by N Lee Wood
It took several moments before the shock of her words registered. “Excuse me?” his voice croaked in disbelief.
A hint of a smile twisted the edges of her mouth. “You are free to leave Vanar. My mother left you a percentage of the income of the Nga’esha Estate, and that is yours, no matter where you go. You will be a rich man, Nathan. Very, very rich. You may go wherever, do whatever you like. But you may never come back to Vanar.”
Now he was terrified. This was a death sentence. She must have read the alarm on his face, knew what he was thinking. “No one will harm you,” she said. Her words were soft, calm. “You will have the complete protection of the Nga’esha all your life, on my honor as the pratha h’máy of this House.”
“You’re letting me go?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t absorb it, couldn’t understand it. “Why?”
Now she smiled in earnest, amused. “Because I choose to.”
That had always been the answer to everything. He was here because one Vanar woman had chosen for him to be, he could leave because another chose to release him. He would live or die, because the women of Vanar determined he could.
“My daughter, Aenanda?”
“Will stay here and be raised in her mother’s House, as all Vanar girls are.”
He would never see her again. Although he might likely never see her again anyway, even here.
“I’m free to leave Vanar?”
“Whenever you wish,” she said. “There is transport waiting for you. It will take you anywhere you want, any world you choose.”
He stood up shakily, feeling as if he were locked in a dream, and stared down at her. She returned his look evenly, and suddenly he knew it was true, saw the honesty there, realized he truly was being liberated, not executed. Free.
“Now?” It came out in a whisper.
“If you like,” she said mildly.
He turned away, gazing around at the people still watching him quietly. He looked at the women. Suryah regarded him with tilted almond eyes glittering in the subdued light. Resting on one elbow, her head propped in her hand, Dhenuh’s expression was one of mild interest, not hostility. Mahdupi lounged beside her on the wide divan, the older woman’s intelligent face unreadable, her gnarled hands clasped loosely one over the other. He turned to study the men: Qim, Baelam, Aelgar. They looked back at him neutrally.
Slowly, he took one step toward the archway leading to the long hall, toward freedom, his body quivering with adrenaline. Another, a third, and another. The reality crested, broke over him like a cold ocean wave, threatening his footing in the undertow. He turned, walking uncertainly toward the men, hesitated, suddenly wandering blindly, not knowing where he was going any longer. His steps teetered like a child’s toy pulled haphazardly on a string. He faltered and stopped, unable to see the exit, and stared down at his feet, his arms hanging loosely. No one spoke.
“I would no longer be Vanar, would I?” he asked. “No.”
He looked up to see Yronae watching him speculatively. “I would become naekulam without Family.”
She smiled thinly. “All non-Vanar are without Family, Nathan Crewe. It would be no different than if you’d never been here at all.”
He stared at her, then turned toward Qim. “Play,” he said, his voice harsher than he had intended.
Qim jumped, startled. “What?”
“I would dance for my bahd’hyin. Play the song you wrote, Qim. Play ‘Thunder in the Mountains’ for me.”
The musician’s eyes flashed in alarm. “But that is a man’s song. I can’t—”
“Play it!”
Qim flinched, exchanged a worried look with the other musicians, then glanced at Yronae for approval. She raised an eyebrow but nodded slightly. He gulped, then bent his head over the drums as if he could somehow hide there. His fingertips began their soft beat against the skins, the echoes rolling off the high ceiling and the far walls, blending with the sound of rain falling heavier now against the roof.
Nathan bowed once to Yronae, his hands together, thumbs against his chest, then drew the edge of the sati from his head and wrapped it twice around one arm to anchor it. He closed his eyes, listening to Qim’s drums, waiting for the bass lute to begin. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing, simply knowing that whatever it was, it was right. He tried to recall the hollow, imagining the weave of bodies around him, the smell of smoke, the gleam of sweat on bare arms and backs as the dancers began their step.
He kept his eyes closed while he started to sway, trying to get the rhythm of the drum into his head, get the beat of it into his heart. Holding his hands out with awkward formality, determined, he forced himself to start the dance, let his feet slide on the floor. Tried to forget everything except the sound of the music.
