“Did you sleep well?” Duke Bejuk found a quiet moment to ask Rae after Duke Ashem had finished complaining about how late in the day it was, and how little had been done. He was distracted by tending to the Shana, suffering from mild chest pain, which afforded Rae and Bejuk a moment of privacy.

“Very well, thank you for your help,” Rae said.

They were being received in the Shana’s palace, which aside from being overrun with five little girls, was just as Rae remembered it. The drawing room was laid out to take tea with guests, just as his mother had done it. Translucent curtains drifting gently in the wind, with the gardens just beyond. The light reflected off the duck pond, painting a kaleidoscopic mural on the ceiling above the tea table.

Rae barely knew anything of his sisters other than their names. Nuna, Jiwat, Viseka, Komao, and Lim, born in that order. That was the day he first caught glimpses of them, playing in the water and sneaking sweets from their mother, just as Rae had once done. The littlest ones didn’t seem to understand what had transpired to bring Rae here, nor who Rae was but he caught the eldest sneaking furtive glances at him. Nuna, born only a few months after Rae left the Shak’s camp.

“Sebi told me you seemed very tense. I have an idea for a better treatment, but we’ll have to finish today’s business first,” Duke Bejuk said.

Today’s business was:

1. Choosing a suitable location for the late Shak’s final resting place.

2. Preparing the body for burial.

3. Organising the construction of the memorial.

Duke Ashem had most graciously taken responsibility for number three and Rae was all too happy to hand the body off to Duke Bejuk. That left Rae to find the proper place, a task he dreaded doing alone.

Rae had almost resigned himself to that fate when Gaori finally made his appearance.

Duke Ashem, who had been forced to show at least a little restraint in expressing his disapproval to Rae, spared no mercy on Gaori.

“Go easy on me, I’ve never travelled so far, nor been so exhausted in my whole life. It’s downright cruel to not let a person get a proper rest,” Gaori said, so shamelessly that even Duke Ashem was dumbstruck. Rae struggled to suppress his grin.

“Duke Ashem, where is young master Ven today?” Rae asked the question he had been wondering all morning.

“He’s gone down the mountain to make trouble,” Duke Ashem said, with a venom that Rae had previously suspected was only ever directed at him.

“Make trouble?”

“All the pretty ladies on the mountain like to host uncle for tea, so he goes down a lot,” Viseka, one of the little Shali, who had been clinging to her mother’s sleeve, explained. If it wasn’t already clear to Rae, the way Duke Ashem’s and the Shana’s faces twitched at the mention of “tea” was all Rae needed to confirm his suspicion.

“Lucky bugger! I could do with something to eat, but I’m sure you’ll be putting me to work right away, given how late it is,”

Duke Ashem and Duke Bejuk were not going to offer Gaori any sympathy, but Rae was able to convince them that he would be most useful, or the least trouble, accompanying him to the back mountain.

----------------------------------------

Once they had said their goodbyes to the Dukes and left the Shana’s palace, Rae finally had the chance to catch Gaori up on what had happened the night before.

“Bejuk has an adopted son? Was it recent? I’ve never heard anything about that,”

In Camp Kaolin, news of the affairs of other camps trickled with the comings and goings of merchants, trappers, musicians, and dancers. They had heard that Bejuk’s eldest heir, Rok, had slain a stag in the previous year’s great hunt. They heard that the minor camps had begun sending proposals for the hand of Etti Bejuk and the Duke was not tolerating it well. Sebi must have been camp Bejuk’s best-kept secret, so striking in appearance and advanced in skill.

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They gossiped about Sebi for a little while. Rae left out how after his treatment, he had fallen asleep more peacefully than any time since his mother’s passing. Then Rae started telling Gaori about what the serving girl had told him.

“Wait! A girl? Was the girl pretty?”

Rae didn’t know how to answer that. He hadn’t been particularly taken with her, but Gaori was able to find beauty much more readily than he was. When he thought back over their conversation, her toothy grin and pink cheeks, he thought she was someone Gaori would take to.

“Yes, I’d say so,”

“Our age?”

“I think so,”

Gaori let out a groan, “You’re so much luckier than me. I was woken up by some old crone,”

Rae didn’t grace that with a response. They were walking out into the forest. This area was still part of the Shak’s palace and if you walked far enough, you would eventually find a boundary wall patrolled by sentries. However, unlike the landscaped gardens and courtyards, this vast area had mostly been left wild, with little paths snaking across the terrain to places of interest. Most of these were grave sites. Eight Shak’s had been interred here, along with a number of Shana, Shakje, and Shali.

Until now, Rae had never thought of the back-mountain forest as a particularly sombre place. As a child, he had played here. Even when his mother’s headstone had been raised, he hadn’t thought of the forest as a place of death. It was a happy place, the closest thing to being free Rae had experienced in his most innocent days.

Now it could hardly compare to the true wilderness he and Gaori had wasted their boyhoods in, the undergrowth cut back to create trails, or to frame stunning vistas. There were great beasts, no bears or wolves that dared get so close to the palace, but on spring mornings one might spot deer grazing.

“The crone asked me about you,” Gaori said, once it was clear Rae wasn’t going to say anything else.

“What?”

“She asked me how you were, and when I told her you fell and hurt your arm, she was quite upset. I was wondering if she was someone you knew,”

“Did you ask her name?” Rae asked. It had been so long. He didn’t know what had happened to his mother’s servants, perhaps some of them still worked within the palace.

“No. I’ll ask her next time. She was old and had a mole right here,” Gaori poked himself just above the lip, on the left-hand side, “she really seemed very-,”

Before Gaori could finish, Rae had realised who the woman was.

“Nana! How dare you call my Nana a ‘crone’?”

Nana had been a maid to Rae’s mother and had taken care of Rae whenever his mother was unwell, or with the Shak. For both Rae and his mother, she had helped them dress in the mornings, combed their hair before bed, she had spoon-fed them when they were so sick they could barely move.

When Nukaim was born, Rae’s Nana had held his little body to her breast when his mother was too weak to. She never left her side until her spirit had departed. For the few weeks Nukaim lived, she had cared for him as if he were her own.

She had stood by Rae as they watched his mother’s grave be erected, and shed tears with him.

“My Nana, did she look well?” Rae asked once he had calmed down.

Gaori was rubbing his arm where Rae had hit him, “She seemed healthy enough. I didn’t realise anyone loyal to Auntie Shana was left around here,”

Rae hadn’t either. But just the prospect of seeing her friendly face after all these years lightened the load he was bearing a little.

As they walked, Rae caught sight of a copse of maple trees, lined up along a gentle slope. One could hear the rushing creak, drowning out any sounds of the palace that might have carried this far. If one cleared the brambles and levelled the ground…

“How about here?” Gaori asked.

“Hmm… this looks good,” Rae said. He could see a royal tomb in this spot. When the sun set in autumn, the glow reflecting off the maple would make a moving sight. There was a slight chill in the air, but Rae thought it would be a pleasant place to visit in fine weather.

“So… we’re done? We’re done for the day?”Gaori asked, already turning back down the slope back to the palace. Looking forward to a good meal, and seeking out that pretty maid, no doubt.

“Do you think you could go tell Bejuk about this place for me?” Rae said, fixing his eyes on those maple trees.

“You alright?”

“Yeah… I just want to go see my mother. I don’t want to talk about the funeral anymore until I’ve been to the grave,”

“You’ll be okay going alone?” Gaori used that quiet, gentle voice that always made Rae… frustrated.

“Of course”

Of course. He had been alone there much more often than he had been there with Nana. Or his father. Or anyone else. It was his place, all alone.