Branded

by Clare London

  He was watching my expression now. He knew he affected me, though judging by the way his eyes glinted in the midnight darkness of my bare room, this knowledge often seemed to confuse rather than please him. “The Mistress,” he repeated. It sounded mocking in his tone. “She thinks too highly of you, and it disturbs her. She thinks too little of me, and that amuses her. Together we provide what she needs, I think.”

  I frowned, but I was also tempted to smile. He had a perceptive view of Seleste’s tastes. “Maybe so. That’s up to her to request.”

  “But not in her bedroom? You weren’t pleased by her earlier teasing.”

  “No.” I sighed. If Seleste asked something of us, we had to do it. Years ago, I’d have been pleased and flattered to follow the whim of any Mistress. Now something in my own heart shuddered at the constant, careless servitude.

  “Not that I’d mind,” he said mischievously, though still watching me carefully. “The two of us, with the Queen. You know there’s no time or place I wouldn’t want you. And you also know by now I’ll do whatever’s necessary to get what I want, even if it means asking our Mistress to share your body with me.” He’d been walking close beside me, though any touch he made was merely a brush against my arm. He was still on duty and shouldn’t be wasting official time. But now he halted, and I found I did too. Still smiling, he stretched out his hand. The way he trailed his fingers along the bare skin of my forearm sent a hot, involuntary shiver up my back.

  “I’m hers to do with as she likes,” I said dully.

  His eyes narrowed. “She isn’t the only Mistress, Maen,” he said softly. When I glanced across at him, puzzled, he shrugged. “I spend a lot of time with Mistress Chloe, and she’s made no secret of the fact she has sympathy for your situation. If you need her help, I can approach her for you.”

  “What kind of help could that possibly be?”

  He winced. Perhaps I’d been too harsh in my reply. “I didn’t mean offense. I just thought I’d mention it. You’re….” I was certain I didn’t want him to finish the sentence, but my silence encouraged him. “You’re disturbed,” he said.

  He looked and sounded surprisingly concerned; his head tilted to the side, a stray lock of hair swinging free.

  “I am what I am.” When he moved his hand up to my chest, I shivered.

  “Are you telling me you don’t want this?” he murmured.

  “Will it make any difference?”

  He smiled, his lips curving slowly and sensuously. “You’re no virgin, Maen, no timid boy. Don’t pretend to be a victim either. It’s your strength I like: your strange, confused, conflicted strength. Your integrity. Your need.”

  He turned suddenly, stepping in front of me, making me lean away. He pushed me, and together we pressed back against the wall. For a second he dipped his head and scraped his teeth against the skin of my neck where it joined my shoulder. I grunted; he hissed pleasure. Then I pushed him away. As he stumbled slightly, I turned sharply around and set off for my quarters, leaving him standing alone.

  I LEFT my room a couple of hours before the middle of the night and made my way out of the main building. The only other people in the central courtyard were maintenance workers, cleaning the cobbles and drying them with fresh hay. When their work was done, I watched them gather up the remnants onto their carts and pull them out of the courtyard behind them. The wheels rattled noisily over the stones until the workers turned the corner to the equipment barns and went to pack away the carts for the night. I walked on. A couple of young men were washing down the roof of the walkway between the Library and the main Household offices. I’d seen them mending some loose boards earlier in the day. Their occasional conversation was quiet in the still air of the night, and when they saw me passing through, they slid down from their perch to the ground below and bowed respectfully to me. Remainder boys, both of them; the Household was staffed by so many. I nodded back, for it was easier to do that than to explain I wasn’t a soldier of the Queen as they probably assumed. I watched as they scooped up their buckets and brooms and left to return to the Remainder areas. I often walked the courtyard late at night if Seleste didn’t call me, especially if I had things on my mind that needed quiet and some privacy to digest.

