Kei's Gift

by Ann Somerville

  She bit her lip. “No, I’m sorry. I was just so happy my sister was safe, I didn’t think.”

  “It’s normally fine, Urchichi. It’s my own fault, really. Where is everyone?”

  “Bathing, washing clothes. They said it gets too stuffy in here to stay all day. When the sun’s actually shining, everyone tries to get out in it, apparently. Myri and I stayed in to make sure you were better.”

  He didn’t recognise the other woman stirring the stew pot at all, but he smiled reassuringly at her. “Well, I’m fine, so let me use the latrines, point me at the food and tell me where I can find you all. A wash sounds like a good idea.”

  She sniffed. “It seems to be the only thing the Prij are good at, plumbing.”

  Kei grinned at her disdainful tone. “They have to be good at something other than invasion, I suppose.”

  She told him there was bread being kept warm in the bottom shelf of the oven, and he could eat as much of that and the stew as he liked. Food, at least, wasn’t a problem for this fort—the foothills were lush compared with what he had seen of the rest of northern Darshian, so the Prij weren’t only eating stolen Darshian grain.

  How the countryside and the villages would sustain all the extra people thrust upon them? He suddenly felt rather guilty to be able to eat his fill when his friends and family might yet go hungry this year. He sternly told himself he had a duty to stay healthy regardless of what was happening back home, because he had to look after the people held captive. It never got easier, this being held so far from those he loved. The damn Rulers had better get off their own well-fed behinds and sort this problem out. It was, after all, why anyone ever paid them any attention at all, the supposed ability to keep Darshian safe. They’d lost the south. Kei hoped they had some idea how to regain the north.

  He relieved himself, washed his face and hands and then helped himself to the bread and stew. Myri and Urki had gone outside, and he was now the most alone he had been...gods, it felt like in forever. At least since they had begun the march south. Not being able to feel other people’s emotions unless he put some effort into it, was very restful. He felt rather stupid to have needed another gifted person to point out how careless he’d been. His mother would have scolded him soundly, even though she would have done what she could to help him. The problem was that people without gifts didn’t really know what it was like for those with them. Another reason being with Reji was so easy and undemanding.

  Reji. A sharp pang of loss and sadness filled him at the thought of his absent lover. Kei was so proud of him, having got everyone to Darshek safely, on what had to have been a difficult, dangerous trip. He missed the smell of Reji’s skin, the way his big hands would cup Kei’s buttocks as he kissed him. He missed his laugh, and his silly sense of humour. He hoped Reji wasn’t feeling low, living on Darshek grace for who knew how long. Reji didn’t like to be confined.

  Kei shook his head at his maunderings. He was supposed to be trying to avoid emotional turmoil, not add to it. He ate and scrubbed the bowl out with sand before rinsing it and hanging it out to dry with the other bowls. He noted a small collection of knives and other potential weapons—the Prij were clearly not worried about an attack from within. As well they need not be—none of the hostages would risk doing anything to bring punishment on their own or their comrades’ heads, nor upon their villages. It was an amazingly simple way of keeping control over an unwelcoming population.

  He collected a clean set of clothes, and his little-used drying cloth from his pack. The door was unlocked so he wandered out, and the soldiers standing guard told him in a friendly enough manner where he could find the other captives. They were outside the fort, by a stream that ran behind it. Some were bathing, some were washing their clothes. Others, like Peit, sat on rocks and idly watched what the others were doing. There were twenty or so soldiers keeping guard over the fifty hostages, but they weren’t paying a lot of attention. A canvas screen had been erected upstream, and from the sounds of the voices, it was where the women were bathing. The Prij had some odd notions about modesty and thought it shocking that nudity was no cause for scandal or concern in Darshianese communities. The soldiers who brought them south had been surprised men and women would sleep so close to each other, though since the barracks weren’t segregated, their captors obviously accepted this oddity of their prisoners. Such a stupid thing to consider sinful.

