by G. Howell
I set the charcoal down. “Your... Rris... unspoken meanings are different from my kinds. I find them confusing sometimes. The way you were looking at me... Among my kind that sort of watching has... different sexual meanings. Especially between male and female. I don’t know what it means for Rris. “
“You might have asked.”
“I did,” I sighed. “I think someone might have had a little fun at my expense.”
“Really?” she said, thoughtfully. “So, what would your answer be?”
“My answer?”
“If I were to sexually proposition you?” she said, looking absolutely serious.
I grabbed for words, feeling off-balance. I’d a feeling that I’d been manipulated, but I wasn’t exactly sure how. “I think I would be flattered, but I would have to decline.”
“You don’t find me attractive?”
I almost laughed. “Ma’am, I’m not going to play that game. I rather think I should ask you if you find me attractive. I know I’m not exactly the picture of the ideal male. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not even Rris.”
Her ladyship’s face pursed in amusement. “You have other worthy attributes,” she said, studying the portrait on the easel. “I think others have seen something in you. I know the teacher does.”
The sketch mirrored the features of the Rris queen in black and white, with that calm smile I just didn’t understand. I replaced the charcoal in its tray and took up a cloth, wiping the carbon dust off my fingertips. She watched the action and looked up again when I asked, “Ma’am, may I ask you a question? About... her and I?”
“By all means.”
I fidgeted. “Does it reflect badly on her? Our relationship?”
“Badly? In what way?”
The way she was taking this... just so calm and matter-of-fact. Christ, if this had happened back home, if our positions had been reversed, there wouldn’t be a tabloid or legitimate paper not milking the scandal for all it was worth. “She’s living with me. A... something non-Rris. It’s not usual. It’s not normal. There must be scandal, rumors, those who think it’s wrong.”
“Doubtless,” she conceded. “I heard there were some circumstances involving her arrival. You’re holding her forcibly? Against her will?”
I stared, then shook my head again. “No. No… at least I don’t think so. There was a situation. She didn’t come to Shattered Water entirely of her own will. That was resolved, I think. She’s quite free to do whatever she wishes.” I’d made that clear to Chihirae as well as my erstwhile hosts.
The Rris queen’s tail twitched and she waved a hand, tipping it in a Rris shrug. “Then I’d leave her to decide her own path. If she is choosing to stay, then there is something worth staying for. As for others’ opinions... do you really want to live your life dictated by the likes and dislikes of individuals you don’t know?”
“That’s an interesting perspective coming from a political figure,” I smiled and gave my own shrug. “But what about her? Is it going to hurt her? I mean... for instance, what do you think about us?”
“Hai,” she flicked her ears and very deliberately looked me up and down. “Myself? Personally, I find it quite amusing.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Amusing?”
“Oh yes, quite,” she chittered. “Mikah, that’s how most people will feel. The speculation is entertaining. Outside of spring males won’t have any interest beyond academic or amusement. Females... well, she’s staying of her own will, so there’s something she likes. Are those plays really indicative of why?”
So, she’d seen them. She was teasing me, I knew that. “They’re... imaginative. Overly so.”
“Ah, pity,” she studied me again. “You would really say no to me?”
“With respect, Ma’am.”
“Ah, that’s all right then,” she stepped back to look at the portrait again, cocking her head from one side to the other with those quick, precise, almost birdlike movements. “Gentle, polite, loyal, quite entertaining and with unexpected talents. I believe that explains a lot about her choice of partner.”
I stared. ‘That female’ had been hauled away from her home and her life with no say in the matter, taken halfway across the known world, then kidnapped and tortured. She’d been dragged into something she’d never asked for nor deserved. I didn’t know why she’d decided to stay.
“You think so?” I asked.
“You can think of another reason?” she said and then her ears pricked up and she glanced at me, a calculating look. “You think perhaps your hosts may have influenced her decision?”
That was unexpected. She’d picked up on that already? “I’ve always thought that was... more likely.”
“Huhn,” the sound was a breathy exhalation. The Lady’s eyes were back on the sketch. “Ah Chihiski denies it.”
“You’ve actually asked him?”
“He seemed genuinely confused by it all as well. I took that to mean he was sincere. Is this completed?” she gestured at the portrait.
“No, I’ve still got some detail to finish,” I said, surprised at my own calmness. Was she telling me the truth? Why would she lie? She’d have more to gain by telling me he had orchestrated something. “So she’s choosing to stay with me?”
“It would look that way.” Her gaze traveled past the easel, up to the windows and the pale gauze curtains wafting in the late afternoon breeze, the lowering sun an unbearable brilliance on the westward horizon. That light haloed her, highlighting her fur in an outline of white gold as she twitched her ears and said, “It’s a cunning little game you’re playing.”
I tried to relate that statement to our conversation and failed. “What?”
“So many unknowns about you; so many rumors and stories.” She said, almost purred, and an amber eye flashed in the afternoon light. “Stories about bedding with you, about some mysterious differences. Tantalizing glimpses of what you can offer, yet you tie yourself to one woman.” There was a glimpse of teeth, just a wink of white. “You know what an exotic hunt that makes you, don’t you. The sweetest meat is hardest won, as they say.”
