Children of God

The encounter was to be purely ceremonial, yet another tedious example of Inbrokari protocol, as convoluted and nonsensical as the Kitheri compound itself with its mismatched towers, its palisades and balconies co

Both the Paramount and the ambassador could sing in High K’San, though Inbrokari custom demanded that they pretend that this was not so, the better to slow and complicate the ritual. But the Paramount’s responsum to Ma’s opening oratorio was beautifully sung, and one had to admit that the Runa interpreters and protocol experts were excellent. Ma’s own women had no reason to correct anything said on his behalf by the Inbrokari Runao assigned to translate his Malanja for the Paramount, nor were there any errors in the translation of the Paramount’s lyrics. And as much as the Runa ordinarily hated music, the Paramount’s staff never so much as flicked an ear during the ceremony. Far more familiar with the procedure than either Jana’ata, they actually seemed to enjoy it, and discreetly led the solemn way through stately exchanges of elaborate greetings, elaborate presents and elaborate promises.

Just as Ma Gurah Vaadai began to wonder if he would sink back against his tail and fall asleep standing in the stifling heat of this princely oven, there was a final exchange of elaborate farewells and he woke up sufficiently to sing, as required, in close harmony with the Paramount. This done, Ma was preparing, with relief, to make his escape when Hlavin Kitheri rose from his pillowed, padded, gilt and jeweled daybed and approached the Mala Njeri ambassador with amused eyes.

"Dreadful, isn’t it?" the Paramount remarked, glancing at the cramped and airless stateroom and displaying a dismay not unlike Vaadai’s own, carefully concealed. "I have begun to hope for a fire. At times, the solution to a maze is to reduce it to embers and walk straight through the ashes." He smiled at Ma’s surprise and continued, "In the meantime, I have caused a summer encampment to be established in the mountains, Excellency. Perhaps you will join me there and we may come to know one another in comfort?"

The formal invitation arrived at the ambassador’s residence the next morning and, six days later, Ma Gurah Vaadai was taken upriver in an embassy barge, accompanied by his official interpreter, his personal interpreter, his secretary, his cook, his body valet, his dresser and his wife’s maid, Taksayu.

He’d assumed that the Paramount was simply indulging in Inbrokari understatement when he referred to his "encampment." Ma expected the place to be as extravagant and awful as the Kitheri palaces but, to his surprise, the camp was a simple series of pavilions, scattered throughout a high valley cooled by mountain breezes. Apart from the fact that the tents were of gold tissue, supported by silvered poles and upholstered with divans of the softest and most finely woven fabric Vaadai had ever felt, the site was as austere as a military bivouac.

"More to a Mala Njeri soldier’s taste, I dare say," Kitheri called out, approaching the dock without an escort as the barge was made fast. Kitheri smiled at the ambassador’s evident surprise and held out an arm to steady Ma as he climbed out of the barge. "Have you eaten?"

It was not the last time that Ma Gurah Vaadai would be thrown off balance by this man. At rest, in informal conversation, the odious Hlavin Kitheri was a person of dignity and presence. The other guests at the encampment were intelligent and interesting as well, and the opening banquet was unusually tasty, its presentation exquisite.

"You are kind to say so," Kitheri murmured, when the ambassador complimented the meal. "I am pleased you have enjoyed it. The result of a new pastime. Or rather, the revival of an old skill. I have established a hunting reserve here in the hills."

"The meat is wild-caught," one of the other guests confided. "Good exercise and excellent eating afterward."

"Perhaps the ambassador will join us in the morning?" Kitheri suggested, his face gilded by sunlight filtering through woven gold, the extraordinary amethyst eyes transmuted to topaz. "I hope you shall not be shocked by our customs here—"

"We stalk naked as the Heroes," one of the younger men told Ma eagerly.

"My young friend has a poetic nature," Kitheri remarked, reaching out to grip the young man’s ankle affectionately. His gaze returned to Ambassador Vaadai, who was trying not to shudder. "As naked as our prey, a practical man might say."

"This herd is aware of us, naturally," an older man commented, "but my lord Kitheri hopes to backbreed to more naive stock."

"To recapture the experiences of our forefathers," Kitheri explained. "One day, the best of our sons will come here to bring to life their heritage, so that they may earn the old strengths in the old ways." But then, surprisingly, he looked directly at the maid, Taksayu, silent in the corner all this time, sitting among the ceremonial interpreters who attended every gathering, needed or not. "The game program would involve utility Runa only. Specialists, I believe, we have bred to a point of intellectual maturity that will allow emancipation soon. But perhaps the Mala Njeri ambassador disagrees?" he said, returning serene eyes to a dumbfounded Ma Gurah Vaadai.

"Fascinating legal problems," one of the others offered before Ma could speak, and the discussion quickly became scholarly and intense.

The evening chorale was glorious. Kitheri, Ma was informed, had studied such things during his exile at Galatna and believed that the melodies were best stripped of accumulated embellishment so that the supple lines of the original harmony could be appreciated, pure and plain, and as clean as the days when men hunted with their brothers and friends simply to provide for their wives and young ones.

Ma Gurah Vaadai went to his tent that night disarmed and slightly dazed, but emerged from it hungry and sharp-minded at first light. Wearing neither robe nor badge of position, he was secretly pleased by the opportunity to reveal that he had maintained himself well during the soft years of peace. Unclothed, one’s character was exposed and, observing the Paramount, Ma was impressed to see that what might have been merely an impression given by superb tailoring was, in fact, genuine. Most reshtars ran to fat in their middle years, but Hlavin Kitheri had remained taut and strong in maturity.

The hunt was exhilarating from the start. Several times Ma found himself paired off with Kitheri, who had a short reach but powerful pedal grasp and a formidably efficient kill. Perhaps more remarkable, Kitheri was generous in his strategy, noting Ma’s position and passing the prey on to him without hesitation, setting up and helping.to execute several exhausting but quite wonderful snares, and Ma Gurah Vaadai’s spirits rose with the suns, doubts dimming in their glare.

Kitheri is right, Ma thought. This is what we need.

To match a Runao, stride by stride, heartbeat by heartbeat, was to transcend the self, to lose all consciousness of separation until you were one with the prey. And then: to reach out from behind, to grip a doe’s ankle and bring her down into a headlock, to lift the jaw and expose the throat, slicing through it with a single clean action—to do all this and to eat the meat in the end—was to survive your own death: to die with the prey and yet to live again.