"We've still got much time. The Amalites," she spit on the dirt of the tent floor, even as all the Kartiks did, "in the hive will still be busy preparing their spoils."
"This hive, what exactly is it? I have seen them in my mind swarming and when you sent word . . . What is this hive?" Hellibolt asked as he walked into the tent.
Tarius ran up to Hellibolt, embraced him, and kissed him on both cheeks. "My dear friend," she called him, and held him for quite awhile before she released him stood back laughed and said, "You might have the decency to age like the rest of us."
"So says the Katabull goddess for whom time has almost stood still."
"Flattery!" Tarius laughed. "I think I'm touched."
"How good it is to see you again." Jena walked forward and hugged him as well, and suddenly Persius knew what Hellibolt had meant.
Jena hates me as much today as she did all those years ago, and Tarius, she really has forgiven me but not what I did. Jena won't so much as look at me and while Tarius will smile at me, she will not embrace me, she won't kiss me on the cheek or announce to anyone in hearing that I'm her dear friend. That's what Hellibolt meant. He wasn't talking just of my desires as a man, he was talking about my very real desire that somehow she and everyone else would have magically forgotten what I did to her. That she would embrace me as an old friend.
Jena finally released Hellibolt, who shook Harris's hand. Then he turned to Tarius and asked again, "What is the hive?"
Tarius walked back to the map which was a very rough drawing on the back of a cow hide. "We believe they are in a system of caves in this area. This is how they have lived so long undetected."
Hellibolt nodded as if this explained everything.
"You are road weary and I imagine hungry. Go get a bath and I'll have a meal prepared. We can discuss this all after we've eaten. Yurri, please show Persius and his people where the baths are and then when they have finished bring them around to the mess tent."
"Yes Great Leader." He didn't bow to her, and yet he showed her more respect with his words than Persius ever felt from his subjects. As Yurri walked past Persius and his entourage it was obvious that he expected them to follow without being told.
Persius reached out and touched the man's shoulder. "One moment."
Persius turned to look at Tarius who was already leaned over the map again. "Tarius, where is my daughter?"
Tarius looked up at Jena. "Honey, where are the children?"
"I don't know. In camp, maybe in town, maybe back on the ship," Jena said, and he got the impression she wouldn't say if she did know.
"Is she well?" Persius asked carefully.
Tarius looked at him and nodded. "Oh aye, well enough to run around with the rest of the youngsters getting into mischief no doubt."
"Tarius . . . Jena, thank you for taking care of Kasiria."
"Persius among the Marching Night we have a saying, if one falls then all may fall. Had Kasiria not been with them we probably would have lost our children. She's a brave girl, strong, you should be very proud."
And of course Tarius the Black would think that he should be proud of his warrior daughter. He nodded and said, "Thank you, all the same."
Tarius just nodded and went back to whatever she was doing with the charcoal in her hand on that cow hide.
* * *
"You didn't tell him," Jena said, and Tarius didn't need to ask what she was talking about she knew.
"It's not my place to tell him. Kasiria should tell him when and what she wants."
"What if he orders her back to the castle?"
"She is our son's mate, he wouldn't dare. Even if he did . . . I get the feeling she's never really listened to him and with the whole of the Marching Night behind her he wouldn't dare to anger me. Not now, not concerning my children," Tarius said. She turned back to the rough map she was drawing from what she'd seen herself, what information she'd been able to pull from the children, and the image Jestia had produced. She smiled then and said looking at Harris, "I guess we'll have to stop thinking of and calling them children some time soon."
"I don't plan to," Harris said with a smile. Then he laughed. "You know I had thought I had forgotten my Jethrikian ways. But I've actually worked very hard at not knowing about my children's—and especially Ufalla's—couplings, because well," he looked at Jena then, "in the Jethrik no girl is ever allowed to act on her sexual feelings without a marriage."
Jena nodded.
"They do have the most ridiculous rules," Tarius said, once again looking at her map drawing on it some more but still listening to Harris.
