Tarashana

by Rachel Neumeier

  He leaned his head back against the tree and shut his eyes. After a moment, he said, “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” This time his manner was neither sharp nor scornful. He only sounded exhausted.

  “I understood why you said it. Your words were so offensive I will not forget them, but I accept your apology.”

  He nodded. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me again. He said in the same exhausted tone, “Please, will you just kill me? You’re an Ugaro. You’ve probably killed a lot of people. Just kill me. Please. Do you know what the penalty is for assassinating a scepter-holder?”

  I did not, and I did not intend to let him tell me. I did not want to kill him. His desperation had taken away almost all my anger. I said, “If you did not want to die whatever kind of death awaits you, then you should not have tried to kill Lord Aras.”

  He only shook his head. “Please. You can hurt me if you want to—I don’t care what you do to me as long as you kill me. Please don’t take me to him.”

  “I do not want to hurt you,” I told him. By this time, that was true. “I will not kill you. Stop asking.”

  By now the Lau who had followed me were so close I could see Esau was among them. I knew some of the others too, though not well. There were many men, more than twenty. They were walking fast, but not running. They could see by now that I was on my feet and that I had made the assassin my captive. They knew they did not have to hurry. Reaching down, I pulled the young man up and shoved him forward.

  The heat hit like a hammerblow as soon as I stepped out from beneath the shade of the trees. I stopped, and set my teeth, and forced myself to say to Esau as he came near, “I may feel the heat too much. I have no water with me.”

  I usually carried a waterskin. I was supposed to carry one. Esau was carrying two. He handed me both without comment, then held out his hand to one of the other men for another. “Pour one over your head,” he told me. He retrieved my shirt from where I had dropped it, soaked it with water, then gave it back to me. “Put that on. We can sit in the shade here till dusk. Won’t bother me any; I’m the patient sort. You think you need to do that? Tell me the truth.”

  I felt better with cool water soaking my hair and dripping down my back. I did not want to send the assassin to Lord Aras and not see myself what happened. It was not only that I wanted to be there; I had caught the young man and I had refused every plea he had made. Now I felt responsible. “It is not very far. I will walk back now, but perhaps not fast. There was a horse. She went that way.” I nodded to show the direction.

  “Our boy had a horse, did he? And you caught him before he got to her. Wonderful how useful an Ugaro can be. I don’t know why Lord Gaur bothers to keep the rest of us around.” Esau looked at one of the other soldiers. “You, Shauroet, take a couple men and go find that horse.”

  The man did not argue. None of the soldiers here were men I knew well, only a few of them by name, but Esau knew them, and everyone knew him. Shauroet and two of the other men went to do as Esau had told them. Three of the other men took charge of the young man. They had cords with them, so they could bind him properly. He did not try to fight them when they untied the shirt I had used. He yielded to everything. I began to warn them, but he snatched at a man’s knife before I could. He was very quick. Because of my earlier blow, he did not have full use of his right arm or he might have managed to use that weapon as he intended. Then I got it away from him. He cut me twice, but the wounds were not bad. One was a narrow slice across the heel of my hand and the other less than that, a cut down my forearm, but barely enough to draw blood.

  I had taken the young man to the ground in the short, violent struggle over the knife. I had hit him hard enough he was not able to get up at once. Two of the soldiers grabbed his arms and pulled him up hard and held him. The soldier whose knife he had taken started to hit him for making trouble for them. I caught the soldier’s arm, stopping that blow. I said, “He was not trying to attack you; there would be no point to that. He wanted to drive your knife into his own throat.”

  They all looked at me and then at the assassin. He was shaking now, with exhaustion or despair. I could not be sorry I had caught him, but I began to think I would also not have been sorry to fail in the attempt. The soldiers bound him carefully. No one hit him. Esau looked at my cut hand and shook his head. “Careless,” he said.

