Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (45 page)

‘Is he? How do you tell?’

‘His eyes stray to you often and linger, trying to meet your eyes, but when they do, he looks away, and he becomes unfocused. He wants you, but another has a claim on him.’

‘Elena?’

‘Maybe.’ Portia slurped her wine. Another night in Francis Dorobon’s bed loomed and she wanted to go there drunk.

Cera’s belly churned at the thought of her father’s murderer forcing himself on her. ‘I don’t want him.’

Portia ate some rice. ‘I know. You don’t like looking at him. The pupils of your eyes grow smaller when you glance in his direction. Believe me, I know what desire looks like, and the opposite also. Gyle is screwing Olivia Dorobon, by the way.’

‘Her? She’s—’

‘Ugly as a cow’s arse? Si! Nevertheless, she is not whom he is thinking of; she is just part of the game he plays. Some men have complicated lives.’ Portia flicked back a stray strand of gleaming red hair. Her porcelain face was immaculate. She was wearing an emerald-coloured velvet dress that accentuated her colouring. Every man in the room had gazed longingly at her at some point that evening: every man, except Gurvon Gyle.

‘You are so beautiful,’ Cera blurted, then blushed.

Portia licked her lips sourly. ‘Beauty is a curse. It draws the biggest
bullies. They crowd about you, squabbling over you like dogs over a bone.’ Her eyes went to Francis Dorobon, laughing raucously with his friends.

‘Whose attention do you want?’ Cera asked, intrigued. She looked about the room, almost entirely full of handsome young men.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘None of them. I lost my virginity at thirteen and I’m sick and tired of it all. I get no peace.’

Cera took a sip of the full-bodied red wine. ‘Portia, come to the bowri tonight. There is something you need to know.’

‘I will come after I leave the Pig’s room. It would be good to wash again before I sleep. Wait for me at midnight, if you can.’

They exchanged one swift glance, then by tacit agreement did not look at each other again.

*

Cera sat beside the water, half-dozing as she waited for Portia. A single torch lit the cavern, its flickering light glinting on the rippling surface of the water.

Then the grill-door creaked open and slippered feet glided down the corridor outside. Portia emerged from the darkness, once again clad only in a bathrobe. Cera got to her feet, the excitement of conspiracy making her flush. She went to hug her, then stopped. Portia did not look like she would welcome being touched.

‘Cera, amica,’ Portia replied dourly, pushing past. She pulled off the robe and attacked herself with the soap, like that first morning when they’d met here.

Cera swallowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, undressing and sliding into the waters. She sat on the stairs, just out of arm’s reach.

Eventually Portia ceased her frenzied cleansing and dived beneath the surface before finally settling beside Cera on the steps, half-immersed. ‘There, we can talk now.’ She looked calmer, as if she had rinsed away her self-loathing.

Cera bit her lip, suddenly not so sure this conversation was a good idea. But she must have the courage of her convictions. After a few moments she pressed on regardless. ‘Portia, do you know what happened to your brother?’

Portia opened her mouth, then closed it again. ‘I know what I’ve been told,’ she answered eventually. ‘Your sister killed him.’ Her eyes darkened a little, then she said firmly, ‘I do not blame you for this.’

‘It wasn’t Solinde who killed him.’

Portia put a hand to her mouth. Her voice was tremulous. ‘You are sure?’

‘I found out the truth, before Fishil Wadi,’ Cera whispered. ‘Elena and I learned that it was a shapeshifter in the pay of Gurvon Gyle.’

‘Sol et Lune!’ Portia hissed. Her eyes went wide as saucers and she whispered, incredulous, ‘You
know
this?’

‘Sol’s Truth,’ Cera replied. ‘I saw the shapeshifter. Elena unmasked it, but that night an enemy attacked us and I never saw it again. I don’t know what happened to it.’

‘Perhaps it is still at court,’ Portia whispered. ‘Perhaps it will take the place of someone we trust.’ Her eyes went wider. ‘Perhaps it will take the place of one of us.’

