“Please.”
“How am I to talk with you?”
“Lord Kurt, I have made you think I am a loose woman. I am chart to this house; I cannot dishonor it. Please let me go inside.”
A thought came to him. “Are you his? Are you Kta’s?”
“No,” she said.
Against her preference he took the ctan and draped it about her shoulders. She hugged it to her. He was near enough to have touched her. He did not, nor did she move back. He did not take that for invitation. He thought that whatever he did, she would not protest or raise the house. It would be trouble between her lord Kta and his guest, and he understood enough of nemet dignity to know that Mim would choose silence. She would yield, hating him.
He had no argument against that.
In sad defeat, he bowed a formal courtesy to her and turned away.
“Lord Kurt,” she whispered after him, distress in her voice.
He paused, looking back.
“My lord, you do not understand.”
“I understand,” he said, “that I am human. I have offended you. I am sorry.”
“Nemet do not-” She broke off in great embarrassment, opened her hands, pleading. “My lord, seek a wife. My lord Nym will advise you. You have connections with the Methi and with Elas. You could marry, easily you could marry, if Nym approached the right house-”
“And if it was you I wanted?”
She stood there without words, until he came back to her and reached for her. Then she prevented him with her slim hands on his. “Please,” she said. “I have done wrong with you already.”
He ignored the protest of her hands and took her face between his palms ever so gently, fearing at each moment she would tear from him in horror. She did not. He bent and touched his lips to hers, delicately, almost chastely, for he thought the human custom might disgust or frighten her.
Her smooth hands still rested on his arms. The moon glistened on tears hi her eyes when he drew back from her. “Lord,” she said, “I honor you. I would do what you wish, but it would shame Kta and it would shame my father and I cannot.”
“What can you?” He found his own breathing difficult. “Mim, what if some day I did decide to talk with your father? Is that the way things are done?”
“To marry?”
“Some day it might seem a good thing to do.”
She shivered in his hands. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
“Mim, will you give me yes or no? Is a human hard for you to look at? If you had rather not say, then just say ‘let me be’ and I will do my best after this not to bother you.”
“Lord Kurt, you do not know me.”
“Are you determined I will never know you?”
“You do not understand. I am not the daughter of Hef. If you ask him for me he must tell you, and then you will not want me.”
“It is nothing to me whose daughter you are.”
“My lord, Elas knows. Elas knows. But you must listen to me now, listen. You know about the Tamurlin. I was taken when I was thirteen. For three years I was slave to them. Hef only calls me his daughter, and all Nephane thinks I am of this country. But I am not, Kurt. I am Indras, of Indresul. And they would kill me if they knew. Elas has kept this to itself. But you, you cannot bear such a trouble. People must not look at you and think Tamurlin-it would hurt you in this city-and when they see me, that is what they must think.”
“Do you believe,” he asked, “that what they think matters with me? I am human. They can see that.”
“Do you not understand, my lord? I have been property of every man in that village. Kta must tell you this if you ask Hef for me. I am not honorable. No one would marry Mim h’EIas. Do not shame yourself and Kta by making Kta say this to you.”
“After he had said it,” said Kurt, “would he give his consent?”