“I know you for a stubborn man, Abramm Kalladorne. It has saved your life more than once. But there comes a time when stubbornness ceases to serve one’s best interest.”
Still Abramm said nothing.
Katahn dropped his hands and leaned forward. “You have until tomorrow to decide.” He gestured at the waiting girls. “Perhaps the joys they can provide will convince you where words and other pleasures cannot. Choose one to be your companion this night. Or more than one, if you wish.”
They eyed him coquettishly, fluttering their lashes, letting some of their curves slip out from the veils. Abramm frowned and averted his eyes. “I prefer solitude.”
“If you do not choose, I will do so for you. Sabine seems especially eager to share your bed…. But perhaps she is too aggressive for one who once took religious vows. Lege is a quiet girl. Submissive. Gentle. She-“
“I’ll take Shettai.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized he was going to say them, and they shocked him as much as they clearly shocked her. He saw a flash of unadulterated astonishment on her face, followed closely by something very like pain before the mask dropped back into place.
Katahn also drew back in surprise. “I offer you my virgin daughters and you ask for a slave?”
“You said to choose the one I want. I want her.”
The Brogai’s eyes narrowed. Then a shrewd look came into his face, riding a half smile that made Abramm think he wasn’t nearly so surprised as he’d pretended. Katahn glanced at the slave woman. “Yes,” he said. “I do believe she could persuade in ways the others would not.” He waved at Shettai to obey. “See that he is satisfied, woman, or pay the price.”
Shettai unfolded herself expressionlessly and glided toward the beaded curtain on the left. After a moment, Abramm followed her.
C H A P T E R
22
An alcove with two wooden doors-one of which Shettai had openedlay beyond the beads. Abramm stepped through it, and she closed it behind him.
An elaborately carved wooden screen shielded the body of the room from the doorway. To his left, a potted palm stood in the corner beside three glass lanterns.
Shettai disappeared around the screen, and he followed reluctantly, not surprised by what awaited in the chamber beyond. To the left, a low table flanked by pillows held a bowl of fruit and a wine carafe and cups, gleaming in the light of a small oil lamp. In the corner beyond it, a charcoal brazier had been lit for warmth. To the right, a large feather-stuffed mattress lay on the floor, tented with translucent draperies hanging from a ceiling hook. Dressed in silken sheets and mounds of pillows, its purpose was obvious. He gulped down a sense of rising panic.
Shettai had gone to the arched balcony opening in the far wall and loosed the flanking swags of beaded curtain to block out the night. She turned and, watching him intently, reached up to the back of her neck. A moment later, her gown’s silken overlayer fluttered to the floor, and he gulped again, for the clinging, translucent undergown hid almost nothing of her magnificent body.
Then she was standing right in front of him, unfastening the long line of loops and buttons that kept the front of his tunic together. He watched her breathlessly, mesmerized by her touch and the rising heat of his own desire.
This close he could smell her exotic, spicy scent and feel the warmth of her flesh. Those long, graceful fingers, working steadily downward, roused all manner of wild thoughts. Perhaps she might cherish more than mild affection for him after all. And even if she was simply obeying orders, she wasn’t acting as if she detested him…. Maybe he would just let her continue.
For two years he had stuffed away this desire, believing it would never be satisfied. Now satisfaction lay within his grasp. And it would be his last night of pleasure-his only night of this particular pleasure, thanks to that stupid vow he’d taken, thanks to the wasted years he’d given to a useless, uncaring god.
The last of the loops pulled free, and she pushed the stiff tunic off his shoulders. As it fell to the floor she turned to the ties of his undershirt. Would it be so wrong to take what she offered, to know what he would never know if he didn’t?
But then he remembered the look of pain that had chased the astonishment across her face when he’d chosen her. As the ties came loose, he caught her hands in his own-they were hot and trembling. Her eyes darted up to his.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmured. “I’ll tell Katahn what he needs to hear. I only chose you because…” He smiled. “Because you were the only one who wasn’t leering at me.”
