A Promise Broken

by Lynn E. O'Connacht

  Knowing better than to yank on his sleeve while he was writing, Eiryn stomped her foot on the ground. “Arèn-minnoi!”

  Her uncle sighed again, but he did put the quill down and turned to look at her. “I’m busy, Eiryn. I’ll look at it later.” There was a grump to his voice that made Eiryn grump back and she stood on tiptoes to get her sheet back. Her uncle cried out her name, farakaoina underlining it as he did, because the sweep of her arm had knocked over the inkwell and he was keeping the liquid from spilling onto the reports he was reading. Hugging her own paper to her chest, Eiryn studied the floor. It was still creamy white stone. Her uncle didn’t yell at her or scold her, but she knew he was disappointed and that wasn’t fair. Eiryn stomped back to the pillow she’d been sitting on in front of the hearth and threw herself onto it and grumped at the fire. It crackled back at her merrily and she grumped at it again.

  When it crackled merrily again, Eiryn moved to the windows to look outside. The day was grey and dreary and she thought she could just about see the blue sparkle of the sea. At least the clouds had the same mood she did, but when the sun shone down through it she let out an irritated cry and stomped off into the bedroom and threw herself onto her bed. It was wonderful and soft and Mayry-minnoi had decided that it should be all shades of bright, cheerful yellow.

  Eiryn crawled under the blanket and buried her face under her pillow so she couldn’t see anything. She didn’t have any idea why her uncle’s refusal to look at her work had her so upset and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t long before she was moving about the room and rearranging everything from pillows to brushes to clothes. The latter turned into a mess because she discovered that she wasn’t particularly good at folding cloth, and that in turn drove her back into the main room where she wandered about. Now and again, she’d settle somewhere, but not too soon after she’d be up on her feet again and go somewhere else.

  Eventually, her uncle said, “Eiryn, stop fidgeting.”

  “I’m bored! And you’re mean.”

  “Then please go be bored somewhere else. I need to concentrate.”

  “I need to make Radèn’s present perfect!” Eiryn crossed her arms because she was sitting in a chair at the moment and couldn’t be bothered to get up to stomp her foot onto the ground again. “You need to look at it and tell me how to make it better.”

  “If I look at it for five minutes, will you let me finish my work? It’s incredibly important, Eiryn, and I do not have a lot of time.”

  Eiryn barely heard all of what her uncle said, because he’d said he’d look at it. She bounced off the chair and fetched her paper. It’d drifted dangerously close to the hearth, but she didn’t get hurt. When she bounced back to Arèn-minnoi’s desk, he’d cleared a space for her paper and Eiryn gave it to him. She tugged on her hair and then stuffed her hands in her sash the way her uncle always did when he didn’t want anyone to see he was nervous. She made herself stand very still and expectant, but her uncle didn’t say anything. He just took up his quill and started to write on her sheet. Eiryn had to bite back her dismay, but if it wasn’t perfect she’d have to copy it all over again anyway.

  So she tried not to be too upset to see her uncle scribble everywhere. He was much faster than she was and he was humming a farakaoina under his breath. It was one that would make the ink dry faster. She knew because her uncle used it often and she’d asked him about it once. Arèn-minnoi had spent a whole morning teaching her how it was put together, but the farakaoina he was singing now sounded different in places. When her uncle handed her the page back, she almost didn’t want to take it from his hands.

  As she stared at the page in her hand and tried to make sense of the changes her uncle had made, he asked “Why don’t you try writing your own poems?”

  Eiryn shook her head, sheet of paper in one hand and tracing the different colour ink with the other. She was certain her uncle had written the words with the same black as she had because he’d filled her inkwell and his at the same time.

  “Eiryn-dai? Why not write your own poems? I’m sure Radèn would like those just as much. Even more.”

  “I can’t write pretty like that,” the girl whispered, tracing the corrections on a ‘k’ that’d looked particularly bad to her uncle. At least if she copied the poem that Orryn-minnaoi had set her as practice this month, it only had to look pretty because someone else had made it sound pretty already.

