The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (108 page)

"I'm sorry," said the slave, without looking his way.
"Sorry?" Peter automatically reached forward to pick up one of the pieces of the broken pitcher.
"I'd forgotten that it's the same for you. That you have to wear a mask as well."
Peter's mind drifted back to the first conversation he had held with Andrew, concerning their shared burden of having to hide their true natures from other people. "My need isn't as great as yours. Andrew, I didn't mean to— I ought to have said—"
"It doesn't matter," Andrew replied. "At least you didn't break the glass bowl. . . . Some of the pitcher pieces have rolled under the bed."
"I'll get them." Peter dived down and squeezed under the bed. As he did so, it occurred to him that, just a week before, he never would have thought to help a slave-servant do so menial a task.
The Chara, he thought, had been more right than he knew. Andrew was helping Peter learn how to rule his subjects, for Peter was beginning to get a hazy sense of why the dominion of Koretia had caused so many troubles to Emor . . . and an even hazier sense of how he might be able to correct matters when he became Chara.
They finished cleaning the floor in silence, and then they worked together to clean the bowl and to place it back in the chest of treasures. Then they stood facing each other. Andrew appeared to be as much at a loss for words as Peter was.
Finally Peter asked, "Would you like to stay here tonight?"
And with those words, Andrew went rigid once more.
Feeling like a bladesman who has made a mortal mistake not once, but twice, Peter said quickly, "What is it?"
"You want me to sleep with you?" The mask, thankfully, had not returned yet, but what was there was nearly as bad: the same horror that had been in Andrew's face in the moment after he realized that Peter did not know what he was.
Peter, hearing his own statement reworded thus, felt the same horror enter him. He remembered now – too late for the memory to be of use to him – how he had touched Andrew after saying that he liked the slave as a eunuch, and how Andrew had flinched.
May the high doom fall upon himself – how could he have been so
blind
? He lived in the same palace as Lord Sutton; he should have known what it was that Andrew would fear most from his master. And Lord Carle—
But there his wildly darting speculation ran into a locked gate; he could not imagine Lord Carle in bed with a woman, much less with a eunuch. No, Peter was sure that could not have happened; he had heard Lord Carle speak with contempt concerning Lord Sutton's penchant for eunuchs. Whatever Lord Carle's motive might have been for gelding Andrew, it could not have been to obtain a bed-mate.
But there were other lords in the palace, and other dangers for a slave who was considered prime bedding material. Peter had once witnessed a lord pinch Laura's bottom when she was trying to serve the Chara's son at a public function. Peter had furiously made clear to the lord that he would not stand for such treatment of one of the Chara's slaves, and the Chara, thankfully, had backed his words. But would Lord Carle bother to protect the slave whom he had gelded?
And who could Andrew expect to protect him, if the Chara's son wanted him for such use?
Andrew said, his voice still rigid, "If you want me that way, I'll do it."
Peter wanted to cry then – to cry at Andrew's pain, to cry at the loyalty that forced Andrew to offer himself up to his new master for further pain. Furious at himself, he shouted, "No!" Then, seeing Andrew catch his breath at this evidence of his master's anger, Peter said quietly but fiercely, "No, I don't want you that way. You're a boy. I don't mate with boys."
Andrew seemed barely to be breathing now. Treading his way carefully, Peter said, "Don't you see? That's why it never occurred to me that you were a eunuch. You're a boy like me. Whatever Lord Carle may have done to your body, he hasn't changed what you are inside. You're still a boy, and one day you'll be a man."
Andrew had definitely stopped breathing. His eyes searched Peter's face, seeking something.
More sure of himself now, Peter said, "You know it's true, don't you?"
Andrew said, in a very soft voice, "I've always wanted . . ."
Peter waited; then, when Andrew did not speak further, he said, "But you didn't think anyone else wanted you to be a man?"
Andrew nodded slowly.
"Well, I do." Speaking firmly, Peter gripped Andrew's arm hard, as one grips a boy, not a girl or a eunuch. "So don't pay attention to what anyone else thinks. I'm the Chara To Be, and my opinion is the only one that matters."
He half expected Andrew to smile at this pompous speech, but instead the boy dipped his eyes. After a moment, Andrew nodded. After another moment, he looked up and said, "So . . . when you said you wanted me to stay here tonight . . . did you mean I should sleep on the floor?"
