Matrugena looked around vacantly for a moment. “Yes,” he confirmed, and tapped one foot on the floor of the car, rather happily, Kanmi thought. “Lots of fault lines. Lots of volcanism. These are younger mountains. Lots of plate tectonics. . . and the ley-lines in the area are about all that are keeping the area even vaguely stable, I think. I. . .” he stole a look at their driver, and cut himself off, glancing down at the floor for a moment. Kanmi didn’t need to be a mind-reader to understand what Trennus had been about to say. Between the plethora of ley-lines and the geological instability, this place is a ley-mage’s playground. Good. He’s weakened with Lassair stuck in physical form. A little extra power is not a bad thing here.
The rest of the city had similar monolithic architecture—many of the ancient buildings were formed of stones taller than a man, and sloped subtly inwards—with modern amenities inside. Kanmi’s senses crawled as they passed from one neighborhood to another, and the insulated copper wires swinging from one pole to the next changed, from corner to corner, from ley to electricity and back again. He had to rub a hand over the back of his neck to make the hairs there settle down. “This place is going to drive me crazy,” he muttered, as they passed a modern skyscraper that loomed over a stone structure that clearly dated from the Plague period. He glanced to his right, and realized that Minori was largely unaffected. Damn. Chalk one up for the traditionalists. I guess if you don’t use an energy type all the time, you’re not sensitized to it. And while Kanmi didn’t use ley at all, Trennus did, and Kanmi was constantly around Matrugena.
They were south of the equator, so the seasons were reversed from what Kanmi thought of as normal, but winter here wasn’t actually the wettest season; the city received most of its rain during December, at the height of its summer. At the moment, the skies were gray, and little flecks of hail spat down at their vehicle periodically. Their driver turned around to tell them, cheerfully, in Quecha-inflected Latin, “You get lots of snow elsewhere, yes? We don’t, here in Cuzco. First snow I ever seen, four years ago! Priests said Mamaquilla was laughing, that’s why it happened. Rain, yes. Hail, yes. Freezing rain, yes. Never white, soft flakes. Was pretty, but it didn’t last. Got a cousin further south. Says their mountains get snow, white-capped all year around. Glaciers, I think the word is. You should go see them. Tours are supposed to be nice.”
Trennus, one arm around Lassair, chuckled and chatted with the driver, telling him about the amount of snow usually seen in Tarvodubron, the current seat of the Pictish kingdom in Britannia. Kanmi shuddered at the description, and Minori smiled and entered into the conversation. The two of them actually seemed to take pride in the viciously cold temperatures of their homelands, and the waist-deep snow both had occasionally seen. “All right, you win,” Trennus told Minori after a while, grinning. “Your island is worse than mine.”
“I like winning. I’m not, however, sure that I should enjoy this victory.” Minori chuckled
Kanmi was startled by the laughter. It changed Minori’s entire face, but he had nothing to contribute here. The current temperature was more than cold enough for his tastes. He shook his head, incanting under his breath to increase the warmth available to his feet and hands. Lassair, at least, seemed to agree with him. You don’t need to waste energy doing that, Emberstone, she told him, with a little mental chuckle. Here. Allow me.
Warmth radiated from her, making the backseat of the taxi surprisingly toasty for the rest of the trip. “You’re handy to have around,” Kanmi told the elemental as they arrived at the hotel.
They were over eleven thousand feet above sea level here, the air was thin enough to tear at Kanmi’s lungs, and it was dry enough that it felt as if his lips were starting to crack already. Wonderful. A higher, colder version of Judea. Kanmi got the room keys and made a point of wrapping an arm around Minori’s waist and smiling down at her. “Apparently, we got a room with a view, on the ground floor, just opposite Matru and Asha. They’re on the inside of the hall. We got the outside. Their loss, our gain, honey.” A room with a window on the ground floor was, to Kanmi’s mind, inherently insecure. Swapping rooms wasn’t an option, it had become clear as he’d conversed with the people at the front desk. Local culture was pretty ingrained that where you were told to go, you went. Making more of a fuss would stand out, so he’d ward the door and windows, heavily.
