Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  How do I explain this without sounding carping? Megan thought for a minute. “I love Shkai’ra,” she said finally, “but sometimes she pisses me off.” Fishhook swooped low over Sova, earning a languid swat. “I don’t know how she opened up enough to fall in love with me, because she is convinced that the world works exactly as it should ... not necessarily as it does. She’s trying to understand the way everyone else feels—but she hides so much hurt from herself that she can’t bear to see anyone else’s. That’s my best guess. Someday she’s going to have to understand these things if she wants to be a better warrior and a better person.” Megan looked over at the girl. “She decided that what she did was right, period. I’m not going to say that sometimes she’s just a pigheaded idiot.”

  “What’s understanding those things got to do with being a better warrior?”

  Koru, how do I get into these questions? “Well—the simplest answer is that if she doesn’t understand, if she isn’t sensitive to people, she’ll treat them with contempt, underestimate someone and get killed; but that’s only one. There are as many reasons as there are people ...” Megan stopped for a bit. “I know it all sounds mystical and airy, but a teacher of mine said that naZak who truly know themselves and thus, others, have a power aside from manrauq.”

  “Mmm.” The girl’s face stayed thoughtful for a while, as she mulled this over. “Khyd-hird doesn’t really know herself. And she’s trying to make me into someone else who doesn’t really know myself. But I want to know myself, or how else will I know who I am? I mean ...” She trailed off.

  “You are right about what Shkai’ra’s trying to teach you. And you’re at an age when most people don’t know themselves. I still don’t know myself, but I’m still trying. It’s almost more important than book learning.” She looked sideways at Sova. “And you know how important that is.” She smiled. “If I can help, feel free to ask.”

  “Thanks, zhymata.” The round Thanish features lit in what was all too rare; a smile that was neither ironic nor childhood silliness.

  “Thank you, Sovee.” They were riding close enough to touch, the two ponies nipping at each other’s necks. Megan laid her hand on the girl’s mailed shoulder and smiled, a bare curving of the lips. “You’ve taught me how to love you. I do my best, hey, for an evil Zak witch that eats Thanish babies for breakfast?”

  The girl didn’t laugh; but after a little while, she said, “Zhymata, you taught me how to love you, too.”

  They rode on, through immaculate deserted farmland. Time passed, filled with the clopping of hooves, the click and creak of harness, a marching song from somewhere behind.

  “Zhymata, I learned from you that all Zak are not bad, but some are nice, like any people. Am I—and was Francosz—teaching you that about Thanes?”

  “You certainly are, and he did.” Megan squinted up at the sun, at the distant silhouette of a soaring bird.

  “I went to see the old place when I went through Brahvniki,” Sova said, sometime later. Her voice was almost casual.

  “Oh?” Megan said carefully, raising one eyebrow.

  “I know it was on Syevyre Road, just north of the walls. And I remember Teik Anastosi’s place, next door. But ours, I mean theirs, sorry, is all changed now. The house and the gate and even the trees are all gone, and someone else has built another one there. It’s as if it never was.”

  Megan rode in silence thinking, at a loss for words. I won’t speak ill of her father, not to her face. “Well as long as you remember it, it was. It’s not a good thing to forget where you came from; that’s where to start to understand yourself.”

  “But I thought everything I learned there was all wrong. I mean, I know some of it was, like being mean to Piatr and thinking women should be weak instead of strong and know nothing about month-bleeding. But everything else was, too. Thanish prejudices and my-father-was-a-cheating-coward and my-mother-was-a-fainting-cow and we lived too soft and didn’t get beaten nearly enough, you know, the things khyd-hird says.”

  “Well, Shkai’ra lived too hard and got beaten too often and her opinion of your parents is decidedly biased by the fact that your father was my enemy,” Megan said tartly. “The good things you learned there will ring most true to both old way of life and new.” Her face softened as she thought of learning that herself. “Someone must have loved you there, or you wouldn’t know how ... keep the best, toss everything that’s bullshit out.”

  “All Thanes don’t bugger their children, you know,” Sova said, somewhat hotly. “Now I know what that means, so I can tell you. Mine didn’t bugger me. So there.”

