Yrnhill wheezed, finally convicted to speak up. “Please don’t bring Hrash into this. These Segchyhah do not practice Hrashianity. They won’t even know what it is!”
As Drea opened his mouth, Salyryd interjected, “Actually, we know of Hrashianity.” Her translator Ganjinhill’s eyes opened wider than even the congressers. “There have been windblown sailors and former slaves to pirates who have hailed from Old Coast. Our knowledge is limited, but we wish to learn more.” Yrnhill smirked like a child.
Theral waved her hand, as if to wipe away the topic. “Second, our fellow congresser Kraek-bal has written his express wishes if such a vote were to come to pass.”
“Spare us the minutiae,” Balgray sighed. “He’s against?”
The corners of Drea’s mouth crept to either side of his wizened face. “Yrnhill, these are heathens. And Falhill. My… Falhill, this decision is not to be taken lightly.”
Balgray raised her hand. “All in support?” Denhall raised his hand. Yrnhill the younger looked to Ambassador Ganjinhill, who had accompanied Yrnhill the elder across half the world. When Ganjinhill nodded with a warm grin, Yrnhill raised his hand — but not above his head.
All eyes fixed on Falhill. His nose pulsated — an enduring reminder of Sailor Henhall. Falhill’s heart hastened. His wife sat next to him, visibly uncertain what his answer would be — Better than disappointment. Falhill turned to his surrogate father. “If we reject their free gift, the people will see them as nothing but invaders.”
“Not all the people,” Theral murmured. “If we accept this gift, then we invite the Segchyhah to invade. The people will thank you if you reject it.”
Falhill grabbed Falhadn’s sweaty hand underneath the lip of the Marble Slab and lifted his other into the air.
At last, Balgray fell into her seat. “Thank you, my congress.”
Old man Drea hung his head and clenched his fists. He still stood, at the head of the Marble Slab. When his grandson Dreahall emerged from a corner of the cavern to comfort him, Drea stormed off. He fled the carved grotto where fifty had gathered to bear witness to the first meeting between the Hillites and the Segchyhah. Only the drip drip of far off water droplets broke the silence.
Salyryd gestured with open palms. “We will give you the food to distribute. If Drea-bal does not wish to be given supplies, he need not accept them.”
Falhill shook his head, and his tangled black locks bounced. “No. Our people see an invasion. They need to see salvation.”
“We don’t want to cause any more trouble than we already have.”
“Please. The congress has voted. The Hillite people accept your gift and welcome your involvement in our development as a newborn nation.”
“Then I insist the Segchyhah Representatives and the Hillite congress deliver the food together. We will both take the credit.”
“I believe that is acceptable.” And Falhill looked to Balgray, then Denhall, then Yrnhill. “We will have to send proxies if the food is to be delivered before the next century.” He looked to Falhadn and squeezed her hand.
Theral wanted to vote on becoming a member nation right away — since she thought she had more votes than she would have in the future to forbid the annexation. But Falhill, Balgray, Denhall, and Yrnhill threatened to vote in support — just to shut her up.
Salyryd led the Segchyhah from the Cavern of Congress, and Theral fled. Falhill kissed his wife, and Balgray hugged her wedson. Yrnhill tried to embrace his wife, but she pouted. All the while, Denhall looked to the ceiling, seeming to puzzle out some irksome predicament.
Falhadn asked, “Congresser Denhall, is everything alright?”
Denhall raised his eyebrows, then sneered. “I’m as confused about Drea’s actions as you probably are. But you can’t deny these Segchyhah could wipe us from the map before there are maps made of this place.”
Acting on some visceral impulse, Falhill bent forward and said, “If this colony fails, I’m guessing it will be either the Segchyhah or the Drysword.” Palpably nervous, the remainder of those in the cavern let out a collective sigh.
Chapter nineteen
A Hundred of My Fathers
The evening sun shone on the southwest watchtower, casting a shadow which pointed to the southernmost farmsteads. Beside the south farm district, a row of seven sizable manors loomed tall. One for each congresser.
And to the west, a thousand tents of various proportions and unthinkable colors had bloomed like a garden. Tent men, Falhill had heard them called. Invasion, the makeshift settlement was dubbed. Segchyhah. Such an alien name.
