“You’re a young master from a fine family, aren’t you? I can tell at a glance. How did you come to associate with a villain like him?”
Gene shook his head, feigning innocence.
“I am no one like that.”
“Of course you are. Who but a nobleman’s son would try his hand at so many things? The calluses from holding a sword, holding a pen, turning pages, taking the reins, and plucking a lute are all different.”
Gene turned his hand palm down on the table and smiled awkwardly. Jamalik blandly pretended to be occupied elsewhere. At last Sara swallowed the remainder of her coffee and spoke.
“Hmph. You’ve had a hard time listening to an old woman’s complaints. In any case, it’s all over now. Whatever people go through, the living find some way to live. You needn’t pity me. If I hadn’t been dragged south to live as a slave, I would never even have learned the taste of coffee. Something I’d never have known if I’d stayed a child of the Billin. I’ve been through every sort of misery, escaped death more times than I can count, but I’ve become an old woman with all my limbs sound, so I must call myself fortunate. Losing a husband, losing a child, growing old alone, what’s unusual about any of that? While my hands and feet still work, I’ll till someone else’s fields and scrape a living from year to year. When my strength fails, I’ll be driven from here too and fall down dead somewhere. Now go. I know Garon is dead, and I have no further regrets.”
As Sara rose from the box on which she had been sitting, Gene called to her.
“Madam.”
“Why? Have you more to say?”
Her manner seemed to have returned to the coldness of their first meeting. Yet the eyes she turned toward him held a warmth different from before.
“You said he tattooed an Irko on his ankle when he made his oath. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing it. Something like a black stain? I thought it was only an odd birthmark. It must have faded over the years.”
Sara nodded.
“It must.”
“That was why he had a new tattoo made. Like this.”
Gene picked up the parchment and spread it open again. Looking at the blackened drawing of the hawk, he felt an inexplicable ache in his throat.
“This is a copy of the tattoo he had put on his back before his final match. This time, no one could mistake it for a birthmark. It covered almost his entire upper back. The night before the duel, he told me that if he died, I must be sure to look at it and tell you. I did not know what the tattoo meant, but I took it as his last wish and made a copy to bring here.”
Sara looked down at the drawing. The damp had spread further, making the hawk’s wings look like a shadow itself.
“When you told me earlier that an Irko was the Shadowhawk, I realized the tattoo had also been his name. I thought he had wanted to return to his true self before he died. In Epherium, he never once revealed that he was the Shadowhawk. Not even to me. As I said, he was known by the assumed name Beka. And he had no little finger on his right hand. That was why he used a sword in his left. He said his skill now was a disgrace compared with the days when he used his right, and that the only reason he was living like that was because he was too ashamed to kill himself. At the time, I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t even dream of imitating his skill. But after I came to Delphinad, heard the rumors of the Shadowhawk, and learned they were the same man, I began to think it might have been true.”
Sara was still looking at the drawing. So was Gene. They seemed to be speaking to each other, but their eyes remained on the picture.
“And only after hearing what you said just now did I realize that his name, Irko, had also been his oath. I think I now understand why he sent me to you.”
Sara raised her gaze. Gene’s head was still lowered, showing more of his fallen hair than his face. Watching him, her right hand moved, then stopped, as though she had been about to reach out.
“Why?”
“Because his last few years live inside me. He had not sent you a single letter in more than twenty years. Instead, he wrote the letter he had put off inside a person, inside me. A rather long one.”
“What?”
Sara frowned. Gene smiled.
“Is it hard to believe? He took considerable care over writing it. Though perhaps he embellished it a little.”
She glared at him disapprovingly for a moment, then said, “Well, I suppose the Garon you remember wasn’t a vicious murderer, judging by the childish things you’re babbling.”
“Why must you keep saying that? You were waiting for him, after all.”
Jamalik looked at Gene again with doubtful eyes. The adjutant he had known was not a man given to such awkwardly intimate words.
But they worked. A little later, Sara asked, almost in a mutter, “How did Garon live in Epherium?”
It must have been what she had wanted to ask from the beginning. Pride had held her back. But the anger, resentment, and regrets accumulated over decades broke down at that moment. Gene began telling his story.
“He did not live well. He lived as though he was to die the next day. He spent today’s earnings today. If he was alive tomorrow, there would be more tomorrow, he said. Whenever he had a large sum, he scattered it among beggars, or threw it into fountains.”
Gene recounted several memories of his time with Beka, no, Garon. When he described how they had gone fishing together in the Mulbin River, neither having any experience, and returned with only three minnows, Sara laughed aloud just once. For the rest, she listened with a bitter smile that seemed disapproving. When she grew quiet, Gene suddenly gave a little laugh.
Sara asked, “Why are you laughing?”
“An old memory.”
“What memory?”
Instead of answering, Gene propped up his chin and looked around. Dried plants and sacks of onions hung from the rafters. Above the hearth’s faint glow hung a pot rather large for an old woman to manage. Beside it stood a cupboard with neatly arranged copper kettles, pans, and pots. Next to that was a loom, and beyond it, behind a partition, a bed was dimly visible. It was a scene that suggested a simple life. With only one lamp, the corners were dark, but the darkness was somehow comforting. Even the dust seemed still.
Discover more from Lilly Translations
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.