by J. Naomi Ay
I, too, kissed his soft cheek and then turned out the light. I went to my Katie’s apartment to inquire if there was anything more I might do. My Siria was there standing in the corner watching as my Katie spoke to a tall Talasian man. The Lady Berkan stood next to him and the Lady Kelli as well, while my Katie walked back and forth with a paper in her hand.
“This arrived yesterday?” my Katie asked, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Yes, I came right away,” the Talasian said.
My Katie shook her head and her face looked distressed. “He’ll never let me go there,” she said, swallowing hard.
“It’s far too risky,” the Lady Berkan agreed. “I am so sorry, Madame.”
“I can take you,” the Talasian said. “In my plane. Nobody will know you are aboard. Two days there, two days back, we’ll have you home within a week.”
My Katie nodded, biting her lip. “We need to tell him. See if Berkan can get me an audience right away, Luci.”
The Lady Berkan rang the Lord Berkan while I whispered to my Siria and asked what had happened.
“Madame’s father is ill,” she told me in our language. “He is dying.”
My heart ached for my Katie and I put my hand on my chest, on my scar. Though I had two fathers remaining and cared not for either, I knew how my Katie spoke fondly of hers and how she missed him and her mother who lived many light years away.
“Berkie says he won’t see you,” the Lady Berkan reported. “But come anyway because he is being entirely unreasonable.”
“Tell me what’s new,” my Katie replied scornfully.
Siria and I followed them out and down the building to the Great Emperor’s office where my Fruph stood guard outside the big heavy doors. The Talasian came too, and Lady Berkan and Lady Kelli and my Fruph looked with surprise when we all arrived there before him.
“You don’t have an appointment,” the man Kinar cried.
“So sue me,” my Katie said and ordered my Fruph to open the door. He stood there with his arms crossed in front of his chest, refusing to budge. “Fruph,” my Katie demanded. “Do as I say.”
“Please my Fruph,” I begged and pulled on his arm. “Do it for my Katie.”
My Siria begged too and my Fruph’s face began to soften. He looked at my Siria with her round swollen belly and full round face glowing with joy. He never could resist her and so with a grunt, he opened the door and let us all through. My Katie walked up to the Great Emperor’s desk, where he sat before the windows absorbed in his work. The Lord Berkan stood by his side as well as two others and the rest of us stayed on the floor on our knees.
“I need to go to Earth,” my Katie declared though she knelt on the floor before the great desk. The Emperor ignored her. He didn’t look up from the paper he was writing upon. The Lord Berkan glanced at her with a worried expression and then nodded toward the Emperor, urging her to speak again. “Zem is here. He got a letter from my mom. My dad is dying. He had a heart attack two days ago and they don’t think he’ll survive. I need to see him. Zem will take me in Talasian spaceplane. I can get a Talasian passport. No one will know who I am.”
“Your parent's house is being monitored by the Alliance,” the Great Emperor said, his voice cold and without heart.
“I need to say goodbye to my dad before he dies.” My Katie started to cry. “They won't get me. I'll sneak in and sneak out. I'll take as much security as you think I need. I'll stay five minutes and that's all. I need to do this, Senya. Please, let me do this.”
“You won't come back.”
“I will! I will!” my Katie cried and rose to her feet. She went before the big desk and still the Great Emperor refused to look upon her. “I swear to you, I will come back. It will be a few days and that's all. That's all! I want to say goodbye to my dad!”
“You will be captured. The next time you will see your son, he will be sixteen years old.”
“You don't know that! I will be back by Saturday!”
He waved a hand at my Katie, dismissing her as if she were nothing but a pest.
“Senya?” she begged.
He motioned for the Lord Berkan to take away the stack of papers, pretending my Katie was not even there.
“Senya, please? Please don't be like this.”
Finally, he turned his face to her and the light from his eyes made her cover her own. “You have killed me, Madame,” he said and then called to my Fruph to take my Katie away.
My Katie screamed as my Fruph reached for her arm. “You killed yourself, you selfish bastard. If you loved me you would not only let me go, you'd come with me.”
“Fruph,” the Emperor said again and turned his attention back to Lord Berkan. My Fruph picked up my Katie about the waist and carried her from the great office.
“I am going anyway,” my Katie declared and raced back to her apartment for a small bag.
Quickly, we packed her some clothing to wear, the tops and the pants she had brought with her from the Discovery.
“You can’t,” the Lady Berkan cried. “You can’t disobey him.”
“Who’s coming with me?”
“I am,” my Fruph said as he came through the door. “I will come with you and protect you.”
“My Fruph!” I cried and my Siria ran to his side, wrapping her arms around his large body.
“We will be back in less than a week.” My Katie nodded to the Talasian. “I’m ready.”
“I will go too.” My Siria smiled at our mate. “I will attend to my lady and my husband.”
“That’s fine.” Now my Katie looked upon me. “You stay here with Shika and take care of him. Give him a kiss and tell him I’ll be back before he knows it.”
