Lucrio had never before spoken words so like a personal attack, but Aqib found he could extend the benefit of the doubt even here. As if preparing to laugh at some joke, he smiled uncertainly. “You are jesting,” Aqib said. “What can you mean, my love?”
“I mean, you keep saying how wonderful your papa is. But can you tell me why, all the years of your life, the Corporal’s just been whaling on you, but your papa never knew, and never stopped it? Or does Master Sadiqi know just fine, Aqib? Does he want you thinking, ‘Oh, Papa’s the gentle one. Papa’s the one who’s nice to me.’ But also he likes the Corporal doing all the dirty work, every mean thing. The breaking, the beating, the cruelness. That’s what I think. That Master Sadiqi’s as bad and worse than the Corporal, Aqib. Full of games and tricks!”
“I thought I had a friend in you.” Aqib stood abruptly, his voice raised. “How can you speak this way to me?” Aqib flung the ring. “You should leave here, Lucrio. Go now!” Not for one moment had Papa been a refuge, but all along the overseer and source of pain.
Nasty and high-handed as he’d been a moment ago, Lucrio now became just that humble. Sometimes lovers err and learn the limits too late, however. Aqib strode swiftly from the heart of the Menagerie, toward a spot on its western wall: site of the secret door. Recanting his slander, pleading and making promises, Lucrio followed. O youthful urgencies! O passions of first love! How the years have wearied one’s heart and dimmed the memories. How, this old man wonders, can that boy have been so angry, when his lover only spoke the truth?
“When the ship gets back to Daluz,” Lucrio said, “the Senate will give me a lifetime boon. I’ll never be a poor man again, Aqib. We couldn’t live the way you’re used to here, but I swear, you’d never go hungry with me, never go without.” This was one of a thousand desperate assurances Lucrio made to him during that last walk together. “There’d be some luxury, too, from time to time. And later on, I promise, we’d have much better money. I’m young and my star’s going up. Someday as high as Consul, maybe. Everything mine would be yours: Daluçan law says so. You’d never be penniless, no matter what.”
Money? As other peoples did not fret whether air-to-breathe would suffice tomorrow, a royal cousin never worried about money. There was more wealth in the Kingdom of Olorum than in the world’s remainder combined. Aqib might have explained that every Cousin was a trustee of the Royal Treasury, beneficiary of millions or billions according to status, and by birthright, at any time, could cash out his or her full share. That, of course, meant slamming shut the open doors to power, and trading one’s status as a royal cousin for hard currency. But still, if he and Lucrio ran away together, they certainly needn’t do so as paupers.
Aqib observed himself failing to mention this—failing to say anything at all—as Lucrio belabored what he must imagine were the practical concerns. “Hush, Lucrio,” Aqib said, when they arrived at the Menagerie’s walls. Two gargantuan trees there had grown together—or one massive tree, twin-trunked. “Right now I can’t hear you. My anger is too great.” He felt sick with confusion. Aqib wanted the solace only Lucrio could give; an embrace, a kiss, whispers that all would be well. But he also just wanted to see the back of him. “I shall come to you tonight at the Sovereign House. Then, we may make our proper good-byes.” Aqib marveled that he could feel so wholly persuaded by the sight of his beloved weeping in remorse; and yet still, in manner and speech, seem pitiless. “For now, I need you gone.”
Lucrio said he thought their last chance was right this moment, that if Aqib might change his mind, after all, and wish to go with the Daluçan ship, then even a little while later could prove too late. Tonight might never come for them. At the time, Aqib heard no word of this. Only thinking back in after years did regret remind him what Lucrio had said. Then, he put hands on Lucrio and pushed him—Lucrio letting himself be pushed—toward the deep seam between the great fused tree boles. Lucrio pressed the ring back into Aqib’s hand.
“Bring it to me tonight, if you won’t keep it.”
Aqib nodded.
Lucrio hummed the proper note. As some discreet nibbler takes in a morsel of food with lips barely ajar, just so, one tree trunk pursed slightly away from the other, and that seam of rough bark writhed with a masticatory action: the strange mouth beginning to engorge Lucrio, hands, arms, head, trunk . . . Perplexing the mind, this paradox baffled the eyes, for the aperture never seemingly widened far enough to admit a burly, broad-shouldered man. Yet Lucrio passed easily between the tree trunks, disappearing within—and through—to emerge outside the Menagerie. From the wall’s far side there came a faint call, Ego te amo. Aqib turned back to the chores of his stewardship.
