87 - How this is done

No surprise, I didn’t sleep well. At the death-hour, after lying for long enough to know my mind was too alert and full of thoughts to let sleep take me again soon, I got up, lit the lamp and fingered through the papers in the chest again. At the bottom were many pages, in his hand, each starting with “Dear Papa.” Letters that had never been sent? No, a journal, I saw when I read the line on the bottom-most page, “I don’t have anyone else to talk to, and I have to talk to someone, so I’ll pretend that you want me but somehow can’t be here, and I’m writing you a letter.”

I should not read it; it was his private business. But, trying not to read, my eyes caught on the words “Aicheresal’s daughter.” After a few lines more, I decided this page was entirely my business. Having eventually got Esora-e’s permission, I copy it in its entirety.


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Dear Papa:

Today Tennunga asked me about what people do for fun around here and I had to be honest: not much. Of course I don’t have much time to hang around with other kids, and I’m usually too tired anyway. I told him that the tavern was where most people went, and to the river to swim, this time of year.

He talked me into coming along with him, saying he’d buy me a soft cider. Ma doesn’t want me in the tavern. She says it is not a place for a warrior. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll drive me to drink.

I’ve only been once or twice, so I can’t lead him in with casual ease as I should be able to. A bunch of war-students I know are at the tables outside under the lindens. “Hey, Esora-e, does your mama know you’re out this late? Ha ha ha ha! Hello, Tennunga.”

“Eat kyash, Larao.” We sit at his table.

Tennunga orders a beer for himself, then says, in that almost-formal way of speaking, that his Vae-Arahi accent makes even more so, “It doesn’t seem fair that you should have cider when I’m drinking beer right beside you. Another one, please, sibling server.”

“Tennunga!” I feel a bit of a sweat break out. “If she smells it on me...”

“We’ll go swimming afterward.”

“But on my clothes...”

“What, you’re planning to spill some on them?”

The server comes and puts it on the table and it’s sitting in front of me, in a big mountain-ice chilled cup, bubbling and brown.

“If she does catch you, tell her the Ascendant bought it for you, you couldn’t refuse and be impolite.” Papa, he is so warm, he’s like sunlight to be around.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“What’s she going to do, comb me?”

“Be hard on you in training.”

“If she gets too hard, I’ll walk out, and train by myself the rest of the month.”

He is so free-minded, Papa. No one can shit on him. When he’s semanakraseye and dealing with foreigners, that’s the spirit he will take with him, so Yeola-e will do well.

I only ended up drinking half of it, tell the truth, because I felt so much just from the half that we both decided it was a good idea.

He downed the rest.

He happens to be looking out towards the street when the Aicheresal’s daughter who’s our age goes by, with her little brother and two of his friends.

He grabs my arm. “There’s that woman!”

“What woman?”

“Her! I was going to ask you about her. I never caught her name, your mama didn’t pair us. She’s so... Who is she?”

“Karani?”

“I just said I never caught her name! The woman who just went by, who’s in our war-class.”

Karani, a woman? When I think about it, she has had breasts for a while. Of course this is the first he’s ever seen of her, at this age, not in diapers like I did, when I was in diapers.

“Karani Aicheresa… dark hair, big dark eyes that look right into you?”

“Yes! Oh, yes... I wonder where she’s going.”

“Knowing her, probably swimming.”

“What do you know about her?”

I suddenly get it. The anaraseye of Yeola-e, the coolest, most smooth-spoken, most sword-through-the-heart confident person I have ever met, is helplessly besotted by a Chavinel girl.

“What do I know about her? I don’t know, she’s just Karani. She can whip me unarmed. She doesn’t say much, but always does when it counts, know what I mean? She’s nice, and very quick. Kind of serious. Never puts a foot wrong.”

“Just Karani! She isn’t just Karani! She’s... Is she, um, with anyone?”

Inside I’m laughing my head off, Papa. Despite that elegant accent and flawless erudition, his head can be lead by that other part, just like any of us.

“Not right now.” I can’t resist a little torment. “There’s a few after her, though.”

“Blessed All-Spirit,” he says. “All of a sudden I’m so hot, a swim would be just the thing. We have to make sure we get the beer-smell off you anyway.”

“You’re hot, all right. I doubt the river’s cold enough to ease that.”

“Esora-e, look at her—she’s gorgeous! I’ve never seen a woman so beautiful in my life!”

I’ve never seen such a goofy look on a future dignitary’s face.

“So I guess you want to get naked with her, and then wet.”

He is one of these fair-haired people who blushes easily, I find out, and when they do it really stands out against their bright hair. He goes red down beyond his shirt-collar. “Well! She’s... I mean… All-Spirit… yes, of course I do.”

“Am I invited to the wedding?”

“Esora-e Mangu, stuff a used loincloth in your gob. I don’t even know her.” His eyes gaze at the road as if he’s searching for traces of her footprints in the dust. “Yet.”

When I’ve had half my cup and I’m reeling, and he’s had one and a half and is barely showing it, we run back to the Shae-Rekarel’s for towels—we can’t risk going back into the School in case Mama won’t let me out again—and then to the river. He’s praying all the way that Karani wasn’t just going for a short dip and is gone already. The sun is low enough to be golden now, making the waterfall and the rocks and the bodies of the people basking on the rocks golden too. She’s still there.

