by David Hair
Her eyebrows shot up. He’s asking me for advice? She answered quickly, before he changed his mind. ‘It’s an advisory role, with the ability to step in on “high matters” – things affecting the security of the empire.’
‘That’s what Craith says – but Gyle seems to think everything is a high matter.’ He struck a pose, looking out the window. ‘I suppose he would, when he’s up from the gutters.’
‘Get the statutes out,’ she replied. I doubt Gyle has made his way up from any gutters – he’s a half-blood mage.
‘I’m not a Kore-bedamned clerk,’ Francis sniffed. ‘I want to know the answer, not look for it.’ He tsked vexedly, and made as if to leave.
It was the first time he’d ever asked her about policy and she wasn’t about to let that pass, especially when there might be some reciprocal gain for herself. ‘ “High matters” is a term describing Imperial jurisdiction, and it was left deliberately loose,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It’s only ever been invoked in cases involving matters of war or trade directly relating to the empire or its allies.’ Ha, I am still la Scrittoretta! ‘He can’t use it to dictate your policy domestically, or your relations with, say, the Harkun nomads. He can’t dictate your appointments, nor can he overturn your legal judgements.’ If you ever made any. ‘You’re still the king.’
He nodded peremptorily. ‘Of course I am.’ But he was hovering now, torn between need and pride. ‘He’s proposing sending my legion to the Rift forts. He says they need field experience.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘They’re getting plenty of that on the Hytel Road. Tell him to send Canestos: her people are causing trouble, so sending them somewhere isolated would be better for all.’
There had been more incidents regarding Canestos’ ‘children’. Though she couldn’t help but sympathise with them, they were a big problem in a country as traditional and conservative as Javon.
‘But Sir Roland agrees.’
‘Roland Heale,’ she interjected contemptuously, ‘has gone from being a Dorobon warhorse to Gyle’s trick pony. You’ve lost his loyalty.’
‘Heale? But he’s been with the family all his life!’ Francis sounded shocked.
‘And he’s been overlooked and taken for granted, and then shunted aside for your friend Craith, whom you love so much.’
Francis looked stung. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Sol et Lune, open your eyes, Francis! Margham distracts you with hunts and Heale kowtows to Gyle on every matter. They see what’s happening: they tried to warn you, but now they’re just trying to preserve themselves.’
‘No – they are my loyal friends!’
‘Francis, a king doesn’t have friends: he has dependents! He has adherents! Loyalty is bought. And they’ve seen how you reward it: you cut off the heads of the men who supported your own mother against Gyle! That’s the lesson you taught them: that loyalty to the Dorobon ends in death. So they’re toadying frantically to Gyle instead.’
‘So are you,’ Francis snapped. ‘Gyle made me marry you, and he saved you from my mother … You are as much his creature as anyone.’
‘In saving himself, he had no choice but to save me. Of course I was relieved, but I didn’t mistake that for anything but circumstance. I owe him no gratitude. And as for marrying you … do you think I wanted that? Wake up, Francis! He’s flooded Javon with his friends and stolen yours! He’s ruling without a crown, but sooner or later he’ll want the whole thing: crown, title, the lot.’
‘But Mater-Imperia Lucia is my friend! She—’
‘Your friend? Your mother was her friend, and Lucia did nothing to support her. Meanwhile Gyle’s men are ransacking your kingdom and sending everything of value to Kaltus Korion. That tells me Lucia doesn’t care who’s in charge, so long as the Crusade is well-supplied.’ She met his eyes and said bluntly, ‘By the end of the Moontide, your soldiers won’t even remember your name. They’ll all be mercenaries in Gyle’s pay.’
His stricken face told her that her words had sunk in. His cheeks flushed and sweat broke out. ‘I am a Dorobon,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I am a pure-blood, born of the Blessed. I am invincible.’
You pathetic little boy. She struggled to contain the thought that maybe the time had come to follow the examples set by Heale and Margham and the rest and make peace with Gyle. At least Gyle understands my usefulness. But her whole soul rebelled at the thought of putting herself in the service of – in thrall to – the man who’d wrought so much evil on those she loved.
