It was not until then that he realized there were many other figures in the room, men and women, all of them draped across chairs and couches that ran along the walls. Some studied him with curious little smiles, while others let their attention wander. Ebon gripped his trouser legs tightly as he realized that many of them were only half-clothed, and some less than that. Suddenly he did not know where to look, and his eyes darted wildly back and forth. But he was rescued as the house’s matron arrived, smiling as she came to him.
“Good evening, young sir. How may the house ease you this evening?”
Ebon found that his tongue suddenly refused to work. As he tried to force the words out, he fumbled at his purse before finally producing a gold weight. “I have coin.”
The matron’s smile widened in amusement, but she was quick to take the coin from his trembling fingers. “Thank you. Is there any sort of girl you would prefer?”
He knew his face was the color of a beet. He looked down at his fine shoes and then around the room. He could scarcely see any of the figures in the dimness, a fact not helped by the fact that spots of light now danced before his eyes. He thought he might faint. From the corner of his eye he saw the harpist grinning, though she tried to hide it.
The matron seemed to misunderstand. “My apologies if I have made an assumption. Of course we have many fine men as well. I only meant to ask if you preferred a certain type of companion.”
Ebon nearly choked. He shook his head quickly, but words would not come.
Her head tilted back slightly, and her eyes softened. “Ah. I may understand. Is this your first time, young sir?” At his shaky nod, she went on. “Your first time at a house of lovers, or … ?”
“I have not—that is, I have never—”
She stilled him with a hand on his arm. “Forgive me for not realizing it at once. Worry not. We have some experience with such things, after all. But it is important that you know there are rules—very strict rules indeed, and behind them lies the weight of the High King’s harshest law.”
“I have heard something of them,” mumbled Ebon.
She patted his hand. “Somehow I do not worry that you will break them. But I will tell you the most important one regardless: always you must obey the words of your lover. Only if you gainsay them, or act against their command, will you have anything to fear. Now, then. Would you prefer a recommendation? Sometimes that makes it easier.”
Ebon hesitated, for in truth he had no idea how to answer her. His gaze wandered again and fell upon the harpist. She now looked demurely at the floor. But the matron seemed to catch his mind.
“Adara,” she called out.
The girl’s fingers ceased on the harp at once, and she rose from her chair. One of the men in the shadows took her place, and soon the chords rang out once more—though Ebon thought they were not quite as sweet, and he wondered if that was only his imagination.
As Adara approached him, it seemed that her beauty was magnified many times over. The sway of her walk stirred him in ways he was not overly familiar with, and she did not break his gaze, so that he found he could not look away. She said nothing when she reached him, but only took his hand and drew him towards the back of the room, where a blue silk curtain hung across a small doorway.
Beyond was a hallway that stretched in both directions. She took him left, and then around a bend that turned right, finally coming to a halt before a wide door. Ebon was thankful it was wooden, and looked thick—he had feared it might be open, or covered only by a sheer curtain. Adara lifted the latch and drew him inside, and then closed it behind them both with a soft click.
The room was well-lit, far better than the entry had been. Fine crafts sat upon shelves and chests of drawers, pots and urns worked in fine clay with handles wrapped in gold. But of course, Ebon’s eyes were drawn to the bed that dominated the space. Its coverings looked even finer than those in his own room back home, though his came from all the considerable coin of his family. And this bed’s legs looked far, far sturdier.
“You may sit,” said Adara, waving a hand towards the bed. Ebon blinked for a moment before hastening to do as she said. He perched upon the edge of the bed and tried to find something sensible to do with his hands.
She smiled and shook her head. It made her braid sway back and forth, and he found himself captivated by her hair again. “That was no command. You will know a command if you hear it, though I do not suspect I shall have that need.”
“Ah. Yes, I … thank you,” said Ebon, immediately thinking that that was a stupid thing to say.
“Would you like some wine? It can bolster the nerves.”
“Sky above, yes,” said Ebon, never wanting anything so badly.
A fine golden pitcher sat next to goblets of silver, and Adara filled them both—though Ebon noted she filled one almost to the brim, and that was the one she placed in his hand. He drank greedily, recognizing the taste of cinnamon. He did not often care for cinnamon wine, but just now it seemed the finest thing he had ever drank.
Soon his cup was empty, and Adara took it gently to put on one of the tables beside the bed. Then she sat next to him, making the bed shift gently. He fought a sudden urge to edge away from her, wondering where it came from—especially since the greater part of him wanted nothing more than to move closer.
He realized she had not taken her eyes from his face, and he forced himself to meet her gaze again. She was not smiling, but neither did she look displeased. She looked only curious, as though she longed to know what he was thinking. Sure enough, she spoke at last. “Why have you come here tonight?”
Ebon gave a quick chuckle. “I should think that would be obvious. Why do most step within the blue door?”
“You know I mean more than that.”
He looked at her askance, as his mind went to his words with Tamen. Yet she could not possibly know of that, or where he came from, or what drove him here.
To distract himself as well as her, he changed the subject. “Would you not like to know my name first, at least?”
