“So you hold back your hands and hit me with your words? Just like a woman. Just like a traitor.”
“I did not betray you!” Aedan cried. “I stayed with Mother because she needed me more than you did.”
Clauman swallowed. “How is …” He squeezed his eyes shut and said no more.
“She misses you,” Aedan said.
Clauman’s eyes opened again, but his jaw was clenched and his look hard. “She has her friends. She chose them.” he said.
“She needed family.”
“And I did not?!” Clauman almost screamed the question. The light from the window glistened in his eyes now. It was the first time Aedan had seen anything beyond the rigid, proud barrier – and for the first time he knew that it had been only a barrier. There was a person who hid behind it, someone who felt the same pain that he did, who had the same need for family, for acceptance.
“Even in the Mistyvales, you turned your back on me,” Clauman said. “If you weren’t learning languages with … with … her, languages that excluded me, then you were off to that daughter of Dresbourn’s as if his family was better than ours.”
“It was you who drove me away! At Badgerfields I was never frightened. Kalry was the sister I needed when you were too angry to be my father. She accepted me always.”
“So I did not measure up to your standards, and that justified throwing me out?”
“Throwing you out? You were the one who walked out. Don’t you remember?”
“I walked out on the meddling of others. Do you think I wanted to lose my family?” he shouted and kicked a discarded crate so hard that it flew into the wall and shattered.
Aedan’s mouth opened. He had always believed that this was exactly what his father had wanted. “I thought –”
Someone opened a shutter in the wall above and stuck his head out. “Keep it down out there, will you,” he called.
Clauman unhooked a short club and flung it at the window with a roar, sending the man tumbling back into his house. The shutters slammed closed. Clauman inclined his head for Aedan to continue.
“I thought you did want to leave us,” Aedan said. “Why did you not come back? You knew we couldn’t have found you.”
Clauman’s eyes dropped and searched the ground. They found a pair of big boots and suddenly he became aware of the gangster who was listening with ill-concealed interest. He straightened up and his jaw locked. “Because I cannot abide traitors.”
“But I did not betray you!”
Clauman looked at him. “Even now you betray me by denying your help, your repayment.” All his former hardness was returning. The father and husband who had stepped from behind his shield was gone, and the light now glinted off a face of iron.
“What you ask of me is wrong,” Aedan said.
“No son of mine would dare instruct me or question my judgement.” His mouth twisted. “So you cannot be my son.”
He turned and walked away with the gangster who carried his sleeping companion over a shoulder.
When they had left, Aedan slid down against the wall and cried like one of the country children in the overcrowded streets who had lost his father.
Most of the apprentices were still a little moody and preoccupied the next day, so when Aedan wouldn’t talk about the new bruises, he was not harried. Dun cancelled their early training session and spoke to them of the previous day’s work. He was thoroughly pleased with the results.
The gangs of Castath had taken a heavy knock. Twenty-three small gangs and four large ones had lost many members to the city jails, some to the gallows. News had spread and it was clear that the days of easy crime had been interrupted.
Not all the operations, though, had run without loss. One group of older marshal apprentices had been surprised by a reserve force. Two of the boys were dead and one critically wounded. The gang was rounded up during the day as a priority, and every member convicted of murder.
Law-breaking across the city lost much of its appeal. The surprises continued. Houses that should have been perfect targets for burglary were found dripping with marshals and soldiers. The city’s honest folk sensed the change and began to move about with less fear.
The gibbets were full, the jails too. A heavy hand closed on the city’s crime and several days passed during which nothing more than petty theft was reported. It was even rumoured that many of the shady prospectors had found honest employment.
When Osric returned from his two-week patrol, Aedan found out and went to visit. The general, Tyne and Merter sat at the table – now covered in a soft cream cloth – before a small mountain of fresh crumpets, a pot of honey, and mugs of steaming tea. The scene was made cosier by the absence of lanterns; the room was lit instead by a bright fire humming in the hearth.
Aedan grinned as he looked around. This could only be Tyne’s influence. He had never seen the room so far removed from its accustomed stern character, and he had never seen its owner so comfortable.
In that moment Aedan understood that Osric was not rigid and severe because he enjoyed it – he was that way because he didn’t know how to be anything else. Aedan had once wondered if the general was too set in his nature, if that was why he had never married, if there was no place for a woman, not even Tyne. But it was clear, just by looking at him, that he relished the softening she brought to his life. And the way the two of them were smiling ran deeper than the warmth of a greeting.
Tyne’s long hair was loose, falling gently on her shoulders and giving her an air of homeliness, of womanliness that her tight braid and uniform had muted. It was almost difficult to believe she was the same person. Osric’s eyes were unable to leave her for long, even at Aedan’s entrance.
Aedan ground his teeth with frustration at these wonderful, silly people. They were like starving urchins hovering before a feast, trying to convince themselves that food was not the right thing for them. Their reasons for remaining apart made no sense. Tyne had said Aedan was too young to understand, but young or old, what right did yesterday’s hurt have to steal today’s happiness? Only the right that was surrendered, surely.
