by Boykin, Alma
Enough, he decided. “Then I will not touch you. If you are not truly willing, you will not share my bed.”
She ducked, flinching away as if he’d hit her. “Your p, p, pardon, Imperial Master. I will couple with you, I want to.” Her voice and body said otherwise.
“No. Alsice, I will not touch you. No man will touch you until you ask first, protocol and rank be damned. I do not touch unwilling women.”
She dropped, landing on her face, eyes closed. Sweet Godown, had she died of fear? Pjtor knelt beside her and felt for her pulse, then very lightly patted her un-bruised cheek. “Girl? Alsice? Can you hear me?” Her heart beat quickly and she was breathing even though she did not respond. Pjtor decided that she’d fainted from pure terror at refusing him, afraid of the consequences. What horrible stories had she been told? Pjtor turned her onto her side, worked his arms under her and lifted the limp body, moving her onto his cot. He covered her with a blanket and walked out. “Do not touch the girl, do not disturb her. I’ll be in the command tent,” he told his surprised guard.
“Imperial Master,” the man saluted.
Pjtor soon had more to attend to than an unwilling although attractive female. They had to get the fort repaired and resupplied, something that took even more time than their original journey. Pjtor snarled as the men cut timber in the lush forests around the lake’s north shore and up the river. What was taking the supplies so damn long?
His answer came that night. As he stood on the wall, a red glow to the east and north caught his eye. “Those are not the winter sky dancers,” he said to Geert Fielder.
“No. I have no idea what it could be, my lord.”
“May St. Landis and St. Olga have mercy on us all,” Jan Alicorn whispered from Pjtor’s other side. “The grass is burning.”
“So much?”
The shadow nodded. “So much, Imperial Majesty. The fires can stretch for tens of kilometers and more until they find something to stop them, or the rains come, or the wind reverses and blows them back onto the charred ground. They leave the ground black and smoking, useless until the rains bring new life. Also fouls the streams, any that are still flowing.”
Pjtor blinked and tried to estimate how far the red glow extended. “You’ve seen them up close?”
“Almost too close, Imperial Majesty. I’m the second son. My elder brother, Godown give him mercy, was on the fire lines one summer when the wind changed and sped up ahead of a storm. Geritt tried to outrun the fire. It cooked him and the horse alive. Father found them two days later, once the rains came. Father lost his mind not long after because of what he’d seen and couldn’t bear to be in the same room as an open flame.”
All three men made a saint’s sign or Godown’s sign, warding off the fate.
“Unless the wind shifts, we should be safe here, Imperial Majesty. And we can flee to the lake, unlike those trapped on the ground.” Alicorn sighed long and deeply. “Fire is the most dangerous tool in our box.”
Geert leaned around Pjtor. “A tool?”
“Ja. Without it, the grass grows rank and thick, but foul and there’s no goodness in it. Animals can’t eat it if it gets too old and coarse, so we burn it every few years, in early spring when the winds and skies are right, Godown willing. A little bit at a time, carefully, with water and wet brooms and other things ready to guide the new fires into old already burned areas. When the new grass comes,” Pjtor could see Jan’s teeth in the dim light as he smiled. “Greener and sweeter than anything this side of Godown’s garden, Imperial Majesty. You almost want to eat it yourself.”
I’ll take your word for it. He could not imagine eating grass unless nothing else remained, animal or vegetable.
Several weeks later as the sun moved farther and farther south, Pjtor and his war court prepared to move north to Muskava. He could not stay in the south, sailing and enjoying the waters. He’d rigged a mast in one of the row boats and had sailed whenever he could escape and do so, much to the others’ unhappiness. Pjtor did not care what they thought. He had water, he had a boat, and he was going to sail.
