Kei's Gift

by Ann Somerville

  “You mean that was you being restrained?” Reji asked in some amazement.

  “Oh, yes,” Kei said fondly. “You don’t want to get him really mad. Then he gets mean.” Arman saluted him ironically for that. “But I say it with love, of course.”

  “Of course. You’re such a brat,” he replied, getting to his feet. Kei was still rather concerned about him—the limp was better, but still there.

  “You tell me that a least a dozen times a day.”

  “That’s because you are, Keichichi,” Reji said, pulling Jena to her feet.

  “Yes, he is,” she agreed.

  Kei pouted at her. “You mean I’m inviting you back to my home just so you and Reji and Arman can pick on me?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said cheerfully, then made a run for it as he made to chase her. He let her go and Reji went after her instead. He watched him catch up with her, and take her hand. She rested her head briefly on Reji’s shoulder and then they walked back more sedately towards the village.

  “I’m going to have to go into hiding when I get home. Once Myka gets through scolding me for not coming back when I promised, in about a year, I’ll have all of you after me.”

  “Poor Kei,” Arman said with a complete lack of sympathy, putting his arm around Kei’s waist. “Something I’ve been meaning to ask you—why does Reji call you ‘Keichichi’? No one else does.”

  He showed nothing of it in his voice, but Kei sensed the slight jealousy. “It’s a childish name—Myka uses it, just as I call her Mychichi. Reji uses it because he’s my big brother, not because we were lovers, so stop frowning.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.” Kei kissed the proof of it. “I only let him and Myka and Banji and Mis call me that, so don’t you start.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. So,” Arman asked as they walked on, “what would you have called me as a child?”

  “Um. That’s hard to say. Your name’s not very Darshianese.”

  “Should I change it?”

  Kei made him stop. “No, Arman. You can go too far, you know. It’s not like it’s a hard name to say, not like the Andonese ones.” He kissed Arman’s cheek again—carefully shaved that very morning as requested. “We won’t forget where you were born, you know. But you can make people not care. That’s all you need.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Kei sighed. Arman needed to get over this self-consciousness, but it was hard in the face of the irrationality on display that morning. If Vikis did mean to stay in Ai-Albon—and Reji was becoming more and more enthusiastic about the idea—that would help, as would Jena’s presence.

  He would be glad to get home. He realised with some surprise how much he’d been dreading it up until Jena had made her decision. Now it was something he was eager to do. He was eager to settle her in, and get Arman established in a useful role. And Reji would have someone of his own too, so Kei didn’t even have to feel too guilty over him, although he told himself that was certainly not the reason he wanted his two friends to form a relationship. His parents’ death had shattered his family, but now he was re-mending it, reweaving it with new, bright threads.

  “Well, you look cheerful all of a sudden,” Arman said.

  “I feel it. I really love you, you know that?”

  “For any particular reason just now?”

  “Not really.” He kissed Arman again. “I want to go home.”

