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Derhan - The Path Ends

by Bettina Lege

(For copyright of my cover see note below)

1. Home and Foreign
2. Law and Politics
3. Death and Tea
4. Tradition and Custom

1. Home and Foreign

When the Berreshi army got in sight of the Circle Sea, Derhan had a pleasant sensation: he was on his way home. Wasn't the sound of the horses' steps over the stones on this part of the Taribian Road more familiar than before?

Even though it always brought good money to join the troops with which the Council of Berresh supported the military campaigns of the allied Hannai, the usual seven to ten days of backbreaking work as a field surgeon were again enough for him, till the next season. And waiting for him at home was not only his wife, whose soft body he had longed for since his early departure from Nemis, but also his now seven-year-old son, who was bright and curious, and had mastered writing shortly before Derhan's departure. With the help of the Patron, a good teacher could certainly be found for the boy.

*

Finally, the troops reached the muster area in front of the West Gate of the new city wall. Like the others, Derhan got off his horse and took his place in the Feldscher-Wannim. Most of these ten men were, like their Wanack, surgeons, two men usually helped out in a bathhouse, there was a surgeon's apprentice, and Derhan himself. He knew of no other doctor, educated in the Sanctuary of the Unnamed, who was with the troops. When they accompanied a military campaign, they were usually found with the priesthood. However, apart from himself, he did not know of any doctor, educated in the Temple of Berresh, who was not also a citizen of Berresh. Through his studies, he had at least earned the right to wear the white cap of the temple scholar on his shaved head. Of course, he also wore it in the field because he had experienced that the officers then gave much more generous tips for the treatment of their injuries. The actual quality of his treatment seemed to be irrelevant, although he was certainly behind hardly anyone in the unit. And so this time he returned home with a large chunk of money, a small compensation for the fact that, as a mere fellow resident of Berresh, in the city he could only demand half the payment for treatment that a citizen received.

The scribes checked their lists, then the muster-out followed and the leader of each unit received the money promised by Hannai, so that Derhan received eighteen Tar from his Wanack in addition to his previous income. That was for the nine days of campaigning against robbers in the Grass Mountains, whose only treasure had been their horses. One or two more war campaigns, and he could finally buy his way into citizenship.

As always, Derhan gave his mare into the care of the horse herder near the West Gate and then carried his bags on foot through the city. Despite the late hour, Derhan's step was positively buoyant as he made his way home. The lamps at the entrances to the houses were already lit, even though it was not yet dusk, and so he felt welcomed even before he had knocked on the door of his own house.

It took a moment until the house slave opened the door and then greeted his master with conspicuous relief, as if he had suspected a stranger at the door. "Is my wife expecting visitors?" Derhan therefore asked.

Jamul shook his head. "No, master," then he reached for Derhan's luggage: "Let me take this, master," and turned around to take the bags into Derhan's rooms.

"Make me a bath," Derhan called after him, then went into the courtyard, put down his weapons and greeted the house gods, so important to his wife, in their small shrine in the corner with a respectful nod. But where was his family? Couldn't he expect at least his wife to greet him? She must have received news of the troops' return.

Ah, then the smell of fried delicacies reached him, and now he heard the clatter of pots and women's voices from the kitchen. Lefiët was there and had a festive welcome meal prepared for her husband. Reassured, Derhan went into his consulting room, lit the lamp, and then pried open the doorstep to his storeroom of herbs and tinctures, to place thirty-two shiny silver Tars, his savings, into the clay pot he had hidden under the doorstep. It warmed his heart to see how full this pot had become, he had really soon reached his goal. If everything worked out well, Derhan would be a citizen of Berresh before Dandar truly understood what exactly made the difference between such a person and a mere fellow resident of the city.

Satisfied, Derhan put the doorstep back and kicked it firmly, took off his clothes in the marital bedroom and went into the small adjoining bath to prepare for a more intimate reunion with his wife than a shared dinner.

*

Freshly dressed, Derhan finally wanted to greet his wife. But there were only the cook and the house slave in the kitchen. He learned that the mistress was with Dandar and had to comfort him. So he went to check on his son.

