C J Cherryh - Brothers of Earth

by Brothers Of Earth [lit]

  "We are so happy," she said, in human speech. The machine's reflex pained him, punishing understanding.

  It was all Mim had time to say, for there was Kta's step on the landing, and Mim bowed and slipped out as Kta came in.

  "Much crying in our house these days," said Kta, casting a look after Mim's retreat down the stairs. Then he looked at Kurt, smiled a little. "But no more. Ei, Kurt, sit, sit, please. You look like a man three days drowned."

  Kurt ran his hand through his hair and fell into a chair. His limbs were shaking. His hands were white. "Speak Nechai," he said. "It is easier."

  Kta blinked, looked him over. "How is this?" he asked, and there was unwelcome suspicion in his voice.

  "Trust me," Kurt said hoarsely. "The Methi has machines which can do this. I would not lie to you."

  "You are pale," said Kta. "You are shaking. Are you hurt?"

  "Tired," he said. "Kta... thank yon, thank you for taking me back."

  Kta bowed a little. "Even my honored father came and spoke for you, and never in all the years of our house has Elas done such a thing. But you are of Elas. We are glad to receive you."

  "Thank you."

  He rose and attempted a bow. He had to catch at the table to avoid losing his balance. He made it to the bed and sprawled. His memory ceased before he had stopped moving.

  Something tugged at his ankle. He thought he had fallen into the sea and something was pulling him down. But he could not summon the strength to move.

  Then the ankle came free and cold air hit his foot. He opened his eyes on Mim, who began to remove the other sandal. He was lying on his own bed, fully clothed, and cold. Outside the window it was night. His legs were like ice, his arms likewise.

  Mini's dark eyes looked up, realized that he was awake. "Kta takes bad care for you," she said, "leaving you so. You have not moved. You sleep like the dead."

  "Speak Nechai," he asked of her. "I have been taught."

  Her look was briefly startled. Then she accepted human strangeness with a little bow, wiped her hands on her chatem and dragged at the bedding to cover him, pulling the bedclothes from beneath him, half-asleep as he was.

  "I am sorry," she said. "I tried not to wake you, but the night was cold and my lord Kta had left the window open and the light burning."

  He sighed deeply and reached for her hand as it drew the coverlet across him. "Mim-"

  "Please." She evaded his hand, slipped the pin from his shoulder and hauled the tangled ctan from beneath him, jerked the catch of his wide belt free, then drew the covers up to his chin.

  "You will sleep easier now," she said.

  He reached for her hand again, preventing her going. "Mim, What time is it?"

  "Late... late." She pulled, but he did not let go, and she glanced down, her lashes dark against her bronze cheeks. "Please, please let me go, lord Kurt."

  "I asked Djan, asked her to send you word, so you would not worry."

  "Word came. We did not know how to understand it. It was only that you were safe. Only that." She pulled again. "Please."

  Her lips trembled and her eyes were terrified; when he let her hand go she spun around and fled to the door. She hardly paused to close it, her slippered feet pattering away down the stairs at breakneck speed.

  If he had had the strength he would have risen and gone after her, for he had not meant to hurt Mim on the very night of his return. He lay awake and was angry, at nemet custom and at himself, but his head hurt abominably and made him dizzy. He sank into the soft down and slipped away. There was tomorrow. Mim would have gone to bed too, and he would scandalize the house by trying to speak to her tonight.

  The morning began with tea, but there was no Mim, cheerily bustling in with morning linens and disarranging things. She did appear in the rhmei to serve, but she kept her eyes down when she poured for him.

  "Mim," he whispered at her, and she spilled a few drops, which burned, and moved quickly to pour for Kta. She spilled even his, at which the dignified nemet shook his burned hand and looked up wonderingly at the girl, but said nothing.

  There had been the usual round of formalities, and Kurt had bowed deeply before Nym and Ptas and Aimu, and thanked the lord of Elas in his own language for his intercession with Djan.

  "You speak very well," Nym observed by way of acknowledging him, and Kurt realized he should have explained through Kta. An elder nemet cherished his dignity, and Kurt saw that he must have mightily offended lord Nym with his human sense of the dramatic.

  "Sir," said Kurt, "you honor me. By machines I do this. I speak slowly yet and not well, but I do recognize what is said to me. When I have listened a few days, I will be a better speaker. Forgive me if I have offended you. I was so tired yesterday I had no sense left to explain where I have been or why."

  The honorable Nym considered, and then the faintest of smiles touched his face, growing to an expression of positive amusement. He touched his laced fingers to his breast and inclined his head, apology for laughter.

  "Welcome a second time to Elas, friend of my son. You bring gladness with you. There are smiles on faces this morning, and there were few the days we were in fear for you. Just when we thought we had comprehended humans, here are more wonders-and what a relief to be able to talk without waiting for translations!"

