“They brought veal and beans in a pork sauce,” he said, shrugging. “I yelled at them to bring vegetables as well from now on, and not cooked in fat, either. They didn’t know. There is wine still back there,” he added, motioning his head to the vestibule and then looking down at the plates. “I didn’t have more hands.”
Jareen squinted. Whereas he had acted hostile at first, he appeared an awkward, lanky man, now. Many Noshians didn’t even know the Vien could not eat meat, but she supposed that the Arch Archivist would be better educated. He was tall for a human, with hair and complexion that lacked the confidence to be either blond or redheaded, changing in different parts of his patchy short beard, especially.
“I can get the wine,” she said, and strode past him. She would go hungry tonight, but she could tolerate that better than the humans. She retrieved the two wide-necked pitchers of dark wine with the two clumsy Noshian ceramic wine-flagons. The archivist had returned to the couch and had set the plates down on a narrow table beside it. He now sat on the edge of the couch, waiting.
Jareen went to pour him his wine.
“Just set it down, I can pour myself.”
Jareen shrugged, leaving one of the pitchers and flagons on the table by the plates. If he had merely been ill with the hope of recovery, Jareen would not have even offered to pour for him; it was imperative that those who were not Departing keep their abilities and strength. Yet for those truly Departing—and the Sisters were meant to only serve such—there was no need to let them do for themselves. The role of the Voiceless was to provide comfort and the opportunity to face what was coming. She wasn’t going to fight him about it, though.
He looked up at her, as if waiting for something. His hands were on his lap.
“You can eat,” she said.
“I do not want to be rude.”
She raised an eyebrow. That certainly had not been the impression he’d first given her that morning.
“I do not mind,” she answered.
“The Vien ambassadors won’t even sit in banquet where meat is served,” the man said.
“I am not a Vien ambassador.”
Still, he made no move toward the meal.
“Are you not hungry?” she asked.
“No. I mean. Yes.” He looked up at her. “I do not want to eat in front of you.”
She nodded and turned to head back to her chamber with her wine. It did not matter; she wanted to sleep more. The only reason she had lingered was in an attempt to discern whether his appetite was affected. He looked in much the same condition as earlier, and as yet there was little for her to do.
“I know you have no choice in being here,” the man said to her back. “And I know why they sent you. My name is Coir. I mean you no ill will personally, and I have great respect for your people.”
She turned her head, forced a squint which above the veil was meant to indicate a smile, and nodded.
“I would simply not be doted on,” he continued. “I am dying, regardless of what either of us do.”
She nodded once more, and then returned to her room.
***
Jareen indulged in two flagons of wine before returning to sleep. Out of sheer force of discipline and habit, she checked on the archivist once during the night and again when the dawn brightened a pale grey sky, but Coir was asleep both times. She stood over him silently, counting the faint pulses in his neck, the rate of his breathing, and the flush of his skin. There was no change. He was obviously not an athletic man, his skin pale for a Noshian, unused to the kiss of the sun. All the physical attributes of a scholar were there in plenty, including inkstains on his right hand. He had left his inkwell open. It looked like he had written and read until the early hours, as a candle had melted off its holder and congealed onto the table. She stoppered the inkwell and returned to her chamber.
Next, she set about the chores. She had already made her bed, so she moved to the back of the suites. In a small closet there was a large tub for washing clothing and bed linens, and another two for washing and rinsing dishes. Nothing in the quarantine apartment would leave until ninety days after the death of the Departing. There was even a private privy with an isolated pit.
She washed the plates and cutlery and set them back in the vestibule to be refilled through the slots, along with a fresh pair of pitchers and flagons. Jareen had been too tired the previous evening to care about setting the parchments and leather dossier cases in order, but finishing with the dishes, she returned to her chamber and knelt to collect the scattered parchments. Almost, she had gotten used to handling the human parchments, made from the actual skin of an animal. Leather and other uses of animal bodies were everywhere among the humans. She slid a few parchments back inside the nearest leather case, set it aside, and moved to the next. As she collected more, something caught her eye. She picked up the sheet and held it up so that the pale light of dawn coming through the window could aid her eye.