Peter hesitated. The idea that had formed itself in his mind before seemed absurd in retrospect; worse, it could easily be taken the wrong way. "It doesn't matter. I was being foolish."
All of Andrew's uncertainty vanished in an instant, and Peter had a second in which to feel uneasy. He knew what that sudden change of expression meant. Andrew had the most ghastly talent for being able to tell what people were thinking. There were times when Peter thought their roles should have been reversed, and that Andrew should be the one training to be High Judge.
"On the bed, you meant?" Andrew said. Then, as Peter started to stammer some protest, "But not mating. Just . . . sleeping?"
Peter sighed and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, thoroughly embarrassed now. "I was just thinking . . . it was folly, but I was thinking about pallets."
"Pallets?" Andrew seemed interested now rather than concerned.
Peter gave a brief, somewhat garbled explanation, omitting only any mention of Lord Carle's name. "And so I thought it would be nice . . . Well, I was just curious as to what it would be like, sleeping with a frie— Sleeping with someone who was a companion."
"Such as one of your slave-servants." Andrew looked puzzled now, as well he might. Peter did not suppose this was the sort of proposal that most noble-boys made to their servants.
"Such as you. I mean, you're different from the others."
Comprehension entered Andrew's eyes. "You mean, because I'm— Because I'm not the sort of boy who might think you were twisted, because you'd asked another boy to sleep with you. You know I know it's not that."
Peter nodded. That aspect of his proposal had not even entered his head, though he felt his cheeks grow warm at the thought of the mistake he had nearly made. No doubt Lord Carle, who had slept with a friend in the days when poverty was sufficient excuse for sharing a pallet, had not thought to warn the Chara's son that a noble-boy's desire to sleep with another boy could be regarded in a very different fashion.
"It's for you to decide," Peter added. "It's not an order, you know. I just thought you might enjoy it. Sleeping in a bed for once, I mean."
Andrew ran the tip of his tongue across the corner of his mouth. "Would I need to undress?"
"No, of course not," Peter said immediately, understanding the reason why Andrew would not want to strip in front of him. "I always sleep in my breeches and undertunic in the winter. You could borrow one of my old undertunics – it's in a chest over there. And there's extra water there, near the mantelpiece . . ."
He gabbled on, knowing that Andrew knew as well as he did where the items of toiletry were, since Andrew had placed most of them in the chamber himself. But Andrew could not know, until Peter told him so, that he had permission to use the items.
"I'll go say goodnight to my father," Peter concluded, and left while Andrew was still contemplating the bed.
The spears were lowered before his father's door; the Chara, Emmett told him as he prepared to depart from his guard-shift, was closeted with the council's High Lord. Peter lingered in the corridor for a while, watching the sparse, late-night traffic of lords and ladies, until the newly arrived guards began to eye him. Knowing that he was not permitted to be in the corridor without his father's permission, Peter cautiously re-entered his own chamber.
The chamber was dark. The smell of scented wax lingered, even after the snuffing of the candles. Andrew had banked the fire; the logs glowed and shifted, sending down whispers of crumbling wood. The wind had died; cold moonlight slatted through the shutters, falling upon the bed.
Andrew was curled up in a ball under the blankets, facing the wall. Coming closer, Peter saw that the other boy had replaced the wet blanket with a new one. Peter supposed that he should be heartsick with the loss of his favorite blanket, but it seemed appropriate, somehow, that he should sleep under a plain blanket hereafter. He slipped off his belt and tunic and winter boots, laying them aside; then, shivering, he slipped under the covers.
Andrew did not move. Peter could see his hair, striped by the moonlight. Reaching out tentatively, Peter touched his back.
Andrew jerked, letting out a hiss. Hastily, Peter drew his hand back. He had forgotten about the bandages protecting the raw flesh. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.
"I'm fine." Andrew's voice was muffled. Peter, knowing that Andrew's answer was no answer at all, edged away from him.
For a moment, all was still. Peter lay with his eyes open, trying to figure out what part of this process Lord Carle had found companionable. Probably, he thought, the episode had never even happened to the council lord. Probably Lord Carle had lied about this, as he had about so many other things.
Andrew shifted, moving back. Peter, remembering the other boy's wound, shifted too, in order to allow Andrew more room. Andrew froze. Then he shifted back again.
