by J. S. Bangs
“Saotse! It is you!” Uya ran forward and threw her free arm around Saotse, pulled her into her chest, and covered her cheek with kisses. Then she began to cry.
Saotse brushed her hands against Uya’s face, wiping away tears and running her fingers over Uya’s features like water. A strange smile appeared on her face.
“Oh, Saotse. I thought you were dead! How did you get here?”
“Oarsa—no, there’s too much to tell. You wouldn’t believe me.”
“I don’t care. You’re here, and I never thought I would see any of my enna again.”
“Nor I. Nor I.” Saotse wept then. She buried her face in Uya’s shoulder, kissed her neck, and kneaded Uya’s cheeks as if to make sure she was really there.
Uya pinned her sister to her breast and watched her blind eyes blink in wonder. “It’s like you came back from the dead.”
Saotse laughed. “Perhaps I did. I have to tell you.” One hand rested lightly on the tiny, warm bundle that had been pressed between them during their embrace. “You have the child.”
Uya blushed. The child had fallen asleep in the crook of her arm, undisturbed by their bustling. Saotse couldn’t see the hue of his skin, so she wouldn’t know. She felt a touch of shame mingled with sadness. “He’s not mine. This is hard to explain.”
“Sorry? Why should you be sorry? Most blessed, most sorrowful mother, without you— No, don’t explain anything! I already know, and I have more to explain to you.”
Dhuja broke in with a burst of Yakhat gibberish. Saotse responded with a matching hail of syllables.
“What?” Uya asked, shocked. “What is this? How—when did you learn their language?”
“Oarsa gave it to me,” Saotse said. “I told you, I have much to explain.”
Keshlik and Dhuja began to pepper Saotse with questions. Uya watched, astounded, as Saotse answered, the gravelly foreign sounds flying off her tongue as if she had been born to them.
“Tell me what they’re saying. Please, Saotse, I’ve been living here for weeks with no one to talk to, doing my best with my tiny fragments of Guza and no real translator.”
Saotse rested a comforting hand on her arm. “I told them you’re my sister and that we’re almost the same age. They nearly didn’t believe me. Keshlik didn’t realize until now that I’m one of the swift people, and that led to more questions—”
Keshlik interrupted Saotse with another demand. Saotse responded briefly, then said to Uya, “They want to know what we’re saying. I told them that there’s too much to explain right now, and I asked to speak with you alone for a while. Now, are you hungry?”
“Merciful Chaoare, yes. Can you ask them for food?”
Saotse relayed the request to Dhuja. “Dhuja says they’ll bring us food in the yurt. Let’s go in. Oh, Uya. We have so much to talk about.”
“What? He wants to marry me?”
“A certain kind of marriage,” Saotse said. “You won’t be expected to lie with him, for one thing. But you’ll be the mother of his child. You are already the child’s foster mother, his nurse-mother, and by becoming Keshlik’s wife, you will get recognition for this fact.”
“But still…” Uya leaned her head on the cushions beside her. The bones of the fish on which she had gorged herself lay on the ground, but she picked one of them up to see if a scrap of flesh still clung to it. Her mind felt as if it had been filled with stones and shaken. The day had turned bright after the storm, and the yurt was becoming hot and stuffy. “Can you open the yurt door? Or maybe we can go outside.”
Saotse shook her head. “You need to be in the yurt when Keshlik comes. He’s going to formally petition you after he gets permission from the Khaatat elders.”
“He’s coming now? Oh sweet Chaoare, I can’t deal with this.”
“Not right now, but soon. Today.”
“Today,” Uya repeated, hoping that the word would become something else. “Today. You can’t expect me to do anything today, Saotse! I’ve hardly slept in two days. My nipples are raw, I have to nurse every three hours, and it’s not even my baby. Just yesterday, I was wishing death on all of them, including the boy—Oarsa forgive me for thinking it. The fact that I took his son to my breast doesn’t mean that I’m ready to marry the man.”
