The Left Hand Of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) - Ursula K. Le Guin Page 0,50

disgrace and exile were at least nominally on my account, I could take no responsibility for them, feel no rational guilt; he had made neither his acts nor his motives clear to me in Erhenrang, and I could not trust the fellow. I wished that he was not mixed up with these Orgota who had, as it were, adopted me. His presence was a complication and an embarrassment.

He was shown into the room by one of the many house-employees. I had him sit down in one of the large padded chairs, and offered him breakfast-ale. He refused. His manner was not constrained – he had left shyness a long way behind him if he ever had any – but it was restrained: tentative, aloof.

‘The first real snow,’ he said, and seeing my glance at the heavily curtained window, ‘You haven’t looked out yet?’

I did so, and saw snow whirling thick on a light wind down the street, over the whitened roofs; two or three inches had fallen in the night. It was Odarhad Gor, the 17th of the first month of autumn. ‘It’s early,’ I said, caught by the snow-spell for a moment.

‘They predict a hard winter this year.’

I left the curtains drawn back. The bleak even light from outside fell on his dark face. He looked older. He had known some hard times since I saw him last in the Corner Red Dwelling of the Palace in Erhenrang by his own fireside.

‘I have here what I was asked to bring you,’ I said, and gave him the foilskin-wrapped packet of money, which I had set out on a table ready after his call. He took it and thanked me gravely. I had not sat down. After a moment, still holding the packet, he stood up.

My conscience itched a little, but I did not scratch it. I wanted to discourage him from coming to me. That this involved humiliating him was unfortunate.

He looked straight at me. He was shorter than I, of course, short-legged and compact, not as tall even as many women of my race. Yet when he looked at me he did not seem to be looking up at me. I did not meet his eyes. I examined the radio on the table with a show of abstracted interest.

‘One can’t believe everything one hears on that radio, here,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Yet it seems to me that here in Mishnory you are going to be in some need of information, and advice.’

‘There seem to be a number of people quite ready to supply it.’

‘And there’s safety in numbers, eh? Ten are more trustworthy than one. Excuse me, I shouldn’t use Karhidish, I forgot.’ He went on in Orgota, ‘Banished men should never speak their native tongue; it comes bitter from their mouth. And this language suits a traitor better, I think; drips off one’s teeth like sugar-syrup. Mr. Ai, I have the right to thank you. You performed a service both for me and for my old friend and kemmering Ashe Foreth, and in his name and mine I claim my right. My thanks take the form of advice.’ He paused; I said nothing. I had never heard him use this sort of harsh, elaborate courtesy, and had no idea what it signified. He went on, ‘You are, in Mishnory, what you were not, in Erhenrang. There they said you were; here they’ll say you’re not. You are the tool of a faction. I advise you to be careful how you let them use you. I advise you to find out what the enemy faction is, and who they are, and never to let them use you, for they will not use you well.’

He stopped. I was about to demand that he be more specific, but he said, ‘Goodbye, Mr. Ai,’ turned, and left. I stood benumbed. The man was like an electric shock – nothing to hold on to and you don’t know what hit you.

He had certainly spoiled the mood of peaceful self-congratulation in which I had eaten breakfast. I went to the narrow window and looked out. The snow had thinned a little. It was beautiful, drifting in white clots and clusters like a fall of cherry-petals in the orchards of my home, when a spring wind blows down the green slopes of Borland, where I was born: on Earth, warm Earth, where trees bear flowers in spring. All at once I was utterly downcast and homesick. Two years I had spent on this damned