by Jean Winter
Sold! She was going to be sold! To—to some horrible, lustful, disdainful lord! Someone who would view her as a crude object of pleasure. Someone arrogant enough to assume that she wanted him, that she would enjoy him on her And she! She would have no choice but to submit—to bend to his will! The stone exterior of the khari'na spa across the lot started to blur and spiral dizzily.
“Lyra, Lyra, you are hyperventilating.” Maehan took Lyra by the shoulders and looked up into her face, forcing eye contact. “Breathe slowly. In … out … good. Now slower.”
“What … what now?” Lyra said. “Maehan, what do I do? What's going to happen to me? I—I haven't been trained, haven't been oriented. I don't know the khari'na customs or how I am supposed to act. Oh God, I have never been with another man! Maehan, I can't do it. I can't!” Tears began to make rivulets down her face.
“Look at me, child. Look at me.” Maehan's fingers dug into Lyra's shoulders with surprising strength. “You can do this. You must. Your life depends on it. Oh, this is my fault!” The old woman suddenly let got and resumed her pacing. “I should have been more careful with your records! But, I canno' change that now. You are going to go on that stage and you will be sold. The only thing I can do for you now is help you go for a good price. Aye, that would be safest.”
“But, why does the price matter?”
Maehan turned on her. “Because the men who buy the cheaper khari'na are usually from that despicable fighting khar troop or a local bordello. Believe you me, child, you will be left alone more with a man who has money enough to take you for granted, and a nice rich lord in a respectable, high society household is the most preferable place to be. “
As the woman's words sank in, Lyra's body became cloaked in chills. Then she felt warm hands cradling hers.
“Lyra, go back to our room and wait for me there. I need to make a wire call. Hopefully, I will no' be long.” Maehan started leading her along. “In the meantime, I think the best thing you can do is pray to your god for strength. You have to be able to step on that stage calm and collected.”
Pray? Lyra thought.
Pray?
With a pang it struck her that she couldn't remember the last time she had prayed. When was it? The day before yesterday? Last week?
At the door to their room, Lyra finally recollected that the last time she had prayed or even really thought about God was that night with Hundt recovering her pack.
It had been almost two weeks!
Two weeks! Lyra stepped inside the small room, dizzy again. She had never gone so long without prayer. It must have been the depression. She had forgotten her faith. Guilt like a cold, northern wind swept through her, and as soon as Maehan closed the door, Lyra dropped to her knees.
“Oh, God! Please help me!”
# # #
The taxi carriage rolled up to the sprawling country estate that ushered its guests in with perfectly manicured shrubbery bordering either side of a long driveway. Kade opened the coach door and hopped out. Yesterday's moisture still clung to the drive's paver stones and as he briskly took the glistening steps of the portico two at a time, he knew they were destined to remain that way for a while longer—what with the continued cloud cover. Another anxious check of his watch and Kade knocked hard on the generously-sized, double doors.
A head of short, light brown hair with salon-colored highlights poked out. “I did no' think you were coming,” the man said testily. “You have ignored all my wires.”
Kade only rolled his eyes. “Can you blame me?”
The head stuck out farther. “Henna's bosom! Did I no' already tell you I was sorry? I distinctly remember telling you sorry at least ten times that night. 'Kade, I am sorry.”, 'Kade, please forgive me.', 'Kade, how can I make it up to you?'” The man paused for a breath and sniffed. “In fact, I have a mind to just stay home. Maryn is making tea and pasties and she is having friends over later to play wimples.”
“Sal,” Kade grinned wryly, “Maryn's friends annoy you and you hate wimples. But … if that is how you would rather spend your day then I will no' darken your doorstep any longer. Kindly ask Maryn to save me a pasty, will you?” He turned to leave.
“What!” Sal exclaimed, “And miss out on seeing Lord Kadent J'Kor finally make the second best decision o' his life?—The first, by the way, being the day he decided to make yours truly his best friend? No' likely!”