I stared. “You... you think that’s deliberate?!”
Lady H’risnth aesh Esrisa stared back at me, utterly solemn, then that composure fractured into another chitter of amusement at my expense. “Mikah, what I think is that you’re right: You really can’t hear the unspoken very well.”
I didn’t understand.
“You really were concerned Hirht had something to do with the teacher’s affection for you. That is quite endearing, in a naive sort of way,” she smiled in an amused sort of way.
She’d been screwing with me. And I hadn’t been able to read that, hadn’t been able to tell at all. Two years was not enough time to learn all the subtle communications nuances of an alien species.
I grinned.
She recoiled backwards, her amber eyes going wide and all that composed amusement vanishing. “You’re angry?”
“Amused,” I corrected, being very careful not to make any more moves she might consider threatening. “That was a smile. It works both ways, a?”
She exhaled, slowly, and reached up to smooth the fur on cheeks and neck that’d stood itself on end. For a few seconds she watched me. “That’s a dangerous way of making your point.”
“Apologies,” I said. “It made it though, didn’t it.”
“A, that it did,” she replied, then looked down at her hand and quickly lowered it, clenching it. “You go through this kind of thing a lot, don’t you.”
I waved the Rris gesture that was similar to a nod: almost automatic to me by then. “It makes life interesting.”
“I imagine it would,” she hissed softly, her ears twitching back for a second. “That’s caused you some trouble before.”
&n
bsp; “I’m getting better at it,” I said. “I don’t make that smiling mistake anymore. Much. And – despite all evidence to the contrary - I am getting better at understanding Rris. They tend to misunderstand me, though.” I shrugged and looked back at the paper on the easel, then at the windows. Outside, the sun was getting lower. Still late afternoon, but the shadows were definitely getting long. “Perhaps I should finish this now, while there’s still light.”
“I thought it was looking very impressive.”
“There’re still a couple of bits I’d like to...”
“Sah!,” she hissed dismissively and raked a hand toward the picture. “Just like any normal artist: never satisfied with perfection. Now,” she fixed me with glittering eyes and licked her chops, “I would love to see more of those marvelous moving images you have.”
Who am I to argue with a queen?
------v------
We spent the remainder of that afternoon out on the terrace. The view was spectacular. Late sun bathed the world: the estate grounds, the hillside, the lands beyond stretching away to distant-hazed hills in gold and shadows. Beside me, the queen sat on one of a pair of white leather cushions as we watched movies on the laptop placed on the marble tabletop. Ancient black and white comedies with a little tramp amused her, more modern productions with glamour and pace and complex action and love scenes bemused her.
I spent time trying to explain things to her, offering her a somewhat distorted view of my world through that little sixteen inch window. While the Lady H’risnth was quite animated during those lighter films, she seemed quite subdued during the more recent ones.
“It’s something to hear your people are more... knowledgeable,” she murmured. “It’s something else again to witness it.”
Onscreen, Keanu Reeves said, “Whoa.”
The sun set. Servants lit lamps along the terrace’s balustrade. Oil lamps – the residence didn’t have a coal gas supply yet. Gradually, the salmon tint on the horizon faded to reds, to blues and then to velvet. I wondered if the Rris could see the colors in those final moments of light. However, her ladyship was oblivious to that side of the world. Her attention, along with that of more than a few buzzing and flitting insects, was focused on the small rectangle of flickering artificial light.
Time slipped by unnoticed. It was the batteries, or lack of, that curtailed her viewing pleasure. Lithium polymers were an improvement over older technology, and solid-state storage really dropped power requirements, but they still had their limits. Try explaining that to a regal alien feline who had no concept of batteries or even electricity.
“I’ll have to see the rest of that some other time,” she sighed and stretched. “For the better, perhaps. That seems to steal time, does it not? I was entirely forgetting evening meal. Of course you’ll join me?”
It wasn’t really a question.
I didn’t see myself making it back to town that night. The sun was gone and traveling country roads in the dark wasn’t altogether safe. So her highness offered me accommodation for the night. Again, the suite was… extravagant. There was an enormous bedroom, an ensuite washroom glittering with pale tile and polished metal fixtures, a dressing room, reception area and drawing room. The subjects of some of the portraits on the walls looked vaguely familiar, but with only an hour until dinner, there wasn’t time for another prolonged art appreciation session. There was time for a quick wash though, getting the worst of the day’s dusty ride cleaned off, and when I emerged into the dressing room it was to find a change of clothes had been laid out for me: A pair of loose fitting subdued dark gray trousers and green tunic. They were comfortable, cool and they fit.
Thri’mir, the steward, appeared to escort me down for dinner. The main dinning room was an imposing space, with an equally oversized table as the centerpiece. That table looked to be carved from a single huge piece of wood, polished to accentuate the grain, and big enough that halfway lines wouldn’t have been out of place. The whole room was intended to be impressive and overpowering. Thankfully, we didn’t eat in there.
