by Lila Dubois
“Do not misunderstand me. I doubt your training because you disobeyed me, forced me to restrain you physically, drawing attention to your disobedience by your continued fighting.”
“You could not expect me to watch that…”
“I did, and do, expect that you will do whatever I say.”
His voice darkened and the fingers around her shoulders bit deep. Siara jerked her eyes to his. “You are angry with me.”
“Damn it to the North Wind, yes, I am angry with you!” His voice exploded around her, and his dark control melted under the heat of her anger. Siara’s tension began to fade, his anger was far better than his icy calm.
He shook her slightly. “Do you have any idea what you risked? What consequences your actions will have? You promised me that you would obey!”
“I have been nothing but obedient!”
“No! You have obeyed when it was convenient for you or when it brought you pleasure.”
“You are wrong! Do you think I wanted to be spanked before others, that I wanted to be fucked on the floor of the Hall…”
“Do not deny you enjoyed it.”
“—displayed like a trick pet? Nay. I wanted none of those things.”
“Then you’ve lied to me.”
“Anleeh, listen. I wanted none of those things, but I enjoyed them, and would do them again,” she looked into his eyes, willing him to believe her, “for you.”
“Enough Siara, you have made it very clear that what you wanted from this mission was a chance to be a great historian, like those whose books you worshiped in the library.”
“How little you know me.” He made her desire for a life of adventure sound cheap and vain.
Anleeh laughed, but it was a terrible mocking sound. “I know you so little?” One hand slid from her shoulder to ass, cupping it possessively. “I know you well enough.”
“Please don’t cheapen this.” Emotions rolled through her like snakes, slithering, sliding. Anger, then sorrow, fear and passion fought for dominance, none holding the position long enough to allow her to focus and center. Her chest and throat were tight with suppressed tears, cheeks hot with anger while a single blink would be enough to send tear falling form her eyes.
“What’s between us is passion of the flesh, arousal of the beast, nothing more.”
“Why do you speak to me so? Are you now of Den? Is the man I love gone?” In her anguish Siara did not guard her words, and the admission slipped out.
“Love, what is this talk of love?” Anleeh’s hand slid from her ass, his fingers splaying over her shoulder blades.
Siara, despite the suddenly soft tone of his voice, closed her eyes. So many years of longing, of want, had taken their toll, and the upheaval of the night finished what little barriers remained. She was exhausted, unable to carry the heavy burden of her secret any longer. Releasing the tears that had pooled along her lashes, Siara, refused to look at him.
“Anleeh … you must know I have always loved you. I loved you when you were forbidden to me by your status as a Zinah. I asked for this task because I craved a new life of adventure, but also to be close to you.”
“Siara…”
She did not want to hear what would surely be a polite dismissal, comforting words. “Your smile and bright teasing words were like the Goddess’s sunlight to me. I thought of you when I touched myself at night, and hated that you knew me as no more than the strict Headmistress of the College.”
“Why have you not told me before?”
“I was afraid. Afraid you would pity or avoid me, afraid that if you knew you already held my heart, you would no longer touch me. Now I am stripped bare before you. All my protection, the walls I built inside, are gone. They have been crumbling, falling, and I do not know if I could put them back up even if I wanted to.”
“Siara.” He wrapped her in his arms, hugging her dangerously cold body to his.
“My heart hurts,” she whispered.
Anleeh fumbled with the runes that clinked against her back, lifting one. He muttered softly, and Siara was aware of a strong press of tingling heat at her back, before full darkness fell and she knew no more.
“You should not love me.” Anleeh lifted an unconscious Siara into his arms. Worry creased his brow as he felt how cold she was. “My secrets could kill you.”
Anleeh made his way back to the Hall, praying to Den’s God that the punishment was done. When he gently kicked the door the Cook answered. She nodded jerkily and Anleeh moved through the kitchen, carrying Siara through the dark and still Hall.
He sank down before the Hearth Fire, wanting to warm her before taking her to bed.
A slim figure appeared in the darkness on the opposite side of the Hall.
“Mother,” Anleeh whispered, not looking up from Siara.
“Son.”
His mother came to kneel beside him.
“I changed her, Mother.”
“You were changed.”
“It is not the same. I chose to go to the Great City.”
“And she chose this, chose you.”
Anleeh looked up, “You know?”
“That she loves you? I do.”
“What do I do?”
“You leave her, or you love her with all the fire in your soul.”
“She still does not understand. She understands better now, but she would hate me if she saw the battle madness.”
“Nay. She has strength you underestimate.”
“I respect her strength greatly.”
“Then do not change your ways now.”
Anleeh lifted one hand and stroked Siara’s face. “I want to love her.”
“I think you already do.”
“I cannot love her until she knows me, really knows me.” He brushed a finger over her lower lip, “I will not love her.”
“Do you think she will run from you if your beast were to rise?”
“I do not know. Justice, thought and reason are like air to her.”