  “I know.” It would not have happened except I was tired and slow with the heat. Even so, I should have been able to take a knife away from a Lau without hurting him or being hurt myself. I was embarrassed.

  “I meant I was careless,” Esau told me. “I should have expected something like that. I grant, you were clumsy to let him cut you twice. The heat slows you down. Hold still.”

  I stood patiently while he poured water over the cut, though it was not really necessary. It was not a serious wound, but I let him cut a piece from my shirt to bind it so it would not bleed much. I knew he meant what he had said about his own carelessness. Esau was a weak sorcerer—very weak—but the curse meant he was hard to deceive. He was not accustomed to being taken by surprise.

  I had been horrified when Aras first told me that about one Lau in fifty was a weak sorcerer. Even after he told me that, for a long time I had not understood the occasional comment anyone made regarding that kind of sorcerer, because the Lau used many ordinary words when they meant that kind of curse. By the time I understood what they meant, the idea troubled me less. I had come to understand, partly from Esau, how very weak the curse could be, and how those with that kind of curse guarded their people against more powerful sorcery. Lau parents teach their children very young to be mindful of their own desires and intentions, suspicious of any urge to be too compliant and twice as suspicious if those near them seem too biddable in their dealings with someone else. Those children with a small curse learn those lessons best. Only a very powerful sorcerer can make them forget that caution. Knowing this helped me tolerate my awareness of weak sorcery among the Lau, but it was also easier to tolerate because I had learned to trust Esau long before I realized he was touched by the curse.

  Finally everyone began to walk back the way we had come. Not very fast. They all kept to the pace I set. I would have walked more quickly, except if the heat sickness came on me, that would be even more embarrassing than letting the assassin cut me. Eventually the other men drew somewhat ahead. Once there was a little space between us, I asked Esau, “What is the penalty for trying to kill a scepter-holder?”

  “Ah.” He looked at me sideways. “Not your fault, anything that happens.”

  So I knew it must be even worse than I had thought. When he said nothing more, I became sure of it. I asked, “Should I have killed the assassin as he asked?”

  “What? No. Put that right out of your mind, Ryo. If we don’t make an example, there’ll be another arrow tomorrow or the day after or who knows when. Poison in the soup, maybe. We can’t have Lord Gaur dodging assassins every day of the month till his luck runs out! Plus, we don’t know who put this boy up to it, and we’d better find that out. Youngster like this isn’t likely acting on his own. No, we had to catch him if we could, and we have to find out who put him to this or who else he might be working with.”

  I had not thought of this any of this. I could see Esau was right. Aras would discover all the truth. Then he would do whatever should be done. I still wanted to know what the punishment for such an act was supposed to be, but as Esau plainly did not intend to tell me, I did not ask again.

  At the cliff, they bound the young man hand and foot and lowered him down that way, into waiting hands, giving him no chance to throw himself down.

  Then we took him to Lord Aras.

  -2-

  Lord Aras had a house here in the town. He had a different house in Erem Sen, which had been rebuilt a little way from the town of that name that had been destroyed in the war. He had another again farther to the east, in a town called Lohora Sen. If Aras remained in exile in the borderlands for many mo
re years, I did not know how many more houses he might establish. But this one in Tavas Sen was to be his home. He had ordered it built in the southern style: square, with a private courtyard inside the square. The house was three stories high and two rooms wide all the way around the square; the outer rooms were for business and the inner for only the family—that was the custom in the south. He said his wife would prefer a house in that style, even though it was not warm enough in the borderlands for the lemon trees that should be planted around the pool in the center of the courtyard. I did not know much of any of these customs, but I was very curious to meet his wife and his daughters, who were to come to this house soon, when it was finished.

  He had built more than this house. He had also built barracks for the two talons of soldiers he kept with him. He could call on many more talons than that, but some of his soldiers remained based in Gaur, his own county. Aras could not leave the borderlands himself, not until his king lifted the command that held him here, but he had many very experienced soldiers he sent elsewhere. But two talons, not always the same two, stayed near him, supporting him while he took care of trouble to the east and west, in the borderlands all along the river.

