by Chris Bunch
“By the gods, Damastes, it’s hard to keep you alive long enough to fulfill my promises to you!”
“Yes, sir. But I was not the one who pulled on Chardin Sher’s beard that he doesn’t have.”
“No. No you weren’t. But that was calculated, unlike … unlike some other matters.” Tenedos sat down, rubbing his forehead, thinking. Then he rose.
“I have a seminar to instruct some dominas in how weather magic can help them win battles in fifteen minutes, so you’ll excuse me. Oh yes.” He went to a desk, and took out a leather bag. “Here’s gold enough to get some very good friends of yours very drunk to repay a very large debt.”
“No thank you, sir,” I said. “I have money of my own. And if it’s not enough, I’ll sell my sword for more.”
“Very good. Consider this somewhat regrettable episode set aside. But don’t wander into dark places to meet men with disreputable reputations any more than you have to. I don’t know where I’d find your replacement.”
I wanted to ask Tenedos exactly what place he saw for me, but then doubted if I’d want the answer, even if he knew it. I saluted and left. I had to find a tavern to rent.
• • •
Yonge grabbed me by the back of the head and pulled me close. His words were slurred, since he was very drunk. I was not much better. Although I’d held myself to only a handful of brandies, my normally sober ways were not helping matters at all. Karjan was trying to convince the tavern lass she really didn’t want to sleep alone, and Yonge’s three associates, disreputable and dangerous friends he’d made in his whoring about Nicias, were singing a ballad — three ballads, actually, none of them capable of understanding the others’ bellows.
“Y’know, Numantian,” Yonge said, “I think I’ll stick close with you.”
“You’ve fallen in love, then?”
“Don’t try to be witty. I’m serious.”
“All right. Be serious.”
“Do you know why?”
“I do not.”
“ ‘Cause you’re bound to be a gen’ral, and I’ve never been around a real gen’ral.”
“May Vachan bless your words.”
“I don’t know if that’s a blesh … blessing. But you didn’t let me finish. You’ll either be a gen’ral … or else you’ll get dead doing some fool thing that’ll prob’ly end up being a legend or something.
“Either way, I want to see what comes next.”
He refilled our glasses until they overflowed onto the table.
“Now, put this away neat. You’re not drinking the way a gen’ral should.”
I shuddered and obeyed.
• • •
The next morning I wished Malebranche had killed me. Lance Karjan was in little better shape, but the hells with him. He didn’t have to meet a beautiful countess at noon. Fortunately I had arranged with the adjutant to have the day off to keep my appointment with Marán.
I drank half a gallon of water, pulled myself into my sports uniform, and staggered out to the athletic field. I threw up three times in four laps, went to the troop’s bathing area and steamed for half an hour, then leaped into the coldest pool in the building.
I went to the mess, and sweet-talked the cooks into a glass of sharp fruit juice and three eggs beaten into an omelet made with the sharpest of spices. That and a pot of herbal tea, and there was a slight chance I would live long enough to greet Marán.
I handed Lucan’s reins to a serving man, and entered the restaurant. I thought it was best to come in mufti; the uniform of the Helms was far too distinguishable for my purposes. I handed Marán’s note to the greeter, and he bowed.
“Upstairs, sir. Third door. Here is the key.”
I went up the stairs, realizing that at no time had I been seen by any of the restaurant’s patrons. I began to suspect this eating establishment’s reputation was founded on more than culinary skills.
I tapped at the door, inserted the key, and entered as laughter tinkled within.
The room was small for a dining area, no more than twenty feet by twelve feet, and high-ceilinged, with another door at its far end. There was a table set for two in the center of the room. Along both walls were couches wide enough to be beds and next to one a sideboard with an assortment of bottles. The rug beneath my boots was soft and thick enough to serve as a mattress.
Sitting on one couch, an open bottle of wine in an ice bucket between them, were Marán and a woman I did not know. They both stood.
“Ah, so this is the brave captain,” the stranger said. I bowed.
“Damastes,” Marán said, “this is my very best friend, Lady Amiel Kalvedon.”
Lady Kalvedon was, even to my prejudiced eye, as lovely as Marán. She was taller, and while slender, had larger breasts that jutted from a very low-cut peasant’s smock in silk that ended at midthigh. She had the perfect legs of a dancer. Her black hair came down to her shoulders in curling waves.
“Amiel has volunteered to do us a great service.”
“Oh?”
“I am your apron,” she said. Her voice was sultry. She was looking at me carefully, and I almost felt like blushing, knowing, for the first time, how a pretty woman feels entering a roomful of men. I thought she was about to take out a tape, ask me to lower my trousers, and measure the length of my cock.
“Damastes,” she went on. “Damastes the Fair, I think I shall call you.”
“I thank you, Lady.”
“Considering what I am doing for you, and the terrible cost to my reputation, you should call me Amiel.” She picked up her wineglass, while I stood there, puzzled, drained it, bent and kissed Marán on the lips, picked up a shoulder bag, and went to the other door. “I shall be invisible until four, children. So have fun.”
