Children of God (9 page)

I will take what is mine, he thought, and go.

"FRANKLY, HLAVIN, I EXPECTED MORE OF HIM," REMARKED IRA’IL VRO to the Reshtar of Galatna. Alerted by informants, they had watched Supaari return to the Kitheri compound, moving to a corner tower to observe as the merchant spoke to the midwife in the back courtyard and then left with her and the child. Ira’il faced Hlavin Kitheri, only to confront an unnerving stare. "You must be so disappointed…" Ira’il said, voice trailing off uncertainly.

Confused, he inhaled guardedly to catch Kitheri’s scent. There was no whiff of anger, but Ira’il turned back to the tower window to cover his unease. He could, by shifting his eyes a bit, pick out the treasury and provincial revenue offices, the state archives and libraries, the arena located only steps from the High Court. The baths, the embassies; the towering stone pillars, with their silvery cloisonne of radio transmission equipment, rising from the General Command. He knew all the landmarks now and admired the cityscape: a timeless celebration of stability and unchanging balance—

Balance! This was the very thing Ira’il lacked when dealing with the Kitheri Reshtar. Hlavin was third-born and Ira’il a first, but the Kitheri outranked every other family in the Principality of Inbrokar, so using the Reshtar’s name in direct address or deciding who held right to the personal pronoun was a complicated and dangerous task. Without a Runa protocol specialist to advise him, Ira’il felt constantly on the verge of toppling into some unforgivable error.

To make matters worse, Ira’il had no idea why he’d been chosen to accompany the Reshtar from Gayjur to Inbrokar when Hlavin’s exile was suspended for the birth of his sister’s child. Granted, Ira’il had so admired the Reshtar’s extraordinary poetry that he had defied his own family and renounced his right to transmit the Vro patrimony, in order to join the glittering society of Galatna Palace. But other men had done the same, and Ira’il himself was a poor singer who knew just enough about poetry to understand that his own verse would never rise above cliché. The only time he came to the Reshtar’s attention was when he uttered some regrettably obvious praise for another man’s lovely metaphor, or hit the wrong note in a chorus. So he had been content to sit at the edges of the Reshtar’s court, feeling honored simply to be in the company of such artists. Someone, after all, had to be the audience.

Then, inexplicably, Hlavin Kitheri had reached out and pulled Ira’il Vro from obscurity, inviting him to attend the inauguration ceremonies of the extraordinary new Darjan lineage that the Reshtar had permitted to come into existence.

"Oh, but you must be there, Ira’il," the Reshtar had insisted when Ira’il had stammered a demurral, "to see the jest played out in full! I promise, you shall be the only one aside from me who will understand the whole of it."

Ira’il could only presume that the Reshtar enjoyed his company—a startling notion, but irresistibly flattering.

Everything about this excursion had been startling, really. Entering Inbrokar for the first time, Ira’il had been amazed by the Kitheri palace, here in the center of the capital. It was architecturally impressive but oddly quiet—very nearly empty, except for the family itself and its domestic staff. Ira’il had expected something more exciting, more alive at the very heart of his culture…. He turned away from the city and looked down at the kitchen yard and the Runa gate through which the merchant had just left. "One might have expected a glorious duel," he told the Reshtar then, hoping that Hlavin would forget the earlier use of dominant language. "The peddler could have taken Dherai. You’d have moved up to second."

"I think he did," the Reshtar said serenely.

"Apologies," Ira’il Vro said, flustered into another gaffe. "I’m not sure I follow—. Apologies! One doesn’t understand—"

Of course not, you dolt, Hlavin Kitheri thought, gazing at the other man with something approaching affection, for he did enjoy Vro’s company immensely—particularly the idiot’s clumsy slights and graceless attempts at recovery. There were wondrously comic elements to this entire drama, and it had been fascinating to set it in motion. Supaari means to leave the city, the Reshtar had realized as his ludicrous brother-in-law stole away with his prize like a skulking scavenger, and the radiance that filled Hlavin Kitheri’s soul rivaled those moments when the resolution of an improvised song came to him in midperformance. I could not have planned it more perfectly, he thought.

"I think the peddler killed my honored brother Dherai," the Reshtar said then, voice musical and clear, his limpid lavender eyes celestial. "And Bhansaar! And their brats. And then-in a delirium of bloodjoy, drunk on the dense, hot odor of vengeance—he killed Jholaa and my father, as well."

