Hienama (8 page)

Orphie agreed at once; no doubt
grateful the consumption of food mitigated the need for
conversation.

We were halfway through the
meal when Ysobi finally appeared. I didn’t like the look of him. He
was agitated. Without questioning him, I fetched his dinner. He
played with it for a while. Eventually, even though Orphie was
there, I had to ask: ‘Is everything OK, Yz?’

He frowned. ‘Yes. I’ll talk to
you later.’

Perhaps sensing his presence
was awkward, Orphie fled almost as soon as we’d finished eating,
which effectively ruined my plans of warm conversation to help him
relax into Jesith’s way of life.

Ysobi took the dishes into the
kitchen, and after a while I followed him.

‘It’s Gesaril, isn’t it?’ I
said, standing at the threshold.

‘It wasn’t good,’ Ysobi said,
with his back to me.

‘What wasn’t?’

‘We…’ He put down a dish into
the sink and turned round. ‘Let’s go back to the other room.’

My heart had stilled. I felt I
had become partly dead.

In the living room, I sat on
the sofa and stared at him. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

Ysobi sat opposite me on a chair,
leaned forward. ‘He fell apart on me, Jass. I’ve never seen
anything like it.’

I frowned. ‘That doesn’t mean
anything to me. What happened? Have you begun the arunic arts?’

Ysobi nodded. ‘This afternoon,
yes.’

A chill skittered through me. I
didn’t want to hear more, and yet I knew I had to.

Ysobi sighed through his nose
before speaking. ‘At first, it was just as if he was uncomfortable
with it, which happens. I kept it low key. It’s an important phase,
as you know. It helps a har to reach his potential. It’s vital it
goes smoothly. Anyway, I… Jass, I don’t want to upset you… Can you
cope with this?’

No, most likely not.
I
swallowed. ‘We talked about this, Yz. I’m your chesnari. You can
speak to me about anything.’

He closed his eyes briefly.
‘Thanks. Anyway, we were reaching the end of it, when he started
moaning. At first, I thought… Well, you can imagine. The peak came,
and it seemed all right to me, then he screamed. He didn’t stop
screaming. He was hysterical. I pulled out of him and there was
blood, quite a lot of it.’

‘What?’ I could see it in my
mind’s eye. I could smell it.

Ysobi had gone very pale. ‘It
must have been my fault. He’s young, not long past feybraiha. I
must have torn him. He was tight, Jass, and I know that because of
all the arunic work I’ve done...’ He gestured helplessly. ‘It was
like I’d butchered him. He must have been bleeding for some time,
but I hadn’t noticed.’ He clenched his hands into fists. ‘I should
have noticed.’

‘God.’ I put my head in my
hands. That was far too much detail. My stomach turned over. I
could taste sour metallic wine in my throat.

‘I had to calm him down, stay
with him, give him healing. The bleeding stopped eventually.’ Ysobi
groaned in utter bewilderment. ‘It’s never happened to me before. I
don’t understand it. It wasn’t as if I’d lost control. I was being
careful. I…’

I couldn’t bear any more. The
stink of blood, the
taste
of it, consumed my senses. I stood
up and went to the kitchen, where I vomited over the dirty dishes.
I felt it would never end, or I’d throw up my insides. It was like
I’d been poisoned. My belly ached. There were spots of light before
my eyes.

Ysobi came in after me, leaned
against my back, held my stomach. He made soothing noises, and when
I’d finished retching said, ‘I’m so sorry, Jass.’

‘It’s OK,’ I managed to say. I
turned on the tap and let water splash over my cupped hands. I
drank as much as I could to get rid of that hideous taste. ‘I’m
just feeling queasy. I should stop drinking wine until after the
pearl has dropped.’

Ysobi held me tighter. ‘You
don’t want to hear these things, I know, and your body’s in a state
unknown to you. But you’re the only one I can talk to.’

‘I know. I’m all right with it,
Yz, honestly, but it’s still a shock to hear it.’ I took another
drink of water from the tap and turned round in Ysobi’s arms to
face him. Somehow, I was able to ask: ‘How is he now?’

‘I left him at my place. He’s
sleeping.’ Ysobi paused. ‘I think I’ll have to go back tonight. He
doesn’t look good. It’s like he’s in shock.’

‘Oh.’

He tilted my chin up with one
hand. ‘Jass, you
do
understand, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, perhaps too
sharply. ‘You warned me. I stand by what I said.’

He kissed me, but I wanted to
pull away. I guessed he’d had his mouth on Gesaril’s soume-lam, and
it felt contaminated.

