“I’m overwhelmed by your enthusiasm,” Assistant said, starting to look a little put out.
“Well, why do you want to do it?”
“Don’t you like the idea?” Assistant persisted. She smiled wickedly. “Lying still and helpless while I do whatever I wish to you?”
“But we do that now,” Ari said blankly. “Every day.”
This was obviously not going as Assistant had planned. “But you would not be able to respond,” she said. “To touch me. You would—”
Ari looked down at her plate. “I can’t anyway,” she mumbled. “You won’t let me.” She couldn’t quite keep the wistfulness out of her voice. Or the disappointment. Almost a week, and Assistant still said, “No, not yet,” when Ari tried to touch her. Every single night.
There was a long moment while Ari waited hopefully for Assistant to relent. To say—
“Well then,” Assistant said, and Ari knew that, yet again, she would not be touching Assistant tonight.
To her surprise, Assistant didn’t tie her up, either. Instead she handled Ari roughly, biting her and gripping her until it hurt more than it felt good and Ari begged her to stop.
Assistant stopped. For the first time in a week, they stopped without finishing. Instead, Assistant kissed Ari more gently than she ever had before and stroked her arm and side. It seemed like her version of remorse. She was careful when she curled her body around Ari’s before they went to sleep.
That was something they did, every night: sleeping together. And Ari really did like that, now that she’d gotten used to it—just like she’d started to love having Assistant around after her initial reluctance. It was very easy to believe that no harm in the universe could touch her when Assistant held her so close. Not that harm ever had touched her, not that she’d ever felt unsafe, even with pirates swarming around. It was just…
It was just that her life was so different now. Ari had always thought she was happy with her plants. Sure, she’d gotten a little lonely from time to time, but then she’d get wrapped up in another experiment and it hadn’t gotten her down for long. Only now she had a helper, who not only did magnificent things to her body, but who also toiled next to her in the garden and shared her table at mealtimes and, shoot, made sure there were mealtimes.
Ari had said before that she couldn’t remember what life had been like before Assistant came. That was still true, only now she wondered how she’d managed to live at all. Compared to this—to an existence that was tranquil one moment and thrilling the next—her old life seemed so hollow, so empty. Maybe that had been contentment, but this, this was happiness. She couldn’t imagine living without Assistant now.
And no matter how shameful it was to admit, she was glad she didn’t have to find out.
~ ~ ~
“Oh my God. Has this been here the entire time?”
Ari put the last bowl in the dishwasher and shut the door. Assistant’s voice had come from Ari’s bedroom, where she’d gone to have a post-morning-sex, pre-gardening shower. Ari wiped her hands on a dishtowel and called, “Has what been where?”
A few moments later, Assistant emerged with a wooden box in her hands. “It was under your sink, of all places.”
“Oh, the Q’heri board.” Ari dropped the towel on the counter. “I must have stowed it under there when I moved in. What were you doing under my sink?”
“Because I was excited to discover whether you’d run out of lotion.” Assistant set the box on the counter. “You have.”
“Oops. I’ll order some later tonight.”
“Promises, promises.” Assistant opened the box and peered inside at the Q’heri set. “It’s very old-fashioned. No holos, just wood.” She sounded approving.
“It was my mother’s. She liked antiques.” Ari leaned over the box as Assistant pulled out the cloth bag that held all the pieces and then pushed the latches that let the box itself unfold into a Q’heri board. “Do you know how to play?”
Assistant did not look up as she straightened the board. “I learned many things during my time with pirates.”
Of all the things Ari had heard that pirates did, teaching slaves to play complex strategy games hadn’t been one of them. “Really?”
“Really.” Assistant opened the tie on the cloth bag. Then she paused. “Do you know how to play, or is this merely a keepsake?”
A pang hurt Ari’s chest. “I haven’t played since I was very young.” Her father had taught her. It had been a brief, brilliant period, perhaps a year after her mother’s death, when he had tried to take an interest in her. He’d taught her to play Q’heri and taken her to the great gardens in the Capital on Homeworld. His attention hadn’t lasted, and neither had the Q’heri, but the plants had stuck with her.
Assistant reached into the open bag and withdrew the pieces one by one, half of the little figures carved from mahogany and the other from pale oak. The overlapping circles on the board were ordered the same way. The board was dusty from disuse, and Ari rubbed her skirt over it, earning a glare from Assistant. She just shrugged in response. At some point, Assistant would have to accept that Ari would never be a hygiene freak.
“I expect it won’t take you long to pick it up again,” Assistant said. There was a lot more enthusiasm in her voice than there had ever been for gardening. It was different from her enthusiasm for sex, too.
Ari didn’t have much interest in playing Q’heri, but she had a lot of interest in that enthusiasm. Besides, the morning had featured tedious repairs to a heat lamp, and a broken hose that had sprayed all over both their tunics, followed by a slip in the mud that had occasioned Assistant’s shower. She was due for some relief. Ari tried to sound suitably peppy when she said, “We’ll have to see!”
She made coffee, and when all was prepared, she and Assistant sat on either side of the kitchen table, leaning over the board. “Right,” Assistant said. “Time for a brief refresher.”
