He tried, and could not. Mim's dark eyes flooded with sadness.
"I am sorry," was all he could say.
Her hands tightened on his. That terrible dark-eyed look would not let him go. "Do you wish to break the contract, or do you wish to keep it?"
"Do you?"
"If it is your wish."
With his chilled hand he smoothed the hair from her cheek and wiped at a streak of tears. "I do not love her," he said; and then, tribute to the honesty Mim herself used: "But I know how she feels, Mim. Sometimes I feel that way too. Sometimes all Elas is strange to me and I want to be human just for a little time. It is like that with her."
"She might give you children and you would be lord over all Nephane."
He crushed her against him, the faint perfume of aluel leaves about her clothing, a freshness about her skin, and remembered the synthetics-and-alcohol scent of Djan, human and, for the moment, pleasing. There was kindness in Djan; it made her dangerous, for it threatened her pride.
It threatened Elas.
"If it were in Djan's nature to marry, which it is not, I would still feel no differently, Mim. But I cannot say that this will be the last time I go to the Afen. If you cannot bear that, then tell me so now."
"I would be concubine and not first wife, if it was your wish."
"No," he said, realizing how she had heard it. "No, the only reason I would ever put you aside would be to protect you."
She leaned up on tiptoe and took his face between her two silken hands, kissed him with great tenderness. Then she drew back, hands still uplifted, as if unsure how he would react. She looked frightened.
"My lord husband," she said, which she was entitled to call him, being betrothed. The words had a strange sound between them. And she took liberties with him which he understood no honorable nemet lady would take with her betrothed, even hi being alone with him. But she put all her manners aside to please him, perhaps, h4 feared, to fight for him in her own desperate fashion.
He pressed her to him tightly and set her back again. "Mim, please. Go before someone wakes and sees you. I have to talk to Kta."
"Will you tell him what has happened?"
"I intend to."
"Please do not bring violence into this house."
"Go on, Mim."
She gave him an agonized look, but she did as he asked her.
He did not knock at Kta's door. There had already been too much noise in the sleeping house. Instead he opened it and slipped inside, crossed the floor and parted the curtain that screened the sleeping area before he spoke Kta's name.
The nemet came awake with a start and an oath, looked at Kurt with dazed eyes, then rolled out of bed and
wrapped a kilt around himself. "Gods," he said, "you look deathly, friend. What happened? Are you all right? Is there some-?"
"I've just been put to explaining a situation to Mim," Kurt said, and found his limbs shaking under him, the delayed reaction to all that he had been through. "Kta, I need advice."
Kta showed him a chair. "Sit down, my friend. Compose your heart and I will help you if you can make me understand. Shall I find you something to drink?"
Kurt sat down and bowed his head, locked his fingers behind his neck until he made himself remember the calm that belonged in, Elas. The scent of incense, the dim light of the phusa, the sense of stillness, all this comforted him, and the panic left him though the fear did not.
"I am all right," he said. "No, do not bother about try drink."
"You only now came in?" Kta asked him, for the morning showed through the window.
Kurt nodded, looked him in the eyes, and Kta let the breath hiss slowly between his teeth.
"A personal matter?" Kta asked with admirable delicacy.
"The whole of Elas seems to have read matters better than I did when I went up to the Afen. Was it that obvious? Does the whole of Nephane know by now, or is there any privacy in this city?"
"Mim knew, at least. Kurt, Kurt, light of heaven, ther8 Was no need to guess. When the Methi's men came back to assure us of your safety, it was clear enough, coupled with the Methi's reaction to the betrothal. My friend, do not 6e ashamed. We always knew that your life would be bound to that of the Methi. Nephane has taken it for granted from the day you came. It was the betrothal to Mim that shocked everyone. I am speaking plainly. I think the truth has its moment, even if it is bitter. Yes, the whole of Nephane knows, and is by no means surprised."
Kurt swore, a raw and human oath, and gazed off at the window, unable to look at the nemet.
"Have you," said Kta, "love for the Methi?"
"No," he said harshly.
"You chose to go," Kta reminded him, "when Elas would have fought for you."
"Elas has no place in this."
"We have no honor if we let you protect us in this way. But it is not clear to us what your wishes are in this matter. Do you wish us to intervene?"
"I do not wish it," he answered.
"Is this the wish of your heart? Or do you still think to shield us? You owe us the plain truth, Kurt. Tell us I yes or no and we will believe your word and do as you wish."
"I do not love the Methi," he said in a still voice, "but I do not want Elas involved between us."
"That tells me nothing."
"I expect," he said, finding it difficult to meet Kta's dark-eyed and gentle sympathy, "that it will not be the last time. I owe her, Kta. If my behavior offends the honor of Elas or of Minn, tell me. I have no wish to bring misery on this house, and least of all on Mim. Tell me what to do."
"Life," said Kta, "is a powerful urge. You protest you hate the Methi, and perhaps she hates you, but the urge to survive and perpetuate your kind may be a sense of honor above every other honor. Mim has spoken to me of this."
