Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy

by Marian L Thorpe

  My mother repinned her knot of greying hair tighter on her head, a sure sign she was thinking out what she wished to say. “Casyn is Xani’s son,” she said. “He is here as an Emperor’s Messenger, but part of his request was that he stay here to take over the forge, to be our metalworker. The Council told him that we alone could not make such a decision. The village must hear his reasons.”

  “What did he say?” Maya asked. “Was he angry?”

  “Not at all. We offered him Xani’s cottage to use until we make a decision. He is there now. I took him bread, cheese, and apples this afternoon.” She paused. “He is a quiet man, grave, I would say. I don’t remember him. The records show that Xani bore him forty-eight years ago.”

  “Will he be at the meeting tonight?” I asked.

  “Yes, at first. He asked for that, too, when Sara and Gille and I spoke with him this morning. He said he knew there would be debate, and that he shouldn’t be present for that, but he has something to say that needs to be heard by us all before we make our decision. And that, my dears, is all I can tell you.” She sat up. “Enough? This has been a busy day, even with Kira taking most of the new pregnancies off my hands. I’m hungry.”

  Reluctantly, we dried off. Maya combed out her hair. I kept my own hair short, which was better for working on the boat, but I loved Maya’s hair. Most of the time, she wore it braided and tied back. Loose, it reached past her shoulder blades. In our bedroom, later, I would brush it for her.

  Walking back from the baths, we passed the forge. A roan horse grazed in the paddock, but other than smoke rising from the chimney, there was no sign of Casyn. At home, the rich smell of crab chowder greeted us. Tali put bread and salad on the table. I followed Maya up to our room. The warm evening sun brightened the braided rug on the floor and the blue of the coverlet. Maya sat on the bed. “I don’t like this, Lena.”

  I looked at her in surprise. Maya was so practical, the organizer and record-keeper of our working partnership. I was the dreamer, the one given to mood swings and doubts. “What don’t you like, love?”

  “This man. Casyn. Something doesn’t feel right.” She shrugged. “I’m scared. I feel like I did when I was six and Garth was leaving.” Garth, her older brother, following custom, had gone with the men after the Festival after his seventh birthday. Born only fifteen months apart and sharing a father, Garth and Maya looked almost like twins. We had all played together as children. I’d liked him, in the uncomplicated way of small children, but Maya had adored her brother, grieving for months when he left. Maya swore she would bear no children, and I thought this was why.

  “I’m scared, too,” I said slowly. I wondered if I spoke truly. I sat beside Maya, putting my arms around her. She rested her head on my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head. We sat like that for a few minutes, each lost in her own thoughts, until Tali called us for supper.

  Tali had simmered the crab in milk with root vegetables and onions. Freshly churned butter filled another bowl. I spread some on the bread, eating with an appetite honed by a long day on the water. Maya ate very little. I caught my mother and Tali sharing a concerned glance. Tali shook her head, slightly. I said nothing.

  After the meal, I washed the dishes while Maya made tea. We spoke only of trivial things: a cracked mug, the need for more firewood. Siane’s daughter Lara arrived to stay with Pel; she was eleven, too young to attend the meeting. My mother slipped out, and a few minutes later, the bell rang, calling us to the meeting hall.

  The hall sat on a slight rise on the right-hand side of the village, looking up from the harbour. Wooden, like all village buildings, the octagonal shape of the hall allowed us to sit in a circle, more or less. Whoever spoke, stood, to be easily heard by all. The three senior councillors: my mother, my aunt Sara, and Gille, sat last, never together, and always at random. The rest of us sat where we pleased.

  Some meeting nights, people straggled in for a good half hour after the bell rang. Not so tonight. Word of Casyn’s arrival had spread quickly. Tirvan has an adult population of about eighty, and everyone was seated not ten minutes after the last peal had faded. I looked around. Someone had lit a fire against the cool of the evening. The wood crackled loudly. The faces of the women in the room showed differing emotions: curiosity, anger, worry. I looked for my mother. She stood, speaking to Sara in soft tones. I could not see Gille.

