Eighteen: Catalysis

Ahr turned the ring on his finger, unable to look at Jak. They’d been detained now for a fortnight. Despite his fluent understanding of their tongue, spoken in a native accent, Ahr was unable to produce satisfactory proof of his birth in the Delta. He could have told them who his parents were—presumably, they lived in Rhyman still—but the awkward fact of his sex prevented him. Without that proof, his blood was suspect. Perhaps he could cry for them to demonstrate his bloodless tears, he thought, and bit back hysterical laughter.

Jak was the worse for it, removed from his cell after that first day to keep the sexes separate. That would have been laughable too, if it weren’t so depressing.

Curled on the bunk in an awkward Deltan dress, Jak wasn’t speaking to him. They’d taken away the sexless clothes as evidence of “criminal impersonation”, and Ahr had been responsible for further humiliation. He’d told their jailers Jak was unmarried, hoping the presumption of virginity would protect Jak from the threat of assault. They had ultimately coerced Jak to wear the veil through the less personal violence of a slap in the face.

Dinner arrived, the usual beans and mash, and with it, the Minister of Security for a monthly inspection of the jail. Ahr had seen him among the prelate’s entourage during their interrogation, but his presence hadn’t seemed significant. Now as he passed by, Ahr glanced up and realized with a start that the white-haired man was Merit, young Ahr’s silent protector.

It was Merit who’d taken Ahr from the beggars’ encampment behind the teahouse and installed her in a humble but warm cottage when her pregnancy was discovered. She suspected the cottage had been his home before his appointment to permanent attendance on the Meer. It should have remained so—his keep for his belongings, a place to which he might retire when he was too old to serve his master—but she’d seen no sign of personal effects, nor had he ever intruded on her in the years following the theft of Mila. Never, until the Expurgation.

Drugged on that final feast eve to prevent him from his duty, Merit had come to the cottage in anguish the following day after the terrible discovery that met him on waking. He knew of her participation in the rebellion that had led to the Expurgation, but he offered no words of condemnation. Ahr let him in, and Merit stood in the center of the cottage, unable to speak, unable to move.

“Let me get you some water, my liege.” Her words released him from his paralysis.

“My liege?” His face had drained of color as he turned toward her. “I deserve no obeisance. I was sworn to protect him!” His eyes were terrible, hollow.

She’d felt nothing but nausea since the deed was done, and now she turned to the basin and tried to vomit. In his wretchedness, he came to her and held her hair, comforting her, the assassin of his lord.

“Oh gods, Merit,” she gasped over the basin. “How can you? How can you even look at me?”

“He bade me to protect you also.” His words turned her insides to ash. “And I have come to ask something of you.” He stroked her hair. “Something terrible.” She waited, her knuckles white where she gripped the basin. “Help me bury him.”

“Ai, no,” she moaned. “Please, Merit. Ask anything but that.”

“I cannot watch them lie there, rotting like garbage in the street. I’ll drag the bodies to the graveyard myself whether you are with me or not. It will take longer. I may be caught.”

“Merit,” she whispered. Her eyes pleaded for him not to ask this of her. But it was just. It was what she owed him.

They entered the courtyard in the pitch of night, shrouded in the temple’s silence. Already the bodies were terrible from the moist autumn heat, swollen and smelling of putrefaction. They’d lifted Ra from RaNa’s body, Merit mercifully taking the shoulders while Ahr lifted the legs, and placed his body on a length of canvas, which Merit wrapped around him. RaNa must wait for their return. They carried their burden through the abandoned temple to the steps beyond and down to the river. Merit, still possessing the hard body of a litter bearer, bore most of the weight.

A small boat waited at the river’s edge, moored at the steps. Merit lifted Ra in his arms with reverence to place him in the boat and indicated another length of canvas on the steps. “Bring her down.”

She was to go alone to this terrible reckoning. Ahr turned weakly toward the temple. Merit didn’t condemn her with words, but this spoke more loudly than a volley of rage.

She covered the body first, unable to look at it, and rolled it into the cloth. Then in her arms she lifted the child she hadn’t held since it had suckled at her breast. Heavy with her burden, she mounted the marble stairs to the temple, bringing the final offering of this body to the altar of the god. In silence, she carried her through the gilded arches where RaNa had spent her privileged life; in silence, descended to the river where RaNa’s father waited. Merit took the body from her and laid it down, and Ahr climbed in.

