by Jean Johnson
The two men in the purple-edged robes of the palace staff eyed each other, then unctuously flowed into action. One fetched a pitcher and a fresh glass from the cart, the other plucked her juice-filled cup from the table. Within seconds, she had a crystal goblet bearing fresh white liquid in its place.
Gabria bit her tongue to keep from laughing at the absurdity of it. And it didn’t help that from the gleam of humor in his brown eyes, Devin was also struggling against the urge to laugh. Still, they meant well, and she did like milk. Nodding her head politely, she said, “Thank you. I’m sure it will taste lovely.”
A glance at Souder found him smiling, a rather odd reaction to her tirade. Not that she went off on a tirade very often, but this was such a strange culture, and her presence in it still such a shock, the only thing she could think to do about it was establish certain boundaries. If nothing else, for her own comfort while she adjusted to all these changes in her life.
“What would you like to do today?” Devin asked her before the Master of the Royal Retreat could speak.
“Well ... I wouldn’t mind exploring the palace,” Gabria admitted. “All the carvings and the inlay work, and the paintings ... they’re incredibly beautiful. And I wouldn’t mind seeing the gardens, and maybe some of the countryside, too.” She glanced at Souder, who was back to looking like he didn’t enjoy having his schedule disrupted. “Though that lunch on the beach does sound lovely.”
“Then we’ll explore the countryside, have lunch on the beach, then retire to roam through the shade of the palace as the afternoon heat rises,” Devin stated, picking up his utensils. “Souder, please instruct Captain Ellett to prepare an escort, and the stables to ready my horse—do you ride?”
Gabria lifted her brows. “A real horse? No. I never learned. The only kind I know how to ride is a motorhorse, but I doubt you have any of those here.”
“Then you’ll ride with me. Behind me,” he added, looking briefly but pointedly at the flowers in her hair. He started to cut into his food, then eyed her in curiosity. “... What exactly is a ‘motorhorse’ anyway?”
Chuckling, Gabria sipped from her goblet of milk—which was indeed tasty—and launched into an enthusiastic, if simplified, explanation of Guildaran-style transportation.
“I really am sorry about that,” Devin apologized for what had to be the fourth time. He followed her into the dressing room of their suite. “It was just supposed to be a simple dinner with my brother and his family, but these pirates keep attacking our ships, and ...”
“It’s alright, truly,” Gabria reassured him, smiling wryly. She twisted around and started unknotting the sash holding the open folds of her floor-length jackets in place. “I do understand. My best friend is the Consul-in-Chief, back home. We’ve had more than one meal interrupted by kingdom business. And I can’t blame your ... what did you call her? Her title?”
“Admiral, and it’s a rank. Like Captain, only higher, and pertaining to the sea instead of the land,” Devin explained, seating himself on the silk-padded bench in the center of the dressing room. Servants entered the room, trailing in their wake.
“I can’t blame your Admiral Arrevi for wanting some sort of prognostication on how to deal with them in the near future—no, thank you,” Gabria added as the maidservants started to remove her sash for her. “No, thank you,” she repeated as they pulled on the sash anyway. “I am quite capable of undressing myself—you can fold my things up neatly, if you must have something to do. I can tell you have some special sort of way for folding all these lovely clothes, and I haven’t a clue where to begin. Devin, you say these pirates are mostly based in some city among the islands?”
“Jetta Freeport, on the largest of the Jenodan Isles. It’s a fortified city, but a barbaric one—they’ve refused to be claimed by any of the kingdoms surrounding the sea, yet they also refuse to turn civilized and gain a Patron Deity,” he told her, standing so that his menservants could remove a few layers of his own sashed garments.
“I’m not ready to retire yet,” Gabria murmured. “Could I have a riding jacket to wear, like the short one I wore earlier?”
“It’s called an eta, Highness,” one of the maids replied, giving her a soft smile. “The long-coat is an etama, the long-coat with the sash of nobility is an etamana. The eta ... it is a commoner garment. It is only worn by the nobility for riding because the long hemline is awkward for riding, and the longer sleeves can sometimes startle the horses.”