The startled look faded. Her face became stone, her eyes deep, unreadable pools.
“I won’t do anything. I promise.”
There was no response. Not the slightest twitch or wrinkle. Except for her eyes, gleaming with moisture, she could have been made of marble.
Clearly she didn’t believe him.
Releasing her, he stepped back. `And I do have a battle to fight tomorrow.”
He turned away, already regretting what he’d done, and strode for the balcony, the beads rattling with his passage.
It was a relief to step into the misty night-somehow the room had grown unbearably hot. He rested his hands on the cold iron railing and gazed at Xorofin, its dark tumble of closely packed buildings huddled beneath the ceiling of ever-present mist. Fish-bladder lanterns hung on posts throughout the darkness, glowing green and lilac, amber and red, like so many evil eyes peering out from their hidey-holes.
He took some deep breaths, and as the internal fire dissipated, his head cleared.
A crowd milled in the plaza below, jostling between the amphitheater’s stone perimeter fence and the merchants’ booths and tables. Their voices carried up to him on the still air, a staccato mutter punctuated by sharp bursts of laughter and the wheedle of a piper’s song. He smelled the hot grease they used to fry the spima worms, the fragrances of incense and baking bread, all overlaying the faint, ubiquitous stench of burning fish oil.
Until that crowd went home-or settled for the night-he had no hope of climbing down the amphitheater’s face. There looked to be little hope of it, anyway. The smooth-dressed stone to either side of his balcony sported none of the architectural details that might provide hand or footholds. Nor would knotting the bed curtains together help-all of them together with his tunic would not begin to reach the pavement below.
He stood there a long time, the night chill seeping through his silk shirt. Katahn’s offer tumbled tantalizingly through his mind, powered by the forces of fear and desire. He did not wish to die, least of all in the manner Katahn described. He wanted the respect and admiration of others, wanted power and justice. Wanted Shettai.
The image of her in that veil of watery silk made his pulse accelerate and his mouth go dry all over again.
Oh yes. He wanted her.
And he thought it very likely Katahn would give her to him permanently. If he asked.
And swore allegiance to Khrell.
A swell of agitation seized him, and he pushed himself back from the railing, paced back into the room. Shettai sat cross-legged at the low table, swallowed in the violet and gold of his tunic, which she’d draped over her shoulders and which was much too large for her.
He ignored her and strode for the door. But as his hand closed on the latch, he realized Katahn wouldn’t let him leave, and asking would only replace Shettai with Lege or that overeager Sabine. Muttering an oath, he strode back through the beads to the balcony, studying the wall below it again. Nothing had changed. Smooth face, brightly lit, guards below … There would be no escape tonight.
11 “You must be humiliated, crushed … thoroughly broken….
He had seen men thoroughly broken. Had swallowed down bile as he had listened to their screams, watched them burned, dismembered, skinned alive. For a wild moment, the prospect of facing such torture filled him with terror, and he knew he couldn’t do it.
Whip and carrot. Fear and desire.
“Swear allegi
ance … first of your northern race to wear the Shadow’s colors … everything you might desire….”
He was gripping the rail so hard it hurt, horrified to discover he wanted to do it. Sweet Fires aloft! What manner of despicable thing have I become? How can I even think this way?
And yet it was there, pressing at him, throwing up reasons and rationales. Katahn was right. His family despised him, the Mataio had betrayed him, and his god had abandoned him. What did he owe any of them? Why should he give up his life for them? Why should he give up Shettai for them?
He hissed another oath, then shoved away from the railing once again and paced back into the room.
Shettai still sat at the table, unmoving, her hands clasped before her, her head bowed. Desire flared in him, tainted with a darkness that matched the awful thoughts in his soul. He tore his eyes from her and, consumed with restless fire, paced to the door and back.
Then onto the balcony again and back into the room. He dropped onto the pillows across from Shettai, poured wine into the cup, and gulped it down, thinking Katahn was right in that, as well-perhaps the best thing was to lose himself in drunken stupor.
