Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House

by K. M. Frontain

  Fear in his voice. He practically squeaked the word.

  “Where is the ship’s surgeon? My eyes burn.”

  “I’ll fetch him at once, Lord.”

  Gari thumped back up the steps, and Intana’s weight compressed the mattress.

  “Your eyes don’t burn! Open them!”

  “Everything on me burns. Don’t touch me!”

  He just had, upon my chest, and given to me a caustic hurt that reminded of jellyfish stings. His hand withdrew, but the cant of the mattress remained.

  “You only have to see me as I truly am for me to heal you,” he said. He had a young man’s voice, of medium timbre with a husky overtone. My skin prickled hearing it, and I suffered all the more.

  “Just open your eyes. Look at me,” he pleaded. “That’s all you need to do, and I will be free to soothe your injuries. I’m not permitted to heal my Oradhé while I’m attached to the seal.”

  “I might see nothing but a human-shaped godling. It’s all I saw before.”

  “Liar! You began to see the true me! And you shut your eyes! Why?”

  “My eyes burn.”

  “Liar!”

  Disconcerting. How to get him out of my head? I concentrated on the sensation of blistered and itching soles, and had an immediate result.

  “Don’t do that!”

  “Do what?”

  “Feel your suffering worse! Stop it!”

  My penis felt horrific. Truly.

  “Creation! That… That hurts! Stop it!” he said.

  “If you find it so very intolerable, then do feel free to desist experiencing it with me.” Hell! Hell! Hell! It really hurt. And squirming only worsened the itch. “Vaal shove me into a pot of cooking oil! Where is my surgeon?”

  “Here,” a deeper voice said. “You awaken at last.”

  My eyes fluttered open, but I saw pale skin with silver scales and blue shine, and squinted my eyelids tight again. “What do you mean at last? And do something about this irritated skin, please.”

  “You’ve been bedridden for three days, Lord. I’ve concocted a special lotion made with your mother’s oil to ease the irritation of your skin. You should ask your…attendant to apply more.”

  “Three days!” I cursed a string of nasty epithets, most of them concerning priests and the orifices into which they could pour their putrescent oil.

  “How is your breathing, Lord?” my surgeon interrupted.

  I endeavoured to regain some calm. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

  “When the Verdant god brought you aboard, your breathing had all but stopped. Your skin had swollen all over your body and your throat had shut in on itself. You almost died. Your recovery seemed unlikely until earlier this morning.”

  “Oh.” Well. No wonder I felt so debilitated.

  “Gari tells me your eyes burn.”

  “Very much. I’d like a poultice to lay over them.”

  “You don’t need a poultice for your eyes!” Intana said.

  “We shall see,” the surgeon replied.

  Intana’s weight left the bed. “Get away from him!”

  “I must verify the state of his health, god of Verdant. Do you wish him to worsen?”

  So stiff, my surgeon’s tone.

  Fear. He feared as well.

  “Have you been threatening my people, Intana?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Liar!”

  “I’ve only told them the conditions of our relationship,” he said. He sounded petulant.

  “And this includes threatening them?”

  Petulance fizzled away like so many fragile drops of water on a hot griddle. “Just open your damned eyes!” he shouted.

  “You will not harm my people. Is it understood?”

  The response came out an angry hiss. “Yes!”

  “Good. Now get out of the surgeon’s way.” I dared a peek, watched Intana shuffle two steps back, shut my eyes again.

  “You’ll need to look at me, Lord,” the surgeon said. His voice issued from near the bedside. I cracked my lids open the barest fraction, couldn’t ascertain whether the obscurity before me was him or my wardrobe.

  “Open them wider, Lord Haru.”

  Hell.

  Fine. Enough cowardice. If I didn’t look directly at Intana, I’d see nothing clearly. Simple enough solution.

  “Damn you!” Intana said.

  Ah! A perfect solution. I raised my eyelids and said, “My eyes feel better for some reas— How did you get that injury?”

  My surgeon had a swollen jaw and bruises around both eyes.

