“Meki came to see me today,” Kei said as they walked along.
“Oh?” Arman was surprised. Kei was always a little wary of the Ruler, although Lord Meki was unfailingly complimentary about Kei, and it was in no small part due to his patronage that Kei was the senior master of medical studies at the academy. That Kei was not the senior master of the academy itself was simply because Kei did not wish to be. The post was his for the taking—it had been held by a succession of temporary officers for years. But Kei didn’t want that level of responsibility, and still wanted to be as much a hands-on healer as he could. Arman thought the decision was right for his lover, and agreed with it. Lord Meki didn’t. “Pestering you about the position again?”
“No, not this time. He was pestering me, though.”
Arman glanced at his lover, and was surprised to see Kei’s sensual lips pressed into an uncharacteristically annoyed line. “Want me to ask him to back off?”
“No. I want you to explain why you didn’t tell me you’d been offered the position of Ruler.”
Ah. “Well, because I had no intention of accepting, that’s why. I didn’t want to discuss something with you which was never going to happen. I thought it would only annoy you.”
Kei stopped and turned to him. “Arman,” he said gently. “You can discuss anything with me. Don’t hide things from me, I don’t like it. Apart from anything else, Meki thought your refusal was because of my objection, and it was rather embarrassing to have to admit I knew absolutely nothing about it.”
“I’m sorry, truly. I’ll tell him—but I honestly don’t know why he’s bothering you at all when they’ve already put Jiv in place.”
Kei walked on. “Can’t you guess? He actually wants to retire. He’s having heart problems, though I shouldn’t tell you that as it’s confidential. But he won’t go willingly until the person he wants is in post. That’s you.”
“I can’t. For all kinds of reasons, only some of which are to do with you.”
Kei sighed. “This is what you have me for, you great nitwit. You could just tell me about this stuff. Look, you’ve been his right hand man for fifteen years. Everyone knows you’re able and well-suited. So why not?”
“Because I don’t deserve it, because I’m a Prij, because it might cause a stink in Utuk, and because I don’t see enough of you as it is, damn it. We only came here in the first place more or less because Meki bullied me into it. I won’t let him do that again. We do enough. We both do.”
“Hmmm.” Kei walked on a little further in silence, but Arman could tell he was only marshalling his forces, not abandoning the field. “The ‘don’t deserve’ is utter rubbish, you know. You’ve given this country fifteen years of loyal, voluntary service, and you brought peace even before that.”
“Whatever I’ve done can never be enough. Your country brought me you. I could never repay Darshian for that.”
Kei glanced at him and gave him a sweet smile. “You’re such a romantic. Loopy as a crazed thurl, but romantic. All right, then the fact you’re a Prij. Except you’re not and haven’t been for sixteen years. So that’s a nonsense of an argument.”
“You know perfectly well that for a lot of people, especially those in the dry region, I’m a Prij and will be to the day I die. A fancy bit of paper makes no difference. And a lot of people still remember me from the war.”
“My love, I remember you from the war. So what? You threatened to cut Seya’s throat and she’s one of your firmest supporters and a good friend. I think you think it matters more than it does.”
“Tell that to Karik, then. The boy doesn’t even speak Prijian, had a braid as long as anyone’s, and yet his childhood companions still insult him. If he is tormented for the colour of his skin, how much more will I be distrusted when my skin covers my much darker crimes?”
Kei made a rude noise of derision. “I think Meki rates your intelligence too highly sometimes. All right—Utuk. Who gives a damn what that crazy bitch thinks? Kuprij needs us a lot more than we need her. Besides, did it occur to you that Meki thinks it might actually strengthen bonds between our countries?
“Yes, of course, because appointing an infamous traitor to the highest office in the land is a perfect way to curry favour with a vain, stupid woman who still hates my guts. Sometimes I think I rate your intelligence too highly.”
Kei stuck his tongue out at him, which made Arman smile. Kei looked about five years old when he did things like that. “Kita won’t live forever, and there’s a lot of Darshianese in Kuprij now, a lot of Prij here. Things have moved on from the war.”