  Megan blinked. “I didn’t think they did; you don’t show signs of it. It’s the same sort of crap that the races fling around to fuel ...” She waved at the army around them. “This. Most people don’t think twice about saying Zak cannibal, Thanish child-raper, Arkan bastard.”... Her glance sharpened on Sova. “Has someone pointed that particular idea about Thanes and their children to you, ah, recently? Like Shkai’ra? When it comes to that, she’s somehow particularly insensitive.”

  “Her and every Zak I’ve ever met except for you, now, and Zhymata Rilla,” Sova said blithely.

  Megan heaved a sigh. She’s exaggerating, she thought. But even so ... “Are you happier being away from F’talezon?” Megan had avoided letting anyone who was particularly intolerant associate with the Slaf Hikarme, but she could only do so much.

  “No,” the girl said, but Megan got at least a vague impression she was just being polite. “I miss Rilla and Shyll and the baby and the house. And eating nice food. And not marching, Gotth—excuse me. But at least here strangers aren’t any meaner to me than anyone else, or just being nice to me because I’m your daughter.”

  “Ha-a-a-a-a-alt!” They’d arrived at tonight’s resting-place; time to fall out and set camp, and Sova should be with Shkai’ra. Megan answered the girl with an affirmative grunt, then reached up to hug her head. “That’s food. We’ll talk more. You know, you’re outgrowing me, daughter.” She smiled. “Go on with you.”

  “O my sons, my precious pooooor sonnnnns!”

  As Dimae, the solas goddess, female counterpart to the Steel-Armed One, Megan put on her best solas accent, and overacted shamelessly. “Like flies you die, all in a doomed cause! Sweet innocent souls, deluded by fools, believing your Steel-armed God favors this cause after so many clear omens! O my babes, wasted, flung away, like dust, O woe, O woe, O wo-o-o-o-oe!”

  Chevenga laughed so hard he fell off his cushion. The only person in the world, Megan thought, who could maintain his dignity rolling on the floor of an office-cart. She liked making him laugh. “Fabulous,” he said. “Stunning. The prize of the play festival for you ... we’re planned then?”

  She nodded. “We’re planned, kras.”

  “So fast, we’ve barely spoken two words.” He swung back up to sitting. “Stay for a bit?”

  She’d been hoping he’d let her linger this time, and had brought a suitable inducement; they knew each other well enough now that he wouldn’t take it as trying to buy his favor, she knew. She hadn’t expected an invitation. “Certainly. I understand—I’ve heard from one of the most comprehensive of sources—you have a taste for this.” She drew out the small flask of Saekrberk. Shkai’ra and I never got around to drinking it ourselves, she’d thought, so why not?

  “Well, yes ...” His lips pursed, as if he were searching for a polite way to say something awkward. Shit, she thought. Of course—security. She held the flask up, showing him the waxen Benai Saekrberk seal affixing the cap. “It’s been in our possession all the way from Brahvniki, my word and oath on it. Well and good in our possession, in a hip-pouch by day, in the bottom of our bedroll at night—we didn’t want some scruff stealing it.”

  He grinned then, teeth flashing gold. “Good enough. The most comprehensive source first introduced me to that, as he told you. It’s a little early ... well, maybe not for just one. To toast ... the gods of Arko, who are so just?”

&n
bsp; Megan smiled. From the lowest drawer of the cabinet he drew two small cups, handing one to her; the jiggling of the cart made it unwise to put them down to pour. “To the gods of Arko, who are so just,” they said together. “Korukai.” By ancient tradition, both emptied their cups in one draught.

  The Saekrberk burned its familiar way across Megan’s tongue; she licked the green sweetness off her lip. “I never thought I’d be a theater player. Truly, I’m not that ... how would you say it ... out-flung? No: outgoing.”

  “The audience will be too busy pissing themselves to give critical opinions,” he said. “You keep to yourself; that’s your way, or your nature, so be it.”

  “Tell me, kras: I’m in only affecting a handful of people each time. Do you think it’s making that much of a difference? It’s the sort of information Arkan commanders would suppress.”

