by Kirby Crow
"Cestimir,” the Queen called, drawing him to her. He was almost as tall as she. “This is your elder brother, Nazheradei.” She smoothed Cestimir's hair, which was like silver silk and curling at the ends. “This is Cestimir, my son."
No bows were necessary between them, blood prince to crown prince, being from the same wellspring, but Liall sensed deep currents flowing around the court. There was anger here, which was nothing new, but also a sense of urgency that he had not felt since...
Don't think about that day. Not now. Not here.
Led by instinct alone, Liall touched his forehead and bowed low, nudging Scarlet to follow his lead. Scarlet did, and when Liall lifted his gaze, he saw the suspicion fade from Cestimir's eyes. Too quickly, for a courtly bow costs nothing and means nothing. It made him suddenly afraid for him, and for his mother.
What have I walked into? Is this a homecoming, or a prelude to an assassination? He would know soon enough.
* * * *
A prince. Liall was a prince.
Scarlet was quiet in the corridor after they were given leave to withdraw, a silence made up of sheer amazement, shock, and a growing sense of anger. Liall was equally silent, but his reasons were unknown to Scarlet.
A prince. Liall was a prince! I'm a pedlar, a petty merchant who sells pins and silk ribbons and perfume and cheap jewelry from town to town, and he ... we....
It made Scarlet feel faintly sick.
Liall curtly gestured that Scarlet should follow him, and he started off confidently into the depths of the palace, the crowds of jeweled onlookers parting for them like the sea. Scarlet followed, staying close to Liall's side.
"These are my apartments,” Liall said some endless time later, when they had walked what would have amounted to a long evening's stroll in Lysia. “Or they were, when I was a boy."
Scarlet had followed him in a daze, past gilded doorways and glittering stairs, and finally they had arrived at an enclave that could have safely held four or even five houses of the size he had grown up in, and Liall called it ‘apartments'.
In merchant caravans, Scarlet had seen rare and costly things, but just the little ante-chamber of Liall's apartment put those wares to shame: richly patterned carpets and woven tapestries, crystal vases and beaded curtains, and inside there was more. There was a sitting area, like a common room back home, furnished with a green couch with deep cushions and several large chairs, each big enough for a grown man to curl up in like a baby. Tall chests paneled in dark-tinted wood lined the walls, and there was some type of game table surrounded by a set of chairs. Small, potted vases of red flowers, in appearance almost like roses, were placed about the room, but their scent was decidedly unfamiliar. Scarlet peered to the right as they walked in and saw a wide table and delicate, carved chairs set up in an alcove lit with candles, a private dining nook of some sort, but filled with furniture far costlier than any he had seen before.
Liall signaled Scarlet to follow as he entered through an open archway into a bedroom that seemed to be made simply to house the enormous curtained bed within. The outer layers of the bedcurtains were velvet, and the inner veils were of a light-spun material like gauze or spider webs. The sheets on the bed looked like silk and were dyed crimson with crushed carilla shells. The deep, red color with its characteristic shadings of black and purple was unmistakable, and there was much of it scattered around these rooms. Carilla was the most expensive of dyes, imported from far across the sea, and Scarlet used to wonder where it came from. Now he knew.
However dark it was outside, it was bright within these rooms, with the light of many lamps chasing back the shadows and a fire roiling in the hearth. The blue crystal lamps looked like gigantic sapphires hollowed out to hold oil, and there were heavy woolen draperies that extended from ceiling to floor. A very large, curved casement with a glass window was behind the bed, its heavy draperies flung open to reveal a dim landscape of ice and drifting snow. The sheer size of it made him feel slightly sick. There were only two glass windows in all of Lysia. Or there had been.
A very old man, blue-eyed with a shock of wiry silver hair, and with the kindest face Scarlet had seen yet, came into the bedroom and greeted Liall. Liall took both the old man's hands before embracing him for several long moments. Scarlet saw the glisten of tears in the old man's eyes and wondered who he was. They exchanged more words and the old man lifted his chin.
