by Patty Jansen
She gave a mock bow to Asitho Bisumar. “See you in the elections.” She turned her back on both men and faced . . . Vayra. All the anger of learning who he was came back to her.
“I trusted you. I trusted your words and your support. What do I get in return? Betrayal.”
“Everything I told you was the truth. I did not lie to you.”
“The Andrahar heir will be there. Was it really so hard to tell me that you were the Andrahar heir?”
"I couldn’t. People knew that we still had our stone, or at least that it was not in the library with the others."
She continued her angry glare. Excuses, excuses.
“I gave you all the clues. I told you the story about my parents. I told you about my special bond with the Andrahar family. I even went to get my family crest tattoo in the hope that the gossip would reach you and you’d figure it out.”
And she’d seen that tattoo in the shop. Ellisandra spread her hands. “If you knew me so well, you’d know that I’m impervious to gossip. And I’m a stupid woman to boot.”
“You’re anything but stupid. I understand why you’re angry, but I’ll prove to you that I’m a good man.”
“Just leave me alone. I’ve got an election campaign to run.”
She turned away from him walked towards the door. The members of the extended Andrahar family made way for her, and so did all the other people who had followed them. By the time she was at the door, the cheer in the hall was deafening.
In the foyer, someone caught up with her from behind. It was Enzo. He said nothing, but swept her up in a hug so tight that she could barely breathe.
26
MANY THINGS happened that long winter.
Mirani law required a two-month minimum period to call an election so that all parties could prepare. And prepare, they did.
Ellisandra got together with a large group of people involved in the arts and theatre and set up the New Miran party, which listed no less than twenty candidates for the public section of the assembly. Ellisandra went to all the other Endri families to lobby for their support, and she got it from many.
Ellisandra spent much of the rest of her time either in Father’s library or in the council archives or in many meetings. Her team consisted of theatre people, and included Aleyo and Jintho. Vayra started turning up at their meetings not long after the formation of the party. Ellisandra debated telling him that he wasn’t welcome, but could find no ground to refuse him except her own hurt over his betrayal. He did know a lot, and he made himself very useful.
Ellisandra dealt with her anger towards him in the usual way: by avoiding him. But eventually even the anger seeped away. He was probably right. She wouldn’t have liked to have known who he was for fear of someone getting that information out of her. And she should stop being stupid and apologise to him. But with every day she didn’t apologise, the need to do it seeped away, until it became like an annoying pain in her elbow: something she only noticed when performing one particular action, and risking a fight with him wasn’t worth destabilising their new party.
The sitting High Council kept remarkably quiet, and neither Nemedor Satarin nor Asitho Bisumar were seen much in public anymore.
Most of the Andrahar family went back to Barresh, but Iztho stayed in the house. At night, from the window of her room, Ellisandra often saw father and son sitting by the fire talking or playing music. Sometimes she wished she could be with them, because it looked like they were having fun. Braedon and his family were regular visitors to the house, and rumours went that he wanted to open the Andrahar Traders office.
Ellisandra happened to be in their dining room talking elections with Vayra and his father when the family turned up. This time, they had brought a visitor.
As soon as the woman entered the room, Iztho froze.
The woman stopped in the doorway.
She was tall, and had very dark eyes. She looked . . . regal, and far too young to be Vayra’s mother.
She whispered, “Iztho?”
He rose from the table with such speed that his chair almost fell over, ran to the door in a few steps and swept her up in his arms.
She cried and he cried, and they kissed without regard for Braedon’s two daughters who had also come into the room. Vayra hugged both of them, and so they stood for a long time, a family reunited. The sight of the three of them almost made Ellisandra cry. Lately, she had been closer to her brothers, but it had become painfully clear that Father might not see spring, and might not even see his first grandchild.
Then the cook brought tea and cakes, and there was much happiness and talk about organising the biggest spring wedding that Miran had ever seen.
Sariandra had moved in with Jintho. They decided to hold off the wedding until after the baby was born, because it was far too late to organise it before. Indeed, it was a bit over a month later that she went into labour.
Sariandra was a slight girl and Jintho quite sturdy. Healer Lasko said that the baby was “big and healthy” and took its time arriving. The first day, the pains were mild and Sariandra spent much of that day in the bath being rubbed by various people, including Ellisandra when she could get out of her meetings. The second day was much more stressful. On Sariandra, because she was exhausted and the pains started in all earnest, and on Jintho because he couldn’t stand his girlfriend suffering. He walked in and out of the room, getting hot water, getting ice, getting tea or whatever to keep her comfortable. Eventually, he realised that there was nothing he could do about her pain.
Even after having looked after Father’s most unpleasant episodes, Ellisandra found it hard to be in the house, let alone in the room, with Sariandra’s distressed cries.
