Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (67 page)

Adam did as bid, staring at the smooth surface of the lute. His hands were shaking. "If you don't think it's—"

"If I did not trust you, Adam of Arkosa, Matriarch's brother, I would not place my instrument in your hands."

The boy laughed. "I—I'm not sure
I
trust me." He laughed again; the words were framed on either side by the sweet sound of vulnerability, mingled with the confidence the boy showed in being willing to express it.

Kallandras noted, however, that in spite of his misgivings, Adam took what he had asked for.

And accrued the debt.

Where are you going, Adam? Where will you learn to play Salla?

The Serra Diora di'Marano had not spoken more than five words in a row since she had sung to the Arkosans. The heat and the anger that she allowed—
allowed
—to overtake all sense and caution had evaporated with the song; she remained in the wake of fading notes, exposed, vulnerable.

She hated what she heard in her own voice when she spoke. She hated it, but she had been raised by a merciless woman to
be
merciless in her judgment. She could not pretend that she did not hear what was there.

The moon was high. The Lady's face was bright. The Serra Diora di'Marano had fled the Tor Leonne with so little, she had no propitiations to offer in the Lady's name. But she bowed her head beneath a canopy that was quickly becoming redundant, and she prayed in silence, in stillness, in the perfect repose and grace that was as natural to a harem Serra as breath or life. And perhaps more necessary.

She had learned never to ask the Lady for anything that was too important to her. So, in prayer, the repose was more important than content; the form more important than the ritual itself.

But when she saw Ramdan rise, she realized that she must have observed more than form, for she had been so absorbed in the perfect line of lowered chin, straight back, and arms curved up to hold fan, that she had not heard the stranger approach.

She was understandably wary of strangers, and in a place such as this, wariness was as natural as breathing and only slightly less necessary. But she had perfected the art of deference, and she used it as a defense, bowing her head almost into her lap to avoid meeting the eyes of whoever passed by.

Sadly, the stranger's footsteps approached and stopped. She waited for a full minute; after this, deference segued easily into the awkward. There were few crimes that a Serra could commit—or perhaps a Serra of the Serra Diora's rank—that were worse than public awkwardness. Having discovered just how little satisfaction was to be gained in losing control of oneself, she placed her hands in a lap made of rough cotton and bent knees, and composed herself.

She was surprised to see the young man. From the heavy fall of his feet, she had expected her visitor to be one of the men who had the responsibility of guarding the Matriarch and her companions. They were not, she discovered, cerdan; rules of propriety did not govern their speech or their actions when they were in the presence of the women they were to protect. They regularly exchanged harsh words, blows, and insults; they regularly chose to relieve themselves—checking only for the direction of the wind, and not for any who might be discomfited by the spectacle.

She would have been forced to offer her life in compensation for such poor behavior on the part of her own cerdan had she been at Court with men such as these.

Yet they were fascinating because they were so unschooled, so unfettered by a need to be polite, to be mannered, and she felt that if she could both ignore their excesses and observe them at a careful—critical—distance, she might learn something about men.

This was too close a distance, but this boy was not those men. It was not clear in the way he walked—for his steps were far too heavy for his size to justify—but it was evident in the way he did all else; he failed to meet her eyes, he curled his shoulders inward, he made his height as insignificant as possible.

As if, she thought, he were a child.

He wore the heavy boots and heavy, undyed robes of the desert traveler; he wore the sword. His skin was sun-dark, the shape of his eyes wide and pleasant. But his face was devoid of beard. He reminded the Serra of someone, although it was not obvious who. A question, she thought, for later. She had time, in this place.

He bowed.

The bow was not graceful in execution—but as it was so unnecessary among the Voyani, as either courtesy or obeisance, there
was
a grace inherent in its offer. She was pained by it, and surprised at the pain.

She could not, of course, bid the boy rise; that was not her function, not her place. But again, the rule against the socially awkward put her in a position that she would seldom have been in had she been in the Tor Leonne—for it was clear to her that he intended to remain in his awkward physical fold until she gave him permission to do otherwise.

