by Mark Eller
"Remember our bout when I made you fight me after I took off my shirt. I kissed you then. It was the first time I kissed you as a woman, the first time ever, really, though I wanted to when we lived in Last Chance. You were always the main player in my little girl fantasies. You have no idea how much I hated Cathy for throwing you over."
"I remember," Aaron said, feeling a twinge of the old pain. He had thought himself over Missy's older sister. He had been wrong. The reopening of his embittered soul brought back his old love in force, only now the love he held for Cathy intermingled with the love he felt for so many others.
"That day eventually led to us being lovers," Missy said tenderly. "We played the game for a while. We pretended we were innocents, but we both knew where it would go."
"I suppose," Aaron answered truthfully. "I wasn't aware of it at the time, not consciously, but I knew you affected me."
"Aaron, I can't be your lover anymore." Missy's voice filled with firm resolve and regret. "I've already told you this, but I never went into deep detail why. You're different. Making love to you would feel like compromising a priest's vows. I love you as my friend, but I can't love you like a woman. I can't be your lover when I want to be your follower."
A thick fog seemed to envelope Aaron's mind. He looked to her, confused, bewildered.
"I've been thinking," she continued. "Soul searching. I've long known something has been missing from my life, but I couldn't figure out what. For a time, I thought I needed to be married and have children, only that wasn't it, and I thank God I discovered this before agreeing to marry Harvest. Another time I thought the thing I wanted was something I could get from you. You were always so torn and troubled, but even at your worst you stood out from everybody else. I thought it might be a secret of being only you knew. I thought I might somehow learn to absorb it from you."
"I guarantee there's no secret," Aaron told her.
"Yes," she said, "there is. The secret is inside you, even if you never knew it yourself. Aaron, the secret is your faith. Even when you were falling apart, you never lost your faith in God, only you were too blind to see it. You never searched deep inside yourself. Aaron, I want what you have. I want your faith. I want to learn from you, and I can't do it when we're lovers."
"No," Aaron agreed, "you can't. I don't know what I have to teach, but as long as you want to study me, you're welcome to do so."
"That's all I ask," she said gratefully. "It's all I want."
"We leave in the morning," he told her.
* * *
Except they did not leave. When morning arrived, Aaron was forced to wait. Missy was a woman who liked having her things with her. Wanting to get all her necessities into one complete load, her packing took more than two hours. Exasperated, Aaron thought back to other women he had traveled with, Gerda and Heralda, and even Melna. None had needed much more than a comb. Missy Bayne, it seemed, had to have the 'right comb,' and her 'perfect perfume.'
At first Melna begged his patience but soon grew tired of the charade. Eventually, she plopped her behind on one of the divan's thick cushions in the Great Room and found a servant her whimsy decided would serve for a personal attendant. She ordered the poor woman to run chores which repeatedly took her from one end of the manor to the other. The remaining servants looked on, horrified, as did the guards.
"I'm trying to alarm the other servants," Melna explained. "The ones I haven't settled my attention on will do their best to speed Missy along."
Her strategy almost worked, only Missy suddenly found new items that absolutely had to be seen to. Even Aaron's assurance he could return in a moment did not get her to move faster. When asked, Aaron could not adequately explain why he didn't take the others over to New Beginning and then return for Missy.
"Stubborn," Melna muttered at one point. "Cut from the same cloth. Both of you."
Melna, it seemed, would be another of his problems. She crawled into their bed the night before, snuggled up against him, and suggested they let matters continue to the obvious conclusion.
He tried. The One God knew Aaron tried to explain why he could not make love to her. He could no longer give his body to a woman who didn't fill his heart. He assured her he loved her, and she believed him because there was no denying the waves washing out from him. The problem was he loved her as a friend. They were married, but she could never again be his wife.
Those truths were a hard thing to tell.
The laws under which Aaron married Melna demanded he order her beheaded for infidelity. Her own father would lay his hand to the task if he knew the extent of her crime. If given the chance, women in the cities and towns would stone her. Only in the Chin camps or among Isabella's Clan would she not be seen as a pariah.
Aaron could not order her death, but dear God, he did not know how to save her when others who were not Chin discovered the truth.
"Ahem."
Looking up from his brown study, Aaron saw Melna watching him from her seat on the divan. Her eyes weighed on him, seeming to delve into his hidden thoughts. A servant stood nearby, a man Aaron did not know, just one more forgettable face among many. With the manor's quick turnover, Aaron seldom expended effort learning new faces and names.
"A visitor to see you," the man said. "Yerland Groveland, a representative from the King of Nefra."
"Nefra! I won't see her!" Aaron automatically exclaimed, then his brain caught up with his ears. "Did you say the King of Nefra?"
"I did."
"I heard the Tyrant died," Aaron admitted. "I hadn't heard the new ruler was male."
"Yes, she did die," Missy said as she breezed into the room with a duffle too small to hold more than two changes of clothing slung over her shoulder. "Or was murdered, if you will. This new fellow, Palac Urlanda, took over. He sent Miss Groveland to look you up. She's showed up every day just about this time." Missy tossed her duffle on the pile of small bags the others had prepared. "I'm packed."
