Be What You Are #2
“We were on our way home when we were ambushed—badly outnumbered because there weren’t that many of us to begin with.
And there was Madurasha with his hearthmen—or whatever you call them in the lowlands—bringing up the rear.
The cur. I don’t believe he planned on doing any fighting himself, I think he was just there to watch.
But when we routed the main force, he stepped in, the bastard.
Tried to take Vanu down himself. I was there then.
I saw that. That fucker brought his own death down on his head. May his name be forgotten.”
Lill remembered how Vanu had described the encounter.
I was fighting wounded, he had said. I go over it in my mind sometimes.
Could I have disabled him and taken him prisoner?
After he had been betrayed like that? It was hard to see how you could escape the conclusion that it was Vanu who acted with greater honour, in that situation.
If it had been Lill’s place to question his mission … But it had never been his place. Certainly not now.
There was something else he’d been wanting to ask Tirtu. “Vanu said something about being ‘born a curse.’ What did he mean by that?”
Tirtu sucked in a hissing breath. “You shouldn’t talk about such things.”
“Come on. I want to know. Better I talk to you than make him tell me, don’t you think?”
“All right, yes. He’s not—it isn’t true. That’s what I believe—I don’t care what the shamans might say about it.” He grimaced guiltily. “Heart of the Blue Heaven. I don’t mean that, I don’t know what they do say. But someone’s said he’s a curse, and I don’t believe it.”
He cleared his throat and adopted a storytelling attitude.
“Vanu’s mother was Makhi Tarna. She married Garda Burgunu, see, but not more than a year later Garda was taken captive, after a raid that went bad.
He was a slave in the steppes for a year or more before he was ransomed, and while he was away, another man took his wife.
Maybe it was against her will, maybe it wasn’t—there were different stories.
I was a boy in the Summer Pass at the time, I knew nothing of such things.
In any case, she had a child by this man, Samaru Urártu.
The Urártu and the Tarna—her family—they were bitter enemies.
So Makhi’s husband came home to find she’d had a child that wasn’t his, couldn’t be his, and he didn’t stop to find out whether she’d been taken against her will or not.
He killed her. Then the Tarna killed him.
The Burgunu—his family—swore revenge on the Tarna, the Tarna tried to revenge themselves on the Urártu …
” He was arranging the cups and the teapot to represent the different families, locked in their triangular feud, and for a moment he sat and stared at them bleakly.
“And the child, meanwhile?” Lill prompted.
“Was Vanu.”
“Yes, I got that. What happened to him?”
“Well, the Urártu took him at first—Samaru’s mother made him acknowledge his son, but after she died, he tried to give Vanu back to the Tarna, who didn’t want him.
Then the Burgunu attacked Samaru and left him blind, and Vanu went back to the Urártu …
One of his uncles would have been head of the family then.
In the end, the men of the Burgunu and the Tarna wiped each other out completely, and the Urártu, Samaru and all of his brothers, were killed by the invader king’s men—all but Vanu. ”
“So … that’s what he means about a curse.” It was pretty convincing, actually. His birth had brought down three different families.
Tirtu nodded. “I don’t set any store by it,” he reminded Lill. “Nor does Lord Vanu. That is, you know, it doesn’t haunt him or any such thing.”
Lill wondered if that was true. Vanu didn’t seem like a haunted man, and he certainly hadn’t let the circumstances of his birth hold him back from leading his people. But these things had a way of sinking into your soul. Lill should know.
It was easy to find opportunities to talk to Tirtu and Halza, but Padunu was more of a problem.
Lill had not forgotten Vanu’s suggestion that he try to find out what the shaman had been doing with Faru in front of Vanu’s house the other night, but it wasn’t until the following day that he came upon Padunu alone and could strike up a conversation.
It was when he was delivering the milk again.
Vanu had been right that the goats liked Lill, so helping with the milking became one of his daily chores.
“Helping” was as much as he did with anything so far; nobody had yet given him any tasks to do on his own, and they didn’t even seem to expect him to do much in the way of help.
He had to admit that this was just as well, because he didn’t know how to do most of the tasks that made up their daily routine.
Still, he could deliver buckets of milk, and when he brought one to the great house that morning, Padunu answered the door to his knock.
“Milk,” Lill announced, holding up the bucket.
The shaman looked startled, as if he had been expecting something else.
