The Lesson
‘No more,’ I gesture with my fingers to the Mothers Superior. ‘Don’t make me relive this, please!’
They aren’t listening, just talking. Words I know, words I don’t. They mutter and mumble and whisper at me, snapping their fingers – always snapping their fingers to draw me into their babble. Every word is another lead weight on the chain hanging heavy around my neck, pulling me down, all the way down, into the memories of what came next.
‘Please,’ I sign to the Mothers again. It’s the only one my fingers can still make.
‘Please.’
‘Please.’
‘Please, Mamma, come back inside!’
My travelling shirt and trousers cling to me uncomfortably. They’re caked in dust and grime from the road and stained with the blood of the three mages I fought. All I want to do is be rid of them, to go back to bed and pretend for one more night that I’m Enna’s daughter.
Enna’s not listening though. She’s out in the back garden, one of her rapiers in hand. It’s not the blunted practice one she uses to teach me fencing. This isn’t like her. Enna’s wise, calm, controlled. She’s not as much a pacifist as Durral, but still she believes with all her heart in the Path of the Rambling Thistle – that one can seek the truth and protect the innocent without succumbing to violence and cruelty.
‘Get out here,’ she says.
‘I won’t fight you,’ I tell her, walking down the steps so that she can see my face lit by moonlight. See that I’m sorry, that I’m ready to listen.
She takes three steps back, leaving me the smoother ground of the garden. ‘Get your blade up.’
‘I won’t fight you, Mamma,’ I say again. ‘I could never hurt you.’
‘Of course you can. You hurt those boys, didn’t you?’
‘That was different! They were killers! Monsters!’
She’s so still it’s like she’s not even there. A silhouette you think you see in front of you that turns out to be a shadow cast by a tree.
‘There’s no such thing as monsters, Ferius. Now get your blade up.’
Why is she doing this? She’s never been this way with me before. It’s like I’m some stranger who wandered into her garden.
I try to find my own calm, to fill myself so full of peace that it seeps out my mouth and spreads into the garden to bridge the gap between Enna and me.
‘I told you, I won’t hurt you,’ I tell her.
‘Really?’ she asks.
‘Yes, really!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure! Mamma, I could nev—’
‘Then why did you bring your sword?’
All of a sudden I’m staring at the smallsword in my hand. She told me to bring it. Ordered me to bring it. But why did I? Why didn’t I just leave the sword in the old leather mapmaker’s case in my room, come out here and beg her forgiveness and promise to never again abuse the Argosi talents even though in my heart I still believe I had the right to do what I did to those mages.
‘You brought the sword because you can’t help yourself,’ she says.
I’m still looking down at the weapon. It’s like it belongs to somebody else and I just picked it up off the street. I want to throw it away, but the hilt feels so good in my hand that all I can do is squeeze it tighter.
‘They murdered that old man,’ I say.
‘That they did.’
‘I didn’t force them to attack me. I just let them come. They would’ve killed me if they could. I had the right to kill them in return.’
‘That you did.’
‘Then why are you doing this?’ I ask, trying to find her eyes in the moonlight. All I see in the darkness are two tiny black holes where her love for me has always been, ever since the first day I walked into her home. ‘I had to stop them! I had to—’
‘What would’ve happened if you hadn’t?’ she asks.
‘They would’ve gotten away with it! They would’ve gone back to their city and boasted to their friends about how they bravely faced a Mahdek demon-worshipper and rid the world of one more of their people’s ancient enemies.’
‘And then what?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Use your arta tuco, Ferius. What would’ve happened next?’
I want to scream at her that I don’t know, or invent some theory that more young Jan’Tep mages would’ve taken up the cause and gone out raining more misery and ember spells on the world. It’s plausible, isn’t it?
Arta tuco.
The Argosi talent for strategy. Its most basic use is finding paths out of seemingly inescapable scenarios, but it’s also the means by which you figure out how a situation will unfold if left alone.
