Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) Read online

  Lillitha shrugged away from the cadia. She was ashamed of her foolishness and of the tears that stung her eyes.

  “Ah, little sister.” She cradled the girl against her chest and patted her gently. “I would not be so harsh were it not so important for you to understand this now. You cannot tread this path blinded by youthful dreams. You’ll break your own heart if you do.”

  “I’m sorry, Yanna.” She stepped out of the embrace, wiping at her eyes. “You are right. I mustn’t act like a silly child.”

  “But you are a child. And you have yet another summer to grow up before we face the Single Moon.”

  “Yanna, do you think I will be chosen?”

  “It is not productive to waste time in conjecture.” Yanna took her hand and they began to walk again. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Lillitha sighed heavily. “Sometimes I get the oddest feeling...”

  “Feeling about what?”

  “Sometimes...sometimes when I think about the shallan, it’s like there’s a small bird caught in my chest, beating its wings so hard it hurts...”

  Yanna peered at her sharply and Lillitha stammered. “I want to become cadia, truly. I love my studies, but I almost hope I’m not chosen. Is that wrong of me?”

  “Being chosen shallana is both an honor and a heavy burden. That you should be afraid is only human.” Yanna’s eyes misted, as if she were looking at something only she could see on the horizon. “But you must conquer this fear, Lilli. Your fate is no longer in your hands or even mine.”

  Lillitha looked at the crumbling walls of House Kirrisian that rose in the distance. She thought of her mother and father, working in the fields from sunrise to sunfall. She thought of her brother Jonil, his ashes tossed in the wind towards the sea, and of Paul and Marta, in their patched, handed-down clothes.

  “No,” she said in a voice so much older than her own that Yanna glanced at her, her flesh prickling in spite of the heat. “It never has been, has it?”

  Chapter 5: A Visit from an Old Friend

  Rowle was eager for news of the realm, but he had little chance to speak with his friend privately. Paul tagged at their heels the whole afternoon as the two men surveyed the vidoran. At dinner, all three of the children hung on Bastrop’s every word as he regaled them with outrageous tales.

  “So your father here, he couldn’t have been more than fifteen summers at the most,” Bastrop said, winking at Rowle, “and what a scrawny pup he was too, then—well, he looks General Bayard dead in the eye and he says, ‘But my lord, I thought you meant your horse!’”

  Even Yannamarie smiled broadly as laughter echoed off the stone walls.

  “I can’t wait until I can go into the border army, too,” Paul piped up. “Father says I can go when I’m fifteen.”

  The glance that passed between Rowle and his wife was not lost on Bastrop of Tira.

  “Now, Paul,” Rowle spoke up, “that’s not exactly what I said.”

  “Oh, I know,” the boy said calmly. “You said perhaps I could go. If Lillitha is chosen. But she will be chosen, so I am going.”

  “Don’t go grinding your grain before the seeds are even sown,” Ersala said, rising to clear the pots and troughs from the table.

  “And how are you so certain, callae Paul?” Bastrop couldn’t resist asking with a twinkle in his eyes. “Mayhaps you are a little tadomani yourself?”

  Marta giggled. “He may be a little tadosuni, but not tadomani.”

  Marta’s wordplay drew a smile from her father while her mother frowned. Tadomani was the high Shallanie word for “touched by Oman”—meaning blessed with the Sight or empathic abilities. Tadosuni, however, translated to “touched by the sun,” implying that Paul had been out in the hot sun too long.

  Paul showed no signs of being the slightest bit put out by his second sister’s dig. He had learned long ago to ignore her.

  “I’m neither tadomani or tadosuni.” Paul spoke with such dignity that Bastrop hid his smile with his hand. The boy beamed at his older sister with unadulterated devotion, causing her to blush a deep crimson. “I know Lillitha will be chosen. There couldn’t possibly be a prettier or sweeter consecratia in all the twelve tribes. And certainly not a better sister in this room.”

  “You’re a dolt,” Marta simpered.

  “And you’re a ninny—”

  “Am not!”

