by Chris Bunch
I wondered then, and have wondered many times since, if being a seer does allow a slight glimpse into the future. Or was Tenedos merely speaking from his own soaring ambition?
• • •
“I don’t think I can come anymore,” Jacoba whispered.
“I know I can’t.”
“Where’d the pillow go?”
“It’s right over … no. It got kicked to the floor. With the blankets. Here.”
I kissed her soft wetness once more, then turned end for end and lay beside her. She put her head on my shoulder. I stroked her back sleepily.
“What happens,” I said, after a time, “when we reach Nicias?”
Jacoba moved away, and rolled onto her stomach.
“You mean with us?”
“Yes.”
Jacoba took a deep breath. “Don’t misunderstand me, Damastes, but ‘us’ stops when we get to the city.”
I was suddenly completely awake, feeling the world shudder around me, although to be honest I’d wondered how our affair would continue. Having little money, I wouldn’t be able to afford to find her apartments during my stay in Nicias. When I returned to the Lancers, there’d be no place for her, and I doubted she’d want to leave the capital for a staid, sleepy garrison town. Even if I wished to wed, which I certainly did not at this time, legates are not permitted to marry save under the most extraordinary circumstances. And I could hardly expect her to find living quarters on Rotten Row as a poverty-stricken officer’s mistress.
“Can I ask why?”
“There’s not anyone else,” she said. “There hasn’t been since before I took the job with Tenedos. And it’s not that I don’t … care about you. Maybe I even love you, although I’m not sure what the word means, really.”
“Then where’s the problem?”
“The problem is Seer Tenedos,” she said. “Let me tell you something about myself. I’m not very adventurous.”
“Of course you aren’t,” I said. “That’s why you took a nice, safe job making sweets for a magician in the Border States.”
“There was a bad time in my life then. Something … somebody that meant a lot to me turned out to be different than I thought. And I’d been cooking in the same damned place for almost three years, working for a pig who’d never teach me his secrets and ordered me around like I was his bonded slave.
“I heard about the position and applied for it. I guess I thought there’d be something glamorous, going to a faraway land, living in a mansion, and making the daintiest of morsels for noblemen and diplomats. Instead …” She laughed ruefully. “No. This has been enough adventure for the rest of my life.
“Let me tell you what my dream is, Damastes. I want, someday, to own my own restaurant. Not a big one, and not in the center of a city. Somewhere on the outskirts, near some rich estates.
“I’ll have customers who don’t mind paying for the best, but whose palates aren’t sophisticated enough to tell when the meringue’s a little scorched.
“As for a man, I’d want someone who’s steady. Loyal. Good enough in bed. A nice man who won’t get tired of me, or mind if I get a little fat.
“Children, maybe three or four.
“A nice quiet life, where the biggest dramas are whether the oysters are delivered on time, or if the melon has gone bad, or stopping little Fredrik from pushing his sister into the water barrel.
“Is that the life you want, Damastes?” I was silent.
“Of course not,” she went on. “I can feel greatness. Laish Tenedos will be a great man, greater than he is today. Whether he accomplishes all his dreams … I don’t know. I’m not sure there are any limits to what he wants.
“As for you, well, I can see you tall, dignified, perhaps a bit of gray at your temples. A general of cavalry, respected by his country. Perhaps a count, with great estates and a beautiful lady waiting for you at one of your mansions.
“Perhaps you would go for a ride one day, with your staff, and stop by a humble inn for your midday meal.
“I wonder if we would recognize each other?”
“That makes me feel very sad,” I said quietly.
“Why should it? We are as Umar made us, we strive to fulfill what Irisu wishes us to become, and we fight as best we can against Saionji as she destroys us. Then, at the end, we welcome her embrace, return to the Wheel, and she grants us rebirth.
“What can be sad about that?”
The right words took a while to form.
“It’s sad,” I said finally, “because I want to think we’re more than small helpless beings on a treadmill.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “And that’s why you’ll be a general, and I’ll be an innkeeper.
