*****
The fondue pot's candle made just enough light.
“Permission to speak freely, ma'am?”
“Granted, Dave.”
“You're a damn fine lay.”
She laughed, low and soft. “I think I’m the one who should be saying that.”
In the darkness visible she caught the edge of his smile as he covered her bare shoulders with the rustling luxurious sheet. “Honored, ma’am.”
She snuggled against his side. “The others were impossible. They’d have treated bed like one of those video games they were always playing—get in, score, and get out.” Her fingertips traced his chest as she spoke. “Until you, it was a lot more fun to say no.”
“They were hand-picked to serve your every need.”
“By very bad pickers. I didn’t know I even had needs, until you.” She’d always wondered who’d chosen Dave. He was older than the others, and she could tell that he had been an officer, and fought in wars. Her next words were whispers. “You’ve seen the kinds of things I have.”
He didn’t answer, but took her hand and gave it a surrounding, gentle, warning pressure. Most of their communication was like that. So much she wanted to ask him but knew he could never reply to, because of the watching eyes, the listening ears of the administration that had taken her when she was almost too young to remember and kept her sequestered ever after like a mouse in a box, a terrified little mouse that didn't want to live and had often tried very hard to die. But Dave had brought in the light…warm bright light. And she had changed from a mouse to a princess in a tower.
Surely he’d have known what life with her would entail—jagged moments of raw danger, spaced by long empty stretches that had driven the others desperate. He was required to be with her constantly, and she was permitted no contact with anyone else. They had been together half a year now, and she could no longer envision life without him, but she had no idea what he really felt, or how much longer it would be until he broke like the others. She would not blame him for leaving, nor for what happened to her afterward.
“I read somewhere that it is a prisoner’s duty to escape,” she said, softly into the darkness. “Then again, I’m always reading.”
“Yeah. High-falutin’ old stuff.”
“It’s beautiful. It keeps me alive.” Moving to rest on her side, she fixed her gaze on the candle that now made only a faint fleck of light. When she spoke again, her voice had cooled to wryness. “It was so embarrassing, making the first move.”
“You had to. Regulations.”
She half laughed, remembering some lines lately read. ‘‘The amours of an empress, as they exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much sentimental delicacy.’”
In the fallen silence Dave lay motionless, but then his hand moved to her bare shoulder, gripping it gently. Slowly and carefully, each word clear, he said, “To heal, as far as was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of Pertinax.”
She felt a shock well through her, quickening her heart. She trembled, but somehow kept her voice steady. “I’d wondered who was dog-earing my Decline and Fall. I’d never have thought you the Gibbon type.”
His chuckle made a soft rumble under her ear. “Yeah, I’m more of an ape, huh. But believe it or not, I read that guy quite a while ago before I got here. I’ll even admit to liking poetry.”
He was amazing her, but she fought to reply calmly. “Give me an example.”
“Okay, but promise not to laugh.” And he began.
“She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.”
He spoke the words matter-of-factly, as if reading a list; but she felt his heart beating as fast as hers. They had discovered a language, a code, that the administration could not understand. They might have very little time to use it.
His hand, that still held hers, gave another, longer, gentler pressure. The little flickering flame quivered in death, leaving them in complete darkness. She felt him take off his dark glasses and set them aside.“Your turn.”
She understood. Summoning all her calm, she spoke the words she had wanted to say for a very long time.
“Now that I have your heart by heart, I see
The wharves with their great ships and architraves;
The rigging and the cargo and the slaves
On a strange beach under a broken sky.
O not departure, but a voyage done!
The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps
Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.”
As she spoke the last line, she turned to look directly at him, and she knew their eyes had met entirely naked, blind in the darkness. It didn’t matter. She rested her head on his shoulder once again, and he wrapped her in his arms no differently than he always did. “What the hell are architraves...” His lips touched her hairline. “I have to tell you about tomorrow, babe.” And quietly he explained what was scheduled to occur, and how her life would change.
The new administration had for some time decided that the scryer’s talents were wasted on No Mercy, and this day’s show would be her last. In the coming week she would be flown to the nation's capital to attend a reception in honor of the visiting leader of the world's second most powerful nation. He was said to be utterly inscrutable, this leader; he had only just come to power and it was suspected that he might have dangerous tendencies to megalomania, but so far no one had been able to ascertain the truth. It would be her task to learn it.
So much became clear, suddenly—the lessons in etiquette, the guidance of her education. “So that was the test I passed. At the bar.”
“Yep. I figured it called for bubbly.”
She had also been taught to hold her liquor, and her thoughts were sober, but it was hard to calm her heart. At last she would see those places she’d only known in pictures; watch an orchestra playing the music she knew only by recordings; view the paintings she loved in the museums where they hung, instead of on a screen…and much, much more than that. Her blood heated with a surge of sudden, terrible joy. “I just thought of another poem.”
He felt her quickened pulse, and twined his fingers with hers. “I’m listening.”
She licked her lips, which were very dry, and forced the words to issue softly, calmly.
“‘Ah Love, could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mold it nearer to the heart’s desire!”
His hand closed around her wrist, and she trembled even though his touch was barely a squeeze, just as his voice was scarcely a murmur. “You really need to get some sleep, babe.”
Suddenly she felt very tired. “You’re right.”
“It’ll rain tonight, weatherman said.”
“I love rain.” She had only ever seen rain from a window. She had spent her life behind glass, darkly. Now that would change.
A great detonation of thunder made the distance vibrate, and she gasped. His hand at once gently reassured her, fingers warmly wrapping hers.
“Just a storm. It won’t last.”
She got out of bed and went to the window, struggling with the latch. Dave joined her.
“Easy, babe. You’ll cut yourself.” But he didn’t stop her. He only shooed her hand away, and slid the glass wide open. The lightning was coming down in great bolts, but she leaned out, feeling the rain striking her face, streaming through her hair down to her naked skin.
“
Dammit, you’re gonna get yourself electrocuted.” He pulled her away and held her close as a great jolt of blinding white shook the building, and all the lights went out.
Her shriek had been muffled against his chest. Beneath her cheek, past his warmth, she felt his heartbeat. Save for the storm’s hectic incandescence, the world was lightless, soundless, safe. She moved to look up at Dave and their eyes met, as naked as their bodies.
He had fine clear eyes, and the soul of a hero. He’d die for her, but she wouldn’t let him.
He didn’t look away. “Be gentle, Medusa.”
She wrapped her wet arms around him. “No worries, Galahad.”
“Tomorrow’s a big day, hon. Let's get some shuteye.” His lips smiled against her brow. “It’s not going to be easy.”
She smiled too. “Shattering the sorry scheme, you mean?”
“Nah. Having kids who can see right through me.”
The storm had passed. Sweet clean rain-washed air filled the room, and morning would come with warm, bright light.
End
Note: The first poem quotation is from ‘Maud,’ by Alfred Tennyson, 1855; the second is from ‘Song for the Last Act,’ by Louise Bogan, 1949; the third from ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,’ translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1859.
QUEEN OF TIME, contemporary magic realism
THE RYEL SAGA: A TALE OF LOVE AND MAGIC, the expanded ‘director’s cut’ single-volume edition of the duology WYSARD and LORD BROTHER
WYSARD AND LORD BROTHER: THE RYEL SAGA DUOLOGY (the one-volume edition of the original paperback versions)
PENTANGLE: FIVE POINTED FABLES, which gathers together the following short stories (all available separately):
REGENERATED
THE KIND GODS
THE HEART’S DESIRE
EVERAFTER ACRES
LAST LAUGHTER
The Heart's Desire Page 4
