Kor stopped at the gate. I looked up at Ajan and said, "Penokedi. I see you have come home."
"Hopefully to stay," Ajan said, and smiled like dawn.
Kor helped him dismount and introduced the first four, sending them into the house with their packs and their laughter, save one, whom he separated to return the beast. I stood at the gate and welcomed them as the head of household.
The fifth, though, made me draw up and lift my brows. This was no youth, but a man of my years or even a little older, his face lined with the memory of scowls and laughter. Like the youths that had preceded him he had a warrior's body, but in him their power had been mediated by a patient vigilance, and suddenly I knew who had honed Kor's body-speech. This then was the teacher of my ajzelin, Ajan, and all their compatriots, my equal in another discipline. But a Guardian, and now a part of my house. How easy it would be for us to begin wrongly; I saw it in his eyes, the evaluation and the wariness. He was waiting for my unease to poison our association, for what would an artist know of Saresh's own?
Without preamble, I asked, "Were you the one who chastised Ajan for his penchant for climbing?"
The other man barked a startled laugh. "He told you that story, did he? I was not the first, but I was the last, yes."
I grinned. "He is irrepressible."
"They all are," the other agreed. He bowed. "Osulkedi."
I shook my head. "You are joining the family, yes? That makes us brothers." I offered my hand, granting the touch-permission given to family members.
Surprised but pleased, he took my wrist in his hand. His grip was strong; I felt a flush of fierce joy that such a man had had the shaping of those I loved. "Vekken," he said.
"Farren," I said. "I fear I will need your help keeping these young people in line."
"At least until they're saddled with wives," Vekken said with a grin. "Then we'll let them do the nagging."
"And you and I will have warm wine on the terrace and trade stories," I said.
"Better yet, let's install a heated pool," he said. "If your joints are anything like mine, they've seen better days."
"An excellent notion," I said as Kor covered his mouth and then his eyes, shoulders shaking. "I shall consult the budget."
"We have one?" Vekken said.
"Ancestors hear me," I said, "I hope so."
He laughed and squeezed my wrist before releasing it, then slapped Kor's shoulder lightly. "I approve."
"I'm glad," Kor said with sparkling eyes, and Vekken huffed at him and sauntered into the house.
I watched him go, thinking that was truly well-begun, and then turned back to Kor, whose expression had gone from merry to grave in the time it had taken me to face him.
For there was one male left waiting... and even the gathering dark could not deny him his supernal beauty. And that is just the word I wanted: he transcended mere attractiveness. One could worship such perfection of form and such an aura of calm. And yet the longer I looked upon him, the more that calm felt... bittersweet. Too resigned; a serenity born of exhaustion, of having given everything and no longer having anything left.
This, then, was Shame's fathrikedi, who had covered his body with his own, sunk his teeth into his shoulder... lost his heart.
Kor did not introduce him. There was no need. Nor did he introduce me; how could he do so without cruelty? I stood in the place the fathrikedi had wanted so desperately for his own.
At last, Kor said, "I gave him the choice. He gave it back to me."
"Then," I said, looking into the male's eyes, "I am glad you brought him. He should not have to live in the shrine alone." I held out my hands to the fathrikedi. "Come with me."
The fathrikedi slid his hands into mine without a change in expression. Even his eyes remained blank; he had nothing left even to feel hope or unease at this change in situation. My heart ached for him.
"Go on inside," I said to Kor. "Settle the newcomers. I'll be there anon."
"As you say," he said, quiet, and led Ajan inside, leaving me with the fathrikedi. He waited beside me, without volition. I thought of how uncomfortable he would have made me before my paisathi... but Haraa had worn down my grief and uncertainty concerning the Decorations, and it was with that equanimity that I took him into the house. I could hear the sounds of the others and found it soothing; the house in its silence had had breath but no voice, and now its halls spoke. But I did not take the fathrikedi to the others. Instead, I led him to the room I had chosen for my studio, a ground-floor corner suite large enough for all my furniture and materials, with broad windows to let in the light. The movers had already fetched half my studio's contents; I had overseen their work during the afternoon after visiting the lord of Neriethen to tender my regretful farewell, and to thank him for the years I had spent in his district.
My work table was here already, and the client table. Some of the cabinets and scroll storage cases had arrived, but not all of them. The work samples that had been on the walls I'd brought myself and were now leaning on the walls.
As I hoped, the sight of something outside his experience had pricked forth some sign of life in the fathrikedi. He had paused beside one of the paintings and was looking at it, and if I judged correctly that tremor in his wrist had been him halting a move to touch it.
"I was wondering," I said, "if you might help me hang these."
He glanced at me, puzzled.
"I have cause to know that fathriked are excellent judges of how to arrange things, that they might look their best," I said.
He seemed uncertain, but at my gesture looked again at the stack of samples and lifted the first one. Then he frowned at the second and moved it out of the way... and soon, he had them all spread on the floor and the client table, pondering them and rearranging their order, setting them against one wall and then the next. When he looked at me quizzically I offered my opinion, but I always asked his in return. He never spoke—I later learned he was true-mute, born without a voice—but he seemed to respond to my interest. While he worked I began to unpack some of my paints and pigments, arranging them on the work desk; this eventually drew his attention and I explained each of the colors to him: how they were made, what I used them for, their properties and symbolic uses.
This is how I ended up with a Decoration—I, who had never thought to aspire to such a thing, who had resented the caste-rank in its entirety for what it had taken from me...! But as the months passed, Shame's fathrikedi slowly became my fathrikedi. He never ceased to adore Kor, but it was I who cared for him and whom he responded to, so slowly, by beginning to care in return. His fingers massaged my aching forearms after I had worked too long; it was he who ground my pigments when I was too tired to do so myself. He brought me food when I forgot to eat, organized my client books when I wasn't looking... and when I worked, more often than not, it was he who knew to come in and sit at my feet, or at my window-seat or the shabati, and keep me company so that I might never fall back into my cruel habit of solitude.
I named him Jzeneth, a word that means "accepted." When I first called him so, his eyes glimmered and spilled over, filled with sunlight from the open window. I wiped the tears gently from his face and kissed his brow, and from that time on, the crack in him began to mend.
Truly, Thirukedi's foresight was without end.
But that was for the future; I must return to the week of our settlement. It was a chaotic several days. Kor returned to a backlog of work of his own, and he and several of his attendants went forth to it; the rest of us put our efforts into arranging the house. Some basic amount of furniture we could expect because of our status as osulked; our living expenses were paid out of tax funds, and we were not expected to spend our own tokens on that task. But osulked do not live luxuriously; our allotment would ordinarily have provided for a sparse population of our rather larger-than-average residence.
That was before I saw the size of Kor's sasrith collection.
