A Bloom in the North Page 16

  "And what exactly is it that the Head of House Asara needs to do so badly?" she wondered, and I savored her voice. I had expected an anadi of sound enough mind to have this conversation to be bitter, to have rotted through with the resentment and injustice of her plight. But this anadi sounded only... curious. As if I was a puzzle, and no one had given her anything to occupy her for so long she couldn't remember what it was like to be interested in anything again.

  "Come closer," I said, instead of answering her question.

  "And if I do?" she wondered.

  "Then I will give you tea," I said. And grinned. "Rozen's tea."

  Another long pause. Then she said, "He won't mind." And stepped from beneath a branch into the alcove.

  Was she beautiful? Did it matter? She was the color of the sky at twilight, a lambent gray-blue that was also lilac, luminous, a mystery. As was customary for the anadi since the empire her mane and tail had never been cut... but I was used to that in anadi who were at rest or immobilized, not someone in motion. Seeing it spill over her shoulders, down past her hips, long ivory waves: it was ornament designed for a stuffed doll, not for a living person, and it ripped open all the empire's inadequacies with fresh claws.

  Perhaps she saw it in my face, for she froze. I forced the anger to drain from my eyes and said, "Forgive me. Tea? Or... whatever this is. I haven't actually tasted it yet."

  She took Rozen's cup from me. "It's made from a flower. They call it riverbright now since it grows on the dry walls of the riverbed. But they used to call it lorekeep, when they thought it helped clarify the mind." She sat on his bench, tail spilling over the side near her legs, over the edge furthest from them, onto the stone floor and past it, pale on beige stone. "It's something that used to be given to anadi when they still merited jarana and personal attention."

  "Rabeil has not lost the habit," I noted.

  "No," she said, considering me, her hands cupping the warm ceramic. "You really are here for your anadi prizes, aren't you?"

  "Yes," I said and the words continued without consulting the rest of me. "Will you be one of them?"

  Her ears splayed, and then flattened and she looked away. "You find me attractive."

  "Yes," I said. "But not because of what you look like."

  That brought her attention back, her frown, her puzzled look and the surprise that she could still be puzzled.

  "I don't need a prize," I said. "And I don't need a lover. But I need an anadi who is not afraid of speaking."

  "Who is not afraid of you," she corrected absently.

  I flicked my own ears back. "I am not cruel to the anadi," I said, voice taut.

  "No," she said, tilting her head a little. "No, I know that. And... I am not afraid of speaking to you."

  "Good," I said.

  Perhaps I let too much of my upset into that word, because she set her cup down and sat beside me, all that tail spreading over the remainder of the bench. She didn't take my hand or set her own on me or look at me. Just... sat there, and leaned, just a little, against me.

  Rozen found us there and paused at the sight. And then he smiled. "I take it you've made your first choice."

  "Is she available?" I asked.

  Behind him, Eduñil said, "She is... and she needs a good home."

  "Then House Asara would be glad to have her," I said. "And the other two we are due..."

  "At the end of the week?" Eduñil said. "We can arrange a tour for you."

  "The end of the week is fine," I said. "If I can take this one with me now."

  Rozen grinned, but it was a private grin, not directed at us. "I'll go make the arrangements now if it pleases you to wait, ke Pathen."

  "It does," I said, and he left, tail flicking in what seemed to me to be great pleasure. I frowned, watching him go.

  "It's because you've chosen the House eccentric," Eduñil said, drawing me back from my thoughts.

  "The House... eccentric?" I said delicately, very aware of the slight weight of the anadi sitting next to me.

  "Not a troublemaker," Eduñil said, looking at her now with a smile. "But an eccentric."

  "I am hard to please," the anadi murmured.

  To me, Eduñil said, "She needs more than the Stone Moon gives anadi anymore. But I think you will give her that, ke emodo." He touched the back of one curled finger to his brow. "If you will permit, I will see that the prize chest is delivered to House Asara that she might be properly cared for tonight."

  "I... yes. Thank you," I said, and he left also.

