Griffin's Daughter

by Leslie Ann Moore

  The air felt hot and close in the confines of the bunk room. A horse whinnied in the stableyard below. Jelena could feel sleep stalking her, weighing down her eyelids with pebbles and infusing her muscles with lassitude. She fought for a while-half-heartedly-but soon gave in.

  She awoke with a start, the beginnings of a scream tearing at her throat. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her body, shivering despite the lingering warmth in the room. Vague images of something huge and unspeakably evil, trailing tatters of shadow in its wake as it swooped down to envelop her swirled in her mind. Jelena had no idea of the nature of the thing , but she had felt its burning hunger, its frantic need for…for what? Then it hit her with chilling certainty.

  The blue fire!

  It wanted the energy that smoldered like banked coals deep within the essence of her being, and she sensed that, though it might not now have strength enough to take what it wanted, its power waxed with each passing day, and soon, it would come for her in earnest.

  Jelena scrambled to her feet, swaying a little in reaction to the aftereffects of the nightmare.

  I must tell Lady Amara! She’ll know what to do!

  Chapter 32

  The True Measure Of Friendship

  Do not worry, child. The seeds of this nightmare come from your own fears about your Talent, nothing more.

  Jelena turned Lady Amara’s words over and over in her mind as she slowly walked back to the barracks, but no matter how hard she tried to banish it, the feeling that her future mother-in-law hid something important continued to nag at her.

  It’s just like with Lord Sen, she thought. Why do I feel Ashinji’s parents know things about me they are trying to keep secret? What could there possibly be to know about me that’s worth hiding?

  She shook her head, completely baffled.

  As she mounted the stairs up to the common room, she heard Gendan’s voice drifting from the doorway. “We’ve got to send for the doctor!”

  Jelena paused, frowning. What’s got Gendan so upset? she wondered.

  “ Gendan’s right!” Aneko’s voice sounded just as distressed. “For once in your life, Kami, please don’t argue!”

  Jelena hastened to the top of the stairs, heart racing. She rushed through the half-open door and spotted Gendan, kneeling, his back to her. “What has happened?” she cried.

  Aneko, who stood beside the captain, looked up and around at Jelena as she approached. The stark look of fear on the older woman’s face froze Jelena in her tracks.

  “ Kami collapsed a few moments ago, Jelena. She’s very sick. We need you to go fetch the doctor,” Aneko said tensely. Jelena could see now that Kami lay sprawled upon the floor, her head resting in Gendan’s lap, still dressed in her dusty armor, as though she’d just come in from guard duty.

  “ I…don’t need a doctor,” Kami murmured. Jelena drew in a sharp breath, shocked and terrified at the sight of her friend’s bloodless face.

  “ I told you not to go to work today. I asked you to stay in and rest! Why didn’t you listen to me?” Gendan scolded gently, tears streaking his weathered cheeks.

  “ Jelena, please hurry!” Aneko urged.

  Jelena turned and ran for the door. She pounded down the stairs and sprinted across the lower yard. Up the path and through the lower gates she ran, ignoring the shouts of the guards, slowing down only when she had crossed the upper yard and had to think a moment to remember which way to go.

  The infirmary lay at the back of the main wing of the castle. By the time Jelena arrived, she was thoroughly winded. Breathlessly, she pounded on the thick, wood door.

  The doctor’s assistant, a gangly young man, answered the door, listened closely while Jelena gasped out her request for help, snapped, “Wait here!” then slammed the door shut, leaving Jelena alone in the warm darkness.

  Anxiously, she waited.

  Terrifying thoughts tumbled over themselves in her mind, each new one more horrible than the last.

  What if Kami is losing her baby? What if she’s dying? What if she dies before I can bring the doctor? Will Gendan blame me?

  Just when she thought she would go mad with fear, the door flew open and the doctor stepped through. Jelena immediately recognized her as the woman who had tended the injuries she’d received on the day Ashinji had rescued her from the bandits.

  “ Lead on, girl!” the doctor commanded, handing her bag off to her assistant. Wordlessly, Jelena turned on her heel and started back the way she’d come, the doctor and her assistant following closely behind.

