Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  “Equilibrium is everything,” she said seriously. “Everything is equilibrium.” Still holding onto the cup, she slowly leaned backward, reaching over her head to place her free hand to the floor. Lazily, her legs lifted in an arc over her head, settled gently onto her feet as she stood. She drank from the cup, not a drop spilled. “It’s a form of meditation. You train yourself to balance everything, to ride the movement of the earth, as the core moves inside the mantle, as the planet moves around the sun, as the star is slung out around the arms of the galaxy’s spiral, as the galaxies spin out into the universe, down into your bones, into your blood, into the dance of molecules that gives us all the illusion we are solid and real. You learn how to float in between the spaces of mass and energy, where time hides.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then said, “You’re right. I hate mystics,” and sipped his own coffee.

  She laughed, took his cup from his hands, and put it down with hers. She grasped his waist, turning his back to her. “Stand on one leg,” she said, and when he started to raise himself onto his toes, “No, keep your foot flat on the floor. Learn to walk before you run. Hold your arms out, like this.” Her hands were cool against the skin under his arms as she corrected his stance. “Leg higher, higher, that’s it. Now close your eyes.”

  Her hands slid down to rest lightly on his hips as he wobbled, his muscles jerking him as he sought stability.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice soft in his ear. He felt her featherlight stroking of his body, leaving ghost sensations behind. “Feel how your body moves. It knows where the center of gravity is, it wants to be there. If you do this every day, it will learn to use less and less movement to correct your balance. You must concentrate on aligning your body so that you can tweak the smallest muscle to maintain your equilibrium instead of flailing your arms around like a spastic bird as you’re doing now.”

  She was laughing, and the effort to keep from laughing himself made it difficult. Tilting dangerously to one side, he put his other foot down.

  “I can’t do this,” he said, starting to turn toward her. She grabbed his waist firmly, holding him back.

  “Try, Nathan,” she said fiercely, the laughter still in her voice. “It isn’t difficult unless you convince yourself it is. Understand by doing. Close your eyes. Get that leg up higher....”

  Obediently, he stood teetering on one foot, his arms wobbling as he swayed blindly. She kept her hands on his waist, steadying him, guiding him. Her hands glided along his chest, his hips.

  “Better, good. Now listen to me. Imagine a string running through your center, top of your head to the bottom of your foot.” Her mouth was close to his ear, the words caressing his cheek, warm perfume. “It goes all the way through you, down toward the center of the world. Feel it if you can. Feel it draw you down into the planet, pulling all the time. Feel it pressing your foot to the ground, making that string tight. It becomes so taut, it’s like a steel cord, holding you in perfect alignment.”

  He tried to envision it, aware of his weight pressing his foot firmly to the floor.

  “That’s it,” she said, and he wondered if she was commenting on his progress or just encouraging him. “Now imagine yourself getting thinner. Your whole body is being drawn into the string, evenly on all sides.” Her voice was almost hypnotic. “You flow into it, make yourself the string, all the way to the center of the world. Concentrate, Nathan....”

  He did, focusing on the image as hard as he could. Suddenly, he realized her hands were no longer on his hips, and he staggered, his foot striking the floor to keep himself from falling. She was seated cross-legged in front of him, sipping coffee, as she had been, he was instantly aware, for some time. His muscles were trembling with fatigue as she inclined her head slightly in an ironic salute.

  “That’s the idea,” she said. “Practice every day and you’ll get better.”

  He knelt beside her, his senses keen, hyperaware. “Will it make me into a Pilot?” he asked jokingly.

  “No,” she said, smiling, “but it might make you a better dancer.” He took the cup from her hand and kissed her, reveling in the sharp taste, the complex spice of coffee and the salt flavor of her mouth. His heightened awareness made the brush of her skin against his an excruciating joy. He heard her muffled whimper as shades of tone, harmonics resonating through him.

  When he finally came, it was with a savage intensity he had never before experienced, shattering his senses into shards of light and color. He dimly heard her wail in exultation, riding him, riding him. . . .

