Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  Nathan smiled wryly. “If not me, who?” He looked up at her. “And if not you, who else?”

  She would need every ounce of her boldness and sympathy, they both soon enough discovered. Within days after Namasi’s filing a petition for a hearing at the Assembly of Families, he became a target of ominous hostility. He had accompanied Namasi on her way to the Assembly to consult with a more experienced vaktay when a woman collided with him in the crowded street, then brushed past him without a word.

  “Pardon . . .” he reflexively started to apologize, turning around. The speed and military efficiency astonished him. Within seconds, he had been neatly separated from Namasi, herded into a ring of strangers. He felt rather than heard the subsonic hum, and recoiled with automatic terror. Agony exploded through him, bursting into his brain. He dropped to the ground, every muscle and nerve in his body crippled with pain. Distantly, he heard glass breaking. For a moment, as they beat him, he was convinced he was being murdered.

  Then the torment stopped as abruptly as it had started. A woman bent down to where he writhed on the ground. “Give it up,” she whispered in his ear. Her face was nothing more than a vague blur. “Or next time neither of you will be so lucky.” He couldn’t even cry out as she stomped her sandaled foot on his hand, grinding her heel to break his fingers.

  Then they were gone. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, the slowly abating waves of pain still paralyzing him.

  “Nathan?” Namasi called out in the distance, puzzled and annoyed.

  His mouth opened, but his only sound was an animal whimper, absurdly embarrassing him. Hands touched him, and he cringed away.

  “Nathan Nga’esha, where did you go?” She must have spotted him then, because her voice changed from irritation to alarm. “Nathan!”

  She flung herself on her knees beside him, unmindful of the dirt or blood, and rolled him into her lap. He gasped, but the hurt now was normal, bearable pain. She brushed the hair from his face, her hands shaking. His sati had come undone, bloody and torn, and he noted with detached amusement how she tugged at it in a ludicrous effort to defend his propriety. His attackers had melted away into the crowd now milling about the two of them, onlookers murmuring more with curiosity than concern.

  “Nathan—”

  “Namasi,” he managed to croak out, “are you all right?”

  “Me?” He heard her strangled laugh. “I’m fine, Nathan. What happened? Who did this to you?”

  “An accident,” a woman said. “He fell.”

  Her body went rigid. “Accident! This was no accident!”

  “I witnessed it. He fell,” the woman repeated firmly.

  “I am also a witness,” another said.

  His blurred vision cleared enough to make out a pair of elderly women, Middle Family, prim and respectable.

  “You’re lying,” Namasi retorted heatedly.

  “Excuse me, jah’nari vaktay, but he’s bleeding rather a lot. Perhaps you should get him medical attention?” one of the elderly women suggested, unfazed.

  As if by magic, an ambulance clinic arrived. The medical taemorae inspected his injuries curiously. Large bruises blossomed on his chest and stomach where he’d been kicked, several gashes from broken glass lacerating his arms and legs. One eye had swollen nearly completely shut, the other blinking away blood dripping from the wound in his scalp. He did yelp as the senior taemora examined his broken hand, grateful as the analgesic she hissed into the skin took effect.

  “How many were there?” Namasi asked him.

  “Don’t know,” he mumbled. “One of them was Dhikar....”

  “We have two witnesses who say it was an accident,” the taemora’s aide said, phlegmatic, nodding at the pair of elderly women still standing outside.

  Even the senior taemora looked incredulous. “Accident?”

  “He was attacked!” Namasi protested.

  “They say he fell.”

  The senior taemora had recovered her composure. “So which is it, qanistha bhraetae?” she asked him.

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again, unable to speak.

  “Tell them, Nathan!”

  When he still didn’t answer, the senior taemora said tiredly, “Record it as an accident.”

  “How can you look at him and say that?” Namasi insisted, outraged.

  “Namasi...,” he said quietly, “let it go.”

  She turned her indignation on him. “But it’s not true! They’re lying!” She whirled in frustration. “This isn’t right!”

  He smiled in spite of the pain, caught her hand in his remaining good one, and touched his swollen lips to her palm, leaving a smear of blood. “Welcome to the real world, vaktay.”

