98 - The all-out assault executed

It was a fair flight to Chavinel, with a delay, but only a day’s. By the time we had my escort and flyers all roomed up in an inn in town, and the wings all folded and stored, it was close to sunset, the time Krasila would free the last class and go upstairs to start dinner. The perfect time. I knocked on her iron-strengthened door, as per the plan.

“Fourth Che—” She froze, as if every joint had fused steel-hard at once, when she saw it was not just me, and her eyes told her the other two were who her mind could not believe.

“Krasila, my former wife,” said Tyirya, with perfect smoothness. “I just wanted to say to you what I should have said years ago. I’m terribly, terribly sorry.”

“Shadow-grandma, good to see you again!” I said, throwing my arms wide.

“M… m… ma…. I… visit… just once… me… you… die…” Esora-e croaked.

Krasila’s hard old face stayed boot-leather, but her eyes looked as if she were seeing ghosts. I saw her try to armour the feeling by swallowing hard, but one hand crept up over her mouth anyway.

“Tyiri… damn you… is that…” She was staring at her son, who stared equally frozen back at her, the hawkish lines of face they shared reflecting each other.

“Mama,” he whispered.

She shrank back into the door slightly, probably the only time in her entire life she’d ever beat even a hint of retreat.

“For the love of All-Spirit, shadow-grandma, don’t leave us standing out here on the street.” She snapped her hand toward herself, beckoning us in, with something of her usual whip-crack motion, but too jerky. “Thank you,” I said. “You were running a severe risk of me hugging you publicly, there.”

When we were inside, I held out my arms. It was like watching a rock-face crumble; unmoving except for the faintest trembling, she stood with tears growing, glistening, in her eyes. This had not been in our deviously-laid plan; one can make them forgetting the tides of the human heart, if one has some fear of them. At least it was simple to know what to do.

I stepped closer, in the most cautious, tender way I had in me. She didn’t back away or stiffen worse than she already had, so I closed my arms around her, with the greatest gentleness, like a healer handling someone badly wounded. It was as if she needed to be held together, or shatter into shards. Behind me I heard a choked sob from Esora-e.

In time, she took a deep breath and seized herself, patting me on the shoulder, like a wrestler giving the tap that requests release from an inescapable hold. “I should have known. I should have seen this coming.” Her eyes pierced me. “You… sit. Esora-e, there’s water in the kitchen for us to get cleaned up. Tyiri, you said you needed to tell me something?”

I will admire my shadow-father always for what he did then. “I’ll get the water in a kyashin moment, mama. It’s been years.” He strode over to her and grabbed her in a hug.

“I know where the water is,” I said, but kept my ears pealed as I slipped out to the cistern.

“Young man, that is no way to speak to your mother,” she said, utterly without force.

“How’s this then: I love you.” Like the most brilliant of champions, he was doing far better than the plan.

“I... I thought… you had left forever. You’ve gotten so big…” It was like a foreign language to me, to hear words spoken to him that were the kind said to a child. “I have no time for this nonsense of the heart… that’s enough.” It was still utterly without force. He was still holding her when I came back with a filled basin. I put it down and wrapped my arms around both of them, and my shadow-grandfather piled on, throwing his around all of us so we were a four-person knot.

Krasila took in a sharp breath, again seizing control, and shook us off. “More than enough. And you…” She peered at Tyirya. “You came along to help keep me off balance, hmm?”

“Of course,” he said, with his sweetest harbour-merchant grin.

“Only the devious spawn of Tennunga could have cooked this up,” she said, looking darkly under her eyebrows at me, precisely as Esora-e did. I grinned my non-denial. “Well, I was just starting dinner. Since I was not expecting the lot of you, you can just go down to the market and make up the lack.”

“Just tell us what you want, shadow-grandma,” I said.

“I’ll be the procurer,” said Tyirya. “Esora-e should stay here, and if Chevenga went, we’d have to take his whole escort.”

She gave him her list: chicken, mangoes, parsnips to make Chavinel-style, which Esora-e hadn’t had for years, and I had heard him speak of fondly, but never tasted myself. She hadn’t cooked them for a long time either, so they had to put their heads together to remember the recipe, a joy to see.

“I have enough of everything else,” she said curtly. “If the three of you insist on something else other than water or juice to drink, get it.”

“Wine,” said my shadow-grandfather. “Got it.”

“No one could cook parsnips Chavinel like you, mama,” said Esora-e, mistily. She fixed him with a glare to peel off the skin, thinking, I gathered, that he was flattering her; he froze like a rabbit before a snake. “So, shadow-grandma, how’s your health holding up?” I asked affably and quickly.

“Lots of wine,” said Esora-e. Tyirya signed a firm chalk and was gone fast.

“Well enough, semanakra… shadow-grandson. Well enough.”

“That’s good to hear. How are the students?”

“As well as can be expected.” She drew us into the kitchen, and we started preparing what she already had. “Some of them are cultivating sloppy habits... you know how it goes. I assume you wish to spar again tomorrow? Still with wood?”

I lit up my face with a smile. “You’re inviting us to stay over? Thank you, shadow-grandma, I am honoured! Yes, I’d love to, and yes, still with wood. But Esora-e and Tyirya can do it with steel, and Tyirya makes a better account of himself than I think you’d expect.”

Of course the three of us had sparred, once we’d recovered from our hangovers and me from the Committee, shortly after I’d brought Tyirya to Vae Arahi. I remember how it went. “I’m not that good, really, especially since I ruined my knees,” Tyirya had said. “I’m not as good as I was before I lost my thumb to the Lakans,” Esora-e had answered. “I’m so crazy I’m not allowed to spar with anything but wood,” I’d said. “A fine threesome of cripples we are; we’ll have a great time.” We had.

“I do know about your continued training, son,” Krasila said. “The darya semanakraseyeni should be giving you enough to do.”

“Oh yes, and teaching,” he answered.

“I have the two beds and the couch,” she said brusquely, to let us know that the topic was hers to rule, by changes when she felt like making them. “I believe it would be correct if my son takes his old room. You shall have mine, Chevenga; Tyirya will be able to make do on the parlour couch.”

“His old room, fair enough,” I said, “but I can’t take yours! If it’s anyone you should give it to, it’s Tyirya, in respect of his age. I can probably sleep more comfortably on the couch than anyone else.”

She blinked. She was so unused to not having her orders unquestioningly followed, to not being able to slight people unanswered. “If you insist, semana, em, Chevenga.”

“If he gets as much wine as he should, we might all end up sleeping on the floor,” said Esora-e, with an unmistakable tinge of hope.

“I’m comfortable there, too,” I said, making him snort. Krasila sniffed, but we all went on chopping vegetables, working together like family, which was warming to my heart. Tyirya came back shortly with several flasks, and poured for us as we were still preparing. “One cup only for me!” Krasila said strictly. “No more.”

“I bet she’s a very cheap drunk,” I whispered to Esora-e when she’d stepped away for a bit. He shushed me with a hiss. It occurred to me, once we were all happily full of chicken and parsnips, and settling down around in the parlour with a cup of wine each in our hands, that Esora-e, Tyirya and I had diverged from our plan. All three of us, apparently, had forgotten about Esora-e’s papers.

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