Jabone's Sword (39 page)

"Put her down, son, see if she can walk," Jena said, but Jabone was just hauling her through the building and then out to the privy. She was glad that Jena had followed them. "Son, put the girl down and go back to the inn."

"But mother."

"Son, a Jethrikian lady doesn't want to attend to her nature with her husband outside the door."

"Attend to her nature?" Jabone asked.

"I have to go, just put me down, Jabone, and leave me alone."

He nodded quickly and set her down. Her feet weren't too shaky, not great, but she could definitely walk as long as she had something to hang onto.

"I will help her, Jabone, go on now," Jena ordered her son. He nodded and took off for which Kasiria was happy because when she got in the outhouse and sat down the gates just opened. It was bad enough to have to hear her hero asking, "You all right Kasiria?" She would have died of complete embarrassment if Jabone had been there as well.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be, you've been in a comma for over a week and haven't so much as peed. Nature of the spell I guess."

"Spell?" Kasiria asked, wanting to ask if while her bowels hadn't been working at all they had just stuffed her with food because she just felt like she wasn't ever going to be done.

"Didn't they tell you? Jestia used a spell that saved you. You'll have to ask one of the others I'm not much of a storyteller."

"Damn," Kasiria said.

"Something wrong?"

"No it's just . . . Well I had hoped she was just kidding or more likely over-stating her importance as she always does. She'll never let me live this down."

"Most probably not," Jena said with a laugh.

Kasiria finished and looked for the cleaning rags. "Ah, there are no cleaning rags."

"Use the leaves hanging to your right. You'll find them very comfortable and then you just throw them in the hole and then throw down a cup full of ash. The Kartiks get very perturbed with people who don't cover."

Kasiria found the leaves and the ashes and was actually quite pleased with the results. The leaves worked quite well and the ashes were no doubt why there wasn't as much stench as she was used to. She stood outside again and noticed there was a basin sitting on a near-by shelf so that you could wash your hands.
So these are the savages?
Her hands started to bubble in the water and she pulled them quickly out.

"It's all right. It's water from the spring. It bubbles when it finds poisons or impurities. More than safe, it's what saved your life. It has healing properties for everyone but even more so for the Katabull."

Kasiria washed her hands and dried them on a towel hanging there for that purpose. Then she stopped and just looked around her. Color. Everywhere she looked there was color. The inn was made of some sort of red stone the ground was covered in fine red pebbles that made a crunching sound when you walked on them, and the flowers—so many flowers of every color—and from here she could just make out the outline of the town—so pretty. The buildings all seemed to be made of rock or brick with tile rooves as red as the huge red rocks the town was built around.

She could just make out the road from where she stood and the first thing that jumped to her mind was how clean everything was. She was standing outside the outhouse and it smelled about a hundred times better than walking down the street in Pearson. There was no stink. In fact when she walked just a few steps away from the outhouse the air smelled just like perfume.

"It's just like they said. I thought they were just homesick and making home better than it was, but it's just like they said it was," she said in wonder.

"Tarius had told me all these wonderful stories of the Kartik when we were in the Jethrik and I thought it was just to get me to come here with her, but then when I got here . . . Well there is no other place in the world like the Kartik."
Kasiria took a deep breath and turned to look at Jena. "You know don't you?"

"Kasiria . . . you put the king's crest around our son's throat," Jena said in utter disbelief.

"I know," Kasiria cried miserably. "But he gave me this," she held up the cuff, "and he wanted to bind me to him and I wanted to bind him to me and . . . It was all I had that meant anything to me and it was only later that I realized how absurd it was. I couldn't very well take it back could I?"

Jena nodded her understanding. "Kasiria . . . You're the Katabull. I doubted it when my son said it and I figured out who you were . . . but when I had my hands inside your body . . . Well Katabull anatomy is just different. How is it that you are the Katabull?"

