Oathbound: The Emperor's Conscience, Book 2

by Michael Combs

  “Nora is so lucky,” Shani crooned up at the man, her big doe eyes innocent and sincere. “You’re such a good papa.” I swear I heard the man’s pride burst as he straightened his spine even further. He smiled down at Shani with true fatherly affection.

  “Run along you two,” he said, “and be careful. Don’t do anything foolish, young man.” He shook a pudgy finger at me in warning. “You have a good girl there. You appreciate her.”

  “Yes, sir” was all my addled brain could form before Shani grabbed my hand and practically dragged me from the stall.

  “Hurry,” she said excitedly, “we have to get back before Papa finds out.”

  Once out of sight of the seller, I stopped and spun Shani around. “What in Hessa’s name was that about?”

  Shani had a playful twinkle in her eye and a quirk in her thin, bow-shaped lips. “Perception is reality.”

  “No,” I said in frustration. “Reality is reality. Perception is someone else’s problem.”

  “Fine,” she said with a smug smile. She crossed her arms over her petite chest and nodded back the way we came. “You go tell him you are an Imperial Magister and I am a whore in the most expensive brothel in town. He’ll beat you bloody.”

  My eyes widened at the realization.

  She smiled in triumph, then continued, “And if I know you, you’d let him. You wouldn’t have the heart to hurt a man taking up for the honor of an innocent girl you just besmirched.”

  “But you’re not—” Hessa’s tits, she’s right. The realization hit me between the eyes like an axe handle. She’d completely made that man’s day with few words and a peck on the cheek. While I knew it was all an act on Shani’s part, to him, our little play was real. She manipulated him completely and dragged me through it all the while. This little wench was devious.

  “Do all women think as you do?” I asked, dreading the answer as I rushed to catch up to her retreating form.

  “To some extent,” she said. “Most, however, do these things instinctively. Men have their own approaches, but theirs, rather yours, are different.”

  “I’m glad Ivey wasn’t like that,” I muttered.

  “Wasn’t she?” Shani asked with a hint of skepticism. “Tell me, how did you two become serious?” she asked.

  I grinned as the memory came unbidden to my mind. “I paddled her with a wooden sword to help her improve her training.”

  “What did she say before you did that?”

  “She said, ‘What are you going to do? Paddle me?’” I said. Shani smiled triumphantly and quirked a brow. “Wait. Are you saying...? No. There’s no way. It was my idea!”

  Shani looked at me with exaggerated condescension. “Was it, though?” She spun on her heel and continued down the street.

  “Hessa’s tits,” I swore again and jogged to catch her. It was her idea all along? I fell right into it. But that couldn’t be right, could it? “Wait,” I called to Shani. “Are you telling me she manipulated me into falling for her?”

  “You’re not innocent in that, mister,” Shani said. “Think back over your interactions that led to that day. This was not a spur of the moment event. There had to be a build up to the tipping point. You were both complicit, though it wasn’t intentional for either of you…probably. Besides, you are getting hung up on the word. Manipulation doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Take the emotion out of the word and leave it in the relationship where it belongs.”

  While I processed what she was saying, she continued.

  “People manipulate each other all the time, Evan. Everything is based on some form of manipulation, whether it is intentional, malicious, or not. That is just how the world works. It’s how people fall in love: an encouraging smile, a little effort. The other reciprocates and before you know it, the carefree, young couple shopping for scarves has a small family. Nothing has changed in the world around you with this information, only your perception of it, and for that I am truly sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” I asked.

  “Because knowing these things takes the magic out of love. Now that you know how it works, you can use that knowledge deliberately.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Let’s say the leather merchant picks up that his wife is having a bad day and while she is busy inside, he slips next door and buys some flowers to cheer her.”

  “That’s different,” I said. “He’s just trying to make her happy.”

  “He’s changing the way she naturally feels,” she said, “just for the better. Manipulation. Now say you are the flower merchant next door.”

  I eyed Shani suspiciously.

  “The leather worker passes away, and the widow, whom he adored so much, is struggling to keep the shop going. You, being a nice man and all, help when you can. You carry in supplies or do some repairs around the shop when she needs the help. She comes to appreciate your help and cherishes you for a friend. After an appropriate time, you start to look at her just a little longer and break eye contact before you think she notices. Neither of you says anything. Then one day, out of the blue, you take her some flowers from your shop, the same ones her husband used to buy, and you tell her that you missed her smile and you knew these always brought it out. You leave them without another word and go back to your work. After that, you see her a little happier and a little more willing to throw a smile your way. You’ve found the key to her heart, and you used it. You’re in.”

  “What you’ve described could easily be the natural progression of their feelings for each other,” I said.

  “Unless you were the one who tossed her husband’s body in the river because you wanted his wife.”

  “That’s abhorrent,” I said. “I couldn’t—"

  “You’ll have to,” she said plainly. “You have to find out what the Mata needs and use that to win her over. If you don’t, then you’ll never find the girls you’re looking for. You have to be cold, brutal, and ruthless. You don’t have a problem killing, that much is clear, but there will be times when you have to do worse than that to accomplish what you need to do. Are these girls worth it to you?”

