So, the Guardian had used the word gadare and not eqet, and thus our issue.

Now, the matter of jurisdiction in this case was not a simple one. The lady, as an Ai-Naidari above the Wall of Birth, had the right to command us. But in pursuit of the duties to which we'd been dedicated on elevation to osulked, and on a mission directly from Thirukedi to fulfill those duties, it was our right to be allowed the autonomy to act as we saw fit. In basic, the lady could command us to stop, but by courtesy she should not put us in the position of having to choose between our duty as osulked and our duty as Ai-Naidar to obey those above us.

It is not that I expected violence, at least, in the way so many of you might expect. I did not think the lady would imprison us or beat us or... or whatever crazed notion might spring from the heads of aliens, for whom physical violence always seems to lurk as the end-point of any disagreement. But emotional and social violence... that I could see. To be balked in our duties would be a great wound to us. The taint in Qenain was distressing enough to its members, without adding a conflict between its Nobles and the osulked sent to succor them.

As you might imagine, Ajan had one look at me and immediately put his ears back. "What happened?"

"What has not," I said and sat at the shabati before my blank paper block. I rested my hand on it, needing the comfort more than I cared how I might affect the surface with the oils of my skin. "The fathrikedi is indeed on the pedestal, and not at all resigned to whatever error sent her there. The observer has yet to discover the power of the mysterious formula her superior left behind. And a Guardian—one of your friends, if I am correct—has as much said that the lady may not want us here."

"That I could have told you," Ajan said, leaning against the door into the bedchamber, arms folded. His tail was twitching, a little agitated flick-flick that I found out-of-proportion disturbing, given how infrequently he was given to such displays. "The Gate-house was never staffed with Guardians appropriate to its use."

I glanced at him sharply. "Intentional?"

"No," he said. "More like... they didn't really anticipate the kind of issues that a Gate-house might end up dealing with. They've staffed it like a satellite of the House, appropriately. But it's not a satellite, it's an adjunct to the Gate trade. The Guardians here often feel uncomfortable with the situation; they have the power to make decisions appropriate to a more insulated house, not to one that has to deal with Merchants, aliens and considerable traffic from outsiders to the House."

Surprised, I said, "They have not brought up their concerns with the lord?"

"I asked," Ajan said. "But... they are fond of the lord, Calligrapher. They are personally devoted to him. To bring up those concerns might see them re-assigned elsewhere, away from him."

"They might also have been promoted," I said.

"Might, yes. But there is never a guarantee," Ajan said. The twitch of his shoulder and ear were noncommittal. "Among us, it is said that being capable of identifying a problem in the scope of one's duties, and expressing a desire to fix it, are enough proof that one should move up the ranks. But not all those above the Wall agree." His smile was without pleasure. "That is why we say there are good masters... and then, there are good masters."

"I am surprised the aphorism is not 'there are good masters, and then there are smart ones," I said. "Knowing the way Guardians talk."

"If it had been rendered the way Guardians talk," Ajan replied, "It would have been 'there are good masters, and then there are stupid ones.'" He grinned. "You don't yet seem to truly understand the insouciance of Guardians."

"No," I said, grimacing at the block. "I don't."

Following my gaze, Ajan said. "What will you paint tonight?"

"The ancestors alone know," I said with a sigh. "Because I don't. Go on to your rest. I'll sit the vigil."

Kor was better, I thought. At least, he didn't look so strained. I sketched him lying thus, smudging the shadows where they crept up into his dark fur with my fingertips, sullying the golden skin on my fingers and no doubt transferring several charcoal swipes onto my brow and cheeks when impatient with the results. "How nice," I muttered to him, "to sleep through all this anxiety and tension." Naturally, he remained silent. I pressed my thumbs beneath my brow-bones, trying to fend off the nascent headache and succeeding only in leaving yet more charcoal in the hollows there, where they would no doubt give me a ghoulish appearance.

