Kanmi hadn’t been joking when he said that she added up for him, but right now, the equation had gone back to missing a variable or two. Her reactions to him had damned near been those of a virgin, but she’d mentioned some previous experience. And then her comment about not knowing if she really liked men or not . . . when clearly, she did. Or at least, she’d liked what he’d done. “You told me once,” he said, idly, as she slipped into the tub, and he followed after, “that you had been bored at the Imperial Court. Why is that?”
The question made her stiffen a little, even though the warm water was soothing, and he had to urge her to lie back against his chest. “The Imperial Court . . . is not like the Imperator of Rome’s,” Minori began, carefully. “It is not like the Emperor of Tawantinsuyu’s, either. The Emperor in Nippon is cloistered. He is a religious figure. Kami-born, he is a figure of respect and veneration, the spiritual heart of our land . . . but he is, by tradition, not the military leader of our people. That responsibility is that of the shogun. The shoguns were meant to be temporary leaders.” She chuckled a little. “A thousand years of temporary. But you see, the Emperor’s Court is meant to be austere. Formal. Quiet. A place of contemplation and study of the kami, of magic, of natural philosophy. It was everything I wanted, but it was also horribly boring, yes. I loved the studying. I hated being cloistered. There were guards and chaperones everywhere. And the Emperor had his Empress and about a dozen bound concubines. All of whom were meant to be upright examples of virtue, just as any concubine bound to a lord should be.”
Kanmi’s eyebrows rose. “Your culture deals with this very differently than mine,” he admitted.
“There is no shame in it,” she told him, earnestly, turning to look up at him a bit. “My mother is a bound concubine to my father. She and I lived under the same roof with him and his lady wife. She and his wife were most agreeably behaved to one another. Polite. Kind.”
“So, the various concubines . . . all the Emperor’s age?” Kanmi asked, playing a little with Minori’s hair. He rather liked the texture.
“No, not at all. Some were as young as eighteen, when I came to the court at the age of thirteen.”
Kanmi looked up at the ceiling. “Rigidly-controlled environment. Young people. Boredom. This cannot end well.”
Minori turned back away, and let her hair fall across her face. “It doesn’t.” She sighed. “I told you that I learned to unlock doors at the palace. I wanted to go outside, into the gardens, without a chaperone. I wanted freedom from the routine. I was caught once or twice, early on, and after that, I learned how to listen for the guards, and stay out of sight. When I was sixteen . . . Asuka, the Emperor’s newest concubine . . . five years my elder . . . decided that my ability to unlock doors that were closed would be useful.” Minori swallowed. This was painful, and not a little humiliating. But the water was warm, and Kanmi’s fingers against her scalp were amazingly soothing, and she was about as tired as she ever had been in her life. Most of her defenses were down. “She was beautiful. And she began to bring me little gifts. We didn’t need a chaperone, since we were both women, and she had always conducted herself in such perfect conformity to the rules of the palace. Everyone said what a good influence she would be on me. She became my dearest friend . . . and I hadn’t had many friends at all, before her.” Minori looked down into the water, and exhaled. “It started with little things. Hugs. Kisses. I fell a little in love with her. Everyone was. She was that beautiful—not like Lassair, but . . . it was impossible not to love her.”
Kanmi’s voice behind her held an odd note. “I’ve met the type, yes.” He scooped warm water up and over her shoulders. “And then what happened?”
Minori shrugged. “She wanted to do more than that. She told me . . .” A slightly watery chuckle. “She told me that it wasn’t really sex. That it wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. And it wouldn’t compromise my virginity. I could still be given as a wife or concubine, without shame to my father.”
She could feel his body stiffen a little. “Minori,” he said, quietly, “if it’s something you feel a need to hide from people . . . it probably actually is sex.”
