Lovers and Beloveds

by MeiLin Miranda

  "Whatever for!"

  "We are to take my maiden name, Ambler--no, Ambleson. Ambleson, that's better. No argument, missy. We must not be known in Arren, or anywhere, as Dunleys from Reggiston. No one must know we're from Reggiston, nor that we're anything other than genteel. We must put goose grease on our hands at night with gloves over all until they soften--no going anywhere or doing anything without gloves until then, but we must keep to ourselves in any event. And remember your school lessons--no cant language--the King's Tremontine at all times, even between ourselves. Thank Blessed Eddin for Lady Ansella's school," she muttered to herself.

  "Well, then, where are we from?" said the astounded Mattie.

  "I don't know yet," fretted Tellis. "I'll know where we're from when we get where we're going."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ammaday, the 19th Day of Spring's Beginning

  Temmin spent a restless night dreaming again of the assassin. Next time, he thought when he awoke, he would be better prepared. "Jenks!" he called as he came in after breakfast. "I know you weren't an officer, but have you ever trained with the Brothers?"

  The balding head appeared in the bedchamber doorway. "The Brothers?" he said cautiously. "Why d'you ask?"

  “I’m just wondering if Papa might let me have one as a fighting teacher. I’m sure Brother Mardus could show me more than the pudding bags I had at the Estate.”

  “Those men were not ‘pudding bags,’ sir, and Mardus isn’t available. He’s the head of your security detail. We can continue our sparring in the interim, and you can ask your father about training with the Brothers.”

  "I'm thinking he might like it if I did. Perhaps make up for the last time we talked. We rather argued about religion."

  Jenks walked into the room. "I can't imagine the two of you in a theological dispute. What did you argue about?"

  "My seeing Allis, about my going to them--her--inexperienced."

  "Ah," said Jenks. He turned on his heel and went back into the bedchamber.

  "You don't disapprove, too, do you?" said Temmin, following behind.

  "No! No, not at all!" said Jenks hastily. "I encourage you--in fact, it'd be a prime thing, for you to enter service at a Temple, any Temple! It's just...there are some things, sir, that I find it difficult to discuss with you."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as...sex, sir." The big man's face turned an unfamiliar shade of red.

  "Since when!" said Temmin. "You're the one who explained it to me!"

  "You were eight! I explained what the horses were doing!"

  "Yes, but you told me it was the same with all creatures, even people."

  "More or less," said Jenks, fiddling with a stack of neckcloths, newly starched, pressed and straight from the laundresses. He faced his young master. "I'll be blunt. Do you ever think of me in an intimate situation, sir?"

  The whites of Temmin's eyes showed all round the blue. "Only when I don't--I--I should say not! That's the last thing I want to think of you doing!" Worse than thinking of his parents, he added to himself.

  "And I don't want to think of you doing it either, trust me. If you need someone to talk to about this, we can talk about this. But I confess it makes me uncomfortable, sir."

  "No, we don't have to talk about it," murmured Temmin. "But tell me, do you think it's the right thing to do, becoming a Supplicant? Or should I wait? I don't know what to do, and Papa is completely against it."

  Jenks picked up the stack, and stood in the entrance to the wardrobe. "Sir, any discouragement of you is sacrilegious, and I must say I'm astonished your father would risk offending the Gods, even the Lovers, as powerless as they are these days. You know me to be a believer. I make regular rounds of the Temples, though I confess to favoring Farr. Your becoming a Supplicant at any of them would make me very proud, not that my pride has any bearing on it. But I can't make that decision for you. You will have to weigh whether pleasing your father or pleasing the Gods is the right thing to do and decide for yourself, sir. Who do you fear more?" he said, and proceeded into the wardrobe.

  "Fear?" Temmin called after him. "Who says I'm afraid of my father?"

  "A pleasant morning post, I take it?" said Teacher, coming through the door for once.

  "Oh, very pleasant!" said Temmin, refolding a letter on elegant paper flecked with rose petals; Allis had accepted his invitation to ride on Neyaday, and her exquisite handwriting lifted his melancholy. He put it in his inner waistcoat pocket and settled back onto the green velvet couch.

  "Good. Perhaps it will put you in the mood to work."