“But enough of that. We’ve still almost a week before we reach Nicias.” She yawned. “Do me a favor. Get the oil from that stand, and rub it into my back before we go to sleep. My skin’s terribly dry.”
I obeyed, poured some of the oil, which smelled of orange blossoms, onto my hand, and slowly, gently, began rubbing it across her shoulder blades and then lower and lower still.
After a time she said, “You have a very loose idea of just where my back is.” Her breath caught sharply. “That is certainly not my back.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No. Oh no. Put another finger in me. No. Back there. Yes. Deeper. Oh gods. Oh, Jaen.”
She moaned. I rubbed oil on my cock, rose to my knees, slipped the pillow from under her head, rolled it into a cylinder and slipped it just under her pelvis. I moved between her thighs, as she opened them. I caressed her sex with the head of my cock from its beginnings to where it ended, once, twice, three times, then slipped it between her buttocks and touched her tight rosebud.
“There,” I whispered. “Do you want me there?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Yes. There. In me. Now, Damastes, now!”
I pushed, and there was resistance, then her ring relaxed, then clenched firm as I slipped into warmth. I cared nothing more about Nicias, generals, or anything else as we spun higher and higher into the heavens.
Every boat that had ever been built came to meet us as the Tauler thrashed its way up to the flag-bedecked dock. People were cheering, blowing whistles and horns, beating on drums. There were more organized bands ashore, each playing a different melody, although as we neared shore they reached some kind of agreement and broke into the Numantian anthem. Unfortunately none of them began at the same moment nor in the same key, so the cheery cacophony continued.
All of Nicias was behind the rope barricades at the end of the dock, barely held back by a cordon of brightly uniformed cavalrymen. These were the Golden Helms of Nicias, parade soldiers whose panoply was reserved for the greatest events.
The twin gangplanks banged down, and the crowd bellowed. I thought the line of soldiers would give way, and wondered if our fate was to be trampled in reverent honor.
Jacoba stood beside me, her two cases at her feet.
“Well,” I began, looking for exactly the right words.
Jacoba put her arms around me, kissed me once, then pulled free from my embrace.
She picked up her cases and ran swiftly up the gangway to the dock. She glanced back, then vanished in the crowd.
A piece of my soul went with her.
FOURTEEN
THE RULE OF TEN
If I’d thought being a hero in Sayana was overwhelming, now we were drowned. The cheering crowd swept down on us and caught Seer Tenedos and myself up in their arms. They began carrying us off, where I knew not. I think we were lugged through every street in the capital, whether boulevard or alley, and everyone wished to touch us, throw flowers at us, or shout offers to pleasure us in as many ways as existed, from food to bed.
I managed to keep a smile on my face, and to pretend as if I were greeting people, although in the hubbub I couldn’t be heard and was able to save my voice.
Tenedos bowed, waved, gestured as if he were a priest instead of a seer. His
eyes gleamed with pleasure.
For a moment, the naked adulation was seductive, but then the thought came, What would it be like if next time the crowd hated you? These same loving hands would tear you apart in seconds.
Eventually we were brought to the bridge that crosses a branch of the Latane River to the moat-surrounded Rule of Ten’s palace. The crowd would have carried us over the bridge, but there were three lines of dismounted Golden Helms blocking them, and two lines of the city’s wardens in front of them. We were grudgingly let down. Tenedos waved for silence, and eventually the yammering died away a bit.
“Great people of Numantia and Nicias,” he shouted, and then the crowd bellowed its pleasure, and I heard no more, although his lips kept moving. He motioned — back away, toward the bridge — and I obeyed. When we reached the wardens I sagged in relief, and realized I’d been terrified of what could have happened in that crowd. They swiftly escorted us through the cavalrymen and across the square to the broad steps that led into the palace.