“They have come to be for you also.”
“Because they were something different than what I was. Learning to understand—and then dispense—justice, was like being reborn.”
“You will not be happy until you unite the pieces of who you are.”
“They cannot be united. Reason must rule the beast or the beast will consume reason.”
“You can be both. I am.”
Anleeh looked at his mother, surprised to hear her speak so openly about a secret that only they two truly understood.
Anleeh’s mother looked away first, reaching down to stroke Siara’s hair. The Hearth Fire cracked. Outside the Hall wind whistled, rising up to stir the stillness of night.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Do not be.”
“I left you.”
“You followed your heart, first in a quest to be a warrior, then in a quest to be something more than your father or uncle wanted you to be.”
“When I left I promised you I would return.”
“That promise is forgotten. My heart is glad you found peace and fulfillment.”
“I am the only one who understands you, who knows you, and I abandoned you here.”
Holding the woman he was afraid to love, he looked at the only woman he could say, without reservation, that he did love.
“Come with me,” he asked fervently.
“Where?”
“To the Great City. Return with me. There are things there, such beauty, different from here, buildings so tall they seem to scrape the sky, and in the Temple you feel the Goddess, like a balm in your heart.”
“The Goddess only? Are you so changed that you have forgotten the God?”
“No. I remember our ways, but I have seen the Goddess light the face of the Priestess, have felt the power swell within my skin.”
“Put your woman to bed and then tell me.”
Anleeh lifted Siara, tucking her into their sleeping alcove, before returning to kneel before his mother.
Letting the reserve, the hardness that was Den, melt away he spoke of the Great City in the manner he had learned while living there. His eyes danced as he described the Temple, the Palace, the city sheltered in the circle of mountains.
With words and hands he painted his life, the years he lived there, in the air of the Hall. The quiet and attentive face of his mother urged him on and on, words spilling faster. He wanted her to understand, wanted the vision to be so clear, that, though she said she held no blame towards him, she would understand why it had changed him, how the change from this savage land to the refined world of the Temple had seduced him.
She smiled and nodded, her pleasure that of a mother faced with an enthusiastic child.
Anleeh took her hands in his. “The fabrics, the skill of the weavers with cloth and the artisans with leather, would astound you.”
She laughed when he sheepishly admitted that he was known for his sense of style and refined manner of dress. His wry smile acknowledging that it was a reaction to the redundant pants-and-tunic dress of Den, combined with the sense of style his mother was known for, that had prompted him to cultivate a manner of dress.
“It pleases me to see you so happy.”
“Mother, please, come with me.”
“You know I cannot.”
“I will find them.”
“You are your father’s blood, you cannot.”
“That is myth; we will not know until I have tried.”
“Your father would see it as a betrayal, you know this.”
“It is your right to fight for freedom!”
“It is, but I am bound here…”
“By me.”
“Yes, by my child, whom I love.”
“Then let me look for them. It is only myth that tells us my blood will prevent me from freeing you.”
“How easily you dismiss legend. You should know better. I am the stuff of legend, as are you.”
Anleeh bowed his head, turning his face into her palm when his mother cupped his cheek.
She began to murmur in the old language. Anleeh did not understand the words, no one did. But the magic that bound them, the magic of their people, that flowed so strong in his veins, a blood gift from her, whispered the meaning.
I love you, my child, your happiness is mine, your joy my own. Neither time nor distance will ever make you any less my child. I lived without regrets from the moment I first held you in my arms. My body still knows you, for you were a part of me once. I wish I could have made life easier on you. I am sorry that what I am, what I gave to you, has been such a burden.
I love you, my child, my baby.
Anleeh slipped from his knees to lie beside his mother. He buried his face against her side, arms around her waist, and for the first time felt like he had come home.
She woke screaming.
In her dream Anleeh stood over her, a whip in hand as he stripped the flesh from her body with cruel blows, his words, mocking her confession of love, stripping her soul.
“Siara, wake, you are safe.”
“Anleeh.” Enough of the dream remained that she stiffened as he pulled her close. She had to force herself to relax. “I dreamed.”
“Of what?”
“That you beat me,” she confessed.
“Lover, I am sorry that such things haunt your nightmares.” Regret tinted his words.
Siara curled herself into him. “There was more,” she whispered against his neck.
“Tell me.”
“In my dream … I was with child.”
Anleeh didn’t speak, but as she slipped back into sleep, Siara knew he lay awake.
Siara woke the next morning to find Anleeh gone. Sliding from their bunk she rearranged her furs, which had twisted around her body as she slept. Shoving one of the armbands into position around her bicep, Siara worried.
Last night seemed as a terrible dream, the torture of that woman, Anleeh’s refusal to stop it, his dragging her, gagged, into the woods, and finally, her confession.
Her soul felt bruised this morning, her head heavy from the unshed tears, heart burned by so many things. Today she would find the woman, make sure she was being taken care of, do what she could to make it right.
