Parit gave the half-smile she'd known on him years before, but didn't
look up to meet her gaze.
"There is something to be said in favor of truth," he said.
"And there's something to be said for letting her keep her husband for
another few weeks," Eiah said.
"You don't know that he'll turn her out," he said.
Eiah took a pose that accepted correction. They both knew it was a
gentle sarcasm. Parit chuckled and poured a last rinse over the slate
table: the rush of the water like a fountain trailed off to small, sharp
drips that reminded Eiah of wet leaves at the end of a storm. Parit
pulled out a stool and sat, his hands clasped in his lap. Eiah felt a
sudden awkwardness that hadn't been there before. She was always better
when she could inhabit her role. If Parit had been bleeding from the
neck, she would have been sure of herself. That he was only looking at
her made her aware of the sharpness of her face, the gray in her hair
that she'd had since her eighteenth summer, and the emptiness of the
house. She took a formal pose that offered gratitude. Perhaps a degree
more formal than was needed.
"Thank you for sending for me," Eiah said. "It's late, and I should be
getting back."
"To the palaces," he said. There was warmth and humor in his voice.
There always had been. "You could also stay here."
Eiah knew she should have been tempted at least. The glow of old love
and half-recalled sex should have wafted in her nostrils like mulled
wine. He was still lovely. She was still alone.
"I don't think I could, Parit-kya," she said, switching from the formal
to the intimate to pull the sting from it.
"Why not?" he asked, making it sound as if he was playing.
"There are a hundred reasons," Eiah said, keeping her tone as light as
his. "Don't make me list them."
He chuckled and took a pose that surrendered the game. Eiah felt herself
relax a degree, and smiled. She found her bag by the door and slung its
strap over her shoulder.
"You still hide behind that," Parit said.
Eiah looked down at the battered leather satchel, and then up at him,
the question in her eyes.
"There's too much to fit in my sleeves," she said. "I'd clank like a
toolshed every time I waved."
"That's not why you carry it," he said. "It's so that people see a
physician and not your father's daughter. You've always been like that."
It was his little punishment for her return to her own rooms. There had
been a time when she'd have resented the criticism. That time had passed.
"Good night, Parit-kya," she said. "It was good to see you again."
He took a pose of farewell, and then walked with her to the door. In the
courtyard of his house, the autumn moon was full and bright and heavy.
The air smelled of wood smoke and the ocean. Warmth so late in the
season still surprised her. In the north, where she'd spent her
girlhood, the chill would have been deadly by now. Here, she hardly
needed a heavy robe.