‘Until then you wait,’ she said, and felt a small thrill of satisfaction at his understanding that she controlled the situation.
‘I do. Or I don’t. ’
Startled, she met his gaze. It was strange to look at his face now and recall the smooth-skinned boy he had been. His dragon had incorporated his slave tattoo into his scaling, but the horse on his cheek looked more dragonish now. She almost lifted a hand to touch it but held herself back. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Only that I’m as free as you are. I could walk away. I could find someone else—’
‘Jerd,’ she growled.
‘She’s made it plain, yes. ’ He rolled onto his side and tugged at her hand. Reluctantly, she lay down beside him. After a time, the bench adapted to her wings, cradling her. She looked into his eyes, her gaze cold. He smiled. ‘But I could also be by myself. Or wait for others to come and join us here. Or go looking for someone else. I have time. That’s what Rapskal and I talked about. That if, as seems likely, we may live two or even three hundred years, then we all have time. Nothing has to be rushed. We don’t have to live as if we were children squabbling over toys. ’
Toys. Her, a toy? She tried to pull away from him.
‘No, listen to me, Thymara. I felt the same way when Rapskal first spoke to me. Like he was making what I feel a trivial thing. Like he was telling me to wait and that when he was finished with you, I could have you. But that wasn’t it at all. I thought it was stupid of him, at first, all the time he spent with memory-stone. But I think he’s learned something. He said that the longer life is, the more important it is to keep your friends, to not have quarrels that can be avoided. ’ His smile faded a bit and for a time he looked troubled. ‘He said that, as a soldier, he had learned that a man’s deep friendships were the most important thing he could possess. Things can be broken, or lost. All a man can keep for certain are the things in his mind and heart. ’
He lifted his free hand and traced the line of her jaw. ‘He said that no matter what you decided, he wanted to stay friends with me. And he asked me if I could do the same. If I could resolve that what you decided was your decision, not something we should blame on the other fellow. ’
‘I think that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ Thymara said quietly, but in her heart she wondered if that were so.
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‘He said something else, something I’ve been thinking about. He said that from what he’s remembered from the stones, some of the Elderlings had the same sort of problem. And they solved it by not being jealous. By not limiting each woman to one man. Or each man to one woman. ’ He turned to look up at the sky again. She wondered what he didn’t want her to read in his eyes. Did he fear (or hope) that she would agree to that? It was not the first time she had heard such an idea. Jerd had made it plain of late that she would share her favours where she willed, and that none of the male keepers should think she was his simply because she’d shared one night with him. Or a month of nights. Three or four of the keepers had seemed to accept this relationship with her. Thymara had heard a few disparaging remarks from them about her, but she seemed to be gaining a genuine partnership with several of them, one in which her partners seemed as bonded to each other as they were to her. Thymara was sceptical that it would work long term but had resolved to ignore the situation.
But if that was what Tats was broaching as a solution … She spoke stiffly: ‘If that’s what you’re hoping for, I’m sorry, Tats. I can’t be with both you and Rapskal, and be glad of it. Nor can I share you with another, even if she weren’t Jerd. My heart doesn’t work that way. ’
He heaved a sudden sigh of relief. ‘Neither does mine. ’ He rolled to face her and she let him take her hands. ‘I was willing to compromise if it was the only future you saw. But I didn’t want to. I want you all to myself, Thymara. Even if it means waiting. ’
The depth of feeling in his words took her by surprise. He read it on her face. ‘Thymara, it’s no accident I’m here in Kelsingra. I came here because of you. I told you and your father that I just wanted the adventure, but I was lying. I was following you, even then. Not just because there was no real future for me in Trehaug, but because I knew that there was no future for me anywhere if you weren’t there. It’s not because you just happen to be here, and I just happen to be here. It’s not because you’re a good hunter, nor even because of how beautiful you’ve become. It’s you. I came here for you. ’
She had no words to reply to him.
