“I don’t know if he knows, or if my father does either,” Yanko warned, not wanting to give her false hope. Though if she were terribly crushed later, maybe she’d want some supporting arms around her… All right, don’t be a manipulative ass. Just do what she wants and stop hoping it’ll come out in your favor. He took a fortifying breath. “I’ll check though.”
“Thank you.” Arayevo scrambled off the bed and bent to give him a kiss on the cheek.
He mumbled a, “You’re welcome” and shuffled into the tunnel outside. He touched his cheek and tried to see that bit of affection as promising, not as if he’d been kicked in the tamarind pods all over again.
Part 4
Yanko woke to someone shaking his foot.
“Wassit?” he muttered and lifted his head, almost conking it on the ceiling. He was on the topmost of three bunks with another three a few feet away against the opposite wall. Snores reverberated through the dark room, the same as they had when he’d gone to sleep, but the door stood open, the weak lamplight from the tunnel seeping inside. A figure waited at the base of Yanko’s bed.
He’d been dreaming of standing on a proud Nurian warship, loosing fireballs at a pirate ship with his mother and Arayevo at the helm. He shuddered, relieved to have been woken, though his eyes felt gritty and swollen. He couldn’t have slept more than two hours.
“I need you,” the figure said—a woman said. She sounded familiar, but Yanko couldn’t identify her.
“Women keep saying that and it never means what I hope it’ll mean,” he muttered.
It was her snort that brought the identification. Lakeo, the sculptor.
“I need you for the chapel,” she clarified.
“What time is it?”
“Somewhere between late and early. That going to be a problem?” Her tone suggested it had better not be. For a simple worker, she sure managed to sound like an overseer.
“Is that a woman in here?” the fellow on the top bunk on the other side of the room whispered.
“Better not be,” came a reply from below him. “I sleep naked.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s here. She was dreaming of your hairy nakedness and got excited.”
Lakeo growled with the menace of a wolf.
“Give me a minute to find my shoes,” Yanko said, fearing she’d start cracking their walnuts if he didn’t intervene. “I’ll meet you in the tunnel.”
“Fine, but don’t dawdle.”
She stalked out before a suitable response came to mind. Reluctantly, Yanko pushed the blankets aside. The mines were the same temperature day and night, not a particularly toasty one. He threw on a wool sweater in addition to his boots, then shambled into the tunnel and shut the door.
Lakeo wore the same sleeveless vest and armbands as she had the last time he’d seen her, and he guessed she hadn’t slept since then. Whining about his lot in life probably wouldn’t win sympathy.
“Another vine?” Yanko asked as she headed off down the tunnel.
“No.”
He walked after her and waited for her to explain what she needed. She did not.
A surprise. How fun.
She didn’t say a word on the lift, nor did she speak on the way to the chapel. When they reached the steps that descended into the large chamber, she stopped and pointed.
A woman knelt before the statue of the badger goddess with a blanket wrapped around her body, her chin drooped to her chest. Her shoulders quivered—she was either shivering or crying. With her back to them, Yanko couldn’t see her face, but he had a guess.
“I took a break to get some food,” Lakeo whispered, waving to the spread canvas and chisels, “and she was here when I got back.”
Judging by the hand propped on her hip and the frank stare she gave him, she expected him to do something about this problem. Yeah, what? Crying females aren’t your area of expertise. He wasn’t that good with non-crying females either.
“What do you want me to do?” Yanko whispered.
“I don’t know. Talk to her or take her somewhere. I have to finish that frieze tonight.”
“I doubt she’s going to stop you,” he said dryly.
“No, but she’s crying. I don’t know what to do with crying.” Lakeo shrugged helplessly and extended her hands toward the trembling figure.
It dawned on Yanko that she had even less of a clue as to how to handle this than he did. And here he’d thought all women were born with the ability to empathize with and comfort others.
Mother, too?
Maybe not all women…
“Maybe I should get my uncle,” Yanko whispered. “That’s one of his special guests.”
