Master of None (35 page)

“When?”

“Tomorrow night.” He looked up, dark eyes enigmatic. “Pratha Yronae knows, of course. The old pratha never objected, but our new one . . .” He shrugged again.

After a moment, Nathan said, “Knows . . . what?”

But Qim’s ingrained caution was too strong, regardless of the library’s privacy. He stood, tucking the bag back under his sati. “Tomorrow night.”

Nathan spent much of the next day working on his greenhouse, but with his mind distracted, oddly cheered by the mystery. He had barely started his dinner sitting under the ancient maple in the men’s garden when Qim passed him, nodded without expression, and walked on. Still chewing his last mouthful, Nathan abandoned the rest of his meal and hurried after the boy.

He was not the only one aware of the gap in the men’s garden wall, he discovered, absurdly resentful his secret was shared. But rather than follow the path down to the old tree by the river, Qim turned along the ridge of the hill, walking straight for a thicket of compact shrubs Nathan had thought impassable. That weren’t. But without his guide, he quickly realized, he’d never be able to navigate this maze a second time. At one point, they had to crawl on hands and knees through a cave in sheer rock, water dripping from tiny stalactites overhead. Not normally claustrophobic, Nathan was grateful all the same to reemerge out the other side. He stood, his sati soaking wet, and glanced up at the crude figure of a blank-faced woman chiseled out of the rock face, the cave entrance between her distorted legs.

Qim quickly peeled off his dripping sati and hung it over a branch where several dozen other sati fluttered in the twilight breeze. All he wore underneath was an unbleached linen mati, as did many sahakharae, his connection with the Changriti long severed. Most of the sati hanging from the branches were Nga’esha blue. A few colors from other High Families dotted the trees, as well as a sprinkling from Middle Families.

“You won’t need it,” he said to Nathan as he quickly loosened his hair from the intricate braid, discarding beads and flowers and bracelets. While Nathan stripped off his own sati, Qim’s fingers raked his hair back and tied it off at the nape of his neck. As fine as a Persian cat’s tail, it seemed to float down the young man’s back, the simplicity almost erogenous.

They made their way in the growing dusk to a clearing in the forest where, Nathan’s botanical eye noticed with excitement, imported trees stood side by side with their odder indigenous counterparts. A small gathering of about fifty men chatted quietly but fell silent as he followed Qim into the middle of the clearing where several large drums had been erected, other musical instruments assembled around them.

Strangely, Nathan realized, no one bowed in the Vanar custom he now had to fight not to reflexively perform himself. Qim avoided their mute reproach as he inspected the drums with minute care. Although Nathan had long been used to being stared at, the silence was unnerving.

An older, muscular man elbowed his way through the crowd, totally naked but for glistening wet body paint, his adornment having been interrupted, by the incomplete look of it. He glared at Nathan, dark eyes hard, before he turned to Qim. Neither spoke, nor did Qim look up, still engrossed in examining the drums. Finally, the man frowned, snorted in disgust, and turned away without a word. But Nathan didn’t miss how the young sahakharae briefly closed his eyes and exhaled with relief.

The tension in the crowd diminished. Murmured conversation resumed while newcomers continued to arrive, each one startled to see him in their midst, then pointedly ignoring him. Nathan gave up trying to smile reassuringly and found a fallen log at the edge of the clearing where he could sit at a remove as merely a visiting observer.

A small bonfire had been assembled, more branches being pulled out of the shelter of the forest, native and imported wood stacked equally onto the growing pile. By the time the sky had darkened to true night, stars winking into existence, enough firewood had been accumulated. The fire several people tended finally caught, yellow fingers of flame delicately exploring the branches. The crowd continued to grow, many of them other musicians bringing their own instruments.