He spoke as if he had to fill the silence. ‘Some of the others have made me feel like an idiot because I can’t compromise. The other night, after dinner, when you went out walking with Rapskal, Jerd called me aside. She said there was something on a high shelf in her room, something she couldn’t reach. It was a ploy. There was nothing there, but once we were alone, she said that she didn’t have the problems you did with men. That if I wanted her, I could be with her, and then still court you if I thought I wanted you as well. She said she could keep it secret, that you’d never know. ’ He looked into Thymara’s eyes and quickly reminded her, ‘Jerd said it, not me. I didn’t agree to it, and I walked away from what she was offering. ’ In a lower voice, he added, ‘Trusting her is not a mistake I’d make twice. But she did manage to make me feel childish. Foolish that I couldn’t just dispense with the “old rules” and “live our lives as we pleased”. She laughed at me. ’ He paused for a moment and then cleared his throat. ‘Rapskal made me feel that way, too. And while he didn’t laugh at me, he told me that in a few decades I’d change my mind. He’s so comfortable with these ideas. But I’m not. ’
‘Then I suppose I’m as childish and rule-bound as you are. Because I feel the same way. ’ She moved her head onto his shoulder and spoke hesitantly. ‘But if I say that I still don’t feel ready, will you change your mind?’
‘No. I’ve thought it through, Thymara. If I have to wait, then, well, I have the time. We don’t have to rush. We don’t have to rush to have children before we’re twenty because we may not live past forty. The dragons changed that for us. We have time. ’
Then maybe I am ready. She almost said the words aloud. Hearing that he would no longer pressure her to decide, hearing that he understood that, with her, it had to be exclusive, had affirmed something about him. Instead, she said, ‘You are the man I thought you would be. ’
‘I hope so,’ he said. And then they were still for a while, so still that she started to doze off, until Sintara’s excited jab awoke her.
‘Silver!’ she exclaimed, and Tats’s voice almost echoed hers. His dragon’s excitement came through in his inflection. But he gave Thymara a puzzled look. ‘A silver well? The Silver well?’ He was incredulous. ‘Did we dream it?’
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She shook her head at him and grinned. ‘Sintara says that Carson and Sedric have found it. She showed me where. ’ She blinked, the location of the well suddenly reordering her mental map of the city. Of course. It all made sense now. Knowledge seeped up from buried memories; the secret that only Elderlings and dragons must know, the one bit of knowledge that must never be shared with the outside world. The very reason for Kelsingra’s location and existence. She did not smile: it was too immense for that. ‘It’s dragon Silver. The source of all magic. ’
Selden awoke to low voices. A man’s voice, insistent and almost mocking, a woman’s voice, indignant and venturing toward anger. ‘I will tell my father. ’
‘Who do you think gave me the key? Who do you think ordered the guards to allow me to come and go as I please?’
‘You have not married me! You have no right to touch me! Get away! Stop!’
It took Selden a time to realize that he was awake, that this was not a dream, and that he recognized the woman’s voice. He dragged himself to a sitting position on the narrow divan. The fire in the little hearth had burned low: it was late at night, then. He looked ar
ound the small study. No one was there. A dream, then?
No. A man’s voice, low and angry, from the next room: ‘Come here!’
He clutched his head to make the room stop spinning, then went off into a coughing fit and abruptly the voices in the other room were stilled.
‘You’ve wakened him,’ Chassim exclaimed. ‘I have to see if he is all right. You would not want him to die before my father has the chance to kill him. ’ Her voice was full of disgust for whoever she addressed.
‘He can wait until I’m finished,’ the man replied abruptly. His words were followed by a crash of falling furniture, and then a woman’s shriek, suddenly muffled.