She left.
Marán giggled. I saw that the wine bottle was about half-empty, and her cheeks were a bit flushed. She was dressed conservatively, in riding tights with a short flared skirt over them and a loose blouse. She’d taken off her boots and they lay on the floor, with her jacket and scarf beside them.
“Do you want to explain?”
“After you kiss me.”
I picked her up in my arms, and our lips slid together, her tongue slipping around mine. It lasted a very long time.
Finally, I broke away. “If that goes on any longer,” I said, a bit breathlessly, “I’ll never hear an explanation. What is an apron? And what are we doing to Lady … to Amiel’s reputation?”
“Nothing, really. Here. Take off your jacket, get yourself some wine, and sit down. Over here, on the couch. Lean back, and let me take your boots off.”
I obeyed. “But what will the waiter say? I assume there will be a waiter.”
“When I pull that bell-cord, but not before. And for what I am paying to rent this room, we could be doing anything and he wouldn’t say a word.”
“You still haven’t told me what an apron is.”
“An apron is a woman who keeps another woman company, who covers her when she’s having an affair, so the first woman’s husband won’t suspect anything. Amiel, who’s very close and the first woman I met when I came to Nicias, is doing more than that. She’s allowing word to spread that she is terribly smitten with a certain young army officer, so smitten she wishes to spend every minute in his company.”
“Suddenly she is my friend as well. But as she said, what of her reputation?”
“She doesn’t worry about that … nor does her husband. They each live separate lives, and seem quite happy doing it” I’d heard this was common in the upper levels of Nicias, but this was the first proof I’d had.
“I see. Now, what was this affair to which you were referring? I mean, what about my reputation?”
Marán laughed. “I’ve read about cavalrymen, so do not try that one.”
She leaned back on the couch, and stretched, voluptuously, arching her back so her breasts rose proud.
“This restaurant prides itself on not only its privacy, but on being able to
fix almost any dish that could be desired. And there’s a menu on the table.”
“I already know what I want to eat.”
“Yes?”
I lifted her leg over my head and set it on the couch, then slipped both fingers under her blouse, found the tie of her tights, and undid it.
“You,” I whispered.
I slid her tights down, and she lifted her hips as I did. I cast the tights aside, then pushed her blouse up until her breasts were bare.
“Are you going to let me get undressed?” she murmured.
“Maybe later,” I said, and I teased her nipples with my teeth, then ran my tongue down her flat belly to where her skirt was bunched, then over her shaven smoothness and into her as her legs embraced my shoulders.
We ate no midday meal that day, and it was just four when we left.
I had made an interesting discovery that day. I held tittle use then, and less now, for alcohol in any form. But I’d found out that a hangover can make a man able to, in a rather indelicate expression, fuck like a mink.
So our affair began in earnest, Marán plunging into it as eagerly as I did. Before, I’d been slowly going mad with boredom, but now I was very grateful for the lack of real duties. I’m afraid the training I had been trying to give my Silver Centaurs, my Leaden Lummoxes, was nearly nonexistent. Not that the men objected — they gladly returned to their slothful ways. I should have been and should be now, I suppose, ashamed of my slacking. But with the Helms, it didn’t seem to matter at all.
I was deeply grateful for Amiel’s help, because I’d never been in this situation before, and now realized how few places a married noblewoman who wished to keep her reputation and her lover could be alone or even innocently together with him without talk starting.
I grew to like Amiel, and found that she was indeed a loyal friend of Marán’s, even though every now and then she eyed me carefully as she had on first meeting, even though she never said anything even slightly suggestive. She had little use for Marán’s husband, and sometimes referred to him as Old Copperbottom, after the sheathing his freighters were given. She treated Marán as if she were her younger sister, still unexposed to the world, and me almost as her own lover and coconspirator. She also kept referring to me as Damastes the Fair, and it was annoying when other people began using it. Marán, however, thought it very funny.
But even with Amiel being an “apron,” we could only expect her to cover us so often. We became expert at finding restaurants or taverns like the one we’d trysted in that first day. But even better, since we were well into the Time of Births, and the spring was gentle that year, was riding out of the city separately and meeting at a prearranged spot.
We found wonderful places to be alone, from riverside shanties to an abandoned castle so deeply buried in a small forest that its existence had been forgotten, to mossy, secluded glens. There were even places within the city, including a beautiful tiny rose garden in the middle of Manco Heath no one but us seemed to know of.
Mostly we met during the day, because it was harder to meet at night. Even though Count Lavedan was frequently absent, I was loath to visit their mansion, in spite of Marán’s reassurance that the servants would never talk. Of course she could not come to me in the barracks ever, since that was not only against orders but the jabbermouths who thought themselves army officers would have broadcast her appearance across Nicias within the hour.
It was a golden time, a time of honey, a time I wished could have a stop and be forever.
But both of us knew it must come to an end.
• • •
We had barely begun our intrigue when the Great Conference collapsed. The broadsheets said valuable matters had been discussed and there would be another meeting “in the near future.” The states’ leaders held their final banquet and then went separate, supposedly cordial ways.
