Exiled: Keeper of the City

by Peter Morwood

  “The discussion was about the shortages of grain that there would be here, if all the merchants shorted their crops,” Laas said. “One mrem said, ‘But if they change their minds about doing it, all this planning and paying we’ll have been doing will be useless.’ And—someone—said to me, ‘They won’t be able to change their minds; natural means won’t make a difference to what will happen, and they don’t believe in the other. And it’s happening already.’ ”

  “Where did this conversation happen?”

  “In the back garden, in Haven.”

  Reswen swore softly; it was the one area of the place that could not be covered completely. “They had sent the servants away, I take it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.” This was for the meat, not the situation: Reswen was cutting steaks out of the upper leg, and one of them had cut poorly. “Well. What would they be doing that wasn’t ‘natural’—”

  And the thought of the stone and water came back to him, and he froze.

  “I wonder,” he said.

  “What?”

  He looked at her speculatively. “You’ll find out later,” he said. “But tell me one thing. Has anyone mentioned anything to you about the ‘blood and bones of the city’ that was asked for?”

  She looked at him blankly. “No.”

  It’s happening already.

  Oh gods, gods ...

  But the gods helped those who helped themselves. He finished his cutting, and thought. “I told them I was taking today off,” he said. “Quite frankly, I wanted to lie around here and ... well.” He glanced up at Laas; her gaze rested on him for a few moments, unreadable, and then she slowly smiled.

  “Maybe later ... if you like. But today I’d like to go around the city and see about some things. Would you come with me? Maybe help me?”

  Laas nodded. “If I can.”

  Reswen put aside two of the steaks, thought a moment, and sawed off another one. “I’ll never make a butcher,” he said. “No matter. Tell me the truth, first. Is this going to get you in trouble—that you’re missing for a day without reporting?”

  Laas cocked her head and thought. “I doubt it, really. They’ll assume I’m doing what I was supposed to do: seducing you, finally. They may even be pleased—you were scheduled before the corn-factors.”

  Reswen smiled. “My wounded pride and I thank you. Then after we’re done, we can amuse ourselves. I can get us into the Games tonight. Would you like that?”

  “From what you’ve told me, I think so. All right.”

  “Well enough.” He carried the meat out to the grate, swung the grill-plate out to load it up, then swung it back over the fire. “How do you like your meat?”

  “A little rare.”

  Reswen pulled over a chair and sat down to keep an eye on the meat, poking it occasionally with a two-pronged meat prod that hung by the fire. In the middle of turning over one of the steaks, he paused, and his heart began to hammer. Someone was breathing in his ear.

  “You were really much better than the corn-factors,” Laas whispered. ‘T m sorry it took so long.”

  He glanced at her, sidewise, then shut his eyes as very softly she began washing him again.

  Reswen burned breakfast.

  •

  Early in the afternoon two mrem were seen strolling into the market: one veiled in the manner of a Winui she-mrem from the far west, head to hind toes, only the eyes showing; the other, her companion, a fine bold swaggering young bravo, black as night, in silken kilts and jacket and an eye patch, with a fine slim sword belted at his side. Together they ambled among the stalls, pointing at fine wares, pricing things, often buying. The Winui never spoke, only signed to her companion, as the she-mrem of that city do when traveling abroad. Her bravo was expansive with his gold, a cheerful, laughing sort, and she had only to point but he would buy something for her. The shopkeepers didn’t even bother sending their apprentices around to beseech them to buy, for the couple had hired one of the market urchins to carry their goods for them, and it seemed likely that every stall in the place was going to sell them something sooner or later.

  Therefore no one found it strange when the two happy buyers stopped a roving seller, one of the people who go about with trays or baskets rather than working from a stall, and asked what he sold, and on finding that it was scents, asked him to stop and show them what he had. The young scent-seller propped his tray on a broken half wall near one side of the market, and the three of them pored a long time over the scent jars, the she-mrem pointing at one, then another, and signing quickly with her fingers, while her companion asked questions about the ones she pointed at.

