The twins put the finishing touches to his hair, securing their handiwork with a leather thong. One of them gave the braid a playful tug as the two of them scrambled off the couch to go attend Lani. The room rang with their bright chatter as the older girl tried to explain what she was doing.
“ I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my life,” Ashinji began. He pulled nervously at his service rings, unsure of how to put into words the frustration he felt. He took a deep breath and willed himself to relax. His mother radiated a calm energy, and he allowed his mind to absorb it and use it to ease the flow of his thoughts.
“ I am the second-born child of Sen Sakehera, and because of the order of my birth, the direction of my life was chosen for me. Every second child of each generation of our family has always been given to the military. It’s tradition. No one’s ever questioned it.”
“ Very few of us have the power to choose the direction of our own lives exactly as we would have it, Son,” Amara responded.
“ You did,” Ashinji countered.
Amara sighed and put down her needle. “Lani, take the girls outside and let them run the dogs for awhile,” she said.
Lani’s expression indicated that she understood perfectly well the unspoken reason behind her mother’s directive. Carefully, she laid aside the sleeve she had been working on and gestured to the twins. “Come along, girls. Let’s go and get the dogs. They will be ever so happy to see you,” she said brightly. The twins jumped up eagerly and rushed to the door, Lani following in their wake.
“ My situation was very different from yours, Son,” Amara continued after the girls had departed. “The House of Naota has always been nonconformist. That has been our strength and our weakness. We are a clan of mages, full of eccentricity and madness. My mother never married my father. She chose the practice of magic over the traditional roles of wife and mother. I was raised by my aunts and cousins. When the time came for a choice to be made for my life, neither of my parents had the right anymore to decide what I would become. I was free to make the choice for myself.”
“ You chose to become a mage, like your mother,” Ashinji said.
“ In the beginning, yes. I knew my Talent was strong. There were many things that came easily and naturally to me. I believed for a very long time that there could be no other calling for me. Then, I met your father, and suddenly, my perspective on life changed.”
A smile, slow and sweet, suffused her face with the gentle glow of a warm memory. “Ai, your father! He came sweeping into my life like a spring storm and turned everything I thought I knew about myself upside down. He convinced me that my life would be much better if I lived it with him in the outside world, rather than in the cloistered halls of a mage school.”
“ You and my father were lucky enough to be able to choose the lives that suited you best, yet you did not give that same privilege to your children. Why?” Ashinji fought to keep the bitter edge out of his voice, but by his mother’s expression, he knew she had heard it anyway.
Amara folded her hands around her son’s. She leaned forward slightly and Ashinji caught a whiff of her perfume, a special fragrance imported from the distant and mysterious lands to the east. “Ashinji,” she said softly, “I know what is in your heart…there is terrible longing for another kind of life that you cannot have. If I could have given you the freedom to choose, I would have, but it was not possible.”
She stood up and moved over to the window. “Our duty binds us too closely now, Son,” she continued, gazing out over the gardens below. “We must uphold tradition and consider what is best for the House of Sakehera before all other things, including the personal desires of any of its members. As second born, you were pledged by tradition to military service. Only the king himself can release you from that pledge.”
She sighed and turned to face Ashinji. “I beg of you, Son. Try and come to terms with what you must be, and find, if not happiness, at least contentment.”
All throughout her speech, Ashinji could do nothing but stare at the jewel-toned flowers embroidered upon the sleeves of his mother’s robe. Her words were like stones, piled one by one onto his heart until he felt as if it would be crushed.
Abruptly, he stood. “I must go now, Mother,” he stated. Through the open window, he could see Lani and the twins racing across the castle yard towards the gate, three sleek, black hounds bounding along beside them. He had meant to speak to his mother about the dream, but now, all he wanted to do was go somewhere to be alone.
“ You will be leaving at first light tomorrow?” Amara asked. She returned to the couch, picked up her needle, and resumed working.
“ Yes,” Ashinji replied.
“ Will we see you at dinner tonight?”
Ashinji considered a moment before answering. “No,” he said.
“ Then, goodbye, my son. I will see you again when you return.”
