Sanctity
The stacks of documents were waiting when she got home. They were arranged in small piles according to the date on which they would be required of her. She noticed with distaste that the pile due the next day seemed to have grown in the time she had been away, but grew more serious when she realized that the piles for the other days were alarmingly small compared to those she had seen weeks earlier.
Preparing her mind for work, she arranged her workspace: brushes, pens, ink, the specially hollowed mixing stone that had been a gift from her lover at the time upon finishing her last large commission, several cycles ago. The top of the stack for the day was occupied by an envelope marked with the seal of the Melasharan government, containing some work which only needed to be finished. Everything else, with few exceptions, would need to be translated, embellished, or copied several times for different sets of government records. Legal scribes were paid more than simple translators, but since the recent decision by all the governments represented in the city to hire first within their race, Alenxa and the other Bianxeni scribes had had trouble finding work. A theocracy such as theirs never had a shortage of willing scribes and translators, and even though some of the other races appreciated her ability with nearly all the languages spoken in the city, they rarely had openings either.
Alenxa finished the first job and replaced it in the packet. She was starting on a Kjechorii-to Melasharan translation of a trade agreement when someone knocked on her door, then blithely opened it. She yelped and sprang to her feet, saw that it was Dialasin, and sagged back into her chair. "You like to frighten me?" she asked, still feeling her pulse in her neck.
Dialasin bowed slightly. "SiXadas angara, Alenxa. You are anxious today?"
"SiXianis angara," she said hurriedly. "Yes, I am. You are lucky I had finished what will be paying for my food. It would have been ruined." She held up the page she had been working on, showing him the streak and blot her startled brush had made.
"I apologize," said Dialasin. "I will replace the paper."
Alenxa forced a smile. "I will await that." She put the page in her scrap pile and waved him into a chair. "What brings you here? I had thought you would be mired in duties already."
"I had thought so as well," he answered, settling onto his favorite woven-reed folding chair. "Only it seems that the High Servants believe the years spent preparing have earned me a time without duties. But why I am here--I have news of a job for you. The Melasharan heir has taken a wife."
"This is the bastard son?" she asked, her mind already running. His appearance just after the death of the previous heir had made for plenty of jobs just from the gossip; this was likely to create more.
"There are others? Yes, the one of the questionable parentage. I hear he will be looking for someone to inscribe announcements and invitations, and--" He leaned closer. "He has waived the policy on race. It will be open to whomever his staff chooses."
"And I have worked for so many of the staff--I might have a chance! And if they approve, there may be a chance to work again when he finally reaches his age and has his coronation . . ." She realized that the chances were small, but they needed only to be there. "Thank you, this is the best news I have heard in a week. You will stay for supper?"
Alenxa hurried upstairs, the package she carried threatening to spill its contents at any moment. She noticed that, and gripped it tighter. The invitations she had just finished for the Melasharan Regent's Arlanis Day banquet had to be completely redone by the next afternoon. Not only had the date been changed, but the time as well, and the chief undersecretary of relations had decided the lettering wasn't fancy enough. Fortunately, Alenxa had been able to show that she could provide what was needed, so she had kept the contract. Unfortunately, there would be no chance of an advance or extra pay; it had been made quite clear that if she did not complete the contract as the Melasharans interpreted it, she would have no hope of remaining in her current financial position. She abhorred blackmail, but there was nothing for it beyond seething.
She was nearly out of blue ink. The last go-around of invitations had depleted her supply, and there was not enough left in the box for the writing and adornments she would have to do. Worse, buying more would take most of the money she had left, as well as a good deal of her time, but she had to do it. Assembling her purse and what was left of her presence, she opened the door and nearly ran into Dialasin, who was preparing to knock. She shrieked and jumped back, willing her heart to stop battering. "What? What are you doing here?"
"I . . . came to help," he said, reaching into his robes and pulling out a small box. It was of the type used to hold ink, and she knew without checking that it would be blue.
"How did you know? You are not a Prophet." He was not even emPowered; they had gone through the testing together, half a lifetime ago.
"No," he explained, "but one of my brothers, Xaldarin, is. I passed him in the halls and he gave me the ink. He told me, 'Go to her yourself, and it is on your hands.' About the hands, I am not certain, but I knew where to go."
Alenxa knew there could have been no other "her" meant by the Prophet. The hands meant nothing; he was here, and could help. "You know the round Melasharan hand?" she asked, taking the ink box.
Dialasin shook his head, frowning. "I can read it, though I do not know what the words mean, but I cannot write it."
Alenxa, setting up her workspace again, revised her notion of how much help he could be. "If I show you something in that hand, you can copy it until you can write it the way I have?"
"That is a thing I can do," Dialasin said cautiously. "What would I be copying?"
"A date," Alenxa said, taking a scrap and a brush and sitting down. "I will give you a paper for practice, and when you are ready you can put it on the cards." She wrote the date carefully in her more abundant black ink, handed him the brush and a sheet of rough paper, and dipped a smaller brush into the blue ink. "Tell me when you think you have it right."
