by Victor Poole
"That was dangerous," he said sharply. "Ocher's dangerous."
"I'm dangerous," Ajalia informed him.
"Plus, you were super rude about me," Delmar said. He looked down at Ajalia with distinct disapproval written over his face.
"Are you going to move into my house?" Ajalia asked him. Delmar's face puckered. "You were going to come straight back to meet me," she reminded him, "when you left me at the wall."
"I wasn't," Delmar said. "I went home."
"Did they ask you about Lim?" she asked. Delmar's face gave her the answer. "And did your mother coo over you?" she asked. Delmar looked away, out of the window. He let go of her. "You did kind of drop me like a hot rock," she pointed out.
"Wasn't my fault," Delmar muttered. "Busy."
"Am I still your little bird?" Ajalia asked.
"You shouldn't have asked Ocher to come here," Delmar said sternly.
"And you should have come to see me, to live with me, like I said," she told him.
"I can't live with you," Delmar said, his eyes vague and distressed.
"Why can't you live with me?" Ajalia asked.
"Because," he said unhappily. "You live in a temple." He paused, and his voice went hoarse.
"And?" she prompted.
"And you hate me," he whispered. Ajalia laughed at him. He started to cry. "You do," he murmured. He looked morose beyond the limits of all sorrow.
"Who told you that?" Ajalia asked. His eyes started to dodge again; she took his face in her hands. "Mother told you that?" she asked.
"She doesn't know I was with you in the forest," Delmar said.
"Yes, she does," Ajalia said. "Why do you think she likes you so much now?" Delmar looked swiftly at her.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.
"You are your mother's spare husband," Ajalia explained. "I'm the scarlet woman who is stealing your heart. This is what your mother thinks."
"She does not think that," Delmar said indignantly.
"Go home, then," Ajalia said, "you big baby, and see what she asks you about that strange Eastern wench." Delmar's face flinched. "Does she call me that?" Ajalia asked, amused.
"No," Delmar said at once.
"But something like that," Ajalia prompted.
"No!" Delmar insisted. "Anyway," he added, "she's a nice woman."
"Not like me," Ajalia finished. "I carry a knife."
"Well, would you," Delmar asked, "if you didn't attract bad things?"
"Bad things," Ajalia said. "Like, for example, you?"
"You wouldn't have had to say all those things to Ocher," Delmar said, "if you hadn't had a knife with you."
"Go home," Ajalia said. Delmar scraped the toe of his shoe along the edge of the window.
"I don't want to go home," he said, so softly that Ajalia couldn't hear him.
"What?" she said. He said it again, even more incoherently. She waited. His face turned red.
"I don't want to leave," he said loudly. He went down the stairs.
"Bye," Ajalia said. Delmar stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and looked up at her.
"Why aren't you stopping me?" he demanded. His eyes were sad.
"I can't make you respect yourself, or like me," Ajalia said with a shrug. "You go on home, and gossip with your mother."
"I don't like my mother!" Delmar shouted at her. Ajalia went up the stairs; she heard Delmar following slowly behind her, his tread soft and stealthy, like a puppy sneaking away from home.
Ajalia went up the stairs and onto the roof. The view from the top of the dragon temple was magnificent; a short railing of carved dragons ran along the edges of the roof, and Ajalia had put cloth mats and cushions out on the stone roof. She had the boys eat up here; the air was cool and fresh, and the forest could be seen from over the far city wall. To the east, almost beyond the range of sight, the sea glimmered like a sliver of sun within the scoop of the mountains.
The household boys were gathered in a wide circle; they were playing a Slavithe game with round wooden pegs. Ajalia had taken the brightest boys from the troop of servants to be her permanent household cohort; the other boys were in Chad's charge. They were rented out to clean homes and streets on a rotating schedule, and Ajalia was saving much of what they earned to buy their freedom and make them independent, when they were older. She told herself she was a fool for doing it, but she did it anyway. Chad was becoming almost intolerably efficient these days. He could manage the boys far better than he had handled the young women, and he was gaining an aura of near-competence under Ajalia and Card's intermittent guidance. She was not much invested in Chad's progress; when he ceased to be useful, she would rid herself of him somehow. He was yet useful, and she had begun to pay him a small portion of salary. He was inept with money, and Ajalia suspected that he always would be, but he had gained some acuity since she had spoken to him in the little house, on the day she had moved to the temple. She did not suspect how deeply she had inflamed his desire to be important; she saw that he told himself a story about her, and about how she must pine for him, but she did not see how deeply his desire to matter to other people ran.