  “Neither did whoever wrote that poem when they started. Go on, safai. What’s the harm in trying?” Her uncle began to reach out a hand to her, then dropped it back to his side. Eiryn felt bad. She wasn’t making a face because he’d moved, but because of what he’d said. She couldn’t make up pretty lines about drowning water-spirits the way the poet had. She glared at her writing spot on the floor. She wanted to give Radèn something perfect, not something she’d made herself. She couldn’t make anything near as good as the gifts she’d been given and she didn’t know where to get anything either. If she didn’t think her uncle would be annoyed with her then she might have dared to ask where she could get something perfect.

  “It won’t bite you, you know.”

  “But –” As she realised she didn’t have any other arguments, Eiryn fell silent. If she told her uncle she didn’t want to write poetry, he wouldn’t understand. It seemed reason enough to her. It was reason enough in the mornings when she didn’t want to wear her bright, yellow dress, but the warm green one that tickled and made her hair stand in every direction.

  Her uncle tried to stroke it down with little success. “I’d be very proud to have you write a poem especially for me, even if it wasn’t very good. Because I’d know you’d written it just for me.” Eiryn wanted to stomp her foot, but Arèn-minnoi’s voice was so gentle and it reminded her so much of her mother that she almost burst into tears. Dai would’ve helped her write a poem. But she couldn’t break the smile on her uncle’s face by crying. She was afraid her uncle would start too.

  When Arèn-minnoi turned back to his work, Eiryn glared at the page. She didn’t sniff and she didn’t wipe her face, but she walked stiffly over to where she’d put her inkwell down and left the sheets she’d been practicing on. If she could write as well as Arèn-minnoi could, he’d have looked at her writing and left it alone and she wouldn’t have had to write a stupid poem by herself.

  She didn’t even know how. All she knew was that they were supposed to look pretty. So she returned to staring out at the dark clouds again, pretending that they were a big, white sea and she was a fish swimming in it. It was all right if she just sat there and pretended to be thinking, wasn’t it? She thought so. Arèn-minnoi was supposed to be busy, far too busy to pay attention to her.

  So she sat, looking out the window. There were some gaodansaoina children playing in the gardens now and Eiryn wanted to rush down to them to ask where they’d come from and whether they didn’t find not wearing sashes confusing. Dai hadn’t always worn hers. Eiryn didn’t want to go alone, though. Maybe they’d be mean to her for asking questions or call her stupid.

  “Magpie take your thoughts?”

  Eiryn startled and turned from the window to look at her uncle. He squatted down opposite Eiryn. Neither of them spoke. Eiryn didn’t even know how to answer, what to say.

  “Do you want my help?” Her uncle sounded hesitant and Eiryn almost shook her head before the words really sank in. Arèn-minnoi had never offered to help her with anything. Not that she could remember anyway. He was always telling her to do this or not to do that. So she nodded and her uncle sat down on the floor beside her.

  “All right. A poem is three lines and twenty syllables to a line.”

  Eiryn scowled, though she was trying to scowl at the pages and not her uncle. She hated numbers. And she didn’t know what a syllable was. She asked, but she wasn’t sure that she really understood her uncle’s answer of chopping words into bits. It seemed silly to her. Why would you
want to chop a word into bits? And she still didn’t like numbers. Orryn-minnaoi and Radèn-minnoi had managed to make them easier, but how was she supposed to count twenty syllables?

  “If you’re not going to pay attention, I’m going back to work.” Her uncle’s raised voice startled her. She was paying attention. She was! Eiryn didn’t tell her uncle, though, for fear that he really would go back to work. Instead, she scooted closer to where he was sitting and leaned against him. Her uncle sighed and put his arm around her. “I’m sorry. I really am busy. A syllable is a combination of sounds. Like your name. Listen. Ei. Ryn.”

  Eiryn frowned. Her name didn’t have a pause in it. “Eiryn,” she said.

  Her uncle chuckled in response, but it wasn’t mean or angry. “You can split your name up. There’s ‘Ei’ and ‘Ryn’ and together they make ‘Eiryn’. You can split my name up too. Ah. Rehn. Arèn. Orryn-minnaoi has been teaching you letters. A syllable is just some of those letters put together. Ei. Rr. Ih. N. Eiryn.”