  I glanced at her. "The House eccentric."

  "I'm..." She trailed off and then said, "I'm anadi, ke emodo. Isn't that enough?"

  It was, in this world.

  "You're Pathen," she said, trying my name on her tongue as if it had a taste she could sample.

  "Asara-emodo," I said. "And you?"

  "Kuli Rabeil-anadi," she answered, and I too considered her name. It tasted like irony, for her name meant "moon."

  "You have never thought to change your name?" I asked after a moment.

  "I was here before the Stone Moon, ke emodo," she said. "And they have already taken enough from me."

  House Rabeil lent us a rikka so I could bring Kuli home. She rode at my back but did not lean on me, and her body betrayed a trembling interest in all her surroundings.

  So, I took a circuitous route. Anadi were no longer seen in public save at rare moments like this when they were being transported to an important House, so I didn't dismount and bring her into any of the shops. But we rode through most of the Green's byways, and she spent the entire time looking this way, that way, her weight shifting against me as her head turned.

  "What is it that you look at?" I asked in a low voice as we passed the Green's garden park.

  "The light," she breathed, and in her mouth the words were a poem: two words and yet my heart skipped.

  I looked as she did, saw the afternoon sun, low and slanted, casting lavender shadows. It glimmered in the skin of the Jokka passing, leafed the plants in copper. For a fleeting moment I saw the world as light, as without form or substance without the sun to make it real.

  "House Asara has no garden," I said suddenly. "We should make one."

  "What?" she said.

  "We have fields," I said. "And a courtyard with a fountain. But no garden the way Rabeil has. We should make one." I glanced over my shoulder at her. "Would you like to design it?"

  "W-what?" she said, wide-eyed. My glimpse caught her eyes and nothing more; they were beige and clear, like the tisane we'd been drinking. And then, regaining herself, said, "Before the Stone Moon. It was common for Houses to have gardens, for extra food and for pleasure. Does Asara still have the space?"

  "It must," I said. "We'll look for it when we get home."

  "All right," she said, and now her silence was a consuming one, internal; she no longer looked around her. I had given her a new puzzle. Smiling, I took the shortest route home.

  Kuli's trunk and the instructions for her care had arrived before us. When I approached the gate there were Jokka already awaiting us, Darsi foremost among them. I was surprised to see so many emodo with him, and to recognize most of the Jokka we'd taken with us to the residence. Once we'd gained the courtyard I dismounted and helped Kuli down.

  "The rikka belongs to House Rabeil," I said to one of the eperu—Jushet's spy, in fact—"see that it's returned to them, please." As it led the beast away I turned to Darsi and said, "Kuli Asara-anadi."

  "Ke anadi," Darsi said, touching his fingers to his brow and then to his navel. "Welcome to House Asara."

  "Thank you," she said, startled.

  "This is Darsi, my second," I said.

  "Your lover," she said, surprising us both.

  "You've... ah... heard of us?" Darsi asked.

  "She was the anadi at the party," I said. "The one you saw watching us."

  "Oh," Darsi said, shoulders relaxing. And then he laughed. "I knew something would come of that. I told you."
<
br />   He had, though what he'd said would come of it was trouble. We both knew it but he didn't salt the wound the way he would have before.

  "Would you like a tour of the House?" Darsi asked. "Everyone's eager to meet you."

  I glanced at the emodo waiting, at their expressions. Ah, Darsi. Was it your idea, I wondered? And if so, a great kindness. The emodo who'd gone to the residence wanted so badly to have a normal relationship with an anadi, to prove to themselves that they weren't doomed to the sort of miserable congress we'd been forced into.

  "I'd... like that," Kuli said, glancing at the others uncertainly.

  "Ke anadi," one of them said, saluting her as Darsi had. "May I?"

  "Please," she said, ducking her head a little so that one of her long locks fell over the length of her nose. She followed him and the other emodo closed in around her, murmuring their names to her, asking after her ride, telling her about the House.

  I watched them go, Darsi standing at my side.

  "You're not following?" he said at last.

