Laldasa (21 page)

“Did you try the spaceport as I suggested?”

“Yes, Hadas. I saw no one.”

Hadas subsided, but Jaya was already thoroughly alarmed and annoyed. He could see that his mother found the tension between their Avasan “cousins” amusing. He got to his feet so quickly, Ana jumped.

“A word with you, Ana,” he said and headed for the gardens.

He heard a chair being pushed from the table, a murmured apology from Hadas and his mother saying, “My, what could possibly have triggered that? Jealousy, perhaps?”

His grandmother said something in reply, but the closing of the door cut it off.

“You lied to me,” he said.

She spoke from behind him. “I did not lie. I borrowed a horse and went for a ride. I simply-“

He swung around to face her. “You simply lied! You weren't out clearing your head, you were looking for Parva Rishi.”

“I went into Kasi merely to look, to watch. I saw nothing—no one. I spoke to no one.”

The anger he had promised himself he would try to expunge blossomed in his breast. “You rode through the streets of Kasi alone. After dark.”

“I was only out after dark because I stopped at the Asra to pray. Surely, there is no safer place.”

“It is not the Asra that is the problem; it is the journey. If you decide to take another ride, Kena goes with you.”

“Kena treats me as if I were his virgin daughter. He will not leave my side.”

“Good.”

“Not good. There are those who might talk to a lone Avasan woman who will not talk to a Rani with an attached bodyguard.”

“Hadas then.”

Ana moved to stand at the balustrade beside him, her hands flying in a dismissive gesture. “Hadas is a hot-head.”

Jaya laughed. “And you're such a fountain of calm wisdom.” The mirth was not strong enough to overcome his anger; the words came out twisted with sarcasm.

She turned to face him, leaning against the balustrade. “I don't understand you,” she told him. “I have become a thorn in your side. My presence here threatens your political life, disturbs your household, necessitates lies that I know you find distasteful. If I were to go into Kasi and to disappear there, surely your life would be much more serene.”

His juggernaut anger stopped in its tracks. He searched her eyes, looking for some indication that she was trolling for compliments or for a declaration of love. He saw none. Her gaze, as always, was direct, if bemused, and searching.

“Serene, yes,” he acknowledged. “But perhaps not as full. Nor as ... challenging. Nor as interesting. You say you don't understand me—well, the feeling is mutual. Neither do I understand you, but I must admit I'd like to. More than that, I'd like to understand ... ”
 
He paused and searched, momentarily, for some appropriate words. He could not, and ended up by making a vague back and forth gesture between them. “This,” he said. “I would like to understand this—whatever it is—that exists between us.”

“Attraction?”

“A weak word.”

Ana lowered her head. “Then, you have me at a disadvantage, Nathu Rai. I have never felt ‘this' before.”

“Ah. I suppose you think I have?”

“You are a man.”

Now she was toying with him, surely. Jaya's anger circled, looking for an opening, he elbowed it aside. “Jivinta said something to me the day I brought you here. She said, ‘Don't confuse sakti with lust. Lust clouds, sakti illuminates.'”

Ana turned her extraordinary pale eyes on him. It was like looking into the sun.

“Are you illuminated, Nathu Rai?” she asked, scorching him.

He held her gaze. “My name is Jaya,” he said, “and I think I've just recently begun to know who that is.”

“He knows God who knows his own Self,” she said softly.

He recognized the words as scripture. “Don't.”

“Don't what?”

“Don't hide behind your Rohin wisdom.”

There was a flash of angry fire in the pale eyes. “Hide?”

“Hide.”

The fire flickered and went out. “Yes,” she admitted and looked away from him. “Yes, I'm hiding.”

“Why?”

“You terrify me.”

He hadn't expected that. It first shocked, then disappointed, then angered him.

“I will not rape you.”

“You can't rape me,” she said and turned her left hand palm up and held it out to him. “Not as long as this is in my palm.”

“Stop it. Please.” He closed his eyes, giving his temper another shove. “I'm tired of being angry, and tired of getting slapped across the face with that”—he grasped her wrist and shook it—“every time I talk to you.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So am I. I'm sorry you feel compelled to run from hiding place to hiding place when we're together—your proper Rohin wisdom, my anger, that dascree.”

“I've done that, haven't I—made you angry so I could hide more easily ...
 
Camouflage.”

“It won't work. I'm beginning to be able to see through you.”

She smiled wryly. “I'll have to find a new place to hide.”

“You could learn to trust me.”

“I do trust you. You're a man of honor and candor. I trust that.” She lapsed into silence, turning her head to watch the tall evergreens dance in the rising breeze.

He was also silent, wondering what would happen to her trust if she knew how often in the last couple of nights he had stood at the door connecting their rooms, his hand on the latch, listening to his body's loud demands that he exercise the rights rita accorded him. He fought her in those moments; he fought himself and he fought the current that washed between them. Then, he wondered why he bothered to fight it at all—why he didn't just surrender to it as he knew she would surrender to a direct command.

He wondered ... and saw the answer in terms of a chain of Karma, a sequence of repercussions, a path littered with distrust and recriminations and bitterness.

The first time he'd stood against that door, he'd remembered a bit of advice from his father. Bhaktasu Sarojin had given it to him in the form of a parable about the Asok tree—the mythic fruit of non-sorrow.

The fruit of the Asok is luscious beyond compare. Its juices give birth to bliss. In the spring, its blossoms are beautiful and fragrant with promise ... but a man cannot eat blossoms. Eagerly, he watches the tree—the blossoms fall, the fruit appears, and he waits for its ripening. If he is patient, if he waits until the Asok's time is complete, his first taste of its fruit will yield the sweetness of bliss. But, if he is impatient, willing the seasons to hurry, and picking the fruit before its time is complete, his first taste will yield nothing but bitterness.

