“I knew it!” Kora shouted and threw her arms around his shoulders. “Mom, mom! This is Luca!”
His mother opened her mouth, covered it with her hand, fell down to her knees and wailed.
“Forgive her, my emperor! The girl has only just recovered, she isn’t herself!”
Kora, her breath hot on his ear, whispered:
“But how, how, Luca? What happened? Why are you like this? How?!”
“Shh... Careful, sister! Quiet! If anyone finds out, they’ll cut off my head! Listen carefully! I was taken to the palace so that my life could be transfused to the real emperor. Something went wrong during the procedure, and when I woke up, I was already in this body. Don’t interrupt me, Kora! Listen, listen... I’m going to get mother settled her and I’m going to help you. The important thing is that you know that I’m me!”
“I want to be close to you!”
“How?”
“Just make it happen, you can do anything, you’re the emperor!”
And Luca’s eyes lit up. An idea came to his head for allowing Kora to stay in the palace. He looked at his sister and was satisfied with what he saw. Kore had turned into a truly beautiful young woman!
“Want to be a courtesan?” he grinned.
* * *
Of course, his mother was entirely against it. This proud gladiator’s wife didn’t want to hear a word about Kora becoming the emperor’s lover. In spite of all assurances that it would just be a story to explain Kora’s presence at court, she stubbornly refused. But Kora could be stubborn as well, and eventually she convinced her mother. It helped that her daughter had sown a seed of doubt: however impossible it seemed, what if her son really was the emperor? Or rather, her son wasn’t exactly the emperor, but through some miracle Luca’s spirit had settled in this fat man with his blurry eyes. May the Sacred Mother have mercy on her for such seditious thoughts!
But the mother gave no voice to those concerns, and the son was left only to imagine whether she really suspected it or whether he just wanted to believe that she did.
In the end, she didn’t dare to refuse the emperor himself, and in a daze she accepted gifts as gratitude for sacrificing her son — or so said the official account. The boy had given his life to heal the emperor. As for what he’d needed healing for, Lentz hurriedly came up with some deadly and noble options.
In honor of her son, Prisca was given a small vacant cottage in a well-to-do district. It was confiscated from Naut the day before. She also got an imperial pension that meant she never had to work again. But the woman answered that she couldn’t sit without anything to do, and if any work could be found in the palace for her, anything that might put her close to her daughter, she would be very happy. Fortunately, she said that in private, and the emperor promised to think about it — as soon as he got Kora settled in.
By the evening, his mother and sister were taken to their new home. The effects of the virus on Herdinia showed no sign of abating, and in the wish to please the object of her desire, she personally organized provision for the mother and daughter. She ordered an assistant to open an account in Prisca Dezisimu’s name at the bank and deposit a thousand gold pieces. The treasury was almost empty, but a thousand gold was still pocket change for an empire.
Kora quickly returned. Luca spoke with Keirinia in private and handed his sister over to her care. Keirinia’s eyes flashed and she tried to make a jealous scene, but Ma Ju Ro had already learned to find the right words when talking to women close to him. He swore that he would never lie with the girl under any circumstances, even when she came of age and became an astounding beauty. Keirinia accepted his explanations and Luca took her to meet his sister. She’d already been given a few private rooms by the imperial chambers, taken from those left empty after Hector’s special operation to check and remove crowds of courtesans and lovers, former and present, although the present ones were now former as well. All except Keirinia.
“Well, well...” his courtesan said in surprise. “What ditch did they pull you out of, you charming creation?”
Kora was about to spit venom in response, but Ma Ju Ro intervened.
“Keirinia, my dear, the girl has only just been freed from slavery. She is the sister of the boy to whom I owe my life. Why don’t you look after her?”
“Me? Look after her?”
“You’re the only one I can trust with her... although, actually...” the emperor made as if he was recalling the names of other courtesans.
“Of course, sire!” his favorite gleamed. “I’m sure Kora and I will get along great!”
Kora learned to find common ground with anyone from an early age. She understood the rules of the game and pretended to be a child awed with Keirinia’s beauty, a child whose chief interest to this day had been dolls.
“Dolls? How boring, my girl!” Keirinia exclaimed. “I know a few things more fun! Dresses! Makeup! Jewelry! Perfume!”
“Dresses?” Kora frowned. “Now that sounds boring to me!”
“You just don’t know how to wear them! I’ll show you...”
“Then why don’t you help Kora with her wardrobe?” Luca interrupted her. “Her rooms also need furnishing. Can you handle that?”
“With the greatest of pleasures, my ruler!” Keirinia said. “Don’t expect us back before midnight!”
The two girls, one short and one tall, set off for the merchant stalls at once. At Ma Ju Ro’s order, Hector assigned a couple of his underlings to them — to avoid, as the emperor put it, excesses.
After a hurried shared dinner, Herdinia managed to steal a passionate kiss after all, taking advantage of a few minutes of solitude in Keirinia’s absence, then she reminded the emperor that he was expected at the award ceremony at the healer’s guild.
