High Couch of Silistra

by Janet Morris

  “Take it. You earned them.”

  I shook my head. Again he tried to put the necklace of gold coins into my hands. I knew what he had paid at the star-trader’s stall. He had not even haggled.

  “I will not take payment from you, Dellin.”

  “But you will lower your value. You cannot couch with me for nothing, like some binnirin farmer’s daughter.” He mocked me, but his tone was gentle.

  I shook my head again, and backed a step from him. He grinned broadly and put the dippars, still threaded on the thong, in his belt.

  “If I should buy your use here in Arlet, you will have no choice but to take payment,” he reminded me.

  “If you should,” I allowed, “then I will have no choice.” My voice trembled.

  I turned from him and ran the three steps and pushed through the carved thala door, closing it quickly behind me, leaning against it. Another moment, and he would have had me begging. I took deep breaths, counting, until my throat stopped aching. Then I opened my eyes.

  A girl, startled, faced me, her hands frozen in front of her with mop and bowl. She had been moist-dusting. She was a small girl with sturdy legs and peas-shaped breasts, a pleasant round face, large brown eyes, pale skin. Her head was shaved. She wore a mesh wisp of a breech, a metal triangle held over her crotch by a fine-linked brass chain, and nothing eke. She went on her knees to me.

  I ran my hands down my hips and took a deep breath and motioned her up.

  “High lady,” she whispered, touching her forehead to the tilted blue floor, and rose.

  “Is your mistress in?”

  “She is in, if you are she whom we have been expecting.” Her face was tense, her huge eyes luminous.

  “I am Estri of Astria, Hadrath diet Estrazi. Will that do?”

  “Oh, yes.” She smiled, relief evident in her expression. “Mistress has been waiting for two days for you, high lady, and the Liaison’s men have haunted us for word of you, and she hates waiting and she hates haunting and she is in a very bad temper.” She stopped, put her hand to her mouth. She had said too much.

  “Take me to her, then, and we will see if her mood brightens.”

  The shaved-headed girl dropped her bowl and rag on the deep-blue tiles and started down the dimly lit corridor. Her plump hips swung before me, and I watched the chain that came up between her buttocks, to split and encircle her loins, glitter as she moved.

  The corridor gave way to the sunken, vaulted-ceilinged common room, with its inlaid floors of semiprecious-stone slabs. We walked past the entry desk, unattended at this early hour, down across the middle of the huge sunken, circular chamber, past low pillowed divans and furred cushions arranged in three seating sections. This evening those divans and cushions would seat the women of Arlet, each in her price section, and the men who would pleasure after buying a well token at the entry desk. The price of the token determined the group from which he would choose. Now, in the afternoon, none reclined in the common room. My guide led me straight to the passageway opposite the entry. To my right were the open doors to the dining hall and baths, to my left the drink room, the drug chamber, and a narrow door leading to the staff quarters. The passage we entered led to the girls’ keeps. It branched right and left immediately under the lintel. We took neither turn, but stopped before a star-steel panel, complete with red-glowing palm lock directly in front of us. My guide touched the red oblong, and the door slid soundlessly aside. I stepped within and regarded Celendra Doried bast Aknet, Well-Keepress of Arlet.

  The room was warmly lit from a concealed source. Everywhere hung rich, figured brocades from the desert tribes of the Parset barrens, barbaric and splendid. Not one surface of the large irregular keep was free from draperies of scarlets, umbers, and ochers. Hunting tapestries, geometries, free-form swirls, all glowed forth in perpetual sunset hues, as if I had suddenly come into some magnificent apprei, the portable homes of the desert nomads. The ceiling was obscured with them, the floor strewn carelessly with priceless deep-pile Parset rugs. The psychotropic patterns dragged at the eye, teasing, confusing. Here and there, stout thala poles rose from the silky rugs, to disappear in the ceiling draperies. From these poles hung chains and lashes, daggers and cords.