I can’t tell her I don’t know, because I do know exactly what would’ve happened next. The clan prince of Oatas Jan’Dal had made it his decree that there could be no more attacks upon the Mahdek. Those three idiots would’ve bragged all over town about their exploits. The clan prince couldn’t allow such a violation of his commandments. He would’ve rounded them up, held a trial. The three would’ve been counter-banded, taking away their ability to use magic, and exiled. Their houses would’ve been forced to make restitution. Since the old man likely had no family, the heads of some very important Jan’Tep houses would’ve had to go out and make that restitution to his clan, or his tribe, or failing that, to any Mahdek they could find, knowing that failing to do so would result in their own exile.
‘What will happen now, Ferius?’
I don’t answer, because I don’t want to have to say it out loud. Those three will run back to their city. They won’t admit to having killed the old man. Instead they’ll tell the story of how an Argosi ambushed them and shattered the bones in their fingers. The clan prince’s enemies will use this as proof that his policies of peaceful co-existence are doing exactly what the Jan’Tep fear most: demonstrating weakness to their enemies, both real and imagined. Word will get out to other Jan’Tep cities, and resentment will spread. Silk Wolf, Iron Serpent and Ember Frog will become martyrs in a cause that stretches back three hundred years and, thanks to me, might go on for three hundred more.
I can see it all so clearly now, just like some part of me must’ve seen it even before I’d gone after those three boys.
Durral always says that the problem with becoming an Argosi is that once you learn to see the world as it truly is, you no longer have the excuse of being blind.
I have made the lives of my people worse than they already were. I have allowed my desperate, burning desire for violence against those who hurt me in the past to make the world a meaner place than it was – than it would’ve been even if those three mages had gotten away with their crime entirely. I should be ashamed. I am ashamed.
But I’m also proud of having hurt those boys.
And I can’t seem to make that pride go away.
‘Durral is out there now,’ Enna says, gesturing off to the west, ‘finding those three mages. Do you know what he’s doing?’
‘Don’t,’ I warn her.
She knows me too well, I realise now. Knows me better than I know myself. She ought to know better than to keep talking.
‘He’s following the Way of Water. He’s going to apologise to those Jan’Tep boys. Heal their wounds as best he can. Beg them for forgiveness. Offer them money. It won’t work, of course. So tomorrow, Durral Brown, who tries so hard to live a peaceful life yet despises bullies and tyrants so much he spends his whole time struggling to rid himself of that hatred, is going to have to set out for their city, and bow and scrape before their clan prince and their families, making more promises. More deals. Hoping that if he can make the Argosi look small and subservient, the Jan’Tep will feel big and powerful.’
‘He shouldn’t do that,’ I say, and now it’s my voice that’s gone colder than the night air. ‘He’s got no right to make amends with my enemies. Just like you’ve got no right to carp at me for doing what the Argosi should’ve been doing all along.’
‘Get your point up, teysan.’
She hardly ever uses that word. I see her blade glistening in the dim light like an accusing finger. I slap it away with my smallsword.
‘Leave me alone, Enna.’
Her blade is right back where it was a second ago. Now I’m not even sure if I hit it.
‘You need to see.’
‘See what?’
I keep expecting her to attack me, but she doesn’t. At least, not with her sword. Her words, though – those are sharp as razors.
‘The lesson Durral’s too afraid to teach you.’
I don’t know what it is that sets me off. Why those words and not any of the others? What’s so terrifying to me about what she’s just said that makes me go after her, the tip of my sword darting through the night air so fast neither of us can see it and we’re both thrusting and parrying on instinct rather than skill? I nearly drop my weapon when her tip pierces the skin on the back of my hand. I barely feel it.
‘What’s this grand lesson then?’ I ask, cutting and slashing and lunging at her over and over. I should be awkward, clumsy on account of my anger, but I’m not. My every attack is precise. Flawless. Deadly. ‘Come on, Enna. Teach me. Teach me about the Way of Water, and the deals I should be making with those who massacred my clan and tortured me over and over and over! Teach me about the Way of Wind, and how I should ignore it whenever I hear that there are more Jan’Tep mages out there hunting for people like me! Teach me about the Way of Thunder, and how I should never use it unless you and Durral tell me to! Teach me about the Way of Stone, so that I can take the pommel of my sword and smash it to pieces!’
