by David Hair
That stopped her, though not out of respect or anguish at the state of her soul. She’d choked on her water and fled for the privy, still snorting with laughter. He liked to think that Ahm would chastise her for that.
He sighed heavily and decided that enough was enough. He went to his new sleeping chamber. It was bigger, and on a higher level than the tiny cell he’d first slept in – it had probably belonged to one of the more senior monks. Elena had the other similarly sized room down the corridor. It had a better mattress too, one she’d brought from Brochena months ago. He’d swept his cell, even though such work was beneath a warrior – but who else was going to do it? It had a view of her training garden and he tried not to look down there, although sometimes when she was down there performing her deadly dervish dance it was difficult not to stare.
I’m learning where her weaknesses are, he told himself. So far he hadn’t spotted any.
*
Elena pulled on a clean salwar kameez and smoothed it down, then wrapped her hair in a towel. Then she gathered her soaked training clothes and headed for the laundry. On the way past Kazim’s room she knocked on the door. ‘Hey Brother, I’m going to do some women’s work. Throw out your laundry.’ They’d each been doing their own, mostly to teach him that she wasn’t his servant, but she decided the point had been made and she could afford to be generous.
No reply. ‘Hey!’ She poked her nose through the door, wincing at the sound of her own voice. That damned throat wound had left it deeper and she hated it.
Kazim appeared wearing nothing but a towel, and she stopped, struck by his physique. His hair was longer now, tied back in a loose ponytail, and he was freshly washed. His still-damp bronze skin glowed in the half-light and any Pallas sculptor would have paid good coin to use his body, a study in lean musculature, as a model.
She forgot what she was going to say.
‘What do you want?’ he asked coldly, his voice a bucket of cold water.
Grow up, Ella! She sobered quickly. ‘Would you like me to wash your dirty clothes?’
He frowned. ‘So long as I don’t have to do yours.’
She half-smiled. ‘No.’
He indicated a mound of clothing lying about his bed, then walked back into the niche he was using as a dressing-room.
She picked up his clothes, then after a moment, took his sheets as well. They had a stale musk that was both unpleasant and enticing. She felt enveloped in his scent as she hefted the pile and took it down to the laundry room. It set off an unexpected reaction inside her, the musky tang of fresh male sweat bringing Lorenzo back to her, reminding her of what she was missing. She remembered all over again that he was dead, but now she thought of the good things too: the way he smiled, the way he kissed, the way he laughed. She hurried to the laundry, thrust the clothing into the great stone trough and set the taps running. Get over it, girl. But a gnawing hunger had been set off, as if a starving man had smelled cooking food, and she couldn’t stop salivating inside.
That night, sitting alone after her meal, she gave in and opened a bottle of red wine. It went straight to her head. She was wise enough to stop after two glasses, and she took herself to bed before she decided to wake Kazim up and get into some stupid argument over his idiotic ideas about the world. She lay awake in the warm night, her stomach churning as she tried not to think about the way Sordell had poked and prodded at her body in full knowledge that what he was doing disgusted her.
But he’s gone now. This body is my own.
She stroked her breasts slowly, fighting the urge to be sick. It’s mine. My own. She shuddered, felt her gorge rise, and swallowed a mouthful of acidic bile. No, Rutt. I won’t let you keep this hold over me. I’m going to forget you, even if I have to erase my own mind.
She pushed her hands down the flat plain of her belly. Her body was returning to its peak: strong, lean and toned. After all the indignities Sordell had put it through, she finally felt like herself again. To prove it, she combed her fingers through the soft, fine hair of her mound, then pushed her forefinger into her cleft. It was dry, but only for a few seconds. She swirled the slick fluids over her nub and sighed as a shiver stole over her.
This is my body. I reclaim it.
*
Turn. Lunge, retract, spin and duck. Kazim felt a flash of panic as a movement caught the corner of his eye, throwing him off balance. Elena was watching from the doorway. He stopped, panting, and glared at her. ‘What do you want?’
‘We should train together,’ she replied bluntly.
