Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (6 page)

Thankfully, Deiq remained quiet for the rest of the evening. Even through dinner, sitting next to her with his dark gaze moving around the table, he said little to nothing. Nobody else seemed particularly interested in speaking to him, either; by the end of the meal, Alyea felt a reluctant sense of guilt over ignoring him for so long.

As the last plates were cleared away, and coffee trays were wheeled in, she turned her smile his way and said, lightly, “I think I’ll skip the coffee this time.”

He regarded her with a strange expression and said, “Probably a good idea.”

A servant placed small cups in front of them. Alyea quickly turned hers upside-down, offering the servant a regretful smile. He nodded and poured steaming black liquid into Deiq’s cup, then moved on. A moment later, another servant placed a full cup of a liquid almost as black in front of Alyea, removing the upside-down cup.

She regarded the drink with caution, then glanced at Deiq for help. He was smiling: but it was a strange, dark expression that shifted his lean face into starker planes.

“It’s tea,” he said quietly. “From the smell, I’m guessing F’Heing red bush, prepared
thopuh
style.”

“Very good,” Lord Ondio F’Heing said from across the table. His smile reminded Alyea of a cat about to pounce on something small. The severe cut and dark colors of his clothing heightened the menace of his expression. “Do you know what region and year the batch is from?”

One of the strange green-oil lamps nearby flickered and began to gutter; a servant quickly moved to turn up the wick. Renewed light washed across the area, and Alyea repressed a sigh of relief, only then realizing that the increasing dimness had been bothering her for some time. Her shoulders relaxed.

Deiq regarded Lord Ondio for a long moment, then said, “I haven’t studied F’Heing teas extensively, I’m afraid.”

Ondio’s smirk widened. “So there
is
something you don’t know.”

“But,” Deiq interrupted, “given that red bush
thopuh
-style teas were only made for a hundred years before a combination of a volcano exploding, a plague, and political shift destroyed the plantations and the skilled workers; given that
thopuh
tea grows more valuable with age; and given that I’m doubting F’Heing would give out its most valuable stores to Lord Scratha at the moment; given all that, I’m guessing this comes from the Sta region of the F’Heing Mountains, and that it was packed within the five years previous to the Sta plantation’s destruction.”

The room went completely silent. Ondio looked as though he’d bitten into a sour fruit when he’d been expecting a delicacy. Alyea’s shoulders went tight again; she drew a deep breath and forced herself to relax.

“Indeed,” Ondio said through his teeth, then forced a laugh in an obvious attempt to sound unaffected. He cast a quick look to the head of the table, where Lord Scratha sat watching, expression hawk-intent. “You’re wrong, of course. We only give out properly precious gifts. We would never insult—”

“Of course,” Deiq said, voice and manner bored, as though the entire conversation no longer interested him. “I did say I haven’t studied the matter extensively.”

Ondio’s jaw clenched. He shot a poisonous glare at Deiq, then rose. “If I may be excused,” he muttered, offering a short bow to Scratha. At his host’s nod, he left the room hurriedly.

Scratha’s mouth creased in a faint smile. He nodded briefly to Deiq, then went back to his interrupted conversation.

“I can’t tell if that was outrageously rude or well-played,” Alyea said in an undertone.

“I know,” Deiq said, as quietly. “That’s why you ought to be keeping
your
mouth shut right now.” He met her glare with a mild, indifferent expression.

“I haven’t done that badly so far,” she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow and said nothing in return. She jerked her gaze away, seething with the impulse to slap him, then remembered a conversation with Chac:
I’ve been crashing about like a horse in a glass shop
, she’d said, and he’d given her the same dry eyebrow-lift Deiq had just offered.

She drew in a deep, quiet breath and shut her eyes for a moment; looked up to find Deiq’s dark stare turned elsewhere.

“Yes, you have been,” he said, the words directed at her, but his attention apparently on Evkit’s low-voiced discussion with Irrio. “We’ll talk about it after dinner, if you like.”

She swallowed back another surge of indignation and just nodded, somehow knowing he’d pick up on the silent agreement.

Picking up her cup of tea, she took a tentative sip. The aroma reminded her of smoky pine, and the taste was heavy and thick with burnt overtones. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and she took a second sip, astonished at how it seemed to coat the inside of her mouth and yet melted away instantly into a lingering memory of taste.

“Thopuh tea,” Deiq said, returning his attention to her at last, “is a remarkable accident. The F’Heing enclave area, from which all their trading ships sail, originally belonged to another Family entirely.”

A few heads turned sharply, and spines stiffened. Scratha looked down the table at Deiq again, an amused expression crossing his face.