Ira’il opened his mouth to protest: No, he’s just left.

"I think that is what happened," the Reshtar said again, placing a brotherly arm across the other man’s shoulders and laying his tail cozily atop Vro’s own. "Don’t you?"

THERE WERE QUESTIONS THAT COULD NOT BE ASKED, AND THE MOST powerful of these was, "Why?"

"What?" and "When?" were necessary, of course. "Where?" was usually safe. "How?" was permissible, although it often led to trouble. But "Why?" was so hazardous that Selikat beat him when he used the word. Even as a child, Hlavin had understood that this was her duty. She beat him for his own good: she feared for him, and did not want the best of her students to be made an example of. Better a tutor’s whip than the slow and public extraction of instructive consequences, should any younger brother breathe treason.

"Am I a tailor’s dummy then?" he had demanded at the age of twelve, still fearless and unsubtle. "If Bhansaar dies, they’ll throw the cloak of office over me, and snap! I am Judgment! Is that how it works, Selikat?"

The tutor hesitated. It was a Reshtar’s fate to observe his elders’ ascendance, all the while knowing that if either proved out sterile or died before breeding, the extra son would step into the vacated position and be accorded the assumption of competence. Not tall but neat and agile, Hlavin was already physically as adept as Dherai, who was destined to be his nation’s champion, should any challenge to the Patrimony be made. And even Jholaa was brighter than Bhansaar, who could remember all that he was taught and apply it, but rarely drew an inference or came to a conclusion on his own, and who would nevertheless preside one day over Inbrokar’s highest court.

"The oldest songs explain it, sir," the Runao told him, her eyes closing and her voice taking on the rhythm if not the melody of the chants. "Ingwy, who loves order, spoke to the first brothers, Ch’horil and Srimat. ’When women gather, Chaos dances. Therefore, separate Pa’au and Ti-ha’ai, the fierce sisters you have married, and keep them apart and captive.’ With trickery and cunning, Ch’horil and Srimat conspired with other men until all had subdued their wives and daughters. But when they themselves did the culling and the butchering, the men, too, became blood-drunk and fought. ’We cannot wall ourselves up,’ they said. So Ingwy commanded, ’Let those who are wise decide who among you is too fierce to live, and let those who are strong kill the fierce ones condemned by the wise.’ And because Ch’horil the Elder was strong and Srimat the Younger was wise, from that time on, the first-born males of each sept were charged with combat and ritual killing, the second-born with adjudication and decision."

"And do you believe that?" Hlavin asked her bluntly.

Her eyes opened. "It all happened long before the Runa were domesticated," Selikat replied, dropping her tail with a soft and possibly ironic thud. "In any case, of what importance is the belief of an insignificant tutor, my lord?"

"You are not insignificant. You are tutor to the Kitheri Reshtar. Tell me what you think," the child ordered, imperious even then, when it seemed that nothing more awaited him than an exile designed to distract him from futile resentment and dangerous questions.

Selikat drew herself up, a person of some dignity. "Stability and order have always been paid for with captivity and blood," the Runao told her charge, calm eyes steady. "The songs tell also of the Age of Constancy, when everything was as it should be and each man knew his place and his family’s. There was respect for those above and courtesy from those below. All elements were in balance: Stewardship triumphant and Chaos contained—"

"Yes, yes: ’Ferocity controlled, like a woman in her chamber.’ Or a Reshtar in exile," the boy said. She had beaten him regularly, but he was still impulsive, and perilously cynical. "Were things ever truly so neat, Selikat? Even when men keep their place, the ground can split, swallowing towns. What of balance then? Floods can drown half the population of a low-lying province. A city can lie under ash in less time than it takes to sleep off a meal!"

"True," Selikat conceded. "And worse: there are those who secretly nurture disputes, unleashing vendettas whenever circumstance favors them. Jealousy exists, and self-seeking; competition for its own sake. And aggression and anger: the blind, deaf rage to settle something, once and for all."

The Runao stopped, deferential, but the beneficiary of generations of selective breeding and absolute mistress of her field of knowledge. All her life, she had lived among people endowed with a predator species’ anatomy, reflexes, instincts: the grasping feet, the slicing claws, the powerful limbs; the patience to stalk, the cleverness to ambush, the quickness to kill. Selikat had seen what was done to freethinkers, and she did not wish that fate for Hlavin.