It was not human parchment, but Vien paper, and it was written in Vienwé. The script would have made Jareen’s mother blush with anger, for it was cramped and hurried, as if the writer’s thoughts had fled ahead while his hand sought to catch up, yet there was a fluidity to it. It had been years, many years since Jareen had seen her native language in writing. Not many Vien practiced writing. Song was their preferred method of memory. Books rotted over the centuries, became riddled by worms or mildewed in the humidity of Findeluvié. Nevertheless, calligraphy was an art practiced by some, especially those belonging to the Trees of the Synod, responsible for the meticulous keeping of genealogical record. Jareen’s mother had loved calligraphy and made sure that Jareen practiced her hand almost daily. Why, Jareen didn’t know. Her mother had given up interest in everything else for Jareen. What was the point of trying to impart skill only for that skill to be lost?
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Jareen focused on the page in front of her. Why did the archivist have Vien script with him? She looked at some of the other sheafs. More Vien. She glanced into other cases and found little besides Vien, though there were a few different hands represented. The first case contained dozens and dozens of sheets of this same cramped, hurried Vien hand.
Jareen was reading before she realized what she was doing. She caught herself, feeling a flush of sudden guilt. Irritation quickly rose in her to meet the guilt. A sacred duty in the life of a Sister of the Order was honoring the privacy of their Departing. Yet in exchange, the chamber of a Sister was considered sacrosanct. Not even the Arch Sister could enter a dormitory chamber unbidden. The small privacies of the Sisters were inviolable. When performing duties for the rich that required a prolonged stay, the Order demanded the Sisters have a private chamber that was not infringed upon. The presence of these cases dumped so unceremoniously in her chamber was a violation.
The paper she now held was evidently not the first page of the missive, starting mid-thought:
[. . .] and to that point, Vien music is not, as you suggest, based primarily on thirds—which is a human conception of tone and does not take into account the full range of semi-tones. Nor is your conception that any given note has an emotional association worthy of merit; for notes—which are only vibrations in a physical medium—have no meaning in isolation, but only when wedded with time and change. Further, there is no stasis in a note, for its character and body change based on the medium through which it vibrates, to say nothing of the character of its initiation and its course of decay. I do not blame you, for despite your enthusiasm you are, as you admit, not a musician, and you have a human’s ear and conception of sound, which are said to be limited. Nevertheless, I must commend your command of Vienwé in discussing the topic. Your rapid fluency goes beyond any of my expectations. I will remind you to conjugate your connected articles, especially bearing in mind that the feminine or masculine render a change to the conjoined articles. Feminine and masculine words in Vien are not determined solely by the subject or object, but by the emotional tenor of the topic, which is denoted variably by the pitches used and the expressions themselves. Within a conversation, the appropriate gender of the word may change as the emotions and intent changes, and thus the pitch. This is more art than system, but please continue to refer to the diagram I sent you previously, courtesy of my sister’s devising. In terms of your question about the Canaen [. . .]
Jareen looked through the papers, searching for the rest of the letter—either what came before or what followed after. It had been years since she had a conversation in her native tongue, and years since she had even read anything in Vien. There was something both comforting and haunting about it. Noshian did not have the same depth to the ear, and the eagerness of the writer, evident in the sloppiness of the hand, was apparent. To a human eye, the calligraphy would likely look immaculate, but Vien artists were known to spend a day contemplating a single stroke. Here were many, many pages of epistles. Whoever had written was more interested in communicating ideas than the finer expression of the calligraphic strokes themselves. Emotion had replaced perfection. Her mother would have rolled her eyes, but it was invigorating to Jareen.
Something rattled in the main chamber. Jareen hurriedly shuffled the pages back into a stack and shoved them into the nearest case. She hesitated, questioning whether she should carry a load of the dossiers out with her, but she didn’t. There would be plenty of time.
Stepping into the main chamber, she found the archivist sitting on the edge of the same couch. The couch was meant for lounging, not sleeping. There was a made bed on the far side of the room that looked like it hadn’t been touched. The man had poured himself the dregs of his wine pitcher and now held a flagon in a slovenly, careless fashion, letting it hang at an angle. Jareen missed the elegant, fluted stems and flowered designs of the Vien drinking cylinders, crafted by the finest of Vien glass-wrights. Glassware was dear in Nosh, but the Vien loved glass of all colors, and even built entire greenhouses and dwellings from fanciful artifices of glasswork. Between the mild climate and the properties of glass, there was hardly a plant that the Vien could not grow in Findeluvié.