  My mother walked across the hall to sit between Siane and Dessa. Maya and I had bought Dovekie from Dessa, a soft spoken, level-headed boatbuilder. Sara remained standing but moved into the circle.

  “Women of Tirvan.” Sara’s voice, never loud, commanded immediate attention. “Thank you for coming to this meeting, so promptly and on such short notice. Most of you know why we are here, of today’s extraordinary arrival of Xani’s son, Casyn. Most of you will have heard of his request to take over the forge, to stay in Tirvan. He would be the first man to live in a woman’s village in ten generations.” Sara raised her hand to quell the rising murmurs. “This in itself will need much debate. But there is more. Before we say yea or nay to Casyn, he has asked to speak to you as an Emperor’s Messenger.”

  I glanced at my mother, but Sara had her attention. Men came, occasionally, emissaries from the Empire, to ask for more food or more trade goods, but I remembered no talk at Spring Festival, six weeks past, of new or increased trade. If Casyn wanted to stay at Tirvan, how then could he be an Emperor’s Messenger?

  “Women of Tirvan,” Sara spoke again, “will we hear Casyn speak in the name of the Empire?” While we had the right to turn down such a request, in practice they were always granted, making the question essentially a formality. We voted with raised hands, unanimous in our decision to hear Casyn speak.

  At once, a middle-aged man, not tall, his dark hair streaked with grey, entered from the north-facing door of the hall. Gille walked beside him. If eighty pairs of women’s eyes made him uncomfortable, he did not show it. At the ring of benches, he paused, turning to Gille. She gestured him on. He strode into the centre of the circle, where he turned slowly on his heel, taking us in. His eyes met my mother’s. He inclined his head to her, looked around once more, and began to speak.

  “Women of Tirvan.” His deep voice and measured speech conveyed a sense of authority. My mother had described him as a grave man. Now I could see why.

  “I thank you for allowing me to speak. I would ask one further thing: that you hear me out. The message I bring you tonight will not be welcome, and I am afraid your first reaction will be to reject the messenger.” Maya inched closer to me. I found her hand and held it briefly.

  Casyn hesitated, then turned to Gille. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I am unused to speaking in such an arrangement. May I join the circle, so that my back is to no one, or speak from outside it?”

  “From outside the circle, I think,” Sara said from her seat. “We can turn to face you.” He nodded, moving past the benches; we shifted ourselves, and he continued.

  “Forty-eight years ago, I was born in this village to Xani, your smith. For seven years, I played in the fields and at the harbour and called Tirvan home. And then I left, as all boys do, and learned another life. This is how things are, and have been, for many generations. For all those generations, there has been peace in the Empire, or if not peace then small wars, wars in which we have been victorious. We have policed our borders and administered our lands, with little disturbing our way of life.” His eyes moved over us as he spoke. “But the world changes. In all the women’s villages of the Empire, this week or next, a soldier like myself will arrive to ask to live in the village, to take up a trade.” Casyn paused, for a breath, a heartbeat. “And to teach you and your daughters to fight.”

  No one spoke. Casyn watched us in silence. In some small part of my mind, I felt myself measured, judged; the rest of my thoughts scattered like grouse from a harrier. I gripped Maya’s hand, looking up. In the firelit room, I could see my own confusion reflected on every face. Teach us to fight? I struggle
d for clarity, to make the words mean something. I heard Dessa speaking, her voice very low, and strained to hear.

  “Do you know what you ask of us?”

  Casyn met her eyes. “Yes,” he answered. “Are not all boys taught, at our mother’s knees, why we must go with the men when we turn seven? Why women’s comfort and love and the laughter of our children are ours for but one brief week, twice a year? Why we live apart and die apart? You teach us first, and then the Empire yet again, to remember that decision, made two hundred years ago, to divide our lives.” He spoke evenly, but with an undertone of resignation, or regret. His gaze widened to take in the room as his voice rose. “You all know the facts: At that assembly, two centuries past, after a ten-day of passionate debate, our forbearers chose Partition as the compromise, to save an empire divided. For our forefathers wanted a strong army, to war on the frontier against the northern folk, and defend against incursions from the sea. But our foremothers wished only for peace to fish and farm. And so came the assembly, and the vote, and Partition there has been for these long years.” His voice softened. “For the most part, it has worked and satisfied both sides, though we both have paid a price.” He fell silent.

