"Are you well?" Seraeda asked, concerned. "You were in the rain for a long time..."
"I'm in serviceable condition," I said. "Only tired, and sleep will solve that, now that I am dry and warm. If I can sleep at all for wondering what it is that Shame knows."
"That thing that drove him out into the rain," Seraeda said.
"Yes," I said.
"We will learn soon enough, if as you say he is only briefly unconscious," the physician said.
"His Guardian knocked him on the head," I answered. "Nothing more sinister. I am quite certain of it."
"Then we need merely wait for the morning," the physician said. "And our questions will be answered."
There was a silence then as we contemplated this course over our cups.
Seraeda said, "It's going to be a very long night."
"The night is only a few hours from ending," I said.
"I know," she replied with another sigh. She rose. "I will go arrange for the message to the lord's sister, and then I am for bed."
"I too have my vigil to keep," the physician said. "Calligrapher, you will send for me if you need anything?"
"Of course," I said. "Thank you."
They departed, each to his or her own task, leaving me to the abandoned table. I contemplated the remainder of my tea with a moroseness that bordered on self-indulgence, and downed it in one swallow before replacing the cup and standing to go to my own duties... such as I had, having failed thus far in the one, most important one given me.
This overmuch involvement in my own thoughts almost carried me into the Decoration, who had appeared abruptly at the door, almost as if she had been haunting it.
"Fathrikedi," I said. "You startled me."
"Yes, I see," she said, with a brusqueness that surprised me, or would have had I not seen the distress in her eyes and the set of her ears. "Calligrapher, let me help."
"Pardon?" I said.
"Please!" she exclaimed. "My lord is fallen, Shame is indisposed. You and the members of the house will have troubles enough. Don't confine me to the Decoration's quarters. Let me do something!"
"You do not seem very confined to me," I said.
"And you know as well as I do that my wandering is something to be eyed askance," she said. "But if you put me to some useful work, then no one will look twice, and then I can help." At my expression, she twisted her words in the most horribly Abased grammars possible, so extreme she could have cast herself as one of the Forgotten Caste without issue. "Please, osulkedi! If I had been more enticing, if I had somehow been more... more deeply, more perfectly fathrikedi, perhaps he would not have fallen. My lord might never have gone astray."
"Oh," I said. "No, no. You cannot think such things—"
"—but I do," she said, and the anguish in her voice poorly suited it. "Please, osulkedi. I will sit beside him so the physician can sleep a few hours. Or I can help with Shame. Only put me to some use, I beg of you."
I held up my hands. "No begging, please. Go you to the physician, and tell him I sent you."
"Thank you," she said, fervently, and hurried off on her errand.
I watched her go, and did not tell her that she was in error for her thoughts... for in truth, she wasn't. You will certainly urge me to think otherwise, aunera, and say that I cannot take responsibility for the failures of others onto my shoulders, any more than the Decoration could for preventing the error of her lord, but we Ai-Naidar know better. It is through our relationships with others that we heal and complete one another, and keep one another from sin. The aim of civilization is to create such strong webs between us all that we are always supported, always aided, and always made strong against temptation and despair. If the lord had fallen away, and if Shame had broken, it was because we—all of us—failed them. And it was for us to heal that break.
I returned to our rooms in a poor, poor mood, as one might imagine. To enter it and find the shared room empty was painful; there was but one meager light emanating from the bedchamber, and I stopped at the door there to look within. The wan light of a single candle gilded the contours of Ajan's face as he bent low over his sleeping master. His eyes were unblinking, his gaze unwavering; he neither fidgeted nor trembled. He remained the very picture of dedication, and I might have painted it had he been content there, with pride and valor and adoration shining on his brow.
But this tableau of grief and clenched-jaw worry I would not wish on anyone, and I turned my back on it in a foul humor. Looking back, I don't clearly remember how I cut a sheet free of the block, or how I brought it to the shabati. I am not accustomed to thinking of myself as a violent man, but to this day the painting I made in a few moments of frustration and fear remain a reflection of the tumult that lies hidden in every individual, awaiting only the proper impetus to surface.
It is not so much a painting, at that, what I made that night-nearly-dawning... as much as a splash of black ink, mottled with spray from a flashing brush, through which I dragged my small, pointed claws. The gouges broke furrows in the paper; where the ink was still wet it filled them with shadows, and where it wasn't, the paper showed white as bone, fibers frayed like violated skin.
I did not write on this piece, or sign it, or even look at it again while we abided in the House of Flowers. But much later, when I was organizing the calligraphies I completed in Qenain, I found Kor's stark, precise handwriting in one corner.
He had titled it "Guilt."
I call it "Failure." But only in my mind, where he cannot correct me.
Reck this: Once there was an aridkedi, a country Merchant who created pots for her small town, and so skilled was she that she was the sole seller of pots indeed not only to her community but also abroad, as well. So great was her talent, she promised to mend any pot that cracked, or replace one beyond repair, and such was her skill that she was not often called upon to fulfill her promise.
One day, the Servant of the lady of her atani brought her one of her pots, which had developed a fine, thin crack.
'How may I serve you?' the potter asked.
'My mistress's pot has broken,' the Servant said, handing it to her. 'We would be pleased to have it mended.'
The potter examined the pot carefully, fingers exploring the crack. And then, suddenly, she smashed it against the counter.
She gave the startled Servant a new pot and said, 'That one was flawed, and the repair would only have hidden its weakness. Take this one instead.'
