“I feel sorry for his wife,” Grau muttered.
She nodded, but the moment was soured. She didn’t dare let down her guard. This was only the first day, and so many men loved to indulge a concubine—at first.
“I meant to tell you earlier,” Velsa said, “but you should be more careful with leaving me alone on the street. I could be kidnapped.”
“You’re right. Sometimes I’m absent-minded when I get an idea. I won’t do it again.” He looked at the remaining pieces of pastry. They had both stopped eating when the man appeared. “You’re done, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Grau tucked the leftover pastries away in a waxed cloth for later. He seemed more sober now. She wondered if he was considering the fact that if he ever fell in love with a flesh and blood woman, he would have to explain her, or find somewhere else to put her.
“When we leave the city, we’re going back to my family home in Marjon for a month,” he said. “My father paid for you, so he’ll want to see you. But you’ll need more clothes. A couple of outfits suitable for mucking around in the marshland and traveling with the patrol, and a nice dress, at the least. No time to hire a dressmaker, so we’ll have to stop at the used market.”
The used clothing market occupied a large central square. Many of the vendor booths were permanent while others were hastily pitched tents. Even on the periphery, outside the official boundaries of the market, shabby little women spread ragged tunics and scarves onto blankets and shouted prices at passerby. It was so busy that in certain narrow spots they had to hold hands and edge around other bodies single file. Velsa was very careful not to smell the air here. She expected many of these people would fit Pia’s descriptions of unwashed city folk.
All she had ever worn were the simple tunics and slim trousers of childhood, and then the robes of a concubine. She had just one outfit at a time. Their clothes almost never needed to be cleaned, because they never handled food or got near the fire. When the clothing grew shabby, they were given a new garment, much the same as the last.
In the market, styles varied widely, from all the people of different regions who came trading along the river. Some were imported, like the beautiful embroidered Halnari sashes that were hung lengthwise along the vendor tents. Grau seemed to know what to look for and how to haggle. She could only offer an occasional opinion on what colors or fabrics she liked.
She kept trying to imagine what he meant by ‘mucking around the marshlands’. Surely he didn’t really mean for her to roam the outdoors. Or maybe he did. He had been so interested in her rock collection.
With all the business attended to, they resumed their journey. As night fell, they were on the outskirts of town, and stayed at another inn, not as nice as the last.
They had their evening meal downstairs in the dining room, surrounded by many dirty, calloused men who stared at Velsa, but left her alone. The same could not be said for a handsome young man in a fur-trimmed blue tunic with obsidian earrings and his hair in a neatly formed loop-braid. He sat down at their table while they were eating.
“Hey there,” he said to Grau, crossing his arms on the table, displaying several jeweled rings. “You sure have a nice-looking doll. Too nice for a place like this, eh?” He jabbed a thumb at the rest of the room.
“We’re fine, thanks,” Grau said.
“I was just giving you a compliment. Still, I wonder if you’d consider an offer.”
“No,” Grau said.
“You don’t know how much I’m offering.”
“I wouldn’t sell her for any price,” Grau said. “She’s a girl, not a piece of farm equipment.”
“You bought her, didn’t you? I’d really just like to have her for an hour. I’ve traveled a long while and I’m partial to Fanarlem girls myself.”
Velsa had never realized that leaving the House and belonging to one man would in no way save her from every other leering man in the world. She would never be safe anywhere. At some point on Grau’s travels it seemed practically inevitable that someone would steal her away from him.
The man put some coins on the table. “You could buy her a whole new untainted body for that.”
“I couldn’t buy her an untainted mind.” Grau wolfed down the last few bites of his stew and gave Velsa’s elbow a small tug toward the door.
Apparently, they were leaving.
The man followed them, shoving past a half-drunk crowd near the bar. Just outside the door, he caught Velsa’s hand and tried to yank her toward him. Grau seized her other hand. She imagined them tearing her in two.