“Well, then that will suit me just fine.” She waited for an eta to be fetched from the shelves, since while her corset and trousers were decent enough, there were other men in the room, still.
The woman blinked, her smile faltering. “But ... you are a princess. You must appear as your station requires.”
After a lengthy afternoon tour of the palace, replete with impromptu history lessons, Gabria was beginning to learn that visual presentation was important to these people. Glancing at her husband showed him being eased into a plain, golden silk etama with sleeves that ... yes ... still reached below his knees, even if they didn’t wrap a fancy sash several times around his chest. He did have a short, simple one that knotted in place around his waist, but that was it.
“Look ... your Patron is the God of Vision, right? And His Eyes see everything? Well, then, I am quite sure His Eyes can see way down into my soul, and thus He—and by extension, everyone else—does not need to see me, in the privacy of my own chambers, prancing around like a princess.” They didn’t feel like her chambers yet, but they were as close as she was going to get, and Gabria didn’t want to endlessly argue the semantics. “Short eta jacket, please.”
The two maids attending her exchanged looks, then the older one rolled her eyes and fetched a jacket from the shelves. A short, thigh-length jacket with thigh-length sleeve pockets, in the same golden-dyed shade of silk as Devin’s garment. She let them help her into it, then took the short sash and knotted it with her own hands. To her relief, Devin fluttered his fingers, silently dismissing the women as well as his own menservants.
He also looked mildly amused as he stepped around the bench.
“You will send my people into fits of offense, if you keep insisting upon your foreign ideals and foreign ways.” One of his fingers stopped her defensive protest before she could start. “You do have a right to be yourself to an extent, but try to remember that my people are not from a brand-new kingdom, struggling hard to throw off the old customs of the old land. Our ways have been fully developed by now, and we like them this way.”
Stepping back, she bumped into the shelves holding her goods, but it did free her lips. “Well, I wouldn’t want to offend out in the rest of the palace, and I’ll try to comply, but here, this is supposed to be a private place. At least, by my standards and my culture. Try to understand that my ways are not your ways, and that to ignore and trample over them is equally disrespectful. Which is what I suspect those so-called pirates are feeling.”
Devin blinked and frowned. “What do you mean?”
Leaning back against the shelves, Gabria folded her arms over her chest. She half tangled them on the sleeves as she did so, before managing to get them pushed up so that the position was comfortable. “I mean, I listened to Admiral Arrevi when she kindly explained to me the previous attacks on the other Aurulan merchant ships. They claimed to have had a free-merchant ship boarded and stripped—robbed—and when they brought their complaints to the nearest Aurulan port authority, those complaints were ignored.
“Simply because their ways and methods are foreign, you treat them like those ways and methods are worthless. Simply because my values and customs are different does not mean they are worthless. Just because I am a commoner by birth does not mean I have no value. I do have value,” she asserted, touching her chest, then flicking her hand out as she continued. “And just because these so-called pirates have no Patron Deity does not mean they have no rights. They do. Arrevi said the city’s been an unaffiliated freeport for o
ver four hundred years—do you realize that’s almost as long as Aurul has been a kingdom? If they’ve managed to last that long as a cohesive identity, the Freeport of Jetta, then clearly they have a system that works, and works very well. For them.
“It is valid. For them. And if you wish to gain their attention and find a way to stop them from retaliating against your ships, then you need to respect them. Open your eyes to more than just what you see on the surface,” she added quietly, if tartly. “It is said that the Gods can see into the hearts of mortal men. Not just look at their faces. My ways are different, but they have value, and they work for me. I may think the length of your sleeves is a bit ridiculous by my standards—for all that I think the fabric is lovely—but I won’t deny you the right to wear them. Because they work for you. More than that, I will not disrespect you if you choose to wear these etamana garments, or something else. You are the person I respect. Not your clothes.”
