She reached up to touch the back of his head but he jerked away. “D-Don’t. Just g-go back to Jos.”
“He’s gone off in a sulk. Are you angry with me? Because I’m friends with Jos?”
“No,” he said with a sigh. He was tired since he’d only slept half the night, keeping watch the other half. That in itself made him irritable. “I d-don’t want to t-talk about it.”
She nodded. “Gyo was really upset when he came back. No one knew what was happening to you.”
“I’m all r-right. B-back now.”
He oophed as she suddenly hugged him. “I’m glad you’re back, Ka-chi. I don’t care if you’re a Prij.”
He patted her shoulder, even as he gently extracted himself from her embrace. “G-go back to Jos, Meran.” The last thing he needed was to attract the other boy’s jealousy on top of everything else.
But like her mother, Meran had a good heart, and was clearly worried about him. “Will you be all right on your own? You just got home. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m fuh-fine. J-just want to th-think.”
“I know, but you’ve been gone so long. I missed you. So did Keiji.”
“S-sorry. I’m f-fine. Please?”
She gave him a dubious look. “All right. Don’t listen to Jos.”
“I w-won’t. G-go home.”
She reached up and kissed his cheek. “Still think you’re cute,” she whispered, and then ran off giggling. Karik couldn’t help but smile as he rubbed his cheek where her lips had touched her skin. Meran was a lovely girl, and would make someone a fine wife one day. Just not him.
Seeking Home: 4
Arman sighed, leafing through the reports from the harbour masters. To think he had missed all this, and it would only get worse if his position became official. He was finally getting on top of the accumulated paper work, and had, with commendable restraint, so Kei had said, refrained from strangling any architects at all.
But he had been at it long enough today, and was looking forward to an early night with Kei who’d been at home all afternoon, the lucky bastard. He would just see Lord Meki before he left and then walk home. The fresh air would be welcome.
“Arman?”
He straightened up in surprise. “Yes, Neka?”
“Reji wants to speak to you. Are you busy?”
“No, let me speak to him.” He sighed. He’d had a feeling this conversation would come up soon.
A few moments later, Reji’s distinctive voice was in his head. “Arman? What have you been telling my son?”
Even used as he was to the bluntness of the Darshianese villagers, Arman was immediately annoyed. “And good day to you, Reji. So glad you’re grateful for me bringing him back.”
“I’m very grateful, you bastard, but what’s this that he’s telling me, that you’re his father? You told us that Mekus was. What’s going on?”
“I said nothing to him about the matter, Reji. Mekus and Mayl filled his head with their spite and he seems to have believed everything they told him.”
“But what’s the truth of the matter? Are you his father after all?”
“Legally, yes. Even your adoption is invalid, according to Lord Meki—at least it will be until we renew the documents. Now I’ve got Mayl’s consent to dispose of him as I wish, I can do—”
“Arman!” This was Jena. “Are you Karik’s father or not?”
He sighed. “No. It’s impossible, Jena. I hadn’t slept with Mayl in a year when she fell pregnant, and you know better than me what that means.”
“So it is Mekus?” Reji had rejoined the conversation.
“Actually, probably not. Mayl never had another child with him, and Karik looks nothing like Mekus, though his other two children favoured him quite strongly. It’s likely that Mayl cuckolded us both.”
“Oh.” Jena again. “Is this why you refused to tell Karik who his father was?”
“No, I didn’t work it out until I was back in Utuk. I didn’t tell him about Mekus before because I wanted to avoid precisely the kind of situation we ended up in, and in any event how could I tell him his father was the man who ordered ten of your people killed? And now...do you want to be the one to tell him his mother’s faithless, and his father could easily have been one of her servants? Do you think this will help his self-esteem?”
“You don’t seem to have had much care for his self-esteem lately,” she snapped. “He thinks you hate him. How could you treat him like that?”
“Like what? I went to considerable difficulty to bring him home to you, and he repaid me with rudeness. Are you going to make me regret getting him back for you, on top of everything else I went through?”