Her Ladyship had her own dining room. It was a far less formal, more personal affair. Just a more conventionally-sized table that didn’t have its own time zones, some comfortable cushions and lights. Bay windows were open to the warm night, gauze curtains keeping insects at bay. Servants quietly brought dishes, efficiently laying out platters and removing old ones as we ate. Someone had really done their homework on what I found palatable: rich venison and black bean stew with a strong undertone of wine, side dishes of salmon, smoked turkey, chunks of sweet potatoes, buffalo steaks actually well done, tomatoes and corn. Heavy on the meat while the vegetables had the feeling of a garnish, but that was only to be expected in a Rris meal.
Afterwards she sat back and lit a pipe, contentedly puffing it to life in a cloud of sweet smoke. I declined her offer to partake. To Rris, cannabis is a recreational drug on the same order that tobacco used to be to humans, but I didn’t need to get high there and then. The last time it’d happened... It was some time ago, but apparently I’d said some very impolitic things. As it was, the smoke from her pipe seemed quite thick enough.
Conversation was the same old same old. At least for me it was. The times I’d met with the Lady in the past had been either at formal affairs or in situations otherwise surrounded by other Rris distracting and vying for my attention. That night she had me to herself along with the opportunity to ask me all the questions she wanted to. So she did. Even if they tended to be a lot like the ones I’d answered dozens of times before, the whole atmosphere was laid back enough that it wasn’t exactly unpleasant. Or perhaps it was the hash in the air.
That might have been the reason that when I returned to my room, hours later, I was feeling exhausted. Actually woozy. It had been a long day, long enough that I just remember laying back on cool sheets and was distantly aware of the frescoed ceiling, sound of distant wind, Rris voices and...
Odd dreams. More voices. Shadowy Rris looming over me, touching, murmuring. I remember thinking I should wake up, but my eyes closed again.
------v------
Neither Chaeitch nor Rraerch were too pleased with my unscheduled overnight visit. Apparently, my itinerary had allowed for me to spend the day at the residence and be back that evening, ready for an early start the next morning. My delayed departure had thrown a spanner into that schedule, setting it back by half a day.
I’d woken that morning with something that felt like a mild hangover. That’d faded over an early breakfast. After that, while the sun was still low, her Ladyship and I returned to Open Fields. I wasn’t part of the meetings she had with my escorts from Shattered Water, but whatever transpired seemed to mollify them. Hell, she was the client, and if the client wanted to change the schedule at her own expense, then so be it.
So it was after midday before we got out to our first appointment. Originally, there’d been three tours of selected institutions about town scheduled for that day, but one would have to be postponed. In fact, in order to make the others on time, my briefing was given in the carriage on the way to our first meeting. Chaeitch sat opposite, telling me names and produce and volumes. A food storage warehouse. Fascinating.
The town was bustling. Our carriages took us along the outskirts of a square where a market had sprung to life. Caravans and stalls and tents and awnings and marquees of all descriptions filled the place. Clouds of cooking smoke rose from inside the maze of tents where furry bodies bustled about their business. An overwhelming medley of smells and noises assaulted the senses through the wooden fretwork grill of the window. A dealer with a makeshift coral of llamas shouted at his neighbor; cubs chased one another among the legs of their elders; hawkers carried samples of food and trinkets; a quad of black-clad mediators on elk back lurked in the background, looking our way as we passed; a gaudy green and gold striped wagon with a troupe of actors perfor
ming some skit for a raucous audience...
“...listening?!”
“Huh?” I looked over at Chaeitch sitting opposite. He was staring back at me over pages of notes in his hands, his ears down.
“You weren’t, were you,” he hissed, exasperated, and let the sheaves of paper notes fall to his lap. “Rot, this is important.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He sighed and leafed quickly through the pages. “Hai, I suppose this is just biting on rock, isn’t it. Expecting you to absorb this at this stage...” he laid the pages aside. “Ah, well. Did you enjoy yourself last night?”
“A,” I smiled out at the sunny day. “I did. Nice place she’s got there.”
“You saw the Rei collection?”
“A.”
“And added to it, I hear.”
I almost laughed. “I wouldn’t put myself in that league.”
“You sell yourself short,” he chittered back. “Just the uniqueness factor alone will place anything by you in collections like that.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“And the sex was good?” his jaw dropped, his pink tongue lolling.
I eyed him. “Nothing happened.”
“With your reputation...”
“Nothing happened,” I repeated and then frowned. “She... ventured, I think. And I declined...I think.”
“You?” His ears flicked. “Anytime, anywhere ape? Declined sex?”
“It’s spring, isn’t it?” I mused. “Shouldn’t you be running around rutting anything that moves?”
“And deny you the opportunity?” Chaeitch chittered. “Ah, well. You didn’t like her?”
“Don’t you start,” I sighed.
“You didn’t?”
I’d been through that before, that was what I meant. “Very nice female,” I explained, “but I think it’d cause more problems than I need at the moment.”