"Are you going to talk to me again?" Delmar asked softly. He had crept up behind her, and was standing on the roof, staring at the boys. Some of the little boys looked up at Delmar, and nudged each other. They whispered to each other in the simple words of the Eastern tongue that Ajalia had taught them.
Ajalia went to a mat that was spread in a corner of the expansive roof, and sat down. Delmar wandered along behind her. He stood up near her for a long time, and then crouched at the very corner of the mat.
"You do hate me, don't you?" he asked earnestly.
"Delmar?" Ajalia asked briskly.
"Yes," Delmar said at once.
"Don't do that," she said. He blinked innocently at her, but did not ask her what she meant. "Now," she asked, "are you going to move into the temple?"
Delmar's face turned an obnoxious shade of pinkish lavender. A sudden thought came into Ajalia's head.
"Did you think I meant sex?" she asked him. He gave a start; she thought that if he had not been sitting down, he might have fallen over. "Delmar?" she prodded.
"I'll go home now," Delmar said quietly. He started to stand; Ajalia put a hand on his arm.
"You have to learn politics," she told him. "You can sleep with the boys."
"I don't want to sleep with little boys!" Delmar said, too loudly. The circle of bright eyes turned again towards him. He blushed. "Boys are noisy," Delmar said anxiously, in a low voice. "And they're loud."
"Then sleep in your own space," Ajalia suggested, "and everyone in the city, including my boys, will be convinced that you are sleeping with me." Delmar looked at her as though she had uttered a gross indecency.
"Normal people don't think like that," Delmar informed her.
"Daniel and Cross," Ajalia called sharply. Two boys sprang out of the circle, and came to the edge of her mat. "Who is this man?" she asked them, gesturing at Delmar.
"He's the Thief Lord's son," the boy called Cross said at once. His green eyes flicked swiftly at Delmar, then back to Ajalia.
"Speak the whole thought," Ajalia said.
"He wants to be your lover," Cross said, "but you're too good for him."
"No," Daniel said haughtily, "She's the marrying kind, and he's a drifter."
"I thought Delmar was seeing that other Eastern slave, the blond one," another boy shrilled from the circle. Delmar's whole face was vibrating with shame; he did not know where to direct his eyes.
"That blond girl is with the Thief Lord," another boy said.
"No, she isn't, she's with Wall," another boy put in.
"Yelin is married to Lim," Ajalia told the boys.
"Lim is the other slave," a boy shouted. "He's dead."
"Delmar killed him with a knife," Cross said helpfully. "I didn't say that before. He's the man that killed Lim," Cross repeated, pointing at Delmar.
"Go back to you
r game," Ajalia told Cross and Daniel.
"That proves that Yelin was with Delmar," another boy in the circle said stubbornly. Daniel cuffed him on the head, and the boys went silent.
"I didn't kill Lim," Delmar muttered, but his neck was red, and he was smiling.
"Your mother is quite pleased, isn't she?" Ajalia asked. Delmar grinned before he could stop himself; his cheeks were pulled into happy shapes.
"No," Delmar lied.
"Well," Ajalia said, standing up. "It was nice seeing you again, Delmar." She held out her hand. He looked at her, discomfited.
"But I'll come back," Delmar said.
"No," Ajalia said.
"But I'll come back," Delmar insisted. "I'll only go for a little while. I'll come back tomorrow, or the day after that."
"I don't want you to come back," Ajalia said. "Go, and then stay gone."
Delmar's face puckered; his mouth made a sour shape.
"That isn't very fair," he said.
"Goodbye," Ajalia said cheerfully.
"Well, wait," Delmar said quickly. She looked at him. "Maybe I could come every day?" he suggested.