“Well, are you coming then or no'?” He was halfway down the steps. “I am already running late.”
“All right, all right! Twist my arm to get me to go along, will you? That will no' be necessary.” Sal flung the door fully open to reveal that he was, in fact, already dressed in formal length swash tunic, fully prepared for a day of high class auction splendor. His agile, medium frame moved fluidly across the portico's smooth tile flooring, his fashionable walking cane clicking along as he went.
The taxi driver stood ready with an open door for his two passengers, and with overdone ceremony, Kade tipped his head to his friend, inviting him to climb in first. Then he settled himself on the black leather opposite his friend, whose sharp, green eyes appraised him.
“I see you finally decided to clean yourself up a little,” Sal said with a point of his cane at Kade's face. Kade pushed it away with a grimace, but the twinkle in Sal's eyes only grew brighter. “You know you have been looking rather shaggy o' late, and it has been far too long since anyone has seen you in your blacks.”
“Aye,” Kade agreed with reluctance. His hand ran over his clean, trimmed beard before returning to the leg of his carefully ironed, ebony trousers. “I know. With Ahna gone it has been very easy to lose track o' my appearance.”
“A vice that will be remedied quite soon again, I hope.” Sal winked at him.
Kade shrugged, his hint of a grin belying the nervousness he felt inside. “We will see.” He patted the ceiling behind him and the carriage lurched forward, the thresher team's smooth, two-legged jog soon accelerating to an even, brisk pace.
“This is very nice,” Sal said, gazing about the taxi's interior. “It relieves me to finally see you spending some money on a few luxuries. Did you buy it?”
“No. Just rented for the day.” Kade fiddled with his neck sash. It felt crooked and tight. “I want to treat her well while we are in town. You know my home and life are … no' like yours. And I am going to' be asking a lot o' her. I also made reservations for dinner at The Vishke. Give her at least one high night on the town.”
Sal whistled. “Very classy. There is hope for you yet, my friend. Though, why you are so concerned about impressing a khar, I canno' understand. She will likely be just as happy to go straight home and let you bed her.” He leaned forward to help Kade redo his sash's knot.
The suit used to be a regular part of Kade's wardrobe. His upbringing and subsequent marriage to a socialite dictated steady attendance at dinner parties and political gatherings, but after his wife's death, he vigorously threw himself more into his farm work, letting the formal wear collect dust in his closet. He'd never had any love for such receptions, anyway. The frivolous pettiness and deceitful facades of so many of the “inner circle” got extremely tiresome very quickly.
His mother kept pecking at him to accept invitations to functions, but Kade had turned rationalization into an art form. He always came up with a good excuse.
“Come to think o' it,” Sal mused, his fingers working expertly away on the length of fine cloth, irritable accessory that it was, “these benches feel pretty comfortable. I could take my own taxi home if you and she do no' want to wait that long.”
“Sal, I am serious. Whoever I buy will still be expecting servants and fine furniture. I do no' want her to feel too let down.” Kade's gaze turned to the window. “Perhaps I should no' do this.”
“Will you stop worrying? You sound like an old woman.” Sal laughed. “We are no' going to pick you up a new wife. We are getting you a khar, and any khari'na would be ecstatic to be bought by a lord with a good looki
ng mug like yours. Alas, brother, it is no' as handsome as mine, mind you, but we canno' all be so lucky, can we?”
The sash retied to perfection, Sal patted Kade's cheeks and only laughed more when Kade swatted him away.
“Besides,” Sal added, “we are talking about khari'na. Why would you care what she thinks? Do you ever see me asking the opinion o' Maryn—voluptuous, delectable creature that she is? Remember, this is why we buy khari'na. And it is part o' why I have been on your back for the last two years to get yourself one.” He leaned back against his seat, closing his eyes and clasping his hands behind his head. “Sensual softness at the snap o' your fingers and no one throws a fit when you forget her birthday. I am telling you, Kade, it is the only way to go.”