"In opposition to all that ferocity," she resumed, "there have been great jurists, resourceful diplomats, men whose voices can restore calm and bring others to their senses. You, my lord, are named for the greatest of these: Hlavin Mra, whose wisdom is enshrined in the fundamental law of Inbrokar, whose oratorio ’Shall We Be as Women?’ is sung by every breeding male when he comes of age and takes his place in society."

"And what if Hlavin Mra had been born third?" his namesake asked. "Or even first?"

Selikat was silent for a time. Then she beat him. "What if?" was more dangerous than "Why?"

BUT FOR SELIKAT’S INFLUENCE, HE MIGHT HAVE ENDED LIKE SO MANY other reshtari of his caste: seduced by the sumptuous pleasures of the third-born nobleman’s indolent, easy life, and dead by middle age of obesity and boredom. There were nearly unlimited opportunities for consumption; Dherai and Bhansaar, fearing assassination, forestalling intrigue, were happy to provide Hlavin with anything he wanted, as long as he did not want what was theirs. Barred from breeding, banished to Galatna Palace with a harem of Runa concubines and neutered Jana’ata thirds, Hlavin had for his companions in exile the extra sons of the lesser nobility, who were allowed to travel more freely than their betters. Together, they filled the empty days with violent games that frequently ended with broken bones, or whiled the time away with monstrous banquets and increasingly debased sex.

"At least when she screamed, I knew someone was paying attention to me!" Hlavin shouted, drunk and adrift, when Selikat berated him for damaging a concubine so badly the girl had to be put down. "I am invisible! I might as well be Jholaa! Nothing is real here. Everything of importance is elsewhere."

A few reshtari embraced their own effacement and sought to lose themselves utterly in the chanting self-hypnosis of the Sti ritual. But Hlavin craved more, not less, of existence. Some reshtari were men of substance who had no taste for combat or for law and genuinely preferred scholarship; these continued their education beyond the training of their elders and from their ranks came architects, chemists, civil engineers, historians, mathematicians, geneticists, hydrologists. But Hlavin was no scholar.

Selikat’s own training was thorough and she knew the warning signs of intelligence twisting. Without some way out of this trap, Hlavin would destroy himself, one way or another. There was one possibility…. She had resisted it for a long time, hoping that he would find some other scent to follow.

Selikat made her decision that evening, watching Hlavin from a little distance as he listened to the Gayjur civic choirs, the ancient chants filling the air as the second sun set. Put two Jana’ata within half a cha’ar of one another at this time of day and the chorusing would begin, inevitable as darkness. There was no part for thirds: all harmonies were based on two voices. She had never been able to beat the music out of Hlavin. He had no right to sing, but it was the only time he seemed content, and she could hear him when the breeze was right, taking the dominant melody or counterpoint as it pleased him, embellishing the original tones with chromatic elements that extended or defied the bass line. When the last notes faded with the dying sunlight, she went to him, and spoke, not caring who else heard.

"Do you recall, my lord, that once you asked: And what if Hlavin Mra had been born third?"

Staring at her, Hlavin lifted his head.

"Even so," Selikat said with quiet conviction, "he would have sung."

Why did she do it? he asked himself later. It was, of course, the Runa way to sacrifice themselves for their masters. And in any case, there was less than a season left to Selikat: she was nearly fifty, old even by the standards of court Runa. Perhaps she simply hated waste, and knew the end he’d come to if he could not release what was in him. It was even possible that she wished him happiness, and knew that without music, there would be none in his life…. Whatever the reason, the Runao who had raised Hlavin Kitheri chose to give him one last gift.

Startled by her words, they both fell silent. Listening carefully for the telltale sound of breath caught, they heard footsteps, both knowing the outcome. "He would have made his life song," Selikat called as she was taken away, "no matter what his life was made of!" These were her last words to him, and Hlavin Kitheri did his best to honor them.

ALMOST FROM THE BEGINNING, HE PUT HIMSELF AT RISK.

