Master of None (3 page)

Her eyes narrowed as she drew the tasmai wrap back over her skeletal body protectively, her green-veined hands fussing with the intricate folds. “I almost believe you,” she said, and looked out of the windows at thin clouds skimming high in the afternoon blue. The younger women stared at them with perplexed expressions. “From anyone else, I would suspect such an audacious scheme was nothing more than brazen ambition and greed. But not from you.” She glanced back at him, her look as hard and cool as marble. “Explain yourself.”

He looked down at his hands still pressed against his thighs. “I have no one to talk to,” he finally answered. His throat hurt, as if trying to swallow against a stone lodged there.

She snorted. “Is that all?”

“For godsake, isn’t that enough?” he asked, and heard his own voice catch with repressed anger. “I’ve been on Vanar over a year, and I’m dying in this isolation! Living in a charity shelter isn’t all that much different from prison, Yaenida, and at least in prison I had you to talk to.”

“There are no prisons on Vanar.”

“I wasn’t ill, l’amae,” he said, knowing his resentment leaked out, “and the people asking me all those questions weren’t doctors.”

Her eyes watched him impassively as she worried the stem of the pipe with her teeth, squinting as tendrils of smoke escaped from her nostrils and curled past her face. He felt his frustration rising.

“My life is constant hell here. No one dares talk to me; they’re all too nervous even without that Changriti
bich’chú
stopping me in the street to keep me properly terrified.” She raised an eyebrow at his use of vulgar slang to refer to the Qsayati Vasant Subah, head of the Vanar security police. “Not that it matters since I can’t learn this damned language, with or without my tutor. I’m
naeqili te rhowghá
, and I know exactly what that means, she’s managed to teach me that much,” he said sharply at her surprise. “I’m in fact worse than the lowest of outcasts: everyone knows who I am, but I’m treated like some dangerous animal set loose by accident. I try and stay out of trouble, sitting around doing nothing until I’m out of my mind, but the instant I go out, I make one mistake after another. I have nowhere else to go, Yaenida, I need your help,
please
!” He was shouting, leaning forward on his knees as he gestured angrily toward her.

From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the younger women rise, snatching up her staff and striding toward them with protective hostility. He only knew one way to respond, and immediately “turtled,” elbows against knees, his forehead against the back of his hands pressed against the floor. He cursed inwardly, prepared for the blows, and hoped she’d at least spare his head.

He heard rather than saw the argument: a fast whipping of Vanar, one voice sharp, the other cracked with age but strong. Yaenida’s emaciated fist smacked against the cushions. The only words he caught were “Get out.” A fast padding of feet, the glimpse of satin-clad heels past his face, and the sudden silence pressed against his ears.

“Vultures,” Yaenida muttered. “I’m not dead yet.” She grunted as she shifted awkwardly on the pillows, then said, “Nathan, you look ridiculous. That position is for small children. Don’t be so damned idiotic. Get up off the floor and give me a hand.”

He was up instantly and helping her to her feet, her bony talon cold in his hand, her elbow in the other as frail as a stick. She was startlingly light: a decent puff of wind could have carried her off. He half carried her, her legs like stilts as she hobbled, to the wide windowsill, settling her on the ledge overlooking the garden. Crystal and bronze wind chimes hung from the corners of fluted roofs, their clear sound blending with trills of songbirds. The sun shone directly on her face, outlining every crease with unflattering clarity.

“Ah, Nathan,” she said gently, and stroked his cheek, her hand as smooth and dry as parchment. “You do tempt me, you do. Not a kind thing to do to an old woman in my condition.”

He caught her hand and brushed a kiss against her palm before he released it—a purely Hengeli gesture. She smiled and with a graceful motion invited him to sit on the ledge opposite her. When he hesitated, she said with mock seduction, “We’re alone, no one’s watching. We can do whatever we like.”

He wondered just how true that really was but settled his back against the stone across from her, one leg drawn up casually, hands laced around his knee. He was more grateful for this private familiarity and breach of propriety than he could have told her.