  “So do I. Come on, we’re wasting the day.”

  ~~~~~~~~

  Jena didn’t have a lot of belongings, but it still took time for her to decide what to take and what to leave, and to have the more fragile and precious things stowed. Arman brought Vikis and Kesa over, as they’d insisted on helping, but he was relegated to a chair, much to his disgust, and made to hold Karik while the others worked.

  That was until Jena had a series of visitors trying to change her mind, and after two yelling matches which left Kesa looking terrified and Karik screaming his tiny lungs out, Arman and Vikis suddenly became guards, sitting outside the front door. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone, least of all Jena. “You realise this will make people angrier? Two Prij guarding a former hostage, and both of them involved in the hostage taking?”

  “At least you can count on them not losing their temper the way Reji and I would,” Kei said, hefting yet another set of books—Jena had as many as Kei’s late father did—“and if they do, they know which bones to break.”

  “You have an unsuspected sadistic streak,” Reji said, cocking his head. “Did I have a lucky escape?”

  “Maybe from the stove into the boiling water,” he said, looking at Jena as he grinned. “I keep trying to tell myself they’re not bad people. They’re not, but it’s hard.”

  Jena rubbed some dust from her nose. “They’re not, really. But I don’t belong here any more.”

  That statement worried Kei. Not for his own sake, but because he had to wonder how the other hostages in the other villages were going to find it. Over the campfires on the trail, there’d been a lot of homesickness, but under that, a lot of anxiety too. Many had formed friendships, even romances, and there would be more than one family who would have a son or daughter announce they were moving to another village. Three families would have daughters bearing children of an enemy—and at least one of those had struck up a relationship with a man from the other end of Darshian, so they would be dealt a double blow if she followed him home. The north would be years healing from the scars of these changes, even before the changes in the hostages themselves were taken into account. Look at Jena. She was far more volatile, more easily upset, more in need of comfort than she had been when Kei first met her—and she’d been one of the luckiest ones in that her master had been the kindest person possible.

  At least Ai-Albon looked like it would keep all its souls and gain a few. Peit and Urki had shyly announced they were pledged just the night before they arrived in Ai-Rutej, so they wouldn’t be leaving. Most of the others had every intention of returning to pledge mates or lovers, although how many would discover the kind of thing that Jena had done, Kei didn’t know. In some ways, he had got off extremely lightly from his experiences.

  Once her things were placed in the wagons, Jena announced she would stay with Reji and the others that night. Reji immediately told her she could have his bed so she could look after Karik. “Don’t be stupid, Reji, I can sleep on a bedroll as easily as anyone else, I’ve done it enough.” But Reji wouldn’t hear of it, arguing she needed her rest if she was going to keep getting up with Karik. “Then we can share, I’ve done that before.”

  Reji went bright red. Kei poked him in the side. “Taking it slow, huh?”

  Reji slapped his hand away. “Shut up or I’ll share the bed with you and Arman instead.”

  Kei batted his eyelashes at his former lover. “For myself, I don’t mind, but Arman has this injured side, and I don’t know if he’s up to a three-in-a-bed just yet.”

  Arman, listening to this exchange with a perfectly calm expression, told him to behave. “Stop teasing, you meddling boy. Jena, if Reji shares with you, you’ll wake him all night with the child.”

  “True. All right, Reji, you escape for now.”

  Kei nearly laughed at Reji’s mixture of relief and disappointment. He did think they should take it carefully, though. Jena was still very raw and that, with adjusting to motherhood, would make the situation difficult.

  He said as much as he helped Reji load the stores into the wagons later, when Gonji and Vikis had gone to fetch some more lem flour.

  Reji scowled. “Do you not think I know that? I wasn’t expecting any of this—I’m still reeling, half expecting her to change her mind.”

  “Did you tell her how you felt?”

  Reji rested against the wagon for a moment—they were both pretty tired. “I told her that...I admired her, and would like to get to know her better. More than that, I felt wasn’t fair, and possibly not even true. It’s all happening a bit fast for
a simple boy from the villages,” he said wryly.

  “That it is. How that bastard could give Jena up for another, I have no idea. If I were free, I’d pursue her myself.”

  “Yes, that’s all you need—someone else in love with you,” Reji said, cuffing his shoulder. “I suppose Aldik got lonely and Mara was there. With the baby on the way, his course is pretty much set now. I can understand loneliness, even if I can’t understand him setting Jena aside.”

