***
When autumn came, I went back to Arad – Panait was waiting for me to lead his caravan. No one apart from Veres was happy when I left the house, each for a different reason. The girls were losing their ‘brother in games’ while Jara and Cernat were worried about being attacked, and Cernat was now confined to home, a thing that complicated his political games. The caravan went to Deva this time, and the road was shorter than I anticipated.
When I left Hateg, my Frankis knowledge was limited, and I could not understand too much. Now it was different. Merchants like to talk in close and safe circles, and I understood them this time – Panait considered me trustworthy, and all other merchants close to him accepted his judgment. I learned that Jara’s fears were true: Orban planned to take Severin and become a Duke. There was a strange entanglement between Jara and Orban – he both wanted and hated her for reasons that were still hidden from me, and I learned that even his own people feared Orban. The merchants never took part in the endless wars that became a common thing after the kingdom’s dissolution. They were the back channels for communications, they helped arrange peace treaties, but more than anything they wanted the good old times back, when the King kept the peace, and they were asking themselves what they could do. Some time ago, Duke Stefan had been their hope, then Orban, but in the end, none matched their expectations. They were still searching, and one of them mentioned the Circle, something so powerful, obscure and tenebrous that I considered it just a legend.
It was then that I realized the Merchant Guilds were not only the money veins of the society, they played a political role too. They were linked, in complex ways, with functionaries working in high positions for Seigneurs and Dukes. They traded not only merchandise but information, too and they could also help me gain better status. Jara’s family could be one lever, the merchants the second – it was not easy for a young stranger to rise in the hierarchy and become a Knight. Delia was the daughter of Balan, the First Mester of Deva, and one of her sisters, Mira, was married to Dan, the Chief of the Guards of Deva, a city smaller than Arad, but three times larger than Severin. Panait’s caravan was joined by Balan, his father-in-law’s, returning to Deva together with Mira and Dan, and Delia gave me a warm introduction to her sister. Dan was a good swordsman, a little better than Vlaicu, and during that week we trained together. Teaching him a few Assassins’ tricks helped to make us friends.
Our journey was uneventful, and I returned home from Arad as fast as I could. There was such a good feeling to having a ‘home’ again, as my life started to move in the slow rhythm of a peaceful family. The evenings were serene, and sometimes Jara and I stayed up for a talk after the girls went to sleep.
Sometimes, having Saliné in my arms brought back the ghost of my twin sister, Ioana. One evening, a sigh escaped me when I was staring into Saliné’s eyes – they were the same color, and the hair was the same too: dark red and rebellious, slightly curled.
“What memory I am bringing back to you?” Saliné asked, her hand gently touching my face.
“Sometimes, you look like my sister,” I said without thinking, and my voice trembled.
Why did she remain in the castle? I went with my brother and Tudor to train outside the city that night, and Ioana was supposed to join us. She declined the training at the last minute. Why? Did someone convince her to stay? During the night, Baraki, the Chief of the Royal Guards stormed the palace and killed my family and all our trusted men. Many of my mother’s relatives were also killed, that night and the days that followed. Hundreds died; it was like a purge, and we had to run, as there was no one who could help us.
Saliné did not answer, just embraced me like a sister, and I had to fight hard to overcome my emotions, trying not to look weak again. In that calm normality, my lost childhood was reclaiming me back in its arms, softening me more than I wanted – the world around me was still foreign and dangerous.
It was one of our long evenings; the moon was rising over the forest, casting a pale reflection on the snowy peaks, and we were alone in the saloon. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” I pointed to the moon, lacking any other inspiration. “Like you, Stejara,” I whispered, and she smiled without looking at me, captured by the same eerie light.
During the sunny midday, I had walked through the forest with the girls; the snowy peaks announced the return of winter, and we took any chance for an outing. Vio was comfortably settled on my shoulders and Saliné was walking along by my side, our bodies sometimes touching as we walked. After a while, we stopped under an old oak tree, and Saliné, catching some yellow-reddish leaves gliding down from the tree, said that Jara’s full name was Stejara, the feminine variant of stejar: oak tree.
