Then Kta arrived to share dinner with him in his room.
“It is custom to take dinner in the rhmei,all Elas together,” Kta explained, “but I teach you, here. I don’t want you to offend against my family. You learn manners first.”
Kurt had borne with much. “I have manners of my own,” he cried, “and I’m sorry if I contaminate your house. Send me back to the Afen, to Djan—it’s not too late for that.” And he turned his back on the food and on Kta, and walked over to stand looking out the dark window. It dawned on him that sending him to Elas had been Djan’s subtle cruelty; she expected him back, broken in pride.
“I meant no insult,” Kta protested.
Kurt looked back at him, met the dark, foreign eyes with more directness than Kta had ever allowed him. The nemet’s face was utterly stricken.
“Kurt-ifhan,” said Kta, “I didn’t wish to cause you shame. I wish to help you,—not putting you on display in the eyes of my father and my mother. It is your dignity I protect.”
Kurt bowed his head and came back, not gladly. Djan was in his mind, that he would not run to her for shelter, giving up what he had abjectly begged of her. And perhaps too she had meant to teach the house of Elas its place, estimating it would beg relief of the burden it had asked. He submitted. There were worse shames than sitting on the floor like a child and letting Kta mold his unskilled fingers around the strange tableware.
He quickly knew why Kta had not permitted him to go downstairs. He could scarcely feed himself and, starving as he was, he had to resist the impulse to snatch up food in disregard of the unfamiliar utensils. Drink with the left hand only, eat with the right, reach with the left, never the right. The bowl was lifted almost to the lips, but it must never touch. From the almost bowl-less spoon and thin skewer he kept dropping bites. The knife must be used only left-handed.
Kta was cautiously tactful after his outburst, but grew less so as Kurt recovered his sense of humor. They talked, between instructions and accidents, and afterward, over a cup of tea. Sometimes Kta asked him of human customs, but he approached any difference between them with the attitude that while other opinions and manners were possible, they were not so under the roof of Elas.
“If you were among humans,” Kurt dared ask him finally, “what would you do?”
Kta looked as if the idea horrified him, but covered it with a downward glance. “I don’t know. I know only Tamurlin.”
“Did not—” he had tried for a long time to work toward this question,—“did not Djan-methi come with others?”
The frightened look persisted. “Yes. Most left. Djan-methi killed the others.”
He quickly changed the subject and looked as if he wished he had not been so free of that answer, though he had given it straightly and with deliberation.
They talked of lesser things, well into the night, over many cups of tea and sometimes of telise,until from the rest of Elas there was no sound of people stirring and they must lower their voices. The light was exceedingly dim, the air heavy with the scent of oil from the lamps. The telisemade it close and warm. The late hour clothed things in unreality.
Kurt learned things, almost all simply family gossip, for Djan and Elas were all in Nephane that they both knew, and Kta, momentarily so free with the truth, seemed to have remembered that there was danger in it. They spoke instead of Elas.
Nym had the authority in the household as the lord of Elas; Kta had almost none, although he was over thirty (he hardly looked it) and commanded a warship. Kta would be under Nym’s authority as long as Nym lived; the eldest male was lord in the house. If Kta married, he must bring his bride to live under his father’s roof. The girl would become part of Elas, obedient to Kta’s father and mother as if she were born to the house. So Aimu was soon to depart, betrothed to Kta’s lieutenant Bel t’Osanef. They had been friends since childhood, Kta and Bel and Aimu.
Kta owned nothing. Nym controlled the family wealth, and would decide how and whom and when his two children must marry, since marriage determined inheritances. Property passed from father to eldest son undivided, and the eldest then assumed a father’s responsibility for all lesser brothers and cousins and unmarried women in the house. A patriarch like Nym always had his rooms to the right of the entry, a custom, Kta explained, derived from more warlike times, when a man slept at the threshold to defend his home from attack. Grown sons occupied the ground floor for the same reason. This room that Kurt now held as a guest had been Kta’s when he was a boy.
And the matriarch, in this case Kta’s mother Ptas, although it had been the paternal grandmother until quite recently, had her rooms behind the base wall of the rhmei.She was the guardian of most religious matters of the house. She tended the holy fire of the phusmeha,supervised the household and was second in authority to the patriarch.
Of obeisance and respect, Kta explained, there were complex degrees. It was gross disrespect for a grown son to come before his mother without going to his knees, but when he was a boy this difference was not paid. The reverse was true with a son and his father: a boy knelt to his father until his coming-of-age, then met him with the slight bow of almost-equals if he were eldest, necessary obeisances deepening as one went down the ranks of second son, third son, and so on. A daughter, however, was treated as a beloved guest, a visitor the house would one day lose to a husband; she gave her parents only the obeisance of second-son’s rank, and showed her brothers the same modest formality she must use with strangers.
But of Hef and Mim, who served Elas, was required only the obeisance of equals, although it was their habit to show more than that on formal occasions.
“And what of me?” Kurt asked, dreading to ask. “What must I do?”
Kta frowned. “You are guest, mine; you must be equal with me. But,” he added nervously, “it is proper in a man to show greater respect than necessary sometimes. It does not hurt your dignity; sometimes it makes it greater. Be most polite to all. Don’t—make Elas ashamed. People will watch you—thinking they will see a Tamuruin nemet dress. You must prove this is not so.”
“Kta,” Kurt asked, “—am I a man—to the nemet?”
Kta pressed his lips together and looked as if he earnestly wished that question had gone unasked.
“I am not, then,” Kurt concluded, and was robbed even of anger by the distress on Kta’s face.
“I have not decided,” Kta said. “Some—would say no. It is a religious question. I must think.—But I have a liking for you, Kurt, even if you arehuman.”
“You have been very good to me.”
There was silence between them. In the sleeping house there was no sound at all. Kta looked at him with a directness and a pity that disquieted him.
“You are afraid of us,” Kta observed.
“Did Djan make you my keeper only because you asked, or because she trusts you in some special way—to watch me?”
Kta’s head lifted slightly. “Elas is loyal to the Methi. But you are guest.”
“Are nemet who speak human language so common? You are very fluent, Kta. Mim is. Your—readiness to accept a human into your house—is that not different from the feelings of other nemet?”
“I interpreted for the umaniwhen they first came to Nephane. Before that, I learned of Mim, and Mim learned because she was prisoner of the Tamurlin. What evil do you suspect? What is the quarrel between you and Djan-methi?”
“We are of different nations, an old, old war. Don’t get involved, Kta, if you did only get into this for my sake. If I threaten the peace of your house—or your safety—tell me. I’ll go back. I mean that.”
“This is impossible,” said Kta. “No. Elas has never dismissed a guest.”
“Elas has never entertained a human.”
“No,” Kta conceded. “But the Ancestors when they lived were reckless men. This is the character of Elas. The Ancestors guide us to such choice, and Nephane and the Methi cannot be much surprised at us.”