They floated downriver, undertakers from the netherworld, over black water skimmed occasionally by unidentified life. Merit rowed to the bank when they reached the basin of the graveyard, and they completed their procession with the bodies over the hill. Merit had already dug the graves, and he laid Ra to rest beneath an olive tree, with RaNa’s small grave beside him. Ahr stood by while he lowered RaNa. He allowed her that mercy.

He arranged the child’s hands over her body and paused a moment, removing the ring from her thumb where she’d worn it in anticipation of maturing fingers. Then he climbed from the small grave and replaced the earth, sealing the souls into permanent slumber, a slumber that Ahr would envy, as she’d envied them all else.

Merit pressed the ring into her hand, and she shook her head and backed away from him, but he gripped her fingers with his superior strength and forced them down over the ring, engulfing her fist. He shook it roughly, and his eyes told Ahr with finality that she would not escape this sentence. He had protected her, but he would not protect her from her guilt.

It was the last she saw of him.

The Minister turned now and glanced at his prisoners. Ahr met his eyes, and Merit paused, his expression confused. Ahr was worrying the ring on his finger, and Merit looked down between the bars. Ahr stopped his hand. He’d kept the ring in his pocket, glad the guards had been too nervous to search him. He ought to have left it there.

Merit met his eyes once more, scanning his face, his expression dark. He turned to the watchmen of the Guard. “Take a break,” he ordered. They left without argument.

Ahr sat unmoving with his dinner tray in his lap as Merit opened the cell.

He closed his hand over the ring, grinding it into Ahr’s skin. “Where did you get this?” Ahr debated whether to answer. How could he answer? The answer would be preposterous. “This will get you hanged, sir. Where did you come by this? Tell me!”

Ahr swallowed his mouthful of food. “You gave it to me, my liege.”

Merit jerked Ahr’s face toward him and looked into his eyes, his own going wide with fear. “I gave it to a woman,” he said fiercely. “She was a daughter to me.”

“I can never have been that, Merit,” said Ahr softly. “How misplaced your loyalties have always been.”

Merit stumbled back and landed on the opposite bunk. “How?” He shook his head. “You’ve refused to identify yourself to my Guard. Tell me your name now; I must hear it.”

“Ahr Naiahn.” The appellation was Deltan for “no one”.

Merit shook his head. “How?”

“My answer would incriminate me, sir.”

“Meericry?” Merit whispered. “You sought one out?” Ahr didn’t answer. Merit rose and threw his arms around him, knocking the tray to the floor, and Ahr submitted, stunned. “I thought you’d taken your own life. I thought I’d driven you to it. Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” Ahr drew Merit’s arms away. “Sooth,” he swore in Mole. “You’ve done nothing to forgive.”

“You kept the ring. It was too much. You torment yourself with it. I shouldn’t have made you take it.”

“No.” Ahr shook his head. “Nothing could have been too much.” Jak had roused at this reunion and stood watching in the awkward dress at the bars of the cell. Ahr nodded toward Jak. “Mene midt dalfalend, Jak. My friend from the wasteland.” He translated as he spoke. Jak met and held his eyes at the word “friend”.

Merit took Jak’s hand through the bars. “Vetta, zira.” He lifted the hand to kiss it.

“My friend prefers not to be addressed according to gender,” said Ahr. “These clothes are an insult.”

Merit raised a curious eyebrow but released Jak’s hand and offered a respectful bow. “Mene auffen.”

“He apologizes.”

“No offense taken,” said Jak. “It’s an honor to meet someone who has loved Ahr.”

“Nai auffen,” said Ahr to Merit, pausing over the second part. “Ischvetseh…ahnmidtlif Ahr.”

Merit smiled and inclined his head. “Likewise.” He looked back at Ahr. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do at the moment about the clothes. It’s out of my hands. But perhaps I can influence the prelate in favor of your freedom.” He lowered his voice. “The charges. Is there any truth to them?”

“That I consort with MeerRa of Rhyman?” Ahr laughed spitefully. “Here? Now? How can there be? Ra was consigned to the earth without fire, as you well know.”

Merit grimaced. “There was a fire. The body—spontaneously combusted.”

“Ai, Ra.” Ahr shook his head.

“If there is anything to confide, it will remain with me. My loyalties are constant.”

Ahr avoided his eyes. “If Ra lives, I’m afraid you cannot hope it will be for long.”