"That eperu," Thesenet declared, "needs a ring."
I eyed him. "I hope that's not a prelude to you announcing that you'll be claiming House Asara's pefna for the empire."
"What?" Thesenet said and shook himself. "Gods, no!" He chuckled. "I'd be a fool to do that. You have a treasure there, Pathen, and you've employed its talents well, far better than I ever would. I'll leave it in your capable hands, it and all the eperu it needs to grow this enterprise... yes, and any other enterprise it dreams up as well!" His ears splayed. "No, I wouldn't take it. It belongs here."
"I'm glad we agree," I said. As he stared after it, I added quietly, "I tried to give it a ring."
Thesenet glanced at me.
"It refused," I said, meeting his eyes.
I did not have to explain why. He knew Hesa well enough by now to understand that it would never endanger the House or the eperu it managed by accepting. And I knew him well enough by now to point that out to him... so that we could both look at it and acknowledge how the empire failed itself in denying the worth of the eperu. I didn't know if he would change anything based on that acknowledgement, but I no longer feared that he would hold my suggestions against me.
The minister looked after Hesa, then swept the rest of the eperu in the warehouse with his gaze before saying, "You've done well, Pathen."
"Thank you," I said, and followed him out, respecting the silence of his busy thoughts.
All three caravans went out by afternoon. When the dust of their passage settled, there was a great pause, as if the warehouse was holding its breath.
And then there was a celebration. What else? I sent runners for food and drink, for the emodo of the House and yes, the anadi as well if they wanted to come. By sunset a platform made of spare crates had been erected and there were eperu on it playing music, and on the cold hard earth in front of the warehouse, the eperu danced. The firebowls were lit, the food was laid out, and House Asara celebrated again... and if this party was more raucous than the last one, well... it was an eperu's party. Kuli's gathering had been an intimate one, a celebration of private joys and hope for a new Ke Bakil. Hesa's was giddy with relief and spilling over with the pride of work well-done.
It was strange to realize that before the empire, such joys would have been kept to each sex. Darsi, Abadil, Ganeth... none of us would have seen either mystery. I much preferred Asara's way... and from the laughter and pleasure around me, so did everyone else. I found emodo sharing cups with eperu, and the anadi, few but precious, mingling among the throng around the musicians. And we all danced, emodo, eperu, even the visiting anadi, and while Kuli abstained from the exertion she clapped along to the music from her perch on a crate by Darsi and laughed to see the flashing bodies by firelight. I even saw Ganeth take a set with one of the anadi... and the rest of his Claws joining the eperu.
The music written for all the sexes to dance together hadn't been played since the Stone Moon but all of us were old enough to remember it. The gentle songs meant for the anadi and emodo together, the long chained dances meant for all three sexes, twining together, passing one another from hand to hand in an expression of trust older than the Stone Moon, older than civilization. The musicians reminded us of our duties to one another and the joys of sharing them, and we all partook and in that partaking re-stated our commitment to those truths.
And then there were the songs meant for emodo and eperu, the ones that approached acrobatics, designed to showcase the strength of the emodo and the stamina and grace of the eperu. I danced those sets with Hesa, and never forgot the heat of its palm against mine and the laugh in its eyes as I swept it up and threw it. Its orange scarf fluttered like fire against the cobalt-dark sky.
The messenger found me while I was quenching my thirst on some sort of warmed wine with Darsi and Kuli. Puzzled, I accepted the box from the eperu, who said, "An imperial runner brought it, ke emodo."
I opened it and hissed at the sight of what was in it.
"Ke emodo?" Kuli asked, alarmed, but Darsi stayed her, watching my face.
"Ke eperu," I said, putting my arm around the messenger's shoulder, "I need you to go back to the House and find something for me..."
When the eperu returned, I let the musicians finish their song and then hopped onto the crates alongside them, raising my arms for the attention of my House. Almost everyone was here, save for a few who'd volunteered to watch the estate in shifts, for no doubt the eperu would carry this celebration on until long after the emodo were ready to sleep.
