69 - With a Silken Cushion

Craziness warning, emotional violence:

_____________

 

Nadian strolled along the high gallery, the private street to Loggia Sedes, the Basserus family’s ancient home.  It was close to the central vertical core of the city, neither ostentatiously built on a slender thread of stone dangerously suspended over the drop, nor in a conservatively hugging spiral trail up the rock of the butte.

The servants had the wind-screens carefully arranged for him well before he reached them and he didn’t pause in his step even to acknowledge their diligent work.  Outwardly he strolled, without a care in the world.  The only sign of his rage was the tightness of the skin around his eyes, since no one could see thinned lips behind the elegant black and white feather veil.

The door servant gave him the full salaam, and swung the door shut behind him and he brushed past the old-fashioned ‘three at the door’, the one offering to brush the dust from clothing, the one holding cool towels to wash one’s hands, and the one with glass and pitcher of lemon water to rinse one’s mouth.  Mother was so hide bound in some ways, so... stuck in the past.

He knocked dust off himself with his own hands, snatched the towel to wipe his fingers and dropped it on the floor.   

“Mother!”

The server salaamed him up the rose-sculptured pink stone staircase.  “The lady host is in her bed, Naser.” Nadian nodded and said “I’ll find my own way.  Leave me alone.”

“As the Naser wishes.”

He straight-armed the door hard enough that it slammed back against its hinges making his mother, in her pink silk retreat from reality, cry out and her tiny crested dog yap wildly.  “Oh!  Oh, Nadi-di, you frightened me!”

“Mother!  How am I going to deal with this... affront?”

His mother’s rooms were all varying shades of pink, from the dark, almost red rug to the flesh pink of her silken bed and the bright pink stone pillars with darker swirls like bloody spots. All the windows were closed, even in rainy season against any kind of unfiltered air, her beeswax candles overscented with flowers.

She sat in the bed, invalid for years now, swaddled in shocking pink-and-silver bed ruffles as if she were one of the over-ornamented pillows that supported her.  She was the withered brown centre of an overblown earthly rose. Even the crest on her dog was tinted pink, as pink as its painted nails.

She shook her hands at him.  “What affront my son?  Tell me and let me advise you!”

He snatched the sarband off his head and hurled it to the floor, pacing, leaving dusty footprints in her swept rug as he let his outrage out freely and his mother unobtrusively shrank back into her protective cushions.  The dog at least stopped its infernal yapping and dug in behind her, whining from the pillows as he began to shout.

“These... these children are deigning to TEST me.  These sex workers aren’t Manders.  They’re whoremanders!  How dare they say I have some small skill in clinery!  I’m genius! A builder!  I create things!  I make things!  How dare they say I am best suited to breaking things down into component parts?  A mere technician!  They have no idea what true power is!”  He wheeled to shout at her, as if she’d interrupted him, and her hands, in her sleeves, whitened into an anxious knot.  “THESE CHILDREN ARE GOING TO PAY WHEN...” he stopped, breathing hard, hands clenching and unclenching.

“Son... Nadi-di... His Radiance is surely moments away from naming you his heir.”  Her voice was a bare whisper of reassurance.  “He can see your greatness or he wouldn’t have you so close all the time.”  She cleared her throat as he stared at her.  “He keeps you so busy you can hardly visit your darling mother.”

The silence between them grew and deepened as he stood, his frustrated stare darting over her face, then to the quivering tail-tip of the dog showing out of its fortress and over the fragile honey set she had laid out on the tray in the bed before moving back up to her face.  She tried to smile, tremulously, her once famous beauty trailing away like face paint oozing along hardened wrinkles. One hand nervously patted the bed next to her.  “Come sit and let mother make you a skewer of bees, dear.”  Her words fell into his sudden silence like stones dropped off the windy canyon rim.  “I’m certain, I’m sure, Nadi-di.”

“Mother.”  She froze.

“Stop calling me a baby name.”

“Yes, my son. Of course, Nadian—“

“I’m a GROWN MAN and I don’t need ANYONE belittling me, do you understand?”  He stepped forward one step and swept the honey service off her bed with one hand, fragile rose petal thin porcelain exploding into dust against the bedpost.  “You, of all people, will treat me with respect!  Do you hear me?  AM I UNDERSTOOD?”

She was already frantically nodding, hands knotted together under her chin.  “Yes, my son, yes... oh... yes, Nadian!”

“I AM MY FATHER’S SON AND YOU WILL REMEMBER THAT MOTHER!”

She didn’t dare answer.  The dog lunged out of the pillows as Nadian leaned over his mother, shouting.  It stood on her lap defending her and she clutched it to her chest, clamping one hand around its tiny muzzle to silence it. “It’s just a dog, my first born,” she panted, eyes now clenched shut, holding onto the wiggling animal with all her strength as if he would snatch it right out of her hands.  “It is a stupid thing and defies its betters.  I’ll train it better, I will, I will.”

For a moment he stood, hand outstretched to snatch the animal and then the motion changed.  He reached out and cupped the side of her face gently, one thumb wiping away a tear.  “Mother.  Of course... of course... it is just a miserable rat that Billip gave you and doesn’t know any better.  Shhh.  Shhhh.” Her eyes flashed open in panic and then clenched shut again.

He got up and rang the bell, moving away from her, but she didn't easer her posture in the slightest.  His mother's maid peeked in. “My mother is overwrought," he said.  ".. and her dog is upsetting her. It made a mess.”  He indicated the smashed set on the floor.  “Get it out of here.”

“Of course, Naser.”

When the door closed behind the woman, Nadian knelt down next to the bed and laid his head on his mother’s lap.  “Mamman, they just don’t understand me.  They just don’t know how to treat me.  Not like you.  You love me.  I know you love me.”

Her hands hovered over his touselled head for a long moment, then settled on him gently as butterflies landing.  “Shhh," she whispered.  "No, they don’t understand that you are a great and powerful Hive Lord, my firstborn.  Shhh.  It will be all right.”  Her trembling fingers stroked his hair and after a long moment he sighed and all the tension went out of him.

“Mamman, I do miss you.  You’re right that Diryish keeps me so busy.  He’s a very demanding old man.” She didn’t say anything for a long time but stroked his hair, soothing him.  At last he turned his head to look up at her.  “I have to go now, Mother.  Your hands are as magical as always.  I’ll be able to rest tonight.”

“Of course my son.”  She ventured a smile.  “I didn’t mean to upset you with my silly pet name for you.  You used to like it.”

His return smile twisted.  “Used to.”  He got to his feet, snatching up his sarband and veil from the floor.  “I should be able to visit you again soon, Mother.  Kill that little monster before I come back, as a favour to me.  It’s probably rabid.  I’ll check with your servants when I come next time and buy you a better one.  I love you mother dear.” His step, out the door, was jaunty and carefree once more.

She said nothing as he left the room, sitting completely still in her pink and silver chamber.  There was an odd, choked noise in the sealed room as if someone were being smothered by a silk cushion.