  “Would I send you out to risk your life doing it if I didn’t think it made a difference? Suppress as hard as they can, they won’t silence the rumor mill; it needs only one to start a rumor, a handful gives it greater credence. And Arkans are good rumor-mongers—because they know full well their commanders suppress information.”

  “Put it that way and it makes a lot more sense,” Megan said. “Just one of my false-dawn snake-thoughts, that’s all.”

  “I know, I have them too,” said the Imperturbable.

  Megan glanced at the bed. “You don’t sleep well, then?”

  “Shall we say, there are many other things I do better. I’m under healer’s orders right now: six aer of sleep a night, no matter what. That’s about five Arkan beads, it doesn’t seem like much, I know, but I never slept long. He’s very strict about it too, uses that sand-timer. I’ve got this bed here because if I haven’t had my six aer by reveille, he makes me sleep on the march.” Megan bit her lip to keep from laughing, not sure how he might take it.

  “Strict Haian ... Sometimes it pisse ... ah ... angers me when Shkai’ra can sleep anywhere, anytime ... for no reason, I know, but I still feel it.” Comfortable, sharing the trait with him ... with a snap, she pulled herself to attention inwardly. Shake off the liquor. He’s still the Invincible. We aren’t that close, yet.

  “Megan, you can say ‘pisses me off.’ We’re in an army, you don’t have to talk as if it were a diplomatic function ... though I suppose it is a diplomatic function, after a fashion ...”

  “I keep having to remind myself you’re semanakraseye. Kras.” A little longer arm’s length, she wanted to keep him, still.

  “Call me Chevenga. Anyone who gives me Saekrberk is a friend of mine.”

  Megan threw up her hands. “Who am I to argue? Kra-Shche ... Shchevenga.”

  “My true use-name,” he laughed. “Kraschevenga. Or with Yeolis, Semanachevenga. You know I’ve never asked you about your family, aside from the son you’re seeking.”

  “Ah.” She listed them off. Nice to be with someone who isn’t shocked at marriages of more than two, she thought. Yeolis had the same custom, and he, it turned out, was in a three, planning to add a fourth. “They’re all well,” she said. “The hardest part right now, aside from missing Lixand, which is always, is getting to know what’s going on in my daughter’s head ... adopted daughter. You may have seen her, the Thanish girl squiring Shkai’ra? Round face, ash-blond hair?”

  “Yes, I think I know her to see her. How old was she when you adopted her? They say that’s everything, when it comes to adoption.”

  “It was last year; she was thirteen.”

  There was the faintest twitch of a knitting of his brows; in his eyes she could see him wavering on whether to pry or not. “That’s rather old,” he said finally.

  Megan looked back at him steadily. “Let’s just say it was necessary, to give her legal status in F’talezon. I’ve just lately been considering moving our household to Brahvniki, a more tolerant place.”

  “Because Thanes and Zak are enemies; that would be hard for her, in F’talezon. Good of you to consider, for her sake; no one’s more helpless than a child without parents.”

  Megan winced inwardly. There are about three meanings in that, and he only knows one of them. Yet nothing he said could even be called uncivil. “Hmm.” She didn’t want to try to explain. “The other consideration is that both Shkai’ra and my husband Shyll are naZak.”

  “All standing out like Srians in a nursery; I understand. Tell me, did you have people at home objecting to you marrying all these foreigners?” He wants to press the issue of Sova, she thought, but he’s too polite.

  “No kin that matter. I think my aunt is still alive, but I don’t particularly care.”

  “She betrayed you?” Megan drew back blinking; he quickly added, “If you choose to make it my business. If not, so be it.”

  “She’s the one who sold me ... to Sarngeld. When I was twelve. His true name was At ... Atza-trat ... zas. As near as I can say it.”

  “Atzathratzas?” A Yeoli tongue was somehow more adapted to Arkan words. That too-open, too-perceptive, hunting-cat look fixed on her, trying to see inside. Maybe I should cut this short and get out of here. But then it was off her. She twined the ends of her hair in her fingers. “Your aunt sold you? To an Arkan? Why? I’ve seen what kinship means to Zak ...”

  “Most Zak. Not all. She was that way with my father. But me ... I suppose she was tired of seeing his shade in me, my face, or she was tired of bothering. As far as I know, a drunken impulse. I’ve never cared to ask her why.”