  "I hate work," Temmin groaned, but he rose from the couch and walked to the library table.

  "No, you don't," said Teacher, following him. "You love it. Look at your hands."

  Temmin examined his callused palms. "Not this kind of work, then. Books are Sedra's work, just like dressing up and flitting around is Ellika's. Here, I don't know anyone, no one knows me--not even my family, except Mama, and I don't know where she's gotten to. I have no idea what's expected of me except in the stables, and they keep wanting to coddle me."

  "Part of what I'm teaching you is what's expected of you, Your Highness."

  Temmin squinted up at Teacher, framed dark against the bright light from the study's windows. He absently patted the crinkling letter in his pocket. "Do you know the Obbys at all?"

  "The Embodiments of the Lovers?" said Teacher. "Yes, quite well. Why do you ask?"

  "Nothing! Can we get on with it?"

  "Certainly," said Teacher, passing the red-bound book to Temmin. He opened it and settled into his chair. Teacher's voice filled the book with words and swallowed Temmin up.

  * * * * *

  Warin woke from a light sleep to the sound of wagons in the distance. People rarely came down the road, other than the occasional smuggler, or a trapper who didn't know this was his territory; wagons hadn't passed by in some time, and he suspected he knew who drove them.

  He folded his tall, lean frame through the low threshold; an autumn breeze played with the fallen leaves and the ends of his neat, dark braid. He moved silently down the path toward the road, to the clearing the Travelers sometimes used on their way from Leute to Tremont. He slid up to peer through the foliage, expecting the bright caravans.

  Instead, he found a girl, sound asleep in the cold and draped only in her long hair.

  Warin abandoned stealth. Letting the leaves crackle underfoot, he stepped into the clearing and crouched beside her. It wouldn't be the first time a Traveler had left an enemy at the side of the road; was she dead? No, her breasts rose and fell, and she sighed in her sleep. Her breasts, rising and falling: it had been some time since Warin had seen any woman, and here was a perfect one. Hair shining in the moonlight, luminescent skin, lush curves. How could she be anyone's enemy? He brushed her hair away from her face, her rosy lips soft and open in sleep, and murmured, "What are you doing here?" She awoke with a small cry, louder as she stared about her; she scrambled away from him through the leaves and dead grass. "It's all right," he said, backing away with hands open before him. "I won't hurt you--I'm here to help you. My name's Warin."

  She sat up and clutched her knees to her chest, pulling her hair around herself like a shawl, and said something in Leutish. He understood more than he could speak of the neighboring tongue; she was frightened, and wanted to know where she was. "Understandish, yay--speakish na Leutish," he said in what he he hoped was Leutan but knew was probably gibberish; she looked at him quizzically. "You're cold," he resumed in Tremontine. "Here--" he removed his cloak, and tossed it to her, moving back again. She eyed him warily, but burrowed into the cloak as quickly as she could. "Who are you?" he said. "How did you come to be all the way out here like this?"

  She shook her head; tears filled her brilliant eyes. To see such eyes, such beauty, so close after so long--a tremor of long-dormant lust shook him. To his surprise, she closed her eyes briefly, face flushed and slack in sensual concentration. Her features were fine; s
he had the look of gentility about her, and so he took a chance that she had some education. "How came you here?" he repeated in Old Sairish. He hadn't spoken it aloud since he'd left his studies behind; it sounded stilted and formal.

  "I know not!" she answered in kind, bursting into tears. "I remember not!"

  "You understand! Very well, we speak in Old Sairish. What is your name?" She didn't know that, either. She didn't know who her people were, where she was from, not a single thing. "Name or no," he said, "you cannot stay out in the cold any longer. Come with me to my home. Yes, this way. May I take your arm? No? Mind your step."

  Once inside, he dug through the cupboard until he found a soft, threadbare linen smock long enough to cover her completely. He turned to stoke the fire, leaving her some small privacy though he longed to see her faultless body again. When he turned back to her, she wore the smock and sat on the little stool beside the hearth, warming herself with the cloak still round her shoulders; her lips showed blue in the firelight. "Do you hunger?" he said. "Here is stew, saved for breakfast, but you may eat it, if you would like."

