Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  Margasir sighed disapprovingly. “I think you have brought much of this down on yourself. You have more than most men can hope for in this life, and you were not even Vanar-born. It isn’t your place to tell those of us who are what we should or should not do. Your thinking is too foreign. Your ways may be acceptable for you yepoqioh, but not for us. We are content the way we are.”

  Nathan nodded, more to himself than in agreement with the big sahakharae. “Some of you are.” He set down the road again at a brisk walk, taking long Hengeli strides with his head held high. Margasir had trouble keeping up, not out of any lack of physical strength, but because he found it difficult to override a lifetime of learned mannerisms. “Go home, Margasir,” Nathan said heatedly. “You shouldn’t suffer for my stubbornness. Even if you don’t stay with the Changriti, you don’t have to remain with me.”

  “Shut up, Nathan Nga’esha,” Margasir said testily, clutching at his sati to keep the cloth from tangling around his legs. “I am just as capable of choosing my own method of suicide as you are. Besides, how bad can these charity shelters be?”

  An hour later, sitting in a stuffy, cramped, shabby room far worse even than the one he’d been allocated after his release from prison, Nathan smiled at a thoroughly disgruntled sahakharae. “Pretty bad, isn’t it?” His hands laced behind his head, he leaned back against the barren sleeping ledge, not even a musty, threadbare cushion to soften the crumbling plaster walls.

  Margasir scowled, sitting on the floor with his massive arms wrapped around his knees. “One would think you almost enjoy this hardship.”

  “No, I don’t enjoy it,” Nathan said, dropping his attempt at levity. “But I know I can survive it. I’m still Nga’esha, Eraelin Changriti can’t take that away from me. Pratha Yronae hasn’t thrown me out forever, just until my injuries heal well enough that I don’t scare the children.”

  “Bah. I still can’t understand why you don’t just spend that time in a whitewomb. It isn’t a punishment, you know. The days would pass as if they never existed, and you would come out without a scar left, clean as a newborn baby.”

  Nathan exhaled slowly. “What’s your worst nightmare, Margasir?” he asked softly. “Is there anything that truly frightens you?”

  The sahakharae glanced at him sharply. “Why do you ask?” “Whatever it is, that’s what a whitewomb feels like to me: the most terrifying torture imaginable. Three weeks in there, and I’d be either dead or insane. Compared to that, this charity shelter is a holiday resort. I lived in a place like this for over a year. We’ll only be here three weeks, max. You’ll live.”

  As it was, they didn’t even last the night. Daybreak was still several hours away when the Nga’esha taemora nudged him awake with her toe. Margasir grumbled, still half asleep beside him. Nathan rolled onto his back, blinking up at her groggily.

  “Come home.”

  XXXVII

  A WEEK LATER, AELGAR SOUGHT HIM OUT, SEARCHING UNTIL HE FOUND Nathan at the farthest end of the men’s garden, planting raspberry canes and wiring the shoots against a wall. As the senior kharvah approached, his entourage at a respectful distance behind him, Nathan stood up, brushed the soil from his hands and knees, and bowed. “Jyesth pihtae,” he greeted him, questioningly, eminent father.

  Aelgar barely dipped his head in response. The burden of regency for eldest father had taken its toll, and Aelgar seemed to have aged decades. He looked constantly exhausted, his skin sallow, the wrinkles around his eyes deeper. It could not have been easy being Yronae’s first husband. “My wife requests that you attend the women’s meal this evening,” he said stiffly.

  Nathan was surprised. “What for?” he asked before he thought. “It is an honor to be asked,” Aelgar said sharply, “and not your place to question your pratha h’máy’s reasons.”

  Nathan murmured his apologies, ritualistic, meaningless, while the worry in his gut tumbled. Aelgar nodded, not listening. That Aelgar was nervous made Nathan even more afraid.

  Although the Nga’esha would never allow the Changriti to publicly humiliate any member of their own Family, he was a repudiated husband, back in the Nga’esha House as a younger, unimportant brother in disgrace, and Yronae was not likely to be forgiving. So his being summoned to attend the women’s meal was astonishing, to say the least: an honor usually given to those men of her Household held in high enough regard. The last time he had served at a Nga’esha meal had been the reception where he had first met Pratima, how many years ago now?

