by Gaie Sebold
“Sometimes, by telling the pupil to shut up and listen.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I took his head in my hands. “Shh. Now, look at me,” I said. “Do you find me pleasing?”
He looked. After a few moments, he nodded. I was pleased to see that his cock agreed with him; it began to unfurl, shyly, like a fern.
“Then say it.”
He swallowed. “Say what?”
“Tell me something you like about what you’re looking at. A lady likes to hear these things.”
He looked at me pleadingly. “I can’t...”
“Yes, you can. No one else has to hear; only the person you’re with. Shall I start?” I ran a finger down his cheek. “You have lovely skin.” Then I ran my finger down his stiffening penis. “And a very nice cock.” He jolted at the use of the word, but it didn’t do his erection any harm. “Your turn.”
“You... ah... your hair is pretty.”
“Thank you,” I said, and smiled, and waited.
“And your b... breasts... are... very nice.”
“I would like it if you touched them.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
He reached out, and hesitated. I took his hand, and ran it over my breast, showed him how to tease the nipple with his fingers.
He was extremely gentle; he kept glancing at me, as though afraid I would suddenly faint or scream. Compared to Enthemmerlee I must have seemed hulking, but he treated me like the fragile flower I am very much not.
But I was happy to let him. Too raucous an approach probably wouldn’t do for Enthemmerlee. And, knowing something about her encounters with Lobik, I didn’t want Malleay to end up a poor imitation of him. Lobik’s ghost would already haunt their bed; there was no sense making things worse.
He must have been holding himself back for a long time; and, of course, he was young. A few minutes of breast-play and getting his cock caught in the sheets, and he clutched my arms, his breathing steepened, and he came, convulsive and silent.
“I’m sorry,” he said, as soon as he got his breath back. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? I’m flattered.”
“Flattered?”
“You found being with me so exciting that you came before I’d barely touched you. Don’t you think I should be flattered?”
He looked shocked, then thoughtful. “Well... But that can’t have been very, you know. For you.”
“Seeing that happen to you is exciting for me. And besides, it’s not as though we’ve finished.”
“We haven’t? Oh, no, I don’t suppose we have.”
“We’re not here for you to have a good time,” I said, grinning.
“Sorry,” he said, with the beginnings of a smile, “I’m afraid I already have.” The smile dropped away. “It seems wrong,” he said. “I mean, with what’s happened.”
“You think we’re being disrespectful?”
“Not that, exactly. I don’t really know, it just seems we shouldn’t be doing this.”
“We should be grieving.”
“Yes.”
“We are. And we’re doing this, too. Do you think he wouldn’t want this, for both of you? That he would want you to both to be miserable?”
“No.”
“I know you grieve for him. I know you will miss him.” My guilt tried to surge up again, and I forced it away. “But this” – I ran my hand down his thigh – “this is what people do. We are alive. We feel sorrow, and we celebrate life, both at once. Yes?”
“Yes,” he said, tears glimmering again. “Yes.”
“Now, where were we? Ah yes. Breasts. One’s tongue is not just for talking with, you know.”
“Oh. Oh!” he said. And set to.
Tongues and hands. Fingers and legs and lips and hair and skin, the sweet and complex multiplicity of textures. Oh, how I’d missed this, needed this. How wonderful it was to be a body, with a body; a communication more straightforward yet more subtle than I could ever manage with words.
Of course, some words were needed.
I put his fingers to my cunny and said, “Is it the same?” (A tricky moment – I didn’t actually want to mention Enthemmerlee, although she was the one all this was in aid of, in case it put him off.)
I had to bite my lip at his look of studious concentration, as though he were studying a difficult text.
“Not quite,” he said. “But here...”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
“Like that?”
“Oh, yes. Gently now... Oh, hells, yes.”
Of course, one night’s lessons wasn’t going to change everything; I wasn’t that good a whore, now I was only human again. But it would do to begin with. The rest was up to him, and Enthemmerlee.
