“Hef,” said Kta, “is the Friend of Elas. His family serves us now three hundred years. Mim-lechan speaks human language. She will help you.”
Mim cast a look up at him. She was small, narrow-waisted, both stiffly proper and distractingly feminine in the close-fitting, many-buttoned bodice. Her eyes were large and dark, before a quick flash downward and the bowing of her head concealed them.
It was a look of hate, a thing of violence, that she sent him.
He stared, stricken by it, until he remembered and showed her courtesy by glancing down.
“I am much honored,” said Mim coldly, like a recital, “being help to the guest of my lord Kta. My honored father and I are anxious for your comfort.”
The guest quarters were upstairs, above what Mim explained shortly were Nym’s rooms, with the implication that Nym expected silence of him. It was a splendid apartment, in every detail as fine as Kta’s own, with a separate, brightly tiled bath, a wood-stove for heating water, bronze vessels for the bath and a tea set. There was a round tub in the bath for bathing, and a great stack of white linens, scented with herbs.
The bed in the main triangular room was a great feather-stuffed affair spread with fine crisp sheets and the softest furs, beneath a sunny window of cloudy, bubbled glass. Kurt looked on the bed with longing, for his legs shook and his eyes burned with fatigue, and there was not a muscle in his body which did not ache; but Mim busily pattered back and forth with stacks of linens and clothing, and then cruelly insisted on stripping the bed and remaking it, turning and plumping the big down mattress. Then, when he was sure she must have finished, she set about dusting everything.
Kurt was near to falling asleep in the corner chair when Kta arrived in the midst of the confusion. The nemet surveyed everything that had been done and then said something to Hef, who attended him.
The old servant looked distressed, then bowed and removed a small bronze lamp from a triangular niche in the west wall, handling it with the greatest care.
“It is religion,” Kta explained, though Kurt had not ventured to ask. “Please don’t touch such things, also the phusmeha, the bowl of the fire in the rhmei. Your presence is a disturbance. I ask your respect in this matter.”
“Is it because I’m a stranger,” Kurt asked, already nettled by Mim’s petty persecutions, “or because I’m human?”
“You are without beginning on this earth. I asked the phusa taken out not because I don’t wish Elas to protect you, but because I don’t want you to make trouble by offending against the Ancestors of Elas. I have asked my father in this matter. The eyes of Elas are closed in this one room. I think it is best. Let it not offend.”
Kurt bowed, satisfied by Kta’s evident distress.
“Do you honor your ancestors?” Kta asked.
“I don’t understand,” said Kurt, and Kta assumed a distressed look as if his fears had only been confirmed.
“Nevertheless,” said Kta, “I try. Perhaps the Ancestors of Elas will accept prayers in the name of your most distant house. Are your parents still living?”
“I have no kin at all,” said Kurt, and the nemet murmured a word that sounded regretful.
“Then,” said Kta, “I ask please your whole name, the name of your house and of your father and your mother.”
Kurt gave them, to have peace, and the nemet stumbled much over the long alien names, determined to pronounce them accurately. Kta was horrified at first to believe his parents shared a common house name, and Kurt angrily, almost tearfully, explained human customs of marriage, for he was exhausted and this interrogation was prolonging his misery.
“I shall explain to the Ancestors,” said Kta. “Don’t be afraid. Elas is a house patient with strangers and strangers’ ways.”
Kurt bowed his head, not to have any further argument. He was tolerated for the sake of Kta, a matter of Kta’s honor.
He was cold when Kta and Mim left him alone, and crawled between the cold sheets, unable to stop shivering.