powdered
for the firmament's veil
nothing less
nothing finer
nothing more sacred than this life
Such a gift Ajan made me then, with that exchange, with his singing. For in it I saw some shard of hope. Shame loved him as much as the youth loved his lord, and the music pleased him. Ajan finished one song, chose another, or teased some new suggestion out of Shame with a subtlety I would never have expected from a Guardian and a youth. And all of them true beauty: the spiritual poetry of Kuleketh, Farsha Far-Sighted's historicals, and even the pastoral lyrics of Senjan, who wrote mostly of the woods and wild, of flowers and ponds and small, deeply-lived lives.
Shame saw poetry in blood. But so long as he still saw poetry in honest and beautiful things, I knew I could reach him, for those were the only tools I had. I only hoped I would be as good at it as Ajan. More accurately, and more fearfully: I had to hope that somehow, I could do better.
Ajan's singing brought us to the Gate-complex, then. Qenain's Gate-house was one of many there, for the volume of the commerce traveling through the Gate made warehouses at the site an economic necessity. Perhaps if there were more of them it would be different, but the Gates are not numerous: there is some relationship I do not understand between their size and the distance they cover, and Gates large enough to bridge the distance between worlds are enormous, their spars easily towering above the clouds. I cannot even fathom how they are erected, for the world Gates were created long before I was born.
You may fear, perhaps, that we have lost the expertise, aunera. But Thirukedi would never allow such knowledge to be lost. The theories behind the Gates are forever preserved, and so long as the theory is known it is only a matter of time before the engineering is possible, even if the engineering is forgotten in the between times.
The Gate was visible long before we arrived, then. The Gate, in fact, is visible from the capital, if the weather is clear. But the closer one draws to it, the more astonishing it is. The arch's feet are the size of an entire district, each one: imagine walking several blocks before reaching the end of one of those vast pylons! And from each of these feet, the arch rises and is lost to the blue haze of the air. So pervasive are these monuments that the Gate-complex has its own sayings: 'Weather comes and goes, but there the Gate,' is common—an expression urging patience—as is 'Even if you can't see it, the Gate's still there,' a frank reminder of the persistence of reality.
Really, the cluster of buildings at the base of the Gate is not memorable, in compare. Its only unique feature is that it only extends toward the capital, and the Gate itself cuts the complex off as sharply as any blade; there is something about the space behind a Gate that makes it uncomfortable to use, and so we do not. There is room enough on the worlds for such eccentricities.
We passed through the gate (shaped like the Gate, but in miniature) into the complex in early afternoon. If anything it was busier here than on the road, and we quickly dismounted in favor of leading our beasts rather than trying to ride through logjams of wagons and carts. Most of my memory of this part of our journey was of the sun's brightness: in the capital, there is no street without shade and few blocks without some fountain or kept pond. But the complex was left largely without vegetation or water fixtures so that the sun could offset the strange coolth generated by the Gate. The temperature was pleasant enough, warm with a cool breeze, but my eyes watered.
We could tell when we had arrived at Qenain, then, because it smelled of flowers rather than dust and sun-baked pavement. I looked up, wiping my watering eyes, and found tenderblossoms trained over an arch framing the door, and that was beautiful: little creamy sprays with dark, dark leaves, powdery yellow pollen scattered on the ground. The house was wider than I expected, with more windows, though I could not see through them with the glare outside and the dusk within. But seeing them, I craved that respite from the sun.
And everywhere, of course, more flowers. Ivy crawling out of window-boxes, sprouting lilac irises with speckled petals; exotic orchids hanging heavily from clay pots suspended from the eaves; rainflowers tall as lances fringing the edges of the property, their narrow silver faces turned away from the brunt of the light.
"Fancy," Ajan murmured as we drew nigh.
"Decorative," I said.
Ajan chuckled and knocked on the door.
We were ushered into a cool, dim foyer, one musical with the sound of a small fountain. As the Book of Exceptions decreed, the irimkedi who showed us inside could and must speak first, and so he did. "Be welcome to Qenain," he said, Abased.
"Thank you," I said, since Shame did not seem inclined to answer. "I am Farren Nai'Sheviet-osulkedi, a calligrapher. This is Shame—" introducing him any other way seemed impossible, "and his Guardian. We were sent for."
"I shall inform the lord that you are here," the Servant said, bowing again. "Please, take your comfort."