  Some people had moved away from Tavas Sen, not liking to live near a powerful sorcerer. But some people had come, many from Gaur, where people knew him better and were not as afraid of him.

  Tavas Sen itself lay within the border of the county of Kasurat, so the lord of Tavas Sen was Lord Kasurat. He did not live near Tavas Sen. He had gone south, farther from the borderlands, to a town he liked better ... to a town farther from a scepter-holder who was the king’s nephew and a much more important lord than he was, and a powerful sorcerer besides. He never came to Tavas Sen now. There was a headwoman, an older woman, a widow, who made decisions for people here.

  Among the Lau, a woman is thought immodest to go out of her house, and young women of important families do not show themselves in public at all. But a woman who has come to great age, a widow, is free of many of the constraints set upon other women. The headwoman of Tavas Sen was very highly respected. Besides being the headwoman, she was a memory-keeper for the town, which seemed to me in some ways close to what Ugaro would call a poet—except that among Ugaro, poets are men, but among Lau, memory-keepers are all women.

  Even after more than a year, I would not have said I understood the Lau. But men as well as women thought well of the headwoman of Tavas Sen. She had shown herself pleased to set the town into whatever order Aras wished. Aras paid for the work he ordered done, so the townsfolk liked to have him here. Also, they still remembered the war with my people. His two talons made them feel safe.

  Aras had felt safe too. He had not felt much danger from the people here, and of all Ugaro in the winter lands, the inGara were most certain never to dispute with him. Because they had given me to Aras as a tuyo, it would have been dishonorable and disgraceful for any inGara warrior to lift a hand against him or his people.

  I wondered if he still believed Tavas Sen was safe.

  Lord Aras did not come out to see the young man in the outer courtyard of the house, as I had thought he might. Townspeople followed us from the cliff and looked through the gate into the courtyard, but they did not try to come in. They stayed back in the street, talking and pointing. I wondered what they thought of this assassin. I wondered how many of them distrusted Aras so much they wished the assassin had succeeded in what he had tried to do.

  Geras met us in the courtyard, with a frown for me and a nod for Esau and a long, summing look at the prisoner. “You all right, Ryo?” he asked me first. “You look like you’ve been wrestling weasels.” He frowned at the cloth wrapped around my hand.

  “There were thorns,” I told him. “The cut is not at all serious. I am perfectly well.”

  He looked me up and down and finally said, “Well, I guess you’re in halfway decent shape, for a man who’s been rolling through thorn scrub. A proper hair-raising tale I had. Up a cliff by your fingernails and off after an assassin on your own! What if there’d been a pack of ’em? You’d have looked a proper idiot stuck full of arrows.”

  “There was only one man,” I said patiently. Geras had once been my guard. Now he had charge of the soldiers who guarded Lord Aras. This was an important duty, but sometimes he forgot that he was not also responsible for me. I added, “He threw down his bow so he could run more easily. He had only a knife. There was not the slightest danger, except the danger I would not be fast enough to come up to him.”

  Esau did not say that I had neglected to carry water. He said, “Ryo did fine. If he hadn’t got up that cliff quick as a cat, we’d have lost the assassin for sure.”

  Geras studied the assassin, frowning in a different way than he frowned at me. The young man stood between two soldiers, surrounded by more soldiers. He was still half naked. He stood with his head bowed, not resisting the men who held him. He looked young and thin and entirely hopeless. Geras said, half disbelieving, “This is our assassin?”

  I said, “He is determined and clever. He planned carefully. Only the kindness of the gods prevented his arrows from striking Aras, and though he failed, he nearly got away. His mistakes were small. He did not know I could climb that cliff. No Lau could have climbed it. He does not look dangerous now, but I would not take him lightly.”

