The False Martyr (81 page)

“
Do you want to be on
top?” he asked, reaching for her.

“
I want to be done with
these pathetic attempts at sex.” She pushed his hand away and
pulled the sheet over her. “I am not some girl who has joined you
without ever having experienced another man. I am not so naïve as
to think this is all there is to it. Top, bottom, top, bottom but
always the same: two minutes of grunting and bouncing sloppily
about and you’re done. I am bored, and I am through with
it.”

“
But . . . but I . . . you
are the one that is always . . . . I thought you . . . .” Ipid
could not get his head around what was happening. Eia had always
been the one pushing for sex. Even this morning, she had roused him
with her touch, pulled him on top of her, guided him inside her. He
held no illusions that he was a great lover, but it wasn’t like he
wasn’t trying to please her.

“
And that is another
thing. Do you even want me?” She scowled through a flurry of hair,
arm holding the sheet tight over her chest, closing herself off
from him completely.

“
Of course I want you. I
am sorry if I have been distracted, but there have been . . .
.”

“
Forget your distractions.
If you want me, then why am I the only one that ever initiates our
love making? If I didn’t throw myself at you, we’d have sex as
often as your counselors. It’s as if I am the distraction, as if
you can barely spare the time for
me
to pleasure
you
. And forget about
pleasing
me
. The
nation would probably crumble if you took five minutes to slow down
and concentrate on me.”

“
I . . . I thought you
liked our . . . .”

“
Our sex,” Eia supplied
with an edge.

“
Our love making,” Ipid
said gently and reached for her.

“
Ha!” Eia slapped his hand
away. “Where is the love? Even calling it sex is generous. What you
do is little more than fucking. You put about as much thought into
it as a dog riding a bitch. The way you treat your women here, they
probably expect nothing more. Just like everything else, they
hardly matter. It is just another duty they perform for their
husbands, but I am not one of your pitiful women. I answer only to
myself, and I will not waste my affections on a man who does not
desire to please me every bit as much as I desire to please
him.”

Ipid was stunned. “I’m
sorry, Eia. You always seemed to be . . . . I mean, you always
seemed to want . . . .”

“
I had not had sex since
the Darthur,” she snapped, clearly exasperated. “My longing was so
great that I nearly climaxed every time you touched me, but it has
been weeks now, and I am no longer so desperate as to be satisfied
by these . . . amateur attempts.” She stood from the bed and pulled
on a white satin robe. “I am going to clean myself. If you need
release this morning, your hand will have to suffice.”

Ipid was left watching her
stomp from the room, replaying all their encounters in his mind,
thinking of her panting and moaning, feeling her still, and
wondering what more he could possibly do.

#

The next interruption came
as Ipid was eating his breakfast. Eia, seemingly unaffected by
their earlier conversation, sat next to him picking at her food.
She smiled and flirted, leaving him to wonder if he had dreamt the
whole thing. On the other side of the great desk that had become
his table of choice, scribes scribbled at their tables, copying
edicts or transcribing reports with a constant scratch of pen on
paper. They had been here before Ipid emerged from his room,
leaving him to wonder if they ever left. Near the door, a
half-dozen warriors scraped up eggs with flat bread and chuckled
over some surely monstrous story of death and dismemberment. Ipid
was catching up on the reports that had come in the night, just
starting a dispatch from Gorin West, of all places. It said
something about bandits and a noblewoman from the north, but that
was as far as he got before the butler announced Jon’s arrival. He
looked at the enormous pendulum clock on the far wall. Jon was a
full hour early for their daily briefing.

“
What is it, Jon?” Ipid
asked, slightly annoyed. He dropped the dispatch absently in his
pile of finished papers and forgot all about it.

“
There’s been an
accident,” Jon blurted before he was fully into the room. He looked
awful. He had lost so much weight that he again resembled his
employer. His face seemed to have lost its elasticity along with
the weight, skin sagging and pooling around the bones that gave it
structure. His eyes were bloodshot so that Ipid could see the red
from across the room. His back and shoulders slumped. Hands
trembled. Head nodded as if might fall asleep as he stood. Still,
Ipid could not spare the man any sympathy. The job needed to be
done, and there was only Jon to do it.

Motioning him to the
study, Ipid rose from the desk and led the way through the door.
For some reason, Eia remained at her place picking at her
breakfast. “By the Order, Jon,” Ipid cursed when the door was
closed behind them. “In front of that mess out there? What are you
thinking?”

“
My apologies, Lord
Chancellor,” Jon swallowed. His eyes looked like they were propped
open with sticks. “But it is no secret. The whole city knows. These
men’s wives would tell them before they were through the
door.”

“
How bad was it?” Ipid
sighed and rubbed his temples. He was already dealing with the
fallout of Arin’s increased demands. He had ordered that every
person in the Kingdoms would eat tomorrow, that every temple would
provide a free meal after the weekly lessons, but after that, the
rations would be tightened further. Work hours would be increased
to provide more equipment, to build more boats, to drive more
wagons, to bake bread and slaughter animals and clear roads and
whore out wives. Ipid’s teeth clenched at the thought.
The ends
, he told
himself.
Focus on the ends. The means
don’t matter as long as the ends are justified.

“
A dozen men, sir.
Clearing the Capital District. Two of them were
children.”

“
The Maelstrom take us,”
Ipid breathed. They’d had a few deaths to this point, but nothing
like that.

“
It’s worse, sir,” Jon
continued cautiously.

“
Worse?” Ipid bellowed
though he was almost holding his breath.

“
The Ex . . . Liano, sir.
The men, they turned on him. They say he did it on
purpose.”

“
Turned on him?” Ipid felt
the news like a kick to the stomach. He reached for the handle of
the door, opened it just enough to stick his head out, and yelled
in Darthur, “Eia, now!”

