Grau put down his napkin and turned in his chair, quietly motioning for her to return to him. His arm went back around her and he smeared some butter on his bread, then handed it to her.
Oh, Grau, you shouldn’t!
He wasn’t being careful.
Lieutenant Archel was looking at her curiously, and she put the bread down without a bite.
“Does your girl eat?” Lieutenant Archel asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Look at this, my little flower! The girl eats. Eat something,” he prompted Velsa.
Now the ‘little flower’ was giving her an expression that was neither interested nor fond.
Lieutenant Dlara cleared his throat. “This is a lot of fuss at the dinner table over nothing. Dinner ought to be an opportunity for us to reflect on our thoughts and observations.”
“I thought you guys from the islands were supposed to be fun,” Lieutenant Archel said. “Besides, what thoughts and observations? Nothing happens around here.”
Other men grumbled agreement.
“Not everything is about battles and bandits,” Dlara said. “I was just reading the latest paper from Atlantis and apparently all sorts of imports from Nalim Ima are beginning to flood in to the mainland. The price of books published in Nalim Ima has gone down so much that people have been buying them by the dozen. The shops can’t keep them in stock. Hardbound books with color plates, mind you, not just pamphlets. Can’t wait for supply to catch up to these parts…”
“Yes, Dlara, we all know you’ve been to Nalim Ima,” Archel said, like he hadn’t really been listening at all.
Velsa finally dared to nibble on her bread. She could still feel the other concubine’s eyes on her—what was her name, even?—but Velsa tried not to look at her.
She still knew, however, that the other concubine continued her rounds, spending time with any man who beckoned her. Of course she must know them all by now, since Grau seemed to be the only newcomer at the table. Only certain men were interested. Lieutenant Dlara ignored her completely, and Rawly was just shoveling food in his mouth like a starving man.
She could tell Grau was getting tired of her weight on his leg, but he didn’t complain. She made the bread last a long time so he wouldn’t feel compelled to give her any more of his food.
Near the end of the meal, the other concubine returned to Lieutenant Archel’s lap, her clothes somewhat disheveled by now, so that Velsa could see almost her entire right breast beneath the loose hem of her undergarment, in the shadow of her robe.
Velsa wasn’t even wearing her concubine’s robes and she didn’t know when she ever would, especially considering that Grau was trying to save money. With her arms and legs protected under sturdy clothes, her skin would stay clean and last a long time.
By the time the meal ended, it was dark outside, and fires were lit around the camp. “You two should stick around,” Rawly said, when Grau’s steps pointed to the barracks. “We have music after dinner.”
“I guess it depends on who’s making the music,” Grau said. “If it’s Archel’s concubine, I’m not interested. I think you’re right—we’d better stay away from them as much as possible.”
“Well, it is her,” Rawly admitted. “But not just her. Some of the men play too. If we ask nicely maybe Dlara will play his harmonica. He’s shy about it, but it’s something else. He got it in Nalim Ima. It looks like a strange little rectangular flute but he plays the best songs I’ve ever heard on it. Besides, if you avoid Archel forever you’ll also miss the best of camp social life.”
Grau’s curiosity obviously got the better of him. “All right. We’ll stay for a few minutes.”
“You’d have to deal with it sooner or later,” Rawly said. “But I’ll stick with you. He can’t hurt Velsa. Lieutenant Dlara would never allow it, anyway. He already disapproves of how Archel treats Flower.”
“That’s her name?” Velsa asked. Flower was usually just a nickname.
“We call her that. Her real name is something else, like…Sibalora? I can’t remember. Something like that. Archel just calls her by nicknames and everyone else has pretty much settled on Flower.”
Sibalora had such a different sound than Flower. One was a real name and one was a pet. A pang of sympathy swept through Velsa. That could have been her, or any of the girls at the House. She wondered about Amleisa and Nraya. Were they still called by name?
The men were gathered around a comfortable, crackling fire; not so blazing that it frightened Velsa. There was a horror story back in the House about a concubine long ago whose hair had caught on fire and her face had burned away, and when her replacement face finally arrived she looked like an entirely different girl. Velsa never knew if that story was true, and her skin was gently fireproofed, but better not to take chances. She also stayed away from the smoke, as the smell would cling to her for a long time.
Flower was already playing a song on the flute, to the slow beat of two drums. The song sounded similar to “Farewell to Sailors”, which Velsa used to practice on the bastir, but the melody was different in the chorus. When the other concubine had finished a few verses, one of the men took up the song with a strong, deep voice. Flower lowered her flute. She gyrated her hips to the pounding of the drums.
“Come here, doll,” one of the men said. She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and fluttered it in his direction. He swatted at it playfully until he caught it, and pulled her against him. She stood straddled across his legs and rubbed her pelvis against his face.
Flower’s dance was just one small interaction in the large circle of men; many of them were not even paying attention to her. But Velsa had a hard time seeing anything else. She had never witnessed anything so improper in public.
Rawly covered her eyes.
“Hey!” she exclaimed with surprise.
“Grau, I think your girl would blush if she could. You’d better keep her home and give her some dolls to play with, and I don’t mean that kind.”