  “His loss, your gain. I hope, anyway. You’d take on a child, though? You always said you wanted no ties.”

  Reji looked at him seriously, then hefted a sack up into the back of the wagon. “People change. Things change them, as they have you. Perhaps the lack of ties didn’t seem so attractive once the choice was ripped away from me.”

  “You’re not just reacting to me, I hope. Reji, that’s not fair on her.”

  “Oh, hush, little brother, what do you take me for? If it weren’t for you, I might have had her in my bed on the ship. It wouldn’t have taken much—she was lonely too. I’d have asked, anyway. It’s because I’m still...confused...that I want to take it slow.” He put his hands on his hips and glared at Kei. “You’re a little young to be giving your elders and betters love advice, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll grant you ‘elder’ at least,” Kei said, ducking the swat. “Anyway, some days I feel like I’m seventy, not twenty-one. I’ve seen and done more now than a lot in our village have.”

  “Aye, that you have. But don’t fear that. It’s no bad thing to have different experiences.” He hefted another sack. “You crave stability because of losing your parents. That doesn’t mean stability necessarily comes from lack of change.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t be threatened by new challenges, is all I mean. You don’t have to lose out, just because you meet them.”

  “You’re being unusually cryptic, Rei-ki.”

  “You’re being unusually dense. Never mind, little brother. Where in hells are Gonji and Vikis? We’ve still got a lot to do.”

  Reji clearly didn’t want to pursue it, and despite his confusion, Kei let it drop. There was more than enough to worry about without it.

  The departure the following morning was surprisingly low-key with only the former hostages turning up to bid tearful farewells to their fellows. Jena cried the whole time, and was quiet and sad for most of that day and the next, riding next to Reji with Karik in her arms, and leaning on Reji much of the time. Kei was glad she was getting some comfort that way.

  He and Arman took turns driving the wagons, but they both preferred to ride unhitched beasts when they could. Those who liked to ride were given the chance to as much as possible—no one had to walk this time, and therefore the return was taking less time than when they had been forced away from the villages. At night, there was time and energy to talk, unlike before, and leisure too, to walk around, to escape one’s comrades and have some privacy. Most of them had had almost no privacy at all in the entire time since they’d left their villages. It was one reason Reji and Kei had insisted on tents, and more wagons than were strictly necessary, and rest stops in the villages they passed, to let people adjust back to some semblance of normal life.

  One thing that had surprised Kei and Reji was how much the hostages wanted to talk to Arman, once they had got over their reticence. There had been anger, and that was expected. But most of them were just trying to make sense of the whole experience. Why had they been taken, why had the war happened, why did the Prij hate them? In that respect, they were very fortunate to have Arman and not some other Prij to question, for these were things he and Kei had discussed at length over their long friendship. More than that, he was unusually open-minded, and had given these matters some thought even before the war. Vikis also became involved, and his pleasant, honest manner was much appreciated.

  Not all the discussions were friendly, or civil. On a couple of nights, things had got very loud and angry, and people had stormed off, other left sitting in tears. Arman hadn’t walked away, and he’d sat as long as anyone wanted to talk to him. But when he’d returned to Kei’s arms, in the privacy of their tent, he’d wept a little, for his own regrets, and sorrow for what he had been responsible for.

  They’d planned to skirt right around Ai-Vinri to avoid putting pressure on the village. Therefore it was something of a shock to find people from that village blocking their path, a good two or three miles out of Ai-Vinri. Kei and Arman were outriders that day, flanking Reji’s wagon, which as always, was the lead vehicle. “Ho! Welcome, friends,” Reji said cheerfully. “May we serve you?”

  Two of the beast riders were former hostages, Kei realised. “Hello, Gyu. Did everyone get back safely?”

  “Yes, they did, Kei, thank you. Reji, my clan head wanted me to invite the Darshianese among you to the village tonight.” He looked at Arman. “The ban remains—but you can camp on the outskirts, and he will permit food and supplies to be brought to you.”

  “Why?” Arman asked. “Fejsik has no reason to bend his own decree. Not on my account.”

  “No, he doesn’t. But he offers this as acknowledgment of your role in getting us back, and in thanks for ending the war.”

