Wildfire (83 page)

 

  
I feared they would think Aghazal had alluded to Kalos’s death on purpose. She might even be punished for it, yet I was sure she didn’t know Queenwife Kalos had been slain. A rumor had been put about that Kalos and her child had died in travail, which was easily believed. But I knew.

 

  
The king must have suffered, watching me prance about like a buffoon as if mocking her shade.

 

  
I felt Tasatyala’s legs trembling under my head, as we waited out the long silence after her last note, before the applause.

 
  

 

  
The noblewomen retired and the celebrants entered the dining court. Aghazal and Second were surrounded by a throng of admirers, and Second basked in their praises. I greeted acquaintances, but I wasn’t in the mood to converse. I strolled past King Corvus on my way to the pleasure garden. He wore a surcoat with a design of golden leaves and pomegranates. He withheld any sign of recognition.

 

  
A celebrant walking alone is an invitation. Someone would follow, but it would not be the king.

 

  
It was high summer now and the days were long, and even so the Sun’s last light faded from the sky. I climbed the stairs beside the waterfall that cascaded from terrace to terrace. Somewhere in this garden was the aviary where I had lain with Kydos and Kyanos, and the celebrants Perdik and Mixin. The stairs were slippery from spray, and my legs ached and I was out of breath.

 

  
I sat on a stone step and listened. The masons had been clever when they
made this waterfall, for the rushing water was tuneful, it sounded like bells and cymbals. I took off my shoe-stockings and cooled my sore feet in the water. I could see down into the dining court. How delicious, how succulent were the colors of the celebrants’ bright wrappers and shawls. The small flames of lamps and lanterns illuminated the courtyard with a glow that trembled and fluttered like moths’ wings, and made the reverse, the shadows, seem quick and alive.

 

  
My hair was tangled and flyaway, for I’d taken off the wig. I picked rue and wormwood and bound them together with bluebind, and made a wreath to crown myself with regret, loss, and affectation.

 

  
I scraped tears from my cheeks with the palm of my hand. How much Moonflower had I eaten last night? Too much. For Moonflower was still in me, still strong. She’d peeled me bare, made me into a dowser’s quivering forked rod. Without skin between the world and me, every wanton wind stroked me as it pleased.

 

  
I consulted my heart, as the Auspices of Crux examined the organs of birds for signs. I found myself baffling. In my webeye I saw my heart, the size and shape of a clenched fist. I wondered why it was more troublesome to give away my fist-heart than keep it. Perhaps I should sell it instead of trying to give it away. Buy it, take it, leave me heartless. I decided I’d sell it to the man climbing the stairs, for the price of two copperheads, which was all a two-copper whore’s heart was worth. I knew that man, but I’d misplaced his name and couldn’t find it no matter how I rummaged. He was one of the king’s men, an armiger; in the Ferinus he’d proven himself an excellent climber.

 

  
He stood below looking up. “Hey ho,” he said. “They say you won’t tumble a man twice—unless he’s a king—but I came to see if my luck was still good.” He held out his hand to display the two dice on his palm, each showing a single dot: snake eyes.

 

  
“Did we?” I said.

 

  
“You don’t remember?”

 

  
I shrugged. No doubt I offended his pride, but I didn’t care. He closed his fist around the dice and his smile was something of a sneer. “I suppose I’ll have to do something more memorable this time.”

 

  
“I may be cheap but I’m not free. My pride is two copperheads.”

 

  
“I’ve spent all my copperheads. Will these do?” He put the dice in my right hand, and took my left wrist to pull me to my feet. He went past me up the stairs and didn’t let go.

 

  
It’s no boast to say I gave the armiger his money’s worth. When we parted we both had marks to show for it. I’d bitten him hard enough to break the skin and he, not understanding the amorous contests of Lam
banein, had grabbed my throat in his large hand and left a necklace of bruises. Of course the Lambaneish had a name for that caress too.

 

  
I lay on the turf with the dice in one hand. The other hand stroked the earth and caught tresses of grass between its fingers. The stripling Moon cast a faint light. Three cypresses towered over me, the same trees that had, so many nights ago, made a shadow boat in which the king and I had sailed. He’d said he planned to make a princess of me, and I’d been flattered. But a convincing counterfeit could never be struck from me, no matter how I was gilded. A scratch, and the worthless metal would show.

