by Alma Boykin
As the female hesitated, the Wanderer caught a whiff of stale air, sickness and sour fear from within the dwelling and heard a faint moan. “I, my lord, we, yes.” The female backed up and opened the door wide enough for Rada to slip through, then shut and locked it. “In there,” and she gestured into a smaller, darker room. Rada moved carefully, mindful of the low ceiling and scattered furniture. Then she stopped, turning to the female.
“Before I look at your junior, I will speak truth on my talons,” and she extended her claws. “By the Healers’ oath, this is not your fault, nor that of your mate, nor of anyone in your lineage. It is not a punishment from the Ancestors, nor do I think less of your junior because she is female. The words I said were for the ears of angry males, not for the gods.”
In the dim light, Rada watched the female stagger, then sink to her belly with exhaustion. “Thank you, my lord.” The mammal turned and ducked another low lentil, then settled awkwardly onto her knees beside a pile of blankets and tattered cushions. Rada used her walking cane to flip up the latch on the window shutters and to pull one open enough to get light and fresh air into the tiny room. Then she whispered a prayer under her breath and carefully pulled back the light sheet covering the moaning junior.
Rada wanted to cry. Bonecrush had to be one of the most hideous familial diseases she’d encountered in her long years and this was an advanced case. The young female lay on her flank, unable to move. Rada grabbed a handful of cleanergrass from a pile and carefully wiped feces from under the youngster’s tail. The bones in that appendage had already shattered and been absorbed, compromising the spinal cord in the process and paralyzing the female’s hind legs. The legs looked flat and the closest ribs were too short, signs that those bones had also broken apart as calcium leached out of the framework, leaving the body to collapse into a bag of soft tissue and blood. The process caused horrible pain and Rada noticed a bowl with the remains of crushed kaesh leaves in it. The mild painkiller could no longer mask the agony and the little creature moaned and whimpered. Rada rested her hand on the junior’s head as lightly as possible, reaching out with her mind and blocking the pain. The small reptile shivered and relaxed, falling asleep. Rada sat back and contemplated the dying child.
“My lord?” the dam asked quietly. The mammal pivoted so that she sat facing the adult female.
“I’m sorry. As you know, there is nothing that can be done to stop the destruction. If you wish, I can seal her mind away from the pain so that she will feel nothing until her spirit passes to its rest.” Actually, she could do one thing more, but only if the parents asked her directly.
The female turned away, tail dragging, and Rada got up and followed her into the main room of the dwelling. “My mate is . . . away. I sent him messages but have received no answer.”
Rada shook her head. “His permission is not required, mistress. In an emergency of life and limb, you can make decisions without him since he is away. And whatever you choose I will support, should anyone challenge you.”
The female started fussing with things around the cooking area. Puzzled, Rada watched the bustle and then realized what was going on. She held her peace, waiting patiently as the grey and dark-brown female made tea and arranged some dried meat onto a serving tray. “Forgive my boldness and lack of hospitality, my lord,” she offered apologetically then began backing away to leave Rada alone with the food.
“No lack of hospitality, mistress,” Rada assured her. “You are a dam with a sick junior. Your care for her is greater hospitality than any other that can be offered. Please, I am a foreigner and stranger, so forgive my manners if I ask you to join me in breaking fast.” After so long among the reptiles, the formal words came easily to Rada and she almost believed them. Actually, Rada wanted to get some of the meat and tea into the female before she passed out from hunger and exhaustion.
The female was distracted enough to comply. Rada shuffled the plates around so that the Azdhag ate more of the dried meat than she’d intended. The reptile looked in on her offspring twice, then came to a decision. She took away the tea tray and visibly gathered herself. “My lord, it is known that you follow other gods and that you do not honor the Ancestors as we do. It is said,” she hesitated, trying to keep herself properly controlled and quiet as a female was supposed to be. “It is said that if a junior with bonecrush . . . that if a Healer takes away her pain, it will cause the junior to suffer the same and more in the after world. What do your priests say?” Her words tumbled out like water through a broken levee.
It was a question that no one had ever asked her and Rada considered how to answer it. “My faith teaches that God does not want any of His children to suffer,” she began carefully, “and that there is nothing wrong with easing suffering that cannot be cured, if the patient or the decision makers in the family wish it. My understanding is that God judges each individually, so that a junior is only responsible for what he or she does, not for her sire or dam or any of her lineage. Your priest might disagree with me, but I do not think that your offspring will be forced to bear her pain twice over.” Actually, from what little I’ve seen of your priest, I think he’d back me up on this one, since his mate’s dam was the manor Healer for many years. But she didn’t say that aloud.
“Then do it, please. Now, before she wakes up again,” the female pled.
Rada was grave. “If I seal her mind away, she will not eat or drink. And it is almost impossible to reverse,” she cautioned.
“How is that any different from now? Her mind is gone, what little she had,” and the female laid her forefoot on the mammal’s arm, begging.