Falhill and Drea stood on the threshold of Kraek’s half-constructed manse. Drea had pulled Falhill aside after the initial meeting with the Segchyhah. He apologized for his behavior and asked for Falhill to accompany him to confront “King Kraek” about his absence.
Falhadn had gone with Ganjinhill to study the Segchyhah language. Yrnhill scurried to the temple. Denhall went with Rudfynhill to patrol the border between Hrashhill and the thousand tents. Theral scampered off to Hrash-knows-where.
Drea looked to Falhill before any knock on the door. “I will tell Kraek that I am on his side when it comes to the Segchyhah, but that what he did was unacceptable.”
“Why, Drea? Why oppose the Segchyhah’s help?”
“You mean their occupation?”
“All they want is to give us food.”
“We are a proud people.”
“There will be no one to be proud if we’ve all starved.”
“I will not argue with you any further. That goes doubly when in front of Kraek—”
The door creaked open, and Falhill jumped. Inside stood Fal, Kraek’s bone gaunt wife of thirty years. “Did you knock? All I heard were voices.” Potter Fal’s spine hunched, her eyelids sagged, and her voice made Falhill think of his kind grandmother. “Will you come in? Or do you mean to let the birds in?”
Falhill and Drea stepped inside. Crimson carpets with golden tassels covered the stone floor, and sun yellow drapes lined with rubies hung from the slatted ceiling. Expertly crafted oaken settees surrounded squat tables of birch and marble. A steel-reinforced banquet table stretched the length of the great room. A marble bust of Kraek himself sat incomplete in the corner.
Kraek sat on one of the settees, atop a regal violet cushion — his very own throne. Across from him stood Theral, leaned on a pillowed wingback. Theral looked the picture of anxiety whilst Kraek drank tranquilly from his goblet of spiced wine. “Drysword! Falhill! So nice of you to stop by. I hear not all of the congress have lost their minds.”
Drea began, “You exhibited the height of unprofessionalism today. If you are to continue in your role as congresser, you apologize in person and in writing—”
“I am not continuing on as congresser.”
Drea shook his head, momentarily speechless. “Not continuing? Why would you give up your voice if you disagree with the majority? All the more reason to—”
“Too many concessions.”
His wife Fal added, “How many atheists live among us? And how many among us marched with the Profane King against our resistance?” Her voice remained kind and gentle. “The children need to learn soldierly discipline, as they did in the old country. You disallow the people to elect their congressers, as they did in the old country. The naming customs, marriage rituals, how we deal with criminals.”
Kraek finished, “And Laebmhill. It’s too much for us to accept.”
“Us?” Drea repeated. “Is it you and your wife who sit the congress?”
“I cannot sit idly by while tradition is being tossed into the sea. And for what?”
“We are not Old Coast. We decided as a congress which customs were necessary, and which were pointless.”
“This congress was selected by you!”
“I gave you Theral, knowing full well she would side with you on every issue.”
Theral screwed up her face. “I am an independent human, with independent thought!”
“An independent human who has yet to oppose Kraek on a single vote.”
The older woman Fal interjected her innocent smile. “Remember Laebmhill, that poor boy. Those foreigners will kill our men and rape our women, if given the chance. Falhill, I believe your father and I shared a great-grandfather. I hope you’ll forgive me if I forego family loyalty and subscribe to basic reason.”
“Potter Fal,” replied Falhill, “these people want to give us food and connect us with half a dozen trade partners. Ganjinhill says that marble is rare and silver is rarer. On our signal, the Segchyhah will send word to—”
“Oh, oh, oh!” Fal began to sweetly swat at the air. “Please don’t say that word in this home. That ‘S’ word.”
Kraek furrowed his brow. “Please, Drea. Please, don’t allow these outsiders to bring more of their kind. We don’t have the defense capabilities.”
“Don’t,” Drea said. “Don’t tell me what I can allow. You are apparently no longer a congresser.”
“As long as these foreigners are invited to invade, I will not sit on the congress. I will, however, return to my occupation of General, as long as Laebm Lionheart is wrongly imprisoned. The soldiers respect me.”
