Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert)

by Leona Wisoker

  She stared at him, appalled. “Did they know? The other lords?”

  Deiq snorted. “Let’s just say Cafad didn’t win any friends at that Conclave.” He blinked and looked up at the arched entrance to the room, frowning as though listening to something.

  Just as she was drawing in breath to ask what he’d heard, her cousin Kameniar sauntered into the room.

  “Dear cousin,” the tall, broadly built young man said, leaning against the archway wall and sneering at her. “How cozy you look. Welcome home.”

  Alyea let out the breath in a long sigh, realizing that by northern custom, Deiq was sitting intimately close beside her, instead of properly across the table from her.

  She decided to go with what was left of courtesy, and said, “Deiq, may I present my cousin, Kameniar. Kam, this is Deiq of Stass; he’s been helping me learn southern customs—”

  “Oh, of course,” Kam said, smirking. “I’ve heard about how Deiq of Stass helps women.”

  Alyea bit the inside of her cheek and very carefully did not look at Deiq, knowing that her aggressive cousin was trying, for whatever bizarre reason, to start a fight.

  “How is . . . um . . . Harra?” She had to struggle to remember the name of the girl he’d been seeing when she left.

  His expression darkened. “Gone,” he said. “Run off with some southern bastard. ‘Scuse me,” he added, nodding to Deiq. “Nothing personal.”

  “Of course,” Deiq said mildly.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Alyea reached for another expected courtesy. It felt like a tremendous effort, and rather useless, but she tried anyway. “Er . . . your mother? How’s she doing?”

  “Complaining all the time,” Kam said. He shook his head and crossed to sit at the table across from them. “She’s become very difficult. I think it’s age. She’s getting up there, you know? Over sixty now. Her mind’ll be going soon.” He didn’t seem particularly sad at the thought. “You do know I’m in line now to take over the family estates when she goes,” he added, preening a bit. “Ashin ran off to be a wandering tinker or something. Such a disgrace, she disowned him, can’t blame her. But I think the shame affected her mind, really. She’s been hard-hearted lately.”

  Deiq’s mouth twitched. He said nothing aloud, but Alyea could sense his deep amusement. And she saw his point now: Kam’s chatter felt inane and pompous, a waste of time and voice, and a poor mask for a deeper issue. He was angling for something, and Alyea was fairly sure she knew what.

  “I take it,” Alyea said dryly, “you mean she won’t pay your gambling debts any longer. Or your brothel tabs.”

  Kam reared back in his seat with an offended expression. “Now, cousin, that’s hardly polite talk in front of company. What have you learned for manners while you were gone?”

  “Which means I’m right,” Alyea said. “And I haven’t any money either, Kam, so you’ll find no help here.”

  “No money? What do you call that great load of trade goods you walked in with?” he demanded, dropping his pious act. “D’you know what you’ve got there? I saw a bundle marked with—”

  “They’re mine,” she said, “not yours, and I’m not giving you any of it to sell.”

  “Just what did you do to pick up all those pretty trinkets among the barbarians?” he sneered. “And walking back in with him! D’you think nobody sees what—”

  Her temper rose sharply. After all she’d been though, damned if she’d let this overfed fool call her a whore! Before she quite knew what she was doing, she’d half-risen, leaned forward, and slapped him hard. Just before her hand hit his cheek, Deiq’s hand clamped around her wrist, almost but not quite arresting the blow.

  Kam went over sideways, tumbled over the bench, and crashed to the floor, flipping the bench over onto himself in the process.

  Deiq pulled her hand back roughly. “Damn it,” he said, “I warned you about that!”

  She stared at her motionless cousin, appalled. A moment later the cook came in and gave Deiq a hard stare, obviously assuming he’d been the one who hit Kam.

  Deiq shook his head, stood, and moved to help Nem lift the overturned bench. The two men knelt next to Kam. After a few moments of examination, Deiq said, “He’s still alive. It doesn’t look like you broke his jaw, and he didn’t break anything during the tumble.” He looked directly at the cook and added, with careful enunciation, “He needs to be carried to bed. He will hurt in the morning, but he is all right.”

  Nem nodded, squinting at Deiq thoughtfully, and turned a sharp stare to Alyea. She suspected that, close as his ear had been to Deiq’s mouth, he’d made out most of what the ha’ra’ha had said, and now knew that Alyea had delivered the blow. She shrugged, resisting the urge to apologize, and went to summon servants to carry her unconscious cousin away.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Deiq waited with Alyea while servants removed her cousin; said nothing, and kept his expression neutral. But he could feel the shock reverberating through her entire body, and when she abruptly turned to leave, he followed close behind.

  Three steps later, she whirled and said fiercely, “Leave me alone!”

  “No.”

  She glared, sullen and defiant, and walked away at a fast clip. He kept pace, and when she tried to slam the door to her suite between them, he stopped it with a hand, eased inside, and shut the door behind him.

  “Damn it, go away!”

  He shook his head. “Not while you’re this upset.”

  “I could have killed him!” She put the back of one shaking hand to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. “How the hells should I feel?”

  The world would be a better place if you had killed the little ta-karne, he thought. He knew better than to say that aloud, though.

