Master of None (20 page)
Yaenida, however, more than made up for it. He arrived the next morning for his daily lesson and found the old woman standing by a window. Her medical taemora stood cautiously to one side in case the old woman overdid herself and collapsed. Yaenida turned as Nathan entered the study, smiling broadly in the brilliant sunlight turning her jaundiced skin to gold.
“It seems death will have to wait a little while longer to take me,” she said, relaxed.
“May it wait many years, jah’nari l’amae,” he said. She gripped the taemora’s arm resolutely and took one faltering step after another back toward the table. The taemora eased the old woman’s body down into the mound of pillows jammed into the wide, carved chair, tucked Yaenida’s sati around her legs, and left without a word or backward glance. Once her attendant had gone, he set his reader on the broad table and took his usual place, such casual Hengeli behavior tolerated only in private.
“You say that with such feeling, Nathan, one might almost think you meant it.” She grimaced as she adjusted her fragile body deeper into the cushions.
“I do mean it,” he said evenly, opening his reader. “I gain far more with you alive, Yaenida, than with you dead.” He looked up at the woman grinning at him sardonically. “I also happen to like you, but I don’t expect you to believe that.”
She shook her head and said, “It’s a shame you’ll never be as good with words in Vanar as you are in Hengeli, although I’ve heard you’re not doing all that badly there, as well.”
He raised one eyebrow with mock surprise. “Me? Really?”
“You judged Aelgar’s avarice and lack of taste exactly right, and the bit with the flowers was a masterful touch. You seem to have taken my advice to heart.”
He bowed in exaggerated acknowledgment. “This worthless naeqili does his humble best,” he said in Vanar, which made her laugh, a dry, rasping sound sucking the air from her lungs. He got up without being told to set up her water pipe. She took the stem from him with shaking fingers, sucking in the smoke greedily to calm her lungs. He sat back down and waited.
“You don’t much enjoy men’s company, do you, Nathan?” she asked when she had her breath back.
He leaned back and thought about it seriously. “Not on Vanar,” he admitted finally.
“Why not? You would be better off in the long run to make friends among the men of my House. You should consider taking a lover from among the sahakharae. That would be the expedient thing to do.”
The reader was open, but the screen remained blank, ignored. It troubled him how much of his personal life Pratha Yaenida knew, no secrets remaining hidden for long from her far-reaching intelligence network. But the past was the past, he was not the same person he had been so many years ago, a lifetime ago.
“I’m not interested in sex with men, Yaenida, and I don’t have much in common with the rest of my Vanar ‘brothers,’ ” he said patiently, “not just because of the language problem.”
“No,” she said, in a tone that wasn’t a question.
“All these elaborate formalities”—he waved a hand in a gesture of frustration—“the ritual posturing, the complicated speech, it’s stupefying. Whenever I’ve tried to have a conversation with someone to practice my Vanar, it’s as if the men can’t speak in anything
but
formulae and rote response. It’s like talking to machines, no one is really there.”
She propped her head on her fist, the slack skin of her face pushing one eye half closed as she listened silently, a thread of smoke spiraling toward the high ceiling.
“The men of your Family aren’t stupid, and most of them are educated. They’re literate, they have complicated debates I can barely follow about all sorts of things. But it’s just a game, to see how many verbal points you can score, not out of any passion or enjoyment. They’re afraid to make a decision or have an opinion of their own about anything they might actually care about.”
“Hmm,” was all the comment she made, hooded eyes deceptively jaded.
“No one has much spirit of their own,” he said, struggling to find the words. “Or if they do, they spend a lot of effort to hide it. It’s like scratching on glass: you can see there’s something underneath, but there’s no way to reach it. No one
does
anything. They just...sit around like lifeless pets waiting to be played with.”
She sank farther back into the cushions, hooking the stem of her pipe over the water reservoir. Resting her elbows on the polished table, she steepled her fingertips together. “I think you disparage our men unjustly, Nathan. Nga’esha men in particular, I’m proud to say, are quite astute and creative. Men can do many things far better than most women. They dance, they paint, they play music, they write beautiful poetry that you unfortunately can’t appreciate fully.”
