by Janet Morris
“Estri, cease this,” he said, raising me, unresisting, to my feet. I laid my head against his shoulder, taking comfort in his touch, his support. He had saved me, after all, from death. What worse would have befallen me, at their hands, if he had not stopped them?
“It was the only way,” he said gently, and I knew somehow that he was regretful. “What was destroyed was partly of our making. You have been made safe, it is true, but for your benefit.”
I said nothing, only leaned against him. He stood a time, holding me thus, silent.
“You understand so little,” he murmured to me. “If you had no defense against us, from whence came that wind? Truly, I tell you, none can take from another that which has been by the father given. Alterations may be made. Restraints may be applied. That, and no more may be done.” His voice was thick with some emotion I could not name.
He took me, that same day, Brinar second fourth, to the high chalder of the Lake of Horns. It was late day, near to sun’s set, when we set about it. Long had he lain with me upon his couch, only holding me, as I had asked him. Even did he cancel his meetings and audiences, all but two, whom he received at couchside. And with them he was subdued, preoccupied. We took a meal there, served us by a deferential, scantily clothed forereader, with the bronzed look of a lake-born. Upon her skin, a finger’s length below her collarbone, was a bursting spiral, glittering—myriad tiny points of light upon her skin. Khys bade her come near to me, had me run my hand over it, upon her high breast. The place was smooth. The feel of it under my fingers was as silken, oiled flesh. And yet, to the eye a microcosmic universe rested there.
“She is one upon whom I have brought child, one I favored,” he said to me, when he had dismissed her. “It is my custom to so adorn my women. It is my wish that you, also, bear my device.”
“It will be my honor to do so,” I said to him, my eyes downcast. I felt rage, that he had other women; jealousy that she bore the mark of his favor; horror that I might bear it; fear that I, too, might someday be relegated to such a menial position. I pushed away my plate and rose. I had no appetite. His eyes followed me.
I wondered if such a mark might be removed, and how many at the lake bore it.
“No,” he said. “Not, at least, by a forereader’s skills.” His mouth quirked with amusement, he rose also.
“Does it matter to you, so much, how many others there are? I have put much spawn onto Silistra in my lifetime. I expect to put a good deal more.”
I did not answer him, but went and lay upon the couch until he bade me make ready, that he might take me outside. Thrice, during the seven days since my couching of the arrar Sereth, had fitters attended me, at Khys’s behest. Among those garments he had provided were soft tas sandals, a dusk-dark cloak lined with shorn brist fur, and a number of lengths of silk and web-weave with appropriate clips and cords. He chose for me from that selection a brown iridescent web-weave, and I fastened it behind my neck and at my hip with two bronze clips.
“I will also,” he said, his glance approving as I secured the cloak at my throat, “have put upon you the chald of birthing fulfilled, and that of couch bond.”
Gratefully I thanked him, pressing myself against him, my cheek upon his blue-black tunic. He laughed, and held me at arm’s length for a moment, bemused.
At long last I would bear chaldra. One woman, and one alone, can be in couch-bond to a man, even such a man as the dharen. I hardly saw the imposing halls, the precious sculptures and tapestries that decorated Khys’s tower as we passed by them and through the huge bronze doors, inlaid with golden beasts, and out onto the broad archite steps, green as summer grass. The attendants closed them from within, soundless.
“Wait,” I begged him, as he started down those stairs two at a time, his grip firm upon my arm. He allowed it, and I turned upon the steps and regarded the tower of the dharen, white, seamless, unadorned, rising a quarter-nera into the fading day. The brisk breezes of harvest caressed me, the moist air off the lake lifted my hair, whispered me secrets. Its footprints waved the lake’s surface, gray-green as the sky, cloudless above the forested horizon. From ground level, those tiny decorations at the lakeshore proved to be great soaring constructions, casting huge dark patches over the skittering water. And the spaces between them, so small-seeming from the tower, were each a half-enth’s walk along archite ways set into browning grass.
We passed three parties upon our walk to the high chalder, and each one stopped and bent to give the dharen his due. Along the promenade, at lakeside, strollers were numerous, awaiting the spectacle of sun’s setting over the Lake of Horns.