It was too difficult; it felt stilted, artificial, as he moved. He opened his eyes to keep his balance, catching Qim’s astonished, frightened eyes, Yronae’s impassive face. His jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. He turned, stamped, turned again, stamped, listening to the swell of the drums, the melody of the lutes coming in behind it.
It hadn’t been like this in the hollow, not for him, not then. He had not understood, not wanted to understand. He had made himself stand apart, watching. Like the scientist he prided himself to be, an uninvolved observer. He didn’t belong here, had always been a stranger. He could leave, stop at any time and walk out, walk away, never come back. Everything he had lost and longed for all these years would be returned a hundredfold. He would be a fool not to.
He gritted his teeth and tried to imitate the movement of the dancers in his memory, wanting to become like them, wanting to become them. Waiting for the singing to begin, he realized the musicians would not, could not sing the words, not here. Qim would play to Nathan’s execution, but he would not bring the blade down on his own neck.
Oh God, what am I doing?
Nathan stumbled, uncertain, then heard fingers pluck stringed instruments, their rapid tempo beginning to fill in the gaps between the relentless drumbeat rolling in the pit of his stomach.
Equilibrium is everything, Pratima had told him. Everything is equilibrium. Suddenly, he knew he didn’t need the words. And he was in it, felt the music move like a live thing through him.
Flow into it, all the way to the center of the world. Concentrate Nathan...
He didn’t know if this was what the others in the clearing had felt, and at this moment, he didn’t care. He only knew that he had found something in the music, this music, and he grabbed hold of it tightly to let it drive his feet, his body. He didn’t need to see any longer to keep his balance, he had found it outside of vision. He danced not with the expert, fluid gestures of the slender trained acrobats with their ritualized movements, but with all the energy and freedom of his private rapture.
He could see in his memory’s eye the dancers in the clearing, turned when they turned, raised his arms when they did, felt the drums lifting him up until it filled his ears, pressed away all other thought. He danced past time, past knowing how long he had been dancing in the catch of the melody, heard the song building for its own end. He felt it in the movement of the earth, felt the mantle slide around the core, found it in the dance of molecules in his blood that gave him the illusion he was solid, found it in the spaces between mass and energy where time was hidden.
The thunder of the drums rolled as his pulse kept rhythm, his body knowing where to go, where to be, felt the finish approach like a sexual climax building, let it hook him in its jaws. He heard his own breath whistling in his throat, let it go, until it was almost unbearable, the drums crushing him, the music hurled up wailing.
He let his anger out, let out the frustration and the pain, let out all the despair, let the fear out. He wasn’t dancing for Yronae any longer, he was dancing for himself, for his life. He heard the end, it was the end, he was the end, and he shouted with the drums, hands in the air, body rigid, as the last of the music rolled away like spent thunder echoing
through the mountains. He stood with his arms up in the sudden silence, his head thrown back, his sati unbound and disheveled. His braid had loosened. Sweat dripped from the ends of his hair into his eyes, running down his face and chest like the rain above him tapping against the roof.
Will it make me into a Pilot? he had asked her in jest.
No, but it might make you a better dancer.
Thank you, Pratima. Thank you, my lost love.
Slowly, panting, he lowered his arms and caught Qim staring at him, a mirror of his own emotions. The two men smiled at one another, fleeting, feral, before Nathan turned toward the women.
“Leaving Vanar would make me more than naekulam, older sister,” he said, still out of breath, his words hoarse. “It would make me maenavah qili, a nonperson. It would not be as if I’d never been here at all. I am different. I am Nga’esha. And I have worked too hard for too long to throw everything away now.”
Yronae listened, stoic, but her eyes flickered. Around her, he caught the expressions of other women—some of alarm, some of curiosity, some even of hatred—but he kept his attention focused on the Nga’esha pratha h’máy. He wiped his arm across his wet forehead, his eyes stinging with more than sweat.