  “He beat me this morning, for daring to touch you after we were certain you would live,” the surgeon said. “He has also offended against Gari and First Mate. As for any other injuries you might see today, those resulted from the attack on the ship last night.”

  “Attack?” My gaze shot to the hatch and discovered slender Gari in the doorway, hunched to one side as if he attempted to be invisible. Yes. He had a massive purple contusion around his eye as well. He played with the end of his braid, twisting it nervously around his wrist.

  Were there…? Bruises. He had bruises around his neck.

  “Shall I have Gari fetch First Mate?” the surgeon asked. “You no doubt would prefer a full report.”

  “Yes. Right now.”

  Gari didn’t wait for the order. He wheeled about and scampered up the stairs into the sunlight beyond.

  “You said something about having my attendant minister the lotion you concocted,” I said to the surgeon.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you mean this godling?”

  “Yes. He won’t suffer anyone else to touch you, not now that he knows you won’t die. I doubt that a simple order would stop him from insulting any of us again.”

  “Is this true, Intana? Would you harm my people if one were to touch me again? Right now, for example?”

  “I wouldn’t damage any.”

  “He has other means of bringing damage without causing it directly,” said my surgeon. He leant closer, peered into my eyes, retreated. “Your eyes seem fine to me.”

  “They are now. Wide open and seeing very clearly. Aren’t they, Intana?”

  He didn’t answer. I canted my head in his direction, enough to catch his outline only.

  “Intana. Did you attempt to strangle my cabin boy with his own braid? Answer me!”

  “Yes.”

  “I stopped him with a warning that you would be very displeased should the boy die,” said the surgeon.

  “Thank you.”

  The surgeon inclined his head. “Very well. I shall let the attendant see to the application of the lotion. In another hour, he shall administer the medication to ease the pain of your broken limb. Without it, you tend to thrash in your sleep and aggravate both your skin and the fracture.”

  “I’m not the least sleepy at the moment.”

  “No doubt.” The surgeon performed a short bow and departed, slipping by Intana without looking at him.

  The surgeon’s body within the hatch darkened the cabin. Intana moved closer. I shifted my gaze to the ceiling. The light returned to the entrance.

  “Look at me,” Intana begged. He landed on his knees beside my bed, clutched the silk cover near my thigh. Just that small movement of cloth on skin pained me greatly. “It will all end if you just look!”

  End, I thought. How would it end?

  “I’ll heal you! I won’t hurt anyone else! I swear!”

  “Why do I feel as if you lie?”

  “I swear it! I won’t hurt any of your people! Just look at me!”

  “Is it not the case that you must please me now that I am your Oradhé?”

  His fingers loosened on the cover and withdrew. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then how could you think strangling my cabin boy would please me?”

  “I was wrong to do that, but you are the first Oradhé to keep your eyes, and I thought… I thought…”

  I guessed, but pressed him to s
peak it. “What did you think?”

  “That he and you were…”

  “Say it.”

  “Lovers,” he admitted.

  “And you wanted to remove an obstacle from your path? Is that it? I comprehend the reason for your desperation, but your actions were not commendable, nor were your conclusions respectful. Gari isn’t a man yet. It’s forbidden for an adult to touch him.”

  “That doesn’t stop some men.”

  “It stops me. Give me the lotion.”

  He lifted up and moved around the bed to my captain’s desk. He retrieved a bottle thereon and returned to me. “I’ll apply it,” he offered.

  “You will hand me the bottle and get out of my sight after,” I said.

  “You’re my Oradhé. You can’t force me to leave your side. You can only give me tasks.”

  “And can the tasks make you leave my side?”

  He hesitated. I held open my palm.

  “The bottle,” I demanded. He placed it in my hand. Shadows collected above the hatch and darkened the doorway again. Footsteps resounded from the stairs. “I want tea. Go brew a pot.”

  Intana hissed in annoyance and whirled toward the doorway. He and my first mate stared at each other. Kima’s stolid expression did not waver. He stepped aside to let the god by.