  “I don’t remember how to do that, shaelah Aelgar.” He deliberately used his personal connection to the older man, not through the symbolic Family hierarchy. It was a plea, he knew, as did Aelgar, and a feeble one at that.

  “Then you will come with me now, little brother,” his brother-inlaw said, his sternness not completely masking his own anxiety. “And we will refresh your memory.”

  Nathan followed the older man without further argument into the long pavilion where a half dozen other male members of Yronae’s house practiced for the evening’s meal. To most of them, it was routine, and they ran through the bits and pieces of their own ceremonies with a bored ease. The dancers, half naked and sweating, conferred with the choreographer on a variation of one of the more intricate dances, while two musicians restrung and tuned their multinecked lutes, silver picks on their fingers giving them bird’s claws. Qim looked up from his drums as Nathan walked into the cool interior of the pavilion, his expression neutral. As if it were a signal, conversation and music dwindled to silence, the men watching him furtively. Nathan felt his skin prickle with a cold that had nothing to do with the weather. Aelgar scowled, snapped his fingers, and the men resumed their activity.

  Baelam, Yronae’s third kharvah, was in charge of the service, the unattractive, earnest young man drilling his chosen team on what foods were to be prepared and how they were to be served. If he was aware of Nathan’s dread, he gave no sign of it, concentrating all his energies on perfecting the performance.

  “You will serve the gold-dusted figs,” he said to Nathan. He then explained how to choose the best figs to reserve for Yronae, and how to cache them under the main plate Nathan held in one arm, serving from lowest to highest rank without running out before he got to the pratha h’máy.

  “What should I do,” Nathan asked, “once I’m finished with the figs?”

  Baelam gazed at him absentmindedly. “Then you sit by her right shoulder and wait. She will tell you if there is anything else she wants you to do.” Nathan knew if Baelam understood why he was being summoned he would never say.

  The younger man chose to wear the Nga’esha sati to honor his wife, and wore it in a fashion that nearly hid the yellow Navamam mati, the least important of the Nine Families. The boy had married extremely well and knew it. He was devoted and dutiful to Yronae, unlike Nathan, who had just thrown away every advantage he had ever gained. There was no animosity in the man’s expression, nor even contempt. Baelam accepted his fate, good or bad, with a deference bordering on religious zeal, and could not comprehend why Nathan had so resisted his own.

  Baelam drilled him on serving the figs until it was time for the men to wash, the dancers changing into their ornate costumes and headdresses. The men ate a quick supper in the room adjoining the women’s kitchen, bolting their meal with little ceremony or enthusiasm. While those in charge of the food continued their preparations, the rest sat silently until Aelgar appeared in the door and nodded. Qim picked up his drums and followed the rest of the musicians out, but shot a quick wink toward Nathan before he disappeared. It had been the only sign of kindness he had seen the entire day, and he felt oddly grateful for it. A few minutes later, Nathan heard faint music begin, muffled by the walls. Baelam had his head tilted back to listen, more intent on timing than on any enjoyment of the music. At some point, he pointed to two other men, who got up silently and left to begin their own roles in the formalities.

  It seemed hours before Baelam glanced at him and nodded. Nathan
picked up his plate of sugared figs and walked out into the huge room where Yronae waited.

  The women’s meal was smaller than her mother’s huge reception Nathan had seen so long ago. Nor were there any dignitaries, foreign or from other Families, only the Nga’esha present. Yronae sprawled across the low divan at the center of the large room, a half dozen of only the most senior members of the women’s house scattered around behind her in a proximate semicircle. He recognized them all, knew his relationship to each through Yronae: Suryah, his niece and Yronae’s heir; Bidaelah, Suryah’s younger sister; Dhenuh, the daughter of Yronae’s first cousin, now pregnant with her third child; and every other minor cousin no matter how tenuously related. Although a private meal, this had to be a meeting of some importance, as he was surprised to see even the influential dalhitri Mahdupi dva Sahmudrah Nga’esha of Dravyam. His former tutor acknowledged his presence with the faintest of nods, unsmilingly. These were all rich and powerful women, their delicate, angular faces bearing the Nga’esha family stamp: smooth skin and dark eyes, deceptive fragility.

