The Breathing Sea II - Drowning

by E. P. Clark

  “Yes,” said Boleslav Vlasiyevich. “That’s part of the trouble of being the one who stands in front and leads the way, just as your mother always says that you must. You must have faith in yourself, even when no one else does, even when no one else is worthy of other people’s faith, sometimes. But you have to believe. That things will work out right if we make them—if you make them—work out right, Tsarinovna.”

  “I don’t think my words hold much more weight with the princesses than yours do,” she said. “They all voted against me at the council this morning. Even Vladya.” She remembered the look on Vladya’s face as she had spoken, and wondered if she would ever be able to forgive her for that, and for all the other things she had done. Why were those closest to her so determined to test her ability to forgive? A mystery she couldn’t solve at the moment.

  “Your words may not hold much weight with the princesses, Tsarinovna,” he said, “but they do with your mother, and her vote is the one that matters. So maybe you’re right. Maybe we just need a little faith.” He smiled. “In the meantime, I have the beginnings of an army to inspect, and you have a friend to visit. Who knows. Perhaps you will find wisdom in him. Perhaps he will be able to intercede with the gods on your behalf.”

  “I think it more likely that I will have to intercede with the gods on his behalf,” Dasha said. “But there may be wisdom in his words nonetheless.” Privately she rather doubted that, but she smiled encouragingly at Boleslav Vlasiyevich before riding off briskly out of the camp, back inside the town walls, and over to the sanctuary.

  ***

  The castrates’ sanctuary was an old building, made largely of stone. It was pleasantly cool, in contrast to the outside, and Dasha fancied that the stones still smelled faintly of the sea. The father of the sanctuary, whose eyes glowed with the same frightening fervor as those of all the other castrates Dasha had met, greeted her warmly when she introduced herself.

  “You are most welcome, Tsarinovna,” he told her. “It is an honor to meet you. Brother Feodosy has told us much about you, and how you aided him on the road. I gave him the seal myself, as I do with all our new brothers and sisters, and he took it bravely, and is healing well. Come. I will lead you to his cell. Now that he has taken the seal, he can have visitors, even women.”

  Dasha had been afraid of what she would find when she saw Fedya, but when he came out to greet them, he looked…calmer. Better. As if he had found at least some of what he had been seeking. Instead of the silly gowns he had affected earlier, he was wearing a plain gray robe, the same as any brother or sister at any sanctuary, and his long hair was pulled back simply. The robe was almost a gown but somehow fell from his shoulders in a way that allowed him to stand more naturally, as if he were no longer trying to force his body into being something it wasn’t, he was not forcing it into serving him in his desire to hurt others, but could now see others without his own pain getting in the way. As if, by taking the seal, he had cut away the part of himself he couldn’t recognize as his, had cut himself away from the side of life that would take him and use him for its own purposes, no matter what he thought or wanted, and now he was free of all that, so that his body was now what he had always wanted it to be. He had cut himself away from the messier parts of life, marriage and children and daily struggles with others, in order to devote himself to something that, while not bigger—because nothing was bigger than life—was another, cleaner, more spiritual facet of the same thing. His face looked sharper, cleaner, than before, not exactly a man’s face, but not the travesty of a girl’s face he had been trying for before. Even his movements were surer, more graceful, as if he had finally grown into his body. And he came forward and embraced Dasha without any trace of the sulkiness that had so marred him before. He was almost handsome.

  He led Dasha back to his cell, which was small and plain. But Fedya showed it to her with pride and even affection.

  “So are you happy here?” she found herself asking. “Here, and with your home sanctuary?”

  “I am,” he told her. “Once I...I knew as soon as I came to them that this was the place for me—I know it seemed like I doubted at first, but that is natural, there is no faith without doubt, and I had to pass through the doubt in order to earn the faith—and once I took the seal, I knew, I knew, Dasha, that I had done the right thing, the only thing I could have done, the thing that would bring me what I had always wanted, the thing that would bring me closer to the gods. And it has.”