  So they were settled together, the ritual of tea begun. Lady Ptas sat enthroned in their center, a comfortable woman. Somehow when Kurt thought of Elas, Ptas always came first to mind: a gentle and dignified lady with graying hair, the very heart of the family, which among nemet a mother was; Nym's lady, source of life and love, protectress of Ms ancestral religion. Into a wife's hands a man committed his hearth; into a daughter-in-law's hands, his hope of a continuing eternity. Kurt began to understand why fathers chose their sons' mates. Considering the affection that was evident between Nym and Ptas, he could no longer think such marriages were loveless. It was right, it was proper, and he sat cross-legged on a fleece rug, equal to Kta, a son of the house, drinking the strong sweetened tea and feeling that he had come home indeed.

  After tea lady Ptas rose and bowed formally before the hearthfire, lifting her palms to it. Everyone stood in respect, and her sweet voice called upon the Guardians.

  "Ancestors of Elas, upon this shore and the other of the Dividing Sea, look kindly upon us. Kurt t'Morgan has come back to us. Peace be between the guest of our home and the Guardians of Elas. Peace be among us."

  Kurt was greatly touched, and bowed deeply to lady Ptas when she was done.

  "Lady Ptas," he said, "I honor you very much." He would have said like a son, but he would not inflict that doubtful compliment on the nemet lady.

  She smiled at him with the affection she gave her children. From that moment, Ptas had his heart.

  "Kurt," said Kta when they were alone in the hall after breakfast, "my father bids you stay as long as it pleases you. This he asked me to tell you. He would not burden you with giving answer on the instant, but he would have you know this."

  "He is very kind," said Kurt. "You have never owed me all of the things you have done for me. Your oath never bound you this far."

  "Those who share the hearth of Elas," said Kta, "have been few, but we never forget them. We call this guest-friendship. It binds your house and mine for all time. It can never be broken."

  He spent the days much in Kta's company within Elas, talking, resting, enjoying the sun in the inner court of the house where there was a small garden.

  One thing remained to trouble him: Mim was unusually absent. She no longer came to his rooms when he was there.

  No matter how he varied his schedule, she would not come; he only found his bed changed when he would return after some absence. When he hovered about the places where she usually worked, she was simply not to be found.

  "She is at market," Hef informed him on a morning when he finally gathered his courage to ask.

  "She has not been much about lately," Kurt observed.

  Hef shrugged.
"No, lord Kurt. She has not."

  And the old man looked at him strangely, as if Kurt's anxiety had undermined the peace of his morning too.

  He became the more determined. When he heard the front door close at noon, he sprang up to run downstairs; but he had only a glimpse of her hurrying by the opposite hall into the ladies' quarters behind the rhmei. That was the territory of Ptas, and no man but Nym could set foot there.

  He walked disconsolately back to the garden and sat in the sun, staring at nothing in particular and tracing idle patterns in the pale dust.

  He had hurt her. Mim had not told the matter to anyone, he was sure, for he would have had Kta to deal with if she had.

  He wished desperately that he could ask someone how to apologize to her, but it was not something he could ask of Kta or of Hef; and certainly he dared ask no one else.

  She served at dinner that night, as at every meal, and still avoided his eyes. He dared not say anything to her. Kta was sitting beside him.

  Late that night he set himself in the hall and doggedly waited, far past the hour when the family was decently in bed, for the chan of Elas had as her last duties to set out things for breakfast tea and to extinguish the hall lights as she retired to bed.

  She saw him there, blocking her way to her rooms. For a moment he feared she would cry out; her hand flew to her lips. But she stood her ground, still looking poised to run.

  "Mim. Please. I want to talk with you."

  "I do not want to talk with you. Let me pass."

  "Please."

  "Do not touch me. Let me pass. Do you want to wake all the house?"

  "Do that, if you like. But I will not let you go until you talk with me."

  Her eyes widened slightly. "Kta will not permit this."

  "There are no windows on the garden and we cannot be heard there. Come outside, Mim. I swear I want only to talk."

  She considered, her lovely face~ looking so frightened he hurt for her; but she yielded and walked ahead of him to the garden. The world's moon cast dim shadows here. She stopped where the light was brightest, clasping her arms against the chill of the night.

  "Mim," he said, "I did not mean to frighten you that night. I meant no harm by it."

  "I should never have been there alone. It was my fault. Please, lord Kurt, do not look at me that way. Let me go."

  "Because I am not nemet, you felt free to come in and out of my room and not be ashamed with me. Was that it, Mim?"

  "No." Her teeth chattered so she could hardly talk, and the cold was not enough for that. He slipped the pin off his ctan, but she would not take it from him, flinching from the offered garment.

  "Why can I not talk to you?" he asked. "How does a man ever talk to a nemet woman? I refrain from this, I refrain from that, I must not touch, must not look, must not think. How am I to-?"

  "Please."

