Falling From the Tree (Darshian Tales #2)

by Ann Somerville

  “It is in our society,” Nym said, looking stern. But then he smiled again. “Drink your tea, have a rest. Joti won’t be here today because of this lockdown, but I expect we’ll see him in the morning. I’m sure someone will come by to amuse you later. We can’t do anything much since the shop’s closed.”

  “Oh.” Great. A bunch of bored, well-meaning Darshianese. He’d have his ears talked off by the evening. But he smiled and said thank you, because he could be so much worse off. A bit of time learning a probably useless skill was a small price to pay for safety and shelter.

  Landing Softly: 6

  The lockdown continued into the next day, much to Nym’s intense disgust. By pleading as pitifully as he knew how, and promising with many solemn oaths not to lift an unnecessary finger, Jembis managed to persuade Nym’s father he really wouldn’t die just from getting dressed (in some of the dead boy’s clothes, one sleeve slit to make room for his splint, which made him nervous about causing offence) and being allowed to sit quietly watching other people work. His headache was a little better, and he managed some actual food, though not much. Nym’s mother frowned a little at the small amount he’d eaten, but he smiled at her and promised to eat more later, which pleased her and stopped her worrying about him.

  Jaika sat down to give him another lesson, and Nym must have said something to her because she adopted a much less motherly manner with him this time, and was more natural in her conversation. It made it easier to relax and enjoy her company, and though he was sure he would never remember the squiggles and lines that made up written Darshianese, he found himself warming to Jaika. She was such a generous girl, and though he had little experience of girls or women, he knew not all of them were as open and honest as she was. When the squiggles shifted around as his head started to hurt, it was easy to distract her by talking about his travels on the boat and the places he’d seen, and then her dreams for her own future. He didn’t think her parents would be too happy to learn her ambition one day was to go to Darshek and start a herb and plant trading business up there—he did his best not to encourage her, and hoped no one would blame him if she carried out her plan.

  It was nice being in the kitchen. Never having had a real home, he found this place warm and welcoming in a way he must have always longed for, though he never knew it. The only thing he had to compare it to was nights looking after the young animals, in the hold, on his own, all cosy and snug, cuddling a baby tewi or carcho, or even just feeding Cecu. With one of his temporary pets for company, he had been able to push the loneliness away a little, at least for a time. But it had only taken a glimpse of what a really contented life was like, like Karik had shown him, and now Nym’s family did, for the nameless ache inside him to grow and eat at him. He would be glad to be well again and his own master—but he didn’t know whether to thank Nym or hate him for giving him this taste of happiness.

  He said none of this to Jaika or any of them. He concentrated on her lesson and amusing her, because that would mean no one would get upset or sad, and that made life easier for him. Nym was in and out of the kitchen, as were his parents. They were all annoyed by the lockdown, but it was obvious there was still a lot to do. Jembis itched to be doing something useful himself, instead of playing the schoolboy. He was useless right now, he thought ruefully, attempting to flex the fingers of his broken arm and hissing at the pain.

  “Jembis, don’t do that,” Jaika said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Sorry. I forgot,” he lied, giving her a harmless smile. “Can we stop now? I’m full,” he said, holding his hand up to his forehead to indicate his head was stuffed.

  “Sure. Pity about your arm. It would be much easier if you could actually try writing—you’d remember the characters better then.”

  “Maybe when I’m healed up,” he said, carefully not reminding her he wasn’t staying.

  “That’d be good. I’m hungry. Lomi, have you made any sweet cakes?”

  “Yesterday, Jaika, over there—and just one each. I don’t know when I can get to the market again.”

  She went over the bin their housekeeper had indicated. “This is so stupid. The Prij are idiots. Oh...sorry, Jembis.”

  “It’s all right. Sometimes they are.”

  She gave him a smile along with the little cake. “I forget you’re a Prij. Isn’t that odd? I guess because you speak such good Darshianese. Do you speak Andonese too?”

