36 - A whole loaf sandwich

It felt as though I had purged some of my soul’s rot and I applied myself to the Geography text. I ignored the sensations I got from Ailadas as I bent to the book. I was certain he must had heard I did such things as I had done this morning, though I had never done something quite so… extreme and certainly not in his presence. It was as though my hatred… of what? … my anger… against whom?… burst like a bubble. After my time with Ailadas I had to attend with my dancing master and then my etiquette instructor and afterward, my painting tutor.

It was almost dinner and I was supposed to change my clothing and attend. I was tired and I just wanted to crawl into bed with a stack of books. Perhaps I would beg off more food and more court and more father. If I could speak to father’s personal physician, the Haian Misahis, I could ask him if I might do that. He probably would not still be in my rooms with the two street urchins, unless I were lucky.

I could see them before they could see me, because I came into the Rising Sun sitting room through the upper staircase and they wouldn’t have heard the door three rooms away. I stood in the open doorway and looked down at the two okas boys. They sat in the middle of the floor afraid to touch anything, staring at the golden ceiling and around at the walls. Binshala had out-done herself. The two boys were clean, and no longer stank. She’d found new clothing for them, plain servant’s cotton, mended but clean and whole shirts and kilts and gloves.

Math showed almost reddish coloring to go with his freckles. He had a Haian bandage wound around his knee and didn’t sit cross-legged like Geography, who turned out to have a splotch of birthmark revealed on his clean scalp. He had a hard bandage on his elbow, locking it in place. They sat quietly, whispering to each other.

Tell me, Minis… For some reason I could hear the question in my head, again. What happens if an okas is born brilliant? A possible general, a great artist? What happens then? And my answer. Nothing happens. They live and die okas.

I could barely understand what they said, their okas accents thick, equal to equal, and I was about to leave them until later and go drag myself to dinner when I heard the distinctive Haian accent. Misahis was still here. I headed down the steps.

“Misahis.” He got up from where he sat, off to one side at a small desk where he’d been outside my view.

“Spark of the Sun’s Ray,” he said quietly, his soft brown features and delicate hands folded. He wore his distinctive rusty black Haian robes with the white stripes on either side of his neck.

“You’ve looked after the boys?” I could not read his face. He put one hand down on his black leather bag on the table.

“Yis. Ay hef given them rimidies, end seen to their hurts.” I looked for some kind of judgment, some kind of censure in his look, but like all Haians he kept his opinions to himself, though not with Mahid flatness. Haians thought all mainlanders members of the ‘violent mad’ and we should all be remanded to their House of Integrity for healing, so I knew he felt that much at least. “If they kin be persuaded to take the rimidies for the time ay hef told them, they weel be better than before you made them fight.” There it was. On some level it made me feel better and worse at the same time.

“Good. Misahis, I’m feeling really tired and want to go to bed instead of to dinner. If you think that would be a good idea, I’d be able to do that.” He knew the situation. Better than anyone, really, since he was father’s personal physician. And father always rejected his advice out of hand as frail drivel. Just because Haians were pacifists didn’t make them stupid – or weak. He gestured at me to sit down in the chair he’d just vacated.

The okas boys had gone silent when I’d spoken and were doing their best to be invisible. I ignored them and sat down, holding my wrists to the Haian so he could lay graceful fingers on my pulse-points. “Tek a deep breath, Spark,” he said softly and the six fingers flexed in their matched pattern on my wrists.

“I’m not hungry for dinner,” I said. “I just want quiet.” He asked me to stick my tongue out and checked the skin on the centre of my forehead with a finger and tugged a lock of hair between his fingers – careful to not pull on my scalp. But then if there was someone who had a loving touch, it would be a Haian. I realized that Raikas – Shefenkas – had a touch like that. And Binshala’s, too. Just that realization somehow made me even more tired.

I put my head down on the desk as Misahis rummaged in his bag. He put his hand on the back of my head and I didn’t push it away. “Thank you,” I said quietly, not sure he heard me.

“Tek these, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.” He dropped some of his own remedies under his tongue before offering them to me, totally without thinking about it. He had been father’s physician – in frustration, I was sure – for longer than I could remember. I opened my mouth like a baby bird. A wave of exhaustion washed over me and I put my head back down.