Saotse sat impassively in Dhuja’s usual spot, eyes looking blankly ahead, her head cocked to catch all of Uya’s words. She even looked like Dhuja in that position, and it didn’t dispose Uya to think kindly of her. “I know, but—”
“Did you forget?” Uya spat. “I watched him butcher Nei and kill my mother. Am I supposed to just let that go? To become his wife?”
“He wants to make peace. He will make restitution, both to you and to the remnants of Prasa.”
“And? Does that wash the blood of our enna from his hands? The blood of every other enna in Prasa?”
Saotse was quiet for a while. “No, it doesn’t. And he has more deaths on his hands than you imagine, Uya. He can’t repay them all. He can’t repay even one. He can only hope to be forgiven.”
Uya folded her arms under her breasts. She couldn’t do it. She might be willing to let Keshlik live. But she would never be his wife.
“You know,” Saotse said after Uya’s long silence, “they were my enna, too.”
“It’s not the same,” Uya said. “They weren’t your blood. And you had the Powers.”
“I did not have them. I merely heard them, yet they would never answer me. Little comfort. And is blood the only thing that matters? Think of Tuulo’s child, now. Your child.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
The baby began to cry. He had soiled his rags, and they spent several minutes finding the pot of water and extra rags to clean and change him. Then he wanted to nurse, and when at last the child was quietly suckling, Uya had forgotten what she was going to say. She closed her eyes. She needed to sleep, not to fend off proposals of marriage.
There were footsteps outside the yurt. Saotse slipped out into the brightness, and spent a few minutes speaking to someone. She heard several male voices, one of them Keshlik’s. The sound of Saotse’s voice speaking in Yakhat was still shocking and somewhat upsetting to her.
Saotse reentered the yurt. “Keshlik is here. He will be petitioning you to be his wife.”
“Already? You said not right away.”
“All I know is that he’s here.”
“Tell him I’m still nursing.” She wiped the trickle of milk from the bottom of her left breast and moved the boy to the right. He gurgled and latched on.
“Will you come when you’re done?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You can refuse to meet him. But please, Uya. At least come out to hear his petition.”
“When the baby is done nursing.”
Nursing was finished more quickly than she wanted, and the boy fell asleep as soon as Uya finished swaddling him. All she wanted to do was sleep, too. Not to talk to Keshlik, or Dhuja, or even Saotse. She groaned and straightened. Saotse reached for her hand and followed her through the door of the yurt.
The sunlight blinded her for a moment. There was a small crowd of men in front of her yurt, some old men and a handful of warriors. One of them barked an order when Uya emerged, and all the men drew away except one. The sunlight softened, and she made out his face. Keshlik.
He held a spear in front of him in both of his hands, the point just in front of his mouth. He bowed to her, then began to speak rapidly in a sort of chant for a minute, then he struck the butt of his spear against the ground and knelt. He bowed his head and extended the spear to her in his open palms.
“Saotse,” Uya said, “what’s going on here?”
“He is offering to take you as his wife. And he makes a very generous offer.”
“Is that all? He seemed to
speak for a long time.”
Saotse chuckled. She said something in Yakhat to Keshlik, who responded in a surprised tone. She relayed to Uya, “I’ll repeat the terms to you.”
Keshlik began to repeat the chant, more slowly.
Saotse translated, “First, Keshlik asks your leave to bury his wife Tuulo and to mourn her until the new moon.”
“Yes, of course—”
“Don’t interrupt. I have to keep translating.”
Keshlik hadn’t broken stride in his chant.
Saotse hurried to catch up. “He will make peace with your people at whatever price they demand, and he will bind the Yakhat to peace forever. And to you personally he offers his treasures in turquoise, gold and silver coins, cedar chests, mother-of-pearl, blankets, and… well, there’s more, but I won’t name all of it. They have quite a bit of plunder from all their fighting.”
Keshlik finished. He bowed his head again and offered the spear to Uya.
“If you’ll take his offer, receive his spear as a seal,” Saotse said. “He will reclaim it when it’s time for the wedding.”
