by James Erich
Gods, how did he come to be so embarrassed at the thought of people seeing him naked? He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!
Koreh removed his own robe as Sael approached the bed, and was pleased to see that Sael’s body reacted noticeably when he did so. Sael’s hand was trembling when he took it. Koreh kissed his fingers and gently pulled him down to the bed.
“Where did the arrow hit you?” Sael asked, the change of subject surprising Koreh.
He laughed gently. “Why are you asking about that now?”
“I just… I haven’t seen you naked since the inn,” Sael said, blushing a bit. “I just noticed that I can’t see the wound.”
“I’m fine,” Koreh said, kissing his neck gently. “And I think we have more important things to do than search for my scars.”
Apparently Sael agreed with him, because he gave a long sigh and lay back on the mattress. Koreh rolled on top of him.
For the longest time, they simply held each other. Koreh caressed Sael’s body, exploring, but pulling back whenever Sael seemed to tense. Eventually Sael’s mouth found his and they kissed.
Sael pulled back, giggling like a boy half his age.
“What is it?” Koreh asked, breathlessly.
“I thought kisses were supposed to taste sweet.”
“Do I have bad breath?”
“Not exactly. But you taste like a pork pie.”
Koreh rolled his eyes and groaned. “Well, it’s your own fault for feeding them to me. Do you want me to drink some wine?”
“You’d have to walk across the room to get it. And I don’t want you to get out of bed for anything. I want you to keep kissing me forever.”
“Then stop talking so much.”
Sael responded by pulling him close again.
In the end, though they were both clearly aroused, Koreh sensed Sael was still too nervous to go further. So they kissed and held each other, but nothing more, until eventually they drifted off to sleep.
Koreh woke to a gentle knock on the door. He panicked briefly, remembering that Sael had wanted him to leave before morning. Maybe if he remained quiet, whoever it was would go away. But he should have known that wouldn’t happen in this household.
Sael stirred as the door opened. He opened his eyes to see Diven looking at the two of them dispassionately, and he froze for a second. But Sael made no move to pull away, and if Diven thought anything unusual of the situation, he showed no sign.
The servant simply said, “His Grace requests the presence of His Lordship at the funeral procession and services of Dekan Seffni this afternoon. Would His Lordship like me to draw his bath water?”
“No, thank you, Diven,” Sael responded, his voice tense. “I can do it myself.” Unlike the tub in the guest room Koreh had been given, Sael’s room actually had a spigot for hot water.
“Very well, Your Lordship.”
When he left the room, Sael rolled away from Koreh and climbed out of the bed. He didn’t look at Koreh when he spoke. “I should have sent you downstairs before morning. Now it’s going to be all over the castle.”
“Will that be a problem?”
Sael shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps. When I was being trained as a vönan, Father might not have cared. Much. But now I’m the dekan and his only heir—Seffni had no children. I doubt Father will be pleased that I’ve… taken up with a man. And a commoner.”
Normally Koreh didn’t mind being called a commoner. It was true, after all. But somehow Sael made it sound as if it were something shameful, which annoyed him. Koreh had also noticed the slight hesitation before Sael said “taken up with,” and he wondered if Sael had been about to say “fallen in love with.”
But he hadn’t.
Chapter 21
KOREH wasn’t allowed to sit with Sael in the carriage at the head of the funeral procession. This was largely a matter of protocol. Normally somebody of Koreh’s social status wouldn’t be part of the procession at all. The fact that he was included in a carriage far to the back was a considerable honor. But there was also no doubt in Sael’s mind that word of their night together had gotten back to his father. The man hadn’t spoken more than a few words to him all morning, and he sat in stony silence throughout the procession.