  I considered the cold calculation that Shani displayed and I was rocked back on my heels.

  “Last lesson for today. Look.” Shani nodded to another merchant. A stall sat outside a small bakery, much as the other merchants nearby. The smell of fresh-baked bread wafted across the street. It smelled delicious. The man behind the stall that fronted his bakery was middle-aged, a little overweight, and wore a flour-dusted apron. He had combed his few thin hairs over his balding pate in a vain attempt to hide the truth of his hairline. From the display in front of him, he removed a loaf of bread the length of his forearm and held it up in display. He gave a greasy smile that made my skin crawl, then replaced the loaf and continued with his work.

  I followed the direction of his smile to the silhouette of a small boy at the corner of a building across the street. The child wore little more than rags, and his bare toes curled in the dirt that dusted the mouth of the alley. He stared at the man and the case as though weighing some important decision.

  “That boy there,” Shani said, “will come to the shop after it closes to get that loaf of bread. He will do things that will scar him in exchange for it, but he will get over it. He will survive. He will do what he must to live.”

  The more she spoke, the angrier I became until I had to consciously restrain my Aspect. “How do you know this?” I rasped through a suddenly dry throat.

  “The baker is one of my regulars. He likely comes to me when that one there can find food elsewhere or cannot bear his touch.” Shani looked at me again with that maturity which had seemed so out of place before, but now I could see that it had always been there, just painted over with excitement for life and a cheerful demeanor.

  “You see,” Shani said. “I am small. With a little effort on my part and some imagination on his, I can look just like a little boy.

  Perception is reality, I thought as it
all came together. It made me sick.

  I nodded dumbly.

  “I told you this life wasn’t all bad, but there are parts that are. That’s fine, because I know it can be worse.” She jerked her head toward the alley. “That was me. I was nine.”

  I was shocked to complete silence. My anger burned deep and hot. I tried not to let it show on my face. Shani saw something else.

  “Don’t pity me. Don’t you dare,” she said, steel in her voice. “I am not telling you this so you can feel sorry for my miserable life. I am telling you because I had to learn all this on my own. Those lessons were brutal. I hope you can see the truth without it crushing you.” She glanced toward the corner where the boy had stood. He was gone, his decision reached. “Not all can. My point is this, though: Your enemies use these tactics because they work. You have to learn these tactics so you can not only spot them, but so you can use them against those enemies.”

  “That makes me as bad as them,” I said, tossing my hands in the air. I turned, frustrated and pulled my hand down my face. I wanted to deny the truth in her words, but I couldn’t.

  “Why are you doing this? Why are you here hunting those girls?” Shani searched my eyes as I considered her question.

  “They were sold into slavery and I want to save them, see them safe.”

  “What are you willing to do to save someone?” Shani asked. “You had better decide now, because there are people who will have to depend on that decision.”

  I looked away. I didn’t know what to think. I knew the world was dark. I knew people did horrible things. I was here in this foreign city, this foreign country, because of dark deeds much like this. But I was learning that the darkness was deeper, more insidious, than I had ever imagined. It was not the exception but the rule, if you had the cynicism to see it. The wider world was a much more sinister place than my isolated childhood at the temple, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude toward Uncles Tamil and Zai, as well as the other temple family I had known. Even as a child I had known, intellectually, that the world wasn’t perfect, but I couldn’t fathom that it was like this.

  No wonder all the adults in my life seemed so sad to know so much.

  “Come on,” Shani said, a touch of her normal self returning. “I’m starved.”

  We passed by Chadri’s, Shani stating that she planned to return after lunch so we could shop for appropriate clothing for my new occupation, and to tease Oni.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the baker that still leered at the empty alley and made some plans of my own.

  Fashion Show

  We came in through the front doors of The Velvet Pearl to the full complement of courtesans in the main salon. The ‘stable,’ as Nan called them, consisted of eleven women and three men, well four now, I supposed, if I were to be counted in the tally. Both Shani and I were loaded down with packages from three different clothiers, and I struggled to close the door behind me.

  The brothel wasn’t set to open for a few hours, but everyone wanted to come by and see Nan now that she was back into the swing of things. Most of the staff lived in the city, and they had all been concerned when they showed for work the evening after the attack to be told that we were closed because Nan was ill. It wouldn’t do to frighten them with the truth of the events. No one knew that Nan and Shani were Imperial agents, and everyone else here thought I was just hired muscle.

  Everyone knew something, though. They regularly gathered information for Nan. Nan would question each of them often, collecting tidbits and directing them to discreetly learn more. But that was standard business for a brothel in a city as politically tumultuous as Jerea. None suspected she was a spy for a foreign empire. Our entrance interrupted their gathering, and all eyes turned toward us.