Here were two fearsome soldiers yielding what they both longed for without a fight. He wished there was a way he could knock them from their delusion, but it was Osric who did the knocking.
“Aedan, it’s good to see you again!” he boomed, reaching over and delivering a clap on the back that struck like a hoof. Merter, sitting as usual with his back to the fire, gripped Aedan’s forearm warmly, and Tyne hugged him and asked after Liru.
While Aedan was being plied with tea and honey-drenched crumpets, Osric took up the conversation. “We heard about the business with the gangs while we were still out on patrol,” he said. “We were just talking about it when you came in. Your idea?”
“I had to do something,” Aedan said. “Men can’t be permitted to behave like beasts.”
“Couldn’t agree more. You and your friends did a fine job. Has your mother stayed safe through all this?”
“Yes. She is safe. When I arrived in my patrol uniform she didn’t recognise me at first. We had a good laugh until Harriet arrived. I wish it was Harriet who didn’t recognise me. Ever. To her, I am the cause of all griefs in Thirna. The Fenn would not be threatening our borders if I had just done everything she insisted on.”
They laughed, but Aedan was quiet.
“Aedan,” said Tyne. “Are you alright? You look like you’re heavy inside.”
“I met my father,” he said, after considering whether or not to mention it and deciding, as with Lorrimer, that carrying it alone was doing him no good. “It was almost like he really wanted to put our family together again, but he ended off by disowning me.”
This might have been enough for Osric, but Tyne wanted to know all the details. When Aedan had finished telling the story, they were thoughtful.
“What made him beat you as a child?” she asked. “Don’t answer if it’s too bold a question.”
“Once I tried to
stop him hurting my mother when they were arguing. He said I had betrayed him. Before, on his angry days he used to just ignore me. After that he didn’t ignore me anymore.”
Osric looked as if he was about to smash a hole in the table. His breathing was shallow, his face flushed, and his lips tight with the effort of holding back whatever snapped and growled inside.
It was Tyne who eventually spoke. “I am glad that you were able to face him. I think it is what we were all hoping for. It’s a bitter sadness, though, that he did not decide differently. Pride is the biggest thief of all. But perhaps he will yet change his mind.”
Aedan might have reacted to anyone else pointing out his father’s error, but there was no blame in Tyne’s voice and no doubting her sincerity. He remembered how his father had recognised and condemned Dresbourn’s pride years ago, yet held fast to his own.
“Perhaps,” he said. He wondered if she knew how much hope stood behind the word.
–––
The room was dark. Daylight was several hours away, but Aedan knew further sleep would be impossible. It was the same dream and this time it was sharper, sterner. The image of that Lekran book would appear and he would hear the word “Read”, then he would wake as if he had been pushed from slumber. He knew he could ignore it, turn over and wait for daylight, but this time it was as though there was urgency in the voice. It was the same huge voice that he had twice heard. He was caught between wanting to obey it and wanting to avoid that sickening book.
The blankets were warm. He turned over and closed his eyes, but the sense of disappointment that poured over him was so deep that he sat up.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll do it.”
Working by feel, he got up, pushed aside the books on his shelf and drew out the volume from where it was buried. Then he took his thickest blanket – for the night was cold – scraped around until he found his lantern, and crept out the door and down the passage to one of the study coves. He lit his wick from the night lamp that was mounted nearby. The disappointment had left him, he noticed, and in spite of his hatred of everything Lekran, he felt a curious peace.
Perhaps, he thought, this was not so much about getting over his hatred as it was about getting over his sensitivity. He would not be much use in a war against a nation whose culture he could not face without a wave of sickening weakness. What he was doing now was like building a resistance to poison in gradual increments. It was beginning to make sense. The time had come for him to look in the face of his enemy and not turn away. There were forms of strength that came only at a great price.
With a new feeling of purpose, he wrapped himself in his blanket, dug into the couch, and began to read.
The first chapter was entitled “Homes, Social Structure, Customs and Celebrations”. The going was slow. There was much he did not understand given his poor handle on the language. He had just begun the section dealing with religion when Dun’s whistle filled the passage.
He had read through the night.
Hiding the book under his shirt, he slipped back into his room before many pairs of curious eyes found him.
Strangely, he did not fall asleep during his classes. That night, during his study session, he continued where he had left off and finished the section on religion. He turned to the next section. Sacrifices. His heart began to pound as he skimmed over the words. It was as he had feared. On Ulnoi, they did not sacrifice goats or cattle.
He closed the book and closed his mind to the persistent voice. He was not yet ready for this. Would he ever be?
It took him a long time to fall asleep that night, but when he did, he dreamed immediately. He saw the chapter clearly before him – Sacrifices was written boldly across the page and the same voice called him to read.
In his dream he shouted, “But I can’t! The pain …”
“Courage,” the voice replied.
Then he awoke.
