Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  Most of the women had gone, and those left were mostly Yaenida’s family. They lounged around on cushions scattered haphazardly across the wide floor in various stages of consciousness, a few sprawled comatose, but most smoking water pipes and talking quietly between themselves. The musicians still played, but the dancers now were men dressed in ornate costumes leaving their young, lithe bodies half naked as they swayed seductively in a complicated spiral, taut muscles undulating. A boy child about two years old, still diapered, imitated the dancers, potbelly bared, chubby hands held splay-fingered above his head as he spun around and around in an erratic circle. A few of the women cheered him on, to the baby’s unmistakable pleasure.

  Nathan rolled his head to one side far enough to see his new sister Yronae leaning back against one of her kharvah, Baelam, a rather unattractive, serious-faced young man who kneaded her shoulders with studious attention. Her eyes half closed, she watched two sahakharae, the couple he had seen caressing in the garden, as they wrestled naked but for a single strip of cloth between their legs bound up around their waists. Their hands groped over their smooth, oiled bodies in an almost stylistic ritual, feet shuffling as each sought to overturn the other. Straining muscles stood out in sharp relief.

  One slipped, their bodies slapping together, limbs twisting together like snakes mating. The other swung his hip into his opponent, tossing him onto his back. As he fell, he clutched the cloth around the other’s waist, taking him down to the floor with him, their braided hair swung like whips. After a moment’s struggle, he was pinned to the floor, his opponent’s body pressed down on his like a lover. They panted, chests heaving, their open mouths nearly touching. Nathan could clearly see the frustrated desire in their faces as they stared at each other.

  Yronae nodded, and they disentangled, bowed, and began again. She glanced at him, her dark eyes glittering with too much alcohol and arousal. When she smiled, it was definitely not a sisterly expression. He smiled back weakly and let his eyes close.

  When he woke the second time, he was alone, the room empty and silent. Sunlight through the screens spackled the room with brilliant coins of gold. He groaned. His head pounded with a full-grown hangover, and he badly needed to piss.

  “Home sweet home,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder where the toilet is?”

  VII

  HE SLEPT FITFULLY PART OF THE MORNING ON THE SMALL SLEEPING mat he had been relegated to in the boy’s communal room, his head bludgeoned by a now monster hangover and his stomach in serious rebellion. By midmorning, the headache had lessened to a point where he could stagger toward the men’s baths to vomit.

  He still felt bad enough that he didn’t mind the sahakharae’s eager hands caressing his body with curiosity, almost grateful to let them carry him as though he had no will of his own. They soaked him in a huge pool of near scalding water, scrubbing his head and body like a baby. It took all his effort to concentrate on not throwing up rather than on the language, their conversation no more to him than nonsense sounds. He hadn’t even objected when they lingered over his genitals, inspecting the gold hair of his groin with more curiosity than titillation.

  When they lifted him weak-kneed from the bath and stretched him belly down on the thin mattress on the floor, one of them pressed a cup of dark, syrupy liquid into his hands with an encouraging smile and a few gestures. Nathan grimaced at the bitter taste, but within minutes the pain lessened noticeably and the nausea was gone.

  A soft warmth spread through his body as one of the naked sahakharae, an older man with bulging arms and strong fingers, settled himself onto Nathan’s buttocks, kneeling with one leg on either side, and began massaging his back and shoulders. He felt the man’s weight pressing the bones of his pelvis into the thin mat.

  Nathan’s mind drifted, and he realized with a dull start he had been thoroughly drugged. He twisted his head to glance over his shoulder at the man kneading the aches from his body, distantly admiring the way the sahakharae’s muscles rippled all the way up his arms and across his smooth chest. Beside him, a younger sahakharae sat with slender arms balanced across his knees. The naked sahakharae smiled, even teeth shockingly white, a knowing expression in his dark eyes. Remotely, Nathan realized the sahakharae could do anything at all with him and not only was he incapable of stopping them, he couldn’t even work up enough energy to care. He sighed dreamily, rolling his head back on his arms, and closed his eyes.

