Tuyo

by Neumeier, Rachel

  “Etta said so too,” he told me, and cuffed me lightly on the arm. “You should teach me a little darau. I would be willing to learn it.”

  It was my turn to laugh. I had not expected that at all, though after all that had happened, I should have.

  Lucas Samaura had obviously been stunned by everything that had happened. He was still gazing at his uncle, his eyes wide and dazed. He said, “Aras ...” but plainly did not know how to go on.

  “Yes, I know,” said Aras. “Fortunately, it took Lorellan entirely by surprise as well. Soretes got clear. If I’d gotten our king killed through a little too much cleverness, I’d have been seriously embarrassed.”

  “He did get out of it, then,” Lucas Samaura said in relief. “Karoles?”

  “Yes, I’m glad to say. They’re some way south of here.” Aras raised his eyebrows and added, “As you should be. I did tell you to take your horse and run.”

  “Yes, but ...” Lucas looked around. Other Lau were coming to join us, some of them wearing the brown badge of Gaur and some different badges.

  “Ah,” said Aras. “Of course you couldn’t abandon our people. Well done, then.” He looked around at the gathering Lau soldiers. “I thank the gods you all survived. I am so deeply grateful you trusted me enough to ask the Ugaro for help.” He did not wait for any answer, but shifted to taksu, bowing his head to Garoyo and then to one warrior and another. “I am deeply in your debt for sheltering these men. Many of them are my own people, and I would have been very much grieved by their deaths.”

  The warriors glanced at one another.

  “Can no one answer courteously?” demanded my father.

  One of the warriors, an older man, stepped forward and inclined his head to Aras. “They had been fighting our enemies. They threw down their weapons. What else could we do? You owe no debt.”

  My father nodded curt approval of this answer. He said to the warrior, “I am Sinowa inGara. What tribe is yours?” The warriors murmured their names, and he nodded to them all equally. “Convocation law rules here,” he said flatly. “No enmity permitted, no matter the tribe. Do I need to say so?”

  “No,” said the warrior who had spoken before, who was inKarano. “Our king said so already.” He glanced north, to where more Ugaro were making their slow way over the crest of the hill. Most of them were mounted on ponies. Unlike the Lau horses, our ponies know how to seek shelter from the fengol cold. They would have crowded together beneath the thickest trees and lain down in the snow. I knew many of my people would have survived by throwing a coat over their pony’s head to protect its face and eyes and then tucking themselves tight against its belly.

  A few of the Ugaro coming down that hill were women. I looked at Aras.

  “No, your sister’s over that way,” he told me absently, nodding toward the forest. “Her mind is still very far from the world. If I look too closely, it makes me lightheaded. You know, Ryo, I can’t believe my people think yours don’t know any magic.”

  “It was not magic,” I told him. “It was a song. She is a singer. The gods were kind to answer, and very, very generous to lift their hammer before we all died of it. I did not expect it. You know that.” I paused. Then I added, “You knew she was there. You asked her to sing. From how far away? I thought you were so much less powerful than Lorellan.”

  He smiled at that, a sudden vivid humor coming to his face. “Yes, he thought so too. The lies that most insidiously seduce a man are the ones that make him feel superior. In some ways that was true, but as you’ve guessed, not in every way. You’ve been suspecting that lie for some time—and doing very well at concealing that suspicion—but I’ve been wondering how I gave myself away.”

  “You said it so often, to so many people. I guessed from that you might wish Lorellan to believe it. But even when the thought came to me, I was not at all certain.”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t prevent him from enslaving anyone if he got to them first, and he could take far more people at a time than I could protect. He truly was much more powerful in that way; it was very hard for me to free men once he had them.”

  “But?”

