Jabone's Sword (15 page)

When Kasiria stepped out of the shower stream, turned off the water and pulled back the curtain she was more than a little surprised to find that both the other girls were already showered dressed and gone. She shrugged it off to them being faster, and then she was dressed and started back towards her barracks. She was almost there and looking forward to her cot when she saw Jestia and Ufalla and Tarius all dressed in clean clothes and hair still wet heading across the compound their heads bowed in a very conspiratorial way. Kasiria started to just go on to bed and then she decided maybe she'd better follow them. They were after all her responsibility.

* * *

Jabone sat down across the table from Captain Derek. "Are you comfortable Jabone?"

"Yes quite."

"Is the food suitable?"

He smiled. "Yes just a little blander than we are used to. I doubt you've brought me here alone to ask me about my quarters and the food."

Derek laughed. "You're no sleeper Jabone. I have to ask you something and you don't have to answer it if you don't want to but . . . Jabone this may seem a stupid question to you but well I don't know who or what your father is and I'd really like to know. Are you the Katabull?"

"My fadra is Arvon."

"Sword Master Arvon?"

"Yes," Jabone said. It was obvious from the look on Derek's face that he still didn't know all he needed to know. "My fadra, he is the Katabull."

"Arvon, but he is one of us."

Jabone smiled broadly. "No he only looks like one of you, he is one of us." He pounded his finger into his own chest.

"Then you are the Katabull?" Derek asked.

Jabone nodded his head. "Yes, I am the Katabull."

To Jabone's surprise Derek sighed with relief and said, "Good, very good."

"I was sure you knew."

"At first I assumed and then . . . Well I just didn't know."

"And you're glad that I am?"

"Yes," Derek smiled. "Nothing fights like the Katabull. So how do you feel about your sergeant?"

Jabone hoped he was keeping the silly grin off his face. "I think she's a good leader, very smart. She doesn't seem to have a problem with us, why should we have a problem with her?"

Suddenly Derek laughed and Jabone gave him a curious look. "Oh it's nothing you've said son." He laughed again. "I just," he laughed harder still, "I just saw this image of Arvon and Tarius trying to conceive a child."

Jabone smiled, not offended in the least. "Yes, it's something I try never to think of."

* * *

Kasiria found the three Kartiks huddled in the shadows against Derek's office, their ears pressed to the wall.

"Do you hear anything?" Tarius asked.

"I might if you'd shut up," Jestia said.

"Would you both shut up?" Ufalla ordered.

Kasiria cleared her throat and they jumped about a foot in the air and then turned around to face her. She just smiled. "What do you think you're doing?"

They all just looked at her and shrugged then Tarius said, "We were just walking around."

"And what? We decided to warm our ears on this building? She knows what we were doing dumb ass," Jestia said, elbowing him in the ribs. He shoved her and Ufalla reached over Jestia and popped Tarius in the head with her knuckles.

"Ow!" Tarius said, rubbing his head and glaring at his sister. "What was that for? I didn't shove you." And then he did.

"Enough," Kasiria whispered. "Let's get back to our barracks before Captain Derek finds us out here."

They nodded and started following her. "What do you suppose he wants with Jabone?" Tarius asked.

Whatever the girls were speculating about, they didn't want her to know because they started talking in their native language, and when Tarius talked back to them he did as well.

They were still talking to each other in Kartik when they got back to their barracks. Kasiria didn't like it because it meant they weren't getting as close as she thought they were getting. She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Kasiria, what do you think the captain wanted to talk to Jabone about?" Ufalla asked.

"Oh, so you're talking to me now. Why should I tell you what I think when you wouldn't tell me what you think?"

"Oh come on," Jestia said, "We were just excited and we forgot you couldn't understand."

Yeah, until you want to ask me a question
, Kasiria thought, but she didn't want to be angry with them. She shrugged. "Maybe he wanted to talk to him about fighting practices or something."

I'm not about to tell you that I think he may be talking to him about me because I'm only your sergeant now because I couldn't handle the last unit I was assigned.

Jabone walked in then and if she expected them to even pretend like they weren't going to grill him about it she was dead wrong.

