The Book of Fire (14 page)

And so the afternoon wears on, through a fifth, sixth, and seventh. Paia is getting bored, and she can see Luco shifting his weight as if his tall, bright sandals are pinching his feet. So she calls for a Viewing just to placate him, to stir him up a little so he won’t disgrace himself or the Temple by falling asleep where he’s standing. The eighth Suitor drops his robe to his shoulders and spreads it hesitantly. Paia spares him merely a glance, but signals him to turn so that Luco can receive the full effect. When the poor man has been kindly dismissed, Luco rolls his eyes. The irony is not lost on Paia, and surely not on Luco either, that he himself is the closest thing to a perfect physical specimen that’s walked into this hall in a long, long time. Perhaps the God would be satisfied if she had Luco’s child. Paia eyes him speculatively, wondering if he could manage it. At least there would be no complications about romance.

A ninth Suitor enters. Paia’s attention is caught by the unusual grace and confidence of his bearing. His well-shaped head is held high, allowing his long chestnut hair to ripple across his muscular shoulders. When he rounds the corner, Paia hides a reflexive little gasp. Something new at last. The man’s robe is already open, artfully and partly revealing a sculpted chest, neat hips and strong, trim legs. He has high cheekbones and a fine, chiseled mouth, now relaxed into a sultry smile. His dark gaze fixes Paia with
the same intense kind of invitation that the God lures her with when he wants something from her. But this man is material. No doubt he can deliver what his eyes are promising.

Paia is momentarily stunned, not just by his boldness but by the sharp thrill that rises in her, by her undeniable urge to peer into the shadows of his open robe. She has seen a lot of naked men during the course of the Presentations. But this one is different. She retreats behind her sternest mask of authority, but her show of chill scrutiny does not fluster him. He stands patiently while she studies him, then shakes his hair back a little and shifts his weight imperceptibly so that his robe falls farther open. His eyes do not stray from hers for an instant. He is beautiful. He is a perfect specimen. Suddenly Paia wishes the God were here, to help her choose. What if it is . . . is this the one? Already she wants to touch this man, wants him to touch her, everywhere. But she can’t see his hands. A man’s hands are important, but this one has left his hidden in the folds of his robe while all the rest of his assets are fully offered to her view. Perhaps there is something wrong with them, some injury or deformity. She ought to request a full Viewing, except now she’s feeling oddly possessive of him, resentful that she must publicly display this beauty that could be meant for her alone, for his eyes say he sees nothing in the room but her. She asks him his name to hear him speak, and his voice is throaty and low, as if he, too, is overcome by this encounter. She hears the name he offers but can’t recall it a moment later. She beckons him nearer, then realizes that he has not yet knelt to her. But she cannot help but notice that her nearness is causing his sex to swell and rise within the caressing shadows of his robe. She knows, and he knows, that only she can see this, and he lets it happen. She cannot make herself look away. He smiles at her over half-lidded eyes. His lips part to show the very tip of a roving tongue. He lets his hips loll forward lazily, offering himself to her, and Paia is seized by an erotic madness, though somewhere at the back of her lust-fogged brain, an alarm is going off. She forgets that there are several dozen other people in the room. She leans forward and presents her hand, thinking only of how much she needs him to feel the sudden warmth between her thighs.

His left hand appears from beneath his robe, unmarked and whole. He reaches, grasps her hand. With one firm tug, he pulls her into his arms. Paia does not struggle. She feels him hot and taut against her and her body is already molding itself to his nakedness when the alarm goes double-time in her head. A cool kiss of steel slides past her hip as his right arm curls around her back to press her tightly to his groin. He is stronger than she ever imagined. She tries to cry out, but he smothers her cry with his mouth and tongue. One hand, warm and longing, slips down around her thigh to invade the softness between her legs. The other, cold and hard, rises between her breasts. His blade is at her neck but in the instant that he hesitates, betrayed by the heat of his own very real desire, Luco is on him from behind, hauling him off, hurling him away from her, kicking him viciously and pinning him to the floor with the gilded staff of office. By then, the Honor Guard has bolted across the room to take over.

Before Paia can collapse into a heap of shock and humiliation, Son Luco scoops her up as he might a child and hustles her from the hall.

He is not so gentle when he gets her up to her chambers, trailed by the panicked captain of the Honor Guard and a few of his more alert men.

“He’ll burn you to goddamn cinders, the whole sorry lot of you!” he bellows at them as he shoulders the door shut in their faces. He dumps Paia unceremoniously onto her bed and looms over her, his big hands waving. “What were you
thinking
?”

Paia huddles, shuddering. She can’t really believe it herself. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I just wasn’t!”

“I’ll say!”

“I’ll never . . . I couldn’t . . . help myself.”

She weeps a bit, while Luco paces back and forth, from bed to window. “Never seen such a spectacle in all my life! You spoiled brat!” He throws up his hands and paces away again.

“I’ll thank you to remember who you’re talking to,” she sniffs.

He stops, folds his arms. “I’m talking to a spoiled brat! You could have been killed! Did you even think about what he’ll do to the rest of us if we let anything happen to you?”

This brings her upright to look at him. He’s wan and shaken himself, and angry enough to have lost all his decorum. She’s never had Luco in her rooms. He looks bigger here, and rougher-edged. Like he’s somehow taking up more space than usual, perhaps because she’s never, ever seen him so furious. Rage is not one of Luco’s public moods. She decides to let the name-calling go by. “So I guess this wasn’t another of your revenue-producing plots . . .?”