They worked almost without speaking. One of them lit new candles when they were needed; the other brought water for the brushes and for drinking. They could not have said which of them did what, nor could they have said what time it was when they finally finished. Alenxa sat back, nearly disbelieving, waiting for the ink to dry. She insisted that the job was not truly complete until the cards were back in their envelope, a task she undertook with trepidation, waiting for disaster that did not come.
"You did it," Dialasin said quietly.
Alenxa shook her head, grinning. "No. We did it." She gave him an impulsive hug, nearly laughing with relief, and was confused by his seeming reluctance to let go.
She was even more confused when he kissed her. Confused, and scared. "What--why did you do that?"
Dialasin blinked, a slow flush creeping up his face. "I . . . meant only--"
"No," Alenxa said, moving away from him, "you did not mean to. But . . ." Something was missing, and she could not figure out a way to grasp it.
Dialasin's eyes were closed, his breathing labored. "Yes," he said weakly. "Yes, I meant it. I cannot deny it. Not now."
"But there is nothing to deny," Alenxa protested, fighting to disbelieve. "It was a mistake, you must have been thinking of someone else, or another time--"
"I love you."
Her words died somewhere in the breath she almost could not draw. She watched his face, set in embarrassment and anguish, as he went on.
"I have loved you for longer than I have known I loved you. We did--that one time--but it was before then. And you were always with someone else, and I thought that you must be for one of them, and not for me."
"But--you cannot--you live in service, if you love me you cannot be with me," she choked out, backing farther away.
His eyes opened, closing the distance. "Why do you think I chose to live in service in the first place?"
The import shook Alenxa slowly, paralyzing her feet first and creeping up to her brain. She was afraid of shaking, for fear that he would try to comfort her.
Dialasin was still talking. "I thought that it would change me, to serve this way. That I would not--if I could not have you--"
Alenxa looked frantically for a way to escape. Her eyes fell on the packet of completed invitations, and she snatched it off the desk. "I have to--I have to deliver these," she stammered, clutching the packet to her chest, keeping her eyes off Dialasin's face as she moved toward the door. "There will be someone there," she added, to keep him from telling her that she was unlikely to encounter anyone in the Halls. "There always is. You should return."
She could tell without seeing that Dialasin was looking at her. "I have frightened you," he said. "I apologize."
"No," said Alenxa, more forcefully than she had intended. "No. I have a commission to deliver. And you do not live here." She reached the door, opening it somehow without turning around. "Go. Please." Not waiting to see if he did, she left the apartment.
She went down the stairs, down the path onto the dark street, and then kept walking, not truly knowing or caring where she was going. Somehow, when she looked up again, she had reached the Halls of Council. Not questioning her sense of navigation or her luck at finding the very place she had said she needed to be, she entered, remembering as she walked the correct path to the office she had been to before. The undersecretary had said there would be someone there throughout the night, as a guard for the papers in the office and the ones around it, if nothing else; and he had been true to his word. There was indeed a person there, a rather stout woman nodding off onto a pile of ledgers, who awakened with a snort when Alenxa cleared her throat.
"Who are you?" the woman demanded, in Alenxa's native tongue.
At least she was that perceptive, Alenxa thought, concentrating on business. "I am the contractor for the Arlanis Day invitations," she answered in Shalra, the dominant Melasharan dialect. "I was directed to bring them here when I had completed them."
The woman's mouth opened soundlessly, and snapped shut again. "So soon?" she said finally. "Belarin had not expected these until this afternoon."
"Forgive me," said Alenxa, curtsying Melasharan-style in acknowledgment of the woman's quick recovery. "I thought it better to finish them as soon as possible, and not to endanger my commission by sleeping too soon."
The woman smiled at this. "Understood. In your position, I would have done the same. I will take them for you, and tell Belarin what you have told me. He will send your pay to your residence at once. If he does not, he will have me to reckon with."
Alenxa returned the smile, realizing that the woman was likely the undersecretary's wife or lover. The thought turned her stomach over, but she held on. "I thank you. I leave you to your work." She nodded deeply in farewell, raising her head at the same time as the woman, and left the office.
A few steps down the corridor, the world caught up with her. She would have to return home now, and if Dialasin was still there, she would have to face him. There was an infinite number of things she would rather do, but they would get her nowhere. She arrived home to find the apartment empty even of a note. The stillness hurt more than a confrontation, and it was just as painful when she managed to sleep.
The commission arrived the next day, just over half Belarin's promised price. Alenxa nearly threw her copy of the contract at the courier in her rage, but realized exactly what would be done with it if she did, and instead thanked him, closed the door, and decided. If Belarin thought her meek or stupid, he would be getting a nice shock.
No one in the basement of the Halls of Council was terribly surprised when she swept in and signed out a document, but she turned several heads walking unnanounced into the Readers' Enclave on the first floor. A faint prickle danced across the back of her neck as one of them came forward. "You are in need of a service?" he asked in badly-accented Bianxeni.
"Yes," she said, not bothering to try to figure out which Melasharan dialect he spoke. "It concerns my contract." The Power-prickle again, and his eyes widened.
"This is--irregular," he said. "You have your copy as well?" When she nodded, he went to the door and wrote something on a sheet of paper hanging next to it. "Then we will go."
