Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📗

I had not expected Rakasa to agree with my decision. His temper was truly extraordinarily easy. I said, keeping my tone as level and unconcerned as I could, “Someone among his people might be grateful.”

“Perhaps,” Rakasa said. “Though his people seem careless to me.” He dropped his voice. “Careless at best.”

He too was wondering how a young man this age came to be so thin, or perhaps how a young man came to be so poorly taught as to lie so egregiously. Careless was certainly the least one could say of this young man’s kin. That might explain why Rakasa had accepted my decision without protest. I nodded.

“You truly believe the young man will be in that place in the morning?” Bara asked me. “He is a coward. He may fear the whip so much he cannot stay where you sent him, even with the death you described waiting if his courage breaks. If he were bound, that could not happen.”

Bara was not wrong. That was a risk. But finally I said, “I have met many young men. I have never met one who wishes to be cowardly. Young men want to be brave and behave honorably and win regard. If that inTasiyo is given a chance to behave better, perhaps he will take it. If not, then he is not due the mercy I chose to show.”

“So,” Bara said. His tone was neutral, but he did not protest again.

 -6-

At dawn, Tano inTasiyo was still there, at the foot of the fir where he had curled up the night before. He was sitting so still and the daylight was so muted that I was not certain he was there until I looked twice.

Suyet, who had taken the last watch of the night, told me, “He went down to the stream a little while ago, and then a little farther, out of sight. Then he came back. I don’t know as I’d’ve had the guts, if I were facing what he’s facing. Eighty, that’s brutal, especially for a boy that age.”

“It is much less than he deserves.” But I was glad he had not run away. I added, “I would have been ashamed for all Ugaro if I had been forced to ask Aras to wait while I tracked him.”

“I guess you’d really have cut off his hands and feet?”

I would have had no choice, as I had said I would do it. “Yes.”

“Well, I guess that’s a good reason not to run.” Suyet looked at me, hesitating. But he chose not to say whatever else might have been in his mind.

I sat down by the fire and picked up the whip I had made last night. I had not finished it. Some of the work was difficult to do by firelight. By the time I finished, everyone was awake and stirring about the necessary tasks of the morning, saddling the horses and checking their feet; packing the little tents we had brought for Lalani and for Aras, and the canvas and blankets for everyone else.

Nothing was to be gained by waiting. I beckoned to the inTasiyo.

He rose, slowly, and came to me, and knelt, his head lowered. Everyone else stopped whatever they were doing. Geras was frowning. Suyet was rubbing his mouth, anxious and unhappy. Lalani was very serious. There was nothing I could say to any of them. They were not Ugaro.

Bara stood, his arms folded, utterly impassive. Rakasa was watching me, his mouth crooked in wry sympathy. As Naroya’s son, he had probably corrected young men before, though he was not the kind of man who would enjoy picking up a whip. He knew I had three or four fewer winters than he did. He might have guessed I had never done it.

Aras had moved to the opposite side of the small clearing. I thought suddenly that I should send him away first—he and the other Lau could ride some distance away, and Rakasa and Bara and I could find them later, when this was finished. But he turned his head as I thought this and shook his head. I looked at him for a moment, waiting to be certain he would not change his mind. He did not move, so I finally nudged Tano inTasiyo’s knee with my foot. When he looked up, I indicated a spruce with no low branches in the way and ordered, “Take off your shirt and stand against this tree.”

He fumbled with the laces of his shirt because his hands were shaking. He should not have shown fear in that way, but I had stood for enough severe beatings myself to know the last moments before the whip comes down are hard to bear.

Then he had his shirt off, and turned to set his hands against the spruce’s trunk, and I said, “Wait.”

He turned back to face me. When I gestured him down, he dropped back to his knees again. He was looking directly at me now, tense. I could not imagine that he had expected me to ignore what I had seen, but I could not tell what he expected me to do or say. Stepping forward, I gripped the back of his neck and shoved his face to the earth. He did not resist, but let me push him down. I ran the palm of my other hand down his back. The scars were faintly perceptible to the touch, a little different from the unscarred skin.

I had not, of course, seen my own back after Lorellan had ordered me beaten. But now I thought I knew how my skin might have looked after that. The close-set marks on this young man’s back were still a little flushed rather than the pale color of old scars that have had time to fade. This had been done perhaps twice twenty days ago. Probably not