  By the time they arrived at the barracks, Gendan and Aneko had stripped off Kami’s armor and clothing, and had put her into bed. Gendan had pulled up a stool and now sat beside his stricken lover, her small hand clutched tightly in his.

  “ Doctor Metai, please, you must help my girl!” the captain begged, his voice ragged with fear. The doctor crossed the small room in two strides and bent over Kami, peering into the girl’s half-lidded, restless eyes. She pressed her first two fingers to the large vein in Kami’s pale throat, then after a few heartbeats, clicked her tongue in dismay. “What exactly happened, Captain?” Doctor Metai asked.

  Gendan shook his head. “I don’t rightly know,” he replied. “I wasn’t there, but Aneko, here, was. She came and fetched me just after the bell sounded the hour-said my girl had taken ill.”

  “ We’d just come in from our shift,” Aneko explained. “Kami’d been complaining since dawn that she didn’t feel well. She insisted it was just the morning sickness and that she’d be all right. She refused to stay in the bunk house to rest, even though Gendan asked her to.”

  “ She’s such a hard-headed girl, sometimes!” Gendan added, sniffing hard and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Kami moaned softly and began to shiver. Gendan stroked her tousled blonde hair. “Can you do anything for her, Doctor?” he asked.

  “ I’ll not lie to you, Captain,” Doctor Metai stated. “Kami has fallen ill with a very serious malady. I’ve seen it most often in young women during the early weeks of a first pregnancy. Sometimes, the girl miscarries. Sometimes, she dies.”

  “ No!” Jelena whispered, her hand flying to her mouth.

  “ But Kami is strong and healthy,” the doctor continued. “With luck and good nursing, she has a decent chance of survival.”

  “ What about our child?” Gendan asked quietly, resting one hand on top of the blanket covering Kami’s belly.

  The doctor paused a heartbeat before answering. “If the mother survives, usually the child does as well.” She motioned for her assistant to bring her bag. “Kami will need constant tending through the crisis,” she added, reaching into the bag’s depths to withdraw several vials.

  “ I will watch her,” Jelena volunteered. Both Aneko and Gendan looked sharply at her.

  “ You don’t have to do this,” Aneko said. “Gendan can find a nurse…”

  “ No, I will nurse Kami,” Jelena insisted. “Captain Miri must work. You must work also, Aneko. I need not work…I mean, there is other messenger…Taba. He can carry all Lord Sen’s messages for a short time. I will stay with Kami as long as she needs me.” She paused, then added, “Kami is my friend.”

  Gendan noisily cleared his throat and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists. When he looked again at Jelena, his face shone with relief…and gratitude. “Thank you, Jelena,” he murmured.

  When the doctor at last departed, she left behind three vials of medicines and instructions on their use. Kami was to be kept warm and the room quiet and dim. Gendan left briefly to shed his armor, and Aneko went to fetch them all some dinner. For a while, Jelena sat alone with Kami, who looked so small and vulnerable beneath the blankets. Kami might be small, but her size misled many. Jelena had seen her friend’s skill at arms, had witnessed first-hand the strength of her sword arm.

  Kami is a fighter. She’ll survive.

  “ You have to live, Kami!” Jelena whispered fiercely.

  I need your friendship!

  Kami si
ghed, and her eyelids fluttered. “Gendan,” she murmured. “Sweetheart, where are you?”

  “ Gendan will return soon, Kami,” Jelena replied softly.

  “ Jelena…You’re here.” Kami smiled weakly. “I’m so glad.” Abruptly, her face crumpled. “I’m scared!” she sobbed. “My baby…”