Several servants spent two hours (it could have been twice that, but Ma Ju Ro hurried them) getting the emperor ready: washing, trimming, shaving, combing, packing away his unruly mane, and then, for a long time, dressing him in his dress coat. All these procedures so exhausted Luca that he went to the ceremony in a wrathful mood. The healers had occupied a special position throughout the imperial dynasty, and they held their yearly ceremonies not in the guild building, but in a special hall of the palace with the head of state present.
The hall was in another wing and seated up to a hundred. Ma Ju Ro walked steadily, maintaining his dignity. He thought of how to deal with that bloodsucker and take vengeance against him in a way that would seem logical and give rise to no questions.
Shrouded in his parade clothes, Yadugara proudly pontificated amid a group of senior healers. He’d definitely gotten younger — partly thanks to Luca himself, and partly... No, not Kora. Senior Apprentice Penant stood nearby, leaning against a wall with his head drooping. If Luca hadn’t known him personally, he would have sworn he was an old man.
And then Luca Dezisimu, also known as Emperor Ma Ju Ro the Fourth, had an idea.
Chapter 36. Lost Years
SENIOR APPRENTICE PENANT, once a homeless boy, then sold for one gold mark into five years of forced service and subsequent apprenticeship with the healer Nestor Yadugara, couldn’t stand pompous ceremonies and large gatherings of people. To put it plainly, they made him nauseous. Turned him inside out in the most literal definition.
Even in the days when he was earning a living off petty theft at the city market, and a crowd of immigrant village louts provided a great service to Pen in his petty endeavours, the boy had to push himself to do it. From birth, one of the gods had blessed him with a stunning sense of smell. And Pen was sure it was Two-horns. The talent became his curse.
He could pick apart smells down to the slightest gradations, and each said more about a person than the source of the stench knew. By scent Penant could determine what a man ate at dinner that night and what he drank in the morning, which illnesses he suffered and what type of life he led. Out from under the camouflaging scent of flowery perfumes, he could always pick out those special notes peculiar to a woman who had
been writhing beneath a man very recently. If there was anyone to match it to, then Pen could say who exactly she’d been beneath. And even, may the Sacred Mother forgive him, which bodily orifices had been involved.
They say that man is such a beast that he can get used to anything. But it all depends. You can learn to withstand something specific. The night soil men didn’t notice the stink of the ‘soil,’ and leatherworkers got used to hides reeking in chicken manure. But any mass gathering meant thousands upon thousands of different scents, unique for each person and split into dozens of constituents. That was something nobody could get used to.
Right now, amid his colleagues, Penant smelled nothing. His until now impeccable sense of smell couldn’t pick anything out. And the reason was that he had turned into an old man overnight.
This long-planned award ceremony by the guild of healers was outside their regular schedule. Usually the gathering voted yearly for the best member, based on the contributions of each to the development of medicine and guild business, and based on their services at large. And if none of the suggested candidates got over half the votes, nobody got the award.
The same happened this year, when the votes were divided between Yadugara (one of those judged on services at large) and a fat and rosy-cheeked short man called Demmens, who had discovered and begun to use a certain synthesized medicine that allowed even an ancient old man to recall that long-forgotten sensation of Penus Erectus.
The potion became a sensation in aristocratic circles, but Demmens didn’t get enough guild votes. He’d decided to invoke the ten-year right of know-how, allowing him not to reveal the secret of how the substance was synthesized.
In the end, both got roughly half the votes and an ordinary conference was held instead of an award ceremony.
Then Nestor Yadugara made a discovery. He’d actually made it long ago, but he’d revealed it to his colleagues only that year, roughly a month before that slave boy Luca Dezisimu had come into Penant’s life. Penant himself only learned of this when Yadugara’s colleagues took Luca off to the palace, although he’d been involved in all the transfusion procedures and he’d noticed no changes as such. Perhaps his master had discovered it before Penant came to him.
Yadugara had managed to increase the conversion rate. For a long time, losses in the transfusion procedure made up nearly fifty percent of the available life force. The source lost a decade while the recipient only got five years, in the best case six. The master changed the technique for connecting the tethers, added something into the pre-transfusion injection and managed to reduce those losses to fifteen percent. That was even more sensational than Demmens’s medicine for Penis Erectus, and it caused a furor among his colleagues. Considering how rare it was to find suitable donors, every year of life clawed back was a true deliverance for the ageing masters of the guild.
When the discovery was confirmed in practice, Yadugara was immediately advanced as an indisputable nominee for the title of best healer of the year. For the sake of formality, Demmens was nominated again as a second candidate, but this time the vote was unambiguous — almost all the guild members stood for Pen’s mentor.
Then that Dezisimu girl had appeared in the house, Reyna brought her in. She was given up to the watch as a thief, and then bought up for a hundred gold pieces. But it was worth it — preliminary analyses showed that Kora was a suitable donor.