He’d felt her jump as his arm had fallen around her waist, but he’d already decided how they could play this out. They’d be the feuding couple, the one on the verge of breakup. The one no one in their sane minds wanted to be around, let alone listen to. It would be realistic, and would account for the fact that she jumped every time he touched her. He just needed to talk to her about it in the room, once he’d done all his usual counter-surveillance measures.
Their room, as it turned out, had tile on floors and walls alike, and echoed, almost painfully, as the door slammed open. Kanmi grimaced. We’re going to be sleeping inside of a bath complex, for the sake of the gods. He tipped the bellhop, waited for the man to leave, and closed the door behind them, warding it out of habit, and then reaching out with electrical energies to disable any recording devices in the room. It wasn’t likely that there’d be any. . . but habits were habits.
He was thus, highly surprised when Minori turned on him and hissed under her breath, “What are you doing?”
Kanmi blinked. “Checking for listening devices—”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not what I meant. I meant, why are you acting like this?” Minori threw up her hands. “If this is how you treated your wife, I think I understand why she left you!”
Kanmi felt his face turn into stone. Watched Minori’s eyes suddenly go wide. He caught a glimpse of his expression in a mirror across the room, and realized that his eyes were completely blank. Dead. Minori closed her own eyes, and began to apologize, “Forgive me. I didn’t mean that—”
“Forget it.” Kanmi picked up the luggage and moved it into the room. Dropped hers by the bed, and moved his own over to the window. Looked out of it, shook his head at the bright sunlight and various spiky, odd-looking trees around what appeared to be a swimming pool, part of a Roman-style bathing complex behind the hotel, and began to incant over the glass, pressing his hands to it.
“I really am sorry, Master Eshmunazar.”
“You should probably forget my family name for the time being, doctor.” His voice was toneless as he closed down the curtains. “My given name is Kanmi.”
“Yes. I am aware.” She didn’t actually say it, however. “I . . . we were given a role to act, and you are making it very difficult to . . . to. . . ”
He didn’t turn around. Simply dug a blanket out of one of the dresser drawers, and started setting up the couch. He hadn’t slept on the ornithopter flight, he was tired, and didn’t particularly want to deal with her at the moment. “To what?” he finally asked. “Act as if we’re what we’re not?” Caetia always said I had lies in my eyes. Trouble is, this isn’t my lie. This is someone else’s and it’s a damned fool one. “Tell you what. You stop jumping every time I put a hand on you, and I’ll try to at least make the smiles look more genuine.”
“I will try.” She sounded painfully confused. “Where I was raised. . . it’s not considered proper even for a married couple to touch one another in public in this fashion.”
“We could just pretend to hate each other. Be in the process of a breakup.” Wouldn’t even be a stretch, now would it? Kanmi took his shoes off, belatedly noticing that Minori had done the same at the door of the room. He lay down on the couch now, closing his eyes.
“And then why would you go everywhere with me?” Her tone was exasperated.
“Because I am a masochist.”
A sound, somewhere between a laugh and a growl, made him open his eyes. She now stood only two feet away, much to his surprise, and pointed down at the couch. “And the maids? When they come to change the room? Won’t they notice that you are not, ah. . .” She flushed, and glanced at the bed.
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“Look, I’m not noble enough to sacrifice my back every night of this trip. We’ll trade off who gets the bed.”
Another sound of total frustration. “That is. . . it’s. . . .” She spluttered to a halt. “Why are you making this so difficult? This will not look right. It will occasion commentary.”
Kanmi relented enough to say, “In my experience, doctor . . . Minori . . . no one will even bat an eye if they think you’ve banished me from the bed.” He closed his eyes again. The closest thing he’d had to a relationship in the past five years had been a trip, every other month or so, to a brothel that Livorus had recommended. Clean, quiet, upscale, discreet, and some of the girls there actually were hedge wizards. They knew just enough to be able to use magic in some very stimulating fashions. . . though Kanmi had made a point of not developing a regular girl there. Just whoever was available, and he didn’t ask names. He didn’t want to develop any illusory feelings. “Unless, of course, you’re asking me to join you, doctor.” He didn’t open his eyes. “Personally, I wouldn’t trust me, if I were you. Shit. I don’t trust me, and I’m not you.” And I’m not noble enough to share a bed with someone who looks like you and not get stupid ideas around three antemeridian. Distance is better. Distance is safer.