“Yes. I realize that. But at the time, I was sixteen, and it was fun. Exciting. I was old enough to know better, but I didn’t care. Well, that’s not true. I did care, but by the time I realized how serious what I was doing was, I was in over my head.” Minori shrugged a little, hating her sixteen-year-old self. Intensely. “And then she told me she wanted me to open a door for her, and I did . . . only to realize she wanted to go there to meet with her other lover. Mitsuo. One of the guards.” Minori swallowed. “Asuka laughed when I told her that it was wrong, and informed me that if I breathed a word, she’d tell everyone what we’d been doing in her chambers.” Her voice was dull. “I was now a means to an end. I never let her touch me again, but I now had a choice. I could do the honorable thing, and reveal everything . . . and probably have to commit suicide to prevent my shame from staining my father . . . or I could remain silent.” She bowed her head. “I remained silent. I opened doors, until Mitsuo gave her a set of keys all her own. And then I was in a position in which I could remain apart, silent, and blessedly uninvolved. Technically, I could have blackmailed her in turn, but she had an equal hold on me. I could see no good in fighting, when the result would be mutual destruction.”
“Please tell me this bitch got what she deserved,” Kanmi said, his voice grim.
“That depends greatly on what your definition of justice is.” Minori looked up at him, sidelong, through her hair. “When I was eighteen, she was caught with Mitsuo. Mitsuo was executed. I’m not sure he deserved that. Asuka was sent to be a shrine-maiden. I was pleasantly surprised when she did not mention my early involvement in the affair to anyone at court. But I took the first opportunity to leave that I could. Begged my father to allow me to study in Gaul, under a different name. Away from court, and its intrigues. My father finally agreed. My skills were too masculine, and while I had not brought him any shame, he could see that court life . . . had not agreed with me.”
Kanmi rubbed a damp hand over her hair. “All right. That explains a . . . well, a lot. But, Minori . . .” He winced. “I have evidence that you weren’t even a technical virgin just now.”
“Yes. My first year at the University of Lutetia, I went about disqualifying myself from being given as a concubine or wife.” Minori huddled in on herself again. “I found an obliging Gaul named Calgacus, and was . . . intimate with him, for about six months.”
“And this also ended badly?”
“It wasn’t very much fun.” Her voice was low. “Most of the time, it hurt, and at the end, I decided I should probably just focus on my studies.” She peeked up through her hair. “So . . . here I am.” Her voice wavered. “Now you know everything. Including why my name is different here than in Nippon, and why I do not go home.”
Kanmi shook his head. It was a lot to absorb. A lot of baggage. Then again, he had more than his fair share, himself. “The Gaul you disqualified yourself with . . . gods, what a phrase . . .” He looked up at the ceiling. “I take it he was about your age?”
“. . . yes.” Minori peered at him. “Why?”
“It’s a skill, Min. It takes practice. No one ever got good at sorcery by not practicing, did they?” Kanmi brought his eyes back down from the ceiling. “Young men tend to be very randy, and very bad at sex. I was.” He did his best not to wince at the recollections. “Put an inexperienced young man with an inexperienced young woman, and either they break each other in and magically stumble their way into competence, or they wind up needing practical experience with a good tutor, or a lot of exposure to books and cinema.”
He caught a rather watery chuckle from her direction, and she mopped at her face with wet hands. “You . . . don’t mind? About Asuka?”
“That you’re attracted to both genders?” Kanmi snorted. “Lassair has an effect on you, but I think Lassair would have an effect on a stick
.” He paused, listening to her slightly livelier chuckle. “No, to me, doesn’t matter at all. That being said, cheating is cheating. Doesn’t matter with which gender.” He looked down at her. “Then again, you had a lying bitch use you so she could cheat on you and her . . . husband . . . .”
“Lord.”
“Semantics, Minori. My point is, you know first-hand why it’s a bad idea.” He leaned his head back. “Something heavier of a topic than I had imagined for in here.” Then again, I had no idea how bad her background was. Gods. For noble-born, she’s been used as much as any commoner, and by people who are supposed to be better than the rest of us.
She half-turned again, and gave him a very serious look. “Yes. I . . . yes.” A little, shamed shrug, and he winced; he hadn’t meant to make her look like that. “I was stupid. And I was wrong.”
“We’re all wrong, sooner or later,” Kanmi told her, glumly. “That’s the only way we mortals ever learn anything.”
“And what have you been wrong about?” she asked, as he pushed her forwards, so he could stand and exit the tub, wrapping a towel around his waist temporarily.