Rada gently removed the taloned forefoot. “Very well.” She got up and went back into the small room. Once there, as the female watched from the doorway, Rada picked up the little reptile’s head with gentle hands and mentally reached for her brain. It took a great deal of concentration and energy for the woman to manipulate the nerves, blocking them from receiving pain signals from the rest of the body while not compromising the autonomic nervous system functions. She didn’t sense any dreams from the junior but still nudged the half-formed mind towards pleasant feelings and thoughts. No nightmares she promised the little one. You’ve suffered more than enough already. May your gods have mercy on you.
When she finished, Rada excused herself and left the female watching the unconscious junior. She would probably die within a few days, sooner than if Rada had not acted. The village felt busy but quiet as the manor lord walked slowly back up the lane toward the main square. For once the late summer sun felt good to the weary soldier, like a touch of blessing. She wished she could have told the female that she, too, had lost a child. That she understood a little of the dam’s feelings. But she couldn’t; and not for the first time Rada cursed Azdhagi culture. But she also acknowledged that it was that same culture that had given her the authority to stop something worse from happening that afternoon.
Singing Pines village remained too quiet for Lord Ni Drako’s taste. The few Azdhagi she caught sight of hurried quickly about their business, trying not to see their daimyo as Rada strolled up the gently sloping hillside towards the main square and the temple. She bypassed the central plaza and cut through a few back passages between houses and behind workshops until she reached the small temple. Well, it was small by her standards. The beautifully carved and roofed wooden structure could have served half again the four hundred souls living in and around Singing Pines. Because the manor belonged to the King-Emperor and Imperial family as a private possession, the temple housed a shrine to the Imperial Ancestors as well as to the local spirits. Rada rarely set foot inside the building, remaining instead on the lovingly swept and ordered walk and grounds. She followed the small trail leading to the priest’s dwelling and tapped four times on the wooden boards that served Azdhagi in this area as door chimes.
An irritated voice called, “Yes? What is it . . . oh. Your pardon, Lord Mammal,” and Taer emerged from the shadows of the deep porch surrounding
the home. The porch served as an additional community food storage area when the females and males were drying fruit, some vegetables and meat strips, so it was almost as large as the house itself.
Rada didn’t take offense since she was interrupting his meal. Besides, at Taer’s age, he had a right to be short even with the manor lord’s deputy. “Father Taer,” and Rada bowed a little. “I’ll be direct. It seems one of your parishioners needs some theological counseling.”
The greenish-brown reptile blinked light brown eyes and stepped into the afternoon sun. “Does he now? It wouldn’t happen to be a male called Kleet would it?”
“It would indeed. He seems to have decided that the Ancestors called upon him personally to ‘cleanse the village of an offense’ in the form of a junior with bonecrush and he managed to talk a double-forefoot of males into trying to help him with this.” The mammal kept her tone neutral but made a semi-rude forefoot gesture suggesting her opinion of Kleet’s spirituality.
The priest rippled his tail and stretched his hind leg in the Azdhagi equivalent of an irritated sigh. “Well, he has not graced the temple with his presence for the past, hmmm, three sixts, Lord Mammal. Do you read sacred script, my lord?” He changed the topic so fast Rada’s head spun.
“Yes I can, Father Taer.” And the old reptile tucked his robe tighter around his middle and made the gesture for “follow me,” leading the confused woman to the back steps of the main temple building.
“Wait here, my lord,” he ordered and she did, wondering what in the name of the two moons was going on. He returned with two manuscripts and pointed with his tail to the steps. “Sit, please, and are your forefeet clean?” Upon getting her affirmative, as soon as she settled so that he was on her good side, Taer gave Rada a thick book, its pages carefully reinforced against talon pricks and tears. “Turn to the last entry and read it.”
Rada did as asked and found a terse, talon-written notation from the previous generation recording a vision someone had of an Ancestor cautioning them to stop drinking so much distilled spirits. “That is the last confirmed visitation. No maledictions, curses or other things, nary a hint of Ancestral interest since then. Which is as it should be if all is well, Lord Mammal,” Taer explained. “Now look at this.”
The second book contained a genealogy of everyone in the village. Which made sense, Rada thought as she stared at four hundred year-turns of births, deaths, and mate takings, arrivals and departures. You couldn’t run the risk of offending an Ancestor by accidentally forgetting them when you went to make an offering. Ni Drako turned pages until she found what she wanted and Taer tapped the entry with a talon. He growled quietly, “Shaek’s lineage has had no bonecrush for three generations. Neither has her mate’s lineage registered any and her mate’s sire’s dam was a minor Healer so they would know and report it.”
“But Kleet’s sire’s two sisters died of it,” Rada noted. “Is that why Shaeks’ mate is . . . away?” The woman curled her left forefoot, then turned it palm up and extended four digits in a sweeping and scattering motion as if she were sowing seeds.
“My mate wanted Shaek to tell the story when she stopped bringing the junior to worship but Shaek refused to say.” Without another word he took the two volumes and returned them to the special fire- and water-proof library room of the temple treasury. The noble remained seated on the step considering all the different possibilities for the horrible situation she’d inadvertently stumbled upon. “Shaeks’ mate was recovering from a timbering injury when they joined. There was a commotion that night but I’ve never found out what happened.” Taer added from over Rada’s shoulder.