  Naturally no one expected to hear speech coming from under that veil, Winui mrem being the way they were, so no one did hear it, or if they did, they attributed the murmurs they heard to the handsome young bravo. Which was just as well, considering what was being said. “You’re sure about that, Shilai? This will be a life-or-death matter for some of our people.”

  “That’s mange bane,” Shilai said to the handsome young black. “More expensive than the hair-grow oil, but in my opinion it works better, sir.” And then he whispered: “I’m sure, sir. He bought at least five bottles’ of the goldwater—you know, that liquor with the gold leaves floating in it?—and had them sent to the Lloahairi Embassy. I heard him say something about a party there tonight, after the Games, and another one tomorrow night, in honor of the new ambassador.”

  “Do you have anything for the itch?” said the young black, poking among the bottles on the tray with one claw. Very softly he added, “This dye is enough to make you want to climb out of your skin.”

  “You think you’re suffering,” Reswen whispered, “it’s like a tent in here.”

  Reswen paused for a moment. “So,” he said then, “our mystery mrem has made an appointment, and we know about it. This is good news. And the Games, indeed. Look, Shilai, get word to Krruth by your usual drop. Tell him to send the reports from the Lloahairi Embassy situation over to my house tonight, before the Games. I want to see what the inside crew has to say for themselves. And I want that mrem’s house searched, tonight, if it hasn’t been already.” He pointed at another bottle.

  “Yes, sir. Oil of dayflower, madam, good for the aches and for open scratches. Smells good on a wood fire, as well, and the smoke drives away insects.”

  “You’ve really been studying this,” Reswen said, impressed. “Good for you. We’ll take a bottle of that, and—what is it with the mange bane this eightday?”

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s still selling well.”

  Reswen chuckled a bit. “Keep this up, and you’ll be a commander by the end of the moon,” he whispered. “Or an auncient at least. Pay him, Laas.”

  Coin changed hands, and the two of them straightened up and strolled away; behind them, the scent-seller picked up his tray again and went off, crying his wares.

  “So now we’re on our own. What shall we do?” said Reswen, very softly.

  Laas scratched herself absently, then swore, a word that Reswen hadn’t thought a courtesan would know. “Home to get this dye out of my fur. And then—”

  There was a silence, as of a smile, from under the veil.

  “Shall I burn lunch?” Reswen said.

  •

  He held her. He held her. He could not let go of her. It was an astonishing thing, how suddenly his body seemed incomplete without her, without the touch of her, at arm’s length at least, and preferably much closer. If she left his embrace, it was only temporary; that was the best part of it. She would be back. Now teeth closed on the back of his neck, and he lay there and loved it, the reversal of roles, the surrender, the brief pain sweet with anticipation. He knew the reversal wouldn’t last. It hadn’t lasted before.

  Why was I so worried? he thought. What was I afraid of?

  The teeth let hi
m go. “Ah, don’t stop,” he said.

  “I have to, for a few moments anyway,” she said, and lay down beside him again, panting a bit. They had closed all the blinds, and pulled all the coverlets and pillows off the couch, and lolled in front of the low-burning fire like a couple of kits just discovering the delights of rut. There was wine, and some meat not quite so overdone as breakfast.

  He stroked her side, from shoulder down to breasts, reflective, astonished all over again at the softness of her fur. He had always prided himself on his own fur’s softness, but Laas’s was so soft that you couldn’t quite tell when you started to feel it. “Tired?” he said.

  “A little.”

  “Rest then,” he said, and pulled her close, stroking her. She lay against him, her head on his chest, and purred.

  “Why was I afraid?” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “You.”