  “That sounds like madness to me. Was she a drunkard?”

  Megan studied the back of her one hand, held before her, for a moment. Why not trust him? I’ve trusted him already with the knowledge of what I am, of the manrauq. Her hands twisted together in her lap. Like a knife throw; risk it.

  “She was a three-flask drunk. One would get her ugly, two would get her mean and three would have her too fuzzy to aim, until she passed out. That was before she started brewing things out of her own herbs.”

  “Were your parents dead by then?”

  Megan felt old pain twinge, like a pulled muscle tensed. “My father got executed for Avritha’s birthday when I was ten, my mother died of fever when I was eleven.”

  Chevenga sat silent for a moment, entirely still. Then he said, “You’ve suffered as no one should.” No sarcasm, no hesitation, just the thought itself, straightforward and real. That’s true. No one should. She looked up at him. Who else in all the world could say that as a bald statement and not have it sound puerile? “It does you credit that you’re even alive,” he added.

  “Well. It happened. It’s past, or almost. Once I get Lixand back that portion of my life will be truly done.” She smiled a twisted sort of smile. “Maybe I should thank her; if she hadn’t done that I would never have borne him. Other children, but not him.” She tried to keep it light, suspected she wasn’t succeeding. She looked up through her eyelashes at his face.

  There was understanding; she could almost see the pieces fall into place in his mind, his eyes showing it clear, a flicker or pain, then sorrow, for her. The breath she let out was not as calm as she wanted to pretend. She hadn’t realized she was holding it.

  “Atzathratzas was Lixand’s father,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. It was only half-questioning. Then he offered her his hand, palm up. Not reaching, but leaving her the choice to take or not.

  Careful not to scratch him, she laid her hand in his. The ridge of his sword-callus lay warm under the soft skin of her thumb, somehow comforting, like Shkai’ra’s. These hands would never move anyone around like a puppet, or a doll.

  “You said he was almost ten.”

  She cleared her throat, making a scratchy sound. “Dah. He was born in the Year of the Iron Ri, summer—ten now, he’d be.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty and four.” She looked at her hand in his, the scratches on his nails and the scrape on a knuckle, as if they were the most important things in the world. Then she raised her eyes to his, making the
m as calm as she could.

  He was looking beyond her, beyond the wall of the cart, far away, eyebrows ridged black over narrowed eyes, lips pressed into a thin line. Then the eyes came back, and he mock-spat, hard, in the direction of Arko.

  He’s already closer than I let most people get, ever, she thought. Another part of her thought: that’s the first bitterness I’ve ever seen from him, against them.

  Pain hung with claws from the inside of her ribs, drawn by his sympathy. She shrugged, casual like Shkai’ra, forced the words. “I lived.” Does he do this to everyone in this army? Even every special operative? “I ...” Her throat froze up, the worst since she’d told Shkai’ra, who hadn’t made much of it, despite her efforts. “I can heal.” Swallowing the hurt in her throat, she raised her eyes to his, forced them steady.

  “Oh, yes,” he said lightly, as if it were a given. “You can. You will. It’s just difficult and takes a long time. I know.”

  I know. The word echoed in her ears, like a bell, significant, like a drop of blood in water. He does. It came to her: he was a slave of Arko.

  Most of his scars were hidden under near-priceless armor, now, but she remembered them, the marks of the ten-beaded whip, the brand burns. Why am I thinking he wouldn’t have got the rest of the usual treatment? That sort of thing doesn’t only happen to the poor; there are shits in every quarter. He just ran up against the richest shit of all, the Imperator. A tale she had heard at a fire came hard back into her mind: that he’d suffered the worst tortures at the hands of Kurkas. Personally. No one else would have had the nerve, she thought. Koru—what must it have felt like, while at the same time, he knew, the Arkan army was doing the same thing to his country?

  She hadn’t thought much about his grudge; now she realized why. Off the field, he never showed it. Not so much as a snarl or a hiss or an icy-eyed stare; the worst he’d get was snide. He would just let drop stories of his sufferings there, now and then, understated and casual as if commenting on the weather, an instant’s twinge on his face at the most.