by D.D. Chant
Chapter Twenty
The Una
Astra woke up to the sound of birds singing. She shuffled lazily, trying to recapture the oblivion of sleep that hovered tantalisingly within reach. The chirping was too loud, too insistent… and wrong.
She scrambled upright quickly. There was no dawn chorus in the Tula strongholds. Memories flooded back, some welcome, others less so, as she studied the bedroom she found herself in.
It was large, polished wood gleamed on the floor in light and dark colours laid out in intricate patterns. The ceiling was low, the roof curving up into an apex, and the beams polished to a warm rich red. The walls had several wooden supports, heavily ornamented with lotus blooms and maple trees. Between the supports was a lighter wood. The large expanses of pale wood were carved with different images. One depicted a garden, another a stream, and another a waterfall.
She reached out to touch the cover on the bed. It was velvet, with patches of gorgeous jewel hues sewn together in a beautiful abstract pattern. Heavily embroidered curtains framed full-length windows, and the dais before the fire held an array of brightly coloured silk cushions.
Astra’s eyes feasted on the vibrant colours. Their warmth was both familiar and yet strange to her, like a distant half forgotten memory that she only realised now she had been yearning for. Her surroundings were comforting giving her a feeling of home that she had never experienced within the confines of the Tula strongholds.
She closed her eyes, remembering a different, less friendly room. She remembered the boy who owned this house, the boy who was her brother. Astra’s throat tightened as she thought of the baby her brother had been. Warm, soft and vulnerable; that was her brother, not the young man that had brought her here yesterday. He was a stranger.
A knock sounded on the door, and Astra pulled the bedclothes more firmly around herself, before granting whoever stood outside entrance to the room.
A maid entered, bowing respectfully, and Astra felt the tension that had flooded her ebb away.
“I have brought your clothes, Dam’sel.” The maid carefully draped the dress over the back of a chair.
“Headman Singh has requested your presence at the breaking of the fast.”
As she spoke she pushed open the door of the en-suite.
Astra found herself obediently slipping out from under the covers before she realised that her foster-family had not been mentioned.
“And my family?”
The girl struggled to mask her distaste.
“They will take their food here in the west wing.”
Astra nodded thoughtfully.
“Very well.”
She closed the door of the en-suite softly. Her first instinct had been to refuse to fall in with her brother’s request. Yet years of trying to keep the boat steady with Councillor Ladron had taught her that rash actions made untidy ends.
She had her family safe. No good would come of her deifying Rem more than she already had. She must seek to be reasonable, to build a bridge of understanding between herself and her brother.
She dressed slowly, taking the time to settle her nerves and gather her composure, shrouding herself in calm.
When she entered her bedroom once more she noticed a hastily suppressed expression of disapproval cross the girl’s face. Astra gave no sign of having noticed, but gestured that the girl should show her the way to the breakfast room.
The servant girl led her to the east wing, not a room on the ground level as she had expected, but one on the first floor.
The girl knocked firmly once, and then opened the door, and stepped back to allow Astra to enter.
The room was cosy and warm. Sunshine flooded through the windows, illuminating the lad sitting at the table. Astra felt the door close behind her as Rem looked up. There was a cup and saucer on the table in front of him, and a large paper covered in writing. Astra stared at it in astonishment for some time before she realised that it was a newspaper.
He was frowning as he looked at her, but his eyes had a faraway look in them, as though he were thinking about something he had just read. She bowed, placing her hand over her heart.
“I trust you slept well, Sister?” His voice was stilted, and the hands that held the newspaper had tightened, creasing its smooth surface.
“I did, thank you, Brother.”
Astra took her seat at the small table, and waited quietly for Rem to address her again.
Rem said nothing else.
It seemed that he had exhausted his repertoire of pleasantries. As the silence stretched out, he smoothed the wrinkled pages of the news sheet.
Astra was uncertain as well. She was used to Councillor Ladron’s company, to being as unseen and unheard as possible. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that Rem was waiting for her to make the next conversational gambit.
“Did you sleep well?” she ventured.
A knock sounded out and the door opened to admit a manservant carrying a large tray. He set out several dishes and removed their covers, bowing as he left the room.
Rem made no move to speak until after he’d left.
“I didn’t sleep very well.”
Astra blinked as he returned the conversational ball abruptly back on her side of the court.
Now what did she do?
Rem absently selected food from the dishes in front of him. It was obvious that his mind was elsewhere.
Astra wanted him to forgive her, to make things better between them. Yet how could she convince the boy that she had disowned and shamed so publicly, that she was not the unfeeling woman he thought her to be? How did she explain that the safety of her foster-family had been more important to her than his honour?
How did she and the stranger before her strike up the rapport of a brother and sister over a single breakfast?
------
Why could he think of nothing to say?
Rem had longed for his sister’s return, yet now he had no idea what to do.
He felt his inadequacy strongly, it left a bitter taste in his mouth. She was his sister, he had missed her even when her very existence had been a burden of shame to him. Yet she had disowned him, disgraced him, all for the sake of her Tula keepers.
He didn’t blame her; whatever she remembered of her life before she was captured was only a small part of what life had taught her. They were both so different to each other that they had no common ground to start from.