  XV

  SHE TOOK HIM BACK TO THE NGA’ESHA ESTATE IN THE LATE AFTERNOON and left him there. In the following days, he didn’t see her—not by the river, not in passing in the labyrinthine passages of the House. After the first few days of exhilaration, a blanket of depression settled in.

  Disappointment at being ignored and forgotten gave way to an uneasy disgust with himself. It had been fun while it lasted, he chided himself. Why had he any expectation it would be more than that? But somehow he knew it had been.

  He decided he should have something constructive to occupy his time and energies rather than moping around like an infatuated schoolboy. He was still a botanist, and for the project he had in mind, he would need permission from the senior kharvah. Nathan knew amends would have to be made before he was back in Aelgar’s favor. If he ever had been.

  Aelgar still treated him with suspicious contempt, and the young sahakharae he had shoved around—what was his name?—Tycar, took a special vindictive pleasure in managing to be present whenever Nathan went through his ritualistic contrition. Thwarted lust hath no fury, Nathan thought acidly. After several weeks, Nathan suspected his tedious humble kowtowing was becoming expected, something he was not keen on having turned into regular habit. He needed a change in strategy.

  As the pratha h’máy’s oldest daughter and heir, Yronae held the Nga’esha domestic purse strings; Yaenida didn’t worry about money on any scale less than interplanetary. Yronae’s own eldest daughter and heir, Suryah, supervised the Nga’esha women’s personal assets, while her younger daughter, the qaturthi h’máy Bidaelah, controlled the men’s household accounts. Nathan had to go through the intricate formalities of petitioning Bidaelah to allow him access to his own bank account. After some reluctance—based, he suspected, more on linguistic confusion than any callousness on the woman’s part—she authorized the funds to be transferred to his personal account on his datacard from an astonishing amount he had accumulated. As naeqili, he’d barely earned enough to pay for tea and bath fees, but as the youngest son of a pratha h’máy, his allowance was staggering. On any other world, he’d have been considered rich beyond his dreams.

  It took a little more pleading to persuade a younger cousin still apprenticing as a taemora to escort him to the shops he had no access to without a female chaperone. While the cousin waited with surly impatience, he first bought the most expensive sati clip he could afford, ornate gold filigree entwined around a profusion of bright precious stones, nearly draining his entire capital. Then he dragged her to a garden nursery where he talked the bemused shopkeeper into selling him a single sprig of white plum blossoms snipped from a tree. The cousin seemed uninterested in his purchase of the gaudy bit of jewelry, although she did raise an eyebrow at how much he was willing to pay for it. While women and men often exchanged small presents, for ritual purposes or out of friendship, gifts were rarely more than inexpensive trinkets. The flowers, however, baffled her. He didn’t bother to enlighten her.

  He’d rehearsed his speech for days, making sure the complex verb tenses and pronoun shifts were perfect. Then he sought out Aelgar holding court on the third level of the men’s garden by a large, ornamental pool.

  The day was unusually hot, and a number of boys and younger sahakharae had stripped to escape into the pool. Aelgar lolled the full length of a carved divan set under the protective shade of an ancient maple tree, his sati loosened to expose the man’s hairless
brown barrel chest. He fanned himself listlessly, wafting the humid air over his face with a bright paper folding fan. Nathan recognized one of the musicians from the kaemahjah, a young sahakharae who played the flute, weaving an intricate melody around his partner’s lap harp. They sat close to Aelgar to share the shade of the old tree.

  Acer buergeranum lucienum, Nathan noted distantly; could use a good dose of manganese sulfate, to judge by the leaves. . . .

  Within the men’s realm, the first husband of the pratha h’máy held the final authority. Yaenida’s sole surviving kharvah, however, was a near recluse, senile and blind. Her heir’s first husband, Aelgar, held the regency. When in the presence of the women, especially that of his wife Yronae, the senior kharvah was servility itself. But in his own dominion he ruled with an arrogant despotism. Tycar sat cross-legged on the ground at Aelgar’s feet, a sadistic smirk already on his mouth as Nathan approached. He idly fingered the layers of gold bands encrusting his ankles, a habit Nathan recognized by now as anticipation. The boys swam to the edge of the pool, elbows and eyes over the edge to watch the promised show. The music faltered and died away as Nathan stopped in front of Aelgar respectfully. The balding man glanced up as he approached, his eyes disdainful.