He felt a deep sickness, thinking of that. At the moment he himself did not even wish to survive.
"Mim honors you," said Kta, "very much. If your heart toward her changed, still you are bound, my friend. I feared this, and Mim foreknew it. I beg you do not think of breaking this vow with Mim; it would dishonor her. Ai, my friend, my friend, we are a people that does not believe in sudden marriage, yet for once we were led by the heart; we were moved by the desire to make you and Mim happy. Now I hope that we have not been cruel instead. You cannot undo what you have done with Mim."
"I would not," Kurt said. "I would not change that."
"Then," said Kta, "all is well."
"I have to live in this city," said Kurt, "and how will people see this and how will it be for Mim?"
Kta shrugged. "That is the Methi's problem. It is common for a man to have obligations to more than one woman. One cannot, of course, have the Methi of Nephane for a common concubine. But it is for the woman's house to see to the proprieties and to obtain respectability. An honorable woman does so, as we have done for Mim. If a woman will not, or her family will not, matters are on her head, not yours. Though," he added, "a methi can do rather well as he or she pleases, and this has been a common difficulty with methis, particularly with human ones, and the late Tehal-methi of Indresul was notorious. Djan-methi is efficient. She is a good methi. The people have bread and peace, and as long as that lasts, you can only obtain honor by your association with her. I am only concerned that your feelings may turn again to human things, and Mim be only one of a strange people that for a time entertained you."
"No."
"I beg your forgiveness if this would never happen."
"It would never happen."
"I have offended my friend," said Kta. "I know you have grown nemet, and this part of you I trust; but forgive me, I do not know how to understand the other."
"I would do anything to protect Mim-or Elas."
"Then," said Kta in great earnestness, "think as nemet, not as human. Do nothing without your family. Keep nothing from your family. The Families are sacred. Even the Methi is powerless to do you harm when you stand with us and we with you."
"Then you do not know Djan."
/>
"There is the law, Kurt. As long as you have not taken arms against her or directly defied her, the law binds her. She must go through the Upei, and a dispute-forgive me-with her lover is hardly the kind of matter she could lay before the Upei."
"She could simply assign you and Tavi to sail to the end of the known world. She had alternatives, Kta."
"If the Methi chooses a quarrel with Elas," said Kta, "she will have chosen unwisely. Elas was here before the Methi came, and before the first human set foot on this soil. We know our city and our people, and our voice is heard in councils on both sides of the Dividing Sea. When Elas speaks in the Upei, the Great Families listen; and now of all times the Methi dares not have the Great Families at odds with her. Her position is not as secure as it seems, which she knows full well, my friend."
VIII
The ship from Indresul came into port late on the day scheduled, a bireme with a red sail-the international emblem, Kta explained as he stood with Kurt on the dock, of a ship claiming immunity from attack. It would be blasphemy against the gods either to attack a ship bearing that color or to claim immunity without just cause.
The Nephanite crowds were ominously silent as the ambassador left his ship and came ashore. Characteristic of the nemet, there was no wild outburst of hatred, but people took just long enough moving back to clear a path for the ambassador's escort to carry the point that he was not welcome in Nephane.
Mor t'Uset ul Orm, white-haired and grim of face, made his way on foot up the hill to the height of the Afen and paid no heed to the soft curses that followed at his back.
"The house of Uset," said Kta as he and Kurt made their way uphill in the crowd, "that house on this side of the Dividing Sea, will not stir out of doors this day. They will not go into the Upei for very shame."
"Shame before Mor t'Uset or before the people of Nephane?"
"Both. It is a terrible thing when a house is divided. The Guardians of Uset on both sides of the sea are in conflict. Ei, ei, fighting the Tamurlin is joyless enough; it is worse that two races have warred against each other over this land; but when one thinks of war against one's own family, where gods and Ancestors are shared, whose hearth once burned with a common flame-ai, heaven keep us from such a day."
"I do not think Djan will take this city to war. She knows too well where it leads."
"Neither side wants it," said Kta, "and the Indras-descended of Nephane want it least of all. Our quarrel with..." -
Kta fell silent as they came to the place where the street narrowed to pass the gate in the lower defense wall. A man reaching the gate from the opposite direction was staring at them: tall, powerful, wearing the braid and striped robe that- was not uncommon in the lower town and among the Methi's guard.
All at once Kurt knew him. Shan t'Tefur. Hate seemed in permanent residence in t'Tefur's narrow eyes. For a moment Kurt's heart pounded and his muscles tensed, for t'Tefur had stopped in the gate and seemed about to bar their way.
Kta jostled against Kurt, purposefully, clamped his arm in a hard grip unseen beneath the fold of the ctan and edged him through the gate, making it clear he should not stop.
"That man," said Kurt, resisting the urge to look back, for Kta's grip remained hard, warning him. "That man is from the Afen."
"Keep moving," Kta said.