“Put your head back. I’ll get the blood and dirt out of your hair, all right?” He leaned against the edge of the tub, and worked with shampoo powder—compliments of the hotel—and very patient fingers, to untangle a dozen knots. “Lots of things, I’m sure. Trouble is, I’m never exactly sure where the mistake actually was.” His fingers caught on a knot, and he slowed down and tugged more gently on the hair, separating it carefully. “Take my ex-wife, for example. I have no idea what it was that I did or said that convinced her that I was a bad father, let alone that I was going to take the boys away entirely. I was going to share custody. I’d have let them visit her. I wasn’t going to excise them from each other’s lives.”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.” He knew he shouldn’t be talking about this, not now, but then again, she had asked. Kanmi forced his fingers to relax. “I’ve been back over it in my mind a hundred times, and I still have no idea where the turning point was. I missed it. I’m never going to know where, precisely, I fucked up.” He exhaled through his teeth. “And that’s a worse feeling than knowing exactly how you screwed up.” Kanmi helped Minori sit back up, and handed her a towel.
“So what do you do, going forwards?” Minori asked him, drying off her hair, first. Kanmi’s eyes slipped downwards, and he entertained serious thoughts of trying to pull her back to the bed, but he didn’t want to push his luck right now. She might have been keyed up from adrenaline an hour ago, but sooner or later, she was going to remember that he was abrasive, rude, arrogant (not that it wasn’t warranted, but, still . . . ), and further remember that she couldn’t stand him.
He realized he hadn’t answered her, when she started combing out her hair, studying him patiently with her dark, liquid stare. “Try not to wind up going down exactly the same path,” Kanmi supplied, picking up his clothes in the next room, and grimacing at the sweat, dirt, and blood on them, before incanting quietly. All the foreign contaminants leaped off, and fell into a pile of dust on the floor. “Try to find new and exciting ways to fuck up completely.” He stepped into his pants, and started lacing the fly, as Minori came back out of the bathroom, and stared at his clean clothing.
“How did you do that?” Minori laughed, sounding delighted. “You . . . you have a laundry spell?”
“Doctor, how do you think I managed to get myself and two small boys out the door every morning for the past four years? Of course I developed a laundry spell. You have any idea how hard it is to find exactly the number of assarii I need for the laundry machines at the ablutum down the street?” He paused. “I take it that means you want yours cleaned, too?”
Minori covered her mouth, laughing. Kanmi looked across at her. “Nothing from nothing. What do I get in exchange?”
She walked over, and, rather shyly, raised herself up on tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. Kanmi considered that, kissed her back, saying, “There’s your change,” and incanted again, ensuring that her clothes, too, were free of stink, blood, and dirt. He shrugged on his shirt, and, back in the bathroom, held up the shampoo box and eyed the soap inside consideringly. “I don’t suppose it would be safe to use this on my teeth. Even if I had a toothbrush.”
“Ah, no. Not unless you wish for your insides to be very clean as well.” She shrugged. “Aside from which, the water is contaminated.”
“Water I can fix. Mildly toxic soap is much harder to deal with.” He shrugged. “Maybe the gift shop sells toothpowder.” He paused. “Assuming the gift shop is open.” Kanmi set the shampoo tin aside, and as Minori, dressed now, edged closer and slipped her arms around his waist, looked down in surprise, and then wrapped his arms around her, in return. “I would very much like to see more of you, doctor. If that would be acceptable to you.”
“Well, I live and work in Gaul,” she said, quietly.
“That presents a possible issue. But I travel somewhat extensively in my job.”
She nodded against his chest. “Also,” she noted, “what are the chances that Eleutherian Industries is going to let me keep working for them after today?”
Smart lady. “I don’t know. On the one hand, you were on-site for a fairly large eruption, and can confirm it wasn’t the ley-grid’s fault. On the other hand . . . .”
“. . . that non-disclosure form Livorus made me sign probably means I can’t actually say what happened, until someone else makes it public? Which will rather cast doubts on all of my results and theories, or at least, leave a gaping hole in the middle of them.”
“Burn that bridge once you’ve left it behind you,” Kanmi advised. “Let’s go see about this meeting, shall we?”
