by CJ Brightley
He followed me in to the nearest sitting room and closed the door behind himself.
“Why don’t you smile at me more often?”
He blinked at my tone. “What do you mean?”
“You smile at Lani more than you smile at me! I’m glad you like her, but I need to know I mean more to you than a fourteen year old.”
He licked his lips. “I’m sorry. I want to honor - “
I should have let him finish. Perhaps his words would have soothed me. But I was upset before I began speaking, and his apology didn’t come quickly enough for my emotions.
“You don’t tell me what you feel. Or what you think. The king gets to see it. The princess Kveta sees it. Even Lani sees it sometimes. Why don’t I? I don’t understand how you can love me if you don’t share anything with me. Do you love me?” I flung the question at him, biting my lip. It was stupid. He had never exactly said it. I assumed, and I pushed farther than I had any right to.
“I do.” He stood very still, his eyes on me. Whatever else about him that might frustrate me, I could not deny that he listened with the same single-minded intensity he did everything else.
“Then why don’t you show it? Why don’t I get to see you smile? Or hear your thoughts? Why don’t you ask what I’m feeling?”
“I’m sorry. I’d thought you would tell me, if you wanted me to know.” He was very quiet.
“I want to know you care about me! And I want to know what you’re feeling. You never say! Do you even have feelings?”
His mouth opened a moment and then closed without a sound.
“How can you say you love me if you don’t even show me who you really are? If I don’t know you, inside where it really counts? I suppose I shouldn’t have expected you to understand. I expected you to love me, to show you loved me. Women need love, Kemen. I need love. Love is vulnerable. Love trusts. Love shares its heart. I don’t think you even know what I mean by that, much less how to do it.” I was crying with frustration.
He stood still for a long moment before speaking. I’d been choked by tears and emotion, and the steadiness of his voice, low and quiet, struck me as a mockery. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. If you would tell me what I might do to - “
What I did next was inexcusable. Rather than listening to him, I was so tired, so frustrated, that I sobbed, “I don’t want to speak to you!” and I turned away and ran down the hall to my room.
I cried into my pillow, wishing that he were different, that I were different, that we understood each other. I wanted him to love me, and didn’t understand how he already did.
The wedding was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The king Hakan Ithel and his bride glowed with the light of their love. Many nobles came for it. The Rikutan king Ashmu Tafari placed the cloth over their heads for the sealing kiss. He had tears in his eyes and he kissed his daughter on the cheek afterwards and whispered something in her ear that made her smile even more.
I’d seen the cloth for two months because Anthea and Sayen worked on it every afternoon. It was deep green silk with the great Erdemen eagle embroidered on it with gold and silver threads. The edge was bordered with the traditional olive branches and grape vines, but in a gesture of friendship the king had ordered the corners accented by the red lilies of Rikuto. Though it was familiar, when I saw it during the ceremony and later hanging on the wall of the banquet hall, its beauty nearly took my breath away.
I served at the banquet, as did nearly everyone. We were all terribly busy, but I managed to serve the royal table a few times. If Kemen’s smile was a bit strained, it wasn’t too obvious. When I refilled his wine glass, he thanked me as courteously as ever, though he kept his gaze on the table. I thought about bending to whisper something in his ear, an apology or at least a plea to talk with him later in more privacy. But it wasn’t appropriate, and of all places to break the rigid rules of protocol, the king’s wedding banquet would be the most scandalous. I didn’t mind so much for myself, but for Kemen’s honor before the royalty and nobility of two nations, I restrained the impulse.
After that, I had to attend to other tables with noble guests, and I could catch only a few glimpses of the royal table. Once I glanced up at him and his eyes were on me. He dropped his gaze immediately and inclined his head a little, as if he were bowing in apology for looking at me at all. I wished I could speak with him, but we had not the time or privacy necessary. Later, in the garden or in a quiet corner of the kitchen, we could talk.
The banquet went long into the night, with hours of dancing after the meal. Kemen danced with the new young queen. I stood still and watched, forgetting entirely that I should have been offering pastries and wine to the guests. He was dazzlingly handsome, broad shouldered, flat-stomached, graceful, athletic and perfect. My heart beat faster every time he turned toward me. He was very solemn, more than was probably proper at a wedding feast, but he smiled at Kveta when they ended the dance and he bowed to kiss her hand. Something about it made me a little uneasy, but I didn’t have time to figure out why because there was so much to be done.
Finally, the sweethearts retired to their suite with much cheering and clapping. The nobles who were going to depart did so, and we showed the others to their rooms before beginning the long task of cleaning up. That night we only moved everything to the kitchen and cleaned the great hall. Washing the dishes and dealing with the food would wait for the next day. I fell into bed in absolute exhaustion and slept without dreaming. Servants had to be up early the next day because the guests required food and attention. We were all tired and distracted by the work for some time.
It was two days after the wedding when I realized more clearly how my words must have sounded, how deeply I had cut him. I went searching for him.