Lefiët sat on the edge of the bed and with his left hand still held the small hand of the now sleeping child, whose white hair curled on the pillow, the white eyebrows and eyelashes on the pretty, dark face as if drawn with chalk. The eyelids were red; Dandar had obviously been crying. And on Lefiët's lap lay a fine linen cloth that she usually wore in her sleeve, and with which she had probably dried her child's tears. She herself also seemed depressed, probably because the boy had not allowed himself to be comforted.

As Derhan took a step closer to his son's bed and the wooden floor creaked, Lefiët turned to him, then smiled somewhat hesitantly at her husband. But before she rose, she turned once more to Dandar and kissed his forehead.

"What..." Derhan asked in a whisper, but Lefiët shook her head and put her index finger to her lips. Of course, not here, so the boy would not wake up and be beset by his grief again. And when they left the room and closed the door, the food was ready.

The western-style dishes that spread their familiar aroma in the dining room, this extremely appetizing sight right within reach of his hands, reminded Derhan, that he had not eaten anything since breakfast at dawn, and during the war campaign missed his home cooking dearly. Although Lefiët came from Menrish, people there also ate like the tribes, and she had managed to find a woman from her hometown to cook.

Apparently not wanting to burden her husband's appetite with Dandar's grief, Lefiët remained silent during the meal, saying little at all, as did Derhan. However, when the tea was brought, Derhan rose from his seat and sat on the other dining sofa next to his wife, who was silently sipping her tea bowl. "So what's Dandar's distress?" he finally asked, even though he would have preferred to lead her to their shared bed.

Lefiët didn't raise her eyes as she lowered the tea bowl and began: "The Patron was here this afternoon."

"He knew that I would only return with the army," Derhan interjected.

"Yes, he knew that," confirmed Lefiët. The bowl shook in her hands. She set it down and linked her fingers in her lap. But she didn't continue speaking.

"So, did he have a suggestion as to which teacher Dandar could be given to?" Derhan asked again.

But Lefiët shook his head. "No, at least he didn't say anything about it." She fell silent again, her fingers clenching around each other. "Derhan, why didn't the gods protect him from this? He has the blood of the Unearthly in him," she suddenly sobbed, tears flowing down her cheeks.

"Saved from what?" Derhan asked confused. But it also gave him a certain satisfaction, that she finally saw that the gods didn't care in the least about people with supposedly unearthly blood. She had so often accused him of impiety, when he expressed his convictions on the subject, for no god had prevented his own father's death when Derhan had just been born, even though he was said to have had so much unearthly blood that he could read minds. And no god had protected Derhan from being ridiculed and beaten in his youth, having inherited only his father's white hair but not a hint of any unearthly abilities.

Lefiët always claimed, that the gods' blessing for Derhan was reflected in their finding each other, and for a time he had wanted to believe it. But it could just as well have been pure coincidence, because no one in Menrish expected miracles from him, and no one looked at him askance when he began to shave his head, as it was urban custom, in order to hide his white hair. His eyebrows and eyelashes at least had become darker as he grew up.

Derhan was about to make a mocking remark, when he saw his wife wringing her hands, finally clasping the fingers of one hand with those of the other so tightly that her knuckles turned white. If she took Dandar's grief to heart so much, it was probably more than a childish whim. So instead he took her tenderly in his arms. "What happened anyway," he wanted to know.

Lefiët remained stiff as a board in his arms. "He's your Patron," she whispered. "How could I have rejected him... even if I had known..." She suddenly sobbed. "But... only when... how could he do that?" And now she buried her tear-stained face in her hands.

What she was saying didn't make any sense. At a loss, Derhan moved even closer, so that she finally laid her head at his chest, but her shoulders shook in rhythm with her sobs. She was his lover, his wife, the mother of his son. She was the person who had given him support when he, still half a child, ran away from the Yoshany's tents. She had been the first to accept him as he was; who had persuaded her father to take him in and train him to be a herbalist, even though he came from the tribes. And later she had encouraged him to study in Berresh and, after completing his studies, followed him abroad without doubting or even asking. Whatever terrible things had happened in his absence, Lefiët's steadfastness towards him alone required him to try to comfort her. So he wanted to kiss her, but his wife turned her face away.