  “Are too—”

  “Hush, both of you, this minute!” Ersala barked. “Marta, take these dishes in to Tesla. Paul, bid the lord general goodnight and check the horses before you go to bed.”

  Finally the table was cleared and Rowle found himself alone with his friend. He went to the sideboard and pulled out the bottle of wine he kept there for guests.

  “You’ve a fine family, Rowle,” Bastrop said as he held out his cup. “You should be proud of how you’ve held it all together. Oman be praised, I know it hasn’t been easy for you.”

  “Oh, I’ve been luckier than some,” Rowle said with a wry smile. “Lucky to have such a wife at my side. Be careful of the wine. It’s homemade and has quite a bite until you get used to it.”

  While he knew he need not apologize to Bastrop, Rowle still wished he had something better to offer him than this bitter wine.

  The old soldier made a face and laughed, slapping the table. “Whew, reminds of the stuff we used to sneak into our flasks on patrol! What was the name of that tavern in Gregorta? The one with the pretty serving wench who always flirted with you?”

  “I don’t think it even had a name. A fouler hole I pray I never set foot in!”

  “Aye, but she was pretty, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, she was.” Rowle took a draft of wine and sighed. “I think of the boys we used to be and I shudder for my own daughters! Is that the curse of old age, do you think?”

  “Mayhaps my friend! By the beard, when I finally married off my youngest I heaved a sigh of relief that could be heard on the other side of the Shumdan Mountains!” Bastrop laughed, settling back in his chair and stretching out his booted legs. “Five daughters, Mother Leah! Don’t talk to me of curses!”

  “Trust my word, old friend. Boys are no easier.”

  Bastrop’s face crinkled in concern and he reached out to grasp Rowle’s shoulder. “Tis a pity about Jonil. You had such hopes for him.”

  “My wife still weeps for him.”

  “And you?”

  “I have no tears left.” Rowle drained his cup and reached for the bottle again. “But let us not waste wine and breath on the dead. It’s the living I worry about now.”

  Bastrop nodded companionably. “Lillitha has grown into quite a beauty. Paul may be right.”

  “Paul thinks his first sister hung the moons and stars. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think so too. I sometimes wonder if Oman in His mercy gave me Lillitha to make up for Jonil. But they say that looks and temperament don’t count for everything. At least, that’s what Cadia Yanna tells me.”

  “Ah, Cadia Yanna; now that’s a formidable woman! The black robes, though, they puzzle me. You don’t see many of those.”

  “Really? I assumed they must have changed their fashions.”

  “The cadia? Bah, they haven’t changed in four hundred summers. Good women, but secretive. I’ve spent fifteen summers on the Isle and I still don’t understand their chain of command. Of course, you don’t see many of them out here, so you wouldn’t know, would you? I’ve spent so much time on Omana Teret it seems a shock to see so many women’s bare heads!”

  Unlike Rowle, who returned home after his required service in the Third Arm of the Legion, Bastrop had stayed. There was nothing for him in Tira. Bastrop was third born and his two older brothers had already sired a dozens sons between them, making it unlikely that Bastrop would ever become vidor. So he’d made a career for himself in the military and finally won a coveted posting to the Isle of Omana Teret—”the seat of Oman on earth.” Lord General Bastrop was the most important military commander i
n the realm, chief of the First Arm Guardians and advisor to Shallan Varden.

  “So how is it you are so far from your duties? I heard the Shallan cannot sleep without knowing you guard his palace.”

  “Aye, you cheeky bastid, do you mock the great Keeper of the Isle?!” Bastrop threw back his head and roared. “The old man is too deep in his own troubles to care whether I am there in the flesh or not. As to the purpose of my travels, let’s just say I needed a breather from the smell of incense.”

  “The shallan is not well, then?” Rowle was surprised at the fear that tapped at his heart. “The rumors are true?”

  “Which rumors? Shallan Varden has already seen one hundred and four summers. Even for a member of the Shallani tribe, where it is not unheard of to live past one hundred and twenty summers, that is old. Shallana Anthely, bless the poor thing, has yet to bring forth a living child and wagers are even on which of them is more distraught.”

