"I do?" I said.
"You do," he said. "You're ruffled, and painting calms your mind. It is your meditation, the way practice is mine."
(That too is a truism among us, aunera. We say that your work must also provide your meditation, and if it does not soothe you to undertake some part of it, you are in the wrong work.)
"I have no idea what I would set down," I admitted.
"Then choose the first thing that comes to mind," Ajan said.
And that is how I came to paint agathe.
Yes, aunera, I know. It is a gruesome topic for a piece of art, and I hated that not only did I labor long over it, but that... yes, it calmed me. How can it be, that one might create something distressing, and yet find peace in that creation? I did not thank Ajan for the suggestion that led me to the page, for the revelation was as uncomfortable to me as the topic. I had not wanted to know that I could find satisfaction in the making of painful things.
But paint that painful thing I did, and chose to do so simply: I sheared the word at its center, one half of it higher than the other and the cut as sharp as a razor, painted, in fact along the edge of a metal rule. The word I colored in aching scarlet lake, evoking the translucence of blood, and carefully masked the letters so that I could smear orange into the red before it dried; orange, and the white one sees when blinded by a blow. And all this I darkened toward the cut in the center, so that the hole between the halves was implied: the oubliette of despair and tension into which we are condemned by gaul.
This painting consumed me for almost two hours, during which I kept one ear trained on the bedchamber and the susurrus of Shame's breath. What would he think of this one when he woke, I wondered? Most probably, he would bear it away as he had the first, to protect it from me. I was not comfortable with that revelation either: that in some ways, I too was a man of violence, and capable of a destruction motivated by passion. I merely needed the right impetus.
Perhaps all men are so, and I never realized it. Ancestors preserve me, and us all.
When I had finished the letters, I painstakingly cut a reverse mask to protect them and painted a gray radiance from the shear, as if the hole there could shine like a bleak star, drawing all light and will into it. I thought I was done then, but lifting my head I espied the vase of silver irises behind the chair where the Observer had sat... and so I added one to the picture, divesting it of two petals on the lower right, for the unease that asymmetry creates. This I drew over the summit of the word.
And then I left the shabati, feeling both calmer in mind and sick at heart. I stopped at Shame's bedside to reassure myself as to his status: was he cooler? I hoped my fingers did not deceive me, for surely we needed him now more than ever. And then I realized that I had lost Ajan... through the door, in fact, that led out of the bedchamber and into the little courtyard outside of it. Ours was not the only suite facing this private garden; such a floor plan is common in houses that entertain frequently, no matter their occupants, and Merchants no less than Nobles might have one. These spaces are called lever—say that leh-VARE, aunera, for I know you have similar-looking word that is said not at all the same—a private garden or courtyard for the use of guests. A leveri can be entirely enclosed or only partially, as ours was, leading as it did into the gardens behind the house.
There, amid the potted trees, Ajan was dancing.
I had no other word for such an act, though I knew by the weapons in his hands it was deadly. Nor did I have any context for the way he moved; no way to understand why that slash happened at that angle, nor what act his imaginary foe would have committed to be countered by this lunge or that sway. I knew only that its grace was indescribable... unbelievable, almost, for these martial exercises were all undertaken in despite of the obstacles around him, unplanned: the ornamental trees, the potted plants, the bench (from which he leapt after balancing neatly on its back on the ball of one foot)... I watched it all, transfixed, not just by the silhouette of his body interrupting the air, but by the red tassel and long gray scarf that trailed each of his weapons. Glint of bright steel, flick of scarlet cords, smoke-like shift of silk...
He was aware of me, though I was not aware of just how acutely until he made me part of his exercise. At his unexpected advance, I balked and stepped further into the garden to give him room... and in doing so, won myself an experience I would never have had otherwise: that of being the center of a Guardian's sphere of protection. For though I still could not picture the attack that would make sense of his movements, once I was within his circle I saw... I felt... that all that he did was solely to protect me. To bar steel and hand from my flesh.
There are moments in which knowledge erupts into the consciousness, fully formed, as shocking as a sudden flower's blooming. In that courtyard furled into that net of steel and sweat, I understood there was an entire discipline to which I was foreign and in which I was unlearned, with its own traditions and advances, its own lineage and reasons, and the young man I had been treating with such casual ignorance was not just heir to all its secrets, but had mastered them, and all that the remainder of us might bide in that ignorance, comfortable and safe.
That I could not imagine what threats he had been so exquisitely prepared to nullify hardly mattered. Or rather, it only served to illustrate the point.
Dizzied by the epiphany, I remained as still as I could. But even when I shifted, Ajan compensated. I breathed, and he wove his art, and I shook at the gift, and at the dark implication of its existence, and worse, my blissful lack of awareness of it.
He stopped because I was out of breath, not he. We met one another's eyes in that stillness. In that moment, there was nothing of the youth, and everything of the soldier.
At last, he said, "You asked to see my practice."
"And so I have," I said, regaining my voice somehow.
He grinned, and was once again the youth I'd met at Shame's side so seemingly long ago. "I have surprised you, I see. Didn't think it would be so pretty, did you?"
"Nor so acrobatic," I said, glancing at the bench.
He followed my gaze, then laughed. "That was my favorite part. My teachers always did say I had too great a love for climbing things."
I could so clearly hear the acerbic tone from this unknown tutor that I laughed also. "I suppose we all have a touch of rebellion in us."
"Do we?" Ajan said, untying the scarf from the pommel of his second blade. "That is not a thing I would have expected from your lips, osulkedi. More of a Guardian sentiment, if you will pardon my cheek."
"When you have put the artist among Guardians, what do you expect?" I said. "Why... the scarf?"
"But not the tassel?" Ajan said. He chuckled. "They are different things. Guardian things. Are you so eager to learn?"
"I am curious," I murmured, too embarrassed to explain my shame at my ignorance of his world.
"You would be, with your love of colorful things," Ajan said, folding the scarf. "The tassel is a dan-elet... a maze-the-eye. It serves to confuse the opponent, because it is bright and moves a great deal, and so the eye goes there instead of to the blade. The scarf... is a belevani." He cocked a brow at me.
"I thought belevan were love gifts," I said, obedient to his expression. "Does the word mean aught different among Guardians?"
He let the question sit between us, then grinned and said, "No!" And tossed the scarf into the air. It drew my eye, inevitably, and as it floated, gossamer, past the gate to the Qenain garden proper, I espied a figure hurrying through the rows. Seeing the change in my face, Ajan whirled around, swords at the ready. His ears flattened. "That looks like..."
"The lord!" I said on an out-breath, shocked. "Am I right?"
"I think you are," Ajan said, tension wiring his lean body.
"But... he was abed..." I said.
"Not anymore," Ajan said. "And evidently intent on an errand for which he wants neither witness nor company."
We glanced at each other, and spoke in unison.
"You stay with your master—"
"—we must investigate..."
