The man raises his hands, shakes his wrists out. Slowly, as if making a big ceremony out of it, he reaches to loosen the blindfold that had been invisible under his hood. Then he turns to stare down at the woman beside his knee. He lets out a little snort of disbelief. “Christ Almighty! Raven?”
“Yes, it’s me, Dolph.”
“I thought you were . . .”
“Dead? Well, that was the general idea.”
“Where am I? Why are you here?”
“I live here. Finally found my proper calling in life. My, haven’t we both grown up a lot since I saw you last . . .?” Raven smiles up at the guy, and N’Doch feels just the faintest stirrings of jealousy.
The guy studies her. He looks like he’s gonna say something, then thinks better of it. Instead, he flicks his boot out of his stirrup, swings the opposite leg up and over his horse’s neck and is out of his saddle, upright and ready on the ground before N’Doch can take a second breath.
Now that he’s down, N’Doch sizes him up: not tall—both N’Doch and the bodyguard are taller, and the Bodyguard is broader. But the Challenger is solid enough, and fast. He’ll be the one to worry about in a knife fight. His hood has fallen back, and N’Doch sees he’s also a handsome dude, if you like the blond, rugged type. He wears a neatly trimmed beard, probably to make him look older than his men, since he can’t be a day over thirty. His eyes are dark for a blond, though. He has that sort of intense gaze N’Doch has seen on hungry fish hawks. Even without looking in his eyes, N’Doch can feel the reined-in anger radiating from him like heat. He’s surprised the snow doesn’t just melt right off the guy.
Raven seems to expect some further greeting, but she doesn’t get it. The guy throws a quick glance at her, an even swifter punishing glare at the bodyguard, then lets his eyes sweep the darkening farmstead, the yard, the outbuildings, the Big House itself, and the little crowd of women who are now watching him, awaiting his next move. He takes his time—N’Doch admires his control—before he locks eyes with the tall man up on the terrace and growls, “Heinrich, where in hell have you brought me?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The God’s dais is empty when the High Priestess makes her entrance with her retinue into the Hall of Audiences. Paia is relieved, though the thick air bears that dry tang of heated metal that the God brings with him, and she suspects he’s just been there, then left on another of his jaunts. She has not seen the God since he delivered his ultimatum, which she has begun to think of with a capital “U,” but given its general subject matter, she did expect he’d show up to supervise this month’s Presentation, if only to make sure that she didn’t reject any even half-likely candidate.
Paia mounts the three wide marble steps. As usual, the Hall is hot and stuffy. Orange afternoon light slants through the clerestory to fall artfully on her ceremonial chair. Without seeming to, she tries to adjust the thin cut-velvet cushion to a more comfortable position. Its gold-wire tassels are as big as her fist and always in the way. The chair itself is high and wide and brilliantly gilded. Its tall, square back is deeply carved with geometric detail framing a huge central icon in the brightest gilt of all: the Winged God Rampant. The sharp edges of his thousand intricately wrought scales poke Paia in the back if she leans against it. She bites off a groan. “Survive the day,” indeed. If only she can survive this day.
Before, she hasn’t thought much about the physical discomfort involved in almost all of the god’s ceremonies. Often, she’s been ironically grateful to have a reason to stay awake during the more tedious of his endless rituals. For twelve years, she has accepted without question whatever the God demanded of her. She was practically a child, recently orphaned, when the God came to the Citadel. She has fitted herself to his needs ever since because the payback has been her survival. By becoming his Priestess, Paia was allowed to continue living in her family’s fortress, fed and protected from the terrible world outside, as her father and sister had fed and protected her until they died.
But in the Library this morning, the House Comp informed her that today is her birthday, as it has on every other birthday—an event that would otherwise go unremarked, for the God does not believe in giving notice to the passage of earthly time. But this birthday is her twenty-eighth, and for no reason that she can articulate, Paia finds this significant. The same way she finds the God’s Ultimatum significant. She has recovered from her initial shock about it, but of all the duties the God has ever pressed on her, this seems the most thoughtless and tyrannical. Well, not thoughtless. Paia knows he’s up to something. But it actually makes her angry with him, in a way she’s never dared to be.
