Oathblood

And it wasn't really breaking the rule if the food was eaten immediately, just bending it a little. After all, the rule specifically said keeping food in their rooms, not earing it there.

:I wonder why the older boys aren't having a similar-: Warrl broke off his thought to cock an ear at the door. :Footsteps on the stair. One of the older boys. Belton, by the footsteps.:

Since the hallway on which the adults had their rooms was dimly lit with a night-lantern, there was no need for a child to stumble through the dark to find any of his teachers. A moment or two later, the expected tap came at Tarma's door.

She opened it; Belton stood there, with a guarded expression, still fully dressed although he should have been in his nightclothes by now.

'Come to say good-bye privately?' she asked, giving him an easy excuse for his presence, so that he could broach the real reason he had sought her out when he felt a little more comfortable. 'Please, come in and share my hearth.'

The boy blinked in the fire- and lantern-light, and came hesitantly inside. Tarma waved him to a chair, and took her own seat again. 'Tea?' she invited, holding up a pot. He shook his head, and she put it back on the table beside her chair. 'I'm glad all three of you boys will be coming back after the holidays,' she said, relaxing into the embrace of her chair. 'You are all intelligent and quick, and I think you'll be happy here. I'm happy to have you as students. More than that, well, I like you boys for yourselves.' She smiled at him. 'Even when you're all acting like brats, I still like you.'

Belton didn't relax. He stared at his hands, clenched rightly on one knee, then at the fire, then back at his hands, all without saying anything. Tarma waited with infinite patience; she had a fair idea that he was about to tell her the secret she'd sensed in him.

In the meantime, she filled the silence with onesided conversation, about her own training, about things Belton could expect to learn when he returned, about how she had felt at his age when confronted by some of the things she had been expected to learn. Finally, he looked as if he was ready to say something, and she paused to give him a chance.

'Is revenge wrong?' he finally blurted, looking up urgently into her eyes. 'Not for something petty, not a stupid argument or something. Serious revenge, grown-up revenge.'

Interesting question. 'Are you asking the teacher or the Shin'a'in?' she replied.

'Both. Either.' He shook his head, clearly confused. 'I don't know what I want to hear-'

'Well, the teacher would say -- 'yes, of course, revenge is wrong, doing something terrible to revenge yourself is creating a second wrong on top of the one that was done to you.' But the Shin'a'in has a different way of looking at things than the teacher who has to live in civilization.' She smiled slowly. 'The Shin'a'in would say that it depends on what you expect you're going to get out of the vengeance -- and it depends on what the vengeance is going to do to you.'

'What I'm going to get out of it? Don't you mean, what I'm going to accomplish?' Belton looked puzzled at her wording, and she wasn't surprised. She was about to introduce him to some complicated thinking, but she thought he could grasp it.

'No, that's not what I mean. The Shin'a'in are not at all against vengeance, or against blood-feuds. In fact, I'm here now because of an oath of vengeance.' She nodded at his look of surprise. 'For us, the key difference is that in order to swear an oath of vengeance, or take on a blood-feud, you have to swear yourself to the Warrior- Goddess, and that means giving up everything. Family, Clan, love, marriage -- all of it.'

'Why?' Belton wanted to know.

'In part, to make sure that revenge is the act of last resort-that it is kept for very specific purposes.' She wound a strand of hair around one finger. 'We don't allow people to declare blood-feuds just because they can't get along with another person in their Clan, and we don't let Clan declare blood-feud with Clan. Very far back in the past, our people separated into two groups, one of whom became the Shin'a'in, because of a difference of opinion. That separation came out all right, but it isn't something we want to happen again.' How much to tell him? I can't give him the whole history of the Clans in one night! But the boy did look intent on her words, so she continued. 'That's why someone who needs revenge that badly gives up everything, and becomes an instrument of the Shin'a'in as a whole. The Shin'a'in take revenge very seriously, and only someone who is acting for the People of the Plains rather than himself is permitted to take it. We believe that if you aren't serious enough about revenge to be willing to give up everything in order to have it, then you aren't going after revenge for the right reasons.'

Belton chewed on his lower lip for a long time before answering her. 'What are the right reasons?'

'I can't give you all of them, but I can tell you mine -- and as to how I know they were right, well, the Goddess accepted my oath, so they must have been.' She took a sip of her warm tea and let the taste of honey and flowers linger on her tongue for a moment. He continued to watch her face intently. 'Bandits had slaughtered my entire Clan. I wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth -- but not because killing them would bring any of my people back. Yes, I wanted to kill them because they had killed everyone I cared about. But I also knew that if they got away with the murders, others would try to emulate them -- and the People could not have that happen.'