If I’d asked I would have found out sooner, but I didn’t want anyone to know we had quarreled. I finally asked Sayen after I could not find him after several hours.
He’d departed some hours earlier for the far northern border. The northern commander Yoshiro Kepa badly needed reinforcements to deal with the Tarvil raiders. Some fifty men had gone with him immediately and some three hundred more were to follow within hours. I would have sent him a letter, a message, but I didn’t know how to find the men who were leaving. Nor did I realize how long he would be gone.
I confess I thought briefly that it might have been a selfish burst of temper. I misjudged him in that. He was never one for foolish impulse or selfishness of any sort. Neither did he have a quick temper, though I suppose I’d tried him more sorely than I realized.
Later, I understood it as an act of despair.
16
Kemen
I turned my mind north, devoting myself to the challenge of the northern border, as if work has ever truly eased a man’s mind from the sting of a woman’s scorn. Distracted, yes, but soothed? Assuredly not.
Fort Kuzeyler was in disarray, and Kepa frustrated and ill-prepared for the challenge. I respected the man, respected his integrity, but I was sorely disappointed in his leadership then. He relinquished command to me with genuine relief, and in his defense, I should also say that he never showed any sign of resentment at the respect I commanded immediately. Another man might have been stung by the way I took control, for in my disappointment and despair I wasn’t as kind as I should have been. But he took it well, and served as my deputy with much greater facility than he led.
A few soldiers had been missing for some time. Kepa had finished accounting for casualties in the most recent skirmish, and still some men were missing. Often there are casualties who cannot be accounted for, men who die quietly in the woods alone. My first command was an exhaustive search of the woods for any wounded men who might have been overlooked. We found a few wounded Tarvil who had been unable to flee with their companions, and a few Erdemen soldiers, but still a few remained unaccounted for.
Absent without leave. It is not incomprehensible that men get angry, frustrated, and I, too, would perhaps have chafed under Kep
a’s inept command. I sent their names and identification numbers to Stonehaven, and after some searching, eight of the men were found back at their homes in rural villages. They would stand before military tribunals for dereliction of duty, but that was out of my hands. As Minister of Military Affairs, the cases might eventually work their way up to me, but for a while I had nothing further to do with the matter.
That left only three men still missing. In the next month, those three would cause me more pain than the rest combined. The Erdemen military is strong for good reason. We have superb discipline. High standards for competence and a command structure that promotes based on merit, not blood. Excellent training, grueling but deliberately so, intelligently designed to produce soldiers with physical expertise, mental strength, initiative, and courage. We do not leave our wounded comrades behind, and in any case I heard that these three had been seen more recently than the last skirmish. In fact, one soldier vowed he had seen them as recently as the day before I arrived, and there had been no action since.
I pondered the matter, but I could think of few good outcomes. The truth proved worse than I imagined. But I did not yet know the truth, so I devoted myself to the immediate tasks. The fort itself was badly in need of repair, and that was my next priority, to give the men a secure place to rest, for we would be driving north hard and fast. Kepa had split his men between worthy tasks, but some tasks were more urgent than others and suffered by the delay.
I pulled them all back to Fort Kuzeyler to finish its repair. I took refuge from my thoughts in the work. A thousand decisions to keep my mind occupied, and a thousand physical tasks to tire my body. Then we left a skeleton crew to hold it and moved the entire battalion southwest to repair the road to Fort Kuzeyler. The road was critical. Messages, food shipments, weapons, armor, reinforcements, and anything else we needed would come over that road. That took over a month, and I pushed the men hard.
17
Riona
I knew I had hurt him, and the guilt ate at me, though I tried to hide it. I still stand by my grievance; my frustration was real. A woman does need tenderness, and I wasn’t wrong to want it. But I’d been terribly unfair in how I asked it of him, and I hadn’t understood how his life made my need seem impossible to satisfy. I thought at the time that he didn’t understand how I needed his heart and his trust, but later I realized that he understood it all too well, and felt himself utterly inadequate. It was that realization that brought tears to my eyes suddenly, nearly a month after his departure.
I was brushing the queen Kveta’s hair before she retired for the night. My mind was leagues away with him, though I couldn’t really picture the wild northern frontier. I don’t know why I suddenly understood his hurt. The queen was speaking of something that the king had said, and perhaps that somehow made it real. I do remember that I paused, the brush still in her hair, and she looked at me in the mirror.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head wordlessly, but she pressed me to answer, and finally I stuttered something about my stupidity, how I had said horrible things to him, though I loved him.
“What did you say?”
I was ashamed of myself, of my words, but by then she was a friend as well as the queen. She turned to me and clasped my hands in hers, and I looked down at the floor as I answered.
“The worst was I asked if he had feelings, and,” I faltered. “I said that if he loved me, he didn’t show it, and I doubted whether he did at all. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, I just wanted…” I couldn’t speak any more, my tears flowing freely.
