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All men recognize the inherent authority of an angry woman.
-Musings of the Historian
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Silence fell for five long seconds. Even Ison stared at Sahn wide-eyed.
Kitok overcame his surprise first.
“Get out! There will be no mercy, no quarter! I will see your city burned until not even memory remains. Go!”
“Did we ask for mercy?” Ison growled. “The Teacher was wrong in only one respect, Kitok. You will not live to die a sacrifice for your gods. I will kill you myself before this is done. I swear it.”
Then Sahn was tugging on his sleeve and the two were walking away, the Artist and I following in their wake.
As we walked back to our own lines, the Artist leaned over to show me her quick sketch of the exchange. It was beautiful. In the picture, Sahn was the tallest of anyone there, though in real life he was the shortest by a margin. He towered over Kitok and roared. It was subtle, but she had used smudges of charcoal to suggest a dark smoke pouring out of Sahn and covering Kitok. Or perhaps he was drawing it away from Kitok and into himself. There was no way in the simple sketch to tell which way the darkness was flowing. I couldn’t tell and I loved it.
Ison and Sahn walked without talking, their body language that of two men most definitely not turning and looking behind them for javelins thrown at their back.
When they were nearly back at the Kingdom lines, Ison put a hand on Sahn’s shoulder. It was a simple gesture, but after all the theater they had put on for the soldiers and citizenry, it was oddly touching in its spontaneity and sincerity.
Sahn turned and smiled at Ison, though Ison did not smile back. They weren’t even friends, and I’m not sure they could ever be, but something had passed between them where they knew they would likely die together, and each had found some flavor of peace in that.
The moment died quickly on our return to camp. Sahn stopped suddenly as he turned a corner, so abruptly that Ison stumbled from the sudden change of pace, not getting his arm off of Sahn’s shoulder fast enough to maintain his pace.
“What?” Ison demanded, looking to Sahn then out at the Empire, half-expecting an attack. Then, like any good soldier, he instead looked to where Sahn was looking.
“Oh,” was all Ison offered as a large woman with frizzy brown hair stalked toward Sahn, murder in her eyes. I’d have guessed that even with his stout belly, she probably outweighed Sahn by well over forty pounds. Still, she stepped as lightly as a cat stalking a wounded bird as she advanced on Sahn.
“My wife.” Sahn whispered. “Please don’t tell her...”
We never did hear what Sahn didn’t want his wife to hear. I will always hold a small curiosity about what he was going to say next. After all, there was a wide variety of things he had done that he might not want his wife to hear about.
She slapped him across the face. Ison, enthralled by the spectacle, was not prepared to dodge and her next slap rocked his head to the side.
“Would you boys care to explain yourselves?” she demanded.
Ison, holding his hand up to his stinging cheek, had nothing but a bewildered look to offer. Sahn did little better, hanging his head like a scolded puppy.
“Yerena, I had to...” Sahn started to offer a weak apology, then trailed off, shrugging his shoulders.
Yerena sighed deeply, her hands on her hips.
“Yes, I suppose you did,” she said softly and pulled him into a warm hug, which he returned gratefully. He sniffled and I took a discreet sidestep to see a tear on his cheek.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, once he had pulled away. Then he flinched as her hand raised again.
“Why do you think you’re in trouble, Sahn? Besides stealing my best scarves?”
“For... coming to the battle?” he guessed.
“Fool man. You’re in trouble for not telling me. I have no idea what you’ve been up to, but I can still confidently say that it would have gone much better had you included me. You’ve never left me out of anything before.”
Her voice broke at the last sentence. Hearing the hurt he had caused his wife broke Sahn completely.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. I kept thinking of what would happen if the Empire made it into the city, what would happen to you. And I... I’m sorry.” he finished lamely, his eloquence failing. She smiled through a tear of her own, hugging him again. It appeared all was forgiven.
At least for Sahn.
She pushed her husband away and turned to Ison.
“I’ll have a moment to speak with you, Commander.” In the time I had known him, I had seen Ison show many emotions, but never had I seen uncertainty and fear as plain as right then.
She waved a hand at Sahn and he hurried away, towards the command tent. Yerena motioned towards the Artist and me.
“Do your servants need to be here?” she asked, not impolitely, but firmly. “I would prefer to speak to you alone.”