Nathan sighed. “How nice,” he said scornfully. “But art out of boredom isn’t a virtue. Can you honestly tell me, Yaenida, that all the dancing and music and poetry is to satisfy any particular creative urge of their own? It’s all geared toward making themselves more valuable as marriage commodities for the Family business.”
She regarded him silently for a moment, her lips pursed. “Aren’t you being a little harsh in your judgment?”
“Not as harsh as life is for the men of Vanar.”
She snorted. “I suspect there are those who might not feel so sorry for you. The asteroid miners in the Craswell system, for example. Long hours, hard physical work, the most basic amenities, low-paying labor contracts, high accident mortality. Can you imagine their reaction to your bitching about your soft existence?”
“I’ll be happy to trade places with any one of them this minute, l’amae, if you’ll allow it. They at least have the freedom to quit their jobs.”
“The freedom to starve, Nathan? Don’t pretend to be naive. They survive any way they can, the same as you do.” Her eyes narrowed as she tucked her hands into her sleeves for warmth, although the room was a comfortable temperature. “Freedom comes packaged in a variety of cages. Get used to yours.”
“I don’t think I can,” he said bitterly.
“Why not?” she asked reasonably. “You don’t really believe human beings are born kind and good and wise, do you? We are greedy, selfish, and ruthless, which is why our species has survived for so long.” She leaned back in her chair, wincing in pain through an amused smile. “Women endured much worse for untold generations. We survived. And so will you.”
“The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their sons?”
She laughed. “Not my religion,” she said. “But, yes. The good of the community outweighs the good of the individual. Men’s biological nature is violent and must be controlled, to protect society as well as themselves. Women have always had plenty of reason to fear male violence. Women are rarely serial killers. We’re not even equipped for rape.”
He didn’t answer, staring into the lifeless screen of the reader. She sighed, leaned back into the cushion in the chair shaking her head. “Such a stubborn boy,” she admonished. “Surely it can’t all be that dreadful for you here? You could still be living in Westcastle, you know.”
“I don’t need a lecture on the horrors of war, jah’nari l’amae,” he said thickly, glancing up at her angrily. “As for Vanar being a place of peace and harmony where all women are gentle pacifists, I’ve got a five-inch scar down my left side that contradicts you.”
She snorted dismissively. “That was merely politics.”
“And that makes the difference?”
“Absolutely. We’ve always had the usual squabbles between rival Houses, business conflicts, even an assassination once in a while, but nothing major, nothing to threaten our entire society. Our streets are safe, we live without locks on our doors, those of us who even bother with doors. In all our history, we have never had a war. Can’t you see that these are things worth protecting?”
“For godsake, Yaenida,” he protested. “Protect from whom?
Me?
I’m not a rapist or a murderer! I am
not
a violent man.”
“Aren’t you?” She shook her hands out of her sleeves, and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the arms of the chair. “You made a very threatening gesture toward a woman on the street. Don’t tell me you weren’t angry enough to hit her.”
“That woman had no right to hit
me
.”
“Of course she did. To her, it looked like you were assaulting Lyris Arjusana. Men are
never
to touch a woman against her wishes, Nathan. Not on Vanar. You were naekulam, a foreigner without family, rude and unpredictable. They had reason to believe you were ready to respond to an ordinary rebuke with violence. That woman knew you weren’t Vanar and likely thought she actually was doing you a favor. If she or Lyris Arjusana had made a formal complaint, you’d have found yourself back in much more unpleasant circumstances. The violence done to you hurts more from insult than any injury. How much physical harm can a woman half your size really inflict? Had it been the other way round, you could have easily caused severe injury to her.”
“The real injury caused to me, Yaenida, is being imprisoned here with no hope of escape. I’m a botanist, not a criminal, and certainly not a rapist or a murderer. Tell me, how is that violent? Who is going to be hurt if I go out into the jungle to study plants?”
“Ostensibly, no one,” she admitted candidly, her expression nonchalant. “But to allow one man more privileges than another invites discontent and jealousy. Be realistic, Nathan. Vanar or not, we all have limitations; accept yours and you’ll be happier.”