  He knows our history, I thought, but he does not truly understand. All those long years ago, the women’s council voted for more than Partition. They voted to turn their backs on war and weapons, to make them only the province of men. Women did not fight. We learned, in our youth, enough hunting skills to protect our herd animals or add to the cooking pot. I could shoot a bow to take down a hare or a deer, and if need required, throw a spear with reasonable force and accuracy, but that was all. More went against our teachings and our skill. How could Casyn, not taught this way, and with forty years of military life behind him, even begin to comprehend? I looked toward Gille and my mother impatiently. Tell him, I thought. Tell him we cannot do this thing. Tell him to go away.

  “Why, then, do you ask this of us?”

  Casyn met Dessa’s gaze. “Because,” he said simply, “there is need.”

  “What need?”

  “Great need,” he replied. Again, his focus seemed to widen, to encompass the room. “There is, a week’s sail to the west and south, another country, Leste—an island both large and rich, warmer than our lands. You will have heard rumours and stories of this land, of their jewelled hands and green eyes, and their boats, each with a leopard’s head on the prow. They may even have come here, to trade their spices and fruit for your cloth and grain. But their island grows crowded, and food is short. Trading is no longer enough. We have spies among them who report that in the autumn, just at harvest, Leste will attack us. They will first come here, to Tirvan and Delle and the other villages, to the unprotected source of food.”

  My mother spoke for the first time. “Could you not send part of the army to all the villages, to lie in wait?”

  “We could,” Casyn said. “It was, in truth, our first plan. But it would be only a stopgap at the beginning of many years of raids and counter raids. Better, we thought, to finish things once and for all. So, women of Tirvan, women of the Empire, this is what we ask of you. Learn, against your inclinations and beliefs, to fight. Defend your villages against the raiders. And while you do so, the men of the Empire will have sailed to an island depleted of its fighting force. There will be no one to mount a defence against us. We will take the island in a matter of days, and the thing will be done. The choice is yours: fight once and then go back to your peaceful way of life, or live with years of uncertainty and battle.”

  “Can you not defend us and still send an army to take the island?” Sara asked from the position she had taken beside Gille and my mother.

  “No,” Casyn said. “There are not enough of us. We cannot leave the northern wall undefended. We can leave you the veterans, and the youngest men, but in the end, they will not be enough. The men of Leste would take the villages, growing strong on our food while we grew weak and hungry in their land. Come spring, they would sail home to defeat us. I think you can imagine what they would do to you over that winter.”

  Above the sudden din in the room, I heard Gille calling for order. Women stood, clattering benches, speaking urgently to partners or family members. Maya called my name. I turned to her.

  “We can’t fight,” she said. “We can’t. We don’t. Men fight. They must protect us. They have to. That’s what was decided at the Partition assembly. We feed them; they protect us. Isn’t that right, Lena?”

  “Yes, love,” I said slowly. I heard the fear in her voice. Maya needed order and predictability. In our business partnership, her need for stability balanced my impulsiveness. In our personal relationship, it had always cast a small shadow. I searched for words, wanting to reassure her, but knowing in my gut that our world had just changed. I pushed away something else, something I could not let Maya sense. While Casyn answered my mother’s last question, I had named what churned inside me: not fear, but excitement.

  I took a deep breath. “Maya,” I said finally, hugging her close. “They’ll protect us. That’s why they want to take Leste, to subdue it and protect us. They’re just asking us to help.”

  She pulled away from me. “No,” she said, her panicked voice rising. “I won’t fight. I won’t, Lena.”

  “Hush, Maya,” I said. “Gille wants to speak.”

