He stopped dead, staring, as his eyes cleared of one vision and he saw, standing before him like another, the mystery woman he had given sanctuary to this evening.
She stood before him, shimmering in pearls and black velvet, staring back at him with equal astonishment—and an upraised pitcher, in raids wing through an arc, its contents aimed straight at him.
He flung up his arm in a defense gesture—saw her expression already changing from disbelief and recognition to horrified dismay: Her arms jerked as she tried, too late, to stop the motion. He lowered his guard just in time to watch the contents of the pitcher spewed squarely onto his brothers’ heads. HK bellowed in surprise and SB fell off the end of the bench. Whatever had been in the pitcher was all over them now, and looked like liquefied garbage. Smelled like it, as the odor hit him.
The space around him was absolutely silent then, for an endless moment, except for the gasping and cursing of his brothers, and his own sudden, wildly heartfelt laughter.
The aghast crowd of partiers sat gaping a moment longer. And then household security appeared, human and otherwise, surrounding the woman in black where she stood motionless and unresisting, staring back at him with a look that he suddenly understood perfectly. His laughter fell away, and he opened his mouth.
“BZ, ye gods, are thou all right—” Pematte was beside him, putting an arm around him; not even looking toward his brothers. Vhanu was at his other side, frantically asking him something he ignored, as Pematte gestured at the waiting security staff, “Take her away, for gods’ sakes! Have her arrested!”
“Wait!” Gundhalinu put up his hand, stopping them in midmotion as they began to lay hands on the woman. “Let her go,” he said, walking toward her, and the armed guards, with a calm authority he didn’t quite feel. They looked past him at Pernatte, who must have given them a signal, and then backed off. “There’s been a misunderstanding here. It was … just a part of the art experience. No harm.”
He held up the silver circlet of the headset in both his hands, and as he reached her he set it on her head. “This belongs to you.” Not even making it a question. He took her hand and she followed him like a sleepwalker out into the open center of the patio where the box lay, the creative medium tendriling faintly, aimlessly, or whispering like ashes beneath their feet. He turned back to the crowd, glancing at his brothers just long enough to catch SB’s murderous glare as the security guards helped them up and away, through a ripple of disgusted faces.
“Sadhanu, bhai,” he said, raising his voice to catch the watchers’ attention. “This is the artist who is responsible for tonight’s entertainment. Please show her your appreciation.” There was more applause, some of it uncertain, some of it punctuated by small noises of approval. “Through an oversight, she was not invited to attend this evening’s affair.” He turned back to her, saw that the expression on her face was utterly lost. “If you will allow me to rectify the matter right now—” He looked back at Pernatte, saw the flash of awkward alarm in Vhanu’s gaze as he said, “I would be most grateful to have you welcome this woman as my honored guest.”
“Of course,” Pernatte murmured, staring at him and at the woman, clearly remembering what had been said about their relationship. Pematte’s expression “iuggested that he thought someone had had too much to drink, but he wasn’t sure ho. “Delighted. And sorry about the misunderstanding.” He looked at the woman again. “I suppose we shall just have to toss that bit of business off to artistic temperament, eh? We all make mistakes, eh—but please, my dear, be more circumspect in the future about how you express your…” He grimaced, attempting a smile.
“Of course, sathra.” She bowed to him, with a grace any Technician would have envied, her flawless mask of composure securely back in place, and the perfect image of a chastened smile on her lips. She looked up again, and took the headset carefully from her head, offering it to Pernatte. “It would give me unforgettable pleasure if you would take the next turn, sathra.” He accepted the headset, somewhat mollified by her show of manners, and eager to get the party flowing again. He put it on. She looked at Gundhalinu, and raised her eyebrows.
He nodded and touched her elbow, asking her wordlessly to follow him.
“Sir—?” Vhanu said, his own face uncertain, his body twitching with conflicting signals.
“It’s all right, Vhanu. I’ll call you when I need you.” He led her through the edge of the crowd, which had begun to ooh and ahh again as their host tried his hand at guiding her creation. She did not look back, and he suspected she did not really want to see it. He wondered what she had thought of his own performance. Not much, probably.
He led her along the neatly trimmed hedges of the maze that protected the Pernatte family shrine, until they reached a cushioned waiting-seat of the sort that were always located in spots like this, lying in the half illumination of the mansion’s windows. They sat down and looked at each other. Sweet a capella voices singing a song whose words he could not make out drifted across the lawn, filling the empty silence that neither of them seemed able to break.
At last she said, “You told me I could ask your name when we met again. But I guess that really isn’t necessary.”
“I guess not.” He looked at his hands. “But at least I can ask yours. Netanyahr, I believe my brother said—?” He looked up again. “They said that you owned our estates?”
“Pandhara Hethea Netanyahr,” she said, and met his uncertainly upraised hand. “Although for a brief, beautiful time I was PHN Gundhalinu.” She met his gaze, unflinching, and he saw the embers of anger in her eyes, saw too the pain and humiliation that had driven her to the act of absurdist revenge she had committed tonight.
He felt the painful heat of his own chagrin; remembered his humiliation at his own loss, how it had made him willing to do anything to get back what was his by right. “Now I know why you thought I’d personally forbidden you to come tonight. But I hadn’t. I had no idea—” But someone must have had, and it made him feel peculiar to have taken the blame for it.
“I know.” She nodded. “If I hadn’t met you earlier tonight, the way I did, I don’t know if I would believe you. But …”
“I don’t even know how someone had the temerity to ask you to provide entertainment for tonight … although the quality of your work is spectacular,” he added hastily. “I don’t mean to—”
“Thank you,” she said, and actually smiled. “What you chose to do with it was quite wonderful. I actually forgot myself, watching you dance with that beautiful vision.…”
“Really?” He smiled, hesitated. “I… have become a believer that certain meetings aren’t by coincidence, Netanyahrkadda. Perhaps this is one of those.” He glanced down. “At least it gives me a chance to apologize to you. You see, when I heard that my brothers had lost the family name, I—my own life … was not going well. To hear that … It seemed … it seemed as though my lifeline had snapped.” His hands made fists in the shadows. “I was desperate to get my birthright back. And when the—opportunity came, I took it. I never even thought about the person at the other end, whose new life I was disrupting.” He looked up at her again, with an effort. Except to imagine some crude profiteer with money for honor. Her expression said that it was exactly the attitude she would have expected of an arrogant, classist Technician. “If that’s what you think of us all,” he murmured, “then why did you want so badly to be one of us?”
The pearls whispered as she looked away. “It’s not ‘becoming one of you’ that I desire, Gundhalinusathra. You are all just as human as the rest of us, and if you ever had to face that, you might even realize it.” She looked back at him, as if she were expecting him to object; looked surprised, looked away again. “It’s … it’s the sense of tradition, the achievements of the families. I … you will think it presumptuous, but in school I studied the Dark Ages, and I dreamed of what it would have been like to have been alive then, helping to bring a return to the light. Sometimes I even imagined that I had been a part of it, in some former incarnation; I felt it that strongly. And it was your own family’s history that I became obsessed with—your ancestors’ intelligence and courage, their refusal to compromise their humanity in the face of persecution and terror. When I heard that the Gundhalinu name was actually for sale—”