Her aunt’s eyes gleamed. “Is this plot still going on?”
“No. Once Rogsam died, there was no longer any point.”
“I see … But even if it were, I suppose I would still want to know.” She smiled slowly. “You were too young to have known, but Karuna, Jiguro, and I were great friends from the very first time we met in the capital….”
Balsa tried to imagine what they had been like in their youth, before she was born. She could tell that her aunt was plainspoken and highly principled. The three of them would have gotten along very well. Then, one day, all of that had come crashing down. How had Yuka felt, Balsa wondered, when her best friend fled the country and her brother was murdered, leaving her all on her own?
She began telling the tale of Rogsam’s treachery, speaking without emotion, yet all the while thinking about how one man’s evil ambitions had warped so many lives. By the time she finished, twilight was creeping into the room.
Yuka gave a long sigh. “Ah. At last, the twisted threads have been untangled.” She looked exhausted but, at the same time, deeply relieved, as if a thorn stuck in her heart for years had finally been removed. “I always wondered about my brother’s death, but your story reminded me of several other things that bothered me.
“When King Naguru died, Karuna behaved very strangely. He was in such a hurry to bury the body, sealing it in a casket before other doctors could see it and insisting that it be interred immediately to prevent decay. It was unseasonably warm that day, so other people just accepted what he said. But I knew him well, and to me, it seemed unusual.
“I also wondered why Jiguro disappeared three days before the king passed away, almost as if he knew the king was going to die. And I couldn’t understand why, even if he was planning to revolt, he would flee without telling Karuna and me the truth…. It seemed so out of character.
“Then the day after he disappeared, my brother told me you had drowned. So many strange things were happening — it seemed like heaven and earth had turned upside down! I had just decided to ask Karuna what on earth was going on when he was killed.
“Quite frankly, I was terrified at the sight of his body. I sensed some cold, evil will behind it … but it never occurred to me that it was Prince Rogsam.” She broke off and looked at Balsa’s spear. “Is that Jiguro’s spear? I’ve been wondering ever since we met at the gate.”
“No. Jiguro made this for me when I was ten. I’ve changed the head on it several times, but the shaft is so sturdy I’ve never had to replace it. When Jiguro died, I carved the mark from his spear onto it.” She plucked the spear from the wall it rested against and handed it gently to her aunt. Yuka ran her hands along the smooth shaft, well oiled with use.
“It’s much heavier than it looks,” she murmured. “You started carrying this when you were just a little girl? Just ten?” She closed her eyes, and tears slid from beneath her lids. “What a cruel, cruel life …” she whispered. “Ah, Jiguro. How well you raised and protected Balsa. I can hardly believe it. To think a blunt and awkward man like you could have raised a little girl, all on your own….”
Balsa felt her throat constrict and for a moment she was unable to speak. She had to breathe deeply several times before she finally managed to say, “You’re right. There was never a man so unsuited to raising a girl as Jiguro. No wonder I have no idea how to be feminine.”
Yuka chuckled and shook her head. “It’s unfair to blame it all on Jiguro. You were a born tomboy who put the boys to shame. Karuna used to say you must have left something important behind in your mother’s womb.”
A single tear trickled down Balsa’s cheek. The two women sat with their heads bowed in the dying light, chuckling through their tears.
Yuka wiped her eyes and handed the spear back to Balsa. “What are you going to do? Do you intend to clear Jiguro’s name?”
Balsa caressed the well-worn shaft and sighed. Unburdening the story of her life seemed to have swept the dregs of grief from her heart. The fierce anger that had flared inside her earlier had died down to coals, buried beneath the ash of resignation. She smiled sadly. “What can I do? Even if I wanted to take revenge, Rogsam is dead, and frankly, I don’t see much point in dredging up that plot now. I came back to heal an old hurt that I had been too afraid to confront. That’s all….”