The high chalder, who worked his craft upon the bottom floor of the Hall of Chaldra, was expecting us. In a small and luxurious chamber, thick-hung with blues and gold, did the master of chalders greet us. Behind his thala desk were displayed all manner of chald-work, single strands, belts great and small. There were chalds there knotted in every manner and worked in every style to be found upon Silistra—chalds I had studied from books, but never before seen.
“Khys, be welcome in your house,” intoned the high chalder, coming around the desk to bend his knee of his dharen. Khys raised him immediately.
The chalder, a heavyset, fleshy man, wiped his hands upon his leather apron. His eyes gleamed as he searched his pockets, his mouth twitching like that of a man with a fine humor awaiting his chance to speak.
“It is, you will see, quite unique,” he muttered, both hands now searching beneath the apron. “Let me just lay my hand upon it.” And his smile broke free of restraint as he brought his hands back into the open.
“This”—he held out his closed fist to Khys, who extended his own hand, palm up—”is your birthing chald. It is only superior.” He opened his fist. A sensuous length of gold, solid as a slitsa, and as supple, curled itself in Khys’s palm. The dharen sternly inspected it, rolling it in his fingers. It was the width of a hundred hairs. He held it out for my inspection.
I took it from him, pretending to examine it. I knew nothing of its quality. It seemed to me satisfactory. I nodded and handed it to the chalder, whose eyes scrutinized me minutely, unabashed.
“It is very lovely,” I offered.
“This is Estri,” Khys explained.
“Oh,” said the high chalder, suddenly knowing, his glance now more than curious. And he turned from me to Khys, and again held out his closed fist.
“It is too bad she cannot appreciate it,” he remarked, letting a strand fall again into Khys’s palm. But the sight of it took my breath away. It was a couch-bond strand, technically, being structured upon a frame of pinkish titrium. Four times the width of the birthing strand it was, a complex geometry of chain, set in places with matched bloodred gol drops, each the size of an eye’s pupil. Khys held it a time, turning it in his copper fingers.
When he raised his face to the high chalder, his pleasure was evident.
“Next to my own, Miccah, it is the finest I have yet seen from your hand.”
The high chalder preened himself, puffing out his chest and tucking his chins down against his thick neck.
“Then,” he said at last, “I have only to enchald her.” Forthwith he set about it, employing tiny pincers and a thing like a knife that was instead a tool that joined the chald links permanently, seamless.
The chalder bade me strip. I obeyed him, standing straight before his disinterest. Low about my waist did he fit it, first threading the golden strand through tiny links in the wider titrium chald, making them one. His hair was very white, against a blushed scalp, as he fussed upon his knees before me with his tools. Khys watched him, abstracted, his fingers toying absently at his own great chald.
“And mark her, upon the left breast,” he instructed the chalder, as the man got awkwardly to his feet. Miccah raised a pale, cowlicky eyebrow, and went behind his desk. When he returned, he had a cylinder in his hand. He rotated a wheel upon it.
“Khys ...” I started, and stopped. His eyes warned me, heavy-l
idded, imperious. I would bear this man’s sign, upon my very flesh, for the rest of my life. I regarded him, prepossessing, lordly, the dark-garbed master of Silistra.
“It is not painful,” said the chalder, testing the cylinder’s end upon his own forearm. He held it a time, then again touched it to his own flesh. He nodded.
I found myself several steps retreated.
“Stand very still,” the chalder entreated, low, “or you will have a blurred and imperfect mark.” And before Khys’s arch stare I did so.
The high chalder put one hand gently upon my left shoulder, and with the other pressed the cylinder against my left breast. I felt the bite of the myriad tiny needles the wheel had exposed in the cylinder’s tip, hot and sharp, smelled a pungent odor. I bit my lip, that I might not whimper.
He removed the cylinder, took his hand from my shoulder.
“Do not touch it,” the chalder warned me, peering close to examine the raised affronted flesh beneath my collarbone, “not until the morrow. Sleep upon your back. Good,” he pronounced, stepping back from me. The mere breeze of his breath upon the mark had set my breast aquiver, burning. I blinked back my tears, that I might see Khys, determine if my comportment had pleased him.
He regarded me, his possession, with his device burned into my skin for all to see. He called me to him, his expression noncommittal, that he might examine the mark.
