He stopped in his suite to change for supper, though by now his wardrobe had dwindled and he had far too many scraps for patchwork. He had not missed the Emperor's remark that first night he'd been forced to the humiliation tests. Second had goaded the Emperor into seeking Lisinthir's weaknesses. Obviously, Second wanted to send him away.
Obviously, what he did now gave him more potential for power than Second thought wise.
Lisinthir dressed in black to honor the male whose invitation would no doubt come before supper's end and left the suite with locked jaw and the fierce determination to keep the Emperor guessing. No matter what it cost him.
The Slave Queen had become so resigned to her silent suite that the soft scritch of claws on stone surprised her, even more so when it accompanied a meek female into her presence. Twining both sets of hands together, the female said, "You are needed in the retiring room."
The Slave Queen frowned. "Is it the Mother's time, then?"
"It will soon be the morning of the third day that the Mother has been sequestered," the female said.
"Three days!" the Slave Queen said, standing. "I will attend her at once."
The female dipped her head and scurried back down the stairs, and the Slave Queen followed. The Mother should not have retired for the birth until the pains had brought her to within a few hours of delivery. While there had been Mothers who'd entered the retiring room early in order to gain sympathy, this Mother had not seemed the sort to court the bad luck that harem myth assigned to those who abused the safety of that room, the one room in the entire complex where a female could not be abused, used or commanded. There were many reasons for the Slave Queen to think fondly of this Mother, not the least was her genuine joy to be given the pendant that symbolized permission to seek the Emperor's divine attention... and her resonant bliss when the Slave Queen had draped the face-jewel over her head when she'd conceived.
And this Mother had been kind to the Alliance slaves.
Downstairs, the harem air was subdued. The females did not look up as the Slave Queen passed among them, heading for the tiny room in the core of the suite that belonged to females and females alone. It was the only room with a door, and the Slave Queen let herself in, closing it behind her.
The Mother was shivering and pacing. Her skin was slick and had lost color; her belly had dropped, placing the child in the correct position for birth. The event should have taken place within hours of the drop, but the Mother was still here. The flesh around her hip-bones had stiffened into tight creases.
"It won't come," the Mother whimpered, clasping the Slave Queen with all four hands. "This one walks and walks and it won't come."
"Quiet," the Slave Queen said, pulling the Mother to a padded bench. "Sit."
"It hurts to sit," the Mother said, cupping her face in her upper hands as her lower ones squeezed the Slave Queen's arms. "It hurts to do everything."
"Sit so I may look into you," the Slave Queen said. "I have seen twelve Mothers before you. I have some small knowledge of these things."
The Mother backed onto the bench, still trembling. The Slave Queen crouched before her knees and pushed them apart gently. There she found fearsome signs: streaks of blood but no paler fluids, which would have signified a promising leak from the womb. Blood by itself only augured death as the unborn child pressed against unforgiving hips and tore the ligaments and tendons around them. Too much of that and the body would bleed to death in secret, with little warning. And the infant, already beginning to need air, would suffocate in the womb.
How terrible an end for such a beautiful beginning. This Mother had shown such promise and borne her new transition to a title with grace.
"Should this one walk more?" the Mother asked. The jewels of her head-piece were now stuck to her face by sweat.
"Yes," the Slave Queen said despite the hopelessness of the scene. "I will remain with you."
So the Mother paced, and the Slave Queen perched on the bench and watched. As she watched, she became reacquainted with her own ambivalence. She would never be the Mother. But a child would never kill her on its way into the world, either.
How long she sat there, bearing silent witness, she did not know. But a female slipped her head in the door and whispered, "There is someone here for you."
Since to ask for the Mother now was outside possibility, the Slave Queen exited the room and found the Ambassador on the other side. The windows outlined him in a halo of golden light; the morning had well-advanced to give him such a dazzling aura.
"I worried," he said. "I was told you where here when I asked."
"I am well," the Slave Queen said.
"You do not look well."
She closed her eyes. "It is not a good time."
"Can I help?" he asked, voice softening.
"Not unless you are some master of childbirth," the Slave Queen said, allowing despair to speak with her voice. "The Mother will die soon. I must stay here so she will not pass that threshold alone."
"Why is the Surgeon not here?" he asked.
She blinked against the light but could not see his expression. Did he make a joke? "Females do not merit the services of surgeons or medics, Ambassador. All this time here and still you do not understand that we are replaceable?"
"Where is the nearest comm unit?" he asked.
Confused and too tired to follow his non sequitur, she pointed the tip of her mouth at one wall. "You cannot operate it," she added.
"Then do so for me," he said. When she paused, he said, "Please."
Confused into blank obedience, the Slave Queen walked to the unit and slipped her claws into it. When it responded, she looked at him. He leaned over her head and said, "The Surgeon."
Her eyes grew round. He didn't move but waited there, his hair falling over her shoulder and across one wing arm. Finally, "This is the clinic."
"This is the Ambassador. I have need of the Surgeon. I am in the imperial harem."
"We will dispatch immediately."
"Thank you."
The link closed.
"Why—why—"
"The Mother needs medical treatment," the Ambassador said, and gently pulled her fingers from the unit. "It is in my power to request it."