Kasiria took in a deep breath and let it out. She might as well get it all over with at once. "I am the product of Tarius's curse against my father . . . " and she told Jena all she knew as Jena took her hand and led her around Jazel's herb garden. "And when I knew Jabone was Katabull, too, then I was sure that we were meant to be together, but then I couldn't tell him because well the Katabull hate my father obviously. And then when I figured out he was her son . . . " She started to cry in spite of herself. "Well how can I ever tell him now?"

Jena patted her back. "Don't worry about it for now," Jena said gently. "I was ready to hate you because of him, because I am not like Tarius who holds a grudge only for the Amalite's religion and I will carry a grudge to the grave. Tarius is right, though. This is not for us to tell Jabone. You can tell him or not as you will and I won't be the one who tells, but I think you do Jabone a disservice because he has been raised in the Katabull Nation as a follower of the nameless god and he like Tarius will not damn you for your father."

"What of you Jena?" Kasiria asked drying her eyes.

Jena smiled and patted her shoulder, "I think we'll get along fine."

* * *

Jabone was heading back out of the inn with Tarius right behind him. "Son, let the girl have some privacy to do her business."

"Something must be wrong." But then as they got outside he could see Kasiria and his mother walking around the garden, talking. He started to go to them, but Tarius clamped a hand on his shoulder.

"Jabone, let your mother have a few minutes alone to get to know Kasiria."

"But Madra, it's been so long since I could even talk to Kasiria. I thought she was going to die and I just want to be near her, to hold her."

"I know, but give your mother a minute. This is a very difficult time for her." He gave her a curious look. "Until now you have never loved anyone more than your mother. It's hard for her."

"I will always love my mother."

"Ah, but now she has been replaced. It's the way it should be and what she wants for you,"
if not with who,
"but that doesn't make it easy for her. It's just us now. I should have given her another child. She misses you so very much."

Jabone smiled and looked at her. "And you Madra, do you miss me as well?"

"Do you really need to hear me say it?" Tarius sighed. "Yes I miss you, too." He kissed her on the cheek and then looked longingly at where Kasiria was talking to Jena. "Go on and send your mother to me."

She watched him walk away and then watched as Jena started for her and her heart lightened when she saw the smile on Jena's face.

"So, would you like to go on a walk with me fine lady?" she asked offering her arm.

"I'd be delighted." Jena looped her arm through Tarius's arm and they started walking.

"Well?"

"I like her, and she may look like me, but she is more like you."

Tarius smiled. "Well you know what the Katabull say, a boy always binds himself to a woman just like his mothers."

"You want to do what with who?" Hestia screamed down at Jestia from her throne.

"I'm
going
to marry Ufalla," Jestia said matter-of-factly.

"Ufalla, your best friend Ufalla? Harris's daughter Ufalla?"

"Yes, that Ufalla. Mother, I know you're ageing poorly, but are you getting feeble minded as well?"

"Jestia, you tax me!" Hestia thundered.

Wow! I wonder if she really will crap herself. She is really upset. In fact, the color of her face is clashing with the blue velvet in that draping that's hanging behind the throne and . . . That would make a wonderful gown.
She turned her attention back to them with an effort and then said thoughtfully, "Why do we always have to have family discussions in here? Do we not have a parlor where we could meet like a real family? Must you sit on your throne and look down on me like I'm one of your subjects instead of your daughter?"

"Jestia," it was her father who spoke now. "Your mother is right. You are second in line to the throne. Now you may keep this girl as a lover but you can't marry her. You must marry a man and have heirs to the throne."

"Oh, really why? Has Katan suddenly started doing really reckless, outrageous things like not eating enough vegetables or sleeping with the window open? Here's an idea for you—how about I marry Ufalla and let Katan do the making heirs thing? Come on . . . it doesn't matter what I do. Hell you would have been happy if I'd died in the territories."

"Jestia, how can you say such a thing?" Hestia said in a gasp.

"I open my mouth and flip my tongue around and sound comes out. Come on . . . Seriously. Do you care about me or do you just think I have to suffer with some loveless union for the sake of the kingdom because that's what you have done?"