  As I neared the Library, I was startled to hear voices from inside. Even though I’d speculated on whether the scribes lived and breathed their jobs, I knew most of them went to their own bunks at nighttime. I’d expected to find Kiel there, but no one else. Candles had been lit inside, their flickering light visible through the narrow windows. It was a cold and drafty building, so I wondered who’d find it comfortable enough to spend time there in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t have chosen to eavesdrop, but I needed to speak to Kiel and wanted no one else to know that, so I found a long window against the east wall that looked into the shadowed corner behind the shelves. From that vantage point, I could listen easily and hopefully see who was there without being seen myself.

  “You will never be a soldier.” It was Zander’s voice and the words were harsh, but his tone had amusement in it too.

  Someone laughed. Kiel, of course. “You think I’d want that? To be in the thick of battle, the horror of it, the danger, the pain, the sweat and struggle?”

  Zander laughed in return, and I was intrigued to hear such a robust sound from him. “You’re a fool to think that, but so many people do. I can tell you, it’s the only time a man finds out how brave he really is. You never know what courage your life holds until you face losing it.”

  “And so am I in danger of that tonight?” I didn’t understand what Kiel meant.

  Zander laughed again. “I doubt that. These swords are only dulled practice ones, though it depends on just how clumsy you are, scribe. From what I’ve seen, you fight enthusiastically enough, even if you have no skill at all. And many men discover, faced with the challenge, that they’re braver than they think.”

  Kiel made a soft, grunting noise, and for the first time I heard the clash of one blade on another. I tensed up and peered farther through the window. Now I could see the two men in there, standing in the middle of the open area in front of the main desk. Some of the other desks had been pushed back, clearing a sizeable floor space among the piles of books and documents. The tall broad Gold Warrior had raised a sword to shoulder height, and opposite him, Kiel darted back and forth, shorter by a head and much slimmer, but moving more nimbly. He also held a sword but swung it around recklessly, and I winced in sympathy for Kiel as Zander parried a rather awkward strike. I saw Kiel stumble backward before he regained his balance, and wondered if I needed to intervene. But then I heard him laughing again, despite his panting.

  “Who’d be brave enough, faced with that strength? This sword’s too big for me, the effort too much—”

  Zander sidestepped him swiftly and brought his sword down, trapping the tip of Kiel’s blade against the floor. I could see the glint of metal against the dark shadows of the furniture, and the soft puff of dust that sprang up from the floor. Kiel made a noise of frustration and kicked back against Zander’s body, but the soldier didn’t move. Instead, he reached his free hand around Kiel’s torso and gripped him more tightly against his own chest. Kiel’s sword fell to the floor with a clatter, and he groaned aloud.

  “Too close, fool scribe,” Zander muttered. “Too close and too easily distracted. Battle skill isn’t just about swordplay.”

  “You’re nothing but a bully,” Kiel grunted. “You’re hurting me.”

  Zander laughed. “And you’re weak as a child. I’m not hurting you, for your bones would crack like a chicken’s if I meant them to.” But he loosened his hold.

  Kiel twisted around in his grasp, and for a moment tilted his head back so he stared up into Zander’s face. He was still in Zander’s fierce grip, but he’d stopped wriggling. Zander stared back down at him, his chest heaving. I waited to see what either of them would say next, or when they’d move away from each other, but they were frozen like that. Ma
ybe it was a trick of the shadows and the flickering candlelight, but I thought I saw Kiel’s back arch and his body press more closely against Zander’s—and Zander’s head dipped down slightly as if to nuzzle against Kiel’s cheek.

  Then suddenly Zander pushed him away and stepped back. “Enough,” he said, his voice hoarse. He sheathed his practice sword at his side. “No more playing with swords. You’ve wasted my time long enough. I thought you wanted me to tell you about the battle.”

  Kiel caught a loud, gasping breath that I heard very clearly in the chill of the deserted Library. “Yes. That’s… yes. Thank you for your time. If you could write some notes on your part in the battle, how you trained, what you felt, what you saw—”

  “No.” Zander spoke tersely and his body tensed up. “I’ve no time for that. If you want anything from me, you must write it yourself.”