  His smile widened. “But in some ways, you’re right, he was much weaker than I am. He couldn’t close his mind to me nearly as completely as I could close mine to him—and he never realized that. I couldn’t free your people from his sorcery except one at a time, rather painfully, but he didn’t expect me to be able to do it at all and he didn’t realize I was doing it. A remarkable lack of sensitivity. And there were one or two other advantages I had that he might not have suspected. Altogether, I almost had the skill and strength to defeat him. But not quite. When he began taking my king’s people a hundred times faster than I could get them back, I thought I—we—had lost after all. Defeating him took your people as well as mine. And the gods.” He paused, looking at me. He touched my arm. Then he looked at my father.

  My father had been watching the Ugaro riders come down the hill. He said to Aras, his tone curt, “This is hardly the place or the time to greet our king. It is especially not the time for you to greet him.” He raised his voice. “I know we are all weary. But our wounded need warmth and quiet. Let the dead wait for dawn. We will need shelter for ourselves and for the Lau. Fires. Food. Let young men respect older men; let warriors respect warleaders; let no one quarrel. This is not the time.”

  Eight hands-breadths of time later, we had made a proper shelter in a huge grove of young firs at the foot of a wide cliff, with the snow packed down and great fires roaring in a wide half circle. There were not enough tents for so many, but warriors had taken those we had and opened them up and set the canvas to break the strength of the wind. Some of the young men who were not as tired had gone to get the dogs, left out of the way during the battle. Our dogs do not like to fight, not with each other nor with men, but they like to hunt almost as much as they like to pull. The young men had taken them out to find game, so there was enough meat for everyone. Now even the Lau almost looked warm.

  I could not count the Lau, except that there were many. But there were many times that number of Ugaro. Some of the Lau were armed, but most were not. They were all very quiet. I knew they felt keenly that they were out of place.

  The wounded, Lau and Ugaro alike, had been given the warmest place, between the fires and the face of the cliff. Mostly each people kept to his own, but I saw an Ugaro warrior closing a long cut across a Lau soldier’s thigh with many meticulous stitches, and a Lau working to set an Ugaro warrior’s badly broken hand and wrist.

  Aras had settled quietly to one side, not among the other Lau, but surrounded by inGara and inGeiro warriors. Bara sat beside him, his chest stitched and bandaged. Rakasa hovered over them both, bringing extra furs and bowls of tisane, until his partner threatened to hit him. Aras looked nearly asleep, but he was smiling.

  I had been busy about many tasks, but came now to sit with them. Some of the young men had been preparing food and now began to bring bowls to the wounded. I took a bowl, passed it to Aras, and accepted another for myself.

  He sipped the broth and sighed, leaning his head back against the trunk of the tree behind him. He said to me, “Most of your king’s people have made a different camp, three or four bowshots that way.” He nodded to the west and north. “Have you noticed the inKera aren’t here? Your father’s not here either. Nor Naroya inGeiro. Nor Royova inVotaro. The only warleader here is Garoyo.” He paused.

  I said nothing. I had not realized he had noticed that. I had been trying not to think of it.

  He did not seem worried. Only very tired. He asked, “Is dawn an appropriate time for your king to call for me? I have the impression that might be his intention.”

  Of course dawn was a very appropriate time. “The Dawn Sisters are lucky,” I reminded him. But I did not know if that luck would be enough. I asked, unable to hide my unease, “What will your uncle do if our king condemns you? That would be completely unjust and I know my father will argue against it
, but I think Royova would prefer to see all sorcerers dead.” I studied his face. “Do you know what our king will decide?”

  “I don’t. He’s changing his mind constantly. I’d say he agrees with whomever is speaking and never settles on an opinion of his own, but that doesn’t seem likely for a king everyone respects.”

  I thought about this. Then I said, “Koro inKarano was a poet before he became king. He would know every way described in every tale by which a man might baffle a sorcerer.”

  “I see. Well, this is a technique I haven’t encountered before, but it’s certainly effective.” He paused. Then he said gently, “I know which decision would be easiest. It’s all right, Ryo. Soretes won’t do anything, no matter what happens to me. It was his people who caused all this trouble, and he’s the king who raised his standard in a country not his own. He’ll want his surviving people returned unharmed if at all possible, and he’ll want to collect the dead. He won’t ask anything else and if your winter king chooses not to grant him those things, he will accept even that. He hasn’t the remotest standing to do anything whatsoever. He knows that.”