If this was how much pain a woman suffered, she wasn’t sure she wanted children, ever.
She sat in the kitchen—which was the room furthest from Jintho’s bedroom—when Vayra came into the back door and sat at the table.
From upstairs came an almost inhuman-sounding howl that, even through the floor and several walls, chilled her.
“Still at it, huh?” He looked a bit uneasy, too.
“Healer Lasko says there are no problems. She says first children often take a while.”
He nodded, letting the question Does she have to scream like that? hang between them. Apparently some women liked to yell.
She got up to pour some tea. He cradled the cup in long-fingered hands.
They drank in silence for a while. Previously, he might have said something about the cold, but it was always cold in Miran and that fact was no longer new to him. He became more Mirani with every day that passed.
Another beastly howl, louder than the last. There was no longer any emotion in the cry. It was just . . . sound, and a really awful sound at that.
“Really getting serious.” She felt sick.
They tried to make some small talk, but Ellisandra couldn’t concentrate.
Then there were footsteps on the stairs and the door opened. Darma came in. “Mistress, the baby is almost there, if you want to come . . .”
Ellisandra really wasn’t sure that she wanted to, but it was customary for family members to attend. It was just that there had been no births in her family for as long as she would have been considered old enough to attend, and she never had.
“I’ll come,” Vayra said.
Darma didn’t question it, but led them up the stairs. Ellisandra turned and whispered to him, “Thank you.”
It was hot and stuffy in the room upstairs. Jintho’s bed had been moved to the window so that the centrepiece of the room was the padded birthing chair placed on a sheet with towels spread around it.
Sariandra sat on it, naked, slicked with sweat, her head leaning forward to gasp for breath. She was too absorbed in her task to notice people coming in. Jintho stood to the side of her, holding her shoulders. Healer Lasko sat on her knees between her spread legs. Riana stood behind the healer, holding a towel. Healer Lasko said something. Sariandra nodded.
While Ellisandra and Vayra went to sit on the bed to be out of everyone’s way, Sariandra breathed faster and started howling again. It was not from pain, Ellisandra realised. It was effort. When she howled, all her muscles went tense. Her white-knuckled hands gripped her knees. The skin on her face and chest went red.
A little spell for a breather, and again.
Healer Lasko made encouraging sounds. “Good, good, keep going.”
The atmosphere in the room was tense. Ellisandra subconsciously leaned into Vayra, who put an arm on her shoulders.
Sariandra started howling again. And then all of a sudden, there was a rush of action. Darma and Jintho tilted back the chair with Sariandra in it. Riana knelt next to the Healer with the towel. Healer Lasko eased the baby out while Sariandra pushed. The head, shoulders, the rest of the body, and a rush of fluid that spilled onto the floor. The baby cried before it was fully free, a little contorted red face and open mouth. The little arms went up, shivering.
“That is a big boy,” Healer Lasko said.
Riana cheered.
“Oh, look at him!” Sariandra cried in an emotion-filled, hoarse voice. “I knew it was a boy. I knew it!”
The boy her father had wanted so badly and never got. Healer Lasko wrapped him in the towel and put him in his mother’s arms, and Sariandra stroked his little cheek going, “Oh, oh, look at his hands. Look at his feet.” Her eyes glittered with tears. Her hair hung in wet strings down the sides of her face. Her skin was pale and her thighs bruised and blood-stained. She looked utterly spent, but her eyes were bright with happiness.
Jintho hugged her. He looked a little worn out himself.
Ellisandra wiped at her cheeks. She was crying, too. That was stupid, because she never cried. This was beautiful. Hard and painful, yes, but beautiful.
“I’m glad I came,” she whispered to Vayra.
He nodded, with a knowing expression as if he had seen a good number of babies born.
When most of the cleaning up was done and Sariandra sat in bed with her son, Ellisandra went to get Father. He had deteriorated badly in the past few months and barely spoke anymore, but he seemed to understand who the little baby was that Darma gently lowered in his arms.
He cried, too, and that made Ellisandra cry again.
Her family was due to undergo some big changes.
The biggest change would come few days later, when Ellisandra went to give Father his breakfast. He had always been an early riser and did not react to her entering the room.
“Father?”
He lay in his bed, very still.
It looked like he was asleep, but his face was strangely pale. She rushed to his side, but knew what had happened before she felt the coldness of his skin.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, crying, holding his cold hand until Darma came in wondering where she was. Vayra was with her, and he prised Ellisandra off the bed and let her cry into his chest. He understood, he said in a soft voice, of grieving for family members with serious faults. About loving someone as they were and hating what they had become.
A few days later, they buried Father next to Mother in the family plot in the cemetery that lay uphill from the Endri quarter, just outside the city walls. Many people came, most out of respect. The day was beautiful and crisp, and the sunlight made the snowy mountain flanks glitter. Again Vayra was there, standing quietly in the background while Ellisandra was forced to talk to visitors. He seemed to be determined to be part of her life.
