by Tia Reed
“Have you walked among the avenues of frangipane for which the palace is famed?” he asked when she had shuddered her distaste of the secretive mahktashaan, and told him what little she could.
“I have not as yet,” she said, her heart fluttering.
“They are a delight not to be missed.” Turning their talk to Myklaan, Matisse led her into the arcade, up steps to the first terrace, where pink blooming frangipanis lined the hot, stone wall, and aqueducts trickled cooling water from the terrace above. He stopped beneath a statue of a water-bearer, her robe parted to reveal a perfect, plump breast.
“Do you have such art in Terlaan?” he asked.
It had to be deliberate, this vagueness in his words, this allusion as much to nakedness as splendour. It had to deliberate, this setting of her cheeks on fire. If she faced him to answer, she need not see bare stone flesh. “Our artists are not as refined,” she said. “The shipwrights are the pride of the realm.”
“The exalted artist has more statues within the gardens. Would you care to see them?”
She could hardly refuse, either the offer or his proffered arm. And it was deliberate, that last, for when she took his arm, his free hand came around and divested her of the shawl.
“This garden was intended to reveal the beauty the Vae bestowed on this earth,” he said, guiding her down the row, past the magnificent marble statues which stood between the trees. Vae’oenka protect her, but each was in an increasing state of undress. The artistry of it, the tactful placement of the leaves, was undeniable, but in these scant clothes, with a man who took every opportunity to touch her flesh, she was in danger of losing her honour. His hands found her bare waist to turn her towards an intricate detail. His nail brushed away a strand of hair that had flown into the corner of her mouth. If only she knew what bothered her more, his liberty or her secret longing for him to go on because, dear goddess, an attractive man’s attention was a perfume as potent as the fragrance of her favourite flower.
“Would you not agree?” he asked.
She had to take three breaths before she could recall his comment. “Indeed,” she whispered, her cheeks flaming under the sun.
“I am sorry. My attention discomforts you,” Matisse said. He leaned against a statue, resting his head between the woman’s bare thighs.
He had to think her a naïve child, but better that than a harlot. She managed a false smile. “It is only that such immodesty is condemned in my land.”
His eyes, unusually serious, searched her face. “Is Myklaan not your land now?” he asked.
“I hope very much it will be.”
“Then my uncle has not given you a formal decision?” Straightening, he put one hand where his head had been, and held the other out to her. She placed her fingers over his, his grip forcing her to come to him. “You must not worry so.” Turning, he made the words ambiguous by adding, “It is only stone, Kordahla.” He placed their hands on the statue’s knee, guided hers up along the smooth contour of the leg, pressing close. Too close for decency. A man who presumed so much against her person in Terlaan would have his head loped off without trail. If this was how lovers courted in this decadent land, her honour was lost for sure.
Then he plucked the bloom. Uttered those disenchanted words. “You are as beautiful as this flower. But I cannot believe, delicate as you are, you bruise as easily.”
Her breath quickened as he slid the frangipani into her hair and moved his hands to her bare elbows. An image of the Majoria’s accusing finger flashed before her. She tensed. If Matisse noticed, he did not relent. Leaning closer by degrees, he brushed her lips with his own. Preparing for the hunger of his kiss, she closed her eyes. It never came. Instead, he pulled back and stroked the bend of her indecent joint.
“You see. There is not a single blemish upon your perfect skin.” His kiss at her elbow surprised her. She gasped as his lips travelled up her arm. Vae’oenka forgive her, she meant to pull away, but suddenly his lips were pressed to hers and there was nothing in her mind save the breezy, masculine taste of him.
After, he had bowed with mocking formality and parted from her. She had lost the dazed afternoon dawdling through the hanging gardens, discovering terraces of frangipani apricot, yellow and red while wondering if the heir to the throne might take her for a bride. It was a union of which Father would have to approve. If only she could be sure that was his intention. Never could she be like Lady Jordayne, content to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with every man who caught her fancy.