My slashes become wild. Savage. Reckless. My technique is gone. There’s no dancing here, no arta eres. I’m just a blundering child swinging a sword that feels so light she can’t even tell that . . .
That . . .
I finally stop and look down at my hand, wondering why I can’t feel the weight of the weapon any more. The answer is that I’m not holding it. My hand is empty.
When I look up, Enna’s silhouette is still there, the shadow of a woman standing before me, only the shape is wrong somehow. Something’s sticking out of her chest.
It’s the hilt of my smallsword.
As if she has been waiting for me all this time, holding herself upright until at last the madness had left me, she says, ‘Here endeth the lesson,’ and collapses to her knees.
I run to her. She’s got her hands wrapped around the blade of my smallsword and starts pulling it out.
‘Mamma, don’t!’
‘Got to . . . get it out,’ she says.
There’s blood. So much blood. Why can I see the blood so clearly when I can’t see anything else in this darkness?
As the blade finally comes all the way out, and the smallsword drops to the grassy ground, she falls into my arms.
‘Mamma? Mamma, please! Don’t—’
She reaches into the pocket of her trousers, pulls out a vial of oleus regia and hands it to me. I’ve never seen this much of it before. The ointment is one of the most powerful healing agents there is, but even as I slather it all over the wound, I’m doubtful it can save her.
‘Meant to use it on you,’ she says, wheezing. My sword punctured one of her lungs. ‘In case you got scraped up in the fight.’ Her laugh is both brittle and wet.
‘I’m sorry, Mamma. I didn’t mean—’
‘My own fault,’ she says. ‘Thought I could . . . let you see what’s inside you without . . . forgot you’re so fast, my girl. So very fast. People think that’s good, but it’s not. What is it Durral always says? “The hand is quicker than the eye but should never be faster than the heart?”’
I tear the sleeve from my shirt and start bandaging her with it. ‘Mamma, stop talking. I’ve got to get you inside and—’
‘No. Ferius, you’ve got to run.’
‘What? No! I’ll stay and—’
‘Durral’s going to be back soon from gathering supplies for his trip to the Jan’Tep territories. When he sees me . . . Ferius, he’s not . . . he won’t understand. He’ll kill you.’
‘Good,’ I say, sobbing over her. ‘It’s what I deserve!’
She shakes her head, coughing up blood. ‘You don’t understand. Durral . . . he was never really meant to walk the Path of the Rambling Thistle. That’s my path. He just . . . it was the only way we could be together. Do you understand? That’s why he tries so hard all the time. It’s why he never . . . Ferius, if he hurts you, he steps off the path forever. We won’t be able to be together again.’ She starts crying, and it’s not from the pain or even the fear of dying. ‘I don’t want to live without him. I don’t want to die knowing he’ll be lost.’ She grabs my arm and squeezes. ‘Please, Ferius. I love him. Don’t let him find you. Don’t make me lose him.’
‘Mamma . . .’
Even now she gives of herself to me. Against all the pain and anguish she must be feeling, she pulls an Argosi smile to her lips. ‘I’m a tough bird, my love. We’ll see each other again, I promise. But right now, darling, you’ve got to run. Run, and keep running.’
I’m so full of tears that won’t come out, I’m drowning in them. Some small part of me wakes up though, and remembers that the first thing Enna tried to teach me is that an Argosi doesn’t allow guilt, shame and grief to steer them off their path.
Even if they don’t yet know what their path is.
I smear the rest of the oleus regia on her chest more carefully now. I run inside the house and get bandages and wrap the wound the way she taught me. I wrap her up in blankets, put a pillow under her head. It’s too dangerous to move her. When I’m certain I’ve done everything for her that can be done, I go back inside and grab my things. I get Quadlopo from the barn and saddle him up. I take my smallsword with me, because to do otherwise would be to pretend it’s not part of me. I kiss my mother on the forehead, tell myself that my lips felt the warmth of her skin.
And I run, pursued by the chilling voice inside my head that reminds me that even an Argosi like Enna hardly ever survives a wound like the one I gave her.