by Marc Secchia
“The Choice will speak with you afterward. Stay here.”
His brother rubbed his arm as they stayed concealed within the nut tree’s broad, powdery-green leaves, and watched Hasko quickly setting out the wares on a small garden table over near the pond. Water tinkled from a small fountain near the middle; Jakani wondered how it worked. Perhaps a servant manually operated it, or was there some other mechanism? His neck itched. Fires? A flick of the eyes. Tytiana was gazing directly at him, despite that the brothers were well concealed by the shrubbery. How did she know?
Perhaps in the same way that he sensed the fiery core of her nature.
Like eyes meeting across a room, or the sensation of being watched by an unseen party. Sight was almost superfluous. Dragoness, he thought.
Over on the porch, a pair of violet eyes widened in startlement.
* * * *
Tytiana fluffed a line as he – that thrice-darned spark generator – confirmed his presence with his usual vexatious flair. Huh. So what. He was an unknown, and she was a Dragoness. Maybe. One teensy-weensy drawback, as in, she had never become one. Never even dreamed about it. In fact, the prospect filled her with a visceral form of terror that made her voice wobble now, and she returned her attention to the music with a frown and a mental apology to Quiraeli, who instinctively covered her slip-up by improvising a set of extravagant chords to finish up the piece.
Aye. You just hide in that tree, Dirt Picker, Third Class!
If there was a fourth class, her father would have demoted him already.
Enthusiastic left-right applause and synchronised cheers acknowledged their efforts. Now the parents and children rose, chatting animatedly about the new music classes that Quiraeli, Fra’anior bless her gorgeous toes, had proposed running twice weekly here at the Gatehouse, and once a week at a similar location near the estate’s northern border. Qui wandered over to the artwork table with several mothers in tow. ‘Oh, would you look at these?’ ‘A miniature yellow-throated flycatcher – how enchanting. The detail!’ ‘Oh, my son would love this Dragon! It even has miniature fangs and talons.’
Quiraeli regarded the paintings with her head tilted askance, nibbling at a stray hank of blonde hair.
The gardener was doing a brisk trade. Tytiana suddenly wondered where the art had come from. Hadn’t she seen a figurine just like that Dragon only a few weeks back? Aye. At the Sakazi family hearth, if she was not mistaken.
Had to be Sokadan’s hand. Was he here, too?
A short while later the parents were saying their farewells and Tytiana finally had a moment with the gardener. She asked, “Are these your work?”
“No, Choice Tytiana,” he said, genuflecting roughly but respectfully. “They come from the honourable Sakazi family.”
She knew an honourable rascal from that family. “Thought so.”
“Thought what, Tyti?” Quiraeli asked diffidently.
“There are spies in this garden.”
“Spies?” Qui glanced about in alarm, before accusing, “We had better not be playing a trick on our gullible younger sister.”
“Follow me. I shall lead you to the miscreants forthwith. I mean, the pair of rascals.”
To their credit, the bush overhanging the wall did not quiver so much as a leaf as Tytiana led her sister along the garden path toward them. Hasko followed along, bringing the now-diminished sack containing but two figurines and one painting.
Quiraeli worried, “Are they pirates? Bandits? What are you up to, Tyti?”
“Worse. Lamko scoundrels, show yourselves!” Tytiana demanded.
The branches wriggled enticingly. “Durst thou approach, o hitherto innocent maiden?”
“Hitherto? Watch thou brazen language, o skulker in shadowy spaces! Shady spaces, even.”
Qui giggled, “Sounds dangerous.”
She and her sister ducked beneath a large, leafy branch which swept the ground some ten feet further into the ground, and found themselves suddenly nose-to-nose with a pair of grinning lamko rascals. Well, one was grinning. The other, Sokadan, looked pale enough to expire right where he knelt. Poor chap. Quiraeli’s extraordinary beauty often had that effect. He gazed at his heavily callused knees as if he had just discovered them poking out of his tattered, dusty red shorts, tucked his poor legs further beneath him, and trembled like a leaf.
Her heart ached for him. Didn’t she know that feeling? Her missing foot even had phantom itches and aches, sometimes.