  Reji spoke up. “Gyu, as you can see we still have Jena and the child with us, and Vikis and Kesa as well. Will supplies be provided for them as well?”

  “Why do you...oh, never mind. I’m sure they will. Do you accept the invitation?”

  “Kei?” Reji asked, turning to him.

  “I think it’s a gracious gesture. Thank you, Gyu.”

  Gyu’s grim expression lifted. “I’m sorry we can’t have Arman in, but it’s for our families as much as anything. People are still very raw, but Fejsik wants the healing to start too, for himself as well as the rest of us.”

  Arman bowed his head. “He’s being more generous than anyone would expect of him. No need to apologise.”

  “I’ll stay with Arman and the others,” Kei said. “Reji, I presume you’ll come back to the camp?”

  “Of course. Gyu, show us where you want the camp and then I’ll take the wagons in.”

  The chosen campsite was pleasant, providing plentiful feed and clean water, and staying there was no hardship to any of them as they’d been planning to camp that night anyway. Reji came back with two beasts, bearing food and tents for all of them.

  “That was unexpected, to say the least,” he said as Kei helped him unload. “That Ai-Rutej should bear such a grudge, and yet this village with its grief....”

  “Fejsik is a good, decent man. Myri was a lovely girl.” Kei felt his chest getting tight, remembering her...remembering.... He forced himself to be calm. “But perhaps he doesn’t want to offer hate in her spirit’s name.”

  “Still, a generous gesture,” Arman said. “I should have done more,” he added quietly. “Damn it, I really wish I’d run Mekus through that day.”

  “And then you would be dead also, as would all of us be, probably,” Kei said. “You share responsibility, it’s not yours alone.”

  “Tell that to the bereaved families,” he snapped, limping off.

  Reji stared off after Arman. “I never realised.... Kei, are you all right? You look a little upset.”

  Kei shook his head. “I can’t help—” His throat closed up. “Excuse me,” he managed to say. “I need to speak to Jena.”

  He found her at the end of the camp, sitting in the shadows, and like him, she was close to tears. “Hold me, Kei.” Which he did for a long time, their privacy respected by the others. Reji couldn’t understand. Not even Arman could, not completely. Only with Jena could Kei share his memories, of the others and of that day, and how it felt to be helpless as friends died, right there in front of them.

  Arman joined them after an hour or so, bringing over food neither of them wanted, but ate anyway because it had been a long day and it would be a long one to follow. He didn’t say a word, but took their hands in his, letting them feel his sorrow, and his sy
mpathy. It was the best thing he could have done.

  But it still hurt, and probably always would—a permanent scar, marking the hostages as different from their fellows for the rest of their lives. It was a distinction Kei would gladly have foregone.

  Chapter : Darshek 15

  Arman was glad when they left Ai-Darbin. Not that they’d encountered any hostility—the bereaved parents of Arman’s victim had decided to leave the village altogether and move to a farm some fifteen miles outside it, to help Jik’s ailing uncle work his property. The rest of the villagers were currently collectively working the farm Jik and Meri had abandoned, but were hoping to recruit people from elsewhere to live permanently in the village and manage the fields. Seya had even suggested to Kei that he and Arman might consider it, which Kei rejected politely. “My village needs me. But as soon as I’ve recovered, Arman will be free to return for the six months. That will help a little.”

  She’d agreed, looking a little disappointed but no more than that. She’d bid them a warm farewell, and said she looked forward to Arman’s return. Arman knew she was sincere, and wished he could have been as warm in his response.

  No, he’d had nothing to complain about in his treatment, but it was a reminder of pain, and Karus’s loss so recently made the older memory of Loke’s death even harder to bear. When he returned to carry out his sentence, he hoped he would be less raw, but for now, he just wanted to get away from it all.

  Now they were down to twenty returnees, and people were settling down a little. The conversations around the camp-fires at night were less fraught, and less of a trial for Arman, and though it was cowardly of him to be grateful to no longer have to explain over and over about the war, he was grateful none the less.

  Everyone had finally reached a rhythm on the journey. Reji and Jena were getting along well, and Kesa’s spirits improved every day. Vikis and Reji had struck up a firm friendship, although the trader was so amiable, it was hard to imagine him not being friends with almost everyone he met. Vikis spoke hopefully of setting up a wainwright’s workshop in Kei’s village, and Arman thought this might be something in which he himself could usefully occupy himself. He needed a trade other than killing, since he doubted that was much in demand in Ai-Albon.