  That made sense. She thought. “Ei. Ryn.” She repeated her uncle’s name in syllables too and then tried Radèn, but she got that one wrong. The ‘d’ didn’t go with ‘ra’, but she didn’t know why.

  “I don’t know why they split up the way they do, Eiryn,” her uncle sighed when she asked him. “I’m sorry.”

  Eiryn took up her quill and toyed with it. If she didn’t know how to make syllables, how could she get twenty of them on a line? She didn’t really want to learn about syllables. She didn’t really want to write poetry. She just wanted to get Radèn the perfect present for his birthday. But he would be proud of her if she wrote something especially for him, wouldn’t he? Not if her handwriting was as bad as her uncle had made it look.

  “Why can’t you write it, Arèn-minnoi?” she asked.

  “Because then it won’t be your present anymore, safai. I promise he’ll like it if you write him something.”

  Eiryn wasn’t sure. Could she write about that? Maybe. She didn’t think Radèn would like it very much, though. He liked stories with boats in them. And sea monsters. Eiryn never liked those stories, but maybe if she wrote something about a sea monster? It didn’t have to be long. Radèn would understand if she didn’t write it the way she was supposed to. She could try to count the syllables and show him that she’d made an effort, though. Maybe her uncle would help her find something perfect then. Maybe she couldn’t find anything perfect before the evening. Maybe her writing would have to do. Arèn-minnoi could have told her sooner that Radèn-minnoi’s birthday was today.

  “I watch the boat on the sea.” Eiryn whispered it under her breath so her uncle wouldn’t hear it. Mouthing it a few more times to make sure she remembered the words, she huddled away from her uncle. She’d wanted his help, but now that she had it she felt all wrong. Arèn-minnoi would make her change things and tell her what she did wrong and not what she did right. It made her stomach roil like a stormy sea and she didn’t know how to explain that to him.

  “Is something wrong?” her uncle asked. Eiryn shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again. She pulled her legs up and hugged them. “I should get back to work.” He rose and the comforting warmth of his body vanished with it.

  Calling out to ask her uncle to stay was tempting. Eiryn wanted him to help her and make her gift perfect, but she also didn’t want him to turn it into his gift and make her feel bad. So she let him get up and she huddled by the fire to get warm. Arèn-minnoi didn’t mean to make her feel bad. She knew he only wanted to help her be better at things. She just wanted him to look at things she did well and say he was proud of her.

  With her uncle gone, though, and with her head all in tangles, Eiryn couldn’t concentrate on writing a poem at all. Her eyes kept drifting to the windows or to the fire. She practised farakaoina that her uncle used — and she did not try to change it in any way, even though bits made her throat hurt. She did, eventually, manage to write down a first line. It took her a long time, sounding out the letters she wanted to write as she wrote them and keeping the whole sentence in mind. Her quill scratched the paper slowly and clumsily and she had to take out a new sheet because she couldn’t understand what she’d done when she’d finished.

  By the time she got to the second line, Eiryn decided that she was going to write something very short and to stop worrying about the syllables. Trying to count them and change things had only made her even slower and her writing less legible. Maybe she should say something about Radèn himself. He’d like that. Maybe she should write something to say how much he meant to her.

  Eiryn wasn’t sure what to write, but at least it was easier than trying to think of a story about boats and monsters on purpose. “I love you,” was her first line. It wasn’t very long and it wasn’t much, but it was true. Eiryn wasn’t entirely sure how to go on, so she sorted out the discarded pages until she did know. She’d say things Radèn liked and that she liked.

  She’d written down three things when her uncle told her that it was time to get ready for supper. Eiryn decided to finish her poem by repeating the first sentence again. Just in case Radèn-minnoi had forgotten. It didn’t look nearly as good and pretty because her uncle was drumming his fingers impatiently on his desk and Eiryn had to hurry to put her sheet of paper in the last rays of sunshine streaming in through the window. The gardens were empty now.

