"No," Shame agreed after a pause. "That it is not."
I thought that the end of the matter until we had lain down upon the beds. As he reached to turn the lamp down, Shame said, "You do beautiful work, Calligrapher."
Flattered, I said, "Thank you." And, in my surprise, finished, "I had not supposed you would notice." Which on balance was a ridiculous comment, given how acute Shame's powers of observation seemed to be. I shook my head at myself, there in the dark, and hoped he would not respond. But he did, and took me utterly unawares.
"Did you think me insensible to beauty?"
"No," I said, but in truth, aunera, I was not sure if I was lying. So I continued, voice lower, "Only... desensitized to it, perhaps. By the strain of your work."
"If anything," Shame said, "my work leaves me more sensitive to it. There are days I have seen poetry in blood, Calligrapher. It is a great inconvenience, to lose one's focus to a vision that way when one is otherwise occupied."
I shuddered under the blankets. "I find nothing poetic in blood spent, osulkedi."
"No?" he said. "Blood shed to save another—no poetry there?"
"Perhaps," I said, "But it is a threnody: sorrow, not beauty."
"There is beauty in sorrow," Shame said, and I could hardly bear the experiences that informed those words, and the way they deepened his voice.
But: "No," I said. "Only the young believe such things. There is no beauty in grief, osulkedi. Lessons, perhaps. Growth. But no loveliness. No art. There is nothing in tears but ugliness."
"Perhaps, Calligrapher," Shame said. "But tears grave a line more indelible than any ink in a soul."
"Art is a slower agent for change," I said. "But it is no less sure."
A pause. Then Shame said with a grin I could hear in his voice, "Well, Ajan, it is for you to judge between your caste-betters. Which of us has the truth of it?"
Between us on the floor I heard the young Guardian shift on his pallet. I flushed, having assumed he was asleep; even if he hadn't been, I would never have thought to embarrass him by drawing him into a discussion he was duty-bound to ignore.
But he answered, young Ajan, and put paid to us both. "I think, masuredi, that love shapes us best and deepest, and everything else is her handmaiden."
And to that, neither of us found any reply.
shiqera [ shih CARE ah ], (verb) –to take care of; to parent; to mother. Most often used in a parental context, but not limited to that relationship.
enaima [ eh nai MAH ], (verb) –to let someone go; to let them grow up; to let them take care of themselves. Most frequently used in the context of parenting, but is not specific to that relationship.
In the morning, then, two of Kherishdar's osulked rode forth from the inn, accompanied by one young Guardian—wise perhaps beyond his years—and both those Public Servants had slept and that was good. We regained the road leading to the Gate and moved to its edge, where fewer people trod, and resumed our journey.
With the sun warming my joints and Shame's straight back in my view, I began to have some sense of the enormity of what I attempted. I had taken him to task for doing too much for himself while blithely ignoring that he was the sole priest of Shame in Kherishdar. He had no peers. Ajan might understand some of what he did, having facility with violence... but the violence of the Guardians is without moral application. Another Public Servant could understand Shame's call to serve our people, but not the tools he used nor the tasks he undertook to express that service.
What I had accused him of, then, was unfair. To claim understanding where there is none is a great arrogance; worse, it blinds one to truth. This project Thirukedi had set for me was more complex and subtle a matter than my easy aphorisms would have me assume—as I should have realized. Thirukedi would never have set one of his servants to a task that benefited only one of the parties. I too, had something to learn from my mending of the pot.
Had I not even said it myself? A simple aphorism would not succor such a soul.
I would have to be more careful. And more humble. I wanted to apologize, and had the feeling doing so would be counter-productive. Fortunately, I was riding behind and to one side of Shame so he could not see me to pry the words out from behind my teeth. That much I had learned, and prided myself ruefully on it.
"This," Shame said unexpectedly, "is a fine but quiet day."
Behind us both, Ajan said, "Was that a request, master?"
"It may have been," Shame said with a smile I could hear in his voice.
"Then," Ajan said, cheerful, "I shall sing."
"Maybe something by Kuleketh," Shame said. "Unless the Calligrapher has some request?"
Surprised, I said, "Kuleketh would be delightful. Ah... " I looked up at the thin streaks of clouds. "Maybe 'sapphires of morning'?"
"A fine choice," Ajan said and began to sing, and a clear and beautiful tenor he had, so much that the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
the bright fine bell of morning
ringing
brings me from my silver-edge dreams
and I find those dreams
repeated
in the silver-edge clouds of the sky
and the sapphires of morning