"This is Nenos,” Liall said, introducing the elderly one, who bowed to Scarlet. Scarlet bowed back awkwardly, and Nenos nodded politely before turning and exiting through a narrow doorway near the wall. The apartments were like a maze, and Scarlet wondered if he would get lost in them.
Liall tossed his beautiful cloak over a chair and sat down on a bench near the foot of the bed to remove his boots. “I want a bath,” he said wearily. “And so do you."
He did, as a matter of fact, so he knelt to remove his own boots while Liall waited impatiently. “Why didn't you tell me?” Scarlet asked lowly.
"What reason was there until now?” Liall's tone was sharp.
Scarlet kept his head down and finished with the boots. Liall rose and signaled imperiously for Scarlet to follow. They walked barefoot through the smaller doorway into the next room, which seemed to be an undersized version of the common room, but more cozy and intimate, with a small hearth and a wide window at the back. This room was lined with shelves and shelves of books, and there was a deep, comfortable couch and several chairs.
Scarlet slowed and would have lingered in this restful room, but Liall threw an annoyed look over his shoulder. Scarlet hurried to catch up to him: through another doorway into a narrow room tiled in herringbone brick with thick rugs scattered about. There were chests and shelves, but nowhere to sit, and Liall went straight through the doorway at the back with Scarlet following, where the pedlar stopped dead in fresh shock. This brightly-lit room was large and warm and held an enormous sunken tub big enough for ten, already full of steaming water, a tall stack of towels the color of snow, and four servants, including the old man Liall had embraced.
Scarlet hesitated before entering further, but Liall allowed the servants to take his coat off and begin unbuttoning his shirt. He signaled for Scarlet to do the same, but Scarlet balked and stepped back when the servants reached out to him.
The servants were confused and turned questioning gazes on Liall for guidance. Liall gave Scarlet a warning look and shook his head slightly.
"Do as I do,” Liall said in a commanding tone, and began to undress.
Scarlet nervously began to remove clothing that was stiff with salt in places. They both stank of the journey, and it would be good to be cleaner than a wash with a bucket of cold water would allow, but all these servants! Bathhouses were common in Morturii, but there a man undressed himself, unless the reputation of the house was not to be repeated in polite company. There was a name for body-servants in a bathhouse, and it was not a nice one.
Scarlet waited until Liall had climbed into the bath before he peeled off his breeches to climb in, certain his skin was flaming red before he even touched the hot water. He sank up to his chin in the bath.
A very young man with a round face like a moon, naked to the waist, knelt on the floor behind Scarlet and touched his hair. The boy wore his own pale hair tied back with ribbon. Scarlet flinched, jerking away.
"He wants to wash your hair,” Liall said.
Scarlet began to say that he could damn well wash his own hair, but when he saw the set of Liall's jaw and reckoned how much it might have affected Liall to see his kin again, Scarlet submitted.
At least, he thought, I don't have to allow anyone to bathe me. When the boy came close with a bath cloth, Scarlet scowled at him until he retreated. Scarlet held out his hand for the cloth. The servants all saw the four fingers on his left hand, and that provoked a few shocked comments, but Liall would not translate.
"It is superstition,” he said dismissing it.
Then Scarlet had to be quiet and ti
p his head back for the moon-faced boy—he heard Liall call him Chos—to work. Chos said something in his own tongue, his tone awestruck, and several of them answered.
Liall almost smiled, and this time he told Scarlet what was said: “They marvel at your fair skin and black hair. Here, we have tales of the long ago when this kingdom's dominion reached far to the south. Our warriors would raid a western land called Hiberna and steal away the most beautiful maidens and the most handsome of youths.” He dunked his head under the water momentarily to wet it for washing.
"Oh, those,” Scarlet said, squeezing his eyes shut to keep the soap out. “We have tales like that, but they're of the Shining Folk who came to steal away daughters and sons so that they might have children of their own."
"Just so,” Liall agreed.
Scarlet opened his eyes and stared at Liall. “Your people are the Shining Folk?"
