Savage Empire se-1

by Jean Lorrah

  Each day he was detained here was another day he could not search for Galen, and another day for the Adepts the boy was working for to rebuild their forces. He had to get away at the first opportunity-all the more reason to build his strength back as quickly as he could. And his arm was completely healed. He was better off than he might be; surely he would soon find a way to get away from these savages. Meanwhile, if he kept alert, he might Read something to tell him which direction to take in his search for Galen. One thing that would help restore him was sleep.

  Lenardo woke to a minor commotion. Two men carried a wooden tub into the room and set it by the fire, along with a vessel of steaming water. Aradia followed them in, carrying an armload of clothing and a small leather case. “Time for a bath and a shave,” she told Lenardo. “Then you can try on your new clothes.”

  The servants left, and Lenardo got up, pulling on his robe as Aradia poured hot water into the tub. What a cumbersome way to take a bath; no wonder the savages went duty most of the time. One thing Lenardo hadn’t thought about missing was the convenience of a bath house.

  Aradia turned from her task and laughed. “Is it empire custom to put clothes on to bathe?”

  “Of course not. As soon as you leave, I shall bathe.”

  “Don’t be stubborn. I’m going to bathe you.” She was dressed more as if to bathe a dog or an obstreperous child, in a blue dress faded from many washings, a white apron, and a white kerchief tying back her hair.

  “I am perfectly capable of bathing myself,” said Lenardo. “I’ve done it since I was four years old.”

  “Then the middle of your back hasn’t been scrubbed in all those years! Come on. Get in the tub. What’s the matter with you?”

  “It��� it is not customary where I come from for a man and woman to be naked before one another��� unless���”

  While Lenardo fumbled for polite words, Aradia burst into laughter. ” I have no intention of taking my clothes off,” she said. “Whatever were you thinking of? I am an Adept, virgin-sworn. You are my patient, still weak after serious illness. I’ll not have you fainting in your bath.”

  Lenardo felt compelled to explain. “I too am ‘virgin-sworn,’ as you put it. You are not a Reader. If you were, you and I would never meet face to face, let alone���”

  “Why not?” she asked blankly.

  ‘To tempt the flesh with what it may not have is to incite lustful thoughts that interfere with concentration.” Lenardo recalled being caught kissing the innkeeper’s daughter at the age of twelve. Despite a whipping that had left him unable to sit for a week, and hours of meditation exercises meant to banish the incident from his thoughts, for months, every time he let his guard drop he would feel the softness of her lips on his, the strange, warm sensations in his loins.

  With a Reader’s discipline, Lenardo banished the memory instantly. Aradia was saying, “You mean until you were exiled you lived entirely segregated from women?”

  “Oh, no! Just from female Readers. I was at the academy at Adigia. There were only boys there, in training to be Readers, but we went among the townspeople often. We had had to leave our own mothers, so many of the women in town were very kind to the younger boys.”

  “What about the girls in town, as you grew older?”

  Could she Read-? No, had she noticed some look in his eye a few moments ago? “We had to learn to resist, of course. The blood of youth runs hot; one of the hardest lessons we must learn is to abate that heat.”

  She smiled again the dangerous smile that half transformed her to a wolf. “I wonder just how well you have learned that lesson? But come-take your bath while the water is still warmer than your blood. I am no Reader, nor bound by your strange customs. You have a fine body, Lenardo. If the sight of it should heat my blood, all the better-I can make positive use of such energy!”

  It was maddening not to be able to Read her when she teased him so. Embarrassed, he retreated into stubbornness, stiffly clutching his robe about him and looking at her defiantly.

  “Do you expect me to waste my energy disrobing you?” she asked at last.

  “You will have to if you think to get me into that tub with you still in the room.”

  Exasperated, she said, “Very well-prove to yourself how weak you are. I’ll be right outside.” She took a step, then turned back. “Lenardo, what sense does it make for a Reader, of all people, to be embarrassed about the exposure of naked flesh? Certainly you can all Read through one another’s clothing if you want to.”