But the word on the street was that the conference had been acrimonious and a disaster.
Tenedos had fuller details, which I assumed he’d gotten from either Mahal or Scopas. As expected, the problem had been Chardin Sher, who behaved as if he were a full member of the Rule of Ten rather than their subordinate.
Matters came to a head when Mahal, no doubt at Tenedos’s prodding, insisted the matter of the Border States’ sovereignty be brought up. Chardin Sher said since there was strong historical precedent for the areas to be annexed to Kallio, that would be his suggestion to improve the situation.
“That would certainly,” he added, “be a way of pacifying them for good and all.”
Barthou had fallen into the trap, and asked why that should be.
“Because, with a strong man who’s willing to provide law to those savages, backing it up with the full force he is capable of, these damnable hillmen would no longer be the thorn in Numantia’s side as they have been for many generations.” Chardin Sher put emphasis on the last, and Barthou began growling in anger.
Then Chardin Sher had said the Rule of Ten should think about what the other states had been concerned about for years: Why was this great country ruled only by men who came from Nicias?
Farel had acidly wondered if Chardin Sher had a better idea, and Chardin Sher said he had, and it was quite simple: The Rule of Ten should be immediately changed, so its representatives came from all Numantia. That tore it.
Tenedos said there’d been a screaming match, with very ill-chosen words being used on both sides, from weaklings to traitor.
“So what does it mean?” I asked.
“It means Chardin Sher will return home to the cheers of his countrymen. He stood up to those fools in Nicias, in their eyes. He’ll then start quietly building up his armies, and possibly making alliances with some of the other states who little like Nicias or the Rule of Ten.”
“War?”
“Not for a while. But there will be border incidents that justify Chardin Sher having a bigger and bigger army. Then … then he’ll think about marching west.”
But Tenedos was wrong. Chardin Sher was a far more subtìe strategist than that.
• • •
I glanced at the large painting, and was about to pass on, when Marán said, “Well?”
I studied the picture more carefully, not sure what I was supposed to say. It showed a great house, more a castle, actually, sitting on the rocks above a river. The house was of stone, and I counted five stories, then the machicolated roof. On the river side jutted four-sided towers and on the one landward one I could see was a smaller round tower.
To the right was a wooded park, with horsemen, and on the left smoke rising from the roofs of a small village. The river in front of the house was calm, and there was a small boat on it, with a liveried man at the sweep and, in the bows, a young girl wearing pink. I attempted a joke.
“The king who built that had a very guilty conscience. Or else some very powerful enemies.”
Marán giggled. “Both, actually. But be careful of your words, sirrah. Look closely at the plate.”
I did, and winced, once again having spoken before I knew what was going on. The brass plate read:
IRRIGON, SEAT OF THE AGRAMÓNTE FAMILY.
A LOAN
It’s one thing the idea of how rich someone is, and another seeing the reality. Even though I knew of the Agramóntes’ vast wealth, and had seen Marán’s house here in Nicias, it still was staggering to see a building of this enormity and realize it belonged to one family.
Marán touched the girl in the boat “That is my mother. The painting was done just after she and my father married. She was only fourteen.”
“That was where you grew up?”
“There, mostly, although I spent time at some of our other estates.”
I marveled once again, and wondered how many people it took to manage such a monstrosity. “It must have been interesting growing up there. Any family ghosts in particular?”
Marán, in one of those sudden mood changes I was still learning to accept, was instantly very serious. “Inte
resting? Maybe that’s the word to use among polite company.
“I thought it was mostly hell.”
She stared at the painting. “Yes,” she repeated. “Mostly hell.”
• • •
An hour later, we were finishing the remains of our picnic in the park that stretched behind the museum. I’d made another discovery — no one ever thinks of illicit liaisons in the palaces of culture. So we’d sometimes meet in museums, galleries, or concerts. After we were assured we hadn’t been followed, we could go elsewhere to be alone. Even though I was hardly interested in my surroundings, little by little I was picking up a bit of polish.
We’d made passionate love in her carriage on the way to the museum, and I wanted her again, but sensed this was not the time to suggest it. She’d always been reluctant to talk about her family, and after her words in the huge building behind us, I understood why. But I wanted to know more.
She looked at me quizzically after I repacked the basket.
“You have been quiet Are you mad at me?”
“Now why would I be that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because of what I said?”
“About your home?”
She nodded.
“Not mad, my love,” I said. “You can do anything, feel anything you want about your family, including having murderous intent. But if you want to tell me more, I’ll gladly listen.”
She hesitated, then began, without preamble.
“Everyone seems to think living in a castle is some kind of dream. But it’s not. It’s cold, and the stone walls echo, and all the rooms have to have fireplaces.
“That’s what I remember most. Being cold.” Her voice lowered. “Inside and out.” She looked away from me, perhaps hoping I’d stop her from going on. But I remained silent.
“I’m the last-born, and my three brothers are all quite a few years older than I am. I guess my parents thought they were through with children, although they never said anything.