Luco rounds on her. “How could you even think such a thing?”

Paia buries her head in her arms. “He can’t hear of this, Luco. He can’t! He’s not very happy with me right now.”

“Of course he’ll hear of it! How are we going to keep it from him, when you insist on displaying your lust in front of the entire world!”

“I don’t have lust, I . . . well, maybe I did a little.”

“A
little
? My dear girl . . .”

“It’s the God’s own fault! He’s the one pushing me to pick a Suitor all of a sudden!”

“He is? Really?”

“Really. Like it was an order.”

“Huh. Well, you can bet he didn’t mean a trained assassin got up as a street prostitute.”

Paia stares at him. “Assassin? Prostitute? Was it so clear to everyone but me? Oh, no!” Somehow this is worse than practically losing her virginity right there in the Hall of Audiences. She throws herself back on the bed, sobbing.

Luco slows his pacing, then sits down beside her. “Well, not everyone. Most of them were half-asleep by then. And, I admit, he was beautiful.”

This makes her sob all the harder. “Why, Luco? Why do they do it? What have I ever done but serve them as the God requires?”

“It’s simple: they go after you because they can’t get at him. And this was a novel strategy, using your own worst
impulses against you. The guy planned it very well, I must say.”

His pragmatism soothes her, despite a certain undertone of relish. She rolls over to look up at him. “All by himself? A heresy of one?”

“Most likely the Greens again. He was only the weapon.”

“Was? Surely, the God would want him kept alive for questioning?”

“I thought you’d rather the God didn’t hear about all this.”

“No . . . yes, he must know. I mean, how could someone get a knife through all his security procedures?”

Luco crosses his legs. He roughs his long hair back and lets his top leg—still wrapped in its gilded sandal—swing restlessly. “Stupidity or betrayal. It’s always one or the other. And I suppose I’ll have to bear part of the blame. Our only hope is that he’ll be too distracted by this business over the hill to care.”

“What business?”

He waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, some minor disagreement with one of the villages. He’s down there dealing with it.”

Paia has never been to the villages. But for the God’s frequent evangelical forays, she might even forget they’re there, supplying the Temple with food and service personnel in return for the God’s protection. “Well, anyway, you won’t take the blame. It was my fault. Besides, you saved me!” She realizes she hasn’t even thanked him yet. Maybe she is just a spoiled brat. She gets up on her knees and puts her arms around him from behind to kiss his cheek. She’s never been that familiar with him before, and is not sure why she’s doing it now, except that the . . . incident has left her feeling unusually vulnerable. She needs to assure herself of Luco’s loyalty and support. He accepts her embrace but does not particularly warm to it. “I’ll tell him everything, I promise!”

“You better.”

It occurs to her how much the God will enjoy hearing her tell this particular story. “Oh, Luco, I wish you could just be my Suitor. Everything would be so much easier.”

Luco barks a dry laugh, pats her arm. “I don’t think so, dear girl. I don’t think so.”

Then Paia remembers what the God had said:
choose someone you’ll tire of quickly.
Sometimes she thinks Luco understands the God better than she does.

When he’s pulled himself together and straightened all his priestly regalia to his satisfaction in front of Paia’s full-length mirror, Luco delivers a stern warning to think twice the next time she’s about to do something foolish, then puts on his Temple face and leaves her alone.

Paia immediately strips off her ceremonial garb and digs out her beloved T-shirt and sweats. It’s not the right time for hot water, so she douses herself with cold, regardless of the waste. She feels exposed, rubbed raw by this near-fatal encounter and the madness that precipitated it. Her madness. Luco is right. What could she have been thinking? The shapeless soft garments enclose her. They comfort her with concealment. She braids up her damp hair, pulling it back tightly from her face. She hopes she looks awful. She stows the God’s little gun in a hip pocket. She won’t let herself be without it ever again. Now she feels sleek and efficient, and calm enough to confront the guards outside her door who will, no doubt, be shocked by her undecorated appearance, and will try to dissuade her from leaving her rooms.

A doubled contingent of chastened faces slew around to stare at her when she opens the door. The duty captain is an older woman whose eyes are already exhausted by the vision of her own anticipated incineration at the hand of an angry god. Right now, she couldn’t care less what the High Priestess is wearing.

Paia nods. “I’ll be working in my studio until dinner, Captain.”

“Yes, Mother.” The woman looks faintly relieved to see her alive and apparently unharmed. And no doubt she has feared some further madness to be dealt with, some scheme or reckless journey by their unruly High Priestess that the Guard will be duty-bound to keep up with. But these windowless, dead-end corridors, even half-lit, are easy to defend. The captain bows, and when Paia turns down the hall, she signals four of her squad to follow at a discreet distance.

Paia gains the tower entrance. Light sifts down from an
invisible skylight high at the top of the shaft. She starts her climb without a backward glance. She knows the guards will not follow. The deal is, when she’s up in the studio, they guard the bottom of the stairs. She takes the steep stone steps as briskly as she can manage, driving herself up without a rest even after she’s gasping for breath. A dose of self-punishment, Paia reflects, and minor enough, given the severity of her offense.

In truth, she cannot believe how stupid she was, letting appetite win out like that over good sense and training and the God’s constant reminders that his High Priestess is always a target.
Mere appetite? Ha.
The blinding force of the need she’d felt in the Hall still lingers in her body like a drug, evaporating her calm with its little aftershocks. It was almost as if the urge had come upon her from outside. Like the evil eye, or a spell, she muses. But Paia does not believe in such things, so the blame must be turned inward, on herself.