  Kiel turned quickly back toward his desk at the back of the room, as if worried Zander would lose patience with him now. “That’s no problem, I can do that. I’ll be pleased to. I’m honored a hero like you has any time at all for me.”

  Zander shifted in the semidarkness, his movements making the candles flicker even more. “I have no desire for personal flattery, scribe. Service to the city is my only wish.”

  Kiel pulled out his chair with a scrape, and when he sat down, part of my view of him was obscured. “Of course. That’s what I’ve written so far.” I heard the rustle as he opened the stiff parchment pages of his notebook.

  Zander had a curious look on his face. “What else? Have you written of my Mistress? Of her magnificent justice and love of Aza City? And her duty of care toward her men, her mere soldiers whom she protects and guides?”

  It was Kiel’s turn to shift, for I heard the chair rock on the wooden floor. “Um… of course. I’m weaving in some tales from the previous Histories, as is the custom. Following the rich thread of our Queen’s ancestry and her fine bloodline, from colonization up to the current time.”

  Zander nodded, satisfied with that. “That’s how it should be. The Ladies are the lifeblood of our world—they’ve given us everything. We don’t need the dry pages of the Histories to know they built the cities, gave salvation to men’s suffering, and have made us stronger every generation.”

  “Have you read them?” Kiel asked. At Zander’s confused silence, he continued. “The old Histories, I mean. They were in the farthest archive. I haven’t even found half of them yet, there are so many. Doesn’t anyone read them anymore?”

  Zander coughed. He took a step forward then back, as if uncomfortable, and yet I’d thought he was standing at ease. “You shouldn’t question everything like this, scribe. I’m sure the Ladies would search them if they needed information or entertainment. Are you worried no one will read your work? You’re much too proud if you think that.”

  “No, that’s not it.” Kiel sounded as if he was trying to hide his annoyance. “You don’t understand me. I thought soldiers and Household officials would be using these books on a regular basis, but they’ve been forced to the back of the upper floors and covered with dust and mouse droppings.” He was silent for a moment. I knew he was trying not to admit he’d read some of these Histories himself, though I guessed he had. “There are many kinds of tales. As the Histories go back in time, there are richer, bolder stories, less about the glory of the Mistresses and the loyalty of their men, and more about the times when the cities were first built—about the ordinary mixture of people who lived and worked then, who struggled to survive, how the cities were established, the many battles they fought—”

  Zander interrupted. “Which battles were they? I have no need to read about battles where I didn’t fight.”

  “Well, yes, this was a long time ago—before our Queen’s mother was Queen, before her mother too. These weren’t raids by the Exiles, or even Maen’s capture, or that scare last year when those renegade soldiers attacked from another city—”

  Zander’s hand came down forcefully onto the table beside him, startling both Kiel and me. “How can anything be of interest that’s not the tale of my Mistress now? More importantly, why do you talk so carelessly of these things?”

  Kiel sounded shocked. “It’s not careless. It’s my city as well, and these events are important to me too. I’m devoted to our Mistresses, of course I am, but I’m not involved in the city as it is today, not the same way you are. I only have these books and the old tales to draw from, but they’re of just as much interest to me. And so they should be! See what it says in the frontispiece of this book.” He came back into full view, bent over one of the other volumes on his table, lifting the heavy, leather-bound cover with some difficulty. “It reads, ‘To all those who wish to follow the true patterns of life in Aza City.’ It’s for all of us, and all about our city. Look what it says!” His finger stabbed at the words, drawing Zander’s attention to them, seeking to get the soldier to agree with him.

  “I don’t need to look.” Zander sounded angry. He wasn’t looking at the book, but at Kiel, his expression disturbed. “I don’t wish to. I don’t know who’s taught you to copy such things, and your tone is insolent. You don’t have the proper respect for the true ways.”