Lakeo frowned. “What’s he going to do with a crying girl?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“Look, he’s gruff and stern. You’re… non-threatening. Go talk to her.” Lakeo gave him a shove toward the stairs.
Non-threatening? What did that mean? He’d been beating her handily enough in that sparring match until he had been distracted. Surely she had seen him as dangerous then.
“Go.” She pushed him again.
Yanko was tempted to push her back, or at least scowl—threateningly—but it didn’t seem worth a fight. If he found out what was bothering the girl and trundled her back to Song, he could go back to bed.
He padded down the stairs and across the chapel, eyeing the badger statue as he approached. The old scrolls said the goddess had the ferocity and protectiveness of her namesake, and she had long been associated with women and motherhood, in particular.
Yanko cleared his throat. “Hello? Teesha, isn’t it?”
The woman leaped to her feet and spun about, backing away from him. He winced. He hadn’t meant to sneak up on her.
“I… I…” Like a trapped animal, she glanced about, as if seeking a way past him. She wore only slippers and a nightgown that left her arms bare. The blanket pulled about her shoulders didn’t quite hide the bruises on the limbs, some black-and-blue and some an older yellowish-green. She yanked the blanket tighter about herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, staring at the floor instead of meeting his eyes. “I didn’t know anyone would be here this late. I’ll go.”
She darted to the side, clearly intending to rush for the stairs.
“Wait,” Yanko blurted and reached for her arm. He stopped short of grabbing it, not wanting to bring her further pain by clamping down on it.
She didn’t wait. He narrowed his eyes in concentration and extended his hand toward the stairs. When she lifted her leg to start up them, she ran into an invisible barrier. He cushioned it, so it wouldn’t hurt, but he kept it stretched across the stairs so she couldn’t run off until…
Until what? Are you going to interrogate her? This isn’t any of your business.
Teesha tried to push through the barrier again. For a moment, she appeared to be contemplating climbing over the side of the wide staircase and trying to find escape that way, but Lakeo stepped out of the shadows and planted herself at the top, her muscled arms folded over her chest.
Teesha’s shoulders slumped.
“Uhm,” Yanko said, walking closer. “Do you need help?”
She met his eyes for the first time, giving him a withering look.
Yes, now that I’ve trapped you here, I want to be your savior…
“There’s a doctor on the first level,” Yanko said. “Do you want me to show you to him?”
“No, I don’t need a doctor.”
“Do you need us to pummel whoever’s knocking you around?” Lakeo asked.
“Uh.” Yanko couldn’t imagine the “whoever” being anyone except Teesha’s fiancé, and Uncle Mishnal would have a problem with anyone pummeling the delegate.
“No, no, let me go, please.” Teesha pressed her fingers against the invisible wall. “If I don’t get back…”
“All right, I’ll drop the barrier,” Yanko said, though Lakeo’s scowl deepened at the words. “If you agree to see a friend of mine for
a few minutes on the way back.”
Arayevo wasn’t a doctor, but she might be less intimidating than the stolid surgeon Treechan. Also, she knew how to make salves using the plants and herbs found in the forest. She might have a healing balm with her.
“I don’t have time,” Teesha whispered.
“The alternative is to stay here and hold Lakeo’s chisels while she carves salt out of the wall, one grain at a time.”
Teesha grimaced. “Is your friend… a man?”
“No. You’ll like her. She’s nice.” When she isn’t musing about running off to join pirates…
“Very well.” Her tone made it seem like she was doing him a favor.
Women. Maybe he would ask his brother for advice the next time he came home. He’d always gotten along well with the girls in the village.
Yanko let the barrier drop and walked up the stairs with Teesha. Lakeo brushed past him, heading straight for her tools. He held back a sarcastic, “You’re welcome.” Whatever the secret was to women, sarcasm wasn’t involved—he didn’t need his brother to tell him that.
Back up on the first level, Yanko knocked on Arayevo’s door. This time she wasn’t so prompt at responding, and it took a couple more knocks before she opened it, eyes bleary, hair mussed. Even in such disarray, she was alluring, and it took a moment before he remembered his mission. Actually, it took her frowning in confusion at Teesha and asking, “Yanko?”
