by Rachel White
"As am I."
"They plant bombs and attack legionnaires because they don't want Jev to rule Adesa. If our situations were reversed, would Suul Thrun be happily submitting to Adesi rule?"
"I doubt it," Lieutenant Taarq agreed, giving Rallis a tired half-smile. "But he doesn't see it that way, and it's going to be dangerous if he gets too much support. The attempt is still in its very early stages. Nothing has even been drafted yet. Right now there's not much to be done except wait and see what happens."
The bayar servant returned to take their meal orders, but Rallis's appetite was gone. He got something cheap and light and picked at it over the next hour. Though the conversation moved on to other things, the atmosphere between them stayed grim. It was hard to banter back and forth when the threat of the quartering act still hung over their heads.
On the street after they paid, Lieutenant Taarq sighed. "That wasn't really how I intended the evening to go," he said lightly. "It's my fault for ruining the mood so early on. I shouldn't have brought up the subject."
"No, it's—it's good you did. I need to know about it."
"Yes." Lieutenant Taarq's eyes raked over his face. He seemed to be weighing something. After a moment, he said, "Well, would you like to come back to my flat? We can play khas, if you like…?"
"All right." In truth, Rallis was tired, but Lieutenant Taarq obviously wanted to make up for the evening so far. "You don't want to go back to the garrison?"
"I'd rather not. I'm also behind on my paperwork, and if I go back, Captain Durranqen is going to lock me in my office," said Lieutenant Taarq honestly, making Rallis laugh despite everything.
"Then lead the way," he said, and followed Lieutenant Taarq down the street.
*~*~*
Lieutenant Taarq's flat was close to the north garrison, in a sleepy little neighborhood full of squat buildings divided into apartments like honeycombs in a beehive. Rallis followed him up a dark stairwell to the third-floor landing, waiting awkwardly against the wall as Lieutenant Taarq produced a small key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
"After you," said Lieutenant Taarq, giving him a playful half-bow. Rallis rolled his eyes but obediently went inside.
The flat was dim and small, the front room probably half the size of the sleeping chamber at the motherhouse. A low couch against one wall and a scratched table sitting in the middle of an Adesi-style rug took up most of the space. It felt very much like the dwellings of a young officer: everything clean and orderly, all straight lines and sharp angles. Across the room, a dark doorway led to what Rallis assumed was the sleeping chamber, and a closed door to the right might have been a closet or a washroom. There was no kitchen in sight, which meant there was probably a shared one somewhere in the building. Two pairs of boots rested against the closest wall, one pair neatly lined up and the other lying in a pile.
Lieutenant Taarq switched on a small lamp, bathing the room in a pleasant yellow glow. "It's not very big." He sounded apologetic, and Rallis wondered if he had looked contemptuous. He didn't feel contemptuous—it was much smaller than the motherhouse, but it seemed so still and peaceful.
"It's nice. Do you live alone?"
"I share it with another officer." As Rallis shed his coat and removed his shoes, Lieutenant Taarq slipped off his own shoes, then crossed to the far side of the room and drew back the shutters. A cool night breeze wafted through the small window. "Lieutenant Harn, actually. But he's not here this evening."
Thank Nur. Rallis had no idea what he would say to Lieutenant Harn if they met again. I'm sorry for my cousin? I'm not sorry for my cousin?
"Please, sit down." Lieutenant Taarq indicated the couch. Rallis did, watching Lieutenant Taarq rummage through a small cabinet. After a moment, he made a triumphant sound and stood again. In his hand was an unmistakable emerald-green bottle of vekk.
"Do you want something to drink?" he asked, bringing it to the couch. When Rallis nodded, he said, "I'll find us cups."
The cups turned out to be chipped ceramic teacups, two out of what Rallis assumed was a set. Old-fashioned and delicate, painted with swirling ivy and pale pink flowers, it seemed wrong—even disrespectful—to use them for vekk, but Lieutenant Taarq poured away without concern. "They're Nasir's," he said cheerfully as he filled Rallis's frail little cup. He grinned. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
Rallis lifted the cup carefully; half-sure the handle would snap off in his fingers. "What if I break one?"
