He nodded and made a gesture at the same time.
“That!” I pointed at his hand. “What is that?”
He hesitated, then gave a forced, awkward-looking smile.
I copied the gesture, splaying my hand slightly and pressing my thumb to the inside of my middle finger.
“No,” he said. “Other hand. Left.”
“Why?”
He reached out and thumped on my chest, just left of the breastbone:
Tum-tump. Tum-tump.
Then he ran a finger down to my left hand. I nodded to show I understood. It was closest to the heart. He held up his right hand and made a fist. “This hand is strong.” He held up his left. “This hand is clever.”
It made sense. That is why most lutists chord with the left hand and strum with their right. The left hand is more nimble, as a rule.
I made the gesture with my left hand, fingers splayed. Tempi shook his head. “That is this.” He quirked half of his mouth up into a smirk.
The expression seemed so out of place on his face that it was all I could do to keep from gawking. I looked more closely at his hand and adjusted the position of my fingers slightly.
He nodded approval. His face was expressionless, but for the first time I understood why.
In the hours that followed, I learned that Ademic hand gestures did not actually represent facial expressions. It was nothing so simple as that. For example a smile can mean you’re amused, happy, grateful, or satisfied. You can smile to comfort someone. You can smile because you’re content or because you’re in love. A grimace or a grin look similar to a smile, but they mean entirely different things.
Imagine trying to teach someone how to smile. Imagine trying to describe what different smiles mean and when, precisely, to use them in conversation. It’s harder than learning to walk.
Suddenly so many things made sense. Of course Tempi wouldn’t look me in the eye. There was nothing to be gained by looking at the face of the person you were talking to. You listen to the voice, but you watch the hand.
I spent the next several hours attempting to learn the basics, but it was maddeningly difficult. Words are fairly simple things. You can point to a stone. You can act out running or jumping. But have you ever tried to pantomime compliance? Respect? Sarcasm? I doubt even my father could have accomplished such a thing.
Because of this my progress was frustratingly slow, but I couldn’t help but be fascinated. It was like suddenly being given a second tongue.
And it was a secret thing, of sorts. I have always had a weakness for secrets.
It took three hours to learn a handful of gestures, if you’ll pardon the pun. My progress felt glacial, but when I finally learned the hand-speak for “understatement” I felt a glow of pride that can barely be described.
I think Tempi felt it too. “Good,” he said with a flattening of the hand I was fairly certain indicated approval. He rolled his shoulders and got to his feet, stretching. He glanced at the sun through the branches overhead. “Food now?”
“Soon.” There was one question that had been bothering me. “Tempi, why make all this work?” I asked. “A smile is easy. Why smile with your hands?”
“With hands is easy too. Better. More . . .” He made a slightly modified version of the shirt-brushing gesture he’d used earlier. Not disgust,
irritation?
“What is the word for people living together. Roads. Right things.” He ran his thumb along his collarbone, was that
frustration?
“What is word for good together living? Nobody shits in the well.”
I laughed. “Civilization?”
He nodded, splaying his fingers:
amusement
. “Yes,” he said. “Speaking with hands is civilization.”
“But smiling is natural,” I protested. “Everyone smiles.”
“Natural is not civilization,” Tempi said. “Cooking meat is civilization. Washing off stink is civilization.”
“So in Ademre you always smile with hands?” I wished I knew the gesture for dismay.
“No. Smiling with face good with family. Good with some friend.”
“Why only family?”
Tempi repeated his thumb-on-collarbone gesture again. “When you make this.” He pressed his palm to the side of his face and blew air into it, making a great flatulent noise. “That is natural, but you do not make it near others. Rude. With family . . .” He shrugged.
Amusement
. “. . . civilization not important. More natural with family.”
“What about laughing?” I asked. “I have seen you laugh.” I made a
ha-ha
sound so he knew what I was talking about.
He shrugged. “Laughing is.”
I waited for a moment, but he didn’t seem inclined to continue. I tried again. “Why not laugh with hands?”
Tempi shook his head. “No. Laugh is different.” He stepped close and used two fingers to tap my chest over my heart. “Smile?” He ran his finger down my left arm. “Angry?” He tapped my heart again. He made a scared expression, a confused one, and poked his lip out in a ridiculous pout. Each time he tapped my chest.
“But laugh?” He pressed the flat of his hand against my stomach. “Here lives laugh.” He ran his finger straight up to my mouth and spread his fingers. “Push back laugh is not good. Not healthy.”
“Also cry?” I asked. I traced an imaginary tear down my cheek with one finger.
“Also cry.” He put his hand on his own belly. “Ha ha ha,” he said, pressing in with his hand to show me the motion of his stomach. Then his expression changed to sad. “Huh huh huh,” he heaved with exaggerated sobs, pressing his stomach again. “Same place. Not healthy to push down.”
I nodded slowly, trying to imagine what it must be like for Tempi, constantly assaulted by people too rude to keep their expressions to themselves. People whose hands constantly made gestures that were nonsense. “It must be very hard for you, out here.”
“Not so hard.”
Understatement
. “When I leave Ademre, I know this. Not civilization. Barbarians are rude.”
“Barbarians?”
He made a wide gesture, encompassing our clearing, the forest, all of Vintas. “Everyone here like dogs.” He made a grotesquely exaggerated expression of rage, showing all his teeth, snarling and rolling his eyes madly. “That is all you know.” He shrugged nonchalant acceptance, as if to say he didn’t hold it against us.
“What of children?” I asked. “Children smile before they talk. Is that wrong?”
