by Kirby Crow
Peysho strode past them as they sat in the orange light of dusk and motioned for Kio to follow him. Kio went without a word and Scarlet stared after the two men, biting his lip.
“Curious about them, are you?”
Scarlet stared at the ground and said nothing. There were questions he wanted to ask, but they seemed scandalous when he thought about saying them. He settled for a shrug. “They make a... comfortable pair,” he allowed. “Or they seem to.”
“What an unromantic lot you are,” Liall observed.
Scarlet sensed Liall was laughing at him again. He could do that without cracking a smile. “Why do you say that?”
“Comfortable, sensible, suitable,” Liall quoted. “Have you never heard of passion?”
“Passion never put crops in the field.” It was a saying of Scaja’s.
“Never a Byzan field, at any rate. I’m sure of it.”
Scarlet had no idea what Liall was on about, but then, he rarely did. The man had a mind like a weevil’s path, all crossings and curls. “All I meant was they seem easy with one another.”
“They are that. They’re both former soldiers. Peysho will make a good atya when I’m gone, and Kio will help him.”
Scarlet’s head jerked up. “Gone? Where are you going?”
He may have said it too quickly, for Liall gave him an arch look. “Why do you want to know?”
“I just... I don’t want to know,” Scarlet said stubbornly. “If it’s a secret, keep it to yourself. What do I care?”
“As you said, you are going to live in Ankar.” Liall was staring at him blandly.
Scarlet scowled. “I thought these were your people.”
“My people.” Liall pursed his lips, seeming to mull the notion over. “I am their leader, if that’s a distinction you care to make. But, in many ways, I suppose I am a Kasiri by now.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“I’ve been called back to my homeland.”
“Where’s that?”
“Too far away for little Byzans ever to have heard of it,” Liall assured, which annoyed him more. Liall grinned, but it seemed strained to Scarlet. “It is Norl Udur, as has been rumored, and I will get there by traveling to the port of Volkovoi across the Channel. I told you the word is a wide place. Where I come from, all men are giants like me and the land is wrapped in ice.”
Scarlet could well believe that. “I have trouble seeing you as a journeyer.”
“Kasiri are journeyers.”
“That’s different.”
Liall chuckled a little. “Meaning thieving nomads are not the same as noble pedlars? You don’t say much, Scarlet, and even when you do, what you don’t say could fill a book.”
Ha! Talk about pots and kettles. “When are you leaving?”
“In the morning.”
Scarlet strove for a light tone, shaken for no reason he could name. “There’s to be no celebration for the departing chieftain?”
Liall shook his head curtly. “It would not be proper after we have lost so many men. Also, it would mark a division between my rule of the krait and Peysho’s, and I don’t want to weaken his new stature by comparison.”
Scarlet tossed the ends of the stick away, not knowing what to say. Just then, Kio whistled from across the camp, calling Liall to a spot where several men were gathered to right an overturned wagon. Liall stood up and slapped his palms together.
“Ready to get your hands dirty?”
Scarlet snorted and followed him. Hands dirty, indeed. Seven strong men had their hands knotted in ropes slung over the wagon’s top on the other side of the camp, ready to pull. Liall took his place beside Kio and handed Scarlet a rope.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he said, taking his place beside the men and bracing his legs.
Torva, an elder tribesman with a scarred nose, laughed at him. “Kasiri have been traveling by wagon and yurt since Deva left the Otherworld to walk among mortals. What would you know about it?”
Liall was watching Scarlet with interest. Scarlet stole a quick peek under the wagon, saw the angle of the wheels, and then straightened. “At least one wheel will break on the felled side if we right the wagon this way,” he judged. “Maybe both.”
The Kasiri laughed and Peysho sang out a loud note. The men heaved and pushed. Minutes later, Scarlet was dusting off his hands and the Kasiri were casting him sheepish looks.
Kio walked over and gifted Scarlet with one of his rare smiles as he slapped dirt from his breeches. “One wheel snapped, the other cracked.” He chuckled. “The pedlar knows his wagons.” Kio watched Liall standing beside a knot of men, pointing and giving directions as Peysho listened with his customary solemnity that was never far from amusement.