  By the time Yaenida sent for him in the late afternoon, he had been dressed, his new blue sati properly folded, wrapped, and tied around his body. His nails were cleaned and trimmed, and now that it had grown out long enough, his hair was braided into a short queue reaching nearly to his shoulder blades. He had eaten a full meal, and both the hangover and the drug had long vanished, leaving a feeling of well-being in their wake. He walked down the long corridor, the weight of a solid gold bangle one of the sahakharae insisted he wear around his left ankle making him hyperaware of the way the folds of his sati kicked out in front of him. He didn’t feel quite as good when Yronae slid open the doors.

  The Dhikar chief Vasant Subah turned as he entered, her hands clasped casually behind her back, and merely raised an eyebrow as he flinched away from her reflexively. He wondered, not for the first time, if she had been the would-be assassin in the night. She smiled at him coldly, then bowed slightly to the two women sitting cross-legged on pillows arranged on a low raised dais in front of the massive low table. One of them was Yaenida Nga’esha.

  The other was Eraelin dva Hadatha Changriti.

  Yaenida’s daughter politely directed Qsayati Subah from the room and closed the door behind them, leaving him alone with only the two women.

  He stopped three paces away from the two women, hands together, crossed thumbs to his chest, and mumbled his greetings. “Tah byáti, l’amaée.” Managing to wobble only slightly as he brushed the folds of his sati apart with his foot, he knelt with his legs tucked under him, palms against his thighs, and bowed from the waist.

  When he straightened, he looked up at the slender Changriti pratha h’máy sitting rigidly erect next to the old woman. Wearing a dark burgundy kirtiya and saekah trimmed with gold thread, Eraelin Changriti had one leg curled under her, her hand resting on the knee of the other in a position Nathan could now recognize as one used only by higher-ranked women. She glared at him with narrowed eyes, her face with flattened cheekbones making her expression harsh. He could see the unflattering similarity between her and her daughter.

  Her scowl reminded him eye contact was another of those Vanar hierarchical formulae he had yet to master. But he dared not avert his gaze abruptly enough to risk being considered tactless. Nuances were all-important. He turned back to Yaenida, looked slightly past her at an angle just enough to be polite, trying to appear attentive without looking directly at either of them.

  The younger woman spoke to Yaenida in rapid Vanar, her caustic voice unpleasant. Yaenida listened politely as she puffed on her water pipe. When she had finished, the old woman turned to Nathan.

  “My tulyah, l’amae Eraelin dva Hadatha ek Ushahayam Changriti, would like to impress upon you the fact that she is the pratha h’máy of the Changriti Family, one of the great Nine Houses.” Yaenida regarded him with a bland expression he couldn’t read.

  “I already know that, Pratha Yaenida.”

  Her smile barely twitched the ends of her thin mouth. “I believe the point she wishes to make is that even though you are now Nga’esha, you still do not and will never have sufficient status to sully her personal name with your barbaric accent. When you are required to speak to her at all, you will address her as jah’nari l’amae.”

  He glanced at the younger woman watching him closely. “Hae’m, jah’nari l’amae,” he said, doing his best to inject a note of earnestness into his struggle with the subtle pronunciation.

  His effort went unappreciated. Eraelin frowned, replying in a swift rush of words. Yaenida nodded gravely, listening until the woman was finish
ed. As Yaenida spoke to her quietly, the younger woman’s face grew darker with anger. She snorted when Yaenida had finished, then glared at Nathan as she replied. He caught only a scattering of words, not enough to understand but sufficient for the sense of alarm in his gut to increase. Yaenida sighed as the younger woman concluded her tirade.

  “I’ve explained that while you are currently studying Vanar, you are not yet capable of conversing in our language. Although I’ve assured her you will be competent enough soon, she has expressed doubt you will ever be sufficiently fluent. She feels this proof you might inject an undesirable genetic trait into the Changriti line. But even if you do have the intelligence to learn our language, she considers you too old and too foreign to genuinely adapt to Vanar customs, and are thus unfit for marriage to her heir.”

  Underneath her mild tone, Nathan sensed the edge in Yaenida’s voice. “She has suggested it might be better for all concerned if you were to become sahakharae, and has offered you a modest place as such within the Changriti House.” Before he could object, she continued in the same, mild voice, “I have already pointed out that this is not a fitting option for the son of the Nga’esha pratha h’máy.”

