“Would you like breakfast, Cohort-Leader?” he asked. Not by a flicker of an eye or expression did he indicate that he found my presence unusual or inappropriate.
“Please. And may I have tea?”
“Right away.”
He brought me tea, a mint-based infusion, and shortly afterwards eggs and toasted bread, butter and honey, and a dish of apples and figs. By the time I finished eating, several other young officers had come in, but none I knew. To a man they greeted me politely, and by rank, but they ate together at the other side of the tent.
I walked back to my tent. The rain had stopped, and the wind whipped the clouds along. With luck, it would clear, so my washing would dry. I needed to move. I had slept well, and sitting about had never appealed to me.
At the horse-line, I found my tack neatly stowed in a brush shelter nearby. I saddled Clio, who idly browsed on a biscuit of hay, and mounted. We headed for the hills above the camp. I had noticed other riders there yesterday, not in formation but out for exercise. A clear trail, pocked with hoof prints, showed the way. On the hilltops, the wind blew fiercely, making me glad of my fleece coat. I set Clio to a gentle canter. She needed little urging, after two days not under saddle. We followed the trail that ran below the ridge-line away from the camp.
The camp sat in a natural bowl, shallow-sided and sheltered. If it were in danger of attack, the hillsides would have to be patrolled at all times. I wondered if that had happened during the invasion.
Below me, the hillside flattened into fields cleared of brush. Training grounds, I decided: places for drill and practice. Hearing voices ahead, I followed the trail around a pinnacle, and saw, in the field below, men practicing archery with bows nearly as tall as themselves. In the wind, many arrows went wide of the butts. I assumed shooting in the wind was the purpose of the exercise. I watched for a while, my hands itching to hold a bow again.
I turned Clio to head back. The wind made my eyes tear. Back at the horse-line, I unsaddled and brushed Clio before returning her to her place on the picket. The exercise had settled me. If my clothes had dried—if they haven’t blown halfway to Casilla, I thought—I would do some mending. I would need to light the brazier, though, and warm the tent, or my fingers would be too cold to hold a needle.
A cadet met me on the path. “Advisor Colm asks if you would meet him at the Emperor’s compound, Cohort-Leader. Do you know the way?”
“I do. Thank you, cadet.” I turned up the slope, wondering what Colm might want.
The Advisor waited for me outside the tent. “Good morning, Lena. You have a visitor.” He gestured to the tent.
“Maya?” My gut churned.
“Yes,” he confirmed calmly, “and a companion.” He opened the flap, and I stepped inside.
Maya’s hair was short, as short as mine. She looked even more like Garth. “Your hair…” I said, through dry lips. She looked thin and tired.
She put a hand up to it, shrugging. “It was more practical for travelling.” Alis stood behind her, near the corner of the tent. She caught my eye, smiling slightly.
“Lena, why are you here?” Her voice held the steel she shared with her mother and her brother.
I took a breath to steady myself. “To bring you news of Garth.” My throat felt tight.
“Truly?” she said, with a thread of hope in her voice. “That wasn’t just a ruse, to make me see you?”
“Maya!” Alis whispered. Maya ignored her, her eyes on me, challenging.
“Have I ever lied to you, Maya?”
Her face softened. “Forgive me. I couldn’t let myself believe it.”
“We should sit,” I said. “I have a lot to tell you.” We found chairs, and I sat facing the two women. Maya and Alis sat close together. Alis took Maya’s hand for a moment, giving it a squeeze. Once, that would have elicited anger from me, or at least jealousy. Now, I felt nothing but a numb acceptance.
I took a deep breath. She would not like all of what she would hear, but I would speak the truth. “I was leader of one of the cohorts at Tirvan,” I began. I could see her recoil slightly. That hurt, even now. Alis took Maya’s hand again. “Tice, the potter, was my cohort-second. We captured Garth on the night of the invasion. He had been serving aboard the Lestian catboat as a spy to the Empire.” I heard her gasp, but went on. “He had long hair, braided in the Lestian style, and I recognized him because he looked so much like you.”