Chuckling dryly, Kade pulled from a pocket the coin his father had given him as a boy and began flipping it expertly back and forth between his knuckles. It was habit. His ritual while thinking—and his mind was very full today.
“Look at me, mate,” Sal said, not liking the expression he evidently saw on Kade's face. “This is going to be a good move for you. You have been a single father single-handedly running your own business for too long, and you know you need someone to help you keep house and take care o' Breht and Jos'lie. Jos'lie especially.”
“I know.”
His sweet Jos'lie—his innocent daughter, born with slight mental deficiencies. Her loving, happy nature was a bright rainbow across the gray clouds of life, but at eleven years old, she still struggled with reading and basic math. Kade worried constantly about her future. The fact that she didn't have any real friends weighed further on his fatherly heart and Kade's interest in having a woman in the house again was almost as much for Jos'lie as it was for him.
“But even more,” Sal added, “I have seen the stress taking its toll on you, my brother. And from one man to another, I think breaking this streak o' celibacy is all you will need to get your edge back.”
Kade allowed a little grin to materialize and his best friend smiled back.
“Just think o' later tonight. The kids will no' be home from school until the end o' the week. You will have the house to yourself. I trust you are caught up on the chores?”
“Aye,” Kade said, reminded of the extra preparations he had made before leaving this morning—extra preparations that had caused him to get away later than hoped.
Sal clapped his hands together in anticipation. “You see? This is going to be great. Just you wait. After this, you will be singing my praises in gratitude.”
“For your sake, I hope you are right,” Kade returned, finally relaxing. “If this does turn out well, I just might decide to forgive you after all.” With a flip of his coin into the air, Kade deftly caught it and returned it to his pocket.
“Oh, you just had to bring it up again! In my defense, it is no' like we have no' had a good many glorious brawls in the past. They are a time-honored ritual for us,” Sal said, lifting a solemn hand to his heart.
Kade looked at his friend. What Sal really meant was that picking fights was a time-honored ritual for him. His gift for working his way underneath the skin of the common riffraff who often mistook the two gentlemen for patsies was befuddling. Kade's role merely entailed ensuring that the extent of Sal's injuries were merely black eyes and bruised ribs.
“Really,” Sal insisted. “What is the fun o' having a few drinks a couple times a month just to go home in one piece, anyway? There are no laughs later over boring nights like that.”
“Might I remind you that the cuts and scrapes I get from our more 'colorful' excursions are usually given to me by nameless, drunken half-wits—no' my best friend.”
“So I was a little more intoxicated than usual! But I swear your back looked just like that merchant's. At least it was only a little piece o' broken glass and no' a real knife.”
“Five stitches, Sal! That glass piece was no' as little as you want to remember. You are lucky one o' my ribs was the way so it did no' penetrate farther.”
At this, Sal's defensive energy waned. He slumped in his seat, uncharacteristically forlorn.
Kade leaned against his seat back, tracing a finger along the window shade's geometric pattern in a lackadaisical manner. “I just wonder if we are no' getting too old for these kinds o' wild nights. I do no' bounce back quite like I used to in our army days. And what kind o' example am I setting for Breht when I come home from a night on the town with a swollen eye? He is fifteen and beginning to turn into a man much faster than I want to admit.” He rubbed at his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair. “What are we doing anyway? Trying to make some immature point about the virility o' upper-class men?”
“Immature is a strong word,” Sal muttered. He found a spot of dirt on his cane and sullenly scratched at it with a fingernail.
Silent seconds passed, each man to his own thoughts as the carriage wheels spun along the dirt road, bumping over the occasional pothole or rock.
Then clasping his hands thoughtfully between his legs, Kade decided maybe Sal had been punished enough. “So … how many did we take on that night, again? Five?”
Sal instantly brightened. “Six, if you count the badgie that tried to break us up. He did no' know where that chair across his back came from, I am sure!” Good thing, too. Sal would have been hauled off with the other sots if the officer had known.
Kade grinned. “How did that one get started anyway? I canno' even remember now.”
