The Sural went still. “Repercussions,” he said. His voice had gone flat.
“Repercussions,” she repeated, nodding. “But if I refused to go, I would regret it.”
“They threatened you?”
Marianne looked up. His face betrayed nothing, but he seemed… outraged.
“Not exactly. Central Command does not threaten. It’s bad—” she couldn’t find the word, “—reputation.” He shrugged a shoulder, appearing unsure what she meant. “They make it clear it’s in your best interest to... um... accept their offers.”
The Sural took a long drink from his mug and set it down. He stared at her—no, he stared into her, with a penetrating look that seemed to pierce her soul. She shifted in the chair again and looked away.
“Do you wish to tutor my daughter?” he asked, after a time. “Do you wish to stay of your own accord? If not, I can send you back to your Admiral and request another candidate. Perhaps Central Command will then send me a tutor who desires to stay.”
She started a little. “It was hard to leave the life I built for myself in Casey,” she said in a soft voice, “but it isn’t that I don’t want to be here now. I never planned to leave Earth—I never planned to leave Casey—my hometown—but...”
Her eyes drifted to the garden windows. It wasn’t so very different here. Tolar had trees, flowers, something like grass, even birds. She set her jaw. If she left now, she’d never know if she could have made a go of it. She drew a deep breath and looked him in the eye.
“Yes, high one. I do want to stay and tutor your daughter.”
“Excellent!” he said, with a smile she thought might be warm beneath his chilly exterior. He gestured with his hand to include the whole room. “My home is your home.”
Mi casa es su casa, she thought, stifling a relieved sigh. Crisis averted. It seemed to her she’d come close to dismissal twice. This assignment might end up harder to keep than she thought.
Her gaze wandered back to the windows, to the tree where she’d startled the colorful, bird-like creatures, the flutters. Their chatter drifted in through the open garden door, sounding like budgies. She shook herself. No. He said he doesn’t change his mind lightly.
“Does something else trouble you, proctor?”
She pulled her attention back to the Sural. He stared at her, brows drawn together, concern darkening his mahogany eyes.
“No, everything is fine,” she said, picking up the half-eaten roll and taking a bite. She chased it with tea to neutralize the spiciness. Tolari bread would take some getting used to.
He didn’t let it go. “You seemed distressed by your thoughts.”
“I have a lot to think about.”
“Because you left a great deal behind.”
She tried not to flinch and failed. That struck home. Her friends, her house, her job—even all those Christmas presents. Central Command had allowed her to bring none of it with her. “I miss...” she inserted the English word, “Christmas.”
“Who is Christmas?”
Now she laughed. “It’s a what, not a who. A big celebration near the beginning of winter. People spend time with their families, exchange gifts, eat and drink together. It’s Christmas time now on Earth.”
“I see,” he said, nodding. “Then perhaps you will enjoy our seasonal celebrations—they may be similar. We have music and dancing, and friends share meals and drink together.”
“Drink? What do you drink?”
“Spirits. To relax the body and lighten the heart. They are made from grains and mixed with fruit.”
Alcohol. It had to be alcohol, or something like it. The Tolari drank? That was nowhere in Central Command’s information about them. “When is the next celebration?”
“High summer.”
She did a quick mental calculation. That was four months off. “I look forward to it.”
<<>>
Marianne settled into a routine. Nurses brought Kyza to her many times a day. She read to her, talked to her, sang to her. She began to grow comfortable carrying around a powerful ruler’s child and presumed heir. Attentive nurses whisked Kyza away before Marianne was even aware the infant had begun to grow restive or hungry, to bring her back when she was quiet and receptive.
She wondered who, and where, Kyza’s mother was, but it didn’t seem appropriate to ask.
In her free time, she studied the language, roamed the stronghold and its grounds—which together covered an area the size of a small town—or read books. Central Command had packed her tablet with not only the collections of the Casey Public Library, but also a complete and up-to-date archive of comparative linguistics, one of her favorite hobbies.
As days and then weeks passed, she grew accustomed to conversing on familiar terms with the Sural. She had imagined she would seldom see Tolar’s sovereign ruler. Nothing could have been further from the reality of the quiet, even gentle, leader in embroidered robes of soft, pale blue. His patient kindness toward her was puzzling, as he showed her his world from the boundaries of the stronghold plateau, taught her his language, observed without expression everything she did in his presence and seemed to derive satisfaction from her delighted reactions to new things. Days passed in which she caught no more than glimpses of him between meals, and then it would seem he spent all her waking moments with her, asking questions about her impressions and what she had learned about Tolar and his people.
Reports had to go to the ship on a regular basis. A comms unit occupied the desk in her sitting room, but the Sural had indicated from the beginning he took a dim view of using it without restraint as humans tended to do. She couldn’t imagine how it affected him, at the Tolari’s pre-industrial level of technology, but she left it unused in consideration for his preference. Instead, she wrote out reports on her library tablet and transmitted them to the ship in the early morning before she went to take her morning meal with the Sural. He seemed to know of her transmissions, asking an occasional question, with a crooked smile, as to what she had reported to ‘her’ Admiral, but he didn’t object.
