Mira's Last Dance

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Chadro seated himself again beside Mira, converting his frown to a wry smile. “Zihre tells me you are your own woman, and if I wish to seduce you, I will have to do so without her aid.”

  “Well, that’s true. Mine was a hard-won autonomy, and I do not hold it lightly.”

  “Rather cruel, from my point of view. Throwing me back on my meager resources. If I had any kind of skill with women, Zihre would not find me near so profitable a client.”

  “Take heart, sir. I doubt there is any man in Sosie who could afford me.”

  Chadro cast Mira an oddly shy sidewise glance. “I could try.”

  She smiled back, and stroked him kindly on the cheek. Interrupting this exchange, Penric leaned down to Chadro’s ear and whispered conspiratorially behind his hand, “It’s no use in any case. It’s that time of month when I am compelled to take a few days off.” There, that should settle things without hard feelings. He was just sitting back, satisfied, when Mira added, “Although I have a number of pleasant ways around such issues. A man would have to be willing to place himself entirely in my hands, however.”

  Mira…!

  “I can think of no fate more delightful,” murmured Chadro, “than to place myself entirely in your hands, Sora Mira.” He followed this up with another brush of his lips upon Mira’s knuckles, and Penric began to think Chadro’s humble self-presentation was as sham as his own. Granted, a man with his looks had strong motivation to perfect charm.

  “If you truly mean that,” said Mira, “you might provide me with as much amusement as I provide you. Making up any shortfall in our arrangement.”

  “Oh,” breathed Chadro, “I truly do.”

  “Then negotiate with Madame Zihre for the use of her room, and I will show you secrets of Lodi that have made slaves of dukes.”

  Chadro rose with alacrity, and made his way over to Zihre, who was quietly dealing with a servant by the kitchen door.

  Mira, what are you about? asked Penric in panic. Are you out of my mind?

  Come, come, Penric, and now she sounded rather like Ruchia, brisk and practical while proposing lunacy. We have sat through any number of your bedroom ventures over the years. Turnabout is fair play. She added after a moment, Also, you will learn some new things. That should appeal to the scholar in you.

  We can’t let ourselves be trapped in a room with him!

  On the contrary, I plan to trap him in a room with me. I had his measure in the first five minutes, Penric. Trust me. You will never take your clothes off, he will be very happy, and that little problem of financing the next leg of our journey will be solved.

  Pointing out that he planned to rob the temple felt like a weak counter-argument, given that there was no certainty the Sosie temple would yield anything. Also, it did not quite seem the moral high ground.

  Nikys leaned over his shoulder to whisper in alarm, “Penric, what are you doing?”

  “Mira has some idea,” he whispered back. Mira, in Pen’s prior experience, had many ideas, some of them scandalous. “She is the expert here…”

  Briefly, he considered trying for some consensus, or veto, from all ten of the personalities that made up his chaos demon, but in bedroom matters that tended to be more of a cacophony. Learned Ruchia would vote with Mira, and so would Vasia of Patos. The two physicians, Amberein and Helvia, would just laugh at him. Learned Aulia of Brajar would sit it out, feigning dignity, although he gathered she was entertained by the results regardless. Umelan the Roknari hated men generally, not without cause. Rogaska had no use for anyone. The Cedonians Litikone and Sugane, Desdemona’s first human riders, tended to blur together after two hundred years, although he suspected Sugane had liked women. So do I, blast it. The lioness and the mare, thankfully, never offered comment; Pen supposed, as creatures subject to heats, they’d never had to deal with such human complications. He was beginning to envy them.

  Chadro returned with Zihre in tow, gone wide-eyed. “Sora Mira,” she said hesitantly, “are you certain? I assure you, my hospitality does not depend on you doing anything you… you do not care to do.”

  Mira favored her with Penric’s sunniest grin. She stepped back, her hand going to her throat, and Chadro, watching anxiously, vented a faint Oh like a man hit in the stomach. “I promise you,” said Mira, and Penric imagined that you was inclusive, “everything will be all right.”