  “The old ways, you mean.” Kiel’s voice was louder too, though he sounded more bemused than angry. “Isn’t it better we learn properly about the city? It’s not right to accept things without any question at all, surely. There are so many great and powerful things we don’t know about, that we haven’t seen, there to be discovered—”

  He never finished the sentence because Zander reached down and slammed the book shut on his fingers.

  “Why did you do that?” Kiel was more furious at the attack on his precious book than the attack on his hand. “Don’t you dare touch it!”

  I leaned through the window, trying to see them better. I was surprised to see how close they were together, Kiel now standing and pressed against the edge of his desk, with Zander bending over him. Kiel had gathered the book in question against his chest, as if protecting it.

  Zander’s face twisted with anger. “This is nonsense. I can’t do this.” He was struggling to find the right words: I knew how he did that sometimes. “I can’t help a lunatic like you. You must talk to others.”

  “But I want you, Zander.” Kiel’s voice was almost a plea. Then he seemed to realize how astonishing that sounded, and he rushed on more respectfully. “I would so appreciate your story, Gold Warrior. I admire you, what you are, what you represent. It’s what I’d want to be if I hadn’t been born a Remainder, though of course that’d never be a choice given to me. I’d never even hoped to talk to a man like you, let alone work with you, be with you. You can speak from that viewpoint, from that privileged position, and that’s the best of all for a man. To be strong, to be respected, to be admired. To be the first choice of the Ladies and Mistresses, of the Queen herself. To be that passionate. That desirable.” He looked flushed again, but not with anger this time. His eyes narrowed a little slyly. “That’s what the Queen will want in the History, surely?”

  Zander was staring at him as if he’d grown two heads and he didn’t know which one to strike off first. I stepped away from my secret hideout and made my way to the door. I didn’t make any attempt to hide the sound of my steps.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Maen,” I said, accustoming my eyes again to the long shadows from the candles. Zander looked surprised to see me, but Kiel’s look was a strange mixture of relief and disappointment. He sank back down into his chair, and Zander walked over to meet me by the door, hiding my view of Kiel behind him.

  “I’m very glad for the interruption, Maen. I can’t imagine why you chose this boy to work on the History. He’s so odd.”

  “Clever,” I said gently. Zander seemed overly keen to justify his confusion to me, to the extent he didn’t think to question why I was passing the Library at that hour. “Unusual, maybe, but quick of mind. The work he’s done so far is of excellent quality and v
ery vibrant.”

  Zander shrugged. “And yet he’s very plain as a person, and very weak. And he talks too much. It tires and annoys me.”

  I looked at the man’s strong features: his broad shoulders and his bright, passionate blue eyes. He’d grown his hair longer since the battle, the thick blond fall of it hiding the scar on his left ear and showing only the glint of his earrings on the other. He was very striking, and even more so against Kiel’s quirky looks. “He’s just different.” I shrugged. “You need to talk to him as another man. Then you’ll see his real quality.”

  “Maen?”

  At the new voice behind me, I stood aside to let another soldier enter. It was Edrius, obviously off duty because he was dressed in casual clothes and boots and looked freshly bathed. He smiled easily at me. “Is Zander here?”

  Zander had moved a few steps back toward the desk, and Edrius went over to him. Edrius was an athletic young man, his movements slower and more graceful without his full armor. “We’re spending an hour or so at the tavern by the blacksmith’s, after late duty,” he said to Zander. His eyes went from the Gold Warrior to Kiel, then across to the books in front of the scribe. He frowned with distaste. All soldiers needed to be able to read in order to follow written instructions or to serve the Gold Warrior’s orders. Or, indeed, to entertain the Ladies at times. But there were those who liked it less than others, who saw no reason to improve on a basic knowledge or to spend any more time than the bare minimum. I hadn’t taken Edrius for one of those men, but it seemed he had little time for the Library’s books.