heart had dropped into my boots.
“Why?” I asked. “ Is he ill? ”
“ Ill! ” she cried, flushing darker still. “He’s weaker than a gnat; his heart is broken!”
I stared.
“Don’t stand there like a stump! Your sister has crushed his hopes, that’s clear enough; does she think herself too good for the future Telkan?”
“ I don ’t know,” I faltered. My head was spinning, and the edges of the room seemed to fade. I thought of Dasya and Siski going away together into the woods without me, and Siski coming home alone. The blood on her cheek, so dark in the instant I was allowed to see her, the instant before they whisked her away upstairs. I felt like a fool for not having seen the signs of romance between them, for thinking them depressed by the loss of Tuik. As if horses were everything. Kad shedyamud , I thought in Kestenyi. What barbarism. I felt, in that moment, like a barbarian, someone who was only good for riding and hunting and fighting, and then I almost wept for desire of such a life. My aunt was screaming in my face, her elegant little hands tearing the air—“I want to know what happened! Nobody tells me anything! What did they quarrel about? Whatever it is, she must forgive him!”—and I gave up the effort of standing and sat down on a plump silk couch.
The cushion was harder than I had expected; my teeth clacked together. Outside the window, just past my aunt, spread the windswept sky of Bain. Gulls swung between the towers. The sun struck a distant window that glittered so brightly I thought, for a moment, it was a tear in the corner of my eye. How quickly the world comes down, as if it were only made of paper. I thought of Uncle Veda pacing downstairs, his thumb and forefinger stained with ink, his ankles throbbing from dancing the arilantha and other intricate Valley dances. And everything was gone, the house, Valedhara of the high cupboards which even my uncle ’ s valet stood on a table to reach. The pearl-knobbed doors, the antelope horns that were taken down and polished with wax, and the great collection of weapons in the study. This room that was called a study was really a storage room for no one studied there and the old wall lamps were empty of oil, so that one always carried a candle inside even during the day because the windows were blocked by enormous old armor cases. I remembered the odor of dust and leather and the glow of the candle revealing the buried wonders of that chamber. “Somewhere here,” said Uncle Veda. Suddenly he had decided to look for a hawking glove that predated the War of the East. Metal clanged, shields slid to the floor. “Help me look, my dear,” my uncle said. His robe trailed in the dust and caught on boxes, his hanging sleeves became tangled in a collection of Panji hunting bows. At last he said: “Ah, look. There it is.” He held the glove up in the light of the candle. It seemed huge, misshapen, a monstrous gauntlet trailing moth-eaten ribbons. “I knew you would enjoy that thing,” he chuckled. “How we loved our hawking parties then, when Ranlu was alive!” And downstairs in the parlor I sat with the great glove on my knee and gingerly touched the ribbons and strands of beads, while Uncle Veda lit his pipe and told me of the hawking they had done in the golden days before the war. First they would choose their birds, walking quietly in the early morning among the hooded cages of the lokhu. Then they would go out among the hills, riding on the shaggy, stalwart ponies of the plain, and at last release their falcons to the sky. “We would catch foxes, yellow hares, even ermine,” he said. His eyes grew moist as he began to laugh, remembering how Ranlu ’ s hawk had perched on the roof of an aklidoh and the hermits had refused to let them retrieve it. “They were so kind to us, that was the worst of it!” he sputtered, wiping his eyes. “Yes, suddi! Welcome, suddi! Giving us curds and butter! We squatted in the yard and ate
“Why?” I asked. “ Is he ill? ”
“ Ill! ” she cried, flushing darker still. “He’s weaker than a gnat; his heart is broken!”
I stared.
“Don’t stand there like a stump! Your sister has crushed his hopes, that’s clear enough; does she think herself too good for the future Telkan?”
“ I don ’t know,” I faltered. My head was spinning, and the edges of the room seemed to fade. I thought of Dasya and Siski going away together into the woods without me, and Siski coming home alone. The blood on her cheek, so dark in the instant I was allowed to see her, the instant before they whisked her away upstairs. I felt like a fool for not having seen the signs of romance between them, for thinking them depressed by the loss of Tuik. As if horses were everything. Kad shedyamud , I thought in Kestenyi. What barbarism. I felt, in that moment, like a barbarian, someone who was only good for riding and hunting and fighting, and then I almost wept for desire of such a life. My aunt was screaming in my face, her elegant little hands tearing the air—“I want to know what happened! Nobody tells me anything! What did they quarrel about? Whatever it is, she must forgive him!”—and I gave up the effort of standing and sat down on a plump silk couch.
The cushion was harder than I had expected; my teeth clacked together. Outside the window, just past my aunt, spread the windswept sky of Bain. Gulls swung between the towers. The sun struck a distant window that glittered so brightly I thought, for a moment, it was a tear in the corner of my eye. How quickly the world comes down, as if it were only made of paper. I thought of Uncle Veda pacing downstairs, his thumb and forefinger stained with ink, his ankles throbbing from dancing the arilantha and other intricate Valley dances. And everything was gone, the house, Valedhara of the high cupboards which even my uncle ’ s valet stood on a table to reach. The pearl-knobbed doors, the antelope horns that were taken down and polished with wax, and the great collection of weapons in the study. This room that was called a study was really a storage room for no one studied there and the old wall lamps were empty of oil, so that one always carried a candle inside even during the day because the windows were blocked by enormous old armor cases. I remembered the odor of dust and leather and the glow of the candle revealing the buried wonders of that chamber. “Somewhere here,” said Uncle Veda. Suddenly he had decided to look for a hawking glove that predated the War of the East. Metal clanged, shields slid to the floor. “Help me look, my dear,” my uncle said. His robe trailed in the dust and caught on boxes, his hanging sleeves became tangled in a collection of Panji hunting bows. At last he said: “Ah, look. There it is.” He held the glove up in the light of the candle. It seemed huge, misshapen, a monstrous gauntlet trailing moth-eaten ribbons. “I knew you would enjoy that thing,” he chuckled. “How we loved our hawking parties then, when Ranlu was alive!” And downstairs in the parlor I sat with the great glove on my knee and gingerly touched the ribbons and strands of beads, while Uncle Veda lit his pipe and told me of the hawking they had done in the golden days before the war. First they would choose their birds, walking quietly in the early morning among the hooded cages of the lokhu. Then they would go out among the hills, riding on the shaggy, stalwart ponies of the plain, and at last release their falcons to the sky. “We would catch foxes, yellow hares, even ermine,” he said. His eyes grew moist as he began to laugh, remembering how Ranlu ’ s hawk had perched on the roof of an aklidoh and the hermits had refused to let them retrieve it. “They were so kind to us, that was the worst of it!” he sputtered, wiping his eyes. “Yes, suddi! Welcome, suddi! Giving us curds and butter! We squatted in the yard and ate
Similar Books