“Who revealed my secret name?” Jara asked, with a false trace of anger in her voice.
“My little spies here.”
“Said the big man,” she joked.
“You know what? My name comes from codru, large, virgin forest,” I said, just to make another small bond between us. “And most of the forests in my country are oak forests.”
“Virgin forest,” she said, with a trace of a smile on her beautiful lips.
“Forest that was not touched by man,” I tried to clarify, hastily.
“Or woman,” she joked again, and I felt a surge of heat on my face that was probably red by now. “What’s that color?” she traced my face slowly with her fingers.
“Nothing,” I said, annoyed.
“All right, time to sleep,” she smiled gently and embraced me for good night – sometimes, when in a good mood, she acted like her girls.
You are in good mood because of... I complained inside, stretching my arms around her waist, then I pulled her closer, kissing her at the same time. Surprised, she stiffened, yet after a while, her lips answered me delicately, then less ... delicate, and her arms tightened around my neck. We separated for a short respite, staring at each other wordlessly. When I tried again, she rejected me, touching my lips with her fingers.
“Please stop,” she said calmly. I could not, and again tried to pull her closer. “Please, Codrin.” She took my hands from her waist, and kept them in her palms, a gentle barrier between us.
“Why? You liked…” I tried to convince her, but I stopped, annoyed, there was nothing romantic in my words. What should I say now?
“I will not deny that, but we have to talk.”
“Of course, I want to marry you,” I said swiftly, thinking that she needed some assurance.
“Well, any woman would be pleased by such a request, even though she will reject it. Don’t misunderstand me. You are the same age as my son.”
“I am one year older,” I protested.
“One year older,” she agreed, with a smile. “In ten years, I will be an old woman, while you will still be much younger than I am now. Why can’t you see that?” She stopped, wanting a kind of acknowledgment from me, but I could not think of anything except her lips. “You know,” she said, after a while. “At your age, I had a crush for someone much older, too. It passed. Then I got married. You are from a noble family, too. You know how we get married with a man or a woman for political alliances. I have three children, and I must make a future for them. Next year, I will marry Mohor.”
Surprised, I tried to move away from her, but she gripped my hands, keeping me close. “You need a young girl, your age, or even younger; Saliné’s age.”
Why are you bringing Saliné into the discussion? To push me to her or to explain that she will also marry for a political alliance that gives her a ‘future’? My mind started to function again, angrily, and I tried to find a reason for her words, as they forced me to realize that Saliné meant more to me than a ‘little sister’. Is Jara aware of this? The spark of the woman had eclipsed the girl until that moment.
“Codrin, you are now part of my family. Think of me as your adoptive mother.” She ruffled my hair, like my mother used to do, and for a few moments I almost believed it. “We both agree that it will not happen again,
” she said, going back to our moment of romantic closeness. There was slight amusement in her tone, yet her eyes were staring intensely at me.
I tried to avoid answering, looking up at the moon as if not really hearing Jara. If I give my word, I have to respect it.
“Codrin?” she pushed further, her voice now serious and demanding.
“Yes, we agree,” I whispered.
With all the truth in her words (which I only fully recognized later), I was disappointed. She liked it too… She could have given it a try, I sighed – staring at Jara as she left the room, in her gracious and feline way – still thinking about her lips and body that for a while were tightly pressed against me.
***
The winter was almost gone, and the snow vanished from the land. Only the peaks of the small mountains were still white. Slowly, I felt myself becoming part of the family and they accepted me too, except Veres. Something didn’t work between us, and I could not understand why. I grew closer to Saliné, but we remained ‘siblings’, maybe because I was afraid of losing my place, or maybe because Jara was still hiding in a corner of my mind. So, staying at home through out the winter was in various ways, for some of us, just about different degrees of avoiding each other. Sometimes things touched on her wedding with Mohor, but it no longer bothered me.
