Tathea

by Anne Perry

  Eleni was interested in the culture of Shinabar, the arts and sciences which were more sophisticated than those of Camassia.

  “Tell me about them,” she said, “if you don’t mind speaking of them. Does it help, or hurt—or both?”

  “Both,” Tathea replied unhesitatingly. Remembrance of the past sharpened the sense of being alien here in Camassia. But it was also a reaffirmation of the forces and the love which had shaped her, and of days which had been lit by happiness. Later tragedy of deeper knowledge should not spoil that pleasure. It had been sweet in its time.

  Eleni, in turn, enjoyed telling her about Camassia and showing her its art, such as the colored mosaic pavements, quaint in their beauty and so full of life the artist’s dream spoke from them. Sometimes they were to be found in public squares, but the most individual, and to Eleni the best, were in small courtyards and on private pavements.

  They also went occasionally to the theater, and Tathea had to swallow her reactions to Camassian drama, which she found unbearably stiff and self-conscious. It rigidly conformed to rules of art without apparently understanding that those rules were there to discipline and give power to inner passions, not to be an end in themselves. Camassian ideas had no subtlety and no wings. Its culture was young. Its virtues were bound up in honor, courage, duty, and loyalty. It seemed no artist had yet dared to challenge the boundaries of thought, or tread the unmarked paths of the soul. There was good humor, but none of the incisive wit of an author who dared mock or challenge.

  Visits to the theater were agreeable, and certainly they were fine social occasions, but Tathea found the plays essentially boring. It was only the presence of Eleni’s sister-in-law, Xanthica, who gave the evenings interest. She was full of vitality and usually paid more attention to her fellow theater-goers than she did to the play. She always knew many people in the audience and would nod greetings to other aristocratic women.

  “Calvia,” she would whisper. “That’s her fourth husband walking behind her. She smiles at everyone and has a tongue like acid.”

  The woman swept past them without a glance.

  “And that one hasn’t a penny with which to bless herself,” Xanthica said of the next woman, “She takes young lovers and keeps them because she can make them laugh. Everyone likes her.”

  The woman caught sight of them and smiled. She was dressed outrageously, with blazing colors and considerable panache. Xanthica smiled back, raising her hand in an elegant little salute. Eleni did the same.

  “That is Marella,” Xanthica continued, indicating with a tiny gesture a large woman dressed in red and gold. “She has five sons, for whom she has immense ambitions. Everything about her is overstated.”

  “Including that dress,” Eleni added. “Her jeweler should be shot!”

  “Don’t say that aloud or he probably will be!” Xanthica hissed back with a grin.

  Tonight’s play was a standard work which they watched only in snatches. After a particularly stilted scene of pious judgment, Xanthica turned to Tathea. “What would your Book make of that?” There was laughter in her eyes, but behind it a hunger to know.

  “It is only through pain and knowledge of what it is to sin that we can learn how to forgive,” Tathea replied, smiling also to lighten the gravity of her words.

  The interest sharpened in Xanthica’s eyes, and later she asked other questions about purpose and failure, and Tathea answered them.

  After the performance they returned to Xanthica’s home and a most excellent late dinner of fruit, wine, and light pastries. Xanthica’s husband, Maximian, joined them in the wide room where they sat facing windows that overlooked the city. It was a balmy evening with a touch of autumn in the air, and the windows were wide open. He was a handsome man with strong features and a streak of gray in his heavy hair. He was dressed in the purple-bordered robes of an Archon, and he carried his weight of office with conscious dignity but with the ease of one who is long accustomed to it. He regarded Tathea with interest and some sympathy.

  “I feel for your loss, my lady,” he said with an inclination of his head, as if he were speaking for the government of Camassia as a whole, yet there was warmth in his voice, which was gentle and personal. “It is the world’s misfortune that the steps towards peace between our nations have been reversed, but your own bereavement is separate and apart. I hope the City in the Center of the World has made you welcome.”