He stared down at the knuckles of his clenched fists in his lap without speaking.
“You have access to the grounds, and permission to have your private litte garden. Grow flowers. Grow weeds, if that’s what you want to do. It’s healthy for men to be interested in plants, to appreciate their bond with the earth, respect the source from which all life flows.”
“Worship your Mother Goddess?” he said sourly.
She picked up her pipe and rolled a small ball of sticky black resin between her fingers to reload the bowl. “Our beliefs are more philosophy than religion. We don’t worship any deity like your hairy old man squatting in the clouds to piss abuse down on those who refuse to crawl before his tyranny. She is merely a symbol—the union of all living beings into one reality, neither male nor female, greater than the sum of its parts. As individuals, we must accept our personal limitations as being only part of the whole. But there is no divine judgment or punishment, only the harm we do to ourselves when we try to divide the mind from the body and the body from the soul.”
She gazed off distractedly over his shoulder, puffing the pipe to life. “A clever sermon,” he said. “Do you really believe it?”
She smiled. “Certainly.” She focused back on his face. “Why not? It’s no sillier than any other theology, and centuries of Vanar peace and prosperity haven’t harmed its validity.” Her eyes hardened. “But while this philosophical discussion has been amusing, Nathan, you would do well to listen to some practical advice.”
“Always, Pratha Yaenida,” he said, and she glanced at him as she heard the sudden wariness in his voice.
“Don’t labor under the illusion that you are more cunning than the men of my House. Aelgar isn’t stupid, he simply underestimated you. He’s perfectly aware you’ve used our own conventions to outsmart him . . .
this
time. He’s not likely to let that happen again. Sahakharae, on the other hand”—she shrugged—“have their place, but are often envious creatures who enjoy stirring up trouble. You are not liked by the men of my House. They are resentful of your intimacy with me and are afraid of your strangeness. They have little else to do and plenty of time to do it in, should they decide to hurt you.”
She studied him silently for a moment. “You will find yourself in a very small minority if you continue voicing your discontent. There are many things about our men you know little of. It would profit you to open your mind as well as your eyes. Vanar men don’t think of themselves as oppressed; they consider themselves blessed to be living in a society that allows them to be cherished and protected by the ideals of the Eternal Mother.”
He was sure he heard a tinge of irony in her voice.
“You’re here to stay, for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not. So you can do one of two things, Nathan. You can sit around sniveling about it, or you can accept what you cannot change and turn what you can to your own advantage. For the moment, you are an asset to me, and I will defend you as best I can. As I
have
been. No one will challenge my authority openly, and it is not wise to annoy me too far. But if you become such a disruptive influence that the stability of my House is threatened, I will not protect you.”
A thrill of alarm shot through his gut.
“I cannot afford to,” she said softly.
She turned back to her reader, flipping it open and squinting at the oversized Vanar script. “You can start by paying stricter attention to learning Vanar. We begin,” she said firmly. “Certain verbs are followed by an infinitive with a linking preposition, others are not. Those verbs with linking prepositions fall into four categories of construction, depending on the subjunctives
aht, tvae, aen
, and
ynah
....”
He made better progress that day. The stick could also be a powerful incentive to learning.
P
RATIMA WAITED FOR HIM BY THE RIVER, SITTING WITH HER LEGS
tucked underneath her on the grassy bank as the gray water flowed by. Her face was turned away from him, only the curve of her cheek visible, but he knew she was aware he stood at the edge of the brake behind her, watching her.
She was not beautiful, and he had never wanted a woman more. The thick bracken crackled under his bare feet as he approached her. She turned her head slightly, listening. Her eyes closed as his hands settled onto her shoulders. Kneeling behind her, not bothering to brush his sati out of the way, he kissed the side of her neck, her skin cool under his lips.
His hands slipped inside the edge of her sati, sliding down her ribs to cup each tiny breast, her nipples hardening. She leaned back against him, her eyes still closed, and sighed. His own breath caught at the sound, the urgent pressure growing in his groin.