Under the Rushes

by Amy Lane

  Oh dear. Dorjan’s grin made it to his eyes and stretched his face wide. “I’d forgotten you were there when that happened,” he said, managing to evade everyone’s eyes.

  “Well, I was. You perpetrated the crime, you little mastermind, and then you owned up to it and didn’t get anyone in trouble but yourself. Young Taern here is right about one thing. You’re nothing like the people you’re fighting. Who you want to bed isn’t the whole of who you are. In your case, Master Dorjan, it’s not even close.”

  And with that she bustled out with a tray full of tea and silence in her wake.

  Areau grinned at him then and winked. “And it was a glorious crime too,” he said softly, and Dorjan inclined his head.

  “I would have done anything to make you think I was worth playing with,” he confessed.

  Areau’s smile was as breathtaking and as clean and beautiful as Dorjan remembered it being when he was as a child.

  “It worked!” Areau stood and clapped him on the shoulder. “And this will too. Now go to bed, Dorjan, and take your obnoxious brat with you. It’s a good night to retire early.”

  Taern made sure it was.

  FORUM Master Keely was not there that morning, but it was no matter. Dorjan had left Areau’s carefully worded, plainly stated letter that said the male streetwalkers along the brothel stroll would have good reason to remember Forum Master Colny, and to be sure to ask him why before they followed him into any endeavor.

  Dorjan left hours earlier than he usually did, and flitted through the corridors of the Forum wearing his white robe and disappearing into the sunshine spaces of the white marble building with the same grace he’d used in the shadows for ten years.

  When it came time to debate the motions before the floor, Colny arrived looking pompous and self-important as always, and was surprised when the mutters began. When it was his turn to stand up and debate, a Forum Master who, until very recently, had followed everything Septra and his cronies had stood for, was the first person to stand up and challenge him.

  “Before you begin, Master Colny, is there any way you can answer to the allegations we’ve all been exposed to?”

  Colny stopped for a moment. “Allegations?”

  “Yes sir. That you’re sly—which, honestly, I’m not interested in, except for the fact that you’ve been pushing some sort of twisted bill to make that illegal. That’s blatant hypocrisy, sir, and I’d like to know if you’re guilty of it.”

  Dorjan had to give Colny credit: the man practically turned purple, but he did try to power through. “I… I don’t know if that has any bearing on the subject at hand,” he stammered, and Forum Master Kevet raised ginger brows over a broad freckled face made great by the wide, bushy ginger beard.

  “The bearing is, we’re voting as to whether or not to take a man’s land from him, and you’re one of the people pushing that vote. If you can’t be honest with the world about who you are, how are we supposed to trust your integrity on this?”

  Colny simply turned and walked away.

  Dorjan and the rest of the Forum watched him do it, and Dorjan would have thought he was on the run, but on his way out, Colny sent Dorjan such a look—a fulminating, threatening glare—and Dorjan had to pause before he turned back and launched into a sincere defense of his home.

  But Dorjan didn’t sleep well that night, in spite of the fact that he and Taern had both run a mission into the stews. They returned to what was becoming their usual amazing moment of sensuality after a successful mission. He had Taern tucked in his arms and unconscious to the world; he should have slept like the dead, but whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Colny gloating as he turned away in what should have been disgrace.

  He wondered what the man had planned.

  Particles of Dust

  “JUST be careful today,” Dorjan said nervously.

  Taern packed his satchel, making sure there was a simple lunch in there. Dorjan freely admitted he refused to eat at the Forum canteen.

  “I promise I shall keep to the back ways and that I shan’t linger at M’s.” Madame M had answered the seven-day before, saying two more of her employees had children she’d feel safer located at a Forum Master’s home than a brothel keeper’s—and she’d expressed her thanks. Taern had answered her back at length, and Dorjan had chided him gently about the two pages of incriminating missive Taern had asked Dorjan to run by in the morning while Taern worked his regimen.

  Madame M had been embarrassingly grateful of his offer when he’d dropped off the letter.