Ashinji bent down to kiss his mother in farewell. As his lips touched the soft skin of her cheek, he heard her voice in his mind, as clearly as if she had spoken aloud.
I love you, Ashi. I am sorry.
She did not look up at him as he left the room.
~~~
Ashinji finally lay down to sleep, a little past midnight. All of his gear was cleaned, oiled, and ready. An hour before dawn, a servant would come to assist him with armoring. He needed to rest, but his mind kept filling up with a relentless jumble of thoughts.
What am I going to do?
How can I go on like this?
Who is this girl I keep seeing?
Finally, he gave up and climbed out of bed. Pulling on a pair of loose trousers, he tied the drawstrings securely at his waist and went to sit by the open window across the room.
He took a deep breath of the cool night air. The starlight turned the peaks and slopes of the castle’s roofs into a mysterious black and silver landscape. Ashinji’s quarters were on the uppermost floor at the rear of the east wing; during the day, from his window, he could see out beyond the walls, across rolling green pastures dotted with clumps of trees, to the purple shadows of the vast, forbidding range of the Kesen Numai Mountains, far to the north.
He thought about taking a horse and riding northward, toward the mountains. In three days’ time, if he stopped only to sleep for a couple of hours, he would reach the city of Jokyi and its famous university. Once there, he could petition to take the entrance exams; as the son of a lord, he had already received a good primary education. He felt confident he could pass. His dream of a life as a scholar would be within his grasp.
He sighed and shook his head. Could he turn his back on his family, and forsake every value and tradition he had been raised to believe in? It would be a shocking act of disobedience against a father who had always held him in the highest esteem, for had he not always been a dutiful son? He groaned aloud and pulled his hair in frustration. For eighteen years he had lived as a soldier, and, in truth, had found some satisfaction in it. Why, now, had all of that changed?
He stood up to stretch, then went back to his bed and lay down, arms folded behind his head. He was very tired, yet he did not feel at all drowsy. He decided to close his eyes anyway…and was awakened by a soft, insistent knock upon his bedchamber door.
Must be time to get up, he thought. I slept a little after all…but no dreams. The wild-haired, sad-faced girl had not come.
He admitted the manservant, who came bustling in bearing a light breakfast-smoked fish, bread, a bowl of honey-sweetened yogurt mixed with berries, and a pot of tea. As he ate, Ashinji recalled his mother’s words. Find contentment and acceptance, she had said. The path of his life was set and had been from the very first day he had drawn breath as his father’s second born. His mother was the wisest person he knew. Perhaps, in this as in so many other things, he would be wise to heed her advice.
After all, what was his alternative?
“ My lord.”
“ Captain Miri,” Ashinji replied, acknowledging the older ma
n’s greeting with a short nod. Gendan Miri had been captain of the Kerala Castle guard for as long as Ashinji could remember. He held the stirrup steady as Ashinji mounted his horse, a big, black gelding with a white blaze and large, intelligent eyes. After Ashinji settled himself, Gendan handed up his helmet, which he then hung from the pommel of the saddle. There would be little danger of attack until they reached the area of the last known bandit incursions. He could safely ride bare-headed today.
The first blush of dawn began coloring the sky to the east. The stable yard was dim and cool. The small company to ride out this morning totaled twelve in number: ten castle guards-eight men and two women-with Gendan and Ashinji rounding out the count.
“ Have the troops fall in, Captain,” Ashinji commanded. Gendan turned and called out the order in a clipped bass-baritone. Jingle of harness and creak of leather, horses stamping and blowing, the muted conversation of troops preparing to ride out-Ashinji let the sounds and sights flow through his mind like water over stones. He did not want to think right now; he just wanted to let the horse carry him along to where he needed to go so that he could do what he had to do and return home.
“ The company is ready, my lord,” Gendan reported. He maneuvered his ugly dun mount alongside Ashinji’s black gelding, who, in a fit of equine ill-humor, flattened his ears and turned to bite. Ashinji checked the animal with a quick jerk of the reins and grudgingly, the gelding turned his head away from the dun.