  “So you don’t regret taking the seal, then?” she asked, trying not to let her voice quaver too much.

  “I will confess that on the journey here, knowing what awaited me when I arrived, my heart grew faint a time or two,” he said gravely. “But I am convinced now that I will never regret it. I took both the lesser and the greater seal: look.” And he twitched aside the edges of his robe and, before Dasha could look away, showed her the remnants of what had once been his manhood. Dasha gasped and turned away, but not before she had seen that he had lost both his testicles and the greater part of his staff as well. Fedya calmly rearranged his robe, as if he shown her nothing more disturbing than an old cut on his knee.

  “You did not… you were not in danger, then?” she asked faintly.

  He shook his head. “There is always a danger of infection, of course,” he said. “But I experienced none of that. Only peace. You cannot imagine the peace, Dasha. Really, I think that everyone should experience it.”

  “I…I am glad you are at peace,” said Dasha, at a loss for anything else to say. She had never thought of Fedya as particularly brave, but it must have taken courage, a very queer sort of courage, but enormous amounts of it nonetheless, for him to have done what he had done, and to talk about it so calmly afterwards. And she could see that he was at peace, and had found the only place in the world where someone like him could find that peace, and happiness as well. By cutting himself off from the world, he had finally found his kin, and his kind. He had cut away his selfishness, and, by severing his link to it, had finally managed to join with others, become one with others in spirit, now that he never could in body, not in the crudest, lowest fashion. And now his true spirit, the best part of himself, that had been hidden away behind all that fear and misery, could show itself.

  “I’m glad for you,” Dasha repeated. “And…now I think…well, we’ll never be sisters, will we? Because you…you’re neither a sister nor a brother, are you? You’re…you’re you, neither the one nor the other, but something else instead. But we…we could be friends, couldn’t we? Some kind of…friend.”

  Fedya smiled at that. “I like the sound of that,” he said. “Friends. Kin, even.” He gave her a shrewd look. “Because you yourself—you’re kind of like me, aren’t you? Not…maybe not in this,” he glanced down to where his manhood used to be—“but in some things, in the way that, that you’re neither the one nor the other, are you? Neither of the world of women, nor of the other world, any other world. You’re of both, a bit of both, neither and yet both, like me. So that makes us…neither sisters nor brothers, but sort of like kin, don’t you think? We are the same kind, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Dasha. “I like the sound of that.” She gave him a small smile.

  “And if you ever should need to leave your world and come to our in-between world, well, there will always be one sanctuary open to you, I promise you that. And maybe one day…” He paused, looking wistful. “Maybe one day you’ll realize that you want…this,” he glanced down at his lap again, “too. Really, Dasha, really, truly, you can’t imagine the peace, the fulfillment, the enlightenment…I hope you get to experience it one day, I do, and…because as I said, everyone should experience it.”

  “Thank you,” said Dasha, as kindly as she could. And she was touched, genuinely touched, by his offer. But the gleam in his eyes when he said that “everyone should experience it” disturbed her, and she was glad to make her farewells, and leave him. Everyone here seemed to believe that all their problems
could be ended with one quick cut. One quick cut, one glorious moment of suffering, and they would be transformed. And some of them were. But they were still the same people they had been before. Even Fedya was still the same person he had been before, just a slightly different version. One quick slice couldn’t cut away all the world’s other problems.

  He did give me wisdom, though, she thought on the ride home. He said that faith can only be earned through doubt. I must have the doubt now in order to have the faith. I must pass through this doubt in order for the faith I find on the other side to be true. It will all work out somehow. I can’t see how yet, but it will. It will all become as it is supposed to be.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Dasha had barely awakened the next morning when her mother came into her chambers. “Dasha,” she said, as soon as she saw Dasha was up. “Something has happened.”

  “What?” asked Dasha, as her heart jumped into her throat, and she knew that this was it, this was the moment when it would all be decided, and she would discover whether her faith had been justified or not.