  “She has another summer. There might yet be a child.”

  “You are more optimistic than the bene priests or the cadialana. Or most of the peasants, for that matter. This is in strictest confidence, you understand. Varden would see me staked if he suspected I discussed his business with someone outside the Isle.”

  “Then perhaps we shouldn’t—I did not mean to pry.”

  “Bah, I know that! I trust you above any man who walks the realm. Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit. You spend enough time in the palace walls, you tend to get melodramatic.”

  It had occurred to Bastrop, belatedly, that it was cruel to burden his friend with his own worries and complaints. After all, his daughter was consecratia, was she not? But Oman’s beard, he was sick of it! Sick of the whispers, sick of the pinched faces that turned away whenever the poor shallana passed by. Sick of that bastid Paglia, the chancellor of Omana Teret who grinned like a monkey and controlled more of the court with every passing day.

  And he was sick of Varden, blasphemy though it might be. Pious devotion was difficult when you regularly stood shoulder to shoulder with the man who ruled in Oman’s name. And it was almost impossible when day after day you were forced to stare at the bristles growing from his ears and nose.

  “Shallana Anthely,” Rowle asked, “she is well, aside from having no child?”

  “Be peaceful, old friend. I know you worry for Lillitha’s fate. But the shallana breda is well provided for. Anthely has become quite an accomplished artist, which I am told was always a dream of hers. She as happy as any woman without a child can be, shallana or not.”

  “Do you suppose the rumors are true, then? That the fault lies not with the shallana but with Varden?”

  Bastrop rubbed his eyes. Of course, the rumors were true. In seventy summers, Varden had sired sixteen daughters, only three of whom survived infancy. One of them had died of the fever before her twelfth summer, another had died in a strange riding accident and the last was, frankly, dim-witted. Two sons—only two!—were stillborn, one of them malformed. But even this was not well known. The priests carefully fed the populace such news as they saw fit. As far as anyone outside the bene, the council and the cadialana knew, the sixteen daughters had all survived and been consecrated to the cadia. They could not hide the stillbirth of the two boys, but not a whisper of the deformities had been allowed to circulate.

  He could not lie to Rowle, so he hid behind the same words the priests mouthed time and time again.

  “Oman’s will is a mysterious thing. He will choose His time and His bride, and no amount of gossip or speculation will hurry Him.”

  “You are right, of course.”

  Rowle reached for the wine, but Bastrop stopped him with a gesture. He did not want to drain his friend’s meager provisions.

  “No more, I’ll need a clear head tomorrow if I hope to cover enough ground,” Bastrop smiled wryly. “I think I’m still a young man until I’ve spent a day in the saddle.”

  “Aye, I know that feeling! You didn’t tell me why you ride for Jeptalla. To see Tullus, I presume?”

  “Certainly. I never had a chance to pay my respects when Alaida died and I thought to try my hand at a bit of matchmaking while I’m there.”

  “You’re turning into an old woman, Bastrop! Matchmaking between who? You’ve married off all your daughters or had you forgotten?”

  “Beneficent Oman, no! I get down on my knees every sunfall and offer thanks to Mother Leah that my own are properly wed! No, I have a niece—my widowed sister’s child, Toyva—who will be of age soon. I would be happy to see her joined with Tullus’ boy, Scearce. But don’t fret, when Paul is of age I’m sure I’ll have another niece to recommend.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Rowle fell silent. He couldn’t help wondering if Bastrop’s sister would appreciate having any of her daughters offered to a penny-less vidor.

  “All right,” Bastrop growled, waving his cup toward his host. “One more before bed. I lift my cup to your lovely daughter, Lillitha. May Oman’s peace be with her, wherever her path may lead.”