Belarin's office door was closed, with a sign in Melasharan script hung from a peg next to it. Alenxa read the sign aloud before the Reader could do it for her, earning her a look of wondering approval. "He is in a meeting. Where is this room?" she asked.
"Across the hall," he said, pointing to another closed door. "But you cannot--"
She opened the door, silencing a group of people seated around a table, all wearing secretarial badges. Belarin, on one side of the table, looked as if he had swallowed a frog. "Was there an error on your copy of the contract?" she asked, being sure to use Shalra.
"There--I--what are you talking about?" he spluttered, as the Reader scurried into the room.
Alenxa held up her copy, alongside the copy she had checked out of the basement. "Both of these copies state that I am to be paid in Melasharan royals, six hundred on receipt of product. Can you tell me why I was paid three hundred fifty instead?"
"Three hundred fifty!" exclaimed a woman at the opposite end of the room. "What--"
"I authorized a ch-chit for six hundred," Belarin protested, seizing up a bit as the Reader made it obvious that he was scanning the secretary's mind. "My . . . workers must have . . . miswritten it." The Reader shook his head, not bothering to be discreet with his signal of a lie.
"Then it would be only fitting that you take my miswritten chit," said Alenxa, producing it, "and write a new one so that your workers do not make the mistake again."
It took Belarin longer than it should have to write the chit, mainly as a result of the twenty or so eyes on him. Then two of the people sitting across from him insisted on inspecting it before handing it to Alenxa and taking the old one. "Now go," said Belarin, still quivering and trying to stop. "You have interrupted a very important meeting and inconvenienced us all."
Alenxa smiled and curtsied. "I thank you," she said, looking around to address everyone in the room. "I will go now." The glances between the others in the room followed her even as she left.
When she got home, she collapsed. She truly had not done that, she thought. Belarin would be out for her whether or not he would be allowed to do anything from the office to which she fancied he would be demoted. Before she had much of a chance to think about that particular and desirable possibility, the second knock of the day sounded on the door.
It was a courier, but not the same one as before. "I greet you, ara Devaxi. I have been commissioned to bring you this on behalf of Second Secretary Mejan, for the Melasharan Regent's staff." He held out an envelope so nearly identical to that morning's that Alenxa was afraid to take it. "It will not bite, but if you think it may, I can tell you that the Second Secretary was the winner of a large lottery to be the next to employ you. I trust you will not disappoint her."
Alenxa had taken the envelope and skimmed the letter ferociously, and her grin upon looking up matched the courier's. "I do not plan to. I thank you."
The courier left, leaving her to squeal and giggle as she had not done since she was a child. Her celebration was interrupted by yet another knock, and she hastily calmed herself, hoping the courier hadn't forgotten anything.
It was Dialasin. Seeing him brought back the previous night, everything she had managed to keep at a low mental prickling until then. "SiXianis angara."
"SiXadas angara. I may enter?" At her nod, he stepped inside, not looking at her. "I am sorry for what I said last night. It was the truth, but it was not needed."
"No, it was," Alenxa told him. "If you have lived with this since before we were tested, it is better that you say so." His face told her that he had not expected her to have thought so much about it, and that he was grateful that she agreed. "It may not agree with the world, but . . . it is better."
He almost smiled. "I thank you for your kindness, but while I am being honest, I cannot say that I believe you understand. I am myself, and you . . . it is not every woman who is the reason for someone's service."
She had not thought of it in that way, flattering and rattling. For the first time, she wondered if she could love him in return. Even with the openness that had sprung up so quickly, she could not say. "I--thank you. For coming here to tell me that. If it were me, I would not have had your courage."
Dialasin tried to smile, but it hovered on a grimace. "There is another matter, and I wish someone else could tell you, but it must be me. I placed your name on the list to be considered for the heir's commission, yesterday. Today they sent a courier to say that only the candidates and their family members were allowed to place names, and that the list had just been closed. He found me at the temple, but he did not know that I had chosen a life of service. And he wanted to know what relation we were, so--I told him that we were married."
"You did what? After that, last night, you said--"
"It was the first thing that came to mind," he protested. "I am sorry, truly. But I could not let them take your name off, and I could not change and say you were my sister after he heard me--"
"Why is this even important?"
Dialasin sighed. "The Melasharans want to be sure that we live together. It is routine, they tell me, but they make things worse, and they do not understand us. So until they can review your work--"
"You must stay here," Alenxa realized, shoulders slumping in defeat. "And they will assume we are doing what we are not." Suddenly, something fell horrifically into place. "And your brothers in the temple--what will happen now?"
"They know we are friends. They do not know more. If they learn, they can do nothing without proof, and there is none."
"What if they come?" Alenxa remembered the Xadans who had died rather than face whatever had been ahead of them. "And assume?"
"I do not believe they can," said Dialasin. "All the same, I will tell them again what I have been doing on the visits I have made here. They will listen."
Alenxa wished she could believe him, but the fear was too strong. The situation was too impossible, Dialasin was too kind, and she was too confused. She hated herself for wishing he could console her, and for wishing that she could let him.
Copyright © 1999 by Katherine Foreman.