by David Hair
She sighed and sipped her wine, waiting for the sounds that would tell her that he was back from the baths below the palace, freshly washed and ready to hear her answer. The sun was creeping towards the horizon, a big pink-orange disc shimmering in the haze of the cooking smoke. The Godsingers began to wail, calling the people to the sunset prayers, and the Ringers in the Sollan Churches joined in, tolling their bells. The warm fug of an eastern city enveloped her, made her feel sleepy and peaceful, despite all her worries. When she heard Kazim enter the chamber behind her, she felt languid and willing.
Willing to make love, of course . . . but to try and conceive?
She adored that he was willing for it to be her choice – throughout Yuros and Antiopia alike, the unspoken rule was that it was the man who decided if and when a woman should conceive, and Kazim had been raised with the same expectation. Instead, he was deferring to her.
She finished her wine and drifted through the gauzy curtains, drinking in the sight of him, waiting on the bed like a Lantric god descended from the Holy Mountain to seduce a mortal.
She shed her clothes while he watched, feeling as desirable as a nymph, then crawled across the sheets and kissed him, drank his mouth, stroked his chest and belly, let him know he was wanted, let him suckle her and stroke her, tease out her juices. Then she reached out and grasped him, and guided him to her.
‘You do wish this, love?’ he whispered, his eyes bright.
‘Yes,’ she said, firmly, ‘I do want your child, Kazim.’
When he pushed into her, she felt an almost suffocating kind of joy, her breath shortening and her heart so filled with liquid warmth she thought she would dissolve into him. Then her body responded to his movements, and the spirituality of her feelings blended and blurred with the animal lust now surging through her, until wanting became needing.
*
Later, she lay on her side, still glowing inside, while he slumbered beside her. She should have been sleeping too, but her mind wouldn’t rest. Part of that was because of the gnosis; there was a prickling feeling nagging at her awareness, the sensation of being stalked. Someone was trying to find her using spiritual-gnosis. They were skilled, narrowing down on where she lay despite her wards. She could shield herself and prevent any contact, but she wasn’t sure if she should, even though the touch was unfamiliar.
She edged from the bed, wincing at the deep ache in her loins from being ridden so hard – her consent had enflamed him, driving him to fill her, over and over. No wonder he slept so deeply now. She smiled to herself, feeling fecund as a drui priestess who’d been ploughed at the Sollan rite to renew the sun. She stood, wrapped their discarded blanket around her and went to the balcony doors. They were shut and warded. Cautiously, she extended her awareness.
Something surged at the edge of her senses and began to form outside her wards, on the balcony. A ball of silver became a man-shaped being, a sleek cat-headed man with shifting grey fur, holding up his right hand in both greeting and placation. It was a spiratus, a projected soul – it could be any shape the mage willed. It was a skill she had, but not one she’d used a lot of late; leaving one’s body in war-time wasn’t something one did lightly.
She kindled a spiratus-sword in her hand, unseen to the naked eye but deadly effective against such a spirit, then spoke.
Staria’s spymaster . . . A quiver of excitement run through her.
Elena restrained the urge to punch the air.
*
A week later they met in person, at a small Dom-al’Ahm above the Rift abandoned to the elements decades ago. Vultures now roosted in the broken dome, and the interior stank of bird-shit, but from the takiya – the raised open-air prayer hall for the worshippers – the views over the desert below the Rift were spectacular. Amteh worshippers prayed facing Hebusalim, and the platform of this Dom-al’Ahm extended northeast, towards the cliffs.
Elena and Capolio agreed to four in each party. Elena brought Kazim – together, they could deal with any treachery – and Cera Nesti and Piero Inveglio to do the talking. She knew Staria’s party would all be magi, which was worrying Kazim.
‘I doubt there’ll be any tricks; Staria has always been a straight arrow in the past,’ she told Kazim. ‘Well, unless crossed.’
‘And have you?’ Kazim asked as they waited. ‘Betrayed her, that is?’
‘Not really.’ Elena cast her mind back. ‘A woman of her legion tried to seduce me once, and I broke her jaw – but I don’t think that counts.’