Alsice had become his general maid, caring for his clothes when his valet Boris had other matters to attend to, cleaning his boots, waiting his table at breakfast and cleaning up afterwards. She also knew several teas that soothed his stomach, and she’d seen his second attack of Blessed Toni’s fire without panicking or screaming. He learned, through Fr. Antonov, that she’d been married a few months before the Harriers attacked her husband’s father’s farm and had killed everyone but her. That had been in the spring, and Pjtor was even more glad that he’d not touched the wench. She was not pregnant, thanks be, so there was no problem of finding a home for half-Harrier get. Alsice seemed to become more comfortable around him and the others as the weeks passed. She disappeared whenever Poliko was near, however, hiding in one of the large canvas boxes that held Pjtor’s clothes. Pjtor considered whipping Poliko, but he needed the man. He was a good field commander and pulled his load without complaint, so Pjtor closed his eyes to the other problem.
The landscape shifted from green to brown as they marched north. The fires had not swept the area, charring and renewing the grass, so what remained although lush was dry and rough. The horses and oxen ate it but did not thrive, Pjtor noticed. He could understand why Alicorn said that it would benefit from a burn, but he hoped it would not come while he was there. They saw a few more peasant farm claim markers, specially hardened and treated wooden stakes with a family’s mark and Godown’s carved and painted on them. Messengers arrived more frequently as the distance between the army and the capital closed, and Pjtor read, frowned, sighed, and wished he could just sail and campaign or build the new city he wanted. Administration and law-giving bored him.
Instead he had to deal with a bad tax year caused by the hard cold in the late spring, Tamsin’s losing another child, and an aging and frail mostly retired Archbishop Nikolas demanding the extirpation of the heretics. And rumors of a new kind of heretic, something that had Pjtor staring at the page and wondering what in the name of every ox in NovRodi the people had been eating or smoking. I didn’t think those odd mushrooms grew that far north.
He handed the letter to Green. The general read it, re-read it, and handed it back. “I thought I’d heard the strangest things on Colplastschki already, Pjtor Adamson, but that is a new one. It might be worth writing to hmm,” he stroked the uneven blond mustache he’d begun growing. “That Eastern Empire border lord, the one on the Dividing Range, ah, Kossuth that’s the one, to see if his family knows anything. Or if he knows of a church archive or library that has something. There are stories that his family has one odd son per generation who goes into the clergy as a record keeper and reader of ancient books, especially about theology and heresies.”
“It’s past heresy is what it is. It’s blasphemy.” To claim that Godown was actually Selkow’s consort and that until the two were reunited the world would be out of balance and at risk of the fires returning? He shuddered at the very idea. According to the letter, the idea had bubbled up in the far northwestern marshlands, much like black earth-oil and tar seeped out of the ground there. The very idea of Godown and Selkow having any likeness struck Pjtor as equally noisome and foul, without the useful aspects of earth-oil. If Archbishop Nikolas thought the traditionalist heretics were beyond redemption, what would he say about this batch? Probably something loud, firm, and using a lot of those words priests were supposed to avoid using.
That, combined with the news that Tamsin had lost another child, soured his mood considerably. If she lost one more, he decided, he would set her aside. He did not love her, he no longer needed her family’s political support in court, such as it was after her father and brother’s deaths, and he needed sons, legitimate sons. The Church frowned on such separations, but he would be a false shepherd if he left his people without a strong successor, and preferably at least one spare. A little thought also nibbled at him, a whisper that perhaps Godown was punishing h
er for something, or chastising both of them? No, it can’t be my fault. Another mis-born and I will set her aside. And this time I’ll pick my own bride, no matter what my mother thinks. I wonder if Strella knows of a quiet young woman from the lower nobility without any family?
Three days from Muskava, Pjtor finished writing a last message and sat back. He wiped the pen clean and triple checked the lids on the ink jars. In the palace, servants took care of such matters, but not here. Enough. I am not touching another piece of paper unless it is to toss it into the fire. Ugh. A shadow fell on the portable desk, and he looked up to see Alsice. “Yes?”
She swallowed hard and he could see her throat move. “Imperial Master, I would like to share your bed.”
Pjtor pushed the chair away from the desk, preparing to stand. He also told his privates to stay calm, at least for the moment. “And this is of your own free will?”
“Yes, Imperial Master.”
“No servant or general ordered you to ask.”