There was a pause. “What did pass between you and your wife?” Minori finally asked. Her voice was suddenly very sad. “What made you like this? What are you fighting with?”
“Oh, it’s not her. I was a bitter and nasty person before her. Ask anyone. As to what went on in my marriage. . . .” Kanmi considered telling her it was none of her business, and reconsidered, slightly. “There’s nothing in my life I haven’t had to fight for.” Simple, bald words. “I’ve fought for my life, my education, my wife, my career, and my children. I lost the battle with my wife. I don’t know what mistake, or what series of mistakes lost me that fight.” He opened his eyes and looked at Minori. “Most people don’t like fighting. They’ll go along to get along. They’ll bend their necks for some noble’s noose. Not me.” His voice was tired now. “That explain it?”
Minori hesitated, and finally nodded, slowly. “I will try not to jump when you touch me,” she said, simply. “If you try to look less dyspeptic. I will smile if you smile. But it would be much easier to act as I am supposed to act, if you behaved as if you were interested in me. In that way.” Her tone was confused, and a little forlorn. “If it helps, you could pretend that your sons are here. You are much gentler when they are around.”
Kanmi bit back his first three replies, all variations on mind your own business, exhaled, and nodded against his pillow. “Let me sleep for an hour,” he told her, consciously gentling his tone. “Keep the door locked. And then I will escort you to dinner. First thing in the morning. . . ley-facilities. Matru and Asha get to scout the cultural centers. That all right with you?”
“Dinner would be more than acceptable,” she assured him, but Kanmi was already drifting asleep, secure in the knowledge that he’d warded doors and windows, and cleared the room of electronic surveillance.
___________________
Maius 11-17, 1960 AC
Minori couldn’t complain entirely about Eshmunazar’s behavior after that. He was punctiliously polite in every regard. Held a chair for her to sit in at every meal. He took her advice on behaving as if his sons were present, and his manner became, if not gentle, then at least not actively harsh. But there was no warmth in his eyes, except when they happened to be discussing sorcery. Then he opened up and become enthusiastic. Fortunately, this was a topic on which Minori could converse readily. There were very few others that they could discuss in public. The on-going mission was out, naturally. The Source Initiative couldn’t be spoken of, either. And while Minori had been trained carefully to follow other people’s conversational leads, and to adopt their interests as if they were her own, Eshmunazar didn’t have any of the interests on which she’d been trained to speak. He didn’t read poetry. His opinion on art was that he should be able to recognize what was depicted. She didn’t watch gladiatorial competitions on the far-viewer, though he did, and neither of them watched any of the long-running comedies based on the works of Plautus that were currently popular. That left sorcery and technomancy as the only possible topics for them. Their quiet-voiced conversations on sorcery were, actually, the best parts of each day, as they traveled from site to site through the steep and often slick, mountain roads. He’d seen a fair bit of combat, both on the Mongol border, and as a Praetorian, and therefore had the practical experience that she lacked.
She had, however, come to three separate, but interrelated conclusions about the man, based on her observations of him. First was that while Eshmunazar tended to shrug off attempts to get him onto the mats for martial arts training, and only participated if it were required. . . the man treated every conversation as if he were in a fight for his life. His guard was up, perpetually, he obviously kept score in his head, and he constantly jabbed and feinted to draw reactions. He judged people’s reflexes, wits, and style based on their reactions. Catalogued their weaknesses and got ready to strike in return, if it became necessary. The fact that he got along with Matrugena was a testament, Minori thought, to the Britannian’s patience and tolerance.