  The men set down full dishes and removed the empty ones with smooth motions, quiet, graceful. As Nathan entered, Yronae looked up at him, her eyes impassive. He faltered, his heart beating too rapidly, before he averted his gaze and began passing out figs, his arm under the platter sweating.

  Qim and the others knelt at one end of the long hall, where the acoustics made even the slightest note audible throughout the room. Two other sahakharae played a counterpart pair of lutes, bass and tenor, while Qim sat behind his drums, his fingers caressing the taut hides stretched over hollowed wood to coax sounds like birds rustling in trees. He looked half asleep, his face bland. They played an old intricate melody while the singer chanted a poem of the Ancient Mothers and the morning sky and evening stars in a smooth, rich voice. Three dancers, glittering in their theatrical costumes, undulated their athletic bodies gracefully, every movement precise and fluid from years of tedious practice. Their hands wove the silent text of the story their bodies acted out, their ritualized movements telling a tale of early Vanar that Nathan could barely follow.

  He served the last of the figs to the last of the women, turning smoothly as he had rehearsed while switching the small plate he’d hidden under the larger onto the platter. One of the figs had dislodged from the elaborate arrangement, and before he reached Yronae’s divan, he surreptitiously poked it back into place with a finger. It left a mark in the gold dust as he set it on the low table in front of her, a smudge of dark sugar on the rim.

  Nathan swept back his sati and knelt beside her divan, his palms resting on his thighs while keeping the sticky finger slightly up and away from the silk. He had to resist the urge to put it in his mouth and lick the gooey sweet from it. Yronae studied the plate for a long moment, and Nathan’s heartbeat felt hollow in his chest, waiting for this infraction to be exposed, for himself to be ordered hauled out of the room in disgrace. But she reached toward the plate to choose a fig, held it delicately with her fingers, and ate it without comment, much to Nathan’s absurd relief. Only on Vanar, he thought grimly, could a blemished fig be a major catastrophe.

  There was another course, then a sequence of wines poured into tiny glasses, and Baelam himself took charge of dispensing the coffee, thick and potent with cardamom. Bored, his knees starting to stiffen, Nathan resisted the urge to stretch his aching back. Yronae signaled for her water pipe. Baelam had retrieved it effortlessly and put it together for her within seconds.

  “Qanistha bhraetae,” Yronae said, and as Baelam looked up from setting up the pipe curiously, Nathan realized with a start Yronae had been addressing himself.

  “Hae’m, bahd’hyin pratha?” he said hastily. His voice sounded too loud in his own ears.

  “Younger brother, would you dance for me?”

  Nathan stared at Yronae in incredulity. “Khee, pratha h’máy?” He must have misheard her.

  Her expression was empty. “Dance for me, little brother.” Mechanically, he got to his feet and walked the few steps out onto the bare floor. He turned and stood helplessly as Baelam’s fingers flicked, a signal to the musicians. Qim tapped out a slow beat on his drums, the lutes picking up the melody.

  Nathan continued standing as the music began, knowing Baelam had chosen something very simple for him. He appreciated the boy’s small kindness, even through his panic. Conversation had ceased, all attention on him as the music played on. A fine haze of smoke drifted from Yronae’s nostrils, her face enigmatic.

  The music continued relentlessly. Isolated in the middle of the floor, his reflection in the polished wood wavering like water, Nathan stood numbly. He spread his hands out from his sides awkwardly, and took a few fumbling steps in bad imitation of the skilled dancers now watching him from their place beside the musicians. There was no derision in their faces, nor pity, either. They watched gravely, as did the women in the room, while Nathan groped with the dance.

  He stopped, red faced, and let his arms drop to his sides. The music faltered and died. No one spoke in the heavy silence.

  “I’m sorry.” He glanced up at Yronae, embarrassed. “I don’t know how to dance, pratha h’máy.”