Afterwards, he fell asleep smiling, and looking so young he put me painfully in mind of my first love.
That made me think of the Chief, and I felt a sudden loneliness so deep it hurt. I couldn’t bear to stay there; he was cute, yes, but it was Hargur I wanted.
I managed to leave without waking him, and shut the door behind me. The place was so utterly quiet it seemed as though everyone had simply vanished away, but I felt eyes on me all the same.
I turned, but if anyone had been watching, they were gone. Somewhere, a door closed softly.
SELINECREE CAME TO Enthemmerlee’s room as I was taking over from Rikkinnet; she had something in her hands. A small box, oval, set with so many bits of glimmering shell and polished stones one could barely see the wood. “Is she awake?” Selinecree said. “Only... Well. One of the maids found this, clearing out the room that the... that her... that Mr Kraneel was staying in, and I thought perhaps she would like to have it.” A bright yellow thread had caught in the ornamentation of the box, wavering like seaweed in the air of the corridor. Nervously, Selinecree tugged it free and let it float away.
“What is it?”
“It is an Ipash Dok,” Rikkinnet said. “At any ancestor ceremony the suppliant places this on the altar.” Her face stiffened as she looked at it. “It must have been meant for the Enkantishak.”
Enthemmerlee opened the door. “Is something wrong?” She looked like the ghost of a dryad, a wisp of green pallor. Then she saw the box.
“This was in Mr Kraneel’s room, dear,” Selinecree said. “I thought I should bring it to you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but...”
“No, Aunt. Thank you.” Enthemmerlee took it, and turned it over in her hands. Selinecree twisted her own together. “It’s... it’s all right, is it? It won’t open, or anything.”
“No, it won’t. They only open when they’re placed on the altar,” Enthemmerlee said, in a flat, distant voice. “It’s probably the heat. I shall take it. I shall take it and put it on the altar with mine, where it should be. Thank you, Aunt.”
“Well, since I’m not coming myself... You will be all right, will you? I mean, your father’s going...”
“I’ll be fine, Aunt Selinecree. Thank you.”
She shut the door again, quietly but firmly. Selinecree let out a shaky sigh, shook her head, and walked away.
Rikkinnet made an odd huffing noise.
“What is it?” I said.
“I always thought Lobik had better taste,” she said, blinking hard. “That is like the ones they sell to travellers. The primitive art of savage Ikinchli. Hah.” I realised her eyes were glittering with tears, and that she didn’t want me to see. I looked away.
RIKKINNET HAD JUST reappeared, not looking as though the shift break had brought her much rest, when we heard shouting from outside. We looked at each other. “I will go,” she said.
I could hear Enthemmerlee moving about in her room; I wondered if she’d slept. I moved over to the window; I could make out the gate-guard, and beyond the gate, the baggy brown uniforms of the Fenac. Five of them.
Whatever this was, it looked like trouble, but (assuming the uniform wearers actually were Fenac, and there weren’t five Fenac bodies naked in a ditch some
where) it looked like official trouble.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t of the killing sort.
I went back to Enthemmerlee’s door, loosened my sword in its scabbard and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Rikkinnet came belting along the corridor. “They’ve come to arrest you.”
“Me? What for?”
She hissed. “Moral Statutes.”
“What?”
“What is it?” Enthemmerlee said, opening the door. She was freshly dressed, but by the look of her, no, she hadn’t slept. The shadows around her eyes hurt my heart.
“The Fenac are here to arrest Babylon for violation of the Moral Statutes.”
Enthemmerlee rubbed her hands over her face. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I,” I said. Of course, there’d been the previous night... but how the hells would anyone have found out? I didn’t think Malleay would have blabbed.
The seneschal came up the corridor; his face was expressionless as ever, but he radiated worry with every rigid step. “Madam Steel? Your presence is requested in the main hall.”
“Thranishalak, do you know what’s happening?” Enthemmerlee said.