  “It has,” she answered with equal gravity. She had known too many ambassadors not to be familiar with the formality of his speech, or to mistake it for the artificial. “I have found both safety and generosity, and I am deeply grateful for it.” She could say so without resentment. Eleni’s friendship was too wholehearted to allow pettiness. They had been candid with one another, laughed at absurdity. They had climbed the Hill of Cypresses together, and both realized they were tired at the top, and the view barely made up for aching legs and blistered feet. In front of anyone else Tathea might have refused to admit it, but a glance at Eleni’s face and they had both laughed, and with a groan sat down in the sun.

  Xanthica offered her husband food and inquired after his day, though she did not need to hear his answer. She read what she needed to from his face. They were comfortable with each other as people are after long intimacy, although for her there was still a quality of eagerness that lifted it above habit.

  They discussed the play they had seen, and Tathea very quickly realized that Maximian perceived no lack of art in such works. For him the values they taught were paramount. He felt exactly as the playwright had; that love of duty was sublime. The hero who denied his errant family in order to die for the common good had scaled the heights of nobility. That he lacked subtlety or laughter, that he did it without the flaws of human weakness or need, that he never doubted or was tempted did not reduce his stature in Maximian’s eyes as it did in hers.

  Tathea thought of all the arguments that would have portrayed him with wounds of the heart, with weaknesses and failings as well as victories, and would have given him the flesh of reality. More important, they would have placed him within the empathy of ordinary men, even have made his sacrifice the greater. Then she caught Eleni’s eyes and saw her shake her head minutely.

  Xanthica shrugged. “Florius is a fine actor,” she said wryly. “But he always seems to me a little as if he is addressing a public meeting.”

  “He is,” Maximian smiled. “What could be more public than the audience in a theater?”

  “The Hall of Archons,” Eleni replied without thinking.

  “Very few people attend the Hall of Archons compared with those who go to the theater,” Maximian pointed out. He looked at her with amusement. “I suppose you will say that is because we are very dry speakers ...”

  “I wouldn’t dare to!” she responded, her eyes bright with laughter.

  “My dear, it is clear in your face. And I fear you are right, at least most of the time.”

  “You can be marvelous,” Xanthica defended staunchly, then grimaced. “The trouble is we never know when these times are going to be!”

  Maximian accepted the chaffing without offense.

  Half an hour later, Alexius joined them. He came in swinging off his heavy red cloak which he flung casually over the back of one of the long seats. He touched Eleni with easy affection and greeted Xanthica with a kiss on the cheek. There was gentleness in his gesture towards Xanthica that reflected an elder brother’s tolerant, protective care. He spoke briefly to Maximian, then turned to Tathea, his eyes widening with surprise. The last time he had seen her was when Eleni had healed the soldier, but he must have known that she had spent much time with Eleni studying the Book. His curiosity was sharp in his eyes, but it was of the intellect, far quicker and more probing than Maximian’s.

  “How are you, my lady? Did you enjoy our Camassian theater?” he asked politely. Was it a glimmer of amusement she saw in him, or did she only imagine humor because she wished it?

  How should she answe
r? Courteously, because she was a guest in his country and in Maximian’s house, or honestly, as one would respond to a friend and an equal? It mattered to her more than she wished it to. “It was different,” she chose the words carefully, aware of them all watching her. “I have not learned the conventions well enough yet to see the subtlety beneath.”

  “It is stuffed with conventions,” Alexius agreed dryly, glancing at Maximian. “I am not sure if the playwrights themselves know them all yet. I have a suspicion they make up more as they go along.” He walked over to one of the long couches and sat down, relaxing into it, and Tathea noticed the easy power of his body beneath the robes.

  “They spring from the need for discipline.” Maximian was compelled into the argument in spite of himself. There was heat in his voice as he spoke of something which apparently touched his beliefs deeply.