  “What have you done, Shani?” said Kaeda. “Conscripted poor Evan to tote your latest shopping spree, courtesy of your Lord Tyrus?” Kaeda’s wore her hair in a long, blonde braid, pulled over one shoulder of her fitted coat. Her sandals laced up over shapely calves, and on the divan next to her sat a bag that contained her essentials for the night’s work. Kaeda was a specialist. She catered to a select group of men and women who preferred a more, shall we say, disciplined approach to intimacy. I had known for a while that, in a pinch, I could count on Kaeda’s little bag of tricks to provide restraints enough to subdue a fortress, or at least a large manor. There might even have been a number of weapons in there.

  “Oh no,” Shani beamed. “This isn’t mine. Evan is joining us in the salon tonight.”

  “Evan is in the salon every night,” Gorge said. Gorge was nearly as tall as me, if not as muscular. He was effeminate of disposition, and all of his clientele were male. He could also drink me under the table, and I would never play cards with him again. He was not a gracious winner. The bastard.

  “Evan will step outside his normal role for one more engaged with our patrons,” Nan said. “He will be available for security, should he need to be, but Mongo will resume his full duties beginning tonight.”

  The room erupted in catcalls and welcomes from all the ladies present. It was one thing to work here. It was another to work here. Gorge and the other men were immediately incensed.

  “We talked about this, Nan,” Gorge said. “You said that we would be the only guys in the salon.”

  “I know, Gorge. You needn’t worry. Your customers are yours. Evan will not be encroaching on your territory.”

  “Then what about us?” said Damian. “Now we have to share the few women who come in here with a newbie? No offense, Evan.”

  “None taken,” I said.

  “That won’t be a problem either,” Nan said. “Evan’s services will be procured by introduction only. You can all keep your regulars and any walk-ins we get.”

  “Why does he get special treatment?” Damian demanded.

  “The reason Evan is ‘by introduction only’ is to tempt the Mata to return,” Nan said.

  Damian visibly winced, as did everyone else. “You know what happened last time you got her in here, right? Bertio was a mess after. He left the city. Did you know about that, Evan?” Damian looked at me. “Don’t do it. You want nothing to do with her. Bertio will never be the same. Take my advice.” He looked to the other men and continued, “Tell you what, we’ll share the floor. There’s enough for everyone, right?” The others nodded as the women still looked on in stunned silence, many glancing at me with pity on their faces.

  I grinned and shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Besides, she’s just one woman. What harm is there?” That got more looks of pity from around the room as though I just didn’t understand what I was getting myself into.

  “I will need all of your help to pull this off,” I said. “In the meantime, though,” I held up my bags, “I need a different kind of assistance.”

  “Fashion show!” cried one of the girls and the tension in the room was immediately replaced with excitement as I spent the next three hours trying on the various outfits that Shani had picked out for me. I paraded around the salon pretending to solicit each of the girls. I got varied reactions and more than one suggestion to not quit my security job.

  Johnna, a dark-haired beauty with dusky skin, pushed me toward the bar.

  “Sit there and look alluring,” she said. I didn’t know what she was getting at, but I complied. “I said alluring not constipated.” Everyone laughed and I blushed to my ears. “You need to look inviting, confident. When you take a client upstairs, you need to project that you know she will have the time of her life,” she said. I adjusted my position and when I looked back, every woman burst into laughter. I blushed again. Apparently, I was doing something wrong.

  “Here,” Johnna said. “You have to spread your legs wider. It makes you appear bigger and stronger.”

  “Does that really work?” I asked, clearly baffled.

  “Gods no,” she said. “It’s complete horseshit. But that is what women expect because men don’t know any better.”

  Damien an
d Benni both tried to protest, but their complaints were brushed aside as every woman in the room nodded her agreement.

  “Besides, when you sit like that, it makes it easier to do this.” She backed up between my knees and pressed her backside into me. She looked over her shoulder to gauge my reaction. My hands went to her hips, and I pulled her tight against me.

  “Oh,” she squeaked, her eyes wide as she called out to the rest of the room, “He knows what to do from here, girls.”

  Everyone laughed and started giving me pointers on everything from how to walk and what opening lines to use to how to hold a glass.

  The most flattering reaction was when Kaeda took out her purse and jingled it at me. “I know who—I mean what I’m doing on my day off,” she said, a salacious grin on her face. Soon, all the women were rattling coins in my direction. I had to admit, I enjoyed the attention even if it was staged to ease my mind. I really had the best friends.

  “And where are your Mylean dress,” Oni said with a mischievous smile. “You owe me a viewing, and I warned you what would happen should you disappoint, and should you not.”

  “You’ll see it, Oni, I promise,” I said, “and I will hold you to your warning, especially when I pass.” I gave her a hungry grin. Her dark cheeks flushed, but her eyes sparkled in promise.

  I even made an attempt on the guys. Damian and Benni laughed and rolled their eyes, but Gorge gave me a few pointers and a load of tips on my wardrobe. By the time we finished, moods were light and morale was at an all-time high. We hadn’t even gotten through all the outfits before Shani broke up the party and told everyone that they could see the rest later. That earned her some disgruntled hisses from the ladies. The distraction was good for them, though, and I had loosened up enough by the end of it to have a bit of fun and play the fool for them. But they weren’t the ones I needed to impress.