  “You are like our guardian nisket,” she’d said archly, and Dorjan had blushed.

  “I have much to thank you for,” he said formally, and she’d laughed and patted his cheek.

  “Oh, my dear. Taern? Taern blew in like a volunteer strawberry—sweet, productive, and temporary. One evening in your company and he was perfectly willing to go put down real roots in another garden.”

  Dorjan blushed harder. “You provide good earth here in the stews, Madame. This business is going to be—you make it safe and shame free. You treat them fairly, and they love you for it. When times are better and your brothel is a shining place of elegance and refinement in a clean city, you will know that much of the hope this city had in the darkness, they gleaned from you.”

  “Oh my.” M dabbed at her eyes carefully so as not to smear her thick kohl or the powder that made her skin porcelain and smooth over the stubble.

  When Dorjan had left, he’d placed a careful, sensual kiss on the back of her hand, and she fanned herself semiseriously.

  “Oh, Forum Master—if I were your type!”

  But of course she wasn’t. Dorjan preferred men.

  M’s return letter was dropped off by a sallow-cheeked boy who had been taken into Mrs. Wrinkle’s kitchen and fed soup until he fell asleep. The letter asked that they take in another child—this one an orphan M simply didn’t have the room for—and, if Dorjan could, send the girl to his keep. Dorjan agreed and told her Taern would come to fetch them.

  He chose this day for a reason.

  Colny would need to return to the floor today or they would lose the opportunity to vote on Dorjan’s lands. Dorjan feared. His fear was an amorphous thing, but it was all encompassing—he feared for Taern, he feared for his household, he feared for Madame M. He’d told her to be careful on the day Taern came to visit. He’d told Taern to wear armor under his clothes and cloak. He’d warned Krissa about opening the door to strangers. He’d told Mrs. Wrinkle that the children were to hide in the stables—in the rabbit if necessary—should anybody ask to search the house.

  And still he had the nagging feeling he had forgotten to do something.

  He affected his cheerful demeanor on the floor, but judging by the speculative looks he got from allies and opposition alike, he was reasonably certain nobody was fooled anymore. Well, good for them. Let them keep guessing, because he was fighting for so much more than the good opinion of foolish old men.

  So he was apprehensive but not surprised when Colny stalked onto the main debate floor and eyed Dorjan with wicked intent.

  “Gentlemen, some of you are aware of the meeting of the Triari this morning—they passed a resolution you may be interested to hear.”

  Oh hells. Dorjan knew what was coming before he said it.

  “We have determined that Forum Master Dorjan, son of Kyon, is no longer able to carry out his duties of Forum Master, and that his lands are forfeit to the Biemansland Forum. If Master Dorjan wishes to contest this, he will find his city home forfeit and all the people in his environs subject to the penalties of the state. This ruling was issued by Triari Septra, with the divine voice of Bimuit to all of his loyal followers.”

  Dorjan’s bowels iced cold and brittle, and his spine straightened and his shoulders threw back almost of their own accord. Suddenly he was unafraid, because the worst had happened, and this person, this thing that he’d become over the past ten years, was finally allowed to fly free.

  “W
ell, then,” he said, his face fell and grim, much like it was when he flew through the city as the Nyx, “this Forum has things to do. The first order of business would be to decide if the Forum acknowledges the founder of our province as a force of divinity, and wants to call the shitehole you’ve allowed Thenis to become declared the city of the gods. You go ahead and do that, Biemansland. I shall not stop you. But when you’ve decided that we have the divine right to destroy our planet, I cannot wait to watch you try to use my land with which to do it. I look forward to seeing you try—but I warn you, this ruling body has a habit of sending other people to execute their foulest orders. Should the entire army of Biemansland actually triumph—and don’t for a moment think that’s a given—the man who pries the key to my father’s legacy from my cold, dead hand is the man who shall inherit it. Lokargo, lokogos, errant child—this key, gentleman”—and he held aloft the nisket flower his father had given him—“this key shall belong to the next living man to touch it. And it’s the only way you’ll have the power of the mines. So send your worst—politician, army”—he looked directly at Septra—“knife in the night. I’ve spent ten years learning to defend myself from the likes of you, and don’t think I’ll go down easy.”

