Artixan gave a smile and returned to Dwayne and his father, ushering them from the room.
“Now … Grant,” the regent said, “take my arm and assist me to this stranger you care so much about. And if fortune favors you, I will not remind my council that your return here warrants execution.”
Reluctantly, the challenger extended his arm. The regent linked her arm over his elbow and together they started out. Wendra took Penit’s hand as they followed Vendanj. A joyful anxiety grew inside her. It had to be Tahn they were going to see. He was alive!
* * *
Mira led the witness back to her mother before she joined the others. The girl’s small hand in Mira’s own was cold and trembling. Through a narrow hallway they went to a dimly lit room beneath the raised court gallery. The weight of expectation hung heavy on the air as they entered.
The woman stood, and her daughter ran to her. The two fell into a close embrace as Mira stood just inside the door.
Then the woman looked at Mira, a question in her eyes. Mira looked down at Leia, expecting her to relate the judgment. The girl had been so frightened that it seemed she either hadn’t heard or hadn’t understood the regent’s ruling. Her eyes, too, looked up at Mira, waiting, hoping.
The silence enveloped them.
Then Mira steeled herself. “I’m sorry. The regent would not overturn the ruling. The dissent failed.”
“Papa,” the child cried. “Papa.” And she buried herself in her mother’s side.
The woman tried to hold strength in her face and deny her tears. But the suffering and finality of it all overwhelmed her and her tears came. She fell to her knees, unable to support herself against her grief, and took her little girl in her arms. Together they wept anew for the loss of Leia’s father, wept for the failure of the girl’s honesty and bravery to convince the court that this was a mistake.
They wept and held each other, now left without a husband and father.
As Mira watched them grieve, she thought about what future this family might have without the support of this innocent leagueman. If they had no other family or means, women in a city had few options to make their way. And what they had to sell would be taken roughly by men with liquor on their breath.
The accumulated loss and sorrow of it swirled in Mira’s head as she stood witness to this private scene of heartache and hopelessness.
Not this time.
Mira crossed the floor and dropped to one knee in front of the mother and daughter. She again took up the girl’s hand and drew her attention. “Leia, listen to me, and mark what I say. You take heart and give your mother the strength you showed today in the Court of Judicature. Can you do that?”
With just a small bit of hesitation, the girl nodded. “Yes, I can.” She looked at her mother. “I will help you, Mama.” Then she looked back at Mira. “What are you going to do?”
Determination filled Mira as she looked down at the child. “I am going to free your father.”
The girl stared at Mira with large tears still upon her cheeks. “Can you really do it? Can you save Papa?”
From the distant past, Mira heard her own questions about the loss of her parents. And she thought about what she was preparing to do now to keep her promise to this young girl. There were high costs. But the right costs. And Mira would not let doubt enter in.
Mira gave the girl’s mother a confident look, then took the girl’s wet face in her hands. “I believe I can, Leia. You hope, and I’ll hurry.” And with that, Mira gave mother and daughter’s hands a squeeze and left to catch the others, thinking through precisely what must be given to keep her word—both to the Sheason and the Hollows folk, and to this girl so that she might not lose her father.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Standing
Blackness held Tahn in its grip, the light from the cell door window paler and more diffuse than usual. It might still have been night beyond the walls of Tahn’s prison for all the darkness that pervaded the space. But instinctively, he knew another day had come, and this day he knew more than any other—the day of his Standing.
He ached with hunger, the pain of deprivation grumbling inside and leaving his mouth sour and pasty. His bruises and cuts had oozed and swollen further in the hours since the guards had finally left him and Rolen alone. Merely breathing hurt his ribs. His muscles burned from rigid immobility. When Tahn attempted to reposition himself upon the hard stone, the use of his hands and legs brought exquisite pain every time the iron shackles scraped over raw scabs. Tahn felt momentarily grateful that no flies penetrated the darkness. He cringed at the prospect of having to constantly shoo them away or else let them lay their eggs in his wounds. He decided that somehow this low cellar was too fetid for even carrion eaters.