Jakani made introductions, dropping the misbehaving egg into Tytiana’s palm once more. “Just won’t stay put,” he grinned, leaning insouciantly upon the wall. “Thank you for the performance, ladies. It was memorable.”
She touched his elbow deliberately.
Kerack! Instant new hairstyle. Jakani muttered something better left unheard as he danced in agony, clutching his elbow.
“The effect is increasing in strength even with regular discharge events,” she observed in her most scientific manner to Quiraeli, who started giggling at the sight of Jakani’s shoulder-length black hair standing sharply upright. Even Sokadan managed a nervy chuckle.
Jakani tried to smooth his hair down. “Why thank you, Choice Tytiana. I’m sure that killed every flea I ever owned.”
“Fleas?” snorted his brother. “The hibernating spiders and the lice are the – excuse me. I promised to behave myself.”
“He’s the naughty one – naughtier than you?” Tytiana inquired.
“You had better believe it.”
Sokadan punched his brother’s shoulder. “You’re the prime instigator.”
Studying her toes, Qui said, “You’re the artist behind those pieces, Sokadan? You have a wonderful gift. I particularly appreciated the way you work with the natural grain and three-stage polish the finished product to bring out all the natural beauty of the wood.”
“Thank you, o Choice Quiraeli,” he managed to breathe in return. “Actually, the polishing process I’ve devised is somewhat more complex than the standard – ahem. I’m sorry. I do get carried away, but I’m sure all these minutiae of craftsmanship are not very interesting to a lady of your station. Or that could be a sadly mistaken conjecture. You’re an amazing artist yourself. Your touch on those harmonic minor counter-glissades was outstanding. Although I did notice you misplaced one note in the second from final stave.”
Evidently his brother’s level of musical knowledge was a surprise to Jakani. Her, too. Where would a lamko acquire such insight? Their education was as far from a House priority as the suns were above the Isles.
“A whole note? Oh, the scandal,” the younger girl murmured. She raised her eyes at last and gazed frankly at him, and Qui said, “You’re very observant.”
“Unforgivably picky of me, I’m sure.”
“Few would notice.”
Tytiana’s startled sidelong glance took in the slight bloom on her sister’s cheek, and there was the matter of Sokadan’s sudden bout of volubility. Maybe this was mutual admiration of each other’s craft, but a little dragonet cheeping in her ear suggested otherwise. Bells and rainbows! That said, was her behaviour any better? Perhaps she should magnanimously overlook the matter of Jakani’s having taken advantage of her summons to hawk his brother’s wares.
As her sister and Sokadan apparently took fright and looked anywhere but at each other, she explained her brief meeting with the High Master.
“That’s ghastly,” Jakani said at length. “Here I thought I was having agonies these last days.”
Qui said, “It’s not like father to be so cruel.”
Tytiana dearly would have loved to smack some sense into her bashful sister. Grow up! See father for who he truly was! But it was not for her to try to destroy innocence. Did she not know that father’s threat of a dungeon or the mines was seriously made? His list was not desperately unfair. Some of those Young Masters were nice boys who would treat her well – that, or she’d do far more than rearrange their fancy hairstyles! She and Zihaeri must come up with a
plan, but what?
She said, “Jakani, did father or the overseers give you any other explicit orders?”
“No, but it’s assumed I’ll return to the orchards where our kind belong.” He said this without rancour. “I’ll miss the work.”
“Good,” said Tytiana, turning the now-quiescent egg over in her fingers. Did he mean he’d miss her? Or just the acid lash of her tongue? “Here are my orders. Actually, this is Quiraeli’s idea. I would like to continue my work for the lamko, and indeed for all the staff. I know that my healing skills could improve with practice, implementing some of the ideas I discussed with Adazara the Teal. So I’ll need a willing runner to go find sick or injured people, not too many at a time, and bring them to me twice or three times a week – that would be after the harp lessons Qui will be giving here at the Gatehouse and also north of our house. See? Excellent plan. Then we can touch every few days –”
“– you mean, you can explode my hair –”
The familiar flame crackled behind her words as the joke sparked her temper. “I would otherwise miss practising my insults and kicking your scrawny behind, boy. Are we agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“And?” Her chin lifted challengingly at his doubtful tone.