“It’s a story most of the desert Families don’t like to think about,” Deiq went on as though nobody else existed in the room.

“Much less hear at a Conclave dinner table,” someone said acerbically.

“At least Lord Ondio’s left the room,” someone else muttered.

Alyea was too fascinated by the darkly amused glint in Deiq’s eyes to look for the identity of the speakers; she felt captured, enthralled, like a rabbit facing a snake. He was making a point, one that he damn well knew would infuriate most if not all of the gathering, and he didn’t care.

Her mother would be screeching with fury at the breach of etiquette. Insulting guests at her table was absolutely forbidden, whatever their crimes. But Scratha made no effort to stop Deiq’s story.

“F’Heing Family lands had no ocean access,” Deiq continued. “The Family that once occupied that space was called Tehay. They were relatively peaceful: fishermen, tea-growers, coffee-growers, farmers. But they were stubborn; wouldn’t allow outsiders into their lands, wouldn’t teach anyone their ways, wouldn’t allow trade posts or even roads through their lands. No outsider ships landing at their docks, and so on. They kept access to their lands very controlled. Rather like the teyanain.”

He glanced at Evkit, who was studiously examining the coffee grounds at the bottom of his empty cup, a ferocious scowl on his dark face.

“F’Heing—and other Families—tried many ways to breach that isolationist attitude. Some tried for marriage—”

Someone closer to the head of the table made a thick, protesting noise.

“Others tried bribes—”

“Damn it, Deiq!”

“Not that I’m
naming
anyone, mind you,” Deiq retorted without lifting his gaze from Alyea’s face. “But if you’d like to step up to the admission yourself, feel free.”

Heavy silence.

“As it turned out, nothing worked,” Deiq said after a few moments, the amused tilt returning to his eyebrows. “Until F’Heing Family decided they’d had enough of
subtle
and went in for
direct assault
. It just so happened that the tea farmers were in the middle of harvest at the time. Hoping they wouldn’t have to lose the whole harvest, they force-dried the newly plucked tea leaves over pine fires, packed them into tight blocks, and buried the blocks before they retreated farther up into the mountains.”

He paused, and his gaze finally left Alyea and swept the table. Nobody spoke. Few met his stare.

“The invaders found the buried blocks of tea before they found the farmers. They tried the tea, and decided they liked it more than the lighter tea the farmers usually produced, and dubbed it
thopuh
—blood of victory—tea. They hunted down the fugitive tea-farmers, forced them to explain the method of making this new tea, and then killed them all.”

Alyea swallowed hard, the silence in the room beginning to hurt her ears. She cast an uneasy glance around the table and saw, without surprise, that almost every face had an ugly expression now. Gria looked appalled; Azni studied her coffee cup, frowning. Only Scratha seemed to share Deiq’s mild amusement over the story.

Alyea resisted the urge to shake her head or kick Deiq under the table, knowing the former would make her look like a fool and the latter would have no effect at all. She suspected that her efforts to win allies at the pre-dinner gathering were being destroyed, and wondered if that were part of Deiq’s intent in telling this grossly offensive story.

“Thopuh tea quickly became the most expensive, and desirable, tea in the southlands; and F’Heing never suffered any reprisals from the other Families for the attack,” Deiq finished. His gaze flicked to the head of the table. “Not even from—”

“That’s enough,” Scratha said, his tone mild but his gaze darkening.

Deiq inclined his head and tossed back his entire cup of coffee in one swallow, then turned it over before any of the nearby servers could refill it.

“I’m grateful for your indulgence, Lord Scratha,” he said easily, splaying his large hands palm-up on the table. “I seem to be losing my manners from lack of sleep.”

“It’s been a long two days,” Scratha said, and waved to the waiting servants. “I suggest we all retire early. Many of you have a long road to travel in the morning.”

As the servants came forward, ever-so-politely lifting away empty cups and offering subtle prompts to finish full ones, Alyea stared at Deiq, still unable to believe his gall.

He met her stare with a placid expression. Before either of them could say anything, a servant dressed in the brown and grey of guest-quarters staff instead of the black and grey of dining-hall staff approached.

“Lord Peysimun, I’ll take you to your rooms, if you’re ready to retire,” the dumpy woman said in a thick southern accent, hands folded across her broad stomach. Alyea noticed the servant was missing the tips of two fingers on her left hand, and only realized she was staring when the woman shifted her hands to hide left under right.

“Sorry,” Alyea muttered, feeling her entire face heat up, and looked away hurriedly. “I know the way—”

“Your room has changed, Lord Peysimun,” the servant interrupted, no trace of discomfort on her broad features. “You have new status, get new room.”