They did not stop until they reached the high street, that area near the Afen which belonged to the mansions of the Families, great, rambling things, among which Elas was one of the most prominent. Here Kta seemed easier, and slowed his pace as they headed toward the door of Elas.
"That man," Kurt said then, "came where I was being held in the Afen. He brought me into the Methi's rooms. His name is t'Tefur,"
"I know his name."
"He seems to have a dislike for humans."
"Hardly," said Kta. "It is a personal dislike. He has no fondness for either of us. He is Sufaki."
"I noticed the braid, the robes-that is not the dress of the Methi's guard, then?"
"No. It is Sufak."
"Osanef... Osanef is Sufaki. Han t'Osanef and Bel do not wear-"
"No. Osanef is Sufaki, but the jafikn, the long hair braided in the back, that is an ancient custom, the warrior's braid No one has done it since the Conquest. It was forbidden the Sufaki then. But in recent years the rebel spirits have revived the custom, and the Robes of Color, which distinguish their houses. There are three Sufak houses of the ancient aristocracy surviving, and 'Tefur is of one. He is a dangerous man. His name is Shan t'Tefur u Tlekef, or as he prefers to be known, Tlekefu Shan Tefur. He is Bias' bitter enemy, and fie is yours not alone for the sake of Elas."
"Because I'm human? But I understood Sufaki had no
particular hate for-" And it dawned on him, with a
sudden heat at the face.
"Yes," said Kta, "he has been the Methi's lover for many months."
"What does your custom say he and I should do about-
"Sufak custom says he may try to make you fight him. And you must not. Absolutely you must not."
"Kta, I may be helpless in most things nemet, but if he wants to press a fight, that is something I can under- stand. Do you mean a fight, or do you mean a fight to the death? I am not that anxious to kill him over her, but neither am I going to be-"
"Listen. Hear what I am saying to you. You must avoid a fight with him. I do not question your courage or your ability. I am asking this for the sake of Elas. Shan t'Tefur is dangerous." "Do you expect me to allow myself to be killed? Is he dangerous in that sense, or how?"
"He is a power among the Sufaki. He sought more power, which the Methi could give him. You have made him lose honor and you have threatened his position of leadership. You are resident with Elas, and we are of the Indras-descended. Until now, the Methi has inclined toward the Sufaki, ever since she dispensed with me as an interpreter. She has been surrounded by Sufaki, chosen friends of Shan t'Tefur, and has drawn much of her power from them, so much so that the Great Families are uneasy. But of a sudden Shan t'Tefur finds his footing unsteady."
They walked in silence for a moment. Increasingly bitter and embarrassed thoughts reared up. Kurt glanced at the nemet.' "You pulled me from the harbor. You saved my life. You gave me everything I have, by Djan's leave. You went to her and asked for me, and if not for that I would be... I would certainly not be walking the streets free. So do not misunderstand what I ask you. But you said that from the time I arrived in Nephane, people knew that I would become involved with the Methi. Was I pushed toward that, Kta? Was I aimed at her, an Indras weapon against Shan t'Tefur?"
And to his distress, Kta did not answer at once.
"Is it the truth, then?" Kurt asked.
"Kurt, you have married within my house."
"Is it true?" he insisted.
"I do not know how a human hears things," Kta protested. "Or whether you attribute to me motives no nemet would have, or fail to think what would be obvious to a nemet. Gods, Kurt-"
"Answer me."
"When I first saw you, I thought, He is the Methi's kind. Is that not most obvious? Is there offense in.that? And I thought: He ought to be treated kindly, since he is a gentle being, and since one day he may be more than he seems now. And then an unworthy thought came to me: It would be profitable to your house, Kta t'Elas. And there is offense in that. At the time you were only human to me; and to a nemet, that does not oblige one to deal morally. I do offend you. I cause you pain. But that is the way it was. I think differently now. I am ashamed."
"So Elas took me in, to use."
"No," said Kta quickly. "We would never have opened-"
His words died as Kurt kept staring at him. "Go ahead," said Kurt. "Or do I already understand?"
Kta met his eyes directly, contrition in a nemet. "Elas is holy to us. I owe you a truth. We would never have opened our doors to you-to anyone... Very well, I will say it: it is unthinkable that I would have exposed my hearth to human influence, whatever the advantage it promised with
the Methi. Our hospitality is sacred, and not for sale for any favor. But I made a mistake. In my anxiousness to win your favor, I gave you my word, and the word of Elas is sacred too. So I accepted you. My friend, let our friendship survive this truth: when the other Families reproached Elas for taking a human into its rhmei, we argued simply that it was better for a human to be within an Indras house than sent to the Sufaki instead, for the influence of the Sufaki is already dangerously powerful. And I think another consideration influenced Djan-methi in hearing me: that your life would have been in constant danger in a Sufak house, because of the honor of Shan t'Tefur, although I dared not say it in words. So she sent you to Elas. I think she feared t'Tefur's reaction even if you remained in the Afen."