“They are not my servants.” Ison’s tone was tired, as if he had been trying to get rid of us for ages. “They go where they want and do not listen to me. But I can attest to their discretion. That one remembers words and that one draws pictures, but as near as I can tell, they only talk to each other.”
The Artist and I exchanged glances at the odd description, but I suppose it fit, at least at that time.
“Fine.” Yerena accepted our presence and moved on. “I want to know what you intend next for my husband.”
“Well, ma’am, while I could use him still, he’s done plenty and he’s been wounded, I think we can find a way to have him step aside and get to safety.”
Another slap, this one lighter, hit Ison’s already-red cheek.
“You do no such thing!” she snapped at him. Her tone and face were angry, but there were tears brimming in her eyes. “My Sahn is a great man, always has been, but nobody ever got a chance to see it, not even him. He works year in and year out, teaching and helping however he can. I never could give him children, but he’s been a father to hundreds, you hear?
“I... understand.” Ison said in a tone that implied no understanding at all.
“You listen. Just listen now. I know that things happen, and have happened. What I just saw was the worst I have ever seen him. I know he might die...”
She paused for a moment, her voice catching. Ison tried to say something, to offer some comfort or platitude and she reached out and grabbed his jaw, shutting it firmly. It was clear that she had something she needed to say, for herself as much as to Ison, and nothing was going to stop her. She only needed a minute.
“I know he might die.” she continued, speaking a little louder to cover any breaks in her voice. “But that man has lived his whole life reading and fantasizing about heroes. And even if it kills me, I’m not going to take this away from him and neither are you. Understand?”
Ison nodded somberly.
“Good.” She nodded curtly. “I’m glad we understand each other. Now, what is your plan to win this?”
“There are several options and I can assure you that...”
She raised her hand threateningly again and he cut off, raising a hand to guard his face.
“Don’t you feed me lines, Commander. I don’t have the patience and you don’t have the time. Tell me straight, do you have a plan to get that army out of here?” she demanded, pointing out towards the camps of the Empire as if they were an infestation of rats in a warehouse.
Ison looked left and right. It seemed that most soldiers were pointedly ignoring the scene.
“No.” He spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “With the reinforcements from the town and some of our soldiers coming back, we’ve got a chance to hold the walls, for days even, but there’s nothing we can do to drive them back. If we went past the walls and met them in open battle, we’d be slaughtered down to the last man in less than an hour.”
I looked at Yerena with newfound respect. The confession she had pulled out of Ison was nothing short of incredible. I doubted that he had admitted as much to himself. Yerena only nodded, as if that was what she had expected all along.
“So why don’t they leave?” she asked simply.
“Because they believe they can win,” he responded with equal simplicity.
“Makes sense. I suppose they feel like they need something to show for it, coming all this way.”
“I suppose,” Ison agreed.
I was pleased to see the Artist already scribbling away. This scene was amazing. Ison had known this woman for less than five minutes, and had been slapped twice in that time. But now he was openly talking strategy with this brassy woman as if she had been on his war council for years.
“Sometimes, I’ll get a new assistant in the bakery who shows no respect for the oven. They think they know everything.” Yerena explained as Ison nodded along in all seriousness.
I think something had broken inside Ison. Before, he had never really respected anyone outside the military, but he had been so aggressively wrong about Sahn that he was doubting his doubts now.
“And how do you deal with such an assistant?” he prompted.
“Oh, you warn them a couple times, of course, but after two or three times, I stop saying anything and let the oven teach them. It sometimes takes a day or two, but eventually they’ll do something foolish and get themselves burned for real. After that, they step careful, believe it!”
She stopped, waiting for Ison to see her point. To his credit, his usual impatience with everyone and everything was gone, and he was really trying to understand what she was trying to tell him, but was coming up short.
After a few tortuous moments of staring at his blank face, she took mercy on him and explained.
“You see, Commander, those boys out there,” she waved again toward the Empire army. “They think once they can get some soldiers in here that we’re all going to bow down and let them kill us and carry us away.”
I was ashamed at my own smirk when I pictured anyone trying to “carry” Yerena away.
“But if you let some of them in, we’ll show them that we’re no easy meat. One good burn and maybe they’ll learn a little respect.”