Kazim wrinkled his nose, clearly uncomfortable at the thought.
But he’ll follow my lead; I can trust him on that.
‘This could change everything,’ she reminded them all. ‘In my experience, her people are like anyone else, with the same human wants and needs. And we need them.’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ Cera said, but Piero Inveglio was less comfortable. He was a very traditional Sollan, and profoundly concerned about the idea of two legions of openly frocio men and safian women. On the other hand, he didn’t want to lose the war.
‘Here they come,’ Kazim called, pointing to a skiff approaching from over the desert. It came in below the line of the Rift and landed south of the ruined dome.
Four figures disembarked, and Elena called, ‘Shoes off, please. This is still a holy place.’ All her party were already barefoot, at her insistence. ‘And no weapons or periapts either.’
The newcomers made show of disarming, taking off their gemstone necklaces and their boots before climbing onto the takiya. Elena hadn’t seen Staria for a long time, but the crook-nosed woman hadn’t changed much; she might look stringy, but she had strong shoulders, and her long black hair was thick and glossy. She was a three-quarter-blood mage, no one to take lightly. Her skin was tanned, but her feet were almost white.
‘You need to go barefoot more often, Staria,’ she called teasingly; her own feet were deeply tanned.
‘I don’t go barefoot outside for just anyone, Elena,’ Staria replied with crotchety amusement.
‘Oh, I do it all the time,’ she replied. ‘I’ll always be a country girl.’
Staria raised an eyebrow at that, then introduced her party: Leopollo, an impossibly gorgeous young man wearing a waistcoat over a bare upper torso and Keshi pantaloons, as if this was a Pallacian pantomime. The other man had a shaven skull and a black goatee: Capolio, her spiritus contact. The young woman with the burly frame and pugnacious face was Kordea, Staria’s adopted daughter; she was the only one exuding any hostility.
Elena began her introductions. ‘Staria, this is Cera Nesti, the Queen-Regent of Javon.’
Cera was clad in violet beneath a black bekira-shroud. ‘We met in Brochena,’ she said to Staria; ‘at the Beggars’ Court.’ Her eyes trailed coldly over Leopollo.
Elena recalled belatedly that there had been bad blood over an incident in Cera’s ‘Beggars’ Court’; while she empathised with Cera’s point of view, this meeting couldn’t be allowed to descend into wrangling over the past. ‘This is Comte Piero Inveglio,’ she said quickly. ‘He is also a regent, and represents the interests of many nobles, as well as having decades of experience in public affairs.’
‘Please, I feel old just hearing about me,’ Inveglio said modestly.
‘And this is Kazim Makani. He’s mine,’ Elena added drily.
Leopollo purred appreciatively, but Staria’s eyes narrowed and she went still. ‘He’s a Souldrinker!’
‘El es un Diablo?’ Leopollo gave a startled yelp.
‘Yes. And still mine,’ Elena replied. ‘Is that a problem?’
Staria looked genuinely shocked, but af
ter a moment she said, ‘Clearly it isn’t to you, Elena.’
‘No, it’s not. You’re seeing his aura. Now look at mine.’
Staria’s group engaged gnostic sight and peered at her intently, then as one they gasped. She knew what they were seeing: tendrils of gnostic light joining the two of them, so many it was as if they were almost the same being.
‘Yes,’ Elena confirmed, ‘you are seeing right: to put it simply, we share my gnostic energies. Kazim hasn’t needed to kill to replenish his powers since first we found love.’ She let them digest that revelation, then said, ‘Shall we continue?’ She pointed to blankets that had been spread across the ground. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ll have to sit cross-legged. Our skiff wasn’t big enough to bring chairs and tables.’
‘It’ll help keep the negotiations brief,’ Inveglio remarked with a grimace.
‘Si,’ Staria chuckled, ‘I have no more padding on my arse than you do, Comte Inveglio.’
They sat, all of them looking wary, then Elena and Staria quietly set wards down the middle, enough to weaken any surprise attack and alert all present of any gnostic movements; a sensible precaution for both sides, although she didn’t detect any ill-will here.