Will they bring me food today?
Tahn tested his wrist lightly against his manacle before yielding to the sting. Lying still, he smiled into the dark at the image of Rolen standing tall against the foulness in the mouths of their jailers. That one triumphant moment kept him warm when thoughts of Sutter or Wendra or Braethen came to him. Or when the old words he repeated in his dreams offered him no solace.
He cast his eyes toward Rolen’s corner. He could see nothing, but the Sheason surely occupied the shadows there. And in that thought Tahn found another small comfort.
Then, from the curtain of darkness he heard, “It is your time, Tahn. Fit or not, you traverse a boundary today as sure as night yields to day.” Rolen sat up, his chains rattling in the stillness. “I will stand First Steward for you if you wish it.”
The offer stunned him. He had resigned himself to the passage of this day without the rite or ceremony meant to mark it. Three years ago Balatin had gone, and days ago the hope of Hambley at his side had fled him. In the endless darkness since he’d come here, the Change had come to mean much less to him. Whatever lay on the other side of this day could look no better from where he currently stood, bound and hungry. Some moments he preferred his chances against the Bar’dyn to the winnowing death he felt seeping into this bones from filth, cold, hunger, and impenetrable stone.
“No,” Tahn answered. “Not here. It doesn’t make sense to celebrate in this place. I’m not sure it matters now.”
“It always matters, perhaps here more than anywhere else,” Rolen said, his voice mildly remonstrative. “Do not let your circumstances rob you of what you cherish, Tahn. Even chained, you possess the most important of gifts. That is what the Change should teach.” The Sheason sighed in the darkness. “It is the unfortunate case that when one is basking in warmth and celebrations of food and song, the truth of this day sometimes goes unrealized.”
“What do you mean, unrealized?” Tahn asked.
Rolen did not immediately speak. But moments later, his voice rose in the stillness. “Every child becomes accountable, Tahn, each of us comes of age. But not all of us Stand. Standing requires a steward, and during those moments of change, the steward is able to impart a portion of his spirit to the one passing into adulthood. It is a special gift, Tahn. Something many melura are robbed of because they have no one to stand with them, or because their stewards have forgotten there’s a gift to bestow.”
Tahn groaned to sit up. He winced against the scrape of iron on his tender skin and slowly stretched his arms and legs from their cramped positions. “Tell me about this gift?” Tahn asked.
“Stand, Tahn,” Rolen said, his chains rattling again. “Perhaps you may be counted lucky among the rest that the trappings of your Standing are stone and iron and your first meal the froth of a hungry mouth.”
Tahn could hear the Sheason rise to his feet and begin to shuffle toward him. He knew he would not sleep again, anyway. And soon, the insistent image of dawn would rouse him anyway. Reluctantly, he got to his feet, biting back the oaths his ravaged body tried to coax from his lips. He faced the weak fall of light from the window at the top of the stone stair, and watched as a ghost of a man stepped into the shaft.
White, smudged
skin drawn tight against the bone displayed sharp features. Wavy brown hair hung in matted clumps, some spots on his head thin or bare as if his scalp had lost the will to support those locks. Tahn wondered if this dungeon cell and poor diet had caused the patches. A wiry beard filled Rolen’s face, covering his mouth. His robe hung from his shoulders like a sheet upon a drying line. Whatever meat there had been to him before he came here was now gone. Dark half circles under his eyes spoke of many sleepless hours.
Tahn thought he saw a vague smile on the man’s lips. But the look in his eyes captured him most. Against the gross backdrop of darkness, hunger, and indignity, Rolen looked at him with gentle hope. He looked not at all like a man in chains or nearer his earth with every breath. He might have been standing at the head of a Northsun repast, his children at his feet, his wine cup full, and nary a friend with a harsh thought of him.
The Sheason beckoned him with a gesture, and Tahn scuttled forward. “Do you know which way is east?” Rolen asked.