  Zihre raised her hands in a feeble gesture of upon your head be it, and led them upstairs. Nikys crowded close behind. As Zihre opened the door to her bedroom, Mira inquired lightly, “Zihre, do you chance to have a supply of silk scarves or the like? Preferably the like; silk knots so.”

  “No chance to it. Top layer of that green chest, together with, ah, some other things. Which may be better to the purpose.”

  “Excellent.” Mira swept inside with the air of a queen reclaiming her country. Chadro followed in hopeful curiosity, like the queen’s loyal general sworn to her service.

  Mira, this is madness, Pen complained, by now half-terrified. Most of the other half of him appeared to be gathering to watch events unfold like spectators to an archery match.

  Not at all, said Mira serenely. Back in the later days of my career in Lodi, I made something of a specialty of elderly gentleman. They dubbed me the Resurrection Woman. I had expected my income to fall with age, but in fact it rose. Very satisfying.

  Chadro isn’t elderly!

  So much the better. Mira smirked.

  He could probably break me in half with his bare hands. If he figures out who I really am, he’ll kill me!

  If he figures out what any of us really are, he’ll likely kill us all. Compelled to by his orders, if nothing else. This adds nothing to our risk.

  Gods, that reeked of a Ruchia-argument, twisty as a braid and as fitted to hang him. He’d often wondered if that was an effect of her scholarly Temple training, but really, it was probably just Ruchia. Was this a foretaste of his demon ascending?

  You could take back control at any time, and that was clearly Des altogether, but I advise against it. After all, you wouldn’t jog the elbow of an expert acrobat juggling fire.

  “Sora Mira,” the dismayed Nikys choked, “I will remain right outside your door. Call me if you need anything at all.” Rescue being strongly implied.

  Bad plan, opined Mira. I don’t know yet how noisy a man Chadro is. Too much room for mistakes. And I know you like her, but do you really think she could interrupt subtly enough?

  Pen had no idea, besides wanting to keep Nikys as far apart from this misadventure as possible. Like, in another country. Which, in fact, was the end goal. He must not lose sight of that. If events turned to disaster in Mira’s hands, he could probably rescue himself despite Chadro’s unnerving burliness, although betraying the secret of his sorcerer’s status, but… “No,” Pen said, “go join your brother in our room. Stay there.” He wasn’t sure how to convey Get ready to run, but Chadro was already closing the door upon their two wildly anxious escorts.

  Chadro twisted the key in the lock and turned to Mira, smiling wryly. “Sora Mira, I do believe your maidservant is in love with you. I cannot fault her for it.”

  Penric coughed. “Surely not.” Or at any rate, not for much longer.

  “She was certainly looking daggers at me. Ready to bite. Clearly, I had better return you without a hair out of place.”

  Desdemona inquired, half-sweet, half-serious, If Nikys were not watching, dear Pen, would you even care? Or would you find this just one more odd adventure with us?

  Pen could only manage a sort of mental mumble.

  Because if Nikys is going to take up with you, she is perforce going to take up with all of us. Or do you somehow imagine you can, across years, hide from your most intimate companion everything you really are?

  Are, had become, was still becoming…

  Because that never ends well.

  Two hundred years of experience speaking, across ten very different lives? Twelve, counting the lioness and the mare. Penric
went silent in temporary surrender, letting Mira go hunt up her supplies.

  V

  Nikys returned reluctantly to their room. Adelis, last left dozing on his pallet, was up and pacing from wall to wall. He’d had the least to do, hiding all day in here, and the forced delay in their flight was making him tenser and tenser.

  “Finally!” he said to her. “What’s happening out there? Where’s Penric? Is he still flouncing around in that bloody dress?”

  “I have no idea what he thinks he’s doing. Adelis, did you ever know a General Chadro?”

  Adelis halted. “Egin Chadro?”

  “I didn’t catch his given name. He apparently commands the Fourteenth, here in Sosie.”

  “He’s out there? In this house?”

  “Yes. Is he someone who would recognize you?”

  “Yes, very likely.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “We served together a few years ago. Very level-headed officer, but lacking a rich or well-connected family to foster his career. If he’s been promoted to the Fourteenth, someone is finally doing something right.”