"I sort of knew that Ufalla was like you Tarius, more like you than like Jena," Harris said. She knew what he meant and took no offense. "But . . . Well did you know that she and the queen's daughter . . . "
"Yes," Tarius said with a laugh. "I assumed you knew. How could you not, Harris? They are always on each other."
"They've always been very close, and well like I said, I didn't really want to know that she was . . . well doing
anything
actually." He turned bright red then and said, "and surely not doing those things in places where her father might walk in and see her doing it."
Tarius could no longer concentrate on her map making. She started laughing riotously as she saw the look on her friend's face.
He smiled red faced and shrugged. "At least they look like they belong together every time I see my son with his woman . . . " He laughed. "Well, let's just say I hope I never walk in on them because the picture I've got of their coupling in my head . . . " He made a face, and Tarius laughed still harder. Jena laughed, too, now having seemingly forgotten that she was pissed off just because Persius was on the same planet as they were.
"You had to say it." Jena laughed at Harris. "Now I'm going to have nightmares."
"Like a goat mounting a horse," Tarius laughed. Then she stopped and looked at the map and muttered. "A goat mounting a horse."
Jena and Harris both knew her so well that they quit laughing and asked at the same moment. "What is it?"
"A goat mounting a horse." She pointed to a spot on her map where she had drawn a hill according to what the "children" had described and she remembered. "It's this hill here." She indicated a large mound with a smaller one connected to it. "This one that looks sort of like a goat mounting a horse. This is where the cave is. This is the hive. I'm sure of it." Suddenly the spot on the map had an ominous feel to it and she knew that she was right.
* * *
The Kartiks had confiscated one of the town's bathhouses for their use. When Persius stepped out of the building clean and freshly dressed Kasiria was standing there though it took a moment for him to recognize her because she was dressed exactly like one of Tarius's people, in the clothing and the armor of the Marching Night. She embraced him and he hugged her back, not really aware of his tears 'til they parted. He wiped his eyes and nose quickly on a handkerchief his aide handed him. Then looked at her she smiled at him. His daughter, his favorite yet so changed, not a girl any more but a woman.
"Kasiria," his voice caught and he cleared his throat before he continued. "Are you well?"
She said something in Kartik then grabbed her throat and looked perturbed. He could see her eyes also swimming with tears but she didn't shed them.
Hellibolt laughed. "She says she is fine."
Kasiria said something else in Kartik and Hellibolt laughed more and said, "The witch Jestia put a spell on her so that she could speak Kartik and apparently she can't speak Jethrikian now."
Persius just looked at her. There was a small scar on her chin, one that would probably go away in time and a haunted look deep in her eyes that probably wouldn't. Battle did that to you, made the whole world look different.
My child, and yet she seems like a stranger to me, she looks foreign, she sounds foreign.
The fellow who had brought him to the bathhouse ran up and announced, "Dinner is ready, please follow me." Persius was a bit surprised because he wasn't curt as he had been earlier. Persius wondered what had changed his manner and then he knew.
His feelings towards me haven't changed. He still has only contempt for me. It's Kasiria whom he respects. To her he shows courtesy, not for me, but why?
"Never tell the Katabull to do anything. Always ask them," Hellibolt whispered in his ear. Persius started to growl an angry retort at him and stopped.
No, everything he says has meaning, is a warning, I just have to wait 'til it makes sense.
Kasiria said something else he couldn't understand and Hellibolt said, "She says she has much to tell you and she will as soon as Jestia restores her Jethrik."
"I'm sure you do." Persius smiled and took her hands in his and held them. He tried to catch her eyes but she was staring past him at something behind him. He released her hands and turned to see what she was looking at and there he was. The man glared at Persius with black hate but even if he hadn't he would have known who he was. Persius nodded his head in the direction of the man and said more than asked Kasiria, "That is Tarius's son."
"Jabone," Kasiria answered with a huge smile, nodding.
"He looks so much like her," Persius said.
Jabone walked up to them then and looked down at Persius. He was huge, this son of Tarius's. He said something to Kasiria in Kartik and she said something back.