"As you can see," I said, sweeping my arm toward the building, "the warehouse is done."
Laughter and cheers, and then silence.
"The empire has come and found it good," I said. "Very good. You have exceeded the minister's every expectation. In het Narel, there is no reputation like the reputation of the members of House Asara... even the eperu."
One of the emodo called, "Especially the eperu!"
I saluted him and the crowd cheered while the eperu no doubt squirmed and blushed. They were none of them good at accepting gratitude... but then, we'd rarely given them cause to practice.
"We're not the only ones who think so," I said. "The minister has sent House Asara gifts. The day off you know about—" Plenty of enthusiasm there, "—but he has also sent another." I held up the box. Most of the Jokka in the crowd were too far to see what it was, but I heard gasps closer to me. For those in the back, then, I opened the box and coaxed what it held from its gods-breath fabric nest before holding it up... and the firelight shone like a star falling down the length of the piercing needle.
"Hesa Asara-emodo," I called. "Will you step up on this platform and become the first sheña named in a Jokku House since the coming of the Stone Moon?"
The crowd backed away from Hesa, who had been standing in their midst. I was aware of them but in that moment the only eyes I saw were my beloved's as it lifted its chin. How I loved those eyes… had loved them from the moment I saw them in a temple in het Kabbanil. Its clear alto rose through the waiting silence.
"I would be honored."
The cheers then didn't stop until Hesa had joined me on the platform and I opened my other hand to reveal the pale scarf touched with flame yellow... and in it, the golden ring. The musicians pulled a second crate over for Hesa to sit on and left me to my task.
The Jokka watching fell silent, so completely I could hear the snap of the fire in the breeze and Hesa's quickened breathing. "Have you done this before?" it murmured.
"No," I said. "But I know something about it." And I did, because I'd troubled myself to ask the emodo who'd sold me the ring how to award it. So I dipped the needle in the small bottle included in the box Thesenet had sent and gently spread the base of Hesa's ear until I found the hard cartilage near its skull. "Ready?"
"Yes," it answered, closing its eyes.
It flinched when I pushed the needle through, but then we were done. I dipped the earring's post in the same bottle and then screwed it in place, lustrous yellow against dark hair. Then I stepped back and pulled the eperu up from the crate, offering it to the House for approval... and their approval was loud. Looking down among them I was suddenly back on the dais in het Kabbanil, feeling the cold rejection of a life none of us wanted to live and a ceremony none of us wanted to attend. The jubilation of the Jokka of my House washed that chill away. If we could create this here, surely we could create it elsewhere. Everywhere.
I smiled at Hesa. It smiled back and mouthed, "Vision."
I murmured, "Support."
Its mouth quirked, and then it let me hand it down to its enthusiastic subordinates. The musicians took up their instruments. If there was a rapture like the sight of joy in the people for whom you've taken responsibility, I have yet to know it.
After the event at the warehouse, the Leaf Gathering was anti-climactic. In the dark of one of the last evenings of autumn we joined the powers of the het to mingle and talk while the musicians played rather more restrained offerings than we'd danced to, two n
ights past. It was tradition in het Narel for all the principals of the House to attend, so I brought Darsi, Abadil, Hesa and Kuli; we were not the only ones to bring one of our anadi prizes, I saw, but Hesa was, of course, the only eperu wearing a ring. I saw that detail catch eyes as we moved among the Jokka in the great stone hall. What to think of it? An eperu with a sheña's ring!
And that was nothing to Kuli's revelation, which Abadil shared with Eduñil and Rozen. Both of them immediately came to find me.
"Is it true?" Eduñil said to me—demanded really—"have you gotten a child on your prize?"
"No one has gotten a child on anyone in House Asara," I said. "House Asara's kaña chose to have a child and requested the services of the House's emodo."
Both of them stared at me, Rozen with mouth agape. Over their shoulders I could see Abadil’s merriment clearly despite his straining to hide it. He was, as Hesa had mentioned long ago, a very bad actor.
