Neveryona

by Samuel R. Delany

  Pryn knocked. The door, this one of plank, swung in an inch, not locked. But no one came to answer it.

  Pryn knocked again.

  A breeze in the branches gathered the leaf chatter into a roar, then shushed it. Perhaps this house, which had been pointed out to her and into which she’d several times seen Rorkar go, was not the house …

  Pryn knocked a third time – this time caught the leather-covered boards on her palms and pushed them back on their rope hinge …

  Sunset through the west window fell over the floor mats whose damp odor momentarily threw Pryn miles and years away to the mountain hut of a married cousin on a winter morning when it had actually snowed in the night and the white powder had begun to melt …

  A young woman came into the room, drying her head with a print cloth that flopped about her hips. The towel fell from short, curly hair. ‘Excuse me …?’ Naked save the collar at her neck, she was not much older – or younger – than Pryn.

  ‘I was … supposed to come here.’

  ‘Oh,’ the slave said. ‘You’re Tetya’s tutor?’

  Pryn nodded.

  ‘The master’s mentioned you on and off this whole week now.’ She balled up the cloth. ‘Somehow I just thought you were a boy. And an older boy at that. Come in.’ She put the cloth down on a bench at the wall and started off through a doorway.

  Pryn followed down a passage, one wall of which was stone.

  As they stepped out of the hallway, Tetya turned at the wooden table where he was sitting and smiled; and Rorkar did not.

  At the porch’s edge, Yrnik leaned on a supporting pole, gazing out over slopes, valleys, hills – the view here was astonishing – while the roof edge dripped.

  The house slave said: ‘Can I get you anything?’

  Rorkar grunted.

  The house slave, apparently understanding, went off to get it.

  Under the wooden table legs, Pryn saw the old peasant wore sandals.

  Pryn stood for the length of half a dozen breaths, till Tetya said: ‘Come here and sit down. Uncle doesn’t mind.’

  As Pryn started to the bench beside Tetya, Old Rorkar grumbled, ‘Who are you to say what I mind or don’t mind?’ so that Pryn stopped again. Rorkar glanced up at her, apparently surprised at her surprise. ‘Well, go on! Sit down – if you want. Why should I object?’

  Feeling as uncomfortable as, moments ago with the familiar dampness of the mats, she had felt at home, Pryn slipped onto the bench beside Tetya.

  ‘I mean,’ Rorkar went on, ‘this is not a house like his Lordship’s, mind you, with “Come in,” and “Do sit down,” and “Won’t you have some of this or that?” Even if I have a slave or two, it’s because I need them. You do what you want here. It’s just an ordinary house. You can do the ordinary things that anyone wants to.’

  The house slave returned with a wide tray of woven slats on which were a pitcher and some mugs. She set the tray on the table.

  Rorkar said: ‘Have some beer … if you want some.’

  But as Pryn reached for the pitcher, he waved his hand. ‘No, let the slave pour. What do you think we have her here for?’ As Pryn pulled her hand back to her lap, he added, ‘No, no; go on – go on, take it yourself, if that’s how you want to do it. You just do what you’re most comfortable doing. Go on.’

  Pryn glanced about, about as uncomfortable as it was possible to be.

  ‘Just because she can write – ’ Rorkar chuckled – ‘I think she feels she’s too good for our ordinary ways here, ch?’

  Mild confusion became mild anger. Pryn thought (and as she thought it, she thought of the characters it would take to write it): I’ve never had a slave pour for me in my life! At the same moment she pictured the Liberator. She picked up the pitcher and poured copper liquid into a mug till yellow foam crested the brim.

  Then she set the pitcher down.

  Foam still rose, brimmed the mug’s red lip, and rolled over.

  The slave filled the others.

  When Pryn lifted hers, foam dripped into her lap. In a distant part of the country, she thought, setting the mug back on the table, perhaps you must expect to feel uncomfortable. Written symbols still flickered among the words. And the Liberator had worn an iron collar too. ‘Why did you want me here?’

  ‘Well, his Lordship invited you to his house. I just wanted to see why he … well, I thought it would be nice to invite you here. As well. We’re very ordinary people, here, you know. Not like his Lordship at all. If you didn’t want to come …?’

