Rest as a Profession

Keth arranged for food and hot water, then returned to the edge of the alcove, near enough to serve without entering their space.

“What may the house bring you to drink?”

“Wine,” Maeril said at once.

Rishi looked at her.

She looked back. “It is allowed. It is paid for. It is civilized. I intend to encourage all three.”

Keth’s mouth curved. “Red, white, sweet, dry?”

Maeril considered with the seriousness of a battlefield decision. “Red. Something that has never seen a roadside pot.”

“A low but achievable standard.”

Keth turned his attention to Rishi.

Rishi looked down at his hands and drew one slow breath.

“Strong rum,” he said. “Water. Mint tea.”

Maeril’s brows rose. She stared at him.

Keth only inclined his head, as if the order made perfect sense.

“In that order?”

Rishi paused.

“Yes.”

“Excellent.”

Maeril leaned back, studying him with sudden fondness.

“This is only the second time I have seen him choose to drink,” she told Keth. “Please understand the historical gravity.”

Keth inclined his head to Rishi. “Then I will instruct the rum to conduct itself.”

Keth withdrew.

For a few minutes, no one asked anything of them.

Maeril rested her head against the cushion. Beside her, Rishi sat with his hands open on his knees, listening to the music and low voices beyond the lattice.

No alarm. No one bleeding.

The tightness in his shoulders remained, but slowly lost its purpose.

Keth returned carrying a tray, with folded garments draped over one arm.

He set the tray on the low table. It held Maeril’s wine, a small cup of dark rum, a glass of water, and a covered pot breathing bright mint.

“The rum has been warned,” he said to Rishi.

Rishi bowed his head once, solemn enough that Maeril had to bite her lip.

Keth laid the folded garments beside the tray. “And for peace between your bodies and the furniture.”

Maeril leaned closer.

Folded linen in pale cream and soft green, light enough for the warm room. A dark sash. Thin-soled slippers. Everything simple and soft.

She reached for the pale green fabric. The linen slipped through her fingers like forgiveness.

“Oh,” she said.

Keth gave the smallest nod. “The road is welcome to wait outside.”

“My road has become very attached to me.”

“It may retrieve you tomorrow.”

Rishi looked at the garments, then at his robe.

“I can remain as I am.”

“You may,” Keth said. “But you need not.”

Maeril stood before Rishi could answer. “The road will wait outside.”

Keth gestured toward the screen. “There is space behind.”

Keth’s gaze shifted aside with practiced discretion.

Maeril glanced at Rishi and began changing where she stood.

She shed her cloak, outer robe, belt, pouches, and mud-stiff boots. Rishi picked up the rum and became deeply interested in it.

Maeril drew the pale green linen over her head and settled the dark sash around her waist and tail. Her hair fell free of its road ties, dark against the soft cloth. Her bare toes curled once into the carpet.

She lifted her arms. “Well?”

Rishi let himself look. Then he lowered the rum and met her eyes.

“You look beautiful.”

Maeril’s smile began.

“And less argued with by the road.”

Her smile stopped.

“You were doing so well,” Maeril said.

“I panicked.”

“Yes,” she said, softening. “I noticed.”

Keth set her wine near her hand. “Your road clothes will be brushed and aired. Anything torn?”

“Only my ego.”

“We have limited success repairing that.”

“Begin with the robe.”

“As you wish.”

Keth gathered Maeril’s road clothes over one arm, then waited while she tasted the wine.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Well?” he asked.

“This wine has opinions.”

“Favorable ones?”

“Expensive ones.”

“Then it is behaving correctly.”

Rishi drank the rum carefully. His face kept its discipline. His ears did not.

Maeril hid a smile behind her expensive wine.

Keth placed the mint tea within easy reach. “I will be nearby if wanted, absent if not.”

Then he left with her road clothes, leaving them to the drinks, the music, and each other.

Keth returned later with a modest meal: flatbread still warm from the oven, lentils fragrant with garlic and cumin, ripe fruit touched with honey, soft cheese, and clear golden broth.

The broth looked too delicate to trust. Maeril tasted it.

Her eyes closed.

Rishi looked over.

“This broth has not been punished,” she said.

“Is it good?”

“It is holy.”

He accepted this theology without argument.

They ate slowly, then with appetite. The wine warmed Maeril. The rum brought color to Rishi’s face; water and mint tea steadied him.

Beyond the lattice, a companion passed with one sleeve pinned high. Fresh ink curled over her forearm in leaves and waves.

Rishi’s gaze followed the ink until it disappeared beyond the lattice.

“You want a tattoo,” Maeril said.

Rishi lowered his eyes to the cup of mint tea between his hands. “Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Something chosen. Something written into me because I asked for it. Something that answers what was written before.”

Maeril knew enough of the marks he already carried. Some cut into skin. Others trained into breath. Too many imposed.

“An answer,” she said.

His eyes lifted. “Yes.”

“And who could make it?”

“I heard there is a dabus in Sigil who tattoos as if skin were another kind of wall.”

Maeril stared at him. “Of course. An impossible artist in a city most maps refuse to include.”

“It would need to be well done.”

“Naturally.”

“What would it be?”

“I do not know. Something that moves with breath and stance. Hands. Back. Feet.”

“Feet?”

“A monk stands before he strikes. And before he heals.”

Maeril studied his shoulders, his wrists, his hands around the cup, his bare ankles beneath the linen. His body was not an ornament. It was practice, memory, burden, instrument.

“A becoming,” she said.

The word changed his face.

“Yes.”

For a while, the house carried the silence.

Then Maeril looked through the lattice toward the dancer near the hearth.

“I have one too,” she said.

“A tattoo?”

“A difficult dream.”

Rishi held her gaze as he listened.

“The green path,” she said.

“I know fragments: herbs, words, the hawk. Some are mine. Too much comes from books written by people who preferred forests after they had been made into ink.”

“You want the roots under your feet.”

“The Wealdath.” Maeril looked down at her clean sleeve. “There are old laws and old power there. I can feel their shape before I can read them.”

Rishi looked at her hands. He had watched them crush acorns into bloodied water and use the old green words to quiet wounds.

“You have already begun.”

“Barely.”

“Enough to matter.”

Maeril sighed. “Monks are dangerous when encouraging.”

Rishi almost smiled. “I will encourage carefully.”

“You will not.”

Before he could answer, the music shifted. The strings softened around a slow drumbeat, and couples began gathering near the hearth.

Maeril stood and offered him her hand.

Rishi straightened. “No.”

“I have not asked.”

“You were about to.”

“We do not have to.”

He looked from her hand to her face. “Is the floor trustworthy?”

“No floor is trustworthy. This one seems well supervised.”

He took her hand.

Their first steps were clumsy. Rishi held her waist too lightly and watched their feet as if expecting betrayal.

“Look at me.”

“I am trying not to step on you.”

“I will tell you if you succeed.”

“That is not comforting.”

“Good.”

Then his body found what his mind could not. He stopped trying to solve the dance and followed the pressure of her fingers, her shoulder, her breath. His hand steadied at her waist. His eyes stayed with hers.

“There are many beautiful women here,” Maeril said.

“Yes.”

Her brows rose. “Dangerous path, monk.”

He considered this with grave seriousness while turning half a beat late.

“There is only one I came with,” he said.

Maeril missed the next step.

As the turn slowed, she leaned closer.

“The pass was almost worth it,” she murmured.

“Almost?”

“I refuse to flatter giants.”

The music went on, and for once the road did not ask anything more of them.