"I will think about it, Mother," Kama said, in a tone that said she had no intention of doing any such thing.
"See that you do. Now, as for yourself, Lorrine, what are your plans here?"
"Um. . . I don't really have plans. I came to see Kama, both to deliver the message, and to apologize for my own actions."
"And now you have done both, I presume. Very well. I would offer you a place to stay the night, but I'm afraid the troubles between our deities will not allow such basic hospitality. I know you are no priestess, but still, you bear the mark of Biao Tanu. I will instead offer to pay your night at the Eldritch Inn, which is near, but far enough that your presence will not prickle at me with the insistence of a stubborn rash. Is this acceptable?"
Lorrine nodded, eyes suddenly stinging. This was it, then. Message and apology delivered, hospitality of a sort granted, move along in the morning. Perhaps she'd go back to Adele, find out the source of the feud between Biao Tanu and the First Goddess. And ask about the paladin thing. "Yes, Shrouded One. I thank you for your hospitality. I will accept your offer, then move out first thing in the morning."
She really wanted to look at Kama, but didn't dare.
"You know where the treasury is," the Shrouded One said to Kama. "Take care of this. And consider carefully traveling to the home of your people."
The Shrouded One nodded to Lorrine, then turned and left, robes rustling. Lorrine stared after her, wondering at all the things she didn't know about religion.
Kama muttered something foul. "Very well. I guess we'd best get you set up for the night. But there's no way in hell I'm leaving with you in the morning."
"You certainly don't have to do anything of the sort," Lorrine said, hurting. "I never expected you to. I did my job, even without the force of a geas binding me to do so. You now know there's shadows that all but worship you in a hole in the ground. Fine. I'll leave you to live your life."
"Good. Come with me."
Kama led the way out of the garden and through the warren of tight hallways Lorrine had come through earlier.
"What is this place, anyway?" she asked, when she couldn't glean any clues from the frilly and overtly feminine decor.
"You came here without even knowing? It's a school. For women and girls."
"Thank you for imparting your wisdom, O Great Wise One."
Kama stopped in her tracks and turned to face Lorrine, very stiffly. "Enough with the sarcasm. You come in here and expect everything to be all peachy and happy, like nothing ever happened, and turn my damned life upside down, and I'm supposed to be happy about this? Lorrine, you damn near killed me with what you did! Didn't you know how deeply I cared about you? Didn't you give a thtock? I think you did, damn you all to hell and back. I think you loved seeing how much I loved you, because it made you feel good. I think you ripped my damn heart out on purpose, because you couldn't deal with yourself. I think—"
The flood of words cut off, and once again Lorrine saw Kama's blue eyes fill with tears.
"I think you should have just stayed away," she whispered, looking off to the side. "It was so much easier with you far away, and safely gone. Now how am I supposed to live my life, thinking that maybe you might have changed for real?"
"Kama. . . " Lorrine felt her own throat tightening, closing off, strangled by emotion. She reached out and took hold of Kama's shoulders. Who cared if they were right out in a public place, in the middle of a school's hallway. "Kama. I never meant to hurt you. I love you. I was afraid to love you, because I was filled with the prejudices my parents gave me. But I know things now, things that changed my whole outlook on life. And I know that what I did was wrong. I've suffered for it, too. That doesn't make it right. Nothing will ever make what I did right." A hot tear spilled out of her eye, and her voice betrayed her. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, and pulled Kama close for a hug.
Kama resisted, but only half-heartedly. She gave in to Lorrine's hold and laid her head on Lorrine's shoulder. Both of them shook, leaking tears. Kama's arms slipped around Lorrine's waist and they cried together.
"I missed you," Kama whispered. "I wanted to die without you."
"I wanted to die because of what I did to you." Lorrine had never admitted that out loud, either, any more than that she loved this woman, or that they'd kissed.
Suddenly, a noise interrupted them, the sound of a bell, followed by many happy voices. Kama all but leapt away from Lorrine, smoothing her dress and face all in an instant.