He poured another cup, but a new thought intruded before he could drink-a real man faced death and danger with his head up and his eyes clear and did not seek to hide from it by pickling his brain with spirits. Uncle Simon had said that. But Simon was a hero, the one real hero Abramm had actually known. Simon would not for a moment consider what Abramm was considering now.
He set the cup down, sick with self-loathing, and drove himself up to stride back to the balcony-
“How many times are you going to do that?” Shettai’s voice startled him, drew him around to look at her.
Her dark eyes watched him dispassionately. “You can’t escape. You have only to look up to see that.”
Outside again, he did so and saw the veren on their stanchions, dark vulturine forms underlit by the glow of red lanterns. He remembered a rocky beach, a man running for his life one moment, his headless corpse sprawled at water’s edge the next.
Abramm went back in and dropped onto the pillows.
Shettai watched him drink, then sighed. “You’re all tense. Lie down and I’ll rub out the knots.”
Glancing at the bed, it dawned on him that one of them-he himselfwould have to spend the night in a chair or else sleep on the floor. And wouldn’t that make great preparation for the battle of his life?
He realized then what she’d said, what she’d suggested, and the very thought set all that raging lust for her loose again. He took another swallow of wine and shook his head. “I’d rather not.”
She sat silently for a moment, then said, “I had no idea you found me so distasteful.”
Was that hurt in her voice? He looked up in surprise. She seemed very small huddled beneath the big, heavy tunic, and for a moment, unexpectedly vulnerable. He hardly knew what to say, particularly in light of how he felt at the moment. It was safer to watch his cup, and so he did. “I don’t find you distasteful at all,” he said carefully. “I just … don’t want you to think of me as a goat.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the faint twitching of her lips.
“I’ve never thought of you as a goat, Pretender.”
“Well, I’d like to keep it that way.”
“So why did you choose me, then?”
“I told you. I didn’t relish the thought of being mauled by one of Katahn’s daughters.”
“Mauled.” Amusement definitely colored her voice.
He studied the cup, rotating it in his hands. “I begin to understand what you mean about goats, I think.”
The tension between them was dissipating now, all his wild thoughts settling, fading away, as if he had been insane and was finally returning to his right mind.
The tunic rasped as she reached for her wine cup. “Katahn has made you a remarkable offer.”
He grunted acknowledgment.
“One you want to accept, maybe?”
He met her eyes then, those deep pools he sometimes thought he might drown in.
“Want to,” she repeated sadly, “but won’t.”
“Won’t I?”
“You are the White Pretender.” She traced the cup’s rim with a finger. `And you are a man. A stubborn, prideful, glory-craving fool of a man. And men can never do the sensible thing.”
“I have no wish to die.”
“Then don’t.” She set the cup upright and looked at him directly. “Tell him you’ll join the Black Moon. Swear service to Khrell and allegiance to Beltha’adi.”
Her words hung in the air. The dark gaze impaled him, and he felt the conflict begin to rise again.
She looked away, her gaze cool, her finger once more circling the cup rim. “But you won’t, will you? You’re the White Pretender, after all. The Dorsaddi’s great Deliverer.” Sarcasm sharpened her voice, and he understood she meant to goad him, belittle him-the prideful, glory-craving fool of a man. Except it wasn’t that at all.
“I don’t know what I am,” he said uneasily. “Only that it’s not so easy to walk away from one’s past.”
“Oh, it is very easy. You just do it.”
“But then you have to live with what you’ve done. With what you’ve become.”
“You would become a great man in Esurh. A respected champion in the Army of the Black Moon. Perhaps even confidant to Beltha’adi himself, given your connections. You’d be riding the wave of destiny.”
A destiny I’ve spent the last two years of my life fighting to deny.”
She studied the cup in her hand, her expression pensive. “I do not think it can be denied. Not in the end. I’ve seen too many try and fail.”