  “Precisely,” he replied. “That is the reason the Law of Privacy must be so deeply ingrained in us.”

  She tilted her head to one side as she always did when she was thoughtful. “I’ll have to consider the logic of that,” she said and left.

  When the door had closed behind Aradia, Lenardo stripped off his robe and stepped into the tub. He had to fold his long legs so his knees almost touched his chin when he sat down, but the warm water felt good. He leaned back, getting as much of himself as he could under water, luxuriating in the minor pleasure that he would know infrequently on this side of the border.

  There was soap, a sweet-smelling bar of pale gold. The empire had never found the secret of making it; the luxury item was purchased from seamen who also traded with the savages. Only a very few times had Lenardo bathed with soap; on holidays and other rare occasions the housekeeper at the academy would break out their meager supply, and the bath house would be awash in bubbles.

  Lenardo laved suds through his hair and beard, sat up to soap his arms and chest, and started to stand to get at the rest of himself. The sudden movement after the heat of the bath made him dizzy. He staggered and, trying to catch himself without knocking the tub of water over, stepped out of the tub, his legs at an awkward angle for support. He reached toward the closest item of furniture, a light chair onto which he had thrown his robe.

  Soap-slick hands clutched at the chair at the same moment his wet foot hit the smooth floor. Neither achieved support, and he went down in a heap, overturning the chair with a ringing clatter.

  By the time he’d got his feet under him and was trying to rise, Aradia was beside him, her worry turning to anger the moment she realized that he was unhurt. “I told you you’d faint!”

  “I didn’t faint. I slipped.”

  “Oh-get back in the tub. I suppose we’re lucky you didn’t flood the whole room!”

  Lenardo cringed inwardly when Aradia picked up soap and sponge and began to scrub him, but embarrassment held him silent long enough to realize that her touch was impersonal. She made him move so she could reach every part of him, and he submitted in silence, sensing that she had no interest in him except as a patient-or perhaps her property to be maintained.

  Nonetheless, when he was dry and wrapped in his robe once more, Lenardo felt more at ease. “I can shave myself,” he-said as Aradia opened the razor case.

  “Indeed? Hold out your hands.”

  To his dismay, they trembled; all his force of will could not steady them.

  “Tomorrow you may shave yourself,” said Aradia, “but today I’ll do it-unless you would like to grow a beard?”

  He realized she was serious. A good number of the savages wore beards, not all of them shaggy and unkempt. All he had seen among Aradia’s men were neatly trimmed. Still, he associated beards with savagery. “I wouldn’t know myself,” he joked feebly.

  “Do you want to?” Aradia asked, quite seriously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lenardo-you committed some crime within the empire, or you would not have been exiled. Will you tell me what it was?”

  “I��� would rather not” If the Adepts ever found out what he had said���

  “Good.” She smiled. “I’d rather have an honest refusal than a lie-and I don’t think you yet trust me enough to tell the truth.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you must trust someone. Your old life is over -that brand means you
cannot return to it. You will not survive if you cling to the past I can offer you a new life-indeed, I can offer you life itself, despite the fact that you are a Reader, and we have always before systematically destroyed people with such powers.”

  “But you will expect me to use my abilities to help you gain power.”

  “I hope you will come to want to help me do what is right for my people. Right now I do not trust you any more than you trust me. However, do you agree that it is in both our interests that you should regain your health, not just physically, but emotionally as well?”

  “I am not-”

  “Lenardo,” she chided, “you are clinging to the past. I’m sorry I made fun of you about the customs you grew up with, but for your own good, you should rid yourself of everything that reminds you of the empire. Become one of us. It is perhaps fortunate that you were robbed of everything you brought from the empire. Now you must start fresh, with nothing to tie you to your old life.” She touched the wolf’s-head pendant. “And is this not an omen, that you were sent to me?”

