Gift of Flesh

by Diane Lau

  “It’s the only life I know,” replied Mia. “And I suppose it’s my nature to be content with it. There is a certain joy in submitting sincerely to one’s master.”

  “A good master, perhaps.”

  “Sometimes even a bad one.”

  Naissun grunted. “That is beyond my ken, I’m afraid.”

  Miakaela dared to venture the next question: “Good Envoy, what do you think of your King? Is he a kind ruler? Will he be merciful with me?”

  The Envoy’s reply was the worst she could have expected: hesitance. She could palpably feel him struggle for an answer that would not enflame her fears. At last he said, “I have served him only as a soldier; I cannot tell you aught of his dealings with the harem save rumor, and I don’t trade in rumor.”

  Miakaela’s throat tightened. “I thank you for your candid reply, Good Envoy.”

  “Candid, but not cheerful,” he said.

  The irony in his voice made her have to laugh. She told him, “You do cheer me, Envoy Naissun.”

  “In that I deliver you to a foreign king, or rather by my binding you to my saddle?” There was humor in his tone this time.

  Again Mia laughed. “In that you are a kind master, the sort who makes one joyful to be his property.”

  Naissun paused, then said, “I wonder that you can be joyful to be anyone’s property. It appears to me this lesson has been taught you since birth, and it is only for that reason that you find it acceptable.”

  Miakaela had never in her life been spoken to in such fashion before, as if it were a bad thing that she was tractable, obedient, and content with her lot. It was very disconcerting. “How do you wish me to be, then? It would be quite ironic if I were to become a difficult slave for the first time in my life, just when I came into your possession.”

  The Envoy laughed. “Yes, it would be. I suppose it’s cruel of me to command you as my property and then criticize you for your mild disposition. I apologize.”

  Yet once again, this man was addressing her in unfamiliar terms. Miakaela could not recall the last time a male had apologized to her. To offer acceptance of his apology seemed arrogant in the extreme and she could not bring herself to do it. However, to remain silent seemed worse. In the end she opted for candor. “Good Envoy, you are my master and under no obligation to apologize. But of course you also have the right to. Nevertheless I cannot think of myself as possessing the stature to merit your apology. So now I sit silent, as if it did not move me, when in fact it did.”

  Naissun did not turn around, nor did he laugh at her, nor scold her. Instead she felt the pressure of his gloved hand fall upon hers. From this gesture Miakaela discerned his complete understanding, and felt a sense of great reassurance. Then the Envoy said, “Miakaela, your master desires that you address him as ‘Lord Naissun.’”

  She was glad he couldn’t see her smile, for it was far too bright to be fitting. She stifled it back down again and said, “As you will, Lord Naissun.”

  As the afternoon wore on, the wind changed a little and picked up. It was at Mia’s back and she felt it even through the warm cloak and the heavy veil. Finally Naissun said, “You must be cold, Miakaela. Please, lean against my back.”

  The thought appealed greatly to Mia, for more than one reason. Yet she hesitated. She realized her fear was that she might take too much pleasure from such an act.

  Naissun looked back at her. “Do you make me command you, woman?” he asked with mock sternness. “It is as I wish, so you might block the wind from me. Not that you are large enough to serve very well in that capacity….”

  “I obey, then,” she said, smiling under her veil. She slid forward a bit and leaned against the Envoy’s back. In only a minute heat began to build up between their bodies, and it felt wonderful. Naissun was so much larger than Mia that her face came level with the broadest part of his back. To press close, she had to turn her cheek into him. It was very soothing, and only then she realized how tense she had been from the cold.

  The Envoy did not speak, but only continued to sit up very straight in the saddle.

  Miakaela had slept little the night before, and the stress of the day’s events had likewise taken their toll. Now that Naissun’s warmth relaxed her, she felt she might even doze a bit. She closed her eyes, and set everything aside save what her body was feeling. Her breasts were growing warm and soft, pressed against this firm back that made her feel so safe. The stride of the horse rocked her against Naissun, and she drew her arms in just a little closer to his sides. Resting her cheek on his firm flesh, she drew deep draughts of his comfortable scent.