  Nathan brushed the folds of his sati to one side and knelt on the grass in front of the kharvah, pebbles in the soil digging into his knees. “Most senior and revered Aelgar,” he said, pressing his hands together and touching his fingertips to forehead, bent over so far he nearly touched the ground, “this insignificant person knows I have thoughtlessly caused you distress through my ignorance and violent barbarity. Although I have tried to atone for my misconduct, I realize now I have not done enough to prove myself worthy of your pardon.”

  He straightened to reach into a fold in his sati, and removed the clip wrapped in a colorful handwoven birdsilk cloth almost as fine a gift as the jewelry he proffered. He held it in cupped hands, bowing low so that the offering was higher than his head.

  “Please accept this small token of my penitence and respect.” Keeping his eyes lowered, he couldn’t see the reaction on Aelgar’s face, listening instead to the expectant silence of the waiting crowd. For several moments, nothing happened, and his shoulders twinged in the abnormal position he held himself in.

  Come on, take it, you greedy son of a bitch, he thought fiercely, and almost laughed when he felt the older man lift the tiny burden out of his hands. He straightened slightly, enough to watch the response of the crowd from the corner of his eye. Tycar was trying unsuccessfully to disguise his disappointment. One of the musicians had lifted himself up on his knees, craning his neck for a peek as Aelgar unwrapped the rainbow silk.

  A murmur of ohhs and ahhs fluttered through the gathering as Aelgar held up the gold pin, its oversized rubies, emeralds, and blue diamonds sparkling garishly in the sunlight. Aelgar examined it objectively, appraising its value with an expert’s eye while trying not to appear impressed. Finally he nodded, and sat up, his short legs swinging to the ground.

  “Small brother,” he said, although Nathan stood head and shoulders taller and outweighed him by more than a dozen kilos, “no person could refuse such a heartfelt apology and still call himself civilized.” Nathan looked up into the older man’s hard eyes, knowing the words were as hollow as his own, the truth gauzed behind the veils of Vanar etiquette. The bribe had been accepted. “Come, sit with me. You are forgiven.”

  Tycar glared sideways at Nathan, furious at being cheated out of the entertainment of any further humiliation.

  “Not quite so, revered Aelgar. My crime was against all my brothers, but mostly against my small brother Tycar.” Nathan enjoyed the sight of Tycar’s surprise and distrust, and he paused just long enough for theatrical effect before extracting the twig of plum blossom from his sati. He held the flowers out toward the sahakharae. “Please accept this with my apology. Your beauty is like that of young flowers, far too delightful and delicate to ever again be subjected to such clumsiness as mine.”

  Gotcha, he thought, watching the emotions war across the sahakharae’s face. You don’t take it, you look like an asshole. You do take it, you’re permanently off my back.

  The sahakharae reluctantly accepted the sprig of flowers, unhappy at being outmaneuvered. His scowl of defeat turned to resignation as the younger boys swarmed around him, debating with spirited glee what one could actually do with such a strange gift. They finally decided to weave the flowers into the sahakharae’s dark hair.

  Nathan sat by Aelgar for an hour or so, listening to the music and trading what small talk he could handle. He caught the older man studying him with calculating interest, and Nathan returned the look innocently. After enough time had been served to satisfy protocol, he managed to make his escape from the senior kharvah and his entourage with more profuse courtesy and bowing, the solidified smile on his face beginning to ache.

  He took several deep breaths to calm his nerves as he walked the serpentine path back up toward the main men’s quarter of the House. Although he was pleased with himself, he was surprised by how much deep anger he still felt. He nearly missed Raemik half hidden in the branches of a tree as Nathan took the steps up the second level two at a time. The boy crouched in the branches, pale eyes regarding him soberly as Nathan stopped and smiled up at him. From his vantage point, Raemik could have seen the entire charade, but his impassive face gave Nathan no hint as to what he might have thought of it.

