by Jane Kindred
For the Irises of Alya, she selected a cool cobalt paint and fixed a trail of silver sequins in the corners. Just the lightest touch of kohl above her lashes made her amber eyes stand out, large and bright within the sparkling competition that adorned them.
She cursed Nesre for the lost slippers; they’d been her favorite silver pair, with diamond chips on the toes. Instead a pair in soft black velvet with silver ribbons for laces up the ankle would have to do. Before donning the slippers, she soaked her feet in jasmine water for as long as she dared, to soften the roughness of two days spent unshod on the street. At five minutes to the nones, she descended the carpeted back stairs of her apartments to preserve the soles of her slippers and crossed the cobbled path to the Garden.
The carriage arrived precisely as scheduled, with Templar Nesre inside.
Ume laid her skirts across the cushioned bench as she sat before him. “You said this was a private engagement. By which I assumed you to mean I would attend my patron without your company.”
“Indeed. He is, alas, a rather retiring fellow and asked that I convey you to the temple on his behalf.”
She shrugged, letting the silver beads whisper together as she turned to watch the approach through the courtyard arches. The temple was less brilliant in the early afternoon but possessed a serene quality, ripe with rich, late-season fruit hanging from an arbor of olive trees and soft with willowy acacia branches floating like Ume’s ribbons on the breeze. White-feathered rivercocks spread the broad fans of their tails as they preened over the grounds, the Meeric iris iridescent at the tip of each plume. She closed her eyes and let her painted ones look on Nesre.
When they alighted from the carriage, he took her azure-draped hand and set it on his arm before mounting the steps to the central arch of the temple. “You are a vision, my dear Maiden Sky,” he murmured at her ear. “One would never take the boy you were this morning for the woman you are this afternoon.”
Ume sucked air between her teeth at the audacity. If he hadn’t done her such a service, she would have turned and left him empty of his prize.
“The cut of one’s robes gives no indication of what lies beneath them, Templar Nesre.” She did not add that his trailing red robes covered something of little consequence, but judging by the stiffness of his back, he hadn’t missed the implication.
Distracted by his slight, she didn’t question why they hadn’t turned toward the templars’ quarters along one of the outer arcades. At the end of a long hall of alabaster tile was the altar room, where the Meer sat upon his throne on a raised dais, having recently attended to petitioners. Before this visit she had only seen him between the curtains of his sedan on his annual processions. His silver hair hung straight and longer than hers had been; when he stood, it might hang to his thighs.
“Your patron,” Nesre said, and Ume turned, gaping in genuine astonishment. He smiled. “I was not at liberty to speak of the details outside the temple.”
“But the Meer are—”
“Celibate? Generally. It’s more a custom of age, I assure you, than any physical shortcoming. The Meer of Rhyman, after all, has produced an heir through his dalliances.” He put his mouth to her ear. “Report back to me everything he does, my dear, but tell no one else.” He straightened and bowed. “Do we have an arrangement?”
Ume nodded, and Nesre was gone, leaving her to walk the vast hall to the arch of the altar room alone. Two sentries of the temple guard acknowledged her and let her pass. Ume sank into a low curtsy when she arrived before the Meer, the silver beads of her headdress draping the tile as her forehead nearly touched the ground.
“Come,” said the Meer.
The azure silk snaked about her feet as she rose on trembling legs, and she lifted it to approach him. Had she tried to maintain the small, measured steps of a courtesan, she would have tripped on the glasslike tile and sprawled before him in a most uncourtesanlike manner.
To her surprise, MeerAlya was not at all elderly. If anything, his smooth face made him seem almost as youthful as a boy—a Deltan trait Ume was similarly blessed with. His silver hair gave the impression of age, and certainly his years would indicate the same, but if the Meer truly lived for centuries, perhaps they did not age in the manner of ordinary men.
“You are the Maiden Ume Sky.”
She bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Your servant, my liege.”
MeerAlya stepped down and lifted her chin. With a smooth, slow stroke, he brushed the back of his other hand against the fabric at her cheek. “Such velvet honey.” His eyes were a pale, startling blue. “Come, Ume Sky. I have granted enough vetmas in this cold room.”