I sat on one of the cushioned benches against the wall, waiting for my eyes to acclimate. The ceilings were lower than I expected, and the plan more open: there were great open doors leading into the rest of the house, and no halls, only more of those jeweled windows. Breezes, also, soft as sighs, probably from thin slits near the floors. I heard Ajan drink from the fountain, and splash his face to wash the dust from it. I would have done the same, had I not been enjoying sitting quite so much.
Nevertheless, I stood when the lord of House Qenain arrived, as I must. His was an arresting presence, his vitality so intense it was almost aggressive. Even when he came to a halt before us, he gave the impression of still moving; I half expected his rich, dark robes to continue rustling.
"The Emperor's osulked attend, as promised," he said in greeting. "Shame, Calligrapher. Thank you for coming." He smiled. "But ah! A little too late. We no longer have need of your services!"
"My lord?" I asked, Abased. "How so?"
"Come, come," the lord said, stepping back into the next room and gesturing—grandly, I thought, as if well-pleased with himself—to one side. "As you can see, we have taken care of the matter ourselves."
We followed him into the next room: there, through the wall of glass doors, two of which were open, we saw a little stone courtyard, dappled with petals and shadows, and there, an old man tied to the Vines, gagged and bound and dripping what I fervently hoped was merely sweat.
I knew better when my eyes grazed the pattern of dark petals on the ground and saw that some of them were not petals at all.
Stillness, for a moment. Utter stillness.
"You see," the lord said, "I have attended to his Correction personally, according to the Book of Corrections. He is just within the age that may be whipped, and I have done it the exact number of times prescribed by his offenses...."
Shame was already moving.
No, not moving. I had seen a weapon swung once, bright steel in sunlight, shock of wind. Shame moved with that finality, such that no one would have dared intercept him. Through those open doors into the sun- and shadow- and petal-strewn courtyard, to the side of the elderly Ai-Naidari whom, without asking consent or giving warning, he touched intimately on the face, turning his cheek so he could look at his eyes.
Then with fingers sped by experience and gentled by something I could not so easily name, he worked the plate of the gag free and threw it from him, droplets of spittle darkening the stone. He untied the bindings, feet first, then arms and neck, until at last the stranger rolled limp into his arms, cradled there as tenderly as any child in his father's arms.
I am no judge of injuries. Whipping is something reserved for great offense, and I have never seen it done. But our skin is frail, aunera. We do not weather injury well, and in our elders it is far worse.
"Send for a physician," Shame said, curt—without Abasement... to a lord! Who nevertheless inclined his head and said, "It will be done." And faltered, for none of us could speak further, confronted by that tableau. I thought to paint it once: the stygian folds of Shame's robes, his dark head bent over the thin, wintry gold of the elder's body. The streaks of blood. The too-red petals, the moving shadows over their faces as the branches of the ornamental trees swayed in the Gate-wind. But all of that, you must understand, was merely visual ornament over the thing that held us transfixed: the way Shame held an Ai-Naidari, giving himself entirely to that embrace, so careful of another's frailty.
I had seen his brusqueness and his humor. The expression of his compassion was shattering. We speak amongst ourselves of esar: of the quality that makes one a compelling leader. It is something applied to those above the Wall of Birth, for it is their duty to lead, and in their ascension rituals they are required to name their esar and so give us some hint of the tenor of their reign. But it did not occur to me until that moment, in Qenain's courtyard, that those of us beneath the wall might also have esar of our own... not until I felt in my heart that a man who could show such naked compassion could lead me anywhere and gladly would I follow.
I understood then, a little... what it took to be accepted as Shame to Kherishdar, what such a man would have to inspire. For without love, there can be no shame.
What compelled me to look away, I will never know; ancestors know it was hard to tear my eyes away. But I did, and in so doing caught the expression on the face of Qenain's lord before it fled. In his eyes, in his ears so tensely pointed forth they trembled, I sensed a terrible excitement, far too passionate for what we witnessed. We are not opposed to passion, aunera, but there is a time and place... and too much passion, we always consider with wariness. Passion here? Confronted with this scene worthy of pity and awe? Was surely inappropriate.
Perhaps I espied wrong. At the time, I prayed it.
In silence then, both the lord and I waited for the physician, who arrived not long after in great haste. He joined Shame in the courtyard and they spoke briefly—the curt speech of two professionals exchanging information—and then Shame released the elder to the physician's care. As he rose, the physician said, "Osulkedi—your expertise may be needed. I do not have much call, healing wounds such as these."
The lord interjected then. "He will be staying, Physician. You may consult him if you require."