Tanum sat between them, which made the ordeal slightly more endurable, though Sael was not permitted to talk to her either. She was still as beautiful as Sael remembered, and she had greeted Sael that morning with warmth and sympathy. They all wore mourning blacks, but Sael noted Tanum managed to make her dress and multiple veils look ethereal and beautiful. And when she’d gotten a look at Koreh, she had leaned close to Sael and whispered, “He is a handsome one, isn’t he?” Sael had blushed, realizing most likely everyone in the castle knew what he’d been up to last night, but it was nice that someone in the family seemed to approve.
Seffni’s casket was displayed on an open carriage behind theirs as they wound their way through the city streets, spiraling outward from the keep to the outer wall and then slowly back again. The dekan had been well loved, and his people lined the sides of the main road, standing in silence, hats in hand, many openly weeping.
Will they ever love me this much? Sael wondered. He couldn’t imagine it.
Behind the casket was a carriage for Tanum’s family, and behind that was a carriage with just one lone passenger—Koreh. As the young man who had risked his life to escort Sael and Geilin safely to Harleh, he had to be given a place of relative honor in the procession, but the vek wasn’t about to let him ride with Sael or put him in a carriage with noble guests. Sael felt a bit sorry for him, but perhaps Koreh was having a slightly less miserable time riding by himself. If only Sael could have been back in Koreh’s coach, the day might have been significantly more bearable.
Geilin and the vek’s chief vönan, Snidmot—whose name had always managed to set Sael and Seffni to snickering when they were younger—rode with the court magicians in three carriages behind Koreh’s, followed by a number of carriages for the court ömem, generals, and other military officers, and finally, favored servants. At the head of the entire procession was a lone piper playing melancholy dirges.
It was no wonder, Sael reflected, the procession alone took over an hour.
The temple was in the enormous courtyard opposite the entrance to the keep and rivaled the splendor of the temple in the capital. It was in this courtyard that Seffni’s coffin was placed atop a funeral pyre and all the court vönan—not including Sael—stood in a semicircle around it to set it ablaze. Once the fire died down, Seffni’s ashes would be interred in the family crypt alongside nearly twenty generations of Menaük, Sael’s ancestral line.
THE funeral procession and service had been a miserable experience for Koreh. He’d been tempted to disappear, but it was important to Sael that he be there to show respect for Seffni, so he endured it.
Not that Koreh had, at any point, been allowed near Sael—the vek had made certain of that. The cold looks he received from Worlen that morning left Koreh in no doubt the man knew of last night. Koreh now regretted allowing Devin to see him and Sael in bed together, but there was no undoing it. They would simply have to face the consequences.
Would the vek send Koreh away? Could he? Wasn’t Sael the dekan now? Yet Koreh could tell that Sael was intimidated by his father. This was hardly surprising—Worlen was a powerful man. Powerful enough to challenge the emperor. Could Sael refuse, if his father sought to separate him and Koreh?
And what had been that talk this morning of producing an heir? Had Sael already resigned himself to casting Koreh aside in favor of a proper, noble wife who could give him children? Koreh suspected this was the case, and the longer he was alone with his thoughts, the darker those thoughts became.
Being in the temple for the service after the burning of the pyre was the hardest part. As a commoner, Koreh had rarely been allowed into the temples anyway, and since he’d begun having dreams of the Taaweh, he’d avoided going anywhere near t
hem. He was not at all pleased at having to sit in one for almost two hours—an unusually short funeral service, he’d been told, due to the fact that the city was still preparing for the arrival of the emperor’s army.
A priest of the Stronni, known as a caedan, wore an odd garment Koreh would have thought too revealing for someone in a noble court, judging by Sael’s prudishness. It consisted of a skirt made of some metallic gold material Koreh had never seen elsewhere, embroidered with elaborate patterns in silver. This covered the priest from the waist down to his ankles. Above the wide jewel-inlaid belt the priest wore low on his hips, the priest’s upper body was completely bare apart from the same type of shimmering gold tattoos a vönan had on his forehead—except that a caedan’s tattoos were much more elaborate and covered nearly his entire torso. In the center of his chest burned a large Eye of Atnu symbol. His head was clean-shaven like that of a vönan, but the Eye symbol was placed on the top of his scalp rather than in the center of his forehead.
