“I promise. Do what you need to.”
It was a relief to lose the weight and bulk of the splint, and Kei pronounced himself happy with the straightness of the limb. After they had a wash and ate supper, he had Arman do some gentle movements with it, supporting as he lifted and bent the leg, and explained that he could even do some of it while they were travelling, clenching the muscles and lifting the whole leg from time to time. Arman couldn’t help but feel elated at this obvious sign he’d passed another milestone in his recovery, impatient to be able to take the first steps again without support. Being able now to wash and to move about without help, dress as a man and spend time upright—all these things improved his mood. They had spent so long on the road, so long with him injured, it had begun to feel like it would be this way forever, and yet in a week he could be walking, and the journey would be over then too. Even with his uncertain future, it made him hopeful.
Kei left him for an hour or so to talk to the village healer and returned with a small pot. In answer to Arman’s questioning look, he said, “Boiled tido palm oil with tirsel leaf. It’s very good for sprains and sore muscles.”
“A liniment? Like we use on the beasts?”
“Yes,” Kei said with a wry smile, “but without the stink and the ineffective ingredients. Someone needs to tell your physicians snake fat is good to eat, but is pretty useless as a medicine.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.” Kei got him to lie on the bed so he could do the massage properly. “Tido palm oil? That was in that bruise ointment too.”
“Yes—when it’s boiled, it becomes thick, especially if you add a little beeswax to it, and you can then add many different things to it, like the chuo sap, or the tirsel leaf, or even nitre distillation for small injuries. It’s a very good base. On its own it’s an excellent cream for itchy or dry skin. Reji and I use it for sex too.”
Arman always choked slightly when Kei made such casual statements—the Darshianese really saw no sin at all in healthy, consensual sex, and the only harm in talking about it was if it bored people or became overly vulgar. People didn’t snigger over innuendo, or use sexual terms as an insult. It was refreshing to Arman, especially when he considered his own household.
But he was intrigued by Kei’s comment. How exactly did he and Reji use it? And what, exactly, did two men do in bed together? Did it hurt? Was it dirty? He couldn’t imagine Kei enjoying it if it was either of those things. “You wouldn’t use this ointment though?”
Kei shook his head with a smile. “Oh gods, no. Can’t you feel it on your skin? It’s incredibly irritating—if you eat it, it’s a powerful laxative, which we think works because the body tries desperately to expel it. If you get it in your eyes, it stings like you would not believe. As for putting it anywhere near your cock.... Put it this way, if you ever did it once, you’d never even joke about doing it again.”
“Oh. Then you would have to be careful not to mix your ointments up, wouldn’t you?”
“Indeed you would,” he agreed as he began the deep massage on Arman’s lower right leg.
As Kei had said, the warmth from the ointment on his skin was gentler than the liniment routinely used in the army for minor injuries. It felt good, but at least some of that had to be Kei’s skilful fingers. “Are you using your gift?”
“No—I could, but I’m tired and it wears me out a lot. My hands and the ointment will do.”
“Ah. I didn’t realise the gift took effort. I thought it just happened.”
Kei got him to move his leg a little so he could work on Arman’s ankle too. “The soul-touching happens more or less without me wanting it. The effort comes in keeping it under control—if I have to work hard at doing so, it gives me the worst damn headache, but it doesn’t make me all that tired. The mind-moving is different—to move something as small as that gren nut is like lifting a sack of lem flour. If I have to do it for hours, I really pay for it the next day. The last time I did that was back at the fort.” He looked solemn as he said that.
“You saved my men, me—with your gift?”
Kei nodded. “Partly. Maybe one or two might have died if I hadn’t had it, but I can’t say for sure. I probably kept Vikis alive while his body fought the infection. Without it you would have bled to death while I operated because we spent so long working on him—I should really have got to you earlier but we might have lost Vikis if I’d done that.”
Arman was shocked at how close he’d come to dying, at how Kei had been forced to make such a difficult choice to treat one man even if it meant another would die. “Was that the worst thing you’ve seen as a healer?”
