Under the Rushes

by Amy Lane

  Dorjan took a deep breath, fighting against the tape on his ribs, and tried to put his world in order. “You could solve the whole problem by sleeping in your own bed,” he said, making his voice as reasonable as possible.

  He wasn’t even finished with the sentence before Taern rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen your body, Dorjan. I’ve actually had my hands on your skin. If you think I’m leaving this house without tasting your cock again? Having you inside me? You’re mad.”

  “According to some,” he said evenly, hoping the boy couldn’t see how tight his breeches had suddenly become, and Taern rolled his eyes at that too.

  “Bollix. Now do you have anything useful to say or not?”

  Dorjan wasn’t sure what made him do it, but he put his satchel down and moved to his writing desk. “I have no idea,” he said shortly. “Between the mattress and the box springs, perhaps? Maybe between the mattress and the frame. You’re a clever boy—maybe fashion some place with spare pieces of wood and glue. I’m going to leave it up to you.” He paused for a moment and pulled out a piece of parchment and his fountain pen, and the only thing that could be heard in the room was the scritch scritch scritch of pen on paper. Before he was done, Taern was right at his shoulder, crowding his space. Dorjan turned his head and glared at him.

  Taern looked up and grinned. “Really?”

  Dorjan folded the parchment carefully and held the end of the wax taper up to the electric bulb in the sconce until it melted enough to stick to the page. Before it had cooled, he’d reached around his neck and taken his necklace off to seal the letter before putting the silver chain and pendant back on and tucking them under his shirt.

  “You know what the catch is,” he said as he handed the folded missive over to Taern’s greedy hands.

  “He’s going to be angrier than a horny hexabull?” Taern said, eyes wide and apparently undeterred by that fact at all.

  “Angrier,” Dorjan said, looking at the clock above his desk. “Because I’m about to run out of here without a strategy meeting.”

  “I don’t care!” Taern said happily, clutching the letter to his bare chest.

  “Make sure he gets the satchel in the bottom of the armoire!” Dorjan cautioned as he got to the door. “It might put him in a sweeter frame of mind.”

  “He can rut with a rusty saw and come on it too!” Taern said, consigning Areau’s comfort to the four winds. “I’m going to get fitted for armor!”

  Dorjan couldn’t fight the smile this time, and he even let Taern get a glimpse of it before he trotted out the door and down the stairs.

  HE BARELY made it to the gentlemen’s room of the Forum and changed before the bell rang to convene, and he had to hustle back to the floor to hear whatever hexashite bill being debated with breaths to spare. (The last bill had been to make it illegal to buy more at a market than could fit in a standard-sized market bag. Dorjan had voted against it because it was an asinine endeavor whose only purpose was to distract the Forum members from the food riot that had occurred the week before. It had passed. As if the average citizen of Thenis could afford that much food.)

  He was halfway down the corridor, a number of Forum members lingering in his wake, when he suddenly found himself matching strides with Alum Septra himself. Dorjan put on his best “pleasantly surprised” expression.

  “Triari,” he said respectfully. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  Septra had aged well in the past ten years. Unlike Dorjan, who’d had Areau razor the back and sides of his hair close to his head and high off his collar when it proved too bothersome for his nighttime activities, Septra had a queue hanging long and silver from his widow’s peak to midway down his back, braided neatly and still quite thick. His long face with the lean lips and hollowed, austere-looking cheeks and cheekbones was still handsome and had, in fact, become sharper and more distinguished with age.

  “I was hoping that I could speak with you again about your keep’s effort toward the war.”

  Oh, I just bet you do! “I’ve told you before, Triari Septra, my family’s keep is donating its full tithe to the government. I’ve shown you the records detailing what we mine—”

  “You still haven’t answered my concerns about mining more to my satisfaction,” Septra snapped, and Dorjan fought to keep his even-keeled idiot’s smile on his face.

  “Mining the asteroids too fast causes the gravity ripples, Triari. My father told you that for years, and the one time he mined beyond his conscience, the series of earthquakes almost destroyed Karanos. I grew up in those mines, Triari—my blood runs in them, so to speak. Destroying our society now will not help us win a war. It won’t help us feed the hungry. It will not help us rebuild our ailing city. It will only hasten our bitter end.”

