Kurt swore, a raw and human oath, and gazed off at the window, unable to look at the nemet.

“Have you,” said Kta, “love for the Methi?”

“No,” he said harshly.

“You chose to go,” Kta reminded him, “when Elas would have fought for you.”

“Elas has no place in this.”

“We have no honor if we let you protect us in this way. But it is not clear to us what your wishes are in this matter. Do you wish us to intervene?”

“I do not wish it,” he answered.

“Is this the wish of your heart? Or do you still think to shield us? You owe us the plain truth, Kurt. Tell us yes or no and we will believe your word and do as you wish.”

“I do not love the Methi,” he said in a still voice, “but I do not want Elas involved between us.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“I expect,” he said, finding it difficult to meet Kta’s dark-eyed and gentle sympathy, “that it will not be the last time. I owe her, Kta. If my behavior offends the honor of Elas or of Mim, tell me. I have no wish to bring misery on this house, and least of all on Mim. Tell me what to do.”

“Life,” said Kta, “is a powerful urge. You protest you hate the Methi, and perhaps she hates you, but the urge to survive and perpetuate your kind—may be a sense of honor above every other honor. Mim has spoken to me of this.”

He felt a deep sickness, thinking of that. At the moment he himself did not even wish to survive.

“Mim honors you,” said Kta, “very much. If your heart toward her changed, still,—you are bound, my friend. I feared this; and Mim foreknew it. I beg you do not think of breaking this vow with Mim; it would dishonor her. Ai,my friend, my friend, we are a people that does not believe in sudden marriage, yet for once we were led by the heart, we were moved by the desire to make you and Mim happy. Now I hope that we have not been cruel instead. You cannot undo what you have done with Mim.”

“I would not,” Kurt said. “I would not change that.”

“Then,” said Kta, “all is well.”

“I have to live in this city,” said Kurt, “and how will people see this and how will it be for Mim?”

Kta shrugged. “This is the Methi’s problem. It is common for a man to have obligations to more than one woman. One cannot, of course, have the Methi of Nephane for a common concubine. But it is for the woman’s house to see to the proprieties and to obtain respectability. An honorable woman does so, as we have done for Mim. If a woman will not, or her family will not, matters are on her head, not yours. Though,” he added, “a Methi can do rather well as he or she pleases, and this has been a common difficulty with Methis, particularly with human ones,—and the late Tehal-methi of Indresul was notorious. Djan-Methi is efficient. She is a good Methi. The people have bread and peace, and as long as that lasts, you can only obtain honor by your association with her. I am only concerned that your feelings may turn again to human things, and Mim be only of a strange people that for a time entertained you.”

“No.”

“I beg your forgiveness if this would never happen.”

“It would never happen.”

“I have offended my friend,” said Kta. “I know you have grown nemet, and this part of you I trust; but forgive me: I do not know how to understand the other.”

“I would do anything to protect Mim—or Elas.”

“Then,” said Kta in great earnestness, “think as nemet, not as human. Do nothing without your family. Keep nothing from your family. The Families are sacred. Even the Methi is powerless to do you harm when you stand with us and we with you.”

“Then you do not know Djan.”

“There is the law, Kurt. So long as you have not taken arms against her or directly defied her, the law binds her. She must go through the Upei, and a dispute—forgive me—with her lover—is hardly the kind of matter she could lay before the Upei.”

“She could simply assign you and Tavito sail to the end of the known world. She has alternatives, Kta.”

“If the Methi chooses a quarrel with Elas,” said Kta, “she will have chosen unwisely. Elas was here before the Methi came, and before the first human set foot on this soil. We know our city and our people, our voice is heard in councils on both sides of the Dividing Sea. When Elas speaks in the Upei, the Great Families listen; and now of all times the Methi dares not have the Great Families at odds with her. Her position is not as secure as it seems, which she knows full well, my friend.”

8

The ship from Indresul came into port late on the day scheduled, a bireme with a red sail—the international emblem, Kta explained as he stood with Kurt on the dock, of a ship claiming immunity from attack. It would be blasphemy against the gods either to attack a ship bearing that color or to claim immunity without just cause.

The Nephanite crowds were ominously silent as the ambassador left his ship and came ashore. Characteristic of the nemet, there was no wild outburst of hatred, but people took just long enough moving back to clear a path for the ambassador’s escort to carry the point that he was not welcome in Nephane.

Mor t’Uset ul Orm, white-haired and grim of face, made his way on foot up the hill to the height of the Afen and paid no heed to the soft curses that followed at his back.

“The house of Uset,” said Kta as he and Kurt made their way uphill in the crowd, “that house on this side of the Dividing Sea, will not stir out of doors this day. They will not go into the Upei for very shame.”

“Shame before Mor t’Uset or before the people of Nephane?”

“Both. It is a terrible thing when a house is divided. The Guardians of Uset on both sides of the sea are in conflict. Ei, ei,fighting the Tamurlin is joyless enough; it is worse that two races have warred against each other over this land; but when one thinks of war against one’s own family, where gods and Ancestors are shared, whose hearth once burned with a common flame,— ai,heaven keep us from such a day.”

“I do not think Djan will take this city to war. She knows too well where it leads.”

“Neither side wants it,” said Kta, “and the Indras-descended of Nephane want it least of all. Our quarrel with—”

Kta fell silent as they came to the place where the street narrowed to pass the gate in the lower defense wall. A man reaching the gate from the opposite direction was staring at them—tall, powerful, wearing the braid and striped robe that was not uncommon in the lower town and among the Methi’s guard.

All at once Kurt knew him. Shan t’Tefur. Hate seemed in permanent residence in t’Tefur’s narrow eyes. For a moment Kurt’s heart pounded and his muscles tensed, for t’Tefur had stopped in the gate and seemed about to bar their way.

Kta jostled against Kurt, purposefully, clamped his arm in a hard grip unseen beneath the fold of the ctanand edged him through the gate, making it clear he should not stop.

“That man,” said Kurt, resisting the urge to look back, for Kta’s grip remained hard, warning him. “That man is from the Afen.”

“Keep moving,” Kta said.

They did not stop until they reached the high street, that area near the Afen which belonged to the mansions of the Families, great, rambling things, among which Elas was one of the most prominent. Here Kta seemed easier, and slowed his pace as they headed toward the door of Elas.

“That man,” Kurt said then, “came where I was being held in the Afen. He brought me into the Methi’s rooms. His name is t’Tefur.”

“I know his name.”

“He seems to have a dislike for humans.”

“Hardly,” said Kta. “It is a personal dislike. He has no fondness for either of us. He is Sufaki.”

“I noticed—the braid, the robes,—that is not the dress of the Methi’s guard, then?”

“No. It is Sufak.”

“Osanef—Osanef is Sufaki. Han t’Osanef and Bel do not wear—”