“If you wish me to know it.”
“It would not displease me.”
“Then?”
“I am Ebon.”
“Ebon. And have you a family, Ebon? Or are you a bastard?”
His nostrils flared for a moment. “I am a trueborn son.”
Adara arched an eyebrow. “You speak as if it were some great shame to be a bastard. I take it you are from Idris, then?”
“And are you from elsewhere? You have the look of the women from my kingdom.”
“My parents left there when I was very young. I was raised in Dorsea, where it is nothing special to be a trueborn child. Indeed, I think only Idris clings to the ancient tradition which shames bastards.”
Ebon blew out a slow breath through his nose. “I am sorry. I did not mean to seem so … prickly.”
That made her smile, and his heart warmed to see it. “Worry not. But also answer my question. You seem to think I shall forget it, but I will not. What drove you to open the blue door tonight, Ebon?”
You came here to forget you were a Drayden, at least for a while. He bit back the words on his tongue, though he wanted to tell her the truth. Yet what if she told others? It would not do for word to reach his father that he had visited a house of lovers. His wrath would be terrible.
Darkness take my father.
“I am here because I do not wish to be anywhere else. Wherever I go, I am my father’s son, and none will let me forget it—him least of all. He has brought me here to the Seat, where I have long wished to go, and yet what can I do here? I remain in my room all day, only slipping out into the city when my mother tells me to do so and tells my retainer not to breathe a word of it to Father. Yet I cannot visit the Academy as I wish, for then he would hear of it, and I cannot even go to a tavern without its patrons refusing to sit with me, or speak with me, or even be within arm’s reach. It is as though I walk draped in the curse of being a Drayden—”
/> He stopped short, looking at her in fear. But Adara shook her head gently and took his hand.
“I had guessed it already. Anyone in the front room would have known it at a glance. You need not trouble yourself. There are laws that you must follow while you are here, but we have our own code that we shall not break. No one will speak of your presence.”
A great breath rushed from him, and in his relief it took him a long moment to realize that she still held his hand. Now she turned it over, its palm facing up, and she traced one nail across the lines of it. It sent a prickling feeling up his arm and into his chest, where it stayed and mingled with the comfortable warmth of the wine.
“You said you wish to visit the Academy,” she said softly. “Why?”
“I have wished to go to the Academy since I was a child, and they discovered I have the gift.”
Her eyes turned sharply towards his, and he saw a spark of excitement within them. “Are you a wizard?”
“An alchemist,” he mumbled, blushing now for an entirely new reason. She looked at him as though he were some great champion of war. “But only by virtue of my gift. I have no training. I can do nothing.”
She pouted. “You cannot show me even some simple spell? I should greatly love to see it.”
He looked around. “Have you any water? I know only one spell—the one with which they test children, to see if they have the gift in the first place.”
“I have no water. Only wine.”
“I can do nothing with wine. I am sorry.”
She smiled. “Then the next time you come, I will be certain to have water ready for you.”
He looked down at his lap. “I shall not come here again. My family returns to Idris soon, and they will take me with them. But I would come if I could.”
Her hand met his cheek, and she lifted his head until he looked into her eyes once again. Time seemed to slow for a moment, and he could hear his heartbeat thundering in his chest.
“Nothing is certain. If you have come here to forget your life outside these walls, then let us have a dream together: you, that you can stay upon the Seat; and I, that you will visit me again.”
He forced himself to laugh. “Those are pretty words indeed. I thank you for them, though I know you must be bound to say what I wish to hear.”
She caught his meaning, and her eyes took on a wry twist. “You think I mean to flatter you? I do not. Some lovers would do anything to please their partners. I am not one such. If I tell you something, for good or for ill, I mean it. That is one promise I will make now, and keep always.”
A voice at the back of his mind told him that even those words were a lie, and yet Ebon believed her. And now she was so close that her breath washed sweetly across his face, and he drank it in, even as his hands rose of their own accord, and she pulled him closer to kiss him.
A short time later, they lay together beneath the satin sheets as Ebon fought to reclaim his breath. Adara was curled up beneath his arm, her head laying on his shoulder, her braid now undone to let her hair spill across his meager chest.
“You must tell me,” he said between heaving breaths. “Was I any good?”
“Not at all,” she said, stretching up to kiss him. “But that is all right, for we have our dream. And in it, you will keep coming to see me—and mayhap, one day, practice will see you perfect.”
HE WOKE WITH A TERRIBLE headache and the urge to vomit. Soon it grew too strong to ignore, and he fell from his bed to crawl for the chamber pot. Twice he retched, his face growing red. Then at last it poured out, thick and purple, full of the wine from the night before.
When it was over he rested for a moment, leaning his forehead on the chamber pot’s chilly rim. At last he raised his head and looked around. The sight of his own room in the Drayden manor somewhat surprised him.
He remembered Adara—remembered her in vivid, lurid detail that even now made his stomach turn in knots—and he vaguely recalled leaving the house of lovers. He remembered returning to the tavern and ordering another flagon of wine. And there the memory faded.
