Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 37 of 49

Ha-ni's fever broke by the second morning. The healer pressed her throat, nodded once, and told Kensei the child could travel now. He packed while Jeon-min tied Ha-ni to his chest. They walked the cold road to the border pass and reached the guards by midday. The guards stood at a wooden gate. Two of them. One held out his hand for papers without a word. Kensei gave him the marriage record, Ha-ni's citizenship, and the trade license. Each bore the royal seal. The guard studied the seal a long time. "Fifth city documents," he said. "We turn back most who carry these." He held the marriage record to the light. "But this seal is the king's own hand. Sealed marriage. Sealed child." He passed the papers to the second guard, who looked and gave them back. "You cross. The three of you." The gate opened. Kensei walked into the north kingdom holding Jeon-min's arm. He had crossed legally. No hiding, no bribe. The papers he built his whole life around had carried his family past the border. The north kingdom was colder and older. Stone houses leaned close. People spoke a rougher tongue. Kensei stopped an old man in a doorway and asked where the kamayak speakers lived. The man frowned and pointed up a slope to a cluster of low houses. They climbed. Kensei knocked on the first door. A woman opened it, gray-haired, wrapped in wool. He held out the kamayaki book, open to the blessing page. "Can you read this?" he asked. "This language. Kamayak." The woman took the book. Her eyes moved over the marks. She closed it and shook her head. "I know the sound of these words," she said. "My mother spoke them. I do not read them." She looked at Ha-ni asleep against Jeon-min. "The one who reads is old now. Very old. She lives above us, alone." She pointed higher up the slope. "But her mind wanders. Some days she knows nothing." Jeon-min spoke. "Then we go today. Now." They climbed to the last house. Smoke rose from it. Kensei knocked. A voice called something in the rough tongue. He pushed the door open. An ancient woman sat by a small fire. Her hands shook. She squinted at the strangers with cloudy eyes. Kensei knelt and opened the book to the blessing. "Please," he said. "Can you read these words?" The woman took the page in her shaking hands. She held it close to her clouded eyes. Her lips moved. For a moment she said nothing. Ha-ni woke and lifted her head. "Fire," she said. "Warm." The old woman looked up from the page. She did not look at the book. She looked at Ha-ni. Then her eyes drifted, empty, to the wall. Her hands went still. "Who are you?" she said. "Why are you in my house?"