Tahn nodded.
“Look that way, then.”
Tahn turned and stared into the darkness as Rolen shuffled two steps and took position on his left and half a pace back. The Sheason put his right hand on Tahn’s left shoulder and looked east with him into the darkness where no sun would ever rise. Into the cool, stale air he spoke with a voice soft and clear.
“From the cradle you come, son, through the march of a hundred days, a thousand, and more. Legs that first crawled then walked then ran. Hands that clutched a mother’s finger then carried stones then learned to write. But in innocence all, in sport, jest, and growth, sometimes seeing the end of your actions, but never owning them.”
Rolen’s warm tones deepened in his chest. “Remember to run for the sake of working your legs; remember to write, that those after us may know your mind. Your days walk out before you now as a string of pearls, priceless and yet formed in imperfection. These imperfect moments are the choices that you must wear, be they good and true, or selfish and false. And you may know of this only in the ripples created by the choices you make. But whether you claim them or let them be, they belong to you now as they have not as melura.”
Rolen paused. Warmth spread suddenly in Tahn’s chest, arms, and legs. Heat flushed his cheeks, and the chill of his prison receded for the moment.
“I pledge to be your marker, Tahn.” At this, chills swept Tahn’s newly warmed skin. “To show you the ends you create. But only when you invite me to do so. I can reside in you as memory, a companion, even to incite you. But you may prove or condemn yourself on the merits of the paths you alone choose. I stand with you in the place of this promise, Tahn. But that promise moves as you move, for the promise is the fertile soil for your soul, which will be a refuge for you.”
Tahn raised his hand and covered Rolen’s fingers. He hardly heard the rattle of his chains. He stared into the blackness of the room and forgot the rasp of irons at his ankles, the emptiness in his gut. All the hell of his condition remained, but seemed of no consequence as he stood with this cellmate firmly at his back and looked past this day to what life lay ahead.
“You join the great fraternity now, Tahn.” The cadence changed, now more reverent. “Take care how you comport yourself. The inclinations of youth are not gone. This passage you take does not leave behind all that you have been.” Rolen turned Tahn around, clasping his shoulders with both hands, chains dangling and rattling impertinently in the stillness. “Your course is a deep river, Tahn, filled with currents that pull and rush. They will often seem separate from you, but know that they are yours. Each contending emotion proves that you live and breathe and are. Do not let go that self-assurance. No matter the personal cost, Tahn, do not question your own breath. It is as sure a thing as the sun that divides night and day.”
Rolen’s voice now quavered, his words coming in snatches, as though he reported images flashing before his eyes. “Beware though, Tahn. The line that separates light from dark is an easy place to lose your conviction. It is the dark backward, the light upside down. It invites but confounds. It is a stupor of thought that eases you toward the Whited One. And the foulness beneath his facade will corrupt the soul you wish to preserve: your own.”
Tahn frowned at the words. They made no sense to him. But Rolen only smiled at his bewilderment, patting one shoulder and causing his chain to clink unmusically. “I might have hoped still for a roast goose to endfast with you.” He gave a crooked smile.
“Is this the Change?’ Tahn asked. “Is this all?”
“What more would you have it be?” Rolen looked at him with penetrating purpose and faith.
“Sutter and I have waited on this time for so long,” Tahn lamented. “Girls…” He let an embarrassed grin flicker at the corners of his mouth. “We always just thought that…”
But secretly, Tahn had always hoped the Change would restore the childhood he could not remember, disclose the secrets of the words he was compelled to speak whenever he drew his bow, reveal the face of the man in his dreams, and—though it frightened him—the voice that answered him at times when he rose to envision another sunrise, a voice that spoke with a paternal tone. The Change had been the one true, last hope Tahn harbored for those answers. A heavy despondence crept into his heart.