Ari listened attentively while Assistant explained the name and function of each piece, as well as how it was allowed to move across the board. She was surprised by how much she remembered. Nearly everything, in fact, and by the time they were ready to start, she was feeling enthusiastic herself.
No doubt she was about to get defeated seven ways from Celandor, but she wasn’t really competitive. It would be nearly as fascinating to watch Assistant maneuver around the board, to examine the way she thought, as it would be to win.
When Assistant finished explaining the rules, she said, “Well, why don’t you start?”
Surprised, Ari said, “Okay.” She chose a soldier piece at random and moved it forward.
Assistant’s eyes gleamed, as if this first move was somehow significant, and the game was on.
As Ari would have predicted, she was on the defensive right away. A few moves in, she realized she’d started without any kind of strategy or idea of what would happen after she’d moved that piece. Assistant clearly didn’t play that way. She was striking out, arranging her pieces in accordance with some larger design Ari couldn’t see. Some she sacrificed, and others she marshalled as if they were real troops, hemming Ari in until defeat was assured.
When she captured Ari’s emperor piece, her glee would have been visible from Exer’s surface if the windows hadn’t been hidden behind trees and bushes. Ari couldn’t muster any ire. It was nice to see Assistant so happy, and besides, Ari had been right—she’d had a chance to watch Assistant think. When Assistant thought, she furrowed her brow, pursed her lips, and seemed to go deeper inside herself, almost as if she’d forgotten Ari was right there in front of her. She was totally absorbed in winning the game.
The game that, now Ari had had a chance to get reacquainted with, didn’t seem all that hard. Not if you had a good plan. Assistant obviously had several, probably a whole storehouse of them that she’d used before, but you only needed one—if it was the right one.
“Not bad,” Assistant said as she began to rearrange the pieces.
“It w
as pretty bad,” Ari pointed out.
“It was pretty bad,” Assistant agreed. “But you were working at it. I could tell.”
She could? So much for Assistant being wholly focused on the game. “I was. Want to play again?”
Assistant’s mouth twitched. “Certainly.”
Ari lost the second match too, but she put up a much better fight this time, and at the end of it, Assistant’s compliment seemed sincere. Ari’s chest warmed.
Right. Maybe the third time would be the charm.
It was Ari’s turn to lead again. She moved the same piece she had the first time. Assistant appeared surprised, but said nothing as she moved her own piece—the same one as before, too.
Ari bit her lip to conceal a smile. Yes, it was good to have a plan. If Assistant took it for granted that she would do the same thing she’d done before, but do no better, then she would be easier to surprise.
In fact…what if…
Ari pointed to the dark circle on the top right corner of the board. “If I took that one, I’d get double points, right?” she asked innocently.
“Only if you had three soldiers lined up in the dark circles next to it.”
“Uh-huh. So theoretically I could still win just on points alone, even if my emperor fell again.”
There was no mistaking the nigh-diabolical gleam in Assistant’s eye as she assessed the current state of the board and prepared herself for yet another victory. Ari wasn’t in a good position to take that circle. “Theoretically.”
“Oh, that’s good to know.”
“I’ve never liked the points aspect of the game. The idea that you can win even if your emperor is taken…” Assistant shook her head. “There’s no game that requires a better head for strategy, but I’d prefer to play without points entirely. Sometimes I do. It’s more realistic.”
“Maybe, but it takes a whole dimension out of the game,” Ari reminded her. “I like that there’s different ways you can win. It makes you think harder.”
She brazenly moved a soldier toward the circle in the top right corner, just like someone who wasn’t thinking at all.
Assistant’s lips twitched, and she moved her second commander to capture the soldier at once.
“Oh, darn.” Ari rapped her knuckles against the edge of the table and didn’t look at Assistant’s face.
“You’re bound to make mistakes.” It figured she’d be gracious while she was getting ready to slaughter her opponent. “You did much better last time.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to get you on this points thing. I bet that’s even harder to win that way than if I just took your emperor.” The capture of the emperor earned the captor fifty points, and was also the end of the game, something to be avoided if your opponent was ahead by more than fifty points. In the second game, Assistant had gotten exactly fifty-one points ahead before putting Ari in a position where she’d had no choice but to take Assistant’s emperor, and had therefore lost the match. Assistant might not like the points system, but she didn’t seem to mind using it to her advantage.
“We shall see.” Assistant didn’t bother hiding the smug menace in her voice, her surety that Ari was on the path to a third defeat.
Ari said nothing. She watched every move Assistant made, all the time maneuvering around the board, ostensibly grabbing up points. Meanwhile, Assistant plunged farther down the board in search of Ari’s emperor.
Then, just as she was about to move a lord one circle to the left, she glanced down at Ari’s high priest and froze, holding the lord in the air.
Ari bit back a smile.
Assistant said nothing. Her eyes narrowed as they searched over the board. Her body grew completely still. She didn’t even seem to breathe as she concentrated, weighing her options.
There weren’t many. Ari had tied her up but good.
“Well, well, well,” Assistant said after a few moments. She placed her lord back down in its former place.