  “ Do not worry, Kami. All will be well.” Jelena made no effort to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  When Gendan returned, he found Jelena huddled beside Kami on the narrow bed, holding her friend in her arms.

  ~~~

  For three exhausting days and nights, Jelena remained by Kami’s side, leaving only to tend to the most basic needs of her own body. She slept very little and ate and drank sparingly, ignoring the aches in her own barely healed arm and side.

  Kami alternately burned with fever and shivered with chills as the illness raged through her body. Jelena could do little to ease her friend’s suffering, other to than bathe the sick girl’s forehead with cool water one moment, then pile on more blankets the next. When Kami writhed with nausea and retching, Jelena held a basin to her cracked lips and wiped her mouth afterward.

  Gendan came in the evenings after the end of his shift. Lovingly, he massaged Kami’s back and limbs with sweet almond oil; his touch seemed to do more to relieve her pain than anything else. Jelena had never witnessed such a tender display of love and devotion between a man and woman before, and she slowly came to realize that, beneath Gendan’s gruff exterior dwelt a soul perhaps as kind and good as Ashinji’s.

  Ashinji came to the barracks each evening to check on Kami and to personally bring Jelena her dinner. He didn’t stay long; he seemed to sense that Gendan preferred the nobles not to make a lot of fuss. Lord Sen paid a visit only once, and Gendan seemed greatly relieved when he had gone.

  “ Don’t get me wrong,” he’d said. “I ‘preciate my lord’s concern, but Kami’s ours to take care of.”

  Jelena understood his meaning. Gendan believed that the lives of noble and common folk should intersect only in carefully prescribed ways. He considered caring for his sick sweetheart a private matter, one in which his bosses had no reason to involve themselves.

  Four days after she’d first fallen ill, and after having spent the past night in restless semi-consciousness, Kami at last lay sleeping. Groggy from fatigue, Jelena rose from the chair she’d occupied since sundown and stretched her aching limbs. She shuffled over to the open window and peered out, shading her eyes against the sunrise with one hand. Behind her, Gendan’s rough snoring rattled the stillness. Drawing in a deep breath of the fresh morning air, Jelena rubbed her eyes and then returned to the bed, where she laid a hand on Kami’s forehead. The girl’s skin felt cool and dry. Jelena nodded in satisfaction.

  It’s over , she thought. Kami and her baby will survive.

  The room had gone quiet. Jelena looked up to see that Gendan had awakened and now silently watched her. The expression in his eyes confused her, and she covered her discomfiture by fussing with Kami’s blankets. Gendan rose from Aneko’s bed-she had relinquished it to him so that he could stay by Kami’s side-and padded over to the window. He, too, took a breath of the cool air, then came over to stand beside Jelena.

  “ Jelena,” he murmured. “I don’t know how t’ thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “ Please, Captain, do not thank me. I did this for my friend,” Jelena replied softly. She had returned to her chair and now gazed fixedly at Kami’s sleeping form.

  “ I…I’ve treated you…well, if I’ve treated you…less than kindly…”

  “ No, Captain, you have always been polite,” Jelena insisted.

  “ But, I haven’t… not really.”

  “ You have, Captain.”

  “ Goddess’ tits, girl!” Gendan exclaimed. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and Jelena looked up, surprised. “Will you please let me apologize to you?”

  Looking into Gendan’s eyes, Jelena could see his contrition and something else as well.

  “ I was unfair to you, Jelena, because of… well, because of the way I was taught as a boy t’ see things…and people, as one way or another. I’m beginning to understand now that sometimes, old ideas need to be let go of, that not everything we’re taught as children by our elders is right.”

  Jelena swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and nodded. She now knew that, from this day forward, she would be able to count Gendan Miri as one of her friends.

  Kami moaned softly and stirred beneath her blankets. Gendan immediately moved to kneel beside the bed, where he tenderly stroked her cheek. “Kami, my precious girl, my precious, lovely girl,” he whispered into her ear. “I love you…so very much. You and our baby.”

  Jelena yawned and rubbed at her stinging eyes. If I don’t sleep soon, I’m going to collapse , she thought. Aloud, she said, “Captain, can you stay with Kami for a time, so I can sleep a little?”

  “ Ai, Goddess! Of course!” Gendan rose to his feet, shaking his head in chagrin. “You must be exhausted, and I’ve been completely selfish not t’ see. You sleep now, as long as you need to. I’ll watch Kami until Aneko comes.” He added with a gentle smile, “Call me Gendan, please.”

  Gratefully, Jelena rose from her chair and went to lie down on her bed beneath the window. She sighed, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

  ~~~

  Jelena awoke at sundown to find herself alone. She sprang from her bed in alarm and hurried out into the common room to find Aneko sitting at the long table, sipping from an earthenware mug.