  He chose to go home, as the medical facilities at the Nga’esha estate were as good as if not superior to any men’s hospital to be found in Sabtú. He sat on the edge of a clinic bed as the Nga’esha taemorae treated his internal injuries without comment, Namasi hovering anxiously.

  “I’ll ask for a postponement for the hearing to whenever you think you’ll be well enough,” she said briskly.

  He didn’t reply, avoiding her by keeping his eyes on the taemora as she swept the therapeutic device across his abdomen. He could feel the odd bubbling deep in the tissues as they repaired themselves.

  “Nathan?”

  “They’ve threatened to hurt you as well next time, jah’nari l’amae,” he said tightly.

  Even the usually stoic taemora glanced at them both. Namasi said nothing for moments.

  “I won’t be intimidated into quitting,” she said. The anger in her voice made him look up. Her chin quivered, her cheeks glowing with a pink flush that made her seem even younger. “If that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  “I’m not afraid of you quitting, Namasi. I’m afraid of you getting hurt.”

  “Well, I’m not—”

  “Have you ever been touched by a Dhikar?” he asked quietly. “No.”

  He broke protocol, looking into her eyes earnestly. “Be afraid, Namasi.”

  Her eyes reddened as she struggled to suppress her tears. “Are you finished yet?” she asked the taemorae. They bowed, tidied their equipment, and left his room. Once they had gone, she took his hand in hers, stooping to look into his face.

  “This is not the way justice is supposed to be conducted on Vanar,” Namasi said, her voice thick with outrage.

  He smiled weakly at her idealism wounded by her first taste of intolerance. “You’ve said yourself, vaktay, we don’t have much chance of winning anyway.”

  “Then we lose! But we lose in court, honorably, in public, not intimidated by thugs on a streetcorner! If this is your real world, Nathan, then don’t give up on me. Don’t make everything I’ve studied so hard for and believed in just a lie. Please.”

  He stroked her cheek with his uninjured hand tenderly, defeated. Then he reluctantly nodded.

  Pratha Yronae had been unusually restrained when he returned bruised and bloodied. Whatever her personal views on his first venture into Vanar law, Nathan had expected some form of reprisal for dragging the Nga’esha name into public dispute. But Yronae had allowed him to retreat into the Nga’esha men’s quarters, where he’d done his best to be quiet and inconspicuous. But although the days passed without his being summoned, sooner or later, he expected the ax to fall.

  His broken hand throbbed even taped, his knuckles blue and swollen, which made taking notes awkward. An ancient Hengeli music cube resonated around the cavernous library, Borodin’s booming bass line echoing nicely off the bookshelves. Humming along contentedly with the melody, he leaned with very non-Vanar carelessness on the table, head propped on one elbow and a leg dangling across the arm of the chair, foot bobbing idly to the music as he worked.

  Deep in concentration, he didn’t hear Yronae behind him. When he realized she was there he stood so quickly he banged his knees on the table. He bowed hastily, grimacing in pain, then slapped the music off. His ears rang in the sudd
en quiet.

  Yronae had never once entered her mother’s library since the old woman had left it to him, never. He’d actually seen very little of the Nga’esha pratha h’máy and was just as happy to keep it that way. His sporadic encounters with Yronae were rarely enjoyable for him.

  She stood in the open doorway with her legs braced apart, hands clasped behind her back, inspecting the room as if she’d never seen it before.

  “May I enter?”

  “Of course, jah’nari pratha.”

  She strode into the room with arrogant confidence. Like she owned the place, Nathan thought. “Your research is going well, I hope?”

  “Hae’m jah’nari pratha.”

  “Good, good.” She glanced around the room with a detached air. “Is it necessary for your work to play music at such a volume?”

  Yet another small pleasure taken away, he groaned inwardly. “No, jah’nari pratha. My apologies if it has disturbed anyone. . . .”

  She shrugged one shoulder, her habitual Vanar gesture halfway between no and indifference. “It’s not audible outside this room. Play it as loud as you like, if it helps you think. I only find it incomprehensible how you can appreciate such disagreeable noise.”

