The Complete Ivory

by Doris Egan

"

  "To make a delicate flower on the outside.' I know. But—"

  "Then come along at once." She held out her hand like a young mother on the way to the park with her five-year-old.

  As they moved off into the crowd, Kylla turned to, me with a look of disgust on her face. "She's still in the charge of a nurse."

  Dangerous though it might be to defend Eliana Porath, I felt obligated to say, "Ky, you know she's expected to have a chaperone."

  "But a defensive chaperone. Not a nurse-chaperone, at her age."

  I watched Auntie Jace and Eliana disappear among the guests, and saw a tall woman detach herself from the knot of people by the porch and follow them. The woman wore a robe tied back behind a pair of trousers that would have seemed provincial if they weren't embroidered silk, and there was a suspicious bulge on one side of her hips. "I think she's got one of those, too," I said to Kylla.

  A voice said, "There they are!" and Lysander and Ran made their way to us.

  "And where have you been?" Kylla inquired, as her husband meekly kissed her cheek.

  Ran said, "We were talking to Kade first—didn't you see him catch up to us? And then we had to see the steward about the overnight arrangements. I sent back to the carriage for our cases, Theodora, and they're already stored in our room."

  Kylla said, "How many of the guests are sleeping over at this house party, anyway? The house is big, but I think they'll have trouble tucking everybody away in a manner they'd be accustomed to."

  There was a reason for her asking. Lysander glanced at Ran, who gave him no help, then hemmed and said, "Well, actually, just us four are actually staying for the whole night. But there'll be plenty of people on the boat ride tomorrow."

  "I see," said Kylla.

  "I thought there would be more houseguests," said Lysander. "But it wouldn't be polite to refuse at this point."

  "I said that I see."

  Ran put in, "We do have something of a problem, though." He turned to me and said, apologetically, "The Poraths keep cats."

  "Oh, gods." This put an entirely new complexion on the matter. "Cats, in the plural?"

  "Three," he said, with sympathy. "Scythian yellow toms. I made inquiries, and I think they're mostly confined to the kitchen and downstairs."

  Kylla looked bewildered. Ran explained, "Theodora is allergic to cats." He used the Standard word "allergic," which has no Ivoran equivalent.

  "I never met anyone who was allergic to cats," she said, with interest. "What do you do, go into fits?"

  "Everything but," I muttered. It always turns into a big deal when I find myself required to visit people with cats. The hosts invariably offer to move the cat to another room while I'm there, proud of their sacrifice, and they look at me disapprovingly when my thanks aren't effusive enough. Moving the cat accomplishes nothing—it's the little invisible bits from the cat hair that drive me to thoughts of suicide, and they're all over the house.

  "You want to go home?" asked Ran.

  Kylla and Lysander looked at me, waiting. I had the feeling that both of them would kill me, for different reasons, if I said yes.

  I said slowly, "It might possibly be manageable, if they've never been in the upstairs rooms—

  "Wonderful!" Kylla beamed. "Darling—" this to Lysander—"do you know if we'll be staying next to Ran and Theo?"

  "Uh, we'll be on the same floor," began Lysander. We all knew Kylla was wondering if somehow Eliana would be packaged and delivered to Lysander in the middle of the night, an unlikely event, but our Kylla was not her usual practical self.

  "I think we'd better check on the cats' territory," said Ran. "The steward said they belonged to some odd person with the name Auntie Jace. Some maiden relative, I guess."

  "A hired nurse," Kylla corrected flatly.

  "Oh, you know her. Can you point her out?"

  Kylla didn't move. "She's small, with curly hair, and wearing a scarlet robe."

  Lysander said helpfully, "I'll go search for her—"

  "The hell you will," said Kylla, grasping his sleeve and pulling him back. "Theo and I will locate this person. You two can go see that our things are left properly in our rooms."

  I gave Ran a look that said, Trust me, it's a good idea. He touched Lysander's shoulder and said mildly, "Why don't we do that?"

  Still slightly bewildered, Lysander was led away toward the house.