[52 years old]
“Does my papa ail, Blessèd Mother? Why does he sit that way, so still and staring ahead? He won’t answer me, Mama. He doesn’t move!”
“Do not be alarmed, Lucretia. Your father was becoming very unhappy, and we’ve only made it so he can be glad again. By the orderly strength of your mind, I see that the women of the Sovereign House have already taught you something of telepathy, haven’t they? So you will understand when I say, all we have done is take one nasty little memory from your papa’s head, so that it should no longer bother him, and make him sad.”
“I do not like this, Mama, I don’t!”
“Lucretia, be still. You shall comport yourself acceptably. Are you crying? I won’t have it!”
“No, Mama—I will do. I’m not.”
“Then fix your face, girl, and sit up.”
“O Blessèd among Olorumi, she cannot help herself; the child is becoming overwrought. Shall we tranq her, too? We cannot extirpate a mind so well trained as hers, but we can certainly calm the child. One so young shouldn’t likely remember the experience. Shall we do it?”
Lucretia wept wretchedly.
“Yes; if it will stop that sniveling. And free him. It’s too eerie how he sits there thus, so still. No, wait!—now, his heart lies bare for you to read, I would wish to know a thing.”
“Ah, no, Blessèd Femysade. We cannot. We may not answer such questions. A telepath of the Ashëan Enclave must uphold its ethos, for each offense perturbs her mind’s clarity, until she’s rendered incapable of fine work and subtleties. Therefore I can reveal none of your husband’s secrets to you.”
“Of course. I understand. The elastic of your ethics stretches far enough to promote your own interests in these negotiations, but, unfortunately, snaps back just short of answering a question of mine. Have I got that right? Stow the bullshit, maga. And you will answer my question in the Inflection of Truth. I wish to know whether my husband loves me.”
“We should not answer, O Blest.”
“You shall, though, if you cherish any hope of persuading me across the bayou.”
“Then I would answer you that he does, O Blest. Indeed, just now he meant to beseech you to stay in Olorum—for the child’s sake, yes, but also for his own. For love of you.”
“But do I stand . . . first in his regard? I love no other; does he?”
“Sanctified Cousin Aqib bmg Sadiqi sees himself, first of all, a father—and so the Blessèd Lucretia stands foremost in his heart. Now, I beg you: no more questions. Strenuous expiations will be required for me to recover pellucidity. I have already trespassed further than I ever have before.”
“And yet, not nearly far enough. You call me savant, but seek to play me for a fool. You haven’t answered the question, maga. That a father may care for his daughter, my own child, is well and fine; who objects? But I am speaking—as you are perfectly aware—of the love between man and woman. Passion. Now, answer me again, and answer straight. No sophistry, no split hairs.”
“Then no, Femysade. Your answer is no. You were not his first, nor are you best with him. Before you were married there was another, and your husband . . . does not forget.”
“I knew there was some woman before me; I felt it. At one moment he seemed to know nothing of love, but the next, far too much. I
knew!”
The gods said nothing.
“And has he . . . has my husband ever played me false?”
“We will answer you in this, O Blest, but thereafterwards you must stay in Olorum, as you so choose—never knowing such wonders as the children of Ashê would have plied you with—for I will not pry further into your husband’s mind. Aqib bmg Sadiqi has been faithful to you, from the day your broker put forward the proposal, unto this one: never touching another, never secretly intriguing to do so.”
“But he did love a woman before me, and loves her better even now. You said so.” The Blessèd Femysade muttered to herself. “Why should I stay then, what holds me here? You said so . . . Wake him.”
. . . storm-tossed, his ship wrecking in the doldrums of forgetfulness, after many voyages in dreamlands, Aqib fetched up finally ashore, at home—sweaty, foul-mouthed after siesta, tangled in the sheets of his own bed. He sat up and clapped twice. Menials brought rinse water to him, and a chewing-stick to freshen teeth and breath. They laid out the afternoon robe of an Olorumi grandee, the black matte linen, its embroidery gleaming. Aqib washed, dressed, and he’d . . . dreamt perhaps? No, certainly. He was sure he’d dreamt of the Daluçan Garden again; for that metallic savor lingered in his mouth, and in his spirit an inexplicable melancholy, a hauntedness. Not the first such dream—perhaps the thousandth; but as always, he could recall little detail from the dream. So often recurring, never remembered? What did the dream concern, precisely? Voices, the gods, his daughter weeping . . . Aqib’s utter conviction, on the one hand, and complete confusion, on the other, kindled a queasy stir in his belly, a pounding in his head. Only three mortals could speak to the events in the Daluçan Garden that day: one of them dead, and another himself, full of doubts. Aqib went down to the nursery to put his questions to the Blessèd Lucretia.