It took every shred of will I
possessed to calm myself about this situation. I didn’t doubt that
Gesaril had been hurt, but part of me wondered if he’d done
something to himself to make it happen. He had Ysobi concerned for
him, worried because he thought he’d caused injury. Effectively, he
now had Ysobi’s full attention and I couldn’t believe that wasn’t a
strategy.

That night, I couldn’t sleep
properly. If I did manage to doze off, I would hear screaming and
wake up, with echoes of a cry winging round my room. I felt
feverish and was perhaps hallucinating. Was Ysobi holding Gesaril
in his arms now? I don’t know how I got through that night. I
realised that my condition must be exacerbating my feelings and
reactions, but I couldn’t dispel a terrible feeling of dread.

Ysobi came to me early the next
morning. Nohar locks their doors in Jesith, so he came right up to
my bedroom, where I’d eventually drifted off into a troubled sleep.
He sat on the bed and shook me awake. ‘Hey,’ he said softly. ‘I’m
going to make you breakfast. Don’t get up.’

I yawned and pulled myself into
a sitting position. ‘How is he?’ I asked coldly.

Ysobi stroked my hair.
‘Better,’ he said. ‘He apologised, which astounded me. He really
seems abashed about what happened, as if it was his fault, which I
don’t think it was at all.’

‘And where is he now?’ I
snapped, unable to find the slightest shred of sympathy within
me.

‘He’s gone back to his
lodgings. He told me he was fine, and that I should come to you. I
explained you were with pearl.’

My deep suspicions descended a
further few miles towards the centre of the earth.

After that, I couldn’t bring
myself to ask Ysobi how the arunic training progressed, and he
offered no further information. I made myself pretend it wasn’t
happening, that Gesaril wasn’t using every wile he owned to
manipulate my chesnari. But Ysobi spent more and more time with
Gesaril, ostensibly because he needed support. For somehar who was
so fragile and damageable in the soume department, I thought, he
seemed to want to spend a lot of time having it stretched to
capacity. I was obsessive, and at that time forgot that caste
training includes a lot more than arunic arts. I was in such a
state I felt that Ysobi was taking aruna with Gesaril continually.
I spoke to nohar about the situation, and maintained a cheerful
front.

Occasionally, we’d run into
Gesaril when we were socialising. He was always civil to me in
front of Ysobi, but wasn’t quite the same on the rare occasions we
met and Ysobi wasn’t there. Once, I had to walk past him on the way
back from the bathroom in the Pool, and he decided he wanted some
sport. He caught hold of my arm and said, ‘How are you,
Jassenah?’

‘Fine.’ I smiled politely and
made to move away from him.

But he wouldn’t let me go. ‘It
must be really weird having a pearl inside you. I don’t think I’d
like it. It’s like a parasite sapping all your strength.’ I assumed
that was a way to tell me I wasn’t looking my best.

‘Actually, it feels good,’ I
said, finally shaking off his hold. ‘When you’re old enough, you
should try it.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t think I’ll
ever be old enough. I know hara have to do it, but I wouldn’t want
to have my life taken over in that way. I like having fun too
much.’

‘Well, maybe you’ll feel
different when you…’ I nearly said ‘grow up’, but realised this
would sound too hostile or defensive. ‘When you meet the right
har,’ I said.

‘Perhaps,’ Gesaril said. At
that point, he spotted somehar more interesting than me and
wandered off. I felt shaken, as if we’d just had a big fight.

Despite Gesaril, there were
good times during those weeks I was with pearl. Orphie gradually
responded to my coaxing, like a nervous stray fawn. He spent a lot
of time with me, helping me at the vineyard, and at the house. I
thought he must have had a very close relationship with his
hostling and missed this har. Sometimes, he’d come over in the
evening and snuggle up to me on the sofa, seeking comfort. I wasn’t
completely sure how I felt about that. It made me think about how
soon I’d have a son of my own who’d want to do that kind of thing.
I just couldn’t see myself in that situation. But I can’t deny
there was something rewarding about the trust Orphie placed in
me.

Ysobi was pleased about our
friendship. ‘Orphie needs to be drawn out,’ he said. ‘He and his
hostling had a rough time for a while. It affected him.’

‘What happened?’

Ysobi shrugged. ‘I don’t know
exactly, but the hostling’s dead now. Orphie doesn’t like to talk
about it, and I won’t push it. He’ll talk when he’s ready.’

A wave of cold washed through
me. ‘That explains a lot.’