Uya looked at Keshlik, then at Saotse. The rest of the men who had accompanied Keshlik had withdrawn to the edges of the old sacred circle and watched them with apparent indifference.
“If I take his spear,” Uya said, “would I have to stay here? With the Yakhat?”
Saotse repeated the question to Keshlik then translated his answer. “If you wanted to. But if not, he is willing to negotiate another agreement.”
“But…” Uya felt her face growing hot, and her words got away from her. It wasn’t just the thought of living perpetually with the Yakhat that disturbed her. It was everything. Even though she nursed a Yakhat boy, she wasn’t ready to marry one of them. Even if it was a false marriage, a half-marriage.
She looked at Keshlik’s face. He seemed older than she remembered, and his face was softened, scrubbed clean of the fury that had darkened it before, and haunted now by sadness. She remembered the way that he looked when he had captured her in Prasa, splattered with blood, red with fury and murder. She remembered, too, her hatred, but only as a memory. The deluge that had washed away her hatred had cleansed Keshlik, as well.
But still. It didn’t mean she was ready to marry him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Saotse, I can’t. Not right now. No, I can’t.”
Saotse was quiet. “Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
Saotse cleared her throat and said something long and drawn-out to Keshlik, much more than Uya had originally said. He answered in kind, and they conversed for a few minutes. Then Saotse said again to Uya, “He goes to offer peace to your people regardless, as soon as Tuulo is buried. Will you come with him?”
“Why?”
“Because he wants to show you to the representatives of the Yivriindi. Your presence with his child will demonstrate his desire for peace, even if you are not betrothed. And he wants to be near his son.”
Uya sighed. More movement, more discomfort. But perhaps this was almost the end. “Yes, I’ll go.”
Saotse translated. Keshlik nodded and slowly rose to his feet, dropping the proffered spear back to his side with an awkward, self-conscious movement. He bowed to Uya, then repeated something to Saotse.
“Keshlik thanks you,” Saotse said. “We’re leaving in two days.”
The men left. Saotse put her hand into Uya’s.
Uya hugged the boy to her chest and closed her eyes. “Are you upset with me?”
Saotse was quiet for a while. “I understand your reasons,” she said at last. “You should go inside and rest.”
Chapter 32
Keshlik
Warriors singing songs of victory met Keshlik’s party when they reached the fringes of the camp in the woods. Late afternoon sunlight spilled like gold between the spruces, and the air was heavy with the scent of spruce and horses. Keshlik’s party rode with cheers and ululations following them through the woods and onto the fields where the battle had taken place, where most of the camp had moved, spreading out over the grass and the streams in careless disregard for defensibility or perimeter. They were clearly not worried about a counterattack.
In the center of the expanded camp, Keshlik saw a tight ring of tents, with the Khaatat sign emblazoned on one of them. Just outside the ring was a careworn encampment of white Yivrian tents, with Yakhat warriors posted in a loose circle around it.
The Yivrian representatives, whomever they were, were in Juyut’s power.
By the time they reached the center where Juyut’s yurts lay, a train of shouting and crowing warriors had formed behind them and crowded in on both sides, forming an aisle. While Keshlik was still thirty yards away, Juyut emerged from his tent. He folded his arms and spread his legs wide, grinning like a coyote, and waited for Keshlik and the chieftains to come.
From the corner of his eye, Keshlik glimpsed the cart carrying Uya and Saotse fall back, and he drew his horse to a halt, stopping the entire procession. Uya was hunched over, as if trying to hide from the ruckus of the warriors, and Saotse had her arm around her. The baby seemed to be crying. He motioned for the warriors to quiet. At first, his movements prompted them only to shout louder, but gradually his scowl and his continued insistence calmed them.
“Is the child okay?” he asked Saotse.
“He stirred,” she said, “but Uya calmed him. Don’t worry.”
Keshlik nodded to Saotse then dismounted. Juyut maintained his pose for just a moment after his feet touched the ground, then he ran forward and crushed Keshlik in his embrace.
