I wish he was out of my hair. It's so nice not to have poor little old San crawling around like some kind of pubic infestation. If only I could get rid of the Major now!'
'He's a man of honor,' the makil said; his tone did not seem ironical.
'How can an owner of slaves be an honorable man?'
Batikam watched her from his long, dark eyes.
She could not read Werelian eyes, beautiful as they were, filling their lids with darkness.
'Male hierarchy members always yatter about their precious honor,' she said. 'And 'their' women's honor, of course.' 'Honor is a great privilege,' Batikam said. 'I envy it. I envy him.'
'Oh, the hell with all that phony dignity, it's just pissing to mark your territory. All you need envy him, Batikam, is his freedom.'
He smiled. 'You're the only person I've ever known who was neither owned nor owner. That is freedom. That is freedom. I wonder if you know it?'
'Of course I do,' she said. He smiled, and went on eating his breakfast, but there had been something in his voice she had not heard before. Moved and a little troubled, she said after a while, 'You're going away soon.'
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'Mind reader. Yes. In ten days, the troupe goes on to tour the Forty States.'
'Oh, Batikam, I'll miss you! You're the only
man, the only person here I can talk to — let alone the sex —'
'Did we ever?'
'Not often,' she said, laughing, but her voice shook a little. He held out his hand; she came to him and sat on his lap, the robe dropping open. 'Little pretty Envoy breasts,' he said, lipping and stroking, 'little soft Envoy belly . . -' Rewe came in with a tray and softly set it down. 'Eat your breakfast, little Envoy,' Batikam said, and she disengaged herself and returned to her chair, grinning.
'Because you're free you can be honest,' he said, fastidiously peeling a pini fruit. 'Don't be too hard on those of us who aren't and can't.' He cut a slice and fed it to her across the table. 'It has been a taste of freedom to know you,' he said. 'A hint, a shadow ...'
'In a few years at most, Batikam, you will be free. This whole idiotic structure of masters and slaves will collapse completely when Werel comes into the Ekumen.'
'If it does.'
'Of course it will.'
He shrugged. 'My home is Yeowe,' he said.
She stared, confused. 'You come from Yeowe?'
'I've never been there,' he said- 'I'll probably never go there. What use have they got for makils? But it is my home. Those are my people. That is my freedom. When will you see...' His fist was clenched; he opened it with a soft gesture of letting something go.
He smiled and returned to his breakfast. 'I've got to
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get back to the theater,' he said. 'We're rehearsing an act for the Day of Forgiveness.'
She wasted all day at court. She had made persistent attempts to obtain permission to visit the mines and the huge government-run farms on the
far side of the mountains, from which Gatay's wealth flowed. She had been as persistently foiled — by the protocol and bureaucracy of the government, she had thought at first, their unwillingness to let a diplomat do anything but run round to meaningless events; but some businessmen had let something slip about conditions in the mines and on the farms that made her think they might be hiding a more brutal kind of slavery than any visible in the capital. Today she got nowhere, waiting for appointments that had not been made. The old fellow who was standing in for San misunderstood most of what she said in Voe Dean, and when she tried to speak Gatayan he misunderstood it all, through stupidity or intent. The Major was blessedly absent most of the morning, replaced by one of his soldiers, but turned up at court, stiff and silent and set-jawed, and attended her until she gave up and went home for an early bath.
Batikam came late that night. In the middle of one of the elaborate fantasy games and role reversals she had learned from him and found so exciting, his caresses grew slower and slower, soft, dragging across her like feathers, so that she shivered with unappeased desire and, pressing her body against
his, realised that he had gone to sleep. 'Wake up,' she said, laughing and yet chilled, and shook him a little. The dark eyes opened, bewildered, full of fear.
'I'm sorry,' she said at once, 'go back to sleep, you're tired. No, no, it's all right, it's late.' But he
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went on with what she now, whatever his skill and tenderness, had to see was his job.
In the morning at breakfast she said, 'Can you see me as an equal, do you, Batikam?'
He looked tired, older than he usually did. He did not smile. After a while he said, 'What do you want me to say?'
'That you do.'
'I do,' he said quietly.
'You don't trust me,' she said, bitter.
After a while he said, 'This is Forgiveness Day.
The Lady Tual came to the men of Asdok, who had set their hunting cats upon her followers. She came among them riding on a great hunting cat with a fiery tongue, and they fell down in terror, but she blessed them, forgiving them.' His voice and hands enacted the story as he told it. 'Forgive me,' he said.
'You don't need any forgiveness!'
'Oh, we all do. It's why we Kamyites borrow the Lady Tual now and then. When we need her. So, today you'll be the Lady Tual, at the rites?'
'All I have to do is light a fire, they said,' she said anxiously, and he laughed. When he left she told him she would come to the theater to see him, tonight, after the festival.
The horse-race course, the only flat area of any size anywhere near the city, was thronged, vendors calling, banners waving; the Royal motorcars drove straight into the crowd, which parted like water and closed behind. Some rickety-looking bleachers had
been erected for lords and owners, with a curtained section for ladies. She saw a motorcar drive up to the bleachers; a figure swathed in red cloth was bundled out of it and hurried between the curtains, vanish-
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ing. Were there peepholes for them to watch the ceremony through? There were women in the crowds, but bondswomen only, assets. She realised that she, too, would be kept hidden until her moment of the ceremony arrived: a red tent awaited her, alongside the bleachers, not far from the roped enclosure where priests were chanting. She was rushed out of the car and into the tent by obsequious and determined courtiers.
Bondswomen in the tent offered her tea, sweets, mirrors, makeup, and hair oil, and helped her put on the complex swathing of fine red-and-yellow cloth, her costume for her brief enactment of Lady Tual. Nobody had told her very clearly what she was to do, and to her questions the women said, 'The priests will show you. Lady, you just go with them.
You just light the fire- They have it all ready.' She had the impression that they knew no more than she did; they were pretty girls, court assets, excited at being part of the show, indifferent to the religion. She knew the symbolism of the fire she was to light:
into it faults and transgressions could be cast and burnt up, forgotten. It was a nice idea.
The priests were whooping it up out there; she peeked out — there were indeed peepholes in the tent fabric — and saw the crowd had thickened. Nobody except in the bleachers and right against the enclosure ropes could possibly see anything, but everybody was waving red-and-yetlow banners, munching fried food, and making a day of it, while the priests kept up their deep chanting. In the far right of the little, blurred field of vision through the peephole was a familiar arm: the Major's, of course. They had not let him get into the motorcar with her.