“What? But I—”

Deiq’s hand closed around her elbow; he used the other in a “wait a moment” motion to the servant, then leaned in close to speak in Alyea’s ear.

“You weren’t officially accepted as Lord Peysimun until you were confirmed by Conclave. And you’re the only desert lord besides Azni being
given
a room, in case you didn’t realize; everyone else is camping outside the walls. So smile and say thank you, damn it!”

Alyea forced her mouth into a smile. “Thank you,” she said to the servant, and stood, shaking her arm free from Deiq’s grip. “I’m honored.” She turned, caught Lord Scratha’s eye, then bowed deeply; he nodded, looking distantly amused once more.

Alyea followed the plump servant out of the dining hall without looking back, well aware that Deiq trailed a matter of steps behind her. She wished she could just tell him to go somewhere else, but knew he would just give her that abstracted, sardonic stare and ignore the request completely.

Alyea’s new room was considerably more luxurious than the last. Two rooms, in fact, and a side room for the kathain—six of whom stood lined up with their handler, patiently awaiting approval.

Deiq repressed a groan. He’d forgotten about this particular tradition, and hadn’t thought to warn Alyea about it. Her expression, as she stared at the waiting group, told him she had no idea what she was looking at; she probably thought they were just servants.

“Kathain for your approval, Lord Peysimun,” said the handler, a stringy old man with a large black birthmark on the side of his face and several missing teeth. “As many as you feel the need for tonight.”

The missing teeth turned the handler’s smile into a leer, and Deiq saw Alyea’s expression change rapidly as she grasped the implications.

Deiq laid a hand casually on her shoulder and dug his thumbnail into the fleshy part. She shot him a furious glare.

“Three,” he murmured, almost subvocalizing. “Pick three, with thanks, and send the rest away.
Do it
.”

He heard a tiny grinding sound as she clamped her teeth tightly together. For a moment he thought she might refuse; then she forced a strained smile and turned her attention to studying the offered kathain.

Two women, and four men; the youngest was perhaps fifteen and the oldest almost thirty. None exceptional, either in beauty or ugliness; a statement all its own, but not one Alyea would understand how to interpret. And none were dressed provocatively, not here: at F’Heing they would have been presented nude; at Sessin, bedecked with glittering finery. But Scratha had always preferred to present their kathain soberly dressed in the same earth tones as the curtains and linens. No doubt the closet in the kathain room already had a full stock of varied outfits to suit any taste.

After a thoughtful inspection, Alyea indicated the two women and the youngest boy. Deiq held back a grin at that mistake: she clearly expected that those choices would remove actual sex from the table, and perhaps leave the chosen kathain as mere cleaning-servants. And he suspected that she’d chosen the boy more to keep him from being “used” elsewhere than by any particular interest in him.

Some of her northern assumptions were going to be
amusing
to remove. . . .

The handler flicked Deiq an appraising glance, then bowed and with a few polite phrases retreated from the room with those not chosen. The remaining kathain bowed and stood quietly waiting.

“You can rest for the night,” Deiq told them once the door of the outer room closed behind the departing group. “I can handle Lord Peysimun’s needs for the moment.”

They nodded, expressionless, and went to their room. Alyea began to make a sound similar to a pot coming to a boil; Deiq turned, caught her arm, and forcefully hustled her through the outer room and into the bedroom, shoving the door shut behind them.

“Horse in a glass shop,” he said before she could speak. “It’s a traditional courtesy—”

“That boy is younger than I am!”

“He’s no younger than you were when Oruen took you to bed,” he said.

Her face darkened, then whitened, and she looked away, clenching her hands.

“That was
different
,” she said.

“Because you had noble rank?”

“Because I had a
choice
!”

“So do the kathain. That boy is here because he
wants
to be. It’s an honor. Certainly more of an honor than being a night of fun for an unmarried man twice your age is, north to south.”

Her head jerked up; she glared at him with hot outrage.

“Look at what is, not what you want to be,” he said without remorse. “That boy probably knows more about sex than your average whore. I told you: desert lords
change
after the trials. Kathain are part of every desert lord’s staff. They fill that need—”

“They won’t damn well fill mine—”

“You think you’ll have a
choice
?”

She tilted her chin, all ignorant northern arrogance; he tried another approach.

“Alyea,” he said, more patiently, “there’s a lot you still don’t understand, and I’m
trying
to teach you.”

“By pissing off all the desert lords you can reach?” she demanded.

Deiq repressed a sigh, realizing she was referring to the incident at dinner. She’d completely missed the point of his story. He’d intended to show her what kind of people she was dealing with now, and pass along a warning that her northern notions of politics weren’t going to do her any good here. But all she’d seen was what northerns would consider a severe breach of etiquette. He wasn’t even sure she’d listened to the contents of the tale itself.