“My thanks, Miccah,” he said after he had scrutinized my breast. His satisfaction, though I had sought it, chilled. His smile was replete, triumphant, as he bade me clothe myself. I clipped the web-cloth over my right shoulder, mindful of the chalder’s warnings, through half-closed eyes, that I might not see the mark, raised stinging upon my breast. I draped the cloak over me, clear of that place.
“When it has settled, your beauty will be much enhanced,” Khys remarked to me, his arm about my waist as we took leave of the high chalder and descended the broad steps of the Hall of Chaldra, into the early-evening dark.
Under the crescent moon we walked, silent. I could feel him within me, questing amid my mixed emotions. He stiffened, his cold probe aloof, as he searched me. I had deemed it an honor, beforehand, to bear his device. I tried to retrieve, or at least simulate those feelings before his mind’s touch. But a part of me sobbed, disconsolate, regardless of the dharen’s displeasure.
It came out of the night sky upon snapping wings, growling, hissing, a black shadow that placed itself between us and Khys’s tower. Its great wings extended out straight, it snarled repeatedly, glowing eyes unblinking.
I screamed. Khys silenced me, roughly thrusting me behind him. The beast arched its neck, growling, its hindquarters twitching, its tufted tail lashing back and forth. The dharen stood calmly before it, his hands at his sides, unmoving. The beast, head low, paced left. The dharen matched him, keeping between us. The hulion skulked to the right, hissing. Khys was ever before him.
“Estri,” said Khys softly, his voice urgent, “come stand beside me.” I did so. The hulion sat upon its haunches, its ears atwitch.
“We are going to walk by him. Be as calm as you can. Think as contented thoughts as you can manage.” And he took me against him, as the hulion snorted and rose once more, and my legs threatened to gainsay me their support.
We assayed the passage, slowly. The beast reached out his huge head, snuffling as I came abreast of him. So close did that moist muzzle come to me that its long whiskers brushed my arm. It paced us all the way to the stairs that led up into the dharen’s tower, its golden eyes glowing, its growling breath loud in my ears.
“Just walk,” Khys snapped. “Do not look back.” But I did, as Khys slapped the knocker ringing, and the hulion roared and roared, plaintive. It paced the length of the bottommost step, its gaze upon us, speaking in its alien tongue.
When the ponderous bronze doors were opened from within, the beast had its two front paws upon the lowest stair, its wings half-furled. The attendants’ faces drained pale as its growls reached them. Khys pushed me ungently within.
“Wait!” he ordered. “Watch her!” he commanded them, and turned and ran down the steps three at a time.
“No!” I objected, as the attendants pulled the doors shut. They turned, wary, one leaving the doors to stand between me and the empty corridor at our rear.
“You need not fear for him, lady,” said he who was still at the doors, amused. “One might rather fear for the hulion.” He chuckled at his own humor, his thumbs stuck in his weapons belt, white teeth flashing in his black face.
I stood between them, breasts heaving, breath tremulous, waiting. What if he was wrong? My nails savaged my palms. What would happen to me, without him? At the mercy of those five others, I would be. And without him ... I stopped my fingers just before they touched the spiral new upon my breast, curled them into a fist, forced that fist to my side. The black attendant stood very still, his head cocked, as if listening. He no longer smiled. I licked my lips, sticky with concern for the dharen. As I did so, the knocker’s summons reverberated in the vaulted hall, and they opened doors to admit their lord.
Unscathed he was, composed, his aristocratic nostrils, flaring, the only sign of his agitation. I wanted to run to him, but I did not; I only stood there with relief running over my skin like sheeting rain. He eyed me once, sharply, speaking low with his men. He touched one upon the shoulder, the black man, who nodded and cracked the doors, slipping out into the night.
He spoke no word to me, nor did he touch me as he strode down the corridor and I half-ran to pace him. The tendons stood sharply corded in his neck, and his heavy lashes seemed to meet. Not until we were within the baths, upon the underfloor of the tower, did the dharen’s mood lighten.
He lay long upon his belly on one of the archite slabs, staring pensive at the hissing mound in the circular depression at the chamber’s center, at the steam rising from rocks piled there. The baths were deserted, at this enth, when most would be about their moon’s meal. We were alone but for those who tended the steam and the bathers, and they, sensing the dharen’s preoccupation, had made themselves all but invisible.
