Two: A Call for Blood

It was nearly dawn. The tower bells rang off in the distance. Ynav peered out of the window at the bright streaks of maroon staining the sky. He had not slept but sat amidst an avalanche of crumpled paper. Each of his failed attempts at correspondence began differently: To Her Ladyship Kolhue Aebeny, Niece of—no. To Lady Kolhue Aebeny, Whom the Gods—no. My dearest—no. At length, he settled on simply Kolhue knowing that what was to follow was more shocking than the address. Ynav paused with pen in hand, realizing that he was uncertain of what was to follow.



Few men ever dared to call upon Lady Kolhue Aebeny, a woman who famously socked a High Merchant in the jaw two summers past, hard enough to burst the lip. For years, the king himself had referred to her as “Lord Aebeny”, once adding before the entire Court and Counsel that she possessed “a cock and balls to rival any prized bull”. Terrifying was the most charitable adjective that Ynav had ever heard from one of her suitors.

But to Ynav's reckoning, Kolhue was more horse than bull. There was nothing about a bull that played at the heart of a rider. Even as she snarled and thrashed and kicked, Kolhue drew people to her either despite her disposition or because of it. She was far too proud of a creature to be bridled. Or courted. Ynav balled up the letter in front of him and hurled it at the doorway. As it hit the wall, he noticed the slow drag of his father’s footsteps eking down the corridor. The old man peered at him through the open door as he passed.



“Don’t you have a home to go to?” Ynav’s father squinted one suspicious eye, as though it would grant him the ability to peer right through Ynav . The first true rays of morning were settling on Ynav’s hands. He raked his fingers through his hair.

“I got distracted,” he said. His father glanced down at the floor.

“Working hard, I see. What is all of this?”

“Only a vain presumption.” It was meant as a partial jest but came out more bleakly than Ynav intended. His father grunted.

“Oh?”

“Kolhue Aebeny.” Ynav’s father shook his grizzled head. No further explanation was needed. Ynav did not know what he expected his father's reaction to be. Laughter, perhaps. Instead, the old man wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve.

“Well this would be the time to do it if you're looking to be the least of her concerns. There was an incident in the west quarter yesterday. Ugly, from the sound of it.”

“What happened?” Ynav's father propped himself up against the door.



“A goat herder's son by the name of Gomohov was mutilated and his sister ravished. No one saw a thing, the girl isn't talking and the boy is incapable. I've no doubt that Kolhue Aebeny is getting an earful.” The old man was giving him a look that seemed to anticipate a response. Ynav returned his father's stare somewhat blankly, wondering if he was expected to be disappointed for the sake of his letter. He thought to say, ‘How dare those people be tortured on the eve of my romantic foray with the Lady Aebeny,’ but the joke was in such poor taste that he was ashamed even to think on it.

Kolhue worked for Lord Venin Irojah, who was earl of the province. Officially, she kept the domestic accounts for Lady Irojah who could neither read nor write. Unofficially, she was a keen audience for his lordship's many quotidian grievances. Kolhue performed her duties from Lord Irojah's rooms at the Tower, listening to the earl rant himself silly while she divided his servants' wages into piles. Ynav imagined Kolhue half reading his love letter, half listening to the grisly details of the attack. “I am going to offer you a bit of advice, however unsolicited,” his father resumed. “Kolhue Aebeny is an unnatural woman who does not, nor shall she ever have an interest in raising children or running a household.”



“I shall keep that in mind, father.” The old man sneered at him. He remembered too late that his patient sarcasm, which traditionally went ignored or altogether unnoticed in the Sholde household, was beginning to grate on his father. As time passed, it seemed increasingly to be a jibe at his father's age.

“More immediately, do you expect Yuix Aebeny to allow a letter from your hand to reach his precious daughter?” This obstacle, Ynav had thought of, though he had no solution.

“I'll figure something out,” he said. Yuix Aebeny would want no less for his daughter than a man of his own status. Riven-Sholde Ynav Tooks was not such a man. His mother was a Calabrion weaver who spent several nights with Lord General Maran Sholde while he was on tour in Divenough. Ynav had passed seven winters by the time his mother presented him to his father. When the general tried to deny Ynav's paternity, the case was brought before the king's assembly who ruled that the physical resemblance between Ynav and his father was not to be denied. One justice added to the proceedings, Please do not waste our time with this matter again. The child looks like you shat him out, or something to that effect. Thus Ynav came to live amongst the honorable Sholde family.

He never saw his mother again and try as he might, he could not remember her. He knew that she must have been dark, for he himself was. His sister once pressed him about his missing childhood. Surely at seven winters he was old enough to have some recollection? He did not. All that he had left of his mother was his name.

“You’ll want to clean this up. And don’t let her ladyship catch you down here first thing in the morning.” His father's voice brought him back to earth.

“No, my lord.” Ynav’s father gave him something that was between a wave and a salute as he continued on his way. Ynav turned his attention back to the window. Nettie, his father’s laundress was hanging sheets to dry in the courtyard. Young men that he could not see were calling the day’s weather prediction. All’s fair from dawn to dusk! All’s fair! Ynav bit his thumb and forefinger. Maybe it would be best if he declared himself to Kolhue in person. He could stand in the street beneath her window and call out like a weather boy, ‘If you are obliging, I should very much like to make love to you on a bed of rose petals!’ Let Kolhue do what she would with that information. Ynav gathered his discarded paper, making a basket of the front of his shirt as girls did with their aprons. This would serve until he reached the compost heap outside.