Meanwhile, she’s also aware that she’s beautiful, twenty-eight years old (now), and still a virgin. She knows what sex is. The House Comp has told her all about it, and she thinks she deserves a little. But her access to men is strictly controlled by the God. If she so much as looks at a servant or soldier, the man in question is never seen in the Citadel again. So part of her is ready to give the God’s plan some serious thought. She cannot see that she has any other choice. She’s spent too much of her youth alone on a dais or up in her studio in front of an easel.
She settles herself as comfortably as she can on the impossible throne. At least, being within the Citadel, she has been able to leave the God’s gun behind and doesn’t have to find an invisible place for that hard little lump. Three of the nameless First Daughters flit about, arranging the filmy, glittering yards of her train so that the folds fall seductively around her long, bared legs and nearly naked torso. The fabric sticks to her clammy skin in long damp wrinkles. She can’t imagine this to be alluring, but how can she know for sure? Despite the God’s empty dais, the Honor Guard stationed in the shadows along the four walls of the Hall all stare stonily away from her.
Paia knows she’s beautiful. She can see it in the hastily averted eyes of the soldiers, even in some of the women’s. She can see it in the hungry glances of the Suitors. These men submit to the humiliation of a Presentation for the same reasons that she does the God’s bidding without question: fear, and a desire for the safety and comfort that becoming Consort to the High Priestess of the Temple would allow them. But part of that comfort—she can see it in their eyes—would be possessing her exquisite body, with its firm full breasts and unblemished skin. She is a rare and precious commodity in the world: an unmutated, undamaged, perfect physical specimen, an Ideal. The God has told her so himself. It’s why he chose her as his Priestess. His own terrible beauty and power is another such Ideal, he says. It is their duty, then, to the Faithful of the Temple, to exhibit themselves openly, so that their despairing flock can be uplifted by the sight of their perfection. The God’s perfection is of course unobtainable. But hers, he has decreed, is not . . . at least, for the right man.
Paia’s thoughts drift to the painting up in the tower, shrouded on its easel. Another ideal, one not about power or possession. But also, an ideal that no longer exists. At least, Paia muses, I am still around to be possessed. And controlled. She has long understood that all the elaborate trappings and solemnity surrounding the Presentation of the Suitors are a masquerade for the God’s own personal breeding program. Crossing her perfection with another’s should produce an even more perfect child. And Paia does not object. Why not improve the chances that her children, should she prove able to produce any, will be healthy and able? If the Sons and Daughters of the God of the Apocalypse are to take up the reins of the world in its Last Days, as the God has promised, the more superior they are, the better. The greater their chance to pull the world back from the brink. But there’s time for that, surely. Why is the God suddenly so impatient?
Paia senses that she is wandering into uncharted territory. She leans back to press her bare shoulder blade against the spiky carving of the chair. A sharp dose of the-here-and-now always serves to bring her back from the edge. Too much speculation is dangerous. When she has her balance again, she nods at Son Luco, who has taken up his station at th
e bottom of the steps leading up to her chair. Luco loves the Presentations. The closest thing to real intimacy that Paia ever shares with him is their private meeting afterward, during which they are supposed to review the virtues and drawbacks of the various rejected Suitors, but which invariably descends into dish and gossip.
Now he stands, imposing and erect in all his shining regalia, one step into the shaft of hot sun from the windows above. His gilt-sandaled feet toe the edge of the narrow strip of carpet that cuts the Hall in half, from the Priestess’ throne, straight down the center to the main doors at the far end. Another strip crosses at right angles midway, leading to the Left and Right Disrobing Chambers. Luco raises the heavy gilt staff held in the crook of his arm, and two acolytes pull open the doors of the Right Chamber.