  He smelled appalling, and his clothes were disgusting. Since others of his fellow hostages were sitting nude on the bank, he couldn’t see any reason not to strip, wash himself and then his clothes. He begged some soap from Gonji, undressed and left his clothes in a heap on the bank, then strode into the water.

  Which was incredibly cold. He yelped as his balls tried to crawl up inside him to get away from the water and then he turned to look at Peit accusingly. “You could have warned me, you urs fart.”

  “It’s not like the water would get any warmer with warning,” Peit said placidly. “You’d best get clean and scrub your clothes. I’ll hang them with the others—they have a place inside for them. With the rains, they’ll never dry otherwise.”

  Kei wondered whose planning that was. Peit’s advice was wise—standing in the chilly water wouldn’t do him any good. Kei scrubbed away a month’s worth of grime and mud, then unbraided his hair and washed it carefully, finger combing out the tangles. He tied it into a knot as he scrubbed at his filthy clothes—they would need patching, both shirt and trousers. At least his overshirt was sound. Still nude, he walked back over to Peit who accepted the sopping bundle from him and held out a bone comb. “You might need this.”

  As indeed he did, having forgotten to bring his own with him. He sat on the rock Peit had abandoned, and let the sun warm his chilly flesh as he carefully combed his hair dry.

  “Would you like me to braid it for you?”

  He turned and saw Jena, freshly washed and in clean clothes. “That would be kind, thank you.”

  She sat behind him and started work. So luxurious sitting in the sun, having someone attending to his hair.

  “You look much better.”

  “I feel very much better, thank you. Also ashamed.”

  She tugged his hair a little. “No need to be. Soul-touching is a very difficult gift, and more two-edged than most. You’ve had a lot to bear even without it. I’ve been talking to your people. They consider themselves very lucky to have you as their healer and their companion. It’s a wonder your ears weren’t on fire.”

  His cheeks certainly were, to know they’d been discussing him—but after he’d passed out cold last night, no doubt a good deal of conversation had happened. “They’re good people. It’s no trial to serve them at all.”

  She finished the braid and looped it over his shoulder, before sitting next to him on the rock—probably scandalising the soldiers, but Kei couldn’t have cared less about that. “They are clearly well-served. I’ve been itching to pick your brains about an idea I had for a new burns ointment.”

  “Oh, you’ve decided to try the roast snake fat after all?”

  She flicked the end of his braid. “Remember I am your senior, young man.”

  “So sorry, lady Jena. So what’s this idea?”

  “Well, you know the nitre weed is rather irritating on burns....”

  For the first time in a month, he forgot he was a captive. For the first time in nearly two years, he could talk to another healer with the same interests and aims as himself. He was shocked when he looked up at someone’s hail and saw the soldiers. He’d utterly forgotten their presence, and where they were. They must have been talking for an hour or more, because his hair was completely dry and his skin felt warm.

  “We should go in,” he murmured, rising to his feet and picking up his dry clothes to put on. It hurt to be brought back to reality so abruptly.

  “You look troubled again,” Jena said as she also climbed to her feet. “Did I say something wrong?’

  He made himself smile. “Not at a
ll. It was the most stimulating conversation I’ve had in a very long time. It was like...talking to Ma. Or Pa. Or both of them. Thank you.”

  She blushed a little. “You’re welcome. I get a bit carried away some times, but you have no idea what it’s like not having anyone to share ideas with.”

  “Oh, I think I do. Myka is going to be an excellent healer one day, but she has no interest in experiments or theories at all.”

  “That’s unfortunate, but perhaps, being your father’s daughter, she’ll grow into it. You’re very like him, you know.”

  Kei paused in lacing up his shirt. “I thought you didn’t know them.”

  She smiled, making her plain face almost pretty. “Duka sent me images and memories. I wanted to put faces and voices to the names. So I can’t say I ‘know’ them, but...I know what they were like, a little. They must have been very much in love.”