"What did he want?" Jestia asked.

"We tried to listen through the wall but their wood walls are harder to hear through than our hut walls at home," Tarius said, "and Kasiria caught us and made us come to the barracks."

Kasiria almost laughed then because it was just so funny that they didn't seem to think that anyone deserved a private moment.

As if to prove that he didn't really need it Jabone looked at Ufalla and said as he gathered up clean clothes. "Come on, I have to go shower now." Ufalla didn't miss a beat, just stood up and followed him out of the barracks. Kasiria started to tell them all the things that were wrong with Ufalla going with Jabone while he showered but decided she was too tired to spend most of an hour explaining Jethrik customs to them.

As if forgetting the conversation they'd just had Jestia and Tarius started rattling in Kartik again.

Kasiria inwardly fumed and listened carefully to them but the only word they said that she knew what it meant was the word Katabull, because of course Katabull was the same in all languages. Kasiria was now more worried than ever.

Do they know about me? Did he tell Derek? They aren't looking at me. Why are they talking about the Katabull? Hell it might have just been one of their weird sayings. Why don't they want me to know what they're talking about if it has nothing to do with me and why did Jabone want to hide it so much that he took Ufalla to the showers with him obviously so they could talk in private? Instead of making the others go I should have gone after a cup to stick against the wall so that I could hear better and joined them. Was Derek asking Jabone about me or worse yet telling him about me being the Katabull? No, Derek couldn't know unless Hellibolt told him and he wouldn't have.

"He's supposed to be my best friend," Tarius said in Jethrikian, flopping on his cot. "But lately he only wants to talk to Ufalla."

"Because she actually listens when people talk," Jestia said.

She was only some relieved by the fact that they were talking in Jethrik again because that meant they really had been talking about something they didn't want her to know before.

"So," Tarius smiled a lustful smile at Jestia. "Are you in need of a man's touch yet?"

Jestia smiled impishly. "I'm a grown Kartik woman. I know how to take care of my own needs as well as you do and even if I didn't there are plenty of men around here and lots of empty rooms. You don't by any chance think I would ever bed you, swine?"

Kasiria forgot her problems and smiled as she listened to them.

"Why don't you work on Kasiria while you have a chance? You know before she learns what a disgusting little pig you are?" Jestia chided Tarius.

"I would never go after the object of Jabone's obvious affection."

"Just as well she probably wouldn't take you anyway," Jestia said.

Tired of them talking about her as if she wasn't there and almost wishing they would talk in Kartik if they insisted in talking about these sorts of things she said, "We are not as open sexually as you Kartiks are. Proper women of the Jethrik marry before giving themselves to a man."

She must have sounded as disgusted as she felt because Jestia laughed and said, "It sounds like you think even less of your strange customs than I do."

"I wouldn't be comfortable just bedding around as you obviously all do. I'm not judging you, just saying—perhaps because of the way I was brought up—that I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. But the whole idea that a woman has to give herself to a man, to diminish herself to be with a man, makes me sick."

"True love means that both must give equally of themselves," Jestia said in a far-away tone of voice. "To truly unite, both must be willing to give up part of themselves to create total union. It couldn't all come from one side, there would be no balance." She seemed to force a smile then as if not liking to get so serious. "Of course you have to shop around to make sure you find someone sexually compatible before you do anything as drastic as getting married."

Tarius laughed and nodded in agreement.

Jestia looked at Kasiria. "I can't imagine binding myself to someone before I even knew how they felt."

And Kasiria knew she didn't mean how they felt emotionally either. Kasiria blushed a little.

"Then the stories are true and Jena was no proper Jethrikian lady, because she was making love with Tarius the Black almost from the first moment they met," Tarius said with a laugh.

"Oh Tarius, please tell the story of Jena," Jestia begged.

He looked at Kasiria. "Yes please do," Kasiria said, thinking if they were occupied in such a way she could be left alone to brood, the last thing she wanted to talk about was sex. She didn't want to think about Jabone, especially not when he was having secret meetings with Derek and now with Ufalla to talk about her she was sure.