  She lay silent for a moment. “Lack of control,” she said. “At least, I suppose that’s what it is. We see it a lot, when we’re not using the talent. One day a mrem wants you ... the next day, unless you’re sure to use the talent on him, he’s terrified of you. He doesn’t know why he wanted you, he doesn’t want you now ... and he doesn’t want to want you. So you must use the talent, again and again, on so many people....” She opened her eyes; there was a weary look in them. “A curse,” she said. “Sometimes it’s a curse. I never wanted to frighten anymrem. I just wanted to live....”

  “How did you find out about it?” Reswen said. And then added, “Maybe I shouldn’t ask.”

  “It’s not a problem.” She closed her eyes again, content to lie there and tell it in a faraway voice, as if it was a story. “I didn’t know until I was ready to have kits. That first week the bleeding came ... with it came the he-mrem. At the door, in the market ... My mother was scandalized.” Laas stretched a little. “None of them came offering marriage ... they just wanted me. My mother beat me. She thought I was leading them on. But after a while it became clear to her that I had nothing to do with it ... or rather, it was me, but nothing I was doing.”

  She sighed. “Then later it began slowly to change. If I worked hard at it, the he-mrem would only want to do what I wanted, though of course they wanted me physically too ... and the situation got a little easier to control. The worst offenders, I could tell them that what would make me happy would be for them to stay away. But sometimes it worked too well.” Her eyes opened, grew cool. “One or two of them killed themselves for want of me, while I was youngest and the power was strong.”

  Reswen was still, and held her close.

  “I grew into it with time,” Laas said. “I began to get a sense of the ways that it could be controlled.... I had no choice; if I didn’t control it, there was no peace for me. Then a minor lord of the city saw me in the street. He ‘loved’ me at first sight, of course....” A slightly bitter laugh. “I had thought life was too complicated.... I’d never seen anything. Barely ready to kitten, and suddenly plunged into the intrigues of a court, and suddenly being the one that everyone wanted ... everyone male, at least. While the jilted she-mrem plotted and schemed, and thought of ways to poison me. My control slipped again and again. I was still so young.... It was a bad time. Duels fought over me, and lovers killed, and me passed from paw to paw like a war prize. I had little money of my own then, and no way to control what was going on.”

  Reswen shuddered at the thought of it. “Didn’t you ever think of running away?”

  Laas laughed softly. “When half the lords of a court would think one of their rivals had stolen you, and thus insulted them? I didn’t dare. I had seen the insult fall on the she-mrem in question once or twice, seen her staked out or spiked up, or taken down into the Undercastle in Cithiv city, where no one and nothing came out but cries, once someone had gone in. No indeed,” she said. “I did all I could: I controlled it. I learned. I found a wizard—or rather, he found me—and he taught me something about how to handle myself. In return for favors at court, of course.”

  There was something about the way Laas said “favors” that made Reswen shudder. “I see,” he said. “I think I see. But I don’t see how a wizard prospered openly in a city, unless your people do things differently from ours.”

  “Oh no,” Laas said. “He wasn’t openly a wizard. But there are always things, you know, that the rich want done for them that aren’t quite legal. But they find their ways ... and Usiel was one of them. If you wanted someone to come to grief, in some way that couldn’t be attributed to some specific person, you went to Usiel. He would manage it for you. Your enemy would die of a fever, or fall from some wall or balcony when no one else was near, and no one would think anything odd about it. Except those who knew ... and a lot of mrem knew. Usiel had a lot of business in the court at Cithiv. And some of it got to be mine. He would want to get someone under his claw ... so he would send me after them, and they would want me, and the price would be some little favor they could do for Usiel. He had long since taught me how to not be a playing-piece for the lords any more, how to turn them against one another and make them strive to grant me favors.” She said it with the utmost matter-of-factness, as one might talk of making a bed or washing a dish. “I was a fairly rich mrem, then, and I got richer ... from their gifts, from other gifts that various lords or ladies would pay Usiel for his services.”

  Reswen thought of the gold-and-rose-colored knife and said nothing for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally, “I can see where you would be something of a commodity, in a place like a noble court.”

