He nodded mri-fashion, bewildered and weary and finding this offer the least burdensome. Her gentle fingers eased the zaidhe from him, and she stared in shock at the manner of his hair that, although he had let it grow shoulder-length, mri-fashion, was not the coarse bronze mane of her kind. She touched it, unbound by the formalities of kel-caste, tugged a lock between her fingers, discovered the shape of his ears and was amazed by that And from the covered wooden dish on her tray she took a fragrant damp cloth, and carefully, carefully bathed his face and hands it was easement for the sandburns and the sunburn; and he loosed his robes at her insistence, and lay down, her knees for his pillow. She spread his robes over him and softly caressed his brow, so that he felt distant from all the world, and it was very easy to let go.
He did not wish to: treacheries occurred to him, murder he strove to stay awake, not to show his distrust, but all the same, not to slip beyond awareness what passed.
But he did drift for a moment, and wakened in her arms, safe. He caressed her cradling arm, slowly, sleepily, until he looked into her golden eyes and remembered that he had promised not to touch her.
He took his hand away.
She bent and touched her lips to his brow, and this disturbed him.
“If I came back another night,” he said, for the time was short, and there suddenly seemed a thousand things he wished to know of the Kath of this kath’en, who was gracious to a tsi’mri, “if I came back again, could I ask for you?”
“Any kel’en may ask.”
“May I ask?”
She understood then, and looked embarrassed, and distressed and he understood, and forced a smile.
“I shall not ask,” he said.
“It would be shameless of me to say that you might.”
Then he was utterly confused, and lay staring up at her.
A soft, lilting call rang out somewhere in kath-hall.
“It is morning,” she said, and began to seek to leave. She arose when he sat up, and started for the door.
“I do not know your name,” he said, getting to his feet human courtesy.
“Kel’en, it is Sa’er.”
And she performed a graceful gesture of respect and left him.
He regretted, then, that he had declined… regretted, with a curious sense of anticipation… that perhaps, on some other night, things would be different Sa’en it was like the word for morning. It was appropriate.
His thoughts wrenched back to Elag/Haven, to rough and careless times, and next Sa’er, the memory was ugly.
One did not, he knew in all the principles of kel-law, hurt a kath’en, either child or woman. There was in him a deep certainty that he had done in this meeting what was right to do.
And there was in him increasing belief that she would not, as she had said, breach confidence; would not make little of him with others; would not come next time with tears, but with a smile for him.
Cheerful in that thought, he settled to the carpets and put his boots on, gathered his robes about him, and his belts and weapons, that he had put aside: rising, he put them to rights; and put on the zaidhe, that was more essential to modesty than the robes; but the mez he flung across his throat and over his shoulder.
Then he went out into the hall, and flushed hot with sudden embarrassment, for there was Niun, at the same moment, and he hoped that kel reticence would prevent questions.
The mri, he thought, looked well-content.
“Was it well with you?” Niun asked.
He nodded.
“Come,” said Niun. “There is a courtesy to be done.”
Kath-hall looked different under day-phase lighting. The mats were cleared away, and the children scurried about madly at their coming, ran each to a kath’en, and with amazing swiftness a line formed, guiding them to the door.
First was the kath’anth, who stood alone, and took Niun’s hands together and smiled at him. “Tell the Kel that we do not understand the machines in this place, but there will be dinner.”