“So,” Kio said casually. “You’ll be following the Wolf, then?”
Scarlet stared. “Why would I do that?”
Kio only smiled knowingly, as if he knew a secret, and left just as Liall walked up. The uppermost rim of the sun was sinking below the horizon and its dying light cast a final reddish glow on the mountain peaks all around them.
“This is your last night with the Kasiri,” Liall said. “Mine, as well. Will you have dinner with me? I have more of that scented che you like.”
His gaze was unreadable and his neutral words gave Scarlet nothing to interpret. He swallowed in a dry throat. Not only was Liall his host, he was his sister’s savior, and on the surface it was only a dinner invitation. Still, he thought nervously, he wants more than company for a meal. He knows it and so do I and... gods, why must he be so plain that all he wants from me is to get between my legs? Why does he ask so damned little?
It occurred to Scarlet then that Liall might not even like him at all, but might be only enamored of his face and the prospect of exploring his body, and all Liall’s recent kindnesses were but an extension of that lust. The unexpected hurt of that possibility rendered Scarlet speechless, and he stammered a clumsy refusal.
Liall’s expression went hard. “Never mind,” he said gruffly. “I recall I have some instructions to go over with Peysho before I leave. Good night, Scarlet.”
“Good night,” Scarlet replied. He did not know whether to be relieved or sad, and he retreated quickly back to Annaya’s yurt, wondering if he should have said yes. Would it have been so terrible to have dinner with Liall? Even if he had wanted more, would that have been so bad? How could he judge, having no comparison?
When he returned to Annaya’s yurt, there were sounds coming from the interior that he recognized. Traveling in the caravans, he had heard such sounds coming from tents where men and women slept together. Sometimes, when the night was still and the wind had died down in Lysia, these same sounds used to come from Scaja and Linhona’s door.
Scarlet stood beside the short row of steps leading to the yurt and tried to summon his outrage. This was his only sister, an honored Hilurin virgin, not some Morturii ghilan whore or Aralyrin kitchen scut that a blacksmith’s apprentice could use before marriage. It seemed he stood there for a long time, trying to gather enough anger to thrust his way inside and drag Shansi off her, throw him into the dirt and beat him with his fists for the insult.
In the end, he went to seek a spot by the large central campfire where he could huddle in his coat against the chilly spring night until he estimated enough time had passed. Rage had failed him. What did it matter? They might have both been killed in the attack. They had lost everything, including even a hut to live in. Annaya’s body could have been nothing more than charred bones under the wrack of Lysia, and here he was worrying over her virtue like the hidebound Hilurin he had fought never to be.
At least she is following her heart, he thought sullenly. When have I ever done that?
So thinking, Scarlet found a wagon wheel to set his back to and tried not to notice that some of the Kasiri were peering at him in curiosity. Some stared at him outright. A lined woman bearing a wooden ladle, perhaps the official tender of a row of iron pots bubbling near the
fire, glanced at him several times before she approached him boldly and squatted beside him. Her gray hair was like cobwebs about her face as she pointed the ladle toward Liall’s platform on the other side of the camp.
“The Atya’s yurt is there,” she informed loudly.
“I see it.”
“Much warmer in a man’s furs than out here on the cold ground,” she said slyly, her volume dropping.
“Thank you, woman,” he retorted, staring her down.
She smirked and threw a blanket at him. “My name is Eraph, little Byzan. Torva’s mate, and I was killin’ Bledlanders when you were a squirt in yer da’s britches, so don’t be callin’ me woman like I were your servant.” Her old eyes gleamed. “Were I but younger, the Wolf might set his eye on me. You can be sure I’ll not be freezing in my own skin if I can have the flesh of another warming my bones.”
He drew the blanket up to his chin, saying nothing, and Eraph sighed as if he were a fool too ignorant to speak to. She left him alone to bear the inquisitive looks of the Kasiri until morning.
