by Adam Corby
‘And do you know what stopped me?’ she asked. Her voice was bitter as the gall of a sacrificial bird.
‘I do. Do you?’
‘You have won, you have conquered, all are yours,’ she said. ‘I surrender. Let there be an end. The Empress nal Bordakasha who sought your downfall is no more. The spectators have sought their dimchambers, but I let the performers’ tent stand for your final act. Reveal yourself then and tell me what you want.’
‘But how can I remove my mask when you still wear yours?’ he said softly. He stepped forward and reached for her mask.
And she felt again that feeling that had seized her when, in thick of those on the upper galleries, she beheld him stand alone against the mob: a feeling of overbearing desire for him, who she knew now was the only man she could ever have, and the only man who could have her. Against that feeling she struggled desperately, her arms tense within the sleeves, her hand tight upon the jade handle of the dagger.
‘Ah, no,’ he whispered. ‘That is for you alone to remove.’
He caught her up in his arms. Taken unawares by the gesture, she pulled her arms free and caught his neck. He bore her out into the rain. Her gray cloak swept against his long legs as he walked. The rain streamed from his beard onto her breast. She felt the long hard lines of his veins beneath her palms, and knew he felt her nakedness through the wet linen.
He bore her into her tent. His boots kicked aside the empty wine-cups. Crossing to the raised dais, he gently seated her in the jeweled throne, the throne she had commanded brought up from the audience chamber. Then he stepped back and surveyed her.
‘I return you all titles, lands, cities, powers and peoples as hitherto,’ he stated. ‘From the mountains of Belknule to those of Bollakarvil and beyond, from the entrance of the Southern Way into Vapio to the broken walls of Postio, all men shall know your strength and call you Empress again. All your former realms and all the others that my tribesmen conquered in the South shall be yours to set your heel upon as prettily and as easily as you might set it on this prayer mat. So you will rule the greatest realm of any member of your line for the past six generations.’
She stiffened in the throne as if she had just been given the gravest insult. ‘And for all this that you grant me,’ she asked, ‘what am I to give?’
‘Yourself.’
She laughed, a harsh bitter laugh, angry and contemptuous. ‘And do you think now you can purchase me?’
‘Do it, Gold,’ he said, and for a moment she thought she heard almost despair in his voice. ‘Do it, or you will behold dreadful consequences of the deeds of this pass.’
‘Never. I will cast myself from the Palace roof first. Do you think I would ever consent to play your concubine for all the world to see?’
‘I did not ask as Ara-Karn,’ he said sadly. ‘So you see: all is not yet mine, and the Empress lives still. The war will go on, then.’
She threw herself forward on all fours, her body beneath the wet linen quivering. ‘You monster!’ she cried, as if her words might wound. ‘You are no man, but a devil sent here to torment me!’
He paced the tent restlessly. It was as though he had not heard. Caught against the brightness of the outer clouds, he was but a dark outline. She could scarcely make him out. His voice issued out of the outline.
‘Once, such words from your lips would have wounded me worse than lance-thrusts. Now … now they are wasted on a dead man.’
Something caught her eye then: it was his shadow. It moved strangely out of harmony with his own steps, as though it were the shadow of another man who walked beside him.
She leaned back, satisfied that her words had hit the mark, and smiled … what had taken place?
She had blinked, but it felt as though she had slept. It was as though an hour had slipped by. He no longer stood in the opening of the tent. The rains were pouring down across the roof and he was there leaning over her and she felt his hands upon her, roaming. And for one moment or two it felt to her as though she were still dreaming, and she wanted it like she wanted him in all the other shameful dreams she had had.
But though he stood still she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye that his shadow moved. It touched her own and crawled on top of it. Then she felt a thrill run down her spine to leave a sweet ache in the headwater of her sex. Fire flushed down her face and upper arms and breasts, and her mouth ran dry.
