Tales of Anyar

by Olan Thorensen

  He didn’t know how it happened or what it meant, but something had changed. Maybe the conversations with Marshal Fazellon and Rabia’s father had influenced him. Three days after the Akuyuns arrived at the family estate, Khalin Ergoman warned that troubling times lay ahead for the empire, and there was too much internal rot. He urged Akuyun to be alert and to keep abreast of the happenings elsewhere in the empire. His father-in-law never again spoke of the matter.

  Despite Akuyun telling himself he never again wanted to hear of Kolsko, he missed the conversations they’d had before he left the island. Whatever the meaning, he was certain he would never meet the man again. He had no way of knowing that Yozef also regretted they hadn’t had further conversations. Neither could Yozef have said why he had that regret, but he assumed he would never see Akuyun again. Time and events would prove both of their assumptions wrong.

  Within two years, Akuyun was in temporary command of the 22nd Corps, while Marshal Turkok was in Umasya. When the Harrasedics launched an attack on the border section of the corps’s responsibility, the corps outmaneuvered the Harrasedics and moved the border fifty miles more to Narthon’s favor—the most success Narthon had had on that front in eight years. Akuyun’s star, held in abeyance by the Caedellium mission, was once again rising.

  Lessons in humility can come in many forms, especially for rulers.

  “There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.”

  — Michel de Montaigne

  “Even on the highest throne in the world, we are all still sitting on our ass.

  — Michel de Montaigne

  DAY TO REMEMBER

  “It will only be for a few hours,” said Maera, exasperated at Yozef’s attempt to find another solution than the one proposed. “You’d think two grown men who have fought the Narthani wouldn’t act like they’re about to have all their teeth pulled.”

  “All right, all right,” said Yozef. “I was only asking if there were other options, not trying to get out of it.” He turned to Carnigan. “You’d think we’d get a little more respect from our women.”

  “Don’t look to me for help. You’re the one trying to avoid watching the children.”

  Gwyned patted the big man’s arm. “Carnigan knows a losing battle and is smart enough to keep quiet.”

  “We’ll be gone all morning,” said Maera. “Braithe will stay overnight at St. Wyan’s Hospital. The surgery is minor, but the medicants prefer to watch her for one night. Also, as long as we’re there, we’ll let them check Ana. She’s feeling fine, but even though her time is still two months away, she’s gotten huge, as if the baby might come any day. I’ll feel better if the medicants examine her. Assuming that’s done soon enough, Ana, Gwyned, and I will go shopping. I haven’t toured all the shops in Orosz City, and it’ll be one of the last chances for Ana to get around before the baby comes.”

  In other words, suck it up, Yozef thought.

  “Now remember,” Gwyned addressed Carnigan, “it’s Dwyna who likes phila fruit and Morwena who doesn’t. The candied fruits are different. Then it’s Morwena who likes them and Dwyna who doesn’t.”

  “Don’t bother Elian,” said Anarynd. “She’s not feeling well and needs to rest.”

  “Don’t let Aeneas get away with having a tantrum if he wants one of the girls’ toys,” said Maera.

  “And don’t let the little dear out of your sight,” added Anarynd. “He’s just realized how much fun it is to run. He’s getting faster and thinks it’s a game to make adults chase him.”

  “Relax,” said an aggrieved Yozef. “They’re only four small children. Carnigan and I will have no trouble.”

  Gwyned harrumphed, Anarynd rolled her eyes, and Maera smiled, giving a look to the other two women. They left the family compound. Gowlin Reese, Braithe’s husband, followed, carrying an overnight bag for his wife and their infant daughter, Yoza. The baby’s name was a feminine derivation of Yozef, or so the parents claimed. Yozef had given up trying to convince Gowlin to use another name, and now he heard other feminine derivations on a regular basis—Yozlyn, Yozela, Yoz, on and on.

  “At least they’re different for the girls, instead of just Yozef for the boys,” he had complained to Maera in the months since his miraculous recovery from wounds received at the final battle.

  Gowlin Reese had preemptively quashed Yozef’s arguments against “Yoza” with an annoyed reminder that it was a father’s right to decide a child’s name—with the input and approval of the mother, if the father wasn’t stupid.