Cera shook her head. ‘We would know.’ An idea occurred to her: ‘Perhaps it took Elena’s place, because her behaviour changed so much. Maybe she was not possessed, but entirely replaced!’

Portia shrugged. ‘I do not know about these things.’ She tilted her head and looked at Cera. ‘If I were a shapeshifter I would choose to be ugly, so that men would not look at me.’

Cera laughed uneasily. ‘I would choose to be you.’
You’re so beautiful it hurts.

‘So you could be dragged to the Pig’s bed every night? I don’t think so.’ Portia scowled. ‘Thank you for telling me this. I believe you. And it is a relief that your sister did not kill my brother. That had been causing me a lot of distress.’ She smiled timidly.

Cera seized Portia’s hand. ‘We teased Solinde for fancying your brother. But had we known him better, I’m sure we would have loved him.’

Portia blinked. ‘You are kind,’ she whispered huskily. ‘It is good that we are friends, for their sakes. But Cera-amica, what are we going to do?’

Cera leaned in and breathed in her ear, ‘I have a plan starting to
come together in my head. Did you know there are secret passageways all through the palace?’

Portia’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really? Mater Luna!’

‘I tell you, a spy can see into every room in the three upper storeys.’

Portia looked outraged. ‘That is horrible! And that woman we saw in your room has been spying on us?’

Cera nodded. ‘Gyle, too.’

Portia bared her teeth. ‘Can we get into them? Can we use them to get out of here?’ Her eyes blazed with intensity.

Cera was almost overwhelmed by the other girl’s excitement.
She is so lovely when she looks like that
. ‘Maybe – but I expect Gyle will have sealed the passages leading outside.’

‘Then one night we will go from room to room with our knives.’ Portia’s eyes glittered savagely. She pushed away from the steps and waded to the step below Cera’s and knelt there, facing her directly. ‘We cut their throats!’ She made a violent gesture across Cera’s neck, making her flinch. ‘Then we run away!’

Cera swallowed. ‘Yes.’

Portia’s face was a bloodthirsty snarl, then, slowly, her expression changed to one that was very serious. Cera stared back at her, and it was as if gravity had let her go, as if she could float away. Every sense was overloaded: her nostrils filled with Portia’s clove-breath and rosewater scent and her tongue tingled. Her eyes filled with Portia’s mouth, her red lips and pink tongue. The constantly running water was a ripple of sound like a glissade of harp music. Her skin felt porous and the warm water caressed her whole body as Portia gently pushed her knees apart and knelt between them, pressed herself, breasts to breasts, belly to belly beneath the water, and kissed her tentatively.

O Mother Luna
, she groaned, and revulsion for the sin she’d feared most of all warred with desire, but the war was brief and defeat was overwhelming. Her lips parted as her arms slid around Portia’s shoulders and pulled her in. Their lips crushed softly against each other, and then Portia’s tongue slid into her mouth and entwined hers, on and on in a perfect eternity …

‘Please,’ she moaned, pulling away to breathe, ‘I’m not a safian—’

‘Of course you are,’ Portia whispered. ‘I told you, I know what desire looks like, even if you don’t.’

‘But—’

‘Shhh.’ Portia’s hands caressed her shoulders and back as her mouth sealed over Cera’s again. The second kiss went on even longer while her terror and need grew in equal measure:
Someone will come … someone is watching
…

Portia gripped her around the waist and pulled her in, making her back arch, and took her left nipple in her mouth just above the water’s surface and suckled on it while her auburn hair spread behind her, swaying like water-weed in the current. Cera gasped, clutched at the back of Portia’s head and held her there while inside her, she felt heat and wetness go rushing to her loins. She opened her own mouth to protest, and instead found herself nuzzling Portia’s crown.

‘Come,’ Portia whispered. She rose like a naiad, water streaming from her skin, and took Cera’s hands. Cera let herself be pulled upright, and kissed again. They floated to the top of the stairs, and Portia seized her bathrobe and spread it on the tiles. Then she lowered Cera onto the fabric.