“No. That probably surprises you.” Arman nodded mutely. “We’ve had our share of disasters in Ai-Albon. There have been two kiln explosions in my lifetime, and a bolting urs beast and cart crashed into a mother and son on the street. When I was in Darshek there was a dreadful fire—eight people died and dozens were badly burned. That was much worse than the fort.”
“How can you bear it?” Kei was so soft-hearted. Arman couldn’t understand how he could watch people in pain or dying.
“Because I have to and because if I lose self-control, people die. Besides....” He stopped rubbing Arman’s leg and clenched his fist. “Such things occur and it’s no one’s fault. It’s different from having to watch, knowing it’s going to happen, knowing someone just decided that people would die and then...watching them die, just...going from people to bags of flesh just like that, because someone willed it....” His voice became a whisper and a tear dripped down his nose. Horrified, Arman scrambled to a sitting position and pulled Kei into his arms. “Nothing prepares you, nothing...you can’t accept that, or get used to it...or...forget it....”
“I’m so sorry,” Arman murmured uselessly. “I didn’t mean to bring it up again.”
Kei sniffed noisily. “Gods, I can’t even wipe my eyes.”
“Let me,” Arman said, brushing the tears from Kei’s long lashes with his thumbs. “I shouldn’t have mentioned any of this, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s all right,” Kei said dully. “Sometimes...I stop thinking about it for a while, and we’ve been busy...but now I don’t have that any more, it just pops into my head.... I’ll be all right,” he muttered, pushing Arman away. “I need to wash this off my hands.”
Dismayed, Arman let him leave to find the sink. He’d hoped so much Kei had begun to get over this, but his grief wasn’t diminished at all. Tiko was right—putting people through such an experience wouldn’t be put right simply by bringing them home. Brutal death was everywhere in Prijian society, with public executions common. He wondered if the Darshianese knew how wise they were not to allow their citizens to become coarsened by constant exposure to such violence.
Kei returned with a cloth and wiped Arman’s leg down—to prevent grease stains on their hosts’ sheets, he said. His eyes were still red but he was composed. Arman thought it best not to mention his breakdown at all.
There wasn’t any discussion of where Kei would sleep—after the last week and a half, it was pointless suggesting he make the gesture of pulling out his bedroll and sleeping on the floor. Since Arman was no longer wearing them during the day, he’d suggested they could spare their clothes and use the large warm nightshirts to sleep in since the nights were still very cold—at least they were to him. He thought he’d be grateful for the concealing material—but desire was the last thing on his mind tonight as he held Kei.
“When you go home, will you tell Myka about all of this? How it felt?”
Kei gave out a bitter chuckle. “I already did but she didn’t understand. She’s known me all her life and she doesn’t even know how soul-touching works, let alone how what happened affected me. Reji and I have always agreed on one thing—the ungifted have no damn idea what it’s like to have a gift.”
“Will he know what it feels like then, do you think?” Arman began a slow caress of Kei’s braid—he found it irresistible and Kei didn’t mind.
“No. His gift works on things outside him and he has to make it happen—like my mind-moving. Jena would know—does know—because her mind-speaking is somewhat similar. She at least knows what it feels like to be overwhelmed by the thoughts and feelings of others, even if she only has to take her hand off them to make it stop.”
There was such dull sadness in Kei’s voice, Arman found himself moving to kiss his forehead—and hastily made himself stop. “You can talk to her then.”
“If I ever see her again. I probably won’t.” His voice cracked.
“I want to help. Tell me what I can do.” Arman’s heart was so full of love and concern for this man, and he ached for him being in pain and so sad. Kei whispered something. “What did you say?”
“N...nothing. Go to sleep. I’m just tired and a bit homesick.” Which may have been the truth but it was only part of it.
“Just tell me—does it help at all to be with me or would you rather we slept apart now?”
Kei clutched the front of his shirt. “No...please.... A little longer, Arman. Just a few more days. Please.”
