Cyador’s Heirs

XIII

An eightday passes in which Lerial digs and digs, not only ditches, but holes for the small mulberry trees that have been rooted from cuttings and then transferred to the holes that he and Rojana dug. Then, over the following eightday, the slope and gradients of the ditches have to be adjusted so that just enough water reaches each tree. Some rooted cuttings do not survive, and that requires transplanting more rooted cuttings. By late summer, an orchard of knee-high mulberry trees stands where there had once been a pasture, and Lerial has calluses on his hands and muscles hardened by the kind of labor he’d never imagined. He has given up thinking about Lephi or why his father had sent him to Kinaar, at least most of the time.

Then, after breakfast on oneday, Altyrn draws him aside.

“Ser?”

“From now on,” the majer says, “you’ll work as usual in the morning. In the afternoon, we’ll start your training. You didn’t think that wouldn’t come, did you?”

“I wondered, but it didn’t seem as though what I thought mattered.”

“Self-pity isn’t terribly useful, Lerial. Very few people care if other people feel sorry for themselves. Why do you think I’ve made you work this hard? And Rojana, for that matter?”

“To show me that I’m not that special? And to make me stronger.”

“You are different, but not special. You’re of the Magi’i. You can’t escape what you are, but too many of the Magi’i have no idea what the life of those under them is like. You’ve had more than half a season of hard work, with more to come. I doubt you’ll totally forget it. I hope you won’t. It would be a pity to waste it. What you have to learn now will make what you’ve been through seem pleasant.”

Lerial doesn’t want to think about that. “Why … Rojana?” he cannot help but ask.

“Do you think you’re the only one with illusions? Hers are slightly different from yours, but she also needed to understand that you and the Magi’i are only different, not special.”

“Will she keep working in the morning as well?”

“She may be doing different tasks at times. That all depends on what is necessary, and what the lands require. Even rulers, if they wish to be successful, must understand what their lands require. This morning, you’ll both be helping with the barley harvest.”

Helping with the barley harvest doesn’t sound that bad to Lerial, and better than digging. “Yes, ser.”

Altyrn turns and beckons to Rojana, who walks to join them. “You’ll need hay rakes. You two will follow the men with the scythes and rake the cut stalks into neat piles. Try to keep the heads of the grain in each pile in the same place. I’ll show you how once we get to the field…” Altyrn goes on to explain as he leads Lerial and Rojana across the paved space behind the villa.

Lerial glances to the south, where he can just make out the hillside grapevines-the ones that supply the grapes for the raisins … and for some small amount of wine, or so the majer has said.

Altyrn stops at the small equipment building, where he steps inside and then returns with two wooden rakes. He hands one to Rojana and the other to Lerial.

Even the teeth are wood, Lerial notes.

“You’ll have to rake firmly, but gently. If you break the teeth, you’ll have to spend time in the evening cutting and carving a new rake head.” With that, Altyrn turns and continues westward.

The sound that comes from the cocoonery as they pass is like rain, although Lerial cannot imagine rain falling inside that shed, much as he has learned that the sound is that of thousands of silkworms chewing mulberry leaves. “It’s hard to believe they’re so noisy,” he murmurs to Rojana.

“Before long they’ll start spinning their cocoons. Then you won’t hear anything. It still smells.”

Rojana and Lerial follow Altyrn down a narrow lane past the north side of the new mulberry orchard, with mostly brown pasture to the right, before reaching a field of golden tan grain. Three men with scythes have begun to work, their scythes moving in unison as they walk and cut the stalks, leaving the fallen grain, still on its stalks, and stubble only a few digits high.

“If you’ll hand me your rake, Lerial…”

Lerial does.

“This is what I want from you…” Altyrn demonstrates, using a firm but gentle motion to gather the stalks sideways, so that each line of stalks ends up essentially as an unbound bundle. “Aylana, Tyrna, and I will gather these into the cart. Once everything is gathered, we’ll take the sheaves to the threshing barn. Lerial, you’ll be alternating turning the threshing drum with me and the other men, but we won’t be doing that until it’s all cut and in the barn. That will take several days.”

“How many fields have to be cut and gathered?” asks Lerial.

“Five about this size,” replies Altyn.

“That’s what it takes just to make the lager?”

“For about twenty-five people for a year, yes, with enough left to sell maybe ten barrels, except we sell it in kegs, not barrels.”

Lerial is still thinking about that long after he has begun to rake the stalks of grain into the loose sheaves or bundles. It is harder than Altyrn has made it look, far harder. His only consolation is that Rojana appears to be having the same difficulties.

“It’s harder than it looks,” he finally says.

“Father has a way of making things look easy. They aren’t.”

By midday, Lerial has discovered that barley raking is just as hard as digging, if in a different way, and there are muscles in his shoulders that ache. He is more than glad to surrender his rake to one of the women who works on the majer’s lands, and is struck by how easy she also makes the rake-gathering look.

He has to hurry to catch up to Rojana and Altyrn.

“You both can have some lager and bread and cheese before you start your afternoon lessons.”