Abruptly Francis’ face changed again as he remembered who he was and who she was. He looked down at her disdainfully, then, with the faintest gratitude, announced, ‘You will present yourself in my chamber tonight.’ He spoke as if he was bestowing alms on the desperate.
Sheer loathing of his arrogant contempt drew her words out before caution could check them. ‘My lord, I’d rather not,’ she said angrily, then caught her breath.
Tarita, watching silently, sucked in her breath and went still.
Francis had started turning away; now he swung back to her, his expression puzzled. ‘What did you say?’
She stood. He heard me. He just wants me to back down. ‘I said that I’d rather not.’
They’d not had physical contact for weeks now, but that had been on the pretext of being his choice. This was different: she’d outright refused him. Men could beat a wife for that and few would look askance. For a few seconds she feared the worst as he raised a fist, then he blinked and lowered it. ‘But … Are you ill? Are you bleeding?’
This was her opportunity to plead an excuse, but she found she could not. ‘No. I simply do not wish to go to your room.’
‘You’re my wife and you will do as I say.’ His priggish face was torn between anger and dislike. ‘You swore on the Book of Kore to obey me and you will, you fat … ugly … mudskin.’
She flinched at each word, then stuck her chin out. ‘You promised to “honour” me. I’ve seen no sign of that.’
She heard Tarita gasp and felt her own heart thundering. Her whole body was sweating as if she were standing before a furnace, soaking into her dress so that it felt as if it had doubled in weight. Her knees shook, but she stuck out her chin defiantly, feeling oddly strong amidst all this weakness.
He raised his hand again. She offered her cheek. I dare you.
‘I have every right to you,’ he snapped. ‘I am a pure-blood mage of the—’
‘I don’t care about all that. I don’t want to lay with you.’
His jaw dropped and his hand quivered, fingers still open, the muscles twitching.
She put her hands on her hips, feeling recklessly brave. ‘So unless you want to add rape to your sins, go away and leave me alone.’ Her voice shook while she said it, but she could feel her spine stiffen inside. She lifted her eyes back to his, and locked on. Blink first, you weak, weak, weak bastido.
His hand dropped and he looked away. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said plaintively. ‘I don’t strike you. I don’t mistreat you or make you do impure things. I don’t use other women; I have been faithful to my wives. I admit you’re not my favourite, but you’re descended of Rimoni and Noories, for Kore’s sake! I am so far above you that only in such a time of madness could we ever meet. Lessers do not reject their betters! So tell me, how have I earned this … disobedience?’
She just looked at him, momentarily lost for words. Sol et Lune, if that is what you think, how is mere reason ever going to change your mind? She floundered for a few seconds – Rondian was only her third tongue, though she had some fluency, but the words she needed weren’t ones she’d used often, and when they did come, they tumbled out in a helpless, passionate rush. ‘Francis – I can’t stand you. You repulse me in ways I can’t articulate. I find you odious, loathsome … Frankly, I would rather lick the privy clean than be with you. I would rather die than have your baby.’
He stared, his mouth working slowly, like a child trying to read. His hand went up and down three times as
his urge to slap her warred with whatever passed for honour in his self-image. Then his eyes narrowed as he grasped for some explanation he could accept. ‘Gyle … you and Gyle are—’
‘Oh, please! I hate Gurvon Gyle even more than I despise you! I would throw myself from my balcony before I let him so much as touch me.’ She dropped her arms to her sides, fighting for composure. ‘Francis, there is no one else and there’s no one to blame! Our marriage is a fraud – it always has been. Its sole function was to tie the kingdom together. We don’t need to see each other to do that, and we’d both be happier if we didn’t.’
He took that in with the most perplexed expression she’d ever seen. ‘But … my honour … I have needs …’
She sighed. ‘Francis, your court is full of settler women.’ She’d observed them from a distance, this invasion of pale-skinned, pale-haired men and women, crowding into the streets of her city, their thick foreign accents almost indecipherable, even though she knew the words. Every single one of them displayed a bizarre arrogance, as if the lowliest of them were somehow better than Javonesi of any class. ‘I’m sure you won’t want for company.’