  “ Oh, good. You’re awake,” Aneko said.

  “ Where is Kami?” Jelena gasped, her entire body tingling with near-panic.

  “ It’s all right, Jelena,” Aneko assured her. “Gendan just took Kami down to the bath house. She woke up feeling much better and begged Gendan to help her…now let’s see, how did she say it…‘wash the stink off me.’ She was very insistent.” Aneko smiled at the memory.

  “ Oh, thank the gods…I mean, the One,” Jelena breathed. Her knees wobbled with relief. She plopped down on the bench beside Aneko, who poured her a mug. Jelena accepted it gratefully. She took a long swallow of the spicy beer, and as the drink hit her stomach, it began to growl with hunger. She tried to remember when she’d last eaten and decided that it had been two mornings ago. The stress of dealing with Kami’s illness had totally killed her appetite, until now.

  “ Lord Ashinji was here, asking for you,” Aneko said.

  Jelena looked up sharply. “When?”

  “ About an hour ago. I told him you were still sleeping. I asked him if he wanted me to wake you, but he said no, to let you sleep.” Aneko paused and patted Jelena’s hand. “Tradition be damned, Jelena,” she murmured. “You and he belong together. I can see it in his eyes, how much he loves you.”

  The time had not seemed right before now, because of Kami’s illness, to tell her friends of her betrothal to Ashinji, but now that Kami and her child were out of danger, Jelena could no longer hold back the news. She threw her arms around Aneko and cried, “Aneko, the most wonderful thing has happened! Ashinji and I are to be married!”

  “ Oh, Jelena! Truly?” Aneko exclaimed, then stammered, “But…but, how? How did Lord Ashinji get his parents to agree to such a match?” She pulled away from Jelena, shaking her head in wonder.

  “ Lord Sen was not very happy about it,” Jelena admitted, thinking back on the tense scene in the family room five days ago. “But Lady Amara and Ashinji, both, convinced him.”

  “ Lord Sen obviously thinks very highly of you, Jelena. You saved his life, after all. If not for your arrow, that boar would have killed him, and we’d all be living under Lord Sadaiyo now. He didn’t need too much convincing, of that I’m certain.”

  “ I am not a foolish person, Aneko,” Jelena sighed. She took another sip of her beer, a small one this time, for she still felt a little light-headed from the first swallow, and added, sadly, “I know I am not what Lord Sen would have chosen for his
son. He wants, how do you say, okui grandchildren to raise in his house, not mongrels, like me.”

  “ Don’t talk about yourself that way, Jelena,” Aneko admonished softly.

  Jelena stared intently at the older woman, and a question she’d always been reluctant to ask stood poised on her lips. She let it go. “Why were you and Kami friends to me from the start? You and she…not once have you said anything unkind, never made me to feel…less than…you because of my human blood. Why is that?”

  Aneko lowered her eyes and a little smile played about her generous mouth. “Kami and I are both Kerala born and bred, from long lines of border folk on both sides. Out here, most everyone has a little human blood in them, even if some folk refuse to acknowledge it openly. It hasn’t always been so unfriendly between our two homelands, you know, and we get regular trade from the human nomads that live out on the steppes beyond the mountains.”

  Aneko leaned in close and whispered, “My great granddad was a steppe chieftain, so I’ve been told. My great grandma fell in love and ran off with him…lived with his tribe for over forty years. When he died, she and her four kids came back home to Kerala where she married a rich farmer and lived out the rest of her days.” She sat back, grinning. “So you see, my girl, I’m as much hikui as you.”

  Jelena’s eyes widened with shock. “Do others know?” she murmured.

  “ You mean others like Anda and Gendan?” Aneko shook her head. “No. I pass for okui very well. I’ve kept it to myself, mainly because no one’s ever asked, but if someone should, I’ll not lie. Here in Kerala, all folk have equal rights under the law. It’s not so in most other places. I’d have to lie if I ever went to live somewhere else, so it’s a good thing I never want to leave Kerala!”

  “ Thank you for trusting me, Aneko. I will never tell anyone, I promise,” Jelena swore, grasping the other woman’s hands and squeezing.