"No," Ajalia said. Delmar's face crumpled into a look of utter despair.
"Fine," he said bitterly. "Fine, I'll stay here." Ajalia smiled at him.
"That's okay," she said. "You can go."
"I don't want to go!" Delmar said furiously. "Why don't you understand that?"
"Delmar," Ajalia said patting his cheek in a friendly way, "you have issues."
"Well," Delmar said angrily. His cheeks puffed in and out. He parted his lips, and then closed them. His chest expanded, and the air went out of him in a whoosh. His face grew angry, and then defeated. "I don't like boys," he said helplessly.
"Okay," Ajalia said.
"It isn't okay," Delmar complained.
"Sweet love," Ajalia told him, "I think you will feel better someday."
"I doubt it," Delmar said darkly.
Ajalia called for Daniel; the boy stood, and came to her. She led the boy and Delmar to the stairs, and down the passage into the second floor, where the wooden clogs and the hollow stone lay.
"This is Delmar," Ajalia told Daniel.
"I know," Daniel said.
"He is going to live here," Ajalia said. Daniel nodded. "He is useless in almost every way," Ajalia told the boy.
"That isn't very kind," Delmar said.
"He also has very little sense," Ajalia said. Daniel glanced at Delmar, and the boy's eyes were sharp. "When I am out of the house, and when I am in the house," she said to Delmar, "you will obey Daniel."
Delmar made a face at her.
"You don't mean that," Delmar said. Daniel regarded the Thief Lord's oldest son solemnly. Ajalia did not smile.
"Boys who are disobedient," she said, "do not eat. Boys who do not work are sent to the cleaning crews. My boys in the house are disciplined and sharp. They will put up with very little, and they all answer to Daniel." Ajalia watched Delmar's eyes gradually take in the fact that she was serious.
"But they're boys," Delmar said.
"And you are a giant, adorable, wonderful baby," Ajalia said, "and I like you, and I want to keep you, but I cannot be partners or allies with you until you grow up."
"But they're boys," Delmar repeated helplessly.
"Delmar," Ajalia said patiently. She could see an unhappy flush creeping up under Delmar's skin.
"It's all right," Delmar said miserably. "I'll do it. But I'm not skipping for joy or anything," he added quickly.
"I'm going out to the mountains," Ajalia told Daniel. "I won't be back for two days. See what you can do to break him in."
Delmar's mouth was open, and his eyes were a little wider than usual.
"You can't leave me here," he said.
"You don't need to get your clothes, do you?" Ajalia asked. Delmar shrugged.
"I guess not," he said.
"Good," she said. "Stay here. Let Ocher make your excuses, if he likes. When you are human, I will teach you."
"But wait," Delmar said, as Ajalia turned away. She paused. "What about all the other things?" he asked, his eyes darting to Daniel.
"I don't mind if you kiss," Daniel said helpfully. Ajalia grinned at the boy; Delmar made a strangled noise.
"I'll see you in two days," Ajalia told Delmar. "I have to see Card, and I'm going out to the mountains."
"Let me come with you," Delmar said.
"Next time," Ajalia said.
"But I want to come now," Delmar said.
"Then listen to Daniel," she said. "The boys will show you what to do." She watched Delmar struggle with frustration. "This only has to take two days," she pointed out. "You aren't stupid."
"I'm not stupid," Delmar said indignantly.
"No," she agreed, "but you pretend to be, and I don't want to work with you until you stop."
"Then I'll stop," Delmar said.
"Show me you mean it," Ajalia said.
"Okay, let me come," Delmar said.
"No," she said. "Daniel's in charge. I'll see you when I get back."
She gave instructions to Daniel, and then went down the stairs. The tray of meats was gone from the chamber where she had met with Ocher, but the ewer and cups were still there. She carried these out to the back enclosure, and cleaned and replaced them in a long cupboard that lay along the very back of the temple. The fire had been put out in the outdoor stove, and the air was heavy with the smell of spiced meats. When she turned back to the temple, Delmar was behind her. He put his arms around her shyly, and put his face against her hair.
"Do you still like me?" he asked.