“I know that Sisters rarely speak more than is needed, even with a Departing,” the archivist said. “But I would know your name, if we are to be cooped up here for the rest of my life.”
“I am called Jareen.”
“That is not your true name,” the man said. “That is a Noshian name.”
“And we are in Nosh, speaking Noshia.”
“En’neth, tore na’Vienwé,” he said.
It meant, “then please let us speak Vien.”
Jareen flinched at the sudden switch to her native language. It was unexpected, although she shouldn’t be surprised; no doubt the correspondence she’d been reading belonged to this man. His accent was atrocious, his rhythm off, his tones flat. Likely, he had learned more from reading than speaking.
The man must have noticed her flinch, and he flushed red.
“I mean no offense,” he said, averting his eyes.
“There is no offense, sir.”
“Please, not sir. Coir.”
Jareen inclined her head. She did not like using the given name of a Departing, but the Sisters respected wishes when they could.
“It is ‘en’neth, tore na’Vienwé,’” she said, pronouncing the words slowly, letting her voice lilt the correct notes.
Coir muttered the corrected pronunciation, but he did not sing it.
“Te’than,” he said. It was thank you, but it was not the proper conjugation to use toward an unmarried vienu—he should have used the formal inflection. She hid a grimace behind her veil and forced herself to nod. She had to admit, it was unusual to hear a human speaking any Vienwé. Vien ambassadors were scrupulous about learning the human languages and speaking to humans only in the human tongues. As if he had anticipated her thoughts, Coir continued, reverting to Noshian:
“I have tried to get pronunciation lessons from the ambassadorial staff, but to no avail, I’m afraid.”
Jareen’s eyes flitted over the rows of stacked leather dossier cases stacked along the wall, each branded with the blazon of the Archives of Drennos.
“Why bring all this?” she asked, motioning to the documents.
“They are my personal research,” he said, shrugging. “A great portion of my life’s work. I’d rather die in their company.”
“What is it about?”
“Various things,” he said. She waited to see if he would elaborate, but he simply stared at his dossiers in silence for a few moments. A bell rang in the vestibule and he sprang to his feet. “Breakfast!” He looked at Jareen as if startled and sat back down, putting a hand to his head. “I rose too fast. Dizzy,” he muttered.
Jareen squinted at him. Rather than looking ill, the flush that had come to his face made him look healthier than she had seen him yet, and the way he reached for his head was not convincing—those who became dizzy in the rapid change of position lowered their arms instinctively to catch themselves should they fall, or brace against the furniture.
“I will get the breakfast,” she said.
Thankfully, the servants had heeded the man’s instructions, and there was a heaping portion of boiled brassicas and sliced zucchini. A servant girl was still scooping food onto the plates when Jareen arrived. Motioning for the girl to wait, Jareen took a slate that hung from a string on the wall and wrote a quick list. She held it up for the servant to read.
“Raw vegetables?”
Jareen could see that the servant had covered her mouth and face with a cloth, no doubt fearful of the Seven Isles Fever. Humans were terrible at the cooking of vegetables, and in Drennos it was said that only the poor ate raw plants. It was a belief that had significantly frustrated Jareen’s life in Nosh.
She motioned again to the list. The servant acknowledged the order and hurried away. The Sisters used the chalkboards to request supplies from the servants, for outside their Order and grounds, the Voiceless could not speak to anyone but the Departing or the family of the Departing.
But as Jareen carried the plates back into the main chamber, she questioned whether this case was Departing at all. The Seven Isles Fever could linger for weeks, even as much as a month, growing slowly more severe. Symptoms must have been present in order for it to be identified and the archivist quarantined, yet she saw precious few.
After delivering the man his breakfast and a new pitcher of wine, she took her own repast of boiled-to-death greens into her own chamber to eat beside the window, looking beyond the western suburbs at a sliver of the sea and the swirling white specks of seabirds.
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