The first Suitor enters. He is robed in white, as he is allowed to be, until the High Priestess requests a Viewing. Paia wonders if word ever gets around that she’s been making this request less and less often. Could this account for some of the God’s impatience? She has developed an Ideal of her own, during the three years since the Presentations began, which she has not discussed with the God. Perhaps she should. She wouldn’t wish to be compelled to accept a Suitor who does not fit it.
She knows this particular Suitor will not do the moment he turns the corner in mid-hall and comes toward her at the slow, ritual pace. He is good-looking enough, his bronzy features are more or less regular, with only the slightest list to his nicely broad shoulders. But she sees terror and piety in his eyes, and not much else. She lets him approach and kneel. He does not even try to meet her gaze. He’s very young, she sees. His hands, holding the robe closed across his chest, are trembling. Perhaps his parents have put him up to this. They as well would stand to gain from his new-won riches. She offers her most gracious Nod of Rejection, and dismisses him without a Viewing.
The next candidate is older than usual. He turns the corner briskly, the long folds of his robe neatly composed and invisibly held in place. He kneels, presenting himself in a respectful but businesslike manner, as if hoping to impress her with his maturity and his understanding that this is, after all, just another kind of trade-and-barter. A merchant? She’s told there are one or two left. Paia is intrigued. Takes a certain strength of mind to carry on with commerce during the Last Days, after all. And this man would probably be kind to her. He might even be interesting to talk to. But the skin on his cheeks is patchy and much too pale. Although each candidate is required under Temple oath to swear themselves free of disease, Paia doesn’t trust that formality. Again, she is gracious but sends the man off without a Viewing.
The third is darkly handsome, but she hears in his voice the same dullness she’s seen in the eyes of the first young man. The fourth is thin and suppressing a cough. Paia thinks what a desperate act of delusion it has been for this one to subject himself to the cost and time and procedures required for becoming a Suitor. More than once, she has wondered what happens to all these failed candidates. Do they return home to disgrace or is it seen as just another chance gone wrong in a life made up of such things?
And so the afternoon wears on, through a fifth, sixth, and seventh. Paia is getting bored, and she can see Luco shifting his weight as if his tall, bright sandals are pinching his feet. So she calls for a Viewing just to placate him, to stir him up a little so he won’t disgrace himself or the Temple by falling asleep where he’s standing. The eighth Suitor drops his robe to his shoulders and spreads it hesitantly. Paia spares him merely a glance, but signals him to turn so that Luco can receive the full effect. When the poor man has been kindly dismissed, Luco rolls his eyes. The irony is not lost on Paia, and surely not on Luco either, that he himself is the closest thing to a perfect physical specimen that’s walked into this hall in a long, long time. Perhaps the God would be satisfied if she had Luco’s child. Paia eyes him speculatively, wondering if he could manage it. At least there would be no complications about romance.
A ninth Suitor enters. Paia’s attention is caught by the unusual grace and confidence of his bearing. His well-shaped head is held high, allowing his long chestnut hair to ripple across his muscular shoulders. When he rounds the corner, Paia hides a reflexive little gasp. Something new at last. The man’s robe is already open, artfully and partly revealing a sculpted chest, neat hips and strong, trim legs. He has high cheekbones and a fine, chiseled mouth, now relaxed into a sultry smile. His dark gaze fixes Paia with the same intense kind of invitation that the God lures her with when he wants something from her. But this man is material. No doubt he can deliver what his eyes are promising.