“Golgoyat himself fought among us, brother!” He lifted his arms exultantly.
The warriors shook the ground with another shout.
“Quiet!” Keshlik barked, slapping his brother’s arms to the ground. The baby’s tremulous cry made itself heard in the silence.
“The baby,” Juyut said, still grinning. “You brought Tuulo? Is it a son or a daughter?”
“A son. But Tuulo isn’t here.”
Juyut fell back a step. His smile faltered. “Where is she?”
Keshlik looked to the ground. He closed his eyes and put his hand across his brow. “Khou’s bosom.”
Juyut dropped his hand and retreated another pace. They stood an awkward distance apart. Then Juyut wrapped his brother in his arms and kissed him on the cheek. He pressed his cheek against Keshlik’s.
“But the boy?” Juyut said at last. “Your son? He is well?”
“Yes.”
“And have you named him?”
“Yes. His name is Tuulik.”
“Tuulik! After his mother. And who is nursing him?”
“Uya.” Seeing Juyut’s confusion, he added, “The captive woman. The one that I gave to Tuulo as a slave.”
“Ah. Then she’s proved her worth.” Juyut looked back at the cart, where the women waited. With a gasp of recognition, he reached for his knife. “The witch!”
Keshlik put his hand over Juyut’s. “Yes. Her name is Saotse. She, too, is in our power now.”
“But she lives!”
“The Power has left her. She cannot harm us. And she is under my care.”
Juyut narrowed his eyes and squeezed his knife hilt. “Why have you kept her alive?”
“She will help us speak to the Yivrian envoys. She must live. I will explain soon.”
Juyut grimaced, baring his teeth at the woman. “But I have good news. The rest of the Yivrian force, we routed after you left, driving them from the field. We pillaged their encampment and crushed their reserves. Most of them dispersed into woods and villages, but those who pulled together did send us an embassy under a flag of peace. I’ve kept them here as captives under guard, expecting that you’d want to speak to them. We have their precious relic sword, too, which we’re keeping for ransom.�
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“Good,” Keshlik said. “I have to speak to them—now, if possible. I have only a little time. Tuulo will be buried the day after tomorrow, and I have to return by then.”
“Of course, of course. Is that why you brought the chiefs of the tribes?” Juyut glanced at the old men standing mixed in with the warriors.
“Yes.” It had only been two days, yet Keshlik felt as though an absence of decades had fallen between them. He had changed. Juyut had not. They had much to speak about—and soon—but Keshlik had even more pressing matters to deal with first.
The Yivrian embassy joined Keshlik, Juyut, Bhaalit, and the rest of the Yakhat elders at the fire when evening fell. Juyut had them escorted by a squadron of mounted Yakhat warriors, as the captives that Juyut considered them to be. But Keshlik did not view them that way.
The Yivrian party was a worn-down, dishonored band. Most of them were dressed in white and blue linens that had been fine once, but which had come to bear the stains of rapid flight and blood. They stood in a little cluster in the gap between the chieftains, glancing across the weathered Yakhat faces in incomprehension. The movements of Yakhat warriors made them flinch.
“Is this all of them?” Keshlik asked.
“All of them,” Juyut said. “But only two of them speak Guza, and not very well.”
Keshlik waved that difficulty aside. “We have a translator. Saotse, will you greet them?”
Saotse bowed and presented her hands palm-up to the envoys. She said something in wispy, insubstantial Praseo. Murmurs of surprise sounded from the Yivriindi, and one of them responded in turn. A few rapid exchanges followed. A narrow-faced young man stepped forward and said something with a little more confidence than the rest of the group had shown. Saotse bowed and showed her palms again.
“This is Narista, the son of the kenda,” she said to Juyut and Keshlik. “With the death of his father, he expects to soon take up the title of kenda himself, but he has to first return to Kendilar to—”
The man cut Saotse off, a storm of angry syllables pouring from his mouth. Saotse nodded rapidly and attempted to calm him enough to translate his words.