Bitter Moon Saga

by Amy Lane

  “But, Consort,” Torrant continued, his tone as reasonable as a kind uncle’s, “has it occurred to you that if the Goddess folk were going to kill anybody, Ulvane would not be their primary target?”

  There came another collective intake of breath, this one so deep there didn’t seem to be any more air in the room left to breathe.

  “What do you mean?” Rath asked hollowly, and Torrant felt great gratification in noting that Rath’s face was now as white, and his hands probably as clammy, as Aerk’s had been earlier.

  “I’m saying that you seem to be very much alive, sir. And since you’re the one who has treated the Goddess’s people like animals for more than twenty years, we can probably safely assume that there was no assassination involved in your brother-in-law’s death. Perhaps he was just ready to die, and that is all.”

  For the first time since Torrant’s arrival after Beltane, Rath stood from the dais where he’d sat for twenty-four years, making decisions about a people he hated. He breathed, purposefully, his chest heaving in and out and the air making shuddery sounds as it cleared his teeth.

  But he had not stayed in power by losing his temper, and he had not managed his country by doing something so messy as to screech spittle at a regent on the floor.

  First he assessed his challenger and saw that Ellyot Moon was neither flinching, nor backing down.

  Then he assessed the Hall of Regents and saw their stares were pinned on him to see how he would answer the logic of Ellyot’s argument. When he realized the onus of the defense was on his shoulders and his alone, he nodded, with a glitter in his eyes that told Torrant they’d all better grow eyes in their necks, the better to watch their backs.

  “Well, then,” Rath said at last, “perhaps it wasn’t assassination after all.”

  He smiled thinly, and Torrant didn’t move from the floor, because that smile reminded him of the smile the secretary general had worn before he’d borne the news to Rath that had destroyed the Moon family—right after Yarri had hit him on the head with a rock.

  “Perhaps,” Torrant agreed, still not backing down.

  “Good, then. Should we move on to the next item?”

  That’s when Torrant’s work had begun in earnest.

  So this evening, crouching in the shadows before the last leap that would carry him to his room, Torrant was exhausted, edgy, and almost too tired to sleep well without Aylan beside him. He hadn’t dared to let his white streak down since that one dream of Yarri, but the temptation to do so, just to smell her, hear her voice, dream of her sharp brown eyes looking at things with intelligence and strength…. Oh, there were many things that kept him up at night, that was a certainty.

  And now he almost missed his chance to jump over the guards’ heads, he was so invested in his woolgathering.

  With a leap that was part snowcat and part exhaustion, he landed with a thump inside his patio, overbalanced a little when he tripped on the flowerbeds, and rolled into the glass doors with another thump.

  Uh-oh.

  The last thing Torrant had time to do was time to plant flowerbeds.

  A light came on inside the flat, and Minero Sawdust of Trexel began cursing loudly over the squeals of what sounded to be a much younger woman.

  Outside of the patio, Torrant heard the sound of guards. Trying hard not to panic, he pulled a little more Goddess gift over his features, making his face more snowcat than human and covering his gloves with a layer of fine white-tufted hair.

  On a deeply drawn breath, he howled his loudest snowcat snarl and lunged at the glass door. Pounding full out, the snowcat crashed through Minero of Trexel’s patio doors and into his bedroom, running on powerful haunches at full speed.

  ELJEAN HAD always hated this tavern. He’d heard about it from the derisive conversation of another regent, who had complained bitterly about how the godlessness of the Goddess people could be seen in “that faggot’s bar” right inside the quarter.

  It had been before he’d started taking breakfast with Aerk and the others, and he’d been so lonely.

  But now, with new eyes, he saw that The Gander’s Sauce didn’t look much different than the Amber Goose. The interior was plain-cut boards, weathered by time and traffic and the oil of shoes on the floor and hands on the counter and tables. It was made smoky by candles, and the musicians were happy to be there, making a meal from the thing they loved best. One of Olek’s sons was behind the bar instead of Triana, but not all the clientele was male.