He studied her with a thoughtful look, his brow softly pinched. “I think I finally see what Ruul Sees in you. A certain ... common,” he teased softly, lingering on the word, “sense reminiscent of my late grandmother. May she rest in the arms of the Gods.”
“May she rest, indeed,” Gabria murmured in reply. At least that much of their two nations’ customs was similar. “Look, if you want to make progress in your dealings with these free-merchants, try treating them as if they were citizens of a nation.”
“But they don’t have a Patron Deity!” he reminded her, spreading his arms. He glanced down quickly to either side, then sighed roughly. He lowered his arms to his sides. “... Now you have me wondering if I look silly when I do something like that.”
“You look graceful, but then you’re used to the way those things move.” Gabria lifted her own arms and flapped them. “I feel like a molting chicken, and probably look like one, too.”
He chuckled and leaned in close enough to press a kiss to the tip of her nose. “A prettier molting chicken has never been seen.”
The playful compliment made her blush. He pulled back before the kiss became anything more and changed the subject. Lifting his chin at the shelves of her Guildaran goods, he asked, “So, are any of these ... things ... some of the objects you told me about, this morning?”
Pushing away from the shelves, she turned to face them. Right in front of her sat her crankman, its steely spiral and curved handle making her blush. Clearing her throat, she moved to the side and picked up one of her less volatile belongings, a bucket-shaped object with an inner metal bin and a handle of its own at the top. “This is an iced-cream maker. It was one of my projects as an apprentice engineer. Hydraulics concerns the movement of fluids, and that included writing a paper on churning sweetened, flavored cream as it freezes.
“You put your ingredients in the middle and chunks of ice in the outer section, and pour salt over them, which lowers the freezing temperature and keeps it cold long enough to freeze the cream,” she told him, cranking the handle and moving the paddles inside the inner bucket. “But you have to keep it moving so it forms very small crystals, which makes it taste smooth and uniform in flavor. It’s a dessert, a big favorite in the summertime. Obviously we couldn’t use ... you know, magic, to freeze the confection. I still use it, even if I do speed up the process a little with a spell or two these days.”
“And all those balls of yarn?” he asked, looking up at the skeins of wool.
“Those are for knitting. Everyone knits in Guildara. Or crochets,” she allowed, putting the machine back. At his blank look, Gabria moved over to one of her tunics, touching the soft gray wool. “See this? I knitted it myself. Knitting is done with long needles, and crocheting with a special hook. I can do both. I can even teach you, if you want to learn. It’s very soothing—it gives the hands something to do while relaxing the mind, and a lot of people like to sit and chat while they knit in the evenings. Unless you’re trying for a complicated pattern, of course, then it’s best to pay attention.”
“What about this thing?” Devin asked as she smoothed a wrinkle from the tunic. Glancing over, she caught sight of the silvery shaft in his hand and flushed, face and body growing hot with embarrassment. He lifted one of his brows in return. “I’m very good at observing things ... and I’ve observed that every time you look at this thing, you blush. Now, why would that be?”
“It’s ... it’s personal!” Flustered, Gabria grabbed for it, but he lifted it out of her reach. Since he was a full head taller than her, that lifted the crankman well out of her reach. She tried jumping for it, but that just bumped their bodies together, making him grin and wrap his other arm around her waist. “Devin! Give that back!”
“Not until you tell me what you do with it,” he countered, smirking.
Embarrassed and unwilling to share something so very, very personal just yet, Gabria screwed up her mouth and spat out a word. “Ziggit!” The crankman jerked out of his fingers and slapped into her upturned palm. Angry that he’d made her do that, she poked him with it. “Don’t make me use my magic again!”
Then she blushed even harder when she realized what she was doing. Turning in his arms, Gabria moved to place it back on the shelf. He grabbed for it, which meant she had to fumble to keep it in her grip—and accidentally thumbed the switch. There probably wasn’t much of a crank-charge left in the workings from its last use, but it promptly buzzed to life anyway, rattling vigorously in her hand.