“The Fenac have a warrant for the arrest of Madam Steel,” he said.
“They’re in the house? I’ll skin those fucking guards,” I said.
“Lady Selinecree came to the gate, and told the guards ‘not to be silly,’ Madam,” Thranishalak said.
Ah.
“I will come with you,” Enthemmerlee said. “There must be a mistake.”
Malleay, Enboryay and the Fenac were already gathered in the main hall. Malleay looked up as we arrived and his face flooded with colour; if anyone had been looking for a guilty party, he shone out like a hilltop beacon. Fortunately none of the Fenac were looking at him.
The only Ikinchli stared fixedly at some point in mid-air, while two of the Gudain were looking round with an air of intense discomfort, as though afraid they would dirty the furniture just by getting close to it, and another was practising his sneer. The commander, in a tall helmet, with a chunk of silver attached to it in the shape of a hook, was talking to a flushed and distinctly unimpressed Enboryay.
“Behaviour likely to corrupt the public morals?” he sputtered. “Nonsense. What are you talking about?”
“Will somebody explain, please?” Enthemmerlee said.
The Fenac commander glanced at her with barely hidden contempt.
“What are your grounds for this accusation?” Malleay said. “And who is the accuser? You are required to inform us of these things.”
The Fenac smiled, unpleasantly, and said, in the tones of one who had been coached: “This accusation has been brought under the Moral Statutes and the identity of the accuser is therefore protected.”
“And the grounds?”
The Fenac commander looked him up and down, and his unpleasant smile widened in a way that made me want to put my fist through it. “You’re Malleay Devinclane Solit en Scona Mariess? Well,” he said, “I’ve got the papers with me. I can read them out. You know. Here. Or the foreigner can come with me, nice and quiet.”
Malleay glanced at me, and colour raced up his neck and face again, but he stood his ground. “You are required...”
“Firstly,” the Fenac said. “That the accused did appear in public dressed in such a manner as to corrupt the morals of those present...”
“Now hang on,” I said. “Who?”
“Members of the household of Enboryay DeLanso Lathrit en Scona Entaire, presently Advisor to the Crown of the House of Entaire.”
“I have never seen this person other than, ah, respectably covered,” Enboryay said.
“Well, sir, seems someone did. Several people.”
I knew damn well that Malleay wasn’t the one who’d brought the accusation. I was pretty sure I hadn’t been sleepwalking. And I hadn’t been up to anything with anyone else – there’d been little time and less temptation... Speaking of which, where was Fain?
Nowhere to be seen, dammit. What was he up to? Distancing himself from any association with me? And did it mean the Fey oath was wearing off? Without that and without a trained bodyguard, I didn’t like to imagine the situation Enthemmerlee would be left in.
“And that the accused did engage in corrupt practices with another person outside of the marital state...”
“No,” Enthemmerlee said. “No. This is outrageous behaviour towards a citizen of another country. The Statutes only apply to Gudain!”
“The Statutes apply to all who are capable of being restrained by them,” the Fenac said. “Whether or not they’re a foreigner.”
I was beginning to feel fairly annoyed. And the way the little sleazelet was looking at me wasn’t helping. But I didn’t think battering my way through them was going to help Enthemmerlee.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m sure everything can be sorted out. Just tell me where I’m supposed to have been improperly dressed.”
“When answering the door to members of the household,” he said. “Now let’s have any weapons you’re carrying, please.”
It must have been the night the Ikinchli had turned up, and Captain Tantris had come to fetch me. Had he been spreading the word? Or one of the guards who’d been with him? The guard, what was I going to do about the guard?
They wouldn’t be able to look after Enthemmerlee. They were better, but they weren’t good, and with someone deliberately getting me out of the way...
“Wait,” Enboryay said.
“I remind your lordship that under the Moral Statutes I am empowered to arrest any member of a household who attempts to obstruct or impede me in the performance of my duties,” he said. Gosh, he was proud of all those big words; I wondered who’d taught them to him.