  Slowly, the room quieted. Gille waited until the last murmurs died away. “Casyn,” she said, her voice clear and strong, “we thank you for your honesty. I will ask you now to leave us, so we can debate this matter with no hesitancy.” He bowed his head to her, glanced at my mother and Sara, and left. I heard his footsteps crunching on the path outside. A log cracked in the fire. Someone gasped. Gille waited until the sound of Casyn’s steps had faded before she spoke again.

  “Women of Tirvan,” she said formally. “What we have been asked to do tonight is beyond easy understanding. We are being asked to put aside the decisions made by our foremothers, decisions that have shaped our lives for ten generations. We cannot do this in haste. All of us must give this much thought. We will make no decision tonight. Tomorrow morning, the council leaders will speak again with Casyn, and then we will all meet here, to debate and to decide. We will adjourn this meeting until one o’clock tomorrow. But,” she added, her tone changing from formal to her normal way of speaking, “the hall will remain open tonight, as long as the firewood lasts. There is tea in the kettle. Please remember that Gwen and Sara and I know no more than you.”

  I wanted to talk to my mother, but I felt Maya trembling. I rose to fetch tea from the pot, adding more honey than usual. She drank it in silence, not meeting my eyes. Around us swirled voices—angry, soothing, unbelieving. I sat with my arm around her shoulders, wondering a bit at her shock. No decision had been made; we were only going to talk, to debate. We could vote no.

  Eventually she spoke. “I’m going home,” she said. “I know how I’ll vote, and nothing will make me change my mind. Are you coming?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to talk to my mother. Maya, don’t—”

  “Don’t what?” she snapped. “Don’t make up my mind so soon? I know how I feel, Lena. What Casyn is asking, what the Empire is asking, is wrong. I know that, and so do you. Women don’t fight. We don’t kill or harm others.” Her voice held conviction now, certainty.

  “Except in self-defence,” I reminded her. She shook her head.

  “Maybe that’s true, further north, near the wall,” she said. “But who have we ever needed to defend ourselves against?” She pulled away from my encircling arm. “You think this is an adventure, Lena?” she said fiercely. “Something new? Something different? You always want to sail a little further, find another cove, even though the ones we know provide us with all the fish we need. But this isn’t the same; we can’t just sail out into this for a day or two, and then turn around and come back to our safe harbour. If we sail into this storm, Lena, we won’t come out.”

  Tears stood in her hazel eyes. She kn
ew me so well. I put my hand on the cloud of her black hair.

  “But if we don’t sail into it, Maya,” I said gently, “it will find us anyway. It will batter our boats at their moorings until there is nothing left. Our safe harbour will become a prison.”

  Chapter Two

  I slept little that night. I sat in a chair by our bedroom window, watching the moon set over the boats in the harbour. Maya lay in the bed, sleeping or pretending to. No words passed between us.

  I had spoken with my mother as I walked her home from the meeting. Even in the moonlight, I could see the lines of strain around her eyes. I told her what had been said between Maya and myself.

  “Maya has always looked for certainties,” she said wearily. “But you know that, Lena. When Garth left, she could only find peace by putting her faith in tradition. I warned Tali that to have two so close together, and with the same man, was a mistake. But she loved Mar and didn’t listen. Like her mother, Maya can be stubborn when she believes she’s right. I think, in this, she is wrong.” She stopped on the path to face me. “Until tomorrow, Lena, these words are for you only. I see no choice for us but to accept this.”

  I shivered in the night air. Somewhere an owl called. “Will the village agree?”

  “In the end, I think they will.” We resumed walking. “To not fight, but to passively wait for whatever happens, is the greater violation of the spirit of the Partition assembly. Tradition then would have dictated that we support the men in their empire-building.”

  “But we do support them,” I argued. “We feed them, make saddles and stirrups, and weave cloth for them.”

  My mother smiled tiredly. “You forget your lessons, Lena,” she said. “We do now. But not at first, not in the first years following Partition. Then, there was only Festival, and sons for the Empire.”