  Pryn shrugged. ‘Thank you for inviting me. It was very nice of you.’ Great-aunt would have approved.

  ‘I had the feeling, you know, that you didn’t want to come. I said to myself, why should she want to visit me just because she’s been invited to visit his Lordship. There’d be no reason.’

  Yrnik sucked his teeth and turned from the post.

  ‘Well, it’s true! I would understand if she didn’t. Who wants to make someone do something they don’t want to? Perhaps she thinks she deserves to be invited?’ Rorkar leaned toward Tetya. ‘Hey, do you think that’s what she thinks?’

  Pryn turned toward Tetya, vaguely curious as to what, precisely, he did think. Tetya handed Yrnik up a mug. Then he took one for himself – and blew foam, splattering, onto the table.

  Pryn exploded with laughter – while Rorkar batted at his nephew’s head:

  ‘Weasel! Badger! Dirty shoat! You think you’re in some barbarian shambles? This is a decent home, with decent people living in it! I suppose you’d do that if his Lordship invited you to his home too!’

  ‘His Lordship,’ Pryn said, recovering, ‘seems to be a very fine man.’ Her aunt’s endless sullenness and interminable suspicions came back among all the reasons she’d yearned to leave home. Here, looking directly at this mummer’s skit of it, she felt oddly free of them. It had occurred to her that these insults and wheedlings were far less shattering than murder or sex, so that she could suffer them with the provisional interest of one who had ridden in the sky – and could write about it.

  ‘Hey …?’ Rorkar turned to her.

  ‘I said, “His Lordship seems a man comfortable with all peoples, a fine and good person.” ’ Pryn realized, as one who could write, that this was not what she had said at all.

  ‘Oh. Well … I suppose his Lordship is comfortable enough. He’s certainly rich enough to be comfortable. Not as rich as he once was, though – and you can be sure it galls him. But he’s comfortable. Well, so am I. Comfortable. Here in my house. Here. I’m comfortable enough with what I have – here – with what I’ve made for myself, out of it all. Though not with people. It’s true. You’re right.’ Rorkar took a long drink from his mug. ‘I’m not comfortable with people. New people. Just like you say.’ He laughed again. ‘Always wondering what they think of me, you know? I’m just an ordinary man. I’ve been a little luckier than some – worked a little harder than some others.’

  ‘I never thought you were uncomfortable.’ Pryn had thought the old peasant was barbarically rude; the notion, however, that this rudeness might be a manifestation of an equally barbaric discomfort intrigued her enough for her to stay seated. ‘With people.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ Rorkar inquired. ‘Well, believe me, I am! I’m a very ordinary man – have all the feelings any ordinary man has – or, I dare say, an ordinary woman. Even an ordinary girl. Like you.’ He smiled, actually looking at Pryn directly for the first time since she’d come in; which was when Pryn decided both that she did not like him, and that he was probably not a bad human being. She smiled back – and felt somewhat sorry at her judgment.

  ‘I like you,’ Rorkar continued, ‘I liked you from the first I met you, out at the hiring table. In the field. When you came up, looking for a job – looking like a fat little chipmunk. That’s why I hired you in the first place. I don’t hire somebody that I don’t take to – certainly not as a tutor for my nephew. But of course that wasn’t decided on till later. When Yrnik found out
you could write. I asked you up here, you know, to see what his Lordship might possibly see in you to invite you to his home! It can’t only be that you can write. Yrnik there can write, and he’s never been invited to his Lordship’s. But now I think I see it. It’s simply because you’re a nice, ordinary person. Like me. Like any of us. And you’re honest about it. The way I am. His Lordship looked at you and saw that. Me, I’m too uncomfortable with people to look at them and see that right off – to look at strangers and see that. Before I get to know them.’

  ‘Yrnik never got invited to his Lordship’s because Yrnik’s not a pretty girl.’ Tetya scooped more foam from his mug with a forefinger and sucked it off. ‘That’s all. Uncle doesn’t trust his Lordship.’

  ‘Well, now I never said …’ Rorkar frowned at Tetya, at Yrnik (who had taken his mug back to the pole and was again gazing moodily on the darkening landscape), at Pryn.