"He's already broken three."
That, Rallis supposed, was that. He swallowed a mouthful of vekk, wincing at the taste. "It's strong."
"It was a gift." Lieutenant Taarq was kneeling on a cushion across the table. He didn't seem inclined to join Rallis on the couch, and Rallis wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. "It was my birthday last month. Some friends bought it for me."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-eight, now."
Jevites celebrated their birthdays. Rallis found the idea strange. It wasn't as though you did anything of note by being born, after all—there was little reason to make an annual production of it. The closest the Adesi came was celebrating the founding of their Houses, and that was more of a celebration of the family as a whole, heritage and ancestors, not a single individual.
"Congratulations," said Rallis.
Lieutenant Taarq laughed. "A little late," he said lightly, "but thank you. More?"
The second mouthful of vekk went down more easily than the first, and the mouthfuls that followed were easier still. Lieutenant Taarq was as good a drinking companion as he was a khas opponent: the vekk made him languid and amicable, quick to laugh, transforming his nervous energy into a good humor that bordered on giddiness. Though alcohol sometimes turned Rallis melancholy, vekk, as it turned out, mostly put him to sleep.
He had only meant to drink a little, enough to be sociable, but between them, they finished the bottle. Sometime later, Rallis found himself lying on the floor, head whirling, listening to the temple bells sound the time. Twenty peals. He was stuck outside the motherhouse until morning.
"Is there a place to stay around here?" he asked, making himself lift his head to look at Lieutenant Taarq, who was lounging against the low table, looking quite disreputable. His Adesi-style shirt had become unlaced at the collar and Rallis could see a triangle of dark skin beneath the gap in the cloth, the sharp edge of Lieutenant Taarq's collarbone. It kept catching his eye.
Lieutenant Taarq slid towards the floor. He had drunk as much as Rallis, and his tolerance seemed only a little better. "What do you mean?"
"To stay." Rallis waved his hand in the air. The ceiling spun wildly in front of his eyes. He felt as though he were on the surface of an enormous top launched by an unimaginably large hand. "To sleep. I can't go back to the motherhouse. They've locked the gate."
"You're welcome to stay here." With a heavy sound, Lieutenant Taarq completed his journey to the floor. He stretched out beside Rallis like a great cat. "I don't mind."
"I can go somewhere else."
"It's all family homes and officers' housing around here. The nearest inn is a mile away."
No power on Lyr could compel Rallis to walk a mile. "I'll sleep here then," he muttered, covering his eyes with his arm. "I appreciate it."
"Of course."
They lay beside each other in silence for a while. The heat from Lieutenant Taarq's body crossed the distance between them, and the steady sound of his quiet breathing lulled Rallis into a trance. Lieutenant Taarq smelled good too—the same scent Rallis kept noticing when they played khas, faint cologne mixed with the warm, clean smell of his skin.
"Did you fight in the war?" he asked, too tired to think better of the question before he spoke. He had been wondering it for a while. Lieutenant Taarq was familiar with Adesa, spoke the language easily, knew most of the customs. It was only reasonable to assume he had been on-ground longer than six months.
There was a pause. "Yes," said Lieutenan
t Taarq.
"Did you kill Adesi?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
He felt Lieutenant Taarq's gaze on him, though he was still covering his own eyes. "Three," said Lieutenant Taarq, after another long moment. He didn't sound upset or angry, only cautious. They knew each other well enough, Rallis supposed, for him to realize that there was no ill intent in Rallis's words, but he didn't understand where the conversation came from.
Rallis didn't, either. Before he spoke, his thoughts had been all over the place, jumping from Naravi to the quartering act to the image of Lieutenant Taarq out of uniform, so different than his normal appearance. The question must have formed in some strange recess of his mind that he didn't even know about, seizing control of his tongue before he could stop it.
"I didn't fight in the war," he said softly. "I could have. Hesse wanted me to. But…I didn't."
"You're not a soldier. There's no reason for you to."
"None of them were soldiers." Them. Us, perhaps? "Hesse wasn't."