The church itself demonstrated this same conflict between the need to be open to the Eye and to the gods and the need to impress. To that end, high arched windows reached several stories upward, supported by stone buttresses on the outer walls, but the glass was clear to allow as much light in as possible. The central dome had a large round hole in the center about twenty feet across, crisscrossed by metal arches. Koreh had seen temple acolytes standing on top of temple domes, stretching enormous tarps over these arched supports when storms threatened.
During the entire service, while the caedan raised their arms to the gods and pleaded for leniency and burned sacrifices of various birds, Koreh felt as if those glistening eyes on the caedan’s chests were staring directly at him, knowing there was a heretic in their midst. He had been seated near the vönan of Harleh Keep, which made it all the worse. He felt like a spy, surrounded by enemies and fearing he might be discovered at any moment.
As soon as they returned to the keep, Worlen spirited Sael away for a private meeting, leaving Koreh to wander aimlessly through the halls and public rooms on his own, fretting about what was being discussed and whether it would spell the end of his blossoming relationship with Sael.
Eventually he stumbled upon an atrium in the north wing of the keep. There, among pink flowering tamod trees, he found a small spring bubbling up from under the gnarled roots of one of the older trees. A marble basin had been placed under it, collecting the water in a small shallow pool, and a white marble bench sat beside it.
Koreh rested on the bench, allowing the sights and sounds of the tiny orchard to soothe him for a while. He realized this was the first time since yesterday morning he wasn’t walking on stone floors. On impulse, he removed his boots so he could run his bare feet across the cool grass.
“Koreh!” he heard a familiar voice exclaim.
He glanced up to see Geilin approaching. Now that he was back in “civilization,” his head was once again clean-shaven and he had donned the gold-and-white robes of the court mage.
The old man smiled at Koreh warmly. “It’s good to see you, my boy. I feared that you might be abandoned with the entire city frantically preparing for the upcoming battle.”
“I don’t mind having some time to myself,” Koreh said truthfully.
“I’m glad,” Geilin replied. “I confess I wasn’t looking for you so much as trying to escape from that tiresome Snidmot. Insufferable bore.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “I once outranked him, you know, years ago. But I chose to become Sael’s guardian when he was sent here and then to gü-Khemed—not that I have ever regretted that decision, you understand. But Snidmot stepped into my place as the vönan-makek of Worlen. Ever since then, he’s been impossible.”
Koreh made room on the bench for the old man to sit.
Geilin sighed contentedly and looked about himself at the small orchard. “That’s better. Unfortunately I can’t indulge myself for long. There is so much to be done before the battle.”
Koreh nodded, but he was still dwelling on Sael’s meeting with his father.
“I doubt that the vek is talking to Sael about the battle right now.”
“Oh yes,” Geilin said, his voice tinged with amusement, “I heard about your… indiscretion last night. Perhaps not the best timing. Although I can’t claim I didn’t see it coming.”
Koreh felt his face burning, but he didn’t see that he’d done anything wrong. “Sael needed me.”
“I know he did,” Geilin responded. “Seffni’s death was very hard on him.”
“I didn’t force myself on him. I would never do that.”
The wizard laughed gently. “My dear Koreh. You seem convinced that I always think the worst of you. I assure you, I do not. You’ve proven yourself trustworthy. And I’ve seen how much you care for our reluctant dekan.”
That was nice to hear. Perhaps he had one ally in this household, after all. But the mention of Sael being a dekan brought Koreh’s mind back to how impossible the situation was. “Do you think he’ll do it? Become the dekan, I mean?”
Geilin mulled this over before replying. “He is a Menaük. That family has ruled this city for hundreds of years. And Sael, as much as he may care for you….”
He trailed off, but Koreh understood.
“The Dekan of Harleh would never be allowed to marry a peasant boy.”