  Chapter 6: Scearce

  Excerpt from The Histories of the Realm by Cadia Kesava:

  Scearce has long been a dark figure in the history of tey Mysirrati. Little fact is recorded of him. The only surviving son of King Tullus of Jeptalla, we know he was born in the Harvest season of the 131st Coming of the Warrior, and that he first met Lillitha of Kirrisian in childhood. They met again as adults on the Pilgrimage of the Single Moon in the 150th Coming of the Bear, before her consecration as shallana breda. Of the nineteen years in between these events, we know little. His few contemporaries, being of Jeptallan origin, chose to keep silent to any and all outsiders, especially the cadia. Attempts to learn more about the father of Leah Orenda have met with ill-concealed hostility.

  The attitude of the Jeptallans should come as no surprise to students of that land. Jeptalla occupies a rocky peninsula situated on the far southeastern shore of the Omani Realm. Geography, history and culture have kept its people isolated to a far greater degree than any other allied province. Geographically, the Calla Sea and Gezana Bay separate Jeptalla from all but the sparsely populated southern borders of Kirrisian. The other eleven Omani tribes share common ancestors who migrated south from the northern lands, while the Jeptallan claim to be descendants of ancient settlers from the Kei Isles. They are believed to have first set foot on the continent some seven hundred years before the earliest recorded history of even the oldest of the Omani tribes, the Shallanie.

  Some historians, most notably Cadia Junisperi [see Origins of the Omani and Its Ramifications on Contemporary History], have theorized that only Jeptalla could have produced a man such as Scearce, just as only Jeptalla could have sheltered a renegade shallana breda and her lover for as long as it did.

  Tullus’ Seat was located in the southernmost tip of the country on a tiny peninsula. To reach it, it was necessary to traverse the whole of Jeptalla; luckily for Bastrop, this meant crossing the shallow depth of the country and not the much wider expanse that stretched southeast and northwest.

  The countryside began to change even before he had actually crossed Kirrisian’s border. No long, lazy dirt roads here, no gently undulating fields stretching to the horizon, either. Hills became steeper, the land itself fragmenting into a series of nooks and crannies overlooking tiny, deep green valleys. Foliage ran riot. The Lord General, out of habit, saw it through military eyes and decided he had never seen a place so easy to defend and impossible to attack. Lucky for him, he thought with a chuckle, that he came in peace. There were too many places for attackers to hide.

  The Three Great Walls divided Jeptalla, each with only one gate. The First Wall marked the borders of Kirrisian and Gezana, the only entrance being on the Kirrisian side. All the land between the First Gate and the Second comprised what the natives called the Outer Kingdom of Jeptalla.

  Whereas the First Wall curved slightly inward, following the legal boundary of its neighboring provinces, the Second Wall curved imperceptibly outward,
its middle coming within a mere five parsecs of the First at its closest point. At that narrow point, the village of Midiron sat squarely buttressed between them.

  Over the centuries, a small group of hovels between the first and second walls had grown into a thriving village of some four thousand souls, a rabbit warren of dwellings on top of dwellings, terraced and storied. Hemmed in on two sides by the walls, new dwellings wedged their way between, over and behind the older ones. Some of the buildings and huts were in fact part of the walls themselves. In spite of the single cobbled road that wove its crooked way past the stores, taverns and markets nearest the gate to the houses and huts beyond and then into the fields and finally into the countryside, passing through Midiron was slow and laborious going.

  To the southwest, the next village, Trafala, laid some sixty parsecs away; in the other direction, the larger seaport of Fariste rose into view only after three days journey. A traveler who ventured off the main road either found himself in a maze of dead ends or on the narrow road to Trafala or Fariste without even knowing it.

  The Great Walls were actually extended defenses of Tullus’ Seat, but so great was the distance between them that an ignorant traveler would never guess that the walls were connected with the Seat at all. Bastrop, as a student of military history, had studied the Seat and its cunning defenses. He was fascinated to finally see with his own eyes what he had read of in books. His old friend, Tullus, had offered little detail, no matter how hard Bastrop had prodded back in the days when they served together in the lower ranks; having grown up with the walls, Tullus found no amazement in them.

  “They’re just walls, see?” he had shrugged. “You’ve seen a wall before, haven’t you? Well, the Three Walls are just the same, only bigger. And there are three of them.”