“I will not leave Vanar. The price of the freedom you offer me is too high. It is true, I cannot play pretty songs for you, I cannot write pretty poems. I will never be able to perform pretty dances to make women smile for me.” He was still out of breath, his legs feeling rubbery as the high dissipated. “But if you wish I should dance for you, I will do so because it is my duty even when I know it will not please you. This dance, it may be a man’s dance. But it is also a Vanar dance. As I am Vanar. And unless you wish to repudiate me, I will speak in the Assembly of Families because it is my right as a Vanar and Nga’esha. It does not matter to me if I win or lose. It should not matter to the honor of this House. I will not be silenced, not by the Changriti, not by you. Not at any price.”
Slowly, Yronae shook her head in disbelief. “That is your right,” she said, her tone flat, unemotional. “You are Nga’esha.”
He listened, hearing something he didn’t quite understand in her voice, his ears still burning with the music. But for some reason, all he felt was overwhelming relief.
XXXVIII
NATHAN LOOKED UP AS MARGASIR TAPPED GENTLY AGAINST THE GLASS. His fingers in the soil, he nodded for him to enter. The big sahakharae had to duck his head to get through the greenhouse door and grimaced in the humid heat. “It’s boiling in here.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
The older man grunted, unconvinced as Nathan potted up the last of the few surviving svapnah seedlings, their forked roots snaking like corkscrews into the carefully prepared compost.
“I take it you’re not here because you’ve missed my company,” Nathan said.
“Aelgar sent me. Pratha Yronae requests your presence,” he said, eying Nathan’s gardening overalls skeptically. “But I think she might be willing to wait long enough for you to bathe and change into something more suitable.” He tsked as he looked at the dirt under Nathan’s ragged nails. “And do something about your hands.”
Nathan slumped over his potting shelf, exasperated. “Oh, God,” he muttered. “Now what have I done?”
“You are becoming paranoid, Nathan Nga’esha,” the older man chided.
“It isn’t paranoia when they really are out to get you, Margasir.” He brushed his palms off on the cloth of the overalls before leaving the greenhouse and locking the door. It wasn’t to prevent theft, since stealing was a crime nearly unheard-of on Vanar, but to keep the more inquisitive boys from constantly opening the door to see what strange and wonderful things the yepoqioh could be doing inside and disrupting the greenhouse’s meticulously maintained climate.
He hadn’t seen Pratha Yronae since the night he danced for her, several months before. Nor had he been to the Assembly. Namasi Sahmudrah had come by only once to apprise him of the delay; the Assembly of Families were conferring in a special session to discuss his petition to speak again, which might be good, or it might be bad. They were using delaying tactics hoping to wear him down, but there was little other choice. He would have to wait and see, but soon, soon, she assured him.
He showered quickly, sitting impatiently as Margasir combed out and braided his hair with quick, practiced fingers, working in a sprig of crimson penstemon. The sahakharae tugged the elaborate folds of Nathan’s sati into place and secured the end with the red beetle pin. The older man looked him over critically, then rooted in a coffer for several gold anklets. “Wear these,” he insisted. Nathan stooped to fasten the heavy anklets. “Daughter’s father, right foot,” Margasir corrected him wearily.
“You enjoy this, don’t you?” Nathan grumbled.
“Of course, Nathan Nga’esha. It was always my childhood dream to oversee a scrawny ugly ajnyaenam bah’chae who can’t be trusted to find his ass with both hands.”
His práhsaedam walked with him to the connecting doors between houses, stopping at a distance from the waiting Dhikar to fret with Nathan’s sati pin like a mother hen. Nathan brushed his hands away irritably. “If you’re this nervous, I must be in serious trouble,” Nathan said in an undertone, his back to the Dhikar.
“Not this time, Nathan, miraculously enough,” Margasir ducked his head to mutter discreetly with a wary glance at the waiting Dhikar. “But please try your very best not to fuck this one up,” he said, using the Hengeli expletive perfectly. He winked slyly and walked away before Nathan had a chance to say another word.
The Dhikar escorted Nathan to Yronae’s private rooms and stood on either side of the door, his cue to enter. He paused, taking a deep breath to compose himself, preparing for the role of a compliant Vanar man, pasted on his best smile, and walked in.