  Had he truly been an exile, Lenardo realized, Aradia’s words would have been the best advice anyone could give him. In fact, if he were to carry off the deception, he ought to think of himself as permanently exiled. “That is why you think I should grow a beard? To appear like one of your men?”

  “Yes. Leave your old self behind. Become one of us.”

  “Very well. At least I’ll try the beard.” He picked up the small looking glass she had placed on the table. “It looks rather scruffy right now, though.”

  “Let me trim it for you,” said Aradia. “It will look better in a few weeks, but I can make you presentable today. I trim my father’s beard for him, since��� he went blind.”

  Lenardo thought quickly. Best not to let her know he had Read the scene in the upper room. “Your father is lord of this castle?”

  “In honored title. He is very ill and cannot leave his bed. He has been slowly weakening for years, and I have taken over all his duties.” She spoke flatly, through pain so old it had worn itself to a dull throb in her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” Lenardo said in true sympathy. The violet eyes studied him for a moment, but Aradia said nothing. Then, in businesslike fashion, she went to work on his beard. “There now-put your clothes on, and we’ll go downstairs and find something to eat.”

  “You mean you’ll finally let me out of this room?”

  “As long as I’m with you. Here-see if these fit properly.”

  The clothes fitted but were not at all what Lenardo was used to. The best he could say was that at least there were no trousers-the beard was enough of the mark of a savage for one day. The hose and undergarments were such as at home he would have worn under a knee-length tunic and floor-length robe.

  The pile of clothing Aradia had tossed on the bed shimmered with rich colors, dark green and gold so deep it verged on brown. The hose were green, the undertunic dark gold silk-he had never worn silk in his life!

  Over that went a silk shirt with full sleeves, gathered at the wrists, also in dark gold. Finally he drew on a sort of short cyclas or tabard of richly embroidered dark green velvet It was seamed from waist to hips and cut off short there, exposing the full length of his legs. Wulfston wore something of the sort, but Lenardo did not recall its being so short or so closely fitted. Lenardo felt displayed, like some slave girl in the marketplace, discreetly draped in such a way as to reveal every attribute.

  He looked at Aradia in her simple cotton dress. “This is��� surely not everyday attire.”

  “Indeed it is,” she replied, then answered his unspoken question. “You have seen me dressed to tend the ill. They often bleed or vomit on one-or splash water.” Lenardo managed a rueful smile, and Aradia continued, “If you are ready to care for yourself now, I shall dress more appropriately to my station. But tell me-don’t you think my tailor has done a good job?”

  Half from curiosity, and half to see how badly his powers were still impaired, Lenardo Read his appearance as if he were across the room, looking at himself. It was a simple trick, theoretically no more than any visual Reading from a point where the Reader actually was not. However, having oneself as the subject was disconcerting, and at first highly disorienting to young Readers. Torio was the only one he knew to master it as quickly as any other shifted point of view, without suffering dizziness or nausea. Lenardo had learned it many years ago, of course, but rarely used it. The last time was when he had first put on the black Magister’s robe, years ago. There had been no time before he left Adigia to invest him with the scarlet robe of a Master. Will I ever wear it? he wondered as he stared mentally at the stranger Aradia had created.

  He did not know this man; certainly he was no citizen of the Aventine Empire. Somehow, he appeared younger than before-the vivid colors and lack of professional dignity in his costume, Lenardo decided. The green and dark gold played up the shifting colors of his hazel eyes-he’d always thought they were brown!-and the beard gave him a faintly sinister look. Hair and beard were the same dark brown as always, but at home he would have trimmed his hair when it reached this length.

  The close-fitting clothing was what made the major difference. Lenardo was tall, his body in good condition from constant exercise. The intent was health, not appearance, but the costume he now wore emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, and the muscular curves of his legs. He was right: Aradia had put him on display.