Twice a month, Mohor came to visit Jara and Cernat, and usually Jara sent me to Milene’s house on those days, so we never met. It troubled me; her children were accepted, so it was not an issue of age. That was until the day Mohor came earlier than usual, catching me in front of the house. By accident: no one really wanted to catch me.
“Boy, take the horses,” Aron, the strong, tall man I knew was Mohor’s Spatar and his most trusted Knight, ordered in a baritone voice that I suspected was not all that natural, just another way to dominate the listener. He took both horses by their halters and pushed them toward me.
“Take them yourself,” I shrugged, trying to pass on, annoyed by his arrogance.
“It doesn’t work that way, boy. Take them or I’ll smash your head until you obey.”
“Good that you didn’t menace me with your sword,” I mocked him, still walking. “I would have been really scared.” As a ‘vagrant’ I usually did not react that way, with men of power, but I was still a King’s son in my heart, not a stable boy, and I could not accept such humiliation.
“I must teach you a lesson, boy.” Defied in front of his master, Aron yelled at me, and this made his voice turn to tenor, as I had expected. Under two bulging eyes, his face reddened, and his right hand shook the halters, like he was thinking to hang me with them. “I will split you into pieces,” he menaced, almost chewing his words. “I will give you to the dogs. Prepare for a duel.”
“And what kind of duel do you prefer, big mouth? ‘First hit’, ‘five hits’ or ‘to the death’?” I reacted to his unsheathed sword. Prepared for a ride in the forest, I was also armed, and I edged a finger along the hilt of my sword.
“Codrin! Stop it,” Jara said, breathing hard after running out of the house, attracted by the shouts. “Mohor,” she turned to the Seigneur. “Please stop this. You are expected in the house.”
“Aron will just give a small lesson to your stable boy,” Mohor winked at her, amused by the way things had turned. “He deserves it.”
“He is not a stable boy. He is part of my family, and I expect him to be treated accordingly,” Jara reacted coldly.
“Death duel,” Aron said.
“Don’t worry, Jara, there will be no death,” Mohor whispered to her as if in secret, but loud enough to be heard by everyone. “Just a nice show,” he laughed, and lent her his arm – she accepted it with a nervous gesture. “The boy should be thankful for the lesson.”
Concerned, Jara did not answer, but I read in her the confidence that the lesson would go the other way. So be it. I took her body stance as approval.
Aron was an averagely skilled swordsman, a pack of trained muscles, close to a brute. He used the sword almost like a club, but he was indeed very strong, even stronger than Tudor, and that’s why he was somehow equal to Vlaicu in duels, until Vlaicu learned some tricks from me. As I learned later, neither Vlaicu nor Cernat had told them much about my sword skills, and that explained Mohor and Aron’s confidence. Tudor taught me that the easiest way to fight a brute is to let his force work for you. After several moves countering his sword when the strength of its hit was already half-spent, I dodged, and he lost his balance, his sword hitting just air. Usually, I would place my sword at the adversary’s neck, to stop the duel, but still haunted by the ‘stable boy’ slur, I hit his hand with the edge of my blade, making him drop the sword. Then my boot went for the back of his knee, making him losing his footing, and I pushed him to the ground – some basic moves from the Assassin’s Dance.
I pressed the tip of my sword to his neck. “How should we proceed now, Big Mouth? I think you would prefer a swift death. Am I right?” I pressed the sword harder. “I don’t hear you.” His mouth was moving spasmodically, but when you press on a certain point on the neck, the words just refuse to come out. “You’ve lost your voice.”
“Leave him,” Mohor warned me, and his soldiers unsheathed their swords, moving closer.
“They will die if they come closer,” I said casually, pointing at the soldiers with my chin.