‘So,’ Staria Canestos began, ‘let me state my interest in talking to you plainly, so there are no misunderstandings. Likely Elena will have told you all about my legion, but if not . . .’ She looked at Cera Nesti frankly. ‘You know, but perhaps the Comte doesn’t: many of my legion are frocio: homosexuals. My father recognised during a recruitment crisis that there are many of them, but they were being driven out of other legions. He let it tacitly be known that any such men wouldn’t be punished in his legion, that their desires would be treated as normal. The response was overwhelming: he was flooded with recruits seeking to escape persecution, men and women both, enough that he soon commanded two legions, not one. It was a condition of inheriting his legion that I continue that legacy.’ She looked at each of Elena’s party. ‘I see you all know this already? Good. It will make our discussions more straightforward.’
‘Knowing is not approving,’ Piero Inveglio replied. If the deeply conservative Sollan couldn’t be persuaded to hear Staria out, there was no sense in taking the idea back to the full Regency Council. That was why Elena wanted him here.
‘Of course,’ Capolio put in, ‘but something disapproved of can still be tolerated, under law and in the breach.’
‘Our laws are a blend of Amteh and Sollan, and statutes devised by our Rimoni ancestors,’ Cera said. ‘Of course, I was recently stoned to death for contravening those very laws,’ she added drily. ‘Miraculously, I survived.’
Staria chuckled. ‘A miracle indeed. But my people live every day with that threat. They all know that capture in battle will bring them a fate worse than death.’
‘Why are you in Javon, Staria?’ Elena broke in.
‘Because Gurvon Gyle promised us a place where we could live free,’ Leopollo blurted. ‘These lands.’
‘Our lands,’ Cera and Piero said in unison.
‘We’re not welcome anywhere,’ Kordea said in a surly voice. ‘Wherever we go, someone will try and “cleanse” us. Javon seems as good a place as any.’ She set her jaw defiantly.
Staria raised her hand placatingly. ‘As my children say, we wanted a place where we could be ourselves. Javon sounded good, at least the way Gurvon described it. But it doesn’t look so good now.’
‘There’s a lot of empty land in this world,’ Piero Inveglio noted. ‘Even in Estellayne, I warrant.’
‘That’s true in principle, but oddly enough, any viable bit of soil is immediately claimed by someone with an army and a holy book,’ Staria replied. ‘Anyway, we’re soldiers, not farmers – we can protect land, but we wouldn’t have a clue how to till it.’
‘Javon belongs to the Javonesi,’ Cera said carefully. ‘Like any people, it is down to us to decide who dwells in our lands.’ She raised her hand. ‘And before you protest that Piero and I are Rimoni and therefore also settlers, yes, of course that is so, but we were both born in Javon, and most Rimoni alive today in Javon were as well. Many, like myself, are of mixed blood: we belong here. My point is,’ she went on, jabbing her finger fearlessly at the magi facing her, ‘that we claim the right to approve settlers. For now, you don’t have that approval.’
‘We’re not easy to chase away,’ Leopollo boasted. Kordea nodded in agreement.
‘Neither are we,’ Cera replied steadily. ‘Hans Frikter would attest to that.’
‘You talk big, for someone with no gnosis,’ Kordea sniffed.
‘And you talk too much for someone with nothing to say,’ Cera flashed back.
‘Peace!’ Staria snapped at Kordea. ‘The Queen-Regent is right: don’t speak unless you’ve something constructive to say.’ The young woman lowered her eyes sulkily, glowering at Cera.
Elena suppressed a smile, remembering when she’d been much the same.
‘How is Hansi?’ Staria asked Elena.
‘He’s alive – Chained, but well enough treated. His wounds are healing, but he’s lost a hand.’
‘The sword hand or the drinking hand?’
‘Drinking.’
‘Oh dear – that’s serious.’ She winked at Elena, visibly seeking to reduce the growing tension.
Elena played along. ‘Ah, don’t worry about Hansi; he’s become ambidextrous – he’s drinking us out of beer with his sword hand alone.’