“Oh, it probably had something to do with the comment I made about the shape o' that merchant's cranium.” They looked at each other, and both men began to snigger. “He really did no' like 'jar head,' did he?”
“No, he did no'. And when you were done with him, his nose was a funny shape too.” Sal's snickering intensified and Kade sighed mirthfully. “Just think how horrified your saintly mother would be—if she were still alive—to find that all those years o' forcing etiquette and decorum on you were wasted.”
“No' wasted.” Sal chose his next words carefully. “I practice it selectively. Am I no' the best dancer in the province?”
“Aye, you are that, mate.” It was true. Kade glanced at his watch again and went back to staring out the window, mentally willing the taxi to go faster. His friend watched him a moment.
“What are you worried about? We will get there on time.”
“I do no' want to be on time. I want to be early,” Kade told him. “I was hoping for an hour early. I want time to scout out my options. Take advantage o' the pre-sell perusing.”
“And just what kind o' woman are you hoping to find?”
A pair of expressive light brown eyes appeared in his mind, watching him, but Kade blinked the image away. Impossible.
“Oh, someone with, at least, some formal schooling would be nice—someone I can have an intelligent conversation with, and who can help Jos'lie with her homework. … I think I would also prefer a little maturity—”
“Whoa, mate. Stop right there,” Sal broke in. “One: We are going to a khari'na auction, no' some matchmaker's dating service. And two: You are looking for a female companion, no' an old nursemaid. Khari'na are no' like free women, remember? You are going to have very slim pickings in the intelligence and personal charm areas, you will be lucky if she even knows her alphabet, and maturity? Let me remind you, brother, that anyone worth having over the age o' twenty-five will have already been bought five years ago.” Sal looked him up and down. “What do you have against a sweet, fleshy thing in the first bloom o' her adulthood anyway? Maryn was only nineteen when I bought her seven years ago, and her ability to perform has been nothing but top notch. So, are you interested in some good sex or no'?” Sal finished, having worked himself into quite a passion.
“All right, all right,” Kade lifted hands in surrender, “you have made your point. My expectations are probably unrealistic.” Kade hated it when Sal actually made good sense from time to time. “And you are right—my bed feels extremely empty at night.”
His h
unger for the pleasures of a woman was, of late, nearly overpowering. More than once he'd almost gone back on his resolve to not get involved with someone, but only almost. For while the ladies' lips elicited assuring words of a “simple” relationship, in their eyes Kade always detected plans. Self-serving interests. Goals to eventually arrange things to their liking, mold him into something more … convenient to their lifestyle. Like Ahna had wanted.
He hated that.
He had dutifully loved his wife. For twelve years he had. But he could sense her constant restlessness; restlessness regarding having to live miles outside the city; restlessness at the distance between her and the glamorous daily bustle of high society; restlessness at missing out on the latest gossip because her sheep farmer husband was too cheap to buy her her own carriage and driver to take her into town every day.
Instead, Ahna developed the habit of spending days at a time in the homes of friends and family in the city—a practice that eventually changed to weeks as the years went by. She always had a kiss and a smile for him when she returned home, and she seemed glad to see the children, but every story told and phrase spoken about her time away just confirmed Kade's suspicion that she was happier there. And all the other eligible women he had encountered in the society circles since her death appeared to be the just same. They liked him, but not the life that came with him, nor his “baggage” children.
Sal was right. He needed a khari'na—a simple, accommodating, uncomplicated khar. She would warm his bed at night so he could spend his days in a more fulfilled state of mind. She would be a companion playmate for Jos'lie so Kade could worry about other things. And he might even be able to get some decent housework or cooking out of her, too. Sal was right on all points.
Except one.
“However, I do no' believe I would be comfortable sleeping with someone young enough to be my daughter. It would be awkward … probably for Breht, too.”
Sal shook his head and laughed. “Okay, brother. I will give you that one, but only because you are my best friend. A more frustratingly principled man than you, I am certain I will never find—but no matter. With my expert help, we will get you joined up right well.”