  “There should be room for a little more inspiration,” Eleni said with a smile, but the quick turn of her head and the timbre in her voice warned that she too was serious.

  “You mean sudden impulse?” Maximian raised his brows.

  “No, I don’t,” she said instantly. “You make it sound frivolous, and that’s not what I mean at all. I want imagination, stretching beyond the known to explore the possibilities beyond. You should read some of the Book Tathea has brought. There is so much we don’t know.” Her face was alight now with the vision within her. “Things of unimaginable power ...” she waved her smooth arm to indicate a universe beyond the window. “Worlds of the mind and the spirit, a morality wider and deeper than our dreams ...”

  Alexius was watching Tathea, his gray-blue eyes studying her face. She avoided looking back, self-conscious, aware of her hands as if suddenly she did not know what to do with them.

  “That sounds like mysticism,” Maximian said patiently. “It is hardly news. All the old religions of the south have practiced some version of magic for generations.” He did not say he despised it, but his eyes and his voice conveyed it more profoundly than words. “We have a cleaner morality than that, built on accountability and the old virtues of courage and honor and the human duty of man to his fellow beings.” He turned to Tathea. “I do not intend to insult you, my lady, but I cannot pretend I admire the philosophies of Shinabar. They seem to me an excuse for self-indulgence and the evasion of that kind of integrity I believe is at the core of all that is of most worth in man. I look for no magic and no excuses.”

  Xanthica turned to Eleni, then back to her husband, indecision in her face. Tathea knew that the hope and the vision of the Book had caught her mind and awakened in her something she found piercingly sweet. Yet it was manifest Maximian thought it effete, debilitating to the purity and strength he loved.

  “I suppose it is.” Xanthica turned away, hiding the quick disappointment in her face. “I only know a little bit, but it just seems ...” She did not finish.

  Maximian put his arm round her. “Easy answers that depend on some greater power,” he agreed, his fingers tightening gently on her shoulder.

  Alexius looked at Tathea, waiting to see if she would fight for her belief. She was acutely conscious of him. It should have been Eleni’s judgment that mattered to her, and she understood that even while she thought of Alexius, whom she barely knew.

  “The answers do not depend on anyone else.” Tathea looked directly at Maximian, but she knew the others were listening to her and their belief might hang directly on what she said. She felt terrifyingly alone. How could she do justice to the burden of the truth she bore? Maximian’s face was full of polite disbelief, but he did not interrupt. His courtesy and innate kindness forbade it.

  “Every human soul has the agency to do as it will,” Tathea went on. “Every act of courage or honor, of secret compassion or forgiveness enlarges the soul.” She wanted to look at Alexius, to see what he thought, but she studiously kept her eyes on Maximian. “Every deceit or evasion, every cruelty, great or small, diminishes you. Every lie or turning aside erodes what you are. Not even God can alter that.” She heard the certainty ringing in her voice. “What you make of yourself is all you have. What seems mysticism to you is only the love you do not yet understand. Neither do I!” she added hastily. “But above everything else in life, I want to learn. I am horribly aware of the enormity of what I do not know.”

  Without meaning to, she had turned to Alexius, sitting opposite her. The flicker of a smile crossed his mouth. He looked at Maximian, his eyes questioning. “Do you know the answers then?”

  “No, of course not,” Maximian acknowledged. “But I don’t believe they lie in this Book.” He faced Tathea. “But I will defend your right to believe it. Camassia has never denied any man the right to pursue truth anywhere he finds it, as long as it does not mar his duty as a citizen. That would be treason.” He said it lightly, and there was no harshness of judgment in his face, but it was Tathea he was speaking to before he turned again to Alexius.

  Xanthica moved forward and quite deliberately broke the tension of the moment by changing the subject.

  An hour later, long after midnight, Tathea stood alone before the open window, gazing across the city where a few random torches showed; only the great public thoroughfare was lit. Moonlight shone gray on the olive trees and black on the dark columns of the cypresses.