  She brought the tip of the water pipe to her mouth, murky bubbles rippling through the squat cut-glass reservoir as she inhaled. Her chosen mix differed from Yaenida’s blend of narcotics and therapeutic drugs, the aroma less pungent but far more bitter. “Then play something on the lute for me, qanistha bhraetae.” The words came out as smoke, cut into swirls by the motion of her lips.

  Nathan had no idea why she was humiliating him. He hadn’t so much as touched a kapotah lute since the day he sketchily picked out a children’s song for his two potential co-kharvah. “I cannot play, pratha h’máy,” he said, as he knew she knew.

  The silence in the room stretched for several long moments. He stood with his muscles tensed, keeping his head down, unwilling to look up at her, as if that would somehow make her stop whatever she was doing to him.

  “Qanistha bhraetae,” she said, her voice utterly calm. “Perhaps you might recite a poem, just one, that you have written. A simple one, very short. Surely, that should be easy enough?”

  Why? Why was she doing this? “I have never written any poems, pratha h’máy,” he said, his voice thick.

  This time the silence went on even longer. He heard the distant rumble of thunder and the first hesitant tap-tap of raindrops on the rooftops, striking the calibrated copper tiles in a natural music of their own. Even nature knew how to better write songs than he did.

  “Come sit by me, little brother,” Yronae said finally. He didn’t trust himself to look up, uneasy as he crossed back to take his place, sweep back the sati hem, kneel, and press his hands against his thighs to keep them from trembling. He had expected the conversation in the room to resume, and knew by their total silence she had not finished with him. “Do your injuries still trouble you, little brother?” She didn’t sound that concerned.

  “No, jah’nari pratha.”

  “Do you still intend to speak at the Assembly of Families?”

  He forced himself to look up at her profile. She gazed off across the vast emptiness of the room, absorbed in watching the raindrops batter themselves against the glass catches and drip down the intricate network of tumbling cups into a tiny pool of fish. Her black hair, streaked with silver, had been drawn back from her face in intricate plaits. Heavy earrings drew the holes in her lobes into straight lines, fine strands of gem-studded metal looping from ear to ear under her chin. He could see the glint of the support behind her ear to hold most of the jewelry’s weight off her fragile ear-lobes. He stared at her until she finally turned her head to look at him, the tiny bells suspended from the chains under her chin tinking softly.

  “I am Nga’esha,” he said, keeping as much of the anger as he could out of his voice. “It is my right.”

  For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer. She brought the pipe up to her mouth, thou
ghtfully. No one spoke, the tension so palpable he wanted to scream. She blew out a fine stream of smoke and regarded it with distant attention.

  “It is your right,” she said finally, her voice far too soft. “However, I would prefer you did not. I will do what is necessary to keep further dishonor being brought on this Family by involving the Nga’esha name in this matter. It is also my right to forbid you to leave the Estate, to confine you to the men’s house or to your library. Should that prove not enough to deter you... other means exist.”

  He felt the omnipresent dread in his chest hollowing him out. How could anyone have lived with this fear for so long without exploding? He felt both nauseous and relieved, finally meeting the problem head on.

  “If you feel it shameful for me to speak my heart to the Assembly, then I will renounce my Nga’esha name, become naekulam again. Even naekulam have the right to be heard.” His voice was unsteady; he hated that.

  “That would be very foolish, little brother,” she warned him. “Your right to speak does not mean you will be heard. You have no chance of success; this obsession of yours is futile. Beyond the usual consequences of loss of Family, your Nga’esha name also protects you. It would be risky to throw it away.”

  His eye still throbbed, the dark bruising turning a mottled green. He touched his swollen cheek casually, as if brushing away a small itch. The gesture was not lost on her. “I understand that, pratha h’máy,” he said cynically.

  She examined the pipe in her hands for a long time, then set it down beside the divan and rolled onto her stomach to look directly at him, leaning on her weight on both elbows with her face close to his. “Then I will offer you another alternative, Nathan Crewe.” She mangled the pronunciation the way most of the Vanar did, but he was surprised she used his name at all, then just as abruptly realized she had not added “Nga’esha” to it. “You may leave Vanar.”