Geilin sighed sympathetically and shook his head. “Vek Worlen has many virtues as a ruler, and in many ways, as a man. But he has always placed the welfare of the veikit above all. Now that Sael is the dekan, he will be expected to marry well and produce an heir.”
They both fell silent, listening to the gentle splashing of the water into the basin.
At last, Geilin spoke again. “They’ve gotten rid of the flowers,” he said wistfully.
“What flowers?”
“My komid-minid. Damned fool caretakers thought they weren’t pretty enough.”
“WHAT could you have been thinking?” Vek Worlen raged at Sael. “I trust Diven to be discreet, but at least three other servants know you and that boy were together last night. I’ve spoken to them, but who knows if they can be trusted?”
Considering Diven’s love of gossip, Sael wasn’t convinced the old man could be trusted any more than the others. He was also certain the gossip had already spread throughout the castle and perhaps beyond. But he didn’t think it wise to point that out.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Sael said. “I should have been more discreet.”
“You should never have done it at all!” Worlen bellowed.
Apologizing for creating a scandal was one thing. But Sael had no intention of apologizing for spending the night with Koreh. It had been the most wonderful night of his life. And he wanted more nights like it.
“Father,” he began, trying to sound reasonable, “we both know that Seffni had his share of indiscretions when he was young.”
This mollified the vek somewhat. “Yes. I’m aware of that. But that was different and you know it.”
“Because Koreh is a commoner?”
“A street urchin, from what Master Geilin tells me, though he otherwise speaks highly of him. But that’s only part of the reason. Seffni wasn’t the dekan when he had his dalliances—”
“I’m not the dekan yet.”
“—and,” Worlen snapped, “Seffni was bedding young women.”
“I hardly see why that makes a difference.”
The vek’s expression was dark. Sael had never spoken back to him like this when he was younger. But Worlen kept his voice under control.
“It makes a difference because if you’re caught in bed with a woman, it will merely be embarrassing. Most likely your subjects will laugh it off; attribute it to youthful passion and virility. But if you’re caught in bed with a man, they will question your ability to produce an heir. And that we cannot have.”
Sael knew this, of course. But he wasn’t about to give up on Koreh so easily.
“And what if I’m not able to… be wi
th a woman?”
The vek was pouring himself a snifter of brandy, as he always did when he was agitated. He hesitated and then slowly put the glass carafe down. “I’m sure you can find a way, if you put your mind to it. If you are unable to feel for a woman what you feel for this young man… well, I’m sorry. I truly am. But people of our station don’t marry for love, Sael. We marry to assure the continuance of our line and the stability of the veikit. And that is what you will do.”
“I have a dozen cousins, Father. Surely one of them has already produced a suitable heir for the Menaük family line to be continued.”
“An heir for their line!” the vek retorted with surprising ferocity, “Not for ours! You’ve inherited Harleh and one day you shall inherit Worlen and the entire veikit. Our branch of the family has maintained the veikit for the last century, and I will not have you surrendering it into the hands of your grasping cousins!”
“What if I can manage to get a woman with child? Any woman you choose. Will you let me stay with Koreh then?”
“If you make this young man your nimen, any child you have outside of that marriage will be a bastard and not acceptable as an heir. On the other hand, if you marry a woman and continue to have relations with him, you’ll be branded an adulterer and make a mockery of our name. I won’t stand for either!”
Sael had no response to this without completely losing his temper, but his face must have betrayed his anger and frustration.
“He’s a fine young man,” Worlen continued, more calmly, “notwithstanding his lack of refinement. I don’t mean to imply otherwise. We owe him a debt of gratitude for seeing you and Geilin home safely. I’ll see to it that he receives a generous reward.”
Something in the tone of his voice gave Sael a chill. “And then?”
“He may stay in the castle until after the battle,” Worlen said. “I’m not a fool. I know there’s no keeping you two apart, so long as he’s here. Therefore, I won’t interfere with your… activities. As long as you keep it quiet. Very quiet.”