 

  
Between the Moon and the cypresses were clouds patterned like ripples in sand. I pretended the clouds were standing still as Mount Allaxios slid under them, carrying me somewhere. I parted my lips in the hopes of catching some moisture to quench my thirst, but the air was too dry, the clouds too far away. I said aloud, “You truly are a two-copper whore.”

 
  

 

  
King Corvus, standing over me, looked tall as a cypress. “Cover yourself,” he said, and threw my shawl at me.

 

  
I sat up. The shawl was too thin to conceal anything, and I groped for my wrapper, over there somewhere. The king dropped it in my lap. I draped the cloth over my shoulders and legs. I feared his reproach for the part I’d enacted that night in the spectacle. I didn’t expect the reprimand he gave instead.

 

  
He said, “Don’t meddle with my men.”

 

  
“Your man, Sire Whatshisname—he followed me. Besides, everyone knows you jilted me.”

 

  
“I couldn’t go on pretending. It makes me look a dupe when you take up with them.”

 

  
I shook my head, bewildered. “In Lambanein no one expects a celebrant to be faithful, not unless she has a benefactor, one patron only. And even then…”

 

  
“I’m not Lambaneish,” he said, walking back and forth in front of me, four paces one way, four paces another. We were near the edge of the terrace and the land dropped away behind him. He was silhouetted against the rippled clouds.

 

  
“What do you care? I served the purpose; everyone knows now you’re not a eunuch. And if they think you tired of me quickly—well, people do tire of me quickly. Meanwhile I have not waited in idleness.”

 

  
“I can see that,” he said. He’d wear a furrow in the turf, pacing like that.

 

  
“I dined in the Court of the Sons and learned why Kyparisos wanted an army, and it was not to invade Incus. They care nothing here for foreign lands; indeed, they care nothing for Lambanein, which might as well be a
tail to the dog Allaxios. They care only that their father will die soon, and one arkhyios will become arkhon and the rest shades, and every last one of them would kill you if they thought they could lay hands on your greatest treasure, your army.”

 

  
“Do you think I don’t know that?” King Corvus said. And I, who had fancied myself clever, was abashed. “This kingdom rests on the shoulders of a frail, hunchbacked wanderwit—an old man who lets other men impregnate his wife so as to seem virile. My presence here has set all teetering, so I step with care, I can tell you. But if I cannot get men and gold from Lambanein, I cannot get them at all—and none will be forthcoming if there is a war here for succession. I said as much to the arkhon—or rather, to his factotum, the only one worth speaking to in this city—and the factotum made me a handsome offer. Firstly, my life. Secondly, an arthygater to be my wife, and a dowry consisting of a palace in the district and a handsome income in wool and rents. Lastly, in five years or so, when the time is deemed ripe, an army to retake my kingdom. All I have to do in return is give him something I no longer truly possess, the Lake of Sapheiros. And do nothing…nothing to harm the arkhon and his successor, whoever that may be.”

 

  
I propped my chin on my knees so I wouldn’t gape at him. King Corvus stopped pacing and looked away from me, down over the slopes of Mount Allaxios, which rose like an island from the ocean of night. All around us stirred currents of air.

 

  
I said, “Did you accept?”

 

  
He turned his head toward me, quick as a bird. “Of course. I paid dear for the offer, didn’t I? I sold horses, armor, weapons—some of mine, some of my men’s—and the Auspices of Rift hired themselves out to teach these popinjays to prance about as if they knew how to fight—all to bribe the factotum and buy a robe worthy to present to the arkhon at my audience. One must have a gift for the arkhon. When we first came here, I gave him many gifts, and he didn’t appreciate them. I’ve been advised as to his taste now, and this one was better received.”

 

  
“What of your betrothed?”

 

  
“What of her?”

 

  
“I just wondered if I know her, if she is one of the arkhon’s granddaughters.” Alopexin must be jealous of someone.

 

  
At this he laughed a true laugh, and said, “I doubt you attend the same banquets. She is a girl of seven years, the arkhon’s youngest daughter. I won’t settle for a grandchild when there are still daughters to be had.”

 

  
“I think if you wait for the arkhon’s permission, you’ll never return; five years will be ten, will be never. You’ll forget who you are.”