Of course he can’t go straight like an arrow toward her. We have to make it look good. He’s in and out in a flash, barely getting his butt wet. But he wants me to stick with him, so he has to wait while I float around a little. He comes back in, pinches me under the water, and we go.

Karani is lying on a towel by the side of the water, the triangle of hair between her legs thick and black. The little boys are in the water.

“Let me show you how this is done,” Tennunga whispers in my ear as we approach her. “Greetings, I, ah, er, that is to say...” His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.

I swallow my laughter and say, “Hi, Karani.” She sits up and smiles. “Hi, Esora-e, how are you?”

“Fine. I don’t think in class you had a chance to meet our anaraseye. Seventh Tennunga Shae-Arano-e, meet Karani Aicheresa; Karani, Tennunga.”

“Tennunga.” She holds her hands out. He kneels to take them, looks like he’s going to fall over. “I was very impressed with what I saw of your fighting in class.”

“Likewise,” he says. “Karani.” He wants to say more, but can’t. I can see him trying not to blush.

“You’re both impressive,” I say. “I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when Mama puts you against each other. Sparks will fly, I am sure.” Papa, I’ve only known him two days but it’s like we’ve been friends forever. For instance, right then I could tell he was thinking, ‘I’d kick you, you kyash-eater, except she’d see. Just wait till later.’

“I would like that,” says Karani. “I was hoping. Well, maybe tomorrow.”

“If she doesn’t pair us,” he says, “we could always, you know, on our own, um, initiative, spar after class… right?” I can feel him think, ‘Kyash—she’s going to think I’m a complete stumblebum.’

“We could,” she says.

I don’t know where it came from, Papa. It must’ve been the beer. “You could spar now, unarmed,” I said. “Why not?”

‘I am going to kill you later,’ Tennunga’s thinking.

Karani gives me a look from under her dark brows. I’m not acting the way I usually do. This is craziness for me, wildness, being so much more free than I’m used to. It must be the beer.

“Well,” she says, looking at him, “why not?”

They rise to their feet and I sit back looking at them both. Papa, the two of them are the most beautiful beings I’ve ever seen, standing on the flat rock over the river with the waterfall behind them, muscles rippling as they go into stance. I can hear everyone else laughing and splashing in the water, and suddenly it feels as if the falls are the entire world, nothing else existing but this beauty, this happiness. I want it never to end.

“What should the stakes be?” he says, with that shining smile.

She smiles back. “Loser gets tossed in the water?”

His laugh draws hers. He signs to me as if we’ve done this hundreds of times, and I call it.

I usually try not to look at women. Ma doesn’t approve of me taking time away from my training mooning after them, as she puts it. But I’ve had a few turn my insides to water, so I know how it is for Tennunga. Karani is beautiful, when you look at her that way. Her darkness and his brightness fit together, like rya and kya.

They go at it for a while, their strike-yells sounding bell-clear through the summer air, and I see the harmony grow between them. Kids gather around to watch. A flurry of strikes and blocks, and he somehow gets her up off the ground, both of them giggling like little kids, then he takes two steps toward the water and tries to fling her in, but she’s clinging around his head so he can’t let her go, and the rest of us all roar with laughter. He tries to pry her loose, she throws some of her weight towards the edge and they topple in together with a huge splash that soaks me and all our towels.

He comes up first, then goes under with a yelp as she snags him from below; then it’s a ducking and splashing battle. When both are finally tired they crawl out onto the rock and collapse, side-by-side, lungs heaving with giggles.

“Well,” says Karani after they’ve caught their breath. “I never thought the anaraseye of Yeola-e would permit me to get so close to him so fast. How do I deserve such honour?”

“Oh, well.” Tennunga looks at his feet. “Nothing. I mean... not nothing, I just... it’s all Esora-e’s fault. He suggested we spar.”

I say, “Well, but he—”

“I was interested in talking to you,” Tennunga cuts me off to say. “I still am. Perhaps you are free sometime?”

“Well… yes. That would be very pleasing to me.” Am I imagining it, or is Karani suddenly a little nervous, after all this, and that’s why she’s suddenly gone a bit formal?

“You know, you two may have had a proper swim,” I say, “but I haven’t. I want to go in again, but work my arms hard. I’ll be back in a while.” I dive in and swim far away. It’s what a good friend does, right, Papa?

--

My father, tripping over his tongue when he first spoke to my mother? My mother asking how did she deserve such honour? The two of them trying to throw each other in the lake like kids—because they were? I laughed the amazed giggle a child always does to learn such things. If Krasila heard it through the two doors, she never let me know.

I wanted to read it all, of course. Somehow, I decided, I’d get these papers back to Esora-e so I’d be able to ask permission. I knew the story of how my blood-parents missed each other so badly after the month-away was done and he went home, that they’d written long letters, every day, and decided to marry within the half-year. She’d long ago made a pact with her best friend, Denaina, that they’d marry together; Denaina had long had her eyes, though it often seemed futile, on the shy dark downtrodden youth who had the armour-hearted but best-known war-teacher in town for a mother.




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