He restrained himself to observing, “Doesn’t matter if they get mad at
me
; they already hate my guts.”

She turned away, paced a few steps, flung herself back around to glare at him. “You’re making this impossible,” she snapped.

“I’ve saved you from at least three major political blunders tonight,” he returned, allowing irritation into his voice this time. “Lord Rest was angling to make you look like a fool, and I turned it around on him. If you’d hesitated another moment over being walked to your room, you’d have implied you didn’t find the change to your satisfaction, or the servant offensive, or any of a hundred other inflections you didn’t even realize you were conveying. And if you’d refused the kathain gift you’d have been slapping Lord Scratha in the face. You have
no
damn idea what you’re doing!”

She turned away again, and sat on the far edge of the wide bed, her head hanging. In the silence came a distinct moan; Alyea stiffened and snapped back to her feet, whirling round with an expression of astonished horror on her face.

Deiq held up a hand to keep her from bolting into the other room. “They’re fine,” he told her, his irritation fading into genuine amusement. Time for her first lesson on the southern reality, apparently. “They’re practicing.”

“They’re—” Her face turned a greenish shade. “That’s
disgusting
.”

“It’s practical,” he said, and moved forward, worried that she was about to faint. “It’s their job, Alyea.” He gathered her into his arms; she leaned against him, shuddering with revulsion.

Another loud, gasping moan came from the kathain room.

“And I think they’re probably showing off a bit,” Deiq said into Alyea’s hair, grinning. “To show they’re ready for you.”

Gods knew
he
was, and the kathain’s display wasn’t helping any; but Alyea wasn’t showing any interest at all. He breathed through his nose and tried to keep his hands from wandering.

“
Gods
.” She broke away from him and put her hands over her ears as though that might help.

Relenting, he soothed the air around her until she couldn’t hear the increasingly enthusiastic noises from the kathain, then gently nudged her into curling up on the bed. With a sigh, he settled down beside her, arm’s reach away, and eased her into sleep without further conversation.

Talking could wait for now. But as he leaned back against the wall, he wished he could block his own hearing as simply, or take advantage of the kathain’s enthusiasm himself.

“This is going to be a
very
long year,” he muttered. “And I’m a godsdamned fool.”

Something feathered against his mind, a tickling sensation he recognized instantly: someone was looking for him. A moment’s concentration yielded an image of Idisio slipping from his room, disquiet filling his mind.

Deiq sighed, looking down at the sleeping desert lord; for there to be any chance of a coherent conversation with the younger ha’ra’ha, their meeting needed to be held away from this room, and he could tell by Idisio’s aggrieved energy that whatever was going on should be dealt with now.

Crossing the room, he paused in the doorway, fingers resting lightly against the frame, and considered for a moment. Ward the inner room against intrusion, or the outer? Outer, he decided, and moved to the outer door of the suite. He laid his fingers against that frame and mentally traced a meandering, complex design along the edges of the door. A faint golden shimmer washed over the surface of the door, then disappeared.

Deiq nodded to himself and slipped from the room.

Nobody would cross the threshold now, not without a serious helping of determination and even then not without alerting him to the attempt. It was the best protection he could give her at the moment. But the kathain could easily gain access to her room, and on realizing that he’d left, probably
would
; it was something of a status prize to be the first of a new desert lord’s kathain.

That encounter would teach her more than words about the reality of her new life, and might actually make her
listen
for once when Deiq tried to explain things to her. He just hoped she wouldn’t hurt the kathain too badly in the process.

He intercepted Idisio three hallways over.

“Deiq! I was looking for you; I have to talk—”

“I know,” Deiq said patiently, and steered the younger ha’ra’ha to a nearby courtyard, trying to block out the strong musk of recent and enthusiastic sex. He really wished Idisio had taken the time for a sponge bath, at the least; at the moment it was not a smell he wanted pressed into his nostrils.

“Riss is—”

“Hold on.” Deiq waved Idisio quiet. He stood still, listening with care, but found no trace of watchers within hearing range. Reassured of that much privacy, at least, he walked unhurriedly to each archway and watch-hole, lacing them with wards to turn away any visitors. Turning to survey the courtyard, he decided darkness didn’t suit his mood at the moment, and reached out to three of the five oil lamps; the freshly saturated wicks flared into white life immediately.

Satisfied, he walked back to stand in front of Idisio.

“Now. What is it?”

Idisio’s wide grey eyes held a faintly dazed look. “What did you just do? I saw . . .
shimmers
. . . and you didn’t even
touch
the lamps!”