There had to be a way to change this awful practice, this travesty of justice. Perhaps she would work on Anleeh until he agreed to make it part of the treaty.
Anleeh.
Siara grimaced as she remembered her confession. For so long she’d kept her secret, it seemed unreal that she’d finally professed her love.
Perhaps his absence was his discreet way of telling her that he did not return her feelings. She’d expected no less. It was clear that he held her in some regard, perhaps even affection, after all they had shared. It was this regard and camaraderie that his mother no doubt mistook for love.
She could not deny the closeness that had developed between them, but she did not want a partner, she wanted a man who would love her beyond all things, and whom she could love until her soul burned with it.
It was a foolish dream, the product of too many stories in the old texts of the library. She read tales of men and women whose love for one another had defeated armies, started wars, and changed the course of nations. Perhaps it was the idea that love was an adventure that attracted her, or perhaps the belief that love was powerful enough that the fabric of the world quaked before it, which drew her in, but Siara wanted it.
If Anleeh did not, could not, love her like that, then she would find another. When they returned to the Great City he would take up duties as Lord Justice, she would finalize her journals and then take off on another adventure. There was a whole world to see; Den was just the first stop.
Her resolve firm, bruised heart comforted by the assurance that it would not suffer loving Anleeh forever, Siara laced on her boots and headed out of the Hall.
“Anga! Anga!” Siara saw the young woman wandering slowly down a path with a water pail, the listless way she swung it indicating it was empty.
Siara walked quickly up to the young girl, taking her elbow and leading her off the path into a stand of trees.
“I’m glad I found you, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Alright.”
Siara wrapped one arm around the girl in a hug. The uncharacteristically taciturn answer was indication that Anga, and most likely the rest of her family, was suffering today.
“How are you?”
“Well.”
“Anga, how is your sister?”
The girl kept her eyes on the ground. “Ella is fine.”
“Ella? Isn’t that your younger sister?”
“Yes.”
“Anga, I mean your older sister, how is your older sister?”
“I don’t have an older sister.” Anga looked up and there was something cold and unyielding in her eyes.
Anga held Siara’s shocked gaze for a moment before slowly walking away.
It was in the second to last place she could think of to look that Siara found Anga’s sister. The Tanning house was the one furthest from the Hall. Siara, puffing slightly from the long trek, made her way into the dark, fragrant building. Stretched between massive racks, hundreds of furs were curing; the skin sides coated with the thick paste Anleeh had taught Siara to use.
When she entered, the Mistress of the Tanning House, a heavyset woman wearing a simple leather dress, came forward.
“What can I assist you with?” Each word dripped with reluctance, the woman’s tone urging Siara to leave.
“Is she here?”
“Who?”
“Do not play with me. I have already spent a lifetime arguing with women in each of the other huts. You know of whom I speak. I want only to see her, to speak with her, to make sure she is okay.”
“If she were here, there is nothing you could do for her.”
“Let me see her.” Siara put all of her authority, her power and force of will, into the order.
The woman looked away and then jerked h
er fingers towards the back of the building, the movement small, highlighting the woman’s reluctance.
Siara nodded her thanks and weaved her way through the skins to the back of the building and through a low doorway. There were small living quarters there. A little fireplace set into one wall, a cot against the other and a single stool. Simple leather dresses, matching the one the woman wore hung from pegs in the wall.
Curled on the cot, covered by a simple cloth blanket, the first of its kind Siara had seen in Den, was Anga’s sister. Heaving a relieved breath, Siara moved forward, kneeling by the woman’s head.
“Are you awake?” Siara whispered.
“Leave me be.” The voice was reedy thin, hoarse after a night spent screaming in misery.
“I am sorry for what you suffered last night.”
“Leave me.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Just leave me be.”
Siara let silence fall, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. If the situation were different, if it were Siara who had been so brutally tortured by the man she loved, what words would comfort her?
“What he did to you was wrong.”
Slowly the woman’s head lifted, revealing a face swollen with bruises, left eye completely closed. Siara kept her face calm, experience from years of being a counselor to all who lived in the Temple helping her to hide her reaction.
“What he did is allowed,” the beaten woman replied.
“In Den, but I tell you now that what they did to you was wrong.”
“I betrayed him, betrayed his honor by letting another man touch what was his.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I did.” The women’s voice was raspy and low, almost gone from her screams. Her swollen lips barely moved and the woman raised the corner of the sheet to wipe at the spit that slipped from one side of her mouth. “I believed that a woman who betrayed her man deserved to die.”
“Punishment is necessary for those who violate laws, including that of marriage, but that was more than punishment, that was torture.”
“I did not mean to,” she murmured, voice distant. She turned her gaze to Siara’s and what little expression her battered face could form seemed to beg Siara for understanding. “He touched me and I could not help myself, my beast rose, I felt passion, far more than what my husband gave me.”