Drea chortled. “We cannot have an anti-Segchyhah general leading our military strength!”
“Oh, oh, oh!” Fal swatted at the air again. “There’s that word.”
Falhill gestured to the garish room around them. “You’ll have to give up the manse.”
Kraek stood up and threw his cushion across the room. “Half our belongings remain in the hovel.” He took three slow steps towards Falhill and Drea. “I fully believe you are detrimental for the colony.”
Falhill pointed at Kraek. “You are the detriment!”
“Don’t listen to them,” Fal told her husband. “Don’t get too upset—”
“I don’t think they know about my father.” Kraek turned to Falhill and Drea. “Would you like to know about my father?”
Kraek stared into the shallow fire pulsating within his hearth. “My father was a simple man — a priest, eons ago. Before he died, when I had yet to meet my loving wife, my own father told me that he believed me a bastard.” Falhill’s eyes shifted, to Drea then to Fal then to Theral then back to the old curmudgeon. “A bastard,” Kraek whispered to himself. “My mother died bearing me into this world; it is known. And my father, he told me, never saw an only son when he looked on my face. All he saw was death and hate. My father hated me. It drove him mad to think that an incarnation of death and hate, such as myself, could be the son of such love and life. I couldn’t be the product of my parents’ wedlock, so he concocted a fiction for himself to help him cope with sleeping under the same roof as his wife’s killer.
“He thought that mayhaps my mother was raped — and that I would be a bastard born of that rape. He whispered it to himself. Then he told me. Then he told his neighbors. Then his congregations. My father put aside his prayers and replaced them with the story of my conception.” Kraek finally looked at Falhill and Drea, his gray eyes wide and helpless like a child’s. “I believed it, mind you. I had only reached my thirteenth solar cycle when everybody in Fraalgag knew me the product of rape. Never mind I had my father’s gray eyes and thin nose. And there hung an oil painting of my dear mother over my father’s bed; I swear I stole her big ears, the point of her chin. But all I knew was ‘Bastard!’ and “Rapist!’ — the story had muddled after scores of retellings.”
Kraek breathed in and returned his gaze to the dying of the firelight. “A bawdy singer — Frudhall he was called — sang too loudly for my father’s liking one night, a song of unwed love if you understand my meaning. It was in a public house — ale flowing, maids dancing; my father would say he had ministered to these men and maids, but I doubt his telling. My father got it in his head that this singer was the man who inseminated my mother against her will, and he made sure to tell anyone who would listen. Of course, the soldiers in town had no proof and sought no justice; even a priest cannot make such accusations and be taken seriously fourteen years after a crime occurs. But I did not think it fair such a man as this Frudhall should be allowed to go on, rapist and murderer that he was.
“So, I followed him one night, himself following an innocent maid of sixteen or so. All the way to the public bathhouse, I shadowed him. Under the guise of moonlight, this singer grabbed the girl outside the entrance to the baths. She made little struggle as Frudhall ripped her leather tunic open to spill out her breasts. I thought, ‘This has to be my mother’s assailant.’ When he lowered his breeches, I saw what I came for. On his inner left thigh, there protruded a large brown mole. And I ran, fast as I could, to the nearest barracks, where I told some of the soldiers that Frudhall had just tried to rape me, and he had another victim in his arms right then.” Kraek breathed in and out, his shoulders tense as a drawn bow. “I watched him hang the next day. I didn’t quite save the maid of sixteen; her innocence had spoiled, and her face was marred. But I avenged my mother, as my father never could.
“A year or so passed, and my father…began to blame another. And his story scrambled, in little ways — the night of the assault, how long after the labor my mother survived, the death of Frudhall which he soon forgot altogether. I realized my father had no wits; a loon had raised me. I remember his last words; ‘Pity you slithered out your mother and bled her like a pig; we’d have better fare than this for breakfast.’ Then he choked on black bacon. I had fourteen years by then; I knew how to pump the water from someone’s lungs. A bit of bacon must be easier, right? But I did not hesitate to let that man choke. His face turned purple and he died reaching for me across the table. He hated me. His only son. Never once did he truly love me. And I let him spasm into oblivion.”
