Tytiana

by Marc Secchia

  Yarad, the Under-Master of Orchards, rose to his feet with a nervous cough. “My men are talking about the involvement of pirate elements based near the Pla’arna Cluster, High Master Juzzakarr. It seems a plausible theory. There was a spate of attacks on Gemalka several years back, also seeking tribute, which were traced back to that region.”

  This much was stating the obvious, Tytiana knew, but her father simply said, “Continue.”

  “I recommend we contact Gemalka for intelligence regarding the beasts involved,” Yarad said, stroking his small, pointed white goatee. “Each Dragon is unique – they have unique colouration, distinctive battle scars, perhaps a missing talon or fang. That might help us to isolate the source of these craven attacks.”

  “Very good,” Juzzakarr approved. “The Conclave of High Masters is tomorrow … thoughts? A group effort, or a private House initiative to seize advantage for ourselves?”

  The household batted the matter back and forth for nearly fifteen minutes. Tytiana learned that the High Masters were planning to pool their resources to purchase additional military Dragonships from Sylakia and Yorbik. They had posted full-time guards at all of the watchtowers, and had even begun to weaponise some of the lower castes. That put her in mind of an incredible high kick that had saved her expensive neck. There were secrets hidden around Helyon that she knew nothing about. Skills, and perhaps magic … such as her own? Wincing, she sipped her wine abstemiously –

  “Tytiana!”

  She startled. “Father! Sorry, I was strategizing …”

  Her father nodded genially, but his eyes remained narrow and flinty. “An hour ago, I received word of a plot against your life.”

  “Mine?”

  Her squeak pierced a deafening silence. Tytiana wanted to imagine she had heard wrong, but Juzzakarr’s extreme gravity corked her throat more than effectively. The lamko! She had been right; that festering pustule had played her false!

  The High Master added, “I received a private, or shall we say, draconic word, that you and several other daughters of major Houses might make useful and valuable hostages to these piratical Dragons. We all know your value. The season is mellowing into the second growing time, when trade lessens and the work of material assay reaches its lowest ebb.”

  Tytiana’s mind raced in ten different directions at once. What was he suggesting? Hide? Flee? Or … she blurted out, “Gemalka! Send me to Gemalka, father. In secret. I’ll conduct and document this research for you into the local Dragonkind, and I could also meet with the Master Northern Vintner there who wrote to us last season, to explore new methods of grafting productive fenturi variants onto more cold-resistant root strains!”

  A few people in the hall chuckled at her enthusiasm.

  High Master Juzzakarr looked almost amused at his daughter’s outburst. She was not accustomed to fond looks from him, but perhaps he was expressing delight at the piles of gold growing in his mind as he considered the potential profit of orchards that might be productive later into the cold season, and earlier in the springtime.

  He said, “We’ll have the second course served now. Everyone, let’s be thinking while we eat. I want assessments and recommendations after we’ve put these delicious-smelling pheasants into their rightful places.” He patted his ample stomach. “Hollow as an oil drum, wouldn’t you say?”

  Beneath the cover of the general merriment, Tytiana glanced askance at Zihaeri. Her sister had given a tiny, disgruntled snort earlier. Was that a sign of jealousy? Could she be plotting to do away with a younger sibling? House politics could be ugly, and there had been that assassination just last season …

  Zihaeri said, “Fly toward those Dragons of Pla’arna, Tyti? You must be feeling brave. We’ll have to come up with a good disguise. Maybe dye your hair black?”

  “No!”

  “Hmm. Shave it off, then?”

  “Mercy, you beast. I think you’re right, though. Father will want to verify the integrity of the shipping lanes before he lets me loose.”

  “Before he packs you in the cargo hold, more like,” Zihaeri snorted. “Actually, I could see you making a very fine captive Princess. You know, slaying pirates left and right with your sultry glances and furious beauty.”

  “Ugh. When did you morph into the sweetly-sighing romantic? Merely mention the word ‘pirate’ and you become decidedly twitchy, dear sister.”