  “I don’t know. A Southern emissary just arrived, all in a state, after having ridden through the night—something must have happened to make him come running to us like that. He’s coming up directly.”

  “Here?” Dasha asked.

  “To my chambers. But I wanted you to be there when he comes. Get dressed as quick as you can and join me.” She whirled around, about to go.

  “Wait!” Dasha called after her. Her mother stopped.

  “What have you decided?” Dasha asked. “How shall you answer him?”

  Her mother paused. “I will have to hear him out before I know that,” she said.

  “But…”

  “I know. You think there is only one way this can be decided, and perhaps you are right. But I must hear him out before I make any decision, especially before I say anything to him. Who knows?” She smiled tightly at Dasha. “Perhaps he will make the decision for us.”

  A vision so fleeting Dasha couldn’t even catch hold of it enough to make out what it was passed before her eyes, and she knew her mother was right. Pulling on the first shirt and sarafan that her hands fell upon, and jamming her feet into her boots, she rushed out of her chamber and after her mother, to the chambers next door.

  Maids were setting out tea and breakfast things, and her mother was sitting calmly at the table in the main room of her suite. A warm light was slanting in through a high window facing South, and Dasha could hear the sea and the sea birds calling to her.

  “When will he come?” she asked.

  “When he comes, my love,” her mother answered. “Soon, no doubt. They say he was in a terrible lather to speak to me.”

  Hardly had the words left her mouth when there was a loud knocking on the door. With a glance at Dasha’s mother, one of the maids went to open it.

  A man of middling height came tumbling in. Actually, he remained on his feet, but he came bursting in so impetuously, and fell into such a frenzy of bowing, that he gave the impression of having fallen even though he hadn’t.

  “Tsarina,” he kept saying as he bowed. His voice was strange, with an accent that made it difficult to follow his words, which were all round and oily-tasting, like food that was delicious but almost too rich to tolerate. “Gracious Tsarina, gracious Tsarina.”

  “Yes,” said Dasha’s mother. “You are welcome to Pristanograd, to be sure. Won’t you have a seat?”

  The man straightened up and looked at her in confusion. Everything about him was dark and oval-shaped, Dasha thought. An oval-shaped head covered in dark curls (which were receding from his forehead, heightening the impression of ovalness), and dark oval-shaped eyes set in his dark oval-shaped face that had no cheekbones to speak of. His clothes were foreign and stained with sweat and mud.

  “Have some tea,” Dasha’s mother invited him. “You look as if you could use it.”

  “Yes, Tsarina,” he said cautiously, and, moving gingerly and hesitantly, took a seat on one of the free chairs, and accepted, his oval eyes going round with wonderment, a cup of tea from Dasha’s mother.

  “Have a pie,” her mother said pleasantly, proffering him a plate of pies. “You look like you could use one of these as well. They’re very tasty, aren’t they, Dasha?”

  “Ah…yes,” said Dasha, startled at being addressed, especially on the topic of pies.

  “Tsarina,” said the man, looking more and more at a loss. “Tsarina, I not know what to tell you.”

  “Why don’t you try the truth,” Dasha’s mother told him. “I often find it a good place to start, and of course I will know if you are lying in any case. What is your name, by the way?”

  “Ah…Emilio, gracious Tsarina.”

  “Emilio.” Dasha’s mother nodded in welcome. “You know who I am, and this is my daughter, the Tsarinovna. She also has a great gift for truth-seeing, much stronger than my own.”

  Emilio bowed in Dasha’s direction, still looking completely at a loss. Dasha hoped she didn’t look just as confused as he did. She thought she knew what her mother was doing, but it was still very unsettling to hear her tell these—not even half-truths, but truths that were being presented in their best light, truths designed to elicit the truth from their target.

  “So,” continued Dasha’s mother, still sounding calm and pleasant, “what brought you here in such a hurry, Emilio?”