  “A bit. Enough to manage in stables and the like.” None of it was really fit for her ears. He nibbled at the cake, enjoying not feeling sick, even if he wasn’t actually hungry. He only ate twice a day on the ship, and a lot of the time one of those meals was just tea. When he was on land, he tried to make up for it, but he found it hard to get used to the three meals a day this family took for granted.

  Jaika wanted to keep chatting, but as their lesson was over, she helped Lomi as she talked. All he had to do was sit, smile and nod from time to time, watching the two women working. This was nothing like Lisil’s kitchen—even the smell was different. The family might be fluent in Prijian and know their customs, but this was a completely Darshianese house, right down to the trousers both Jaika and Lomi were wearing, which the Prij thought meant Darshianese women were immoral.

  Not that he knew much about any of that. The sailors on the ship would head off to their brothels and inns and welcome houses, with much ribald joking about what they were to get up to, but not only did Jembis not have any inclination to join them, he had no money to either. Whores cost money, and he couldn’t see any point to spending money on women when there was fruit and sweets and treats for Cecu to buy instead. Anything to do with sex was expensive. Even his father, tight-fisted bastard that he was, had to spend money on presents for that damn Lisil, to keep her from scratching his eyes out. Lizards were a lot less trouble, all in all.

  At noon, the family drifted in for lunch. Nym gave him a friendly nod then went over to Lomi to ask if he could help. His father came over to Jembis and gave him a good looking over. “Not exerting yourself, are you, son?”

  “No, sir. Just sitting and drinking tea.”

  “Call me Letu,” the man said, smiling. “It’s too much like being back in the army, being ‘sir’.”

  “Were you an officer, si...Letu?”

  “Sure was—a lieutenant, in charge of the infirmary. But then I got caught by a pair of pretty eyes and that was my career over with,” he said, grinning at his wife, who smacked his arm for his cheek.

  “Listen to him. As if he wasn’t sick to death of the army and looking for something new. You can always go back to your soldiering, my lad,” she said. “We’d manage just fine without your grumpy backside, wouldn’t we, children?”

  He grabbed her around the waist and growled at her. “You don’t get rid of me so easily, wench,” he said, as Nym and Jaika laughed, and Lomi shook her head at them being idiots.

  Jembis was astonished. He’d never seen a married couple this playful or being so teasingly rude to each other. His surprise was misread. “Pa, you’re shocking the hells of Jembis,” Nym said. “Behave like a respectable married man, will you?”

  “And how would he know what that was like?” Nym’s mother said, jabbing her husband in the ribs with her elbow. That led to a brief wrestling match between the two of them, ending in a tender kiss.

  “Don’t mind them,” Nym said with a heavy sigh, as he set a plate of rolls down on the table. “Sometimes I feel I’m the most grown up member of this family.”

  “Elderly, I grant you,” his mother said tartly. “You should learn to have a little fun, son of mine.”

  “Can’t—got to be responsible for the five of us, haven’t I?” Nym didn’t seem to notice the mistake he’d made. “Are you tired, Jembis? Are you up to sitting with us?”

  “I’m fine. I’ve done nothing all morning.”

  “Some teacher you make, Jai-chi,” Nym teased. She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m going to work in the garden this afternoon
,” he said, turning back to Jembis. “You’re welcome to sit in the sun and watch.”

  “Oh, yes, please.” Fresh air, sunlight—had to be better than going back to the bedroom.