Paia is momentarily stunned, not just by his boldness but by the sharp thrill that rises in her, by her undeniable urge to peer into the shadows of his open robe. She has seen a lot of naked men during the course of the Presentations. But this one is different. She retreats behind her sternest mask of authority, but her show of chill scrutiny does not fluster him. He stands patiently while she studies him, then shakes his hair back a little and shifts his weight imperceptibly so that his robe falls farther open. His eyes do not stray from hers for an instant. He is beautiful. He is a perfect specimen. Suddenly Paia wishes the God were here, to help her choose. What if it is . . . is this the one? Already she wants to touch this man, wants him to touch her, everywhere. But she can’t see his hands. A man’s hands are important, but this one has left his hidden in the folds of his robe while all the rest of his assets are fully offered to her view. Perhaps there is something wrong with them, some injury or deformity. She ought to request a full Viewing, except now she’s feeling oddly possessive of him, resentful that she must publicly display this beauty that could be meant for her alone, for his eyes say he sees nothing in the room but her. She asks him his name to hear him speak, and his voice is throaty and low, as if he, too, is overcome by this encounter. She hears the name he offers but can’t recall it a moment later. She beckons him nearer, then realizes that he has not yet knelt to her. But she cannot help but notice that her nearness is causing his sex to swell and rise within the caressing shadows of his robe. She knows, and he knows, that only she can see this, and he lets it happen. She cannot make herself look away. He smiles at her over half-lidded eyes. His lips part to show the very tip of a roving tongue. He lets his hips loll forward lazily, offering himself to her, and Paia is seized by an erotic madness, though somewhere at the back of her lust-fogged brain, an alarm is going off. She forgets that there are several dozen other people in the room. She leans forward and presents her hand, thinking only of how much she needs him to feel the sudden warmth between her thighs.
His left hand appears from beneath his robe, unmarked and whole. He reaches, grasps her hand. With one firm tug, he pulls her into his arms. Paia does not struggle. She feels him hot and taut against her and her body is already molding itself to his nakedness when the alarm goes double-time in her head. A cool kiss of steel slides past her hip as his right arm curls around her back to press her tightly to his groin. He is stronger than she ever imagined. She tries to cry out, but he smothers her cry with his mouth and tongue. One hand, warm and longing, slips down around her thigh to invade the softness between her legs. The other, cold and hard, rises between her breasts. His blade is at her neck but in the instant that he hesitates, betrayed by the heat of his own very real desire, Luco is on him from behind, hauling him off, hurling him away from her, kicking him viciously and pinning him to the floor with the gilded staff of office. By then, the Honor Guard has bolted across the room to take over.
Before Paia can collapse into a heap of shock and humiliation, Son Luco scoops her up as he might a child and hustles her from the hall.
He is not so gentle when he gets her up to her chambers, trailed by the panicked captain of the Honor Guard and a few of his more alert men.
“He’ll burn you to goddamn cinders, the whole sorry lot of you!” he bellows at them as he shoulders the door shut in their faces. He dumps Paia unceremoniously onto her bed and looms over h
er, his big hands waving. “What were you thinking?”
Paia huddles, shuddering. She can’t really believe it herself. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I just wasn’t!”
“I’ll say!”
“I’ll never . . . I couldn’t . . . help myself.”
She weeps a bit, while Luco paces back and forth, from bed to window. “Never seen such a spectacle in all my life! You spoiled brat!” He throws up his hands and paces away again.
“I’ll thank you to remember who you’re talking to,” she sniffs.
He stops, folds his arms. “I’m talking to a spoiled brat! You could have been killed! Did you even think about what he’ll do to the rest of us if we let anything happen to you?”
This brings her upright to look at him. He’s wan and shaken himself, and angry enough to have lost all his decorum. She’s never had Luco in her rooms. He looks bigger here, and rougher-edged. Like he’s somehow taking up more space than usual, perhaps because she’s never, ever seen him so furious. Rage is not one of Luco’s public moods. She decides to let the name-calling go by. “So I guess this wasn’t another of your revenue-producing plots . . .?”
Luco rounds on her. “How could you even think such a thing?”
Paia buries her head in her arms. “He can’t hear of this, Luco. He can’t! He’s not very happy with me right now.”
“Of course he’ll hear of it! How are we going to keep it from him, when you insist on displaying your lust in front of the entire world!”
“I don’t have lust, I . . . well, maybe I did a little.”
“A little? My dear girl . . .”
“It’s the God’s own fault! He’s the one pushing me to pick a Suitor all of a sudden!”
“He is? Really?”
“Really. Like it was an order.”
“Huh. Well, you can bet he didn’t mean a trained assassin got up as a street prostitute.”
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