  If Eljean hadn’t seen one of his fellow regents skulking in the corner with another man, avoiding his eyes, he would have felt at home.

  And then he saw Zhane, sitting at one of the tables in the middle, smiling gamely at a much older man. The older man seemed lonely and not horrible at all, but he was smiling at Zhane with hope. Zhane was smiling back with an understood promise, and Eljean knew his lover was working tonight after all.

  He fought the urge to scream epithets and kick something, followed by the urge to pull Zhane out of the room by his white-streaked hair.

  But Eljean was a self-confessed coward, and he hated physical pain, so, instead, he walked politely up to the table and hoped the reproach in his eyes wasn’t too naked as he asked the older man for a moment of Zhane’s time.

  Zhane had the grace to look embarrassed. “I was going to send you a note,” he said, looking away.

  “Why are you working tonight?” Eljean tried to sound reasonable, but he knew the growl of possession mixed with the whine of hurt wasn’t an attractive sound.

  Still, there was no eye contact with those limpid, dark-fringed, sloe eyes. “I… I think maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore, Eljean,” Zhane said at last, and Eljean’s hand flew out on its own to cup Zhane’s chin.

  He had led. It had been his own fear of pain that had started it, but he had led when they were together, skin to skin, and he found he wanted to stay in the lead.

  “What are you talking about?” He glared down at his first true lover, the first who had ever allowed him to touch another man with joy. “We… you mean something to me!” Oh Goddess. He hadn’t felt this naked in bed.

  And now Zhane did meet his eyes, and his own were flashing. “But not as much as Triane’s Son, do I, Eljean? Right? I mean something to you, but you’d still take him if you could get him, right?”

  “Wouldn’t you!” Eljean snapped back and was surprised when Zhane stayed toe-to-toe with him. “You’re the one who told me that ‘we were all a little bit in love with him,’ right? Weren’t those your exact words?”

  “But you’re not a little bit in love, are you? You’re in love enough to buy his clothes for him, aren’t you?” Zhane spat, and Eljean rocked back on his heels and laughed in surprise.

  “I wasn’t the only one, you git!” he retorted, honestly shocked. Of course, the thought permeated, Coryal. Coryal would have told his lover about what had happened after the session yesterday.

  “We all bought his clothes!” Eljean explained now. “Would you like to know why?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Well, too damned bad. Because the man saved your ghetto, as awful as it is. It was going to be worse. He saved all of you yesterday. Rath had them—do you see that? Rath had them ready to go out and round up your people, everyone with a Goddess streak, every boy in the brothels…. He was going to round you all up and put you in a camp outside of town, and the only person in his way was Triane’s Son. You should be so lucky as to lie down at his feet and die for him, and all we did was buy him some clothes!” Eljean’s voice was escalating, and for once he wasn’t afraid who heard him.

  Zhane was frowning—not in protest, but as though trying to put the facts together. “I’m sorry, Eljean—it’s not the laying down and dying for the man that I object to. It’s the laying down with him. And I don’t understand…. You’re always wanting to buy me trinkets. Is it that he will let you?”

  “He didn’t let us, you silly sot!” Eljean’s vision swam with Ellyot
Moon on the regents’ floor, his face white with anger, his eyes flashing that uncanny blue.

  “I don’t understand, Consort. What do you mean ‘contingent upon their obedience’? We’ve commissioned the blankets already. The weavers are waiting for their payment—some of them have staked their winter’s survival on our business. Are you saying you won’t authorize us to pay for the blankets unless….”

  Ellyot hadn’t been able to finish the sentence, he’d been so outraged. And the consort’s expression was as coldly smug as a lizard at a convocation of flies.

  “It’s a simple solution, Regent Moon. You want supplies for the Goddess folk, and I want reassurance they won’t use their gifts against those of us who follow the gods’ true path. If they agree to the camp outside the walls for reeducation in our ways, then we will keep their families warm and fed during the winter.”

