Griffin's Daughter (15 page)

“
Don’t forget to say goodbye to your mother. I know she’s all wrapped up in this wedding business, but she would kill me if I didn’t insist that you interrupt her for a proper farewell.” Sen smiled wryly.

“
I will, Father,” Ashinji replied. Emerald eyes met gray-green ones in acknowledgment of the unbreakable bonds of love between father and son. “I’ll see you when I return.”

A Conflicted Heart

"Ashiiii!”

The two little girls leapt up from the floor and flung themselves upon their big brother, shrieking with delight. Jena and Mariso were identical twins, the youngest of the Sakehera brood. Twinning was very rare among elves, and the twins themselves were believed to bestow special luck upon their families.

“
Whoa! You’ll knock me down, you demons,” Ashinji cried in mock fear, then burst out laughing as the twins swarmed over him. He scooped up one child under each arm and carried them, giggling and squirming, into the center of the large, open room where two women sat on a low couch, each one bending over something in her hands. The older of the two women looked up, and her handsome face broke into a gentle smile.

“
Mother! Mother! Look who’s here!” the twins shouted in unison.

“
Yes, my pets, I can see perfectly well. You don’t have to carry on so. Do let your brother alone so he can come and greet me properly!” Lady Sakehera held out her hand.

“
All right, monkeys,” Ashinji said, lowering the girls gently to the floor where they collapsed in a giggling heap. He clasped his mother’s warm, strong-fingered hand in his and kissed her tattooed palm. He then bent over and kissed his oldest sister Lani’s cool cheek, and was rewarded by a demure smile.

Lani was tall, like their father, and just blossoming into young womanhood. She possessed an elegant beauty and a calm maturity far beyond her years. Like Ashinji, she, too, found great pleasure in intellectual pursuits, but she also nurtured a serious artistic talent as well. At present, she and her mother were working in tandem on a large piece of needlework. From the look of the fabric and the complexity of the design, Ashinji surmised that they labored over a wedding robe.

“
Come sit by me, Son. Can you stay and talk awhile?” Lady Sakehera asked.

“
Of course, Mother,” Ashinji replied, settling down on the couch beside her.

The twins immediately began clamoring for his attention. “Ashi! Your hair…” cried Jena. Mariso took up the sentence and finished it. “Can we braid it? Pleeeeese?” Ashinji found the children’s exuberance impossible to ignore. Their small bodies hummed with the wild energy of the very young.

“
Well, it’s still wet, but…”

The girls shrieked with glee.

“
Girls, please! Not so loud. Ashinji is not one of your dolls, you know. Maybe he doesn’t want his hair braided just yet.” Lady Sakehera shook her head in reproach, but Ashinji could see how hard she worked to suppress her laughter.

“
All right, monkeys. If you must.” He braced himself as the girls climbed over the side of the couch and wedged themselves in behind his back. One of them produced a comb and began attacking his damp locks with enthusiasm.

“
Maybe after you two are finished with our brother’s hair, you can sit still long enough for me to show you some stitching,” Lani’s tone crackled with wry amusement. Her clever fingers seemed to move impossibly fast for such intricate work. A single bead of perspiration stood out on the fine skin of her forehead.

A set of ceramic wind chimes hanging in the room’s main window tinkled merrily in the warm breeze. Today, the wind came from the southeast, carrying with it the heat it had absorbed during its long journey across the great southern desert.

“
I’m going away for awhile, Mother,” Ashinji said.

“
I know, Son. Your father has told me.”

Ashinji studied his mother’s profile, trying to glean from it a clue to her innermost thoughts, but Lady Amara Sakehera had been well trained. She was a daughter of the House of Naota, the wife and strong right hand of the Commanding General of the king’s army, and a mage of exceptional Talent. If she were fearful over what could happen to her son, she would never show it. Her face remained smooth and calm.

“
I hope I’ll not be away much longer than ten days or so.”

“
Perhaps, when you return, you can tell me what has been troubling you these past few days.” Amara’s eyes, emerald green like her son’s, spoke of her desire to offer wisdom and comfort to her child. Ashinji sighed. He had never been able to hide his troubles or fears from her. She was too highly attuned to the psychic energies of all of her family.

The twins put the finishing touches to his hair, securing their handiwork with a leather thong. One of them gave the braid a playful tug as the two of them scrambled off the couch to go attend Lani. The room rang with their bright chatter as the older girl tried to explain what she was doing.

“
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my life,” Ashinji began. He pulled nervously at his service rings, unsure of how to put into words the frustration he felt. He took a deep breath and willed himself to relax. His mother radiated a calm energy, and he allowed his mind to absorb it and use it to ease the flow of his thoughts.

“
I am the second-born child of Sen Sakehera, and because of the order of my birth, the direction of my life was chosen for me. Every second child of each generation of our family has always been given to the military. It’s tradition. No one’s ever questioned it.”

“
Very few of us have the power to choose the direction of our own lives exactly as we would have it, Son,” Amara responded.

“
You did,” Ashinji countered.

Amara sighed and put down her needle. “Lani, take the girls outside and let them run the dogs for awhile,” she said.

Lani’s expression indicated that she understood perfectly well the unspoken reason behind her mother’s directive. Carefully, she laid aside the sleeve she had been working on and gestured to the twins. “Come along, girls. Let’s go and get the dogs. They will be ever so happy to see you,” she said brightly. The twins jumped up eagerly and rushed to the door, Lani following in their wake.

“
My situation was very different from yours, Son,” Amara continued after the girls had departed. “The House of Naota has always been nonconformist. That has been our strength and our weakness. We are a clan of mages, full of eccentricity and madness. My mother never married my father. She chose the practice of magic over the traditional roles of wife and mother. I was raised by my aunts and cousins. When the time came for a choice to be made for my life, neither of my parents had the right anymore to decide what I would become. I was free to make the choice for myself.”