"I'm sorry about your cousin." Lieutenant Taarq sighed. "If I had known that Nasir—"
Rallis forced his eyes open. "You couldn't have known," he told Lieutenant Taarq, too drunk to navigate the conversation. "And there was nothing you could have done."
"I hope I'm not imposing too much on you," said Lieutenant Taarq softly. "I hadn't realized how much your family had been hurt by Jev. I mean, I knew that…"
The massacre. "We were."
"If I'm causing you distress…"
"You're not."
"What of your cousins?"
"What of them?"
"What do they think?"
Rallis sighed. "I don't know. They don't like it. But…I'm not them." Sudden resentment rose in his chest, hot and cloying as molten metal. He wasn't them. Of course he didn't wholeheartedly support Adesa—Adesa didn't wholeheartedly support him. It wasn't fair that they expected him to behave like a good little Adesi when all he got in return was dismissal and scorn. "I often disagree with them. This is one of those times."
"What do you mean?"
The sentence escaped his lips before he could stop it. "A part of me was glad that Jev won," Rallis whispered.
It was the first time he had ever said the words aloud. Naravi, hearing them, would have gone mad with rage, and even Miana would have been deeply disappointed. But Lieutenant Taarq just looked at him steadily, with no judgment, good or bad.
Rallis stared up at the ceiling, following the swirling patterns in the wood. "Not all of me. I was upset, of course. And scared. Jev is warlike and can be violent and many of your people are dangerous. That's all true. But… Perhaps it's because I'm half-blooded, but I think there are some very bad parts of Adesa."
"I don't see how that has anything to do with you being half-blooded," Lieutenant Taarq pointed out. "You're not loyal by default to Jev simply because that was where your father was from."
"That's not what I mean. Miana is Head of House Yy, and Naravi is Hand. They're both perfect Adesi. They look it and their roles support it. I'm obviously not pure-blooded."
He looked at himself, at his hands, which were larger than most Adesi hands, his fingers long and narrow. Compared to Miana, who was all compact grace, or slim, languid Naravi, Rallis was taller and longer-limbed, clumsier, more poorly put together. His coloring leaned Jevite. His face, too, reflected the uncomfortable mingling of two kinds of blood: he had his mother's high cheeks and straight dark brow, but his father's proud nose, his narrow, tilted eyes, his thin mouth. He was composed of individual parts, stuck together haphazardly by the hand of fate, none of the pieces fitting with one another.
"So I see another side of Adesa," he finished. "It's a good place to be if you're in one of the Houses, even as a branch member, but for someone like me, who doesn't really fit in, it's…harder. And my life is still better than most of the Adesi-ren."
"Ah." Lieutenant Taarq leaned back as well. In the quiet of the room, Rallis could hear the slow patterns of his breathing. "How is it better?"
"Even if I look strange, I'm still part of a House," Rallis said. "My name is Yy. My mother's marriage was legitimate, and my cousins respect me. That's better than any Adesi-ren can say. I'm not beholden to a contract that dictates who I work for or the terms I have to obey. But I'm half-blooded. I'm closer to being an Adesi-ren than most Adesi and I know better than most of them how terrible it feels to be limited in what you can do by your birth or your heritage. It's—it's infuriating."
"I see," said Lieutenant Taarq softly.
"If you're not part of a House, you're nothing. You mean nothing. You have no voice at all. Miana is considered kind because she gives House Yy servants a say in their fates. She asks their opinions before trading them to other Houses and lets them negotiate their own damned contracts. She's considered radical for it." She was considered radical for her treatment of Rallis, as well—not just the grudging tolerance that his aunt had displayed, but full acceptance into the family. He may have been Yy, but he wasn't Adesi. Most Houses would have hidden him away. No: most Houses would have expelled him ves vosye.
"When my father told me Jev had no castes, I couldn't even imagine it. What did you do for servants? Who took care of all the work that no one wanted to do? It seemed impossible."
Lieutenant Taarq nodded.