Kraek rose and looked at Falhill and Drea once more. Kraek had confessed to two severe crimes, though the congress had decreed all crimes before the Great Flight absolved. The general parted his lips; “That’s when cousin Laebm took me in. His father was a kind, loving man. Part of me hates Laebm for his sheer luck.” Kraek made the most hideous face. “There will never be another Frudhall; the man was no innocent, but he was falsely hanged — I’ll admit it.” He stepped closer to Falhill and Drea. “But I would kill a hundred of my fathers.”
Drea finally spoke, “Who do you see as your father?”
“Who among us lies to himself and others, is a detriment to the good of the people, and is blind to what is right?”
“You!” Drea shouted. “That’s a perfect description of you!”
“It is you, Drea. You claim to know exactly what is wrong, and only you can fix it. But if we go with your solutions, you will turn to another ill and claim to have the sole solution. Your ideas are not only self-serving, they are short-term and destructive.” Falhill could not help but think of Shelwyn’s old pitiful face as Kraek hurled insults at the innocent Drysword.
“Then we shall never see eye to eye, Kraek. It’s as if you pulled these accusations out of my own mouth.”
Fal smiled her genial smile. “Please don’t accuse my husband in his own home. We have had plenty of opportunities to overthrow your deeply flawed institution, but we respect the law.”
Drea laughed, and his cheeks turned blood red. “Is there something that could drive you to overthrow the congress?”
Falhill added, “Like allowing the Segchyhah to remain on our borders, allowing them to feed and shelter us?”
Kraek grimaced, but his wife Fal appeared behind him. She slid her bony fingers over her husband’s shoulders. “Kraek, your friends should leave. You must rest your weary head.” Her voice was honey poured over oatcakes. “Drea, it was lovely to see you. And, my cousin, twice as lovely.”
Drea shook his head. “This is unnecessary, old friend—”
“Old friend?” Kraek stifled another chuckle. “We may have served on Yaangd’s congress together, but yours was but another face in a crowd of dozens. You did not convince me to follow you north. I
fled in revolt because the Profane King ordered the death of my beloved Balweanhadn — thank Hrash above for Theral — and because the Twisted Prince murdered one of my closest friends Gaer, Theral’s husband, and because the False Priests burned Laebm’s wife and his sickly mother, because Fal’s cousins were hanged at Uandem’s command, because my weddaughter’s loyalist grandparents were falsely slain for treason. That is the work of a king I would never serve. I did not sail north with the whole of my kin to bow at the feet of King Drea and his queen Falhill.”
Drea smiled at that. In silence, he turned and left. Falhill, though, bowed his head slightly. “We will make this right, Kraek. We will not bow to your whims, but you will be given the respect your station and wisdom deserve.” As Fal donned her wide-eyed grin, Falhill scurried out of Kraek’s lavish manse.
Outside, Falhill tried to suppress his rage. He remembered Hrabhill’s head painting the sands with crimson. Did he not have Hrabhill executed to establish dominance? He had a man killed. He wanted to vomit. Five weeks had passed his Hrabhill had been beheaded. Don’t forget, you killed Henhall. Hrabhill was right. You’re a murderer.
Invasion, many had called the thousand tents. Those who did were wrong. But the breath left his lungs when he spotted the three hundred Segchyhah spearmen who manned the border between Invasion and Independence. He’s wrong, Falhill tried to tell himself. King Kraek is wrong. About everything. Wrong.
Chapter twenty
Colors Yet Undiscovered
Unnaturally gray-skinned dancers — dressed in feathers of green and red and yellow. Lemon-skinned magicians, hands full of doves from nowhere. Nearly naked old men with fists raised and muscles bulging. A man with olive skin and a scar across his left eye hissed at Falhadn.
“Quoxil,” Salyryd the Roamer gestured towards the dancers with her long hands. She never lowered her chin, never hunched her shoulders. Every inch of her looked a queen, though she was but a Representative. “From west of the Shrih coast. They are not Segchyhah, but they know the value of trade. And some only join our voyages for the adventure — a change from their daily lives.”
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