"It will do no good!" the Slave Queen exclaimed. She ignored the females watching them. "He will arrive and hearing that you have no need of him, leave again. You cannot force him to heal the Mother."
"I can but try," the Ambassador said.
"It is ludicrous!" she said.
He canted his head and it struck her that they had inverted roles somehow. He was the calm one, patient with what fate might bring, leaning against the wall and glowing morning-white. She was the one who, confused, dashed herself against the rocks like the waves she now observed as often as the sky.
"Do you say that she is not worth the attempt?" he asked. "Do you believe what they tell you, that your lives are empty of meaning?"
"I—" she stumbled to a halt. Then she whispered, "It is a terrible way to die."
"Let us see what we can do," he said.
She turned her face from his and found the entirety of the harem in attendance. To be sure, they were not obvious about it: they faced other directions, they curled up as in repose. But there was no mistaking the receptive silence. They did not love her. They did not love themselves. But the possibility of better treatment—that they understood. She hoped for their sakes they did not come to expect it. The Ambassador might believe in his own power, but he was but one individual... one wingless freak in an Empire full of talons and fangs.
The Surgeon dove through the window, scattering flowers from a nearby vase with his wind. He came to a halt near the Ambassador and squinted at him.
"You do not appear injured."
"I do not require your aid for myself," the Ambassador said, "But for the Mother, who will die without it."
"I do not treat females," the Surgeon said, and turned to go.
The Ambassador caught his ar
m. "Do you lack the skill?"
That prompted a quizzical look. "Of course not."
"The experience then," the Ambassador said.
"No."
"Ah! You have treated females before!" the Ambassador said.
"No," the Surgeon said, then hissed and rolled his head. "I have experience. Just not in treating females."
"You fear then that you will be unequal to the task."
"Nothing of the kind. I am merely uninterested."
The Ambassador's brows lifted. "Uninterested in saving the offspring of the Emperor?"
The Surgeon's tail lashed. He said nothing.
"Among the Eldritch, when a woman dies of childbirth she usually takes the child with her unless there is a competent doctor to assist," the Ambassador continued. "Is it so with the Chatcaava, lady?"
So stunned a witness she'd been to this conversation, the Slave Queen nearly missed her cue to enter it. "Yes, my-better."
"Perhaps it will be a son," the Ambassador said, as if musing. "A male, dead because of your inaction."
"It is said that males fight their hosts more vigorously on their way into the world," the Slave Queen said demurely, barely daring to believe that the Surgeon was still in the room.
"The Emperor has many sons already," the Surgeon said.
"Every male is worthy," the Ambassador said.
The Surgeon's eyes had thinned to glowing slits. "It might be a daughter."
"It might be a son," the Ambassador said.
No words then. Only the white sunlight shining in rays between their bodies, joined by white palm to scaled arm. The Slave Queen held her breath.
"Stay here," the Surgeon said to him, including her in his gaze. He opened the door into the retiring room and closed it behind him.
The Slave Queen staggered, breathed in with a gasp. The Ambassador took her by the wrists, pulled her to a bench near the room.
"How," she whispered.
"It was only a duel," the Ambassador said, his voice so gentle she felt it as a caress over her horn, across her forehead. "A duel with words. The weapon is hardly important so long as you understand the dance." He looked at the closed door. "Will he save her?"
"I don't know," the Slave Queen said. "Maybe." Then, overcome, she pressed her head against his shoulder, not caring who in the harem saw this weakness. Let them stare. Let them have fuel for their gossip. Let them see her thanking an alien for the life of one of their own.
They waited together, and as time passed her emotions quieted. She relaxed against his side.
"Does this happen often?" he asked quietly. "Complications."
"More for the unwinged females," the Slave Queen said. "Those of us who can shift can open our hips for the child, or so it is said."
"You have never been the Mother," he said.
"No," she said. "I have always been and will always be the Slave Queen."
He pressed her head back against his shoulder and she allowed it.
The shadows had shortened and grown darker when at last the Surgeon exited the room. He stood at the threshold and looked at the Ambassador.
"A boy," the Surgeon said only, and left through the window. The Slave Queen rushed past him into the room and found the Mother, wan and drooping but alive, cradling an exhausted infant against her breast with her upper set of arms. She touched the Mother's forehead, her arm, her cheek.
"Yes," the Mother said in a voice nearly so small as to be inaudible. "This one lives. But why?"
The Slave Queen clasped the female's lower hands. "Does 'why' matter?" she asked. "Let us rejoice."
The Mother smiled and said, "The 'why' does matter... to this unworthy one. But at least this one knows the 'how.'" She pressed her forehead to the Slave Queen's, cooling it with her sweat and lending the Slave Queen, for a moment, the sensation of the weight of the Mother's jewels.
Could she have wept, she would have, and the soft shadow cast by the Ambassador at the door striped her back like a lash.