That this could be happening seemed impossible, but Cera desperately didn’t want it to stop, sin or no. The part of her that might have resisted was lost. She sank to the ground and rolled onto her back, her heart hammering, flesh trembling.

‘Do not be ashamed,’ Portia whispered. ‘We are as the Sun and Moon made us.’

Slim fingers stroked Cera’s thighs and then entered the cleft between, sliding easily into her wet passage, and Cera lost her breath and never seemed to catch it again as Portia deftly stroked her, touching her right where she had not known she so badly needed to be touched. Her porcelain face shone in the torchlight, a look of amused concentration on her face as if she were studying Cera’s every reaction.

I’m her puzzle-box
, Cera groaned as the tempo and intensity rose,
and she’s almost … figured … me out … ohhh—

She orgasmed in a gush of fire and heat, the pleasure so intense
it was almost painful, her hips bucking as she groaned and tried to push Portia’s hand away, not recognising the giggling sound coming from her own lips …

Portia grinned slyly down at her. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing.’ Cera’s eyes stung, and she suddenly realised the burden of fear that had weighed her down for so long had lifted – maybe not forever; she could feel it waiting to settle back on her. But here, right here, everything was possible, and hope – cruel hope – now had her in her grasp, and she wanted to cry, and laugh. ‘Everything.’

This changes everything …

Portia kissed her again. ‘There,’ she whispered, ‘that wasn’t so bad, was it?’

Cera stared up at her, still not quite believing.
I’m not beautiful enough for you, even though you make me feel like I am.
‘Solinde used to call me a safian because I wasn’t interested in gossiping with her about boys,’ she whispered. ‘It was the one insult I could not face, so naturally, it was the one she used when she most wanted to hurt me.’

‘Sisters can be cruel,’ Portia said, kissing her throat.

‘Are you – uh … also—?’

Portia looked at her a little helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I have not done this before. I’m so tired of men demanding my body, but this – this is different … And you
need
me, Cera-amica – not
want
, but need, and that is different. I am here for you, to help you through.’ She touched the tip of Cera’s nose. ‘I will see you through.’

‘I can’t believe we … That what happened—’

‘It did. And it will happen again, I promise.’

Cera reached out, tentatively stroked Portia’s perfect breast, reached down …

Portia caught her hand. ‘Not tonight – it is too soon after the Pig. I am still sore, down there. But another time.’ She guided Cera’s hand back to her breast. ‘Just hold me. All I want is to be held.’

*

The night bells chimed in the city below as Cera lay wide awake in her bed. After a parting that felt like being ripped in two, Portia was back in her own room.

Cera stared out of the window at the vast moon; the face of Luna, Goddess of Madness and Desire, lit the cityscape, basting it in silver, shining like Portia’s skin, and it made Cera tremble to think of her so near … But the risks were so high: if the world even suspected they would be stoned, at the very least, and that would mean the end of all her ambitions. It was the stupidest of all stupidities, to surrender to a need she’d barely realised existed.

Liar: you’ve always known, and you’ve always run from it …

An old minstrel’s song sprang to her mind, and she whispered it softly into the room:

‘Sweet Luna, watch over we lovers of your light,

Sweet Queen, hear my entreaty,

For I am mad with desire,

And I so desire your madness.’

Religion: Zainism

Zainists claim that all Gods (except Kore) are the same divine being. Their whole faith is built on such compromises. Do they not know that compromise has no place in religion? The imagination of men can be captured only by absolutes.

R
ASHID
M
UBARAK
, E
MIR OF
H
ALLI’KUT
, 901

Mount Tigrat, Javon, Antiopia
Shawwal (Octen) 928
4
^th
month of the Moontide

‘You don’t understand. I don’t want to do this.’ Kazim couldn’t meet Elena’s eyes. ‘We don’t
need
to do this.’ He stared across the sunlight gardens from the balcony where she’d chosen to confront him.