The long robe she had given him to wear was twisted around his hips and swaddled his legs. Selden swung his legs off the bed and then struggled to free himself. ‘Chassim!’ he called, and then choked on his coughing. He stood, feeling too tall, swaying like a reed in the wind. His knees started to buckle under him. He grabbed the back of the divan and took two staggering steps until his outstretched hands met the stout wood of the door. He had not been out of this room since he arrived here; he had no idea where the door led. He slapped at the heavy panels and then found the handle and tugged at the catch. The door swung open and he followed it in a stagger. Chassim was pinned on the bed by a heavy man. His one hand clutched her throat while with the other he was dragging her nightrobe up her body. Her hands tugged hopelessly at the hand that choked her. Her head was flung back, her braided hair coming loose, her mouth wide open and her eyes bulging with terror at not being able to breathe.
‘Let her go!’ he shouted, but the words took all his breath. He staggered forward, coughing. He caught at a pot of flowers and threw it at the man. It bounced off his back and fell to the floor, unbroken, rolling in a half circle, spilling soil as it went. The man glanced over his shoulder; his face, already red with passion, went purple with fury. ‘Out! Get out, or I kill you now, you freak!’
‘Chassim!’ Selden shouted, for her tongue was beginning to protrude from her mouth. ‘You’re killing her! Let her go!’
‘She is mine to kill! As are you!’ Ellik shouted. He released her, lifting his body off her to come at Selden.
A brass figurine was at hand. Selden threw it at the Chancellor, and watched it sail past him to land with a thud on the floor. Then Ellik seized him by the front of his robe, lifted him off his feet and shook him like a rag. Selden could not control the wild whipping of his head. He rained blows on his attacker but there was no strength in his hands or arms. An angry child would have fought more effectively. Ellik laughed, mocking and triumphant, and flung Selden aside. He struck the door and clutched at it as he slid down it. Darkness made the room small and then it did not exist at all.
Someone gripped his shoulders, rolling him onto his back. He flailed, trying to land a telling blow until he heard Chassim say, ‘Stop it. It’s me. He’s gone. ’
The room was in darkness. As his eyes adjusted, he made out the paleness of her nightrobe, and then the faded gold of her tattered braids hanging around her face. Seeing her face with her hair half loosened around it made him realize she was younger than he had thought. He pushed his own hair back from his face and suddenly realized that he hurt. All over. Badly. It must have showed on his face for she said wearily, ‘He saved a few kicks for you, on his way out. ’
‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked, and saw small sparks of rage light in her eyes at the stupidity of his question.
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‘No. He only raped me. Not even in a very imaginative way. Just plain old-fashioned choking, slapping and rape. ’
‘Chassim,’ he said, shocked; almost rebuking her for how callously she dismissed it.
‘What?’ she demanded. Her mouth was swollen but her lip still curled in dismay. ‘Did you think it my first time? It was not. Or will you pretend to be surprised, and claim that this is not the way of your kind?’
She touched him kindly as she spoke so harshly, taking him by the shoulders and pulling him to a sitting position. He coughed again and was ashamed when she lifted the corner of her sleeve and wiped his mouth with it. When he could speak, he said, ‘Among my people, rape is not condoned. ’
‘No? But I am sure it still happens all the same. ’
‘It does,’ he had to admit. He gently pulled free of her. If she had not been watching, he would have crawled back to the divan. He could feel where Ellik had kicked him. Once in the ribs, once on the hip and once in the head. It hurt, but it could have been worse. Once, he had seen a man beaten down and then stamped upon. It had happened right outside his cage when he had first been put on display. The attackers had all been drunk, all mocking spectators, and he had not felt kindly toward any of them, but he had still screamed at them to stop and yelled for help, for anyone to come and intervene.
No one had.
‘I tried to make him stop,’ he said. Then he wondered why he had pointed out his own failure to her. He got himself to his feet and crossed the short space to the divan, catching at furniture as he went. When he reached it, he more fell than sat on it.