"You could have asked," Aaron told her irritably.
"You might have refused. Since you're still here, it won't hurt to talk to the woman."
"I suppose not."
* * *
Miss Groveland proved to be a well set-up woman of not much more than thirty years. Her hair appeared dark and healthy, but those facts were mostly obscured by the sever way she bound it atop her head, almost completely hiding it beneath a scarf. Her chiseled face was dusky; her eyes sharp.
"I wondered if you would ever return," she said. She gestured toward the others. "Please ask them to leave."
"No," Aaron told her. "I hope you understand. I don't trust anyone from your country."
"Of course you don't. Well then, this will have to do. Please instruct your inferiors they are to never repeat a word of this conversation. The dignity of rulers is involved."
"I'll be sure to do that very thing," Aaron promised, knowing full well any order he gave would be promptly ignored. He had a better chance of keeping his people quiet if he simply said nothing.
"The Tyrant is dead," Groveland said. "Killed by an assassin's hand, long may they suffer for the indignity inflicted upon her body."
"You're late," Aaron told her. "I've heard the news already."
"We have a new ruler," she continued. "A king. His name is Palac Urlanda, and he wants only peace from the lands of Emperor Turner."
She stopped, her silence indicating she waited for a response.
"You need to stretch this out a little more," Aaron told her. "Fill in some of the details. Just remember, I've sworn to bring Nefra to its knees so long as it supports slavery. I'm not very happy about the price she put on my head, either."
"The price has been removed," Groveland instantly replied. "The guild houses have been razed. Furthermore, my king is well aware of your feelings concerning slavery. He has asked me to deliver to you this vow. The king swears he will end slavery in his country. The changes cannot be immediate. His power is not as great as was the Tyrant's. He has a council to
appease and advisors who have the strength to do more than advise. Being new to his throne, he feels he can accomplish nothing during this first year, and maybe not the next. He promises by the end of his third year you will see changes. He promises to keep you informed of everything he does."
"I don't understand. Why he is approaching me like this?"
"He knew you would ask. Like the Tyrant, he fears you. Unlike the Tyrant, he decided his best course is to appease you. He has paid attention to the details of your rise and knows the Tyrant's past policies were the beginning of Nefra's destruction. Nobody opposing you has thrived. He believes you have been chosen by destiny."
"But that's insane!"
Missy interrupted. "You're the only person I know who has not eventually realized exactly how dangerous you are. Even in Last Chance, you were unable to see what was obvious to the rest of us."
"He ordered me to give you a gift," Groveland continued. "He wants me to tell you he has persuaded the King of Halimut to swear off his vendetta against you. To gain this reprieve for your person, King Urlanda vowed he would call all the people of his lands to a war against Halimut if that poor land's king did not desist in his efforts. My king regrets to tell you he cannot make a similar suggestion to Queen Sarena of Iruptk. Her land is vast and heavily populated. It could swallow Nefra four times over. Furthermore, Sarena is a Talent Master of considerable strength and in possession of a Stone."
"I don't know how much to trust this," Aaron admitted.
"If the words she speaks come from Palac, you can trust them," Martha instantly said. "He's as honest a scoundrel as you're likely to find in Nefra."
Groveland looked curiously toward Martha. "You should be dead, It has been ordered your guild and its entire people be destroyed."
"I retired and got reformed," Martha assured her. "Of late, I sometimes go an entire day without having the urge to murder somebody." She pointed at Aaron. "I belong to him now."
"I will tell my king of your changed circumstances."
"Please do," Martha said agreeably. "While you're at it, tell him his sister says hi."
"I will do so."
"Sister?" Aaron asked.
Martha's lips quirked. "Mister Turner, you should not make a habit letting your mouth hang open. It makes you look fairly ridiculous. You do realize assassins have to get their start from somewhere."
"I was under the impression most were captured slaves."
"Most," she agreed. "Fodder is always needed. A few originate from some of the best families. We are born and raised for it because, after all, some people are too exulted to be murdered by just any common scum."
"That explains Kim," Aaron said, half to himself.
"Kim Clack, your rival's daughter? Yes, I remember hearing of her. No, she was an embarrassment. Her father wanted sons. He had no time for daughters but couldn't just kill them out of hand. It wouldn't have looked right. Instead, he put them in the guild, paid for their training, and told the masters he didn't expect them to live until graduation. I think he was disappointed by his daughter's survival."
Aaron remembered the duel when Clack shot Kim so many times it was a miracle she survived. Kim's single bullet cost Clack his hand. So yes, Clack probably was not happy she lived to graduate.
"Please," Groveland said, "back to the matter at hand. Do we have your forbearance? My king only asks for a few years to prove his sincerity."
"I'll refrain from acting against Nefra and Halimut for the next few years," Aaron promised since he really did not know what he could accomplish against them anyway. In the past, he had said some words, made some promises, but he never worked out a way to make those words more than impotent bombast thrown into empty air. "I expect to be kept up to date on the changes," he added.
