Guardian of Heaven and Earth
-
New Yogo
Part 5 - New Spring Leaves
Chapter 3 - Light on New Leaves
It was the rainy season again. Newly transplanted rice
swayed in the high winds and lashing storms. The air smelled sweet and clean. The Tarano
Plains turned a lush green, rice and grain growing tall toward the sky. It was
still early spring, so the mornings were cold, but noon sunshine carried a hint
of the warm summer to come.
Balsa learned that the war was over in early spring. She was
staying in the stone caves until Tanda recovered. Racha told her that the Talsh
encampment on the Tarano Plains had broken up. The Rotan and Kanbalese armies
accepted the Talsh surrender and escorted them to New Yogo’s border with
Sangal.
It seemed too good to be true. Balsa wasn’t sure she
believed the news when she heard it. Still, she didn’t say anything to dampen
Racha’s enthusiasm. A little hope never hurt anyone.
Racha also heard rumors about the Blue Bow River overflowing
its banks. Thousands of white birds had flown all along the riverbank to warn people
of the danger. Apparently, the flooding had caused a great deal of damage, but
very few people were killed.
When Balsa heard this rumor, she smiled. Torogai and the
other magic weavers had achieved something miraculous together. It was miracle
on miracle: an end to the war with Talsh and the saving of so many innocent
people from disaster.
One day, Racha came back from working in the rice fields
gesticulating wildly, over-excited. “Balsa, do you know how the Talsh lost?” he
asked.
“No,” Balsa said.
Racha pulled off the smock he used for fieldwork and folded
it, then said, “They’re saying a huge army on horseback rode out of the sky and
destroyed all our enemies.” He sat down and started washing the arm wounds of
an injured soldier that was also inside the cave. “Isn’t that amazing? The river
was overflowing and the Talsh had us trapped. Right when all we thought we
could do was pray, Crown Prince Chagum flew out of the sky, surrounded by white
light! Everyone thought he was dead! He dropped out of the heavens, leaving a
white trail that the riders of Kanbal and Rota followed to the battlefield. The
light guided them to the battlefield right when they were needed most. The
Rotan and Kanbalese cavalry completely routed the Talsh army.”
Racha glanced over his shoulder at Balsa. She wasn’t
smiling. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You don’t look happy, or surprised.”
Balsa looked away.
Racha finished bandaging up the injured soldier’s arm, then
turned to face Balsa.
“I’m happy that the war is over,” Balsa said, “but I hoped
Crown Prince Chagum wouldn’t have to reveal himself like that…”
Racha frowned. “Huh? Did you know he was alive?”
Balsa nodded. “It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling. It’s
like saving a child from bandits and returning them to their mother without a
scratch. What do you think happens then? Usually, the mother praises god that
their child is safe.”
“They praise god and not you,” Racha said. “Doesn’t that
make you angry?”
Balsa snorted.
“But Crown Prince Chagum is different from an ordinary
child,” Racha said. “He is a god, or the child of one.”
Balsa flinched like she was in pain. Chagum had never wanted
to be a god. Balsa had never wanted him to have to walk a road of suffering and
blood and death. She remembered washing the blood off his face in the blizzard they’d
been trapped in after fleeing from Talsh assassins. She was proud of him for achieving
what no one else thought could be done, but she was worried about what would
happen to him now. How would he choose to live? Would he even get a choice?
Racha didn’t know. It was possible that his life and legend had already been
decided for him, without his consent or knowledge.
Balsa didn’t have the heart to tell Racha everything Chagum
had suffered. Nothing she could say would shatter his illusion of Chagum, anyway.
After Racha left, Balsa added some twigs to the fire and
crouched down to check on Tanda, who was sleeping. The Mikado had died during
the Talash attack on the capital, in the flood. After his funeral, it was
likely that Chagum would be the next Mikado. She might never get to see him
again.
A strange sadness and loneliness stole over Balsa as she
felt Tanda’s forehead. This situation was so much different from the time she’d
parted from Chagum when he was a child. She remembered how hard his lip had
trembled, trying to hold back his tears. She could think of nothing but his
face.
But Chagum wasn’t a child anymore. He had grown, like a fine
tree, into a tall young man.
Separated or together, Balsa always felt the bond between
them. For her, nothing about their relationship had changed, but Chagum didn’t
really need her to protect him anymore. He would probably remember her fondly
from time to time, but…
She had been there through everything: smiles, tears, anger.
And now, it was the end.
Balsa narrowed her eyes and stared into the fire.
The days passed slowly for awhile. Soldiers who recovered from
their injuries went back to working in the fields. Others lugged firewood back
into the caves and strewed fresh grass and rushes over the floor. The caves
were a cold, forbidding place at the best of times, but their efforts made the
place a bit more cheerful.
There was a hot spring very close to the caves that was very
beneficial for convalescence. The villagers had carved out five large, smooth
pools into the mountain so that the hot water flowed freely into them. People
frequently bathed there, and the minerals in the water helped soothe the
wounded soldiers’ injuries. Balsa also bathed at the hot spring and brought
back two buckets of hot water to help keep Tanda clean.