  Dorjan turned around then, prepared to push his way past the milling Forum Masters, many of whom were muttering encouraging things such as “Hells, divinity?” and “Violates our charter!” in clear, unafraid voices. He realized that those who had begun to support him had pushed back the others and were bowing as he staged his exit.

  “Don’t you threaten us, Dorjan, son of Kyon!” Colny shouted from the podium. “Who says your precious little street boy is safe! Threaten me with exposure, will you? I know where that boy came from!”

  Something about the venom in his voice snapped Dorjan’s head around. “And how would you know if my page was a street boy or not, sir?” he asked carefully.

  “I know where that boy comes from!” Colny snarled. “Measures are being taken even now—”

  Dorjan felt the blood pounding in his throat. “You think you know where that boy comes from?” he snarled back. “The truth is he’s the heir to what’s left of Kiamath Keep, and the boy who kept innocent blood off my hands ten years ago. Chew on that while you plot to kill a boy this country has already betrayed, and don’t ask me to clean up the blood you vomit on your own shoes.”

  And he could no longer stand there another moment. Colny hadn’t threatened his home—not in that last diatribe. He’d threatened Taern’s home, the place Colny knew Taern to have lived. He’d threatened Taern, and he’d threatened Madame M, and Dorjan might just be able to get there before his world exploded.

  Taern had been running late. He’d been trying to honor Dorjan’s request to put his armor on under his cloak before he went running down the streets of Thenis to visit Madame M’s, and he had difficulty with the catches. Damn Areau—he liked things so complicated, and he liked to harp on it too. But Taern, if we skipped the three hook and eyes there, the armor wouldn’t have the silky rippling like a fish! Oh, the man was a wonder with mechanical tricks, there was no denying it, but Karanos if he didn’t give himself a lot of credit in that department!

  So Taern was in the stables, grumbling to himself, wanting desperately to talk to Madame M about everything, including his complete attachment to and adoration of one shy, not-so-virginal-anymore Forum Master, when there was a thump at the front door—a loud, threatening thump, the kind that sent the two girls and the young man who had been in Mrs. Wrinkle’s kitchen scurrying back through the passageway to the stables.

  Taern looked at them in surprise and then sent them back toward the rabbit. With his attention focused on something else, the catch in his armor closed without fuss, and he ushered the girls into the conveyance and under the layers of blankets on the back couch.

  Then he slid his hood and his mask over his head and crept along the passageway.

  Krissa was back behind the kitchen door, and he joined her, both of them quieter than breath as they listened to Areau open the door.

  Oh, wonderful. It was their friend the lokogos, the one who had such a flaming hard-on for Krissa.

  He was not pleased to see Areau.

  “Who in the fuzzy name of Bimuit are you?” he snarled, and Areau’s voice was equally pissy.

  “Someone who lives here. What gives you the right to come pounding down this door in the middle of the day? What have the occupants of this house ever done to you?”

  That garnered a puzzled silence. “Why, nothin’ that I can factor. The lady of the house wot’s been real kind to me, if you take my meaning.”

  Taern could only imagine the icy arch to Areau’s eyebrows implied in his glacial “Indeed.”

  “Oh, right,” the lokogos said, seeming to recover himself. “Well, some order, that’s what. It’s come down from the Forum Masters, not like they knew what they were doing, but there’s some boy here, some page, that they wanted brought in. And I thought I’d ask the lady of the house if she could hand him over real friendly like.”

  Taern and Krissa met eyes then, horrified ones, and Taern realized Dorjan’s worst fears, the ones Taern honestly thought wouldn’t come to pass, were there, banging on their door with a grime-crusted fist and speaking with missing teeth.