They eat at the courtyard table not far from the fountain. Lerial appreciates the coolness brought by the spray, although there is so little breeze that the comparative cool barely reaches where they sit.

As Lerial takes a last swallow of lager, Altyrn clears his throat, then speaks. “Lerial, we’ll begin with sparring. I’d like to see what you know … and what you don’t. After that, we’ll see about your other skills with arms. Lessons after that.” He looks to his eldest daughter. “Rojana … I expect more attention in your history studies. Few women…”

“Few women have such opportunities away from Cigoerne. I know, Father.”

“You know, you say, daughter, but how can things change if women like you do not know both the good and the evils of the past.” Abruptly, Altyrn addresses Lerial. “Why did an Empress never rule Cyador? Cyador, not Cigoerne.”

“Ah … there were always male heirs.”

“There were not. Both Alyiakal and Lorn had no imperial blood. Not that we know, anyway. There may have been others whose blood was not as it was supposed to be. That’s not something we’ll ever know.” Altyrn pauses. “Why were there no Empresses who ruled? Did your magus tutor not address that question?”

“Ah … no, ser. Custom?” Lorn ventures.

“Custom, indeed. We have women who are ironmages. Why are none of them called magus? They have the same talents as a magus, and some are more skilled in handling chaos than many men who are Magi’i. Your own grandsire had almost no ability as a magus, yet he was considered of the Magi’i.”

“Another custom, ser?”

“Why such a custom?” Altyrn looks back to Rojana. “And why did the Emperor Lephi decree that women who were not ironmages should wear either chains or the wristbands of a healer?”

“He did that?” Lerial blurts out the question unthinkingly.

“He did indeed. Can either of you think why all that might be so?”

“Men didn’t want women to have power,” declares Rojana. “Is that it?”

“We don’t know. We’ll never know.” Altyrn smiles, an expression ironic, yet warm. “So why are questions like that important … if we can’t ever know?”

Lerial looks to Rojana. She offers an enigmatic smile, one that instantly recalls to him that her mother has the same expression. The enigmatic similarity so disconcerts him that, for a moment, he forgets the majer’s question.

“You have no thoughts on that?” presses Altyrn. “Either of you?”

Lerial wrenches his attention back to the majer and throws out the first thing that comes to mind. “If we don’t know, that’s because no one thought of asking the question … or, if they did, they were too afraid to ask.”

Altyrn actually looks stunned, if but for an instant. Then he smiles. “That’s an excellent answer! And it’s likely true. There are two reasons I can think of why obvious questions like that are never asked. The first is what you said. Can you think of the second?”

Lerial cannot.

Rojana does not speak either.

“The other is because the question does not occur to anyone. Why does the sun rise?”

Lerial blinks. “It always has.”

“Why? Will it always do so? People don’t ask questions, or stop asking questions, when they feel they can’t do anything about something … or they don’t want to.” The majer shakes his head and laughs softly. “You two will have me talking all afternoon. Think about questions, though. And, Lerial, have you an answer as to why we should do tasks well when no one will remember or nothing will remain?”

“No, ser. I’ve thought about that. I don’t have an answer that makes sense.”

The majer nods, then turns to Rojana. “Read the next chapter in the history while I’m working with Lerial. I’ll have questions for you when I return.”

“Yes, Father.”

Altyn rises from the table.

Lerial follows, as does Rojana, and as he stands beside her, Lerial realizes that Rojana is taller than she had been when he’d come to Teilyn, only a few digits shorter than he is. Why didn’t you notice that before? Or that she and her mother are tall for women?

He is still pondering that as he walks beside Altyrn past the main entry corridor and then around the corner to the middle of the south side of the courtyard to the south corridor out to the south entrance. The majer halts beside a narrow door, the last one, which he opens. Beyond the door is a long and narrow chamber, with weapons racked on each side.

An armory. Why on the south side? Because when the villa was built, the dangers came from the south?

Altyrn lifts two full-sized wooden wands from a rack.

Lerial notes smaller wands as well. “You’ve taught the girls to handle sabres as well, ser?”

“Her mother and I have. They’re likely not as accomplished as you are, but they will be in time.”

The majer closes the armory door and leads the way out to the paved “courtyard.” There he stops and hands one of the wooden wands to Lerial.

Lerial takes it, finding it much heavier than the wands with which he has practiced, and certainly heavier than a standard Lancer sabre. He hefts it, frowning.

“It’s heavier than what you’ll use. There’s a reason for that. More than one, actually.” Altyrn smiles. “Take your position.”

Lerial does so.

“Now … begin an attack.”

Lerial moves forward cautiously, then has to dart sideways, barely able to deflect the majer’s wand. Yet the majer seems barely to have moved.

Watch his order flows! The words come into his mind from somewhere, words with the feel of his aunt, for all that he knows he is warning himself. He steps back and tries to concentrate on both watching Altyrn and sensing what the flow of order around the majer indicates.

Lerial’s next attack is better, but his defense is shaky, and the majer’s wand strikes Lerial’s calf, hard enough to sting and likely leave a bruise.

“A real blade would have cut through and left you lying on the stones.” Altyrn’s words are matter-of-fact.

Nodding, Lerial steps back and straightens.