"You don't understand," she whispered through tears. "I let him go to Dandar. I went away, left our son alone with him. He is your Patron..." She had become so quiet that he had guessed the last word more than actually heard it.

What atrocity had happened? He tenderly cupped Lefiët's face and turned it gently so that she had to look at him. "Beloved, what exactly happened?"

But Lefiët just cried and shook her head.

"He did something to Dandar," Derhan guessed, and she nodded. "Did he hit him?"

But now Lefiët shook her head again. "He did... violence to Dandar, here in your house, under your roof," she sighed unhappily.

For a moment, Derhan didn't believe what he had just heard. Dandar was a small child! "How dare he do that? Even a Patron can't take everything he wants. After all, we aren't his slaves!" The anger finally broke out.

"As fellow residents, we are less than slaves," Lefiët now interjected in a quiet voice, "because slaves belong to someone and in the event of an infringement he would have had to pay compensation. You know the laws here. Our only protection is the gods, but if they don't help, all hope is lost for us."

No Oshey would have dared to do something like that to a child. Of course, the laws of the tribes didn't apply here, but it couldn't be that his son should simply be at the mercy of such an attack in Berresh, after all they weren't somewhere in the wild east, but in the most civilized city in the civilized world. So to whom could he turn to for help against the Patron?

Among the Yoshany the prince would have been the highest authority; in the army he would have to address the Second of his Wanack first. Here in Berresh, jurisdiction lay with the city council, but as a fellow resident he could not appear there himself; for this he needed a civil representative - a function that was usually held by the fellow resident's Patron.

Then it occurred to Derhan, that even if the gods had not helped Dandar in the moment of danger, the High Priest of the Unnamed would not allow anything to happen unpunished to the son of one of his temple scholars. "I'll go to the High Priest, right now," he decided, tenderly drying Lefiët's cheeks with his sleeve and kissing her mouth, salty from her tears. "He'll help us."

* * *

Searching for chapter 2 to continue reading? Look here: www.deviantart.com/blege22/art…

Copyright of my cover above:

The silver relief on the cover: photo of a decorative element (8.1 x 14.5 cm) for bridles or other horse equipment, silver casting, remains of gilding on the surface, probably made in northern China for the Yuezhi (Indo-European tribal group in the area of today Chinese province of Gansu to the Tarim Basin since the 5th century B.C.E., possibly identical to the Massagetae, probably Scytic) or another semi-nomadic, horse-riding tribe living in Central Asia (along the Silk Road), thus between around the 3rd and 1st centuries B.C.E. An exempted version was used.
Origin/Rights: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985 gift from the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Accession Number: 1985.214.78, licensed under Public Domain (creativecommons.org/publicdoma… ),
I used the image images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages… , the object was isolated with GIMP, 2022, www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti… .

The cover itself I made 2022 with GIMP and MS Paint, for Latin letters I used MS Segoe Print (© 2008 The Monotype Corporation. All Rights Reserved) (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ), since the font was bought together with my Windows 10 Pro-Licence in 2016, MS allows using them free, even on the internet, even for commercial uses (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ).
For the Sogdian letters, which impersonate the letters of my fantasy-language 'Taribit', saying 'Derhan' on the cover, I used 'Noto Sans Sogdian' (Copyright 2012 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved) (fonts.google.com/noto/specimen… ), the use of this Google font is regulated by the SIL Open Font Licence Version 1.1 from 2007 (openfontlicense.org/ ), this means, among other things, that I am permitted to use my graphics created with Sogdian characters freely, including on the Internet.

The German version of this story I wrote between 2015 and 2022, the English version of the story I made in 2024 with help of Google Translator (enhanced vocabulary) and 'Language Tool' (spell check).