“
You chose to become a mage, like your mother,” Ashinji said.

“
In the beginning, yes. I knew my Talent was strong. There were many things that came easily and naturally to me. I believed for a very long time that there could be no other calling for me. Then, I met your father, and suddenly, my perspective on life changed.”

A smile, slow and sweet, suffused her face with the gentle glow of a warm memory. “Ai, your father! He came sweeping into my life like a spring storm and turned everything I thought I knew about myself upside down. He convinced me that my life would be much better if I lived it with him in the outside world, rather than in the cloistered halls of a mage school.”

“
You and my father were lucky enough to be able to choose the lives that suited you best, yet you did not give that same privilege to your children. Why?” Ashinji fought to keep the bitter edge out of his voice, but by his mother’s expression, he knew she had heard it anyway.

Amara folded her hands around her son’s. She leaned forward slightly and Ashinji caught a whiff of her perfume, a special fragrance imported from the distant and mysterious lands to the east. “Ashinji,” she said softly, “I know what is in your heart…there is terrible longing for another kind of life that you cannot have. If I could have given you the freedom to choose, I would have, but it was not possible.”

She stood up and moved over to the window.  “Our duty binds us too closely now, Son,” she continued, gazing out over the gardens below. “We must uphold tradition and consider what is best for the House of Sakehera before all other things, including the personal desires of any of its members. As second born, you were pledged by tradition to military service. Only the king himself can release you from that pledge.”

She sighed and turned to face Ashinji. “I beg of you, Son. Try and come to terms with what you must be, and find, if not happiness, at least contentment.”

All throughout her speech, Ashinji could do nothing but stare at the jewel-toned flowers embroidered upon the sleeves of his mother’s robe. Her words were like stones, piled one by one onto his heart until he felt as if it would be crushed.

Abruptly, he stood. “I must go now, Mother,” he stated. Through the open window, he could see Lani and the twins racing across the castle yard towards the gate, three sleek, black hounds bounding along beside them. He had meant to speak to his mother about the dream, but now, all he wanted to do was go somewhere to be alone.

“
You will be leaving at first light tomorrow?” Amara asked. She returned to the couch, picked up her needle, and resumed working.

“
Yes,” Ashinji replied.

“
Will we see you at dinner tonight?”

Ashinji considered a moment before answering. “No,” he said.

“
Then, goodbye, my son. I will see you again when you return.”

Ashinji bent down to kiss his mother in farewell. As his lips touched the soft skin of her cheek, he heard her voice in his mind, as clearly as if she had spoken aloud.

I love you, Ashi. I am sorry.

She did not look up at him as he left the room.

~~~

Ashinji finally lay down to sleep, a little past midnight. All of his gear was cleaned, oiled, and ready. An hour before dawn, a servant would come to assist him with armoring. He needed to rest, but his mind kept filling up with a relentless jumble of thoughts.

What am I going to do?

How can I go on like this?

Who is this girl I keep seeing?

Finally, he gave up and climbed out of bed. Pulling on a pair of loose trousers, he tied the drawstrings securely at his waist and went to sit by the open window across the room.

He took a deep breath of the cool night air. The starlight turned the peaks and slopes of the castle’s roofs into a mysterious black and silver landscape. Ashinji’s quarters were on the uppermost floor at the rear of the east wing; during the day, from his window, he could see out beyond the walls, across rolling green pastures dotted with clumps of trees, to the purple shadows of the vast, forbidding range of the Kesen Numai Mountains, far to the north.

He thought about taking a horse and riding northward, toward the mountains. In three days’ time, if he stopped only to sleep for a couple of hours, he would reach the city of Jokyi and its famous university. Once there, he could petition to take the entrance exams; as the son of a lord, he had already received a good primary education. He felt confident he could pass. His dream of a life as a scholar would be within his grasp.

He sighed and shook his head. Could he turn his back on his family, and forsake every value and tradition he had been raised to believe in? It would be a shocking act of disobedience against a father who had always held him in the highest esteem, for had he not always been a dutiful son? He groaned aloud and pulled his hair in frustration. For eighteen years he had lived as a soldier, and, in truth, had found some satisfaction in it. Why, now, had all of that changed?

He stood up to stretch, then went back to his bed and lay down, arms folded behind his head. He was very tired, yet he did not feel at all drowsy. He decided to close his eyes anyway…and was awakened by a soft, insistent knock upon his bedchamber door.

Must be time to get up,
he thought.
I slept a little after all…but no dreams.
The wild-haired, sad-faced girl had not come.

He admitted the manservant, who came bustling in bearing a light breakfast—smoked fish, bread, a bowl of honey-sweetened yogurt mixed with berries, and a pot of tea. As he ate, Ashinji recalled his mother’s words. Find contentment and acceptance, she had said. The path of his life was set and had been from the very first day he had drawn breath as his father’s second born. His mother was the wisest person he knew. Perhaps, in this as in so many other things, he would be wise to heed her advice.

After all, what was his alternative?

“
My lord.”

“
Captain Miri,” Ashinji replied, acknowledging the older man’s greeting with a short nod. Gendan Miri had been captain of the Kerala Castle guard for as long as Ashinji could remember.  He held the stirrup steady as Ashinji mounted his horse, a big, black gelding with a white blaze and large, intelligent eyes. After Ashinji settled himself, Gendan handed up his helmet, which he then hung from the pommel of the saddle. There would be little danger of attack until they reached the area of the last known bandit incursions. He could safely ride bare-headed today.

The first blush of dawn began coloring the sky to the east. The stable yard was dim and cool. The small company to ride out this morning totaled twelve in number: ten castle guards—eight men and two women—with Gendan and Ashinji rounding out the count.