"Of course I do, you big baby," she said, pushing at his chest. She pulled his arms away, and held his hand for a moment. The light was beginning to fade into an early sunset. "Don't be too sad while I'm gone," she told him. He sighed.
"Then don't go," he said listlessly.
"I have to go," Ajalia told him. "Nam will be plotting, and I have to see Card about the new huts."
"I don't like anything about my life," Delmar said morosely.
"Well," Ajalia said. Neither of them saw, far above their heads, the line of faces peering down over the railing on the roof.
"You aren't going to let me kiss you, are you?" Delmar asked her.
"I'll see you later," Ajalia said. Delmar watched her move back towards the temple.
"Come back soon," he said to himself.
CLARE IS CAUGHT KISSING
Ajalia went through the long halls of the dragon temple. She went into the side chamber where Denai had made his home. The horse trader was gone, but he had left Ajalia's saddle and the curious bridle he had given her in the center of the floor. She had told him she would be leaving today; she saw that he had cleaned the saddle again. The black leather shone with an unearthly glow; she could almost see herself in the gloss of the panels. She lifted the saddle, and put the headstall over her shoulder.
The street outside was full of autumn light; the sky had turned a clear, incandescent blue, and wisps of white cloud lay in scraps and tumbled heaps over her head. Ajalia shifted the saddle on her hip, and walked towards the street that led from the temple into the main road that ran beside the Thief Lord's house.
Ajalia had learned that the houses nearest the Thief Lord's palatial house of white stone were not highly valued in the city; Slavithe people seemed to find these houses dangerous to their social standing. Chad had traded for what Card called bum properties. One of the houses near the Thief Lord's house had been rented out to an aristocratic couple with a pair of children, and the other, which, it seemed, could not be sold for love nor money, had been taken over by Card. Ajalia was considering moving Chad into the large house as well, but she was not sure of the effect such a move would have on the little Slavithe boys that formed her cleaning crews. The boys were shaping up well; Card had sold a few boys into Talbos; he had sent them there by night, paying a gang of Slavithe and Talbos wilderness men to carry the boys to marke
t, and return the money to him through the northern pass.
The gangs in the mountains were curiously honest, Ajalia had found. They would pick off unguarded travelers on the road between Slavithe and Talbos, but those who knew the sign of the dead falcon passed without harassment. The robbers, for Ajalia could not bring herself to call them anything else, seemed to be primarily composed of disaffected miners and porters from Slavithe. The Talbos component of the gangs were generational robbers. Card had told Ajalia that these men of Talbos were remnants of the old magical priesthood; they passed their archaic knowledge from father to son, and led a lonely life of hermitship out in the mountains and the caves. She had yet to meet the ruler of Talbos, or to hear much of the government in that city. She got the sense that Talbos was a much healthier place to live, as far as personal autonomy went, but she preferred the curious oddity of Slavithe still. She supposed that if Slavithe ever became noxious to her, or dangerous, she would find a way to carry Delmar off to Talbos. Her private war on the Thief Lord could be managed just as well from there, she thought, and it would theoretically be nice to be in closer communication with Philas and the other slaves from the East.
Ajalia guessed that Philas had gone to Saroyan, across the waters, but she had heard nothing from him to this effect. Leed had not yet appeared; she had begun to think that the Slavithe boy had been carried across the sea by the Eastern slaves.
She came out of the road in the residential district, and came through the main thoroughfare. The streets were not as busy as they often were; Ajalia was glad for the quiet. She blended in better now; her hair was fading into a deep brown, and her face was not so tormented with emotion as it had been. She knew that she appeared more unnoticeable. The Thief Lord had yet to contact her; she knew he thought of her still, and he had promised to see her again about her business. She thought he must have eased into an uneasy truce within himself; she had not yet heard anything about Lim, aside from the gossip that the boys brought her from the market.
When she came to the stable district, Ajalia met one of her girls coming from the center of the long barns. It was Clare; her eyes were bright, and her cheeks had flushed. Clare gave a startled duck of her head when she saw Ajalia; Ajalia saw that the Slavithe girl recognized her, and was not overjoyed at the reunion.