Description

Derhan - The Path Ends

by Bettina Lege

(For copyright of my cover see note below)

1. Home and Foreign
2. Law and Politics
3. Death and Tea
4. Tradition and Custom

1. Home and Foreign

When the Berreshi army got in sight of the Circle Sea, Derhan had a pleasant sensation: he was on his way home. Wasn't the sound of the horses' steps over the stones on this part of the Taribian Road more familiar than before?

Even though it always brought good money to join the troops with which the Council of Berresh supported the military campaigns of the allied Hannai, the usual seven to ten days of backbreaking work as a field surgeon were again enough for him, till the next season. And waiting for him at home was not only his wife, whose soft body he had longed for since his early departure from Nemis, but also his now seven-year-old son, who was bright and curious, and had mastered writing shortly before Derhan's departure. With the help of the Patron, a good teacher could certainly be found for the boy.

*

Finally, the troops reached the muster area in front of the West Gate of the new city wall. Like the others, Derhan got off his horse and took his place in the Feldscher-Wannim. Most of these ten men were, like their Wanack, surgeons, two men usually helped out in a bathhouse, there was a surgeon's apprentice, and Derhan himself. He knew of no other doctor, educated in the Sanctuary of the Unnamed, who was with the troops. When they accompanied a military campaign, they were usually found with the priesthood. However, apart from himself, he did not know of any doctor, educated in the Temple of Berresh, who was not also a citizen of Berresh. Through his studies, he had at least earned the right to wear the white cap of the temple scholar on his shaved head. Of course, he also wore it in the field because he had experienced that the officers then gave much more generous tips for the treatment of their injuries. The actual quality of his treatment seemed to be irrelevant, although he was certainly behind hardly anyone in the unit. And so this time he returned home with a large chunk of money, a small compensation for the fact that, as a mere fellow resident of Berresh, in the city he could only demand half the payment for treatment that a citizen received.

The scribes checked their lists, then the muster-out followed and the leader of each unit received the money promised by Hannai, so that Derhan received eighteen Tar from his Wanack in addition to his previous income. That was for the nine days of campaigning against robbers in the Grass Mountains, whose only treasure had been their horses. One or two more war campaigns, and he could finally buy his way into citizenship.

As always, Derhan gave his mare into the care of the horse herder near the West Gate and then carried his bags on foot through the city. Despite the late hour, Derhan's step was positively buoyant as he made his way home. The lamps at the entrances to the houses were already lit, even though it was not yet dusk, and so he felt welcomed even before he had knocked on the door of his own house.

It took a moment until the house slave opened the door and then greeted his master with conspicuous relief, as if he had suspected a stranger at the door. "Is my wife expecting visitors?" Derhan therefore asked.

Jamul shook his head. "No, master," then he reached for Derhan's luggage: "Let me take this, master," and turned around to take the bags into Derhan's rooms.

"Make me a bath," Derhan called after him, then went into the courtyard, put down his weapons and greeted the house gods, so important to his wife, in their small shrine in the corner with a respectful nod. But where was his family? Couldn't he expect at least his wife to greet him? She must have received news of the troops' return.

Ah, then the smell of fried delicacies reached him, and now he heard the clatter of pots and women's voices from the kitchen. Lefiët was there and had a festive welcome meal prepared for her husband. Reassured, Derhan went into his consulting room, lit the lamp, and then pried open the doorstep to his storeroom of herbs and tinctures, to place thirty-two shiny silver Tars, his savings, into the clay pot he had hidden under the doorstep. It warmed his heart to see how full this pot had become, he had really soon reached his goal. If everything worked out well, Derhan would be a citizen of Berresh before Dandar truly understood what exactly made the difference between such a person and a mere fellow resident of the city.

Satisfied, Derhan put the doorstep back and kicked it firmly, took off his clothes in the marital bedroom and went into the small adjoining bath to prepare for a more intimate reunion with his wife than a shared dinner.

*

Freshly dressed, Derhan finally wanted to greet his wife. But there were only the cook and the house slave in the kitchen. He learned that the mistress was with Dandar and had to comfort him. So he went to check on his son.