Just when everything was ready for the transfusion, she suddenly ran away, tearing a silver candlestick off the wall as she went. That thoroughly dampened his master’s mood, and Pen himself was annoyed too — he’d hoped to get something out of the girl himself.
Fortunately, the maiden decided to sell her loot and Bakhr’s people, a gang that survived off buying and selling stolen goods, took her to Yadugara’s house.
“I hear this is yours, Nestor,” the authoritative teeth grinned, his gold tooth gleaming. He held a girl at the end of a taut leash. “If that’s true, then I can return her for a reward.”
In his joy, Yadugara gave him two hundred gold pieces and told him that Bakhr’s people could now count on a big discount for treating any wounds and injuries of a cutting and piercing nature, as it were.
After showing the crime boss out, the master personally beat Kora and locked her in the cellar. Pen went to her to bring her food and try to convince her to perform Actus Sexuales, but left unsatisfied — he’d gotten nothing but a painful kick to the balls and a black eye.
After waiting for the chinils to work their misery, Yadugara ordered Reyna and Morena to wash and clothe the girl. Pen was ordered to handle the procedure, and Yadugara himself rushed to prepare the required medicines. He couldn’t keep readily available due to the volatility of their active components.
And yet again, they were interrupted. At first the imperial medic Lentz came and stated that the emperor wanted the girl. Yadugara, driven to a furious rage by the arrogance of those palatial parasites, said that this time he wouldn’t lift a finger without official papers, and anyway, the girl belonged to him by law! Lentz could come back the day after tomorrow and take what was left.
Lentz dryly said good-bye, promising to return very soon. And return he did, but no longer alone. A squad of watchmen loomed threateningly behind him, and the guard Daler lay twisted on the floor, groaning in pain and holding his broken nose. His broken rib was a clear illustration that Lentz was entirely serious in his intentions. The girl was in a coma and close to her last breath. Lentz and his men carefully put her on a stretcher and took her to the palace.
That evening, they drowned their sorrows. Once south of a few glasses of wine, Yadugara started getting emotional, as it seemed to Pen. He promised to help his senior apprentice get his healer’s license as soon as possible, although in exchange he asked for a little of his life force, just three or four years, no more.
“You’ve grown up, Pen, my boy, and you’re ready for your own practice. I’ve taught you all my secrets. And once you become a practicing healer, you’ll return to yourself all the years you’ve given to me! I only have a few left, and if you could show your gratitude...”
The master moved in for a hug. Reyna had been pouring wine for half the night and looked at Pen so sorrowfully that the young man wanted to immediately calm both her and his master down. After all, his master had done him a great honor by sharing his table and such fine Tuaf wine. On top of everything else, Master Yadugara was being so nice to him, and polite, and respectful...
“Of course, master!” Pen said. “I am willing!”
“Then let’s not put it off!” Yadugara exclaimed. “We’ll finish by morning, and by the evening you’ll be a full-fledged healer with your very own license!”
Pen could barely open his eyes after he woke from the procedure. That wasn’t uncommon, but impenetrable darkness disturbed him. Had something gone wrong, had the transfusion ended before dawn?
His master was nowhere to be seen, Pen was in the procedure room alone, and there was nobody to dispel his doubts. Somehow, he slid off the cot and fell to the floor. His legs refused to hold him up. He looked at his hands in the moonlight and didn’t recognize them. His fingers were thin, fragile and knobbly, trembling and covered in liver spots. His legs were no better, and as he felt his hair he cried out. It had thinned out so much that he immediately felt the skin of his scalp beneath.
“Awake?” Reyna said in unfriendly tones. “Master ordered me to feed you and take you to your room.
The procedure room filled with light. The girl moved the lamp closer to Pen and looked closely at him.
“Drink...” The senior apprentice didn’t recognize his own voice. After clearing his throat, he rasped: “Reyna, what time is it?”
The girl screwed up her face. “You big dummy. The time? It’s past midnight. Let’s get to the kitchen. I woke up Mo so she can give you something to warm you up.”
“Past midnight..? How?” The dumbfounded Pen felt himself losing consciousness from weakness. How could the transfusion
have been so short? Or on the contrary, too... He realized the gravity of what had happened. He shouted as loud as his old voice would allow him. “Where’s the master?!”
“Keep it down,” Reyna yawned. “Master is already sleeping and asked to be left in peace. Talk to him in the morning, if it’s so important to you...”
IN the morning, Yadugara casually stated that unfortunately he’d allowed himself to pass out, and the transfusion had gone on a little too long.
“A little?!” Pen choked on his grain brew. “Forty years too long, you mean? I demand that you return my years to me at once!”
“My boy...” Yadugara faltered. It was hard now to call this old man a boy, of all things. “Listen, Pen! Conversion means losses. Even if it were possible, we’ve already lost ten years. If we return the time to you now, we’ll lose more unlived years, you understand? In any case, I have fulfilled my promise — you are now a full-fledged healer. The license is already in my study, you ingrate!
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