Ashinji looked over his shoulder toward the main door of the castle, then back to the now quiet company waiting at attention. He sighed.
Time to go.
He flicked the reins and clicked his tongue. The gelding started forward, angling toward the gate, Gendan riding alongside, the company following behind in orderly pairs.
“ Ashi, wait!”
Ashinji drew rein and turned in the saddle to see Lord Sen striding toward him. His father’s hair hung loose, and he wore only a simple robe and sandals, as if he had just left the warm haven of his bed to come see his son off.
“ Whew! Thought I’d missed you,” Sen exclaimed as he stepped up and put out a hand to rest on Ashinji’s knee. “It’s harder to get out of bed the older I get. Just wanted to be here when you left. I know I don’t have to tell you to be careful. Don’t take any foolish risks. These are only ragtag human bandits, after all, not trained warriors.” He looked up at Gendan, and a quick message, conveyed by eyes only, passed between lord and liegeman.
Gendan nodded once, sharply.
Lord Sen turned back to Ashinji.
“ I know I can rely on you, Youngest Son.” He patted Ashinji’s knee and stepped away from the gelding’s side.
“ I’ll return in ten days’ time, Father, whether or not I’ve found the bandits,” Ashinji promised. Once more, he urged his mount to walk on toward the gate, which swung slowly open as the riders approached. He led the way onto the sturdy bridge that linked Kerala Castle, which stood on a rocky island in the Saihama River, to the tree-lined shore.
As the company crossed the span, the clop clop of the horses’ hooves on wood broke the early morning stillness. Birds were just beginning to stir and twitter in the trees as the first rays of the sun shot upwards into the purple sky, kindling the underbellies of the clouds to rose-gold fire. A fine mist writhed among the treetops, but it would soon burn off in the rapidly warming air.
The black gelding blew noisily, then threw his head up and jigged sideways into Gendan’s dun, who answered with a swift nip to the neck. The gelding shied away, and Ashinji cursed as he was momentarily thrown off-balance. “I don’t think this horse has been ridden enough lately,” he commented ruefully as he tried to steady the animal.
Gendan chuckled. “He does seem to be feeling his grain, doesn’t he? He’ll settle down after a good brisk lope, I should think.”
“ Huh. Let’s hope so!”
Saihama Village lay a day’s ride to the east. The company planned to follow a track that paralleled the river for about a league, then cut across open pastureland until they reached the dirt lane that led to the village proper. Once there, Ashinji would meet with the sheriff and form a plan of action. He looked back over his shoulder at Kerala Castle, its whitewashed walls gleaming pink in the early morning light. He imagined that he could just make out the tiny figure of his father standing in the gate, arm raised in farewell.
I wonder how Sadaiyo will feel when he learns that our father sent me to do this job, rather than him, Ashinji thought.
He’ll be angry, no doubt, even though he’ll know it makes more sense for me to go…but when did my brother ever allow sense to guide him where I’m concerned?
He turned back in the saddle and focused his eyes forward, somewhere beyond the black horse’s swiveling ears.
For most of his life, Ashinji had been aware that Lord Sen favored him over his older brother, Sadaiyo. He suspected this was so because he and his father were much more alike in temperament than was Sen and his Heir. Ashinji had never encouraged this. In fact, he had always sought to discourage his father’s favoritism, subtle though it was. Try as he might, however, Lord Sen could not conceal the difference in affection he felt for each of his sons. The special bond he shared with Ashinji was just too strong, and because of it, Sadaiyo had nursed a dark, bitter resentment against his brother since childhood.
Ashinji shook his head sadly, knowing that there would be trouble with Sadaiyo when he returned home.
“ Begging your pardon, my lord, but you look as if you’ve got the very weight of the world on your shoulders this morning,” Gendan commented, his rugged face a mask of concern. “Something troubling you?”
“ Only the usual things, Gendan,” Ashinji replied.
Gendan was intuitive enough to know when not to push. “D’you think there’s going to be war with the humans, my lord?” he asked instead, changing the subject.
Ashinji shrugged. “I don’t know. I pray that there won’t be. Alasiri would be hard-pressed to defend itself against an all-out invasion by the Empire.”