  "No," I said. "Let them have their time. She's not my anadi, Darsi. She's a part of the House. Let her find her own confidants, friends, her own preferred company."

  He smiled, just a twitch of his mouth. Then said, "Where should we put her? The House has caverns but they haven't been used in years."

  "Under no circumstance are we immuring her underground," I said. "Give her a room somewhere. One with a window. Maybe near the back exits; I've given her permission to make a garden, she should have ready access to it."

  "You want to put House Asara's anadi prize in a normal Jokkad's room and let her wander around outside?" Darsi said, cautious. "You know how that will make us look."

  "Yes," I said. I glanced at him now. "Do you really want to put her underground?"

  He flattened his ears and sighed. "No."

  "We will take precautions," I said. "But let's not let the empire infect us with its sickness. As much as possible, Darsi, we have to live as we would wish to if we were free."

  "All right," Darsi said. "You don't need me to tell you how risky it is."

  "No," I said. "Me most of all."

  "I'll go prepare her a room," he said. "I think I know which one will work."

  I smiled and followed him in.

  I didn't track Kuli's progress through the House, though I caught sight of the procession a few times. Each time I did, she had a different set of keepers, but though she remained bewildered by the attention she had relaxed. The emodo and eperu of the House were enchanted by her. I smiled and took my dinner alone in my office where I could make sure the new eperu had been settled. Hesa's notes on the process were concise and in places piquant, and I laughed at some of them. The bureaucracy of the empire made the transfer of contracts tedious, the eperu ones particularly, and on that matter Hesa was not afraid to make its opinions known.

  After I'd finished the work I went to see what was on the hearth and found a spiced juice, something warm and fragrant and unfamiliar to me. I was sipping it when Hesa padded in and dropped into a chair.

  "Hungry?" I said.

  "Very," it answered. "I have been out all day trying to make sense of too many things. The crops will be going in soon, which will leave us fields for Abadil's endeavor, but we still owe food to the empire because of the size of our arable plots." It rubbed its brow with the back of a hand. "There's a math there to work out since our duty is not for fields-planted, but for crops-delivered; if we plant something that fails to yield for whatever reason, we'll owe the Stone Moon taxes."

  "Could we default on the crop requirement entirely and just pay the fine?" I asked.

  "If we had the money, which we don't," Hesa said. "Our fields are too large, Pathen. Opting not to work at least some of them for the het would be ruinous. But even if we could forego the duty, it wouldn't look right. As much as I hate the empire I can't argue with the crop requirement. It's our responsibility to one another to fill the granaries. To renege on that is not a blow to the Stone Moon. It's a blow against the Jokka."

  "Are we still so close to famine?" I asked, bringing it a bowl of stew.

  It looked at the bowl. "It's been a while since I looked at the food projections. We weren't in that business at home, not formally, but we paid into the common store with surplus honey as a way to mitigate our tax burden. But even het Kabbanil was sensitive to the yearly crop yields, and it was the best managed of the hets in the empire." It sighed. "At least the eperu have arrived. That will give me a chance to sit down and really understand what we're undertaking with Thesenet's proposal."

  "But Laisira ran caravans from het Kabbanil," I said.

  "Laisira ran a single House's caravans, and never further than one stop away down the road," it said, licking the spoon to clean it before tapping it on the table to demonstrate. "From here to here—point of initiation to destination. What Thesenet's talking about involves multiple stops. It brings up many more challenges: where do we store the goods between stops? Who holds the money? Who are we selling to?"

  Recovering from the sight of its tongue on the spoon, I said, "Can you still do it?"

  "Yes," it said, meeting my eyes. "But I'd really like a chance to talk to Thesenet myself."

  I paused. "Eperu don't talk to Stone Moon ministers about business matters," I said finally.

  "I know," it said. "And if you really think I shouldn't, I will educate you on the questions and you can ask them yourself. But it would save a lot of time if I didn't have to do that."

  I thought of the empire's growing problems. "We don't have much time."

  "No," it said.