She should have protested. She should have stopped him but instead she stopped herself from stopping him. Let him go on, a voice welled up from deep within her, there is no one to see, no one will know what you do here … you are safe with him, you need not command but only obey, ease into his power and let him do what he does so well, as he did on the pass of Elnavis’ voyaging when you were so alone, as lonely as you are now … only he came to you then, as he comes to you now … as he will always come to you…
And something yielded within her. She let go, and let him go on.
His hands slipped between her breasts. He reached through her sleeve into the robes and drew out her arm. Her fist was a white knot clenched about the jade handle of his dagger. Why so angry, little one? she asked her fist. You make no sense.
He smiled the mocking maddening smile. He drew her hand down so that the knife-blade slipped beneath the linen sash that held her robes in place about her waist. Pulling her hand down in his, he made her cut through the sash.
Its two ends fell asunder.
She twisted but his fingers wrapped about her wrist and knuckles and he pulled her hand to his own waist. The knife-blade found the leather belt in his tunic and sliced through. It passed lower.
‘Oh yes,’ he murmured, and held her hand more firmly.
The needle-sharp point cut the lacing of his breeches, one turn at a time. His sex burst forth but she looked away from it. His eyes caught her gaze and she could not look away from those eyes.
‘And now the rest.’
She felt his hand push her fist and dagger towards her, between her legs. She would not look there – she would not. But she heard the whisper the black fabric made when the knife slashed through it, and she felt the coolness of the airs as they swept between her bared thighs.
‘Stop – stop it,’ she heard her voice say, half muffled through her teeth and the mask. But why do you say that, little voice? You tell only lies.
And he would not stop. Slowly he bore back upon her hand until her arm bent behind her and her wrist felt it would shatter – then all at once her fingers convulsed and opened and the dagger clattered on the roof-stones.
She shuddered, but he pressed down upon her with the length of his body. She felt his hands upon her knees pass up her thighs. She felt his hands upon her belly and her breasts and throat. She felt his hand slip into the very hollow between her thighs and linger there, and to her shame she knew he felt the dampness of her traitorous flesh.
He held her gaze and touched his fingers to his tongue. It was as if his eyes spoke to her and said, This taste I know. This taste I own. I can make you taste this way, whenever I desire.
His face bent down to within a finger’s breadth of the mask. His eyes filled the field of her sight.
‘Whenever I desire,’ he said, and entered her.
He raped her then, with long, slow, knowing strokes. He slid inside her to the root, then slid out all the way, then entered her again. She felt full, then empty; empty, then full. He knew every trick to make her body twitch and gasp. He played her body like a master aliset-player, and her body made for him the music she had longed for and feared and hated most of all because it came from him. When she cried out, he did not stop, but went on, altering his rhythm and speed, turning her back and forth, here and there where he wanted. She struggled no longer. She was his and knew it. She felt his seed loosed like a melting, and she bit into his shoulder to stifle a second outcry.
Only then did he let her go. He stood over her. The rain drew tears from his eyes, from the black depths where green flecks fired. He pulle
d the cloak around him, touched his brow to her, and left.
His boots scraped on the roof-stones. The door to the White Tower opened and shut.
She looked past the tent roof to the clouds and rain. She lay still upon the platform. She felt her breath shudder as it passed through her open mouth and filled her lungs. She lay back, her legs open to Heaven, and let the rains lave her there with cool small hands.
Something of herself, of her own will and heart, came back to her then. It felt as though a darkness had been lifted from her eyes and she could see again. But what she saw filled her with revulsion.
I am a whore, she thought. I am called a Queen and wear the robes of a priestess, but my body is a slut from the streets in the Thieves’ Quarter.
She felt tears in her eyes and the sky blurred. And then all she felt was the hope to hear the door open again, and his boots upon the roof stones coming back to her.