I bowed my head and watched as my Siria and my Fruph departed and suddenly my scar began to ache worse than ever before. I walked outside and leaned over the balcony, my eyes following my mates as they boarded the Talasian spaceplane parked in the courtyard. My Fruph took my Siria’s hand and guided her up the steps of the plane, disappearing inside. I put my hand on my scar and then on my other breasts wondering if the cancer was now in these too. Never had I felt such pain in my chest, watching the plane leave with my mates and my Katie. I turned my back to the courtyard, to the night sky, where the blinking lights of the plane quickly joined those of distant stars.
If the Emperor spoke the truth and many years would pass before again we saw our mates, who would I wish to see? Who would I miss more were they not to return? The answer came to me without a second of thought. Of course it was my Fruph, my best friend from the beginning of time.
Yet I, in my heart, knew now that he was with Siria and the infant she carried was his. Neither of them was ever truly mine.
Chapter 12
Taner
Two years after we moved back to Mishnah, nearly three after Senya was crowned King and Emperor, Rehnor was unrecognizable. Instead of consisting merely of our sole inhabited planet of Erindad 37, the Empire of Rehnor spanned now three stars including Altaris and Andorus. Talas too had made overtures to us. If we thought we were busy managing just our own planet in the past, we were insanely busy running our new expanded empire.
We loved it though. Berkan and I and the others who composed the inner circle, the ones who managed Senya’s time, and schedule, kept him moving from one appointment to the next and made certain every bill and writ that needed his attention and signature were presented to him.
We loved it, and we loved him. He was handsome and brilliant and supernatural and when he smiled it seemed as if the Saint himself was smiling upon us. When we dressed in our formal robes and medallions and walked behind him through the Parliament, when we stood behind his throne as the rulers of the outer planets made obeisance before him, when his whole being seemed to glow brighter even than his eyes, we felt as if we were at the feet of a god and we had been blessed.
Then, afterward, in the quiet hours just after the midnight, in the darkness of his office, while we would sit around with alc
ohol, cigarettes and horribly decadent creations sent up by the kitchen, we would remember that this was not a god, this was just our friend Senya. We were doubly blessed.
And then it ended. This brief golden period in the beginning turned black on the day that Katie left for Earth. Two days later, her spaceplane crashed, a great trembler rocked Mishnah, a tidal wave rushed upon us, and Senya was never the same. A few weeks later, the Alliance announced they held Katie and made impossible demands upon him; demands he could not nor would not satisfy.
They would ransom her for billions of dollars and the relinquishing of Altaris and Andorus. The money meant nothing to him. I know he would have given his entire fortune for her return, but he could not abandoned the people who had come to him on bended knee and begged of him to grant them liberty in the name of the Empire.
He took the parchment in my hand listing the Alliances demands, and it burst into flame. He screamed at her as I had never heard him scream before nor since. He cursed her a thousand times. He dragged his nails across his face and chest, tearing long bloody gashes in his skin. The sky outside darkened as great black clouds swept over us. Thunder boomed and lightning sent jagged spears down upon us from every direction. The wind howled, the sea surged upon the beach, all the way up to the Palace walls, and then hail plummeted down upon us.
Inside this Palace, we cowered under tables and desks, having only survived the tidal wave weeks earlier. The windows exploded and glass flew about us in a whirl of wind and then the great conference table cracked in two and burst into flame.
As we crouched there stunned and paralyzed, Senya raised his arms and before our very eyes, turned into the creature and with a shriek, flew out the hole which had once been an enormous picture window. Immediately, the storm outside dissipated. On trembling legs, Berkan and I and the others who served in this office stood and watched as the fire team extinguished the blazing table and began the clean-up of the disastrous mess around us once again.
“Blessed Saint,” Berkan whispered to me. “What is he?”
“Your cousin,” I murmured my reply.
Two mornings later when the glass had been replaced, the office cleaned up, and a new conference table brought in, Senya once again sat behind his great desk and demanded the first business of the day. From outward appearances, he looked the same, but he was not.
The boy I knew, the Senya I had loved and served was gone. His soul and his sanity began to peel away until he disappeared altogether. The man who replaced him never smiled, never laughed. He spoke to us using only the most formal Noble Mishnese. He wore the clothes the valets dressed him in, robes and sashes, crowns and medallions, he donned without complaint. He let them cut him, burn him and tattoo him with every sacred symbol from every one of his planets. He let them take his hair, his blood, his soul. He never wore his glasses, but rather his blank eyes shone unfocused seeing nothing or perhaps seeing another place, another life.
Sometimes, in the dark of the night, he could be found sitting atop the tallest tree of the forest or standing in the frigid surf daring it to pull him under. I couldn’t reach him. Berkan couldn’t reach him. Even his son could not find him inside the shell that had once been his father.
Time passed. The Empire grew. The little boys turned into young men and I turned into an old man.
Chapter 13
Meri
When the lady first came to Mishnah, she took a walk with her people through my streets. Of course, we were all cordoned off and there were Imperial Guards everywhere but all the same, she walked on our cobblestone streets and smiled at everyone who stood waving and calling to her.