“This is Teesha, the lady getting married in a couple of days. She’s a bit…”
He looked to her for help with the explanation, but Teesha had the blanket wrapped about her like a burial shroud, and her face was frozen in a neutral mask.
“She has a few bruises, and I thought you might have a salve with you.”
“Oh.” Arayevo pushed her hair out of her eyes and stepped back. “Come in. I’ll find a lamp.”
Yanko remained in the tunnel, not certain whether the invitation included him or not. He had a feeling Teesha would allow a more thorough examination of her wounds if he weren’t there, but he didn’t want to seem like he was foisting this responsibility off on Arayevo out of cowardice or indifference.
“I’ll handle it,” Arayevo said and made a shooing motion toward him.
That made things easier, though would Arayevo think less of him if he bolted? “Is there anything I can get you? Or do to help before I go?”
“There’s nothing you can do to help,” Teesha mumbled, her gaze toward the wall. “Any of you.”
Arayevo raised a single eyebrow in an expression Yanko recognized. Challenge made, challenge accepted, it said. It made him feel better about leaving, though he wondered if Arayevo’s… impulsiveness might cause trouble. As he once again lay in his bunk in the dark, he worried that he had made the wrong choice. It seemed a humane choice, but all possible paths going forward that might improve Teesha’s situation would likely cause problems for his uncle. And for him.
Part 5
Before breakfast, Yanko knocked on his uncle’s door.
“What?” came the cranky response from within. At least he was up.
Yanko pushed the door open slightly. “Honored Uncle? I need to speak with you.” He expected darkness, but several candles burned inside. When he stuck his head in, he saw the reason. “Oh.”
Delegate Dezmet Song sat in Uncle Mishnal’s chair with his feet kicked up on the desk while Mishnal leaned against the wall. The silk bedspread was tucked in tight, the pillow fluffed. Either his uncle had gotten up early, or he hadn’t slept yet. His bloodshot eyes suggested the latter. Paperwork scattered the desk beneath the delegate’s boots.
“I apologize for interrupting. I’ll come back later.” Yanko started to withdraw, but Song dropped his boots to the floor.
“Don’t bother, boy. I hear my breakfast beckoning.” He stood and tossed an insouciant wave at Mishnal. “We’ll talk again.”
Yanko stepped aside to let the foreigner pass, though after seeing the bruises on Teesha’s arms, he wanted to punch him in the face. Knowing his uncle watched on, he settled for glaring at the back of the man’s head as he strode away.
“Come in, Yanko,” Mishnal said. “Shut the door.”
“Yes, Uncle.” He walked to the center of the room, his arms folded inside his robe sleeves.
Mishnal scowled at the closed door, then strode to his desk and sat down with more satisfaction than the act usually called for. He flicked dirt off his papers.
“Is something wrong?” Yanko asked, though he doubted his uncle would confide in him.
“That man is a weasel. And I have to mollycoddle him.”
Yanko blinked, not surprised that his uncle felt this way but surprised he was admitting it.
Mishnal pointed a finger at him. “Twenty years ago, I helped my father run the treasury for the Great Chief’s father. We developed and executed economic and finance policies for all of Nuria. Now what do I do? I’m a lowly bureaucrat, subservient to only slightly less lowly bureaucrats. And—” he paused to grind his teeth, “—I have to lick the slippers of dung piles who inherited their way into diplomatic positions.”
Yanko didn’t know how to respond. Neither his father nor uncle had ever spoken to him as if he were a confidant. An adult. “What happens if we don’t lick his slippers?”
“Nothing good.” Mishnal tilted his face toward the ceiling. “There’s not much farther the family can fall without ending up in a field somewhere, picking cotton.”
“Technically, would that be falling per se?” Yanko pointed upward, at the tons of rock above their heads. “We’d be at a higher elevation.”
