Yes, Kyaren said. Her tone sounded tentative. Josif realized that she had never mentioned him to Ansset- she was surprised that Ansset knew about him.
Apparently Ansset caught her hesitation, too. Oh, Kyaren, you didn't think they'd let me be friends with you without a security check, did you? He sounded amused. They're so thorough. I'm sure they know exactly where I am right now, and what we're doing.
Are they listening to us? Kyaren asked, appalled.
They aren't allowed to, Ansset said, but they probably are. If not the locals, then the imperial snoops. No, don't worry about it. They're probably just monitoring heartbeats and the number of people present, that kind of thing. I'm allowed some privacy. I can insist on it, and I will. His voice radiated calm. Both Josif and Kyaren visibly relaxed.
The salad was done, and Kyaren sprinkled hot mushrooms over the top of it.
I didn't expect real food, Ansset said.
"We usually eat out of the machines, Kyaren answered, and they spent a while during the meal talking about the virtues and dangers and expenses and inconveniences of eating real. Of course, in the palace Ansset had never tasted machine food; there are benefits to eating with the emperor.
Josif said little, however, and ate little. He tried to convince himself that it was because he was tired. Actually, however, his eyes were wide open and his attention never flagged. He watched both Kyaren and Ansset, but mostly Ansset, as his hands described graceful patterns in the ah-, as his eyes danced with delight at flavors, at wit, and sometimes at nothing at all, just sheer enjoyment of being where he was, doing what he was doing.
Ansset's every word was love, and Josif s silence answered him.
Don't you think so, Josif? Kyaren asked, and Josif realized that he had not been listening to the conversation.
'Tm sorry, Josif said. I think I dozed off.
With your eyes wide open? Kyaren laughed. She sounded tired.
Ansset looked carefully at Josif. Josif thought that the boy was trying to tell him something; trying to tell him that he knew Josif had lied, that Josif had not been dozing. Why don't you go to bed? Ansset asked. You're tired.
Josif nodded. I will
And I'd better leave, too, Ansset said. It was wonderful. Thank you.
Ansset got up and went toward the door. Kyaren went with him, talking all the way. Josif, however, ignored courtesy and returned to the bedroom. It took no thought at all. He knew what he had to do. Ansset was obviously not just a casual friend, not just a superior officer in government. Kyaren would have him back, again and again. And so Josif started taking his clothing from the shelves and putting it in his duffle.
But he was tired, and soon sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the edges of his half-full duffle and wondering what good it would do. The thought of leaving Kyaren was terrifying. The thought of not leaving her was worse.
I have done this before, he thought. This has all happened before, and what good does it do?
He remembered Pyoter, and then it was impossible for him to get up, to finish packing, to leave. It was Pyoter he had first loved, who had taken Josif as a shy child of unusual beauty and shown him love and loving. Josif then discovered what he had not known about himself. That when he trusted, he held back nothing. That when he loved, he could not love anyone else. He and Pyoter had been everywhere together, done everything together. They had both said we so often that the word I came only with difficulty to their lips. Only a year apart in age, their friendship had been so boyish and exuberant that no one had thought there was anything sexual in it; but Josif also learned that he could not love without lovemaking, that it was a part of it, the center of the yearning. And so he and Pyoter had shared everything and it seemed it would go on forever.
Until Bant. Bant had known at once. Josif never knew what made the difference or why he changed. Just that one day everything had been the same; Bant a friend of sorts, but very distant, Pyoter the beginning and end of the world to him. And then the next day, it had all been changed. Pyoter was a stranger, and Bant, who had finally taken Josif to his bed, had completely replaced him.
It horrified Josif that he could change that quickly, that overnight his attitudes could change. He refused to think it might be just the sex; he reconstructed events and saw the seeds of the change months before, when Bant had first hired him as his secretary and they had begun their friendly banter in the office. Josif now remembered the touches, the smiles, the warmth; he had been changing all along, and only noticed it all at once.
He could not bear to be disloyal to Pyoter. He had tried, for weeks, to keep things the same between them. It was impossible. Pyoter wasn't a fool, and Josif watched him getting more and more hurt as it became clearer and clearer that Josif no longer belonged to him as he had. And finally Pyoter said, Why didn't you just leave at once, instead of tearing me up bit by bit like this?
This time, Josif thought, this time I must leave. Before I destroy Kyaren, Because this boy I cannot resist, and sooner or later the change will come, if he's here often. Sooner or later it will not be Kyaren I come to with my thoughts and my feelings; or, even if the boy never becomes my friend, it will get to a point where I will be so obsessed by him, as I was obsessed by Bant, that I cannot bear to be with Kyaren anymore.
The duffle lay at his feet, half full. Why don't I go? Josif asked himself. Why am I still here? I know what I have to do, I know why, it's the way I am and the only way to stop myself is to stop everything, and yet here I sit and I haven't packed and I'm not leaving and why not?
The answer stood in the door, her face surprised, uncomprehending.
. What are you doing? Kyaren asked.
Packing, Josif answered, but he knew even then that he would not leave. He had never been able to leave Pyoter or Bant willingly; he would not be able to leave Kyaren either. I am not in control of myself, Josif realized. I gave myself to her, and I can't just decide to take myself back.