  Gowlin held one of only two permanent guard positions on-duty to protect the Kolsko family while at home. The other on-duty position alternated between Toowin Kales and Synton Ethlore. Although Carnigan Puvey was no longer a formal guard, he, his wife Gwyned, and her daughter Morwena, were de facto members of the Kolsko household. Before the Narthani defeat, and after attempted assassinations of clan leaders, the number of permanent guards had been four or more at all times. With hostilities over and the Narthani being shipped back to Narthon, the family had decided two guards, plus Carnigan, were sufficient except when they traveled outside Orosz City. Today Gowlin Reese would accompany his wife, Braithe, to the medicants and then be with the Kolsko household women. Braithe had been Aeneas’s wet nurse and had stayed on to give domestic help and await serving again as a wet nurse after Anarynd gave birth. The Reese’s first child, Isla, was a playmate of the other children.

  Carnigan and Gwyned had married two months previously, and both were friends of the Kolskos, especially Carnigan with Yozef, and Gwyned with Anarynd. Gwyned was also pregnant, though not as far along as Anarynd and nowhere near as big.

  All of them lived together in the Orosz City house they’d moved to when Yozef needed to be at a more centralized location during the Narthani crisis. Similar advantages to centralization put off the decision to move back to Caernford in Keelan Province.

  Once the four women and Gowlin were out the door, and Synton Ethlore stood as a menacing presence outside, Yozef and Carnigan perused their four charges: the three girls, Morwena, Dwyna, and Isla, all around three to four years old (Yozef wasn’t sure of the exact ages, only that Morwena was the oldest) and the only boy, Aeneas, Yozef and Maera’s only child and the youngest of the four children.

  “They all seem happy playing here in the central courtyard,” said Yozef, “so I’m sure you can watch them. I’ll be in my study going over the latest reports from Preddi City.”

  “Think again,” rejoined Carnigan. “We’re doing this together. Bring your reports out here, and don’t expect to get very far into them.”

  Yozef laughed. “Oh, well, it was a good try. I’ll be right back.”

  He turned to go upstairs when he spied Dwyna wiping away tears. Her parents had died tragically: her Keelan father, killed in the first battle with the Narthani, and her mother—Aeneas’s first wet nurse—killed in the attempted assassinations of Yozef and the Keelan hetman. Maera had failed to find a relative she trusted to raise the orphan, and Dwyna was taken permanently into the Kolsko household with multiple women acting as mothers. Yozef walked over to the child and knelt.

  “What’s wrong, dear?”

  “Is Mama Gwyned or Mama Ana going to eat me?” Dwyna whispered.

  “What! Eat you?” said Yozef, once he recovered. “Why would you think one of your mamas would eat you?”

  “Everyone says they’re going to get a baby, but I think they already ate them!”

  “No, no, Dwyna, Mama Gwyned’s and Mama Ana’s tummies are getting bigger because the babies are growing inside them.”

  Dwyna’s expression was the epitome of skepticism.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you where babies come from?”

  “God gives people babies,” said Dwyna, with admirable confidence.

  “That’s it?” said Yozef, surprised. “Nothing else?”

  “Well,” said Dwyna, lowering her voice as if to share a secret, “Mama Maera and Mama Ana said other
things, but I don’t think they understand how it happens. I didn’t want to say I thought they were pretending.”

  Lordy, lordy , thought Yozef.

  “Now Dwyna, you know I wouldn’t pretend with you, don’t you?”

  “You pretended yesterday when you said you were going to turn me into a mushroom if I didn’t stop yelling. Oh, Papa Yozef, can you really turn people into mushrooms?”

  “Okay, so sometimes I pretend, but mamas Gwyned and Ana didn’t eat the babies. They’re growing inside them and will come out when they’re finished growing.”

  “How are they going to come out? And how did they get in there?”

  “Good question, Dwyna. Ask one of your mamas.”

  “Coward,” said Carnigan when Dwyna skipped off, to Yozef’s relief.

  “Such explanations to little girls are best handled by women. I’ll do it for Aeneas once he’s old enough.”

  “And how old is that?”