“Nobody needs to die,” Jara found her voice. “Codrin, let him go. And you Mohor, remember that I asked you to stop this.”
“Go back,” Mohor ordered the soldiers. “Now, young man, let him go.”
“Should I understand that the lesson you talked about has been taught?” I pushed further.
“Codrin!” Jara snapped. “We agreed to end this. Now behave.”
“Yes, all of us had something to learn today. Though it may be that some will realize it later,” Mohor said, staring at me.
I pushed things too much... Need something to give him. “By the rules of combat, your sword is mine.” I left Aron alone, and picked up his weapon. “As you are not dead yet, I will allow you to buy it back. I trust Seigneur Mohor to price the ransom fairly.”
“That’s a family sword,” Mohor said, after a while. “Passed through generations from father to son. Such things are priceless. It would be a noble gesture to just return the sword.”
I hope I placated you well enough. “The judgment is accepted.” With a brief gesture, I presented the sword to Aron.
“And you have won the right to take our horses to the stable,” Mohor said, again in a bland voice, seeding in me the thought that things were not entirely settled.
“Codrin,” Jara interjected promptly, “help our guests and give the horses to Jeon to take care of them. Mohor, Aron, please come with me.”
“As you wish, milady,” I said sourly, frowning at her. I am a stable boy…
“Thank you, Codrin,” she ignored my irritation, and went inside with her guests.
Aron’s back was covered in mud from his fall, and I caught the soldiers smiling discreetly. You are not very popular. I felt somehow vindicated. One of the soldiers met my eye and winked at me. Mechanically, I returned the wink and went away with the horses. In the stable, I mounted Zor and rode up the hill, just to cool my mind. I am not a stable boy.
I returned as late as the falling darkness would allow me, and tried to skip the dinner – they were already at the table. Saliné and Vio had a different opinion, forcing me to join, in their gentle way. Everybody was almost silent, the girls knew what had happened, and I was sure that many things were discussed during lunch. I would give a finger to know what they said. Then we read together, and that brought some calm back to me. The night was not as bad as I was expecting, yet the ‘stable boy’ taunt still haunted me.
Despite the warm early spring, the next day became colder between Jara, her father, and me, but in some ways, he was still a stranger to me. They both missed training, and while that happened now and then for different reasons, this time it seemed a deli
berate snub. Retrospectively, I conceded that I could have done some things differently with Aron, but it was not my fault. I waited all day to have at least a formal talk, but it never happened; an unpredictable lack of reaction that bothered me. In the evening, I grasped that my duel had affected their relationship with Mohor and the marriage plans. It was time for a hard decision: to leave before being shown the door.
“I will leave tomorrow,” I said, slowly, turning a glass of wine that looked like an unwanted extension of my hand. It was almost midnight. I had stayed up that late hoping they would try to clear up what had happened the day before. Jara, Cernat and I, all three of us gathered over a bottle of wine that was not able to stir any conversation. There was a moment of silence, with short glances between them, then Cernat stood up, and left the room.
“Codrin,” he said, from the door. “We must know what we want from life; if not, we just struggle to survive. Ask yourself where you want to be in five years from now. As I see it, your future is here, with us. You may want to prove me wrong, though. Have a good night.”
Jara remained with me, her fingers were moving nervously around her own glass, imitating mine. It looked like a mirror reflecting back a different person, by some kind of magic. She moved abruptly and sat in the chair next to me, her hand sliding slowly over mine.
“How long do you want to stay away?”
“I won’t come back,” I answered dryly.
She was obviously expecting my answer, as there was no reaction in her fingers. “The girls will miss you, and I like that you are so close to them, especially to Saliné.”
It’s the second time you’ve mentioned Saliné to me… “They are young and will forget me soon enough.” You are afraid that we would become too close, I suddenly understood.
“It looks like I am talking to a very old man,” she said, slightly amused. “I will miss you, too. And I am not that young,” she smiled.
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