  He studied her face from his shadowy corner of the hearth as she ate ravenously. A strong brow, a fine nose, a round, obstinate chin beneath ripe lips. Nothing coarse or common about her: lustrous chestnut hair that had seen a brush and comb recently, clean, white skin...soft skin...sweet-smelling skin all over her...

  Best to break this train of thought. "You must be from Leute, across the river to the east," he said.

  "Ah?"

  "You speak Leutish, not Tremontine."

  "Ah? Tremontine--is that what you were babbling. I speak Leutish, you say."

  "And you speak Old Sairish with an eastern accent."

  She smiled briefly, dimples flashing in her cheeks. "I think that perhaps it is you who have the accent. No, thank you, I have eaten enough--thank you," she said. She gave him the bowl with soft, white hands--clearly unaccustomed to work. She sat straight and poised, as dignified as a queen. Not a peasant. Perhaps the daughter of a rich merchant.

  She plucked at a strand of her long hair, drawing it over and over through her fingers as she thought. "What is to happen to me?" she said. "Where shall I go?"

  "You have no memory of your home? You are welcome to stay here until you decide what to do. I can take you to the nearest village, if you would rather. You might find work there, until you remember or until your people find you."

  "I know not how to do anything," she said, breaking into tears again. "I remember not what I did before you found me. I remember not a thing. Who will take care of me?"

  "You may stay here as long as you need. I will teach you to care for yourself, do not cry. You will be all right, I promise." Warin took her hand, so soft in his callused palm. So long since he'd touched someone, anyone. The warmth of her small hand in his spread throughout him, and he wondered how she would feel in his arms. He thought of her lying naked in the clearing, her full breasts, the soft patch of dark hair below her belly. He felt a deep twinge before he could move his mind away from the image. When next he looked, her lips were wet and parted, eyes wide and dark; a flush covered her cheeks and neck, and her nipples showed hard beneath the smock, though he knew she was no longer cold. She averted her gaze, shivering, her natural dignity abandoned.

  "Are you unwell?" he said.

  "I know not! I know not anything, I know not what I am feeling, I understand not!" She clung to his hand and broke into Leutish. "I'm frightened! Don't let go my hand!"

  The best he could do in Leutish was, "I won't," and he folded her hands in his until she calmed. It had been some time since Warin had been with a woman, but not so very long that he'd forgotten the signs of a woman's desire; her fingers softly traced against his palms, and he closed his eyes. "Amma help me," he prayed.

  "I feel your wishing," she said in trembling Old Sairish. "I feel your wishing to touch me, to do--things--with me--I know not the words in this tongue! And I wish these touchings, too! How is this? You are a stranger!"

  Warin brushed her tears away with his thumb, and then kissed her; she opened her mouth to him with a moan approaching a wail. Perhaps she was a gift; perhaps the Lovers had given her to him for consolation. He pressed her close at the thought. She neither fought nor protested, but only followed, never leading. "Will you come to bed with me?" he said. She whimpered, head down, and nodded. Warin frowned. "You do not have to. It is your choice." She nodded again, looking up at him through tears. He picked her up and carried her to his narrow bed, their clothes collecting in a heap beside it.

  Warin buried his head between her plump breasts and breathed her in--fresh air, campfire smoke, warm girl--then ran his tongue over a nipple before suckling at it. She lay oddly passive beneath him, responding when he touched her, but never more; he found it troubling, but he set the thought aside as he ground against her belly. "Beautiful girl, Neya's gift, whoever you are--" he said in Tremontine, and slid inside her; nothing blocked his way. Someone's wife, or someone's mistress--the hazy thought jarred him, and he dismissed it as she wound her arms around his neck. He groaned, flexing his fingers into the ticking beneath them; she was thoroughly wet, burning with heat that could not be mistaken for anything but want.

  His excitement mounted, and he closed his eyes, pausing to regain control. Moving inside her, her arms around him, her legs spread wide, one breast in his hand as he kissed her, his pace increasing. His thrusts shook the little bed. With each one she gave a cry laden with pleasure, and pushed up to meet him, until she thrashed beneath him, screaming something in Leutish, her head thrown back in ecstasy. Within her, she clutched at him, a pulsing ripple, until he gasped, "It's been too long--I'm not going to last--oh, you can't understand me--Gods, you're beautiful!" He came and came, her fingers digging into his arms, his forehead pressed into the ticking beside the crook of her neck. He gulped in air, feeling her pulse beat fast and hard within her.