She hesitated, and then with great care opened the sections of her fan, and raised it to cover half her face. She chose her words with the same attention she paid the fan.

But she was surprised by the words she had chosen when she at last spoke. "I have little water to offer," she said softly, "but what I have is yours if you choose to accept it."

He rose at once. If she had expected his face to crease in naive or youthful smile, she had misjudged him. He was a boy, but he was not a child.

He was also unoffended by her expectation, if he was aware of it at all—and meeting those eyes, the Serra thought that there was little in the end that he was not aware of when he chose to pay attention.

"I have water," he said, indicating a slight bulge in his robe. "All the Voyani carry water with them; two days worth in an emergency.

"But water is not a simple act of hospitality when we enter the Sea of Sorrows, and… it is not expected." He did smile, then, and she was surprised by the smile. It cut her.

It reminded her of her dead.

How? How, when he was everything that her dead were not? He was male, Voyani, rough and unpolished; his voice was unschooled in the arts that might keep its tone pleasant to the ear, his movements ungraceful and self-indulgent. But his smile…

She had been afraid of seeing Ruatha in the faces of the Voyani, for Ruatha had been her wildling, her impulsive, ever-angry, fiercely loyal wife. But this boy did not have that; he had instead the unfettered sweetness of Deirdre.

Not here.

"I… I noticed that you did not bring your samisen." He bowed again, and she recognized that bow; it was an attempt to hide his expression as he spoke. "I—forgive me, Serra, but I listen to the music that you make whenever I can. The children listen."

"You—you watch the children?"

He rose again, pleased. "Yes. I and Uncle Stavos are sometimes given the responsibility. We are almost the only men." The last sentence was said with the youthful pride she would expect from a boy his age.

Things were so different, here. So very different.

"I do not always understand the duties of the Voyani. In the harem, the wives are responsible for feeding and tending to the children—but it is not a privilege that is accorded to those with wisdom or power; it is merely a responsibility."

His eyes widened subtly, his mouth opened. But that was all of the shock he allowed himself to express.

"I understand the honor that is done you by the responsibility you are given," she added gravely. "And I am impressed by it. Perhaps if feeding the children was the responsibility of those who held power, we would be a different people. I—if I may be so bold, I do not know your name."

He flushed again. Fumbled a moment with words until a few came out. "I'm—I'm Adam. Of Arkosa. You might know my sister." His skin darkened. "I mean, well, it doesn't matter."

She realized, as he stuttered, dropping syllables in an awkward pattern that had the cadence of language—but only barely—that he had not offered her his name because he had expected her to know it; he was a boy who was used to
being
known by the people he met within this encampment. But having discovered that he was not known did not give rise to anger or resentment; he was simply, sweetly, embarrassed.

"I'm Adam," he said again. "I'm—I'm Margret's brother."

She had never seen such open embarrassment before. Not outside of the harem's heart.

Her eyes fell to her hands, her adorned hands. In the deepening night, the ghosts of old rings returned to bind her fingers; the ghosts of old songs were carried by the movement of a blessedly cool breeze.

She wondered if her son would have grown up to be just another clansmen, bent to the rules of conquest and death in the High Court.

It was the first time she had wondered.

.As if awkward silence was something he too bore the responsibility of avoiding, he said, again, "You didn't bring your instrument."

She lowered her face into the wall of her fan. When it rose again, it was smooth and devoid of any unpleasing expression. "No," she said softly. "I left it in the care of the Arkosans."

"Why?"

"Because the care of Arkosans is kinder than the care of the dry desert heat. It is wood," she added, although it was obvious. "It… suffered in the passage to the desert's edge; it would not weather the journey well."

He was silent for a long moment, and then his fourteen-year-old eyes looked up and met hers across the stretched pleats of ivory silk fan. "And will you, Serra, without it?"

