Regardless, Orinakin made the effort. Closing his eyes, he took deep, calming breaths, sorting through emotions and thoughts. Having succeeded in at least clearing a patch of his mind, he walked to the door to the courtyard, where Bade stood, looking outside. “People have said unflattering things about me before,” he said. “Sometimes I say things that people don’t want to hear. I say no to the wrong thing, I say yes but with conditions, I push for compromise that leaves the majority happy but a few very unhappy. My integrity is questioned all of the time. But I need to know,” he continued calmly, “if you can tell me,” he added, because he respected Bade’s divided loyalties, “who’s questioned it this time, and why. There are important things at stake.”
“Important things like trade agreements,” Bade muttered, and Orinakin felt a sharp rise of Bade’s self-disgust. “I’m not a fucking goat herder,” he snapped at the window.
Orinakin wanted to be in Bade’s mind again, wanted to hear the thoughts whirling around in there, wanted to know what Bade wasn’t telling him. “Talk to me,” he said, pulling Bade around to face him. “Tell me why you’re not a goat herder.”
“I don’t know how to explain you!” Bade shouted. “I don’t know how to explain that I fell in love with you, and why I couldn’t say no to that, and how I’m so sure you love me. I don’t know how to explain why you make me feel this way when no one else, not even the pharaoh, ever has. I don’t know how to explain that I jeopardized everything just to be with you, or why I know it was wrong but I’d still do it all over again. What am I supposed to say to reassure Tiko? What am I supposed to tell my parents? I trust you, I know that you aren’t using me. What would you use me for?” he demanded, his self-disgust bitter in Orinakin’s throat. “I don’t have anything anyone wants.”
“Bade,” Orinakin said, grabbing him and pulling him in and holding on, “you have everything I want.”
Bade didn’t want to talk about it, but Orinakin needed to hear about it, and since he couldn’t hear Bade’s thoughts anymore, he needed Bade to talk. It took some prodding, and some teasing; he tried to guess why Bade wasn’t a goat herder, or why he’d want a goat herder, or why he wouldn’t want a goat herder, and whether there was anything particularly appealing about goat herders that he hadn’t heretofore known. Did they have hidden sexual talents? Was yodeling involved? He continued to guess until Bade laughed at him and agreed to explain.
While they talked, sitting on the couch, Bade unbuttoned Orinakin’s robe, which Orinakin didn’t mind at all. It gave Bade an excuse to avoid meeting his eyes, which he did mind, but he let that go. As long as Bade was talking, Orinakin could accept other avoidance tactics.
Once Bade had finished, Orinakin considered all that had been said. His negotiations with Tiko weren’t at issue; today’s meeting had gone very well, and he expected that tomorrow’s would, as well.
The real problem was his relationship with Bade. “You think that I’ve ruined your reputation?”
“No,” Bade said. “Yes, with some people, but, no, not irrevocably. The men who are on my tentative list of marriage candidates won’t reject me based on this.”
Orinakin nodded, choosing to act as if the idea of Bade with a list of marriage candidates was remotely acceptable to him.
Rubbing his forehead, Bade searched for words. “I just… This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. Nothing like this was going to be a part of my life. Coming here at all wasn’t supposed to happen, I never thought that I’d be here, in Orina Anoris, courting Anosukinom. And then…you, and this… My family’s just not going to understand it. And they think that you’re taking advantage of me, which is either an insult to you or to me or to both of us. I’ve been sheltered, but I’m not an idiot. Selorin with his monthly indulgence is more likely to bed me and drop me than you are.”
That was, actually, true, and Orinakin was strangely pleased that Bade was aware of it.
