Falling From the Tree (Darshian Tales #2)

by Ann Somerville

  “I’m sure. A man who could betray his own country, his own family, his wife, wouldn’t stop at concealing the truth from his son. He called you Karik, but your real name is Retis.” At Karik’s look of surprise, he elaborated. “It’s the name chosen for you, naming you after your esteemed great-grandfather. If Arman hadn’t torn you from your true family, it would have been given to you by her Serenity herself, in a naming ceremony at the palace. Instead, he called you after a servant. Shows you how much he values you, doesn’t it?”

  Karik blinked. He’d been told Karus was a much-loved teacher—were teachers servants too? It was clear servants held no importance in this culture if it was something shameful to be named for one, but teachers were revered in Darshian. He was horribly confused.

  His mother stroked his cheek. “Retis,” she said affectionately, and then something else.

  “She says she prayed for your return, and prays now you won’t abandon her again, since the gods have not seen fit to bless her with another child.”

  He didn’t know what to say. What Arman had done to her was so wrong—but the idea of staying in Utuk, in this house, under Mekus’s care, also felt wrong. He thought it best to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open his mouth and cause offence.

  Mekus didn’t seem to notice his lack of response, speaking to his wife in a conversation he didn’t bother to convey to Karik. His mother smiled again and patted his cheek. “Your education as a Prij will commence forthwith, Retis. We have engaged a tutor to instruct you in the language, and a tailor will come shortly to measure you for clothes befitting your station. We’ll also have to have that ridiculous hair cut.”

  “No!”

  His mother frowned and Mekus glared. “Are you refusing to have your hair cut in the correct manner, boy?”

  Karik’s hand went instinctively to the tail of his braid. “Pl-please...sir, i-it’s.... I c-can’t.”

  “And why not, pray?”

  How could he explain the importance of the braid to a Prij? “I just c-can’t.”

  “I don’t know what kind of behaviour they teach you in Darshian, boy, but in Kuprij, we expect children to obey their parents. If you were my son, I’d have you flogged for this insubordination!”

  Karik cringed, and his mother put her arm around him. She seemed to be reproaching her husband, who snapped something back, and then addressed Karik again. “Your mother begs me to remember you haven’t had the benefit of a decent upbringing, so I’ll overlook your impertinence this time. Don’t repeat it, boy, or you will be flogged, I promise you.” He strode over to the wall and pulled a cord. “You’ll be taken to your rooms. Don’t attempt to leave the house, or to contact anyone outside it. I don’t allow liberties in children, let me warn you now. But I believe in rewarding good behaviour too. Make your mother happy and you won’t find me ungrateful.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “You will address me as ‘senator’.”

  “Y-yes, senator. I-I’m s-sorry.”

  He shook his head and snorted with disgust. “Perhaps Arman knew how feeble-minded you are,” he muttered. “That stutter can be corrected and it will be, if I have any say in it.” He said something to his wife, and she nodded. “Your mother agrees. You will be taught not only to speak our language instead of that singsong chatter, but also to speak it without that disfigurement. The pure language of the Prij should be spoken with eloquence, not sputtered like a puling child’s cries.”

  Was it possible for this man to be any ruder, Karik wondered, even as he nodded as if to have his native tongue derided was perfectly acceptable. He wondered if they might forget about the hair if he managed to learn Prijian, but somehow he doubted it. How would he explain it to his parents? They’d said do anything...but to cut his hair...to remove the most important mark of his clan membership and to be treated as if he had died, was an appalling thing to do. If only he spoke Prijian now, he might be able to ask for his mother’s intervention, but he had no hope of using Mekus to make that request.

  The door opening and an elderly man entering, interrupted his unhappy musings. He seemed to be another servant, because he bowed low to both Mekus and Karik’s mother, but his clothes looked a little better than the others Karik had seen. He carried a long black cane, though he had no limp. “Retis, this is Mykis, my steward. He will take you to your room and answer any questions you may have.”

  Mykis bowed to him. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Tir Retis.”