 

  
“Did a dream tell you that?” he asked, mocking me.

 

  
Why was he here? Why had he sought me out to tell me I was useless, that all I’d done for him was not worth doing? I must be dreaming you now, I thought. Perhaps I said it aloud. He sat down beside me on my right, and stretched out his long legs. For a time there was silence.

 

  
He said, “This Sire Galan of yours, to whom you are so unfaithful—do you still wish to return to him?”

 

  
I looked at him from the corner of my cloudy eye. His wreath was of greenthorn and juniper, and the pomegranates on his cuffs had garnet seeds, just as I’d dreamed once. When I didn’t answer he said, “I have word from Incus. My men were able to overtake Consort Ostrakan’s messenger to Merle, and bribe him to substitute your likeness for that of Arthygater Keros. Merle—thinking himself cunning—questioned the messenger closely about Keros, her looks, her demeanor, and her temperament. Above all he wished to know if she was a lamia, if she bore the serpent tattoo. He doesn’t know that even a whore can be a member of the Serpent Cult. He thinks—as we all thought—that the tattoo is a mark of royalty. My wife never said otherwise; she was forbidden to speak of anything to do with the cult.”

 

  
“Arthygater Keros doesn’t have a tattoo. I’ve seen her in the bath.”

 

  
“Nevertheless, the messenger swore up and down she did, seeing it was expected. So you must have the mark if you’re to be Keros.”

 

  
“If—when—I go, what happens to the real arthygater?”

 

  
“We let Ostrakan’s messenger return with the Starling’s acceptance and demands. Arthygater Keros must set forth with her dowry—so we can steal it. How else can we afford yours? We live here on moonlight and promises, and I’ve already borrowed all I can against my prospects.”

 

  
“That was a great risk, letting the messenger live. Aren’t you afraid he’ll betray you to Arthygater Katharos?”

 

  
“We took precautions. But the plan is risky, I never said otherwise.”

 

  
I sat folded tight, my arms clasped around my knees and my shoulders hunched about my ears like a child afraid of a beating. But the blows were steady; they came from within and there was no avoiding them, since I’d failed to rid myself of my heart.

 

  
He couldn’t understand why I was silent. He said with scorn, “Perhaps you prefer to be a whore. You seem to enjoy it.”

 

  
“No no of course not.”

 

  
“We’ve made inquiries about this tattoo, and we cannot find an artisan willing to undertake it—they are all too frightened of the sacrilege. So you’ll have to become an initiate; it’s part of the rites, they say, and no doubt the tattoo will be painful. But it costs money, a large tithe paid to the temple of Katabaton at Mount Omphalos. The initiation takes place at the Festival of
Katabaton’s Navel, and it’s our good fortune it is only a tennight away. You’ll need a patron, one besotted enough to spend five thousand in gold to raise a hoyden to the highest rank of whores.”

 

  
“There is no one like that, no one I could ask.”

 

  
“There is one,” said the king. “I’ll be your patron, and a jealous one. I’ll dote on you openly, and lavish gifts upon you, and indulge your every whim—such as the desire to join the Serpent Cult—and in return I’ll insist on being the only one, you understand? I shall be the man who tamed the vixen, and you shall be the woman who made a king break his vow, and together we’ll enact a spectacle to entertain the gossips of Allaxios.”

 

  
I was too weak to stand without the king’s help, and once on my feet I was unsteady. I wound the wrapper twice about me and fussed with the pleats.

 

  
Don’t bother,” said the king, handing me my shawl. “You look just as you ought, well ravished.”

 

  
I’d lost my weedy wreath somewhere, and he gave me his own, of greenthorn and juniper, meaning I was his solace in adversity, and he was my protection. But that was too severe a message to please a Lambaneish crowd. I pulled tasseled cords of coral honeysuckle from the shrubs near the waterfall, and twined them into garlands to wear around our necks, declaring one to the other the nature of our fate.

 

  
The stairs seemed steeper on the way down, and the steps too far apart. I clung to the king’s arm. Probably he thought I was drunk. I wished I were. He spoke to me, but I wasn’t listening. I was watching his changeable face. He had set aside his somber expression for smiles and glances of various kinds. It appalled me that he could surpass a whore at shamming what he did not feel.