  “Does he have a short temper?’

  “He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all. Why do you ask?”

  “He was very taken with Mira.”

  Adelis grumbled something unintelligible. And grudgingly granted, “Penric was very convincing.”

  “And I think Mira was very taken with him. She’s taken him off to Zihre’s bedchamber, anyway. I can’t imagine what she’s up to in there with him.” Rather, Nikys could imagine quite a lot, but most of it ended in bloodshed.

  “Is he insane?” Adelis sputtered, and Nikys had no doubt which he was meant.

  She contemplated the question. By the standards of anyone not a Temple sorcerer, was Penric mad? Or should she only be asking if he was mad by the standards of sorcerers? She was beginning to wonder about sorcerers in ways that had never crossed her mind when they were just a distant rumor or a rare glimpse of white robes.

  “I don’t suppose General Chadro likes lads?” she tried, in a weak sort of hopefulness. “Do you know?”

  “Not that I’d ever heard. I can guarantee he wouldn’t like being made a game of.”

  “Oh.”

  Adelis eyed her. “I think we had better pack up. We may have to run.”

  She nodded shortly, feeling sick. “How long should we give it?”

  “No idea. Although Chadro does not suffer fools quietly, either. If there’s an uproar, we’ll hear it.”

  “All the way across the house?” Zihre’s bedchamber was in the far corner of the inner atrium.

  “Maybe. Bastard’s teeth grind us all.” And never had the oath seemed more apt. “If Penric’s unmasked and arrested, we’ll have to leave him to get himself out.”

  He’s never abandoned us. Not once. The cry teetered on a see-saw with What does that long lunatic expect to happen? trapping Nikys voiceless between her offense and her dread.

  They fell into a quick collaboration, bundling their possessions into two parcels. Nikys stacked Penric’s scant clothing ready on the bed. Penric’s medical case she set apart, though she made sure it was all neatly packed. Adelis kept his sword out. It didn’t take long, and then they had little to do but sit side-by-side on the bed and listen to the occasional voices or footsteps crossing the gallery, more muted and infrequent as the night grew old. Nikys rose and pushed the door ajar, tilting her head intently, but heard nothing more than a household settling down. Adelis finally stretched himself on his pallet, fully dressed with his sword by his hand, and dozed, so Nikys forbore pacing. She jittered in place, instead, flexing her feet and knees.

  It must have been two hours before she heard footfalls approaching on the gallery—barefoot padding, not the clunk of clogs. And since when could she recognize those steps unseen? She jumped up. The door swung open, and Penric appeared, still entirely Mira from copper-gilt top to lacquered toe, although he held the clogs in one hand. His dress did not seem disarrayed. No blood. He shut the door and leaned against it with a tired whoosh of breath. His eyes were dark and a bit wild, reminding her for some reason of a clumsy cat they had once fished out of a cistern.

  “Well,” he said, his voice dropping from Mira’s through its normal register to something that also could have come out of the cistern. “That was an experience.”

  Adelis was on his feet. “Where’s Chadro?”

  “I left him sleeping like the dead. I’m not sure if Zihre will let him occupy her bed till morning, or wake him up and toss him out.”

  “What did you do to him?” asked Nikys. “Something magic?” Magic, illusion… surely Penric if anyone could manage something like that. Maybe he hadn’t had to do anything… real. She glanced at Adelis’s half-healed scars, and his wholly-healed eyes. But sorcery is real.

  Penric was silent for a long moment. He finally said, “Mira does not gossip about her clients. Very rigid rule, I gather. The highest rank of Lodi courtesans don’t; that’s part of how they become the highest rank.”

  Adelis was giving him a very sideways look, his lips flat, but he did not choose to press for details. At least not in front of Nikys. It was maddening.

  She said urgently, “You weren’t hurt? You took no… no insult?”

  “Not at all.” Penric grimaced and spread his fingers. “It’s all right, Nikys. I kept my clothes on, and I didn’t have my hands anywhere they’d not been as a physician. Better, actually, since this body was still alive. There were good reasons we taught anatomy in the winter. And I washed them before and after, all the same.”

