Necklace (Ashurran #2)

Amethyst

The news of Ashurran's return to the capital would always start an insane commotion at her mansion. The servants scurried to and fro with mops and buckets, the cooks hastily bought more provisions, the guards polished their gear, and Ashurran's kept boys prettified themselves. Even Yuuji, cool-headed and calm by nature, would find himself anxious for her arrival.

He had always seen Ashurran more as a great warrior than his mother, but that had never prevented him from loving her ardently. Until his fifteenth year he had been fostered by Levorham the enchantress in Kymbaeth and since that time loved her as a mother, for she had been a gentle and caring mother for him. Reunited with his real mother, at first Yuuji was a little afraid of that harsh and seasoned woman warrior, lavish with curse-words, sparing with endearments. Having taken up his residence with her, he dreaded her disdain for his studies. "Are you burying yourself in a book again?" the warrior thundered, appearing in her son's room. And dragged him out to go riding or hunting.

Yet Yuuji's fear turned out to be unfounded. Ashurran had a profound respect for Yuuji's wisdom, never hesitated to ask his advise and help and encouraged his love for books in every way possible. When he gathered enough courage to ask, she let him arrange a library at her mansion (there had been none before that, of course). Also she let him spend exorbitant sums on his books collection. Cool-headed Yuuji had only two passions, and both were enormously expensive: jewels and books. However, Ashurran only laughed while paying his bills. "It's fair that my flesh and blood cost me more than all my kept boys combined," Ashurran would say and bring Yuuji another gift from her campaigns – anything that had either gems or letters on it, and sometimes both: scrolls with Elvish runes, merchant books framed in pure gold, barbarian jewelry made of rock crystal and other rarities of such kind.

But Yuuji's love for Ashurran was not bought with her lavish gifts. Little by little he started to find her company pleasant, her stories captivating, her straightforwardness and rough language endearing, her strength and passion enchanting. Indeed Ashurran was more interesting than any book in his possession. Also Yuuji was not averse to be dragged off sometimes from his precious books, otherwise he would not set foot outside his library for days on end, and would forget to eat unless servants would bring trays with food and put them under his very nose.

There was something else about Ashurran that fascinated Yuuji. She was a warrior, a hero, one of those people who were in the thick of things, about whom books were written and songs sung. Many men of science looked down on military men, thinking them ignorant. Yuuji never did. He was in awe of warriors and loved stories of wars and battles of old. He even envied them a little – their experience, their travels, the great many things, people and lands that they'd seen. History had always been Yuuji's most favorite subject, and it was definitely Ashurran, the High King's General, who had been writing the history of Yunan for the last two decades. She reshaped the kingdom, wiped out cities and tribes, conquered new lands. Yuuji never missed the opportunity to ply Ashurran with questions about her battles with the Ancient Race. He even started to write down her stories after she had told them, for his memory was exceptional.

Later on those notes became the basis for the book Commentaries on the Elven War. Yuuji edited them only slightly. When presented with the completed book, Ashurran was astonished. She could write, of course, but had never in her life written anything longer than a dispatch. Yet on the pages of the book the story of the Great War unfolds in her own words, openly and truthfully. Maybe only a little more elegantly than she had been telling it to Yuuji. Alas, in the course of time the original manuscript was lost. There were copies of it, but somehow the subtitle 'Told by Ashurran, the General of Yunan, and written down by Yuuji' disappeared from them. Ever since Ashurran was considered its author. Yuuji's name was altogether forgotten and only brought up a few thousand years later, when there was a rise of interest in the history of Yunan, and a bunch of books were published regarding those glorious ancient times.