So, by the time that Toreth’s funerary shrine was done, and his mummified body placed in it, and his spirit released to cross the Star-Bridge, Aket-ten had become a part of the wing, and never a murmur against her.
Not even from the senior Jousters. The Dry season aged toward winter, but everything seemed disjointed and wrong, somehow. The senior Jousters went out; some came back, some did not. Lord Khumun never ordered Kiron’s wing out at all. In a way, that was a relief; in a way, it felt as if the Lord of the Jousters had abandoned them.
At last the body was mummified, the shrine was complete, and with a shock, Kiron realized with a shock that it was time to say a final farewell. They all went to the funeral rites—and it was only at that moment that the anger he had felt before Toreth’s death finally awoke again. Because the rites were—perfunctory.
In fact, it felt like an extension of Toreth’s disgrace, as if his own parents believed that the cobra had really been a sign of the gods’ displeasure. When they all arrived at the dock to take the funeral barge to the City of the Dead, Kiron had to look twice to recognize that they did have the right barge, and not one for some insignificant shopkeeper. The barge was small, the decoration sparse, the flowers—well, the only flowers were those brought by the wing. The offerings for the gods were the only things that were there in profusion, in overabundance, in fact, as if Toreth’s parents were trying desperately to bribe the gods into a good humor.
There was no escort of professional mourners. Toreth’s own parents did not attend. There was only Kaleth, looking like five kinds of death himself, to represent the family, and the wing, to represent his friends.
The voyage took place in utter silence. There were no chants, no dirges. When they all disembarked at the City of the Dead, there was only a decorated cart hauled by a single ox to greet them, with the mason and the painter. Kiron half-expected the shrine to have been shorted as well, but there, at least, the job had been done handsomely. . . .
Then again, perhaps Toreth’s parents feared that he would haunt them otherwise.
The shrine, a masonry construction about the size of a room, was carved and painted all over with the prayers for the dead. Inside it should have already been stocked with abshati figures and offerings and everything that Toreth would need in the afterlife, sealed in several chambers. Only one chamber remained unsealed; the one for his coffin, before which further offerings could be made over time.
If any were—
We will, he thought fiercely. And I don’t care who knows that we’re doing so.
The Priest and Priestess of Enefis, the God of the Dead, hurried through the rites until Kaleth stepped forward, forcibly took the regalia from the priest, and a moment later, Aket-ten confronted the priestess who gave hers over without a murmur. And instead of the Priest and Priestess, they finished the rites, properly, and only when all was complete to the last detail, did they return the sacred implements to their rightful wielders. Everyone knew the rites, of course, and anyone could perform them—
—but to have to step in to do the job properly when there was a Priest and Priestess there was a sign that something was badly out of kilter.
The body bearers installed the mummy in its niche with what seemed to Kiron to be unseemly haste. Only the mason, who sealed the body in, and the painter, who painted Toreth’s likeness on the freshly plastered wall, did their jobs with dignity and grace. And only the wing and Kaleth stayed to watch it done.
When even the painter and the mason were gone, Kaleth turned to stumble away—and Kiron, moved by only Toreth would have wanted this put out a hand and caught Kaleth’s shoulder.
“Come back with us,” he said, to Kaleth’s frozen face. “Don’t go—to your parents’ house. Come home with us.”
“What?” the young man—prince no longer—asked harshly. “And try to take his place? Pretend I’m not afraid of heights, pretend that I am fit to be a warrior when I know I’m not, try to get his dragon to accept me, and try to—”
“No,” Kiron said simply. “Come back with us, be yourself, and make a home with us. Do you not think we like you for yourself, and wish your company? Aket-ten tends to Re-eth-ke. She saved Re-eth-ke’s life by comforting her, she trains Re-eth-ke now, and I would not let you take the dragon from her now, even if you wanted her. We don’t want a replacement for Toreth, we want Kaleth, our friend, who needs someone to share his grief with, just as we do. Come and be yourself, with us, who are your friends.”
He didn’t know where those words had come from, but they must have been the right ones, for something within Kaleth visibly broke. His face crumpled, and he began to weep, as if for the last sixty days he had kept his own grief pent behind a dam.
Gan took one side of him, and Orest the other, and they helped him along. Kiron hurried his steps and went on ahead, to make certain that all of Toreth’s things had been taken from the empty pen, and it was bare of everything but the essentials. Kaleth had seldom come here; mostly they had met in Kiron’s pen. There would be no memories in that place for him, and likely he would never know that it had been Toreth’s unless someone told him.
The pen was empty, the sand clean and smooth, the room held only the cot and some linen. Even Toreth’s colors had been painted over on the door outside the room. Re-eth-ke had new colors now, scarlet and white, chosen by Aket-ten.
Kiron found an unoccupied slave and sent him in search of the things that Kaleth would need for his comfort.
Then he went in search of Heklatis, and told him what was toward.
“I don’t know what his parents think they’re doing,” he said bleakly, “But something tells me that if we don’t get him away from them, he’ll—do something drastic.”
The Healer nodded.
“Good. This is the best place for him. I will make a potion so he can sleep when he is wept out; I suspect he has done as little of that as of sleeping.”
Kiron sent a message to Lord Ya-tiren; three slaves returned laden with cushions and lamps, scrolls and papyrus and all the things a scribe needed, including a comfortable chair, a clever little table. In short, all the things needed to make the little chamber into a place of welcome and refuge for a scholar.
It was an unexpected and amazingly kind and thoughtful act that brought tears to Kiron’s eyes again. He could not help but contrast this with Kaleth’s own parents and their actions.
But then, Lord Ya-tiren was a scholar, and he understood another such. Lord Ya-tiren knew the truth and believed it; apparently Kaleth’s parents were not even willing to listen to it. Or they were too afraid to acknowledge that it was the truth. Kiron blessed his benefactor’s name, vowed to find a way to make it up to him, and got the chamber in readiness. And when the wing brought Kaleth back with them, Heklatis, too, was waiting there.
Kiron had expected Aket-ten to be foremost of those offering Kaleth comfort, but to his surprise, she was nowhere to be found. It was only when he heard the sound of light sandals on the stone, and looked out into the corridor, that he saw her. And she was not alone; there was a young woman with her—a woman several years Kiron’s senior, dressed in the kind of expensive linen gown and jewels, the elaborate wig and face paint, that a court lady would wear.