“Let me give you some advice,” she said, gazing away from him to the garden below. “I have had five husbands in my life, as well as any number of sahakharae. Sahakharae come and go, as sahakharae do, interchangeable amusing things. All but one of my kharvah have died. He’s old, like me, and we are comfortable with each other. We have had many children, our children have children, and we have even lived long enough to see our grandchildren’s grandchildren. Many dozens of them. He would not understand, and it would only upset him if I were at this late date to take a sixth kharvah, a young and handsome one at that.” She nodded toward the garden. “Genetic maintenance only goes so far, and I am nearing the end of my life. Appealing as I might find your offer, I prefer not to complicate what remains of my time with the sort of disruption and jealousy only the young have the stamina for.”

“It could be just a formality,” he pressed. “If I were part of your House, I could see you whenever you have the time to teach me to speak better Vanar, be somewhere safe long enough to learn what I need to adjust to this culture. I’d be no worse off when—” He stopped in embarrassment.

“—I die,” she finished serenely. “You can say it. Death is too intimate a companion for me to have any false inhibition about it.”

“Yaenida, I swear I won’t get in your way. I’ll stay in the corner of the kitchen, sleep in the attic, anywhere.” He hated the desperation in his voice and waved a hand at the edge of jungle stretching forever on the horizon beyond the villa walls. “Send me to one of the Nga’esha estates in Dravyam or Praetah. I’ll spend the entire day out there picking flowers and searching for
svapnah
seeds,” he joked, the anxiety in his chest straining his voice.

She chuckled, a dry husking sound. “Oh, no you won’t! And scandalize my neighbors? Indeed not.” Her smile vanished, old face solemn. “Nathan, you have the rare chance to marry with a young woman from a very good House. Take it. There is no future for you here.”

His disappointment tasted like acid, but he did his best to resist pleading with her. “I accept your decision,” he said, “although I can’t understand your reasons.”

“They are simple enough: I am an old woman. I will have no more children. Soon, I will die. My kharvah will be taken care of because he has daughters within this House whose duty it is to support him. You will not. Once I am dead, you would be turned out of the House by my daughters before my corpse was even cold.”

“And all the other men in your House, those there?” He nodded toward the figures barely visible beyond the screened garden. “What happens to them?”

“Some of them belong to daughters. Some are unmarried sons and grandsons. Some are various cousins and nephews hanging around because it’s more pleasant here than with their own Families. Some are friends from different Houses who have
práhsaedam
, boyhood companions they wish to remain with. Some are merely guests from lesser Families hoping to attract the attention of a potential marriage partner. Others are sahakharae, and they will either find new favorites within the House, if they haven’t already, or leave for other, better pastures. At the worst, they all have Families of their own. You are none of these.”

She pulled the folds of her embroidered cloth over her knees, wincing as she tried to shift her spine into a more comfortable position. “If you turn down this offer, you
would
be worse off, that I can assure you. The Changriti are one of the Nine High Families—don’t forget that—and Kallah has already violated custom and defied her own pratha h’máy to offer marriage to a naeqili te rhowghá
.”
She smiled, and her quick scrutiny made him glance away. “Even such a delightful naeqili te rhowghá. Defiance of one’s family is not customary Vanar behavior. Kallah is taking an amazing risk for you, and you did accept, in front of witnesses. Spurned now and humiliated, Kallah would not ask you again at some later date.

“Privately, I’m sure Eraelin would be relieved if you refused, but publicly, you will have gravely insulted her Family. A lowly foreigner, without Family, rejecting the heir to the Changriti fortunes?” Yaenida shook her head with feigned dismay. “You will have antagonized a formidable House, and you’ve already discovered for yourself how extreme Eraelin’s ill will can be.” He shuddered. “I doubt you will ever be offered much better in the future. Without a union to a good House, without Family to protect you, your options would be limited. It is possible you could find a kaemahjah willing to train you to become sahakharae, of course. . . .” She shrugged as he paled.

“I’m not interested in being a whore,” he said stiffly.

She remained silent for a moment, knowing more about his past than he was comfortable with. “Sahakharae are not prostitutes, and the kaemahjah is an honorable institution,” she said gently. “You don’t have to be sahakharae, though you might find it quite profitable. I can see where you would be popular, even without proper training.”

“I can’t even
talk
to people,” he snapped, irritated. “I don’t play music, I can’t dance, I don’t know any Vanar poetry. I’m hardly going to be capable of dazzling conversation, am I? So what exactly is it I would be popular for, Yaenida?”

