This Forsaken Earth

by Paul Kearney

  “Still a long way to go until spring,” Giffon said. He was shivering, and Gallico laid one huge arm on the boy’s shoulder. He looked at Rol, and both knew what the other was thinking. It had been a mistake not to send Giffon back. He was no fighter, though he had a fine heart.

  “When we go out tomorrow, I want you three to stick together,” Rol said. “Look out for one another, and try not to be too heroic.”

  “I take it that’s your job,” Creed said dryly.

  “Stay near the Queen; she’ll be well protected.”

  “Even if it means staying in earshot of that prick Mirkady?” Gallico asked.

  “Even then. None of us have ever fought in a battle like this before.”

  “What about Gallitras?” Creed asked. “Seemed like a battle to me.”

  “This is in the open. It’ll be fast-moving, and there will be a lot of artillery and nowhere to hide from it. Until we reach their trenches, they’ll be pounding the life out of us with their siege guns, mortars, field-culverins, anything they can stick a lump of iron in. Until Canker hits them in the rear, it will be rough.”

  “When did you become mother hen?” Gallico asked. “I thought that was Elias’s job.”

  “By the way, if you ever meet your grandmother, let me know if she needs taught how to suck on an egg,” Creed added.

  Rol smiled. “It may be I’ll have to break off and disappear in the middle of it. There’s something I have to do. But you are not to follow, none of you. Do you understand me?”

  They looked at him, all humor gone. “What is it, some royal errand?” Gallico asked.

  “You could say that. I’m to bring down this Bar Asfal fellow. When he’s gone, the rest of them should fold like a tinker’s shack.”

  “That’s a hell of an errand,” Creed said.

  “I know. I’ll be all right, though.”

  “Was this the Queen’s idea?” Gallico asked with a glint in his eye.

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  The halftroll shook his head. “She is your sister, you say, and it’s clear to my eyes, at least, that she has real feeling for you. But she’s still a clever woman, used to getting what she wants. Be careful, Rol. These people with titles ahead of their names, they don’t think the way we do. They can convince themselves to believe whatever they like.”

  “Rowen needs me to do this thing, Gallico. She would not have asked me else.”

  “Perhaps. She may be a fine woman, at heart. It’s just that she has been ruined by her ambitions. You know that, don’t you, Rol?”

  “I know it. Yes.” He had known it from the moment he had first set eyes on her again, but he did not like to hear Gallico say it.

  They garlanded the ballroom with the limbs of evergreens, and great bunches of shining holly with berries red as wounds. The heat of the candles brought out a fine resinous scent from the decorations—a smell much improved by the tang of mulled wine and cider which sat in wide silver punch-bowls at the ends of the room. Some two hundred of Myconn’s finest and fairest had been invited to the ball, but that took no account of the thousands more who crammed into the palace to take advantage of the free food and drink that was being distributed without thought for the morrow. If the rebels were finally going to lose their war in the morning, they would at least do so on a full belly.

  This night, the Bar Madivar Palace was packed to the gills with a host of people who were intent on blotting out the frozen night beyond and the shell-fire down at the walls. There were clots of musicians on every floor with piled plates under their seats and bottles by their toes, and the palace servants had thrown off any sense of formality and were entering into frantic liaisons with any comely stranger who caught their eye. Why not? The dawn would bring a new set of worries, or an end to all of them. For this one night, the palace was given over to anyone who still had an appetite for life in their belly.

  The chief generals were all there: Mirkady, Blayloc, Brage, Cassidus, and Remion. The last three of these five had wives on their arms, and small coteries of hangers-on to banish the lull from any conversation. They were all drinking heavily; but then, so was every man and woman in the room who had a mouth, and an arm capable of raising a glass. Except Rowen.