"Even during the war," Rallis continued, "I couldn't help wondering if perhaps this was what we needed as a people. Someone to come in and—and fix us. Perhaps we could get rid of the Adesi and the Adesi-ren. Nur knows the Houses will never do it on their own. They'll hold onto those traditions until the sun goes out." The words were pouring from his lips, brought on by the vekk and by months and months of keeping silent. "If anyone heard me say that, they would consider me a traitor. And perhaps I am."
"You're not a traitor." Lieutenant Taarq rolled onto his side and looked at Rallis for a long time with his pale eyes. If every Jevite were like him, Rallis would have embraced the conquest wholeheartedly. A world with Lieutenant Taarq in charge would have no castes. "We're not perfect either. You're right—we're warlike and violent. We conquer our neighbors. We treat women poorly. As for who serves…we may not have castes or contracts, but we have poor, desperate people willing to take any work. It's no paradise. We did terrible things in the war." Then, more quietly, "We're still doing terrible things."
Rallis rubbed his temple, trying without success to stave off the headache pounding against his skull. "I know." And wasn't there a bitter irony in the memories of his traitorous hope for Jev's potential salvation when faced with its all-too-real oppression. His past self had paid the price for optimism.
"Are you still glad Jev won?"
What an ugly question. "I don't know," Rallis admitted. "I don't feel glad now. Whatever that means."
They lay in silence again. The room was still and the air heavy, blanketing Rallis in a warm embrace. He brushed his hair back from his damp forehead. Beside him, Lieutenant Taarq seemed remarkably unaffected by the heat. He wasn't sweating, even though he dressed the same as Rallis. No, worse: he was still wearing his gloves.
"Are you going to take them off?" Rallis asked, indicating them.
"Hmm? Ah, no," said Lieutenant Taarq hastily. "It's…it wouldn't be appropriate."
"Why not?"
Some of Lieutenant Taarq's anxious energy was coming back. He laughed faintly, not quite meeting Rallis's eyes. "In Jevite society…it's just not appropriate to take your gloves off in public. It's not done. Most Jevites don't remove their gloves except when they're alone with their spouse. It's a sign of absolute trust and affection."
"Do you wear gloves at all times?"
Lieutenant Taarq held up his hand and inspected his glove. "Not all the time," he said eventually. "I take them off when I'm alone. But around others…yes."
"How long have you worn them?"
"You start wearing gloves when you come of age at thirteen. There's a ceremony that children go through. It represe
nts a first step into adulthood."
Rallis raised his own hand, taking in his bony fingers, his blunt nails and scuffed knuckles and the lines in his skin. There was a disconcerting rawness to the sight compared to Lieutenant Taarq's white silk. Suddenly, he thought he could understand a little better why Jevites preferred to keep their hands covered.
"You've never taken them off around another person since you were thirteen?"
"Never."
"What about when you go to bed with someone?" Rallis asked, and then flushed intensely as his words hit him. Nur's heart, he was too drunk. His tongue was acting on its own.
Lieutenant Taarq's chest hitched. After a moment, he said, in a queer voice, "Not even then."
Well, it was too late to avoid the conversation, and Rallis did want to know. "But if you're tumbling someone…isn't that enough?"
"It's not enough. Removing our gloves…it's hard to explain how intimate that is. It's far more intimate than bedding someone."
"Does it make you uncomfortable to have my hands uncovered?" Rallis asked.
Lieutenant Taarq gave a breathy laugh. "Somewhat," he admitted. "Not…you in particular. Adesi in general. That's one of the things I think we have the most trouble adapting to when we arrive. It took me ages to even look at others' hands."
"Do you want me to wear gloves when we play khas?"
"No. It's good for me this way. I need to get used to it."
"Jev is a strange place," Rallis told him, and he laughed again, more sincerely.
"Adesa is just as strange, believe me. Now, perhaps we should go to bed. It's getting late and we both have things to do in the morning."
He pushed himself to his feet with surprising grace and agility for a drunken man, holding out a hand to pull Rallis up. Rallis accepted the offer, noting the smoothness of the glove against his skin. Upright, he found that his legs would hold him—he hadn't been entirely sure—though his head still felt like someone had hit it with a mallet.
"Where should I sleep?" he asked. "On the couch?"
"Ah, no, you're welcome to the bed. I'll sleep on the couch."