  “I am so … not!”

  “Wow. Rainbows in those cheeks?”

  “Oh, stop it. Why don’t you glug some more of your fruit wine? It’ll make you even sillier than you already are.”

  On that sisterly note, the dinner continued.

  Soon it was decided that Tytiana would travel at the season’s turning, or in about three weeks, which would bring the additional boon of favourable winds to aid travel. By then, she would have to work out her disguise, and set matters to rights in the arboretum.

  Oddly, she was going to miss that skanky, unwashed mop-head with his amazing acrobatic kicks, and his endearing inability to spin any believable lie whatsoever.

  Endearing? Tytiana bit her tongue. May father never hear her utter such a slur in his presence!

  * * * *

  The rest day following the Dragon attack meant no rest for Jakani and his community. Coming together, the village rebuilt the destroyed hut from the ground up, each contributing from their meagre stores to muster enough drals to afford structural timber, the most difficult and necessary material to source. After the carpenters had finished the main frame, the villagers swarmed around, bridging the gaps with smaller straight sticks affixed to the main structure, fitting the window frames, and then filling in and plastering the whole structure with mud mixed with straw. Prepared the right way, the mud would harden into almost impenetrable walls – well, not to Dragon fire.

  He scowled at the sky.

  Six hours of dancing in mud later, his father invited him up to help with the roof work.

  Strange how an entire community would change its behaviour based on his inclusion by one person. Hanzaki had simply walked up to the site and said, ‘I’ll be proud to have my son Jakani work alongside us today.’ Job done. Still, memories were long, especially in honour cultures, as his mother had taken pains to remind him that morning.

  Now, as they affixed the final roof beam and the thatching experts took over, his father said, “You’ll be back to the arboretum tomorrow, son? We could sure use you to finish up in the orchards this week.”

  “Shall I join you after work?”

  Hanzaki reached over to pat his arm. “You’ll be tired.”

  “What, after days sunning my toes in that overlarge greenhouse? Nonsense. Not when you’re all working till midnight by lamplight in the orchards.” His father began to speak, but Jakani raised his hand, palm up. “I’ll hear no argument from you, young man.”

  For half a second, he thought the old Hanzaki might resurface and toss him off the roof for that joke. But then his father just laughed and said, “The moment this is over, son, I need to spend some time with you. Starting next rest day?”

  “Aye, father!”

  Truly, there must be a sixth moon in the sky.

  He carried that feeling with him all through the week. He whistled at work until Tytiana snarled at him. He charmed the tiger cub into giving him at least a cursory look at the egg that spent most of its time right underneath the cub’s rump. It was better than a diamond. That perfect ovoid had an organic pattern to its gleaming surface that he imagined no Human or even Dragon artisan could replicate. The colour was not white, but an opaque gemstone colour close to it, like snow burnished by the White Moon to a silvery sheen. The mystery deepened. He had checked that cage more than thoroughly, he felt. Tytiana’s purported prankster either had a copy of the key, or something – cue uncomfortable cough – magical was going on. Surely she would not have planted it herself to use against some hapless lamko?

  Even though the additional six hours of work each evening until midnight dr
ained his strength to its dregs, he scooted up and down the estate trails through the cool, dewy mornings and dry, spectacularly golden evenings like a migrating bird glad to be reaching home. Choice Tytiana alternated between growling at her scrolleaves, kicking him about when it suited her, and then smilingly offering a few ripe prekki fruit and green tinker bananas from her exotic collection. She giggled at his dubious perusal of these offerings he and his family had never seen, let alone eaten, and informed him that the skin of a tinker banana was the best part.

  With a sense of advancing out upon a bough that might just snap beneath him, he said dryly, “In my community, we teach young women not to fib.”

  Tytiana made a mocking little bow. “In my community, we teach young men to be grateful.”

  “Then I truly – and honestly – thank you, o Choice Tytiana. You are as gracious as you are – um …” Radiant. Aye, a truth that should never have been uttered, he felt.