  Intana hissed in annoyance and whirled toward the doorway. Feet thumped down the steps and a single figure blocked the doorway. With Intana's attention no longer fully on me, I risked lifting my gaze.

  Intana and my first mate stared at each other. Kima's stolid expression did not waver. He stepped aside to let the god by.

  As Intana closed, Kima proved taller by a thumb. Intana glared suspicion and warning at First Mate, then thumped past. The red silk of Kima's trousers and vest clashed with the godling's blue and silver colouration.

  Just outside, with a bare foot on the hatch step, Intana looked back. The promise of retribution burned hotter in his eyes. He showed teeth, some of which were pointed.

  “The tea,” I prodded.

  Intana shot a glance of malevolence at me and pounded up the steps.

  “Shut the inner door, Kima,” I said. “Help me to sit up before that demon returns and give me your report.”

  Propped against cushions, I rubbed lotion as best I could over the blistered skin of my face and torso, and Kima related the occurrences I had missed the last three days. When Intana returned with the tea tray not two minutes into the narrative, I took the teapot and broke it against his chest.

  Chapter Six

  “You gave terms to First Mate,” I said to Intana, watching black tea drip down his front. The scalding liquid didn’t seem to bother him. He merely rubbed at his chest, as if the blow had irritated somewhat, and moved the tea tray further away from my body.

  “What of it?” he replied. The shards of the teapot had clattered to the floor or tumbled onto my bed. He plucked one from the silk cover and set it on the tray, reached for another. “You cannot leave harbour now that you are Oradhé. The seal, you, me are all tied to Celestial Dome.”

  “And telling First Mate this fact required that the mainmast should be pulled from the deck and heaved overboard?”

  “It seemed he would not listen to me, since the ship had already set sail for the harbour mouth,” Intana said. Another shard clattered onto the tray.

  I stared at his hands. Delicate. They seemed so refined, made for musical instruments, art, pleasure. He’d used them to strangle my cabin boy, damage my ship, abuse my people. The legend, that he chose only an Oradhé who could love him without reservation, seemed fallacious. At that moment, I found him too despicable to be worthy of anything but contempt.

  “Kima tells me the schooner sagged to the side until my sailors cut the broken mast from the rigging,” I said. “Your actions could have sunk this ship.”

  “Don’t worry. I would have saved you from drowning.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Yes, I am. My father never married my mother, you know. He ate her.”

  He crouched to fetch up the shards on the floor. I blinked at his lowered head, shut my mouth. Omos had eaten Intana’s mother?

  He looked up, caught my horrified gaze. Silver pupils dissolved and began to coalesce into a single monstrous eye. I wrenched my gaze toward the foot of my bed.

  “I refuse to feel sympathy for you, who treat others with as much disregard as your father did your mother.”

  “Don’t come off superior toward me, you piddling mortal,” he said. “You’ve no right to judge my actions. And my father didn’t ‘disregard’ my mother. He ate her! There’s a distinct difference. I’m sure he respected her very much while he chewed her to a pulp.”

  I swallowed my heart back down my throat. Fickle. My feelings had crashed from contemptuous to dismayed, with enough rapidity to provoke nausea. But I had nothing in my stomach to vomit.

  I swallowed my heart again, fiddled with the cap of the lotion bottle, almost tipped the oil onto the bed. Intana caught the bottle. I flinched and flinched again from the reaction of my irritated skin, which had twisted against the bottom sheet.

  “Let me put the lotion on your back,” Intana said.

  “Not just now.” I ignored my discomfort and returned to the matter of his abuse of my crew. “The terms you gave First Mate: stay in the harbour or die—wasn’t damaging the ship enough without also threatening my people?”

  Intana plucked the cap from my lap. “I offered them my protection. Why do you concentrate on the negative aspects of the negotiation?” He tightened the cap over the bottle mouth.

  “He needed the surgeon to keep you alive, Lord,” Kima said, flat animosity in his tone, “and the surgeon needed us to support his efforts, or this creature would have sunk the ship and given us over to Little Brother.”