  “Ah…well, fact is, gracious Tsarina…”

  “Has your army suffered a defeat?” Dasha’s mother asked mildly.

  “Defeat? No!” Emilio sounded indignant at the very idea. “No defeats for us! No one can defeat us!”

  “Of course not,” agreed Dasha’s mother pleasantly. “So what is it, then?”

  “Ah, well, you see, gracious Tsarina…you see, gracious Tsarina…fact is…”

  It took some pressing to cause Emilio to disgorge the truth that he had come rushing over in such a hurry to tell them, and some effort on their part to reconstruct his tale out of the disjointed words and fragments of sentences that came tumbling rapidly from his lips, but it seemed that the Middle Sea empire’s expansion had suddenly ceased when it was discovered that the person leading its armies, the one who was supposed to inherit the empire from his father, was not in fact his father’s son at all (according to some), and this revelation had thrown the entire empire into uproar, forcing the supposed heir to abandon his military plans and go racing back to the South at all speed to defend his claim, or possibly be executed for a treason he had most unwittingly committed. Meanwhile, there were rumors of a slave rebellion, down in the capital city, and formerly loyal provinces breaking away on the empire’s edges.

  “I see,” said Dasha’s mother, once they had grasped the nature of the problem.

  “We still want alliance with you! Middle Sea—still strongest empire in Known World!”

  “Is that so,” said Dasha’s mother, cocking her head at Emilio. He looked abashed, but continued nonetheless, “Yes! Strongest! Only changes just now! Must make new alliance! Must make alliance with new ruler!”

  “So you mean to end your campaign against Rutsi,” said Dasha’s mother.

  “No!” Emilio shuffled his feet. “Just stop for a bit,” he told them. “Till have we new ruler for army.”

  “Of course,” said Dasha’s mother, nodding understandingly. “Of course. Certainly this changes things.” She stood. “I must consult with my princesses,” she said. “We will give you an answer today. In the meantime, perhaps you would like to steam.” She nodded to the maids, and then turned to Dasha. “Come,” she said. “We must summon the princesses immediately. There is much to discuss.”

  They went hurrying out of the chamber and down the corridor, sending guards hurrying even faster ahead of them with summonses for the other princesses.

  “This is it,” Dasha told her mother, as they almost jogged down the stairs to the Great Hall. “This is the thing my visions were telling me would happen. This is the th
ing that will enable us to ally ourselves with Rutsi.”

  “Yes.” Her mother gave her a sideways look. “Or with no one at all.”

  Dasha shook her head. “We still have to ally ourselves with someone,” she said. “Rutsi is in tatters. We cannot turn away from them, even if we want to. They will continue raiding us until their country reforms itself, and perhaps still more even then. And the Southerners might come back.”

  “Yes, but not this year, thank the gods,” her mother said. She pushed open the doors to the Great Hall, not waiting for their guards to do it for her. “You were right, you know,” she added, once they were in the Great Hall. “I had already decided, because you were right. The decision was easy. We merely had to decide whether we wanted to be the kind of people who only cared about what we could gain, or if we cared about what we could give. We must care more about what we can give than what we can get; otherwise we will never be anything other than takers, parasites, exactly what the gods say we are. And here is our opportunity, handed to us on a golden platter. An opportunity to gain by giving. And,” she added, sitting down at the bench where they had sat yesterday, at the head of the table, “the proposed alliance with the Southerners was always a risky proposition. You can only form an alliance with those who could truly be your allies. If they call you ‘ally’ but seek only to take from you, never to give, you are best off trying to leave such an alliance as quickly as possible. Any alliance with the Southerners would have been a precarious thing indeed.”

  Just then Vladya came rushing in, followed closely by Aunty Olga. “What is it?” demanded Vladya. “What has happened?”

  “An emissary from the Southerners has arrived,” Dasha’s mother told her. “With very interesting tidings indeed. Take a seat while we wait for the others.”