As before, it was dark. Muttering, he tore himself away from the warm cocoon of his bed, gathered the book, blanket and lamp, and padded over the icy flagstones back to the study nook. After settling down and wrapping the blanket until there were none of those little breezy gaps, he began to read, thinking what a ridiculous, meaningless and injurious waste of hours this was. He knew he needed the toughening, understood the value of the exercise, but was beginning to doubt if this was the most effective approach. Nevertheless, he pushed his eyes along.
The words on the page made him wince, as if each one was a knife stabbing out at him. He was so desperate to fend off the meaning that he almost missed a sentence hidden within the awful details, but the further he moved from it, the more it tugged him back until he left his place and returned to the nagging line.
Vraanenim slaggo lag srette buuin.
As with much of what he was reading, he only grasped part of the idea. Vraan was women, Vraanenim, he assumed with a shiver, were the female sacrificial victims or supposed volunteers. He didn’t care. Lag – must, slaggo – age, but srette buuin meant nothing to him.
At first the words drifted in his tired thoughts, disconnected, irrelevant. Then, like shards of magnetised iron, they began to snap together and formed an idea, an idea that sprang from the page and struck him full in depths of his sleepy mind, shattering his drowsiness.
He gasped, a sudden wheezing gasp, as if a great vat of icy water had been emptied over his head. The couch skidded back into the wall with a thump as he lurched to his feet, dropping the book and tipping the lantern so that it smashed on the floor and went out. He didn’t even notice.
His eyes grew wide and his twitching mouth opened further as the thought took hold of him. Snatching up the book, he took off down the passage at a speed that set the paintings rattling in his wake. By the time the blanket had crumpled to the ground, he was out of sight.
Never had he covered the distance to Fergal’s office so quickly. In his haste, he flung the covering boards right off the platform in the display room, but he was already darting down the stairs by the time they banged into the ground. Even if he had stepped on one of the trigger-steps, the trap would have opened on nothing more than his dust.
“Fergal! Fergal!” he shouted as he flew along the dark corridor and whipped under the archways. He did not wait for an answer. He knocked and opened the door in one movement and came to a quivering stop in the office that apparently never slept.
“Aedan, what manner of –”
Aedan ignored him and interrupted, “Fergal, what does srette buuin mean? It’s Lekran for a number or an age. I need to know. Now! Please!”
Fergal sat back in his large chair, aiming a severe look at the young intruder, but then the raised eyebrows settled down again. “It is neither a number, nor an age,” he said, “but a ceremony that represents both. It is the entry into womanhood, which, for Lekrans happens at the age of eighteen. Now before we go any further, I insist on knowing what this is about.”
Aedan was pale and looked very much like he was about to drop to the ground.
“Quin deceived us,” he whispered. “Kalry is alive!”
Then he did drop to the ground and woke a little while later to see Fergal holding a bottle under his nose. His nostrils were complaining about red-hot pins.
The big man helped him into a couch, then sat back in his own chair and faced Aedan. A soft whisper of fire and a quiet pop from a burning log were all that disturbed the silence for a while. Fergal would be the last person to feel the need to fill it with words.
“Read me the section,” he said, looking with disapproval at the book that showed the corner of a page sticking out where it should not be, and a small stream of oil running down the cover. Aedan did not see any of this. He found the page easily – it was the one that had been folded when the book dropped at his feet. He read the line and looked at Fergal with desperate, expectant eyes. The wait was the worst torture he had ever known.
“Fergal, please … Say something!”
Fergal glanced up from the fire. �
��It must be so,” he said. “The man who wrote that book was both trustworthy and knowledgeable. Quin, on the other hand, has nothing to recommend him. All you told me of him suggests that an honest message would be something out of character. Perhaps it was his intention to ensure that there would be no pursuit, though Ulnoi is considered by many to be less assailable than an eyrie.”
“I don’t care how unassailable it is,” Aedan said, standing. “I’m assailing it.”
“Sit down, Aedan. I did not say there was no hope, but the difficulty is something extreme. Sit, sit. Too much haste and fire and you’ll burn down the stable instead of mounting a rescue.”
Aedan sat, though everything in him cried out against it. His whole mind and body were shivering with suppressed energy.
Fergal looked across into the fire, twisting little ragged ropes in his beard, and when he spoke, Aedan could not believe what he heard.
“A year! You want me to prepare for a year?” he cried, jumping to his feet again.
Fergal motioned and waited again for him to sit. “Two years would be better, but as I recall, she is a year older than you, so she would be sixteen by now. Is her birthday before midsummer?”
“Yes.”
“The sacrifices take place in midsummer so she will be called upon in about a year and a half. Travel and the actual attempt to save her will take a few months, and you don’t want to time it so that you arrive on the day, which takes off at least six months. You will need to be there by the beginning of winter. That gives you just under a year to prepare.”
“But what if they move early, what if they get her age wrong?”
“These people are very particular over such details. They are not likely to make a mistake. That is fairly certain. But what is absolutely certain is that if you move early you will throw away your only chance. On the Lekran isles, Ulnoi in particular, foreigners who are not slaves are made into slaves as a matter of law. You open your mouth and say one word that holds a foreign accent, or show an ignorance of one of the many strange customs and it is all over. For both of you.”
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 72