An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

Chapter Three

  “Marry Tetsung,” Errena told her the next day, the moment she made the mistake of mentioning her problem. “He seems like he's got some things going on for him and he’s not a bad looker. He can afford to feed you, in any case.”

  “What?” Sume exclaimed, nearly dropping the lid from the boiling rice. “Where in Sakku's name did you get that idea?”

  “From the fact that he is so obviously smitten with you?” Errena coughed. “Oh, sure, he's got the sort of nose you'll find yourself cursed with generations down the road, but let's not fool ourselves, Sume. None of us are getting any younger. Do you really want to turn out like me?”

  Sume paused in her stirring. “Well, if you put it that way...” And then she sighed. “Let's say he's interested. I don't think Hana would approve.”

  “That doesn't matter. She's not a blood relative, is she? Your parents are gone. You don't need anyone's permission but your own.” Errena pointed a tomato at her. “You're doing this for her sake, anyway. So I don't see why she wouldn't give you all her blessings, even if they were hers to give.”

  Sume shrugged. “She'll accuse me of abandoning her. She did, you know, when I told her I wanted to work here. She said she didn't expect to see me again, just like Oji.”

  Errena clicked her tongue. “Goodness. Doesn't she have family?”

  “Apart from me and Dai?” Sume tried to think. She'd known Hana most of her life—they'd all grown up on that same street, with the cherry trees and the flocks of sparrows every night. She remembered her going home to an old woman who coughed a lot and died before her own mother did. “I think there's a couple of aunts somewhere in Shirrokaru,” she said at length. “They don't write to her, though.”

  “For Sakku's sake, Sume, now you've gone and made me all depressed,” Errena groaned. She glanced through the kitchen window and broke out into a grin. “Well, look who's got ears up the grapevine. Tetsung, our strapping young man! Come in, come in. Take a sit. We've got banana spring rolls and brown sugar cakes. Pick your poison.”

  Tetsung didn't look amused, which was unlike him. He came in without even glancing at Errena and went straight to Sume. “Here,” he said, pressing a bag of coin into her hand.

  Sume glanced down. “What's this for?”

  “It's all I have right now. Maybe you've got a bit stashed somewhere?” He looked very pale.

  “I don't understand,” Sume said. “Did something happen?”

  “I don't know. I think you should hear this alone.” He made an awkward sort of nod towards Errena's direction.

  “She's fine,” Sume snapped. “Stop dawdling. What's wrong?”

  “It's Dai,” he said. He hesitated for a moment. “He's up in that blasted ship right now. That Kag ship. They caught him stealing. I was at my stall and I saw them dragging him up there. I tried to talk to them but they won't listen to me, those cursed Kags, won't let him go free. I grabbed this and came straight here. We'll need to give them something.”

  She fought that increasingly familiar surge of panic and took the coin purse. “Okay,” she said. Someone was probably mistaken—Tetsung, or the men on that ship, or someone. Dai wouldn't steal. Dai knew stealing was wrong. She looked at Errena first, and then at the pot of rice still boiling merrily away. And then she left the kitchen, walking up the stairs and into the common room where the women slept. The little bit of coin she'd managed to save up was under her bed. She took that, counted it to make sure, and returned downstairs.

  Seagulls and screaming fish-vendors more than made up for their silence during that long walk to the docks. Only when the dark figure of the merchant-ship appeared on the horizon did Tetsung finally clear his throat. “They've posted guards,” he said, sounding surprised. “Dear Sakku in the sea, I can see blades on them. He's only a boy—dear Sakku, he's only a boy. What is wrong with these people?”

  “Listen to yourself,” she murmured. “That's not helping us at all, is it? Maybe you should stay here. I don't want you beside me up there.”

  He looked hurt. “Why not?”

  She placed her hand on his elbow. “Please. Just stay here.” His anxiety made her aware of hers, made her nauseous. She didn't say that, though, and smiled up at him instead.

  He mistook that for something else and conceded. Biting her lip, she strode up to the armed men blocking the ramp up the ship. “The boy's my nephew,” she said in her best Kagtar, standing as straight as possible. “I want a word with your master.”