Staria smiled, then turned back to Cera. ‘May I go on? I was speaking of why I requested this meeting. Three things have happened recently that have caused me grave disquiet. The first was your stoning, Queen-Regent. Though we now know it was a ruse, I didn’t like that Gurvon Gyle had the leading clergy eating out of his hand enough for them to assemble a vicious and bloodthirsty mob with the intention of stoning to death a woman most of the people of this country clearly revere – and for the very crime my people commit every night they can manage. That disturbs me greatly.’
Elena could only agree. Cera, sitting beside her, flinched visibly at the memory, and Piero Inveglio looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘The Sollan faith doesn’t condemn people to death for such crimes,’ Piero replied defensively.
Staria gave him a withering look. ‘The Sollan are no less cruel to frocio, Comte: solitary imprisonment in a convent or a monastery for the rest of one’s life is death of a different kind, would you not agree? Which is better, a quick death or a slow one? We don’t differentiate between religions: all the gods condemn my children.’
‘It breaks our hearts,’ Capolio added. ‘I’m a devout worshipper of Kore, like most Estellani, but because of our . . . difference . . . we’re forbidden to worship.’
‘But you choose to do these things,’ Piero argued. ‘You could choose not to.’
Elena saw Cera frown, but Staria’s party all curled their lips.
‘“Choose”?’ Capolio shook his head. ‘With respect, Comte, I tell you this: we would love to be “normal”, but our minds and bodies are not, and it was Kore himself who made me this way! In the same way you are stirred by a pretty woman, I’m stirred by a handsome man – it’s been that way all my life. I can’t change. I don’t know how to.’
Inveglio still looked sceptical. ‘I’ve heard the arguments, Magister, but I’m not convinced. Both Kore and Sollan teachngs say the pleasures of lovemaking are the reward for accepting the responsibility of bringing new life into the world. To take that pleasure without even the intention of accepting the divine task it entails? That is wrong. It is like theft.’
Capolio’s face darkened. ‘I have heard those bigoted arguments, Comte! I say—’
‘Enough, Capolio,’ Staria interjected. ‘We’re not here to debate these matters. Hearts aren’t changed by words.’ She looked intently at Cera. ‘I spoke of three things that have disturbed me: the stoning was one. The second was, of course, the battle last week at Forensa. Gurvon brought us here with the promise of easy victories, but your people
have shown their teeth. I have heard the reports: a whole city fighting as one, and magi of the Ordo Costruo aiding them. Mine is a mercenary company. We fight for winners, because only winners can pay us. Despise that if you will, but the defeated make poor debtors.’
‘The Nesti have never hired mercenaries,’ Piero told her in a disdainful voice. ‘We’ve always known your worth on the battlefield.’
‘You fight us, you’ll learn our worth,’ Kordea growled back.
Staria’s eyes flashed impatiently. ‘Kordea, contribute, or remain silent.’
‘But—’
‘Or go and sit in the skiff.’
The young woman pressed her lips firmly together, glaring.
Elena met Staria’s eyes.
Staria replied, then the wards flared at their gnosis use and as one they both cried, ‘Sorry!’
‘Don’t do that,’ Kazim grumbled. ‘I thought I needed to kill someone.’
‘Think you’re good enough, Diablo?’ Leopollo enquired.
‘Easily,’ Kazim replied, his weight shifting subtly.
Why do young men always do this? Elena shifted her gaze to Kordea. And certain young women. ‘I wish we hadn’t brought the children,’ she said to Staria. ‘They’re spoiling our picnic.’
Kazim threw her a wounded look, and she winked.
Staria grinned crookedly. ‘I rather think yours is more than a child, hmm?’
Elena brought them back to the question at hand. ‘So, Forensa made you think twice. Good! But what’s your third concern about Gurvon? I can think of thousands.’
‘The Harkun. My children have been stationed at the Rift Forts for months now. We’ve seen the Harkun up close, and whatever the rights and wrongs of their plight, letting them onto the upper plateau is sheer folly. But Gyle now wants me to abandon the Rift Forts and march to join his army.’