“Most of the staff live outside the two-mile radius, correct?” Jakani mused. “O Choice Quiraeli, thank you for graciously granting me the opportunity to continue to be enslaved and tortured on a regular basis by Tytiana the Terrible, scourge of the Isles.”
Tytiana showed him her little finger. “Do you know what I can do with this, Dirt Picker?”
He raised his hands in a defensive posture. “Mercy!”
Parting, Qui said softly, “I should appreciate the opportunity to see more of your work, Dirt Picker … ah, Sokadan.”
“And I more of you, o Choice,” he replied.
Then he slipped onto Jakani’s back with the ease of long familiarity, blushing up a decent suns-set as he evidently rued the slip his tongue had made. As the brothers disappeared behind a screen of fenturi trees, Tytiana realised that Jakani had deliberately backed away so as to best shield Sokadan’s legs from their sight. Or was that to watch her for as long as possible, those golden glints in his – sigh – lovely eyes seeming to catch alight in the last rays of a radiant suns-set?
How many ballads or poets claimed that a woman yearned for a man to regard her like that?
There among the thick leaves of the nut tree, her fires sighed.
Farewell, Jakani. For now it is to the choosing of another whom I shall never regard as I regard thee, and the parting of ways but not of hearts. I shall suffer, aye, but that is as nothing compared to the burden I carry for my sisters. His punishment will never stop at me. I must protect them as a mother Dragoness guards her eggs.
So it must be. She had no other choice.
* * * *
“So, you’ve settled matters with the Choice?” Isimi asked, as Jakani set down a water bucket beside the hearth. “Sokadan was just telling me it was her father’s doing.”
Jakani raised an eyebrow at his brother, who reddened and began to whittle furiously at his next work, a leaping rajal of perhaps twenty inches long. It was his biggest and most ambitious piece yet. He had found a chunk of fine darkwood to ‘chip-chop’, as he jokingly called his work. It already gleamed under the light of their lamp, and he was only at the rough shaping stage as yet. No polish in sight – well, they needed to save more to purchase better polish. More favours.
Scooping water into her cooking pot, Isimi added, “I heard it was my fault. I’m so sorry, Jakani.”
“Mom, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Really? When your stupidly unthinking mother crawled up there in front of all those people, humiliated this family, and stole so much from you? It isn’t nothing! Aren’t you angry – you aren’t? Bitter? Enraged? Didn’t you see what I did? Ouch.”
Catching her hand, Jakani said, “I see that you shouldn’t peel vegetables when you’re upset, Mom. Come on. This cut needs dressing.”
“Jakani you – what’s the matter with you? Don’t you care that the High Master called this person a crawling insect – oh, oh, I’m … so ashamed …”
Scooping his mother up into his arms, he held her close as she wept upon his shoulder. “I care. I care more than you might know right now, Mom, but I wasn’t ashamed. The truth is I was so proud of you, I almost popped. There was … so much power in you, in that moment, such beauty of spirit, Mom, I … I don’t even know how to describe how I felt! I wanted to be like you. Be you! But instead, I was like all the other lamko, just standing there like a flock of dumb ralti sheep awaiting the shearer, desperately wanting to be more, to break out of that numb, hopeless place which is all they think we can ever be, and then you showed the way. You were more. My little mother was stronger than that great brute of a High Master.”
Isimi stared at him as if he had a cockroach crawling up his nose. “Jaki …”
“No, I’m not ashamed,” he insisted. “Far from it. You are my hero.”
As her sobs quietened, Isimi kissed his cheek and sob-chuckled, “Your little mother, eh? I can still reach your backside, young man, and don’t you forget it. I’m no-one’s heroine. Just an impulsive woman.”
Behind them at the table, Sokadan made a clucking noise. “Brother, is this the same mother who taught us not to lie?”
“Aye. I’d have to wash my mouth out for telling such a nasty pack of lies,” Jakani agreed gleefully. “Isn’t that so, Mom? Isn’t that what you taught us?”