"Not now.” Liall nudged Scarlet's thigh with his foot. “But then."
That made no sense at all, and Scarlet subsided into confusion. Liall stroked Scarlet's thigh again with his foot, and Scarlet pushed him away, highly embarrassed and aware that everyone had seen the caress. Liall did not seem to care.
Chos rinsed his hair carefully and squeezed the water out between two of the towels, twisting gently inside the cloth, and then spoke to Liall. Scarlet already hated that he knew none of the native tongue here and had failed so completely at Liall's attempts to teach it to him. He resolved to take up the lessons again, in earnest this time.
Liall nodded and answered. Chos bowed and withdrew for a moment. Scarlet craned his head around to see Chos return with a comb made of fine tortoiseshell.
"Liall,” he complained.
"Let him attend you,” Liall said, and his tone was again short. “You are not in Byzantur now."
Chos was careful with the snags, and it was actually rather restful, except that, while Chos was still untangling him, Liall rose from the bath.
"Where are you going?"
Liall dried his face on a towel, looking like a tower of carved, water-dewed amber in the lamplight, and Scarlet was embarrassed that Liall seemed unconcerned at being naked with so many people in the room. The servants could have been invisible, or even a mirror by the way he was showing his body off to them! Scarlet suffered a pang of jealousy as Liall slipped into the robe that another handsome servant held for him.
"I must speak to my mother before I sleep tonight. Nenos will see to your needs. Try to get some rest."
Scarlet began to rise, but the comb snagged him tight. “Ow! You're leaving?"
Liall gave him an impatient look. “For a little while. There are answers I must have, and I cannot get them sitting in a tub. Finish your bath. You will be quite safe here."
"When are you coming back?"
Liall looked angry for a moment. “In due time."
Scarlet swallowed his protests and sank back into the hot water. Safe, he thought. Always ‘safe'. It's a wonder how many times I've nearly been killed after someone said that.
Liall went into the outer room, which Scarlet learned later was a dressing room. Nenos followed. Scarlet heard them speaking, but could not understand a word of it. He could not understand a word from any of them, and sudden unease made his heart thud a little faster. Everyone at home knew enough Bled or Morturii or even Minh to make themselves understood, but this language was unlike anything he had ever heard. Liall had told Scarlet already how his people guarded their solitude, venturing out only for certain trade items and allowing no foreigners in. The few lands that saw trade from here had to rely on native traders to bring out what they craved.
Scarlet had always enjoyed strange surroundings and did not mind being the only foreigner here, but he hated not being able to understand what people were saying. Liall's abrupt departure felt like being abandoned, never mind that he was only going to see his mother who was a Queen. A Queen! Scarlet felt a fresh rush of mortification. He had no more business in front of a Queen than a mouse in front of an eagle.
The servants seemed to sense his distress. They went silent until Chos had finished with his hair. The boy signed that he should get out, and Scarlet took the towels out of Chos's hands rather than allowing the servant to dry him. They fetched him a nightshirt made of something that felt silky on his skin, but was the color of old linen. Chos also brought a warmed robe that bore silk edging on the throat and breast. It dripped with embroidery and gilt thread, and the sleeves were far too long. Scarlet remembered with a pang of longing how little Annaya had tried so hard to get the stitches that Linhona taught her right. They both would have goggled like daft sheep at the garment he now wore. He touched it with a fingertip, sliding his hand over the rough surface of brilliant, knotted threads. It did not even look real. Nothing here did.
Scarlet would have liked to dress again, but they had taken his clothes and he could not make them understand enough to bring them back. The old man led him back into the bedroom and insisted on summoning a lanky man with thinning white hair and extremely long hands to inspect the cut on Scarlet's face.
"It's healing, no worry,” Scarlet said, wincing as the man—Scarlet supposed he was some kind of curae—pinched and pressed his skin. “There's nothing to be done now."