“No, Imperial Master.”
He stood, put out the lamp, and extended his hand. She took it and he felt her shake just a little. The hand was warm and a little damp, with work callouses. Pjtor pulled very lightly and she came closer, then closer, and reached for him. He rested his other hand on the small of her back and she leaned against his chest, resting her head against him. “You want to share my bed?”
“Yes.” She looked up and met his eyes. “Yes, I want to share your bed.”
“Then come.” He led her back to the private portion of his tent. He removed his own sword belt and coat, then sat. She knelt and pulled off his boots. Pjtor raised her and stood, starting to caress her arms and to remove the fabric she used as a modesty piece, filling in the neck of the dress she’d patched together. She undid the tie on his shirt’s neck, then on each cuff, tentatively. When he did nothing more than caress her, she grew more sure. Pjtor forced himself to go slowly, allowing her to initiate each stage. He wasn’t certain he had that much control after so long, but he remembered Mistress Harmony, and thought back to the cowering creature he’d first met in General Poliko’s tent.
Later, when she returned to the sturdy bed that served as his camp-cot, Pjtor brushed her cheek with his fingertips. She took the fingers and kissed them. “Thank you,” he whispered.
Normally he encouraged the women to leave his bed and return to their own chamber after they finished their romp, in case he had one of his spells. This time, Pjtor gently embraced the girl, drawing her close. She rested her head on his chest and they fell asleep.
Some months later, Pjtor asked, “Alsice, why did you come to me that first time?”
She flushed a little and looked down, then met his eyes. “Because I wanted to know that I could. I wanted to know if I could ever enjoy coupling again, or if the fear would be too much.”
“You were afraid?”
She smiled and stroked his hand. “Yes, but not of you. You said you would not touch me and that no one else would. You kept your word. So I thought that if it grew too much for me, you would stop if I asked.”
He took her hand and kissed it, impressed by her strong will and her trust.
But that was to come. This time, Pjtor woke before her and eased out of the bed. She stirred as soon as he moved, and had disappeared by the time he returned from using the night-soil box. He stretched, yawned, and smelled tea. That is something else to start growing in the new lands, he decided. I need chokofee in the mornings. That drink may be the secret to why the Dalfans and other Easterners get so much more done—they don’t need three cups of tea to start functioning. But not the way master Van Daam made it, no. That had curled his mustache and the other journeymen swore that one of the sea-lances for spearing tuncod or seawolf would stand up in it.
The sky opened up that afternoon, a cold miserable but not too heavy rain, the kind that soaked into living creatures as well as into the ground, leaching the last bit of heat from a body because it found a way through any and every layer a person wore. Pjtor hated it. Landis seemed the least affected, but Pjtor had decided that the man was touched in the head, although for good cause. To have survived that kind of disfigurement and scarring was unheard of. Interestingly, Alsice alone seemed unconcerned by his face, covered or otherwise. Pjtor decided after that encounter that he would make Alsice his leman once she’d been trained by the staff and made a place for herself with them. She had a cheerful but calm way about her that improved his mood, even when he wasn’t suffering from one of his spells.
After some talk with the other commanders, Pjtor resolved to push through to Muskava despite the cold and the wet. He sent the servants including Boris ahead of him with some of his baggage. The infantry could find places for the night, since they were near a large number of farms with barns and spare rooms and the farms owed service space. Pjtor left Alsice with the baggage train and gave strict instructions that no one was to touch her on pain of getting eight lashes with the five-tailed whip, then rode ahead. A courier raced to Muskava with the news, and the gates opened for him, Paulson, Geert, and the other high ranking men. General Green insisted on staying with the infantry, seeing to them instead of returning to the palace. Pjtor thought it odd, but did not argue.
This time, only Strella met him at the palace gate; Strella and service slaves holding a canopy of waxed cloth over her to keep off the bitter mist. “Thanks be to Godown that you are here!”
He dismounted with a squish into the ankle deep mud. “What?”