"I tell the story of Lady Jena of the Jethrik, daughter of Darian, mate to Tarius the Black the Great Leader of the Katabull People. A tale of the greatest love in all the Kartik and maybe the world. It was in those early days when Tarius was at the academy that Jena did come home from visiting her aunt's house, for you see Jena had been raised by her father alone, and in the Sword Master's academy and knew nothing of how to be a proper Jethrikian lady, so her father sent her periodically to learn manners and such things from her aunt. Upon returning to the academy from one of these visits her eyes fell upon Tarius who was sparing with Harris—the servant boy Jena had always treated like a brother—in the courtyard and her heart, which had always been cold, was filled with love . . . "

Kasiria was instantly mesmerized by the tale as it unfolded. Jena had always been just a side note in Jethrikian stories about the Great War. She had noticed she was mentioned in almost every story concerning Tarius the Black when this young Tarius told a story. She was a Jethrik woman, a lady of the court who had broken all the rules, and as such Jethrikian bards had mostly forgotten her. Not so the Kartiks and as this tale unfolded it was obvious why. Jena was a force to be reckoned with. She'd gone against everything she'd ever been taught, fallen in love with a woman, taken up her sword and left home and country for the sake of love. She and Tarius had ridden together in hundreds of different battles and their love had never flagged no matter what they were forced to face.

Jabone walked in with Ufalla not far behind him just as the tale was coming to an end.

" . . . and to this day Jena sits in the lap of the Great Leader on the Katabull throne and the Great Leader makes no decision great or small without her council." Tarius threw up his hands indicating the end of his tale and they all clapped even those who'd only heard the end of the story.

Jabone looked at Tarius smiled and said, "I recently heard a new chapter to that story. Some day when we are very old I will tell it to you."

"So are you going to tell us what the captain wanted?" Jestia asked.

Jabone looked at Kasiria then, and the way he smiled she was sure that he could see every thought in her head. "He just wanted to know if we were happy with you as our leader and I said yes."

Kasiria was only a little relieved because why would he have decided he needed to switch languages or take Ufalla off to the shower with him if that was all there was to it.
And he has showered too, his hair is wet at the edges and he's clean and . . . my gods filthy or clean he just smells so good. That damned love story and . . . I just want to be Jena to his Tarius. To ride beside him as his right hand. To give myself to him, to have him give himself to me. Damn romantic Kartik bastards! My head is filled with nothing but cobwebs and love songs, and what I'm feeling is more like lust than anything approaching the undying devotion of the people in that story and . . . They're hiding things from me. What are they hiding from me and do I really have the right to question them when I'm keeping my own secrets? Gods! My father is the villain in almost every story they tell. He shot Tarius with Jena crying for her life. The man in that story is not my father, but do I really know him at all? Is it any wonder that Tarius cursed him? What did he say she had said? You have traded evil for good.
She had never heard the actual curse before. It like Jena, was just a footnote in their own stories. She wondered how much of the curse was word for word what the beast woman had said to her father and how much it had been added to and detracted from in a hundred different tellings.
I'm the child of that curse. I wonder how my new 'friends' would feel about me if they knew that. I was born in a sea of Jena's tears and Tarius's blood, does that not make me as evil as my father?

Ufalla grabbed her bedding threw it on Jestia's cot and crawled in getting comfortable.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jestia asked.

Ufalla obviously already working at going to sleep said, "I'm tired."

"So?"

"So, I'd like to sleep at least one night without you waking me from a deep sleep with the news that you're cold."

"Oh," Jestia said seemingly having all the wind taken out of her sails. Then she shrugged and crawled into bed with Ufalla.

"Lights out," Kasiria ordered, and Jabone put out the lamp and crawled into his own bed. Then she could hear him whispering to Tarius but couldn't quite make out what either of them were saying. She tried to call on her super Katabull hearing but if she had that trait it wasn't working in her human form and she was sure they were speaking in their own language so it wouldn't have mattered if she could hear them because she still wouldn't have been able to understand them. Frustrated in way to many ways to count Kasiria fell into a fitful sleep.