Two Paths
MORNING RUMBLED IN with a sound like thunder. Carts, Liall thought, his eyes closed. Then, in his half-sleeping state, vaguely realized it really was thunder. A spring storm was over the Nerit. From the pattering sounds on the oiled walls of his yurt, it was a thin rain that would not last.
Masdren, Scarlet had said. A man old enough to be his father, he had taken care to add. Liall brooded on his decision not to answer back that he himself was old enough to be Scarlet’s grandfather. Hells, was he that transparent? He told himself that he should be glad the pedlar had a plan for the future and some place to go to, but he could not summon that much grace. The port of Ankar was a filthy place and he could not convince himself that Scarlet belonged there. It was a sluttish city with a bhoros or ghilan on every third street, a harbor full of mercenary bravos, a large garrison of brutal Morturii soldiers, and a thriving slave trade in the great souk. Scarlet was not a total innocent, but he had a virtue about him that no amount of traveling had yet touched. Making a home in such a jaded place would ruin him, and Liall found he had come to care very much about that.
Would I remain in Byzantur if he agreed to stay with the krait? he wondered. He had toyed with the idea, but he could not forget the sting he felt when Scarlet immediately stated an intention to live in Ankar. What would I do if he stayed? he asked himself with amazement. Would I ignore the summons, turn my back on my true people?
Well, Scarlet was most assuredly not staying, so the matter was decided for him. It was also good fortune that Scarlet had refused his invitation last night.
His conscience would not allow him such blatant self-deception. It sneered at him: Good fortune? Your phallus hasn’t known the touch of any hand save yours in six months.
Peysho came in while he was still under the furs and wandering in his thoughts. The enforcer grinned to see him awake. “Have I interrupted?”
“Oh, very funny.” Liall showed him his hands were above the covers and not about whatever business Peysho thought. “Mocking a man with an empty bed is cruel, you know. I’m sure Om-Ret has a separate punishment in hell for that offense.”
Peysho spared Liall further teasing and jerked his head toward the camp outside. “They’re waiting. I told ‘em ye didn’t want a fuss. They wouldn’t listen.”
“Naturally.” Liall pushed the furs off and swung his long legs over the side of the bed. He had not really believed he could take his leave of the boisterous Kasiri without at least a small amount of drama, but he had hoped. “Please tell me there will be no music.”
“Nah.” Peysho grinned. “It’s rainin’ and ditterns cost too much to bring out in the wet.” He halted in the entrance a moment. “Take yer time, Wolf. We’re in no hurry to see ye go.”
Beneath the gray underbelly of sky, the whole of the Longspur krait was gathered in a loose crowd around the steps of Liall’s yurt. Some, like old Dira and Umir, he had known for decades. They knew him well, and if they did not know his full heart, they knew what he was and that the krait had a strong leader in him. The faces Liall had known the longest were the most wary and anxious, and the ones he had known the least were melancholy and sweet-sad, for an atya leaving on a quest suited their romantic Kasiri souls.
As he went down the line of cheerless faces, he received a small clutch of white and yellow straw-flowers from the smiling midwife and a gold pin from Istri the ox-tender. One of Dira’s whores kissed him passionately on the mouth and behaved like he was a beloved husband abandoning her before Dira pulled her off and pinched her for her nonsense.
The last of his goodbyes were from Peysho and Kio, who stood together a little apart from the others, as it should be.
“Well,” Liall sighed, not knowing what else to say. Kio was unsmiling, but Peysho clasped hands with Liall jovially. It was easy to see that Peysho did not believe in sad farewells.
“Nice mornin’ fer it.” He laughed, rain soaking the shoulders of his gaudy coat.
Liall tilted his head to taste the rain, not feeling the chill. “Strange. I’ve longed for home for so many years. Now that it comes, I don’t want to go.”
“So stay,” Peysho urged, quiet and earnest. His fingers pressed hard into Liall’s forearm. “Stay, Liall.”
There was no answer for it. Liall had been born knowing he would never be free in life, that he would be chained by duty and honor and family until his last breath, and then all that had changed. As a boy, he had fiercely desired freedom, and then suddenly he had too much of it. After many years with the Kasiri, he discovered that he was not even sure his desire was real, and that his longing for the thing itself had become a habit he could not break.
