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

Now I was much less surprised this young man had tried so hard to escape from tribes who might have been expected to let him go with a beating. Even his lies surprised me less. He would be much more afraid of the whip than any young warrior who had never been punished so severely. An echo of that terror still plagued me. I looked at Aras, wanting to demand, Did you know this? I stopped myself from that with an effort. Instead, I let the young man go, stepped back, and asked, “Who did this? Why was it done?”

Tano inTasiyo straightened, but he did not lift his head or look at me. His gaze was on the earth. He spoke quietly, but clearly enough no one could have mistaken his words. “My father did it because I am a coward.”

I found myself exchanging a glance with Rakasa. He showed no expression at all now. He said nothing. Nor did I. Finally I asked Tano, “In what way did your father come to know this of his son?”

He answered even more softly, still not looking up, “I could not stand. I have never been ... I have never been able to stand. There ... have been other things. As when I told you I was inRasiko. Things of that kind.”

“Lies and dishonesty, because you hoped to escape punishment.”

“Yes,” he said, barely audible now. “As you say, warrior.”

He had plainly been punished anyway. With extraordinary severity. If I had lied to my father, and lied again ... I tried to imagine that. He might have beaten me like this. But I thought my father would have found something else to do, something that would make his son braver rather than more cowardly.

I met Rakasa’s eyes, raising my eyebrows in silent query. He gave me a little nod. So. I had never been more grateful that he was a man of easy temper. I looked down at the young man. “This time you will stand properly,” I told him. “Get up and put your hands against Rakasa’s hands.”

It was the way young men teach a boy to stand. Except a boy would be able to trust the young men who taught him. They would be his brothers or his cousins, and he would trust them to be careful of his pride. He would know they wanted him to be brave. They would expect him to be brave, and if his courage failed, they would help him recover it away from the gaze of everyone else and teach him to do better.

I knew very well how different this would be.

I took up the whip I had made and nodded to Rakasa. He said, his tone calm and steady, “Tano, do not look at the ground. Look at me, or look past me, at the branches against the sky. Relax your hands. Do not grip my fingers. Relax your shoulders and neck. Yes. Like that. Better. The pain will be bad. Accept that and set it aside. Stand without flinching. Deeper breaths. Good.” He waited for some time, his gaze on the young man’s face. Then he looked past him and nodded to me, and I stepped to the side to get the right angle and brought down the whip.

It did not take long. Three fingers of time, perhaps four. It seemed longer than that. Rakasa kept the count, saying quietly, “That is ten. That is twenty. That is twice twenty. There will only be that many again.” Twice, Rakasa looked past Tano to catch my eye and I paused and waited while he said patiently, “Relax your hands. Relax your face and look past me. Relax your shoulders. Breathe slowly. The pain is not important. It will soon be over. Breathe more deeply. More deeply still. Better. Like that.” The second time Rakasa signaled me to pause, perhaps a finger of time passed before he gave me the sign to continue. From time to time I heard one Lau murmur to another, but I paid no attention. I trusted Rakasa to keep the count. I was concentrating on making every blow exactly like the one before. This was harder than I had realized it would be. I wanted to bring the whip down more gently. But that would shame inGara honor. Though inTasiyo honor was not my concern, such a thing would also shame this young man.

When it was over, the young man’s whole back was almost blood-red, from the top of his shoulders to the top of his buttocks. The scars that lay across his back now seemed nearly white against that color. There were even more scars than I had thought. Some of them were older than others. The whip I had made would not add to that number; I had made it thick and flat enough that it had not drawn blood. Tomorrow the new welts would lie vividly red across the old scars, but in three days, perhaps four or five, there would be no marks left from this beating.

The young man had stood through the whole beating. His breathing had changed, and he had caught his breath sometimes, and of course sometimes Rakasa had had to speak to him or ask me to pause. But Rakasa had never, not once, had to grip his hands to keep him in place.

Rakasa did have to steady him as he turned, and came the few steps to me, and knelt. All those small movements are very hard after a severe beating, so I could not set serious fault against him for needing that much help. Once he was kneeling, Tano managed the bow on his own, and Rakasa stepped back.

I said, keeping my voice level, “The trespass of this inTasiyo has been punished as I consider fitting. I say that the honor of inGara has been upheld.” Then I tossed the whip aside