  “T-Tir?”

  “That is your title,” Mekus explained, with a hint of impatience. “You are the son of a child of a senator. You are of the nobility, Retis. Make sure you remember that. Mykis, take him to his rooms, I wish to speak to Sei Mayl alone.”

  Mykis bowed. “Come, Tir Retis.”

  He stood aside and let Karik leave the room ahead of him, before closing the door. “This way, Tir Retis.”

  Karik wanted to yell at him to stop calling him that. This was a nightmare, surely. Only in a nightmare could everything he thought he knew be so thoroughly overturned. He glanced down at the hair bracelet Gyo had given him—surely he could rely on this, at least. Gyo’s friendship, his parents’ love—these were no lies. But if they didn’t know the person they claimed to love....

  He was taken a good way through the huge house, and gave up trying to remember where everything was. If he had to find his way on his own, he would become hopelessly lost. Finally Mykis took him to a large bedroom, rather brighter than the one his mother had been using. “This was Sei Prijus’s room, Tir Retis, before he left to marry her Serenity. Another is being prepared for your own use, but this should be comfortable.”

  Karik nodded mutely. The room, like the rest of the house, was rather elaborately decorated, and full—overfull—of ornate furniture. Mykis showed him where everything was. “Wh-where’s the wuh-wuh-washroom?”

  Mykis frowned. “You mean what the servants use? You will take your baths in this room, Tir Retis.” He indicated a large wooden cabinet. “That is the bath.”

  Karik gave up. No doubt the mystery would be cleared up, since people clearly did bathe in this society. Mykis continued his explanations. “Now, if you require anything, ring the bell. I am the only one of Senator Mekus’s staff who speaks Darshianese, so I will be your attendant, which is my honour, naturally,” he said with a fawning bow that made Karik very uncomfortable. “The hairdresser will be here in an hour or so.”

  “Th-thank you,” Karik said, although Mykis probably missed his sarcasm.

  Mykis bowed again. “Let me say how pleased I am that you have come home, Tir Retis. When your father took you from my mistress, we all grieved, and worried you would not survive, young as you were. I am glad to see his crimes didn’t go so far as to deprive you of life.”

  “You kn-knew him?”

  “I’ve been honoured to serve your esteemed mother for twenty years now. I had to watch how cruelly that dreadful man treated her. Thank the gods Senator Mekus took her under his protection, since she was cast out without child or any comfort at all. We all cursed Sei Arman, though I shouldn’t say it.”

  Karik narrowed his eyes at the insult—if anyone was going to curse Arman, it should be him. “S-Sei Ah-Arman is my f-father.”

  Mykis bowed again. “My apologies, I meant no offence. Forgive my speaking out of turn.”

  Karik remained unconvinced he was genuinely sorry for his words. “I wuh-want to be ah-alone now.”

  “Of course.”

  With another bow, Mykis left him, to Karik’s relief. He sat in one of the well-stuffed, carved wooden chairs and wondered how his life had become hell in such a short time. He touched his braid, and felt himself go cold at the idea of being violated that way—but why was he clinging to a false identity? For sixteen years, he’d been raised by two people not related to him, while his real father had visited him, never acknowledged him, and denied him the truth about his birth. He wasn’t Darshianese at all. He wasn’t even Karik. He was t
his person, Tir Retis, with a mother he didn’t know, a father who had abandoned him, and a stepfather who despised him for being the son of a traitor. What was Arman going to do when he came to Utuk? Lie again? Cause his mother yet more pain? Would he finally acknowledge Karik or would he continue to deny his son?