  “Oh . . . about twenty years old,” said Yozef, laughing and slapping Carnigan on the back. “Or maybe I’ll luck out, and he’ll figure it out for himself.”

  “Well, if no one else does it, I’m sure one of the girls will give him full details,” said Carnigan.

  “Actually, that’s how I learned it, from an older sister.”

  Yozef paused. You know, he thought, I don’t think I’ve thought about home for weeks . . . er . . . sixdays. It’s almost getting to be like a separate reality and one that gets vaguer with time.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right back with some reports. I assume you can handle four kids since all together you’re still twice their weight.”

  Yozef had been joking, but Carnigan eyed the four children and licked his lips. “Don’t be too long.”

  He wasn’t, and all seemed tranquil when Yozef returned. He stared at Carnigan lying on the courtyard’s slate patio with the children using him as a mountain range.

  Seating himself in a wooden chair in the morning sun, Yozef began reading the latest written report from Balwis Preddi, the new Preddi hetman, friend, and previous bodyguard. He was almost through the first paragraph when a tug on his pant leg interrupted him. He looked up to see Morwena’s face.

  “Papa Yozef, there’s a murvor in the bird bath. I think it’s sick.”

  If it’s the one that cackles so early every morning, I hope it drowned , thought Yozef.

  Aloud, he said, “Well, let’s go look.” He rose and set the report on the chair. They detoured around the other three children climbing Mount Carnigan and walked to the other side of the courtyard where Anarynd had arranged a birdbath and three feeders. A green-and-blue murvor the size of a finch floated in the bath.

  “See?” said Morwena. “I saw it fall from the tree into the water. Is it sick?”

  “Uh . . . no, I’m afraid it’s worse.”

  “What happened to it?”

  Hoping to adopt a sympathetic, reassuring tone, Yozef said, “Morwena, I’m sorry, but the murvor died and went to be with God.” The words were hardly out of his mouth when he remembered that was how his father had explained a dead bird to six-year-old Joseph Colsco.

  Her small brow furrowed. “It must have been a bad murvor. God didn’t want it and threw it back.”

  “You’d better ask Mama Gwyned about that,” said Yozef. “I’ll take care of the murvor, and you can go back to playing.”

  “Okay.”

  Yozef picked up the small body by a wing and hid it in his hands. He wanted to avoid questions from the other children that would require answers as insightful as the one he’d given Morwena. He walked to the kitchen and opened the door to an external alcove where wooden trash boxes sat. Every other day, a crew would empty the boxes into garbage wagons. He opened the hinged lid of one box and dropped in the oddly feathered creature. “I hope to hell you’re the shitbird that woke me early this morning, or should I say shitmurvor?”

  Back in his chair and all the way to a third paragraph containing Balwis’s usual opinion that they hadn’t killed enough Narthani, Yozef felt his own offspring clutch his right leg.

  “Horsie, Daddy, horsie!” Two-year-old Aeneas loved to straddle an adult’s leg and pretend it was a horse, bouncing the rider up and down. Carnigan was the favorite steed, but Yozef rated second best. The only other permanent male member of the household, Gowlin, refused to play, citing guard duties and the need to be alert for threats.

  Since explaining to a toddler why Daddy needed to work was an exercise in futility, father and son were off to the races. Yozef felt guilty at not spending enough time with Aeneas, so he gladly put down the report. Even the first few paragraphs had told him Balwis was off on one of his tirades against the Narthani.

  The right leg was Seabiscuit, and the left leg Man O’ War, coincidentally the names of two famous racehorses on Earth and Yozef’s first and third horses on Anyar. The second horse was Mr. Ed, but that name didn’t resonate with serious match races.

  “And into the clubhouse turn, it’s Man O’ War ahead, with Seabiscuit keeping pace.”

  Aeneas squealed and held on tight to the left leg. By the time the horses entered the backstretch, Yozef’s leg was fatiguing, so he switched the rider to the right leg.

  “And now it’s Seabiscuit edging ahead into the backstretch. He’s a nose ahead, then a neck, now by a length. Is Seabiscuit going to run away with it? No, no, coming into the far turn, Man O’ War responds and is closing the gap.”

  Back to the left leg.