  He kept his voice reasonable, made it sound as though he was parroting his father, but he couldn’t help it. The shortsightedness… the gall. Septra looked at him sharply, and Dorjan smiled blandly back.

  “I’m sorry, Triari—I am running decidedly late if I’m to sit the floor before you speak. Silly me—my clock ran down this morning. We men of leisure do enjoy our sleep!”

  With that, Dorjan tried to make a quick left into the center of the dome that housed the Forum, only to find Septra’s hand tightening around his arm. For fun, Dorjan tightened his bicep and pretended not to see Septra’s eyes widen at the wiry power of a body that did a lot more than gad about the Forum floor and complain about the smell from the stews.

  “I would like to see your family’s records again,” Septra hissed, and Dorjan nodded pleasantly.

  “Of course, Triari. Should I run get them from home, or would you like to see them tomorrow?”

  Septra looked startled. “You have them here? In the city?” he asked, and Dorjan found he was enjoying this conversation more than he should. Yes, he had the fixed books in the city, and no, Septra would never get his hands on the real figures, which he and his foreman had hidden in a safe underneath his desk at Kyon’s Gate.

  “Why, yes! I keep in constant contact with my foreman, Coreau. You do remember his son, Areau, do you not?”

  He watched a muscle twitch in Septra’s cheek as Septra had to admit that yes, he had known the boy he’d confined to the asylum and ordered tortured into madness. Dorjan was not sure if he acknowledged that the boy still lived, but he did know that name. “I was aware. I’m sorry that ended so badly.”

  “Endings are only new beginnings,” Dorjan said vapidly, and Septra’s smile was all patronization.

  “Well, I’m sure you will be able to find a woman who will fill that void,” Septra said, and Dorjan hoped Krissa didn’t mind being used as a blind.

  “Oh, I already have. She’s lovely—she certainly brightens up my bachelor pad, and that is the truth!”

  And another hit. Septra was, as far as anyone knew, single. Dorjan would have suspected he was just as sly as Dorjan himself, except Dorjan knew the signs. Septra had been surprised by Dorjan’s strength but not attracted to his body. Apparently power was for Septra what sex and family was for the other Forum members, and Dorjan had a vicious moment to imagine the man next to him reeling from a financial blow to the bollocks. He hoped they were swollen and blue by now, and the hope made his smile even wider and more vacuous.

  “Wonderful,” Septra said thinly. “Wonderful. I look forward to seeing you a bit less in the Forum, since you will be distracted by family.”

  Oh, you wish! “My older sister is doing quite well by the family way, sir, and my lady fair has plenty to keep her occupied. I’m free to serve my province with all my heart.”

  “Such a shame, really,” Septra said, condescension dripping from his every syllable. “The task would have been so much easier were you gifted with your father’s same sense of business.”

  Calling me stupid. Yes, because I haven’t heard that before. “I’m lucky to have people back home who can make up for my lack. My father was good at teaching us to work as a whole. You’d be surprised how much an av
erage man can accomplish if he’s willing to appreciate men of greater gifts.”

  Septra literally jerked his head back. “Such men usually covet power of their own,” he said, his voice saturated with disgust.

  “Not if you treat them well.” Dorjan was in a fine mood this morning—he could have sparred happily with Septra for another hour, but even he recognized the danger. He pretended Septra’s bony fingers weren’t trying to bury themselves in his still-flexed muscle and simply continued walking toward the center of the Forum, his expression of openmouthed idiot joy for once only partially a work of clever fiction. He managed to maintain that look right up until the primary speaker spoke, and then his entire day was spent wiping the expression of burning and sickened fury off his face.

  Conditioning

  IT WAS true that Dorjan had warned him, but no amount of warning could have forged the cast-iron plating Taern wanted for his balls earlier that morning when he’d gone downstairs to where Areau sat at the breakfast table next to Krissa, and presented the letter Dorjan had written. He also presented the satchel, which was, Taern noticed, light on the silver but still heavy on the drugs.