One of them, to Nathan’s surprise, was a woman dressed in a simple white mati similar to Qim’s. Without her sati, he had no way of telling which, if any, of the High Families she was from. Which, he realized, looking around, was true of just about everyone there. She spoke briefly to Qim, and shot a startled look in Nathan’s direction, seeing him for the first time. As he had the painted man, Qim avoided her eyes as they talked. The woman shrugged one shoulder, then shook out a long wooden flute of her own. She and the boy ran through a series of riffs, comparing tunes, and Nathan smiled when he recognized a fragment he knew Qim had adapted from the Celtic jazz cube he’d heard only the day before. The woman listened intently, and within seconds, she had caught the melody, her fingers skimming across the flute effortlessly. Another young man joined them, a small mandolinlike instrument in hand, and inside a minute, he too had grasped the unusual music, grinning in delight. Their easy companionship made Nathan feel even more the outsider. Then Qim shot a quick glance at him with a flash of a smile, and his isolation seemed less lonely.

At some signal Nathan couldn’t discern, Qim settled behind the drums as his friends stepped back into the crowd, vanishing. The boy’s fingers began rolling a quiet rhythm against the taut skins, an expectant hush settling over the people gathered in the clearing. As Nathan admired the complexity of the tempo, an eerie, low rumble echoed back from the hidden depths of the trees, making the hairs on his arms prickle. A bass lute answered from another corner of the darkness, then other instruments Nathan couldn’t identify joined in. Qim’s eyes closed, and he rocked his body in time to the music that seemed to surround the clearing from every angle.

“You can’t talk about this to anyone,” a quiet voice said next to his ear, startling him. He turned to the woman who had played the flute with Qim. She crouched beside him, her flute balanced across her knees. Up close, he realized she was younger than he’d first thought. “Qim didn’t tell you that, did he?”

“No. He didn’t actually tell me much of anything, except that Pratha Yronae knows about it already.”

The girl frowned. “Of course. Or we could never be here at all.” She shrugged. “The old pratha h’máy first allowed it, but for how long the new one will permit us to continue, who can say? Many of the other Nine Families don’t approve. But if it isn’t spoken about, it doesn’t officially exist.”

“Who are you?” he asked, curious.

“Here?” She smiled. “No one.” She lifted the flute to her mouth and, the firelight glittering in her eyes, joined her voice to those already playing, stepping back into the anonymity of the night shadows.

The music grew, the energy building until it rolled a tension in Nathan’s chest. This was nothing like the innocuous, thin music popular with most Vanar—or at least with Vanar women. This music was rougher, with a power and electricity he’d never heard any Vanar play before. Just as the intensity seemed to build toward a climax, a sudden loud howling behind him made him duck in reflex.

A dozen painted dancers leapt over him, naked but for bizarre masks over their faces. He fell off his seat, arms flung protectively over his head, then caught sight of Qim’s laughing face beyond the fire. He grinned ruefully as he realized he was the target of the joke, and joined in the clapping as the dancers began.

The last fading blush of sunset had vanished, the night sky filled with stars. With only the bonfire to illuminate them, the painted dancers took on a surreal appearance. Firelight shone on their bodies, cast their muscles in gold, their shadows wavering like wild animals through the trees.

The drumbeat magnified, and it took Nathan several minutes before he realized they were playing with their own echoes bouncing off cliff walls. It rumbled through the trees in a passable resemblance to thunder, distant and menacing.

If he had been anywhere else, he would have thought the dancers aboriginals, remnants of prehistoric tribes dancing to appease their hostile gods. As it was, the decades spent in training gave them an acrobatic skill and sophisticated choreography all of their own, the distinctive Vanar style shining through even this most unorthodox expression of their art.

He started again when the musicians and spectators alike began to chant, everyone obviously familiar with this particular song. As they chanted the words, the dancers stamped their feet while the audience beat the ground with sticks or fists, pounding the rhythm of the verse with a fierce energy.

“We are
men
!” The refrain resonated around him, driving the dancers. “We are
men
! We are
strong
!
We
plow the earth,
we
sow the seed! We are
men
!” The ferocity of feeling around him both excited Nathan and alarmed him. He could well see why this ritual, if not a secret, would be a private matter. Even the woman who had been playing with Qim chanted the words with equal vigor, her flute forgotten, her eyes half shut, her body rocking to the drum beat filling the air, building to an unbearable crescendo. “Feel us, feel our spirit, feel our courage, we are the rain storm, we are the thunder, we are
life
, we are
men
!”