  He is a lovely man, my master… she thought dreamily.

  After all, her master he was for the time being. She answered to no man save him. She wrapped this knowledge around herself like a blanket.

  My master keeps me safe from harm, nothing can hurt me while he is here.

  Miakaela realized it was the first time in her life she had had a master with the duty to protect her. Indeed, these three days would be the only time in her life she would enjoy such a privilege. What made it all the sweeter is that it was clear this particular man’s nature suited him perfectly for the task. For reasons she could not comprehend, he seemed to respect her and truly care about her welfare.

  Then all at once a new thought occurred to Miakaela. Seeing as she was the Envoy’s property…well, under the laws of Royoun, what precisely were his rights? Property law in Taelorea superceded everything. A Taelorean envoy, she surmised, should be permitted to do what he wished with his property, including using her body as he wished.

  She knew in her heart that this line of thinking was folly. Regardless of property laws in Taelorea, she knew of cases when an envoy had failed to deliver a tribute and the consequences that had befallen both: the envoys were hanged and the tributes stoned.

  She doubted that Royounish law and custom were much different.

  Nevertheless, rocking softly against Naissun’s back, Miakaela couldn’t help but imagine herself with him. She wondered if he would be harsh, or demand pain from her. She thought not, and yet, she wanted nothing to happen that might ruin her fledgling esteem for him. She had never felt so for a man. She wondered if she were falling in love with him.

  But just then Naissun stiffened as if with alarm. Mia opened her eyes and sat up.

  “Miakaela,” he said in a conspiratorial voice, “two riders have been shadowing us for some time. They now close the distance. It may be nothing, but considering the deserted condition of this stretch of road, there may be danger.” She felt him loosen her bonds to the saddle so both hands were free. “Keep your face turned away, we’ll hope for the best. And take this in case, keep it concealed.” Into her right hand was slipped the small belt knife Naissun carried.

  She couldn’t believe he had armed her.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later two riders pulled up to them, one on either side. The one on the left, a stocky man with long hair but bald on top, addressed the Envoy. “Hail and well met, good sir! Precious cargo ye got there, eh?”

  “Hardly,” huffed Naissun. “Common house slave I’m delivering.”

  “Well, we’d be happy to give ye an escort.”

  “No thanks, I’m more than up to this dull task.”

  The fellow on their right spoke up in a jesting tone made unpleasant by his nasal voice, “Wouldn’t be so dull with her arms around ye, were she the comely sort, eh?”

  “Yes,” said the stocky man, “let’s have a look at her.”

  “If I’d been hired to have her seen, she wouldn’t be veiled,” said Naissun, the edge of aggression in his voice.

  Both men pulled their horses closer. Miakaela was turned to the nasal man, and saw him start to reach for his sword. She gave a little gasp and squeezed her hand tight on the handle of the knife, having no idea what she should do with it.

  “But you see,” the stocky man said, “there be two of us and one of you, and we insist.”

  Naissun gave
a loud sigh. “I see your point,” he said. “But just you.”

  The man gave a triumphant little laugh and reached his arm out to lift Miakaela’s veil. Instinctively she pulled away a little, forcing him to extend his arm still further.

  How exactly it happened, she could hardly tell. But a moment later there was no arm, only a spurting stream of blood.

  Naissun had taken it off with his sword, and the man barely had time to shriek before the blade flashed to their right and connected with the shoulder of the second man. Mia found she had brought forth the knife without thinking, but there seemed no need to use it. The first man fell from his horse, howling in agony. The second was still in the saddle, but Naissun, using all his height and reach, toppled him off. With the flat of his blade he whipped the two horses on their rumps, and frightened as they were by all the commotion, they eagerly took off up the road at a gallop, abandoning their riders.