  Kylla turned and began stalking through the party like a lioness on the prowl. She spotted Auntie Jace and cut her out of the herd with the practiced gesture of one accustomed to being noticed and obeyed. Eliana, standing miserably behind her, was ignored.

  Auntie Jace took a step forward in response to Kylla's signal. "Yes?"

  I jumped in, wary of how Kylla might handle this. My only current aim, after all, was to avoid a night of allergic suffering. "Your pardon, gracious lady, but we were told you own three excellent cats in the Porath household?"

  "… Yes," she answered, confused.

  I smiled. "We're in the Shikron-Cormallon party. We'll be staying the night. Perhaps you've heard?" She nodded. "Forgive my weakness, gracious lady, but I'm afraid I suffer from an unusual ailment—an aversion to cats." I used the Ivoran word, which covers both allergies and emotional antipathies.

  "I don't understand," she said.

  "I sneeze, my nose runs, my eyes get red, I have difficulty breathing…"

  " Ah. Yes, I've heard of it. You're the first I ever met with the sickness… gracious lady." She openly observed my barbarian coloring, and threw in the gracious lady as though she wasn't quite sure whether I deserved it or was trying to con her.

  "I was wondering whether you could tell me if the cats tend to go in the upstairs chambers."

  "I don't understand," she said again.

  A long explanation followed. Finally she said, with a hint of triumph, "I can solve this easily enough, my lady. I'll just lock the cats in the kitchen for the night."

  I took a deep breath. "Ah, yes, that's very kind of you—"

  "They won't be happy about it, you know. " She fixed me with a severe look.

  "No, yes, thank you, that's very thoughtful, but—"

  "They'll probably wail all night long, they're used to the freedom of the house. They don't do any harm, you know."

  "I'm sure they don't. But what I really need to know is whether they ever go in the upstairs bedrooms…"

  A quarter of an hour later, I gave up. I was never going to know whether they went in the upstairs bedrooms. For all I could get out of Auntie Jace, they might spend their afternoons there wenching and chasing mice through the lace bedclothes. At last I said, "Thank you, we'd better go now."

  I nudged Kylla. Actually I had to nudge her twice, as I found she was staring at Eliana Porath. "We should leave, Ky."

  Auntie Jace said, "Good evening to you both, then. And the cats will be in the kitchen, so everything will be just fine, won't it, gracious lady?"

  "Just fine," I agreed. I pulled Kylla away.

  We walked toward the porch. I kept hearing a strange sound. Finally I said, "That isn't you gnashing your teeth, is it?"

  "… stupid idea…" I heard in a stream of muttering. "… council full of old men… if he thinks I'm going to stand by…" She stopped, looked up at the stars, took a deep breath and let it out. "So!" she turned to me brightly. "The offending cats will be locked up, and everything will be fine." She patted me on the shoulder and went off toward the porch steps.

  "Oh, everything will be just perfect," I agreed. I followed her into the house.

  Chapter 3

  The party broke up rather earlier than it might have, probably due to soggy shoe syndrome. But don't think the Por-aths' display was a failure; they'd impressed the hell out of everybody, and were more than pleased with themselves. The room we were shown to on the second floor had a glassed window facing the garden, well over my eye level. When the servant had left, I climbed up on the chest of bedclothes beneath it and screwed it open to get rid of the
musty smell that pervaded the entire house, and to dissipate any residual cat allergens.

  I climbed down again and said to Ran, "I am not happy."

  He said, "They're doing their best. You're annoyed because Kylla's annoyed." He hung his best outerrobe on a peg by the door.

  "And the room's chilly."

  "You just opened the window."

  "And I'm not closing it, either."

  He smiled. I sighed and pulled back the quilts. If he wasn't going to fight back, it was hardly worth my being righteously indignant.

  Ran got in next to me. "It's kind of nice being chilly under the covers. Reminds me of last summer, in the Northwest Sector."

  "You can get nostalgic about that? At the time you didn't impress me with your cheerful outlook."

  "But Theodora, we were 'courting the moon.' " This is a little bit like a honeymoon, but before the wedding party. Take my word for it, getting married on Ivory can be a complicated business. "It made being kidnapped by outlaws bearable." He kissed me. Oh, well, the hell with the cats. I helped him out of his party tunic. "What a day. I hate dealing on a social level with the Six Families."