Hushed voices filtered into the corridor, one of which was probably Ynav’s brother Lectro and another that was certainly his brother Nadd (who, for Ynav’s own personal record, also had a home to go to). The conversation was mainly inaudible, for which Ynav was not sorry. Whatever they were discussing, he had the feeling that he did not want to know. There was an instant where Lectro raised his voice above a whisper and Ynav caught the phrase, “No one asked to you carve it out…” But that was all. Ynav stepped into the courtyard.

The day was indeed fair. Warm for this time of year. Gile Sohn, the young thatcher was scurrying along his father’s roof. Even from such a distance, Gile was unmistakable in form. He was a skinny, disreputable looking fellow with a mop of black hair that betrayed some Nuni ancestor. Ynav watched with fascination as the boy balanced his heels upon the gutter in a way that seemed as much in his nature as flight was to a bird.



“Good morrow, sir,” Gile shouted down to him.

“Salute the day,” Ynav responded.

“Aye, it is a fine one.” Gile took a moment to admire the clear sky before returning to his work.

“You seem quite at ease up there,” Ynav remarked, causing Gile to chortle.

“Begging your pardon sir, but it’s my job!”

“Quite so and you may keep it. It’s much too perilously close to the gods up there for my liking!”

“So sir says, but all I’m hearing is that it’s too perilously far from the ground for sir's liking.”

“No one likes a clever boy, Gile!” The thatcher threw back his head and laughed. Ynav excused himself with a wave and continued on his way, staring at the grip of Gile’s feet. He had such a horror of high places.



Walking backwards down the lane, Ynav had not noticed the laundress who in turn had not noticed him from behind the heap of linens obscuring her view. The two collided in a confetti of balled paper and undergarments.

“I am so sorry, Nettie! Please allow me to help you with that.” The laundress huffed as she began picking up her scattered things. Ynav reached around blindly, tossing items from beneath the hedge in the approximate direction of her basket. He soon caught hold of a sopping wet bit of cloth and feared that he had made her job more difficult by landing something in a puddle. But when he glanced down at the shirt in his hand, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Nettie clicked her tongue.



“It’s naught but steer’s blood. Lord Nadda made a sacrifice to the goddess Pyletha yesterday to assure his wife's safe delivery.”

“Did he then follow up the display by bathing in the beast’s entrails?” Ynav held the shirt away from a flustered yet unimpressed Nettie.

“The things you say,” she scolded. Ynav knitted his brow at the shirt still clutched in his fist. With his sister-in-law due at any minute, Ynav could not imagine what Nadd was doing at their father’s house killing steers and whispering with Lectro. Nettie reached forward and grabbed the soiled shirt from him. The pair of them sat down in the grass.



“Nettie, I need a woman’s advice.” Nettie sniffed.

“If you ask me, it’s more than a woman’s advice you’re needing.” Ynav exhaled to expel the feeling that he was being slighted. His father hired Nettie because he reveled in being the recipient of her sauciness so often that she had forgotten how to interact with other men above her station.

“How might I approach a lady who has more of an ambition to be a baron than a wife?” Nettie screwed up her face incredulously.

“What nonsense is this?”

“Humor me, Nett.” Nettie picked up a jacket and dusted it off, seeming to consider.



“Well you might take an interest in her work.”

“Her work.” Ynav tossed a ball of paper toward the compost heap while he mulled her suggestion over.

“Blast!” Ynav looked to Nettie, who was still inspecting the same jacket. She turned her attention to the ground. “You don’t see nothing shining, do you? A silver button?” Ynav surveyed the path around him, only then realizing how farcical the scene was—A laundress seated in the dirt with her lord’s son, a load of dirty laundry and several dozen almost-letters.



“I don’t see anything.”

“Are you certain? Her ladyship will have my head!”

“You may blame me, if you like. There is little else that her ladyship likes better than blaming me for things.” Nettie shot him a chastising look.

“Unkind,” she said. Ynav helped her to hoist the basket up from the ground.

“If I were to find the button, would that make this whole incident up to you, Nett?”

“If you find that button, I’ll marry you before Baron What's-Her-Face gets the nerve.”

“I should be so lucky.” Ynav helped Nettie to her feet. She jostled the laundry with her knee to grant herself better balance. A crimson sleeve unfurled from the lip of basket, flailing like a signal of distress. Ynav caught his brother's shirt as it began to tumble.



He thought on what his father had said about what happened in west quarter. If he was going to get close to Kolhue through her work, he might start there. The more he thought on it, the more romantic the notion of bringing a criminal to justice seemed, even independent of Kolhue's grateful affections. Ynav tossed the bloody shirt to the top of Nettie's pile, wondering whether he had not just discovered his calling in life.

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The air was so still at the base of Udlan Tower that Oraea could have slashed it with a knife. He was posted here every third day from dawn to mids, defending the epicenter of civilization as he knew it. The sea of humanity that passed by never spared him a thought, though his every waking moment was dedicated to them, to their security, to the stability of their mutual homeland. He was a hero. He was their unheeded saviour. The respect that he earned did not equal what he garnered.



The women were the worst. They sauntered by him everyday with their skin like ripened wheat and hair as red as poppies. They would glance at him with their green eyes, with their gray eyes, with their brown eyes and their gold eyes, neither seeing him nor wishing to be seen by him.

Keda Gomohov was such a woman. Oraea noticed her for the first time when she sang at the pear festival that summer. He tried to speak with her after her performance but was dismissed without learning so much as her name. He thought that she knew him yesterday only when he kissed her. You. You. You. You. It was just as likely to be raving gibberish as it was to be a recognition, but he hoped that she recognized him. He wanted her to know what became of little girls who turned away the sons of lords. His work done, her body bled like a war wound.