“Wards, to ensure our privacy,” Deiq said. “They’re fairly simple, as is igniting a ready wick. I’ll teach you. But first, what do you need to talk to me about?”

Idisio glanced around the courtyard, up at the overarching spread of stars against a black sky, then around again, with an increasing attitude of discomfort.

“Riss heard . . . some gossip,” he said at last. “From the servants. About
. . . ha’ra’hain. And . . . desert lords. And their . . . interests. Ehh . . . needs.” He almost squirmed with embarrassment on the last word.

Deiq rubbed the bridge of his nose, glad he hadn’t allowed Idisio to reach Alyea’s new suite. “Mmph. I take it she’s upset.”

“Just a bit.” The dryness was an attempt to hide a deep discomfort. “Is it true? I mean, I don’t . . . I don’t
feel
that . . . I mean, it’s great, but it’s not, you know, a, a
need
. . . and she’s worried about. . . .” Apparently unable to continue, his face a deep crimson, he looked away, hunching his shoulders.

“Worried about being enough for you,” Deiq supplied, and sat down on a stone bench with a sigh. “She won’t be, Idisio.”

Idisio jerked a protesting stare up at Deiq, then away again, his blush somehow managing to deepen. Deiq regarded him with amusement; he’d never seen another ha’ra’ha blush so easily and violently.

“You’re leaving soon,” Deiq pointed out. “And you’ll be gone years, at best. Even a young human male would have difficulty staying faithful under those circumstances, Idisio. For a ha’ra’ha growing into his strength . . . it’s impossible.”

Idisio turned in place, paced a few steps, then turned to face Deiq again. “Are you saying I’m—” His voice broke. “Some kind of animal? That I won’t be able to control—”

Deiq blinked and reared back, astounded. “
What?
Gods, no!”

“Then I
could
wait. If I wanted to.”

Deiq stared, utterly bemused. He hadn’t even considered that concept until he was over two hundred years past Idisio’s current age. He blurted, “Why in the hells would you want to?”

Idisio opened and shut his mouth a few times, apparently at a loss for an answer.

Deiq drew a long breath and said, as reasonably as he could, “Idisio. You’ve known her less than a month.”

“So?” Belligerence lined Idisio’s jaw now; Deiq resisted the impulse to roll his eyes.

He tried a different tack. “Idisio, you’re not human. You’re not going to have a human life span. By the time you start to slow down, Riss’s grandchildren will probably be long in their graves. And you’ll drive yourself completely crazy if you try to hold to human notions of faithfulness. It’s too damn
difficult
for us.”

“Have you tried?” Idisio challenged.

Deiq set his teeth in his tongue, counted to fifteen, then said, steadily, “Yes. Several times over the years. It never works out well in the end.”

He tried not to think about the promise he’d made regarding Alyea. The challenge issued by the Qisani ha’reye had seemed deceptively simple:
Stay only by her side, as though locked into the human concept of marriage.
He’d accepted, like a newborn fool, forgetting all the times he’d failed at self-assigned versions of that task in the past.

He’d thought it would be
different
with Alyea, gods help him. Somehow, he’d thought that she might turn to him out of true interest, not compulsion alone. He
wanted
it to be different, and it was; she showed no compulsion yet, but no interest either.

Deiq had stuck himself in the hells’ own corner.

Foolishness
. Yes . . . and with a high price attached to failure this time.

Or return to us, and remain with us, for a span of at least a hundred human years.

And then there was the question of whether the Qisani ha’reye had tried to stack the deck on that deal, as the human saying went, with their
thorough
approach. Deiq shut his eyes for a moment, blocking that memory before Scratha ha’rethe could notice his distress and rouse again; if Meer was a topic fraught with danger, the bloody disaster that Alyea’s second trial had turned into was ten times more so.

“Why didn’t it work out? What happened?” Idisio demanded.

“That’s a fairly personal, and rude, question,” Deiq remarked cooly.

Idisio shrugged and faced him, rebellious as any young human male could be: squinting, lips pursed, hands on hips. “How am I supposed to understand, if you don’t explain?”

Deiq snorted, amused by the ridiculous stance and expression, and said, “All right. I’ll indulge you the once, and tell you about Onsia. She was in her thirties at the time, and thought me a rich merchant. She’d been through two other husbands, both sailors, both dead; they’d worked on my ships, as it happened. We met at the land-remembrance ceremonies, and liked each other; she liked the notion that I wouldn’t be going out on the ships, and I liked that she wasn’t entirely innocent about men, as was the fashion for women at the time.”

“So you liked her because she was a good fuck. Great.” Idisio scowled as though disgusted over such a shallow attitude.