That afternoon, then, that early afternoon in spring with the warm yellow light on my shoulders and the smell of dust and blooming flowers in my nose... that early afternoon with the high bright sky with its soft clouds thick at the horizon, and all around me the press of a crowd intent on celebration streaming past... that fateful, beautiful early afternoon, I left the capital of the empire of Kherishdar, and nevermore returned to it the man I was before.
I rode at Shame's side with watchful Ajan behind us, and we passed outside the city walls whose cream stones were inscribed with prayers, meditations and poems, all rendered in calligraphy that I could only hope to one day equal in skill and beauty. Many tales are told of the artist who oversaw the work on the city walls, and many should be. From there, we found ourselves on the Ashumel, the great road, and such traffic! We would have made faster time afoot threading the crowd, even as wide as the road was.
I wondered a little why Shame did not guide us off it. It had been a dry few weeks, so the footing would surely have been sound. But he did not and we maintained our leisurely pace, and my bones perhaps thanked me for it, and my buttocks even more so. It truly had been a while since my last trip in the saddle.
Evening found us beneath a tall lavender sky, one of many Ai-Naidar on that long road, all of us so small in a world that seemed to expand to a limitless edge without the city walls to curtail it. Even the wind had an untrammeled air of wildness, as if it had gamboled for many miles unfettered over flowered hill and deepening field. You could smell the memory of those unknown blooms on it as it tousled your hair. We have a name for this smallness-in-the-wild feeling; nos, we call it, and it is just that sensation that drove us together when we were but new to any world and far too aware of how frail we were apart compared to that vastness.
The flow of people had not abated despite the hour; it was obvious that many of those travelers planned to press on through the night. We, however, sought an inn, and approaching it found ourselves with a great deal of company. The yard was crowded with a confusion of people and beasts, and from the look of it the keeper had hired extra help just to keep up with the custom. I had a terrible vision of Shame besieged by the entirety of the inn and my spine tensed from nape to tail.
"They look very busy," I said. "Maybe we could camp on the side of the road."
Shame shook his head. "Even if we had anything to camp with, that would be hard on you, osulkedi. There is nothing for it. We will stay in the inn."
"But what will you do?" I asked.
"I'll sleep in the stables with Ajan and the beasts."
"In the stables!" I exclaimed, aghast. "But you are an osulkedi!"
"There is no less honor in a bed of hay," Shame said with a twitch of his mouth.
I was silent then, discomfited. Or at least, I tried for silence, but there was no such hope.
"Go on, then," Shame said. "Speak your mind."
"It skirts close to avoidance of duty," I said reluctantly, ears flicking back. "To make this attempt to go unnoticed."
"It is no avoidance of duty, I assure you," Shame said. "The Ai-Naidar at work in the stables and the kitchens have no less need than the visitors in the inn."
I glanced at him. He wore no expression I could riddle: he was good with those looks, formal and cool, and his mask-like markings made them all the more impenetrable. I thought of him lying down on straw for a rough hour's sleep after spending all night ministering to the entire staff of the inn and could not bear it.
"You'll sleep in a room tonight," I said. "Give me an hour and then come after me."
"Calligrapher—"
"An hour," I repeated firmly, and bounced my heels against the beast to spur it ahead.
I gave my steed over to the handler who came for it, telling her to expect another two riders anon, and then proceeded into the inn to request a room. Most inns hold a few for passing Public Servants, and fortunately there was one left. Having engaged it, I asked the mistress of the common room to announce that I was here, and that I planned a performance outside.
And then, with absolutely no plan in mind, I walked out into the inn's courtyard and wondered what I would do. My materials had been sent ahead; I had not a pen or a piece of paper. I had little time to come up with something....
...and there were divots in the courtyard... no, hoof-marks. Visible ones. The inn's courtyard was an apron of flattened dirt fanning out from its doorstep, broad enough for several carriages to disburse its passengers, and the weather had stiffened the earth sufficiently for the hooves of passing beasts to mark it. So I tied back my sleeves, found a likely stick and went to work.
I have done large-scale work before; the philosophy floor I painted for my lord before I was elevated comes to mind. This impromptu work had none of its exactitude and certainly none of its careful planning. I began with a single word—"duty"—and carved it large into the soil as the crowd gathered to watch me. When I stepped on a pebble, I dug it out and used it to accent one of the curves, and after that my audience began to gather stones for my use... fallen leaves and flowers too.
When I finished "duty" I had surely emptied the common room from the throng I saw when I straightened. The stable hands were also directing incoming traffic around me, leaving my part of the courtyard undisturbed.
"'Duty' is done," I said. "What virtue shall I do next?"
"'Hope!'" someone called.
"Hope it is," I said. "And we shall anoint it with flowers."
In this fashion then, we filled the courtyard with words of beauty. As I worked, I encouraged my audience to participate, and though they respected my talent too much to make free with their additions, they did help: choosing the words, finding decorations for them, clearing additional spaces for new words. The evening filled the incisions I made with purple shadows until at last I discovered I was working by lamplight and the night had far advanced. The Merchant keeper of the inn was addressing me.
"Osulkedi? Surely now you must rest."
I sighed and rose from one knee... carefully. My back ached from being bent for so long. "So soon?"
"It has been three and a half hours, osulkedi!"
"Oh!" I said.
"Go, go," the Merchant said to the audience and obediently they withdrew. The faces I espied as they passed were uplifted, and many of my watchers left tokens as they passed: coins, sweets, sasrith.
"You have made my courtyard a work of art," the Merchant said after they had gone. "For which I humbly thank you."
"It is my work, and my pleasure," I said. The Merchant gathered the tokens and poured them into my hands, and I went then to my room, tired but satisfied. There I found both Ajan and Shame. To the former, I said, "There have been no callers?"
"No," Ajan said, meeting my eyes, and I saw there the smile he schooled his lips against. "I daresay no one even noticed us pass inside."
I drew off my stole and sat on one of the beds. To Shame, I said, "You are so used to doing for yourself that you are no longer accustomed to allowing others to do for you. At all."
Shame glanced at me, ears low. And then he smiled. If there was some self-mockery in it, it was still at least a smile. "Perhaps so, Calligrapher."
"There is no perhaps," I said, shaking my head. "It is not healthy, osulkedi."