  Page secure, and not at all the pretty writing that she’d wanted to give to Radèn, Eiryn did follow her uncle into the bedroom. He sent her straight back out to clear away her inkwell because she’d left it on the floor with the paper. She was in such a hurry to move that she didn’t put the stopper in firmly enough and she spilled ink over herself.

  Eiryn let out a shriek just as Keilan-minnai opened the door unannounced. Within moments, Keilan-minnai and her uncle were both singing farakaoina. One to clear the ink stains from Eiryn’s hands and one to deal with the stains on the ground. Keilan-minnai got to Eiryn first and the woman took the inkwell from her hands.

  “Aren’t you two ready yet?” she asked.

  “My apologies. I forgot the time.”

  Eiryn frowned because she was certain they were running late because the poem had taken her so long, not because her uncle had forgotten the time. Arèn-minnoi never forgot things. She wanted to ask her uncle why he was lying to his friend and if friends lied to one another then how could you trust them? But she didn’t because Keilan-minnai was already shooing her into the bedroom.

  “Let’s go get ready, Eiryn. Hurry, hurry, or I’ll grab you and tickle you.”

  Giggling, Eiryn ran around the room with Keilan-minnai in close pursuit. The woman had her arms outstretched and kept threatening to grab Eiryn into a hug. Arèn-minnoi settled at his desk and watched them. Before long, Keilan-minnai had herded Eiryn into the bedroom and started to sort through Eiryn’s clothes.

  “I practised writing today.”

  “I’m very proud of you. Turn around.”

  Eiryn did as she was asked. Keilan-minnai was holding out a deep, pink dress that reminded Eiryn of a fruit dessert. It had to be new because she’d never seen it before. She made a face at it and Keilan-minnai made the dress disappear. The woman threw it onto the bed with a loud ‘no’ anyway. That was good enough for Eiryn. And she giggled when Keilan-minnai tossed most of the other dresses Eiryn owned onto the same pile with a loud, “Arèn, you’re supposed to be good at this!”

  Her uncle came to stand in the doorway. “I take great pride in having not a clue what you’re talking about.” Something about the way he’d said it made Eiryn shift from one foot onto the other, but Keilan-minnai didn’t seem to notice anything.

  “Well, help me make one of them a nice dark blue.” Though her uncle sighed, he did twine his voice around Keilan-minnai’s. Eiryn only watched and listened. She recognised bits of the tune from what her uncle had done with the ink. And this time she could see the colour of the dre
ss Keilan-minnai was holding change from black to a deep, vibrant blue. It was fascinating. She’d never seen farakaoina do anything similar before. But neither her uncle nor Keilan-minnai let her ask questions because they kept shushing her. Eventually, they were just repeating the same parts of the farakaoina and Eiryn wandered. She could always give Radèn another shell. She had some beautiful shells and she had said that she liked him as much as she liked those in her poem.

  Eventually, her uncle shooed her and Keilan-minnai out of the bedroom. Eiryn’s free hand held a conch shell that was still whole and all sorts of iridescence with mottled brown spots and she pulled free to grab her poem too. Feeling awkward, Eiryn folded it as many times as she needed to make the sheet fit into the shell. At least this way only Radèn would see.

  “Are we going to be late?” she asked, prodding the remaining pile of paper with her foot. Arèn-minnoi hadn’t said anything about tidying that up, but they were in her way and he’d be angry if she stepped on them.

  “Maybe, asafai. Not too much.”

  Eiryn wasn’t soothed. She’d never been at the winter solstice celebration before. According to Radèn the time meant merchants, feasts and his birthday. The first sounded interesting, the second Eiryn would rather miss with all the people that would be staring at her, and the third should be wonderful. They just had to get there. “Hurry up, Arèn-minnoi!”

  When they reached the large, translucent doors to the banquet room, two guards stood on either side. Eiryn had never seen them before, though she’d heard adults talk about them. In their blues and silvers they looked like big, strange fish. Her uncle didn’t tell her off for staring; the guards were wearing three different sashes instead of just one. Keilan-minnai squeezed her hand gently, though. Eiryn didn’t pay much attention to what her uncle said and just tried not to clutch her gift so tightly that she broke the shell. Radèn was going to hate it; she just knew he was going to hate it.