“There’s a couple of things you could do,” Ari said helpfully. She pointed at the center circle. “You have a way clear to that. It’s ten points.”
“And then I give you a clear way to my emperor. I’ve only got thirteen points. I’d lose.”
“Well, you could block my high priest by moving that soldier.” Ari propped her chin in her hand and grinned.
“For exactly one move before you captured him.”
“And then jumped two circles forward,” Ari agreed. “And took your starship, too.”
Assistant sat back and put her hands in her lap. She surveyed the board again and stuck her tongue in her cheek.
Then she threw Ari a sharp glance. “What if I moved that starship?”
It took Ari one startled moment to realize Assistant wasn’t asking for advice. She was posing a test. “You can’t, not this move.”
“And by the time I could, next move?”
“I’ll either have taken your lord or sacrificed my soldier right there.” Ari patted the soldier’s little wooden head. “Sorry,” she told him.
“How long do you think it will take you to win this match?”
Ari pursed her lips and looked over the board. “Depending on what you do…four or five moves? I think?”
“Four, if you sacrifice that soldier.”
“Oh, then I can wait for five. I’d feel bad for him.”
Assistant rolled her eyes. “He’s made of wood.”
Ari held back another smile and crossed her arms. “So are my trees.”
That made Assistant snort. “Point.” She looked over the board again and sighed. “Very, very clever. I’m almost sorry to do this.”
“Huh?”
Assistant picked up her emperor and moved him three circles to the left, then diagonally two circles to the right, knocking down a soldier in the process. She hopped straight over Ari’s high priest and left the emperor right in front of Ari’s; the intricately carved faces seemed to be looking each other right in the eye.
“What?” Ari gasped. “You can’t…” Her voice trailed off as she looked over the board. Then her mouth parted slightly as she took in the formation of Assistant’s pieces, a formation that had seemed almost random moments before, but that were now perfectly poised to execute the rarest maneuver in the game: one emperor directly capturing the other.
“Evidently, I can.”
“But the emperor never moves around the board. It’s too risky. My father told me that first thing.”
“Just because he rarely moves doesn’t mean he can’t move. Most players are just afraid to take a risk with him.”
Ari frowned while the two emperors stared impassively at each other. “It’s not about being scared. It’s more prudent for the emperor to stay secure. Same as in real life.”
After a pause, Assistant leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Really,” she said, tilting her head as if asking Ari to continue.
So, Ari did. “The real Emperor never leaves Homeworld. He’s the most powerful person in the realm. He needs to be kept safe.”
“Mull that one over for a second,” Assistant said. “The most powerful person needs safekeeping? You’ve just made your Emperor sound completely helpless.”
Well, when you put it that way… “I didn’t mean it like that. But you don’t think the Emperor ought to be in a secure location? It’d be crazy if he didn’t have protection.”
“I never said he shouldn’t have protection. But he and his ancestors have languished on Homeworld for generations now, completely out of touch with the Empire and its needs. A leader should go out among her people. Show them a good example.”
It made sense. Ari’s father had done a lot of that wherever he was stationed—at least, when he was feeling well. Ari looked all over the Q’heri board. “Well, if he did, he’d surprise a lot of people. That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, it would.”
“You sure surprised me,” Ari said cheerfully.
Assistant raised her
eyebrows. “That’s gracious. You really aren’t competitive, are you?”
“Me? No, not me. So, you’ll take my emperor next move?”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously. So that’s sixty-three points for you…”
She moved her little soldier on to the center circle, gaining ten more points.
Assistant’s eyes widened again.
“And sixty-four for me,” Ari concluded. “Gosh, that was an exciting game.”
Assistant stared at her, and Ari added “thunderstruck” to her mental inventory of Assistant’s facial expressions. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be seeing this one often.
“I told you I wanted to win on points,” she reminded Assistant.
Assistant shook her head, and the stunned look vanished. “That wasn’t what you were really trying to do. I saw through that immediately. Why do you think I—” She gestured at the audacious arrangement of her troops.
“I was hoping to get to your emperor,” Ari admitted. “Looks like I can’t, but I still won.”
Assistant’s mouth slowly opened. Then she closed it again without saying anything.
“I can see why you don’t like having points,” Ari added. “I mean, if it was just about the maneuvers—honestly, that was amazing.” It was her turn to wave at the board. It might not be a flower or a tree, but the endgame was beautiful.
“So are you.”
Ari raised her head at once to see Assistant watching her with a steady, even gaze. She barely stifled another gasp. “I am?”
“Right at this moment? I’d venture to say so. Nobody’s made me sweat that much at Q’heri in years, even before your little surprise.” She tapped her emperor. “I enjoyed it.”
“Even though you lost?” Ari hadn’t meant to sound so breathless.
Assistant rolled her eyes again. “Well, not that part.” She tilted her head. “But I will admit to being…impressed.”
Ari felt her shoulders drawing up nearly to her ears before she could stop them, while a shy smile formed on her face. She straightened up immediately and cleared her throat. “Well, so am I. You’re really good.”
The Lily and the Crown Page 12