  ‘If all your land and your slaves once belonged to his Lordship, you probably shouldn’t trust him.’ Pryn smiled to hear her aunt’s inflections in her own voice and found them, so far from home, both warming and annoying. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Well …’ A corner of Rorkar’s mouth pulled into a half-frown. ‘Oh, it certainly wasn’t all his. Some of it was, I admit. Most of the parts you see, I suppose: the slave barracks we converted into the eating hall and the land around it. And the orchards that front the road, of course – but I had the road built. The road’s mine … but all this land belonged to one lord or another. What land in the Garth didn’t? And it wasn’t all the earl’s, by any means – though he’s very anxious, the Earl Jue-Grutn, whenever we meet, that it be clearly stated whose land it once was. In twenty years I’ve never met him where it wasn’t clearly stated. You will never meet him where he doesn’t state it, I’ll bet you. And if, somehow, he’s tricked out of stating it, or distracted from stating it, he’ll be a very unhappy earl!’ Rorkar laughed. ‘Won’t he? No – ’ Rorkar’s mug came down on the table – ‘I don’t trust him! Why should I? Do you?’ That to Yrnik – ‘You grow up, boy, and take over this brewery – ’ and that to Tetya – ‘believe me: You’ll be a fool to trust him! You say he gets along with all kinds of people? Well, why doesn’t he get along with me, I ask you? No, I’m very much the one who has to get along with him! You heard him, this evening? All of you did – you too, girl. “Why don’t you get married, old peasant?” “If you’re too old, I’ve powers to restore you.” ’ The elderly man puckered his lips in a disgust so strong Pryn thought he might spit on his own floor. ‘Why should a man’s marriage be anyone’s affair but his own – it’s not as if I were some witless fool – like your father, Tetya – or my own father, for that matter, who needed a master to tell him in which wench he’d do best to look for offspring. I tell my own workers today – when they ask me – which strapping fellow or strong wench will give them a child with a good back and a fine character. I can judge differences in men – and women. And he would tell me? Ha! I never wanted to marry, and I have my reasons – though certainly he would never understand that. When last I was at the earl’s home – ’ Rorkar suddenly frowned at Pryn – ‘for certain you didn’t think he only invited you to his house and never invited me, did you?’

  Pryn shook her head.

  Rorkar shook his too, more slowly, ponderingly. ‘Imagine, thinking something like that! The last time I was at the earl’s house to dine with him and his wife – that’s not the wife he has now, I’m talking about. The earlier one – I’ve met the new one too, of course. Anyway. The other wife. It was after dinner. The earl and I were walking in one of the gardens, and his Lordship put his hand on my arm and said, “Really, Rorkar. I’m always joking with you about marriage, but you’ve become a man of property and prestige. You should take yourself a woman, a practical and industrious woman, to help you run your business and to keep up appearances. A man in your position – or mine – we look better to our underlings when we have wives.” His last wife left him, you know.

  Just like that – so for “appearances” he divorced her and took another. He’s got a third, now, the youngest of the lot.’ Rorkar humphed. ‘When I tell a worker what suitor she should choose to give us good sons and daughters, the woman and her mate stay together. A mate for appearances! Can you imagine it?’ Rorkar bent toward Pryn and laid his hard, small hand on her arm. ‘Who would mate like that? That’s certainly not what I’m about! No, that’s not what we’re about at all in this house – no, this is not a great house at all. It’s the ordinary house of an ordinary man. Perhaps an earl worries and frets about appearances. But not an ordinary man like me! Why should I?’

  While he’d leaned toward her, under the table, Pryn noticed, he’d taken the opportunity to work his sandals off. They lay, one rightside up, one upside down, by the table leg. Pryn rubbed the edges of her bare feet together.

  ‘What uncle really gets mad at,’ Tetya said, ‘is the way his Lordship calls everyone “my man” – just as though we were still his slaves.’

  ‘Who are you to say what I get mad at and what I don’t!’ snapped the peasant. ‘And I was never his slave! Nor was my father a slave of his father’s … one of my grandmothers, it’s true, was owned by Lord Aldamir. But she escaped and only came back after ten years; she took over a piece of land to farm and was never bothered by his Lordship. At all. That’s the truth. It is true: the earl addresses everyone as “my man.” One day when he comes by, I should simply say, “Well, hello there, my man” – even before he opens his mouth to speak to me at all. Now that would be a joke. Don’t you think?’ Rorkar took another swallow, and elbowed Tetya. ‘A fine joke!’ He settled back and drew bare feet beneath him.