I saw her stricken face even as she reached to embrace me. She was sweet to me, more than she should have been, but she grieved for his pain more. She understood him better than I did then. Even now it astonishes me how I loved him without understanding him at all.
18
Kemen
When we started work on the road, I sent men to all the villages within five leagues of the border for fifteen leagues in either direction to get names and descriptions of any women taken by the Tarvil. Undoubtedly some had died from ill-treatment, for I couldn’t imagine that the Tarvil treated them well, but those who still lived would not remain their prisoners if I had any choice in the matter. The villagers were grateful we were there, but I heard disturbing news. In Ilato, only some three leagues away, the two men I’d sent were greeted with jeers, thrown rocks, and shouted obscenities. They had split, one man coming back to me with the news and the other moving on to more agreeable towns to continue his mission.
I went myself to investigate, taking some thirty men with me. I would not of course turn them on the people under nearly any circumstances, but their numbers would keep the exchange civil. So I hoped, anyway.
The village was quiet when we rode in, the people glaring at us with deep resentment from where they stopped to watch us. No one spoke, and we rode to the small central square. There my questions were answered.
Three bodies hung from a makeshift gallows, their suvari uniforms dirty and damp. One of the soldiers beside me vomited from the side of his horse. There was a stench despite the autumn chill, for the bodies had been there for some time, the skin of their faces black and swollen with rot. I heard muttering behind me from the soldiers, but a quick stern glare silenced them.
I rode to the nearest person, a woman of perhaps my own age, speaking as calmly as I could. I probably sounded as cold as ice, but I didn’t feel that way. “Who is responsible for this?”
She shrugged, glaring at me as if daring me to strike her.
“I wish to speak with him. Who is responsible for this?”
“The village. We all did it.”
“I wish to speak with your village council then.”
She did not reply, her jaw tight with anger.
I dismounted, so that I was not speaking to her from such a great height. “I will speak with them whether you will it or not. If you hate us so much, you’d best gather the council, for I will not leave until I have spoken with them.”
She spat at me, the spittle hitting the front of my tunic almost on my stomach since I was so much taller. I could think of no real answer for that, and in truth, I wasn’t even angered. No doubt she had a legitimate grievance. Or felt she did. I waited for several heartbeats before repeating my demand. “I will not leave until I have spoken with your village council.”
At that she turned and ran, disappearing around a corner. I stood and waited for a moment before returning to gather my horse’s reins.
“Sir.” One of the men offered me a handkerchief and I dabbed at the wet spot on my tunic. “Now what, sir?” The men were obviously shaken. The army has always been respected, and for good reason. This sudden hatred shocked them, and I had nothing that would ease the pain of it.
“We wait. Someone will eventually speak to us, if only to make us leave.” None of the men, so far as I knew, had been personal friends with any of the three, but still I moved them away from the gallows, upwind to avoid the worst of the stench. The rope and wood creaked, and I saw several people dart furtively from one side of the street to the other. We waited. I could feel eyes on us, and I was glad that few civilians have bows.
Finally a man did approach us. “What do you want?”
“I wish to speak to your village council.”
“Come then. But only you. The others must stay here.”
I nodded and turned to be sure that the men had heard him.
One raised his eyebrows at my nod. “Sir?”
“Wait here. Water the horses if they need it.” I handed the reins to Eneko, the young officer nearest me, and followed the man down the street and into one of the buildings. The men were already gathered, and I smiled inside to know that the woman had passed on the message after all.
“Sit there. Who are you, and what do you want?” The room appeared to be part of the inn, and the men sat behind a table all on one side, my seat alone on the other. There were a few men who did not have seats on the oth
er side, and they stood with arms folded behind their fellows rather than sitting nearer to me. The man directly across from me had asked the question.
“I am General Kemen Sendoa, and I wish to speak with you about the soldiers hanging outside.”
They had apparently not been expecting that name, and much muttering ensued, with sharp glances at me. I kept my expression as calm and cool as I could. Finally their chosen spokesman turned back to me. “Sendoa, is it?” Most of them did not look nearly so hostile now, but they were still very cautious.
“Aye.”
“They deserved what they got. They raped and killed my daughter.” The man nearly spat the words. He was off to my right, a man of perhaps forty years.
In truth, I was not entirely surprised. Men, armed, bored, and frustrated, are bound to cause trouble. I couldn’t blame the man for his fury. No doubt if I had a daughter who had been so treated, I would have been absolutely irrational in my rage. Yet there was no trial, no judgment, no sentence. I would not say there was no justice, but there was no appeal to the authority of the king, no appeal to the law to bring that justice.
What could I say? I sat for so long in silence partly because I had to consider my words carefully, and partly because even once I had the words in mind, I didn’t want them to think I dismissed their grievance, to think I took it lightly. “How do you know those three were the men who did it?”
The man looked down at the table. “My son saw them. He’s eight. He ran to me for help, but I was too late. We both saw their faces, and some of the men in the field with me helped catch them.”
“You hung them the same day?”
“Yes.”