He went stock-still. ‘Why?’
‘Because men move differently to training routines. Because your technique is flawed and will get you killed.’
He scowled. ‘My technique is perfect.’
She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Come and prove it. If you’re up to it.’ She vanished from the opening.
He glared after her, furious. How dare she? He’d been taught by some of the Hadishah’s best. Who did this bitch think she was? But he was following her up the stairs before he’d even thought it through.
She waited for him in the garden, on the central bridge; a curved stone arch with a knee-high wall either side above a dry pond. She held a wooden stave the size of a sword. She tossed him another. ‘Basic movements.’
He caught the staff, took its balance and measure, then swished it about. She was almost a foot shorter and maybe two-thirds his weight, so she had a far shorter reach. But she was also a mage, with full access to her gnosis.
‘No magic, jadugara,’ he growled. She’d not freed his gnosis, despite their agreement, and he’d not complained, for he loathed the very thought of it most of the time. But right now the fact that she could use her magic against him made his skin crawl.
‘I won’t need it,’ she answered blithely, making his hackles rise.
All right, you. He stalked towards her. Basic moves – ha! He went high, left–right, then low, right–left. Cross blow, right to left, then back again. She parried each casually, her movements economical.
‘Hyar!’ he cried as he lashed out at her face, bullocked forward and hacked at her legs with his right foot.
Except she’d already wafted away. She went under his high thrust and lunged. The tip of her stave took him in the groin, all the air went out of him in one painful gust and he collapsed, moaning, on the bridge.
‘Just the basic moves, Brother,’ she said flatly.
He gasped for breath and slowly clambered to his feet. Part of him was utterly furious, desperate to launch himself at her, but the other part, the one that connected his balls to his brain, probably, was screaming at him to slow down and go easy.
He’d never been good at listening to that part of himself.
He roared, and launched a series of overhead blows culminating in a charge that she sidestepped with almost contemptuous ease before pirouetting and kicking him off the bridge. He grazed his knees and palms as he landed, but didn’t pause; instead, he erupted in a leap that took him back onto the rim of the bridge, all the while swearing belligerently, until she swiped him across the throat and left him choking and fearing a broken windpipe. He went again, though, until she smacked her stave across both shoulders, then thrust it into his belly, leaving him winded on the ground once again.
‘Are you ready to play nicely yet?’ she asked drily.
He tried to look up at her, to let her know just how much he hated her at that instant, but his eyes were watering too much to see if she noticed. All right, bitch. Point made, and taken.
Thus began a new phase, like a new moon rising. He put aside his pride and went back to basics, and as he listened to her, he found she had much to say that he could value. To his surprise she made him start each day with yoga, the slow exercise technique developed in Lakh. He’d always disdained it as womanly – a man’s exercise should be vigorous – but to his chagrin, he found the positions harder than he had thought. He still couldn’t see the point, until she challenged him to skewer a specific
knot on a wooden post with his blade. Most times he missed, though only by inches, but she could do it every time. ‘Control’, she kept saying. ‘Every blow must count.’
It wasn’t just yoga. She made him run and skip, and drill for hours. She ruthlessly eviscerated his fencing technique, showing him all the bad habits he’d never suspected. It was a painful experience, his ego taking as many blows as his body. She was a Rondian, and a woman – and not even a big one. There was no visible sign that she was using the gnosis, but she could block every move, match him blow for blow and anticipate all he did.
She taught him how to anticipate, how to read movements, how this thrust leads to that riposte, and how to use that knowledge to deceive an opponent. Their sparring gradually evolved to an almost ritualised dance.
But he couldn’t lay a blade on her. It was galling – freakish; he’d sparred with enough people in the past year or so to know that even a badly outmatched fighter occasionally got lucky. But it was as if she saw all he did before it happened, and she was able to evade everything he tried, which made him mutter darkly to himself that she was cheating, using the gnosis after all. But when he accused her, she just laughed. And chod, she could move! She was like liquid, like air, flowing from place to place in an eye-blink. His blows were always a split-second too slow. She made him feel clumsy as a baby elephant.