“I’m not a kid,” Velsa said.
“There’s virgin and then there’s innocent. You can be one and not the other.” Rawly draped one arm around each of them. “Tell you what, I’ll insist Dlara play that harmonica and take this evening out of the den of vice. But I can’t save you every night.”
As he left, Grau turned to Velsa. “Why do I get the feeling that now that we’re here, and everyone has told us how boring it is, a murderous band of river pirates is going to show up within the week?” He frowned. “I’m not sure the border guard is for me.”
“Bored already?” she teased.
“Not bored. Uneasy.”
Velsa patted his arm, but she didn’t know what to say. She was uneasy herself, and kept watching Flower, even as she tried not to. Flower had a seductive smile on her face, but Velsa thought her eyes were dead.
Rawly was chatting with Lieutenant Dlara, pointing back at them. Dlara nodded and took a silver object from his pocket. The man performing now wrapped up his song with a final chorus, and bowed to Dlara.
Dlara shook his dark head sheepishly. “Just a tune for my new squad sorcerer, Grau, and his girl, Velsa.”
The harmonica was silver with engravings on the case and looked more like a small jewelry box than an instrument. She didn’t expect the noise and energy that came out. It was a harsh sound, almost like someone wailing, but simultaneously more cheerful than any song she had grown up hearing. The men started clapping along almost immediately.
They sang, “Oh, I come on down the river with a bastir on my knee! I’m going to Atlantis, my true love for to see. It rained all night as I depart, though the clouds were dry, the sun so hot I froze to death, Su-za-na dry your eyes…Oh Su-za-na, oh don’t you cry for me, I come on down the river with a bastir on my knee!”
They sang with great gusto and the bouncing beat was infectious. The drummers came in and the men were not just clapping but stomping their feet. Grau took her hand and spun her around, which made them cheer.
The songs of Atlantis and its neighboring cities were usually bittersweet, infused with longing. They told tales of ocean journeys and mythological figures. This song must be the latest fashion from Nalim Ima, like epaulets, but it sounded so contrary to everything she had heard of Kalan Jherin and his palace. He was a powerful sorcerer, with his black-wing flag and his tracts about the souls of Fanarlem. Surely he wasn’t stomping to Su-za-na?
With the men now so merry, Lieutenant Dlara began another song. A stranger tried to grab Velsa’s hand. She darted back and Grau stepped between her and the other man.
“Don’t keep her to yourself, Thanneau!” He was a pretty fellow with big brown eyes and a light tone, but she didn’t dare trust anyone who grabbed her hand.
“Velsa’s shy.”
“It’s just a dance! Nobody’s going to hurt her. But come on, have a little pity, they don’t let any women in the camp.”
Velsa felt the tension in Grau’s arm, and she knew he wanted to say some retort to defend her.
Flower was watching her from the other side of the fire. The red and orange of the flames reflected in her glass eyes. She didn’t seem to like the men who had watched Velsa dance, who wanted her attention now.
Well, that makes two of us.
“I’ll dance with Rawly,” she said, offering her hand to him, praying that this might ease the situation. “He’s been very nice to me.”
Rawly pretended to wipe a tear of joy. “This is the first time I’ve ever had luck with a woman for being nice.”
The pretty fellow laughed and stepped back, and Grau laughed too, and she knew she’d managed the situation as far as they were concerned, but Flower was still glaring as Rawly spun her around to another song.
“You’re kind of heavy,” he said.
She frowned. “That’s what Grau said. What do you all think I’m made out of? I’m sure I’m not any heavier than Flower.”
“Well, I’ve never touched Flower,” Rawly said. “She terrifies me. And Fanarlem girls aren’t my type; I like a good fight too much.”
“A good fight?”
“Yes. I don’t know, I get excited when a woman yells at me—at least, if I think we’ll make up in the end. I don’t suppose you can fight with Grau. It certainly wouldn’t be the same.”
Grau said he wanted her as a wife. An equal. But they never had fought.
Only once had she even dared to question him.
The golden band around her neck weighed upon her. She had begged him to remove it and he wouldn’t—he had reasons that sounded sensible, but she wondered if he would feel the same if he was the one with untrained telepathy. Would he voluntarily lock away his own ability? His own senses?
They had no privacy at the camp. Velsa lay awake in a room full of breathing men. Grau fidgeted, even in his sleep. She wondered if he was having bad dreams. She missed the tender solitude they had shared on their journeys, the gentle love-making that led to a blissful sleep. Six months of this? It seemed unbearable.
Over the next few days, Grau went through a succession of tests and training. The attitude at the camp everywhere seemed laissez-faire. Men loitered around the camp, their appearance so disheveled that it might have been a refuge for hobos. Squads went out on patrol every day, to return with no reports of interest. The hierarchy of the military seemed confused. They were supposed to be working for the nation of Atlantis, but Kalan Jherin was the name spoken of with the greatest respect.
Velsa was allowed to accompany Grau everywhere, but could only sit and watch him. Her childhood had often been just as dull, but her patience for boredom seemed to have fled with all the things she’d seen and done in recent months.
He was handsome with a sword in hand, or demonstrating his ability to start a fire with sorcery. She liked watching him in action. But she would have preferred to be useful herself.