Why? Kyaren asked, already hurt because she could not comprehend what he was doing.
If I stay, I'll destroy her as I destroyed Pyoter.
We'll still be friends, Josif answered.
What brought this on? Why now, at three o'clock in the morning? What did I do?
Ansset, Josif said.
She misunderstood. How can yon possibly be jealous of him? He's only fifteen! They give them drugs in the Songhouse, he's sterile, puberty is put off for years-he hardly even has a sex, Josif--
I'm not jealous of him, Josif answered.
She stood regarding him for a while, and then realized what he meant.
Still the old sixty-two percent, is it? she asked.
No, he answered, I just see the potential, I want to avoid it.
There is no potential, she said.
You don't understand.
Damn right I don't. You mean that all this time, I've just been filling your bed until you could find a beautiful boy to fill it?
Maybe postponing it would have been better, Josif thought. Postponing is definitely better. I can't do this tonight. Because Ansset is only potential, and Kyaren is real, Kyaren I love now, and I can't bear the hurt and anger in her voice. No, he said softly, fervently. Kyaren, you don't understand. I didn't choose you. I didn't choose Bant. Things like this happen. They just happen, and I don't have any control over it.
You mean that in just one evening you suddenly forget that you love me-
No! he cried out, in agony. No! Kyaren, I just know that it's possible, it's possible and I don't want it to happen, don't you see?
"I don't, she said. If you love me, you love me.
Josif got up, walked to her, knocking over the duffel in the process. Kyaren, I don't want to leave you.
Then don't,
It's because I love you that I want to leave.
If you love me, you'll stay, she said.
He had known it, from the moment she appeared in the door. He couldn't leave her. When the change came, it would come, and then it would be
irreversible, and then he would leave because he loved someone else and there was something in him that made it impossible for him to love two people at once. But now the one person was Kyaren, and he could not leave her because she wanted him to stay.
I'll hurt you, he said.
You could not hurt me worse than leaving me now, for no reason.
He wondered if she was right, or if it was easier for no reason than for the reason that there would be in the future. Surely it was. Surely it was easier to bear if you didn't have to know who it was who took your lover's heart from you. But maybe not; she was a woman, and Josif did not understand women. Maybe she was right, and it would be better this way.
Besides, Josif, what makes you think Ansset would ever have you? He didn't have two emperors, you know.
She was right. She was right and he knew it and he went to the duffel and unpacked it and put the clothing away. He never will, Josif said. I was a fool. I'm just tired. And he undressed and got into the bed.
They made love in silence, and several times Kyaren seemed surprised by the force of his passion tonight. She did not realize that in spite of his best efforts he kept seeing the curls clinging to Ansset's neck, the soft cheek that he had not touched except in his mind but that was all the softer because of that. He tried to take Ansset's face out of his mind. And failed.
Kyaren sighed contentedly afterward, and kissed him. She thinks it's all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.
And when her breathing became heavy and regular, he leaned up on his arm and looked at her face, which she always turned away from him in sleep. He stroked her cheek softly; her mouth moved, almost like the sucking instinct of a baby.
I warned you, he said softly, so softly that perhaps the words did not even find voice. I warned you.
And he gave up and lay back and tried to steep, sour at heart because he had tried to control his life just once and could not do it after all.
Kyaren was not asleep, however, or she had been wakened by his touch. Josif, she said. I'm going to have your baby.
No, he said softly.
Please, she said. And because he was tired and not disposed to deny her anything, and because he knew that soon enough he would deny her everything, he let himself cool, and they made love again. And sometime in the next week she conceived, and when Josif saw how happy it made her and how concerned for her it made him, he began to think that maybe he had been wrong, that maybe Ansset would mean nothing to him.
For the child's sake, and because he wanted to bind himself to Kyaren even tighter, Josif insisted and they married. Now I will never let go of you in my heart, Josif thought. I will love you forever, he thought.
I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right.
9
The tour was Ansset's idea. Riktors had just returned from his tour of the prefects, and the results had been splendid. Well, why not me? Ansset asked, and the more he talked about it, the better his advisers liked it. There are always differences from region to region on a planet, Ansset said, and most planets develop dialects, some even languages. But Earth has nations. If it makes sense for the emperor to have contact with every prefect, it makes sense for the manager of Earth to have contact with every nation.
To Kyaren he also explained, The statistics and figures you and the others play with all the time, they mean nothing to me. I can't think that way. You tell me what you've concluded and I don't understand why. But when I meet them, when I hear them speak, when I hear the songs of the people and their leaders, I'll be able to understand better.
Better?
Than I do now. And in some ways, better than you understand them, for all that the computers even keep track of the number of old fleskets returned to the pots for scrap.
And so they took the tour, and Ansset brought all his top advisers with him, and allowed them to bring their spouses, those who had contracts. And that was why Josif came along, though he was not an adviser to the manager. And that was why Ansset's term as manager of Earth ended early, along with Kyaren's happiness and Josif's life.