Lefiët sat on the edge of the bed and with his left hand still held the small hand of the now sleeping child, whose white hair curled on the pillow, the white eyebrows and eyelashes on the pretty, dark face as if drawn with chalk. The eyelids were red; Dandar had obviously been crying. And on Lefiët's lap lay a fine linen cloth that she usually wore in her sleeve, and with which she had probably dried her child's tears. She herself also seemed depressed, probably because the boy had not allowed himself to be comforted.

As Derhan took a step closer to his son's bed and the wooden floor creaked, Lefiët turned to him, then smiled somewhat hesitantly at her husband. But before she rose, she turned once more to Dandar and kissed his forehead.

"What..." Derhan asked in a whisper, but Lefiët shook her head and put her index finger to her lips. Of course, not here, so the boy would not wake up and be beset by his grief again. And when they left the room and closed the door, the food was ready.

The western-style dishes that spread their familiar aroma in the dining room, this extremely appetizing sight right within reach of his hands, reminded Derhan, that he had not eaten anything since breakfast at dawn, and during the war campaign missed his home cooking dearly. Although Lefiët came from Menrish, people there also ate like the tribes, and she had managed to find a woman from her hometown to cook.

Apparently not wanting to burden her husband's appetite with Dandar's grief, Lefiët remained silent during the meal, saying little at all, as did Derhan. However, when the tea was brought, Derhan rose from his seat and sat on the other dining sofa next to his wife, who was silently sipping her tea bowl. "So what's Dandar's distress?" he finally asked, even though he would have preferred to lead her to their shared bed.

Lefiët didn't raise her eyes as she lowered the tea bowl and began: "The Patron was here this afternoon."

"He knew that I would only return with the army," Derhan interjected.

"Yes, he knew that," confirmed Lefiët. The bowl shook in her hands. She set it down and linked her fingers in her lap. But she didn't continue speaking.

"So, did he have a suggestion as to which teacher Dandar could be given to?" Derhan asked again.

But Lefiët shook his head. "No, at least he didn't say anything about it." She fell silent again, her fingers clenching around each other. "Derhan, why didn't the gods protect him from this? He has the blood of the Unearthly in him," she suddenly sobbed, tears flowing down her cheeks.

"Saved from what?" Derhan asked confused. But it also gave him a certain satisfaction, that she finally saw that the gods didn't care in the least about people with supposedly unearthly blood. She had so often accused him of impiety, when he expressed his convictions on the subject, for no god had prevented his own father's death when Derhan had just been born, even though he was said to have had so much unearthly blood that he could read minds. And no god had protected Derhan from being ridiculed and beaten in his youth, having inherited only his father's white hair but not a hint of any unearthly abilities.

Lefiët always claimed, that the gods' blessing for Derhan was reflected in their finding each other, and for a time he had wanted to believe it. But it could just as well have been pure coincidence, because no one in Menrish expected miracles from him, and no one looked at him askance when he began to shave his head, as it was urban custom, in order to hide his white hair. His eyebrows and eyelashes at least had become darker as he grew up.

Derhan was about to make a mocking remark, when he saw his wife wringing her hands, finally clasping the fingers of one hand with those of the other so tightly that her knuckles turned white. If she took Dandar's grief to heart so much, it was probably more than a childish whim. So instead he took her tenderly in his arms. "What happened anyway," he wanted to know.

Lefiët remained stiff as a board in his arms. "He's your Patron," she whispered. "How could I have rejected him... even if I had known..." She suddenly sobbed. "But... only when... how could he do that?" And now she buried her tear-stained face in her hands.

What she was saying didn't make any sense. At a loss, Derhan moved even closer, so that she finally laid her head at his chest, but her shoulders shook in rhythm with her sobs. She was his lover, his wife, the mother of his son. She was the person who had given him support when he, still half a child, ran away from the Yoshany's tents. She had been the first to accept him as he was; who had persuaded her father to take him in and train him to be a herbalist, even though he came from the tribes. And later she had encouraged him to study in Berresh and, after completing his studies, followed him abroad without doubting or even asking. Whatever terrible things had happened in his absence, Lefiët's steadfastness towards him alone required him to try to comfort her. So he wanted to kiss her, but his wife turned her face away.