  Yaenida, however, more than made up for it. He arrived the next morning for his daily lesson and found the old woman standing by a window. Her medical taemora stood cautiously to one side in case the old woman overdid herself and collapsed. Yaenida turned as Nathan entered the study, smiling broadly in the brilliant sunlight turning her jaundiced skin to gold.

  “It seems death will have to wait a little while longer to take me,” she said, relaxed.

  “May it wait many years, jah’nari l’amae,” he said. She gripped the taemora’s arm resolutely and took one faltering step after another back toward the table. The taemora eased the old woman’s body down into the mound of pillows jammed into the wide, carved chair, tucked Yaenida’s sati around her legs, and left without a word or backward glance. Once her attendant had gone, he set his reader on the broad table and took his usual place, such casual Hengeli behavior tolerated only in private.

  “You say that with such feeling, Nathan, one might almost think you meant it.” She grimaced as she adjusted her fragile body deeper into the cushions.

  “I do mean it,” he said evenly, opening his reader. “I gain far more with you alive, Yaenida, than with you dead.” He looked up at the woman grinning at him sardonically. “I also happen to like you, but I don’t expect you to believe that.”

  She shook her head and said, “It’s a shame you’ll never be as good with words in Vanar as you are in Hengeli, although I’ve heard you’re not doing all that badly there, as well.”

  He raised one eyebrow with mock surprise. “Me? Really?”

  “You judged Aelgar’s avarice and lack of taste exactly right, and the bit with the flowers was a masterful touch. You seem to have taken my advice to heart.”

  He bowed in exaggerated acknowledgment. “This worthless naeqili does his humble best,” he said in Vanar, which made her laugh, a dry, rasping sound sucking the air from her lungs. He got up without being told to set up her water pipe. She took the stem from him with shaking fingers, sucking in the smoke greedily to calm her lungs. He sat back down and waited.

  “You don’t much enjoy men’s company, do you, Nathan?” she asked when she had her breath back.

  He leaned back and thought about it seriously. “Not on Vanar,” he admitted finally.

  “Why not? You would be better off in the long run to make friends among the men of my House. You should consider taking a lover from among the sahakharae. That would be the expedient thing to do.”

  The reader was open, but the screen remained blank, ignored. It troubled him h
ow much of his personal life Pratha Yaenida knew, no secrets remaining hidden for long from her far-reaching intelligence network. But the past was the past, he was not the same person he had been so many years ago, a lifetime ago.

  “I’m not interested in sex with men, Yaenida, and I don’t have much in common with the rest of my Vanar ‘brothers,’ ” he said patiently, “not just because of the language problem.”

  “No,” she said, in a tone that wasn’t a question.

  “All these elaborate formalities”—he waved a hand in a gesture of frustration—“the ritual posturing, the complicated speech, it’s stupefying. Whenever I’ve tried to have a conversation with someone to practice my Vanar, it’s as if the men can’t speak in anything but formulae and rote response. It’s like talking to machines, no one is really there.”

  She propped her head on her fist, the slack skin of her face pushing one eye half closed as she listened silently, a thread of smoke spiraling toward the high ceiling.

  “The men of your Family aren’t stupid, and most of them are educated. They’re literate, they have complicated debates I can barely follow about all sorts of things. But it’s just a game, to see how many verbal points you can score, not out of any passion or enjoyment. They’re afraid to make a decision or have an opinion of their own about anything they might actually care about.”

  “Hmm,” was all the comment she made, hooded eyes deceptively jaded.

  “No one has much spirit of their own,” he said, struggling to find the words. “Or if they do, they spend a lot of effort to hide it. It’s like scratching on glass: you can see there’s something underneath, but there’s no way to reach it. No one does anything. They just...sit around like lifeless pets waiting to be played with.”

  She sank farther back into the cushions, hooking the stem of her pipe over the water reservoir. Resting her elbows on the polished table, she steepled her fingertips together. “I think you disparage our men unjustly, Nathan. Nga’esha men in particular, I’m proud to say, are quite astute and creative. Men can do many things far better than most women. They dance, they paint, they play music, they write beautiful poetry that you unfortunately can’t appreciate fully.”