"End of classes," she told Lorrine, as women and girls swirled around them. "Come. Let's go get you taken care of."
How did she do it, Lorrine wondered, hoping no one noticed the marks of tears on her face. Just smooth herself out and move on like there was no problem at all. Like she hadn't just been swept away by a storm of emotion. Her cheeks weren't even red, a near miracle with her light complexion.
Lorrine followed Kama through the crowded halls. Right as they reached their destination, the people abruptly vanished, like magic.
"Where'd everyone go?" Lorrine asked, looking around the suddenly empty halls, as Kama opened one of the many doors.
"Back to their rooms. It's almost dinner time. They'll drop off books, change out of uniform, then the stampede will begin again when they all go to the dining hall."
"How many people are here?"
"Generally around a hundred." Kama beckoned her into a small room, then turned on an elemental lamp. Lorrine looked around. Shelves, floor to ceiling, filled with what looked like accounting ledgers. How boring. Surrounded on all sides by numbers.
A small desk held an open ledger and a magical strongbox. Kama worked the combination to its lock, removed a handful of coin, then closed it and made a notation in the ledger.
"What's your place in this, anyway?" Lorrine asked, awkwardly. She really didn't want to talk. She wanted to hold Kama in her arms again, here where no sea of students would interrupt their private moment.
"I'm an instructor," Kama replied, tucking the coins away into a hidden pocket. Where'd she find it? That dress hid very little. "I teach embroidery."
Lorrine grinned. "No surprise there! You're still the best needlewoman in the known world."
"Thanks. But let's get moving. Callie will be missing me."
The words went straight through Lorrine's heart. Then they came back around and stabbed her in the gut.
The pain and emotional anguish actually made her stagger a bit as she tried to follow Kama back out of the little room.
She lost a few turnings, trying to regain her composure. Good thing she'd never have to navigate these halls on her own.
She spotted her nearly forgotten travel pack, sitting slumped against the wall in the entryway. Then Kama took her right out of the school and into the evening, with long shadows stretching everywhere and the sun hanging low on the horizon.
"It's almost chilly out here," Kama commented.
There. Weather. Nice, safe topic. "It's freezing, compared to the Dargasi lands."
Kama gave her a sharp glance. "Did you go there?"
"I did," Lorrine nodded, although she suddenly wished she'd kept her mouth shut. Dargasi prejudices were, after all, the primary reason why they'd been apart the last two years.
"What's it like?"
"Hot. Very hot. Dry, windy, lots of sand. . . Karr'at is one of the loveliest places I've ever been. Looks like a big pile of rocks on the outside, but it's a beautiful and elegant palace on the inside."
"I'd thought they kept all outsiders out. Did they decide half-blood is good enough?"
"Er. . . I'm not a half-blood. Let's not talk about that, okay? It's a very uncomfortable subject."
"Very well. Nothing about you is particularly comfortable. There's the inn."
Kama indicated a rather prosperous looking building, tucked between two big monstrosities that looked like more academia.
"Do you know anything about the trouble between Biao Tanu and your goddess?"
"She's not my g
oddess. I still belong to Kerun of the Lights. But of course I know about the trouble. Don't you?"
"I'm afraid I didn't get a history lesson before I found the priestess that saved my life," Lorrine said dryly. "Maybe educated folk know everything about every god and goddess out there. Me, I just know that when I was desperate, and driven right up to death's door by that damned geas, the power of Biao Tanu herself broke the geas and saved my life."
Kama blushed a little as they entered the inn. "Sorry. Of course you're no religious scholar. It just seems a bit odd that a paladin knows so little of her own goddess."
"Why do you keep calling me that? Paladins are everything I'm not. Noble, good, pure of heart, masters of weaponry. . . I'm just me."
Kama laughed. "Of course you're you. But paladins don't need weapons to do the work of their deities, and no matter what your faults, you're not evil. There is no reason you can't be a paladin. But perhaps you should return to your priestess and learn about Biao Tanu."
"Yeah." Lorrine sighed. "Look, Kama, will you please quit reminding me about that?"
"About what?"