  She sat at the far end of the ballroom upon a delicate chair of ebony wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. She wore black, as always, but her dress was a plunging affair that revealed more of her white flesh than Rol had ever seen in public. With her hair piled up behind her head, and a white-gold crown resting upon it, she looked every inch the Queen, albeit a somewhat ethereal one. The revealing lines of her gown promised much, but the look in her eyes was enough to deter anything but the most formal of gallantries. Mirkady stood behind her like an old man jealous of a young wife, and Rol saw him set a hand once briefly on her bare shoulder. She raised up her own fingers to return the touch. At the sight, Rol felt an odd and ungainly flicker in his chest, a kind of pain, and he poured his wine-filled flute into his mouth until the pale, sparkling stuff trickled into his beard.

  “Yon fellow aims higher than commanding the Guard,” Creed said, his eyes following Rol’s, and something of the same expression within them.

  “It’s as good a way as any to get on in the world,” Rol said with a mirthless smile. He burped up an acidic bubble of the wine and grimaced. “Damn fizzy piss; don’t they have any real drink in this place, something that hasn’t been heated up or filled with air?”

  Gallico was the center of a curious crowd, who were evidently drinking down a few of his taller tales. He had half a dozen glass flutes held in one fist like the barrels of so many guns, and would pour their contents into his gaping maw every so often, to the delight of his listeners. Performing for a crowd in Bionar again. He saw Rol and Elias and winked one lambent eye at them. It was almost as bright as it had always been. His wounds were closed at last and he was intent on enjoying this night to the full, as a privateer should.

  Giffon stood nearby in the fragrant throng, exchanging quiet words with a serving-maid who looked no older than he. As Rol watched, she touched his face, but so flushed were his cheeks with the heat and the wine that it was impossible to tell if he blushed or not.

  Abel Harkenn was at Rol’s elbow, wax-skinned and gawky as a young heron. “Sirs, I thought you’d rather enjoy this.” He proffered a tray on which squatted two wide-necked mugs of rum, the liquid tawny as a hare’s back. Rol and Creed snapped them up.

  “Ship’s rum!” Elias exclaimed. “Ran’s Road, man, but that’s welcome. Where’d you get it?”

  “Smuggled in from Arbion, not a week ago, sir. I thought you’d appreciate it.” Harkenn beamed at their incredulous faces, and without another word, he turned and was off again, quickly swallowed by the swirling crowd.

  “Enterprising fellow; he’d make a good ship’s steward,” Creed said. Rol sipped his rum reflectively. After the bubbling wine it felt like a punch to the throat.

  Music was gathering into a pattern in the hall; there was danger of a dance. He did not relish the thought of prancing about in line, and tugged Creed’s arm until they both stood well back from the middle of the floor, which was clearing rapidly.

  “What’s o’clock, Elias?”

  “We’re halfway through the first watch, I should think. The night is hardly begun.” The rum was coloring Creed’s face. With his brindled hair and heavy beard, he looked like a gate-crashing vagrant in this smooth-chinned company, though his clothes were as fine as any. The shackle-scars on his wrist were revealed every time he lifted his arm to drink, and Rol saw nearby ladies and noblemen staring at them in some dismay.

  The music gathered form, after the interminable screeching of one untuned viola. The hubbub sank down into something near quiet. It seemed insufferably hot in the room, and candlewax from the chandeliers was dripping here and there upon ladies’ coiffures and the polished wood of the floor. The Queen rose, those around her dipping their heads, the ladies curtseying demurely. She strode down the empty da
nce floor with that mannish stride that not even the most feminine of gowns could conceal, and she stopped before Rol.

  “Cortishane, will you join me for the first dance?”

  Not even Rol could summon up the churlishness to refuse her. He gave his mug to Creed, bowed slightly, and took Rowen’s fingers in his own. The pair took a stately course out into the wide wooden wastes of the dance floor, and Rol whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I’ve not danced since Psellos’s lessons, gods know how many years ago.”

  “It’ll come back to you.”

  They stood still, facing each other, and as the music picked up and became a proper tune, it did come back to him. They drew together, his right thigh touching her left, his left hand in the naked small of her back, the touch of her skin a shock to him even now. Rol’s feet found the floor of their own accord, and they stepped off together into the path of the music. Rowen moved easily in the compass of his arms, and a perfume of lavender rose from her white throat.