He’d proved to be a difficult witch, this newborn prince. No indeed: he’d take no teat in the world except his own mother’s, and he had terrorized all his early nurses, daily blasting the nursery to Kingdom come. Prostrate and tearful, Lucretia appealed at last to her dearest friend, who came to the rescue. Now “Nurse,” the former chief translator at the Sovereign House had abandoned the pompous honors of her old office. She was no longer a voice of elegant fluency heard in every foreign negotiation, but only bodywoman to a frazzled, first-time mother; no master, anymore, of linguists, scholars, and wisewomen, but only mistress of a tikky infant’s ransacked nursery.
She was alone with the child when Aqib entered. Without Lucretia there, the usual chaos reigned in the baby’s room. Everything upended itself, strew itself, flapping or tumbling under its own will. Nurse was the image, still, of immaculate pulchritude, even in this humble post. She stood in the middle of pandemonium, hands clutched in her lovely skirts.
“But where is my grandson?” Aqib asked her.
Lucretia’s woman pointed, Aqib’s gaze following her finger.
Sweet Saints. Oh, dear! This was a thing Lucretia certainly had never done.
Olorum’s prince rolled himself over belly to back, and over again, gurgling happily, as any child his age might do on the floor. Except the Blessèd prince played on the ceiling.
“Sometimes the child will lose control unexpectedly,” Aqib cautioned. “One shudders to imagine him falling from such a height. Perhaps it were better, then, if you brought him down from there.”
Nurse looked from the child, to Aqib beside her. Such work must, of course, be frustrating for one who had once known far more august labors. One could observe the harried woman’s struggle for composure and words. “Yes, thank you, Sanctified Cousin. I do think you have the right of it; I’d quite thought so too! How then would the Reverend Master suggest I go about bringing the Blessèd prince down?”
Erm, ah . . . The ceiling loomed about four tall-men’s-height above them.
Aqib confessed himself at a loss.
“Perhaps,” said Nurse, “you, Cousin, might ask the prince (may all Saints bless him) to come down to us? He listens to you more than anyone.”
Not so much anymore; but Aqib stretched his hands up toward his grandson. Will you not come down—softly, gently—to visit with me, dear child? There was a little interval after birth, Aqib had found, when mortal children were entirely animal, and could be spoken to and persuaded just as Aqib might any animal. That interval was brief, however, and soon infants crossed over into a wholly other state, where he could not reach them except by way of ordinary babble. The prince said, “Baba!” and grinned, his little fat fist waving. “Baba!” Papa was what he called the King of Olorum, City and Nation. Happily the prince would offer his greetings, but still he declined to come down.
“I think,” Aqib said, “that we’d better call in his mother, the Blessèd Lucretia.”
“Oh, but she was awake most of the night,” Nurse said, “and only just lay down for siesta! I’d hoped to let her rest awhile.”
There was no help for it, though. Aqib stepped into the hallway and sent a menial scurrying to fetch his daughter. He and Nurse brushed aside dancing sheets and clothing, skirted tumbling furniture, trying to keep directly under the child as he rolled about the ceiling.
She had, of course, been through the wars; but never had she so much looked it. Haggard and bleary-eyed, Lucretia appeared in the nursery doorway. Milk stained her shirt, her trousers worn down to threadbare softness (for she’d kept these—preferring them—since girlhood). “Qary-sa!” Lucretia cried, looking upwards. “Come down from there. Come down, I say.” The chaos in the room stilled at a waved hand, which she then stretched toward the ceiling. Her son ceased to roll about, but he didn’t descend. Lucretia frowned. Hand still raised, she came into the room.
“What is it?” Nurse said. “You cannot bring him down?”
“Oh, excellent,” Lucretia said with bitter incredulity. “This was the only thing lacking! Now, Qary resists when I try to counter his antics.”