  In the midst of this rioting color, Celendra of Arlet reclined upon a great fall of cushions. The smell of narcotic danne was thick in the air as she rose like some sinuous dorkat, the wingless hulion of the desert, and moved noiselessly to take my hand. She was black as Santh, and as supple. Her hair was caught at the top of her head in a chased-silver cone, bursting from confinement at the narrowed opening of the cone’s apex to flow black-blue, shining, to her waist. She wore thick silver wristlets and anklets, and a band of the same chased metal at her regal throat. She was half again my weight, and this she carried on a massive lean frame with not a hint of fat, yet her breasts were great pointed pillows, and her lips full and inviting. Beside her I was but a stripling girl, not yet grown into my womanhood.

  I thought of Dellin with this magnificent woman, and the image was a splinter in my heart.

  She took my copper hand in her midnight one, and her silvered nails glittered. Celendra stood back, then, appraising me. She wore an Arletian chald, loosely woven, the chains separate and distinct between the spaced knots against the dark of her skin. It hung low over her inverted navel. I picked out, among the chaldric chains, the golden links of birthing fulfilled, and the copper of the forereaders, and between them, like a dark shadow, the black-iron Slayer’s chain. Her fifteen-strand chald spoke eloquently of her capabilities.

  “Perhaps you are truly daughter of chaos,” she said to me in a husky voice, slurred with danne. I thought it a strange greeting.

  “Come sit with me,” she continued, “and we shall test the time.” The forereaders use danne to dive deep in the time flow. Celendra was still half-tranced. She smiled, and her white teeth flashed.

  Seated among the cushions, she prepared the smoke, and I partook of it with her. She peered at me over the smoldering bowl of the gem-encrusted pipe. Her eyes were gold-green, the whites reddened from the drug. I felt my muscles relax and my mind slow in its whirling as the yellow herb had its effect. My emotions receded, leaving me clear and calm. Danne gives one distance from one’s situation.

  “I knew you would come today,” said the Keepress of Arlet. “All the forereaders leave for conclave with the Day-Keepers, but I think what they seek might be here in Arlet.” She spoke as if to herself, but her eyes were for me.

  “I had some difficulty arriving here,” I apologized. I would not have kept her from her call to conclave.

  “No matter.” She waved her hand. “All right with me. That impotent First roused out all the Liaison’s men. Where are they? Where are they? They have not let us live. I told them, but they believe only what their eyes can see, ears can hear, hands can touch. I saw you, and the winds from the abyss blew around. Your feet were imprisoned in the weave of the time-flow, and your hands bound behind. The current dragged you off at right angles to your chosen path, and the life spirits warred over you. Then, slowly, the branch rejoined the time flow, and that flow drew you here. Almost, you were lost to the call of the crux time, but in the end, it triumphed. The Day-Keepers sense a great crux, and they call us together to prepare. They are blinded by the mists such time throws out, that we may not avoid our destiny. But I see. And, of course, that I might not lead them, the flow bound me here.” She stared at me, leaning forward, her eyes narrowed. Her red tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

  “What say you, pawn of power?” she queried. “What sense do you make of my reading?”

  I thought she had perhaps smoked too much danne. The reading I got was confusion.

  “I say that I, too, am blinded by the mists such time throws out.”

  She nodded. I wondered how much true knowledge she had, how much was seeress drug babble.

  “This is very lovely.” I would change the subject. I waved at the keep.

  “Y
es. I would keep my father’s heritage around me. Do you not, also, in Astria?”

  “I would, if I had access to it.”

  She looked at me questioningly. It seemed she knew less than she pretended.

  The moment was opportune. I took one of the holos from the tas bag and handed it to her.

  She peered at it, blinking, struggling for focus.

  “My father,” I explained. “I seek him. Have you serviced such a man in Arlet?”

  “No.” She handed it back, and I replaced it carefully in the tas bag. “If I had, I would remember. I would also be tempted to seek such a one. Should you find him, invite him for me to Arlet.” She grinned, chiaroscuro.

  “How did you fare with the Liaison Second?” she asked.