They’d been having this running argument for days. Elena had thought he’d be grateful to her for removing her block on his gnosis, but he wasn’t. For almost two months he’d been pretending to have forgotten these terrible powers, and the dreadful way in which he’d gained them, by swallowing the life of another man – and not just any old man, but Antonin Meiros,
the man who’d stolen Ramita
. All he had been, all his deeds and memories, hopes and dreams, his personality and emotions, all gone, turned to roiling energy inside him. Some of that power had now been bled away, drained by the fight against Gyle’s people, but now that he could reach it again he knew there was still enough to frighten him.

And the only way to replenish it is to take another life. Another Wimla.

And there was the other part of his dilemma: since Elena had
removed the Chain-rune, he’d been beset by a hunger he couldn’t assuage. It was manageable, for now, but he’d come to realise that the more he drained himself, the more that craving would grow.

Elena didn’t understand, obviously. She’d said that his aura was ‘odd’, whatever that meant, but she clearly hadn’t ever seen a Souldrinker before. Of course he couldn’t explain that ‘oddness’ to her, not without her turning on him, so instead he fell back on the flashpoint of their many disputes: religious dogma.

‘The power of the magi comes from Shaitan and I refuse to learn it,’ he said self-righteously.

The look on her face was pure disgust. ‘Not this again. I am so tired of your half-arsed ignorance.’ Her face wrinkled up in indignation. ‘The gnosis is a tool, just like a sword is a tool. It’s not inherently evil in itself—’

My gnosis is.
‘It is unnatural.’

‘It’s not—’ She shut her mouth and slapped the stone railing. ‘If it were
unnatural
, it would be
impossible
.’ This latest argument had been going around in circles for a hour or more, and their delicate peace was fraying. They’d survived any number of falling-outs, but this threatened to be the worst. And clearly she felt just like Gatoz or Sabele, that if he refused to use his powers, he was of little use.

He saw Elena almost visibly making an effort to put the matter to one side. ‘Listen, we’re running low on stores. We’re going to have to go to the nearest village and purchase more.’

He frowned. ‘I thought we had plenty.’

‘At the rate you eat?’ She wiped her palms on her thighs. ‘There’s a small village a few miles away. We’ll take the skiff to the foot of the mountains, then walk in. We can take a handcart to use in the village.’

Perhaps in the village there will be someone I can contact …
He nodded his agreement. Then came the guilty thought:
There will be other souls I could replenish from …
He buried the notion deep, scared by how easily it had come to him.

‘You will do nothing to draw attention to us,’ she warned. There was little trust in her eyes. ‘Meet me at the skiff in ten minutes.’ She
walked away, then paused. ‘The gnosis can be used defensively. You could learn that, surely?’

He rubbed his face, tired of the feuding. He felt his position was being eroded steadily.
Sooner or later she’s going to lose patience with me. Then what?

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said grudgingly.

*

Three hours later, wrapped in robes and with a turban about his head, Kazim stopped hauling the empty handcart up a rocky slope and turned to Elena. She was wrapped in a black bekira-shroud and only her eyes and hands were visible, the exposed skin dyed darker with tea-stain, her eyebrows blacked with charcoal. A red ribbon adorned her arm to signify that she was bleeding. He didn’t know if she truly was bleeding, or whether it was part of her disguise, and he wasn’t going to ask.

‘You must take the cart now,’ he said, and at her quizzical look, patted the sword at his side. ‘You are a woman. You must pull this now. A warrior does not labour. In this disguise you are my woman and must do this. We will soon be in sight of the village.’

She glared at him. ‘I presume there is some verse in your holy book about this.’

‘Alhana,’ he replied, using the Keshi equivalent of her name, ‘there are whole
chapters
. A warrior must stand ready to protect what is his; the woman labours at his side. It is our way. In the eyes of the villagers, you belong to me.’

He studied her, then tucked a stray strand of her pale hair back into her cowl. ‘Do not speak to anyone but me. Your accent is atrocious.’