  Mirkady’s gaze was fixed on them, two dark eyes watching the way their bodies swayed and bent and gave. Two by two, other couples joined in the dance, until the floor became crowded and people were moving in and out of each other’s orbit with momentary contacts, caresses, grazes. The stateliness of the music belied the heat between the dancers. Hidden safely amid the throng, Rol pressed close against Rowen, his thigh at the crux of her legs. He slid his hand down her back by increments, until his fingers were under the low-cut line of her dress and he was able to stroke the silky crease at the very base of her spine. She leaned away from his touch. He bent his neck so that their foreheads were almost touching, but she turned her face aside. More than anything in the world he wanted to crush that slim body in his arms, and bite down on those dark lips. But though their flesh was pressed together, she would not meet his eyes. They moved through the evolutions of the dance with a perfection of grace that had no fire about it at all. Brother and sister.

  The music ended. The dancers drew apart and applauded. Rol and Rowen looked at each other. There was color in her cheeks and he could feel sweat trickling in the small of his back.

  “I told you it would come back to you,” the Queen said coldly.

  Rol bowed to her, the blood thundering in his head. Something indefinable went across Rowen’s face—sorrow?

  Then she turned on her heel and walked away.

  The music began again, tinkly stuff Rol did not much care for, but it went down well enough with those on the floor. The scores of partners broke up, reassembled, moved to the new rhythm with the same intent, appraising looks on their faces. Rowen remained on the floor, as slim and upright as a black sapling. She danced with Mirkady next, and then General Blayloc, and then faces Rol did not know. He stood beside Elias Creed at the rear wall of the ballroom and sipped at his rum, watching, turning away, watching again.

  “For God’s sake, Rol,” Creed said, “take one of those serving-maids outside and scratch that bloody itch.”

  “Am I so transparent, Elias?”

  “I thought for a moment you were going to start in on her in the middle of the dance. There was folk watching who didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

  “All right, damn it. Where’s Gallico?”

  “Over by the punch-bowls, where else? How that fellow can talk. It’s a wonder his guts don’t tumble out his mouth.”

  “Giffon?”

  “No idea. I’m hoping he’s found himself a warm spot.”

  “You’re a real romantic, Elias.”

  “We could all be dead this time tomorrow. Even these noble fillies here feel it. No one ever died wishing he had fornicated less.”

  “But not with his sister.”

  Creed regarded Rol mutely.

  Rol laughed. Clapping Creed on the shoulder, he went off in search of more rum. At least, that was what he told himself he was searching for. He found himself missing Fleam’s weight at his hip—no one carried weapons to a ball. Abel Harkenn had disappeared.

  He made do with the fizzy Court stuff instead, and belched as he tossed back glass after glass of the stuff, snatching them off passing trays and dropping the empties in the potted plants that lined the end of the ballroom. In the corner of his vision, Rowen’s dark shape seemed to flicker and dart like a mote stuck in his eye.

  “Rol Cortishane,” a woman’s voice said, and he halted in his tracks, swaying a little.

  “That is your name, my lord, is it not?”

  “That’s my name.” A knot of ladies stood before him like a clutch of butterflies. All well dressed—but then, who here was not? All young, personable, and all slightly drunk.

  “Queen Rowen’s brother, it is said. Can this be true?”

  “Half brother.” Rol scanned their faces, reading possibilities. He was in no mood for flirting. As Elias had said, he simply wanted the itch scratched.

  The girl who had spoken to him was a little painted blond thing not out of her teens and he dismissed her out of hand. But there was one other who caught his eye: tall, dark-haired—of course she must be dark-haired—and less simpleminded-looking. There was a coolness about the way she met his eyes that Rol responded to at once. I am nothing if not consistent, he thought.

  The little blond girl was chattering away, demure and lascivious at the same time. Most of her friends giggled and nudged her elbows and bleated at her raillery, but Rol ignored her. “Why aren’t you dancing?” he asked the dark-haired girl. She was somehow outside the little feminine fellowship that faced him.

  “I never much cared for it.”

  “Rafa has big feet,” one of the other ladies giggled, and the girl Rafa looked down.

