Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  I will kill him. They’ll have to figure out how to do without him.

  “All to keep the social order, they say ... but, well, come on! It would be ridiculous, for instance, to look at our Chevenga here with a straight face and say, “What they did to you while you were helpless, shit, they never did for pleasure, did they? I mean, you could feel it was all for sacred duty, couldn’t you?’”

  A sudden silence fell; everyone was looking at him for an answer, even though, by the sudden swallowed-a-peach-pit look on the Yeoli’s face, she’d meant the question rhetorically. But the semanakraseye spread the fingers of his good hand, and answered.”They seemed to find their duty and their pleasure,” the soft voice said, “by some lucky coincidence, happily allied.”

  Laughter broke out all around the fire; one man fell off the log, he laughed so hard—though he managed to keep the horn-cup in his hand upright—making Megan wonder what he’d seen or suffered to make this so funny.

  “I’m putting it facetiously,” Chevenga said, when the mirth quieted, “but it’s true. By saying it is duty, they can excuse the pleasure, and so make it purer; by feeling the pleasure they can give themselves credit for enjoying duty. Virtue, either way; a very nice arrangement.”

  I will kill him, and have Lixand back. My rokatzk would be a fool to renege. And we will still win the war; it has enough momentum.

  “Cheng.” A drunken man. “When you learned that, when you got to feel that at their expense, it was a damned fine sight to see. A damned fine sight.” He raised his cup; several others did likewise.

  The Arkan general: Shkai’ra had told her. “Teik Sun-Shines-Out-Of-His-Ass isn’t so driven-snow pure.” Abatzas Kallen—she’d been struck by the similarity, to Sarngeld’s true-name. “Neither he, nor his kind, sweet, gentle people, who voted for him to do it ... several have told me, how he milked every bit of ecstasy out of pronging that fat fuck-head. About time, I’d say; they had it coming, and no one deserved to give it to them more than him.”

  I’m going to kill you, she thought. If you could do that to anyone, Arkan or not, for any reason ...

  Chevenga ran a hand through his dark hair, and said, “Semana kra,” like an incantation. The people wills. You mean it was duty. Just following orders. Your duty and your pleasure were happily allied?

  Megan wanted to be elsewhere, to continue; if it got intense enough, her face would show it. She yawned elaborately, stretched and got up, surrendering her place to the steadily contracting circle. Chevenga got up too, catching her eye.

  Wanting to talk, it seemed; fine. Away from the fire, the darkness was full but for faint starlight, even in the open ground. She couldn’t see more than his shape, naZak-tall beside her.

  “I thought I’d walk you to your tent at least,” he said pleasantly, “it’s been all business lately, somehow, we haven’t just talked ... Unless you’re tired, of course; don’t let me impose.”

  In the dark, she knew, he couldn’t see her face. “You’re not imposing ... ah, perhaps I should rephrase that.” A teacher’s voice: “Smite, it can be heard even if not seen.”

  “Actually, you’re very imposing.”

  He chuckled politely. “How go things with you?”

  Fine, thanks, she answered inwardly. Someone’s using my son to blackmail me into killing you, how about you. “Well enough. Except for some chosen problems ... like my adopted daughter.” He read people too well not to see her preoccupation with something, and it was true enough.

  “Any of my business?” She had a sudden thought, of the Arkans he’d had drawn and quartered, how joyfully he had announced it. Velvet smooth voice out of the dark, she thought. Habiku was equally charming:

  “If I choose to tell. I told you we adopted Sova a year ago and never mentioned why, or how. She and her brother ... well, Shkai’ra took them away from their father as a prize when we won a challenge when she was twelve, and I didn’t stop her. Her brother was killed in my house war.” She found herself worrying at the skin around her claws again and made herself stop. “So she’s more than a little confused about who she is. I look at her, try to help, but find myself looking at an angry stranger, in part through my own action—or rather inaction—then.”

  “Shkai’ra took her as a prize?” The soft voice took on just the trace of an edge. “Yet you call it adoption. Tzen kel ...” He cut himself off. “I can see why she’s confused about who she is. Whatever possessed Shkai’ra to take children as prizes?”