After another series of engagements and disengagements, Lerial begins to sense more clearly what the majer’s intents and possible attacks and defenses are … but even when he can sense what will happen before it does, he finds himself on the defensive, unable to counter what the majer does.

After almost a glass, Altyrn steps back. “That’s enough for today.”

Lerial is soaked all the way through, but, despite a glass of sparring under the summer sun, the majer sports but a sheen of perspiration on his face and a few damp patches on his work shirt.

“You need to cool down and wash up. When you’ve done that, meet me in the courtyard at the table. Just wait if I’m not there. I may need to spend more time with Rojana.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lerial cannot say that he is displeased, but at the same time, he is angry, angry with himself for not being able to counter or avoid what he knows is coming, angry once more with Lephi and his father for sending him away … and angry for reasons he cannot even name.

By the time he has cooled down, washed up, and made his way back to the fountain courtyard, most of his anger has subsided.

Tyrna and Aylana are sitting at a small table near the fountain, in much the same fashion as Amaira and Ryalah did in Cigoerne, although they are engaged in a board game that he does not recognize. Even so, at the sight of the two girls at the table, a wave of loss and sadness sweeps over him, and he turns away, standing there for a time before he feels enough in control to continue toward the fountain.

“What are you playing?” he asks.

“Capture,” replies Tyrna.

“She’s better.” Aylana’s words hold an irritated edge.

“You’ll get better,” says Tyrna encouragingly.

Lerial can sense the honesty and the affection behind those words, and he says to Aylana, “You’re very fortunate to have a sister who cares.”

“She still wins all the time.”

“That will change if you keep working at it.” Lerial looks up as, from the corner of his eye, he sees Altyrn enter the courtyard. “It’s time for my lessons.”

Aylana sighs loudly and says to Tyrna, “I get the first move this time.”

Lerial walks toward the larger table, reaching it just before the majer, who gestures for him to sit down. Lerial seats himself as the majer does.

“I know nothing about the elthage skills,” Altyrn begins. “I won’t even attempt to instruct you in such matters. As your father’s son and as the brother of the heir, you will be called upon to lead Lancers. If you fail at that, you will not only suffer and possibly die, but so will others. If you are a good leader, but cannot defend yourself with a blade, others will have to die protecting you. Likewise, if you become a master blade, but cannot lead, you will still die, because there will be no one left to protect you.” The majer pauses and looks to Lerial, as if expecting a response.

“You’re telling me that I have to be a good leader, a good tactician, and a master blade … or I will fail.”

“Sooner or later, unless you are extremely fortunate … yes. And fortune is a most fickle lady and a worse mistress.” Altyrn smiles encouragingly. “You have the makings of a good master blade, if you will apply yourself. You have the ability to anticipate, which many never have, but you have less than no idea how to best counter what you anticipate. That … I can teach you, if you are willing to learn.”

“I felt that, ser. I could almost see what was coming, but not how to best react.”

“You don’t have the moves. They have to be so drilled into you that you almost do not have to think. Because you are thinking, you are too slow. If you work, we can remedy that. The same principle applies to tactics. One must recognize what is developing before it occurs … and act before your enemy knows that you have recognized what he is doing.”

“How am I to do that?”

“First, I will instruct you in the basics, what every ranker must know before he rides on his first patrol. Then we will, at times, ride various places, and I will show you how attacks might develop in various places, in the woods, in undergrowth, in the hills, in the sands…”

Lerial listens, almost overwhelmed by just the description of what Altyrn expects.

Abruptly the majer stops. “What you need to learn is much. That is because much is expected of you, and that is because you have great advantages in life. A man who does not know how to appreciate and to use his talents and position to their best will soon waste both. I trust you would prefer not to do that.”

“No, ser.”

“Let me ask you this. Why does your father have power? Why is he Duke of Cigoerne?”

For a moment, Lerial is at a loss. Why is he Duke? Because he is. That is not the answer the majer wants, though, and Lerial struggles to come up with a reason. “Well … he has the Mirror Lancers, and they obey him. And he is the son of the Emperor of Cyador.”

“Cyador is gone. Little more than toppled stones remains. As for the Lancers, why do they obey him? He is only one man, and they are many.”

“They respect him.”

“Do they? Or do they obey him because he can pay them? Or pay them more than others do? Or do they respect and obey him because the senior majer does? Or their squad leader does? Or is it because obeying him is the only way they can be Lancers, and that is what they wish to be? Or do they obey because they fear if they do not, they will be executed for failure to obey?”

“It could be any of those,” admits Lerial. “Or some of them.”

“If you are a leader, you need to know which support your leadership. What do all of those questions tell you?”

Lerial does grasp that. “The more reasons a leader is respected and obeyed, the stronger his ability to lead?”

“Good. Then why should you be a master blade, if you can pay for the best Lancers?”

Lerial remembers that answer from his father. “Because you’re not asking them to do something you can’t do.”

The questions go on seemingly endlessly, but it is only half a glass later, when Altyrn says, “That’s enough questions. We’ll start with what a Lancer squad is, what it does, and how it operates.”

Lerial nods and listens.