  Kei finished lacing his shirt, and wished she could read his wish not to talk about this. “They were. I wasn’t there when Pa died, but I knew...when I heard about Ma, why she...but if she had only waited a little until I got home...I still....”

  “You’re angry she left you?”

  Kei lifted his head. “She left both of us. I know how much pain she had to be in to do what she did, and I know how much she loved Pa, but she didn’t let me even try.... I’m a healer and I couldn’t even save my own mother,” he added bitterly.

  “She must have felt the same when Keiji died,” Jena said gently. “Grief does awful things to people, and perhaps...perhaps she knew you were strong enough to cope on your own.”

  “Yes, obviously I am doing fine. My village is without a healer, my sister is doing the gods knows what with those fine bastards in Darshek and I pass out if one of my friends hugs me. Yes, it was perfectly acceptable for my mother to drink nitre distillation, because her damn son is making such an urs-shitten great job of trying to take her place.”

  He stalked off away from the stream’s edge. Most of the other captives had gone inside—he hadn’t realised how humid it had become, and how the clouds had almost completely blocked the sun. Another few minutes and they would be caught in the rain.

  “Kei, wait!”

  He stopped as requested. He was making a scene and a complete fool of himself. He found it hard to be calm about losing his parents, for all that it was something so commonplace. Even Banji was coping better with his dual loss than Kei ever had. Jena caught up with him and laid a hand on his wrist. “I’m sorry. That came out badly.”

  “It’s all right. I overreacted.”

  “No, it’s not, and I do apologise because you don’t need to be upset now. Walk with me to the drying room—if you go back in with the others now, it’ll hit you hard.”

  He obeyed and let her lead him to the shed inside the fort, little more than a shelter facing away from the prevailing wind, looking onto the courtyard, a low wall the only separation from the courtyard. Long rough poles stood in long rows, and on them hung many sets of wet clothes, including his own. Only a glorified verandah, really—the comparison must have occurred to some of the soldiers, because there were some stools against the wall. Jena motioned for him to sit. The rain had started, and a cool breeze filled the shelter with fresh air, a pleasant change from the oppressive humidity of before.

  “I don’t know if it’s been explained to you how your gift affects you. You don’t just feel the emotions of others. You take them into yourself a little, so they enhance and heighten your own. You would almost call soul-touchers parasites, except they don’t derive any benefit from feeding on other people’s feelings. You need to get better control over your own emotions if you are to cope with other people’s.”

  “So I have to become some kind of cold, hard bastard, feeling nothing and caring about nothing? That’s not likely to happen.”

  She smiled and touched his wrist. “I would hope not. You have a kind heart, which is your strength and your weakness. But you’ll drive yourself mad if you don’t learn some restraint. Your gift is probably at its strongest now, so you are more sensitive in every way. But your emotions are surging and retreating wildly, and it’s not healthy. I think now would be a good time to revisit some of the simpler exercises you would have been taught. Agreed?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Agreed.”

  He worked with her for several hours until she called a halt. By then, his headache had returned in full strength. He had to retreat to his corner of the barracks and lie with the blanket over his head, which was mortifying, to say the least, knowing Jena had to explain what was going on. He had always been used to being fit and well, and a strong reliable person. Now he was like some sickly child, having his whims indulged. Ridiculous to be spending time on this when the situation was so serious.

  It was nightfall before he felt able to join the others again, and he gritted his teeth at the sympathetic looks he got when he came to join the rest of them for the evening meal. He found it very hard to be polite, and it was easier to take his food and retreat once more. Jena came to join him. “We have to stop this. It’s crippling me, and this is no time for it,” he told her angrily.

  “On the contrary, it’s the perfect time for it. What do you think it will be like in the future, when we cross those mountains? We could face almost anything, for who knows how long. If things go badly, and you have to deal with it in your present state, you won’t survive it. I speak to you as a healer to a patient now, for that’s what you are. Now endure the therapy and trust I want the best for you.”