  “Turn back,” one of the men advised. “It won't be pretty.”

  She glanced across the deck of the ship and then back. “Where's the city guard?” she asked. “You'll need them so he'll be tried fairly, won't you?”

  The man laughed. “Oh, we'll treat him fairly—for a petty thief caught red-handed.”

  “This far south, girl, you'll be lucky to get a glimpse of a city guard,” another man said, arms crossed. “Didn't they teach you that? We might as well be in Kago, girl. The only law is the law of the blade. Of sorts.” He gave her a smile that was a little too wide.

  She didn't give him the satisfaction of responding and turned, instead, to the other, younger man. “Where are you keeping him?”

  “Below deck. There's no point going to him, girl, they won't let you. The master's right pissed and he can't wait till we're out at sea so he can chop...”

  “Ranias!” the other man cried out.

  “I see,” Sume said. “So you do respect other laws.”

  “We just don't want trouble, girl,” Ranias muttered.

  “You'll get it if you don't let me talk to your master,” she said. “The priestesses of Sakku won't take kindly to this. Unless you plan to sail within the hour, I can get them to swarm in here and cast curses on your rudder and your sails.”

  The older man snorted. Ranias, however, looked nervous. “Hey,” he said, glancing behind him. “It won't hurt, I guess? The master might want to see her? Maybe he doesn't really want to chop a boy's hands off. You know.”

  “I've seen him do worse,” his companion said.

  “But—” Ranias scratched the side of his chin. “Hey, okay. He didn't say don't let anyone come up here. So—he might chop our hands off, for not letting her. You understand?”

  The man frowned and seemed to think about it for a moment. “Wait here,” he finally said. He went below deck and was gone for some time. Sume found cold sweat beading over her nose and her forehead. She couldn't muster up the courage to wipe them off.

  The man finally returned. He didn't say anything, only nodded, and Ranias folded his hands to his side and led her down to a small door to the left. He knocked once. The door swung open after a moment and Sume stepped in. Ylir was across the other side of the room behind a small desk, his head bent over parchment. He didn't even look like he'd gotten up to let her in.

  “Leave us,” he told his man. And then, to her, “Sit.”

  There was no other chair, only a narrow bed on one side of the room. She declined and remained standing. “I'd like you to release my nephew,” she said. “What has he done and how much will you need?”

  The merchant Ylir was silent for some time while he scribbled on the parchment and made clicking noises with his tongue. Finally, he seemed to remember her and looked up. Faint amusement stirred at the corner of his lips. “Your boy,” he said. “Tried to make off with a very valuable golden ring. Unfortunately, during our attempt at capturing him, it slid off his grasp and sank into the depths of this filthy sea. I don't care to risk my men diving about in the dark, so I must presume it lost forevermore.”

  Sume drew a deep breath. “How much?” she asked.

  He cocked his head at her. “Weren't you listening? It was a golden ring. Inlaid with gemstones. Your err, purse there, can't possibly hold enough. Also,” he added, holding his finger up to stop her in the middle of opening her mouth. “Even if you did have the money to pay it back, it is, unfortunately, priceless. A dear woman-friend gifted it to me, you understand. E
ven now, I dread her derision at my admitting I had lost it under such ridiculous circumstances.”

  “Ridiculous?” she blurted out. “You talk as if this is all a joke! Your men out there said you plan to chop his hands off! No item is worth that!”

  “You say that so easily,” he said. “But then, I can't possibly expect you to understand the subtleties of captaining a ship.”

  “My father owned ships,” she said. “He never stooped to such uncivilized acts.”

  “Your father? Ah. That explains the Kagtar. You speak it well. Where is he now? Why is he not championing his thieving grandson, instead of a girl barely past childhood?” He smiled now, noting her anger, even though she tried hard to contain it. “Listen, Sume. I doubt your father runs a business as successful as mine. And I doubt he is as unfortunate as I am, in regards to the sort of men under his employ. If word comes out that I let a snip of a boy steal from me without so much as a slap to his backside, what do you think will happen? I'd be gagged, robbed, and I won’t mention the list of other unsavoury things that can happen to me before the week is over.”