He drew himself upright. ‘I am a Dorobon, descendant of the—’
‘Yes, yes,’ she interrupted tiredly. I’m so sick of his ‘I am this, I am that’, she thought. ‘Francis, I don’t care. I have needs too, but I’d rather they went untended than be with you. Your needs aren’t my problem. Please, just leave.’
‘I’ll close your Beggars’ Court.’
She was well ahead of him. ‘Gyle sanctioned it. Talk to him.’
He looked at her slyly. ‘But it’s a domestic matter. He hasn’t the right, you’ve said so yourself.’
Well, at least he took that on board. ‘I will continue to go to my gardens and listen through the gate. Men have no right to enter the zenana uninvited, but I may do as I please there. What happens in the streets outside I cannot control.’ But good luck clearing them without a riot.
He lifted his finger to make a point, seemed to lose his thread, then abruptly stiffened and backed away. ‘I will have you put aside. I will send you home.’
‘Excellent. I’ve been longing to see Forensa again.’
‘Your brother is my prisoner!’
‘He’s Gyle’s prisoner. Was there anything else?’
His face, which had gradually been returning to its normal pallor, went puce again. He stammered for a moment, then he whirled round and stormed away. The doors shook as he slammed them with a gesture, and then at last he was gone.
Cera sank to her knees in the middle of the floor and dropped her head. She was shaking so hard she could barely feel the stone beneath her.
Tarita edged forward. ‘My lady?’
She’d never felt so drained, so weak and so powerful all at once. She lifted her hands, and when Tarita took them, she pulled her into a kneeling embrace, hugging her as if she were her sister Solinde come back to life, all the while shaking and crying and laughing.
‘I told him! I told him! I really did it!’
Tarita’s whisper was fearful. ‘What will he do? My lady, we must leave! He’ll kill you!’
A Jhafi man would, if his wife spoke to him like that, and a Rimoni man too – or some would, the very worst of them. She’d heard too many such cases in the Beggars’ Court these last weeks. But everyone knew married couples who co-existed like strangers sharing the same house. Some were perfectly amicable, like that of Lord Theodyne and Lady Brita in Forensa; and there were others whose hostility was public knowledge, like Lord Jacop di Oseria of Riban; everyone knew how much he and his wife Veirana loathed each other. And yet these were not valid grounds for putting a wife aside: state marriages were made for more important reasons; mere likes and dislikes were no reason for annulment.
‘He won’t,’ she said, regaining her confidence. ‘He may be a stupid ass, but he’s an honourable ass. You’ll see.’
*
The next months proved her right: Francis did not press her, nor did he seek to end the marriage. He still had her sit with him at state occasions, though he never showed her public affection either. She picked up second-hand news of Portia, how she fared, how her pregnancy was progressing, but no letters came. And she watched the city change as the settlers clustered into the area they renamed ‘Oldchurch’, fanning out around a Sollan shrine they’d re-consecrated to Kore – the shrine where she and Francis and Portia had been married. But Oldchurch did not deal easily with the rest of the city; it quickly became a gated enclave, guarded at all times. Tarita told her the Jhafi described it as ‘a boil filling with white pus’.
And still the crowds came to her Beggars’ Court, their numbers unchecked.
The most wonderful thing was the sense of freedom she’d gained by her outburst. Though she’d lain with Francis only one week a month, whilst she was fertile, the sense of emancipation, of not having to put herself through that ordeal, was liberating. Knowing she no longer had to put up with the physical indignity, or run the risk of having to bear his child, made her feel like she was master of her own body and soul. She might still be a prisoner in a cage surrounded by enemies on every side, but she was at least free to follow her own pursuits.
I just wish Portia were here … or someone …
She’d always prized intellectual pursuits above physical ones, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have needs too. Just like Francis … But she would never have admitted that to him. To have finally sampled love’s fruit only to have it snatched away was cruel, a form of torture, but she was becoming resigned to losing Portia. The silence between them spoke volumes. She imagined the Dorobon baby inside Portia colonising her, driving her steadily away. How could I ever compete with the miracle of motherhood?