Her nostrils flared, but she swallowed her retort and picked up the handcart’s handle. Muttering curses under her breath, she followed him as they topped the rise and descended towards the village. He lengthened his stride to a casual swagger, deliberately leaving her ten yards in his wake.

The village was tiny, a few dozen mud-huts baked into the stony valley. Paddy fields had been hewn into the lower southern slopes, on the far side of the houses. Most of the villagers were working there,
apart from a couple of goat-herders who were tending their flock on the nearer side of the mountain.

‘Sal’Ahm,’ a voice called, and a small man in dun robes emerged from the nearest hut. Two women, one young and one old, were bundling roofing thatch in the shade of the verandah and two naked little boys were playing some game at their feet, using stones for pieces and lines drawn in the sand as the board.

‘The light of Ahm be upon you,’ Kazim replied, putting his right hand to his sword-hilt and his left palm forwards in the traditional greeting:
I bid you peace, but I am ready to fight.

‘Welcome to Shimdas,’ the man called, standing slowly. Another man, perhaps his son, emerged from the hut, holding a spear. ‘Are you alone?’

‘There is just my woman and me. We are travellers, seeking the shihad.’

The man made a dutiful reverence when the shihad was invoked, but his face did not become any more friendly. ‘The harvest has been poor, and Emir Tamadhi’s soldiers took what little surplus we had.’ He pointed through the village to the south. ‘There is a larger town that way, not far. A major road goes through. There will be news of the shihad there.’

‘It is only food we need.’ Kazim produced a battered leather purse. ‘I have a little money.’ It was filled, but only with copper and a little silver; the trick was to look wealthy enough to buy, but not so wealthy as to be worth killing.

The man gave an oily smile. ‘Then welcome, my friend.’ He indicated the dirt road winding into the village. ‘Beside the well is a blue building; that is my brother-in-law’s shop: his name is Dhani.’ He tapped the younger man’s arm. ‘Hatim, my son, will show you.’

Kazim nodded his thanks, then made a peremptory gesture at Elena, enjoying the livid glare he got in return. The two men watched them go past, their eyes curious. He supposed strangers were infrequent here. The son, Hatim, took the lead, walking in a strutting manner Kazim recognised: it was the way he’d walked back in Baranasi, before his life had been torn apart.

The buildings surrounded a small square, where a few trees in the middle shaded a well. There was a crank-pump to draw the water from below, and a clutch of women gathered in a small group, talking animatedly. The little blue-daubed shop had an awning out front and its window doubled as a shop-frontage, and most of the women were there. The villagers all fell silent as they became aware of Kazim, and Elena, walking behind him.

Hatim grinned, revealing yellow teeth, half of which were missing. ‘This is the shop,’ he said, putting out a hand. Kazim scowled; their ‘guide’ had led them down the only available road for fully sixty paces. He gave him a copper anyway. He was beginning to notice the men sitting in the shade. It wouldn’t do to draw any more attention to themselves than they already had.

Do the Hadishah have anyone stationed here? Surely not
. He exhaled heavily.

The villagers backed away as he went to the shop. He eyed Elena critically again; her nails were too clean and she was too straight-backed. He stepped closer. ‘Hunch over more,’ he whispered, then, aloud he said, ‘What do we need, woman?’

She joined him at the shop window where a man with grey stubble and an orange turban waited. They exchanged greetings while Elena examined the meagre display. Behind the man she could see many sacks; the display was obviously just to show the range of goods available.

‘Welcome, my friend,’ the shopkeeper rumbled. His eyes flickered over him with apparent disinterest, but if he was anything like a Baranasi shopkeeper, he could probably now describe Kazim and Elena in minute detail. ‘My name is Dhani. How may I help you?’

Kazim looked about him, checking that no one had come too near. A widow in a white bekira-shroud went past. She had big doe eyes framed with long lashes that she fluttered as she hauled two heavy buckets towards the well. No one else was close. ‘We are camped nearby, journeying from the north. We need food – plenty, for the road.’

‘Then you have come to the right place, my friend.’

