At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (4 page)

Perhaps, he thought uneasily, “guest” was hardly the proper word either.

“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, “the Methi has put you in my hands.”

“I am grateful,” he answered, “that you came and spoke for me.”

“It was necessary. For honor’s sake, Elas has been opened to you. Understand: if you do wrong, punishment falls on me. If you escape, my freedom is owed. I say this so you will know. Do as you choose.”

“You took a responsibility like that,” Kurt objected, “without knowing anything about me.”

“I made an oath,” said Kta. “I didn’t know then that the oath is an error. I made an oath of safety for you. For the honor of Elas I have asked the Methi for you. It is necessary.”

“Her people and mine have been at war for more than two thousand years. You’re taking a bigger risk than you know. I don’t want to bring trouble on you.”

“I am your host fourteen days,” said Kta. “I thank you that you speak plainly; but a man who comes to the hearthfire of Elas is never a stranger at our door again. Bring peace with you and be welcome. Honor our customs and Elas will share with you.”

“I am your guest,” said Kurt. “I will do whatever you ask of me.”

Kta joined his fingertips together and inclined his head. Then he rose and struck a gong that hung beside his door, bringing forth a deep, soft note which caressed the mind like a whisper.

“I call my family to the
rhmei
—the heart—of Elas. Please.” He touched fingers to lips and bowed. “This is courtesy, bowing.
Ei,
I know humans touch to show friendliness. You must not. This is insult, especially to women. There is blood for insulting the women of a house. Lower your eyes before strangers. Extend no hand close to a man. This way you cannot give offense.”

Kurt nodded, but he grew afraid, afraid of the nemet themselves, of finding some dark side to their gentle, cultured nature—or of being despised for a savage. That would be worst of all.

He followed Kta into the great room which was framed by the branching of the entry hall. It was columned, of polished black marble. Its walls and floors reflected the fire that burned in a bronze tripod bowl at the apex of the triangular hall.

At the base wall were two wooden chairs, and there sat a woman in the left-hand one, her feet on a white fleece, as other fleeces scattered about her feet like clouds. In the right-hand chair sat an elder man, and a girl sat curled upon one of the fleece rugs. Hef stood by the fire, with a young woman at his side.

Kta knelt on the rug nearest the lady’s feet, and from that place spoke earnestly and rapidly, while Kurt stood uncomfortably by and knew that he was the subject. His heart beat faster as the man rose up and cast a forbidding look at him.

“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, springing anxiously to his feet, “I bring you before my honored father, Nym t’Elas u Lhai, and my mother the lady Ptas t’Lei e Met sh’Nym.”

Kurt bowed very low indeed, and Kta’s parents responded with some softening of their manner toward him. The young woman by Nym’s feet also rose up and bowed.

“My sister Aimu,” said Kta. “And you must also meet Hef and his daughter Mim, who honor Elas with their service.
Ita, Hef-nechan s’Mim-lechan, imimen. Hau.
”

The two came forward and bowed deeply. Kurt responded, not knowing if he should bow to servants, but he matched his obeisance to theirs.

“Hef,” said Kta, “is the Friend of Elas. His family serves us now three hundred years. Mim-lechan speaks human language. She will help you.”

Mim cast a look up at him. She was small, narrow-waisted, both stiffly proper and distractingly feminine in the close-fitting, many-buttoned bodice. Her eyes were large and dark, before a quick flash downward and the bowing of her head concealed them.

It was a look of hate, a thing of violence, that she sent him.

He stared, stricken by it, until he remembered and showed her courtesy by glancing down.

“I am much honored,” said Mim coldly, like a recital, “being help to the guest of my lord Kta. My honored father and I are anxious for your comfort.”

The guest quarters were upstairs, above what Mim explained shortly were Nym’s rooms,—with the implication that Nym expected silence of him. It was a splendid apartment, in every detail as fine as Kta’s own, with a separate, brightly tiled bath, a wood-stove for heating water, bronze vessels for the bath and a tea set. There was a round tub in the bath for bathing, and a great stack of white linens, scented with herbs.