"Would you like to ask her yourselves?" I said. "She's over there, with Darsi...."
Rozen took me by the elbow and guided me away from where we might be easily overheard. "You are telling me that on her own an anadi decided to have a baby. Not just any anadi, but one of our most recalcitrant."
"Yes," I said.
"Gods," Eduñil whispered behind him. "What have you done?"
"Apparently what all of us should have been doing," I said.
"And what's that?" Thesenet said, joining us. "Is there something amiss? You look troubled, Rozen."
Which was kindly said. Rozen could more accurately have been described as looking struck by a crazed rikka. So I said to Thesenet, "Ke Rozen is surprised that House Asara's kaña has chosen to have a child."
"She has?" Thesenet said.
"We're keeping that child," I told Thesenet.
He snorted. "You people begot her, ke emodo. I have no issue with House Asara taking on the responsibility of the infant's care and sparing the empire that expense."
"You don't?" Eduñil asked, startled.
"I have learned by now that House Asara does things in its own way," Thesenet said, sipping from his cup before finishing with a suspicious gleam in his eyes, "But they get results, so I let them."
"While you're all here," I said, "it would be a good time perhaps to discuss our allotment of children?"
Their expressions were amusing: shades of wariness, mostly.
"Go on?" Rozen said.
"We'd like our children. In particular," I said.
"The babies, you mean?" Rozen said, perplexed. "It's more usual to give Houses children old enough to take care of themselves. Otherwise it's burdensome."
"We know," I said. "But we'd rather the burden."
Thesenet was trying not to laugh at Rozen's bewildered expression. When the Head of Rabeil looked at him, the minister said, "Are you worried they'll put you out of work, Rabeil?"
"Gods no," Rozen said. "I pray for that day, Minister." And the words were so heartfelt that all of us were taken aback.
Then Thesenet touched his hand to his brow and inclined his head to him, and he flushed. "We need more Jokka like you, ke Rozen," he said. "And like House Asara’s." He smiled and wandered off.
Rozen shuddered. "That is more attention than I want from the Stone Moon. How do you handle it day after day, ke Pathen?"
"Like anything else," I said. "Practice."
We found our stride after that. Those were good times. Abadil's paper made us famous; Hesa's trade made us wealthy. We brought the luxuries of the north all the way down to het Serean... and the wood and food of the warm south all the way to het Noidla at the foot of the Birthwell mountains. And het Narel in the center prospered. Hesa began adding caravans to our schedule and warehouses in distant cities to serve as endpoints; the truedark eperu drove the wagons and we spared some of Laisira's own to spearhead the projects in distant cities. Where we didn't have the people, we hired members of the dissidents... we couldn't risk selling them weapons, so we did the next best thing: we made them rich. Money wasn't everything, but it certainly helped. So long as Thenet wasn’t planning an armed rebellion when it returned, it would have all the assistance it needed.
In late spring Kuli was sequestered in her room with House Asara’s new jarana and its assistants. I spent that night with Darsi, who needed the distraction, but in the end his worry was unnecessary. In the hour before dawn, Hesa arrived with the jarana who'd delivered the infant: an anadi, and both she and her mother healthy and happy, and would Darsi please come see her now? After they'd gone, I said to Hesa, "That was Jushet's other spy, wasn't it? Shavi?"
"Apparently before it was a spy and a fieldhand, it was an anadi-guardian," Hesa said. "A jarana of a Great House who was assigned to the first anadi residence."
"Strange choice for a spy," I said.
"Or brilliant," Hesa said. "The anadi will do anything to escape the residence. I can't imagine it being any different for anyone else." It looked down the hall where the others had gone. "Whatever the case, it's ours now. We have given it back to the work it loved first." Then it grinned. "I hope you like babies, Pathen. Sixteen of them might not seem like a lot, but you'll never guess who'll be taking on the burden of caring for them."
"I haven't had a chance to look at the schedule," I said. "Wasn't Darsi drawing one up?"
"Of Jokka in the House with work not apt to be disrupted by an infant," Hesa said.