Second, and connected to both that and Kanmi’s own assessment that everything he’d ever wanted in life, he’d had to fight for, was Minori’s realization that he, like the other lictors, considered himself more a weapon than a person. At least, when he was at work. At home, around his boys, he was free to be a person again. But as they started visiting ley-facilities, with her telling the facility managers that she’d taken a sabbatical to pursue research for her next book, she watched how he observed everyone around them. He never focused for long, because he saw the whole room, and everyone in it, all at once, and was ready to react to all of it, the instant anything became a threat. And she began to see him as a weapon, as well. A finely-made sword, honed and worn from constant use.
An off-hand comment that his wife hadn’t really grasped what he did for a living—she thought I was a technician—led her to a third conclusion. His wife would have preferred him to be a tool, instead of a weapon. Or at least, the mysterious woman hadn’t been able to reconcile the person at home, with the weapon at work, or the danger of the work, or . . . something along those lines. While every word Minori heard on the subject—and there weren’t many—came from Eshmunazar’s own mouth, she was left an inescapable conclusion: when Eshmunazar looked at her, he didn’t see her. He saw someone else. His wife. A faceless noblewoman. A job. She’d pointed this out to him, in their room, as she took the couch the second night. “It would possibly be easier to maintain the disguise if you tried to look at me more as if I were a person,” she pointed out, cautiously. “And not a task or an object.”
He blinked. “And here I thought I had been perfectly polite. Almost noble in my manners.”
“It’s not your manners, but your demeanor. You continue to act as if I were a stranger.” She spread her hands. “If I were watching us on a stage, even at a kabuki festival, my suspension of disbelief would be broken. I think we need to try for actual warmth instead of polite toleration.”
“Doctor. . . Minori. . . I rarely put an arm around a complete stranger and kiss their hair. Which I did at dinner. Twice. I counted.”
Minori had pulled the blankets over her head. “Look,” she said, after a minute’s silence, staring up at the wool. “Anyone watching will look at Matrugena and Asha, and then look at us, and . . . they’re just not going to believe it.” It was true, too. Matrugena and his spirit-wife were never further than arm’s length from one another.
“All right. I’ll grant you that.” Eshmunazar’s voice was reluctant. “What do you want me to do to fix it?”
Minori, still buried under her blankets on the couch, heard him rustling around, getting ready for bed, himself. She looked upwards, seeing nothing but darkness, courtesy of the thick alpaca wool between her and
the ceiling, and swallowed. Asha had caught her at dinner, and had made a pragmatic, if cryptic suggestion. You and Emberstone resonate the same way, except that he is angry right now. If you and he matched resonances, you would be in harmony. Everyone would see and hear it. That had seemed. . . fairly clear. Even rational, and the spirit had smiled the whole time, comfortingly.
“We could have relations,” Minori offered, her voice muffled. “That would take care of the issue.”
There was a slight choking sound from elsewhere in the room. She didn’t dare pull the blankets down to see his expression, however. “What a charming offer,” Eshmunazar finally replied, when he was done coughing. “I’ll pass, but thank you.”
Minori blinked. She hadn’t expected that response. She pulled her blanket down from over her head, but didn’t quite look in his direction. “I didn’t think that the notion would make you laugh.” Her cheeks burned. This was humiliating. She was not particularly forward, and even making the offer had cost her something.
“Hah. No. It’s not that. It’s the ‘here, come have your way with me and I’ll pretend I’m somewhere else, and that’ll convince people that we’re intimate, because sex equals intimacy’ equation you’ve got there that’s funny. You need to check your math, doctor. I’ve been in enough brothels to know that you’ve misplaced a one in the tens column.”
Minori choked and sat up, and holding the blankets up to her neck. The bed creaked as he settled in, and his voice was sharp as he continued, “You keep asking who made me the way I am? I could ask you the same thing. Who fucked your head over so badly, that you think that an offer like that is going to get a man to come running? Who in Baal’s name made you think that cringing under the blankets and offering to do the deed is going to excite someone?”
His voice was tired, but there was a reluctant edge of sympathy there. And Minori shrank back from it. “It doesn’t matter,” she told him, her voice dull, and rolled over on the couch. A moment later, she rolled back over again, and snapped out, “I only offered because Asha suggested it.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 95