There was a beauty in it, in her – not in her weathered face or her spare form but in the perfection of her balance and poise, her elegant motion. She danced through his dreams as she did through his days, humiliating him, both awake and asleep. He hated her. He envied her. He even admired her, grudgingly.
*
The bout began like any other: him scrabbling in the dust at her feet clutching a knee she’d rapped forcefully when he’d parried too slowly. It ended with a ridiculous fall backwards from the bridge’s parapet into the dry pond, winding himself horribly.
But in between – he struck her shoulder.
Their blades had locked, just for an instant, and for once he’d been able to use his superior size and strength. He’d shoved, forcing her weapon away, then he’d whipped his own back before she could line up the parry. Thwack!
He went down on his knees, screaming his triumph as if he’d just hit the winning run in a kalikiti match back at Aruna Nagar. She stumbled, then straightened and almost smacked him about the head, and he’d have deserved it for dropping his guard, but right then he didn’t care.
Instead, she gave a rueful laugh.
Their eyes met and he found himself sharing a smile. Sharing.
It made him uncomfortable, such familiarity with the nefara bitch.
She proceeded to thrash him for the rest of the afternoon, but that didn’t matter; the breakthrough had been made, and there were more as the days passed until somehow they’d been here for three months. The rest of the world had ceased to exist; there was only her and him.
It wasn’t a harmonious relationship, however: she was openly blasphemous, with no fear of any god, not even her Rondian Kore. That angered him, as Ahm was all he had left to cling to after so much had been stripped from him. He found himself parroting Haroun’s teachings, trying to educate her – to save her – but she cared nothing for that, nor even acknowledged the risk he was putting his own soul in to be here with her. She was nefara and her state was contagious, but when he tried to explain, she just listened with a condescending smirk on her lips.
‘Every sin blackens the soul,’ he started, one night over dinner. She’d brought out a bottle of wine – never a good sign; it made her rude, abusive and intolerant. He’d taken to leaving the table early when she drank, but tonight he was too hungry. She’d offered him some but his refusal had offended and now she was drinking too much, too quickly, gulping it down like water. It made her truculent, which goaded him to argue. ‘Why should I drink with you? Even sharing food with you endangers me, nefara.’
‘Poor boy,’ she sneered.
‘You should not drink, you’ve said so yourself.’
She deliberately swigged more. Her pupils dilated. ‘Do you think it’s easy for me, dealing every day with your utter contempt? I’ve met some pricks in my time, but you’re up there with the worst. At least the men of Yuros acknowledge the skills I’ve got, even if they don’t like me. You’re just a self-serving hypocrite.’
His own temper flared. ‘I’ve let you teach me—’
She laughed scornfully. ‘Oh ho: you “let” me teach you – how rukking noble of you. You don’t fool me, boy. You spout Scripture like a trained bird, but you don’t believe half your own bullshit.’
He balled his fists angrily. ‘I am a true believer!’ he protested vehemently, though he was frightened she might be right.
‘Sure you are. How many times do you pray, Amteh boy? Aren’t you supposed to grovel on your prayer mat every three hours? I’ve not seen you do it once, and Kore knows I’m with you most of the rukking day.’
‘I pray alone,’ he retorted, his face colouring. In truth, he’d virtually forgotten prayer at all, without the bells and the call of the Godsingers to remind him. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. ‘Do you?’
She scoffed. ‘Why bother? I’m already damned in your eyes. Nefara.’ She ticked them off with his fingers. ‘What were they? Lies. Theft. Murder. Adultery. I’ve done all that.’
He stood up. ‘I don’t want to hear this.’
‘I’ve even worn red, damn me for ever to Hel.’ She scowled. ‘I’ve not knowingly drunk urine, but with Lantric wine, who can tell?’
He was shaking with rage, but he was also frightened. This wasn’t like her. ‘Elena, stop this, please. It demeans you.’