  "I can tell." His neck was like cordwood. "Let me make you more comfortable…"

  "Why, Theodora, what a surprise."

  "Oh, shush." Ran's so controlled as a rule, so damned intense when he has something to be intent about, that I like breaking him up. About twenty minutes later he said in a mellow voice, "You know, you're really getting good at this."

  I looked up, shifting mood immediately. "What do you mean; I'm getting good? We've been married for a year. What was I like before?"

  "Not again." He sighed. "That barbarian self-consciousness is your biggest enemy."

  "I am not self-conscious." I felt myself getting red. "No more than anybody else, anyway." I turned my face into the pillow so he couldn't see my fair outlander cheeks catching fire.

  A second later I felt a cool finger touch the edge of my face. "I guess I didn't say the right thing. —Theodora? Are you coming out of there?"

  "No," I said, muffled, into the pillow. Not until the evidence was gone.

  "You know, you shouldn't take the idea that you've improved as an insult. Whatever you were like before, I was more than happy. You barbarians take this whole subject so seriously—"

  "You're digging yourself in deeper," I said, to an air pocket in the pillow.

  "Ah." He fell silent. After a few seconds he said, "Do I take it we're finished for the time being?"

  "Good night, Ran."

  He pulled back the edge of my tunic, kissed my shoulder, and prudently turned over and settled down for the night.

  Looking back, I tend to think of that day as the Evening of Snow, followed by the Night of Cats. I had good reason to look back on it later, but we'll get to that. As I lay there in the dark hour after hour, perfectly awake, it became more and more clear to me that the Porath house felines had the run of the upper bedrooms. In fact, as my nose turned into a geyser, it became clear that they spent substantial amounts of time there.

  I got up in the dark and felt around in my case till I found my handkerchief. About an hour later I got up and felt around till I found Ran's handkerchief, a thing of pure dazzling linen that I hated to use for its necessary purpose. I made the mistake of rubbing my eyes, and one of them started to itch fiendishly.

  Ran, of course, slept the sleep of the innocent through all this. A base part of me longed to wake him up so that he could suffer too, but I managed to ignore it. It wasn't his fault, after all. (Base Part of Theodora: "No, but he's put it out of his mind easily enough, hasn't he? It would serve this household right if you died under their roof, then maybe they would have listened to you!" Under the pressure of prolonged discomfort, I was rapidly reverting to a five-year-old mentality.)

  Eventually I found myself lying there listening to the sound of my breathing—an audible, wheezing sound, like a steel whistle. My windpipe felt as though it had closed up to the size of a straw.

  This wasn't working. And perhaps more seriously, I only had about a third of a handkerchief left. A dark future loomed before me.

  I got out of bed, padded across the carpet, and took the Andulsine quilt off the chest by the window and a bound copy of Kesey's Poems from my case. I stole a look at Ran, draped over the majority of the mattress, dribbling into the silk pillow sheet. The man was dead to the world. Not that he wasn't a fine-looking corpse. I thumbed my unhappy nose at his sprawled figure, and taking my stiff, damp silk shoes, I left the room.

  It was verging on dawn—still very early, as it was summer—and the house was quiet. I went downstairs, threaded my way along the halls, passed through the darkened kitchen, and emerged onto the long wooden porch that faced the garden.

  There I found a new world. Past the steps of the porch, snow covered everything. The fountain, the rocks, the discreet lights of the garden, all transformed by a white, alien weight. The party might as well never have happened. The silence had a quality one never heard in the capital. Possibly I was the only one who had ever seen this sight: That new-morning-of-the-world freshness that marks a virgin snowfall, but laid over the rich, verdant, never quiet, never-ending summer of a capital formal garden. I may have been the only human, at any rate; a robber-finch sat in a wet tree bough near the porch, its yellow chest puffed for warmth, surveying the view with a look that I could only have called dazed if I'd seen it in my own species. Over on the east wing porch, the emerald lizard lay stuporous in the chill, a scarlet blanket thrown over him, the leash in a flowery pile on the floor. By now, of course, the garden should have been full of birdsong and insect hum, and the rustle of a housecat or two on the prowl.