“He serves, then,” she said. I could hear the undercurrent of disappointment in her voice.
“He does,” I said. “His current rank is Watch-Commander, aboard the ship Skua. But this wasn’t always the case. Before he became a spy, he deserted.”
“The punishment for desertion is death!” Her voice rose with panic. “How is he alive and serving?”
“He found passage away from the Empire on a Lestian trader, and lived and worked on Leste for some time. Eventually he was captured by the Empire and offered an alternative to the usual punishment: to serve the Empire by gathering information on the Lestian plan. To be a spy. He agreed and did so for three years. We may owe our success this autumn to Garth, Maya. You should be proud of him.” I hoped she would not hear the struggle for control in my voice. I heard myself defending—no, praising—Garth to his sister. It told me where my allegiance lay.
I looked into Maya’s hazel eyes, so much like Garth’s. They glittered with unshed tears.
“Did he speak of me?” She sounded so very young.
Part of me wanted to say no, to hurt her, to dash her hopes. But I had loved her. In some way, I still did. I loved them both, and I could not be cruel. Garth had trusted me.
“He said to tell you he had never forgotten you.” Her face blazed with happiness. “One night, he told me that in the back of his mind, when he ran, he always hoped to come back to Tirvan for you, forgetting you would be an adult, with a life of your own.”
“I wish he had.”
Suddenly, I grew angry. “You can’t have it both ways. If you want tradition, Garth should be dead, executed for desertion. The only reason he isn’t is that the Emperor Callan recognizes that tradition has its place, but people must move forward.”
“Maya and I, all of us, had the right to say no and choose exile,” Alis said, her voice edged with anger.
“At Partition, those who would not live by the agreement were exiled beyond the boundaries of the Empire. Would you accept that, if an assembly so ruled?”
“Yes,” Maya said, raising her chin. “If a full assembly so rules. But as you said, this Emperor sees that tradition is not all, and the villages have made their feelings towards the Partition agreement clear. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to stay within the Empire?”
My anger fled, replaced by a wave of tenderness. “I hope you are,” I said gently.
“Truly?” She sounded surprised.
“Oh, Maya, our lives may have separated, but I want you to be safe.”
She did not meet my eyes, but simply nodded. After a moment, she looked up. “And I you, Lena. What will you do?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Go home, I think, but not until spring. Perhaps go to Casilla, so that I can say I have spent a season in the city. Or work the winter at an inn.”
She stood. “Thank you for the news of Garth. I won’t see you again unless the Emperor commands it.”
“Wait,” I said hurriedly. “I have more to tell you, about Garth.”
“More!” She sat down again.
“We rode south together. In fact, I left him only three days ago, in Karst. We’ve been together since the invasion.”
“Why?” She frowned.
“We both had business in Karst. Dern, his captain on Skua, gave him permission to ride down and meet the ship at Casilla, at midwinter. It made sense for us to ride together. Casyn rode part of the way with us, too.”
“You went to tell them about Tice?”
“That was my mission. And Garth went to acknowledge a son he did not know until now
he had fathered. I bore witness for him. He’s there now, getting to know the child.”
“Oh,” Maya said. She seemed confused, as if she could not assimilate this. Perhaps she can’t, I thought. Garth is an ideal to her, not quite real. Alis studied Maya, looking just a bit worried. I took a breath to steady myself and gave her the last gift I had to give.
“Garth will likely be at Karst, spring and fall, for the next few years, duty allowing. His son is three. You have four years.”
Hope bloomed in her face. “Oh,” she breathed. “Yes. Yes. Thank you, Lena.”
I stood. “There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“We never said good-bye.”
She looked at me for a moment, then stood. I stepped forward and put my arms around her, lightly. She felt as unsubstantial as a bird. “Farewell, Maya,” I whispered, and let her go.