“Yis, Spark, you should go to bed. Ay will see that your father knows ay have said so.”

“Thank you, Misahis.”

He twitched just a trifle, startled. He must not have heard me before, and I wasn’t in the habit of thanking him for anything. “You are wilcome,” he said softly and clicked his bag shut.

I managed to drag my head off the desk and started pulling my clothing off, without help. I didn’t want the whole Hayel-born lot of my household chirping at me, trying to be jolly, trying to make me happy. Misahis didn’t offer to help me but walked with me toward my bedroom. “You two… come.” I threw that at the okas boys and Geography used his good arm to help Math up onto his good foot, and they limped after us.

“Spark, may ay ask what you will do with these boys?” Misahis was one of the only people I knew who would just ask me that, straight out. Most Arkans wouldn’t want to know what I would do, because they thought the worst of me. The story of what I did this morning was probably all over the Palace already.

“You can ask, but I won’t answer.” To be honest I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. If I had done this before I’d have just had the Mahid give them some copper and thrown them out.

“Ay will leave you then,” he said quietly, and turned away to leave through the Satinwood doors. I realized he probably now thought the worst of me, somehow, even though I wasn’t consistently getting erections yet, and that hurt worse than an Arkan thinking it.

They all think I’m like Him, that I will be another Imperator like Him, that I am just a flesh-tag on father’s backside. My stomach roiled suddenly and I went into the garderobe to throw up a mouthful of bile, waving the attendant away.

I was naked by now and crawled straight up into bed without looking around. The two okas boys stood awkwardly some feet away from the bed stairs, supporting each other. I adjust the satin coverlet up over my shoulders, burrowing my aching head into the soft pillow where the pressure gave me some relief. “Sit down, you two. You may use the chairs.” They looked at each other and sat down on the floor again.

“What are your names?”

Math dared speak first. “Birn Sinas, okas.” Geography said “Riran Eass, okas.”

“Did you know each other when my Mahid came and got you?”

“These miserable worms knew one another, before.” It was hard work getting any answers out of them and I was tired. I could barely keep my eyes open.

“I promised the winner a prize. I’m going to give the loser something too.” I could see from their faces that they’d thought being fed and dressed was their reward and they were surprised. “Binshala?”

I raised my voice a bit and she looked in the door. “Binshala, you’ve done perfectly so far with these two. If you could feed them again before letting them go, and on my desk are two packets… one marked M and one G. Get them for me, would you? Oh, and two pieces of paper and my pen.” She nodded and went to get them.

“There’s some copper in the packets. Is it safe for either of you to have silver? Or would someone just steal it from you?” Their eyes were white all around. They just shook their heads, mutely. I sat up when Binshala came back… “Oh, I’m sorry Binshala, I need my seal and the wax too.”

I opened the packets and had her add some silver chains to them, from my private cash box. While she did that I wrote two letters of recommendation to a master, for the okas, and sealed them with my personal seal, using the heavy book as a desk. “If you are not yet apprentices...” Given how filthy they’d been, they could not be apprenticed, since no master would have such dirt in his business. “…You will be able to apply to a master. Depending on what you want to do, you might have the fee, there.” I nodded at the packages and pressed my seal into the hot wax on the second letter. “Those are letters of recommendation.” I handed them each one. With that one stroke I had ensured their future, if they were careful with the letters they could not read.

“Don’t tell anyone I rewarded you, all right?” They took their packages from my hands, staring at me as though I truly were a creature out of legend. Math – Birm – nodded slightly.

“So, go eat and Binshala will see you out.” If I knew her she’d probably send them out with a whole loaf sandwich wrapped up for each of them as well. They kept staring back at me over their shoulders as she showed them out.

Then I was finally alone to lay my aching head down again. If I felt better later I’d go sit in the hot pool. Or something. But I was so tired I couldn’t even gather enthusiasm for the newest romance novel from the Press, waiting to be opened on top of my reading stack. Even when I slept I knew I’d have to open my eyes to the same things tomorrow. And the day after that. And on into the future, all by myself. I lay back, listening to the chime of my fountain, swallowed the lump in my throat.