There was a long period of silence. Arman rubbed his temples—he was getting a headache, and this was all going so badly. It was the price to pay for losing his temper with the boy, and he supposed he shouldn’t complain about having to pay it.
“What did Karik say to you, Arman?” Reji asked, sounding somewhat less angry than he had.
“He accused me of taking me away from his mother.”
“Well, you did.”
“Yes, but he clearly believes Mayl was grief-stricken about it, that I ripped him from her bosom, ran off to Kei and it’s just not the way it was. If you’d seen her in Utuk, you’d know her only interest in Karik was as a way to punish me. I could hardly tell him that, though. I can’t tell him about any of it. Damn it, he’s your son, I hardly know him. How do you tell a boy his real mother essentially sold him to the highest bidder?”
“Explain,” Reji said curtly, so Arman did.
“Oh, gods.” Jena’s voice was quietly horrified. “How could she give him up for money?”
“How, indeed. Reji, Jena, please, I can’t deal with this from here. You have to be the ones to explain things to him.”
“But who do I say is his father?”
“You’re his father, Reji.”
“You know that’s not enough.”
“Then tell him the truth—that you don’t know. Or let him believe what he does now.”
“I don’t like lying to my son.”
“I don’t have any other answers.”
“The problem is that he doesn’t know why the man he believes is his father would give him up, or take him from his mother in the first place.”
Arman felt the familiar cold anger grow in his gut at the thought of Mayl, and choked it down. “And do you want me to be the one to tell him his mother’s an amoral slut, or do you want that pleasure?”
“Arman!” This was Jena. “We’re just trying to help Karik, you don’t have to be so damn rude.”
“Look, Jena, I’ve only just got back from a fairly tiresome stay in Utuk and brought your son back to you, and now you want more from me, which I simply can’t provide. I’m really not the person to handle that conversation with the boy—I already tried and it went badly. Tell him whatever you want to tell him. I absolve you from your promise. Just stop forcing a parental responsibility on me. I am not his father. Even if I was by blood, I am not by right or by any other measure.”
“Just as well. You’d have made a rotten father.”
“Strangely, I do know that, thank you,” he said, but without any heat in his words. Arman let few people point out his faults so unflinchingly, but Jena always had and always would. Her complete honesty was her most admirable quality, he’d always thought.
“Not that I’m not grateful,” Jena said. “You don’t know any more about what Mayl did or said to Karik, do you?”
“Not really, although I know what she said to me and what lies she put in the mouths of her servants. She’s putting it about that I was sleeping with Kei in the house while he was a hostage, and that I made a habit of sleeping with my...with my male servants, which is completely untrue. No doubt she told Karik that, and painted Kei as breaking up our loving marriage, which is also completely untrue. But since neither of you ever met her, I don’t know that your denials will carry much weight. I
can try to talk to him about it, but since he’s convinced I’m such a bastard, I don’t know how much good it will do.”
“I don’t know, I was convinced you were a bastard and I still came to trust you. Not that you’re not still a bastard, though.”
Arman smiled a little. “Never claimed not to be. Karik can think what he likes about me, but I won’t allow him to slander Kei. Kei was and is completely honourable in his actions towards me, and Mayl knows it. I don’t want Karik believing that rubbish.”
“You can’t blame him for assuming his own mother was telling the truth. If you didn’t bother to explain any of this to him, what is he supposed to make of it?”
“Nothing, I suppose. I just...had had enough of Mayl and the whole situation. Talking to him about it seemed intolerable, after everything else.”
“Yes, I know it must, but damn it, he’s just a boy. If it’s beyond you to deal with, how is he supposed to, and if you’re just going to be angry with him....”
“I don’t know there’s much I can do about that either, Jena.”
“I suggested you and he sit down and talk when you come down in the summer,” Reji said.