“ Humans!” Gendan spat. “They’ve overrun practically all the known world, but that’s not enough for them. Now, they want to take away the little part of it we elves have managed to hold on to!” Gendan’s dun horse snorted and tossed his head, sensing his rider’s agitation.
“ To be fair, it’s not all humans, Gendan, only the Soldaran Empire,” Ashinji pointed out. “I daresay a lot of the other human nations conquered by the Soldarans resent them as much as we do.”
“ That may be so, my lord, but the Soldarans don’t want to just conquer us. They want to annihilate us… wipe us from the face of the earth!” Gendan shook his head in bewilderment. “Why do they hate us so?”
“ Ignorance and superstition,” Ashinji replied. He had studied enough about Soldaran religious beliefs to know that this was the case. As long as most Soldarans were taught that elves were, by their very nature, demonic, there could be no understanding or peace between the two races.
The new sun already burned hot in a perfect, cloudless sky. Ashinji wiped his perspiring brow with the back of his gloved hand. “If war does come, it’s going to take everything we’ve got just to survive,” he said. Gendan grunted his assent.
And I’ll have to give up on any hope of leaving the army, he thought. War will require great sacrifices of all of us.
Chapter 11
Ambush
Jelena and Magnes walked all night, with only the stars and a tiny sliver of moon to light their way. They passed through rustling fields of growing wheat and orchards awash in blossoms, always heading northwest. Magnes had chosen as their goal the only spot in the Janica River where he knew that the water was shallow enough to cross. To reach the fords, they would have to traverse a small but dense patch of woodland that lay at the northernmost edge of Amsaran territory. Across the river, which marked the boundary of the Empire, lay elven lands.
At dawn, they reached the edge of the forest and decided to st
op and rest a few yards into the trees. Magnes went off to forage while Jelena set up their meager camp. It was dark and chilly beneath the thick canopy of oak, beech, and chestnut. The trees themselves were large-boled and hoary, a testament to their great age. This stand was but a remnant of a once vast forest that had covered much of Amsara back in ancient times. With the coming of people, the mighty trees had fallen to the cold iron of the axe blade as the land was cleared for fields and pastures. Somehow, this small patch had survived, most likely due to its closeness to elven territory.
Jelena tried to fight her growing unease by busying herself about the camp. Despite the dim light, she could see well enough to collect a supply of sticks and dry debris, and with flint and steel, soon had a small fire burning. Next, she cleared away the litter of last year’s withered leaves and acorns to make a relatively smooth spot on which to spread out the bedrolls. The fire cheered her a little, as did the sunrise, which put to flight some of the darker, more sinister shadows.
Even so, the trees seemed to possess a kind of slow and alien awareness, like strange old men huddled together, whispering secrets over her head. She sat cross-legged on the ground close to the little fire, pulled her blanket over her shoulders, and settled down to await Magnes’s return.
The snap of a breaking twig startled Jelena up out of a light doze. She had not realized that she had been asleep until that instant, and a thrill of alarm shot through her. She jumped to her feet and snatched her long knife from the sheath at her waist.
“ Easy! It’s only me.”
At the sound of Magnes’s voice, Jelena’s fear evaporated, and all of the nervous energy tensing her muscles drained away, leaving relief in its wake. “You scared me half to death!” she exclaimed. “I must have dozed off.” She re-sheathed the knife and came forward to see what Magnes had foraged.
“ It’s these damned trees. They’ve got me jumpy, too,” Magnes said sympathetically. He hunkered down by the fire and laid out his harvest. “It’s been a little dry this spring, but there’s still quite a lot of stuff growing. I’ve got some leeks and cleavers, and a few spring beauty roots. We’ll have a nice salad.” He held up each plant as he named it. “And now, I’ve saved the best for last!” With a crow of triumph, he dumped a handful of tiny, brilliant red wild strawberries into Jelena’s lap. She clapped with delight. With the fruit of Magnes’s foraging to supplement the rations they had brought with them out of Amsara, it should be several days before they would be forced to hunt.
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