It was, I saw from glancing at its surface, some kind of dictionary. It seemed incredible to me to think that there existed such a thing. Not because we are unfamiliar with dictionaries; we have Ai-Naidar whose sole work is to maintain dictionaries across all the worlds, or else how would an empire our size ever maintain a single language? No, as I stared at the unreadable orthography marching in such regular rows down the screen alongside its Ai-Naidari counterpart, I felt powerfully, irrevocably the truth of Kor's observations. Animals do not make dictionaries.
The two aunera returned not long after. I set the device carefully on the male's desk and rose to face them, and if I had been entertaining any doubts at all as to my course of action the sight of the female put paid to them. She and Haraa could have been painted with the same brush; their depression did the same thing to their eyes, their faces, the line of their spines.
"Osulkedi," she said, her voice a soft rasp, to match the exhaustion of her movements. "The administrator said you wished to see us?"
"Yes," I said. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to come to the tea house with me."
"I... I don't understand," she said. "Why?"
"Aunera," I said, having no other idea how to address them, "I do not know when the message will come for the lord of Qenain, nor what it will say. But I think he needs the support of those who mean most to him while he waits."
The female paled as if to faint, and the male grew very still, as if not entirely sure he'd heard correctly.
"You... are saying... that you wish us not to be separated?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"That is exactly what I am saying," I said, and wondered at myself even as I did so. "Though the lord will have to abide by Thirukedi's decision, it may be several days before we know what it is. And... he... misses you. A great deal."
They looked at one another, one long pause... then they both began speaking at once in their own tongue. And then stopped, and laughed, a broken, helpless sort of laughter that made my heart hurt to hear. But I had given myself over to the purpose and so I stood fast, and waited.
"We would be honored, glad to come," the female said.
"Pack bags," I said. "If your duties permit, I think he would prefer you to stay until he has to leave."
That is how I came to escort two aunera across the street to our side of the Gate-town, and unlike the aunerai side we were stopped and I explained that the gray-cloaked aliens were with me and that we were expected. Which was not a lie, aunera... for while the lord was not expecting them, and I doubted Ajan or Haraa were either, and most surely the tea house proprietor would be shocked at the very notion... Kor would be completely unsurprised to find the aunera there. I had faith in his preternatural understanding of the Ai-Naidari heart—this Ai-Naidari’s in particular.
As we approached the tea house, the two drew closer; the female seemed to notice what she was doing and tried to open the distance between us again, saying, "Apologies, osulkedi. We have never been here, and it is disquieting."
"Disquieting?" I asked.
She kept her eyes on the ground as she paced me. "We are only allowed in certain parts of the Ai-Naidari area, osulkedi. This tea house is not among them."
Of course, it made perfect sense. Except, "You find this disquieting? The aunera on your side of town seemed quite assured about being there."
"Ah, but we know we are here because we have done something wrong," she whispered. "That is very different, osulkedi."
I hesitated before answering quietly, "Loving another is not wrong, Shemena."
She looked up at the building as we entered its shadow. "It is in this case." She stopped in front of the door and added, "You call me 'maiden'."
"Yes," I said, wondering if she knew all the connotations of such a name, for the Maiden is both the sweetness of innocence, and its naïve hope that the rules will not apply to it. "You seem one to me."
"You honor me," she said softly. And bowed. "My name is Lenore. Lenore Serapis. Among us, the second name is the family name. The man with me is Andrew Clarke. He is my superior. Like a caste-peer, but above me in rank."
"Lenore Serapis," I said. It had almost an Ai-Naidari sound. And to the male. "Andrew Clarke. Come, the lord is waiting."
As I suspected, the proprietor of the tea house was stunned into silence by the arrival of two aunera. To her, I said, "They will be staying in the second guest room," and released her thus from the necessity of finding something appropriate to say in a situation in which there was nothing of the kind. I led the aunera up the stairs and knocked softly on the lord's door.
As before, Ajan opened it for me. "Osulkedi?" And seeing the alien faces past me, "What is this?"
"All the way, penokedi," I said, quiet but firm, and to that tone he inclined his head and let the aunera inside. I led them to the bed-chamber and said at the door, "My lord? You have visitors, come to stay until you are remanded to the Emperor."
He lifted dull eyes toward me… and then stumbled out of his chair, incredulous, his hands already lifting toward his beloveds, who were moving past me with the breathless urgency of a poem in the mouth.
I turned my back on their joyous reunion. I had finished this painting and now I had to live with it.
“Is this wise?” Ajan asked me as I passed him into the corridor.
“If there is a course in this that leads to wisdom, penokedi, I pray you tell me where it lies,” I said.
He shook his head and gently closed the door, leaving me in the corridor with my discomfort. And yet, for all my tension, I knew I could have done no different.
I ate a light lunch alone, mostly fruit and broth and tea; I found I still had no stomach for anything more. In the silence afterwards I fell to going through my materials, trying to decide if the day had yet produced a word or if I would be reduced to losing at Rivers and Bridges during the dareleni. But any thought I had to producing a new painting were dashed when I discovered Kor’s hiding place for the works he had secreted from my passions. I was hunched over them when he found me, naturally.
“So,” he said. “You finally uncovered the cache.”
“You hid them… in my own trunk!” I exclaimed, torn between laughter and indignation. “In my own trunk!”
“Where else would I store paintings that needed to be kept flat?” he said reasonably. “I put my journals on top of them, I thought that would be sufficient impediment to your finding them.”
“I began this enterprise while reading your journals,” I pointed out. “How were you to know I would not take up that habit again?”
“Because I knew you felt shame at doing so,” he said. “Particularly after we had come to know one another better. A man might reasonably contemplate the writing of a stranger, who might find it uncomfortable in an intimate.”
“You hid my paintings… from me… in my own trunk,” I murmured, shaking my head as I paged through them. “Because you knew I wouldn’t look.”