Dusk cast a deep shadow on Balsa’s face, and though she smiled, Yuka thought she glimpsed the darkness that lay over her heart. Jiguro’s face rose into her mind, and she felt a cold stillness deep within. Though blunt, Jiguro had been kind. If he had been on his own, he would have returned to Kanbal and confronted King Rogsam. But he had been with Balsa — a defenseless little girl — and so his closest friends had come, one after another, to kill him. What agony he must have suffered when he fought them. And Balsa had seen it all. She had spent her childhood watching him slay his friends, one by one, for her sake. What a hard, cruel life she must have endured. Yuka clenched her fists.
As if she knew what her aunt was thinking, Balsa began to speak lightly and cheerfully: “Last fall, I was hired to guard a boy who had to bear a strange fate.” She explained how she had protected Chagum, the Second Prince of New Yogo and the guardian of a water spirit’s egg. Her heart filled with motherly affection when she thought of him. “The funny thing is,” she concluded, “I was happy protecting him, even though it was an extremely dangerous and frightening job. I really was happy! And I realized that it wasn’t such a bad way to live.” She smiled slightly and took a deep breath. “Until then, I never really cared how I lived my life. It was just a miracle I had survived at all … a miracle bought with the blood of many other lives. I thought it was wrong to dream of the future.
“But Chagum helped me see my own stupidity. Jiguro will never be able to rest in peace if I think like that. He fought so hard to give me this life. The least I can do is enjoy and appreciate it.” She laughed. “But you know what? I couldn’t. I felt like there was something I still needed to do, as if I had forgotten to repay a debt. That’s why I came back. If I found anyone among his friends and relatives who cared about what had happened to him, I was going to tell them the true story. I would bring the tale of Jiguro, who vanished so abruptly from Kanbal, back to where it began, and end it here. I thought that then his ghost would be laid to rest.”
The room was now so dim she could barely make out her aunt’s face. Yuka stood up and went to stir the dwindling embers while Balsa closed the window. The space grew brighter as Yuka walked around lighting the tallow candles. Then she turned to look at Balsa.
“Now I understand why you came back. I feel like I’ve lived through twenty-five years in a single day.” They smiled at each other. “We haven’t run out of things to say, but I for one am hungry. Can you give me a hand? We’ll make some supper.”
Yuka had no servants other than the gardener and an assistant healer. She told Balsa that living on her own suited her. Together they made a pot of laroo, meat and gasha stewed in milk and seasoned with fragrant herbs. The piping-hot stew was delicious, especially now that the bitter chill of evening had fallen.
As they lingered over the table, Yuka resumed their conversation. “I understand how you feel about laying ghosts to rest, but I doubt that any of Jiguro’s relatives care what happened to him. His parents died before he fled the country, and his sister was probably too young to remember. As for his older brother, Kaguro, and his younger brother, Yuguro —” She paused suddenly and looked up at Balsa. “That’s strange.”
“What?”
Her aunt frowned. “If Jiguro didn’t steal the gold rings, then how could Yuguro Musa …” She laid down her spoon and looked intently at Balsa. “You said that Jiguro died of an illness. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I watched him breathe his last. My friend Tanda was there too.”
“And the illness wasn’t caused by wounds he suffered while fighting Yuguro?”
“Yuguro? No.” Balsa did indeed remember a man called Yuguro visiting Jiguro, but he had not been one of those who had hunted them.
Yuka looked troubled. “But that can’t be! I told you that young men from eight different clans went after Jiguro and were killed by him. But the last one to hunt him was Jiguro’s younger brother, Yuguro, from the Musa clan. He defeated Jiguro and returned with all nine spear rings. He’s now the hero of Kanbal and wields tremendous influence over all the clans.”
She pondered this for a moment and then continued. “Now that I think of it, many strange things happened the year Yuguro Musa came back. King Rogsam was found to have a fatal illness that very spring, and he insisted that his son, Prince Radalle, should succeed to the throne instead of Rogsam’s younger brother. Yuguro returned with the rings only a month before Rogsam died. There was a magnificent ceremony; I remember it well. King Rogsam took the hands of his son and the hero Yuguro, and declared that a new bond had been forged between the nine clans and the royal family.”
She looked into Balsa’s eyes and whispered, “Could the plot have run deeper than you thought?”
Suddenly the room felt very cold.