  The cats wouldn't want to go out and play today, I thought with some vindictive satisfaction. I settled down onto the chaise at the side of the porch and pulled the quilt around me. I felt better than I had all night. After about half an hour my nose stopped running, and I fell asleep to the constant throb of my right eye.

  A couple of hours later, it felt like, I heard sounds. Opening my eyes from my cozy nest in the chaise, I saw three servants out in the garden, brushing snow from the paths with great straw brooms. An old, bent woman in a gray outerrobe opened the two wooden doors on the east side of the courtyard that probably led to the pantries. I heard a jingle of keys as she passed the porch. She saw that I was awake and smiled at me, a gap-toothed smile. I smiled back and went to sleep.

  Something woke me again, not long after. I lay there and started to think about all the chores that had to be done before breakfast: Ran's outerrobe ought to be handed over-for pressing, he always forgot when he slept late, and I should do something to make myself look presentable—I stopped. What would I accomplish in life that was better than what I had now? Lying here under the purple and blue rectangles of the quilt, with a copy of Kesey's Poems by my feet and the wet branches and clear false-winter sky in front of me. The muted sounds of pots and pans came from the kitchen, letting me know that someone else was up and there would be society when I wanted it—soon enough, in fact. I looked out at a speckled black bird sitting on the railing about two feet from my face. Oh, it was good to be human, and have consciousness, and be on the receiving end of ten thousand years of my ancestors' effort,

  that gave me this quilt and this sheltering porch and the muted sounds that came from inside.

  Yes, I felt pretty satisfied with myself as I burrowed down into the quilt. It was one of those moments that come once or twice a year, the kind that give such spiritual sustenance you can deceive yourself into thinking you can handle the rest of your existence. "While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons, I trust nothing can make my life a burden to me." That's from one of the ancients, who made a great deal about living by a pond. I spent the chief part of my life on Athena reading through the old records, and I must say they do add texture to one's adventures.

  Musing sleepily on one level, while on another I enjoyed, animal-like, the warmth of the q
uilt and the cold of the air on my face, I became aware that one of the pairs of distant footsteps was coming closer. I opened an eye.

  The redoubtable Auntie Jace. She was glaring at me in disbelief.

  "Uh, hello." I straightened the blanket. Absurd to feel so guilty suddenly, as though I'd been caught stealing from my hosts. The look on her face would have been appropriate if I'd had.

  "What do you think you're doing?" Suppressed outrage was in her voice. She was wearing a rainbow nightrobe that she pulled more tightly around herself, her knuckles white.

  "I couldn't sleep in my room, so I came down here." What time was it, anyway? The kitchen staff was still mostly asleep, from the sound of it.

  "Not sleep? In the fine room the Poraths have given you? I saw the bed linens changed only yesterday, saw it myself!"

  "Yes, I'm sure—"

  "And saw the room was swept out, too!"

  Didn't do a very good job; though, I thought. "Yes, well, I told you I'm allergic to cats—"

  "Made me lock up my dear friends; and here you are downstairs anyway! Insulting our hospitality!"

  I'm not at my best when I'm half-asleep, to begin with; and social crises often throw me completely off stride. A lot of thoughts came to me: That she hadn't locked up her dear friends, because I'd seen them roaming the halls on the way down; that the open air here was more friendly to my allergies than any room inside, upstairs or down— though I couldn't see me making that clear to this tiny madwoman.

  My mind was a blank. Frantically I thought, What would Ran or Kylla do?

  And an answer came. I sat straight up, took the apology out of my voice, and said, "Forgive me, but is this the way to address a guest?"

  She actually took a step back. I remembered that she was only a retainer here, and I was not her guest in any case. Still hearing Ran's coldest tones in my mind, I echoed, "If the Poraths have some objection to my behavior, I trust they will honor me with it. I would not want to cause them any offense after their generosity of yesterday."

  My most formal capital accent: It's amazing how the words will come sometimes when you pretend you're somebody else. Auntie Jace looked shocked.