  She was aware of someone behind her and knew without turning that it was Alexius. The faint clink of metal on leather told her, and the clean masculine aroma.

  “Is it very different from Thoth-Moara?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” she answered, looking ahead into the night. “Thoth-Moara is flat, and of course far from the sea. The desert stretches around it, beyond the horizon. The wind is always warm, and prickles with sand. It smells different, aromatic, sharp. The skyline is simpler, even in the dark.”

  “And the plays are more complex,” he countered.

  “Yes.”

  “You were very civil to Maximian.” There was an echo of humor in his voice. “You didn’t say Camassian drama is a deadly bore.”

  She smiled, although he could not see it. “Of course not. I am a guest in his house.”

  “But you preach the Book even when you know he thinks it effete and dangerous,” he pointed out. He was standing close behind her. She could feel his warmth.

  “It is prudent not to disagree with him in more than one thing,” she replied. “I picked the one that matters.”

  His voice changed; the banter was gone. “Do you really believe it is the power spoken of in this Book which gives Eleni her gift of healing?”

  Unreasonably, she was hurt. He was not seeking truth for himself; he was questioning Eleni’s belief.

  “Yes, I know it. Doesn’t she say the same?” Her voice was more brittle than she had meant it to be. She hated being a stranger here, trying to convince people who belonged when she belonged nowhere. They were kind to her—heaven knew Eleni was generous beyond all need. But if she left for Shinabar tomorrow, Eleni’s life would still be perfectly whole without her. Isadorus would miss her, but only because she had brought him the Book. It was the law in the Book he loved, its justice beyond the flawed judgment and the limited passions of men. It provided a better faith for his people, and he had the wisdom to see that. It offered hope to the afflicted, and retribution for the evil which escaped temporal law.

  “Yes, she does,” Alexius answered. If he caught the change in her voice, he did not react to it. “But she knows immeasurably less of it than you do. One day you must teach me something of this Book, if you will.” It was barely a question. He knew she would teach anyone, and most assuredly him.

  Isadorus was finding the burden of the Book heavy upon him. The passages that caused his grief were those concerning loyalty, honor, and above all the mystery of appetite and the hungers that drive men to both good and evil. For days he had tried to avoid the realization which now stood before him. Barsymet, in all her cold dignity, was his wife. The generous, laughing Tissarel was his mistress, a servant in his ho
use.

  He had argued with himself that all men were equal. This naturally included all women. Love was superior to status. It was the great power, the great commandment. The God of the Book had created man to be joyful. Barsymet did not love him, and he was not deceiving her. There was no lie involved. The pleasure of Tissarel’s company, her gentleness, the warmth of her body, all enabled him to be a better man, kinder and more patient with others. He needed such moments of humanity.

  But all such arguments were excuses. By repeating them he was separating himself from the Book and from what he now knew without question to be the truth, the pure fire of everything he wanted to be.

  He stood by the window, staring down at the city, waiting for Tissarel to come. He must tell her himself. A few months ago he could not have imagined that he would feel ashamed before her, or in her debt. And yet now he did.

  He turned as she entered. She looked as she always did, laughing and eager. There was no premonition in her eyes.

  He felt the knot of guilt twist inside him. She did not deserve to be discarded in this way. Nothing she had said or done or failed to do had brought this about. It was his doing, his internal struggle and decision, but she was going to pay part of the price. She would no longer be the Emperor’s mistress.

  He looked at her familiar beauty with his usual pleasure, and a new keenness for its loss.

  Then suddenly, with an ice-cold amazement, he realized that perhaps the rewards for her were her physical safety and recompense, the relative luxury in which she lived, the clothes and jewels few other men could have afforded to give her. It was quite possible she would feel no emotional wrench, no loneliness whatever. And it startled him how much that thought hurt.

  She came towards him slowly, sensing something was amiss.

  He stepped backwards. “Tissarel ...”