  “The priestesses...” she began.

  “Will do nothing,” he finished. “I have paid a very generous tribute to that blasted temple when we arrived and I'll be damned before I let them dictate what I do.”

  The cold finality in his tone threatened to break her. She leaned across the desk, trying to get him to look at her, because he wasn't, really; apart from his words, he didn't look like he was taking the conversation seriously at all. “I don't understand,” she said. “Why even bother saving him then?”

  Ylir shrugged. “I didn't know he would repay me by trying to steal from me.”

  “So that kindness—that was just an act?”

  “Sume,” he said, and now he did look into her, and it seemed as if his eyes were almost yellow in the light. “Wasn't it your prophet who said, sympathy is for the weak? Now go. I have many, many things to do. You will be allowed to say good-bye before you are escorted out of my ship. Let your boy explain to you what he has done and why he must now be punished for it. Ranias?”

  Ranias appeared, pushing the tiny door open. She didn't move when he called her, so he grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hall. “I'm sorry,” he said as they walked, his fingers digging into her skin. “You seem like a nice enough girl. Should've beat your boy harder. Not that it would help him any now.” He led her out to the deck and then pointed her to an open hatch. “He's down in the hold. Look, most of the men are out getting drunk or something. Well, take your time, okay? Aden!” he called down. “Let her see the boy! Sir Ylir's orders!”

  Sume clambered down the ladder and was greeted by a man holding a lantern close to his face. He was fair-skinned, with the same, mixed features as Ranias and Burg. “Oh, damn,” he said, looking at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  The man, Aden, drew a deep breath. “Nothing. I just thought I saw a ghost. You Jins all look alike.”

  She ignored him and went straight to Dai. He was kneeling a few feet away, hands bound. He must've heard her coming, but he didn't look up. She might've said something if he had. Instead, she lifted her hand and struck him, hard, across the cheek.

  He started to cry, then. She didn't. She stood there with her lips sealed as he blubbered an explanation. The ring, he said, he'd seen on the table when they'd brought him in after he nearly drowned. It didn't look like anyone wanted it. They needed the money. This man, he was rich, wasn't he? He wouldn't miss it. So he'd returned to the ship to take a look, to talk to the man, to thank him for what he'd done the other day, and when his back was turned, he'd reached out and carefully stuffed the ring in his pocket. It would've worked, too, only it slipped out of his grasp, and then he had to run after it, and then...

  She slapped him again. “Dai,” she said at last, controlling her own surge of emotions. “We are not a family of thieves. We are poor, Dai, but we work for what we have. I thought you knew that.”

  “I know—” he said, his voice assuming a different timbre. “—that my father killed for coin.”

  “Whatever Oji did with his life is between him and the gods,” she said. “I thought I taught you better than this.”

  Dai struggled to respond to that, but she suddenly didn't want to hear anything else he had to say. She noticed Aden following her. “I can't help but overhear,” he said, touching her shoulder. “You mentioned an Oji? I couldn't quite understand, maybe it's a common word to your people.”

  “Yes, I did,” she murmured. “My brother. The boy's father.”

  “Ah,” he said, brightly. “Now it makes sense.”

  Sume frowned. He straightened his long hair and grinned, as if having just heard a great joke that only he could understand. “You see, I've been sitting there with that child all afternoon wondering why on earth he looked so familiar, and then you came along, and I figured it's either just too dark or I'm really not used to your kind of wine in these parts. Anyway, it seems to me that your boy's father, your brother, and my old friend, were one and the same.”

  “You know Oji?”

  “Knew.” The smile on Aden’s face disappeared. “You don’t know. Ah, Agartes, I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

  “So he is dead.” She fought that flicker in her heart, the way she had been fighting it for the better part of the last few years. There was no time to mourn now; there had never been. Their father was recently dead too, and in the light of that, news of Oji’s passing seemed almost inconsequential.