"Oh," I said and chuckled. "Somehow I see where this is going."
It patted my arm and said, "I'll buy you a sling."
“Eperu can’t have money,” I said.
It grinned and amended, “I’ll have you buy you a sling with my salary.”
“Fine,” I said with a laugh. “As long as I pick myself something nice.”
Ganeth served as escort for the babies arriving in the arms of Rabeil's eperu, and very bewildered he was at the noise and the commotion. So were we all, but it was a satisfied sort of confusion. We needed a few weeks to settle into the routine but none of us found it a burden. House Asara's babies went everywhere their caretakers went, wrapped onto our backs or chests: through the halls of the House, into Kuli's garden, to the shop in the Green where the emodo built them a little pen full of toys... into the het on errands and on gentler missions through the fields, peering over the shoulders of eperu as they sowed our fields. I even took my own turn, reading accounts over a sleeping baby, savoring the new smell of her and aware that the future of Ke Bakil was breathing against my heart... so quick, those tiny breaths, and so precious.
"What do you suppose the end will look like?" Hesa asked me one night, head resting on my chest.
"The end?" I said.
"The Fire in the Void's deadline," it said. "A little over a year, it said. What will happen, do you think?"
"Gods know," I said, and then paused. It chuckled unwillingly and I smiled. "I didn't mean that so exactly, but in this case it's probably true." I tucked one of its errant locks back from its eye and said, "I don't know. I presume Roika and Thenet will return from their journey."
"I wonder what they're seeing," Hesa murmured.
"I wonder," I agreed.
"Do you ever want to try it? A trip across the sea?" it asked.
I laughed. "In what time, pefna?"
It smiled up at me, all mischief. "I guess we have enough to do here, don't we."
"Enough for a lifetime," I said, leaning in to kiss it, and in doing so I caught a fleeting expression on its face, one I couldn't identify. I paused, wanting to ask... but it pulled me down and took the kiss I'd been about to offer.
When we parted, it touched my mouth and smiled. "It can wait, Pathen."
And it did. But after we'd become warm and somnolent again, I couldn't sleep, and this was strange enough that Hesa lifted its head.
"What are you thinking about?" it asked, voice soft.
"Abadil," I said. "And choosing love over fear."
It canted its head, but I could not articulate those thoughts, onl
y that this feeling, of its body against mine, of the smell of it in my sheets, of our willingness to be here together... this was only the smallest part of what Abadil had meant, and yet like the tip of a spear it could not be separated from the rest.
The year waxed, and with it our fields. We'd planted half of them to support the paper industry and the other half to pay into the common food store. I found myself working through the very laws I'd once shepherded het Kabbanil's Heads of Household through, applying for subsidies to offset the tax we'd pay on the half of the food we wouldn't be contributing this year. It was strange to be on the other side of the table. Not bad, but strange.
Darsi came to me with a bottle in midsummer and plunked it onto my antechamber table before pointing at it.
"Why yes," I said from my office door. "You absolutely aren't interrupting anything."
"Pathen," he growled.
I walked over then, opened the bottle for him. "What, then?"
"Kuli wants my child now," Darsi said.
"Yours in particular," I said.
"Yes," he said. "And Void take it, Pathen... how many times can I watch her do this? I don't know how I can live through another one of her pregnancies. Three times she's done it and come out unscathed. Isn't doing it again inviting disaster? How long can she stay this lucky?"
I poured for him as he paced, agitated. When he'd run out of words, I handed him the cup and said, "Sit."
"Now you're going to tell me it's her choice and I need to support her—" he began.
"No," I said. "Now I'm going to tell you it's her choice and yours and you need to discuss it together. This is different from Kuli asking the House to stand stud duty for her. This is an anadi who loves an emodo wanting to raise a child with him."
"Is that what it is?" he said, trembling.
"Isn't it?" I said, sitting across from him.
"Gods, that's even more terrifying.” He drank off his cup as I watched. "Pathen! What do I do?"
"I don't know," I said. "That's what you and Kuli have to decide."
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