His vehemence surprised Arman. He caressed Kei’s cheek to soothe him. “Of course. I won’t go anywhere until I have to.” He didn’t want to go at all.
~~~~~~~~
Kei lay in the dark, keeping his breathing deliberately steady and slow until he was sure Arman was asleep. Then he could leave off the pretense that he also was sleeping, and curse himself thoroughly for being such a damn fool. He had so nearly ruined things, so nearly given the only answer he had to Arman’s question. “Don’t leave”, he’d whispered but he’d been relieved Arman hadn’t heard.
Even now, with Arman holding him so tenderly, having fallen asleep with his affection wrapping Kei like a soft blanket, he wanted to whisper it again, beg Arman to...what? Stay? Stay how, where? Do what? He couldn’t stay, and Kei had to go....
But he wanted to be with this man who had seized his heart and filled all his thoughts. He no longer cared if this was just some strange addiction, if it was because Arman made him feel so loved and at peace, could coax a smile out of him from any mood, or even because the man was handsome and kind and treated Kei with a constant consideration that never failed to surprise him.
All he knew was he needed Arman and already grieved because they had to part. Where there was one ache in his heart before, now there were two, overwhelming him. He was almost afraid to talk to the man, afraid he would blurt out his ridiculous need for him not to go, knowing Arman would point out, as he had to, how this could not be. Gods, Kei only had to see how he’d been treated in Ai-Albon to know that.
Arman muttered something and pulled him close, probably disturbed by Kei’s unconscious movements. He needed to really go to sleep or Arman would wake and realise something was wrong. He couldn’t permit that. At least Arman couldn’t read his heart the way Kei could read his. Kei could hide his needs behind a composed mask, unless he was ambushed the way he had been tonight, caught out when he hadn’t expected to have his sorrow fuelled again. He needed to keep the mask in place until Darshek, so few days away. After that...then he would have to survive once more on his own.
~~~~~~~~
By morning, he was calm again, the perfectly professional healer, concerned only for Arman’s health and well-being. The speed at which they were travelling meant he could avoid conversation while they were moving, and if he wandered off more than usual to get away from the others, they’d put it down to moodiness, or homesickness. It worried Arman, and each night, he felt Arman’s gentle concern for him. All Kei could do was drink in Arman’s warmth and his kindness, hope it would sustain him for long enough, hope that with the help he would get from the academy, and time, and Reji perhaps, if his lover would even want someone so fragile and disabled by his gift, he would find the peace he had once taken for granted.
They reached Kislik easily in three days, and it was there Kei finally found the wood for a walking stick that he’d been looking out for since Ai-Darbin. He didn’t know much about carpentry, but his father had taught him how to make a good walking stick, what to look for in a length of gike plum wood, whose gnarled knots made good handles, and which, when seasoned, retained the suppleness to give just enough when the person leaned on it. Arman may or may not need the thing before he got to Darshek, but finding a piece long enough and strong enough for such a big man had proved something of a challenge. Using the remaining daylight when they’d arrived, and with the village carpenter’s help, Kei had smoothed the wood and cut it to length, then borrowed beeswax and a polishing cloth so he could finish the job as they travelled. It would give him something to do in the evenings, and it would be something of him Arman could have, if he wanted it. At least he would have a walking stick out of it.
Outside Kislik, they saw the remains of the Prijian fort and the fierce battle that had been fought there. Rather to Kei’s surprise, Tiko asked Arman if he’d like to visit the graveyard where many Prijian soldiers—and a few Darshianese and Andonese—were buried. Arman accepted, and he and Kei walked slowed along the mounds. The graves only had simple stone markers, with no way of telling which was which. “This is where your friend died?’” Kei asked.
“I suppose so. Like me, he would have preferred to die fighting.”
Kei made Arman face him. “There is no glory in death. And no shame in surviving.”
Arman looked at him sadly. “I know that now. Jozo would not have done.”
At the edge of the graveyard, Arman stopped and saluted. So did Tiko and his soldiers, again to Kei’s surprise, standing smartly to attention as they did so—and it wasn’t just their own men for whom the gesture was intended.