Her voice went up a register. ‘Demeans me? Listen, you bigoted baby: your nasty little rules mean nothing to me. If you don’t think I’m good enough for you to learn from, then you can just rukk off.’
‘You are drunk.’
‘So what? Amteh men drink, despite their precious rules. I bet you’ve drunk plenty in your time.’
His face went hot again. ‘That is between myself and Ahm.’
‘Oh sure: you can just ask for forgiveness because you’re a man. But if a woman sins, she’d damned for all rukking eternity, right?’
‘Men and women are different.’
‘Sure. I bet you’ve screwed a few whores too, right? They’re nefara, right? What penance did you do for that?’
He flushed, remembered a woman in Baranasi, in the wake of losing Ramita. ‘None of your business, woman!’
‘What unnatural acts did you do with them?’
He bunched his fists, his chest suddenly a furnace. ‘You have no right to judge me!’
‘Ha! But you think you have the right to judge me?’
‘Because you’re a damned heathen!’
‘Too right.’ She tipped up her cup, missed her mouth and emptied half the red wine down her front. ‘Unnatural acts, eh? Yeah, check, check, check.’ She cackled horridly. ‘On campaign you didn’t want to end up pregnant but you still needed a fuck, so when you were fertile, you had to make your fun unnaturally.’ She went to fill her cup again, found the bottle empty and threw it into the fireplace. The dregs sizzled as shards flew. ‘And you know what? I loved it.’
He trembled on the edge of striking her, took half a step, his hand lifting.
She stuck out her chin. ‘Just try it, prick.’
Somehow, he held back, spun on his heel and stormed away.
*
They didn’t train the next morning. She spent the night vomiting and slept past midday. He was practising alone in the tiny courtyard when she appeared at the entrance. Her face was downcast, her cheeks greenish and eyes bloodshot. ‘Kazim?’
He stopped and faced her, feeling something between pity and vindictive pleasure at seeing her like this. ‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. I was drunk.’ Her voice was heavy with self-disgust. She ran her fingers through the tangled wreckage of her hair. He’d never seen it unt
ied before, never seen her look so dishevelled. ‘I said stupid things and I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t mean it,’ he snapped, turning away. Let her beg, he thought, knowing she wouldn’t.
She gripped the doorway unsteadily. ‘If you mean that I still believe what I said, you’re right – but I shouldn’t have said what I did. I gave unnecessary offence and I’m sorry for that.’
He sensed that apologising wasn’t something she did easily. He could empathise with that, at least. He nodded brusquely. Maybe she was sincere after all.
‘Sordell’s drinking has messed my body up. He drank at least a bottle of wine a night and my body still craves the damned stuff. But I’m trying to fight it.’ She looked at him pleadingly. ‘Don’t let me drink again.’
‘And how will I do that, jadugara? I can’t make you do anything. Fight your own battles.’
She flinched. ‘I deserve that.’ She turned to go, then paused. ‘If you are still willing to train with a nefara ferang, I still want to train with you.’
He made a show of considering because he knew it would rankle with her. ‘I am permitted to associate with you if you do not transgress, nor seek to corrupt me,’ he said eventually. He wasn’t actually sure on this point but it sounded right, and anyway, training with her was making a big difference. He was learning more from her than even Jamil and Rashid. He needed her, though he didn’t like it. Another damned compromise …
‘I’ll keep my opinions to myself in future,’ she said, although he doubted she was capable. She rubbed at her temple, wincing. ‘And I won’t drink again.’
‘Shall I destroy the filthy stuff for you?’ he asked, the jibe becoming serious even as he voiced it.
She swallowed, then said, ‘No. Put a bottle on the table every night. Let it be a test for me.’
He blinked. Interesting. ‘I will do so tonight.’ He turned to face her. ‘So, are you ready for a tumble?’
To his surprise, she blushed furiously. ‘What?’
‘A tumble.’ He made fencing gestures.
‘You mean a “bout”,’ she said, snickering softly. ‘A tumble is … something different. No, I don’t feel well today.’