“Not enough. Anyway, what about the fact I would never see you? Or doesn’t that matter to you?”
Kei suddenly gave Arman the lamp pole to hold, and while he was still startled by the abrupt action, Kei took advantage of his confusion to seize him firmly and kiss him breathless, certainly not something Arman would complain about—although he had to remember not to drop the lamp. When he was done, Kei pushed him back firmly. “Any more idiotic questions?”
Arman grinned. “No.” He offered Kei the lamp pole, but Kei indicated with an impatient flick of his hand that Arman could damn well carry it now. “But the fact remains that the job really needs more time than I’m prepared to sacrifice away from you. There’s a reason Meki lives in the House, you know.”
“So we live in the House. That solves that problem.”
“Kei, no. You’ve got your library and your garden, there’s Pira—what about inviting our friends over? Do you imagine Vikis and Kesa will enjoy eating in the Rulers’ House? I can’t see it.”
“It’s very simple. Some of the week we stay at the Rulers’ House, some of it at ours. And when we’re at ours, we make a rule we don’t do Ruler business. You know Nera arranges things that way.”
“Meki is a lot more active than Nera is. We don’t have children or other ties. That’s one of the reasons the damn man exploits me so much.”
Kei still looked serene. “All I’m saying is that your objections can be worked through. All you have to do is decide whether you want the job or not, same as me with the academy job. I didn’t want it, so the rest was easy.”
“Well, I don’t want this, so it’s also easy.”
Kei turned to him. “Are you sure?” he asked quietly, slipping his arm around Arman’s shoulder.
“Yes. For now. Meki’s not going to retire while Jiv is still newly in place, heart trouble or no—he’s already told me that, and I trust his word. Let me think about it more, but it won’t be an issue for a few months, and in that time, I intend to do all I can to find a candidate that he, or at least the other Rulers and the rest of the country will accept. They’ll have to accept someone else if I won’t do it, and I still believe, for all the reasons you have so firmly rejected, I’m the wrong person for the job. Although,” he said with a smile, making Kei stop walking and tilting his head for a kiss, “there’s something very tempting about you having to call me ‘my lord’ again.”
Kei grinned against Arman’s mouth. “You’re forgetting how disrespectful I am. Besides, I’ll only call you ‘my lord’ if you call me ‘Master’.”
“You’ve been my master for all these years and you know it, brat.” Just then, there came a fresh spatter of rain. “Come on, Pira will be wondering where we’ve got to.”
Pira was indeed wondering, and scolded them a little for their tardiness, but Arman could tell she was pleased they had turned up. He wasn’t surprised. They were always careful not to leave her isolated or ignored for any time at all, if they could help it.
The day before, she’d come down with a cold, and her symptoms had worsened since this morning. Seeing her flushed, fever-bright eyes and hearing her wheezing, which sounded alarming even to Arman, Kei insisted on dosing her with uyris flower tea and getting her to bed early, bringing her supper on a tray and generally fussing, which probably did Pira more good than any medicine. It left them alone to get their own meal in the kitchen, a good hearty
bean soup with some of Pira’s best bread. “I think we should cancel dinner with Reis and the others, and I’m going to work from here tomorrow,” Kei said. “If you could tell them—I don’t like the sound of her cough.”
“Of course. If you have to go in the next day, I’ll arrange to stay.” That won him a brilliant smile. “What, I can’t care about her too?”
“No, I was just remembering how good you are with sick people, however rotten a patient you make.”
Arman mock-scowled at him. “Cheeky creature.”
Of course Kei was unmoved by his reprimand and only grinned back at him. “Oh, I forgot to mention that Jena spoke to me just before you got to the House.”
“Oh? A problem with Reji?”
“No, with Karik. Arman, he’s pretty determined to get some answers now.”
“Ah.” The boy was nearly sixteen. Arman supposed it was only natural.
Kei sat back in his chair to look at him. “You’ve had all this time to think of a response, and ‘ah’ is the best you can come up with?”
“It’s better than the truth, that’s for sure. Karik won’t be happier for knowing who his parents really are and you know it.”