  “It’s nose to nose, as they near the homestretch.”

  “You need to get some new horses,” Carnigan called from across the courtyard. “You’re wearing those two out. And what happened to Mr. Ed? At least you’re still riding him, whereas Seabiscuit is retired back in Caernford.”

  Yozef ignored the complaint, too occupied with the race to acknowledge churlish comments from the gallery.

  “Now they’re in the homestretch, and Man O’ War has the lead again. Who will win, ladies and gentlemen? It’s a race like no one has ever witnessed. Stride for stride, these two magnificent champions won’t give an inch to the other. Man O’ War is ahead. Now Seabiscuit. Now Man O’ War. It’s down to the wire . . . and here it is!”

  Yozef gave the happy rider of both horses one final rock. “They cross the line together, folks. It’s a photo finish, and we’ll have to wait for the judges’ ruling.”

  “More, Papa, more!” cried Aeneas.

  “The horses are tired, Aeneas, after that long race. We’ll do it again later. Okay?”

  “Okay,” agreed Aeneas, who left the racetrack to investigate what Morwena was doing with a pile of blocks.

  “We could have a four-horse race if you ever named the one you ride,” said Yozef. “You could have that one and Mr. Ed. Which reminds me. Why don’t you name your horse?”

  Carnigan had been riding the same percheron-like horse ever since Yozef had known the big man. The massive gelding was the largest horse Yozef had seen on Caedellium and seemed indefatigable, though not fast.

  “Just because I don’t talk to my horse like you do yours, don’t assume mine doesn’t have a name,” said Carnigan.

  “Really?” said Yozef, surprised, and then waited fruitlessly for the name. “Okay, so what is your horse’s name?”

  “Shitpile.”

  “Shitpile! You gotta be shitting me!” The last words were in English, but Carnigan got the drift.

  “Yes about him, and no to you,” said Carnigan. “When he dumps a load, anyone following needs to divert around it.”

  Yozef thought for a moment. He did remember the huge horse having prodigious bowel movements.

  “Okay, I take back my surprise. Speaking of bowel movements, I think Aeneas needs to be checked.” He walked over to where his son was handing blocks to Morwena, picked him up, and checked his butt.

  “Whew. Yep, time for a change. Let’s go, you little shit bag. I need to ask Maera if it’s time to work on potty training.” The last words w
ere in English to avoid little pitchers with big ears repeating what they heard.

  Seven minutes later, a freshly diapered Aeneas was once again helping Morwena.

  “Thank God for toilet paper,” said Yozef. “Perhaps my best introduction here on Caedellium. Besides its primary purpose, it serves adequately as wipes for poopy bottoms.”

  Carnigan smirked. “How am I so honored to hear the great Yozef Kolsko talk about wiping shit off his son’s bottom?”

  Before Yozef could formulate a pithy answer, Morwena, still playing with blocks, announced, “I have to poop, Papa Carnigan.”

  Carnigan stared at her for a moment, then cleared his throat.

  “Ah . . . you know where the voiding room is, Morwena.”

  “Well, yes, but you have to take me.”

  Sighing, he rose to his feet, took her hand, and walked into the house. Eight minutes later, they returned, Carnigan red-faced.

  “How’d it go?” asked Yozef.

  “You’re about to find out. Morwena says Dwyna has to go, too, and she doesn’t know if she should ask you to take her. Thank God, she doesn’t want me to take her.”

  Yozef took Dwyna to the voiding room at the corner of the bottom floor and waited outside one of two uni-sex stalls. After a minute, a young voice called out.

  “I’m done.”

  Yozef didn’t say anything, and a moment later Dwyna’s statement was repeated.

  “I’m done, Papa Yozef.”

  “That’s nice, Dwyna. We’ll go back with the others now.”

  “Aren’t you going to wipe me?”

  “Huh?”

  “A mama usually does it, but none of them are here, so you have to.”

  Oh, shit! thought Yozef, momentarily oblivious to the appropriateness of the exclamation.

  As awkward as were the next two minutes, he noted a sense of odd pride as they returned to the courtyard.

  Carnigan took one look at his expression. “Merciful God, Yozef. You didn’t just single-handedly defeat a Narthani army.”