The bed in the main triangular room was a great feather-stuffed affair spread with fine crisp sheets and the softest furs, beneath a sunny window of cloudy, bubbled glass. Kurt looked on the bed with longing, for his legs shook and his eyes burned with fatigue, and there was not a muscle in his body which did not ache; but Mim busily pattered back and forth with stacks of linens and clothing, and then cruelly insisted on stripping the bed and remaking it, turning and plumping the big brown mattress. Then, when he was sure she must have finished, she set about dusting everything.

Kurt was near to falling asleep in the corner chair when Kta arrived in the midst of the confusion. The nemet surveyed everything that had been done and then said something to Hef, who attended him.

The old servant looked distressed, then bowed and removed a small bronze lamp from a triangular niche in the west wall, handling it with the greatest care.

“It is religion,” Kta explained, though Kurt had not ventured to ask. “Please don’t touch such things—also the
phusmeha,
the bowl of the fire in the
rhmei.
Your presence is a disturbance. I ask your respect in this matter.”

“Is it because I am a stranger,” Kurt asked, already nettled by Mim’s petty persecutions, “or because I’m human?”

“You are without beginning on this earth. I asked the
phusa
taken out not because I don’t wish Elas to protect you, but because I don’t want you to make trouble by offending against the Ancestors of Elas. I have asked my father in this matter. The eyes of Elas are closed in this one room. I think it is best. Let it not offend.”

Kurt bowed, satisfied by Kta’s evident distress.

“Do you honor your ancestors?” Kta asked.

“I don’t understand,” said Kurt, and Kta assumed a distressed look as if his fears had only been confirmed.

“Nevertheless,” said Kta, “I try. Perhaps the Ancestors of Elas will accept prayers in the name of your most distant house. Are your parents still living?”

“I have no kin at all,” said Kurt, and the nemet murmured a word that sounded regretful.

“Then,” said Kta, “I ask please your whole name, the name of your house and of your father and your mother.”

Kurt gave them, to have peace, and the nemet stumbled much over the long alien names, determined to pronounce them accurately. Kta was horrified at first to believe his parents shared a common house name, and Kurt angrily, almost tearfully, explained human customs of marriage, for he was exhausted and this interrogation was prolonging his misery.

“I shall explain to the Ancestors,” said Kta. “Don’t be afraid. Elas is a house patient with strangers and strangers’ ways.”

Kurt bowed his head, not to have any further argument. He was tolerated for the sake of Kta, a matter of Kta’s honor.

He was cold when Kta and Mim left him alone, and crawled between the cold sheets, unable to stop shivering.

He was one of a kind, save for Djan, who hated him.

And among nemet, he was not even hated. He was inconvenient.

Food arrived late that evening, brought by Hef; Kurt dragged his aching limbs out of bed and fully dressed, which would not have been his inclination, but he was determined to do nothing to lessen his esteem in the eyes of the nemet.

Then Kta arrived to share dinner with him in his room.

“It is custom to take dinner in the
rhmei,
all Elas together,” Kta explained, “but I teach you, here. I don’t want you to offend against my family. You learn manners first.”

Kurt had borne with much. “I have manners of my own,” he cried, “and I’m sorry if I contaminate your house. Send me back to the Afen, to Djan—it’s not too late for that.” And he turned his back on the food and on Kta, and walked over to stand looking out the dark window. It dawned on him that sending him to Elas had been Djan’s subtle cruelty; she expected him back, broken in pride.

“I meant no insult,” Kta protested.

Kurt looked back at him, met the dark, foreign eyes with more directness than Kta had ever allowed him. The nemet’s face was utterly stricken.

“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, “I didn’t wish to cause you shame. I wish to help you,—not putting you on display in the eyes of my father and my mother. It is your dignity I protect.”