The steam, he had said, had healing properties, and would be good for me. It made that place upon my breast throb, and fuzzed my hair, and the long strands, curling, stuck to my body and tangled and got sopped with my sweat and the moisture in the air. Perched on the edge of the slab, I worked upon him, as he had previously instructed me, with the heel of one hand and gathered fingers of the other, kneading oils into his skin. Rivers of perspiration meandered down my rib cage, across my belly, sluiced by the chald there.
“Enough,” Khys decreed, when I thought I could not move my leaded arms again. I rubbed my eyes, which itched and stung from the perspiration in them.
“I am inordinately pleased with you,” he grunted, sitting up and swinging his legs off the slab. He reached out to the mark upon my breast, and I drew back.
“Trust me,” he said, and extended his palm toward me, just over the mark. The hand took up a rotating rhythm. That place tingled as if cool air blew upon it, around and around. When he took his hand away, the skin there was no longer angry or risen. It seemed, for the first time, to glitter softly.
“Still, you should not touch it,” cautioned the dharen, slipping off the slab.
“You were very calm before the hulion,” he remarked, his glance sidelong. He extended his hand, smiling. As I took it, those thoughts which I had earlier quieted came again to my mind, of the hulion’s fate, and my own. The steam and the heat had calmed me. But I bore Khys’s sign upon me, and within me also, as I had seen when he had gone out to meet the hulion.
“Did you kill it?” I asked, as he guided us through the wooden door and into the warmly lit resting keep, where our gear lay, neatly folded.
“No.” He chuckled. “I did not even speak harshly to it.” Over and over in my mind a thought chased itself. I did not speak it to him, but his eyes hardened upon me. Taking a wet sponge from its bucket, he threw it to me, tha
t I might rinse.
He toweled himself dry, took my arm, and led me wordlessly to his keep. And through it, to that mirrored prison keep that had been mine so long, stopping only long enough to get from his gear a length of thick parr thong.
I looked at it, in his hand, at his face, so forbidding, at our reflections upon the mirrored wall. My keep held, as always, only a low plain couch, one chair and a writing ledge below the window. The walls and floor were silver gray. Too long had I spent here.
“Strip,” he snapped. I did so, dropping my new finery about my ankles.
“Khys,” I implored him, “do not hold against me my thoughts.”
“Cross your wrists at your belly!”
I did, and he bound them there, first to each other, then looping the supple parr thong around my waist and tying the ends behind my back tightly.
“This way,” he grunted, “you will not tear at your mark in your sleep. And you might consider your ambivalence, and make some attempt to control it. Or meditate upon your place. It would please me if you could learn to keep it.”
“Must you leave me here?”
“I will not spend this night in the tower.” He spun me roughly sideways, so that my full figure was reflected in the mirrored wall. Standing behind me, he put his arms around me, cupping my breasts in his hands. I closed my eyes.
“Look at yourself,” he said.
I did not.
His touch insisted. I leaned back against him, watching my heat igniting, steam. My wrists, bound at my waist, fought their bonds. My master’s sign, just above his fingers upon my left breast, shone softly. The chald at my navel rustled as my hips began to move against him. When I moaned and tried to turn to face him, he pushed me to my knees, bade me stay still. As he left, he darkened the keep to a bare dimness.
“Khys,” I whispered to him after he had gone, “what do you want from me?” I knelt there, my need raging, a long time, lest he return and find that I had disobeyed him. The chald and his mark and my body slick with rut regarded me. In the semi-dark, barely limned, I might have been any woman who bore them. And I knew why, then, he had left me, hungry. Bound, upon my knees, alone, I regarded her whom I had come to be, and I was further aroused. The mark, I found suddenly, awareness rising in me with my lust, excited me. And I shook my head, that I might shake the thought away. I wondered where he went, if it was to the common-held forereaders he had gone. I resolved then that there would not be another night that I knelt thus, while he used some other because I had been less than pleasing in his sight. Alone with my need, I chastised myself. If I could, I would have given my body relief. His name went ringing in my head. The fantasy of him, after a long, aching time, gave me what my bound hands could not.