At her worst she took to sly glances at Tarita, who was pretty and sweet and unashamedly worldly, but even had she been that way inclined, she was only a maid and the gulf between them was too great. They had more familiarity than most mistress-and-servant relationships, but to go so far would be out of the question. She too had her pride. Just like Francis … Anyway, Tarita had a lover now, a man of Mustaq al’Madhi’s gang; from time to time, if pressed, she would mention him, coyly. He sounded raffish and dangerous, not someone Cera would have liked, but he’d clearly turned Tarita’s head.
So she set her heart aside and buried herself in her self-appointed tasks, taking pleasure in good verdicts and sound decisions, enjoying the increasing rapture of the crowds outside the zenana gates. She was relieved that Francis and Gyle stayed away, and Staria’s legion had indeed marched east to the Rift Forts; the only one Rondian she saw regularly was ‘Olivia Dorobon’. who had taken to watching the Beggars’ Court from her balcony. ‘Olivia’ had apparently been confined to her rooms – by Francis or by Gyle, no one could say whom – and what little Cera glimpsed of her was a shattered face, wet with tears, eyes fixed on her. Some days the shapeshifter’s presence felt like a dagger poised over her heart; other times she pitied the wretch.
If I told Francis who his sister really was, what would he do?
In the end she decided to say nothing. But the threat of Coin’s presence made her increasingly uneasy as the days and weeks passed.
*
Akhira, the onset of midsummer, began with a series of storms that came rolling out of the northwest, bringing stinging sands and swirling winds and leaving a coating of brown grit on every surface. The heat rose steadily after that, as did the human stench of the city. Cera began each morning on her balcony, sipping coffee. This was a rare day in which she had nothing special to do. The Royal Court was in recess, and Francis was off riding with his court, Gyle included. The Legate seemed to be trying to charm his way back into Francis’ affections, which worried Cera; Francis was stupidity itself when it came to flattery and fun.
There was no Beggars’ Court today, and she had to admit to being relieved. She felt too emotionally battered to deal with another long, harrowing day of hearing about the horrific
things that people could do to others.
Then she heard a sound from above, of someone beginning to cry, and glancing up, she saw a strand of rope briefly drop from the balcony above before being hauled back up. A table shifted, something making it creak. The sobbing was heavy, starting deep in the abdomen and discharging in big wet gulps. A voice begged Kore for release; the tone was strange, but she knew at once who it was and what was going on.
She ran, and within half a minute she was pushing her way into Olivia’s suite. The room was untidy, strewn with clothes for both genders, including outfits she recognised, some Olivia’s and some Symone’s.
The weeping came from behind the curtains that concealed the balcony. She called out, ‘Coin!’ and heard a strangled cry in response as she wrenched the curtains aside to find a rope tied to a lamp-hook in the roof and a noose looped about the neck of the androgynous being standing on a small table, poised to spring over the rail.
‘No!’ she shouted, ‘Coin – stop!’
The shapeshifter turned her head. Her true face, boyish with thin ginger hair, was streaked in tears. ‘Go away!’
Cera stopped, scared into motionlessness. If she’s set it right she’ll break her neck … If not she’ll take two or three minutes to asphyxiate … Unless survival instincts take over and she uses the gnosis to save herself.
The coolly rational part of her brain asked, Do I care?
But the anguish on the face of the strange being tore into her and she put aside their last conversation and focused on trying to calm the stricken shapechanger. She didn’t kill Solinde. She’s not entirely evil – and now she needs help. ‘Please, Coin – you don’t have to do this,’ she said urgently.
‘I heard them talk,’ Coin whispered.
‘Heard who?’
‘Gyle and my mother – they talk once a week, and he never told me.’
Her mother? Who’s she in all this? ‘What about?’ she asked, then instantly regretted it, as Coin’s mind was clearly taken back to the anguish that had driven her to this.