As the evening shadows lengthened, a glimpse of him had sent her hurrying to her rooms. Two encounters in the one day was more than her confused emotions could take.
Now, on the breezy balcony, Dindarin risen, Kordahla wished there was someone she could watch to discover how a Myklaani lady should behave when confronted with the seductive attentions of a man. But there was only Jordayne and the pale-haired lady below, whom she had gathered from her young handmaid, Nina, was a mistress at the court. Her insecurities mounting, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her modest silk nightgown was luxury, as sensuous as his touch.
“Rochelle.” The voice drifted up to her on the cool night air.
The lady turned and smiled at Shah Ordosteen. White-haired, sombre, he stood a discreet distance away. Behind him, at the limits of the garden, the plants draping over the tiers swayed in harmony.
“Do you desire my company, your Majesty?”
“I wish your honesty.”
“That you may have,” Rochelle said, drawing close.
They stood together, her face turned up to his for the space of several breaths, a pose both intimate and wary.
“Do you love him?” Ordosteen asked. Quiet-spoken, but the wind and the silence of the night carried the words to her.
Kordahla pressed into the shadows against the wall, an intruder too mesmerised to leave.
“He has my affection.”
“But your love?”
“You would ask me this? Of a man not inclined to give himself to any one woman?”
“And I? What do you harbour for me?”
Rochelle raised a hand to Ordosteen’s face. “You have my deepest affection.”
“But not your love?”
Dropping her hand, she turned away, out of shadow and into the green cast of Dindarin’s light. “It is not a luxury I have allowed myself.”
“If things were different…” Ordosteen asked, his voice rasped with emotion.
“But they are not. If it pains you to have me here, I will leave. Denkan is not yet returned home, and my father ails by the day.”
“You may do as you wish, Rochelle.”
The voice was harsh and made her turn back. There was pride in her bearing as she said, “It was not my intention to make you miserable when I returned.”
“Then why did you?”
“He asked me to.” She took Ordosteen’s hand, kissed each of his fingers, pressed his palm against her lips. Then, shockingly, out here in the open for all to see, she slid it inside the low neckline of her kameez, pressed it against her bosom. The Shah groaned. Kordahla’s hands tightened on the wall. Engrossed in their private discussion, she had crept too close. She pressed back, conscious of every prickling point of contact between her body and the rough wall. Below, the breathy conversation continued.
“I am a kept woman. I have been for a long time. I would rather it were here, where I may enjoy my talents and reap the benefits of generous lovers, than cooped up in my father’s house where I would be treated like an old maid.”
“I would never treat you like that,” the Shah said, taking her hand, kissing it fast and urgent, pressing her curled fingers to his face. “If I can guarantee your safety, will you marry me, Rochelle?”
“You cannot outsmart the djinn, Ordosteen. What is done is done. Leave it be. If Katrine does not please you, find another.”
He ceased his amorous attentions, grasped her arms, and pulled her to him with strength enough to make her
gasp. “Your honest answer. If I can arrange a way for us to unite, will you accept?”
Immobile, she stared at him. At length, she tucked an arm between them and pushed him away. “You would make me Shahbanu?” Her head held high, she looked the queen, for all she had offered her body to the goddess knew how many men.
“Yes,” Ordosteen replied, his voice all but cracked. Whether it was desire or a more visceral longing Kordahla could not say. She found herself holding her breath.
“You would not wish to take a woman of a more suitable childbearing age as wife?”
“Vae’oenka may yet grant us a child.”
“What would you ask of me in return?” Rochelle asked.
“Your fidelity.”
The lady tilted her head. “Only that?” A moment of silence was broken by the rustle of her skirts as she gathered him to her, pulling him onto a bench so he might rest his head at her breast, and she might stroke his thinning hair. “My dear, sweet Shah, I will be yours for eternity if that cursed djinn relents.”