Arman could think of almost nothing he would like to do less on their annual visit to Ai-Albon, but he supposed there wasn’t much he could do to avoid it, if he and Kei were to be able to continue doing so without tension between old friends. “As you wish. I just warn you that I’m not going to let him be impertinent.”
“Then you better learn some manners in the meantime too,” Jena said, but at least with some humour in her tone.
“I’m sure Kei will beat some into me. Can I go now and lick my wounds?”
“Yes, go home to Kei and confess your crimes. He’ll tell you you’re an idiot too.
Reji chuckled. “Thank you for our boy, Arman,” he said. “Will you pass a letter to your father if I send one?”
“Of course, but he doesn’t expect thanks.”
“No doubt, but then that’s the Prij for you.”
Arman let the insult slide, knowing Reji meant it only as a joke, and also knowing he deserved far worse for what he’d said to Karik. Karik had had no way of knowing Mayl had lied to him. “Was there anything else?”
“Only that the village elders are meeting tomorrow evening to talk about your nomination. I was planning to speak against you,” Jena said cheekily.
“You surprise me,” he said, not believing her at all. “Just be honest, Jena. I’m not really expecting this to succeed.”
“It damn well better,” Reji growled. “They should have had you instead of Colonel Jiv to begin with.”
“Jiv’s a good man.”
“He’s rigid. I’d like to see him make a new life as a Prij.”
“I think he was a perfectly good nomination, and he’s Darshianese.”
“So are you, or so you keep telling us. Anyway, I plan to vote for you, but I might have to knock you down if you ever hurt my boy again.”
“You can give it a try, Reji,” Arman said dryly. “But can we talk about this some other time? I really do want to go home to Kei.”
“As you wish. Just remember your promise.”
“I will. Goodbye. Goodbye, Jena.”
With relief, he felt the connection with the other two close, and then he thanked Neka for her help, wondering what on earth she had made of all that, and being very grateful indeed for her discretion.
His head really pounded now, and much as he hated it, he took the rare liberty of asking the clerk in the foyer to order up a calash to take him home. The house was quiet—Pira was in the kitchen looking at a recipe book, and smiled at him as he put his head in the door to say hello before he wandered out to Kei’s workroom, guessing from the smells that Kei was brewing something up. At least this time it was rather pleasant, a fresh leafy scent, though he was hardly in a mood to appreciate it.
Kei was bent over a small tabletop charcoal burner, stirring something in a metal pot, and looked up as Arman came in. “Come here,” he said.
Arman obeyed, and as soon as he got close to Kei, Kei laid a hand on the back of his neck, even as he continued to stir his pot with the other. The pain melted away immediately, and Arman sighed in relief. “Thank you,” he said sincerely.
“You’re welcome. Architects?” Kei asked, pulling him nearer for a kiss.
“No, Reji and Jena.”
“Oh. Why do I think this is going to be a long story?”
“Because it is.” Arman fetched a tall stool so he could sit while Kei continued his work. Kei slipped an arm around his waist. “Tell me, if you had a choice between me as a father, Mekus, or someone like Mykis, who would you want? If you were Karik, that is.”
Kei grimaced, presumably at the mention of the hated Mykis. “You, of course. What a stupid question. But you’re not his father.”
“No. But Mayl and Mekus told him I was, and legally I am—and more than that, he clearly believes me to be, from what he said on the boat. Reji doesn’t know what to say to the boy—frankly neither do I. If I’d known what a mess this was going to turn out to be, maybe I should have let myself be fooled by Mayl’s lies sixteen years ago.”
“Which would have made a completely different mess, of course.” Kei lifted his hand and gently stroked Arman’s cheek. “This is really upsetting you. Why?”
Arman kissed Kei’s palm. “I’ve angered two friends because of my behaviour towards their beloved son. Is that not enough?”
“It’s no small thing, I grant you. But this fatherhood thing is also bothering you.”
“Which it pissing well shouldn’t. Karik’s no kin to me. He’s not my family. He’s nothing to me at all.”