  Areau checked the contents of the satchel and nodded, then stared at the letter and then at Taern. Taern stood in his brightest topcoat and most outrageous pair of breeches and wished he’d simply come down in the black smallclothes he’d worn the night before.

  “He wants me to what?” Areau repeated, and Krissa grimaced at Taern quickly, before Areau could see her slip into her Madame Dominatrix character.

  “Are you dim, Areau?” she snapped, and Areau’s neck drooped subserviently.

  “No, my lady.”

  “Do you know how to read?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “And what does it say that’s so difficult to comprehend?”

  “That I’m supposed to set him a training regimen and fit him for armor!” Areau snarled. “Does he think it’s that easy? Does he have any idea how long it took me to get his armor to where it is now? Is he not aware of how important my chemistry experiments are—”

  “Why yes, Areau,” Krissa said mildly, “I believe this part here makes it quite clear that he doesn’t expect it to happen overnight. He’s asking for a few hours a week spared from your other endeavors, that is all.” Krissa refolded the letter and put it back under Areau’s plate so he could lay claim to it as it was addressed. “So you see, Areau,” she said, her voice gentle and firm, “he completely respects your time. He’s just asking to add another member to your team. If you think about it, that’s really much safer for him on the streets. You didn’t see him as Taern and I did. He was very vulnerable the night we met. I’m surprised he made it out alive.”

  “He caught a steam spear in the side,” Taern said bluntly. “He wouldn’t have made it out alive if not for your armor, and he wouldn’t have made it out one more time after last night without rest. He needs somebody to have his back—”

  “What do you think I’m doing with the armor!” Areau snapped back, his voice rough with anger. “I wouldn’t send him out there if I thought he wouldn’t come back!”

  “But you wouldn’t mind if he was injured, would you?” Taern asked nastily. He knew some of the story, but given this man’s corrosive attitude… oh, heavens, he could guess at the rest.

  “Fine lot you know!” Areau spat. “I needed him to come back in sterling condition. Besides being my friend, no one else could give me my….” He trailed off as Krissa brought out the riding crop at her side to tap under his chin.

  “And is that the only reason you want him back?” she asked sweetly. “Because he’s a friend of mine too. Now that you two have an altogether different arrangement, I would be very interested to learn whether or not you intend for your friend to return home.”

  Areau gaped for a moment, and his mouth opened and closed in surprise. “You mean… sabotage?” he asked, and he seemed so genuinely hurt that a part of Taern relaxed. He hadn’t realized until just that moment how worried he’d been that Dorjan placed so much faith in this individual with the tangled hair, the dirty cravat, and the blistering, necrotic hostility.

  But he had to make sure. “Yes, I mean sabotage!” Taern retorted. “As far as I can tell, you were just using him for your own dirty little deeds. I don’t even know if you really cared for him at all!”

  Areau yanked his hair out of his eyes, and Taern saw them then, bitter, festering scars, bubbled skin from botched healing, and a flat pink spot where his hair should have been growing but only scraggle grew now.

  “I cared enough to jump in and get these, didn’t I?” He yanked at the throat of his shirt beneath his frayed and stained waistcoat, revealing more bubbled scarring. “And these, and these—and yes, our little street waif, they go all the way down my body, and yes, barely miss my manhood! Have I given enough for him? There we both were, heading for a commission and brilliant bloody careers, and he’s got to spoil it all by listening to some brat in the rushes—”

  “That was me in the rushes, you self-pitying git, and all those pretty scars didn’t save my parents, did it!”

  Areau gaped, and Taern scowled right back. Dorjan… Dorjan didn’t speak about his commission or the things he’d given up. Dorjan just worried about giving enough.

  “Dorjan has his own scars,” Taern added, his voice bitter. “And a lot of them are recent. You may think you’ve done your part by making the armor, but I don’t know if you’ve ever had his back!”