She was too mortified to retain a firm grip on the shaft. Plucking it from her fingers, Devin released her so that he could examine the throbbing, vaguely phallic device. “What ... ? Ohhh. Fascinating. So that’s why you’re blushing. That’s what it’s for.”
“Oh, Gods,” Gabria muttered, burying her face in her palms. Unfortunately, no deity was kind enough to open up the floor and swallow her into the ground, not even a demonic one from a Netherhell. Instead, she felt him turn her around by her elbow and found herself backed up against the shelves once again. Summoning her courage, she lowered her fingers just far enough to peek at him over their tips. He was eyeing the buzzing device with a distinct look of cunning calculation. Masculine calculation.
“The question is, where do you apply it?” he murmured. Lowering it to the curve of one breast, he rubbed the buzzing tip against her silk-clad flesh. “Here?”
She had applied it there, in the past. But always by herself, in private. Now she knew why some of her fellow females had giggled and insisted that letting their men know of their crankman’s existence hadn’t turned out to be such an embarrassing thing. Pinned by his gleaming brown eyes, knowing she wasn’t the one controlling it, circling it around and around her increasingly tight nipple, was incredibly arousing.
When she didn’t say anything, just swallowed and breathed heavily, he smiled and trailed the buzzing tip over to her other breast. He didn’t tease that one for long, however. Just enough to make her bite her lower lip, before shifting it down her abdomen. The short folds of her eta jacket did nothing to stop him from sliding it between her silk-covered thighs, where the vibrations combined with the intensity of his gaze, making her dizzy.
The clattering slowed down, faded, and stopped. Thank the Gods, she thought. Her mind sighed with relief, though her body whimpered with disappointment. Pulling the crankman back up into view, Devin frowned and shook it gingerly. “Ah ... did I break it? I didn’t mean to ...”
His baffled concern brought a welcome touch of humor into the moment. Still blushing, though not quite as embarrassed, Gabria took the shaft from his unresisting fingers and pushed the switch. “You didn’t break it. It just ran out of energy, is all.”
Turning, she placed it firmly on the shelf. A soft sound and the feel of his fingers plucking something from her shoulder made her turn back around. He had a rose stem in his hand, and a wry look wrinkling his tanned face. “I suppose it’s just as well. We should take one more day to get to know each other better. Especially after your little speech. Though I still don’t see how it shou
ld apply to Godless pirates.”
“They might not be Godless; have you considered that?” Gabria asked, grateful for the change in topic. “Look at Nightfall. They acknowledge no one particular God or Goddess as a specific Patron Deity, yet they’re clearly not Godless. They permit the worship of all the known Gods. And they’re prosperous. And I’m quite sure they’re an even smaller nation than this Jetta place, if the city of Jetta has been around for four hundred years—learn to see them through their eyes, not your own, Seer King,” she urged, nudging Devin out of the dressing room and back into their bedchamber. “Now, you promised me earlier how to play that one game ... tafl, you said?”
“Tafl, yes. Something nice and cerebral,” he muttered, guiding her over to the small table by one of the windows. “And not the least bit carnal.”
“Or buzzing,” Gabria found herself teasing. She blushed at her temerity, then grinned when he blushed. Not that it was easy to see on his naturally tan cheeks, but he did blush. Seating herself at the table, she settled in to listen to the instructions on how to play.
FIVE
“So,” Devin murmured as soon as the door shut behind the last of their servants. His brown gaze swept down the length of her body, clad in a pale-green-and-silver etamana robe-and-sash set. “How many flowers have you lost, today?”
Gabria blushed, remembering their prolonged lunch in the fuchsia pavilion. A brief rainstorm had driven the servants farther away, giving them enough privacy to kiss and caress. When the shower had passed, they had struggled to smooth out the rumpled folds of their clothes, but it hadn’t been easy. Nor could she exactly hide the stems that had fallen from her braid, or the way the ribbons now confined her ash blond hair only down to her nape, instead of a couple finger-lengths from the waist-long ends. “Three roses and an orchid. But ... we did have our hands almost everywhere.”