  Rol took her by the hand. “Come with me,” he said.

  Momentary alarm, then an impish smile. He led her away, abandoning her companions to drop-jawed outrage and perhaps, the gods knew, some envy. He liked the warmth of the girl’s hand. When it threatened to slip out of his fingers in the press of the crowd, it was she who took a firmer grip, no nonsense about it.

  “I need to get some air,” he said to her, and meant it.

  “I have a window in my room. It opens,” she said, tossing her head.

  “Where’s your room?”

  “Down by the kitchens. But it’s not a bad place.”

  Rol looked her up and down. “You’re a kitchen maid?” he asked in astonishment. She looked frightened and embarrassed at the same time.

  “A chambermaid. Our mistress gave us these gowns for the night, out of her own wardrobe, and said we might join in the ball. She wanted more young ladies on the floor, she said.”

  “Who’s your mistress?”

  “I serve the Queen.” Rol’s stare was disconcerting her. “My name is Rafa. I’m from Oronthir. I was a slave once, but—”

  “Take me to this room of yours,” Rol said.

  When he opened the window, the blessed chill of the night air swooped in like something hungry for heat. He stood in the draft and felt tiny hard flakes of snow smite his face, fine as sand. He was kneeling on Rafa’s narrow iron-framed bed, as it was tucked just below the thick windowsill, whilst behind him she worked to raise a flame in her tiny fireplace, her skirts gathered up over her knees to keep them out of the ash. Turning round, Rol admired her white legs and feet—she had kicked off her cheap shoes upon entering the room—and savored the freezing night air as it flooded around him.

  “Let me do it.” The girl was making a meal out of striking fire, and as she rose, still holding the hem of her fine gown—Rowen’s gown—Rol knelt beside her and brushed ash from her shapely knees, making her start, wide-eyed. She dropped the gown’s hem, covering her legs.

  “It’s all right; I won’t eat you.” She sat on the bed behind him as he struck flint and steel, coaxing sparks into a nest of fine-shaved tinder, then blowing on it and transferring the rising flame to the kindling in the hearth. There was peat by the fireplace, in black, hairy bricks, and he set these on the fire one by one,
taking pleasure in the simple exercise, the sureness of it. When he straightened he found to his surprise that Rafa was in bed, blankets pulled up to her chin, her fine gown a bouffant pile on a chair. She had closed the window, but the air in the room was still cool, not yet taking warmth from the peat. Rol sat on the bed and touched the girl’s long black tresses where they lay unbound on the pillow. The stifling, raucous crowds of the ballroom seemed very far away now, though their noise, and that of all the other revelers throughout the palace, could be felt as much as heard, a low vibration in the air.

  “You said you were a slave,” Rol said.

  “I was born of slaves, and so that made me one, too, but the Queen, years ago, she freed all the slaves in the palace on the condition they serve her seven years.”

  “That was charitable of her,” Rol said.

  “I have five years left to serve, and then I can go where I like.”

  “Where will you go?”

  Rafa frowned. She had an endearing frown that pursed up her mouth. Rol bent and kissed it before she could answer. Her lips moved under his. She looked at him with no trace of coyness remaining. “Come into my bed. It’s cold.”

  He shed his clothes, glad to be rid of the peacock finery, and slipped under the blanket, his flesh meeting hers the length of their bodies, forced together by the narrowness of the bed they shared. Rafa was wide-hipped, long in the leg, with round breasts and a strong serving-girl’s back. Rol tugged her close to him, and for a while there were no words, only silent explorations, delighted and hungry. They kicked the coverings off the bed as they discovered how to fit together, and beat its iron frame against the wall with their eagerness.

  When they were done they lay like spoons in a drawer, facing the fire, and Rol traced with one finger the shadows the flame-light painted up and down Rafa’s naked skin.

  “Are you really the Queen’s brother?” she asked. Before he could reply she added, “You look nothing like her.”

  “Different fathers, different lives. I’m a mariner. I have a ship of my own and a crew to sail her.” I will have, he thought. By the gods, I will.