In the evening, sometimes they stayed for the music. Velsa kept quiet, trying to avoid any notice from Flower, but the other concubine was always staring at her.
She and Grau took a walk around the camp on a morning of blue sky and bright brisk wind. Grau’s hand was warm in hers. They talked of their future, their dreams growing more wild and improbable by the moment. They might both become great sorcerers together, they might buy their own land in the marsh and build a house with an orangerie and a huge library and a stable with two beautiful horses they would take riding through the grasses…
They turned a corner and Grau trailed off at the sight of one of the soldiers humping Flower against the wall. Velsa pulled Grau back, turning around the way they had come, but it was too late. Flower saw them with her glassy eyes. The sight of her there, her body small and limp and accepting, was seared on Velsa’s mind.
Velsa’s steps stumbled a little as they walked away.
Archel bought Flower for this purpose, she thought. Once, she must have waited in a House, imploring the fates for a kind master the same way I did. And this is what she got.
She had always been told that concubines were safe from a life of prostitution, that they served only one man, like an arranged marriage. One might worry over a cruel master, but at least there would only be one. She wondered why it had never occurred to her or any of the other girls that the man might want to sell her to others.
Maybe it had simply been too terrible a thought to ever consider.
Chapter 11
One afternoon during Grau’s rifle training, Lieutenant Dlara approached her and said, “Sorcerer Thanneau told me you can read.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How about if you read some books from the base library, so you’ll have useful knowledge? You could be our unofficial scholar.”
Scholar? Lieutenant Dlara was actually giving her a purpose.
She feared that a reading Fanarlem would attract as much attention as an eating Fanarlem, and certainly she still attracted attention everywhere she went. But he had already provided her with an explanation, if anyone challenged her right to read books. “Thank you, sir. I’d be happy to.”
He chaperoned her to the library, a small room which must be almost directly under their bedroom, which contained four shelves of books and some cabinets of documents. A few tables and chairs rested by the windows for study; they were empty at the moment. She was immediately drawn to a book titled Fanarlem Life: History, Construction, and Upkeep.
“So I know what to do if I break,” she said, to explain.
“Of course.”
She settled back in the field before opening her book.
Introduction to the Reader
It has been centuries since we unlocked the secret of artificial life, but this great magic remains frightening and mysterious to much of the populace. When faced with even the most lifelike of flesh-born Fanarlem, people struggle for words of pity or ask many questions. How did it happen? How do you survive?
Since childhood I have been stricken with a malady that has defied the efforts of healers and sapped the magic from my blood, so that by the age of twenty-seven, despite a promising career, I found myself struggling through my days, forced to rest after taking even short walks. I was warned I would be confined to my bed within a few more years, with death soon to follow, unless steps were taken.
As the only child of a widowed mother, death was unacceptable to my soul and familial duty. The commonly accepted path was to visit a necromancer who could transition my body into an undead state—bearing in mind the many ramifications; the body that could no longer heal itself, but would be ever-dependent on sorcery.
Undead, I would largely preserve my outward appearance and my ability to move throughout society without attracting stares of pity or misguided condescension from everyone I met.
Still, I was intrigued by the second option. The Fanarlem body, which strips away most nuisances of human need entirely and for which many repairs could be accomplished by myself or any local craftsman. Why should we, the creators of this great magic, leave it only for slaves and not for ourselve
s?
Against the urgings of my friends to be sensible and even my mother’s tears, I chose the life of a flesh-born Fanarlem ten years ago. I have adapted to its surprising advantages and disadvantages, learned the nuances of construction incorporating the newest techniques and materials, and have educated countless strangers about the truth of my existence, which is not worthy of anyone’s pity.
And if you yourself are faced with the choice between death, undeath, and artificial life, or if your soul currently dwells in an artificial house and you are struggling to find acceptance, I hope this book will bring you to greater comfort and understanding.
Humbly Yours,
I. H. Orhan
Velsa had not expected the book to be written by an actual Fanarlem. A flesh-born Fanarlem—what Grau hoped to pose her as. Maybe this book would tell her how to pretend she had gone through such a transition.
She was so fascinated by the book that she could hardly tear her eyes from it. She had never read anything about her own kind that didn’t dwell strictly on how Fanarlem were cursed and what they had to do to purify their karma. This book spoke to her directly as if she was going to make her own body and repair herself.
She heard soft footsteps coming up behind her.
It was the first time she’d seen Flower during the day, before dinner. The other concubine was still wearing her fine silk robes, and carefully sat down on the dry grass beside Velsa.
Velsa shut the book.
“What are you reading?” Flower asked, touching the cover as if to see it better.
But Velsa didn’t think she could read. Her eyes never moved with any comprehension.
“A book on Fanarlem construction,” she said, a little reluctantly. “Lieutenant Dlara said I ought to be informed.”
“Why would you need to know that?”
“Well…if I need repairs, I can do them, or tell Grau…”
“Grau can’t take you to a proper shop?” Flower scoffed. “He can’t really afford you, can he? What will you do when your bones crack and your skin frays? That’s why you never show any of your precious skin, isn’t it?”
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