The tour began in the Americas, with visits to Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Titicaca, Panama, Mexico, Westamerica, Eastamerica, and Quebec. In Mexico Josif and Kyaren stayed three extra days, revisiting the places and redoing the things seen and done when they first loved each other. They had their son with them, of course, little Efrim- Josif chose the name because an earlier Josif, thousands of years before, had given his favorite son that name. History, Kyaren had snorted. A ridiculous name. She actually liked it quite a bit.
Efrim was only a year old, but thought of himself as an accomplished athlete. He was unusually well coordinated for his age, but not so adroit as he thought, and he broke his arm in a fall from a ledge in the ruins of the Olympic Stadium.
Efrim is doing fine, Kyaren complained. It's you that's driving me out of my mind, Josif.
I get worried.
You get worried obnoxiously, Kyaren stud. It just takes two weeks' rest, and then he's fine. I'm taking care of him. You're just making him nervous.
I can't stand sitting around doing nothing, Josif said.
And so they decided that Josif should rejoin the manager's tour in Quebec, and they would meet again when Efrim was well, in Europe. Shouldn't you go, and I stay? After all, you're the personal adviser. I'm just a spouse.
He doesn't need me with him. And Efrim doesn't need you with him. Just see the sights and study the history and let Efrim keep busy healing instead of trying to constantly entertain, his father. He had the hiccoughs for half an hour yesterday, you got him laughing so hard.
I'm going, then, if you want to be rid of me.
She kissed him. Get out of here, she said. He got out, sorry in a way to be leaving her, but delighted not to be missing the weeks in old Europe, which, more than any other region, had preserved the ancient nations intact.
Ansset noticed him almost as soon as he returned. Back with us already?
Kyaren's staying with the baby. She kicked me out, I was impossible.
I hope the boy heals fast. And then busy again, meeting with the self-styled king of Quebec, a title only barely tolerated by the emperor because the kings of Quebec were properly subservient and remarkably hated by their people. No danger of rebellion, and therefore not a problem needing to be corrected.
Over the next several days, however, Ansset and Josif were thrown together more and more. Ansset thought at first that the meetings were accidental. Then he realized that he himself was setting them up, deliberately going to places where he knew Josif would be. He and Josif had had little contact over the months-while Ansset knew from his voice that Josif didn't dislike him, Josif still avoided him, rarely staying in a conversation very long, leaving Ansset always alone with Kyaren. Josif's shyness needed no explanation to Ansset. He respected it. But now his closest confidante and friend, Kyaren, was gone, and he needed to talk to someone. So he didn't stop himself from meeting with Josif. In fact, he began to make it more obvious. He invited him to meals, asked him along on walking tours, talked to him at night. Ansset couldn't understand why Josif always seemed reluctant to accept, yet never refused an invitation. And gradually, over the days, through Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Stratford, Baile Atha Cliath, with rain always making the air deliciously cool and comfortably dim, Josif lost his reticence, and Ansset began to understand why Kyaren was so devoted to him.
Ansset also began to notice that Josif was sexually attracted to him. Hundreds of men and women had been before. Ansset was used to it, had had to put up with it through all his years in the palace. Josif was different, though. His desire seemed not so much lust as affection, part of his friendship. It intrigued Ansset, where years before such things had repelled him. He was curious. He had grown seventeen centimeters since his appointment to Babylon, and his voice was deepening all the time. There were other changes, and he found himself with longings he did not know how
to satisfy, with questions he did not dare to ask only because he already knew the spoken answer, and the other answer he was afraid of.
At the Songhouse little was said of the drugs that singers and Songbirds were given. Just that they put off puberty, and that there were side effects. There were also whispers that it was worse for men than for women, but how it was worse, or even how it was bad, was never said. The drugs gave them five more years as children, five more years with the beautiful voices of childhood.
Well, Ansset had lost his songs and so didn't need his voice, except for the coarse singing involved in making every national leader completely devoted to him, easy tricks that he was ashamed of even as he used them. His five extra years of childhood were over, and he wanted to know what happened next.
After the meeting with the Welsh chief, who affected coarse manners but whose Gaelic was beautiful to Ansset, the planet manager and the assistant minister of colonization went to Caernarvon Castle together. It had been domed thousands of years before, the last castle of Britain to survive with some of the original stones in place. They walked together on the walls, overlooking the dense green of the grass and the trees and the blue of the water that spread between the castle and the island of Angelsea. The only sign of modern life was the flesket and the guards beside it, and the trail where the grass grew lower because of the vehicles that passed over it. There were others in the castle, of course-it was maintained as a luxury hotel, and they would spend the night there. Security guards were going through the place on a final check. But where Ansset and Josif stood, there was no one. Birds skimmed back and forth over the sea.
What is this place? Ansset asked. Why is it kept like this?
A castle was like a battleship, Josif answered. All the men would come in here when their enemies attacked, and the walls kept them out.
This was before lasers, then.
And before bombs and artillery. Just bows and arrows, spears. And a few more choice things. They used to pour boiling oil over the walls to kill the men trying to climb them.
Ansset looked down, hiding his revulsion easily, curious to see how far the drop was to the ground. It seems dangerous enough just to stand up here."
Songmaster Page 25