A horrible suspicion formed in the back of Rada’s mind and she winced inwardly. “Thank you for your observations and suggestions, Father Taer. May the Ancestors be with you and your spirit,” and the mammal planted her walking cane and then heaved herself to her feet. She left the village by a back route, emerging from the woods on the west side of Singing Pines manor house an hour later. The mammal’s leg ached but she’d needed time to think away from the servants and Zabet.
If her suspicion was correct, should she get involved? There was no other reason she could find for the sequence of events around Kleet, Shaek and her mate, and the junior. Mated males left home for military service, to find work, on business travels, or because of a bad domestic situation. No war was in progress that would cause a male from Singing Pines to leave, since they were either retired from the Imperials or went into the Defenders if they had a military bent. With three sixts or so to harvest, finding work posed no problems for anyone and Shaek’s mate had not been a merchant or a traveling woodsman, according to the genealogy book. That left an unhappy domestic situation, and bad housekeeping did not count in this case. “Oh fewmets. Blessed Bookkeeper, what rotten carcass have I just kicked?”
Rape. If there were any things Rada Ni Drako refused to tolerate they were rape and junior abuse. If Kleet had raped Shaek before she and her lawful mate had produced a child, especially if it happened before Shaek’s mate had recovered enough from his injury to join with her or to defend her from an attack, a great deal of cloudy water cleared instantly. The couple had not publically adopted the junior. The junior’s disease came from her sire. Kleet’s lineage carried bonecrush. Either Shaek had been unfaithful or had been raped, both of which made her mate look very weak. So not only would Shaek’s spouse have a terminally ill child to deal with but that child’s disease also proved that he was not her genetic sire. It was probable that he had left rather than deal with the mess. At least he didn’t take it out on Shaek by beating or killing her, the mammal sighed as she limped into the main courtyard of the old stone building. But then everyone knows how I deal with that offense and that the priest and Healer would tell me the instant they had either a rumor or evidence.
But that left no evidence or witnesses aside from the dying junior if Rada wanted to initiate a rape adjudication. The mammal waved off the servant hurrying towards the daimyo. “No, thank you. I don’t need anything. I’ll be in my office,” she informed the yellowy reptile, her mind several light-years away. Once there, Rada settled into her chair and called up the law files on her computer. It had been several decades since she’d needed to look at the Imperial law codes dealing with rape and she thought she remembered that there had been some changes. There were but none of them applied to this situation. Instead the noble found herself cross-referencing some older cases and after an hour shoved back from the desk, temper boiling. “Damn it to the nine hells!”
A silvery-blue head with long whiskers decorating the narrow muzzle poked into the room. <
“No,” Rada snarled, “something in particular but I need witnesses or for a missing male to appear with a formal complaint about something no Azdhag male will ever complain about in public. Life would be simpler if people just killed rapists before the problem ever reached the adjudication stage.” Rada closed out the files and limped past her “boss.”
<
“Grarf.” With that eloquent comment Rada vanished into her own thoughts, leaving Zabet sighing for the ten thousandth time over the uncouth habits her business partner indulged in. Zabet rippled her tail and whiskers in a shrug and minced past the offending footwear to settle onto the very comfortable padding of Rada’s sleeping platform. From there the True-dragon began puzzling out what had
Rada so bothered. She’d mentioned rape and that a male was unwilling to come forward about something, probably the crime. Could it have been a male that was assaulted? Zabet considered but discarded the possibility: a male junior perhaps, but not an adult male. Homosexual rape just didn’t happen among fully-grown Azdhagi: due to a quirk of Azdhag anatomy, the attacker faced the overwhelming probability of being gravely injured in the process if his partner resisted. And if someone assaulted a junior, the villagers would have taken care of the perpetrator as soon as they found out, in order to ward themselves from Lord Ni Drako’s wrath.
After an hour Rada emerged from her mental shell but refused to discuss the matter. Instead she wanted to talk business and Zabet filled her in on the latest market developments. The evening meal arrived and the pair ate in Rada’s quarters. “I think shiny fabrics are coming back into fashion at Court,” Rada observed.
<
“Oh no thank you, silver dancer. I’ve eaten keri greens twice. Never again; between the hallucinations and the nervous-system effects I learned my lesson.” Reptiles devoured the planet’s wild and domesticated leafy greens and various stems and shoots with gusto but the mammal couldn’t touch them. Instead she piled more braised baby shootee slices onto her platter along with the watergrain, then topped them with the meat’s sauce. “Both shiny material and color effects on patterned matte material. If you know of someone who has tooroi with some inkar woven into it in a coordinating color, it will probably sell as fast as we can get it through customs.” After chewing and swallowing a bite she added, “The first export-approved goldenstem is available. Undyed.”
That kept Zabet busy for the rest of the evening. As soon as they finished eating, the True-dragon began working through her contacts, seeing who might be interested in a two or three-way trade or sale. Rada continued rolling Sheak’s predicament over and over in her mind, trying to find some sort of legal loophole or justification for starting an official investigation. The mammal really, really did not want to cause the female Azdhag further pain by interrogating her as her junior lay dying. The case was already so old as to cause serious difficulties for a professional truth-seeker, which Rada was not.