"He thought you would say this. He instructed me to act as a permanent ambassador to Chin."
"You'll be the first," Aaron told her. "Look, I'm on a schedule. Just have one of the servants chase down Mistress Marpole. She's the manor's chatelaine."
"What is a chatelaine?"
"I have no idea," Aaron answered. "I just hired the woman. She chose the title."
He studied the group. Missy, Patton, and Melna were all in the same room and ready to go, finally.
Chapter 21
"I think," Patton said after returning from his walking tour of New Beginning, "you might have overestimated how large this city needs to be. You've enough housing built for fifteen thousand people. From the plans I looked at, you want to quadruple its size."
"Actually," Aaron said proudly, "those are only the preliminary plans. What we have here is the minimum we can get by with if we're serious about this project. In twenty years, the city will house three hundred, maybe even five hundred thousand people, and your figures are wrong. I've enough university housing built to hold another ten thousand students."
"Yes, well I want to ask you about that. Are you aware of how huge the place is? Sir, the thing is a monstrosity already, and your plans are to make it even bigger."
"I won't be happy with less than twenty thousand students."
"These people are ignorant. They don't know how to read."
"Reading is the first thing we'll teach them," Melna broke in. "Nobody ever said a university can't start by teaching the basics."
Aaron coughed. "Actually, they have said that, at least in Isabella. Fortunately for me, this is my empire so I get to make the rules. Melna, did you have a good visit with your father?"
"A short one," she said. "It's just my luck I arrived on the exact day his caravan left."
"I ordered him to leave," Aaron told her. "This place will be a war zone before too much longer. You might have noticed there aren't many workers on the premises. That's because I dropped in for a few moments last night and explained matters to Mister Grebfax. He told the workers this morning, and most headed out shortly after first light. They'll camp just over the Efran border until I send word it's safe to return. Supplies have already been prepared."
"I thought things looked unsettled," Patton said charitably.
Smiling at the understatement, Aaron wondered how he could have been so blind about Harvest and Melna. Just standing here, Patton threw off clues. He always seemed aware of where Melna stood without even glancing at her.
"The problem is I don't know where Grebfax or Renford are right now," Aaron continued. "Why don't you make yourselves at home? With all the people gone, there are a lot of empty houses. I have to chase a couple men down."
Aaron was used to seeing New Beginning in a constant state of flux. Since the first stone was laid, the place had existed in an ever changing form. Normally hectic, cluttered, and filled with the energy, the people involved in this project knew the city had purpose and meaning. This knowledge added a particular upbeat vibrant expectancy to the atmosphere.
Now the excitement and the bustle were gone. The place had the feel and appearance of a ghost town. Lumber and rocks and tools lay where they had been set down the night before. Clay tiles intended to be part of the sanitation system were strung out along the length of dug trenches. Where there had once been a workforce of thousands, now only a few isolated individuals wandered the streets. Some of those few carried on their chores as if the present day was no different than the one before. Others gossiped and speculated and traded the particular reasons why they had not yet left.
One figure on the outskirts of the city caught Aaron's attention. He was a lone man, patiently working at smoothing out mortar on a half-finished wall. The house, Aaron saw, did not fit the designs of the other houses. Due to a lack of imagination and a greater lack of time, every house built thus far had followed one of five standard designs. This one flowed along lines matching the flow of the land. It was larger than the others, and most strange of all, a small brook's water flowed beneath one wall and reappeared from beneath its opposite wall.
"Are you sure it's worth the effort?" Aaron called out. "There likely won't be two stones left standing on
ce this war is over."
The man's back stiffened, relaxed. Setting down his trowel, he turned to face Aaron. A young man, he seemed vaguely familiar.
"Mister Pretend Emperor Clack is not a stupid man," the man said with a smile. "If he wins this war, he'll want a capitol city in fairly good condition. If he doesn't, I've nothing to worry about."
"I know you," Aaron told him. "Isn't your name Lorn?"
"Leroy Lorn at your service, Emperor Sir. I recognize you too, even if you did grow taller."
Aaron bit back a laugh. "I see you have attitude."
"Yeah…probably why I don't fit in too well back home. Truth is, I don't fit into any of the neat little niches people set out for me. You might have noticed I could be considered handsome."
"I've noticed," Aaron said. "In fact, I've noticed a number of women noticing."
"Exactly," Lorn said, emphasizing the word with a sharp gesture. "Back home everyone wants me to find the right women, which, according to my parents means filthy rich, influential, and generous enough to pass some of their fortune to my family. My parents want me to be a trophy husband, decorative and useless."
He waved a hand back toward the house. "This will be my home. I designed it; built it, and I won't lean on other people to finish it."
"So you ran away from your family?"
Lorn shook his head. "I escaped from my family. I went to a place where I could be free, to where I could be myself and live alone."
"Just because your parents threw you at the wrong women is no reason to deny yourself the chance to find somebody."
"I didn't say they threw women at me," Lorn corrected. "Women have thrown themselves at me since I entered my teens. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of them. I thought it might be different in a city filled with Chins. I asked enough questions to know Chin women aren't attracted to pretty men."