James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

“Food should not be sullied with impertinent questions. Do you not share that belief in your world?”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Oh, sure, yeah.”

Doc was looking suspiciously at his towel, peering at it by the light of the oil lamps, sniffing.

“You do not like the idea of the cleansing, Doctor?” Hideyoshi asked.

The old man coughed, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I have read that it was the practice of your ancestors, when they wished to remove troublesome enemies, to give them towels like this to wipe their faces in the middle of a meal. But those towels would have been rubbed first over the open sores of a leper or smeared over the running wounds of a smallpox victim. Is that not correct?”

Mashashige came as close to smiling as he had since their first meeting. “It is a refreshing change to encounter the minds of gaijin .”

After plates of succulent flavored ices and crystallized fruits had been circulated, the Japanese baron of the ville clapped his hands. “Tea,” he said.

Tea wasn’t all that common in Deathlands, generally made from a dubious combination of brown herbs, often with molasses stirred in.

Ryan was on the point of refusing the offer when he caught a subtle shake of the head from Mildred, warning him to keep quiet.

Simultaneously a dozen more of the elegant young women came silently into the hall, shuffling along in tiny steps, all of them carrying either trays of handle-less cups or steaming earthenware pots.

The detritus of the meal had been cleared away by other servants, and the women went to one end, all dropping into a kneeling position.

“This ceremony of the making of tea is a very ancient and honorable tradition,” Mashashige said. “It goes back many hundred years before time of skydark. Our young girls learned it from their mothers.”

“After we’ve drunk the tea,” Ryan said, “can we then ask some questions?”

Mashashige bowed. “But, of course.”

“And get answers?”

A hint of a thin smile flickered across the stone face. “Of course.”

Watching the women begin the ritual of tea making, Ryan felt that he’d slipped through a tear in the fabric of time, traveled back to the lost heart of the Middle Ages. It didn’t seem possible that they were all living at the dark end of the twenty-first century.

It appeared to be an endless ceremony.

A careful mix of gray green herbs was sprinkled into each of the white porcelain cups that were so thin that you could see light through them. Hot water at precisely the right temperature was poured into each cup and stirred furiously with a short-handled bamboo whisk. The resulting liquid was a vaporous green color, steaming gently, filling the air with a delicate scent that overlaid the ever-present harshness of pollution.

It was swirled around in the hand-painted cups by the women, then whisked again until it frothed, followed by more hot water and more whisking.

The first cup was offered by the tallest of the women, on her knees, to Mashashige, who gestured to Ryan and the others. “Serve it to our honored guests.”

The servant looked directly at Krysty and then at Mildred, whispering something to the Japanese baron, who looked down the table at the women.

“Yes,” he pronounced. “To every one of our honored guests. Omit nobody.”

“This will be one of the most ace-on-the-line experiences of your lives,” Hideyoshi boasted. “No food or drink from Deathlands is anything like this. The wonder of green tea. O-cha , as we call it. Try these small cakes made from bean paste. They are a perfect accompaniment.”

Ryan nibbled at one of the little confections, avoiding pulling a face, although he found it unbearably sickly.

He had been watching Mashashige, noticing that the little man held the bowl in his cupped hand, bringing it to his nose and inhaling the steam with a beatific expression on his face, then sipping at it with an infinite slowness.

Ryan tried to copy him, finding the smell pleasant enough, like a herbal infusion. But when he brought the round cup to his mouth, he grimaced, finding it deeply bitter.