Tiled in platinum, the main corridors of the temple were as high as they were long. Beside the Meer’s towering height, Ume was a doll dwarfed by the dimensions of a giant dollhouse. She had expected his ceremonial dress to rival her own. Instead the white tunic and pants were simple, yet their fabric flowed with his body in a manner suggesting majesty, pointed sleeves draping his hands and wide legs swirling with his stride, giving the impression of layered skirts. Beneath them, MeerAlya’s bare feet made no sound, as though he floated incorporeal. But his hair and his pale complexion were the most striking, glowing with an almost unearthly hue in the light reflected off the thousand minute tiles.
Instead of to his bedchamber, he took her to a sort of studio, cluttered with tables and pedestals draped in cloth. He removed one of the drop cloths and directed her to a stool in the center of the room. As she sat, he stroked his fingers across the edge of her veil.
“May I remove this?”
“Of course, my liege. I am at your disposal.”
Crouching before her, MeerAlya drew the silk from beneath her headdress. “Disposal, Maiden Sky, is not what I have in mind for you.” He set the veil aside and stood back to observe her. “My templar described you as an unparalleled beauty among the temple courtesans, but I believe he was mistaken.”
Blood rushed to her face, and she blinked back tears, unnerved that he could shake her composure so easily. It was the Meer’s right to speak as he pleased.
“I have been In’La’s Meer for over a century and have seen beauty in all its forms.” As he spoke, he rummaged through the contents of a cluttered table for a sheaf of parchment and a piece of graphite. “Yours, dear Maiden, is unparalleled in nature itself.” Alya sat on the edge of the worktable with the parchment on a board in his lap. “May I sketch your likeness?”
Despite her disciplined ability to maintain a tranquil exterior in the face of whatever desires a patron might express, nervous laughter rose in her throat. “Forgive me, my liege, but why? I mean, why would you want to sketch anything?”
“And with what else should I occupy my time, Maiden Sky? Granting vetmas for the people grows dull over a century. Giving daily audience to my petitioners, being attended to by my servants, riding in procession at my templars’ whims—what in that should give me joy? I prefer creation for its own sake to merely fattening the coffers of my supplicants.”
Ume was quiet as Alya began to sketch. If he could truly create with just a word from his tongue, why would he bother with such mundane pursuits? She had never believed in the divinity of the Meer. They ruled by custom, and their blessings were bestowed by perfectly ordinary means, through the work of their templars. So he was bored and liked to dally at drawing. There was nothing magical about him, as she’d suspected.
Though he concentrated on his drawing, the corners of his mouth turned up. “Magic, my dear, is entirely subjective. Some might say your touch has magic in it.” As heat rose in her cheeks, his blue eyes twinkled and he winked, so fleeting she might have imagined it. “And she blushes again, true to her appellation. No need to be alarmed or, indeed, embarrassed. I cannot read minds—not in the literal sense, but I am astute at reading the emotions of my subjects. You don’t believe the stories you have heard about my kind. You’ve seen no evidence to challenge your beliefs. That does not offend me.”
; Ume tucked her ankles beneath the stool as she tried to remain still, intensely uncomfortable under his studying gaze. She had spent years cultivating her ability to attract a man’s eyes with a look or a movement. Why was his scrutiny so difficult to endure?
“I create many things here. Whether art or invention, I find it more satisfying to use my hands than to merely manifest my thoughts with divine speech. I have engaged an engineer on occasion to help me bring my ideas to fruition, so that they might live on beyond the scope of my words. Power that may be harnessed by the ordinary man, such as light and locomotion.” The Meer paused to pick out another piece of graphite. “Raise your eyes, Maiden Sky. Just so.”
He went silent with concentration, only the whisper of graphite on parchment piercing the quiet, but took up his one-sided conversation again when she suppressed a yawn, as if he’d merely paused midthought.