“But if the Deliverer-“
She cut him off with a sharp, bitter laugh. “The Deliverer? He is but the wishful thinking of desperate men who cannot bring themselves to accept the inevitable. Do you know how many times my people have claimed the Deliverer has come? One hundred twenty years ago they rallied round Jonajhur. Fifty past it was Nabal. He, too, was supposed to slay Beltha’adi, but of course he did not. Now it’s you, and you’re not even Dorsaddi.” She snorted. “Which just shows how desperate they’ve become. Besides, if you don’t go over to him, you’ll die, and how can you deliver anyone if you’re dead?”
He regarded her soberly. A man doesn’t have to be alive to start the fires of revolution.”
She went from pensiveness to fury in the blink of an eye, lunging forward to slap the table and snapping out, “You are not the Deliverer, Abramm Kalladorne? You are not! There is … no … Deliverer.”
He blinked, shocked by the intensity of her outburst. She seemed shocked herself, quenching the fire at once and slumping back on the pillows.
The hand that lifted the cup to her lips trembled. He saw her swallow. She set the vessel down and studied it a moment before she went on. “Stirring thoughts of freedom and inspiring the courage to resist is all very well, but what’s the use of it if it only brings death? All those people talking rebellion-it’ll only get them killed. He’ll put them down. He always does. Nothing can stand against him, Pretender.” Her eyes bored into his own. “If you fight tomorrow, you’ll die. And it won’t make any-” Her voice ran up the scale and broke apart before she could finish.
Then, right there in front of him, the mask crumpled. She drove to her feet, and he glimpsed a contorted grimace as she fled past him through the beaded curtain to the balcony.
He sat in stunned incomprehension, his heart pounding against his breastbone. Something very like a muffled sob sounded from outside, but only one. When she did not return he went to peer through the beads.
She stood at the railing, his tentlike tunic clutched around her, gold threads glittering in the darkness. From this vantage he could not see her face, but now and then she seemed to shudder. Part of him wanted to withdraw, to leave her to her pain, for he had no idea how he might comfort her, and the implications of what she’d just said had stirr
ed up dangerous imaginings.
The beads rattled as he passed through them. Hesitantly he drew up beside her, wary of an unwelcome reception. She stood unmoving, staring over the city, her cheeks shining with lines of moisture.
He could think of nothing to say and soon felt awkward and stupid. But just as he was about to leave, she spoke.
“I’m sorry.” She scrubbed at the tears, clutching the tunic one-handed. “I didn’t mean to…” She exhaled sharply, then rubbed her upper arms beneath the tunic. She drew a deep breath, and this time the words came out steady.
“One thing I’ve learned in all this, and that’s to keep myself apart. If you keep your feelings inside and never let yourself care too much about anything, you can’t be hurt. Men use you-it doesn’t matter. People die-that doesn’t matter, either. It was a good plan, and I-“
She choked and fell into silence, still rubbing her arms. Then she drew another breath and veered off on a new subject. “That day on the beach when we first found you, you were so pathetic. So weak and scrawny. We couldn’t believe Katahn was even looking at you, much less that he’d bid.” She chuckled at the memory. `And all the other Garners were beside themselves, wondering what he was up to. It was too funny when some of them bid on you, tod”
The laughter faded, and she stopped rubbing her arms. Her expression grew distant, almost wondering, and she tilted her head, like one working out a puzzle. “I was sure you’d be dead in a week…. Never in a thousand lifetimes would I have guessed I’d fall in love with you.”
His thoughts, rambling uneasily through the shared memory, stopped abruptly.
She turned to him, her eyes confirming the words, wide and shining with tears. She laid a hand on his arm. “I don’t want you to die, Pretender,” she murmured.
There was none of her mask now. Love, fear, grief-she laid her heart bare to him in a way he could never have anticipated in a thousand lifetimes of his own. Yet all he could do was stare at her.
It was like being in a dream, where you tried to run but the air was thick as honey, tried to speak and nothing came out. Perhaps, indeed, he was dreaming. Or injured and hallucinating.