“Your honored mother had a brain strike this morning. The medico found her and Archbishop Nikolas is with her but we do not know how long before she goes to Godown.”
Pjtor started to race for the door, then stopped before even one foot moved. No, he decided, taking a deep breath. No, I am emperor first, son second. It is as the emperor that I will go. He squared his shoulders and nodded gravely. “I thank you for this news. As soon as I am properly cleaned, I will visit her.”
“It shall be ready with all swiftness,” Strella said, bowing low as he passed. Given the speed with which service slaves appeared in the doorway to take his boots and remove his coat, followed by a retired soldier to carry his sword and gun belts, and Boris bringing hot water to Pjtor’s quarters, Strella must have run herself, he thought. He washed quickly, put on a fine white shirt, crimson vest, heavy and warm black trousers, and an eastern-style coat.
“Imperial Master, if this miserable servant might be so bold,” Boris began.
“What?”
The valet held up one of Pjtor’s shorter, compromise coats, not eastern but not the NovRodi floor length garment of tradition. “For your mother?”
Pjtor snarled, then snatched the garment out of Boris’s hand, stripped off his preferred coat, and jammed his arms into the old thing, then let Boris fasten the endless knots-and-loops that held it closed. He brushed off the front, allowed Boris to put house boots on his feet, and hurried to the older women’s section of the homefold. A guard opened the door and Pjtor almost forgot to duck. As it was the crimson painted lintel brushed the top of his head. He’d gotten used to tents and the open air, blast it. But the homefold was a fortress, easy to defend, hard to attack, designed for women and a few soldiers to be able to keep others out with relative ease. Pjtor navigated the dim corridor by memory and smell, following the incense until it almost choked him. What were they doing, trying to drown his mother in smoke?
No, but it seemed that way. Pjtor looked around, found a heavy piece of cloth and used it to protect his arm as he reached up in the fireplace and opened the draft plate. He’d have opened a window as well but there were none. “Imperial Majesty!” someone started to protest.
“I do not care to have my honored lady mother, former empress of NovRodi, smothered.” He shook off the cloth, turned, and approached the bed.
His mother stared up at the ceiling. White cloth, tinged with drying red blood at one temple, wrapped her head and covered most of her hair. Someone had hung an emb
roidered emblem of Godown on the cloth of the bed canopy. Did she see it? He doubted. The hearts of her eyes were different sizes, and one eye looked straight up while the other looked to port. No sign of Nancy his mother remained on the old, lined face, and her hands felt cold and clammy to his touch. She would not be in this world for much longer.
“When?”
One of the nurse-maids answered from where she knelt by the bed. “Just after the noon prayers, oh great Imperial Master, merciful chosen of Godown. She had gone to her chamber and emerged, limping, trying to speak, then fell and hit her head on one of the clothes chests before we could catch her. She has not spoken or truly moved since, Imperial Master.”
Pjtor knelt beside the bed. “I have secured the south,” he whispered to her. “Not as Sara claimed, but truly, at least for now. The Harriers no longer have a base on the Sweetwater Sea, and we cut their lines, leaving soldiers to guard and defend as we came north.”
She did not respond, but he did not expect her to. The events of the world outside the homefold did not interest her much. “I freed prisoners, Godown’s people.” No response.
He took her hand between his. “Mother, have I done well?” He wanted an answer and looked into the staring eyes, praying. Please, holy Godown, Lord of Mercy, source of all healing and grace, Lord of all creatures, kind and gentle Master, please let me know, did I please her? Is she happy now?
The pulse under his finger stopped. Pjtor swallowed hard as the room grew shimmery and tears filled his eyes. “Holy Godown, lord of all mercy and light, take Your servant Nancy into Your care,” he said, voice trembling. Pjtor closed his mother’s eyes, then bowed as Archbishop Nikolas creaked to his feet from his seat in the corner.
“Holy Godown who knows our hearts and souls, Godown of life and of death, grant to Your servant Nancy Your peace and glory, for she has been a true daughter to You and a model for Your children. We thank You for Your mercy, Godown who eases our pains and soothes our sorrows.”
