Shadow and Betrayal

mud-lipped boy sat weeping into his hands. Otah took the spade to him and pushed the blade into the ground at his side.
    ‘Well?’ Otah demanded quietly. ‘Is there something to wait for?’
    The boy mumbled something Otah couldn’t make out.
    ‘What? If you’re going to talk, make it so people can hear you.’
    ‘My hand,’ the boy forced through the sobs. ‘My hands hurt. I tried. I tried to dig deeper, but it hurt so much . . .’
    He turned his palms up, and looking at the bleeding blisters was like leaning over a precipice; Otah felt suddenly dizzy. The boy looked up into his face, weeping, and the low keening was a sound Otah recognized though he had never heard it before; it was a sound he had longed to make for seasons of sleeping in the cold, hoping not to dream of his mother. It was the same tune he had heard in his old cohort, a child crying in his sleep.
    The black robes suddenly felt awkward, and the memory of a thousand humiliations sang in Otah’s mind the way a crystal glass might ring with the sound of a singer’s note.
    He knelt beside the weeping boy, words rushing to his lips and then failing him. The others in the cohort stood silent.
     
    ‘You sent for me?’ Tahi asked. Milah didn’t answer, but gestured out the window. Tahi came to stand by him and consider the spectacle below. In a half-turned plot of dirt, a black robe was cradling a crying child in his arms while the others in the cohort stood by, agape.
    ‘How long has this been going on?’ Tahi asked through a tight throat.
    ‘They were like that when I noticed them. Before that, I don’t know.’
    ‘Otah Machi?’
    Milah only nodded.
    ‘It has to stop.’
    ‘Yes. But I wanted you to see it.’
    In grim silence, the pair walked down the stairs, through the library, and out to the west gardens. The third cohort, seeing them come, pretended to work. All except Otah and the boy he held. They remained as they were.
    ‘Otah!’ Tahi barked. The black-robed boy looked up, eyes red and tear-filled.
    ‘You’re not well, Otah,’ Milah said gently. He drew Otah up. ‘You should come inside and rest.’
    Otah looked from one to the other, then hesitantly took a pose of submission and let Milah take his shoulder and guide him away. Tahi remained behind; Milah could hear his voice snapping at the third cohort like a whip.
    Back in the quarters of the elite, Milah prepared a cup of strong tea for Otah and considered the situation. The others would hear of what had happened soon enough if they hadn’t already. He wasn’t sure whether that would make things better for the boy or worse. He wasn’t even certain what he hoped. If it was what it appeared, it was the success he had dreaded. Before he acted, he had to be sure. He wouldn’t call for the Dai-kvo if Otah wasn’t ready.
    Otah, sitting slump-shouldered on his bunk, took the hot tea and sipped it dutifully. His eyes were dry now, and staring into the middle distance. Milah pulled a stool up beside him, and they sat for a long moment in silence before he spoke.
    ‘You did that boy out there no favors today.’
    Otah lifted a hand in a pose of correction accepted.
    ‘Comforting a boy like that . . . it doesn’t make him stronger. I know it isn’t easy being a teacher. It requires a hard sort of compassion to treat a child harshly, even when it is only for their own good in the end.’
    Otah nodded, but didn’t look up. When he spoke, his voice was low.
    ‘Has anyone ever been turned out from the black robes?’
    ‘Expelled? No, no one. Why do you ask?’
    ‘I’ve failed,’ Otah said, then paused. ‘I’m not strong enough to teach these lessons, Milah-kvo.’
    Milah looked down at his hands, thinking of his old master. Thinking of the cost that another journey to the school would exact from that old flesh. He couldn’t keep the weight of the decision entirely out of his voice when he spoke.
    ‘I am removing you from duty for a month’s time,’ he said, ‘while we call for the Dai-kvo.’
     
    ‘Otah,’ the familiar voice whispered. ‘What did you do?’
    Otah turned on his bunk. The brazier glowed, the coals giving off too little light to see by. Otah fixed his gaze on the embers.
    ‘I made a mistake, Ansha,’ he said. It was the reply he’d given on the few occasions in the last days that someone had had the courage to ask.
    ‘They say the Dai-kvo’s coming. And out of season.’
    ‘It may have been a serious mistake.’
    It may be the first