Jabone nodded then looked at Persius and said in rather good Jethrikian, "My madra has forgiven you because your actions saved her and her pack, but I still hold you in contempt for what you did to my family. However, for my madra and Kasiria's sake I will be cordial." His words didn't match the expression on his face. In fact, Persius was sure that what he really meant was that the only reason he wasn't going to kill Persius was because his "madra" wouldn't allow it and it might upset Kasiria.
"If I lived for a hundred years and daily did some good service towards your family I would not expect to be forgiven by you or your people," Persius said, picking his words carefully.
Then the boy was past him very quickly. So much so that he cringed thinking he'd said the wrong thing and was about to be killed. Then as he turned he saw that the boy was hugging Hellibolt and whispering things to him in Kartik. Hellibolt gave the boy an exuberant hug and said something back to him in Kartik and Persius wished for the thousandth time that he'd paid more attention to his language lessons.
The boy finally released Hellibolt and then he grabbed Kasiria's hand. Without another word he started to drag her away towards the mess tent. Persius thought this was odd but then Kasiria turned looked at Persius, a helpless smile on her face, and shrugged as she followed Jabone, and Persius remembered that Kartiks tended to be a physically demonstrative people.
"What did the boy say to you?" Persius demanded of Hellibolt as they started following the Kartik fellow to the mess tent again.
"He thanked me for his madra's life," Hellibolt said.
"You . . . But Hellibolt you never saved her life."
Hellibolt shrugged and said, "Who told you that your hour of redemption was at hand?" Persius knew there was more to it than that but didn't have a chance to pursue it because they had arrived at the mess tent then.
Several big tables surrounded by chairs that he guessed correctly had been taken from a Port Segal inn were scattered around in no particular order. Tarius sat at one of these, Jena on her right, her son on her left. Kasiria sat next to Jabone where she was arguing in a whisper with a girl who looked like a younger, better-looking version of Queen Hestia so he didn't have to ask who she was. Tarius indicated two chairs across the table from her and he and Hellibolt sat down. Kasiria looked up at him and smiled, perhaps knowing he needed the support being basically surrounded by people who hated him.
"The rest of you may sit wherever you like," Tarius said to his men with a wave of her hand. He nodded his head at them to indicate that they should do as they were told. Then Tarius turned her attention to the argument down the table. "Jestia, can you not just give her back her Jethrik?"
The girl sighed heavily as if deeply grieved and said to him in his language, "Did none of you people learn any language but your own? She annoys us when she yells at us and mangles our tongue." To Tarius she said, "I can't just give her Jethrik back. I had to turn her Jethrik into Kartik, so I'll have to now turn her Kartik into Jethrik. You can't make something from nothing you know."
"Then change it for now and change it back later," Tarius said.
"There will be no need to change it back later," Persius said with a laugh. "She is here now among her people." His daughter shook her head violently and his stomach rolled and not from hunger.
"Jestia," Tarius stood up, leaned her weight on her hands and looked over at the girl. "Just give her Jethrik back now."
"Oh very well, Tarius but I have to tell you from experience that with royal parents she's much better off if he can't understand a word she says. They never listen anyway," she said. Then she swept her hand in the air and muttered something incoherent.
"I don't understand why she can understand Jethrik if she can't speak it," Jena said conversationally.
"Because she had gotten to the point where she could understand a certain amount of Kartik but still couldn't speak it," Jestia explained.
The food was brought and Persius noticed they were getting the same beans and bread that everyone else was.
Tarius had sat back down and was just eating. They were all just eating with their horrid Kartik manners and when he looked at his daughter she was eating with only slightly better manners than they were. Were they not in the middle of a conversation? He was sure the witch had already cast a spell so why wasn't Kasiria talking?
Because she's chosen a path I never would have foreseen and I'll never understand. She wants to be one of them. That's what Hellibolt meant. Kasiria wants to be part of the Marching Night.
He glared across the table at Tarius. "Tarius, Kasiria is my daughter, my flesh, my blood. She was nearly killed. Kasiria will be going back to the palace where she belongs and play war no more."