I had known, at some level, what would happen at this meeting since the night at Aasta’s inn. I had wept for Maya, the night she left, and many times since. I did not weep now. I walked out of the tent into the wind and clear air, feeling whole for the first time in many weeks.
Back at my camp, I took my lighter clothes off the line and went into the tent. I lit the brazier, and did my mending, then folded and packed away shirts and underclothes, readying myself to leave. The sense of calm, of something completed and concluded, remained with me. I realized I needed a drink. I sat on the bed and was reaching for the jug of water when I noticed a book beside it with a note tucked inside. I opened the note.
“This is my own history of the Empire,” the note read. “I thought you might like to read it.” It was signed “Colm.”
I picked up the book and turned to the first page. In neat, upright script, I read. “In the third year of the reign of the Emperor Lucian…”
I read, or thought about what I was reading, until mid-afternoon. Like learning knife-play, it was an exercise in attention. If I kept my attention on what I read, I did not have to think of my future. When the slant and colour of light told me that evening fast approached, I put the book down to walk to the commons.
Galdor and Finn welcomed me. With a mug of ale in hand, I threw dice, laughing, and nibbled on pickles and bread. The evening had become night when suddenly both Galdor and Finn shot to attention.
“General,” Finn said. “Please come in.”
“At ease,” Casyn said. “I won’t disturb you, but I would like to speak with the Cohort-Leader. Can you spare her from your game?”
I excused myself and followed Casyn out into the night. He did not speak until we had walked a few yards away from the commons.
“You have seen Maya,” he said gently.
“She wanted news of Garth, and I gave it. I won’t see her again.”
“That is her choice?” Casyn said.
“It’s not mine,” I said sharply.
“Forgive me,” Casyn said. “Are you all right?”
I swallowed and nodded. “I am. I was prepared for this.”
“Have you thought what you will do now?” he asked.
“A bit,” I said. “I could go back to one of the inns, Zilde’s, near the end of the grasslands. She needs help. I could winter there and ride home in the spring. I haven’t really made a decision.”
“The Emperor asks that you stay until Midwinter’s Day. He would like your counsel, and your presence, for some proclamations he will make that day.”
“My counsel?”
“Think about the number of women you would want to attend an assembly from each village, and about how they should be chosen. We spoke of this on the road, if you remember.” I nodded. The request reminded me of what I had meant to ask.
“Is Leste bound now by the Partition agreement? And if so, will they have a voice in this assembly? Or are there different rules for Leste?
He smiled. “If you are not council leader at Tirvan by the time you are thirty, I am no judge of young officers,” he said. “That exact question has taken up much of my brothers’ time, and mine, in the last days. We have a plan, but,” he said, “it is for no one’s ears, until Midwinter’s Day. By then, the governor of Leste will have arrived with his advisors to hear the future of his province.”
Leste’s former king now governed in name only. All the decisions came from his advisors, senior officers of the Empire. Galdor and Finn had explained it all to me over dice. “When will he come?”
“Soon. The wind yesterday would have made for good sailing from Leste. If they land tonight, as I think they will, they will arrive the day after tomorrow.”
“I’ll stay.” I wanted to see this once-king of Leste. I wanted even more to know what Callan would say, to Maya and the others, in response to their petition. Even with the delay, I should be able to reach Zilde’s inn before the worst of the winter set in. Staying would give me a bit more time to think, too.
“I’ll tell the Emperor. Will you go back to the dice?”
I considered. I felt oddly light-hearted. “Yes, I was winning.”
The odd euphoria lasted through the night, only seeping away when I returned to my camp for the night. Lying on the bed, in the light of the brazier, I tried, unsuccessfully, not to think of Maya. I could see that she and Alis had become more than just travelling companions. As I had with Garth, she would have looked for warmth and comfort in a changed and frightening world. I could not find fault, there. I wished she had not cut her hair. I wanted Garth. I began to cry, then—not the racking sobs of new bereavement, but the slow, trickling tears of old grief. I curled up, hugged the thin pillow, and let the tears come.