“Have you noticed how all power comes from conflagration? Whether of flammable gases or fluids or even the boiling of water. That which burns is transformed, much as the spirit is after death. Released through conflagration, life reincarnates, power multiplies.”
Ume shifted on the stool, and the Meer held up a hand.
“Please, if you would, sit still.” He paused a moment, his graphite poised in the air. “That is, unless you are uncomfortable there. Perhaps you would be more at ease if I sketched you in my bed, where you hold the power.”
“My liege—”
“Escort Maiden Sky to my bedchamber.”
A servant she hadn’t noticed stepped forward from the shadows to attend her.
Dismissed, Ume followed the servant, the sound of her beads no longer delicate in her ears. She was not pleasing the Meer; it was not a sensation she was used to. His eccentricity had caught her off guard, and she must adapt. Who knew what the consequences of failing to please him might be? Perhaps there was a reason she’d never heard of a courtesan being summoned by the Meer.
The sky was growing dull through the arches, and the sparkling lights of the temple began to glow in their sconces. Ume marveled at them—twinkling stars that had found their way down from heaven. Invisible to the eye until ignited by flame, delicate gases burned in luminous colors inside their glass baubles.
When the servant had delivered her to MeerAlya’s bedchamber, she positioned herself carefully among the curtains shrouding the bed and arranged her skirts to drape the length of one outstretched leg. She would take her cues from the Meer. Ume was skilled at discerning a man’s desires, and he was no different, just a man with peculiar tastes; she’d known many of those.
MeerAlya appeared presently, a roll of parchment and a tin of drawing implements under his arm. If he still wished to sketch her, then she would be a gracious subject.
Ume looked up at him through lowered lashes. “Where would you like me, my liege?”
“Take off your clothes, Ume.”
She displayed no surprise at his request or his familiarity but unlaced her outer dress to lay it aside. As she reached to the hem of her azure silk, MeerAlya set down his supplies and put his hands over hers. He lifted the gown slowly to reveal her at his leisure, drawing the silk up over her thighs and stopping to smooth his hands over her legs when she was exposed.
“Would you like me to touch myself?” She lowered her voice to a purr.
“Would you like to touch yourself?”
“If it is your pleasure, my liege.”
The Meer stood. “No.” He untied the roll of parchment and removed the piece on which he’d begun. “Continue undressing, Maiden Sky. Remove your headdress, but not your slippers.”
She obeyed as he sat before the dressing table. MeerAlya took a piece of graphite from the tin and for several minutes sketched her in silence with only brief glances from the parchment to her. When he was satisfied with his work, he set it aside and reclined in his chair.
“Come here.”
Ume approached him and started to lower herself to her knees, but Alya grabbed her and sat her firmly in his lap. She acquiesced, letting him move her as he would. MeerAlya pulled her back against his chest and leaned his chin against her head, the silver veil of his hair enveloping her.
“You fear me, Ume,” he whispered. “But the safest place you will ever be is in the arms of your Meer.”
She shivered at the touch of his hair against her skin, uncertain how to respond. Without warning he rose, lifting her in his arms, and carried her to the bed.
“You are an exquisite blossom.” He laid her inside the curtains and held out his open palm. “A flowering plum in winter.”
In his hand, a dark purple twig took form, tufted with pale pink blossoms and frosted with high-mountain snow. MeerAlya set it beside her on the pillow and kissed her hand.
“Thank you for a delightful evening, Maiden Sky. I hope you will let me sketch you again in the future. For now you should sleep.”
At his words, her eyelids fluttered closed.
Chapter Four
When she returned through the high-ceilinged halls and tiled arches of the temple the following day, there was no sign of the Meer. Only an alabaster box full of gold alyanis awaited her on the seat of the carriage.
Behind In’La’s pubs and taverns, the indolent river wound toward the setting sun like a molten copper filament as the carriage bore her to the Garden. She’d slept most of the day away. Hardly noticing the lush vines the carriage passed by, Ume turned the plum-blossom sprig between her fingers. She’d half expected it to disappear, but it was as solid and real as if the tree had been in the room when MeerAlya plucked the blossoms from the ether. In her hand, she held evidence of the magic of the Meer.