The flat look Mishnal pinned him with said he didn’t appreciate the humor. Yanko lifted an apologetic hand. He shouldn’t have tried it. He wanted his uncle to treat him like an adult, or at least not to regret confiding in him.
“His fiancée was in the chapel last night,” Yanko said. He hadn’t intended to mention it. He’d come this morning to redeem his promise to Arayevo, to try and ferret out his mother’s location. But with his uncle admitting he didn’t like the foreigner… “She was crying. She didn’t say as much, but I assume he beats her. Often.”
“Oh, I know he does. He sat right here and told me.” Mishnal pointed at the chair, his face flushing red as he spoke. “He told me how he likes his sex rough and that he loves how Nurian women are prim and proper and that they never complain or—” He choked back whatever else he’d been going to say. “Never mind. You’re too young to hear about this sort of… beast. Times like this make me wish your mother were around. She’d show him how quickly a proper Nurian woman can rip off a man’s balls.”
“Uhm.” This wasn’t the way Yanko had intended to bring up his mother, but he supposed he wouldn’t get a better opening… “Is she still alive?”
“Oh, yes. More notorious than ever.”
“Do you know where she’s roaming?”
Mishnal frowned at him.
“I had the thought… you and Prince Zirabo both mentioned tough times coming. Do you think she’d return to help if we needed it?”
“Help?” Mishnal grunted. “She’d be shot if she stepped foot on a Nurian beach again. After the people she’s killed, the ships she’s sunken… she wouldn’t be welcome here, no matter how desperate we became. Not that she’d return anyway. I don’t know what notions you have in your mind, but she hasn’t so much as written a letter home in all the years she’s been gone.”
“I know, Uncle.” Yanko remembered thinking she might write someday, when he had been a boy. He had spent a lot of time wondering about her then, why she’d left and if it had somehow been because of him.
“Last I heard, she was tormenting our spice traders around the Mesuna Keys two thousand miles away. I doubt she’d hear about trouble in Nuria until it was years past. Frankly, I doubt she’d care about trouble here.”
“Yes, Uncle.” Yanko had the information Arayevo sought, but the knowledge didn’t bring any sense of victory.
Mishnal yawned and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “What was it that you wanted?”
Yanko had learned what he’d come for, but thought it might be suspicious if he said, “Oh, never mind,” and left. “I was wondering how important it was for Delegate Song to go away happy. He seems difficult to please.”
“It’s important if we want his trade. Regional Chief Mok Lan says it’s imperative. There’s a deal on the line to obtain some new Turgonian firearms that are apparently much more powerful and deadly than the old. Few practitioners stay in this area once they finish their training—they’re so often drawn to the allure and potential for career advancement in the big cities. These weapons could be useful in defending this region in the future.”
“I thought Turgonians didn’t trade their weapons or technology.”
“They don’t. But Song’s people are camped on one of the most lucrative trade—including black market trade—routes in the desert. They’ve acquired much over the years, so it’s not surprising that they would have new weapons too.” Mishnal waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever the deal, it’s going on above my head. And that head might be at risk if something else happens here to displease the chief. Losing that Turgonian has already resulted in… censure.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Yanko blurted.
“Everything that happens within the mines is my responsibility. In addition, and this should be a lesson to you as well, there are people who relish punishing those who have fallen out of grace. Our family is a target, more so than ever.”
Yanko grimaced, knowing he had not tried to stop the Turgonian when he’d had the option. Most likely, he would have failed, but that he hadn’t even tried…
“Go, boy,” Mishnal said. “Get some breakfast and attend to your studies and chores. And the delegate.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
Part 6
The fist-size ball of fire floated over the desk, its flames curling and writhing about each other in a compact knot. Yanko sat cross-legged on the bed, dividing his concentration between the tasks of collecting water vapor in the air, cleaving the molecules, and igniting the flammable hydrogen left over. The practice formed the basis of all thermal science manipulation. He had learned it long ago, but one could always refine one’s skills, using less energy and burning less fuel to achieve the same result. It was the first practice exercise in the book open on his lap.