“Yes. But he doesn’t. It didn’t help Gyo learned the truth about his father and told Karik. The poor boy is imagining the worst, Jena says. The gossip in the village has been pretty lurid from time to time and she’s sure he’s heard more of it than he lets on. So what are you going to say to him? They’ve told him to ask you this time.”
“Have they now? That’s helpful.”
Kei gave him a wry look. “Oh come on, that’s really not fair. It’s not like they could ever have concealed the fact he’s adopted even if they wanted to. And everyone knows you brought him there. They kept their promise to let it be you to tell him. Now you have to.”
“And what if he decides to run off and join that disgusting pair?”
Kei laid his hand over Arman’s and looked him straight in the eye. “If you decide for good, defensible reasons you can’t tell him, then I’ll support that and so will they. But to deny Karik the truth because you don’t trust him.... Well, I think that’s unjust. If he’s that flighty, he might just run off to Utuk and look for answers anyway, and who knows what would happen to him if he did? My knowledge of Karik tells me he’s unlikely to do that. He’s a very loving, thoughtful boy. He is not his father, or Mayl. He’s very much Reji and Jena’s child. Apart from his looks, I can see nothing of the others in him at all, nor sense it.”
“Well, I need to think about it. We still have weeks before they get here. I’m not sure I approve of Jena wasting Neka’s time to pass on such trivial personal messages. Neka has a lot to do without that.”
“Oh, don’t be an old curmudgeon,” Kei said, irritably. “Jena and Neka are friends and this isn’t trivial. Karik’s happiness is as important as yours or mine or theirs. I’d have thought you’d have appreciated the warning.”
“I do, I’m sorry. It’s just that Neka has been doing so much for us lately—”
“Yes, because she’s a friend of ours too. You can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to. Jera would just throw anyone who tried into the ocean. Now stop being grumpy and fetch me some more soup.”
Arman raised an eyebrow at the lordly tone even as he got up to refill their bowls. “Oh, yes, sir, your highness, Master Kei.”
“You know you’re making fun of someone who can make your life a living hell if I get the dosages right, don’t you?”
~~~~~~~~
Karik spent as much time as he could with his parents until the time came to leave. Pa didn’t question his sudden clinginess at all, and it seemed to Karik that Ma and Pa were unusually unwilling to let him—or each other—out of their company for very long. It almost made him wish he was small enough to sleep in their bed again for those three nights.
Since Pa was housebound and Ma still had her patients to care for, Pa took on what chores of hers and any cooking he could manage, which wasn’t much. Karik usually did quite a lot of the cooking, but since he was doing Pa’s job, Pa had offered to take on the burden. He wasn’t a great cook, he freely acknowledged that, but Ma wasn’t a lot better. Karik cooked better than either of them because he’d spent more time watching Meis and Sira preparing meals. He didn’t mind that food was rather indifferent if his parents made it—if all he wanted was good cooking, he would go to Gyo’s grandmother’s house, or Myka’s, or Sira’s.
Somehow meals were just more fun at home, with Pa teasing Ma and being chided for his naughtiness, or Ma talking to Karik gravely about the latest thing Karik had discovered, like the secret places the lizards laid their eggs, seeing moths emerge from their cocoons, or how he had watched thurls attack and take down a snake hundreds of times their own size and weight. Several times he’d told his mother about plants even she hadn’t heard of, and she had asked him to show them to her, whereupon she’d carefully collected the seeds and dried the plants to send to Kei in Darshek. She’d told him many times to never give up looking at things that everyone else said were well known or unimportant. “It’s what people think they see, that they miss,” she’d told him more than once.
So this last night before travelling, as he helped Pa prepare the meal, he wasn’t that surprised when his mother came back from visiting Fedor and, setting her basket aside, gave Karik a small parcel. “It’s a notebook and a supply of pencils,” she said. “For you to keep a diary if you want, or to make notes, or draw pictures of what you see. I want to know all about it, Ka-chi, everything. I want to know what you see.” She kissed his forehead. “If anyone can see something new on that trail, it’ll be you.”