  “No,” Geras agreed. “I don’t think any of us would be stupid enough to take him lightly.” He added, “Terau isn’t dead, but the arrow went in low, near the kidney. He might live, if the gods are kind, but it’s a bad injury. If he hadn’t taken the arrow, the surgeons would’ve been cutting the arrowhead out of Lord Gaur’s back instead. We aren’t likely to forget that. Come up, Ryo. You’ve earned it, and I know Lord Gaur’ll want to see you’re all right.”

  So we brought the prisoner into the house, the finished part of it, to a large room on the second floor, where Aras had laid out the books and scrolls and papers that he needed for some of the work he did. There were three windows that looked out to the west, so there was plenty of light. A full carafe of wine waited with several goblets on the sideboard below the row of windows so that the light of the lowering Sun shone through the wine, which glowed red in that light. Beads of moisture stood on the glass; someone had used a cantrip to chill the wine. A plate of cakes sat on the sideboard too, but no flies buzzed around the cakes. Someone had used a cantrip there as well. During the past year and more, I had seen too many Lau use too many cantrips to take much notice—and I had seen too much true sorcery, and been too hurt by it, to think cantrips were the same in any way. I still did not really like cantrips, but this small kind of magic did not much trouble me anymore.

  Aras had known we were coming. Of course he had. I could see from the set of his mouth that the young assassin’s fear and desperation hurt him. But he pretended, partly from long habit and partly because the pretense made people more comfortable, that he did not know we had come until we were at the door. Then he looked up and laid down his stylus. He rose to his feet, picked up his scepter, came around the table and stood there, waiting. Three soldiers stood behind him, close to the walls, watching carefully. I did not know them, only their names. They were from a talon that had not been here in Tavas Sen very long.

  The soldiers with us brought in the assassin. They did not let him go, even though there were so many of them and the young man looked completely helpless. They gripped his arms. He stood with his head down, breathing fast, not struggling.

  “What’s your name?” Aras asked him. “What is your father’s name?” He paused, flinching a little, his mouth twisting. He didn’t look away, but he said, “You’re doing that deliberately, aren’t you.” It was not a question. He sighed, and tapped his scepter lightly into the palm of his left hand. For some time he said nothing else, only gazed steadily at the young man, who stared at the floor. Tremors shook him. I tried not to think that he was a coward, but to become so overwrought with fear and show it so plainly seemed contemptable to me.
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  Finally Aras said to Geras, “Have a couple of your men take him outside. You had better make it at least four men. Have them run him around the house. Don’t let him pretend to collapse: make him run. When he truly can’t run, make him walk. When he’s completely exhausted, bring him back here.”

  Geras nodded, expressionless. “I’ll handle it myself, my lord.”

  “If you think that’s best, Troop Leader.”

  “There’s no one else!” the young man cried out. “There’s no one but me! No one helped me! Just kill me!”

  “I truly wish I could,” Aras said to him. “But even if you’re telling me the truth, that’s impossible.” He nodded to Geras, who gripped the assassin’s arm and took him out, along with most of the soldiers.

  I did not go with them. I stayed where I was. Esau stayed as well because I did, and the three soldiers who had the duty to be here. No one else was present. I ignored them all and looked only at Aras.

  He sighed. Then he said, “He’s deliberately making himself sick with fear. He’s doing it to block me from his mind. It’s very effective. Complete exhaustion will make that much harder. If he manages to prevent me from seeing the information I need even then, I’ll force him into a collapse and see if I can get the answers I need while he’s at the edge of consciousness.”

  I nodded, but I asked, “What is the punishment for what he tried to do?”

  “Ryo ...” But he took a breath. Then he told me, “A person who attempts assassination against any lord of the summer country is put to death. If he used a bladed weapon—an arrow counts—then he’s hung upside down by a thong through his ankles, between the bone and the tendon, and his belly is cut so his intestines fall out, and he’s left like that to die. Then his body is left to rot. Dogs and pigs are allowed to carry away the bones.”