That was the problem; he didn’t know how to extend an olive branch of peace to the woman sitting across from him. He didn’t even know if she wanted to recognise him as her brother.
She was oddly remote, and he was almost in awe of her calm elegance. He had expected her to be much like Jia Li and Li Lin: full of explosive exuberance.
Her reserve made him feel awkward and bashful.
Rem watched her carefully as she studied the unfamiliar dishes before her. She cautiously tasted a few that caught her eye.
The mashed yam did not meet with her approval. She pushed the dish away, and replaced the cover the servant had removed. However, she took a large helping of fried potatoes, and smoked fish kedgeree. After a moments hesitation she also ladled a spoonful of spicy beef and vegetables on to her plate.
“The food meets with your approval, Aya?”
He saw her stiffen at the unfamiliar name.
“The food is delicious although the flavourings are a little strange, different to what I’m used to.”
Rem nodded, and watched as she placed a tender morsel of the spicy beef into her mouth.
“What is this dish?”
Rem leaned forward to look at her plate.
“Is there something wrong?”
“I know this flavour; I remember it… from before.”
Rem attempted to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat.
“Nanan makes it. She says it was father’s favourite.”
Astra looked up, and Rem saw surprise cross her face.
“It never occurred
to me that you would remember,” he ventured at last.
Astra set her fork down, and pressed her napkin to her lips.
“You think that because I was adopted into a new family I forgot my old one?” Her words were a challenge, but the tone in which they were delivered was calm and non-confrontational. Rem was startled, he had always imagined his lost sister would be like Jia Li and Li Lin: lively, impulsive, and feisty.
She wasn’t like that at all.
The words were alien to Aya. She was a blank canvas that took on the colours of her surroundings, blending in so perfectly that it was difficult to see her.
Rem felt a prickle of uneasiness work its way down his spine. The veneer was unnatural, and he wondered what she had suffered that had made her cultivate such a camouflaging façade. He felt a desire to comfort her, to tell her that with him she did not need to be so scared, that he would protect her. Yet some part of him knew that she wouldn’t allow him to reassure her.
She didn’t accept him; not as her brother, nor as a person who it was acceptable to show weakness before.
“When you stood before the Headmen it seemed as though you had forgotten us, Aya.”
“Forgive me, Brother, I though only of my Tula family's safety. I am sorry if I brought dishonour upon you,” answered Astra tonelessly.
“I understand why you did it, Aya. It is not my wish to make you unhappy; all I want is to have my sister returned to me.”
“I am here.”
“But you are not mine,” he responded softly. “You belong to them, not to me.”
Astra shook her head.
“What do you want from me? They are my family; I know them. You are a stranger to me.”
“All I want from you is the opportunity to change that, for us to get to know one another.”
She studied his face for a long while without answering him.
“I would like that, I think.”
Rem smiled and stood, closing the distance between them. Awkwardly he placed his hand on her slight shoulder, a tentative gesture of peace.
She tensed beneath his fingers and then, as she became used to the weight of his hand, she relaxed a little.
Rem’s glance wandered over her hair, intricately coiled on top of her head. It was beautiful, regal almost, a shining mass of silky folds.
“Why do you wear your hair like that?”
Astra cleared her throat.
“What do you mean?”
Rem touched one of the shining curls.
“Una women wear their hair long and free. Tula women wear it short and severe. Yet you wear it neither way.”
Aya touched her hair absently.
“Because I am not Una any more, and my years with the Tula did not make me one of them. I am something different; a part of both worlds, yet I have no place in either. I thought it fitting that my appearance should convey that.”
Her voice was calm, but Rem felt suddenly very sad. She had been treated badly by the Tula, and it had only been her foster-family’s protection that had kept her alive. Even when faced with the threat of death, and after losing a loved one to the Tula’s hate, she still been forced to remain submissive to Ladron.
What had she felt since then? How had she survived with the knowledge that the lives of those who protected her rested on her obedience? Suddenly he saw the truth of her statement. She truly was neither Una nor Tula. She had been rejected by both, and in turn she had rejected them. She had no sense of the tribal identity that an Una woman would hold dear. The only loyalty she professed was to family, to the Tula family who had stuck with her through every trial and tribulation.
He realised suddenly that she would never accept him as her brother just because they shared the same blood, or because they were both of the Una Nation. The only way she would recognize him as her family was if he stood by her and understood her.
He would have to accept her for what she was: a woman who had betrayed her people, and disgraced her family, because there was no other option open to her.
If there was to be any kind of relationship between them he needed to make peace with that. He would have to accept that she would never feel sorry for putting her Tula keepers before him.
Rem unconsciously gripped her shoulder tighter and she gasped softly, looking up at him. He felt angry; why was it always left to him to forgive? Why did he have to accept the shame without comment?
Aya continued to look up at him, her eyes blank and expressionless. He realised belatedly that he was still gripping her shoulder too tightly and he released her hurriedly.
She had not asked for this either.
He broke the silence between them, his voice decisive and sure.
“Perhaps it would be better if we ate with your family, Astra?”
Wary interest lit her eyes as her Tula name left his lips.
“It would not be better if an argument were to take place.”
Rem lifted his hand and placed it over his heart.
“You have my word, Sister, that I will not argue with those you love.”
She considered him a moment longer, and then nodded.
“In that case I would like it very much.”