* * *

She was absolutely silent. Not even the folds of her sari ventured the sound of cloth against cloth that came with the rise and fall of lungs; they were as still as she was. Her lungs forgot the movement of air, her lips the forms with which words were made. But her hand remembered the position that held her fan before her face like a wall or a door. It had slipped; it had slipped enough that she could not look away from his face. He was younger than she by only two years, but she felt, as his question died at the hands of her unnatural—and yes, very awkward—stiffness, that he was as young as the harem children in any great clansman's domicile.

The winds that had so scarred the Voyani had failed to touch him. The sun that had destroyed so much of her life had failed to mark his. For a moment she felt a cold, dark anger rise and she lifted her head so that she might more easily see his face.

But the anger dissipated.

Had he not lost his mother? Had he not risked sister and family in an attempt to save the city from the harsh and terrible alliances made by its reigning Tyr?

For just a moment, in the rising cold of anger, she saw something else rise as well. And it made her lower her head again. If she could have, she would have sent the boy away. Of all the dangers she had conceived of facing on this terrible voyage, there were two that had never even been considered. His kindness, in the face of so much loss, and her lack of kindness in the face of the same. She had grace and perfect, elegant manners, but nothing in her offered what this boy offered so recklessly—not to herself, and not to anyone else.

"Adam—"

"But I—"

She waited for him to finish. He didn't. It came to her that he was waiting for
her
, and she almost shook her head at the strangeness, the utter strangeness of this conversation, this boy, this place.
Do women rule your life so completely
, she wanted to ask,
that you must wait on
their
words as if their words have such public value
?

But the answer was obvious.

She felt a pang of envy for those women, watching this boy. And a pang of something darker. She could not speak through it, and for a moment, bowed her head once again to recover.

Free from the anchor of her gaze, he said, "I—I brought you this. I know—I know it's not yours, but I thought— you sing so perfectly and you play so perfectly—and it
has
strings…"

She looked up again, although she was almost afraid to. Her vision had blurred; her eyes were filmed. She did not understand
why
. Could not. He was a simple Voyani boy. And she was…

Shocked.

She lowered her fan with almost unseemly haste, because her hands were suddenly nerveless and she could not be seen to do anything so clumsy as drop it. Ramdan came to her rescue, retrieving that fan from her hand and stepping back into the distance again.

It was Adam's turn to be discomfited. She wondered why, although she knew it had something to do with Ramdan's presence. Did the Voyani truly feel that Ramdan, a seraf, was held against his will? Did they feel that he was treated, in this singular position of honor, as a lesser being, something to be ranked with a dog, but beneath a horse, in a clansman's spectrum of values?

And yet they served a Matriarch, and died at her whim.

She did not thank the seraf; to thank him was to dismiss him and she wanted his constancy. But she was not surprised when he stepped back, to the periphery of acceptable seraf distance, and waited there, hands behind his back.

Only when he was at a distance did Adam approach.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked him softly.

"I know it's not what you're used to," he replied, lamely. "I know it's Northern."

"I play a Northern instrument. Not… this one."

"I thought—"

She had never thought to carry this rounded bowl in the flat of her lap. Had never thought to see this lute in any hands but her master's. "How did you come by this?" She asked him, not because she desired to know, but because it gave her an excuse not to touch those strings. She felt an odd fear as her hands hovered above them, and she could not easily name it.

Unnamed fears were always the worst; they had longevity because they were fostered best by ignorance. But so, too, was wonder. This lute had a history that had roots in a time that she knew by story, by conversation, by painting or tapestry: the world into which she had not yet been born. To touch it, to play it, was to make herself some part of that continuity.

But she did not pluck the strings.

It was not that she was unfamiliar with the instrument; she was not. As a pampered daughter of an adoring father—an indulgent father who had gained in rank and power with the passing of years—she had run fingers over every instrument known to man, dismissing some as too robust or too loud for a Serra of the High Court, but committing time and emotion to others.