Be What You Are
“My name is Arsha,” the young man said as he dropped down to sit on the bench outside the bakery. “There’s more to it—or there was once—but these days ‘Arsha’ suffices. It’s what I have left.”
“Thank you for the bun, Arsha,” said Lill, tearing off a piece carelessly, as if it wasn’t the first thing he was going to eat all day. “I’m Lill. There’s more to that as well. Or, as you say, there was.”
“I daresay. Fallen on hard times? I know something about that.”
“You seem to be doing all right now,” Lill observed neutrally.
Arsha adjusted the wide cuffs of his coat sleeves and shrugged. “Where did you learn to throw knives like that, Lill?”
Lill took another bite of his bun and considered his answer.
In six months, he had never told anyone exactly where he had lived before coming to Torakand.
He had named the region vaguely, and no one had ever asked for precise details.
He felt an instinct to conceal the truth now—but for what? He was not on a mission.
“The Order of the Sworn Defenders.” You weren’t supposed to pronounce the rest of the name to outsiders.
Arsha arched one eyebrow. “The Snakes? Please. Do I look like a newborn babe?”
“No.” Was he saying that he didn’t believe Lill?
Arsha studied him for a long moment. Lill finished eating his bun and wished he had another.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” said Arsha finally. “You were in the Snakes.”
“I didn’t know they called us that.” It sounded disrespectful.
“Around here they do. They tell all kinds of stories … What happened? You left?”
“I was expelled. You don’t leave.”
“Expelled? For doing what?”
Something about Arsha’s expression told Lill that he was hoping the answer was spectacular. That Lill had set fire to something, gotten someone’s daughter with child, something like that. Arsha clearly knew nothing about the Order. For such things, they wouldn’t simply expel you.
“It was a misunderstanding,” said Lill, trying to convey through his tone that it had been no such thing.
Arsha nodded knowingly. “So you’re what now? A blade for hire?” He looked Lill over critically. “No.”
But he didn’t say it as if he didn’t believe it. He said it as if he was trying to play it cool. As if he couldn’t believe his luck.
“I could be,” said Lill, feeling much the same way.
Vanu woke to the early morning light streaming in his open window onto the bed. He stretched and froze mid-motion as he realized he was not alone in the bed. Lill was sleeping curled up beside him, facing toward Vanu, hands tucked under his chin.
Vanu sat up and looked at him. He had no memory of Lill coming into his bed, and if he had woken, he would remember it.
He didn’t generally sleep through someone creeping into his room—if he did, he’d have been killed years ago.
Yet Lill had not only crept into the room but slipped into bed next to Vanu without waking him.
Where did you learn to do that?
He wanted to stroke Lill’s silky hair, but he also wanted to let Lill sleep undisturbed. No telling how long the boy had lain awake in his own bed before swallowing his pride and sneaking in here. So Vanu lay back down and watched Lill sleep as the sky brightened outside the window.
If you had come in here with a knife, would I have woken before you could use it?
He looked across at the nail in the wall where White Viper’s dagger used to hang.
He had put it away, along with Lill’s throwing knives, when he was preparing the house to receive his bride.
There were other weapons around—he always had a knife or two on his person, or close by when he was sleeping—so there was no real sense in hiding those particular blades.
But somehow, to leave them lying around—to give them back to Lill, even—well, he hadn’t even considered it.
Presently Lill stirred and woke, and Vanu watched him remember where he was and look up carefully to see if his husband was awake.
“Morning,” Vanu signed.
“Good morning. I hope you don’t mind that I came in here.”
“Told you to, if you couldn’t sleep.”
“Mm. I appreciate it.”
Vanu frowned. “I’m your husband. Got a duty to look after you.”
“Right.”
Was it Vanu’s imagination, or was Lill uncomfortable with the idea of being looked after?
As if no one had treated him that way before.
But that wasn’t true; Davanu had taken care of Lill for years.
Maybe he’d done it clumsily, making the boy feel he owed something.
That didn’t seem like Davanu, but you never knew.
Vanu had never been very clear-eyed where Davanu was concerned.
“Nah, not what I mean. My pleasure to look after you.”
He turned on his side and reached out to stroke Lill’s hair, sinking the tips of his fingers into the smooth black strands around his face. His hair was braided simply for the night, a single thick rope. Vanu drew the braid forward over Lill’s shoulder and ran it through his hand.