  “I wasn’t there. I heard that there was an accident while he was working. Didn’t the faction send a letter? They should have.” Aden scratched the side of his face.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she mumbled. “So you knew him. I’m sorry I couldn’t have met you under better circumstances.”

  He tipped his head forward. “I'm not trying to make light of your pain, my dear. Sir Ylir can be quite demonstrative.” He pressed his hands together. “I'm still quite amazed. I didn't know Oji had a son.”

  “He never said?”

  “I assume he left before the boy was born. Didn't he know...?”

  Sume snorted. “Oh, he knew. We told him. Letters. He wrote to him, occasionally.” She pursed her lips. “Ke-if...Kefier didn't look like he knew, either.”

  Aden looked surprised. “You met Kefier?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t know what to say about that,” Aden admitted. “We were told that Oji’s death was in his hands. That he murdered him for the last of his pay. He killed off others in the faction, too, when they tried to stop him, including an officer. He’s lucky I’ve been stuck in Ni’in Port all this time or I’d…” He snorted. “That he found you couldn’t have been a coincidence. Last I heard, Gaven, another officer, had caught him in Jin-Sayeng and taken him to the dungeons. You’re lucky he didn’t try to hurt you.”

  “He didn’t look like he wanted to.” There was another pain in that thought, one she wasn't quite sure of. She really wasn't sure of anything right now. She felt overwhelmed as she glanced through the window and at the stars faintly showing through the grey. She wondered if she could find that ring, if she dove over the side of the ship right now. The water would be cold but she didn't think it would kill her, and she was a pretty good swimmer, by all accounts.

  “I have a suggestion,” Aden said beside her. She glanced up, startled, having almost forgotten he was there. “Sir Ylir is a shrewd businessman. Have you offered him a trade to get the boy out of here?”

  “He wouldn't take coin,” she said. “Said I didn't have enough.”

  “Understandable,” he said, nodding. “Might I suggest you offer yourself instead?”

  She coloured. “What kind of a suggestion is that?”

  “One that makes sense from where I'm standing,” Aden replied. “Suk—”

  “Sume.”

  “Yes, that. I really doubt Sir Ylir, may flowers bloom from his backside all his glorious
days…” He suppressed a snigger. “I doubt he really wants to do whatever he said he'd do to the lad. He doesn't have a choice, though. The men are watching and it won’t do him good to show weakness before we head out to weeks in the open sea. You need to give him a reason not to do what he's promised the men, to show how he deals with that sort of thing. So, trade yourself. You're young. Pretty enough. After we stop at Bara for supplies, it'll be about three weeks at sea with no one else but each other to even look at, and if the rumours about his lordship is true, then he'll appreciate the company. So to speak. And this sort of thing the men will understand and approve of.”

  “You're telling me to sell myself as his—as his whore?” She resisted slapping him; her hand still hurt from slapping Dai and he was way too tall for her to reach easily.

  Aden scratched his head. “You're over-thinking it. That's hardly the word to use.”

  “What else would you call it?” she bristled.

  Aden shrugged. “Personal assistant? A way for your boy to keep his hands, and possibly his life? It's not like he'll be rubbing coin all over your breasts while keeping one eye out for the hour. Don't look so scandalized, my dear. Look at where you live. I'm sure you've heard worse things.” He rubbed a thumb over his nose. “We're not leaving for at least a couple more days and Ylir has no plans to infuriate people by doing anything to the boy while we're docked here. I'll take care of him. Go home and think about it. Sleep on it.”

  “I'm going to get enough money to pay him back,” she said.

  Aden nodded. “You do that. But think about what I said, too.” He escorted her down the ramp. At the edge, she hesitated, looking back up.

  “Will you feed him tonight?” she asked. “Make sure he's warm?”

  “His father was my friend,” Aden replied, looking sombre for a moment. “What do you think I am, a monster?”

  Tetsung had waited for her by the wharf. He started to ask how things were before he fell silent. She placed a hand on his arm and he flushed.

  They walked like that until the end of the street. “What now?” he finally asked, standing in the darkness. Sume couldn't see his face. On impulse, she got up to her toes and kissed his cheek. He froze, confused.