"Shame observes that my eyes have cried, and I have hidden it well," she said with a laugh. "You observe how they look, and you will be busy with that for long enough that the reason they look that way will only occur to you... later. As I said. You must travel into this world from your own."
I hmphed, but I was not truly upset. I had helped my ajzelin—had Corrected him in the Emperor's stead—had in fact served as his poor, bound-up fathrikedi at the shrine had served!—and we had both come out the other side well... better than well, even.
"It's good," she said after a moment. "They suit one another. And gods know Kherishdar's sole Shame needed a good—"
This word she used, aunera, was rude in the extreme. I'm told you have several equivalents, but I would not use them, lest I give offense in two languages.
I cleared my throat and said, "This not being my area of expertise, I will bow to your superior knowledge."
She laughed. "I won't tease you about what you need, then, osulkedi—"
"I should hope not!" I interrupted.
"But I don't think it's heavy petting and hot sweating between the sheets," she finished.
Surprised, I said, "Really?"
"Really," she said, resettling her blanket around her narrow shoulders. "Not to say you wouldn't benefit from a little physical relief. I just think you need help of a different sort."
"Pray, don't leave me in suspense, fathrikedi," I said, looking down at her.
"You need... a massage," she said, with a sly grin. "You have been moving like someone three times your age since before you crossed the Gate."
"People three times my age are dead," I said, ears flattened.
"Exactly," she said.
"I'm not that stiff!" I said, and then flexed my toes experimentally. Wincing, I finished, "Much."
She laughed. "A deal, then, osulkedi. You give me a name. I'll give you a massage that will make you feel a third your age."
"One third my age would be too young by far to be giving fathriked names of the kind you're imagining," I said. "I am not that old..." She waited, and I said, at last—because when can I turn down a challenge these days? Apparently never—"Very well. A name for a massage. But you must allow me to use the time under your hands to consider it."
"If I do my job well, you won't be able to think of anything!" she said, rising.
"Then you will have to make do with your name being 'ahhh'," I said.
"The out-breath of a contented, cared-for universe?" she said. "I could be happy with that. Come, Calligrapher. The sooner we repair to the bathroom... the sooner the happy lovers can make free with their noises without concerning themselves over our delicate ears."
"Do you really think..." I began, and then stopped myself. I could only too well imagine Kor devoting some part of his thoughts to protecting my sensibilities, and being quite aware of where in the suite I was. "Lead on, fathrikedi."
Reck this: Once there was an aridkedi, a country Merchant, who was known far afield for her gift for making pots of extraordinary beauty... such beauty, in fact, that to see them broken was a cause for grief among all those who bought her work. They often brought her shattered pieces after one of those breaks, begging her to mend the pot, or grieving if it was beyond aid.
Now, the potter was a good friend to an artist, who was taking tea with her one day when another Ai-Naidari brought a collection of these pieces to the shop. After the patron had left, the potter poured these pieces into a box behind her counter.
'What is that box?' said the artist.
'This is where I dump the remains of my broken works,' the potter said. 'I have no use for the pieces, so I collect them here until I have time to dispose of them.'
'Give them to me!' the artist said. 'I shall put them to work again.'
The aridkedi did so allow, and the artist took the box home. She assembled the broken pieces into new vases, strange and fragile and variegated. These vases became very popular as vauni haale—vessels used as focus for meditation. Some say they helped popularize the use of such vessels.
This is the parable of the broken pot. Reck it well.
toril [toh REEL ], (noun) –broken piece; shard; particularly, a piece of shattered glass through which one can see refractions.
The fathrikedi made good on her promise and put me to sleep on the massage table. Some part of that was no doubt the greater world-weight of the colony, for the moment I laid my body down I felt the sudden weariness in every muscle; but some part of it was certainly her skill, and she had it in full. Hers were gentle hands, and deft ones, and though I would have found her touch discomfiting in the past Kor had worn down my resistance to the touch that is, after all, encouraged so deliberately among us by our rules and customs. A society that does not enshrine touch and give it proper context with names and traditions may claim to be one that has freed touch... but I suspect what it creates instead is the very opposite situation. Where there is too much freedom, there is also much anxiety about whether one is well and truly allowed what one yearns for. Fear dictates one's actions, rather than license.
But I digress. I slept until dinner, which the proprietor brought with the faint song of the bells on the door.
"Have you a name for me yet?" the Decoration asked with bright eyes once the proprietor had withdrawn.
"I am thinking," I said, and distributed the bowls and plates. When I would have risen to knock on the bedroom door, she placed her tail on the floor between my foot and my next step.
"Don't," she said. "They aren't hungry yet. At least, not for this sort of food."
"I would have thought exertion such as theirs would require fuel," I said.
She laughed. "They are young, osulkedi. I assure you, they won't notice."
So she and I shared our part of the meal, and she ate with the same refinement of grace with which she moved. Truly, she was a pleasure to behold: the thought that she might abandon her hhaza was painful to contemplate.