The door opened without a knock, and Tamen came in with a warm, wet towel. He began to scrub flecks of vomit from Ebon’s lips.
“I am fine, Tamen,” said Ebon. But he put the lie to his words by clutching his forehead, where an iron spike seemed to be trying to burst from his skull.
“Of course you are,” said Tamen, raising an eyebrow. He helped Ebon up and back to his bed, covering him with a sheet for decency. “I shall fetch some tea and empty your chamber pot before the whole manor smells of your insides.”
He closed the door just a little too hard. Ebon winced at the sharp sound. Then he could do nothing but wait, until the door reopened at last and Tamen came to sit by his bedside.
“Here.” With small brass tongs he held out a lump of sugar, which Ebon put on his tongue. Then from a saucer he served the green tea, not too hot, and Ebon groaned as its warmth filled him.
“Thank you,” Ebon croaked, relaxing back into his pillows.
“You are only halfway to a cure. Now you must eat.”
“Food is the last thing my stomach desires just now.”
“And the first thing it needs.”
“Leave me be, just a moment, I beg you.” Ebon threw his head under the pillow to shield it from the sunlight coming through the window.
“I will not leave while you might still retch again. But I suppose I can guess from your current state that you enjoyed your evening?”
Beneath his pillow, Ebon could not keep a small smile from playing across his lips. “You cannot tell me I said nothing of it when I returned to the tavern.”
He peeked out from his covers. A smirk tugged at Tamen’s lips, and the man’s eyes held a knowing glint. “You could barely speak. I have seen you drunk often enough, but not like that. It was all I could do to get you home.”
Ebon’s heart froze. “Tell me that my parents were not awake to witness it.”
“Do you think I would have let them? Then their wrath would have fallen on me, not you. But they stayed at the palace late last night, and have returned there already this morning. You slept through their entire presence here.”
That made him shoot up from beneath the pillow. He regretted the sudden motion at once. His hand went to his forehead with a sharp groan. “How long did you say they have been waiting? They must have risen early.”
“Hardly. It is nearly time for midday’s meal. You have slept long.”
Ebon slumped back upon his pillows with a groan. He still did not know why his parents had brought him here. He hardly saw them, even to eat together. Why bring him just so that he could stay in the manor all day? If they had left him in Idris, at least he would have been free from Father for a time, with Albi for company.
He knew better than to voice these complaints to Tamen, of course. But at the thought of his sister, he lifted a weak hand. “Fetch me a quill and parchment. I should write to Albi.”
But the retainer only folded his arms. “For what purpose? You will return soon, and then she will be alone no longer.”
“We are to leave the Seat?”
Tamen rolled his eyes, as though it were Ebon’s fault that his parents never informed him of such things. “As soon as they have concluded their business at the palace, which, sky willing, should be today.”
Ebon’s hand closed in a fist, scrunching his bed sheets. He forced himself to relax. “Then this trip was truly a waste. More than a week holed up in the manor, and for no purpose. My father—”
He bit the words off at once. My father’s cruel joke is complete, he had almost said. But that would pass from Tamen’s ears straight to his parents.
The retainer tilted his head as if curious, though he must have known that Ebon’s next words would not have been courteous. “Do not regret your journey here too strongly. Just think: if you had been left home, a certain … opportunity would never have presented itself.”
Ebon flushed. When he retu
rned home and told Albi of the High King’s Seat, last night would be one part of the story he would certainly leave out. But then a thought struck him. Had Tamen’s leniency been at the command of Ebon’s parents?
He dismissed the notion at once. They could have had no purpose for doing so. His father would never be so generous. Ebon’s mother would sometimes grant him little boons, when she thought his father might not see it, but a visit to a house of lovers seemed a step quite too far.
Out loud, he said only, “I wish I were not going to be dragged off home again.”
This time Tamen could not stop a wide grin, though he quickly hid it. “Still thinking of the blue door? Goodness. You must have had quite the time.”
Ebon felt a mighty need to steer the conversation in another direction. “I should get dressed. Fetch me some clothes.”
“Very well.” Tamen rose, and from a cabinet by the window he produced a suit of fine yellow silk, tailored like all of Ebon’s clothes to hug his thin frame. “But do not fret overmuch. One day, when you are head of the household, you can return to the Seat. The blue door will still be there.”
“As will the Academy,” said Ebon. “Mayhap I shall even enroll in studies.”
Tamen snorted. “Forgive me if I am blunt, but that is a ridiculous thought. Children are expected to begin in their tenth year. If fate is kind to your father, you will not be head of the household until you have nearly reached your fortieth.”
Ebon glared as the retainer laid his outfit at the foot of the bed. “I shall have no one to gainsay me. I could do whatever I wished.”
Tamen turned sharply, throwing down the trousers in his hand. They fell in a rumpled heap atop the rest of the clothes. “No, Ebon, you could not. Even you are not so foolish. You will have responsibilities then, to your sister and to the rest of the family. Would you abandon that responsibility? I know you have no great love for our kin, but you should think at least of Albi.”
The Academy Journals Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 3) Page 2