“Goodbye,” Liall said. He saw that Kio’s mouth was pinched and his golden eyes averted. “You have something to say?”
Kio shook his head tersely. Liall knew better than to push him to reveal what he felt. It was not Kio’s way. He reached into his jacket and brought out the white swan feather and handed it to Kio.
Kio took it curiously. “What’s this, then?”
“An old custom. It’s good luck, usually. But if you ever receive a message from the north with a feather like this one, look for my return.”
Kio nodded thoughtfully and then closed his fingers around the feather, tucking it very carefully into his jacket. He patted the outline of it in his pocket before giving Liall a strained smile.
Peysho watched them. “Yer a romantic,” he accused Liall, highly amused.
“Most likely,” Liall conceded with a grin.
“Any final advice?”
He spoke to Peysho while looking boldly at Kio. “A man who cares for nothing does not necessarily make a poor leader. If anything, he is often a better one. But there’s no joy in it, my friend. I should have taken a better lesson from you. You could have taught me much.”
Peysho nodded in silence, and Liall saw that he understood him perfectly: eventually, Kio would have been a thorn between them. He embraced them both in the manner of Kasiri; brief and fierce and heartfelt. Liall left them standing together, Peysho’s hand in Kio’s, and turned his face resolutely toward the Sea Road.
He had dressed warm for the occasion: traveling boots of sewn leather, a long cloak of black wool over a thin jacket and a shirt of thick gray cotton, leather breeches, a sturdy journeying pack and a dark hat with a low brim that someone had decorated with scanty embroidery in red. It would keep his head warm and conceal his hair color. That was all he cared about.
He had barely turned the corner where the road bent temporarily out of sight of the camp when he saw Scarlet standing in the path, waiting for him. Scarlet wore his red coat and clutched a bright Kasiri blanket around his shoulders in the rain, standing in the lee of an old cypress to keep the worst of the downpour off his head.
Liall found his voice. “I didn’t think to see you here, little redbird.”
“There were a lot of people back there,” Scarlet said,
as if that explained it.
He realized that Scarlet had purposely waited for him here, away from the others. It silenced him for a moment, and in that space, Scarlet rushed on:
“I wanted to thank you once more,” he said quickly. “For Annaya and for myself.”
Liall recalled how they had met and he was again ashamed. “I wish I could have saved your parents, Scarlet. Your father greatly impressed me.”
Scarlet ducked his head. “His name was Scaja.”
“Scaja,” Liall repeated gravely, though he had already known.
“And Linhona,” Scarlet took care to say. “My parents.”
The rain came down harder and Scarlet shivered. “Well... Deva keep you on your travels. Have a safe journey, Atya.”
“Liall.”
Scarlet blinked. “What?”
“I know you want to repay your debt, but I must rob you of that. So give me this and say my name again.”
It was not a normal request. Still, he had his honor.
“Liall,” Scarlet said quietly.
The soft tones of Scarlet’s Byzan accent made his name into a caress, and though it was not his true name, his birth name, Liall felt warmed.
“I’ll never see you again, will I?” Scarlet asked, surprising him yet again.
“No. Almost certainly not.”
Scarlet nodded. Then, unexpectedly, he reached forward and took Liall’s hand and pressed it briefly to the side of his face. It was the Byzan sign of gratitude, a rare gesture that was never done lightly.
“You are most welcome,” Liall said, deeply touched, and then he remembered: “Oh,” he said. “Wait.” He would have given anything to distract himself from the constricting feeling in his chest. “I have something for you.” He opened his leather pack and dug in it until he came up with the dagger. “It’s a good dagger,” he said as he offered it hilt first. “You lost yours in the woods, you said, that morning with Cadan.”
It was a bright, handsome blade, not so large that men would mistake it for a fighting weapon, but not so small that Scarlet could not use it as one if the need arose. The haft was decorated with red enamel and a few lines of silver in a curling pattern.