“You are the most beautiful woman I know,” he said when they walked back home.
“Beauty alone does not make a good person.”
“I mean beautiful on the inside. Have I ever told you how much I admired you staring down both sides in the conflict at the council meeting? Any other person would have stood by and let the fight happen.”
The united New Miran Party won the election by a landslide. Nemedor Satarin ended up being surprisingly gracious in defeat. He said he’d remain in the assembly, but retired a few days later. He left town a few days after that. To his estate in Bendara, people said, but everyone agreed that it was right for him to go. He was no longer a young man.
The elections were big news in gamra.
The new High Council, the youngest ever, agreed to an ordered plan to reopen the borders.
Five new posts were established to take the place of Foundation families and check on the council. From now on, families had to nominate an heir for legal purposes, and that heir could be a woman. Gisandra caused great consternation by nominating her daughter, who had started to crawl.
The big wedding that took place on a beautiful day of spring symbolised many things.
The love between Vayra’s parents made a warm spot in her heart. It was in the way she smiled at him, in the way she would touch his shoulder when walking past, and the way he played music for her.
“It’s almost embarrassing,” Vayra said to her on the morning of the big day. “Couples that age aren’t supposed to behave like that.”
But they did, and they walked arm in arm through the streets of Miran in a traditional parade while having only eyes for each other. They stood through the ceremony at the Foundation monument never taking their eyes off each other.
When the marriage celebrant snapped their armbands shut, which Iztho bought before Vayra was born, they kissed for such a long time that people thought they’d never stop. Then the marriage celebrant detached the chain that linked the armbands, called Vayra up on the platform and hung it around his neck.
The three of them hugged.
Vayra came back to Ellisandra. “For the first time in my life, I’m a legitimate child.” His voice was so filled with emotion that she put a hand on his knee. He took it and held it for a long time.
Enzo was looking at her from where he sat. Since when had he started to spend so much time with the oldest of Braedon Andrahar’s red-haired daughters? She was much too young for him, only barely out of adolescence, which was . . . the time Endri women often married. Maybe she was older than Sariandra, who carried her son in a sling.
The girl’s name was Riget. Maybe she needed to start paying attention to her.
When it was all done and people had gone home, Vayra and Ellisandra shared tea in Ellisandra’s kitchen.
Vayra was not someone of many words, but he had been more quiet than usual. Ellisandra asked him about it.
He said, “I got a message this morning. I’ve been asked to fulfil a position at Trader Guild headquarters.”
That little statement opened up a hole inside her. Trader Guild headquarters was at Kedras, and he would have to leave.
“And? Are you taking it up?” Her heart was thudding so loudly that the blood roared in her ears.
No, no, please!
He shrugged. “It’s a good opportunity. Good pay, too.”
No, no, nooooo!
“I thought I’d ask you what you thought about it.”
She heard in his words since you leave me hanging and won’t commit and it was not like that at all, and if he thought that, it was not what she intended. There was no way she would live without him. And in all that, she left a terrified silence.
“Well?” He spread his hands.
The words that always came to her quickly failed her now. She pushed herself up from her chair so abruptly that it fell over. He gave a whoa cry of surprise when she dropped herself on his lap. She kissed him on his lips. She had no idea how to take it any further, but between the two of them, and clashes of noses, they worked it out. Big, wet, hungry kisses. His hands on her back pressing her against him. Feeling his chest expand and contract against hers with his fast breaths.
Jintho came into the kitchen carrying his son in one arm.
He stopped in the doorway and simply said, “Oh. I was wondering how much longer you’d take to get to that stage.” And left again.
“I guess this means I’ll stay,” Vayra said when Jintho had gone. His lips were still wet from kissing.
“Please?” And when he said nothing, she repeated, “Please?” She slid off his lap and dropped to her knees on the floor. Leaning on his knees and holding his hands in hers, she said, “I, Ellisandra Takumar, ask permission to take Vayra Perling Dinzo Andrahar as my lawful wedded partner.”
He smiled. The look in his eyes made her heart sing.
A Word of Thanks
THANK YOU very much for reading the Return of the Aghyrians series. While this is the end of the series, there are other books set in the same world. Visit my author profile for more information. Also, if you would like to be notified of new books, don’t forget to add your name to the new releases mailing list.
About the Author
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis.
Patty has written over twenty novels in both Science Fiction and Fantasy, including the Icefire Trilogy and the Ambassador series.
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More By This Author
Quick link to all Patty Jansen’s books
In the Earth-Gamra space-opera universe
RETURN OF THE AGHYRIANS
Watcher’s Web
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
Heir’s Revenge
The Return of the Aghyrians Omnibus