  “Upset,” he said dryly, and urged her into a chair.

  Alyea’s room was much larger and lusher than the guest room he and Idisio had been given, but showed remarkably little of Alyea’s fighting personality. Instead, delicate lacy designs and pastel shades dominated, more Lady Peysimun’s style than her daughter’s. Deiq had a feeling Alyea didn’t spend much time in this room or even within the mansion, which meant she had an apartment within the palace itself.

  He’d have to see about moving them there tomorrow. Being here was throwing Alyea back into all the old patterns he’d been trying to break her of; even now, her muddled surface thoughts centered on worry over her mother discovering Deiq in her rooms, unsupervised.

  He sighed and sat on the arm of her chair, one hand on her shoulder, wishing he could give her a shot of stiff desert lightning to settle her raw nerves; but the household appeared sternly dedicated to light wines.

  “Alyea,” he said, “this is exactly why you need me by your side right now. You can’t afford to lose your temper when I’m not around. It wasn’t the physical slap that knocked your cousin out; I stopped most of that when I grabbed you. But you were mad, and your anger can hurt people now. You wanted to hit him, and so even though I stopped your hand, the blow carried through just from your willing it to do so.”

  She stared at him, bewildered. “Because I . . . wanted . . . ?”

  “Yes. You have to start being very careful when you decide you want something. You can do a lot of damage without meaning to, even though there’s no protector bound to this area.” Any more, he added silently, and held his face still against a pained grimace. “That’s why aqeyva is an essential discipline for desert lords. You have to practice, every day, until it really becomes a part of you. Until restraint isn’t just about not punching someone, but about stopping the anger before it goes to dangerous levels. And that’s why kathain are so—”

  She stiffened and began to say something, a ferocious light in her eyes.

  “No,” he said, overriding her; trying not to think about leaning forward and gathering in that intoxicating fierceness. “You listen to me this time. Kathain are important for desert lords because they’re trained to see when their lord needs distracti
on. If you start losing your temper, you’re liable to find your kathain rubbing your back or acting silly, just to change your mood. It’s much more complicated than a tumble, and kathain are not merely whores.”

  She looked away, the line of her jaw set hard and stubborn. He studied her profile for a moment, then decided to go for shock, to see if he could finally break through her preconceptions.

  “Alyea,” he said evenly, “at the moment, because you won’t listen to me on this, I’m having to act as your kathain. And I don’t care for that much.”

  She jerked around at that, and found him leaning in close. He heard the rapid tripling of her heartbeat; her eyes dilated instantly. He could feel the strength, the rock-solid confidence that her whole being rested upon, and his hands fisted against the need to pull her in closer.

  Oh, Meer . . . Oh, gods, no. Not again. Never again.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, both to her and to the memories in his head; his voice barely rose above a whisper. Their faces were almost close enough together to brush noses. “I’m here to teach you. To help you stand on your own as a full desert lord. But I can’t do that if you don’t listen when I explain these things to you.”

  She stared at him, transfixed. He saw the light glaze in her eyes and realized he’d fallen into a trancing-voice without meaning to. Cursing himself internally, he carefully changed his pitch and tone to bring her back out to normal consciousness.

  “Your cousin is a fool, and he’s very lucky I was there.” He leaned back as he spoke, slowly increasing the distance between them. “And you are lucky I was there—and damn lucky that I hold to my promises.” He hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud; it carried a betraying measure of his raw frustration.

  Gods, it had been a long time . . . In the back of his mind he heard Meer’s dying scream, and the deeper hunger dulled to mere physical desire; much easier to master than that other, long unmet, need.

  Foolishness . . . He needed to visit the Tower. Soon. To remind himself of why he’d made the vow.

  She blinked once, twice, shook her head as though to clear it of a fog; then stared at him with awakening suspicion. He’d seen that expression hundreds of times before: the awareness that he could have done anything he wanted in that moment.

  And there goes what was left of her trust, he thought as she stood up and backed away several jerky steps. He made no move to stop her; studied his fingernails with ostentatious indifference, trying not to let the dull ache coiling in his stomach show in his expression.

  “I want you to leave,” she said, cold and precise. “I will see you in the morning.”

  He aimed a cool smile at her and moved, instead, to sit in the chair she had just vacated.

  “I’ll stay here,” he said, “and make sure you don’t flatten the sanahair. Chamberpot servant,” he added in answer to her uncomprehending expression. “It’s a joke. Never mind. Go get some sleep.”

  “I don’t . . . I won’t. . . .” She stopped and shook her head. “You’re going to give my mother fits.”

  “Won’t be the first time I’ve upset someone,” Deiq said dryly, and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. “And you should be worrying less over your mother’s sense of modesty, and more over how you’re going to explain to her that you’ll be moving into the Palace tomorrow, don’t want to attend that dinner she’s planning, and really don’t want Oruen at that dinner.”

  He heard her draw in a sharp breath. “How did you know all that?”

  “Because I know you,” he said, not moving. “And I understand your mother, and I understand Oruen. And because I know how to train a desert lord. This household won’t work for you right now. You need to get away from this place before you completely fall apart.”