Hestia started, "What a terrible . . . "
"But true," Jestia chimed.

" . . . thing to say. You think you love Ufalla then? The poor, wretched girl, she's just the latest in a long string of things you've done just to annoy me. She isn't even full-blooded Kartik, Jestia. A sword slinger, raised among the Katabull. She knows there ways more than ours and . . . "

"You are making me madder by the minute old woman! You are talking about the woman I love," Jestia said, glaring at her mother angrily. "Do your subjects know how little merit you have for them?"

"What do you mean?"

"This is the Kartik, Mother, yet all of the things you have just said sound more like they should have come from King Persius's mouth instead of a monarch on the Kartik throne. It isn't the Kartik way to care who people love, or what their country of origin is and certainly no real Kartik would ever have contempt for the Katabull or their ways. I
am
going to marry Ufalla, I
am
going to live my life with her, and you don't even want to try and stop me because I have become a very powerful witch." And with that she stomped out of the throne room and down the hall to where Ufalla was waiting for her. When she saw her sort of hiding behind a suit of armor she glared at her and hissed, "Coward!"

Ufalla just smiled weakly and shrugged. "Well what did they say?"

"They said you're a lovely girl, we make a very handsome couple, and they can't wait to have you as part of the family."

"Jestia, do you even know how to tell the truth?" Ufalla asked with a laugh.

Jestia wrapped her arms around Ufalla's neck. "You want to hear the truth? I love you, Ufalla. I need you, and no one is ever going to keep me from being with you. If they try I'll make them damn sorry." She kissed Ufalla then released her and took her hand. "Now come on I finally have something to dress for.

* * *

Kasiria was still disoriented. It had only been six days since she had awakened. Going from being just a little better than dead in a field in the Jethrikian held territories of the Amalite to being in a spa in Montero in the Kartik had been hard enough to understand. She'd now gotten half a dozen accounts of what had happened and all seemed to be more or less the same with some people doing a better telling than others.

She'd hardly gotten to feeling like her old self again when she was dressed, sitting on a horse, and in route to the Kartik capital to meet with Hestia the Warrior Queen herself.

At Montero, Jabone had been happy, light hearted. He'd been very loving those first few days, just staying with her, helping her in and out of the spring, making sure she got plenty of rest and enough to eat. At night he'd lie with her and just hold her 'til after three days she was the one who couldn't stand it any longer.

"Jabone I feel really good now," she had told him as they lay in bed holding each other.

"Good," he said.

She had sighed. It wasn't lady-like to be forward. "I do, I feel really, really good. As if I'd never been shot with an arrow at all."

He smiled and kissed her forehead and said, "That's good."

"Jabone, you know . . . Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No, nothing's wrong," he said pulling, her close and smelling her hair. He just wasn't getting it at all.

"Jabone." She kissed him on the lips gently. When that didn't get the reaction she wanted she kissed him a little harder. When she still didn't get the reaction she wanted she pushed back from him and said, "I'm not going to break you know?"

Jabone's face lit up with sudden understanding, "Oh you want to . . . "

"Don't say it, Jabone, just do it."

Because of course she could do it but still couldn't make herself talk about it.

After that she and Jabone had just spent the days making love and walking around the town with him telling her what everything was and trying to teach her a little Kartik along the way, and she found that she was getting to a point where she could mostly understand what they were saying but was still having trouble actually saying the words.

She loved Montero, it was peaceful, beautiful. Everywhere you looked there were waterfalls and flowers. The air was like perfume. She loved spending time with him in the spring; it was like magic. Something had made a perfect round hole in the rock. The water was soft, almost too hot, and had a greenish-blue tint. You could see it bubbling up from a small fissure in the bottom of the pool and watch it run over the top. It had a cover over it supported by six stone columns, a wood walk way built around it and connecting it to the spa, and there was a fence all the way around it for privacy. She'd never wanted to leave there, but when she'd learned they'd all be going to the Kartik palace she'd been really excited until it was obvious that Jabone wasn't.