. It was a full record, in writing, of his entire life, up to the present.

On the desk—which still held his school notebooks and waxboards, neatly placed—lay a letter, in a young version of his hand. The date on it was Y. 1523, four years before my birth. The ink-jar had only a cracked shrunken black cylinder and stains on the insides of its sides, entirely dry, but the pen still lay beside it.

Mother & Teacher:

I am sorry for what pain I cause you now, if any, as I am sorry for all the pain I have ever caused you. I am sorry I have not been a better son; perhaps some day you will have another who will make you happier and more proud. With me gone, you’ll be more easily able to forget all my failures, at any rate.

I am leaving you for the only reason I ever would: love. You are wrong about Denaina, Tennunga and Karani, though I won’t argue it, because I know you’ll never listen; I don’t want to trouble you. My life will be with them now, and I know it will be good. I will be helping raise the next semanakraseye of Yeola-e. I hope in your heart you will be happy for me, though I know you will show it to no one.

I will miss you. I hope you will forgive me. I will write as soon as I get to Vae Arahi. I love you.

Your son who was ever unworthy,
Esora-e

†

I wept.

I was sure, and I still am, that I was the first person to sleep on his bed since he had.




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