She smiled. “True,” she conceded. “There are those who enjoy the kaemahjah for less refined reasons. But if not that, Nathan, the only thing left is the temple, and I seriously doubt that would suit you. Then, what will you do when you can no longer attract a wife or make a living in a kaemahjah? Without family, you’ll barely exist in some grubby charity shelter, surrounded by all the other unwanted naekulam, the mentally disturbed, the terminally ill, the disgraced husbands, all the sad misfits and surly malcontents who’ve been abandoned or expelled by their families, year after year alone, until you finally die of old age. Or just old.”

He remained quiet, looking out over the vast green of the jungle blurring the horizon beyond the neat walls of the House. She respected his silence, closing her eyes, and leaned her head back with her face toward the sun, catlike.

“Yaenida, let me go,” he said in a low voice, without hope. “Please. I don’t belong here. It was a mistake. Let me leave Vanar.”

“Poor child,” she responded unsympathetically, her eyes still shut. “You can’t.”

He hadn’t expected any different. He nodded, defeated, and stood. “Thank you for your time,
jah’nari l’amae
,” he said formally. She cracked her eyes to watch him, her heavily lidded eyes deceptively sleepy. “I humbly apologize for disturbing your tranquility.” He bowed from the waist, then turned away. His back rigid, he had walked halfway across the spacious room before she called out, “Nate...”

He stopped without turning, afraid he would weep in front of her. “There might be one other possibility, should you be interested.” Relief threatened to buckle his knees, and he had to swallow hard to regain his self-control before he faced her. She was smiling: a tiny, fragile creature swathed in bright cloth huddled on the ledge.

“It’s true your circumstances are unique and I do feel a certain, well, responsibility for your welfare. And it is quite likely my interest in you piqued Kallah’s curiosity in the first place, as much as it may have been to defy her mother. She’s a strong-willed girl, if not quite as malicious as Eraelin. The Changriti are not as...broad-minded as are the Nga’esha”—Nathan appreciated the understatement—“and this may indeed provide unexpected benefits for the Nga’esha. Yes, this could work...”

Her thoughtful expression suddenly focused on him astutely. “I will discuss the peculiarities of your situation with Kallah in private,” she said decisively. “You will, of course, marry her, and you will take advantage of whatever time her other jealous kharvah allow you. Once you are married, fuck her every chance you get. Fuck her until her eyebrows fall off, do you understand? Please her if you can, but more importantly, make her pregnant if she’ll allow it.”

He nodded, unable to speak.

“But until you are married, you will come to stay in my Household. After you are married, Kallah will agree to allow you to continue to spend the majority of your free time here. She will allow this because as you have no House, I offer mine as your adoptive Family. This will no doubt take a little time to arrange, but I will become your... mother.” She laughed, eyes twinkling. “Eraelin is of course entirely correct; a Changriti heir cannot possibly be allowed to marry naekulam, the indignity is totally outrageous. But once you are Nga’ esha, Eraelin can have no objection since it will create a favorable bond between two powerful Houses. It will also provide
you
with a measure of personal security, as it would certainly be very bad manners indeed for anyone to make an attempt on the life of a member of my Family, no matter how minor.”

She smiled at his obvious relief. “As you seem to be having communication problems with your current tutor, you will study with me, personally. In return, you will help me in the writing and correcting of my research on early Hengeli art. You will live and work in my House, and you
will
learn Vanar. You will accept your fate with grace, cease this childish sniveling about leaving and how wronged you’ve been, and learn to behave as a proper, respectable Vanar man. This is the best deal you will ever be offered, Nathan. Is this alternative acceptable to you?”

He walked back with rubbery legs, and stood tentatively until she proffered her hands. He held them both gently. The breath was constricting in his throat. “Thank you,” he finally squeezed the words out.

“You made me remember what it was to be young again,” she said softly, her eyes distant. “I was more outrageous then, reckless and impulsive. I’ve since repaid that misspent youth a hundred times over, dedicated my life and energies solely to Nga’esha interests, so staunch and steadfast and stodgy and totally boring.” She smiled mischievously, the skin around her eyes wrinkling. “I’d like to think that other part of me hasn’t died yet. I can see why Lyris Arjusana was so infatuated with you, foolish girl.”