by Samuel Fort
Chapter 38 - Duke of the Ordunas
After Ben had left her in the kitchen, Fiela had gone outside and found a remote iron bench where she could cry in peace and meditate on what had happened. When she was done she returned to the hotel and asked one of the servants that had come up from the city if they had seen Ben, describing him in detail. She was told a man matching her description was in the Great Hall with Lilian. Fiela went there immediately and was stunned at how much the room had changed since just the previous evening.
The most noticeable change was that the old reception desk at the far end of the hall had been transformed into an elevated platform. Thick planks of polished mahogany now extended from the edge of what had been the counter, where guests had once stopped to sign in and retrieve their keys, to the back wall, where the room keys had once been stored in cubbyholes. A gigantic scarlet tapestry hung on the wall above the platform, the angry face of a Lamassu at its center. Wooden steps, wide enough for four people walking abreast, led from the platform to the floor below.
“A stage fit for a queen,” said someone behind her.
Fiela turned and saw the gaunt face of the elderly Duke of the Ordunas, known to his peers as Hobuk, looking down at her. A tall man, even by Nisirtu standards, he was dressed in a tuxedo with a white carnation in one pocket. His thinning hair was slicked back by something shiny that smelled like gasoline. A glass of champagne was trapped in his spidery fingers.
“I would not know, your Grace, as I have never been invited to any court.”
The man swung his glass side to side and shook his head. “Young Fiela, you need not call me ‘your Grace,’” he said chidingly, as if embarrassed that she would do so. “A new day is upon us and like most of the Nisirtu around you, I have grave concerns regarding what it holds for me. Shall I be a duke in this new world? The Seven would have me think so, but I doubt it. Without an adequate supply of Ardoon and fetches, what shall I be, really?”
“You shall still be a duke of the Nisirtu,” protested Fiela.
The man raised his thin eyebrows. “In name, at least.” He saluted her with his glass. “You, on the other hand? Your uncle has planned your future very well. A position as serretu to a man who most here think shall be a king. Of course, the man is Ardoon-”
“Was Ardoon,” Fiela said sharply.
“Indeed. Please forgive me.” The man reassessed what he was about to say. “Yes, a dapper man, your husband. In fact, I suspect that somewhere in his family line there was a Nisirtu who illicitly improved the gene pool. I have heard he is wickedly smart.”
“He is,” confirmed the Peth, wondering whether Ben had Nisirtu blood in his veins. Perhaps that is why he was so unlike the other slaves? She found herself intrigued by the possibility.
“And yet,” continued Hobuk, “he is new to our ways. You must be careful to guide him if he becomes king. He will need your help.”
The girl shrugged. “My sister will advise him.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Nisirtu, looking troubled, “but you are the only serretu at the moment, and you will always be the senior serretu. There may come a time when…well, challenging days are ahead. Should you find that at some point you are in need of counsel, I would be happy to provide it.”
Fiela shrugged. “Okay.”
The man was nonplussed. “I mean only that, well, your sister does have enemies. Far more than you. That said, I personally wish her a long and prosperous reign.”
“As do I,” the Peth replied, tiring of the conversation and beginning to move away.
“Of course,” the duke said quickly, “I dare say that you are not without your own enemies. I’m sure you are aware that Lilitu’s more fanatical supporters might - and this is preposterous, I admit - but they might seek to have you removed.”
That caught the girl’s attention. “Me? You mean that they would have me killed? Why should they do that? I am but serretu.”
The nobleman waxed apologetic. “I do not mean to distress you, Fiela, but you must face facts. Lilitu’s legal status was better understood by the Seven than by even Lilitu until Barnum explained things to her. Were your husband to divorce her, she and her children would be marked. It is unfair but the law is the law. Thus, you would become queen and your children the only heirs to the throne. Not Lilitu’s.”
“So?”
“This legal predicament means that Lilitu is quite beholden to Ben. She cannot reign without him. Thus, it is impossible that she would ever, well, dispense with him, as has happened in the past. You are in a far different - some would say ‘more opportune’ - situation. Were - the heavens forbid it - anything to happen to Benzira, and he passed on to the underworld, you would be queen, since Lilian has no survivor rights.”
“I guess…”
“Yes, and thus, those who do not know you, nor your honorable ways, could unjustly conclude that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by your husband’s untimely demise. Lilitu’s more fanatical supporters might have this opinion, for example. For them, you are a complication. They need Benzira alive yet they think you will ultimately kill him. That makes you a woman to be watched. For them, it would be far better if the king had no serretu.”
Fiela’s face turned crimson. “I shall protect my husband with my life.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the man, “You are Peth-Allati.”
“I love him!” blurted the girl, indignant.
This dumbfounded the duke but he recovered like a pro. “And I have heard that he loves you very much, also.”
Fiela gazed at him with suspicion. “From whom have you heard this?”
The Duke of the Ordunas replied, “It is widely acknowledged. There are no secrets among the Nisirtu, Fiela. It is known that he loves you, just,” he ventured, “as it is known he does not love Lilitu. Oh, he is fond of her, yes, but love? No. Can you see why her supporters would resent you for that and scheme against you?”
Fiela could. “Why are you telling me this?”
The duke looked from one side of the room to the other before leaning down and saying, “Because, Fiela, there are many here who would prefer that you be queen. You are a hero of the war against the Maqtu. You are respected and feared. Lilitu…well, she does have an unfortunate reputation. She is feared, certainly, but is that enough?”
He leaned back and grinned thinly. “Do you not understand why you are so respected? You fought for your cause while others, including many of the people around you at this very moment, cowered. Do you not know what they call you, the citizens of the Seven?”
“The bitch?” she said, thinking of Moros.
“Ha! No, my dear.”
“The edimmu?”
The man managed a half-smile. An edimmu was, to the Nisirtu and their ancestors, the vengeful ghost of a person who was not properly buried. Some called Fiela that because no matter how often she was killed, she kept coming back to haunt her enemies. The more superstitious among his kind believed the title to be more than a nickname.
“A few,” he said agreeably, “but what I meant to say is that some, even now, call you Annasa.”
The duke winked at her and walked away, disappearing into a throng of laughing men and women near the hall’s entrance. As Fiela surveyed the room, she noticed for the first time that many of the guests were watching her surreptitiously. Some moved to avoid her glance while others stared back with indifferent expressions. She found herself wondering whom among them wished her dead and who wished her to be queen.
This, she realized, was Lilian’s world, not hers, and certainly not Ben’s, yet she dared not repeat to Lilian any of what the duke had told her. She would have to be careful about what she said and with whom she associated from this day forward, and she must warn her husband that, already, the daggers were being sharpened.
If she could find him.
Her new sense of foreboding notwithstanding, the Peth found herself in surprisingly high spirits. “It is known that he loves you,” th
e duke had said, and “It is widely acknowledged.” That the other Nisirtu knew Ben loved her made it more important than ever that she find her husband and make things right. She would explain to him what had happened this morning.
He was an intellectual, she reminded herself. He would not be appalled by her condition; of the change. She imagined that when she finally found him and told him the truth that he would just nod patiently and smile and say something like, ‘That’s interesting,’ and then he might ask a few questions or offer some scientific explanation of why the change occurred. He would laugh at her hesitance to be honest with him and then he would forgive her and maybe he would want to kiss her again.
Maybe he would tell her that he loved her.