  Tzen kellin ripalin, he’d half-said: the Arkan ethic, “Who kills becomes.” Meaning who kills a lord takes his position and property, who kills the Imperator becomes the Imperator, who kills a child’s parents becomes his parents. She felt her calculated hardness against him flash and roar into sincere anger. Has he forgotten she’s missing in action, how that must feel to me? “She can be like that.” Her voice came out flat. “Or perhaps I should say, could be.”

  For a moment there was silence. “Forgive me,” he said then, with formal sincerity. “I meant no ill of her. You love her, and fear she’s dead. I’ve spoken callously, I’m sorry.”

  There was nothing to say to that, but “It’s all right.” She felt the anger drain away.

  They were standing before her tent. She didn’t want to talk to him, hear his questions, be near him. “Will you sit for a while?”

  “Sure,” he answered, “if it’s no trouble; as I say, don’t let me impose. You’re sure? All right.” They sat just outside the flap. “You made things very interesting for yourselves, acquiring a child that way ... though I guess parents always do, even acquiring them the usual way.

  “Kids are the purest teachers. They’ll delve out your imperfections, and shine them blinding in your face.”

  “Yes. We’ve found that. But we’ll work things out.”

  “I’m sure you will. Megan, if there’s anything I can do, you need only ask.”

  Die, she thought. Go out and get killed in battle, so I don’t have to have either your blood or my son’s on my hands. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  For another moment they sat silent, listening to the crickets and watching the fire-flies blink all over the hill and field. It grew oppressive, his presence beside her, without words. She cut through it. “Shchevenga. What you said earlier, about Arkans ... That general. Did you find it convenient then, that your duty and pleasure were happily allied?”

  For a moment after it was out she regretted saying it; now he’d draw himself up, offended, snap back, wonder why, have her truth-drugged again ... But the motion she feared didn’t come, and the silence lengthened. He was thinking.

  “Convenient isn’t the word,” he said finally. “The sense of virtue either way ... if I told you I didn’t feel that, and relish it at the time, I’d be lying. Afterward, though, I closed myself in my tent, threw up and hit my head against the floor until someone stopped me.”

  That looks too good, Gold-bottom, she thought sharply. Why did you leave out, to everyone but me, the part that does you most credit? You enjoyed what you did. You’ve admitted that. “You didn’t need to tell me that. It really is none of my business.”

  She felt his shrug as much as saw it. “It’s no secret. Besides, it is your business, by what I agreed to before.”

  To lie with her, he meant, as she’d asked, to help her fight her fear of men. Dark Lord curse you, you would remember that! Like any fish-gutted man would. You’re all the same.

  “It reminds me of something someone else and I were chewing on,” he said musingly. “Imagine this: you see a rockslide starting, that will grow big enough to crush the town below, where live ten thousand people—unless you throw yourself in its path and stop it now, at the cost of your own life. You have no obligation elsewhere except what anyone has, to family, friends and so forth. No punishment will come your way if you don’t do it, or accolades if you do, because no one will ever know. Those ten thousand people are neither friends nor enemies to you, just strangers; you’ve neve
r even walked through the town. Would you do it?”

  Is this some kind of game? She’d play; anything else would look suspicious. Such a great moral dilemma, whether to break my strength-oath, as if I haven’t broken it already.

  Chiravesa. She saw the scene in her mind, the mountain, the town hazy below, played it out.

  “Yes,” she said, finally. ‘Though Shkai’ra would be angry at me for it, for leaving her.”

  “Would you want her ever to know?”

  Megan thought for another long time. “Yes,” she said finally. “Even though she’d hate me. I’d want her to know I was dead, instead of being uncertain for the rest of her life ... as I was with my son.”

  For whose life I would do anything, including kill you.

  “Yes,” he said, in understanding. “That makes sense. I should let you sleep. Give my regards to Sova, and both of you sleep well.”

  “Not so fast, Gold-bottom,” she said, forcing the smile again. “Chiravesa always goes both ways, I’ve heard. Would you throw yourself under that rock?”