With the focused ferocity of his ancestors, Hlavin Kitheri dismissed the young fools his brothers had tried to stupefy him with, and called instead for physicists, mathematicians, musicians, bards, surrounding himself with anyone of any caste or age grade who could be induced to teach him. He devoured first the bones and meat of rhythm and harmony and imagery. Then, when the most desperate hunger was assuaged, he tasted the delicacies of solfege: pulse, meter, contour, ambitus; pitch, scale, microtones; vowel length and stress, the interplay of linguistic and musical structures.

Pleased to find so apt a student, his teachers thought him one of their own-a theoretician, who would expound on the traditional chants. Naturally, it was a shock when he sang aloud to check his understanding of a canto’s phrasing, and they reported this to the paramountcy, but privately, they accepted it. And, they noted, the Reshtar had a remarkable voice: supple, true, with extraordinary range. A pity really, that it could not be heard more widely…

Soon, however, he dismissed the academics as well and, when he was rid of them, began to produce songs classical in form but unprecedented in content, a poetry without narrative but with a lyricism so compelling and powerful that no one who heard his songs could ever again be ignorant of the hidden treasures and unseen beauties of their world. The VaGayjuri firsts and seconds gathered at his gate to hear him. He permitted this, knowing that they might carry his songs away with them to Piya’ar, to Agardi, to Kirabai and the Outer Islands, to Mo’arl and finally to the capital itself. He wanted to be heard, needed to reach beyond his walls, and did not end his concerts even when he was warned that Bhansaar Kitheri had been dispatched to investigate this innovation.

When Bhansaar arrived, Hlavin welcomed him without fear, as though the visit were merely a courtesy call. Selikat had succeeded in beating obliquity into him and, choosing wisely from his seraglio, the Reshtar of Galatna introduced his brother to several remarkable customs and, afterward, feted him with liqueurs and savories that Bhansaar had never tasted the like of. "Harmless novelties—charming really," Bhansaar decided. Somehow, in the midst of all the graceful, clever talk, with poetry that praised his own wisdom and discernment echoing in his mind as he fell asleep each night, it began to seem that there could be no legal reason to silence young Hlavin. Before he left Gayjur, Bhansaar even proposed— more or less on his own—that Hlavin’s concerts be broadcast, like state oratorios.

"Indeed," Bhansaar ruled in his official finding, "that which is not forbidden must be permitted, for to find the opposite true implies that those who established the law were lacking in foresight."

And surely that was a more subversive notion than merely allowing the Reshtar of Galatna to sing his own songs! What more innocuous pursuit could a Reshtar indulge in than poetry, after all?

"He sings only of what can be had within Galatna: of scent, of storms, of sex," Bhansaar reported to his father and brother when he returned to Inbrokar. When they were amused, he insisted, "The poetry is superb. And it keeps him out of trouble."

Thus Hlavin Kitheri was permitted to sing, and in doing so he lured freedom to his prison. Hearing his concerts, staggered by his songs, even firsts and seconds were inspired to shake off the tyranny of genealogy and join him in sublime and scandalous exile, and Galatna Palace became the focus for the gathering of men who would never ordinarily have come together. With his poetry, the Reshtar of Galatna now redefined legal sterility as purity of mind; cleansing his life of the tainted past and forbidden future, he made it enviable. Others learned to live as he did—on the cusp of experience, existing entirely within moment after ephemeral moment of rarefied sexual artistry, unmuddied by considerations of dynasty. And among them were men who did not simply appreciate Kitheri’s poetry but who were capable themselves of composing songs of startling beauty. These were the children of his soul.

He meant no more than this: to be content, to live in the eternal present, triumphant over time: all elements in balance, all things stable, the chaos within him contained and controlled, like a woman in her chamber.

And yet, when he had, at last, achieved that very desire, the music began to die in him. Why? he asked, but there was no one to answer him.

He tried at first to fill the void with objects. He had always prized rarity, singularity. Now he sought and collected the finest and oldest, commissioned the most costly, the most highly decorated, the most complex. Each new treasure bought a holiday from hollowness, as he studied its intricacies and pored over its nuances, tried to find in it some quality that would summon the light, the flashing brilliance…. But then he would put the thing aside, the savor gone, the scent dissipated, the silence unbroken. He passed the days pacing and waiting, but nothing would come—nothing ignited any spark of song. His life had begun to seem not a poem but an incoherent collection of words, as random as a Runa domestic’s brainless chatter.