  Nym nodded, and they sat down to eat. Again, Jembis was struck by the sense of home that surrounded this family. Their grief was always there—the sad looks, the little slips of the tongue, forgetting that one of them was gone—but even with that loss, they were still a family. As he ate with them and listened to them, he felt a grief of his own, for the loss of something he had never had—a sense of belonging that sat easily on their shoulders because they took it for granted. The grief made him even more determined to get out of here as soon as he could. This wasn’t his home and never would be.

  ~~~~~~~~

  He’d got rather morose over lunch, and that invited a lot of fussing from Nym’s mother and sister which annoyed him, though he tried to hide it. Nym, to Jembis’s surprise, seemed to mind it more than they did, and got him out of the kitchen and into a chair in the garden in surprisingly little time. “Let me know if you get too hot or need anything,” Nym said rather curtly, then went off up to the shed to fetch tools.

  Nym was angry with him again, but Jembis couldn’t think what he’d done. He perched on the chair and tried to look as inoffensive as possible as Nym snipped flowers and dead leaves off one of the large bushes near the path. His movements started off angry and aggressive, but as Jembis watched, gradually his actions were transformed. He became calmer, more measured, and seemed to actually enjoy what he was doing. Jembis waited in silence, not wanting attention turned on him when Nym was still angry, but after a while, once Nym had calmed, he suddenly turned to Jembis and gave him a rueful grin. “I’m being a bastard again, aren’t I? It’s not you, it’s....”

  He sighed, and then pulled off his shirt, folding it carefully and laying it on one of the bushes out of the way. Jembis blinked—he had noticed, kind of, that Nym was a well-built young man, but he hadn’t realised that he was this well built. Nym himself was utterly unself-conscious as he stood with his broad, smooth chest bared, and wiped the slight sweat from his brow.

  “Hot,” he said briefly. “Going to be a scorching spring, if winter’s like this already.” He gave Jembis a slight smile. “This was Eido’s place. His and mine, really. He planned, I was muscle. I get...a bit worked up when I come out here.” He came and crouched near Jembis, giving him a perfect view of his long back. “I got you out of there because Ma and Jaika are starting to behave towards you like they would when Eido got sick. I don’t want you to be a substitute for him like that. It’ll just hurt them and hurt you.”

  He pulled out some weeds around one of the flowering plants, and seemed to ignore Jembis then, though Jembis knew he wasn’t really. “I don’t mind,” he said slowly. “I mean, I’ll be gone in a few weeks, and if it helps them—”

  “It doesn’t. When you go, it’ll be the same, only worse because they’ve bonded to you.”

  “Like baby tewis. You can’t breed them if you get them too used to people.”

  Nym blinked. “Uh...yes, I guess that’s what it is. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

  “No,” Jembis said with a shrug. “Makes sense. I don’t belong here. What’s that plant you’re working on? Is it Darshianese?”

  Nym gave him an odd look, then answered the question. Jembis kept firmly on the topics of plants, and then, as the conversation moved on, onto animals and animal illnesses. He didn’t let on how much Nym’s words had hurt, even if it did make sense, and he tried to ignore the ache in his heart like he did the one in his head and his arm. It wasn’t like he wanted to stay. He just...didn’t like being reminded that he couldn’t.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Nym had to reassess their visitor almost minute by minute lately, and right now, he was grateful Jembis’s protest that he wasn’t a child, was quite true. The lad had understood Nym’s own rather confused reasons better than he had himself, and passed over the issue with a grace Nym would have found hard to scrape together in the same situation. It made things easier than he’d expected. Maybe the next few weeks wouldn’t be the trial he’d assumed they would be, if Jembis showed this kind of maturity. Now if Nym himself could manage to show a bit more maturity, they would get along fine.

  He was determined the garden wasn’t going to be a place where he was afraid to be, but gods, it was hard. Every leaf, every plant, reminded him of Eido, and even Jembis, sat in a chair behind him, gave echoes of his brother’s presence. That was why he had them talking in Prijian, and got Jembis onto the subject of animals—on which he really was amazingly knowledgeable—because neither of those things were particularly associated with Eido. Plants were the thing on which Eido had been an expert. Half the books in the house library were his, and he had a stack of letters from all over Darshian from people who could tell him more about this or that herb or plant. Nym had them all stored carefully in a wooden chest in his room. He felt he would know he was getting better when he could bear to open that box again.