“I know,” Rolen said, mildness in his voice. He squeezed Tahn’s shoulders to force his attention. “But it is no less important than your expectations led you to believe, Tahn. I have given you a gift of myself, one your own father surely meant to give. It is fire for your heart if you so choose.”
Tahn stared blankly.
Rolen looked back with understanding. “It is not something you feel right now, I know. But trust me in this.” He dropped one arm, grimacing with pain as he did so.
Tahn remembered the moment of warmth that had come over him as Rolen recited his words, and wondered if that was the gift of which the Sheason spoke. Beneath the years of anticipation, Tahn had hoped for a grand, new ability or understanding. Instead, he felt only a new burden upon him.
Rolen seemed to read his thoughts in the expression of his face. “Don’t despair, my friend. Look within yourself and see if you don’t already possess a ready calm. No sure revelation is the Change, no granting of immeasurable wisdom or strength. It is the freedom to stand or sit in your chains, Tahn, to bear the bite of steel on flesh, to subdue your hunger, and feel no threat of death.”
The same placid look filled the Sheason’s bedraggled features as he’d seen when first Rolen had stepped into the dirty shaft of light, but Tahn still did not understand. And yet, he did feel changed. Looking at Rolen, half his face aglow in sallow light, the other half veiled in shadow, Tahn saw suffering nobly borne. He saw the face of age, too. Tahn wondered if he’d ever again run through the Hollows’ groves in autumn and kick at the fallen leaves simply because they heaped into drifts on the forest floor.
What consequence did that choice bring? Just running and kicking leaves?
He felt very much in the country of Rolen’s dark backward and light upside down.
Rolen disappeared again into the darkness of his corner, dragging his chains after him. Tahn had no will to sit or even move. He did not know how long he stood there, thinking and yet trying not to think. Finally, he turned and cast his eyes upward into the vaults of the darkened cell and pictured the creep of heaven’s greater light into an ashen sky cloaked by bruised clouds and imminent showers. The image held for the time it took Tahn to gather the courage to sit back upon the indifferent stone. Once there, he curled into a ball and gathered his chains into a pile to rest his head upon. With his face to the wall, carefully shielded from even the sallow light of the high window, he chased old memories down toward sleep. The last he thing he recalled was the image of Sutter ruffling the dresses of girls as they wandered too close to his and Tahn’s concealed seats beneath the rear steps of Hambley’s inn. He hoped Sutter was all right.
* * *
The day of Sutter’s Change arrived.
He knew it because he’d been counting the days for many cycles now. Always before, he’d imagined it would be the day he would set out from his root farm and do something more with his life. But that day had come a bit sooner, and its path had brought him here.
It was still deep into the dark hours of night. He’d awoken as if in anticipation of seeing again the eyes of the dead.
Instead, only the stillness and darkness greeted him.
The others here still slept.
Sutter sat up off the rough stone, his bones and muscles aching with every movement. He looked at the wall opposite him; the two scops had not returned. He hadn’t seen their forms yet this night. Sutter tried not to think of what that could mean. Perhaps these nightmares really were just fever dreams, or maybe, if they were the spirits of the dead before they met their end, he saw them only when they were near. Or perhaps the scops had been freed.
Sutter turned his mind to his Standing. Today of all days he missed Filmoere; his father would not be there to stand for him. No one would. He guessed he would still leave his melura years behind him, but they would go with a whimper, nothing to commemorate the occasion except the dank, cloying smell of filth and a few humble cellmates.
He spent a moment peering into the dark at Thalen. He could barely make out his form. Perhaps he could stand as First Steward, but would he know what to say or do? Sutter had always heard the same words, or near to them, when someone spoke the Change. A Reaper from Risill Ond would not be a bad choice, though, he thought. Not after the tale the scops had told.
He surveyed his cell companions from the pageant-wagons. Perhaps they would know the right words, and add something ceremonial besides. But the dark irony of it stole up on him—more of his old wounds. Even should they agree, Sutter wasn’t sure he could ever stand with a wagon trouper.
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