Lorrine couldn't tell if her puzzled look were genuine, or all fake. "About how alone I'll be in but a few short moments, when you're gone."
Fake, she decided. Kama lowered her eyes. Then, without a word, she sought out the innkeep and set to bargaining.
"There. Are you happy now?" Kama said, when she'd handed over the money. "I've made arrangements for two dinners. I'll stay with you that long, only because I'm a little bit curious about your time with the Dargasi."
Lorrine sighed again. Fine, prolong the agony. It might actually be better if Kama just left, akin to ripping the bandage off and getting it over with.
"All right, then, ask away. What are you curious about?"
They'd almost managed to strike a new balance by the time they'd eaten. They did, after all, have four annums of very close friendship to draw on, and only one disastrous fight. And a little bit of wine didn't hurt, either. This being a more prosperous inn, for well-off clients, their house wine tasted a good cut above the lousy swill most working-class inns sold.
"Well," Lorrine said eventually, staring at her empty plate, "I guess there's no point sitting here around empty dishes."
She stood up, and wobbled a bit. She wasn't drunk, but she could feel the alcohol. Kama giggled.
"Bet you can't even remember which room is yours. Here, I'll walk with you. Make sure you don't fall down the stairs and break your silly neck."
Lorrine wanted to say something, but she didn't. Instead, for perhaps the first time in her entire life, she kept her mouth shut and managed not to ruin the moment. She did laugh heartily, though, when Kama was the one who stumbled on the stairs.
They reached Lorrine's assigned room without further incident. What a beautiful room. She could really get used to living like this, in elegance and luxury, as opposed to the dirt and discomfort of life on the road.
"Nice place," Kama commented. She sat in a well-padded chair. "You'll pass a pleasant night, I'm sure."
"Not half so pleasant as your girlfriend will, I'm sure." Lorrine tossed her pack on the bed and began rummaging through it. Stowed away amidst her few possessions, she found her night-robe and drew it out.
"What's that?" Kama's voice sharpened with interest, and she left her chair to investigate the unfamiliar fabric. "I've never seen such a loose weave. Very nice dye job on this." She held the sleeveless robe up, inspecting the cut. "And such a different shape, as well."
"The material is called gauze. It's what Dargasi women wear at night, when they're safely away from the eyes of their menfolk and feel free to be themselves." Lorrine swallowed hard, thinking of what went on in the women's apartments in the dark of night. "But speaking of different, tell me about your dress. I've never seen one like it."
"Of course not," Kama said. "Callie and I designed this style just last year. See, the school offers education on sex and sensuality, and I discovered what a pain it is getting out of traditional clothing in a hurry."
Lorrine felt her face turn deep, dark red at the thought of Kama getting out of her clothing in a hurry. Jealousy gnawed at her insides, which she recognized as not entirely rational. After all, she'd rejected Kama's love quite thoroughly, what right did she have to protest what a fully grown woman did with her body?
"So I came up with this notion, and Callie made it happen. Watch."
Her hand gave a sharp tug at the bow set to the side of her waist, and the dress fell open. Not all the way, just enough to make Lorrine go hot and prickly all over her body. Then Kama ran her hands down the front of the dress, demonstrating how it was really a single piece, kind of like a jacket, but not. The whole thing was held together by a wraparound tie.
"Kama. . . "
She kept all the important parts hidden. And she smiled. Oh, what a wicked smile. . .
Lorrine gave up on self-control and kissed her. She held Kama close, feeling the slenderness of the woman through the thin fabric of the dress now hanging open between them. When had she lost so much weight? Not that Kama had ever been fat. Rather, she'd been like the perfect image of womanhood, all soft curves and beautiful, creamy smooth skin.
Her skin was still smooth. Lorrine's hands demanded more, so she slipped them under the dress and explored the smooth, straight line of Kama's back.
Then Kama broke abruptly away. "I can't do this, Lorrine! I just can't."
Tears glittered in her eyes again as she retied her wrap dress with trembling hands. Then she bolted from the room, leaving Lorrine to collapse slowly on the bed.