  I looked at the eperu and lowered my voice. "You are asking me to trust your safety with the highest official of the empire in het Narel, Hesa."

  "I know," it said, grimacing. "I know, Pathen. And I don't know him well so you're going to have to tell me if it's safe. If he'll find the notion of an eperu running the business of the House criminal."

  I blew out a breath. "Give me some time to think about it." At its expression I said, "I won't delay. But it's not a decision I want to make without consideration."

  "All right," it said. "But I think your first instinct, whatever it is, is the right one." The eperu returned to eating and I let it. I didn't want to tell it that my first instinct had been smothered by my terror over what might happen if Thesenet decided that eperu like Hesa were against nature and should be executed before they could make trouble. I'm sure there had been a reaction, but gods knew I couldn't remember what it was.

  Darsi joined us next, pouring himself a cup of the spiced juice before sitting across from Hesa with a sigh. "Well that's done. I think, anyway. She might still be wandering."

  Hesa glanced at me, brows lifted.

  "We now have one of our anadi prizes," I said. "She came home with me from Rabeil."

  It laughed. "Like a lost ñedsu pup, is that it?"

  "You have no idea," Darsi muttered.

  "Where is she now?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Darsi said. "I showed her the room, but I'd barely done that before someone showed up to ask her if she wanted to play jenadha with them, and she was off again."

  That made me laugh. "Good for her, then."

  "Pathen," Darsi said, quellingly. "She's anadi. She should be resting!"

  "She's smart enough," I said. "I trust her to know the limits of her own body. When she needs rest, she'll sleep."

  "She sounds interesting," Hesa murmured, listening to us with a cheek in one palm.

  "She is," Darsi said. "But... a little bit crazy." He smiled, lopsided. "I guess she'll fit right in."

  "So she will," I said. "Where's Abadil, speaking of crazy?"

  "I haven't seen him," Darsi said. "He's been out a lot."

  "With Eduñil?" I wondered.

  "I don't know," Darsi said. "He doesn't tell me his errands. Has he told you, Hesa?"

  "No," Hesa said. "But I've been out most of the day."

  "It can wait," I s
aid. "Tell me where we've put the new eperu."

  So Hesa apprised me of the rest of its news, and Darsi added his, and they were interrupting one another on the matter of scavenging grass for the paper project since they'd both had a hand in organizing the expedition when Darsi stopped abruptly.

  I looked over my shoulder and found Kuli in the door. She stepped in, her footfalls cautious and all that tail dragging behind her. "I was told I could find something to drink here," she said.

  "By the hearth," I said. "Please, join us."

  She served herself and we all stared. I don't think any of us could recall the last time we'd seen an anadi do something for herself, especially something as mundane as pouring herself a drink. She looked unsuited for such tasks and yet she executed them with an ease that made them seem perfectly normal. Then she approached us, and we rose. She stopped.

  "You know Darsi," I said. "Kuli, this is Hesa Asara-emodo. Hesa, Kuli Asara-anadi."

  "You... you're the pefna," Kuli said, looking up at Hesa. "I've heard about you from the others."

  Hesa stammered, "Nothing bad, I hope."

  She laughed. "The eperu say you do the work of ten eperu, which is good because they are each only capable of the work of five. The emodo think you are a great terror and are fiercely proud that they get to claim you as theirs."

  "All this you got from a few hours in the House?" Darsi asked, startled.

  "I'm good at listening," Kuli said. And faltered, "It's... not usual for people to bother to talk to me. So I like to listen when they do."

  Hesa drew a chair out for her, being nearest, and she sat with her cup.

  "I'm surprised you're up," I said.

  "Anadi tend to stay up late," she said. "It's easier on us than being up early. But it's been a long day so I will probably sleep after this." She smiled at me. "Everyone's been so kind. I've been able to play board games. And they showed me the abandoned garden plot. Ke Darsi's room is... I... I have never had a room to myself, much less one aboveground."

  "You're not overwhelmed, I hope," I said.

  "No," she said. "Not in a bad way, at least. I like it here... I hope I can stay."