  Ellyot’s eyes had flashed that hot, glacial blue again, and he had drawn himself up in a way that made people forget he was average height at best.

  “I think, Consort, that if you are going to give people a choice between maintaining what small civil rights they have left and freezing to death under the justice of your cold gods, that they will take their chances with the stars’ dark. It’s not like they believe in it anyway. But don’t bother yourself on account of your weavers, who might also starve to death. I’ll purchase the blankets myself, thank you, so that the gratitude of the Goddess ghetto might not be a burden you have to endure.”

  “You should have seen Rath’s face,” Eljean said, trying to explain, badly, to Zhane in the bar thick with candle smoke and desperation. “He…. It never would have occurred to Rath that someone would sacrifice so much of their own for a people he’s been trying to crush for years.”

  Zhane was shocked. He’d heard about the “Blanket Bill,” as it was called—they all had. Given that they had been selling any wool they had for food over the years, something as small as a blanket or two might keep the entire population from freezing to death over the winter.

  “Can he afford that?” Zhane asked, stuttering over his words.

  Rath asked the obvious question too, hoping his condescension would lessen the heroism of the offer. It didn’t.

  “Owen Moon’s dream horse, Consort.” Ellyot’s expression had been a study in grim triumph. “Every time that horse gets his jollies, my family adds to its coffers. But even if Courtland wasn’t such a wonder, you can bet that my uncle would sell off half his shipping business to see that this abomination doesn’t take place.”

  During their midday break they had accompanied him as he’d taken the bag of gold coins he kept in his cupboard to the master of the weaver’s guild to make sure it would be enough. He didn’t have to tell the others that he’d thought those coins would have lasted a year, and the weaver must have seen it in his face or heard the story, because he had taken only three-quarters of the original price without a word and given the rest back to Ellyot.

  Ellyot had thanked him, charmingly, and then he had shrugged off the others’ concern about his financial situation. “I’ll be good when Stanny comes to town in the spring. Lane’s always trying to give me gold—it will thrill him to finally have me take it.”

  And then he had excused himself to go talk to Coryal the tailor. He hadn’t said a word, and his expression had been open and friendly. But as he’d left their company, his friends had all met eyes, and they’d known.

  Aerk had been the one to speak first. “Wait up, Ellyot—we’ll come with you.” And as they’d caught up with him, for the first time since his moment on the floor, they had seen the embarrassment flooding his now-prominent cheekbones, as well as the tightness around his mouth.

  “I don’t like disappointing Coryal,” he’d said as they’d drawn near him. “He depends on our trade, you know. If I let him know now, he might be able to let out some of the clothes for other things—and what the hell are you doing?”

  As they’d neared the tailor’s shop, Marv and Jino had flanked him and turned to face him, cutting him off. Aerk, Keon, Eljean, and Djali had walked around them and entered the tailor’s shop. They had returned with the two packets of clothes Coryal had been holding, and without a word, they continued to walk Ellyot to his flat.

  When Ellyot attempted to thank them, he’d been cut off by Marv. “Shut up. We don’t want to hear it. And if you try to pay us back, we’ll cheerfully beat the hell out of you. Keon wears more clothes in a week, and he’s a Goddess-wandering slob.”

  And that had been the end of it, until now, when Zhane had been jealous of an act of kindness for a friend.

  “You should see your face when you talk about him,” Zhane said after hearing the whole story. “It’s like you’re talking about the Goddess moon herself.”

  “Did you not hear me?” Eljean asked a little desperately. “Of course I worship him. You would worship him too, if you saw him do these things, throw himself between your people and destruction again and again, and do it with grace and humor… and then smile at you and make you feel as though you were the only person on earth who mattered. Wouldn’t you be a little confused about what your heart is saying? But I’m not confused about you. My love for him doesn’t make my l—”

  “Don’t say it!” Zhane’s limpid eyes were bright, trembling with what he feared to hear said and feared to shed.

  “My love for—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Zhane shouted, pulling the attention of the entire tavern their way. “You can’t come to me and tell me that you… that you….”