“Hmmm, if that were true, you wouldn’t be so out of sorts. Family is more than blood. I’ve always considered him as much my nephew as Keiji is, and not just because Reji calls me brother.”
“Yes, but you can’t have children. I can.”
Kei blinked. “Now where in hells did that come from? What has my fertility got to do with it?”
“I—” Arman stopped, utterly confused. “I have no idea. I don’t even know why I said that.”
Kei bent and shut the little grate on the stove, which would make the fire die down, then put a lid on his pot before putting his arms around Arman. “You’ve just spent a month with your real family. Maybe you wish you could bring your real son to them, be a father like your brother.”
“Jena says I’d make a rotten father.”
“Jena’s talking out of her arse,” Kei said firmly. “Love, you need to sort this out with Karik. Make your peace with him, and with them. It’s not his fault he’s not your child, and not yours that you’re not his father. But it’s wrong to say you’ve no tie with him, and just pushing him back to them will never satisfy the lad.”
Arman laid his head on Kei’s shoulder. “Reji wants me to talk to him in the summer. I really don’t want to do that. I don’t know what to say to him. I already tried and failed.”
“You just need to keep trying. He’s worth the effort, I know he is.”
Privately, Arman had to wonder if the boy really was, but he recognised his emotions were colouring his judgement, and Kei was a far better judge of people than he was. “Just to add to the ironies of this day, Tijus’s papers arrived.”
“About the guardianship?” Kei straightened up. “Good, let’s sign them and send them back. I’m honoured by the trust, and whatever Jena says, their children would be safe in your hands.”
“Mari said something about wishing the Prij weren’t so obsessed with blood connections. You don’t seem to give a damn about them—is it because you’re Darshianese?”
Kei smiled. “I wouldn’t say I was any more typical of the Darshianese than you are of the Prij. I know plenty of people who care about the blood connection—maybe I don’t because I’d always known I’d have to make a family another way. I don’t think you give much of a damn about blood either. I think you give a damn about loyalt
y and honour, and Mayl betrayed both of those.”
“If Karik just didn’t look so much like her.” But even as he said it, Arman felt there was more to the odd pain that seeing Karik always caused. He didn’t look that much like Mayl that Arman couldn’t easily separate the two.
Kei didn’t notice his private reservations. “Yes, it’s disconcerting, though he’s changing as he’s getting older. Maybe it will get easier over time to talk to him because of that.” He hugged Arman tightly. “And now you’re getting another headache. We’ve got months to think about this. Let’s not do that tonight and before we go back in the summer we can decide how to deal with Karik,” he said as he kissed Arman’s brow. “But I’ll talk to Jena too. They need to understand how hard this is for you. They see it from Karik’s view. I want them to see it from yours as well.”
“With so charming an advocate, how could I possibly fail?”
“Flatterer. Now shift that handsome arse and let me finish in here—I have to take this lot with me to the prison. Then we’ll eat the soup Pira’s making and then I plan a long bath, massage and possibly some wild, depraved sex to make up for having to spend the night away from you tomorrow.”
“Now, see, this is just the kind of plan we could have done with more of in the army.”
Kei stuck his tongue out. “Make love, not war. It’s very simple.”
“Indeed it is.”
Seeking Home: 5
After three weeks back, Karik thought he should be settling in. Superficially he was. He started work again with his father and Risa, and had taken over the care of the newborn and sick animals without missing a beat. A letter had come from Gyo, expressing his friend’s joy at his homecoming, and his apologies for getting them in the mess in the first place—Karik had replied to that right away, telling Gyo it hadn’t been his fault and to stop punishing himself. He wouldn’t see Gyo for months, but he’d probably need to keep saying the same thing over and over. It had been Karik’s own fault for telling Gyo in the first place. Perhaps Arman had been right to be angry with him, but it would be months before he could say that either.
Falling From the Tree (Darshian Tales #2) Page 38