“Hey,” the man said. “I don’t appreciate your tone. I’m making you an offer that is more than fair. She’s just a Fanarlem and I like the look of her. Your mother never taught you to share your toys?”
“Let go of her.” Grau spoke with deadly calm. “She’s precious to me.”
“Pampered little snot.” The man shoved Velsa at Grau, and she stumbled. She would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. He held her close. His breathing was quick.
Grau waved his hand toward the lantern burning outside of the inn and then swept his fingers back toward his body. Flame sprung up in the palm of his hand.
Velsa stepped back. Fire frightened her. The stories she read at the House often ended with a disobedient, willful Fanarlem being burned to death, screaming with pain until the eye that held their soul finally melted away.
“Oh, a bit of sorcery.” The man’s tone was scathing. He twisted one of the rings on his fingers. Grau flung the flame at him, scorching his sleeve, as a bolt of blue magic, so bright it hurt her eyes, shot from the ring.
Grau clutched his stomach, but at the same time he stepped forward, holding up his hands as if he intended to strangle the man.
Grau sucked in a long breath of air, weaving his fingers as if he was drawing from the other man’s lungs.
The man choked. He shook his head and his arms twitched and waved in what seemed to be a gesture of surrender.
Grau exhaled forcefully, and the man coughed.
“Parlor tricks,” he spat.
“I have plenty more, if you’re enjoying them,” Grau said.
The man ducked into the inn door, slamming it behind him.
“That was amazing,” Velsa said. “But are you hurt?”
“It’ll be all right,” Grau said, through gritted teeth. “Let’s get out of here.”
He went to the stables, still clutching his stomach.
“I never imagined, when I got you, that complete strangers would expect to have you,” he said, as the stablehand readied Fern. “He wouldn’t ask to take my horse out for a ride, would he? And Fern probably wouldn’t even be bothered, but…”
Velsa felt as if she never wanted to see another flesh and blood person again. She knew she shouldn’t feel so angry. Fanarlem should not be angry at real people; anger was for Grau to feel, but she had no idea how to smother her feelings on the inside, only the outside.
“Maybe you’d better put on the jacket and pants I bought you,” Grau said. “That might stop it. For all they’d know, you were flesh-born.”
“Flesh-born?”
“You know, like you were born a real woman.”
“Is that possible?”
“It’s rare, but once in a while people choose to become Fanarlem to extend their lives—if their body was badly maimed, for instance.”
“Might people really think that I was flesh-born?” Velsa had never heard of this surprising possibility.
“Why not?”
She supposed what really surprised her was that he wouldn’t mind people thinking she was flesh-born, because then they would surely think she was his wife, to be traveling alone with him. His status would be elevated by owning a Fanarlem concubine; she suspected it would be the opposite if he had a flesh-born Fanarlem wife, who could not produce heirs.
They rode on through the darkness to the next town, finding a very shabby inn, but it was run by welcoming people who seemed h
appy to have another guest turning up so late.
The room was small and drafty, and the bed wasn’t meant for two.
“I could sleep on the floor,” Grau offered, but he was still clutching his stomach and moving carefully.
“Not with your injury! I won’t find it as uncomfortable as you would. But…Grau, I don’t think I would mind if we were close. I’m not sure if I would even mind if you held me. You’re very warm.”
“Do you get cold?”
“Not cold the way you do, but…it makes me feel safe. And I feel…very unsafe right now.”
He drew close and put a hand on her shoulder. “And no wonder.”
Velsa smiled wanly and then gently pulled his hand away from his tunic. The fabric was scorched in a tidy circle. And the skin beneath? She unfastened the clasps.
“This isn’t how I imagined you’d undress me,” he murmured.
Her face heated. Luckily a blush could not betray her.
“At least when we get to my family home,” he said, “we’ll be away from it all. We’ll have hours and hours to roam the marshes without seeing another person. I’ll teach you a bit of magic.”