“Yes, of course. Milk.” He took the bucket and turned back toward the inside of the house. “Na Gurti! Lill has come with the milk. I’ll just leave it here. I was on my way out.”
He set the bucket down and came out, closing the door behind him. He jerked his head in a “follow me” gesture and set off across the well yard, white cloak billowing behind him. Lill followed, curious. Padunu was acting almost as if they had a prearranged meeting.
He led the way to the round house where Lill had hidden during the bride hunt, and swept aside the curtain in the doorway to enter. Lill followed him in and looked at him questioningly. Padunu folded his arms across his chest and looked down at Lill.
“Well?” the shaman said finally.
“Well, what?” Lill returned.
Padunu tossed his head irritably, making the gold beads in his hair swing. “I know you saw us outside Lord Vanu’s house the other night. I suppose you have something to say about that.”
Lill shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you have something to say?”
Padunu narrowed his eyes, but it seemed he couldn’t immediately come up with a retort.
“Perhaps you want to know how much of your conversation I heard,” Lill prompted. “Or how much I understood?”
“Oh, you heard something, all right,” said Padunu sourly, “and I daresay you understood it. I don’t think you’re as ignorant of the Hawada language as everyone assumes.”
“Clever of you,” said Lill in Hawada.
Padunu grimaced. “I knew it. All right, let us stop playing games. You heard Lord Faru instruct me to place a curse on Lord Vanu’s house. You must also have heard me refuse.”
“And I heard Faru remind you that you couldn’t afford to refuse for long. So I have to wonder where that leaves you.”
“I have not cursed Lord Vanu’s house.”
“Has Faru given up on the idea?”
Padunu squirmed. He didn’t look as scared as he had that night in front of Faru, but he had suffered a noticeable loss of bravado.
“I assume you haven’t told your husband what you heard … ” he said finally.
“Oh, Vanu heard it all too. He doesn’t seem worried.”
Padunu stared at Lill in surprise.
“Why does Lord Faru want to curse my husband anyway?” Lill asked.
“Ah.” Here they’d arrived at something Padunu wasn’t reluctant to discuss.
“There’s been a feud between them for years.
Lord Vanu offered Lord Faru dishonour by saving his raiding party from the invader king’s men, when Lord Faru felt they didn’t need saving.
The fact that Lord Vanu was probably younger than you at the time didn’t help.
Lord Khashu, Faru’s father, tried to mend matters by having his son swear an oath of loyalty to Vanu—as you can imagine, that didn’t help either, but it is the reason why now neither of them can strike openly against the other.
You’ll have noticed that Lord Vanu exhibits a …
surprising degree of forbearance where Lord Faru is concerned. That is why.”
“I see.”
By this time, Padunu had taken a seat on top of one of the storage chests in the room, stretching out his legs and folding his arms as if settling down for a chat. Lill leaned against a windowsill opposite him, wondering what he would say next.
“Thank you,” Padunu said, flicking one of the beads in his hair and glancing away. “For telling me that Lord Vanu overheard us. I confess I … may have been guilty of misjudging you.”
Lill looked at him speculatively. “Were you expecting me to extort something from you in exchange for my silence?”
Padunu winced, and for a moment Lill thought he would take refuge in affront: How dare you accuse me of accusing you … It seemed like something he would say.
Instead he said, “Well, some would.”
“I daresay.”
“I haven’t exactly been an ally to you.”
Lill could think of a number of ways to reply to that. I’m used to it? I have Lord Vanu for a husband; I don’t need allies?
“You stood up to Faru at the wedding,” he offered instead. “I appreciated that.”
Padunu groaned elaborately. “Don’t remind me.
He has not forgiven me for that. He is my patron, as you would call it in Zash.
I cannot afford to anger him like that too often.
However, I did think that the wedding ought to go forward, and I am glad to hear that you appreciated it.
Was that before or after you had the dose of the Ancestors’ Fire? ”
“Mostly before, but I heard about the rest from Mikhi. Is that what you call that incense?”
Padunu nodded. “It’s a blend of mountain rue and six different mushrooms—a secret formulation, of course.
I’ve been using it for years, and to be quite honest, the effect on me these days is fairly mild.
But I remember my first time taking it, and I am quite sure I would not have been able to make it through that wedding with as much poise as you exhibited. ”
Lill laughed, surprised by the compliment. “It is a bit of a blur.”