  “Oh go climb a tree, Dirt Picker.”

  A grim little smile accompanied the joke; he responded with an equally grim-sounding chuckle. Then, it was straight back to work. She was preoccupied by something, Jakani knew. What? Was it to do with the troubles these Dragons seemed wont to heap upon their Isle?

  For the ten thousandth time, all the resident clodhopper could do was bite his tongue. Tytiana would speak in her own time, or not at all.

  Toward the end of the week, the winds began to change with the first hint of the cooler weather to come. Soon, the spiders would take a short hibernation of some three to four weeks, after which a million mouths – and most likely, a million multiples of that number more – would be munching at the crop again. Knowing Tytiana, she had probably spent considerable time to estimate or establish the number of spiders upon Helyon. In that time, all the necessary pruning had to be completed, right across the estate, but this was no job for lamko. Their part was to collect the sticks and leaves the palarti or Pruner caste discarded as they worked their way across the estate at a frantic speed. This much was allowable. It did however mean a break from the back-breaking work of collecting spider droppings, especially in the more newly-planted groves where one had to stoop, crawl or even worm one’s way beneath the precious, never-to-be-disturbed branches or endure the bite of the overseer’s lash. The lamko performed these tasks between eleven and seventeen hours a day, eight days a week – varying according to the daylight hours throughout the year – with a half-hour break each midday to eat a frugal lunch provided by the estate.

  That lunch had many names which varied between jokes and expletives. Jakani’s personal favourite was, ‘the swill that never fills.’

  He survived the week with no more scars or episodes of vicious stitching; indeed, there was only one incident where Tytiana threw a chamkas pod at his head. Thwack! This was to announce the arrival of one of her aunts and prove that she knew how to treat her servants.

  He rubbed the tender spot on the path home. One could only admire a woman who could whang his head from twenty feet with that much force and accuracy.

  Shame he could never return the favour.

  His running step quickened. He was so looking forward to spending time with his father this evening and tomorrow, as the final picking had been completed a day early. Jakani was so intent upon his thoughts, he did not spy a thin black rope stretched across the path in the shadows of a stand of ancient fenturi trees which had been allowed to grow wild and tall. Twang! He pitched headlong down the slope, but instinct born of long hours of training slipped him into a smooth forward roll. His attackers had anticipated this, however. They fell upon him from the shadows alongside the path, spoiling his tumble and shovelling him chin-first into the dirt. Lamko! Three or four of them were on him and around him, kicking him savagely in the ribs and jumping on his back to keep him down. Someone tried to twist his arms up between his shoulder blades; other unseen hands slipped a garrotte about his neck and pulled the cord brutally tight, sawing the cord across his windpipe.

  Jakani panicked. He thrashed and writhed and choked until a force that was not his own seemed to erupt from deep within – perhaps the darkness he had always feared, or worse. He heaved several of them off him before he tripped over a foot and went down again, twisting to land on his back with his arms braced to fend off any attack. One shadow lurked on the bank above the path, a thick piece of log held purposefully in his right hand. Movement! Jakani tucked his knees up to his chest, caught the diving attacker in the belly with both feet, and with a roar of the uttermost fury and inhuman strength, boosted the young man over his head using the force of his momentum to propel him high, high, higher into the evening air.

  Breathless. Panting. Incredulous at the arc that flailing lad took – he struck the top branches of a mature fenturi tree at perhaps the height of four men standing upon each other’s shoulders, and then crashed down to the ground in a shower of twigs and silver-grey blobs of displaced fruit and crushed spiders.

  Everyone froze.

  Jakani coiled, hands before him like ready blades. “Who’s next?” He shifted lightly, trying to look alert and dangerous. “Well, come on! Want a piece of me, you cowards?”

  How by the very stars above had he just – “Hai!” He moved forward threateningly. That was too much for the youth with the stick. He fled with a wail; the other two melted back into the shadows, and then he heard the sound of running feet. Gone.