The attack had left a red welt on his skin, not much larger than a coin, but it looked painful.
“It’s not so bad,” he said. “Daramons are tough these days. My blood will heal itself.”
“Because of the Ten Thousand Man Sacrifice?” A century ago, the High Sorcerer Kalan Jherin gathered ten thousand Daramons willing to sacrifice themselves for the future of their children. The blood they spilled created a spell so powerful that it enchanted the blood of all Daramons in the world, so they would heal rapidly and survive most fatal injuries. It had also extended their lifespan, from an average of ninety years, to nearly a century and a half. The High Sorcerer himself was two hundred years old, but of course he had access to the best magic the world could offer.
“Yes. You could rip out my heart and sew it back in half an hour later and I’d probably survive.”
“Still, some medicine wouldn’t hurt, if you have any.” She had picked up a few things from talking to the Little Wives.
“The little green bottle in my bag.”
He sat down on the bed while she found the medicine. He pressed his shirt against the wound. It didn’t seem as if touching the welt would feel better, but obviously it did. What did she know of wounds?
She opened the jar and scooped out a dab of medicine, smelling the sharp herbal aroma before dabbing it on his skin. The wound immediately lost some of its angry red color.
Grau watched her with the same serious expression as the first moment they met.
Her hand moved, as if his eyes were a magnet that drew her hands forward. She placed her palm on his chest, to feel his own heartbeat again. The gentle flutter of it seemed too vulnerable, to give power to his long, solid legs and the hands that lifted her so easily. It gave her a pang, to think of how fragile he really was, how many parts of him could be hurt, and yet he didn’t even seem to consider that most of the time. He was so much stronger than her. It must make him feel very confident.
He kept gently studying her face for a moment. His eyes said so much, it was hard not to trust him, even though she didn’t dare trust anyone entirely. He was fascinated with her. She could see it all there.
Certainly, he was not the first man to look at her with fascination. But it was different, with Grau. His expression had a weight that went beyond mere curiosity or desire. She felt like he was searching out her soul. She couldn’t look away.
He finally did, leaning forward to unbutton his boots.
She took off her robes, feeling a little shy as she climbed into bed beside him. He faced away from her, but on the small mattress, their bodies touched. The wool she was stuffed with warmed immediately against him and she reflected that once all that wool had been the coat of a living creature, and her bones had been the body of a living tree.
“Grau,” she said. “When you’re awake and I’m sleeping, does it feel like being next to a living person?”
“Yes,” he said. “It certainly does. Even when you’re sleeping, and very still, I sense the magic that gives you life.”
“How does it feel?”
“A little bit electric,” he said. “A little bit like a heartbeat, almost.” He turned onto his back so he could meet her eyes. “You are certainly alive.”
“I’m conscious,” she said. “And moving. But I mean more than that. I mean feeling like I have a body and not just a shell. Like I belong here.”
He gently brushed back the hair that was falling across her cheek. “To me, you feel vibrantly alive,” he said. “You were created differently, but that’s all right. Lots of things are. Some creatures are born from wombs, some hatch out of eggs, some are spun from magic.”
She rested her head against his shoulder, and he slipped an arm around her back. The warmth was so delicious, it almost made her shiver.
She wanted more of him.
More of his warmth, more of his strength, more of the way he looked at her.
She still feared him, too. She could hardly voice the reasons why, when he had treated her so well.
Only, there seemed to be no point in resisting her feelings. She should count herself lucky that she was starting to feel a true attraction to the man who had chosen her. Even if he broke her heart, she would have nowhere better to go…wasn’t that obvious enough already? She wouldn’t be safe anywhere, much less free.
It’s my fault, she thought. I always did everything I was supposed to do, but Dalarsha still made me a Village Girl. I’m not obedient. I don’t want to be anyone’s possession, not even Grau’s, even it means my soul is cursed…
In the morning, he was already out of bed when she woke. He seemed to like mornings more than she did. She marveled that he hadn’t tried to touch her in the night, after she had chosen to stay so close to him. Their instruction at the House had never suggested men had much patience.