I stood with the children who lived in my building and waved to her even though I knew she would never remember me. I wore my best dress and stood straight and tall and I held flowers for her too even though only the children would be allowed to give them to her.
She was beautiful then. She wore a traditional Mishnese gown that was a deep royal blue with a light blue overlay that floated around her like a shimmering cloud. Her eyes seemed to be the same vivid color as the gown. She looked like a Queen, an Empress, and I felt proud of her as if I had raised her, too.
In her arms, she had dozens and dozens of flowers. Her attendants carried them too. In the old days, Queen Moira used to immediately hand them off to her ladies. She didn’t want flowers to dirty her gloves. Our Kate just held them tight in her arms as if she were holding all of us.
When she came to my building she stopped, and one of her attendants whispered something in her ear and pointed at my flat on the third floor. Our Kate looked up at it, at the stoop that was covered with people, at all of us behind the cordoned line and then she saw me and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Go on, Meri,” the grocer said and pushed me to the very front. I stood before her and gave my best curtsey.
“You are Sister Meri?” she asked. She spoke Mishnese slowly and carefully. She was just learning it in those days.
“Aye, Your Imperial Highness,” I replied.
She gave all her flowers to one of her ladies and shocked me by reaching for my hands. There were tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said and she kissed my cheeks and hugged me.
I started to cry. Then, she gave me a bunch of her flowers and the beautiful sapphire bracelet from her wrist.
“Ach Meri,” the grocer said putting his arm around my shoulder after the lady moved on.
I put the bracelet on and all the children ooed and aahed as it sparkled in the light. I never took it off.
The lady was on the vid every day. Where ever she went, whatever she wore, whatever she said was discussed over and over by all the talking heads. We never saw Senya on the vid or their little boy, but the camera and the news loved the lady, following her across the Empire to the new planets and throughout this one.
And then she was gone.
I cried. I wept for days on end for her, for Senya and for all the people of Rehnor who had become so enchanted by her. I wasn’t the only one either. Even the grocer had tears in his eyes and spoke to all of us gruffly for a very long time.
“What will become of our Senya?” the people of Old Mishnah asked me for we all knew that it was that sweet little lady that had tamed the wild beast in him. “What will become of us?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, for truly I didn’t but I feared.
When the earthquake rocked our buildings and the tidal wave swamped the Palace and raced down the countryside into our streets and filling my basements, we all knew why it happened.
“D’ya think they’ll be more of that, Meri?” the grocer said.
I prayed not. I fell on my knees with the grocer and the others who, too, stood in his store and we called upon the Saint to look down upon us and his blessed son who ruled us and to help him in his grief and to bring his lady back to him so he would be gentle with us again.
The Saint must have heard our prayers for there were no more terrible quakes nor water thrown upon us although the weather was wicked within the normal cycles of the seasons.
The year after the lady left the weather was especially bad. It was a cold and wet winter with much snow that blew into giant drifts by the bitter wind. The streets were kept clean though and my porch steps were always sanded and safe to cross as in these times Old Mishnah was rich and prosperous as never before and the city took care as tourists came despite the chill.
Where the grocer’s store once stood, was now a tall hotel that gleamed in the night with brass and glass. Across from my buildings was a new shopping mall with stores that sold fine clothes and trinkets and baubles. On my block was a new supermarket where I purchased strawberries, blackberries and pineapples in the dead of winter. I bought lettuces of every shape and color with a sweetness that required no dressings of any sort. The floors were polished mahogany and the glass displays shown so bright, one would think there were crown jewels displayed therein, rather than loaves of bread.
Next to
my stoop, someone erected a bronze statue of the old dog which had lived with Senya on the streets. After Senya left, Brownie came to live with me for a few more years until one day I let him out and he never returned. Now I had his likeness to comfort me every morning, and when the tourists were about, they left dog biscuits and coins.
The tourists came many times a day even in this inclement weather. They walked my streets and stood by my stoop and spoke in many different voices and languages. Their skin and hair were a variety of colors. These were the new people of the Empire of Rehnor. They took pics of my windows. Some knelt and prayed on my ground as if it were hallowed. A store in the mall sold souvenirs for them and, so they returned to their homes on the other planets of our Empire with buttons, dishes, jewelry and posters all bearing our Senya’s likeness. I confess, I had a collection of dishes too.
It was in the dead of this winter and dusk had come in the early afternoon. There was snow on the ground with a thick coating of ice. The street lamps were lit and cast a warm yellow glow upon the white snow as I walked past my buildings carrying a small satchel from the grocery. The air had a bitter chill, but it was fresh, and I breathed in deeply. As I turned the corner to my own building and set foot upon my own stoop, I was startled by a man who sat upon the topmost step, leaning against the rail. He was dressed in a fine heavy black cloak bordered and lined in black mink fur. His hood was pulled all the way forward, hiding his face. I knew who he was although more than thirty-five years had passed between us.
I saw a flicker of gold upon his fingers and around his wrists as he drew a cigarette to his mouth. I glanced quickly at his feet from old habit and was pleased to see fur boots upon them.