Waiting for us was a man in robes faced with multicolored embroidery, who carried a staff of gold and ivory. “I bid you welcome,” he shouted so the crowd behind could hear. “I am Olynthus, chamberlain for the Rule of Ten. In their name, I grant you the freedom of the city and the gratitude of all Numantia. We shall see you are properly honored.” His voice went down to normal. “The journey and your, er, most tumultuous reception by our citizenry must have been tiring.” He waved the staff, and two bowing servitors appeared. “Since you are high in the esteem of the Rule, we wish to offer you our own hospitality, and bid you follow these men to rooms which I trust will not disappoint.”
I saluted, and Tenedos bowed. Hidden trumpets blared, and the two servants beckoned.
I wondered what sort of quarters we would be lodged in. Since this was the third palace I’d guested in, I felt I was becoming a bit of a connoisseur. I’d expected this to be the grandest of them all.
I was somewhat disappointed. I noted that the carpet we walked on, while still magnificent, was beginning to show a bit of threads at the center. The paintings on the walls had begun to fade somewhat, and the inlaid wallpaper was stained here and there. I saw that the uniforms of the various palace servants we passed were immaculate, but just a little shabby.
The Palace of the Rule of Ten, in short, looked like the residence of a respected uncle, someone who’d gotten rich years earlier, arranged his manse to please himself, and then let things slide quietly downhill.
But most of these perceptions came later, when I thought about what had happened. Now my nerves were on edge, waiting to see what the morrow would bring.
It was even more disastrous than I’d feared.
• • •
The hearing on “The Recent Regrettable Incidents in the Border States, called by Its People the Kingdom of Kait” began after midday. We were told the Rule of Ten little liked to conduct public business in the morning, devoting that to their own private concerns.
“Which means,” Tenedos muttered, “making money or sleeping late.”
We waited outside the audience chamber in full regalia. I wore the full-dress uniform of the Lancers, as did Lances Karjan, Svalbard, and Curti. Legate Yonge wore his best civilian garb, but with the sash of a legate in the Numantian Army wound around his waist. None of us were armed except Yonge, even though custom dictated that Lancers wear arms with any uniform. But we’d been told by the palace’s head guard that no one, absolutely no one, was permitted to carry instruments of death into the presence of the Rule of Ten. Yonge had growled and given up his saber, but when a guard reached for his dagger he’d clapped his hand on its hilt and said no one could touch that and live. The guard began to object, looked into Yonge’s cold eyes and hard features, and decided he never saw the blade.
Tenedos was garbed not as a Numantian resident-general, but in seer’s robes, as if disdaining any part of the Rule of Ten’s policies.
We were ushered into a large room, its walls paneled in dark wood. There was a railing near one end of it, and behind it the long raised dais where the Rule of Ten would sit. There were benches for those who would speak to the rulers of Numantia, a place for a note-taker, and seats for spectators. It looked more like a trial chamber than anything else.
The room had little room for the merely curious; every Numantian broadsheet that could find a writer in Nicias had sent a representative. The other observers were richly dressed, obvious members of the government. Some of them, I found later, were from the city’s own rulers, the Nicias Council. It was generally considered as rock-bound as the Rule of Ten.
After half an hour’s wait, we were ordered to rise and the Rule of Ten entered. They wore black ceremonial robes and dignified expressions. A priest blessed the gathering, and invoked Irisu and Panoan. As he did, Tenedos prayed briefly to himself in a low whisper, and I caught the name of the Destroyer and Creator, the goddess few had the courage to invoke, Saionji.
The speaker, a man in his early sixties named Barthou, welcomed us in a cordial tone, asked if we had been treated acceptably since our return to Numantia, and if we wished anything.
Tenedos rose and said we did not — we had been treated most cordially.
“I hope so,” Barthou said, his voice drenched in sincerity, “even though nothing can compensate for those terrible events I now wish you to tell us about.”
Tenedos began his tale.