‘My woman will choose.’ Kazim showed his purse. ‘But you negotiate with me, yes?’ The shopkeeper smiled with apparent warmth. Perhaps he found men easier to bargain with than women. ‘What is the news from Brochena?’ Kazim added casually, while Elena bent over the display and began picking out seeds, each representing a sack.

‘Ah, Brochena,’ Dhani said. ‘It is not good. The traders say that the young Dorobon is harsh. He gives the soldiers licence to do as they please.’

Kazim stiffened, and so did Elena.
The Dorobon?

‘I have been out of touch for a long time,’ he said apologetically. ‘Why do you speak of the Dorobon?’

The shopkeeper looked at him curiously. ‘Where have you been hiding, my friend? How can you not know?’

Elena whispered in his mind as he floundered.

‘Uh, I took hire with the Kestria.’
My accent is wrong, too
, he realised.
These Jhafi speak strangely.

The shopkeeper pursed his lips, then shrugged as if he didn’t really care what Kazim might pretend. ‘The Nesti went to Hytel with many of their soldiers, and many Jhafi led by Ilan Tamadhi,’ Dhani told him. ‘But the Dorobon set a trap. They rule in Brochena once again.’

Elena had frozen, her eyes wide. ‘Woman, attend,’ he said gruffly, and she started, then went back to her work.

she whispered into his mind.

‘What of the queen?’

Dhani looked like he might spit, but being surrounded by his own goods, he swallowed instead. ‘The Nesti whore is part of the Dorobon’s harem.’

Kazim flinched at Elena’s mental distress, but asked, ‘The Dorobon has a harem? Has he converted to the Amteh?’

Dhani sniggered sourly. ‘They say he plans to take a woman from every high family, both Rimoni and Jhafi, and plough each of them
nightly. Even his own people are outraged.’ He shrugged at this lurid gossip. ‘So some say.’

‘He is magi.’ Kazim turned to one side and spat.

‘He is. Brochena is awash with devils.’ The shopkeeper peered at the stores Elena had placed before him, and raised his eyebrows. ‘You are purchasing much, my friend. The next town is not so far away. Not that I am complaining, you understand.’

‘I prefer to avoid the larger towns,’ Kazim replied, in what he hoped was a mysterious way. What had felt like a simple enough lie when he started was proving a little complicated.

They haggled until, conscious of the many eyes on them, he settled on a price that felt fair to him. The widow was still struggling with the crank-pump, but no one had gone to help her. As he tried not to stare at her, he realised she was wearing little beneath the white garment.

The shopkeeper looked pleased and Elena somewhat disgusted at the bargain he had agreed, but he ignored her, paid the man and thanked him.

‘It is my pleasure,’ Dhani replied, pocketing the coins. He glanced at Elena. ‘Your woman has fine hands,’ he commented.

Kazim pretended annoyance as he sought a credible response. ‘She thinks herself a princess. She is lazy and good for nothing.’

The shopkeeper laughed. ‘I have a daughter like that. Two years married and still my wife must help her cook.’

‘This one’s cooking is barely fit for jackals,’ Kazim declared, and Elena deliberately trod on his toe.

‘Is she at least pleasing when on her back?’ Dhani enquired, winking lasciviously.

Kazim eyed Elena, who was looking at him with eyes like daggers.

she sniped crossly.

‘She is flat-chested and bony,’ Kazim said dryly. A little revenge for all the beatings he’d taken.

she sent irritably.

he sent back.

He felt suddenly indignant at her, and thirsty. He left her to load the handcart and strode to the well. About them, the villagers had apparently decided that the entertainment was over; some converged on the now-vacant shop window while the rest left, presumably for their homes.

The widow was still tugging ineffectually at the crank-pump. She was small, but even beneath the bekira-shroud he could see her breasts were ample. When he got closer he could see there were stains on the white fabric, and she smelled of babies and milk. Widows had no status, so he simply pushed past her. She shrank from him as he took the pump-handle and cranked it, then bent his head to the gush of water, cupping it in his hands and drinking deep.