  “I look like a fool,” he said miserably, hunching over the bowl of food he no longer had any appetite for.

  “Do you think your patients are fools? Do you think they need to be mocked for being ill?” She sighed and patted his arm. “They do say we make the worst patients.”

  He reluctantly accepted what she said. He hadn’t seen himself in need of healing, but clearly he was. “All right. But I can’t do any more today. My head’s killing me.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But on the other hand, I think your control is better.” She put her hand on his face. “Yes, I think it is. What you are feeling from the others is much less intense. This is good. Do you want your food?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then lie down and I’ll ease the pain a little. You should sleep again. You have an injury and it needs to heal. Think of it like any other.’

  “Yes, healer Jena. Are you any better when you’re ill?”

  She regarded him gravely, but a small smile twitched her lips. “I don’t allow myself to get sick.”

  He snorted at that, but then let her marvellous touch ease the ache in his head. He could only trust the therapy she prescribed would not be a long one.

  ~~~~~~~~

  If it weren’t for Jena, the month that followed their arrival at the fort would have been mind-numbingly boring for Kei. They had little to do other than prepare food, clean themselves and their belongings, and make repairs. The rest of the time was spent idling by the stream, talking or bathing. When it rained, people gathered in the barracks and continued to build on the new friendships which had been struck up. The hostages from Ai-Beyto arrived two weeks later. Kei knew some of them as he had once travelled with his parents to that village, and they were as glad as he was to see a familiar face.

  They were also delighted to know of the safe arrival of the refugees from their village and the others. By now, Kei had rebuilt his control enough so the reactions of the newcomers did not affect him, although he was aware of their emotions, just as he was of those of all the others. Jena’s lessons were finally having the desired outcome, and he felt much calmer and steadier than he had done in a long time. Her presence was a blessing in another way too. Planning with her over the care of the hostage group, exchanging ideas, even doing a little plant collecting by the stream to see if there were any species they were unaware of which might hold medicinal properties, kept his mind occupied and stopped him gnawing on things he could do nothing
about.

  Her mind-speaking was a major factor in keeping morale up, although she warned once they crossed the mountains, her link with the others, already stretched to its absolute limit, would be broken. Until then she could keep them informed of news from the villages with mind-speakers, and from Darshek. So far, the soldiers quartered on the villages had caused no trouble. Their main concern was collecting grain and sending surpluses to the outposts being set up, and making sure the traders were travelling south and not north. They didn’t interfere with everyday running of village affairs, or at least, they hadn’t up to now. It was always possible things might change once Darshek had surrendered to the siege now in place, for which the city had had ample warning and time for preparation. The hostages were told not to be alarmed at the news of the siege, nor over any delay in rescuing them. The rainy season would mean things wouldn’t happen for a couple of months at least, but preparations were being made. They were asked to be patient, Jena reported.

  Peit snorted. “Like we have any choice,” he said derisively, and there were many nods of agreement.

  “It is true we don’t,” Gonji said. “The Prij think of us as prisoners. We should instead think of ourselves as...emissaries.”

  “What?” Kei said, surprised and not a little amused at the idea. “You’re touched.”

  “No, listen to me. The Prij hold us in contempt because they’re ignorant of us. They call us savages, and mock our beliefs. We’re trying to learn what we can of their ways, but let them also see we’re not savages, not barbarians. By behaving with dignity and good humour, we may do as much as any direct attack to win good treatment for our clansmen.”

  “You’re being rather idealistic, Gonji. The prejudices are very deep, and these people aren’t rational. Just witness that ceremony this morning. How can you reason with people who think setting fire to branches sprinkled with salt will somehow bring good fortune?”

  “Very true. But the alternative is to let them confirm the worst of their beliefs about us. If one is practical, we’re likely to be treated better if they respect us, than if they despise us.”