“Love that you wear it so long,” he remarked.
“It’s the custom of my mother’s people. It’s supposed to be—” He broke off, a faint look of embarrassment on his face.
“Manly,” Vanu finished for him, grinning. He wound Lill’s braid loosely around his wrist. “I know. Thing about me—that doesn’t put me off.”
“I guess it wouldn’t. I was actually—a little—concerned. That I wouldn’t be masculine enough for you. Because you like men. I’ve always been told I’m more like a girl, that I should have been a girl … ”
“Don’t. No. You’re perfect.” Vanu didn’t know any more words to shut down that nonsense, so he leaned in and kissed Lill on the mouth, hoping that would help make the point.
The boy was so tense he was almost vibrating, and as Vanu drew back and looked at him, he found himself thinking suddenly of Madurasha on the battlefield that last day, how he had looked when he realized Vanu had got the better of him.
He unwound Lill’s braid from his hand like dropping a snake and shifted back on the bed.
He’d never wanted to fuck anyone who looked at him with fear like that.
He had, he’d done that, because it had been expected, because it had been the thing he had to do, sometimes. He never wanted to do it again.
“You and Atari get on great,” he said, grasping for a cheerful, innocent topic. “Happy for that.”
“Oh. Yes. She’s lovely. We have lots to talk about.” Lill embraced the change of subject eagerly. “She was very surprised I didn’t know how to play her hiding game yesterday, though. I mean, I’d never done such a thing as a game, you know, instead of a training exercise.”
Vanu looked at him, thinking of that little boy running across his father’s courtyard a decade ago. Surely that little boy had played games. Did Lill not even remember that time?
“Didn’t have much of a childhood, did you?” Vanu said.
“No. I didn’t.”
“My fault, wasn’t it?”
The look in Lill’s dark eyes was hard to interpret. He seemed very far away.
“Yes,” he said finally. “It was your fault. But … ” He paused, thoughtful. “It wasn’t only your fault. There were other … factors. And it was a long time ago.”
Lill sat up, swinging his braid around behind his back and obviously trying for a bright expression. It wasn’t the most convincing thing.
“Will you show me how to milk the goats? I’ve heard you’re the only one who can do it, and that Faru wanted to slaughter them for meat years ago because he hates them so much.”
“They bite him. Every chance they get.” Vanu grinned. “You’ll get on fine with them.”
“Tirtu, do you remember an ally of Vanu’s named Madurasha?”
Lill sat on the cushions in Tirtu’s front room after dropping off the day’s portion of milk and accepting an invitation to stay and drink tea.
“The treacherous dog.” Tirtu’s face twisted with a bitter expression as he put the pot of tea down on the table between them. “Of course I remember him.”
He didn’t say, “Wasn’t he your father?” It seemed Vanu hadn’t told him that. Good.
“What happened?” Lill asked.
“Don’t you know? He turned on Lord Vanu, that’s what happened.
Promised his allegiance and then ambushed us.
No one saw it coming. But—” He shrugged expansively.
“It didn’t matter. He died for it. Lord Vanu killed him.
I heard Davanu say Vanu never really trusted anyone after that, but I’ve always wondered if it was the other way around, that he never fully trusted Madurasha. ”
“Why was he allied with Vanu in the first place, though? Madurasha was Zashian.”
“Pure-blooded Zashian nobility.” Tirtu nodded. “You asked Lord Vanu any of this?”
“No. I’m asking you.”
“Right.” Tirtu leaned forward to pour the tea. “It’s not that you asked him and he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“No, it’s not that. I’ll ask him when I know what it is I’m asking.”
“Ah, I get it. Well, you should know it was all a bit before my time. I mean, I was around, but I wasn’t one of Lord Vanu’s confidants in those days.
I was a pig man who just wanted to do his part to help my people.
I did travel down to Torakand that time.
Lord Davanu had gone down to live there, and he was the one who got Madurasha on our side.
He was the one who wrote to Vanu to come down, bringing some of his men, and talk to Madurasha. ”
“Talk to him about what?” Lill pressed.
“You’d have to ask Lord Vanu about that.”
“Because you don’t know, or because you don’t want to say?”
Tirtu scowled, but there was no real anger in it. “Because he can explain it better than I can. I wasn’t part of the inner circle then, I told you. They had a plan … But it all came to nothing, because Madurasha turned on them.