I watched the Rule carefully. Tenedos had cast a Square of Silence spell — four identical objects at the corners, then words I couldn’t understand, and it would take an experienced seer some time to break the spell and listen to what was being said — and told me much about who we’d be facing. The two members of the Rule whom Tenedos counted as in his camp I readily recognized from his descriptions. The first, quite old, was Mahal. Tenedos had said he was less convinced of the seer’s philosophy than his new, very young and beautiful wife from a shopkeeper’s family who was, like most of her class, intensely patriotic. She also prided herself on keeping current with every new idea that came to Nicias, “so,” Tenedos said, “perforce Mahal must be dragged along with her into the embrace of the new, untried, and radical.”
Our second friend was Scopas. He was middle-aged, and enormous. He was hardly a jolly fat man; his face showed the hard lines of intelligence and hard ambition.
Only the speaker, Barthou, and two others were worth worrying about, Tenedos had said. Those two, Farel and Chare, were young, in their late thirties, and had only been on the Rule for a few years. Tenedos warned me not to misjudge them by their years; they were as hidebound and reactionary as the most doddering ancient.
The other five would be counted on to vote whichever way they thought safest, which gave Barthou a solid majority.
“All we can hope to do is shame them into taking some action,” Tenedos said. “Now is when I’d prefer to have more of the talents of the demagogue than the magician.
“I wish to several demons-haunted hells I did know some spells to warp the Rule’s vote. But even if I did, they have the palace so surrounded by protective spells I’d never be able to finish the casting. And that would mean my death — it’s the ax for anyone attempting to use sorcery against our leaders.”
Tenedos’s testimony was peppered with constant questions from the Rule, which were more to make sure the questioner appeared alert and interested than actually seeking knowledge, so the seer had just reached the point of our meeting at the ford and the ensuing skirmish when the meeting was adjourned.
Of course Tenedos said nothing about why he thought my orders to join him had come as late as they had, nor did he make any mention of the safe-conduct that didn’t exist, nor why he believed the Rule of Ten had actually sent him to Kait.
The broadsheets that night were filled with the day’s testimony, and accompanied by sketches of Tenedos and myself.
“Quite impossibly good-looking,” Tenedos said, looking at one. “No doubt the morrow will find several marriage
proposals, my young friend.”
So it did, but more than several, and only a few of them were concerned with matrimony, but rather more immediate pastimes. There were nearly fifty, and they came from everyone from grandmothers who certainly should have known better to passionate scrawls from girls just out of the nursery. A number of women enclosed small gifts with their missives, mostly sketches or miniatures of themselves. Some of them were surprisingly good-looking. I puzzled over three letters: Each of them contained a tiny tuft of curly hair, and I blushed and felt like a fool when Tenedos dryly explained their obvious origin.
“So what do I do with these letters, sir?”
“You could answer them.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not even this one?”
I looked at the intaglio. “She’s certainly pretty,” I agreed. “With nothing to hide. But I’ve got to wonder — if she was so suddenly taken with me, as this letter says, and I must bed her this very night in the spirit of Jaen … when did she have time to get the engraving made?”
“Hmm,” Tenedos said, gravely. He picked up the metal plate and pretended to examine its blank reverse closely. “Ah yes. You have a much sharper perception than I. On its back this says it’s number forty-seven of a set of three hundred.”
“Should I return the letters?”
“Damastes, sometimes your brain fails you. Why bring heartache? How many of these fair women have husbands, lovers, fathers? Not to remind you that some of them might think it was your fault their loved ones were so suddenly stricken with lust.”
Yonge wanted to read them, but I fed them into the fire that night.
On the second day, we were able to move more swiftly, and I was asked to narrate some incidents as well. Once more, the broadsheets screamed of the monstrosities of Achim Fergana, and the horrnors of Kait, and there were twice as many proposals.
But after the third day’s appearance, by which time we’d reached the point of Achim Fergana’s victory banquet, the defection of Jask Irshad, and the killer fog, there was nothing whatsoever, except a brief mention that the hearing was continuing.