‘You’re doing him good. Thank
you.’

‘Yet more training for me,’ I
said. ‘It’s useful, I suppose.’

Ysobi pulled me close. ‘I like
it when we can work together like this.’ He paused. ‘But don’t look
on Orphie as a harling, Jass. He isn’t. He hides behind appearing
that way and that’s not what he needs now. I think, maybe, if you
want to, you could help me with the arunic part of his training. He
trusts you.’

‘Is that soon?’

Ysobi nodded. ‘It’s overdue,
actually. I thought he needed more time.’

I considered this for a moment
and then came to a decision. ‘Let me start it for him,’ I said.
‘You said yourself I could be a hienama one day.’

Ysobi kissed my forehead. ‘You
could. How about us starting tomorrow?’

‘Well, better sooner rather
than later.’ I sighed. ‘I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be any
good for such work.’

‘It won’t hurt our pearl, I
know that.’

I went to the Nayati the following
afternoon. Orphie was sitting in Ysobi’s living room, looking as if
he were about to be tortured to death. ‘I’m not good at this
stuff,’ he told me, hands plunged deep between his knees.

‘It’s not about being good or
bad,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to do anything taxing today. I’m not
going to hurt you. I’ll just show you some things. OK?’

He nodded gravely. I saw then
what Ysobi meant. Orphie did play act at being younger than he was.
He would need careful handling.

Ysobi came in then, and we
spent some minutes teaching Orphie about breath control and how to
sense a har’s energy field. Although Ysobi didn’t include the
sharing of breath in his training, I felt it was appropriate for
Orphie, since it could act as a kind of gentle anaesthetic, and
helped to lower inhibitions. Ysobi sat quietly while I initiated
this. Orphie was the first har I’d touched since Ysobi and I had
bonded. It felt strange, but not disloyal. I appreciated then, a
little of what Ysobi had tried to make me understand about the
student/hienama relationship.

Ysobi kept silent and let me do
what I felt was right. He didn’t interfere throughout any of it.
Orphie seemed relaxed enough with the breath-sharing, so I
continued it for quite some time. Then, when I judged the moment
was right, I laid him back and began gently to undress him. Orphie
whimpered a little and became tense. I stroked him, and murmured
words to soothe him. ‘We don’t have to do this now,’ I said. ‘If
you want to stop, we stop.’

He stared at me. ‘No. I want to
do this. I’m just nervous.’

‘There’s nothing to be nervous
of. You’re not a harling any more. You’re made for this.’

He held my gaze. ‘The feelings
that aruna brings… they’re too powerful. It’s like you could get
lost in them.’

I sat back on my heels,
concerned. ‘Did something bad happen to you, Orphie?’ I asked
softly.

He shook his head. ‘Not to me, no. I
want to get over this. Can we just go slowly?’

I nodded. ‘Of course.’ After a
pause, I said, ‘Is there anything you want to talk about
first?’

‘No,’ Orphie replied. ‘Let’s
just get on with it. What must I do?’

‘Just relax. Let me do
everything.’

He smiled at me, uncertainly.
‘OK.’

It felt very odd having Ysobi
watch me do things to Orphie that once he’d done to me. I was
conscious of his eyes upon me. Orphie was not like Zehn; he was
difficult to arouse. Without asking Ysobi’s advice, I settled for
working on one sikra, very softly. The sikra was small and weak,
difficult to find. After I felt it swell just a little, I said to
Orphie, ‘Do you feel that?’

He nodded, eyes shut tight.

‘I want you to imagine your
whole being going into that spot. Just relax. We’ll take aruna now,
but pay attention to what happens inside you. OK?’

‘Yes.’

I knelt up and pulled him onto
my lap, held him close. I went inside him carefully. He put his
head on my shoulder. Gradually, his initial shuddering sighs became
deeper. He began to move upon me. I fell backwards, let him take
control. By this time, he was confident enough to do so. I knew I
should be saying things about control of energy and so on, but was
just pleased to see him taking aruna with abandon. Training could
come later, I thought. This was what he needed now. I felt the tide
building up within me and closed my eyes. It was then I realised
that my son was aware of it too. It was like honey to him. My
ouana-tongue lashed out and Orphie contracted very strongly about
me. He bore down on me with all his weight, pulling me deeper. He
uttered deep grunts of repletion. When he’d finished, he brushed
damp hair back from his face and smiled at me. I could tell he
didn’t want to get off me. ‘Keep going,’ I whispered. ‘It’s
OK.’