  Nathan sat back on his heels. Warily, he glanced at Eraelin. “Jah’-nari l’amae, may’m Vanarha sihtay hmah,” he said firmly. I will learn Vanar. The woman scowled, irritated as Yaenida smiled faintly.

  He kept his eyes meticulously averted as the two women argued in heated, clipped Vanar too fast for him to follow, trying to read from their gestures and expressions what he couldn’t understand. His legs began to cramp, but any shifting to ease his position would be a sign of boredom. The argument seesawed back and forth for several minutes, their rising voices punctuated with several slaps against the table, palm cupped for the maximum effect. Each time it happened, he jumped, unable to keep his nerves steady. They stopped speaking as if switched off. In the sudden quiet, he looked up.

  “Remove your clothes, please, Nathan,” Yaenida said.

  Taken aback, he stared at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Remove your clothes, please,” she repeated.

  Slowly, he stood and pulled the length of cloth from where it draped over his head, and unclipped it to let it unwind from his shoulders and torso. As he loosened the sati from his waist, the intricate folds around his legs came apart, spilling into a pile at his feet. He stood in only the short mati, and glanced at her questioningly, uncomfortable.

  She nodded, and he pulled the mati over his head, leaving him nude but for his ridiculous gold anklet. As his flush spread down his face and reddened his chest, he glared up at the two women defiantly.

  But neither Eraelin nor Yaenida seemed to be enjoying his humiliation. Yaenida had her cheek propped up on one hand, not even looking at him as she traced her finger in an idle pattern on the tabletop finish. Eraelin was gazing at him with the same detached indifference as the medical crew at public service. Her gaze lingered for a moment on the still-healing jagged gash down his left side, a permanent memento of Changriti displeasure. He resisted the urge to hide the scar protectively, then straightened to display it to her with perverse defiance. Her eyes narrowed, flicking briefly to his face in anger. Then she spoke, and he understood what she wanted by the motion of her hand before Yaenida translated.

  “Turn around, Nathan.”

  He did, and the lack of any erotic interest, or even any evidence they meant to degrade him, made him feel all the more naked and objectified. And infuriated.

  “Thank you,” Yaenida said. “You may dress now.”

  He turned around, unable to hide his resentment. “Don’t you want to examine my teeth?” he said sarcastically.

  Eraelin could not understand what he said, but surprise shot across her face before she glared at Yaenida and asked an annoyed question. Obviously he was objecting to something considered perfectly normal and reasonable, his reaction out of place. His hands shook as he snatched the sati from the floor, winding it sloppily around himself before looping the bulk of it over his shoulder.

  Yaenida did not change expression. “That won’t be necessary,” she said in a carefully neutral tone. “Your medical files cover that area. Aesthetics, however, is a subjective judgment.” She waved a hand at him, shooing him off. “You may go now.”

  Stunned, he left without a word. As soon as the door closed behind him, several sahakharae grabbed his arms to hustle him into the men’s quarters. He knew he was in trouble by their nervous looks at each other as they rearranged his sati in silence. He removed the gold anklet and handed it firmly back to its owner.

  This time, Yaenida did not make him wait long.

  Eraelin was gone, and Yaenida had been moved to the mountain of pillows, her water pipe already stoked and bubbling. He bowed and knelt patiently. Yaenida let him sit for several minutes, scowling moodily. Yronae and her eldest daughter watched him skeptically from the side, no doubt expecting him to screw up and breach protocol. He wondered sourly if they’d placed bets on him.

  “If you have any questions, you have permission to ask them now,” Yaenida said brittlely.

  “Thank you,” he said with exaggerated politeness. “May I ask what that was all about?”

  “That—” she leaned forward, her eyes glittering with restrained anger—“was a financial negotiation, and none of your damned business.”

  It would have been easy to let his anger explode, regardless of the cost. It would have been equally as easy to curl up into a ball, back down, and crawl away. He forced himself to do neither, desperately balancing his reaction. “It is my business when you drag me in front of someone who would like nothing better than to see me dead and force me to strip so she can look me over like a slab of meat. I’m only asking you to explain why.”