The curae seemed to agree with him and shrugged. He left after some words with Nenos, and the old man bowed him out and then returned. Nenos signed to Scarlet that he should go to sleep, but he was too unsettled and the bed was enormous, with silk sheets and furs piled over the velvet. He thought he might sink if he tried to lie down.
Nenos bowed and departed. Scarlet peeked through the archway and saw that they all seemed to have gone, melted away from the apartments through some hidden doorway and swallowed up by the enormous palace around them.
He found a chair and sat in it with his hands folded. This is a fine thing, he thought irritably. Stuck in here like a baby put to bed, and not even a cup of che! He had no idea where his traveling pack had gone, and all of his things. They could be anywhere.
In a few minutes, Scarlet's natural curiosity won out over his irritation, and he began to investigate the apartment, poking in corners and looking into the closet, which was paneled in cedar and also enormous, but there seemed to be only one place made for a body to sleep in the whole place. He went back through the cozy little room and stood looking at the elegant bed, the thick pillows and covers and furs, the double layers of draperies hung over the canopy, and he felt slightly sick again.
No one here was mistaken about his place with Liall. They all knew, and for the first time it occurred to him that, in this place, he could not escape being seen as a lover of men.
Liall takes no pains at all to hide it, he thought, and he ... will he be angry at me if I do? What does it mean in Rshan if one man loves another, how is it looked upon? Is it thought normal here? What if it isn't? What will Liall do then, and do I even get a say?
The blazing fire made the room too warm after the cold of the sea, and it was too splendid, too overwhelming. Scarlet could not bring himself to sit down, but paced the room back and forth, his arms crossed over his chest.
Nenos, the old servant, returned soundlessly and stood in the doorway. He watched Scarlet worriedly for a moment before vanishing into an outer room. A short time later, a different servant brought a tray of food that held small, boiled eggs and thick slices of bread, and though Scarlet was hungry as a wolf and sick to death of rancid fish and journeycake, he could only pick at it under their very watchful eyes. He found himself wondering how great folk could abide people with them every moment, staring, watching, nothing unobserved. The plates were odd little things, square rather than round, with scalloped cuts around the edges like little moons. They were painted in great detail, almost as much as the tapestries on the walls, and he found himself being careful with the fork, lest he scratch one of the designs. He had thought Hilurins loved color and detail, but these Rshani made his people's art look childish and plain in comparison. He re
cognized several motifs from the tapestries that he had seen before in Byzan paintings, and their construct was very similar. Perhaps it was true, what Liall said, for their art did seem to copy Rshani methods, and maybe his people really had lived here once. It gave him a strange feeling just thinking about it.
Perhaps the servants thought the first dish was not pleasing, for another appeared. The food was foreign, but good: little dumplings, both cold and hot, with some spiced meat mixture inside. The cold ones were fruit or some kind of vegetable Scarlet did not recognize. There were small bowls of sauce for dipping them, a pitcher of what tasted like spring water sweetened with berry juice, and a bottle of wine. Scarlet decided to keep a clear head and left the wine, drinking only the rosy-sweet water. He tasted one of the cold dumplings, for curiosity's sake, but when he did, his appetite returned with a vengeance and he left the plates empty.
The old man nodded in approval and had the tray taken away when Scarlet signed that he was finished.
"Thank you,” Scarlet said. The servant seemed to understand the intent if not the words. Nenos smiled again and shepherded everyone out, leaving Scarlet in peace at last. By that time, he was sleepy from the bath and the food, and yet the bed seemed to loom ominously. He could not bring himself to do more than stroke a hand over the furs and silks, and their softness seemed to taunt him.
Ever since I was a boy, Scarlet thought, I've known my secret heart and known what I wanted in love, but I've always been afraid of seeking it out, because it meant that I'd be less than myself. In Byzantur, people would've pitied me or been disgusted or they would have laughed. So, I denied everything and drowned my desire in wandering. Now that I've finally given in to my heart, my worst fears—among them being seen like a petted whore strung with beads—are coming true, and these clothes and that bed make me look the part. Great Deva, how did I come to be here?