It was good advice—as good as Jivinta's. He had little doubt where his father had gotten it.

Ana sighed and stirred then, and Jaya realized he was still holding her wrist. She didn't pull away when he moved his hand to hers and squeezed it, but simply returned the gentle pressure. He left her watching the trees perform their dance.

Patience, he thought.

oOo

The assembly lasted only a half-day and consisted of the presentation of ancillary evidence by the concerned parties. It ranged from the highly technical to the financial to the legal.

Jaya was no engineer. Fortunately, he was not alone in that; the specifications for magnetic stabilizers would go to the appropriate experts, as would the financial and market projections which, while not technical, were shrouded in legalese.

Jaya downloaded copies of the documents nonetheless, then, at loose ends, took Ravi to the Kiritan for the mid-day meal. He was impatient, wishing the experts could be prevailed upon to hurry. His impatience made him a poor companion, and Ravi, to his credit, waited for several minutes before saying anything about his mahesa's mood.

When he did speak, he said simply, “If it would help to talk, Jaya Rai, I would be pleased to listen.”

Jaya said, ”I want to do what is right and just, but I wonder if what is right and just for Ana and her people is what is right and just for Mehtar.”

“The Avatars—may my life be a sacrifice to Their glory—have said that truth is but one point, which we have multiplied. Surely, this may be applied equally to justice, for justice hinges upon the truth.”

Jaya shook his head. “That sounds like something Ana the Rohina would say.”

“No doubt.”

“You think it's really that simple?” Jaya glanced idly over the room below the Sarojin box; faces turned away from him and eyes dropped before his gaze.

They were no longer surprised at the appearance of Ravidas at his lord's table, perhaps, but they still allowed themselves to be scandalized by it. The silent censure bred a peculiar satisfaction in Jaya's heart and this worried him. Did he subject Ravi to this public display as a token form of rebellion? Did Ravi suppose that he did?

“Ravi, are you uncomfortable here?” he asked abruptly.

The dark eyebrows winged upward. “No, Jaya Rai. I am quite comfortable. You have made it so.”

“Your father would say I dishonored myself by taking a position that others of my caste would ridicule or despise.”

The other man grinned waggishly. “My father would change his tune if he were to ever dine here.”

“Ravi, you're my friend. Almost my brother. We grew up together. We were raised in the same house.“

“But not in the same caste.”

“I have never understood that boundary. I think that's why I've chosen to deny its existence.”

Ravi nodded. “And that is why I am comfortable here. In your company, that boundary does not exist, truly. You fear I think you insincere. I do not. We have known each other too long for that, haven't we?”

“I've often thought ... I could give you your freedom ... “

“To what point, Jaya Rai? If I were free, I would still work for you and would mostly likely draw similar wages. No doubt you would have me continue to live in your house, and eat the food prepared by my mother. What could I do as a free man that I cannot do as I am?”

“Marry a free woman?”

A flash of something like surprise crossed Ravi's face, but was quickly gone. “I am not likely, mahesa, to meet a free woman that I would care to marry.”

“Unless you were a free man.”

Naru arrived to serve them then and, while he did not dare show overt disapproval, he was less than cordial with Ravi. Jaya was, for the first time, embarrassed by something he normally met with wry humor.

The impatience bubbling in his soul expanded and took on nuance. He wanted the AGIM/KNC dispute to be over; he wanted his mother's relationship with Prakash to end; he wanted the caste structure to crumble.

He wanted. He wanted. Truth. Wisdom. Patience. Enough power to change the world in the blink of an eye.

When he saw a familiar face in the room below, he thought of one way in which his impatience might be assuaged and asked Naru to invite Namun Vedda to the Sarojin box. The older man hesitated only briefly before joining his godson. His smile was genuine and slightly conspiratorial when he saw Ravi there, as well. Namun Vedda, himself a freeman of the merchant caste, had echoed Bhaktasu Sarojin's views on Mehtar's convoluted social system since Jaya could recall; it was one among a myriad points of agreement the two men had shared.

It occasionally occurred to Jaya to wonder if Uncle Namun were disappointed in his godson for not being his old friend in any but the most insignificant ways. He looked like his father, had his father's voice and mannerisms. But in other, more important, intangible ways, he was a watery image of the man—Bhaktasu Sarojin reflected in a troubled pool. He supposed he could claim to hold the same values the older Sarojin had espoused, but he held them more loosely. What had been passions in Bhaktasu Sarojin were, in his son, merely convictions. Jaya wondered if he might raise them to the level of passions sometime before he died. He had loved his father; he loved his father's memory, but it was difficult to exist as a rippling reflection of another man's vivid greatness.

Jaya did not speak of either convictions or memories, however. After the obligatory exchange of pleasantries, he turned his mind to demystification. “Uncle, might I assume you understand something of magnetic trim systems?”

Namun seemed amused by the question. “Considering the fact that I help design them, I should hope I know something.”

“Ah. I take it that means you helped design Star Trim?”

Namun nodded. “Why the interest in mag-stabilizers, Jaya? I hadn't thought that one of your particular avocations.”

“It's not. But it is one of the points of contention between AGIM and the KNC. The KNC claims the trim systems on the Guild vessels are antiquated and sub-standard—the standard being the Star Trim system. This makes them dangerous, which makes them a poor risk for shipping materiel important to the Consortium associates. That, at any rate, is the claim.”