  “Not as well as I would have wished. He is overly muscled and sadistic.” I shrugged. “I do not envy you, Celendra. M’lennin is bad enough. Dellin is an exceedingly difficult man.” Half a truth is better than none.

  “M’ksakkan, isn’t he? He will mellow, as M’lennin did. When M’glarenn took Astria, it is said that he used four additional women a day for a thousand days. When the restraints of M’ksakka are thrown off, much comes bubbling to the surface that has been long afester in them.”

  “Perhaps,” I allowed. “Perhaps not, though. If you think M’lennin mellow, I will be glad to exchange Liaisons with you. He and I have much dislike with each other.”

  “If Dellin is so difficult, then, why do you want him?”

  “I have a revenge to work on that man,” I said coldly.

  “That I understand.” I had thought she would.

  “How would you enjoy my hospitality, Estri of Astria? You need not work in Arlet. We are not so light in our touch as Astria. You might find our couch overly taxing, and so much has been made of your arrival that continuing subterfuge is out of the question. If you couch here, you will have to do it as Estri of Astria.”

  I dreaded the thought of inactivity. My feelings for Dellin would only grow stronger should I not work at my craft.

  “I need a change. I would work until the Day-Keepers’ envoy finds me. Under the circumstances, I will take whatever your couch-price is as my own.” I knew her price was much less than mine, and would not offend her by demanding more.

  “I see you wear the Slayers’ chain,” I observed. “I have some small skill, imparted to me by Rin diet Tron. At your convenience, I would work out with you.”

  Celendra reached out and squeezed my arm, then sank back into the cushions.

  “You do not wear the black chain?”

  “As you said, in Astria we keep our touch light.”

  The Well-Keepress laughed, low and throaty.

  “I had thought you much less than you are, Keepress,” she said.

  “And I you.”

  Celendra reached behind her and threw aside a small Parset rug. Beneath it was a square of star-steel. Disapprovingly, I realized it was a communicator.

  She pushed a button, replaced the rug. Someday, as had happened long ago in Astria, she would have need of the device, and it would malfunction.

  “See your keep, and meet me for a meal in the dining hall at the fourth bell. Then we will go to the circle.” She leaned over and kissed me on the lips,

  The same shaved-headed girl appeared at the door and took me to my Arletian keep.

  At the door, she turned to me.

  “Should I stay, high lady?” said she, wetting her lips. I was puzzled.

  “I can find my way about, I think.”

  The girl flushed, wheeled, and ran lightly down the hall.

  I shrugged to myself and palmed the lock. The keep was much the same as Celendra’s, but in pale blues and golds. None of the dark-blue gol-work was visible behind the layers of fabric and drapes. The couch was wide and its wood frame gold-leafed. I was glad to see a window, large and overlooking the craggy drop to the road. The window, however, did not open. I peered behind the curtains of pale blue that framed it and saw two small grilles set near the ceiling high above my head. Temperature control, another star trick. I would not have such dependency on machines in Astria. I was beginning to understand why Arlet, although second among the Wells, was such a rich post for the Liaison, and why M’lennin carped so at Astria’s low import policy.

  I explored further, poking into chests full of fabric, boxes of jewelry and chains. The posts in the rooms bore lashes and knives, manacles and rings, as had Celendra’s. I took the keyring that hung on the post nearest the couch and buried it beneath a length of Koster silk in the largest of the three carved chests. None would put such chains upon me without my consent.

  Then I stripped off the silvery garment Dellin had given me, and the clips and comb, and carefully folded the material around them. These, with the tas pouch, I buried also in the great thala chest. In the washroom there were combs aplenty; and brushes; and thick, absorbent, sky-colored toweling.

  I threw myself on the couch and tried to nap. I could not. My mind chased itself in circles. Finally I gave up.

  I would need something to wear to the circle. I found a length of plain white tas wool and cut it to shape with a gol-knife. I made breech out of one half and breast band of the other, fastening them with bronze clips I found among the jewelry. Second bell had just rung.