Chassim watched him accomplish this, then went to the hearth’s edge and added a stick or two of wood. In a few moments, flame woke and ran along the sticks. In the additional light, he could see her cheek starting to purple. ‘Yes. You did,’ she said, as if there had been no gap in their conversation. Then she turned to look at him directly. Sitting on the floor, with her braids falling down, her pale nightdress catching light and shadow from the fire, she looked more childish than ever. Like Malta, when she was a girl and he a small boy and they had sometimes crept down to the kitchen at night to see what treats the cook might have tucked away in the pantry. It had been a very long time ago, he suddenly realized. A tiny bit of a pampered childhood that had lasted only a short time before war and hardship had shattered it forever.
Chassim’s eyes were not a child’s as she asked him, ‘Why? Why did you do that? He might have killed you. ’
‘He was hurting you. It was wrong. And you had been kind to me …’ He was shocked that she would ask him why he had tried to help her. Was it such a strange act? He reached deeper, pulled up a painful honesty. ‘It happened to me once. ’ He blurted out the words and then was horrified. He had never intended to speak of it to anyone. Having someone else know about it made it real.
She stared at him, her blue eyes wide, and he wondered what she thought of him now. How much less human did it make him in her eyes?
‘How?’ she said at last, and he saw that she did not grasp what he was saying.
He spoke roughly and suddenly understood her own callousness when she had spoken of what Ellik had just done to her. ‘There was a man who wanted me. As a novelty, I think, as when some men mate with an animal, just to see what might be different. He paid the man who kept me captive well. My keeper let him into my cage and walked away. And … it was like he was insane. Like I was a thing, not even an animal. I defied him, and I fought him, and then, eventually, I pleaded, when I knew he was far stronger than I was. It didn’t help. He hurt me. Badly. And then he got off me and walked away. There is something about knowing that someone is taking pleasure in giving you incredible pain … with no remorse. It changes how you see yourself; it changes what you can believe of other people. It changes everything. ’ His words ground to a halt.
‘I know,’ she said simply.
A silence fell. The fire crackled and he felt more naked than he had when he was displayed bare for all to see. ‘I was sick for days afterward. Really sick. I had so much pain. I bled and I had a fever. I don’t think I’ve been completely healthy since then. ’ The words tumbled out of him. He lifted his hand, covered his own mouth to stop them. Tears he had not shed then nor since burned in his eyes. The tears of a torn and battered child, helpless against violence done to him. With his last shred of manhood, of dignity, he fought to hold them back.
‘Flesh ri
ps when you are forced. ’ She spoke the harsh fact quietly. ‘I have heard people, other women, make mock of it. As something that some women deserve, or as a fillip of excitement to the act. Something to pretend, for titillation. I cannot understand it. It makes me want to slap them and choke them until they understand. ’ She stood up slowly and he could see the pain it cost her. She took a few breaths and then leaned over him to pull a blanket around him. ‘Go to sleep,’ she suggested.
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‘Maybe tomorrow will be a better day,’ he dared to say. He coughed again.
‘I doubt it,’ she said, but without bitterness. ‘But whatever it is, it will be the only day we have. ’ She left the room slowly, pausing at the door. ‘Your dragon,’ she said. She cocked her head at him. ‘Did it hurt when she changed you?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Sometimes the changes are uncomfortable. But what we shared was worth it. I wish I could explain it better. ’
‘Does she know where you are now? Does she know how they hurt you?’
‘I don’t think so. ’
‘If she did, would she come here? To help you?’
‘I’d like to think so,’ he said quietly.
‘So would I,’ she replied. And on those odd words, she left him.
Day the 5th of the Plough Moon
Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders
From Jani Khuprus of the Rain Wild Traders, Trehaug
To Ronica and Keffria Vestrit of the Bingtown Traders, Bingtown
Keffria, I have taken your advice. A lengthy explanation of Malta’s absence is on its way to you in a wax-sealed packet sent on the liveship Ophelia and entrusted to Captain Tenira. He is, as we all well know, a man of impeccable honour.
I beg you to hold the information in deepest confidence. I myself am still awaiting more tidings, but I have shared what I know with you. I regret that I must be so evasive and leave you to endure the wait for the packet’s arrival. Right now I share your reluctance to entrust information about confidential family business to Guild birds.