Kordahla stared out at the starlit heavens. What manner of nation would elevate a mistress to Shahbanu? And what manner of shah would allow his passion to mount in full view of the palace. Their hands were groping at places too indecent to name. She slipped through the doors, pulling them after her. They were about to click closed when a voice drifted to her.
Through the crack, she saw the lady had risen. “Enough, my Lord. You must ask Katrine to sate your hunger tonight.”
“Will you lie with him till then?”
“If he comes to me.” Rochelle was standing behind him now. Placing her hands on Ordosteen’s shoulders, she kissed the base of his neck. “Do not despair, my love. His sights are already set on another, and a conquest she would be. I can guess what this new bargain of yours might involve, Ordosteen. You might yearn for me, my darling shah, but are you willing to sacrifice decency?”
“You would. Do not deny you would, Rochelle.”
“But I am not Shah.”
As a cloud darkened Dindarin’s face, Kordahla clicked the doors shut. Her stomach was a roiling bundle of nerves. If he comes to me. In the dark it was all too clear to whom Rochelle had referred. The teasing look she had seen Matisse exchange with this woman alluded to secrets Kordahla was only beginning to grasp. After a day of his amorous attentions in the vineyards, she had suffered an isolation so keen not even Timak had been able to draw a word from her.
The day – was it only yesterday? – had promised delight when Matisse suggested an outing. Ever shy around him, she commented how well the fresh air would agree with Timak. At which Matisse had declared a vineyard an unsuitable place for a child. Her ineloquent stutters had revealed her alarm. She did not trust him. Did not trust herself, if truth be told, to be alone with him that far from the palace. The bumbling language which was all she seemed capable of around this self-confident man had put a smile on his face until Jordayne had exclaimed what a grand idea it was and hauled her off to her bedroom on the pretext on donning suitable attire.
“What is the problem? Do you not enjoy his attentions?” Jordayne asked, spraying her with enough perfume to last an eight-day. Since she did, Kordahla could think of nothing to say. “Ah, but I see that you do.”
Meeting her eye had been hard. “I cannot…” was as far as she got.
Jordayne patted her arm. “Nor do you need to. Enjoy it, but let him know when you’ve had enough. The goddess knows you could do with a kiss or two after all you’ve been through. You can hardly say there is shame in that.”
“Perhaps not here.”
Jordayne sighed. “But you are here, my dear. And whatever the outcome, no one is going to berate you for a kiss. Or even find out for that matter. If my brother can soothe away some of the trials of the last few eight-days, then let him. If your modesty is so precious to you, you need only bolt your door at night.”
Lock her door she did, and with good reason. The handle had twisted three nights past, and she, alone in her room, as was the custom in this ardent land, had huddled beneath the cover both fearful and thrilled.
“Now do let’s enjoy the day,” Jordayne said rising from the stool at her dresser.
Safe in Jordayne’s company, Kordahla relaxed as they rode to the lake and, sun sparkling on the water, sailed to Mage Cove to pick up Drucilamere.
“What do you want?” was the mage’s ungracious query of the lady. He had walked out to the dock to meet them, the only cloud on this bright, blue day.
“Get in the boat, Drucilamere. We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Jordayne disembarked amid the jingle of her jewellery. “I have a great deal to say to you.”
“Then have the decency to say it before all the mages.”
The journeymen mages were dark figures looking through the window on the lower floor of the mage guild, watching, waiting for the break of a storm. It seemed this outing was not to be the restful occasion Kordahla had thought.
Jordayne turned to the barge. “It seems, my dears, I shall not be accompanying you after all.”
Kordahla leaned forward, ready to make an excuse to get out.
“You see, you are spoiling our guest’s fun,” Jordayne said. “She is much too well brought up to consider an outing without a chaperone.”
“I’m not sure how that reflects on me,” Matisse said, reclining among the cushions that cluttered the deck, too relaxed among all the awkwardness. “Or if in her mistrust she should reconsider her desire to lodge at Kaijoor palace. It is my principal place of abode.”