“Put me down, you great big lummox. I’m bleeding all over your new grey tunic shirt.”
“It’s far from new, and I am not putting you down until you admit you’re a hero.”
“I was just angry. Injustice, that’s what set me off. Jakani. Stop it.” He squeezed her tighter. “Put me down, you disobedient, scabby-kneed wretch. You’re getting too strong. I just did what any other mother would have done.”
“Sure. I saw loads of mothers up there with you, Mom. Well, anyways, let’s get this heroic finger fixed up and I’ll ask Mayoko to peel the vegetables. I’ll also need some motherly advice on how to go about my new job. Aye, the Choice continues to work me like a ditch labourer. Are all women like that?”
She clipped his ear fondly. “Are all boys as exasperating as you?”
“So Mom, did I tell you that Sokadan made a conquest too?”
“Ouch!”
Isimi’s eyebrows peaked as Sokadan managed to slice the palm of his hand with his new chisel, purchased with the proceeds of his growing business. He growled, “Jaki … aye, you are deeply exasperating.” Sokadan pressed a cloth to the cut. “Mom, I met the Choice Quiraeli today, that’s all that happened.”
“Oh?”
“She complimented him on his woodcarvings and artwork.”
To Jakani’s delight, his brother was looking rather steamed under the collar and his mother knew it. Isimi made a querying noise in her throat.
“Incredible harpist,” he muttered. “That’s all.”
“What else happened, Jakani?”
“She said to Sokadan, ‘I should appreciate the opportunity to see more of your work.’ ”
“Hmm,” said Isimi.
“And, she turned quite pink.”
Sokadan lowered his head to the tabletop, and thumped it there several times. “Bothersome brothers!” Starting quietly, he said, “Mom, she’s the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen, maybe on this entire Island, and here I … look at me. Look at what I am!”
His raw scream made Mayoko jump and cry out. Jakani did not know where to look. A pox on his stupid, wagging tongue!
When would he ever learn?
“Gaah!” Sokadan groaned. “Sorry. It’s easy for you, Jaki – well, not easy, but you know what I mean. There are days when my disability is plain unbearable, and this is one of them – curse this fate, Great Dragon! Curse you for giving me these useless, crippled legs!”
/> At that instant, Jakani felt a sensation like a tiny ‘pop’ in his chest and the gleaming white egg appeared from nowhere, pinged off his brother’s bowed head, and rolled across the table toward him.
He stopped the dragonet’s egg with his hand. “Brother, I think he heard you.”
Sokadan just stared across the table with huge, awed eyes. Jakani saw his lips move. Apologising to Fra’anior? He would!
Isimi shook her head. “You boys and your choices.”
Chapter 15: The Ball
WITH THE PASSING of four weeks to the Annual Choices’ Ball, the season quickly grew noticeably chillier. Winter in Helyon always seemed to arrive suddenly. One day the skies would cloud thickly, the wind began to whistle through the fenturi trees, and the first heavy rains lashed the Island. The overseers drove the workers particularly hard in this season, ensuring the last valuable pickings were gathered, the trees were perfectly pruned, spider shelters checked and cleaned, and the last of the silk gleaned from the topmost branches of the trees. The spiders would spin right through the winter, they had discovered, if the weather was warm enough and there was some shelter for the freezing night – hence the rectangular wooden shelters, inside which the spiders often spun thick webs suitable for heavier thread applications.
Tytiana behaved with great decorum. She must not risk Zihaeri’s happiness. She pretended to discuss the merits of the various potential suitors exhaustively with any relative, confidante or business partner who would listen. Everyone had advice, but it was the High Master Faran of House White who gave her the most honest guidance of all.
As they walked together in the formal gardens of House White helping him get to know his future younger sister, the white-uniformed young man chose a secluded spot to turn to her and say, “Choice Tytiana, I try to read the political web like any other High Master. I would have you know, your work with the lamko merits honour with the progressive Young Masters and Choices – as it does with me, most assuredly – but the older set are highly conservative, and it is they who will determine the flight of your future. Do not underestimate the depth of anti-lamko sentiment amongst the Houses.”