The reports themselves varied, from detailed analyses of Tolari social structure and its caste system, to speculative reports on Tolari child development based on her observations of Kyza, to reports on the flora and fauna she discovered in the gardens. She described the Tolari diet, noting she had never observed them eating animal-derived foods, seeming to subsist on fruits, grains, nuts, greens, and vegetables. They drank teas, fruit juices, and flavored waters.
As her command of the Sural’s dialect solidified, she began to have animated discussions with him about Tolari political and social structure, trying to pin him down on what his exact role as planetary ruler entailed. In the end, she decided she didn’t have the background or education to understand. He ruled his province, and he ruled his planet, but he had little say in the rule of other provinces. They were autonomous, though their leaders held lower rank in the ruling caste than he did, and there seemed to be limits to what he could order them to do, though within those limits they were bound by honor to obey him. Their alliances shifted. The Sural’s allies were often enough his enemies’ allies, and the enemies of his enemies were not always his friends. There had to be a piece missing. She couldn’t figure it out.
“I am Suralia,” he answered her one morning after she asked him, yet one more time, how he could rule the planet but not its provinces.
“Eh?” she said.
“I am Suralia.”
“You are Suralia.” Repeating the words didn’t give them any more meaning than when he said them.
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. How can you be your province?”
He put a hand, fingers spread, on his chest. “I am Suralia, and not any other.” His expression was amused, and his smile tilted. “The province is my life, and my life is the province. We are one, I and my people. Their lives belong to me, and my life belongs to them. I cannot be another province if I am Suralia.”
“If the province is your life, what would happen if Suralia were destroyed by some kind of disaster?”
“I would walk into the dark.”
She blinked. “What is the dark?”
“You call it death.”
“You would commit suicide?” she gasped.
“I would stop my heart and neural activity, yes.”
“You can do that?” She gaped.
He nodded.
Marianne slumped against the chair back. “Then what happens when you die?”
“My daughter rules Suralia after me, if she passes the trials.”
“So your people won’t commit suicide when you die, but you’d commit suicide if they did?”
“They would walk into the dark if I died in dishonor,” he corrected.
“What, all of them?”
“Provincial rulers carry a heavy responsibility.”
“To put it mildly!” she exclaimed. “How many people live in Suralia?”
“At present, the population is approximately four hundred twenty-five thousand men, women, and children, most of them in the city below.”
“Oof,” she said, letting her breath out in a gust. “I begin to see why your honor is so important to you.” She paused, afraid to know, and then asked, “Has that ever happened? A whole province going into the dark?”
The Sural nodded. “Twice in our history. The more recent instance occurred over a thousand years ago.”
Her mind balked at mass suicide on that scale. “More than two thousand standard years,” she murmured. “What about the children?”
“They follow their parents into the dark. Even infants can follow a parent into the dark—it is an innate ability. We develop the capacity to control it sometime in our fourth year.”
Seven or eight years old, in Earth terms, she thought. She shook her head and sipped some tea, thinking. “On my world, suicide is a crime.”
The Sural choked on his tea. He controlled the reaction, but for a brief moment, she had never seen him so surprised. Then he stared at her, every bit of expression gone from his face.
She gave him a rueful grin and shrugged. “It’s true. It’s legal in a couple of the colonies, though—New China World and Far India.”
The Sural ate the rest of his meal in silence, continuing to stare at her. “Summer is a busy season for the Sural,” he said when he finished. “I have much work to do.”
Something brushed against her as he left, though the table lay between them. She frowned at his retreating back, and then shook it off.
Chapter Four
On a day in mid-summer, Marianne woke to find the stronghold almost empty.
“They have gone to the summer festival,” a servant said when she asked where everyone had gone. “The Sural left orders for you to be escorted to the city should you wish to participate.”
As if I’d miss this. Marianne rushed to change into comfortable shoes for the trek down the cliffs.
The city center’s main avenue was full of—May poles. May poles, with Tolari dancing around them in patterns.
Apothecaries in yellow holding black ribbons attached to the top of a pole danced and wove with indigo-robed scholars holding yellow ones. The pattern taking shape on the thick pole, about twice a man’s height, looked like nothing so much as a vertical bumblebee. Farther down the avenue, at the next pole, dancers in pale blue, dark green, purple and black wove ribbons of pale green, dark purple, gold, and silver.
Tolari milled about between the many poles lining the avenue. Some strolled with children clinging to them, some arm in arm, some in groups. Blue, yellow, green, purple, mauve, black, and more; an explosion of color filled the streets. Most of the dancers and passersby, male and female alike, wore flowers in their long hair.
Even the clothing on display had more variety than the robes the stronghold’s somber workers wore. Although the same castes wore the same colors, some individuals wore robes so short as to be better described as long shirts. It made sense to Marianne, since the long robes everyone wore on the plateau couldn’t be practical for many activities, but... she wasn’t sure what she had expected.