  He knew two of them – youths a little older than he was from the third village to the south, right near the border of House Cyraxana on the crossroads that led to House Andamyria. That was no more than a mile from his home. Jakani untwisted the cord from his neck. Some idea of fun. He should have expected retaliation, and varied his route from time to time.

  One thought stormed through his mind, terrifying and exhilarating and incontrovertible – how, by all that was holy, had he just kicked a man into the top of a tree?

  Tytiana. Everything had changed since … her. It was all linked. It had to be.

  Clenching his fists, he stumbled into a run.

  * * * *

  The inside of their hut always managed to look homely in the warm glow of their ooliti lantern, which his father lit at dusk and hung from the rafter directly above the table. Jakani loved that old table. Roughly carved from some unidentifiable wood, it had been rubbed smooth not just by years of use, but by generations of family life – Hanzaki said it was already over a hundred years old when his father had acquired it. Grandfather had died of the caroli plague a year before Jakani was born.

  He sat to his mother’s right, with his youngest sister Airi perched upon his knee, and he curved his arm protectively around her back as she played with beads on a plate. Airi would soon be five. She had a darling habit of singing to herself whenever she played, which was dawn to dusk. Another year, and she’d start in the orchards with everyone else.

  Jakani tugged her black braid playfully. “What’s this in your hair?”

  She squirmed a little.

  “Maybe it’s a great, fat spider?”

  “Jaki no tease. Busy. Tease Mayoko. She funny-funny.”

  Mayoko, who was eight and a half, was hulling beans by the fireplace. She waved her knife, just a thin crescent of metal after years of sharpening, in his direction with a fierce cry, “Just you try, brother. I’ll scour out your nostrils with this!”

  “Mayoko. A lady minds her manners,” their mother said mildly.

  “She’s not a lady, she’s a bandit,” he said. “Airi, shall I knot that string for –”

  “No! Airi do!”

  “Stars above, little sis, you’re almost as bad as –” he pulled up with a curt laugh. “Well now, can I tell you a secret?”

  “No secrets. Secrets naughty,” she said, pursing her lips as she concentrated on threading one of the bright red glass beads onto her string.

  “Aye, tell us who she’s almost as bad as?” Isimi reached out to adjust Jakani’s collar. “What’s this on your neck, son?” He was about
to reply self-consciously about the weal the rope had burned on his neck, when his mother’s bird-like tittering brought him up short. “Jakani! Who’ve you been kissing?”

  “Huh? Me? I did not – what? Mother!”

  Everyone in the room was looking at him now, and a vehement blush executed a perfect ambush upon him without a hint of warning. Sokadan looked up from the hearth with a hearty chuckle, where he knelt whittling a new leg for their father’s chair. He had carved two tiny, beautiful Dragon figurines for their sisters to play with, but he called them ‘frivolous’ and ‘a poor representation.’ So lifelike were they, Jakani had actually dreamed about Dragons the night after Sokadan first gave them to their sisters. Were artists ever fully happy with their creations? His brother was gifted, but he was a Dirt Picker like the rest of the family.

  Art was not for lamko.

  “Do tell, son?” said Hanzaki.

  “I – well – no, I most certainly did not kiss anyone,” he protested. “I – Mom … is this some silken thread of a joke?”

  “Well, this a real thread, and clearly, it is no hair from our family,” said she, holding a gleaming filament up to the lamplight. “Miss Nobody whom you most certainly did not kiss, has long – very long – golden hair … no, wait a second. Hair the colour of flame? How rare.”

  “It’s Tytiana’s,” said he.

  He certainly had a way with creating shocked silences.

  “Jakani! That is no form of address for the Choice of the House!” spluttered his father, aghast. “And, her hair? On you?”

  “We work together.” Ugh, his face must be the colour of those prekki fruit they had all enjoyed the other night! He fanned his red-hot face ineffectually. “Well, we work in the same area, the arboretum across the courtyard behind the main House. She kicks me about like – I didn’t kiss – honestly! What do parents think these days?”