  Not that he was happy at the notion of being in relatively close quarters with Oruen; but that was a situation he could handle. Probably.

  “Go get some sleep,” he said again, and faked a yawn, stretching a little and kicking his legs out long as though settling down to sleep in the chair. The simple maneuver worked. She murmured something that sounded like a good-night and went into the bedroom, closing the door between them.

  Once the sound of her moving about in the other room stilled, he rose and warded the door of the suite, then returned to the chair and allowed himself a light doze as a reward for surviving another day without killing anyone.

  Etiquette of the South

  (excerpt)

  It never fails to astonish me how widely etiquette has diverged between our two cultures, given that all life began here in the southlands. I suspect the advent of the Northern Church has done more to redirect notions of polite behavior than any other single influence. For example, in the southlands, a woman is generally free to take whatever partners she cares to indulge herself with. There are, of course, individual variations depending on status and Family, but a woman simply spending time alone with a man is not cause for comment or concern. In the northlands, this small matter is often enough to brand her as a whore and lose her crucial respect; as I understand it, further north, where the Northern Church has a stronger hold yet, such a simple thing can actually cost the woman her life.

  This may come into more relevance as the cultures mix together, as in my earlier-noted concerns regarding northerns moving south and southerners moving north; but even in your main city of Bright Bay, you will already be seeing the effects of greater traffic from the south on the culture of your populace.

  I suspect your more conservative northern supporters will not be at all happy with the changing dynamic of society.

  From the collection

  Letters to a Northern King of Merit

  penned by Lord Cafad Scratha during the reign of King Oruen

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Alyea woke in the grey light of dawn to the sound of her mother shouting. Not at all uncommon; the woman seemed born to fuss over anything that came to hand, and had delivered tirades at all hours of the day and night over undusted side tables and dishes with water spots.

  Alyea had long ago learned to sleep through it without stirring. She blinked and rubbed at her eyes, wondering hazily why she’d woken this time; then the words came clear.

  “S’e Deiq, I don’t know what passes for etiquette in the barbarian lands, if you even have such a concept, but in this house an unmarried woman does not have a man in her rooms—”

  “Ohgodsohshit—” Alyea muttered, grabbing a light robe.

  She opened the door to find her mother about to storm into the bedroom. Face to face, Lady Peysimun continued her rant: “Alyea, I am shocked that you would allow—”

  A glance past her mother into the main room showed Alyea that Deiq had, at some point, turned the chair to have a clear view of her bedroom door. He was grinning, utterly unbothered by his host’s anger; his cheerful insouciance reassured her, and she managed to regard her mother’s flushed face without fear.

  “Good morning, Mother,” she said. “Is breakfast ready?”

  Lady Peysimun stopped mid-word, her mouth remaining open for a moment, then said, “Are you even listening to me?”

  “No,” Alyea said. “I’m not. Excuse me.” She very gently shut the door in her mother’s face and locked it just before the handle rattled violently.

  She was being a coward, leaving Deiq alone to face that fury; but she also suspected that he could probably handle it on his own.

  Digging into the back of her clothes cupboard, she picked out a simple outfit she had long ago hidden to avoid Lady Peysimun throwing it away: long black trousers and a blue long-sleeved shirt, both of a light, loose cut that held up well under humid Bright Bay summer heat.

  The outer door of her suite slammed. Alyea winced.

  After dressing, she took the time to tie her hair back into a simple, triple-bound tail down her back, and added some minor pieces of jewelry she’d left behind on her last stay at Peysimun Mansion. At last, admitting that she was stalling, she opened the d
oor and stepped into the outer room again.

  Deiq still sat in the chair, his expression serene. He smiled a little, meeting her eyes, and said, “I think your mother would very much prefer me to not step under her roof ever again.”

  “She had that opinion as soon as she saw you,” Alyea said.

  “True. She doesn’t think much of southerners, does she?” He rose to his feet. “Breakfast will have to be quick. We’ve been summoned to see the king.”

  “Already?” she said involuntarily, glancing at the vague rosy flush limning the curtains.

  “Yes. That’s why your mother came to your rooms in the first place.” His expression darkened. “Apparently Idisio decided to go walkabout last night and landed in a hell of a mess that got him hauled up in front of the king. The messenger didn’t have details, but I’m guessing, from the tone of the message, that delay probably isn’t a good idea.”

  Even with dawn barely spread over the sky, a crowd of people craned and stretched to stare at Alyea as she walked up the steps of the palace with Deiq at her side, and she felt an apprehensive chill run down her back. Just how bad a mess had Idisio gotten himself into?

  She glanced sideways at Deiq—and admitted to herself that they might all be staring at him, not her. He had dressed plainly as well, but the overall effect was startling: he’d chosen an emerald-green shirt and black pants and drawn his dark hair into the same triple-bound tail style as hers, with one thin braid left hanging past his right ear. A polished marble of green jade on a thin gold chain hung around his neck, a small ruby earring glittered in his left ear, and a thick gold ring with a blood-red stone graced his right index finger. A bracelet rested on each wrist; three strands of polished wood and bone beads, barbaric in contrast to his finer jewelry. He looked . . . impressive. Powerful. A little frightening.