  Yrnik turned against his post to gaze at the table with the same moody expression with which he’d been gazing out at the evening.

  The naked house slave, whom Pryn had not noticed depart, returned through the hall door. The girl looked about, rubbing at one ear, then stepped in and squatted by the jamb as if awaiting instruction.

  ‘Of course I shall never do it.’ Rorkar looked into his mug. ‘I’m not a joking man. Never had time for jokes – not with the brewery, here. But it would be a joke, now. If I did it. Nothing serious – he’d pee all over himself, like a drunken slave caught dipping in the barrel!’

  Pryn smiled.

  No one else did.

  Rorkar looked up. ‘Where do you know his Lordship from?’

  Pryn’s smile dissolved in puzzlement

  ‘Come on. He said he’d already met you. When did you meet him? And where?’

  ‘I … I only met him outside the hall,’ Pryn said. ‘Minutes before you came in. In the rain.’ Part of her confusion was that she did not want to mention her exploration of the old slave benches. ‘We only spoke a few words.’

  ‘Only a few words?’ His frown deepened. ‘In the rain?’ Rorkar held his mug against his tunic belly. Small, knobby fingers meshed around it. ‘Now, I didn’t know that. I thought he meant he’d met you at some great house or other, when he was visiting some other important lord. That’s what I thought he meant – back when I asked you up here. Though, of course, you didn’t strike me as that kind of person – you seemed like an ordinary enough girl. Even if you can read and write a little. Yrnik there can read and write, and he’s an ordinary man. Aren’t you – Yrnik, my man!’ Rorkar laughed. ‘But that’s why I want Tetya to learn. There’s nothing that says ordinary folk can’t know a thing or two. I can’t read or write. And you heard his Lordship: even he doesn’t know how to read and write by the system you do … that’s probably because it’s a commercial system. His Lordship knows nothing of commerce. And I still don’t trust him …’

  Pryn had a sudden premonition Tetya was about to say something like: Uncle only invited you up here because he thought you were somebody the earl thought was important – and interrupted this Tetya-of-the-mind with: ‘Does this – ’she lifted her astrolabe – ‘have anything special about it?’

  ‘Hey?’
Rorkar squinted, is what special?’

  ‘This.’ Pryn had already decided that there was no secret in the astrolabe that she might want to preserve or exploit, even such a treasure as the tale-teller had spoken of. (That was for non-existent masked warriors with double-bladed swords!) As she lifted it, she saw how much the evening had dimmed. ‘Do you know anything about it? Any of you?’ The sky was as deep a blue as some dahlia at Madame Keyne’s. ‘Tetya already said he didn’t – only that the marks around the edge might be writing. A kind of writing …’

  ‘Let me see.’ Yrnik stepped forward. ‘That thing you wear around your neck?’ He put his mug on the table and laid thick, dark fingers on the wood, leaning. ‘I’ve seen such marks on old stones around here. But the thing itself is not something I know – a sailor once showed me something like it for finding where you were on the open sea, he said – something to do with different stars. Here, I can hardly make it out …’

  ‘Let me have a look.’ Rorkar lifted the bolted disks and turned them, squinting, it’s good work. Local work. Old work, too – like something that could well have been made around here, from the marks on it. Like Yrnik said. It’s the kind of thing we might turn up as boys, exploring some old abandoned great house.’

  ‘Somebody gave it to me in an all but abandoned great house in Neveryóna.’

  ‘Neveryóna?’ Rorkar frowned. ‘What would a girl like you know of Neveryóna – an ordinary, northern girl?’

  Pryn looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘Well,’ Rorkar went on, ‘I suspect you just happened to be there, that’s all! Before you were here. And you met somebody else who happened to be there who gave it to you. There’s nothing out of the ordinary in that!’ He let the astrolabe fall. (Pryn sat back.) ‘There’s your explanation!’

  ‘Sir …?’