Several days passed. Garth, I calculated, would have left Karst to meet Skua at Casilla. I wondered if Tali had done this, tracking in her mind what she could imagine or guess of Mar’s movements. The Governor of Leste did not arrive. I rode most mornings, spent the afternoons reading, or talking to Colm when his duties allowed. I met some of the other junior officers, and, with permission, went with them one morning to practice archery at the butts. To my pleasure, I outshot half of them.
Turlo came to my camp one afternoon. I was sitting outside my tent, reading in the hazy sunshine and cool air. I had a small fire burning to counter the chill.
“Hello, Cohort-Leader,” Turlo called, from several strides away. I looked up, smiling, happy as always to see him. “What are you reading?” he asked, sitting beside me.
I showed him. “Colm’s history,” he said, surprised. “You’re honoured. He doesn’t usually let that out of his sight. How are you, Lena?”
“I’m fine. Really,” I added, to his quizzical look. I spoke the truth. I felt peaceful, accepting.
We talked of inconsequential things for some minutes. After I laughed at something he said, he looked at me thoughtfully.
“Who’s your father, Lena?” he asked then laughed at my startled reaction. “I have a reason to ask. Beyond the usual, I mean. I am far too old to ask you for that reason, more’s the pity.”
I flushed. “Galen, of the Third.” A thought struck me. “Your regiment.”
He grinned. “I thought so. You laugh exactly like him. I know Galen well. He’s on borders duty. Do you want to send him greetings? I’ll see him when I ride north again.”
“I wouldn’t know what to say. I’ve never met him.”
“Pity,” Turlo said. “He’s a good man. May I tell him of you?”
“If you like,” I grinned. “But try to tell the truth, Turlo.”
He laughed, deeply. “I only lie about hunting.”
Turlo had left, and I had returned to reading when Colm arrived. I had begged pen and ink, and paper from him yesterday, wanting to write down thoughts, or questions that occurred to me while reading. I greeted Colm.
“I haven’t written much,” I said.
“That isn’t why I have come. The Emperor would like to see you.”
“Now?”
“If it’s convenient,” he said, smiling. I had grown to like him very much in the
last days. Grave and thoughtful, like Casyn, he tempered his considerable knowledge with an undercurrent of humour and endless patience with my questions.
After carefully placing my book on the table inside, I accompanied him to the council tent. Callan had a document in his hand, reading, but he put it down as we entered.
“Cohort-Leader,” he said. “Thank you for coming,”
“How may I assist you, Emperor?”
He gestured me to sit. He looked tired. Colm found his writing materials.
“If we were to hold a new assembly, perhaps next summer, how many women from each village should attend?”
“Three,” I replied. “From most villages, these would likely be the council leaders. But I also think that there should be a way for those women whose views might not be that of their leaders to have their voices heard.”
“Go on,” he said.
“In my village, there was one woman, Siane, whose views were not those of the majority. She found the taking of life, any life, abhorrent, to the extent that she ate no meat or fish. She died in the fighting, but if she hadn’t, I think her opinion should have been heard. Perhaps letters could be written, to be presented at the assembly?”
Callan nodded. “That could be done. Why did not this Siane join the other women who chose exile?”
“She voted against fighting, but she came to realize that she would fight and kill to protect her daughter. She refused refuge with the children during the fighting.”
“Bravery comes in so many faces,” Callan said. I heard an echo of something someone else had said to me, once. “What else, Lena?”
“What about the inn-keepers?”
“We had thought of that. There is an inn-keepers’ guild though, like most guilds, it is inactive. It could be revived and three women chosen from within it to represent them.”
“Will there be time?” I asked.
“It will be difficult,” he admitted. “I had originally thought to hold the assembly at mid-summer, but I think it will have to be a few weeks later to give the inns and villages time to prepare.”
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 33