“Damn right,” Pa agreed. “You’ve the sharpest eye in Ai-Albon. Maybe even in Darshian, son.”
Karik flushed with pleasure. Ma revealed the rest of what was in her basket. “Sira’s made you a new coat—that one you’ve been wearing is getting terribly ragged. She’s going to mend it and give it to Keiji. Try this one on.”
He wiped his hands and let her slide it on his shoulders. It was made of urs beast and jombeker wool, jombeker leather on the shoulders and at the elbows, and lined with good, sturdy cloth. It was a man’s coat, no doubt about it. Pa and Risa each had one like it—loose fitting, waterproof and durable, perfect for anyone having to work hard in all weathers. There was room for him to grow into it but it still fitted well.
“Oh yes, very good,” she said with approval, as she made Karik turn so she could see the fit. “If only I sewed better than I do, I’d have made it myself. How does it feel?”
“Ni-nice. Thank you.”
She hugged him. “Well, thank Sira, really. You’re all packed, I hope. I’ve got a medical kit for each of you, and you’ve read Kei’s guide before, and watched me—”
“Jena, love, Karik will be fine,” Reji said, touching her face and making her look at him. “The worst that will happen is that he might die of boredom. He’s got two experienced men with him, and he and Gyo are such sensible lads. When I think how little thought I put into it the first time I went off on my own, it’s a wonder a carcho didn’t take me the first night I camped out.”
“Oh, gods, carchos.”
Pa slipped his arm around Ma. “Stop it. I’ve never had anything attack me in all this time. Fully-grown beasts are too much work for them unless they’re desperate, and the hunting’s been good this season, Peit says. Karik and the others will sleep in the wagons if there’s any risk. Bean sacks make damn fine beds, you know,” he added, winking at Karik.
“I d-don’t muh-mind bed r-rolls.”
“No, but if there’s a bean sack handy, take it. Risa certainly will. He knows all the tricks now.”
Ma took the pot into which Pa and Karik had been putting vegetables and beans over to the stove, and added some oil and a little water before putting the lid on to let the food steam. It would take half an hour or so to cook. Karik started to clean up the table, but Ma took the cloth from him. “You si
t and talk to your father, Ka-chi. You’re going to be working hard over the next few weeks. Enjoy the rest while you can.”
Surprised and touched, Karik took his seat again. “Nervous about going?” Pa asked.
“No, just wuh-wish you were c-coming.”
“I wish I was too, but you like Misek, don’t you?” Karik nodded. “Then it’s all right. The first trip’s the hard one—after that it’s easier.”
Karik didn’t know what to say to that, and could only look down at the wooden tabletop. He heard Ma speak. “Maybe Karik doesn’t want to be a trader, Reji.”
Pa didn’t answer, but when Karik dared glance up at him, he found his father looking at him kindly. “I wasn’t making any assumptions, son. With your brain, it would be a terrible waste.”
“B-but you’re smuh-smart too, Pa.”
“Not like you. I’d love you to work with me, nothing would be better—but only if it was what you really wanted. Otherwise, just think of it as a way to see new things, and maybe you and your Ma can come with me from time to time up to Darshek.”
“G-Gyo wants to b-be a trader.”
His father was surprised. “Does he now? Maybe when you two get back, I’ll have a word with him and his Pa. I’m sure Mis thinks the same as me, that he wants his boy to do what makes him happy.”
Karik’s spirits rose—not only did he not have to pretend he was interested in a trade in which he had none, he might have just handed his best friend his wish. “Thanks, Pa.”
Pa ruffled his hair. “So now you know I haven’t got your future mapped out, you can relax and enjoy this. You’re doing me a huge favour, you know. When you get back, I’ll catch you a dozen merkos, if you want.”
“Merkos?” Ma said, one eyebrow raised. “Not in here again, certainly not a dozen.”
“N-not a dozen, Ma.” After all, the biggest litter he’d ever seen had been six babies.
Falling From the Tree (Darshian Tales #2) Page 6