Tempi shook his head. “All children barbarians. All smile with face. All children rude. But they go old. Watch. Learn.” He paused thoughtfully. Choosing his words. “Barbarians have no woman to teach them civilization. Barbarians cannot learn.”
I could tell he didn’t mean any offense, but it made me more determined than ever to learn the particulars of the Adem hand-talk.
Tempi stood and began limbering up with a number of stretches similar to those the tumblers used in my troupe when I was young. After fifteen minutes of twisting himself this way and that, he began his slow, dancelike pantomime. Though I didn’t know it at the time, it was called the Ketan.
Still nettled about Tempi’s “barbarians cannot learn” comment, I decided I would follow along. After all, I didn’t have anything better to do.
As I tried to mimic him, I became aware of how devilishly complex it was: keeping the hands cupped just so, the feet correctly positioned. Despite the fact that Tempi moved with almost glacial slowness, I found it impossible to imitate his smooth grace. Tempi never paused or looked in my direction. He never offered a word of encouragement or advice.
It was exhausting, and I was glad when it was over. Then I started the fire and lashed together a tripod. Wordlessly, Tempi brought out a hard sausage and several potatoes that he began to peel carefully using his sword.
I was surprised by this, as Tempi fussed over his sword much the same way I did with my lute. Once when Dedan had picked it up, the Adem had responded with a rather dramatic emotional outburst. Dramatic for Tempi, that is. He’d spoken two full sentences and frowned a bit.
Tempi saw me watching him and cocked his head curiously.
I pointed. “Sword?” I asked. “For cutting potatoes?”
Tempi looked down at the half-peeled potato in one hand, his sword in another. “Is sharp.” He shrugged. “Is clean.”
I returned the shrug, not wanting to make an issue of it. While working together, I learned the words for iron, knot, leaf, spark, and salt.
Waiting for the water to boil, Tempi stood, shook himself, and began his limbering stretches a second time. I followed him again. It was harder this time. The muscles of my arms and legs were loose and shaky from my previous effort. Toward the end I had to fight to keep myself from trembling, but I gleaned a few more secrets.
Tempi continued to ignore me, but I didn’t mind. I’ve always been drawn to a challenge.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Lack of Sight
“. . . SO TABORLIN WAS PRISONED deep underground,” Marten said. “They had left him with nothing but the clothes upon his back and an inch of guttering candle to push away the darkness.
“The sorcerer-king planned to leave Taborlin trapped until hunger and thirst weakened his will. Scyphus knew if Taborlin swore to help him, the wizard would abide by his promise, because Taborlin never broke his word.
“Worst of all, Scyphus had taken Taborlin’s staff and sword, and without them his power was all dim and guttery. He’d even taken Taborlin’s cloak of no particular color, but he
warc
—sorry. But—
achhm.
Hespe, would you be a darling and pass me the skin?”
Hespe tossed Marten the waterskin and he took a deep drink. “That’s better.” He cleared his throat. “Where was I again?”
We had been in the Eld for twelve days, and things had fallen into a steady rhythm. Marten had changed our standing wager to reflect our growing skill. First to ten to one, then fifteen to one, which was the same arrangement he had with Dedan and Hespe.
My understanding of the Adem hand-language was growing, and as a result, Tempi was becoming something other than a frustrating blank page of a man. As I learned to read his body language, he was slowly being colored in around the edges.
He was thoughtful and gentle. Dedan rubbed him the wrong way. He loved jokes, though many of mine fell flat, and the ones he tried to tell invariably made no sense in translation.
This isn’t to say things were perfect between us. I still offended Tempi occasionally, making social gaffes I couldn’t understand even after the fact. Every day I continued to follow him in his strange dance, and every day he pointedly ignored me.
“Now Taborlin needed to escape,” Marten said, continuing his story. “But when he looked around his cave, he saw no door. No windows. All around him was nothing but smooth, hard stone.
“But Taborlin the Great knew the names of all things, so all things were his to command. He said to the stone:
‘break!’
and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breathe the sweet spring air.
“Taborlin made his way out of the caves, into the castle, and finally to the doors of the royal hall itself. The doors were barred against him, so he said,
'burn!
’ and they burst into flame and were soon nothing more than fine grey ash.
“Taborlin stepped into the hall and saw King Scyphus sitting there with fifty guards. The king said, ‘Capture him!’ But the guards had just seen the doors burn to ash, so they moved closer, but none of them came
too
close, if you know what I mean.
“King Scyphus said, 'Cowards! I will battle Taborlin with wizardry and best him!’ He was afraid of Taborlin too, but he hid it well. Besides, Scyphus had his staff, and Taborlin had none.
“Then Taborlin said, ‘If you’re so brave, give me my staff before we duel.’
“ ‘Certainly,’ Scyphus said, even though he didn’t really mean to give it back, you see. ‘It’s right next to you in that chest there.’ ”
Marten looked around at us conspiratorially. “You see, Scyphus knew the chest was locked and had only one key. And that key was right in his pocket. So Taborlin went over to the chest, but it was locked. Then Scyphus laughed and so did a few of the guards.
“That made Taborlin angry. And before any of them could do anything he struck the top of the chest with his hand and shouted,
'Edro!’
The chest sprung open and he grabbed his cloak of no particular color, wrapping it around himself.”
Marten cleared his throat again. “Excuse me,” he said, and paused to take another long drink.
Hespe turned to Dedan. “What color do you think Taborlin’s cloak was?”
Dedan’s forehead creased a bit, almost like the beginning of a scowl. “What do you mean? It’s no particular color, just like it says.”
Hespe’s mouth went flat. “I
know
that. But when you think of it in your head, what does it look like? You have to picture it as looking like something, don’t you?”