I should have known better, of course. I had no sooner stepped close enough to touch him than he sat up, alert and clear-eyed.
"Is it time?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "There has been no change."
He nodded and made to stride past me and back to the spot he'd been occupying since Shame's return.
"Ajan," I called. "If you'd like to wash, I can stay a little longer."
He paused and sniffed at his collarbone. "Am I so offensive?"
"Not precisely," I said. "I just thought you would feel better."
"I will feel better when my master wakes," Ajan said, and managed a lopsided smile. "Maybe my odor will prompt him to do so, if only to chivvy me into the bath."
There would be no drawing him away, I knew then. I didn't press and left him to his vigil.
After my own bath and toilette, I let myself out of our suite and went in search of someone who could tell me what to expect next. I was tired still; I no longer weather such long nights easily, and I could only imagine I'd be spending several more at Kor's bedside before this was all done. But I was also anxious over the house's tumult. I could feel it in the halls, the upset, even suppressed as it was. You might wonder how I might sense such a thing, and I wouldn't be able to tell you the exact method, but it was something about people not being where they should be, or hurrying too much, or clustering in nervous groups that broke apart like birds at the slightest sound.
I went first to see the physician, who looked up sharply at my entrance.
"It is not the osulkedi," I told him. "There has been no change there. I came asking after the lord and the observer."
The space between my question and his answer was only a few heartbeats long, but that was long enough for a wild hope to grow like one of the House's rainflowers, straight and tall and breathlessly strong. If the lord had recovered, we might yet avoid all the disorder, and more importantly, I might avoid having to discuss with the lord's sister all that we surmised—
"Still unconscious," the physician said, uprooting the flower of my hope. I imagined it trampled and sighed.
"I suppose I am not surprised," I said heavily. "The poison afflicting Qenain is significant. Do you know when the lord's sister is due?"
"An hour or so," the physician said. "You have time to break your fast, and I suggest you do so." He cocked his head. "By the by, thank you for sending the fathrikedi our way. She has been a great help."
I read his tone and managed a tired smile. "The house is truly distrait, isn't it."
"A fathrikedi serving as sickbed attendant?" the physician said. "Yes, I would say it is. They were intended to warm beds, not fidget at their sides."
I rubbed my face with one hand. "I will eat. Then I will tell the lord's sister what we know, when she arrives."
He nodded. As I turned to leave, he added, "Calligrapher. There comes a point in any disease's course where the body grows too compromised to survive."
A chill ran the length of my spine, nape to tail. "I know."
I went to the kitchen then to request a meal, and could not bear to take it amid the distressed workers. Instead I ate alone in one of the house's many sunny alcoves, and the food was delicious and nourishing and I barely tasted it at all. It was a miracle it did not go sour the moment it passed my lips.
I had only just finished the tea when a Servant appeared at the corner of my eye. I turned to him with an expectant look, and he said, "Osulkedi, the lord's sister is in the courtyard."
Gods and ancestors. At least I wouldn't have time to fret over the matter. I stood, smoothing down my robes and arranging the stole of my office more carefully over my narrow shoulders, then followed the Servant to meet the house's newest manager.
Some of you have recalled that the lord has a wife, and have wondered why she was not sent for; this is a fair question. You may know that we favor large families, and often have many siblings: depending on the caste, anywhere between two and five is typical, but it is not at all rare to have more, particularly in these days when medicine has made childbearing less risky. All families train up their children with the assumption that they will remain within the caste, doing the work of their parents, and this is sensible as most children do. Not always of course—that is why we evaluate the ishas of a child twice before maturity—but most of the time.
The practical result of this, then, is that the lord's siblings have been involved in the business of the House since they were old enough to pick up a basket of flowers and traipse after their aunts and uncles and parents and cousins. The lord's wife, having married into Qenain by choice, was relatively new to the business, and entrusted with the management of the flower shops in the capital. The lord's sister, however, was a principal of the House of Flowers, and empowered to make more broadly affecting decisions.
I had not met her; watching her slide off her beast and hand her riding gloves to a Servant, I could see at a glance what Seraeda had meant about her ishas. She moved like a woman of numbers. Perhaps you have seen something similar? The way the mind perceives the world affects the body's interaction with it. I could see her clear and incisive gaze even from a distance, so different from her brother's energy and passionate agitation. She moved with a crisp economy that disturbed her robes of state, as if they wanted more poetry and finish in her gestures and gait than she was prepared to waste.
And she was striding straight towards me. I straightened as she came to a halt in front of me.
"Osulkedi," she said briskly. "I was not expecting one of your caste-rank here."
"Lady," I said, deferential. "We were sent for by the lord."
"Oh were you," she said, frowning. "Does that have something to do with why I'm here?"
"I fear so, lady," I said.
She sighed. "Then we will discuss it." She summoned a Servant to her side with a flicker of her fingers. "Take the osulkedi to the study and have tea and a small meal sent there. I will join him once I've seen my brother."
The Servant bowed and I went with him, as I must. As I followed, I considered the situation in every possible wording, and in every possible style—florid, with historiated initials? Stark and bald, without decoration?—wondering how to explain in the most truthful way possible, without giving offense. Should I share the speculation as well as what was known? When the speculation was so unthinkable, and was unsubstantiated? The lady would not thank me if I told her that her brother might be in the beds of aunera... that was the sort of accusation that required proof, for his Correction would be grave. The act might even be beyond Shame's authority... and the only authority after his in that arena was Thirukedi's.
And really, what did we know for certain? Almost nothing!
The Servant left me in the study: from the neatness of the desk and the lack of any papers, I guessed this was the lady's for when she visited. I sat across from the desk and looked out the inevitable windows at the gardens; the room was upstairs and in the back of the house, and had a superb view of the plot the House kept at the Gate-complex, both for pleasure and use. I imagined there was some sort of trellis up the walls also, as there were climbing vines trained around the windows: a flower we call "formals" because their blade-like petals and white and black stripes recalled the crossed layers of robes we wear at our throats. Staring at them, I thought suddenly of Kor, and had this strange mad urge to paint him with them. Black and white, and black and white, and maybe a drop of red somewhere, or would that be too gauche—
The lord's sister interrupted my reverie, sweeping into the room and seating herself with the abruptness of a closed book. She startled me so obviously that she couldn't help but laugh. "Apologies, osulkedi," she said. "I did not mean to surprise you. But it has been a disturbing walk I've just made, and I do not like the looks of my brother." She lifted her brows. "So now, perhaps you will tell me what has gone on here."
"Lady," I said slowly, tasting the words in my mouth, "I wish I could tell you. The truth is... we are not certain yet."
"Well then, what you know," she said, waving a hand. She paused as the tea tray arrived and poured herself a cup. She offered me one with a gesture, but I declined in kind.
"The lord requested the aid of an osulkedi in the matter of the chief observer," I said, "who needed Correction. When we arrived—"
