Chapter 33
~The Guile~
40 years ago. (Age 26.)
“This,” Lord Dariush announces, spreading his arms grandly, “is the world’s last surviving Solarch!”
He is so proud that I almost burst into inappropriate laughter.
“No,” I say, but with not nearly the true degree of horror I feel. I infuse my disbelief more with ‘No, really? How’d you manage that, you brilliant man?’ than ‘No, no, it’s not.’
“Oh yes!” he says. He is delighted.
“This?” I allow myself, for anyone would have doubts, not just anyone with a brain.
And here, moments ago, I had hoped for this man’s daughter to breed in some emotional brilliance to the Guile family line. Maybe his wife is very, very smart. I shall have to hope.
He chortles. “I told you you’d find it incredible.”
I clear my throat. “I thought you meant the other definition of that word,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “I know. Study it. You’ll see.”
I’m never going to want to look at another painting in my life.
But, dutifully, I lean close and pretend to be enrapt.
I didn’t come to Atash for art appreciation—unless one wishes to call enjoying the nude figure of this man’s daughter ‘art appreciation.’
Alas, there’s not only been none of that, but I’ve barely even seen the woman I’ve come to woo and wed.
In a full week, I’ve seen more of her sister, Ninharissi, than I have of her, and when I have seen Felia, it’s been at dinners—where I wasn’t even seated next to her.
My pique is nearing the level of rage.
I’ve figured out why he’s kept me from her now—it’s all part of his maneuvering for these barbaric bride-price negotiations these savages practice—but it still rankles me.
“Speaking of definitions of words,” he says, “how did your parents come to bestow such a name on you?”
“You’ve been wanting to ask that for days, haven’t you?” I ask, as if amused.
I’m not. I think I’m coming to hate this man. I turn briefly away from the painting. Honestly, I’ve not caught even two details about it, I’m so focused on not letting my rage bleed through.
I shall need to take a break from drafting red, I think. I am not naturally a patient man, even without it.
He smiles. “Was it so obvious? I tried to wait until it wouldn’t be rude.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, staring again back at the painting as if I care. “Well . . . I knew that a philologist such as yourself would be disappointed if I said my mother simply liked the sound of the words, so . . . I’ll tell you that the name came to her in a dream.”
He laughs. “Fair! Fair. I suppose not all men spend their lives trying to escape the shadow of their name.”
“Did you try to escape yours, my lord? Roshe Roshan Dârayava-hush is no easy yoke for the shoulders of an infant. Nor even for a man to bear, one should think.”
I don’t quite suppress my pleasure at saying the name with precisely the correct diction and accent.
On the ship here, hoping to make a good impression on my father-in-law-to-be, I practiced for three dark days so I could say his name exactly as a local would. Three days I’ll never have back, for one offhand sentence, to woo a woman I may no longer want.
But I continue nonchalantly. “Quite a lot to live up to.”
Felia explained the name to me in one of her letters. It took her two full parchments, and she is not a woman to ramble. It means Judge Bright (or Light) Who Possesses Much Good (or Many Goods). ‘Judge’ placed first to hearken back to when petty kings (called ‘judges’ here) had ruled Atash. Judging—literally ‘bringing justice’—was what Atashians understood as sole reason to have kings. It’s something they’re still quite proud of, centuries after the fact, believing it denoted some deep truth about their national character: here rulers were established in order to serve the people.
Funny how that didn’t last. Denying reality only works as long as enough powerful people see a benefit in playing along.
So Lord Dariush—his name was usually shortened from Dârayavahush—had a name that meant the Rich, Smart, Good, and Perceptive (or Able to See through the Surface of Things to the Truth) Bringer of Justice.
I’m sure the other children had no problems with a boy named that. Here I’d been angry at my mother that my name so easily devolved into the sarcastic ‘Handy Andy’ after a sudden growth spurt out of my youthful rotundity had left me clumsy—a good trade, I’ll grant. Clumsiness can pass, fat is forever. ‘Randy Andy’ came after my first failed attempt at wooing a girl. (Quoting ancient Parian poetry, spoken of in my beloved books as being such a strong aphrodisiac that many kings had banned it, was not, as it turned out, appreciated by the puzzled thirteen-year-old target of my affections, neither in the original language nor in the best translation I could find.) ‘Glossy Rossy’ came during the same lovely oleofacurating pubertal years, and ‘At-a-loss Andross’ was from my first fight at age fourteen, when a lout called me Fart Eater and I’d asked what ‘Fart Eater’ even meant.
It would not be the last time the human race disappointed me. I’d learned then that reflecting the vacuity of the congenitally un-self-aware back to themselves will not inspire a philosophical awakening.
As it turns out, ‘Do you see how stupid that is?’ is a question you can only ask an intelligent person. Or more precisely, an intelligent person who is acting, saying, or believing something stupid. Thus, either one who is intelligent but not brilliant, or one who is young or uneducated or unequipped with formal logical apparatus.
I was indeed at a loss in that fight: lost in thought, thinking these things.
Then, coming to strategic grips with my intellectual discovery and realizing that the present situation called for a different type of solution altogether, I punched the lout across the nose.
Then I sat on his chest, grabbed a handful of his hair in my left hand, and said, ‘That’s Right-Cross Andross to you.’
Then I’d demonstrated my right cross again, careful to hold his head tight so it didn’t rebound off the cobblestones. I wanted to teach him and his friends a lesson, not kill him.
I’d been so disappointed that ‘ Right-Cross Andross’ hadn’t caught on.
‘Cross Ross’ had.
Those stinky, sebaceous little semen secretors.
‘Criss-cross Ross’ came after one of my more maladroit early schemes had failed. That still stung—the failure, not the sophomoric onomatopoeia.
You know, on second thought, best not to remember the teen years.
The Guile memory is not always a gift.
Fortunately, though far-ranging, my mnemonic vacation has been brief. Nor is Lord Dariush one to hurry. And I had the good sense to drift while facing his little painting.
On actually studying it, I now wish I’d begun with my examination first and let my mind wander later.
Barely a foot square, the painting is prominently displayed where one must view it on the way to the solarium gallery’s exit. The technique and colors and sensitivity are exquisite, and the style so idiosyncratic that one might see any painting by this master and know it to be his, regardless of the subject.