  Naissun hesitated only long enough to address the two men, in a voice that made even the Tribute tremble: “Trouble us again and I’ll kill you.” Then he cued his horse to an easy gallop. Miakaela took tight hold of his waist with her left arm, and once he had liberated her other hand of the knife, she clung to him with that arm as well. She buried her face in his back, trying not to hear the hideous cries of the two men fading behind them, trying to forget the sight of the stocky man’s arm falling to the ground, and the rain of blood spraying the frozen dirt of the roadway.

  “Thank the gods they were stupid,” Naissun said, a little short of breath, “or I’d be dead and you’d—Well, a smarter man than that oaf would have made you lift your own veil. They weren’t professionals, that’s clear.”

  Mia couldn’t speak, and in fact, began to cry.

  “No soldiering experience either,” continued Naissun, “slow reflexes and bad instincts. Fortunately no harm came to the horses. Fine beasts, far better than those two could have purchased with honest money. Cutpurses, those two.”

  Miakaela, fighting back hysteria, wondered at this sudden turn of verbosity on the part of her escort. Then it dawned on her that he was trying to calm her by talking matter-of-factly.

  “Well, at least we’ve dealt with bad luck before even reaching Northedge. Perhaps the gods in their fairness will now look upon us with more favor. Miakaela, if you can reach the saddlebag to your left and keep your balance, in the front pouch there is a silver flask of good liquor. It would do you well to refresh yourself.”

  Mia tried to calm her breathing and focus on this little assignment. She was able to work loose the buckle on the saddle bag, and by holding to Naissun, pull forth the flask. With automatic obedience she opened it and took a tentative swallow. The spirits were stronger than any drink she had tasted before, and not at all pleasant on her tongue. In her throat and belly, however, the liquor was warming and calming, and she took a second, larger swallow before closing the flask and passing it to the Envoy.

  “I could probably use a bit myself,” agreed Naissun, taking it from her. His head tipped back when he drank, and the light wind caught his hair and blew it briefly over Miakaela’s eyes. Had she been in a different state of mind it would have been acutely arousing to her. As it was, with the alcohol warming her blood, she felt uninhibited not sexually but emotionally. Suddenly her desperate need for solace caught up with her. She put her arms around Naissun’s waist and leaned full against him, setting her forehead into his hair, closed her eyes and let herself tremble.

  The Envoy, who held the reigns in one hand the flask in the other, fumbled to close it and rest it between his legs. Then he placed his arm over Mia’s and pressed it firmly. He wished they weren’t in the saddle this way, that he could gather her to him like a child and keep her there until she grew calm again.

  Naissun had never imagined his mission would be like this. For one thing, he had expected his new property to be a pampered, fairly mindless creature; or had hoped so, anyway. That wouldn’t have made it easy to serve as an envoy, but it wouldn’t be as difficult as this was proving to be. His heart had sank at his first glimpse of the Tribute kneeling on the floor before her Monarch’s throne. She was so small and slender that at first he guessed her to be merely a child. His heart had risen up again in rebellion against the barbarous practice that duty forced him to assist.

  But upon closer examination, he had seen that indeed, Miakaela was a grown woman. She was not even so young as he had expected. Her beauty, rather than the vacuous perfection he usually saw in the concubines at court, was simpler, quieter. Her long black hair was bound back loosely a few inches below the nape of her neck, in a manner that was more elegant than seductive. She wore few if any cosmetics, but her brows and lashes were ebony like her hair, and her skin was naturally smooth and ivory in color. When she rose and looked into his face, she had tried to conceal her fear, but it brimmed in her large blue eyes, such pale blue as was common in Taelorea.

  She stirred his sympathies at once, but his duty compelled him to conceal those emotions. Not till now, when she clung quivering to his back, had he lost his resolve. To turn a cold heart to her now, when only a few hours after leaving her home for the first time she had been exposed to such brutal mayhem, was a cruelty Naissun simply couldn’t inflict.