  Laas was still, and after a few moments, rolled away from Reswen and lay on her stomach, her head pillowed on her arms, gazing into the fire. “A commodity,” she said. “Yes.”

  “But you stopped doing it,” Reswen said.

  “No,” Laas said, “I’m still doing it.”

  Reswen was quiet.

  “But free-lance,” she said. “I moved out of Cithiv to Hazik and settled down there. There was no use trying not to be what I was. I did the only thing I knew how ... I turned it to advantage. Finally various people in Hazik got wind of my talent and approached me about this trip. I took the opportunity. I’ve seen enough of the East. I thought the West might be different.”

  He had to say it, no matter how the possible answer frightened him. “And has it been?”

  She rolled over on her back, stretched her arms above her head, stretched that sleek and lovely body before him. Reswen’s mouth dried with desire. “Mrem are the same here,” she said in that cool voice that upset him so. “Your Arpekh, the corn-factors, all gluttons, gorging themselves on a dainty, never noticing that the dainty has a mind. They are fools, and their folly may be the end of them. I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to greatly care about them.”

  And then she looked up at him. “You are the only one,” she said, slipping her arms around him, drawing him down, “the only one not to look at me as a perquisite of your office, as some kind of prize that you have a right to, or some kind of business bribe that you expect and don’t give a second thought to. The only one.”

  Reswen had to hold off, despite the fact that the heat was rising in him again, threatening to sweep him away. “I looked at you as a job,” he said. “It’s not much better.”

  “At least you saw someone there when you looked,” Laas said, “instead of something ... instead of a complimentary gift.” She smiled at him, a small smile that gradually grew broad. “ ‘An honest interrogator.’ You were never less than that, with me.”

  The heat rose, but he held. “I think,” he said, “I think I’m falling in love with you. And you’re not doing anything. Are you?”

  She shook her head slowly; the smile faded, leaving something better behind it, a sweet somberness. “No,” she said.

  “It may be a stupid thing to do,” he said. “Almost certainly.”

  She gazed at him. “Yes,” she
said.

  Reswen buried his face in her fur.

  “Let us be stupid together, then,” Laas said.

  He raised his head in astonishment. She looked at him silently ... then bit his neck, made the heat rise out of bounds, made him take her,

  I am lost, Reswen thought, as they moved together.

  But at least I’m not afraid any more….

  •

  That evening they went to the Games. It was all too rarely that Reswen had an excuse to take a night off and indulge himself; he was wallowing in the delight of it. I’m wallowing in everything, he said to himself as they walked over to the Hills, the high ground just inside the main city wall where the Enclosure lay. And I don’t want it to stop....

  Before the Games had developed, the place had been the site of the rudest kinds of entertainments—the baiting of wild beasts, predators like kofomo and tarleth that made the grainlands unsafe for mrem and uxen alike. There had been gladiatorial combats, too, until such things went out of style as being barbaric, neither aesthetically pleasant nor a preparation for war and combat, as some of its proponents claimed. What had supplanted the beast-baiting and the gladiators was something that combined elements of both of them: the hunt, confined in a small area where mrem could watch; a warrior, pitted against the beasts, who could not leave the Enclosure without winning; and the dance. Perhaps that obsession with movement and grace had come a little later to the martial-minded Niauhu of earlier times than it had come to mrem elsewhere, but when it arrived, it did so with a vengeance. The Games became the primary obsession of the city for days, months at a time.

  They waited outside the gates of the Enclosure with the rest of the crowd. It was a rowdy gathering, drinking having already begun in earnest. Wine-sellers and beersellers and mrem carrying sacks of stronger spirits were going among the crowd, each with his single cup from which a drinker would swig if he hadn’t brought his own. Sanitation was rather left to the gods in these cases: the better wine-sellers had a cloth to wipe the cups with afterwards, but Reswen saw one simply picking up the end of his tail and using that. He rolled his eyes a bit. Laas laughed.