  I did an hour of dhara-san, that exercise system which welds mind to body, clears the soul, and releases energy repressed to constructive use. I stretched long in warm-ups, the back of my legs informing me it had been too long since I had practiced my routine. By third bell I had a good sweat and was in the dhar, the contortions of great skill. I took a long headstand, letting my mind roll free. Thoughts of Dellin and my father, Celendra’s obscurity and my great-grandmother’s warning passed through me. I regained my perspective. Perhaps Dellin was he who was not as he seemed, for he had almost lured me from my quest. I thought of the time around me, and pinpointed the feel. Silistrans learn to identify four major subdivisions of time, and sixteen minor ones. Though no forereader, I had not needed Celendra to tell me that I was in draw, to crux, and had little choice but to go with the flow. I would, I decided, control my destiny as best I could. It occurred to me that the decision was probably preordained, and I came out of my headstand into a crouch. I could carry that line of reasoning no further. But I felt fine, tingling, whole again. My equilibrium had returned to me.

  Thus I made my way to the common room, and through it to the dining hall, in good spirits. I took a table in the hall’s far corner, from which I could observe the entire room. There were only four girls eating, sitting together at one of the glass-and-gol trestle tables. They whispered to each other when I passed them and took my seat. A staffer in gray came to me to take my order.

  “I wait for your mistress,” I said to the middle-aged, nondescript man in staffer’s garb. “Bring me rana and honey, and fruit juice.”

  He scurried off.

  By the time the stimulating hot drink was cooled enough to drink, Celendra sat opposite me. She wore a leather breech and band, studded with brass, and bands on her throat and wrists to match. Her silken hair was caught at the back of her neck in a thick knot fastened with a brass clip.

  The staffer hovered over her. She ordered juice and rana for herself. One does not take intoxicating beverage before entering the circle, if one is wise.

  As we ate, we discussed the passes’ take, which always increases in the spring, and the quality of our respective clientele.

  I had a question strong in my mind, and when the opportunity arose, I asked it.

  “How,” I queried, “does the Well-Keepress of Arlet avoid being abused by her clients? The chains I saw in your keep are not just for show?”

  “What makes you think I would avoid the chains? Not many men could conquer me, even for an evening, without them. One must not make value judgments, Estri, about primal needs. One had the needs before one learned the values. And it is not always the men who wield the lash and hold the leash. One must give to get
. I find it easier, bound. If one cannot respect the man, one can at least respect the chains. And they allow us to extend our experience beyond the limits of playacting, into totality. A taste of reality is welcome, every once in a while. It is the nature of man to conquer, and of woman to fight being conquered. Surely you yourself have at times wished for bonds against which to struggle, bonds more physical, hence less demanding, than the bonds of chaldra?”

  I looked into my cup. I knew she was right. I had asked in order to hear her say it.

  “And yet there is the matter of pride,” I objected.

  “Do I seem to you lacking in pride? One often wins by losing.”

  “I shall see for myself.” I grinned at her. “There is much food for thought here in Arlet.” I pushed away my cup.

  “Shall we?” Celendra invited. I rose, and we walked the halls of Arlet, coming at last to a large turfed outdoor practice area, behind the Well proper but within the outer wall. There was a number of Arletian guards, a half-dozen Slayers, and some twenty well women sitting on the tiered gol seats backed up against the outer wall. Two men fought hand-to-hand within one circle; two worked at stones, the five-lashed weighted whip, in another. The three outer circles were empty.

  Racked against the wall of the Well itself, next to the door through which we had come, were weapons of every conceivable variety.

  Celendra gestured to them.

  “Your choice, Estri.” I had hoped she would cede me the option. With her greater size and weight I would have been hopelessly outclassed at stones or hand-to-hand. I went to the rack. There I found what I wanted. Gol-knives. These are forearm-length straight blades, with one edge serrated. The points were guarded a finger’s width down the blade, that one might strike with force and not puncture one’s opponent deeply. I tried several until I found one with a balance I liked.

  Some of the men had left their ladies and were milling about the area. The stone-fighters had finished and walked toward us to replace their weapons in the rack.