Not long after they’d restarted their journey, they came upon the main encampment of Darshianese and Andonese soldiers. Kei had his first glimpse of the sheer numbers stationed to protect the mountain pass, and to act as a base for the many soldiers scattered across north Darshian. Tiko presented his bona fides and they were allowed to travel on. Arman was slightly stunned, perhaps realising for the first time that the easy Prijian victory had been an illusion. Kei didn’t ask—he hated discussing soldiers and warfare.
Less than a day later, they came to the edge of the high plains that formed the greater part of north Darshian. As they started their descent of the Kislik Mountain range, the coastal plain stretched out before them, with the fields and towns of its large population, the lush vegetation that owed its survival to the temperate maritime climate, and by the coast, by the large defended harbour, the city of Darshek itself.
“Does my heart good to see this again,” Tiko declared as they rested on a convenient level area of the long mountain road that would take them a day and a half to descend safely.
“I had no idea,” Arman murmured. “I knew the city was large—but I didn’t realise there was all this besides it.”
“There’s more people in Darshek plain than in the whole of the rest of north Darshian,” Tiko said. “There’s a good ten thousand in the city, and as many again in the farms around the place. She’s a fertile place, and a pretty one. When I retire, if I don’t go back to our family farm, I think I’ll buy a little one here and grow fruit to support me in my old age. Let the sun do all the hard work,” he said winking at Kei, and Kei wondered which ‘sun’ he meant.
From where they looked out, the sea glittered like a jewel. Kei could see the great cannons poised on the twin cliffs bracketing the harbour. “There are the Prijian ships,” Arman murmured. “Just out of range.”
Kei looked where he pointed—and yes, he could just make out five or so vessels moored just past the mouth of the harbour. “The poor bastards must surely want to go home by now,” he muttered.
“I’m sure they do—but this is a good sign, you realise. If the siege is still being maintained, then the senate haven’t convinced Her Serenity to give up the campaign. Which means the hostages still have a value to her, I hope. I’d been rather afraid if she’d heard nothing from m
e in all this time, she might have decided to shut things down. We still need to hurry though. The senate were pressing her to end the war even before I left.”
“Well, then, general, I guess we’ll see how fast you work, if at all,” Tiko said. “We’ve still got some travel ahead of us, so let’s move.”
Kei expected they would take Arman all the way to the Ruler’s House in the centre of Darshek, at least half a day’s ride from the base of the range. He was therefore shocked to be met shortly after they’d completed their descent, by a squad of twenty soldiers on beasts, led by one of the Rulers himself, a short, slim man in his forties whom Kei dimly remembered from his previous stay in the capital. Kei’s group pulled up and Tiko snapped off the smartest salute Kei had ever seen him make. “Lord Meki, I’m Captain Tiko, at your lordship’s service.”
Lord Meki nodded. “Thank you, Captain. I’m here to collect our prize and take him into Darshek. General Arman? I hear you speak our language fluently.”
“Yes, my lord, and I’ve had a few weeks to improve.”
Lord Meki smiled at the comment. “Good. Tiko, if you and your men would remove any personal effects from this cart, we’ll use it to transport the general.” The Ruler turned to Kei. “You would be...?”
Kei swallowed nervously—he hadn’t expected to have to talk to one of the Rulers. “Kei of Ai-Albon, my lord. Healer. I’ve been in charge of the general’s health since Fort Trejk.”
“Ah, yes. And the general’s condition?”
Neki was replaced as driver on the cart, and the other two soldiers took their packs and bedrolls out of the back. Arman wore a blank expression as if this was nothing whatsoever to do with him. “Very good, my lord. He’s still recovering from a broken leg, but in the last day, he’s begun to walk without the crutches. I can travel on with you and see to his care.”
Meki dismissed that idea with a wave of his elegant hand. “No need, lad, we have healers like jombekers have fleas in the House. You can return home to your village with a clear conscience, and our thanks.”
Kei's Gift Page 54