She rose from her seat and
sauntered toward the door, oblivious to his urgent tone. “How may I
assist you, Lord Chancellor?” she asked in Darthur as she walked
through the door. She positioned herself leaning against the table,
half-sitting, arms behind, legs spread, breast nearly bared by the
low cut of her sheer dress. Ipid closed the door behind her, and
she switched to her universal language, but her voice remained
languid. “Chief Advisor Cubbington, it is so good to see you. I
hope that Ipid is not working you too hard.”

Watching her lull on the
table like a cheap barroom whore made Ipid want to shake her. “We
have a problem with Liano,” he said instead.

“
We have discussed this,”
Eia switched to Darthur so Jon would not understand. “He must
create a sense of danger in order to use his powers. Though the
means are repugnant, they are the only way to achieve the ends you
desire.”

“
He’s gone too far,” Ipid
said in the Imperial tongue, bringing Jon from a seeming stupor. He
jolted and shook his head as if just jarred awake. “A dozen men and
boys were killed. The workers have turned on him.”

Eia took a second to
process that. She brought her legs together and came forward
slightly, face finally serious. “There must be more to it. Jon,
what happened?”

“
I only have second-hand
accounts,” Jon answered, voice slurring slightly with his
exhaustion. “But it . . . it sounds like he was taking apart a big
slab of rubble – you know the way he does – when a piece just
didn’t break apart. It fell and started a landslide of sorts. A
dozen men, two of them boys, were crushed.”

Ipid felt sick, could only
picture the men and boys as the stone rained down on
them.

“
Hmmm” Eia vocalized her
contemplation, looking as if she were searching for the missing
piece of a difficult puzzle. “And the workers turned on
Liano?”

“
So I have been told, my
lady.”

“
Did he hurt any of
them?”

“
Not that I am aware of.
He cast some men back, I’m told, like your lot did with the
Chancellor’s Own, but that’s it.”

“
Where is he
now?”

Jon took a deep breath,
steadied himself, and wrung his hands. “The foreman said that he
used one of his portals to transport away. The men are under
control now, but they’re refusing to work. They say its rest day
and they shouldn’t be working anyway. They want to uncover the
bodies then be done. And they’re saying they won’t work with,” Jon
paused and looked from Ipid to Eia and back. “I’m sorry, sir, but
I’m quoting, ‘the black bastard’ anymore. They say he’s trying to
kill them for sport, that he’s an Exile, that he’s condemning them
all to the Maelstrom. They say they’ll kill him if they see him or
any of his kind again.”

“
Hilaal’s balls,” Ipid
cursed and slapped his hand on the table. Jon jumped. Eia chuckled.
Ipid was too caught up in his thoughts to care about the irony.
They had cleared two of the city’s four bridges and almost
completed the Capital District side of another, but without Liano,
they’d never finish before the Darthur departed in four days. “They
have to work with him. There’s no choice . . . .”

“
They’ll riot, sir,” Jon
interrupted then seemed to think better of it. “My apologies, sir,
but they very nearly rioted today. If your man hadn’t transported
himself away, he’d have had a fight.”

“
And this disaster would
only be worse,” Eia stated. “Liano has no experience with our
peaceful past. He has not learned how to control his own emotions
when those of the people around him rise. It is a skill that takes
a lifetime to master. As Ipid knows, even I struggle with it.” Eia
turned her full attention to Jon, rising and putting a hand on his
arm. “You must understand, Mr. Cubbington. If your men try to
attack him, Liano will use their anger against them. Even if he
wants only to protect himself, their anger will flood him, and he
will use it. I know that he enjoys helping your people. He feels
for the first time that he is using his gift for good. He feels
terrible that there have been accidents and has done everything he
can to keep them contained. Likewise, it will destroy him if he
hurts the people he has worked alongside, but it is not always
possible to control that much anger. We are lucky that he was able
to do it this time, that he only threw them back and transported
away. Next time, the anger may drive him to do something far, far
worse.”

Ipid watched Jon as Eia
spoke. He seemed to understand little of it beyond the headline,
‘Liano will kill the workers if they attack him again.’

“
Get them back to work,”
Ipid commanded. “Have Commander Tyne send a patrol. If men resist,
have them arrested. If they don’t work, take their ration
allowance. Let them see what a day of work without Liano is like.
They may learn to appreciate him.” He looked at Eia. She smiled and
nodded as he knew she would. He had been tempted to give the men
what they wanted – a day off to mourn their fellows – but he could
already hear her argument.
If you give
into them now, how will you stand up to them tomorrow or the
following day or the one after that? They have to know that you
will not back down, that if they push you, you will push back
harder.

“
As you wish, Lord
Chancellor,” Jon said. His eyes and face said the opposite. Ipid
wanted to slap the doubt and recrimination out of them.
What would he have me do? Back down? Cower before
some disgruntled workers? And let the whole thing come crumbling
down? Not now! By the Order, not now!

“
Is there anything else?”
Ipid asked with an edge.

“
No, Lord Chancellor.” Jon
said the title almost as an insult – or was that just the way Ipid
heard it.

“
You know what you must
do. You are dismissed.” Ipid forced his hands open so they would
not clench.

“
Thank you, Lord
Chancellor.” Jon bowed and walked stiffly through the door. Ipid
watched him go, wondering if he could still do what was asked, if
he could still trust his most important advisor.

When Jon was out of the
room, he turned back to Eia. She was again lounging against the
table as if this were all part of some game. “What is that idiot,
Liano, thinking?” he fumed, pounding his hand again on the
table.

“
It was an accident,” Eia
assured, reaching a hand to his arm. “How many more men would have
died by now if he had not been helping?” She cocked her head, ran
her hand up to his cheek to bring his attention to her.