  “He knows it because you have told him so,” I said. “Over how great a distance can you speak to him?”

  His gaze stilled. He said after a moment, “You’re beginning to understand me too well. No, don’t say it. You’re right: given the correct conditions and a certain amount of assistance from a ... friend, I can speak to Soretes over quite a long distance. He’s beyond my range now, however. He’s been moving south since the fengol came down.” He paused.

  “A friend?”

  “A colleague, you might say. Don’t be concerned; she’s no danger to your people.”

  I was skeptical, but I said nothing, and in a moment he asked, “The war became bitter at the end. Will your king permit my people to return to the summer lands?” His glance took in the Lau soldiers, his own and those bearing other badges.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I’m glad you’re so certain, but I must admit I don’t understand your reasoning here, Ryo.” He looked at me and smiled. “No, I truly don’t. You’re taking it for granted that I understand customs that aren’t familiar to me at all.”

  I said patiently, “These warriors here saved your Lau when the quiet hammer came down. Each Lau who survived lives because a warrior protected him from the cold. If our king took their lives now, that would insult every warrior who choose to protect them. Our king would never do such a thing. Your people are safe.” I considered him. “Now will you rest?”

  He set his bowl aside with a steady hand, lay down where he sat, closed his eyes, and was instantly asleep. I glanced at Rakasa.

  “Yes,” the young man said. “Go to sleep.”

  I lay down beside Aras and also slept.

  -32-

  Our king’s tent was five sided, with patterns worked into the felt with porcupine quills and different kinds of leather, but three of the five sides had been rolled up despite the brittle cold of the dawn. The air was utterly still. Low in the sky, to the north, the three Dawn Sisters glowed. To the east, the sky had grown pale and the first edge of the Sun had appeared above the horizon. To the west, the Moon stood translucent in the brightening dawn. This morning held a great deal of good luck. I was glad the skies were clear.

  A huge spruce stood to each side of the king’s tent. The land rose up on all sides, many such trees spreading their great branches above this place. They were all ancient trees here, with bare trunks to many times a man’s height and great branches reaching out above that. These trees were too big and too old to make it a comfortable place. It was a place for awe, not for comfort.

  Our king sat just within the entrance of his tent, far enough forward to be seen from all sides. He was a big man, a little older than my father. His back was straight, his arms strong, his face round and calm, his eyes narrow and unreadable. His hair, grizzled with the tawny-white of his age, fell down his back in a thick braid. Koro inKarano had been king since long before I was born. My father was his second cousin and my mother had been a cousin of his first wife. I had seen him several times, but of course he had never noticed me. When I was Garoyo’s age and had won as much regard, he might consider me worth noticing.

  My father and the lords of five other tribes sat to his right. The warleaders sat among their warriors, where I sat also, beside Garoyo, and Aras next to me, wrapped in a long lynx-fur cloak someone had found for him.

  Darra inKarano sat at her father’s left hand. Siwa inKera, the wife of Hokino inKera, sat there as well. My sister was there too. She sat with her back straight and her hands folded neatly in her lap. She had put her hair into a complicated braid and seemed a little older than her winters, but still very young. She had not looked at me, aside from one quick glance. Her expression was solemn. Some other women sat to one side, a little apart from the men. No Lau was present other than Aras.

  Our king stood up and raised his hands. My sister rose gracefully to her feet and sang the song to the Dawn Sisters in her pure voice. I had never heard her sing anything but the descant of that song before, not like this, without pausing to repeat anything or try a different note here or there. She sang the full melody now, all by herself. Her voice soared until it seemed the light itself was singing. She held the last note for a long time, until it faded into a perfect silence that was like song itself. Then she sat down. She had not looked at anyone as she sang, and she did not look at anyone when she was finished. For a long moment, no one moved or spoke

  Then our king said in a quiet voice, “I think the lord of the inKera has something to say.”