People smiled. Looked happy. Had animated conversations with each other. It was so unlike the somber atmosphere on the plateau. She glanced up at the edifice, looming above the city, wondering what could have happened to create the gloom up there, wondering whether the Sural would tell her, if she asked.
She toyed with the idea as she strolled along, admiring the beribboned poles, then shook her head and snorted to herself. The Sural had been more forthcoming about Tolari culture than she had expected, but asking after his somber demeanor was more than a little personal. Tell me, high one, what happened to make you such a cold fish? She shook her head again, a smile elbowing its way onto her face. No, she’d leave that one for a few years down the road.
Movement caught her eye. People skipped in circle dances to lively music emanating from a sunken theater at the square’s center. She headed toward it. A woman in the mauve of the musician caste played an instrument looking and sounding much like a Celtic harp. Fingers dancing on the strings, she smiled as she played—a Tolari smiling easily!—while the crowd in the theater reacted to cues Marianne couldn’t see or hear.
Puzzled, she stood listening and watching. What was it they reacted to?
“Do you enjoy yourself?” The Sural’s voice came from behind her.
She spun to find her nose almost touching the tall Tolari leader, who carried his infant daughter across his chest in a sling. A nurse stood nearby.
“Yes, very much,” she answered, backing up a step. She could swear he enjoyed disconcerting her just then, though his face was, as usual, impassive.
Then his lips twitched.
Marianne cleared her throat. “Your daughter is sleeping through her first summer festival.”
He turned a warm smile on Kyza. Marianne shook her head. The Sural, smiling in public! Almost, she asked him why he was so subdued in the stronghold. Then prudence came to the fore and stopped her tongue.
He caught her eye. “Walk with me.” He swept one arm toward a street lined with booths. A light breeze from that direction brought mouthwatering aromas. “Have you any questions?”
“That music,” she said. “There was something... different about it.”
He chuckled. “Of course. It is Tolari.”
“That’s not what I—”
“High one?” A small girl in a brown robe bowed to the Sural. Marianne thought she might be five or six, in Earth years. She held up a circlet of yellow and orange flowers toward the Sural. “I made a flower circle for you, high one.”
He stooped on one knee before the child, a gentle smile playing around his mouth. “You honor me, child,” he said, as the little girl stood on her toes to place the circlet on his head like a crown. “What is your name?”
The little girl seemed to have run out of courage, but a man in brown answered for her. “She is Yreth, high one. She has eleven seasons.”
Five and a half, Marianne thought.
“And this is Kyza,” the Sural said to Yreth, loosening the sling so the girl could see. “I hope she will be the next Suralia. See? She is only in her first season.”
Yreth’s face took on a serious expression. “She should wake up or she will miss the festival.”
“You may be correct.” The Sural gave the girl’s nose a gentle tap. “But now you should return to your father, or you also will miss the festival.”
Her mouth formed a small O, and her eyes went wide as she turned to run back to her father. “Fafee!” she cried. “I want to see everything!”
The Sural chuckled and nodded at the man before turning to continue on his way, grateful the child had distracted Marianne from asking about the theater crowd which had reacted to the musician with the powerful gift. With one hand, he settled the flower circlet in his hair. In truth, he had found the child’s offer of it heart-warming.
He should not have s
tartled Marianne, but the prankish festival mood in the city had overcome him. It did, however, help to set the human tutor a little off-balance, making it easier to redirect her attention. The child had done the rest. Marianne seemed to have forgotten about the music.
“Do you think there will be anything here I can eat?” she asked, her eyes on the booths along the street.
“Possible,” he replied. “Did you bring your scanning device?”
“Right here.” She patted her… he had heard her call it a skirt. Like robes, the peculiar half-garment possessed pockets, and she seemed to have tucked the food scanner into one.
The dark green skirt fell from waist to ankles. Tucked into that, she wore a white garment covering her upper body and arms. The color combination was outlandish—laborers wore that shade of green, and no one but the Jorann wore white. Since no human belonged to any caste, his daughter’s tutor should, by all logic, wear Suralia blue. Instead she wore a different color every day. It was… strange and exotic, much like the woman herself.
A pleasant hum filled the air. Marianne walked along the street, scanning the food at each booth, the little device blinking red. He followed, nodding at the cooks and the bystanders who bowed as he passed, observing as Marianne smiled and exchanged words with them.
“Phooey,” she muttered, as she reached the last booth and the device still blinked red. The street opened onto another, smaller square, this one hosting entertainers. Her face brightened. “What’s this?”
In the courtyard’s center, a musician sat within a semi-circle of conical drums. He started up a beat, and a few heartbeats later dancers joined him, gyrating and leaping in a complicated pattern. Marianne hurried forward to stand with those watching the display, delight shooting through her.
He had not moved from the square’s edge when the dancers finished their performance and the spectators formed a circle to dance around the drum musician. Kyza slept through it all, while the nurse stood beside him, keeping her senses fixed on her slumbering charge. Marianne returned, pleasure flashing in her eyes.
“Join them,” he said.
She glanced back, biting her lower lip. He sensed longing in her. “I don’t know the steps,” she replied.
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