The music reached its peak, and abruptly ended, the dancers frozen with their hands thrust into the air, the last drumbeat echoing off the cliff like spent thunder. The sudden silence was as powerful as the boisterous music had been, his ears still ringing, the only sound the breathing of winded dancers and the crackle of the fire. Then the spectators and dancers alike leapt to their feet in a wild cheer of appreciation, orgasmic in intensity.

Qim pushed his way through the tumultuous crowd, his face shining with sweat and joy. “Did you like it?” he demanded, shouting to be heard over the clamor.

“Is it yours?” Nathan asked.

“Yes! ‘Thunder in the Mountains’! Did you like it?”

Nathan grinned and nodded. He liked it. He liked it a lot. And he knew why women like Eraelin Changriti would not, this music dangerously subversive.

The girl appeared behind Qim, slipping her hand around his waist. He threw his arm around her shoulder with an affection that went beyond simple friendship. Whoever she was, Qim loved her. They disappeared back into the crowd as new musicians took their place. The revelry went on well into the night. Only when the sky began to lighten with the coming dawn did the music give way to a softer, sadder style, people drifting away until the final musician tucked his flute into his belt and made his way back to where the last few sati hung in the tree branches.

Nathan followed Qim back to the men’s house. They slipped into their beds before the rest of the house had woken up for the day, catching an hour or so of sleep.

There are many things about our men you know little of,
he heard Yaenida saying, almost able to conjure her image behind drowsy eyelids.
Open your mind as well as your eyes. Vanar men don’t think of themselves as oppressed; they consider themselves cherished and protected by the Eternal Mother.

She had known about these performances, and he wondered if she had ever actually seen one. Somehow, he couldn’t quite picture Yaenida crawling through a damp cave tunnel and out between the Eternal Mother’s legs. Vanar men might well have considered themselves cherished and protected, but until they could sing “Thunder in the Mountains” proudly, in public, without fear, Nathan knew they would always be oppressed.

Even asleep, Nathan could feel the beat of the drums, his entire body still vibrating, and smiled in his dreams, deeply satisfied.

XXXI

“N
ATHAN CREWE NGA’ESHA?”

He’d been standing in the men’s section of the platform waiting for the next train and quietly minding his own business, skimming through the news headlines on his reader. A dozen or so others queued randomly around him, each of them either browsing their own readers or chatting idly with companions. They all looked up, startled by a woman’s voice.

“Hae’m l’amae?” he said warily with a cursory bow. The rest of his fellow passengers drifted prudently away from them.

Judging by the unexceptional style of her sati, she was Middle Family, respectable but far from wealthy. Slim and well-built, she was nearly tall enough to look him directly in the eyes, had he not kept his attention focused over her shoulder. Oddly enough, he noticed, she had trouble keeping her own gaze on him and fidgeted nervously.

“May I speak with you for a moment, please?” Her voice shook, and her face was bloodless. She was more than anxious, he realized. She was terrified, which made him all the more guarded.

“About what, if you will pardon my discourtesy for asking?” “Roses.”

“Excuse me, l’amae?”

“Roses.” It came out as barely a squeak. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, then blurted, “I have heard you appreciate gardens, and are quite knowledgeable about cultivation. I have a garden, a small one, but which is said to be one of the better private gardens on Vanar. I would like to invite you to my garden as my
mehmaen koshah
, treasured guest.” She gulped, then bowed to him in embarrassment, astonishing him. When she straightened, she looked as if she was about to weep.

Instead of attempting to reassure her, he stepped back, wariness now turning to alarm. If she were interested in striking up a more intimate liaison, she would have come to the kaemahjah he had begun to frequent again after the dance in the forest whenever he wanted to escape the pressures of either of his two Houses. Whatever this was about, it smelled like trouble.

“Deepest apologies, l’amae, but I was trained as a research botanist, not a horticulturist,” he said. Then added with carefully restrained anger, “And while under other circumstances I would be flattered by such an invitation to see one of the better gardens of Vanar, I doubt the Nga’esha pratha h’máy would approve of my consorting privately with an utter stranger.” There. If this was either a test or a trap, Nathan was determined to sidestep it.