  “Yes, well, even if the lady of the house were here, she’d tell you that no such boy lives here. If the Forum Master has a page, he must live somewhere else, and you’ll have to look for him there.”

  “Somewhere else, you say?” the lokogos asked eagerly, and Taern could imagine Areau’s irritated shrug.

  “Well, since he’s not here, I would imagine the only place he could be is somewhere else!”

  “Someplace in the stews, maybe? ’Cause we’ve got leave to search a brothel wot’s run by some freak with a cock and a dress. I’ve always wanted to see some bloke trying on a dress—think that would be right funny, it would be. So, could that be the place?”

  Taern thought urgently to himself, Please say no, please say no, please say no! But he should have known better. Areau might have accepted Taern and Krissa into his household and might even harbor some affection for them (well, maybe more than affection for Krissa), but there was no doubt about it: Areau’s scope of the world was too small to protect anyone outside his immediate circle. He signed Madame M’s death sentence without really knowing who she was or what he had done.

  “Right, sure, whatever. If I tell you that’s the place, then can you leave me alone to my studies? The Forum Master doesn’t employ me to talk to people who bother me for naught!”

  “Alright, alright—don’t get snippy! And don’t get too comfortable, either! The word’s come down, you know. Your man may not be so high an’ mighty come time soon.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “An, you know, should tha’ happen, you wouldn’t think the lady of the house, she’d fancy a bloke like me?”

  “I highly doubt it,” Areau snapped before slamming the door shut in the man’s face.

  Krissa and Taern stayed back behind the kitchen door, sweating in fear, until Areau’s harried tread echoed in the hallway to the kitchen.

  “He’s gone,” Areau muttered, “but I’m not sure for how long. Krissa, you and Mrs. Wrinkle need to pack and make your way to the train station—”

  “Dammit, Areau!” Taern muttered. “You can think about trains now, when you’ve just sicced those men on a friend of ours?”

  Areau blinked at him, at a loss. “Who?” he asked, legitimately puzzled.

  “Madame M!” Taern snapped. “The woman who gave us a fucking job and a place to sleep for years. What, did you think Dorjan just plucked us from the whore tree and dropped us at your dinner table?”

  Areau’s expression then actually twisted something in Taern’s heart. “Oh, dammit,” he muttered. “I was… I thought I was doing well!” He turned to Krissa. “I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry, my lady. I was trying to be Dorjan, I was! I thought I was protecting you!”

 
; To Taern’s disgust, Krissa moved into his arms and smoothed her palms across his cheeks, scars and all. “I know you did, Ari. You did really well. Taern and I,” she said significantly, looking over her shoulder at Taern, “haven’t spoken much of Madame M to you—we weren’t sure how accepting you would have been. You seemed to have a distressing prejudice against whores when we first arrived, you do recall?”

  Areau nodded, accepting her hands against his face. “I do,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But that doesn’t change that we need to get you all to the train station—”

  “Not me,” Taern said, forgiving Areau because he had no choice. “You may not have meant to cause any harm, but M doesn’t know what’s about to hit her. She’s got a couple of children there that she was going to send to safety here—we need to make sure they’re cared for, just like Alla and Evvy and that new boy, whoever he is.”

  “Who?” Areau asked, obviously puzzled, and Krissa gave a half laugh and patted his cheek.

  “Dearest, sometimes human beings really do need as much attention as all your strange fixings in that workshop of yours. Here—here’s what we’ll do. Taern, you’re right. Go to Madam M’s and get her safe.”

  “Send her to the keep—not Kyon’s Keep,” Areau said quickly, looking distressed. “There could be trouble there. But Dre’s keep, the one with your sisters there—send your friends there. They’ve been taking in Dorjan’s refugees and finding them places in the countryside to live since we’ve started this.”

  Taern nodded, understanding. “I can do that,” he said, fixing his helmet and blinking through the goggles. “I can do that. Then I’ll go wait for Dorjan at the entrance to the stews. He always comes that way—I can warn him, and we can make our way to the keep too.”