Peter moved further back, puzzled. He was almost at the edge of the bed now – did Andrew know that? Was the younger boy trying to push him off?
Andrew paused; then, once again, he moved back. His legs touched Peter's legs, folding round the front of them like a sheath that protects a blade.
Then Peter understood. Carefully avoiding contact with Andrew's back, he wriggled forward and placed his arm round Andrew's side and chest, embracing the other boy. For a moment, Andrew did not move, and Peter wondered whether he had guessed correctly what the other boy wanted, or whether Andrew was fearfully trying to calculate at what point the Chara's son would begin removing his clothes. Then, groping like a blind puppy, Andrew moved his hand till it lay lightly over Peter's.
Peter shifted his head and rested his cheek against Andrew's bowed neck. He could hear the other boy's even breathing, and could smell his scent. Andrew's skin was warm.
For a long time, they lay like that, while Peter's mind wandered back through the events of the afternoon: The broken pitcher. The mask hiding pain. Andrew's dreams in Koretia. Andrew smiling at the creation basket. Andrew digging in the snow-covered garden for signs of green. Andrew's voice saying, "Buried, cold . . . dead."
Peter said in his memory, "Not dead. Alive and whole." Andrew stared at him in disbelief, as he had stared disbelieving when Peter spoke of how he would have treated the trapped bird.
And then, like the shock of fire, a memory of Andrew in Lord Carle's quarters, staring with longing toward the south. Toward Koretia.
"Andrew," said Peter.
For a moment, Peter thought the other boy was asleep, but then Andrew murmured an acknowledgment.
"Andrew, would you like to go back to Koretia?"
Andrew's breath caught for the second time that night. His hand tightened on Peter's. His voice was higher than usual as he said, "You'd take me there with you?"
Such a thought had never entered Peter's mind. His father, he knew, would never allow the Chara's heir to return to the land where he had nearly been assassinated, and once Peter himself became Chara, he would be forbidden, by law, from leaving the palace except in wartime. Chances were good that he would never go to Koretia again.
But Andrew could.
What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing?
You gave him his freedom.
"At what time of the year would you like to go back?" Peter asked, avoiding a direct answer to Andrew's question. "Spring?"
Andrew's breath was quick now, and heavy. After a while he said, "Summer. That's the best time of the year."
"Summer, then," Peter promised. "The trees will be very green then, and the lakes will sparkle with color. The mountains will shine under the sun. The jackals will be hunting for food. . ."
He continued on, painting a portrait based on his single glimpse of the Koretian summer – a glimpse that had lasted roughly half a minute before the assassin's attack forced him to retreat back over the border. In his mind, he could see Andrew walking under the green coolness of the trees, his skin warmed by summer's rays, his head high and his smile bright and unshadowed as he stared at the leaves and twigs and moss and vines and nuts and bark and berries and earth. He would be happy—
He would be happy, and Peter would be miserably alone again, because Andrew was different from everyone else. No one else could serve as Peter's companion in the way that Andrew did. But that was what made Peter's promise a gift: the fact that he wanted Andrew to stay with him forever, but he would give Andrew back his freedom, so that the other boy could be happy.
He said nothing of the emancipation to Andrew. Chances were that years would pass before Peter became Chara and inherited his father's slaves; there would be time enough to speak of the matter once Peter acquired the power to keep his promise. But he had made the promise to himself, and he knew that he would keep the promise, just as surely as if it had been an oath he took on the Pendant of Judgment.
Andrew had fallen asleep, lulled into relaxation by images of what he thought would be a brief visit to Koretia. Peter, still holding him, lay awake for a while in the still moonlight, thinking of the gods' law, and the Chara's law, and a law that was higher than both.
Then he slept, and while he slept, he dreamt of a new tree growing in a sunny garden, and of Andrew lying beneath it, fast asleep.
 
RE-CREATION
Historical Note
Most of the recipes mentioned in this story were borrowed from the Roman cookbook
Apicius
(4th/5th century).
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Bard of Pain
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"This [suffering of the artist] is perhaps what we should expect when we consider that a work of creation is a work of love, and that love is the most ruthless of all the passions, sparing neither itself, nor its object, nor the obstacles that stand in its way."
—Dorothy L. Sayers:
The Mind of the Maker.