  That he found her own preference in Vanar music insipid, toneless, and about as interesting as a mosquito whine he wasn’t about to comment. Whatever she was here for, it wasn’t to discuss their conflicting tastes in music.

  She strolled around the table, her back to him as she ran fingers along the surface with a detached air. “I see you are once again in the news,” she said dryly. “Your vaktay has demanded the Qsayati Vasant Subah carry out an inquiry into your attack.”

  “I’m sure the Dhikar will pursue the investigation with their usual diligent impartiality.”

  Her mouth twitched, the only sign of fleeting amusement. “I take it you intend to continue with this unusual litigation of yours?”

  He swallowed hard. “As long as Vaktay Namasi Sahmudrah is still willing to speak for me, yes.”

  She turned to regard him with distant skepticism. “Mmm.” Her gaze flicked curiously over his wounded body. “How is your hand?”

  “It is healing, Pratha Yronae.”

  “And your other injuries?”

  He wished she would just get to whatever penalty she intended to inflict on him. “Do not interfere with my work, l’amae.”

  “Show me.”

  “Khee, jah’nari pratha?”

  She nodded at him. “Show me these injuries.”

  The Vanar didn’t have the same sense of bodily modesty, he well understood by now, but he still reddened as he unclipped his sati pin and let the linen unravel before he pulled the mati over his head. He stood naked with his mati clutched in one hand as she examined him solemnly. The deep sutured gashes had already fused, and the bruising and abrasions were still painful, but not disabling.

  Yronae frowned. “This will not do.” She looked at him directly, un-yielding. “You will be confined at once to a whitewomb for a period of no less than three weeks.”

  He stared at her, paralyzed with horror as she turned to go. “No,” he breathed, “Oh God, no . . .” Before she had reached the door, he leapt in front of her, barring her way. He just managed to keep from touching her as he reached out toward her. She backed away from him, eyes wide in disbelief and anger. His hands closed into impotent fists to keep from grabbing at her, which only caused her to retreat farther away in alarm, her jaw tightening.

  Ignoring his injuries, he dropped to his knees. “This ajnyaeman naeqili regrets displeasing you, jah’nari pratha h’máy, and whatever other punishment you think I deserve, I’ll accept, but not that!”

  “Jameen se ut’tho!” she snapped. “Get up off the floor and do as you are told!”

  “Don’t do this to me!” he shouted before he realized he’d spoken in Hengeli, then had to struggle to control himself to use Vanar. “You don’t understand. Please don’t send me back there....”

  “What is wrong with you? Get out of my way....”

  “I won’t go!”

  “Shut up, Nathan Crewe Nga’esha! If it is truly that terrible, then you will not be forced to go. But stop this childish behavior and get up immediately!”

  He nearly wept in relief, thanking her in the most abject Vanar he knew as he rose, mati clenched in front of him. She stared at him in incredulity and, to his surprise, appeared as shaken as he was.

  “Are all Hengeli men insane?” she demanded.

  They would be if subjected to this kind of torture day in and day out, he was far too prudent and far too frightened to retort. She shook her head in contempt. “You are an embarrassment, disgusting even to look at. If you refuse to accept proper medical treatment, then you will leave the Nga’esha House immediately. Return to your Changriti wife, and do not return until you have healed. Do you understand?”

  “Hae’m, jah’nari pratha.”

  “Now will you get out of my way or do I need to call the Dhikar to remove you?”

  He didn’t have to be told twice. Throwing several cubes he’d been translating as well as a couple ancient books into a small pack, he bundled his sati around him clumsily and fled. If anyone looked at him askance on the train back to the Changriti Estate, he didn’t take any notice, still shaking so hard his teeth rattled.

  If the Pratha Yronae considered his injuries too repulsive to look at, hers was not a universal opinion, he realized that evening. Raetha had entered their shared apartments, standing politely outside the cramped cubbyhole Ukul had allotted to Nathan. “Father of Aenanda,” he said softly, which was always a bad sign.

  “Hae’m?”

  “Our wife hopes you would consent to share her bed this evening.” “You must be joking.”

  Raetha’s eyebrows contracted in perplexity. “No,” he said seriously. “Why should that be humorous?”

  “It isn’t, Raetha. Not in the least.”