/Have you made progress?/ was the message that awaited him after supper. Lisinthir studied his data tablet, keyed in, /I am solidifying my credibility among our allies in order to pursue our aims with more success. Will keep you apprised./
That was, he supposed, true enough. Then he left for the Emperor's tower, his mind held carefully blank in preparation for the trial to come. In such spirit he arrived, numb, nearly floating apart from himself; on the threshold of the suite, he closed his eyes and drew in a long breath before pressing deeper toward the bedchamber. He expected to find the Emperor on the bed already, as had been the pattern in past days. He expected the command to undress which had saved his clothing and shredded his pride.
But the Emperor was at the windows. Open tonight for the thin, cool air to drift in, tousle his mane past the cage of horns that decorated his head.
The Chatcaavan didn't speak. So Lisinthir didn't either. He bowed his head and let go of anxiety. Concentrated on the pleasure of still wearing clothing flush to his skin, of the breeze that made his cheeks tingle and the silence and dim lighting that soothed his too-heightened senses. He willed the world not to move.
"I have a son today," the Emperor said. "Because of you."
Lisinthir lifted his head.
"Why?" the Emperor asked. "Why did you do it?"
"Your question is baffling," Lisinthir said. "Surely you know me well enough by now to answer it."
"I know you not at all," the Emperor said. "Every night for three weeks I raped you to bleeding. Subsequent to that, I have, every night for weeks now, forced you to perform acts that repulse you under threat of violence, merely because I can. You should despise me. Given the opportunity to strike a blow against me, you should have. And you did not. Why?"
"You're right," Lisinthir said. "All this time and still you don't know me at all."
The Emperor left the window and walked up to him. Toe to toe the height difference left Lisinthir looking down at the male.
"I force you to obscenity out of this weakness," the Emperor said. "You complete my power over you."
"I serve life despite you," Lisinthir said. "And thus your power over me is meaningless."
The Emperor stepped back, eyes glowing. "You admit to enslavement and call it strength."
"We all serve something, Exalted," Lisinthir said. "The only question is what strength we derive from that service. Mine puts me at your feet and bows my head... but also gives me the ability to do so as often as you call for me without falling to despair or losing myself. Is that weakness—or defiance?"
"You are an alien!" the Emperor exclaimed.
"I'm glad you noticed," Lisinthir said with a grin.
"All other aliens have feared me," the Emperor said. "They have crumbled. They served me also, but their service destroyed them."
"Perhaps you do not understand what alien strength is, then," Lisinthir said.
"Alien strength is saving the life of the son of your enemy," the Emperor said.
"Yes," Lisinthir said.
"And giving your body to your enemy to save the lives of strangers."
"Yes," Lisinthir said.
"And also, somehow, biting the throat of the one who could kill you."
A laugh surprised him on its way out. Lisinthir grinned, at ease again despite the toll of weeks of fury and exhaustion and trial. "Yes."
"I don't understand at all," the Emperor said.
"You will not unriddle me in a month, Exalted," Lisinthir said.
"No," the Emperor said, and grinned. He turned to the bottle of brandy and poured them both glasses, handing one to Lisinthir. "Drink."
His skin prickled. "Shall I disrobe, then?"
"No," the Emperor said, surprising him. "Tonight we merely drink." He lifted his glass. "To the health of my newest progeny. May he live to attempt to steal my Empire from me."
Lisinthir raised his glass. "To your son."
The females of the harem rallied around the Mother when she at last had the strengt
h to leave the retiring room. As always, an infant created solidarity among them, a solidarity that the Slave Queen usually encouraged by leaving as soon as possible.
This time, however, one of the females caught her wrist before she could go.
"Stay."
Bewildered, the Slave Queen let them tuck her back into their midst, the Mother pulling her deepest into its core and handing her the child to hold. She had never had a chance to do so for very long... much less to do so while the females chirped and laughed and whispered with gay excitement around her. When she looked at the Mother for guidance, the Mother said, "You saved this one. And the baby. Stay with these ones."
"I did nothing," the Slave Queen protested in a low voice, so as not to disturb the sleeping child. "The Surgeon—"
"He-our-better was only the instrument."
"Then the Ambassador—"
"Was here because of you," the Mother said. The females were silent, but their stares were frank in their agreement. "He-the-alien was moved by you. By your distress on this one's behalf. Had you not cared for this one's fate, he would not have done what he did."
"You have power," one of the females said.
"No," the Slave Queen said. "No, the Ambassador has power. I am what I have always been."
Laughter, light and not quite mocking. Perhaps even friendly.
Said Moon, "Do not play the fool, Mistress. Not all power is shaped by talon and fang."
She wanted to ask what they knew that she did not, but couldn't bring the question to her teeth. They wanted her here, their approval astounded her and the Mother's warm regard undid her. So she stayed, and she rocked the baby and passed him around until he woke and squalled for his meal. Even then, the harem did not push her away with cold eyes and turned backs. Had she desired it, she could have remained and played a board game, or talked, or had her hair brushed, her body bathed.
But it was too much. She tendered her regards and fled to her tower, to the silence that now seemed an accusation and solace both. She tried to bathe, but the water brought her no peace, no stillness. There was no question of sleep. Even her perch on the windowsill and the beauty of an evening with translucent clouds and distant, clear stars could not quiet the tumult in her soul.
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