XIII
Blossoms
EMSHA WAS GLAD for the return of spring. She went out of the gloomy halls of the Palace, and the songs of the women working in the camps and the warmth of Goddess’ light made the old nurse happy in her heart. There were no more rebellions: they were at peace now in those hundreds of gaily-colored tents beneath the young sky. It had all been the Gerso’s doing – even Emsha had to admit it. He had overseen the allotment of the tents of the highborn among those Tarendahardilites who were most needy. He had delved the dusty storerooms to find what was needed to give shelter to all. While the last tents had been in the making, he had found shelter in the Hall of Justice. Now the people had emerged to drink in the blessings of the Lady, and that Hall, properly scrubbed, had been left vacant and silent once again.
Sections of the grounds had been dug and sown with the season’s first crops. Tasks had been meted out among those best able to fulfill them – to work in the fields, to see to the tents, to tend to the ill, and to go down with torches and long staves into the granaries to rid them of rats. Disputes were settled by the Gerso, who seemed to know every man and child of the encampment by name, province, and history. So by his grace routine had fallen on the Citadel of Elna and, save for the occasional rattle that reached them from the battlements, the last subjects of the Empire might scarcely have known they were yet besieged and at war.
Emsha smiled to hear the women’s songs. She too felt like singing, for her Allissál had emerged at last from the shadow. She ate better now, and no longer sat brooding in the chambers of the White Tower, but would venture forth to oversee the works and even sat beside the Gerso when he settled the disputes of the Tarendahardilites.
At the edge of the dark pines, that last remnant of the groves of the Imperial Gardens, Emsha found some wildflowers. The blossoms were yellow with black centers, the leaves marked with purple and covered on the underside with some sticky substance. Strangely, Emsha, who had known all the myriad flowers of the Imperial Gardens, did not know these. Doubtless they had been sown by some birds of passage. Still, they were pretty enough. Her tongue moved softly to an old nurse-song she knew, as she bent and picked some of the flowers for her mistress. She returned to the Palace to find a man sitting on the floor before the doors of the White Tower. It was Kuln-Holn.
‘Please, nurse,’ he said humbly, ‘will you come with me? There is a woman of the slaves about to give birth.’
‘That is a thing to happen any week,’ Emsha answered. ‘There are women of their own rank to see to them. Why then ask this of me? What is this woman?’
‘My wife.’
Emsha nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said.
They went below, into the cavernous smoky halls below the earth, where the lower slaves had their couches. There for several hours, out of Goddess and in dampness that did her bones little good, Emsha aided the birth. It was a birth hard enough, but no worse than many she had seen. The woman was young and rather fair, and held Kuln-Holn’s hands and showed courage, and at the end was delivered of a good-sized boy.
Tenderly Emsha tended to the babe and held it against her boson. She felt for it the deep-surging love she felt for all such. Then she held it for the mother to take.
‘No,’ Salizh whispered. She was pale and damp with sweat, but there was a light of triumph in her eyes. ‘Give him first to my husband.’
Kuln-Holn took the bundle hesitantly. There was awe in his face. He held up the tiny, delicate, mewling creature in his thick, coarse hands, and gazed into the half-closed eyes.
‘Name him, Kuln-Holn.’ Salizh sighed. ‘He is your son.’
‘But it’s Berrin’s child,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘You are my husband. He is our son.’
Kuln-Holn set the little burden upon his wife’s breast. Of a sudden his heart had grown too large for the ribs that girdled it. He wondered how many winters it had been, since his own wife had borne him a son and both had died? Ever since then, Kuln-Holn had been alone. His gaze wandered over the faces of the slaves gathered about them. He saw their happiness, and knew that it was for him. Through the person of his wife, Kuln-Holn was now one of them.
His eyes caught the gleam of metal in the storage-niche: it came from the guardsman’s armor that he had worn when he had wandered back from the burning city into the shelter of this Citadel. He had not dared do battle since: now he knew he could fight again, even against the warriors of his own tribe. His eyes returned to the little thing huddled on Salizh’s naked breast. A son—!
‘Well then,’ he said at last, ‘I will name him Bornin. It means “Flower” in my tongue.’