  She shook, Warin assumed from pleasure--he knew she had taken hers--but when he gazed down into her face, tears poured from her tightly shut eyes, down the sides of her face into her hair. He rolled off her, and she clutched the coverlet to her chest. "Did I hurt you?" he said. She shook her head. He reached out a hand to her cheek, but she flinched away. "Eddin's tits," he swore in Tremontine. "You did not have to be with me. Did you not want this?" he said to her in Old Sairish.

  "I know not what I want! I wanted it and I wanted it not!"

  "...I understand not."

  "I understand not, as well!" she sobbed.

  He remembered her strange passivity; comprehension wrapped cold fingers around his heart and squeezed. "Cry not. I will touch you not this way again until we understand," he soothed. He rose from the bed and tucked her into the thick blankets, alone. "I will sleep by the hearth tonight."

  "No," she said, struggling up on one elbow. "This is your bed."

  "If it is my bed, I shall give it to whomever I please," he answered, soothing her back down. She pulled the covers up again. "I wish I knew your name," he said.

  "I have none," she said, staring at the ceiling. She turned her eyes to him. "Give me one."

  "All right." Her hair shone with gold from the fire as Warin stroked it from her face. "An old Tremontine name, I think--Emmae." It meant, "worth loving."

  "Emmae? That is pretty," she yawned. "It pleases me."

  "Sleep now, Emmae."

  She closed her eyes. Warin watched until her breathing came soft, deep and regular. He crossed to the hearth, and threw a log onto the sputtering fire. "Burn," he said. The flames revived; when a particularly bright one appeared, he snatched it from the fire. It flickered on his palm, waiting and obedient. He drew the flame into a wand, crossed to the bed, and drew golden patterns in the air above it. Warin murmured something in a language older than classical Sairish; the glowing figures changed, and reformed into a silver answer, floating silent in the air. Warin frowned. He slipped the blankets back from her hip, finding the faint silver mark he suspecte
d she bore: a sigil against getting with child. He waved the wand away, and the shining patterns in the air dissolved.

  An enchantment. He had suspected. But a girl, a beautiful girl, a willing girl, a naked girl, delivered to his doorstep after so many years--what should he have done? She said yes, gave every sign of enjoyment. He stroked his dark beard and watched the flames dart among the coals to lick at the log. No. He had suspected, and had failed.

  As for the enchantment, men's magic could not break it. Only one person in the world could have cast it, and Warin had no easy way to contact her. His divining was inexact with women's magic, but the spell's intent seemed clear enough. She would need protection; he'd never be able to take her into the village, let alone a city. If he did, he'd as well take her straight to the nearest whorehouse. Her enchantment precluded even the Lovers' Temple, perhaps especially the Lovers' Temple. In the spring, when she could take care of herself alone, he would leave her and search for the Traveler Queen. The Queen would remove the spell, and then he would return Emmae to the rich Leutish merchant who must be her father--or husband. He winced, thinking of her in the arms of another. How odd--only one night to become jealous.

  He fetched his bedroll from the cupboard. Should he tell her about her enchantment? No, it would frighten her, and make her even more frightened of him. Best not to say anything until he could find the Traveler Queen. He took one last look at the woman he considered a gift, however guilty it made him feel. Her arm pillowed her head. She'd pulled the blankets tight around her shoulders, and her mouth hung open; she should have looked ridiculous. He sighed once, and fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  Temmin sat silent for some time. The smoke of the fire still lingered in his nose, Emmae's skin smooth on his fingertips. He shook the feeling from his hands, and sneezed. If only he could shake Warin's shame off as easily; it clung tight to him, guilt mixed with erotic satisfaction. "I am Temmin of Tremont, not Warin the woodsman," he said to himself, "and I have not just finished making passionate love to a beautiful woman I've discovered is enchanted to desire me whether she wants me or not. A stunning woman I found naked in a clearing outside my lonely hut. A woman I want to make love to over and over and can't stop thinking about... Jenks in his underwear, Jenks in his underwear..." Aloud, he said, "Am I right in thinking this is Warin the Wise we're discussing?"