  “Well it’s a wonder you want my services at all, then,” Areau sulked. “If I’m that incompetent—”

  “I have no doubt you’re bloody brilliant!” Taern didn’t either. He’d seen Dorjan’s armor, felt it, seen how cunningly engineered it was and how much freedom it gave Nyx as he was darting among the Thenis shadows. That armor was more than a defense and more than a weapon—was, in fact, a work of living, sculpted art. But it was the man beneath it who made the supple plating feel like warm skin. “I’m saying that it’s been more about turning him into a weapon than caring about him as a man—”

  “I’m not sly.” Areau’s voice dripped with disdain. “I’d say that’s probably more your purview than mine.”

  “You’re not sly, but he’s an old lover,” Taern said thoughtfully. “How did that work?”

  “He forced himself upon me,” Areau said, his eyes open wide with a sort of manic glee. “It was terrible. I loathed every minute of—ouch!” The exclamation was followed by an ecstatic shudder as Krissa’s crop came down on the back of his hand hard enough to leave a bright-pink mark over the scarring.

  “Be. Truthful,” she said, her voice as icy as Taern had ever heard it. Taern’s gaze flew to her face, and he realized that at this point, her grimness wasn’t a façade. She was truly this angry and, it appeared, on Dorjan’s behalf.

  “He did!” Areau snarled back. “What does he think of his hero now that he knows he’s no better than a common rapist, rutting with orphans in the—augh!”

  Krissa locked eyes with him and watched him shudder, then wipe the bloody back of his hand across his mouth. He lapped a little at the blood that welled up from the finely sliced welt left by the sharp edges of the leather crop.

  “Do you want me to fill your craving, Areau?” she asked gently, tracing the crop along the top of his hand.

  Areau watched it move, mesmerized, and laughed a little like a boy about to get a favorite sweet.

  Krissa withdrew the crop and ran it lovingly along his cheek. “I will. I will fill every need your twisted heart desires, Areau, son of Coreau. But you need to do everything I ask, as I ask it. Wasn’t that our agreement yesterday?”

  Areau nodded eagerly. “Yes, Mistress,” he said, giggling a little to himself.

  “Well, then tell Taern the truth.”

  Areau slunk a glance toward Taern, and Taern answered with his own rage. The things he was saying about Dorjan… the terrible, terrible things, about the terrified, gentle man Taern had been tryi
ng to seduce….

  “I made him,” Areau whispered, obviously proud of himself. “He’s got such a code of honor, that one, and I broke him. See? I made him. I hit him and I hit him and then he hit me back… and I bared my ass to him, and he wanted it… and it was rage, always it was rage. He took me in rage, and it was sweet, because I hated it, and hated him, and he fucked me and then….” Areau smiled a child’s smile and hunched his shoulders around his ears. “And then I ran away like I was afraid.” He narrowed one eye and looked at Taern with cunning intent. “That was the best part. Watching him wake up in the morning and loathe himself. Now he knows how I feel, looking down at this body.”

  That quickly, Areau’s frightening glee turned to self-pity. “Ruined,” he said softly, looking at his hand, raising it up to finger the differences in his face. “I’m ruined, ruined, ruined….”

  Taern turned away, sickened. Oh… oh hells. His Nyx. His innocent, innocent Nyx. And he’d been betrayed in the worst ways by his friend, by his body.

  Taern would be lucky of Dorjan ever let himself be touched again. He was an honorable man, Taern was sure of it. The… the dishonor of the sort of relationship Areau was describing… oh, it must have fermented, rising to a chemical boil in his breast.

  “You enjoy yourself,” he muttered. “I’ll expect that armor by the third of never.”

  Krissa stopped him. “Wait, Taern.” She turned to Areau and whispered something that was probably filthy into his ear, because he brightened and nodded his head, as besotted as any puppy being offered a scratch on the arse.

  “Lunch,” Areau gasped, and Taern didn’t even need to look to know Krissa was massaging his cock through his breeches. Excellent. The fucker could still get off with a woman. Dorjan would be lucky if he ever got off again. “After lunch I’ll measure you, give you a list for a regimen. I’ll need to see you move. After we eat, have Mrs. Wrinkle get you some smallclothes, and we’ll meet downstairs in the gym.” His breath came faster and faster, and Taern turned around and walked away. Whether she meant to bring him off at the breakfast table or do something painful and perverse that would get him to their quarters, for once, he really didn’t give a good damn about what kind of sex another person was going to have.