Aqib didn’t like the worried note in his daughter’s voice. “But surely the child isn’t stronger than you?” he said, inwardly thanking the Saints, again, that witchcraft had come upon his daughter so much later, as a sensible child of eight years.
“No, not that,” said Lucretia. “Or not yet, I should say. Saints forbid! But . . . imagine snatching something from a child. Only you must imagine that ‘something’ delicately lodged within the child’s body.” Very slowly, and laughing the while, sometimes bobbing upwards a little ways again, the prince came floating down. “Ever so gently . . . lest I do him an injury,” Lucretia said. Until lately she’d been used to employing her witchcraft only to mighty effect: war and hunting, exerting brute force on great weights. Finesse was plainly taxing to her. Tremors faintly shook her outstretched hand, and biting her lower lip, she spoke no more during the Blessèd prince’s descent. At length, son settled into mother’s arms, and decided at once that he was famished, and must nurse now. Lucretia held the fussing baby propped on one arm: “Just a moment, dear love,” she said, other hand fumbling at her shirt laces. “Mama will see you fed in just a . . .” The air seethed with uncanny spirits, and Aqib fell back in alarm, Nurse giving a little shriek. Invisible power—laces popping suddenly, unraveling, snapping like snakes—wrenched apart the halves of Lucretia’s shirt. “The Saints slept!” she cursed, not in anger but exhaustion.
“Lucretia mln Femysade!” Aqib said, appalled by this vile hersey. (For, by Canon, the Saints never sleep but are ever-vigiliant: watching the whole of creation at all times . . .) “Such language! I will thank you to remember that you’re not amongst soldiers on a battlefield!”
“Oh, pardon me, Papa,” cried his daughter, the baby already at her breast and snuffling contentedly. “I do forget myself sometimes, Master Aqib.” Lucretia touched a fingertip to her son’s busy cheek, and stroked tenderly, shedding a tear or two of mater in extremis. “I fear I’m at my wit’s end . . .” And the Right-Hand Witch was sadly come down from her days of battlefield glory, when once she’d si
ngle-handedly covered an army’s retreat, saving the life of the Most Holy in the days when he’d still only been prince.
“Sit yourself then, O Blessèd among Olorumi,” said Lucretia’s woman, embracing her—guiding them both down onto pillows. “Sit and rest awhile.” Lucretia leaned against the smaller woman; and held by her, shed a few more tears. Aqib felt moved, at last, to endorse the notion he’d so often railed against.
“We shall do as Nurse has suggested,” Aqib said briskly. “Let us send to the Ashëan Enclave. The gods will surely know better than we how to care for a baby with tikky.”
“TK, Papa,” Lucretia said, “telekinesis.”
“Mmhm,” Aqib said. “Just so. Daughter, if you tell the Most Holy that his Blessèd son requires such aid as only the gods can give, then the king will straightaway send a herald speeding across the bayou.” Her Grace, the wife of His Holiest Majesty, had birthed one daughter after another, five in all now. Lucretia’s child was the only son.
“I will do so tonight, Master Aqib,” Lucretia said. “His Holiest Majesty means to stop in after prayers. I’ll tell him then.” She gave Aqib a look of teary gratitude. “Thank you, Papa, thank you.”
“Hush, child,” Aqib said gently. “Soon everything will be well.” He felt no love for the gods, but as unstintingly as a father and grandfather could feel, Aqib loved his daughter and grandson. For Lucretia and Qary, he could swallow his hate. Olorum had never known such virulently powerful witches before that fateful day in the Daluçan Garden, when his family met with the prophet and the maga. As one who hadn’t forgiven, not yet or ever, Aqib said, “The gods still owe us a favor or two, I daresay.”
Nurse said, “Oh, do you feel they’ve shorted us, then, Sanctified Cousin? Really, I’d thought the Ashëans have dealt with Olorum most open-handedly,” she exclaimed. “The lovely extended canals! This new pavement, smooth and uncracking, over all the streets and boulevards: what a wonder it is! And have you gone yet to tour the seaside citadel, now the construction’s finally done? Oh, see it, Reverend Master, do! I swear it is an aweful prodigy—!” Quellingly Lucretia grasped her woman’s hand, just as Aqib snapped,
A Taste of Honey Page 9