  Since, as an anatomist, he’d taken bodies entirely apart, Nikys did not find this in the least reassuring. And how well was she growing to know him, that she could spot his misdirections so readily?

  “More importantly,” Adelis cut in, “do you think Chadro saw through your disguise?”

  Penric seemed to consider this question seriously, then replied, quite simply, “No.” He thumped his head back against the door, stretching his neck and rolling his shoulders. “Ah, gods, I’m tired. Well, no help for it. Nikys, aid me getting out of Mira and back into my own clothes. Carefully; we’re still going to need her in the morning.”

  He took two steps forward, stopped, and slapped his hands against his torso in dismay. “Oh, shit!”

  Since Penric had to be the least foul-mouthed man she’d ever met, Nikys found this oath quite startling. She gasped, “What’s the matter?”

  “I forgot to ask for money. Mira forgot, if you can believe it. I thought she seemed overexcited. All that for… shit, shit.” He took a deep, recovering breath. “Well. It may be possible to get into the Sosie temple now. And oh my dear bleached god, I need to dump some disorder on the way. It’s been building up in me up all day. Like water behind a dam. Tiny insects are useless for this much chaos, and besides, there aren’t any left around here.”

  If he noticed their possessions packed for flight, he made no remark on it. Perforce, she helped him out of his Mira-togs, laying them aside. Nikys had never believed that clothes made the man, but the lack of them certainly did; it was weirdly heartening to see the familiar Penric emerge again from the disguise… and, perhaps, from the domination of his demon? Because she was increasingly convinced that Mira had been something more than skin-deep. More than an act.

  So… so Penric had evidently done some things tonight that would horrify her to have to do. Men did. Shoved swords into people, for example, or sacked towns. But she found herself drawing away from him despite the arguments of common sense. Would she be happier with him if he’d seemed more distraught? That at least would be a reaction she could understand.

  Instead, she asked, “How will you get out of the house unseen?”

  “There’s a tradesman’s door in the back wall by the laundry. I don’t need a lantern, so slipping out in the dark should be easy.”

  And if it’s locked? she started to ask, then realized it was a foolish remark. She
’d seen what he could do to locks. There were barriers that could thwart sorcerers, evidently, but ordinary locks weren’t one of them.

  And then he was gone, flitting out as silently as a cat. But this time, she thought of those big wildcats in the northern mountains, the ones that took lambs and kids in the night. She’d long been aware that Penric was a strange man, but she’d somehow thought him safe.

  What, as Adelis, or Kymis, or Chadro were safe? For all of Penric’s soft-voiced self-effacement, the ignore-me-I’m-harmless smiles, she was beginning to realize he might be the least safe man she’d ever met. Or, certainly, the least predictable… perhaps that was the root of it. Most men kept to their assigned parts in life. If you knew the part, you could reliably guess how they would behave. She had no script for demon-ridden sorcerer.

  And nor did Adelis, she supposed. Penric had powers Adelis could neither see nor counter by any military skill. She wondered if Pen realized her brother’s stiffness toward him had its roots in well-stifled fear. Or if Adelis did, for that matter.

  The next hour of fretting was a reprise of the first two, although her exhaustion was such that she lay down in her pallet beside Adelis’s. He slept; she couldn’t. At last, Penric ghosted back in, not heralded by any night-candle. The one on the washstand that barely kept the room from total darkness was guttering.

  Adelis sat up with Nikys. “Any trouble?” he asked.

  Penric waved a hand in the dimness. “Yes and no. I wasn’t seen. But the Sosie temple evidently clears its offering boxes when they lock up at night. Not a single coin to be found.”

  Adelis frowned. “There might have been objects of value. Good candlesticks, plate…”

  “Yes, and all of it too recognizable to try to pawn in this town.” Penric’s voice took an unaccustomed edge. “Since the whole point of the exercise is to get out of this town, not a useful thought. Which I already had, believe me.” He paused only to strip himself of his jacket and trousers, and flop into the bed in his shirt and trews. “Ah, gods.” He added after a moment, “I did manage to divest all today’s chaos. There was a sick street dog. Poor beast.”