  His hands were shaking, so he clenched them. He could only really rely on himself, and in order to survive here, he would have to set aside one identity and assume one more acceptable to his hosts—or captors, however he wished to see them. Being the Darshianese Karik of Ai-Albon was no use to him here. He would become the Prijian Tir Retis of Utuk until time came to set that person aside, and who knew? Perhaps he would find he could finally be at home in his own skin. It was worth trying, at least.

  ~~~~~~~~

  The hairdresser exclaimed over the butchery of his hair, but Karik was glad he had done it. He’d wept a tear or two as he’d hacked at the root of the braid with the razor left out for him to shave his non-existent beard, but he had decided the only way he would not feel a victim in this situation was if he seized control of destiny, do before it was done to him. It was only hair, he kept telling himself. But he had kept a few long strands and twined it around Gyo’s gift, before laying the bracelet safely in a drawer. Gyo’s friendship was still sacred to him, whatever he called himself, and even if ‘Karik of Ai-Albon’ too, had to be put in the drawer with the bracelet, he would keep both safe until he knew what would become of him.

  When the hairdresser had done primping him, Mykis bowed and told Karik how handsome he looked, to which praise Karik was indifferent. His looks meant nothing to him—they had been the mark of his otherness all his life. They had betrayed the truth of his parentage to those who knew the truth, and led those who didn’t to make unfounded assumptions about him and his intelligence. He wished he’d been deformed in some way—something that might explain why Arman had cast him aside before he was old enough to have a personality to dislike, or a stammer to despise. But no, he had to believe he’d simply been a pawn in a war between two adults, both strangers to him. He meant nothing to Arman. That Reji and Jena loved him meant something for sure. But it wasn’t enough to dull the pain of that first rejection.

  As he was being dusted off, the tailor came to measure him, which took an interminable time. Only once that was done, with the man offering profuse rejoicings at the honour of being able to serve him, was he allowed to get dressed. Of course, he couldn’t put Darshianese clothes back on—he had to wear clothes belonging to the former occupant of the room. Mykis wanted to take his own clothes away, but Karik asked to keep them, since he feared they would just be burned. Clothes were precious commodities in Ai-Albon. Cloth had to be brought from Darshek, since the futik plant from which the best stuff was woven grew only in limited areas of the dry regions. New material was used sparingly, all clothing reused until it fell into pieces, finally being used to make paper. Karik had a vague idea of at least making sure the village got his clothes back to use, even if he never returned. He suspected he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he might about the issue, but he felt rather numb and cold inside. Which was good, because it let him remain calm as the last remnants of his Darshianese identity were taken away from him.

  His mother asked to see him once he was groomed to Mykis’s approval, and he was told to take his lunch with her out on the terrace beyond the bedroom. She looked delighted at his transformation. “Your mother says now you look like a nobleman’s son,” Mykis dutifully translated.

  Karik nodded to acknowledge the unwanted praise. He looked out on the gardens—they were almost as big as those of the academy, but these were purely ornamental. The climate here was even warmer than it was in Darshek, he noted. Gardeners would have a much easier time of growing plants than those in Ai-Albon.

  “Tir Retis? Your mother asks what you are thinking about?”

  “I-I wuh-was admiring the g-garden.”

  That apparently pleased his mother, who smiled, and then urged him to try some of the food set on the table. It was all heavily spiced, and tasted very odd to his palate—he didn’t care for it much, but forced himself to eat what was offered to him. If he was to endure weeks or more in this house, he had to get used to the food, and put thoughts of his mother’s plainer cooking out of his mind. If he compared everything with home, he would go mad. ‘Retis’ ate food like this, even if ‘Karik’ did not. But the part of himself he was trying hard to ignore was already homesick past bearing.

  Conversation was inevitably difficult, with his mother unable to speak his language and Mykis not concealing his impatience with his stammer particularly well. Still, his mother seemed delighted with the mere fact of his presence, and was very affectionate, touching his hair and his cheek many times, leaning over to hear his words, even though she didn’t understand them. He imagined she was making up for lost time, and wondered again at the cruelty of someone taking a child from a mother’s arms. It made Edi’s hate of Arman seem less irrational, and the stories about Arman killing a boy in cold blood now more credible. But against that, Karik had to set the fact Arman was apparently coming to Utuk to rescue him. Was that simply because of his grudge against his former wife?