He handed her a folded pile of clothes. Pants of sturdy black cotton; a short tunic with a plain sash, a high collar that concealed the golden band, and long cuffed sleeves; a black hat with flaps to shield one’s ears against the cold. Worker’s clothes.
All the girls at the House would laugh to see her in such an outfit. “Are you sure you want me to wear this?”
“It’ll keep attention off of you,” he said. “Besides, I think it’s cute.”
“If you say so.”
The outfit covered up her entire body, including every suggestion of a figure. She tied the sash around her waist, but the tunic still sagged around her.
“Context,” Grau said, noticing her frown as she fussed with the fit. “Sure, it would be strange to wear that in the House of Perfumed Ribbons, but this is what common women wear while traveling all the time.”
“You paid a lot just to get a common woman.”
“I paid a lot for you. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. No one needs to know that underneath it all, those little ribbons are still hugging your thighs.”
Her face burned.
And yet, something within her liked the idea of being a common woman on the outside, with her stockings a secret between them.
The landscape changed as they traveled that day. The towns grew more infrequent and smaller. They stopped that night in a village that was hardly more than a cluster of cottages and a general store, with no inn. Grau rode through the dirty street until he found a house with horseshoes hanging in the windows. Grau said this was a symbol of hospitality.
“I stay with these people often when I’m coming home,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble here.”
The woman at the door greeted him warmly but seemed surprised by Velsa. “Who is this?” she asked, but she was not unkind. Velsa immediately noticed the impact of her traveling clothes. Usually flesh and blood women treated her suspiciously or barely acknowledged her at all.
“My new traveling companion,” Grau sai
d. “Velsa.”
“Not a concubine?” she asked. “I wouldn’t take you for the type, Grau.”
“The lonely type?” He looked wry. “You know how attached I am to Fern but she’s not much of a conversationalist.”
“Well, come in, both of you,” the woman said. She put her hand atop Velsa’s in greeting, which no woman had ever done before. Velsa almost drew back from sheer surprise. “I’m Morya. Make yourself at home. Horan, look at this—Grau has a concubine.”
Horan squinted at them over an account book. He was a skinny man whose knobby hands and spectacles suggested that he occasionally paid for a little shape-shifting to his face to keep wrinkles away, but not much else. “A concubine? She’s dressed like a stable boy.”
“It’s my fault,” Grau said. “But find me a stable boy this pretty.”
“That’ll have to wait until morning,” Horan joked. “And we charge extra for it, too.”
Besides some initial surprise that Velsa could eat, her presence at the dinner table was accepted without much comment.
“Grau, aren’t you supposed to join the border patrol?” Horan asked at dinner.
“Soon.”
“I’d reconsider, if it’s true about the dragon.”
“Dragon?” Grau seemed close to laughter. “That’s quite a rumor. A dragon, down here? If nothing else, the Miralem wouldn’t put a precious dragon in danger. I heard there are only about fifty left in the whole world.”
“I think there must be a few more than that,” Horan said. “And I tell you, there’s one in the mountains. Lots of people have seen it.”
“Which people, dear?” the woman said, seeming as skeptical as Grau.
“Travelers!” Horan said. “The ones that come through all the time and talk to me for hours. Unlike you, I listen.”
“Oh, what nonsense. If I don’t listen, it’s because I’m tired of tall tales. I’m sure if there was a dragon in the mountains we’d hear about it in the papers and not just in whispers.”
“You don’t think we’ll ever really see a dragon, do you?” Velsa asked Grau that night as she settled into bed.
“No,” he said, without hesitation, as he unbuttoned his boots. “They’re very rare. They always have been, but loads of them died in the War of the Crystals. The population never recovered.”
The Sorcerer's Concubine (The Telepath and the Sorcerer Book 1) Page 5