  Nevertheless, he dare not let her know the depth of his feeling on the matter; mostly because if she knew, she would think him quite the monster when he handed her over to his King in three days. Regit might be kind, if he fancied her. Of course if he fancied her too much, that would be worse. Naissun replayed his conversation of the previous week with the King:

  “This custom of the Taeloreans to break the hymens of their concubines strikes me as most peculiar,” the King had said.

  “My understanding is that it is the Mother of the Harem’s responsibility to do this final check to ensure the Gift of Flesh is still a virgin,” explained Naissun. “And the act is provided as a service to you, that you may take her virginity without the inconvenience of causing her pain.”

  “Some of us do not consider such a thing ‘inconvenient,’” Regit replied with a dark twinkle.

  It had been all Naissun could do to remain stone faced.

  So, aren’t you a monster? his conscience inquired of him. I have lived all my life by the principle of duty, he replied. Naissun had committed more than a few heinous acts in his lifetime, but always under the command of others. Until now he was able to live with himself. If he killed, he killed in the name of his King. If he seized property from others, he did so by right of his King who had conquered their lands. If he apprehended criminals for hanging, the court had already determined their fate and he must assume done so justly.

  But this…this was about political favor and selfish pleasure and it sickened him. For twenty years he had managed to avoid such an assignment. Now he found himself trapped between duty and conscience, and Miakaela would not make it easy for him.

  She was clever, sweet-natured, and self-disciplined. She was lovely and graceful. Worst of all, she had chosen to believe in him as her protector and beneficent guardian. The irony of it made him loath himself.

  So he sat straight up in the saddle, his arm over hers around his waist, and prayed she would stop trembling soon.

  * * *

  They rode on undisturbed and as night fell, approached the town of Northedge. This route was not one traveled by tourists or pilgrims, but it was the last outpost of civilization in that part of the land. So it had a fair share of inns and taverns, but by and large they were rough, functional places that catered to soldiers, merchants and those on political business such as the Envoy. There was really only one inn suitable for housing a Gift of Flesh, and in that inn only one room appropriately furnished. Of course King Regit had arranged in advance for its use.

  Servants took care of Naissun’s horse, so the Envoy and his charge went immediately to this room, requesting a private supper there. Naissun bid Miakaela sit and rest as he built a fire in the hearth, and although it felt wrong for her
to let him wait on her so, Mia knew it was useless to argue. So she sat on the bed, still bundled in her cloak. The inn walls were of stone and once warmed, the room would stay cozy. But at the moment it was so cold she wondered that they could not see their breath.

  Miakaela looked around. The single window was heavily draped against the night’s chill, and the floor was covered with a fine wool carpet. Along with the bed and two large wooden chests, there was a small table flanked by two chairs. These furnishings would have been the humblest pieces in the palace, but in place like this, Mia recognized they were exceptionally fine. The chairs had upholstered seats and backs, the table was draped in a colorful woven cloth of Royounish style. The room was well lit with stout candles that gave off a soothing smell from their mountings on the wall.

  The finest piece in the room was definitely the bed. It was large and the bedposts were tall and elaborately carved. Taelorean silk bedlinens and two thick comforters assured a comfortable and warm night’s sleep. But Miakaela noted as well that a pallet had been brought into the room and placed against the wall near the fireplace, linens and blankets stacked upon it in a neat pile. That, then, would be her bed.

  She fought off the crazy surge of disappointment that washed through her. What had she expected? Whatever charms she offered Naissun as a bed partner—and since he was a man and she trained in the arts of love, she was not so foolish as to think he felt no appeal—the Envoy clearly put duty before all. They would not be sharing the ample bed, and she would spend the night further from him than she had been all day.

  Naissun had fashioned a vigorous blaze in the hearth when there came a light rap at the door. Mia quickly covered her head with the veils again and only then did the Envoy open the door. It was doubtful they fooled any of the inn staff, but it was a precaution Naissun still insisted upon. He relieved the servant of a large tray and dismissed him, bringing it in himself and placing it upon the table. The rich aroma of the food told Mia in an instant how hungry she was. She removed her veils completely and placed them on the bed, rising to go to the table.