Kurt bowed his head and came back, not gladly. Djan was in his mind, that he would not run to her for shelter, giving up what he had abjectly begged of her. And perhaps too she had meant to teach the house of Elas its place, estimating it would beg relief of the burden it had asked. He submitted. There were worse shames than sitting on the floor like a child and letting Kta mold his unskilled fingers around the strange tableware.

He quickly knew why Kta had not permitted him to go downstairs. He could scarcely feed himself and, starving as he was, he had to resist the impulse to snatch up food in disregard of the unfamiliar utensils. Drink with the left hand only, eat with the right, reach with the left, never the right. The bowl was lifted almost to the lips, but it must never touch. From the almost bowl-less spoon and thin skewer he kept dropping bites. The knife must be used only left-handed.

Kta was cautiously tactful after his outburst, but grew less so as Kurt recovered his sense of humor. They talked, between instructions and accidents, and afterward, over a cup of tea. Sometimes Kta asked him of human customs, but he approached any difference between them with the attitude that while other opinions and manners were possible, they were not so under the roof of Elas.

“If you were among humans,” Kurt dared ask him finally, “what would you do?”

Kta looked as if the idea horrified him, but covered it with a downward glance. “I don’t know. I know only Tamurlin.”

“Did not—” he had tried for a long time to work toward this question,—“did not Djan-methi come with others?”

The frightened look persisted. “Yes. Most left. Djan-methi killed the others.”

He quickly changed the subject and looked as if he wished he had not been so free of that answer, though he had given it straightly and with deliberation.

They talked of lesser things, well into the night, over many cups of tea and sometimes of
telise,
until from the rest of Elas there was no sound of people stirring and they must lower their voices. The light was exceedingly dim, the air heavy with the scent of oil from the lamps. The
telise
made it close and warm. The late hour clothed things in unreality.

Kurt learned things, almost all simply family gossip, for Djan and Elas were all in Nephane that they both knew, and Kta, momentarily so free with the truth, seemed to have remembered that there was danger in it. They spoke instead of Elas.

Nym had the authority in the household as the lord of Elas; Kta had almost none, although he was over thirty (he hardly looked it) and commanded a warship. Kta would be under Nym’s authority as long as Nym lived; the eldest male was lord in the house. If Kta married, he must bring his bride to live under his father’s roof. The girl would become part of Elas, obedient to Kta’s father and mother as if she were born to the house. So Aimu was soon to depart, betrothed to Kta’s lieutenant Bel t’Osanef. They had been friends since childhood, Kta and Bel and Aimu.

Kta owned nothing. Nym controlled the family wealth, and would decide how and whom and when his two children must marry, since marriage determined inheritances. Property passed from father to eldest son undivided, and the eldest then assumed a father’s responsibility for all lesser brothers and cousins and unmarried women in the house. A patriarch like Nym always had his rooms to the right of the entry, a custom, Kta explained, derived from more warlike times, when a man slept at the threshold to defend his home from attack. Grown sons occupied the ground floor for the same reason. This room that Kurt now held as a guest had been Kta’s when he was a boy.

And the matriarch, in this case Kta’s mother Ptas, although it had been the paternal grandmother until quite recently, had her rooms behind the base wall of the
rhmei.
She was the guardian of most religious matters of the house. She tended the holy fire of the
phusmeha,
supervised the household and was second in authority to the patriarch.

Of obeisance and respect, Kta explained, there were complex degrees. It was gross disrespect for a grown son to come before his mother without going to his knees, but when he was a boy this difference was not paid. The reverse was true with a son and his father: a boy knelt to his father until his coming-of-age, then met him with the slight bow of almost-equals if he were eldest, necessary obeisances deepening as one went down the ranks of second son, third son, and so on. A daughter, however, was treated as a beloved guest, a visitor the house would one day lose to a husband; she gave her parents only the obeisance of second-son’s rank, and showed her brothers the same modest formality she must use with strangers.