  "How am I to talk with you?"

  "Lord Kurt, I have made you think I am a loose woman. I am chart to this house; I cannot dishonor it. Please let me go inside."

  A thought came to him. "Are you his? Are you Kta's?"

  "No," she said.

  Against her preference he took the ctan and draped it about her shoulders. She hugged it to her. He was near enough to have touched her. He did not, nor did she move back. He did not take that for invitation. He thought that whatever he did, she would not protest or raise the house. It would be trouble between her lord Kta and his guest, and he understood enough of nemet dignity to know that Mim would choose silence. She would yield, hating him.

  He had no argument against that.

  In sad defeat, he bowed a formal courtesy to her and turned away.

  "Lord Kurt," she whispered after him, distress in her voice.

  He paused, looking back.

  "My lord, you do not understand."

  "I understand," he said, "that I am human. I have offended you. I am sorry."

  "Nemet do not-" She broke off in great embarrassment, opened her hands, pleading. "My lord, seek a wife. My lord Nym will advise you. You have connections with the Methi and with Elas. You could marry, easily you could marry, if Nym approached the right house-"

  "And if it was you I wanted?"

  She stood there without words, until he came back to her and reached for her. Then she prevented him with her slim hands on his. "Please," she said. "I have done wrong with you already."

  He ignored the protest of her hands and took her face between his palms ever so gently, fearing at each moment she would tear from him in horror. She did not. He bent and touched his lips to hers, delicately, almost chastely, for he thought the human custom might disgust or frighten her.

  Her smooth hands still rested on his arms. The moon glistened on tears hi her eyes when he drew back from her. "Lord," she said, "I honor you. I would do what you wish, but it would shame Kta and it would shame my father and I cannot."

  "What can you?" He found his own breathing difficult. "Mim, what if some day I did decide to talk with your father? Is that the way things are done?"

  "To marry?"

  "Some day it might seem a good thing to do."

  She shivered in his hands. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks.

  "Mim, will you give me yes or no? Is a human hard for you to look at? If you had rather not say, then just say 'let me be' and I will do my best after this not to bother you."

  "Lord Kurt, you do not know me."

  "Are you determined I will never know you?"

  "You do not understand. I am not the daughter of Hef. If you ask him for me he must tell you, and then you will not want me."

  "It is nothing to me whose daughter you are."

  "My lord, Elas knows. Elas knows. But you must listen to me now, listen. You know about the Tamurlin. I was taken when I was thirteen. For three years I was slave to them. Hef only calls me his daughter, and all Nephane thinks I am of this country. But I am not, Kurt. I am Indras, of Indresul. And they would kill me if they knew. Elas has kept this to itself. But you, you cannot bear such a trouble. People must not look at you and think Tamurlin-it would hurt you in this city-and when they see me, that is what they must think."

  "Do you believe," he asked, "that what they think matters with me? I am human. They can see that."

  "Do you not understand, my lord? I have been property of every man in that village. Kta must tell you this if you ask Hef for me. I am not honorable. No one would marry Mim h'EIas. Do not shame yourself and Kta by making Kta say this to you."

  "After he had said it," said Kurt, "would he give his consent?"

  "Honorable women would marry you. Sufaki have no fear of humans as Indras do. Perhaps even a daughter of some merchant would marry you. I am only chan, and before that I was nothing at all."

  "If I was to ask," he said, "would you refuse?"

  "No. I would not refuse." Her small face took on a look of pained bewilderment. "Kurt-ifhan, surely you will think better of this in the morning."

  "I am going to talk to Hef," he said. "Go inside, Mim. And give me back my cloak. It would not do for you to Wear it inside."

  "My lord, think a day before you do this."

  "I will give it tomorrow," he said, "for thinking it over. And you do the same. And if you have not come to me by tomorrow evening and asked me and said clearly that you do not want me, then I will talk to Hef."

  It was, he had time to think that night and the next morning, hardly reasonable. He wanted Mim. He had had no knowledge of her to say that he loved her, or that she loved him.

  He wanted her. She had set her terms and there was no living under the same roof with Mim without wanting her.

  He could apply reason to the matter, until he looked into her face at breakfast as she poured the tea, or as she passed him in the hall and looked at him with a dreadful anxiety.

  Have you thought better of it? the look seemed to say. Was it, after all, only for the night?

  Then the feeling was back with him, the surety that,

  should
he lose Mim by saying nothing, he would lose something irreplaceable.

  In the end, he found himself that evening gathering his courage before the door of Hef, who served Elas, and standing awkwardly inside the door when the old man admitted him.

  "Hef," he said, "may I talk to you about Mim?"

  "My lord?" asked the old man, bowing.

  "What if I wanted to marry her? What should I do?"

  The old nemet looked quite overcome then, and bowed several times, looking up at him with a distraught expression. "Lord Kurt, she is only chan."