___________________
Once they’d all assembled in Livorus’ room, Sigrun found a seat next to Adam, and surveyed everyone. So many faces, new and old, who had their places in her heart, now. She felt dizzy. A little disoriented, really, and had been since the mountain. She hadn’t wanted to mention it to Adam during the flight; she’d put it down to the swaying motion of the ornithopter’s wings, and the fact that it was a smaller model than the large commercial liner they’d used to get here.
That didn’t, unfortunately, explain the borderline synesthesia she was experiencing. Or perhaps it was more of a pre-epilepsy symptom. Either way, it disturbed her. She wasn’t used to having her body disobey her; it was as much a tool as she was, herself. But now, every time she looked at someone, she saw . . . colors. Like a halo, all around their bodies, shifting like the aurora borealis, but each person had a different, distinct shade. Adam gleamed a brilliant silver. Trennus had rich earthen browns and forest greens, overlain by a shimmer of Lassair’s yellow-reds . . . and Lassair was a creature entirely comprised of that fire, in spite of the fact that she was firmly in human form right now. And Trennus’ colors wrapped around her, as well. They’re a living Ouroborus, Jormungand, she thought. No end. No beginning. Kanmi had smoldering red light around his body, while Minori had a veil of two tones of blue, light blue and dark, enfolded around her like gossamer . . . and to Sigrun’s fascination, as she looked at them, Kanmi’s light, and Minori’s, oscillated at the same rate. They . . . resonate. Like a ley-line. Or perhaps I’m just losing my mind.
No, Lassair told her, gently. Your eyes are simply more open now. You see as I do, sister.
Sigrun grimaced, hoping that it would pass. Or at least settle down a little. The effect was both giving her a headache and making her sick to her stomach, two states with which she’d had little experience in her life. She didn’t catch diseases, and she couldn’t get drunk, and thus, had never been hung-over. And by and large, motion on waves or in the air didn’t unsettle her.
Alone in the room she shared with Adam, with only a brief visit from Kanmi and Minori, the colors had been . . . manageable. And Adam had picked her up in his arms in the sheer exuberance of being alive, and had murmured sweet things in her ear, and they’d found the
ir way to the bed. Sigrun usually had to remind herself not to clench her fingers too tightly against Adam’s arms. And periodically had to remind him that she could take hard and fast. “You’re sure?” he’d asked, looking concerned. “You did just take all of Min’s internal injuries.”
“I don’t feel any pain right now.” She’d smiled up at him, and slid her arms around his neck, enjoying the silvery bright halo around him. “Adam, the gods made valkyrie with bear-warriors in mind. When I say harder, I do, in truth, mean it.”
His face had lit up with love and amusement, and he’d taken her at her word.
In the here and now, Adam pointedly sniffed as Kanmi and Minori took their seats. “I don’t mean to be intrusive,” he said, in a tone that suggested he was about to have a little fun at Eshmunazar’s expense, and Sigrun watched Minori’s face flicker with alarm and embarrassment, “but . . . .”
“Watch it, ben Maor,” Kanmi muttered, clearly expecting Adam to go a certain direction with this conversation.
Adam grinned outright, and went the other direction entirely, “The two of you are clean. You didn’t happen to get the only room connected to the only unbroken water pipe in the hotel. You cleaned the water up and bathed, and laundered your clothes, too.” He looked around. “I think it would be a needed boost to everyone’s morale if you provided bathing and cleaning services to everyone else, as well.”
Except for me. I am clean. And all that water is a little disturbing. Lassair’s admission made everyone around the table start to chuckle. The laughter held a slightly hysterical edge.
Livorus, at the head of the small table in his hotel room, smiled faintly. His aura was different than the others. Darker. Subtler. Not the same steel as Adam, but . . . still metal, of a sort. Pitted and scored with use, like a meteorite fallen to earth. “Also, potable drinking water. All the hotel has, that was previously bottled, is chicha.”
“The good news is, they haven’t manufactured that by chewing the corn and spitting it into a bowl to ferment for five hundred years,” Trennus pointed out. “It’s all stone-ground these days.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 123