  He could have said no. One of the few technical privileges a Vanar man had was to refuse sexual relations with anyone, including his wife. The reality, of course, was that if he pleaded fatigue or headache or, even justifiably, inability to consummate her desire due to his injuries, Kallah Changriti would take it personally. Very personally. Having just been unceremoniously tossed out on his ear from his maternal House, Nathan couldn’t dare risk being ejected from his matrimonial home as well. He ran the fingers of his hand through his hair, hissing with sudden pain as a nail scraped across the raw suture on his scalp.

  “Tell her . . .” He groped for some other solution, then sighed. “Tell her I would be honored, if she could spare me a single hour to make myself more presentable.” What he really needed, he knew, was to find Margasir.

  His práhsaedam was exactly where Nathan suspected he would be, busily working out in the Changriti men’s gymnasium. Somehow he always knew where Nathan was by whatever mysterious communication the sahakharae used to keep tabs on their partners. Several other younger, equally muscular men who had adopted him as their physical fitness trainer surrounded him, grunting and sweating and admiring themselves and each other in the mirrored gymnasium. The older sahakharae dropped the heavy weights he’d been lifting and wiped his forehead with his arm, eying Nathan curiously. His acolytes paused as well.

  “You are even more hideous than usual, Nathan Nga’esha.”

  “And I love you, too, Margasir,” Nathan shot back, which made the sahakharae grin and the boys chortle. He grabbed the other man by one sweat-slicked arm and tugged him away from the group. “How quickly can you make me not so hideous?”

  The sahakharae eyed his injured body skeptically. “I’m not trained in that sort of medical art, Nathan.”

  “You’ve got one hour.”

  Margasir’s doubt turned to disbelief. “Nor am I trained in magical ones, either.”

  “Kallah wants me in bed, on form, now. I have had a rough day and I’m not in a good mood. The Pratha Yronae has thrown me out because my appearan
ce offends her. I can’t go into Kallah like this! I have to do something, anything...”

  Margasir shook his head, barely able to keep from laughing, which irritated Nathan even more. “Claim you’ve strained your eyes from too much of your reading and turn off all the lights.” His levity lessened as Nathan gestured in wordless frustration. “Nathan, she must know of your condition. Surely she won’t be that shocked. All I can do is help to deaden the pain and give you something to increase your chances of satisfying her request.”

  “That’s just great,” Nathan muttered, resigned. “Do it.”

  The sahakharae steered him toward the baths and said kindly, “Come with us, Nathan Nga’esha, and we’ll do our best to make you not quite so ugly.”

  Half an hour later, his hair arranged to hide the worst of the cuts on his head, a judicious application of cosmetics on his face, the most ornate of sati and several pounds of bracelets, anklets, and armbands artfully concealing his various bruises and incisions, he presented himself to Ukul Daharanan for inspection at the great door between the men’s and women’s houses. As usual, the stolid man examined him briefly, only the small twitch of a muscle in his jaw giving away his hostility.

  “Paramah kharvah,” Nathan murmured, bowing low in proper deference. “May I humbly ask that if I’m not able to comply with our cherished wife’s wishes, you might be kind enough to relieve me of this most pleasant of duties?”

  The senior kharvah’s eyes narrowed, his smoldering resentment flaring. “She doesn’t want me,” he said with uncustomary bluntness, then jerked his head toward the door before stalking off.

  Oh, well, he thought. It had been worth a try.

  Nathan hadn’t been invited to share Kallah’s bed in years, not since the birth of their daughter. He’d done his duty, given the Family a daughter and an heir, and firmly established his affiliation within the Changriti hierarchy. Once his function had been accomplished, Kallah had quickly lost interest in him.

  Or in conceiving any further children. Kallah had been determined her first child would be female, as she was reluctant to repeat the experience any time in the near future. Nathan suspected that if the Changriti heir elected to produce any more children, she’d employ various aspiring taemora to carry the fetus to term for her, regardless of the cultural stigma. Whenever she did feel in the mood, Ukul had usually been the one summoned. Other than the one time Vanar custom required, Nathan couldn’t remember Raetha ever being asked to join his wife for an evening of connubial delight.