Kordahla felt her cheeks burn. She swallowed and looked at the water lap against the rocks. Vae’oenka only knew if she had made the right choice in coming here, but the mere thought of Ahkdul turned the world grey.
“He is teasing, Kordahla. You have every reason to mistrust him. He is more mischievous than the djinn in the presence of beautiful women. But I’m sure he’ll be a model of decorum today.” Jordayne touched her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss to the boat. “Enjoy the outing, and have a kiss or three for your own sake.”
“You are not going to allow them to go off alone?” Drucilamere said through clenched teeth. His moustache twitched his anger.
“Well we do rather need to talk,” Jordayne replied. “And there are the servants.”
The tall mage gripped her arm and pulled her onto the boat. “You are worse than the conniving djinn, Jordayne.”
“In my estimation, that is a high compliment,” she said, as the boatmen cast off. She lifted a hand to his face and kissed him.
He pulled her hand down. Her bangles clanged at her wrist. “I am not so easily swayed.”
“As you wish,” she said with a sigh, leading him to the relative privacy of the bow. Their dispute did not prevent her from reclining against him, shameless in her contact.
“Have you made any progress with the crystals?” Kordahla heard her ask.
“We have not.”
“Well, that gives all the more validation to what I have done.”
“Nothing could justify your actions.” His voice was heated.
Jordayne pulled away from him. The barge glided past a low cliff, toward meadows grazed by long-haired goats which chewed their cud as they ruminated over what the tension in the boat might mean. “What do you want me to say? You acknowledge Terlaan poses a threat. Both Trove and the soothsayer girl intimate there are stirrings in the spirit world that may affect every person in the Three Realms, and you don’t want to prepare every resource available to counter it.”
“I want you to admit what you have done is wrong.”
Jordayne sighed and softened her voice. “I have never said it was otherwise.”
“Let his soul go.”
“Not yet.”
“You really are heartless.”
“I promise I will not use it save at direst need.”
“Whose need will that be?”
“One you accede to.”
/>
“And if that need does not arrive?”
“I will let him go to the Vae.”
“I will make you do it, Jordayne. By the Vae, I will make you do it.”
Her answer was to kiss him, and this time he dragged her close to him, hungry in his response. Kordahla looked away to find Matisse watching her.
“My sister is passionate about everything she does.”
Kordahla nodded, and made shy replies to his conversation until the boat docked.
They stepped onto land more verdant than any around Lake Sheraz, to be met by a bowing vineyard owner who had been alerted to their visit by an advance sailor. He led them across a pretty grassed area to tilled earth bearing rows of intertwined vines sagging under their oversized crop. Drucilamere picked a bunch of grapes and pushed the most succulent between Jordayne’s lips.
“It is tradition. A blessing for a fertile crop,” Matisse said with the amused smile he reserved for whenever she felt discomfited by the men around her.
Her eyes wide, Kordahla allowed him to push a grape into her mouth. His fingers lingered at her lips as he leaned to whisper in her ear.
“You must take it from me.”
And she was forced to burst the fruit with her tongue, brush his fingers with its tip so the sweetness could explode in her mouth.
“That,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “is a start.” And he kissed her there, in front of them all.
Her legs wobbling, she could do no more than stare at him. There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide.
“You see,” Jordayne said, trailing a hand along her back as she swept onto a path between the vineyard and a myrtle hedge. “It is not that difficult to have some fun. Keep this up and I shan’t need to educate you at all.”
Which left her with a flurry of emotions she couldn’t identify. Her livelihood depended on the goodwill of these people, and yet here she was, avoiding Matisse’s touch for the rest of the tour, a difficult feat with Jordayne alternately engrossed in Drucilamere’s attentions and Drucilamere’s ire. By degrees, Matisse’s amused indulgence turned determined. At lunch, she found herself forced to sit by his side on the kilim the servants had laid out. Jordayne and Drucilamere reclined on another in a tangle of limbs, more interested in each other than the sloping vineyards and crystal lake before them, their argument raging between their kisses.