"You don't understand," she whispered through tears. "I let him go to Dandar. I went away, left our son alone with him. He is your Patron..." She had become so quiet that he had guessed the last word more than actually heard it.

What atrocity had happened? He tenderly cupped Lefiët's face and turned it gently so that she had to look at him. "Beloved, what exactly happened?"

But Lefiët just cried and shook her head.

"He did something to Dandar," Derhan guessed, and she nodded. "Did he hit him?"

But now Lefiët shook her head again. "He did... violence to Dandar, here in your house, under your roof," she sighed unhappily.

For a moment, Derhan didn't believe what he had just heard. Dandar was a small child! "How dare he do that? Even a Patron can't take everything he wants. After all, we aren't his slaves!" The anger finally broke out.

"As fellow residents, we are less than slaves," Lefiët now interjected in a quiet voice, "because slaves belong to someone and in the event of an infringement he would have had to pay compensation. You know the laws here. Our only protection is the gods, but if they don't help, all hope is lost for us."

No Oshey would have dared to do something like that to a child. Of course, the laws of the tribes didn't apply here, but it couldn't be that his son should simply be at the mercy of such an attack in Berresh, after all they weren't somewhere in the wild east, but in the most civilized city in the civilized world. So to whom could he turn to for help against the Patron?

Among the Yoshany the prince would have been the highest authority; in the army he would have to address the Second of his Wanack first. Here in Berresh, jurisdiction lay with the city council, but as a fellow resident he could not appear there himself; for this he needed a civil representative - a function that was usually held by the fellow resident's Patron.

Then it occurred to Derhan, that even if the gods had not helped Dandar in the moment of danger, the High Priest of the Unnamed would not allow anything to happen unpunished to the son of one of his temple scholars. "I'll go to the High Priest, right now," he decided, tenderly drying Lefiët's cheeks with his sleeve and kissing her mouth, salty from her tears. "He'll help us."

* * *

Searching for chapter 2 to continue reading? Look here: www.deviantart.com/blege22/art…

Copyright of my cover above:

The silver relief on the cover: photo of a decorative element (8.1 x 14.5 cm) for bridles or other horse equipment, silver casting, remains of gilding on the surface, probably made in northern China for the Yuezhi (Indo-European tribal group in the area of today Chinese province of Gansu to the Tarim Basin since the 5th century B.C.E., possibly identical to the Massagetae, probably Scytic) or another semi-nomadic, horse-riding tribe living in Central Asia (along the Silk Road), thus between around the 3rd and 1st centuries B.C.E. An exempted version was used.
Origin/Rights: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985 gift from the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Accession Number: 1985.214.78, licensed under Public Domain (creativecommons.org/publicdoma… ),
I used the image images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages… , the object was isolated with GIMP, 2022, www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti… .

The cover itself I made 2022 with GIMP and MS Paint, for Latin letters I used MS Segoe Print (© 2008 The Monotype Corporation. All Rights Reserved) (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ), since the font was bought together with my Windows 10 Pro-Licence in 2016, MS allows using them free, even on the internet, even for commercial uses (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typo… ).
For the Sogdian letters, which impersonate the letters of my fantasy-language 'Taribit', saying 'Derhan' on the cover, I used 'Noto Sans Sogdian' (Copyright 2012 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved) (fonts.google.com/noto/specimen… ), the use of this Google font is regulated by the SIL Open Font Licence Version 1.1 from 2007 (openfontlicense.org/ ), this means, among other things, that I am permitted to use my graphics created with Sogdian characters freely, including on the Internet.

The German version of this story I wrote between 2015 and 2022, the English version of the story I made in 2024 with help of Google Translator (enhanced vocabulary) and 'Language Tool' (spell check).