  She brought the tip of the pipe to her mouth. To his amazement, her hand was shaking. She drew in a long breath of smoke, watching him silently past heavy-lidded eyes clouded behind the haze.

  “Nathan, you get away with a lot more than you should simply because you’re Hengeli, not Vanar. I’ve allowed it because you amuse me. But it isn’t wise to push your luck.” She leaned back, coughing gently, a deep wet sound. “Defiance is not only unseemly, it will also get you nothing but into trouble. You can’t afford it with the Changriti.”

  Blowing a stream of smoke into the air, she jabbed the pipe in his direction for emphasis, her voice dangerously flat. “And I assure you, you truly don’t want to jack too far with me.”

  He swallowed his anger and lowered his eyes. “Humblest of apologies, jah’nari Pratha Yaenida,” he said in formalistic Vanar. He hoped it sounded as sincere as he could make it.

  She coughed again, a long, rumbling sound that gradually died away, leaving her slightly flushed and a sheen of sweat on her forehead. “But as you are unfamiliar with our customs, I suppose you are owed some explanation,” she said, not the least fooled by his act of contrition.

  He kept his mouth shut and waited.

  “You are now my son. You might consider that just strategy in some complicated game, but in Vanar eyes, you are legally and factually Nga’esha, the youngest son of Pratha Yaenida. That does more than simply protect you, it also makes you highly valuable.”

  “Despite my genetic defects,” he couldn’t help saying, then bit his lip. To his relief, she chuckled. The danger was not yet past, but it had lessened palpably.

  “That was only the usual barter nonsense, Nathan. She may detest you personally, but she wants this marriage, very much so. She has not been the Changriti pratha h’máy that long, and her authority is still somewhat uncertain. She has many sisters and cousins quite willing to replace her if the opportunity arises. She needs this alliance with the Nga’esha. I am old, and all of my first-rank sons were married off long ago. We will need time and a good tutor to train you properly before you are fit to marry anyone, but as a new Nga’esha umdhae putrah, you have gone overnight from being naeqili to the most eligible bachelor on all of Vanar.” She lau
ghed at his astonishment. “If this marriage falls through, there will be hundreds more suitors who suddenly find you irresistible, properly educated or not. I’ll have to place guards on you to prevent you from being kidnapped.”

  He hadn’t expected that, nor did he much like the prospect. “The Changriti are strict isolationists: they believe not a single foreigner should ever be tolerated on our sacred soil.” She snorted her contempt. “That such stringent restrictions would make it near impossible for the Nga’esha to negotiate contracts with many of our off-Station clients is not a valid objection, naturally. What is the loss of Nga’esha revenues when compared to the Changriti ideal of cultural purity?” Her mocking tone evaporated. “But involving myself in your personal troubles has provoked substantial controversy within other Families. It’s even been suggested that the so-called attempt on your life as well as her daughter’s proposal was a deliberate maneuver, using my personal interest in you as a weakness to force my hand, hoping I would bow to pressure and get rid of you one way or the other.”

  “But that’s not true. Is it?” He couldn’t believe the assassin in the night had deliberately spared him. Or that Kallah’s proposal had been her mother’s idea.

  She shrugged eloquently. “I am not quite so naive, nor is Eraelin quite so cunning. But I’ll neither confirm nor deny it. Adopting you as my son was a countermove no one expected, least of all Eraelin. The Changriti are no friends of the Nga’esha, but instead of forcing me to dispose of you, she’s now in a position where she has no choice but to accept you into her Family.” She smiled coldly. “The irony does amuse me.”

  He felt less like her son than a pawn in a chess game, and wondered how she treated her own children.

  “My reputation is secure, so it makes little difference to me what story the Changriti put forward to save face.” Her glacial smile widened. “As long as they pay well enough for the privilege. With Kallah married to you, it contractually joins her Family and mine. There are considerable legal and financial obligations involved. These terms must be negotiated, and she will do what she can to get the best deal for the Changriti. How many shares against my Family is she entitled to, how many of hers can we demand liens on, termination clauses and quit claims in case of death, dissolution of the marriage contract or amount of damages if you should prove sterile, and so on.”