  His answer came without hesitation. “Yes.”

  “You’re saying that very easily. Convince me.”

  “I can’t convince you, if you won’t be convinced. I can only try.” He shrugged. “They are ten thousand, to my one. Semana kra.”

  Why can’t you just be an asshole? she thought. If you were a child-raper or slave-seller or slough-kin, I wouldn’t have sent Shkai’ra off on a wild goose chase; I’d have just done it, easily, and we’d all be halfway home by now, her and Lixand beside me, and no regrets, knowing the world was better off without you. Why do you have to make it so hard?

  “Sleep sound,” he was saying.

  “We will. You too.” Forever, she wished.

  In the cool darkness of the night, foul here in the standard meeting place, Matthas waited, watching two Yeolis, an Enchian and a Lakan visit. Different races did even this different ways, he’d noticed—the Enchian and Lakan quiet and furtive, the two Yeolis almost proud, with not a break or a change in their arm-waving yammering, aside from waving only one hand for a time.

  Finally the Zak came, leaning on a stick, limping no less than she had last time. Oh sure, the wound’s that bad. And I’m a yak’s brother. “My leg got infected,” she said in her high child-like whisper. “What you’re asking isn’t something I can possibly do unless I in in perfect form. That’s why I haven’t done it, that’s the only reason. Look, please, give me another eight-day, and I’ll do it, I give you my word. I swear ...”

  “Another four days,” he said, putting the usual ice into his voice. Like a strict father, then:”It had better be.” Professionally brisk: “Enough said.” She limped away. He prayed.

  * * *

  XXI

  For a city as big as Arko, it was an unusually dark night. The okas women halted with weary nervousness, pulling the light handcart behind her. The clerks had said the campground for refugees was down at the end of the street, but she must have missed the turning. He had talked so fast, gabbling and biting off the ends of his words, like a city man; she sniffled, wishing her man was with her. The solas had taken him, just after they left their farm; him and her son, her only surviving child.

  “Yar, ’e war too yang,” she mumbled. Only fifteen summers. Taken for the war. She shuddered again, remembering the horrible tales of what the black-haired barbarians would do, the columns of refugees past her village. Still, she might have stayed if the soldiers had left the men. The master’s bailiff had run, but then he had all the master’s beautiful things from the manor to protect; the villagers would have stayed, and run to the woods and hills until the enemy soldiers passed. But not without her man; a woman alone needed protection. Uncle Permas had been with them most of the way, on the Imperial highway that such as them would never set foot on in proper times, but he had died of the spotted raving-fever two days ago.

  She shivered again, looking around at the deserted, darkened alleyways. It was black, the crescent moon sending only glimmers through between the tall buildings—most or them four stories, think of it!—and no lights showing in the windows. The cracked concrete of the pavement was nearly covered by the layers of solidified garbage, and there was a sour stink worse than any farmyard midden. There was a noise, a tall shape in the laneway to her right; where it ran off the street she followed.

  “Who you?” a voice asked. The peasant woman cowered back against her handcart; the accent was even less comprehensible than most she had heard in the great Dilla, “wife o’ Kinnas Togas, okas, mayitpleaseyer,” she babbled nervously.

  “About fucking time,” the voice said. Something struck the side of her head, and suddenly there were stars.

  “Baiwun hammer me flat, twenty muggings before I get the right one,” Shkai’ra muttered, pulling the handcart into the laneway beside the okas woman.

  She had stuck carefully to refugees, looking for one whose bumpkin accent would be thick enough to disguise her own; okas, because they were not expected to be able to read. The fiasco at the Edifice of Post was fresh in her memory. Of course, once she had spoken to them she had to lay them out. Nobody was going to listen to a hysterical refugee after the fact, but it wouldn’t do to have them raising the hue and cry immediately. Shkai’ra whistled through her teeth as she dragged the body further back and measured it roughly; not much difference in height, which was fortunate, since Arkans considered it lewd to show much ankle. Much of anything, on a woman. Stripping the limp bulk of the peasant woman was difficult; the clothing was filthy, but no more so than a soldier’s after a week or so in the field.