The effort was wasted. Several taemorae attended to Pratha Yronae, dressing her in an exquisite Nga’esha kirtiya belted over baggy saekah, blue birdsilk shot through with gold filigree. Another taemora organized the pratha h’máy’s jewelry, clipping several strands of gold chain from one ear, under the chin, to the other. Yet a third knelt to add the finishing touches to the intricate painting on the skin of her bare feet. Yronae barely glanced over her shoulder at him, said curtly, “Good, you’re here,” and motioned with her chin for him to stand out of the way.
“You are aware that the Nga’esha are receiving a delegation from your home world?” Yronae asked, shifting her head to allow the taemora to anchor the weight-bearing support in her hair.
“Hae’m, jah’nari l’amae.”
“The ambassador is a woman named Suzenne Rashir, as I’m sure you already know.”
“Of course, Pratha Yronae.” Everyone in the Nga’esha House knew. There had been many other Hengeli delegations on Vanar since his arrival, none of which he had ever been allowed to meet. But while he didn’t expect to see another Hengeli again in his life, he kept up with the gossip as well as the next.
The Hengeli had obviously looked into what little Vanar history they could find and rooted around for someone they felt the Nga’esha would respect, someone descended from the same ancient rootstock. Rashir was proud of being from a traditional matrilineal Khasi clan, almost pureblooded and actually born in Shillong.
Nathan knew the pratha h’máy Yronae dva Ushahayam ek Daharanan traeyah Nga’esha could not possibly have cared less; the descendant of the ancestor who had settled Vanar and founded the Nga’esha branch of the Nine Families did not consider tenuous blood connections to modern Khasi relevant. In her eyes, Rashir was as Hengeli as any other of the women in her entourage.
The taemora finished fiddling with her jewelry and stepped away. Yronae turned to him.
“You will attend the conference.”
He nodded, wondering how many figs he’d have to poke back onto the tray this time.
“Just you.”
Baffled, he momentarily forgot his manners and looked at her directly. “Excuse me, pratha h’máy?”
“This isn’t a social reception, it’s a business meeting. You are to listen and say nothing. You are to react to nothing that is said. You will conduct yourself with the utmost propriety at all times, is that understood?”
He was nearly breathless with astonishment. “Hae’m, jah’nari l’amae.” He was about to meet the first Hengeli he’d seen in over five years. “Thank you.”
Yronae snorted. “You don’t sing, you don’t dance, you’re not even pleasurable to look at. If you insist on remaining here, I must find some use for you. My mother understood these Hengeli in a way I would be foolish not to admit I never can. I want you there to listen and observe. You know the language, the culture, the way they think, how their hands move, all the unspoken significances. When it’s over, you and I will go over every word together, and you will clarify for me whatever we as Vanar might have missed.”
“Hae’m, jah’nari l’amae.”
She finally smiled grimly. “So, Nathan Crewe Nga’esha, shall we go see just how Vanar you really are?” She snapped her fingers, and he fell behind the entourage following her into the great hall.
The ambassador and her interpreter had already taken their seats when they arrived. Yronae settled as leisurely as a cat onto a thick floor cushion, facing the ambassador. With one leg under her, the other knee up in a formal pose, Yronae looked impressive and arrogant and uncompromising as hell.
Removing the edge of the sati from over his head, Nathan took his place beside Yronae’s left shoulder, kneeling smoothly onto the hard floor, no cushion to ease his legs. The pratha h’máy ignored him as thoroughly as furniture, although he bowed politely before he sat back on his heels, palms on his thighs. Yronae’s interpreter sat at her right hand, while Suryah, as her senior daughter and heir apparent, observed from the sidelines. Several taemorae hovered unobtrusively to keep water glasses filled and small sweetmeats on hand, while an impressive number of household Dhikar stood sentry, as immobile as statues.
Although he kept his eyes properly averted, the habit of watching but not looking now ingrained in him, he was aware of the Hengelis’ surprise at his presence. As soon as the Hengeli ambassador began to speak, he looked up and kept his attention steadily on the delegation. The interpreter murmured quietly beside Yronae, an odd echo in his own mind. When Yronae spoke, he noted the ambassador’s interpreter had to struggle to keep up with the flow, stumbling over words, often missing the nuances completely. He had some sympathy for her; Vanar was a damned difficult language to learn, particularly for someone without the benefit of living for years within the culture.