  When he looked through his own eyes again, he found Aradia staring at him. “What did you do?” she asked.

  Lenardo shifted his weight hurriedly and awkwardly as a moment’s dizziness seized him. Again? And this time from Reading? Immediately his mind swarmed with guilt at his delirious outpouring of other people’s thoughts on the nightmare journey to Aradia’s castle, Intentional or not, the misuse of his power was taking its toll.

  At his stagger, Aradia flung an arm about him. “What is it? Do you feel faint? Do you want to lie down? I’m sorry-when your eyes went out of focus I just thought you were Reading something.”

  He was very much aware of the warmth of her arm against his back as he answered, “I was. I was looking at myself-it’s a child’s trick. I became disoriented, that’s all.”

  She looked up at him, her smile showing the tips of her white teeth. “Yes,” she murmured, “you do look different��� handsome���” Her hand slid up to his shoulder as she turned to face him, lifting her other hand to cup his cheek. “You could become very important to me, Lenardo.” She half-closed her eyes, tilting her head back.

  Lenardo felt his heart pounding, and the strange pain/ pleasure stirring in his loins that he had known at the moment of his first kiss. Did she-? Could she expect bun to kiss her? Something in him wanted to, but a more rational part of his mind told him she was testing his declaration of celibacy. As an Adept, no matter what he did, Aradia could maintain control. Then he remembered her statement that she could make use of any energy caused by her response to him. She’s using me!

  The thought cooled the heat that her closeness woke in his blood, and he gently removed her hands from him. “Perhaps I will be important,” he agreed, “but not if I remain forever in this room. You promised to let me out today.” The first step in the freedom he had to have to continue his search for Galen.

  Aradia seemed not to notice the rebuff. “Very well. But don’t be ashamed to lean on me if you feel faint-and remember, only Wulfston and I know you’re a Reader.”

  At last Lenardo saw Aradia’s castle first hand. This wing was three stories high, with a tower over the widest part, containing Aradia’s father’s room. Lenardo Read that the narrow winding stairs led down as well as up, but Aradia took him down by way of a wide staircase into the great hall. It was empty now, except for a heavy table across one end. Behind the table were several chairs, the middle one large and ornately carved.

  On the wall behind the table hung three decorated shields, the kind
he had seen in the forum at Zendi. The central one bore the white wolfs head, while the one to the left was painted with the figure of a lion in vivid blue, and the one to the right boasted a golden boar.

  “You may come into the great hall anytime,” Aradia told Lenardo, “or any of the pantries or the kitchen. All of these rooms lead to the courtyard, where you are welcome to walk in the fresh air. Come-we’ll take some food and sit in the sunshine.”

  The kitchen was permeated with the smell of roasting meat. Lenardo saw what appeared to be the carcass of a boar spitted over the fire, and he turned his eyes away. As he fought queasiness, he paid little attention to what Aradia was doing until she called to him.

  He followed her outside, welcoming the fresh air. The clang of the blacksmith’s hammer came across the open space, while a young boy raked straw from the stables that formed the ground floor of the opposite wing. Horses. If I could steal a horse, I could move much faster than on foot.

  The courtyard was a work area; there was no garden. Aradia led Lenardo to a wagon that stood abandoned in a sunny corner, one axle propped up on a stone because the wheel was missing. The wheel itself was propped against the wall near the forge, waiting for the smith’s attention.

  “Wulfston said you eat vegetables raw,” said Aradia. “Poor cook! I’m afraid he thinks his cooking hasn’t passed approval.”

  “We always ate a very simple diet in the academy, but I understand that among those with an educated palate, a good cook is a precious commodity.”

  “Lenardo��� did you never leave your academy?”

  “I?” He decided she could learn nothing damaging if he told the truth, while he might be more closely guarded if she caught him in a lie. “Most Readers do leave, of course, when they have learned all they can. I was still studying, but I remained as a teacher.”