It became clearer by the day which men would recover and
which men wouldn’t. Some men climbed over the fence between life and death and
returned to the world. Many others succumbed to the darkness and never awoke.
Half a month had passed since any pyres were built for the
dead. Up until this time, the villagers had carried all the dead men to the
riverbank and burned them over individual fires. When the dead men’s names and
villages were known, their ashes were collected in labeled urns and delivered
to their homes via messengers. The villagers scattered the ashes of men whose
names and villages were unknown on the roots of white-flowering tousu trees.
Some of the villagers had leeway to take care of the recovering
soldiers after their fieldwork was done. Soldiers who’d been displaced by the
war joined the villagers in their work when they were well enough. Carpenters
came to the caves with straw and small twigs and changed out the floor now and
again.
Tanda had awakened only a handful of times since his arm was
cut off. He was poised on the thin white line between life and death. His body
had recovered as well as it could, but the damage he’d suffered had made him
sick to his soul. That would be much more difficult to recover from.
Tanda was a kind-hearted man. Witnessing the horrors of war
had shaken him to his very foundations. No trace of his usual smile or positive
outlook on life remained. He saw the terrible battle he’d lived through whenever
he opened his eyes.
Balsa nursed Tanda back to health as well as she could. She
told him that the war was over and gave him all the news of Chagum that she had.
She was nearly out of money; King Radalle had given her a good amount, but she’d
exhausted most of it getting to the caves, and the rest had gone to buying food
and supplies. The villagers would have allowed her and Tanda to eat for free without
paying, but Balsa was too proud to live on charity when there was money that
she could give as thanks.
Balsa wanted to work, but she had no desire to leave Tanda’s
side.
Mosquitoes started swarming in the bamboo outside the caves,
so the villagers cut all the bamboo down. They burned fumigating fires in front
of the caves to keep the mosquitoes away.
Tanda smelled the pungent smoke and heard birds twittering nearby
and opened his eyes.
“Hyo, hyo.” The bird calls were getting louder. They must be
just outside the cave.
“The birds are singing again,” Tanda whispered. He’d tried
to speak louder, but his throat was too dry.
“Those are rushaki. They only sing in summer.”
“Did it rain? I smell rain.”
Tanda didn’t usually talk so much when he woke up. Balsa leaned
forward and said, “Yeah, it rained yesterday.”
Tanda closed his eyes.
Balsa assumed that Tanda had fallen asleep again when he sat
up a little, startling her.
“I want to go outside,” Tanda said.
Balsa was surprised, but there wasn’t really any reason why
he shouldn’t go outside. She nodded, then helped Tanda climb onto her back,
being careful not to stress any of his remaining injuries. Balsa stood up
straight with Tanda on her back and left the cave.
Birds passed overhead, twittering or scattering when Balsa
came near. It was a warm day near the beginning of summer. Balsa set Tanda down
on the roots of a tree that were covered with soft, thick moss.
Tanda rested his head against the trunk of the tree, then
shifted himself with his right arm to get more comfortable. It was something of
a struggle: Tanda wasn’t as strong as he used to be.
Balsa sat down beside Tanda, close enough for him to lean on her if he wanted. Sunlight dappled the ground through the thick canopy of leaves. Wind whispered through the forest’s undergrowth.
Tanda wiped away his tears, then said the names of all the dead
men whose spirits he’d helped guide to the afterlife. They would never see the
sunlight again. Never return home to their families and villages. Tanda wept
without stopping for a long time.
Balsa put her arm around Tanda and cradled his head against
her shoulder. Tanda pressed his face into her arm and let himself cry.
Tanda lifted his head, a few straggling tears still on his
cheeks. He stared at the light reflecting off the green moss he was sitting on,
then said, “The snows might have collapsed the roof over winter. I didn’t have
time to reinforce it before I left.”
Tanda was talking about his hut in the Misty Blue Mountains.
Balsa smiled. “It’s all right. I saw it in spring after the snow had mostly
melted. It’s still standing. It still looked clean, and the vegetables and
herbs were all growing in the garden.”
“They were probably weeds,” Tanda muttered. “I don’t suppose
you pulled any for me?”
Balsa chuckled.
A mosquito buzzed near Tanda’s cheek. Balsa swatted it away,
then touched his hair, which had grown far past his shoulders. “It’s gotten so
long…if you’re well enough for a bath, we can wash your hair, and I’ll cut it.”
Something in Tanda’s expression softened. Balsa pulled him
forward and kissed his cheek tenderly.
Tanda’s raised his right hand slowly, settling it in Balsa’s
hair. He turned her head a little and pressed his lips to hers. Warmth bloomed
in his chest.
Tanda rested his chin on Balsa’s shoulder. They sat on the roots of the tree together, enjoying the last of the late spring sunlight.
No comments:
Post a Comment