  Somehow I doubted Little Brother would have eaten any of the crew, but still, Intana’s intent had not been the least commendable.

  Intana set the lotion bottle down at my side. I watched his hand arrive and depart, all without focusing my eyes.

  “What happened after you had the ship rowed back to dock?” I asked Kima.

  Kima had seated himself at my desk earlier, and relaxed with a muscular arm over the chair back. I’d noted then how tired he seemed and noted it again now. His solid frame sagged as if he were the sickly one, and his skin seemed too sallow. The wrinkles of wind and sun had taken on a hint of real age. Something was very much not right with him.

  He had a bruise on his wrist, clearly a handprint. I looked from it, up into his eyes. He glanced at Intana, reverted his gaze to me again. I guessed, from his scornful expression, Intana was not the reason for Kima’s general poor condition. Something else had occurred. No doubt he would get to it in his report.

  “A delegation of priests came aboard while I was off ship negotiating for a new mainmast,” he said. “They accosted our surgeon and demanded he let you die of the reaction to their holy oil, said it proved you were an unfit Oradhé.”

  “And?” I prodded.

  “Tomi refused, of course. But the priests attempted to force their way into your cabin to remove all your medicines. The Verdant god tossed the priests off the ship.”

  I tilted my face toward Intana, fixed upon the tips of his fingers resting near tea stains on the bed cover. His fingernails were opalescent. So pretty. “I understood that you were incapable of harming the people of Verdant?” I said.

  “It’s true,” he replied.

  “But you threw them off the ship.”

  “They were all perfectly capable of swimming to shore. If this were not the case, I could not have touched them to throw them off the ship.”

  “Little Brother ate the lot,” Kima said.

  I made no response, just turned my head from Intana’s misleadingly charming hands and stared at Kima.

  First Mate smirked and added, “Verdant’s illustrious Omos can’t seem to keep Little Brother out of the harbour any longer.”

  I didn
’t share Kima’s humour. Though Little Brother was our kin, I never liked the idea of men dying in his jaws, not even those men who were our enemies. “I see,” I said, not smiling.

  Kima’s grin vanished. He understood how I felt, but he shrugged and said, “At least the insult those people did to Vaal, trying to make you a man of the Ardu faith, has been avenged.”

  “The new mast?” I asked.

  Kima shook his head and grimaced. “The merchant refused to sell it. Actually, I fled from him and a mob of dockworkers shouting death threats at me.”

  “A mob…why…?”

  “This Ardu godling dumped the priests into the harbour just as I was about to close the deal,” Kima explained.

  “First Servant led the delegation,” Intana added, “and he was the first your sharks ate.”

  “They aren’t my sharks.” I shut my eyes. Oh, hell. Hell, hell, hell! “Aside from this mob, were there reprisals?” I said to Kima.

  “Two of our men were murdered. They were either too far up the mount to hear the horn calling them back, or too drunk. They would have died in any case, had I succeeded to sail without them.”

  “Exactly how soon did you attempt to leave port?”

  “Within the hour of your return.”

  And that meant Kima would have abandoned a notable complement of the crew. He must have been desperate to protect me.

  I felt like vomiting again. I swallowed in discomfort, opened my eyes, and asked the dutiful question. “The bodies of our dead?”

  “Dropped into the harbour by their murderers.”

  “Very polite of them.”

  “Yes, we held service on ship while Little Brother honoured our fallen.”

  The irony. In an effort to insult my people, the vengeful of Verdant had participated in the Brellin custom of feeding the dead to Little Brother.

  The corners of Kima’s lips canted downward slightly. I understood at last.

  “Your nephew?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Damn. “I’m sorry, old friend.”

  He looked away. “Last night, angry citizens attacked the ship.”

  Very well. He wasn’t ready to forgive me for my part in this calamity. I couldn’t condemn him for it. “Citizens? Not priests or soldiers?” I asked.

  “Not as far as we could tell. We held them off, until your divine slave destroyed the supports beneath the dock and sent the attackers into the harbour. The mooring ropes were still attached, unfortunately. We lost more ship timber.”