  “Love….”

  “…me and worship him.” Zhane’s voice dropped, and the tears trembled on his rich fringe of lashes and fell. “Don’t you know what you’re doing to me, Eljean? I have to go out into the world and share my body with it when the only person I want to be with… he loves me, fine, but his true beloved is a god.”

  “I’m not stupid, Zhane.” Eljean took the moment to move into Zhane’s space, reach out a slender hand, and capture a tear with his thumb. “I know that the worship will fade, and all that will be left is admiration for a friend. I’m willing to weather through it… can’t you?”

  Zhane drew a breath on a sob and another, and leaned his head, just for a moment, a sweet moment, on Eljean’s chest. Then he shook his head and stepped back, away from Eljean’s arms and the open, naked hurt on his lover’s face.

  “This doesn’t have to be forever,” he choked, wiping his face on his shoulder. “Just… take some time. Indulge your crush… get laid, and see if he’s all you’ve got him cracked up to be….”

  “He has a beloved….” Oh Goddess, could Zhane really do this to him?

  “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if you come back to me, Eljean….”

  “She’s a girl, Zhane….” Please, not now. Not when he was finally remembering what love felt like.

  “But I need to know you’re not settling for the poor Goddess boy, because I….”

  “Zhane, please.” Was he really begging? He was, and it would be worth it if only Zhane wouldn’t….

  “I love you. I do. And I don’t want to be with you and think that you were always thinking of him….”

  Oh Goddess. He was. Eljean felt cold in his bowels and a lead-weighted glacier in his chest. “For the love of Triane, Zhane, don’t do this.”

  Zhane wiped the last of his tears on the shoulder of his shirt—a worn, cream-colored linen one he’d taken from Eljean—and held his hands out, palms flat, in finality. “Come back to me when it’s only me, Eljean. But for now, please go.”

  Eljean stumbled out of the tavern blindly, numb to his toes, so befuddled by misery that it was by Triane’s grace alone that he found his way to the wall behind the regents’ flats without running into and over a guard.

  Triane’s Son Bleeding

  TORRANT KNEW that the placating smile on his half-snowcat face must have looked ghastly, but the guard was determined to stop him, and Torrant didn’t want to hurt th
e poor old geezer.

  “Please, Jems,” he growled, cursing the change in his throat that came with disguising his features, “I just need to get away!”

  “You’ll not harm these young men!” Jems was old, and he was fat, but Torrant could see love in every stately wave of the rusted sword at the old man’s side, and he swore to himself again. He had moments, maybe, before half the guards of Dueance came crashing around him, and he would be as dead as the real Ellyot Moon.

  “I don’t want to harm them!” Torrant cried, spotting the slatted chair and backing toward it so he could step up to the concierge counter, and from there, hopefully, have enough strength to bound over the old man’s head and out the front door, where he could change form. “I’m just trying to get out!”

  After his spectacular entrance into Minero of Trexel’s room, and the very rapid exit accompanied by the screams of three extremely young and very naked girls, Torrant’s first idea had been to run to his own room and simply disappear. He had been yards away when a contingent of guards rounded the corner, and he had been forced to run in the other direction, where he lost himself in the rabbit warren of rooms and side hallways that made up the regents’ complex. Finally, he found the main hallway to the front foyer and thought he was home free.

  He’d run into Jems hard enough to knock the older man down. Torrant had been so surprised he’d offered the man a hand up, only to be greeted by a rusty sword aimed at his chest instead. Their subsequent battle had taken all Torrant’s skill, not just to defend himself, but to not injure the old night watchman who was merely doing his job.

  “If you’d wanted to get out, you should have gotten out before they changed the rules for you!” the man replied, his gray fringe of hair shaking on his shoulders as he puffed with exertion. Torrant heard the same regret in Jems’s voice that he heard in his own and cursed in the name of every god he knew.

  Ah… there! He’d made it to the chair and had one foot on the counter and….