‘That was well-named,’ Emsha murmured. Again she took up the babe and looked to the mother. Then she rose and left them.
Emsha took another path to the upper stories. She had drawn her mantle over her head, and the many slaves gave way respectfully before the linens of the upper stories.
‘Woman! What is it you do here?’
Emsha stopped. The words had been uttered lowly and with menace. Half concealed by one of the pillars was the half-shaped form of some man.
‘It’s I who should be asking that,’ she answered sharply. ‘If you are here thieving, I will get the guards to give you a good beating.’
‘Be silent, old fool.’
The man stepped forth with a broken gait. Even in that gloom, the shabbiness and dirtiness of his robes was apparent. Something gleamed golden on his chest. Emsha knew him only by that pectoral as Dornan Ural, at one time the High Regent and the most powerful man in the world.
‘My lord, forgive me,’ she said. ‘I knew not who you were.’
‘Tell me than old woman, do you go above? In this light I cannot make you out – my eyes are bad – but your voice is known to me. What season of the year is it now? Is it summer yet?’
‘No, my lord. It is but spring.’
‘And aren’t the tax-rolls ready yet? – But no, they could not be: I haven’t seen them yet. Little is done but I must put my hand to it. – And how is it out there, eh?’
‘Well enough, my lord. They grow grain on the grounds, and the barbar—’
‘Be still! Not a word!’ The round, pale gray skull twisted away, then back. The dingy form of the once-High Regent drew itself up in the gloom. ‘I do not often go above,’ he said after a moment, in the formal tongue of court. ‘This place has all to serve my needs. Still, on occasion I have ascended to the Hall of Justice. I am all that remains of the Council now, you know. But the last time I went, I found the hall filled with folk from the lower quarters! It was a sleep, and they lay about there below the dais like the fallen dead! Fear of plagues took me, and I returned here, where it is safe, and easy to avoid the voices.’
He leaned against the pillar, and drew a hand across his face.
‘My lord,’ Emsha said, ‘the air and gloom of this place breed strange moods and sicknesses. Come up with me. The light of Goddess will do you good, I know, it was the same with majesty.’
He repulsed her with a suddenness that surprised her. ‘I know you now,’ h
e said, ‘you’re one of them. Did she send you here? – Or has Ampeánor come back, to offer me his noble regrets that he let my city fall?’
‘Come, my lord. I will see you safely to the tents of the wounded. The physicians will tend to you, and see that you are—’
‘—Betrayed again? – or merely laughed at, like some clown? Do the men on the Iron Gate need more amusements? They thought I did not know they mocked me, but I saw through them! Do even slaves now think it safe to taunt me? Begone and bear this saying to your dear majesty, if you dare: that there is one here who waits, who has forgotten no word or deed!’
‘I grieve for you, my lord.’ Emsha sought the upper levels and the light.
The old man watched her go.
Then he turned back to the gloom.
Dornan Ural wandered among the support-pillars of the main halls. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back and his head hunched low, grumbling to the shadows.
He had not expected to be honored while he was in office – had not expected the indolent, drunken, highborn to appreciate his efforts on their behalf. But he had hoped to be granted some small measure of respect after his retirement. Surely some little honor was due to him now. But no, not a word of thanks or praise did he receive, but only scornful jests. He had more in common with the barbarians than these noble charai and charanti. Should he then have looked for the Empress to offer him anything but hate and mockery? They had been enemies for centuries, her kind and his.
‘But I am proud,’ the old man whispered to the support-pillars, ‘proud to have been born of the race of slaves! Good, honest folk who worked hard for all they won. And yet, O Dornan Ural, was your father granted his freedom only so that his son should become a slave?’
The nobles deserved all they had suffered at the barbarian’s hands. But it was not right that Tarendahardil should have suffered for their sins. For that the blame must lie with the Empress and her beloved, Ampeánor of Rukor. He had forsaken them and brought on the destruction of the city. Many times Dornan Ural had foretold it: Ampeánor would return to this place, and face the penalty for his desertion.