  Soro inKera stood up. He stood very straight, not stooped at all, and I thought he looked younger now than he had two nights ago, though still older than his years. He said, “My brother’s son, Arayo inKera.” He sat down.

  A boy who had been sitting beside Hokino stood up. He made his way to the front, stopping a little distance in front of my father. He held out his hands, showing that his wrists were bound with a leather thong. Then he knelt, bowed his head, and said in a clear voice, “Lord, my father and my uncle offer me as tuyo, to end the enmity between our tribes.” His voice shivered and broke on the last word, and he cut it off sharply, flushing. I was aware of my own rapid heartbeat, and of how still Aras had grown beside me. Siwa inKera, Hokino’s wife and the boy’s mother, did not look at her son. She gazed away, into the forest, carefully serene, as a woman should be when warriors decide matters of that kind.

  My father stood up. He asked the boy, “How old are you, Arayo inKera?”

  “I have thirteen winters, lord,” Arayo answered, stammering a little, but not badly.

  “Have you no elder brothers?”

  The boy swallowed and then answered, without stammering at all, “Lord, my elder brother died yesterday.”

  My father scowled down at him. Then he scowled even more darkly at Hokino inKera, glared at Soro inKera, and snapped, “Very well! I accept the offer.” He drew his knife and said to the boy, “Come here.”

  Arayo inKera rose to his feet. He had to pause before he could walk forward. But he did it, and knelt again directly in front of my father. He made me ashamed. I doubted very much that he had disgraced himself by speaking bitter words to his father or his uncle when he had been told he would be offered as tuyo.

  My father bent, gripped the boy’s arm, and cut the thong. He said to him, “I do not know what kind of death will satisfy my anger with your uncle. While I consider, you will stay with the inGara. Present yourself to my eldest son and obey him as though he were your father.”

  The boy rose, came to Garoyo, and knelt by him. This close, I could see he was shaking. But his behavior had been very creditable throughout. My brother touched his arm to tell him he had done well, and the boy bowed his head, his shivering easing.

  My father did not sit down. He said, “You are not under any obligation to satisfy my curiosity, Hokino inKera, but I would like to know what you expect
ed me to do.”

  Hokino stood up and faced him. “Your own son lives because of the generosity of the man to whom he was given as tuyo. Everyone knows that tale now. Everyone knows you are a hard man, Sinowa inGara. But I have never heard anyone say you are unjust. I judged you by your son, whom I had met, and by what I would do in your place, and I told my brother I wished to take the risk.”

  My father glowered at him. “You wished to take the risk! I might have chosen otherwise! What would you have done if you had mistaken my temper? How would you have explained your mistake to your wife?”

  Siwa slanted a glance at my father, but she said nothing. She was as proud as her husband. I admired her calm.

  Hokino said, “No matter your decision, I would not have had to endure my wife’s rebuke.” He drew an illustrative hand across his stomach. “If I had been mistaken, then I would have asked you to let my death appease your anger. I think you would not have refused. But if you would not relent even then, my brother agreed he would humble himself in whatever way you required to beg your mercy for the boy.”

  My father’s glower eased. “Soro inKera agreed to that?”

  Soro stood up. He said in a level tone, “I am glad it is not necessary, but I would have done it. When your son and I were both captives of the Lau sorcerer, he told me that wherever he looked, he saw no enemies except the sorcerer. I ask you to forgive any insult I ever gave you, Sinowa inGara. I do not wish to be an enemy of your son’s father.”

  I blinked in surprise, but I was not so astonished I did not understand I should answer. Getting to my feet, I said, “Lord of the inKera, you are generous to remember those words and not my insolence to you. I apologize for my disrespectful words. I will take your blow if you wish.”

  Turning to me, Soro answered in the same level, unemphatic tone, “Ryo inGara, I would be ashamed to remember any insolent words you spoke to me.” He smiled, very slightly, but I saw the tuck in the side of his mouth. “I believe you were very tired at the time.”