Ume tucked the sprig into the beads of her headdress. Ravenous, she directed the driver to take her to one of the pubs outside the Garden, where she could eat in relative peace. Working girls frequented the public taverns—it was where she herself had started out—but temple courtesans did not do their business here.
After ordering a full meal of squab and pilav with a flagon of chilled berry wine, she loosened her veil and set to it with relish. The Meer hadn’t thought to offer her dinner; her last meal had been the pomegranate in the market. She hoped Cree didn’t think ill of her. The brief dalliance in Cree’s world had been sweet, but Ume couldn’t imagine being welcomed into Cree’s circle as Cillian had been.
As Ume finished her squab, a group of young men at the bar began to eye her, elbowing one another in apparent dares of bravado. She focused her attention on the chilled wine and ignored them, but they were well in their cups, and it wasn’t long before their appointed ambassador presented himself.
“My friends have a bet,” he confided as he leaned unsteadily over her table. “They say you won’t give me a kiss for a copper.”
Ume smiled graciously. “I’m afraid your friends are right, sir. But I’m sure there are plenty of girls about who will fit your purse.”
“Oh, come on,” he insisted as his companions approached. “Tell you what. If you say I gave you a copper for a kiss, and you kiss me in front of my friends, I’ll come round later and give you an extra. Be nice to a gentleman, would you?”
“Sir, you cannot afford me,” said Ume more sternly.
His solicitous expression dissolved into a scowl. “Now you’re just being a bitch.” He threw his copper alyani on the table as his companions flanked him.
“Look. I don’t mean to embarrass you in front of your friends, but you don’t seem to understand. I am a temple courtesan, not a common pub girl, and I am trying to have my dinner.”
“What you are is a whore. And no whore is going to tell me she’s too good for me. Now I’ve given you my copper, and I’ve asked nicely for a kiss.” He lurched forward and grabbed her by the arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “You’ll give my money’s worth, or I’ll drag you out back and have it with interest.”
“Take your hand off the lady.”
Ume turned to find Cree standing behind her, rolling up
her sleeves. She gave no indication she recognized Ume, only a fierce look of challenge toward the young men.
Her would-be patron sneered as he straightened. “Who the hell are you?”
“A gentleman,” said Cree. “Which is more than I can say for you. If you don’t let go of the lady, you’ll become better acquainted with what that means.”
“Come on.” One of his friends tugged his grip from Ume’s arm. “We’ve had too much to drink. It was only a joke.”
“The joke is a whore wearing the veil.” He spit at her as he shook off his friend and turned away.
Before he’d taken two steps, Cree caught him with a hard cuff on the chin. The others scrambled forward and shoved her against the wall, but Ume stepped between them, her skirts and ribbons making a dramatic flare as she held up a silk-draped hand.
“Gentlemen.” Ume spoke in the infamous purr. “Fisticuffs will no more get you a piece of me than will a bag of copper alyanis.” She picked up the copper the first man had thrown and tossed it to him while he rubbed his jaw and glared at Cree. “Keep your money, boys, and keep your pretty faces.”
Cree shrugged them off and straightened her coat. Begrudgingly, they went on their way. As Ume resumed drinking her wine, Cree paused beside her table, peering at her more closely.
“Thank you.” Ume lowered her eyes.
Cree was silent for a long moment before dropping a gold alyani in front of her. “I believe this is yours.”
“Still not enough.” She met Cree’s eyes at last. “Sit down if you’re going to stare. The tavern keeper looks ready to throw you out.”
Cree pulled out her cigar tin and lit one deliberately as she joined her. “I’d offer you one—” Cree sucked on the end as she fed the flame, “—if I didn’t feel like a complete horse’s ass.”
“Please accept my apology. I wish I could explain. I didn’t mean to take off on you like that, but something came up.”
“Something. Like…your being a temple courtesan.” Cree blew a puff of smoke in her direction. “I’m sorry, who the hell are you? I don’t think I got your name.”