Lonely
The next morning, after a night filled with tears and dreadful dreams of loss, Lorrine made her way to the bathhouse and cleaned herself up. Early. Ugh. So early, in fact, that the bakers were still up and about in the kitchen, and the sun had barely begun tinting the horizon pink. So she had the bathhouse to herself, and she appreciated that from a distance as she mechanically scrubbed herself down.
Once clean, she returned to her room and took inventory of the contents of her pack. Not much in there, really, not much at all. She had the one set of clothing, leather trousers and woolen shirt, her night-robe, a comb, and a little carved stone horse figurine Selima had gifted her. A blanket. Spare socks and a hair tie. She found a handful of coins down at the bottom, representing the last of her worldly worth. With luck, she'd be able to get enough trail food to return to the temple. Kama had that much right, at least. If everyone was going to insist she was a paladin, well, Lorrine wanted to learn a lot more about her goddess.
She used the novelty of having a goddess to get her through packing her things away, dressing in her traveling garb with a grimace for its dirtiness, coming into contact with her clean skin.
Lorrine had never followed a religion, with her parents coming from such differing backgrounds. She'd never even asked about the Dargasi gods in Karr'at, although she suspected her people were polytheistic, like most of the known world. Her father came from Shandar, though, where Soph ruled the countryside with a stern glare and no tolerance for interlopers. So, in the interests of family harmony, they'd agreed to set religion aside long before Lorrine's birth.
She wondered, suddenly, if her mother had put aside her religion more to distance herself from what had happened to her at the hands of her own brother, than because she didn't want to fight with her husband. Possibly. It certainly came across clear enough that she didn't want anything to do with her history or heritage.
Lorrine put aside wondering pointlessly about her mother's religion, or lack thereof, and slung her pack over her shoulders. It settled in with a familiar thump, although it felt far too light for her peace of mind. Had Kama gotten so thin through a similar situation, of not having any food around? But no, Kama lived at a school, where presumably there was plenty of food available. Maybe Callie liked skinny women. Maybe Kama had just grown up, and shed her puppy fat.
Maybe Lorrine better just quit think
ing about Kama, and get downstairs. She had at least one meal coming, so she should go eat it, and worry about the rest of life later.
The inn served a good breakfast. Lorrine ate it with the weight of her pack slumped against her foot, a constant reminder that she had no future, and no hope. But she did have eggs and pancakes, so she focused on the food, shutting the rest of the world out. Her hair, clean now and drying slowly, formed a protective curtain at first, keeping the world away. But then it tried to get in the berry syrup, so she tied her hair back and tried again.
When Lorrine ran out of food, she thanked the innkeeper and asked for directions to the nearest marketplace. After all, she'd been away a long time, and had never been in the Library District much at all.
The streets outside were nearly empty. The sun floated a good two hands above the horizon, but still, the day was young, and most people weren't even out yet. The city squeezed at Lorrine, reminding her that she was an outsider here. Yes, true, she had indeed lived here for over four years. But without Kama, it just seemed a big unfriendly lump of stone.
The marketplace sprawled nearby. Lorrine found it easily, where it grew out of the permanent stone shops and spilled out to cover an open square, centered around a public fountain. She noted even from a distance that the brightly colored tilework on the fountain looked really gorgeous, then plunged into the marketplace, where the activity level certainly did not reflect the emptiness of the rest of the city. Here vendors were in full swing, selling their wares to other early risers, housewives and cooks and butlers, travelers and working folk picking up a bit of food to take with them to whatever their daily labors entailed.
One good thing about her adventures with Derfek: Lorrine had finally learned how to bargain. Her mother had always given in too soon, and her father had that damned superior air that made it seem bargaining was beneath him. But Derfek, now, he'd put on quite a dramatic show when it came to haggling, and Lorrine had learned a lot from him. She put her skills to good use and emerged from the marketplace with enough food to carry her all the way back to the temple, if she rationed herself carefully.
Lesbian: A Lesbian Life Worth Repairing Page 12