“Lady Enthemmerlee,” I said.
She looked at me, eyes wide with distress, but her voice was calm and clear. “Madam Steel,” she said. “This is a disgrace, for which I apologise for my countrymen. You must think us quite barbaric. I assure you every effort will be made to sort out this misunderstanding.”
The Fenac commander gave a snort of contempt. I calmed myself by planning the exact pattern of bruising I was going to leave on his slimy little hide, the minute I got the chance. “Lady Enthemmerlee, I think I’m going to have to go along with this... person. Please take care of yourself.” I thought as fast as I could. “Rikkinnet, you’ve ambassadorial privileges. Talk to Fain. Maybe, between you, you can do something to get me out. But in the meantime, Enthemmerlee is your first priority. I’ve been locked up before, I’ll survive.”
Bergast, who I’d forgotten about in the confusion, was standing with his mouth open. “Scholar Bergast!”
“Yes?” He was round-eyed as a child. I wondered if his briefing had covered the possibility of being thrown in stir. Maybe he thought it didn’t happen to people like him.
“Just do your job, Bergast.”
“I...”
The Fenac, who was obviously getting annoyed at being ignored, drew his sword. He hadn’t had it out until now; sloppy. More used to dealing with intimidated Ikinchli who weren’t allowed edged weapons, presumably. Good.
“Enough chat,” he said. “Let’s have those weapons. All of ’em.”
“Very well.”
I unslung my shield, and handed it to Rikkinnet, followed by my sword and dagger, and the arm-knife.
“Now, you can’t give them to her,” the Fenac said. “Scalys don’t get to carry edged weapons.”
“She is the Ikinchli Ambassador to Scalentine, and I am a citizen of Scalentine,” I said. “I am trusting the Ambassador with the property of a Scalentine citizen, to be returned through the proper diplomatic channels. I don’t know if you know Scalentine, but they have very strong ideas about property. They get extremely touchy if they think their citizens are being robbed.” I was bullshitting for all I was worth, hoping that the thought of annoying a neighbouring country might get him worried –
or, at least, confused.
“Quite right,” Fain said, finally appearing in the doorway. He was still pale, and his arm was in a sling. “After all, who will trade with a country where the property of any passing foreigner may be appropriated at any moment?”
The Fenac commander became aware that he was in danger of treading on the toes of the rich and powerful. He waved a hand. “Well, don’t blame me if she goes off and murders someone with ’em.”
“I should also mention,” Fain said, “that Scalentine feels very strongly about the treatment of its citizens while in custody. Very strongly indeed. If Madam Steel should happen to suffer any accident, I fear there will be consequences.” He let a little bit of the real Darask Fain show through then; well, one of them, anyway. The commander dropped back a step. That was probably all the help the Diplomatic Section was going to be able to give me, but it was better than nothing.
“Right. Hands,” the commander said.
“What exactly do you want me to do with them?” I said.
“Hold ’em out and don’t try and be funny.”
I held out my hands, and he bound a chain around them. I felt my skin shrink from the touch of it as he led me away, to the coach waiting in the courtyard.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
PRISONS ARE NEVER pleasant. The type of stink varies a little depending on which species get put in the cells most, and how often the buckets or the straw are changed. This one was better than some I’ve been in, maybe because it was in the base of the Advisory Hall and they didn’t want the stink rising to disturb the nostrils of government. Talk about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
It looked as though it had once been a set of cellars. I wondered if they’d kept wine in them; I couldn’t half have done with a glass. After all, I was off duty. Possibly permanently. The cells, barred cages that had been set into the alcoves, were full of Ikinchli, some of them no more than children. Their eyes glowed in the dim light, watching, as I was marched past them.
There were five or six miserable-looking Gudain in a cage by themselves. No sign of Daryellee. Members of the Ten Families perhaps got a special cell, upstairs; or maybe she had been sent home with a stern word, if that.