As it turned out, they must have lent me a comical aspect, for when Seraeda arrived with the dinner trays her lips curved into a twitching smile, as if she was trying hard not to laugh. Resigned, I said, "I must look a patchwork."

"Or like a young boy caught after playing in the dirt," she said, and handed me one of the napkins from the tray.

I took it from her, reflecting that I probably needed a mirror to do justice to my face after an hour of growling at my sketch paper. "I did not think to see you so soon."

"Observers no less than calligraphers need to eat," she said. "I thought it would be salubrious to do so together. Where is your shadow?"

"My... oh, Ajan?" I looked for him. "In the bath, perhaps. I wasn't paying attention."

"And your companion?"

"Better today," I said. "I think, anyway, not being a physician myself."

"Then we shall eat with as little distress as we might," she said, seating herself. The vase in the corner had been refilled at some point with gray irises, and their shadows draped over one of her shoulders like an asymmetric ornament. I wanted to touch it. What a lovely woman. Patently, I was going insane. I sat across from her and accepted a cup of tea, wondering what I would do about the situation if I left Qenain in something other than disgrace. The situation being, of course, my inability to think clearly when Seraeda was in proximity...

"This business with the fathrikedi," Seraeda said, distracting me from my reverie of her. "It is exactly what I feared."

"I thought we were to dine without distress," I said.

"Then don't bite into that yet," she quipped. Naturally she was dipping her own grilled quail into the light sauce: plums, I thought, or perhaps jewelberry. The prospect of discussing troubling affairs while eating did not seem to faze her. "The fathrikedi did not require Correction."

"Oh?" I said, wanting to hear her reasoning.

"She was not wayward," Seraeda continued. "Save, perhaps, in her unnatural attachment to her lord."

"Ah," I said. "The physician said something similar." In response to her lifted brows, I said, "That to Correct her was to address a symptom, rather than the root of the matter, which was the lord's erratic behavior."

She huffed softly, tendrils of her hair blowing from her brow. "Yes. He would say that. We are of a similar mind, of course... we do medical work, so the metaphor would occur to us both."

"Hopefully, the lady will be content with the act of Correcting the Decoration and let the household resume its business," I murmured.

"I somehow doubt we will be that lucky," Seraeda said. "Oh, do eat, Farren."

Obediently I attended to the food beneath her watchful eye.

"Obviously you need a woman to take care of you," she said, her lips twitching again. "You are so thin because your mind wanders. I hear this affliction is typical of artists."

"You mean to tell me observers are somehow less prone to mental distraction?" I asked. "Somehow I doubt this!"

She laughed. "We are more systematic about it, let us say!"

"Ah," I said, wisely. "So inspiration strikes you on schedule, and solutions to problems arrive in orderly processions, and at appropriate moments."

"Just so," she said, eyes sparkling.

"And I would never find you staring off into space, contemplating some scientific brainstorm, having forgotten where you were bound, or that you were blocking the hall," I went on.

"I would very much like you to find me so, if it meant you were to find me in your hall," she said, studying me over her cup with eyes I found... suddenly... very difficult to meet.

I would have preferred to have been rescued in any other way than the physician entering my chambers without so much as a knock to announce in a growl, "She is sending me away!"

Seraeda and I both stood, our flirtation forgotten.

"Away," the physician continued, in great agitation, sleeves swaying as he threw his arms wide. "All of us... myself, the assistant, the chief observer and the lord!"

"What?" I said, struggling to find some equilibrium. "Why? When?"

"Just now, she has told me. To give me time to prepare the patients. We leave in the morning. As to why..." The physician sat as we stared at him. "She has not said. And I asked, but she answered only that it was for the best for all involved. But she refused to make her reasons known to me." He eyed me. "But I am only sesukedi, Calligrapher. You... you might ask her, and you she might enlighten."

I probably need not say that the last thing I wanted to do was present myself to the lady and ask after her reasons. But it did fall to me... otherwise, who would do it? I held back my sigh, but Seraeda must have seen it for she refilled my tea cup and pressed it on me.