  Her sword and dagger went in the bottom of the handcart; she arranged it carefully, with the hilt easily available but not likely to be found unless they searched exhaustively. The clothing was simple, a long dress of coarse linen with several layers of petticoats and a thick hooded tunic, a cloak of the same material, and tattered gloves that looked like third-hand fessas castoffs worn for decency’s sake among strangers. Shkai’ra shed her blood-stiffened solas suit and sliced it into rags, stuffing them past finding with a stick into various liquid puddles of offal. Something else for Megan’s sake; she gripped the Arkan woman under the armpits and dragged her into the rear of the alley, behind a fall of crumbled brick. A tattered blanket from the cart went around her, and the Kommanza left a chain of silver resting on her chest, hidden under the blanket. More than compensation for the cart and all its possessions.

  One last thing. She gathered her solas-style fighting braid and haggled it off, then began to crop her hair okas-short. I’m going to be fucking bald by the time it’s over, at this rate.

  Only for you, my heart, she thought, gritting her teeth at the tugging pull of the nicked blade.

  “Move along, there, woman!” the watchman said.

  Shkai’ra shuffled her bare feet in the dust of the sidewalk. Remember, she told herself. Hands folded, eyes down, shoulders slumped, knees together. Sweat trickled down her flanks, and ran stinging into her eyes from her stubbled scalp. The fine concrete of the avenue was blinding bright; the final layer had been mixed with crushed quartz and flung back the light like flecks of polished metal. There was color in plenty, gaudy cloth and the paste-and-ceramic jewelry that even poor Arkans wore, stone facings in a dozen colors, pavement-paintings in chalk done in the florid Imperial style. Heat radiated from the masses of stone and brick; the air was damp and heavy with an underlying smell of rot.

  “Move! Your kind aren’t wanted here. Understand?” The watchman prodded at Shkai’ra with the butt of his spear.

  Only for you, my love, she thought, turning the instinctive snarl into a simper. Nothing and nobody was going to move her away from the marble-gilt-and-glass building at her back, the General Deposit Box Office, 5th Southwest Quarter, intersection of Delas Rii Crescent and Aesas-Berakalla Road. Not after four days of squatting here in these ridiculous clothes.

  The watchman was not particularly impressive, well into middle age and wit
h a broken-veined nose that had looked long and hard into many cups. His companion was younger, with the twitchy not-there look of an Arkanherb addict; doubtless the best of the capital police were out at the front, trading spear thrusts with the Lakan infantry levy, or getting their heads beaten in by Schvait war flails.

  Bad luck to you and may your butts break out in boils, she thought, simpering ingratiatingly and drawing the side of her hood across her face for modesty. It was a relief not to have her breasts bound down, and the way they showed under the bodice was enough to convince anyone of her gender. Which made it highly unlikely she would be identified as the Postal Slasher.

  The rumors had spread around the city quickly; she had even overheard a few expressions of sympathy for the mysterious bandaged figure, mostly accompanied by speculation about battles lost because of misplaced letters, historic battles, a century or two past, whose crucial missives still lay somewhere within the great building’s walls.

  “Arrr, sor,” she drawled. The watchmen would be city born and bred, and probably contemptuous of all peasants anyway; the thing was to keep the vowels consistent. “Ta good man, promise m’two bonny yang lads a position, good wages, ‘e say. I waits ‘ere for ‘em.” That stretched her meager store of Arkan to its breaking point, so she let half a copper chain show on her palm.

  The watchmen’s eyes locked on it; the older man’s hand swept across hers as he licked his lips, and the younger’s hands shook a little more. They spoke among themselves for a moment; she caught “position on their knees” from one as they laughed and strolled on around their rounds, the iron ferrules of their javelins clinking on the hexagonal paving-stones of the sidewalk. This was a good neighborhood, three-story flats for shopkeepers and artisans above a row of stores and workshops spilling out onto the street. Or not; the jewelers and goldsmiths had wooden latticework over their portals. Despite the frenetic bustle, many of the shops were shuttered, and the menfolk were mostly old or young or crippled.