  His mother insisted on taking him for a walk in the garden, her pale features protected against the sun by a hat and veil. Mykis’s constant presence was an irritant, but his mother seemed not even to notice him. Karik would have to get used to having an attendant around until he could speak Prijian, and he doubted that would happen very soon. But who knew how long he might have to be here? He might well have time to become fluent.

  She invited him to sit under a shady tree. It was definitely a pleasant place to be, much more pleasant than the house, which he found oppressive. Some distance from them, two gardeners toiled hard in the heat, and he felt sorry for them. He hoped they were able to stop and rest when they needed to. He was used to the sun, but the humidity here was strength-sapping, especially in the heavier, formal clothes expected of the noble class. His own class, he reminded himself. There was enough cloth in what he wore to clothe three people back in....

  No. He mustn’t. Do what he had to, his mother had said. His...Jena, had said.

  “M-Mother, wuh-why did Ah-Arman leave you?”

  Mykis hissed in a breath. “Tir Retis! Forgive me, but that’s tactless of you.”

  Karik started to apologise but then his mother clearly wanted to know what they were talking about. Mykis translated, and his mother’s expression became sad. She took Karik’s hand and looked into his eyes as she spoke. Mykis translated again. “She says she married your father when she was very young and innocent, and he was a dashing soldier. She was very much in love with him, but he only wanted her for her dowry and her family’s reputation to enhance his own. He rarely spent any time at home, preferring to carouse with his army friends, or the servants.”

  To his shock he saw she was crying again, and he hastily searched in his voluminous pockets for the clean handkerchief that had been pressed on him earlier. She dabbed her eyes under the veil and patted his hand by way of thanks. “And then that man was put in the house to work as a servant. Sei Arman’s previous manservant had been killed because Sei Arman had dragged the poor boy out onto a battlefield where he had no business being at all. Sei Arman immediately became besotted with this man, and threw over all his friends and family just for him, betrayed his country and left his home and his pregnant wife. He broke her heart, but when she was consoling herself with the joys of motherhood, he returned, took the child and turned her off. He gave her no reason other than that he planned to live in Darshian with his new lover.”

  His mother dabbed her eyes again. “Even though she had done nothing wrong, she had to return to her family in shame. People put rumours out about her. Fortunately, Senator Mekus, who had loved her since before she married your father, stepped forward and asked for her hand. But she has mourned your loss for all these years. She will never forgive Sei Arman for that. And neither wi
ll I,” Mykis added on his own account.

  Karik didn’t know what to think. It was a level of callousness he could scarcely credit in anyone, let alone Arman, even with what he knew now. He was suspicious of Mekus’s role in this story too. His parents were genuine in their hatred of the man, and he’d heard it from several sources and seen it himself, that he was utterly heartless. Yet he did seem to genuinely care for his wife, so maybe she was his saving grace? If the story was true, and he had no reason to doubt it, he could see no reason to excuse Arman’s behaviour. Kei too, must surely share some blame, for he must have known Arman was married. That Kei could be so selfish depressed him.

  His mother touched his cheek, and peered worriedly into his eyes. “Are you offended, Tir Retis? I know it’s your father, but you asked the question.”

  “N-no. I j-just...need to think.”

  Mykis passed on the comment and his mother nodded. “She understands. It must be a tremendous shock to you. If you want to ask any more questions, she’ll be happy to answer them. She has nothing to hide.”

  Mykis lifted his head—another servant was coming across the grass. “Ah, the tutor has arrived. Tir Retis, you need to attend to your lessons.”

  His mother insisted on kissing his cheek before he left to go back into the house, his heart heavy, and his thoughts all disordered by what he’d heard. Could it have been a misunderstanding? If it wasn’t, it looked as if Arman had managed to fool a lot of people for a very long time into thinking he was a decent human being. But what could he do about it? And more important, what was he going to do about the fact that two women now called themselves his mother? He couldn’t deny his natural mother’s claim because she had been unfairly treated all those years ago, but he loved Jena with all his heart. Assuming the role of a Prijian nobleman didn’t change that.