  Guiltily he realised after an hour or so that he’d not really given any thought to Jembis’s welfare, but when Nym asked, the lad insisted he was fine. He still looked dreadful with all the bruising, and was clearly in pain, but he was brighter than he’d been over lunch. Nym had felt himself responding to that just as Ma and Jaika had, and it was what made him realise the danger.

  He might have been imagining it, but he fancied Jembis was as troubled by their behaviour as Nym had been. None of it was easy, for any of them, but they had promised to look after the boy and were committed now, so no point in trying to reverse that decision—and already it was having a beneficial effect on Jaika. Nym had no problem with her teaching Jembis, because she hadn’t done that with Eido. But nursing him and fussing over him, offering him treats and so on—no, that had to stop. Jembis wasn’t Eido. Eido wasn’t coming back.

  “Nym?”

  “Uh—what?” He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “You were getting upset.”

  “I’m fine,” he said curtly, but then made the effort to smile. “Just being out here.... Do you have a special place to go? Somewhere which means a lot to you?”

  “No...I mean, I really love going to the Darshek menagerie, but...that’s not really my place. I don’t have anywhere that’s mine. I guess most of the sailors would call the ship their place, but I never really felt like that was mine.”

  Nym wondered how anyone could survive the life Jembis had—it sounded excruciatingly lonely. “What about the temples and things? Isn’t that important to you?”

  Jembis shrugged. “Never been in a temple. Father used to pay a priest to bless the ship sometimes, if we’d had repairs or we were sailing to Andon, but temples are for the rich folk. You don’t have temples.”

  “No, but we don’t believe in your gods. Don’t you have any family?”

  The lad looked uncomfortable. “My aunt used to live in Garok but I haven’t seen her in ten years. I don’t know if she’s even still alive or if she’d welcome me. I was trying to get there the day that I...um, well before I came here. I might try to find her when I leave, but I might just get a job on a boat instead. I need a job.”

  Nym was suddenly energised. “We can help,” he said eagerly. “Pa’s got contacts in Garok—we could find out if she’s there.”

  “Really? Would it be a lot of trouble?”

  “No trouble—just some letters. Give me all the information you have and Pa can make enquiries.”

  “Thanks. My aunt’s really nice,” Jembis said wistfully. “But it was a long time ago.”

  “I’m sure she’d help you,” Nym said, relieved by this information. The boy had somewhere to go—so Nym didn’t have to feel guilty or worry about what would happen to him when he left.

  And not feeling guilty meant he could start to see Jembis as a guest, not an imposition, and even enjoy his company too. He wasn’t a strain, really. He didn’t chatter like J
aika, and what he did have to say was sensible. He seemed to be honestly interested in Nym’s work too, though he confessed he knew little about plants beyond the few herbs he used for medicinal purposes with his animals, or as feed.

  Hardly surprising if he’d spent most of his life on a boat or in ports of one kind or another. It was a minor miracle the boy wasn’t as ignorant as many of the poor who lived in Utuk, but Nym supposed his own intelligence and wit made up for the lack of opportunities. Shame about the reading, but even that might be remedied by the time he left. Maybe Jembis might not have such a bleak future as Nym had feared, and he was glad of that. Eido would have been pleased about it.

  “Ah, young Nym, Jembis—not following my instructions, I see.”

  Nym turned to greet Joti. “Lockdown’s over, then?”

  “Yes, a few minutes ago. Can’t stay, but I thought I’d better look in on our patient. Jembis, I could have sworn I told you to stay in bed.”

  Jembis looked rather hunted, so Nym saved him. “Cleared it with Pa, Joti. He’s only moved from chair to chair, and only today. He’s looking good, don’t you think?”

  Joti wasn’t content to take Nym’s word for it, and took the time to examine Jembis thoroughly, checking his eyes, his pulse, asking him about how much pain he was in, how clear his vision was and so on, before he straightened up.

  “Yes, you’re doing well,” he admitted. “But I think you’ve had enough sun and exertion for one day. I recommend you go inside and rest, young man.”

  “Yes, sir. Everyone’s been really kind to me.”

  Joti smiled at him. “There are kind people in the world, my boy, and this family is one of the best you could wish for. Now, let’s get you inside and then I really must go.”

  Nym went back in with Joti, and once Jembis was settled back on the bed with a fresh mug of tea, he took the healer into the hall. “Heard anything about what caused the lockdown this time?”