“She’d been married in her youth to an Ashdod nobleman. I have an older, half-brother, Zabrze – heir to the throne now. When her husband died, Chad-Nezzar had her married to a Geshardi Prince at Ashdod’s court to conclude a trade alliance.
“They were married in a flurry of trumpets, clinging silks and carefully applied kohl. They retired to secluded apartments where they stayed, as is tradition in Ashdod, for seven days and seven nights, before emerging to further banqueting and a score of invitations to hunt.
“My father was, apparently, a man of action, and the seven days and nights spent in seclusion had left him thirsting for adventure.”
Boaz slid his eyes my way again, and they were deeply amused. “Although he had not spent those seven nights in total inactivity, Tirzah, for I was made on one of them.” He looked back to the dark of the night outside. “On his first hunt, down the great River Lhyl, he grew so excited he stood up in the boat to sound the trumpet, lost his balance, and toppled into the water. A great water lizard took him.”
“Oh, Excellency, I am so sorry…”
“I never knew him, and that saddens me, Tirzah, for I think he was a man worth the knowing. My mother became hysterical when she heard. In seven days he had won her heart, and she never recovered from his loss. Within the year she had given birth to me, and when I was six she died. Of despair, I think.”
My eyes had filled with tears, and Boaz had to collect himself before he could go on.
“This box contains my father’s wedding gift to my mother. She treasured it, for it was all she had left of him, apart from me, of course. It contains…a book.”
And suddenly I knew why the writing, why the reading, why the translating. Boaz wanted to read the book, but couldn’t, so he had trained me to do it for him.
I vaguely wondered why he hadn’t simply asked me to teach him the Geshardian tongue.
“She told me, and at the age of six I wasn’t old enough to understand completely what she’d meant, that he had seduced her with tales from this book. She could not read it either, during her lifetime no-one else from Geshardi came to Ashdod, and all she had were the memories of the tales he’d read to her. There was one…”
“Yes, Excellency?” I could only whisper now, and the tears were running down my cheeks.
“There was one in particular that I loved, and which she told me time and time again. But it has been thirty years since her death, Tirzah, and the tale has all but gone from my mind. Tirzah, would you read it to me?”
“It would be my honour, Excellency.”
He sighed, and undid the catches on the box, and lifted out a large book.
My breath caught in my throat as he handed it over. It was very, very beautiful. Bound in calfskin, the cover and spine had inlays of precious metals and gems set amid copper and gold wire and bronze studs.
I reached out my hands, and took the book.
And almost dropped it. Not only because of the weight, but because it spoke to me.
Lovely woman, hold me, touch me. Come, do not fear me. Lovely woman, I am yours, kiss me, soothe me, hold me, touch me…touch me…
How I sustained my composure I’ll never know.
Touch me, soothe me, let me love you, love you, let me lie down beside you, let me touch you, love you…
The book was a work of great Elemental necromancy. Greater than any Elemental magic I’d witnessed or felt under Isphet’s tutelage. What I was hearing through the elements of metal and gems in the book was not the voices of the elements or even of the Soulenai, but…but Boaz’s father’s voice, his soft seductions as he’d bedded his new wife…
Lovely woman, let me hold you, touch you, love you…Oh! Lovely woman!
Questions about Boaz’s father and his relationship to the book raced through my mind, filled it, consumed it.
Had he made the book? Did he have any understanding of what the book was? Was he an Elemental Necromancer himself?
I blinked away my tears, the voice fading now as the book throbbed with the heat of their passion. My hands trembled, but I steadied them and studied the book anew. It was very old, ancient, and Boaz’s father could not have made it. Perhaps he had just acquired it as part of a trading deal, and knew none of its magic. Perhaps he’d had no idea that the book had absorbed the passion of their wedding night, and had kept it alive though the man and the woman had died.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Did Boaz know what this book was?
If he noticed any of the emotions surging through me he gave no sign.
“Tirzah. Open the book. Please. In there is a story. Please read it to me.”
I opened the book. Inside the writing was exquisite, drawn in vermilion and edged with gold, spreading across smooth creamy parchment – vellum, not papyrus. The characters were unusual, but I could read them. There was a listing of contents, and my eyes skimmed down it, wondering which tale Boaz wanted me to read to him.
“Excellency? Which one?”
And then my eyes found it, and I had no doubt about which one Boaz would name. Which tale it was that had haunted both his child and manhood.
“The Song of the Frogs,” he whispered.
19
I RAISED my eyes and looked at him, knowing then that stronger magic than fate had enslaved me and brought me through so much hardship to this man and this moment in time.
Was it this book?
“As you wish, Excellency,” and I turned the pages and began to read.
The Song of the Frogs
It was a long time ago. A time when mists clung thick to form and voice. A time when all peoples, all races, all creatures lived in happiness and sharing.
It was this same world we live in now, but different.
The peace did not and could not last because it was perfect, and all know that perfection is a dream but never a reality. One race turned against another, then they united to turn against a third, and when all save a few were exterminated, those few crept among other peoples and whispered words of discord and hate.
War spread with the cruel relentlessness of a malignancy.
Because war thrived, peoples learned to live among it. Cultures, societies and religions adapted. Sometimes war raged year after year, while other years were spent in peace – or what passed for it. Some races were decimated, others, more fortunate, more adaptable, more war-like, flourished.
But among all races there was one people known as the Soulenai, and they found it difficult to adapt to this new word and world of war.
Oh, gods. I risked a glance at Boaz, but the name seemed not to perturb him.
The Soulenai were masters of magic, Necromancers of renown and skill, but they were peace loving, and the thought of waging war made them nauseous.
They believed at first that if they took no sides, if they extended goodwill to all, then none would have reason to wage war on them.
But their lands were invaded, their children slaughtered.
So they thought to move far away, journey to a land where there was no war.
And so they did. They found a peaceful if largely dry land, covered with ten thousand pebbles, but a land where they could flourish again with work and effort. Yet within a decade war had found them, and decimated the land where the Soulenai settled. Dry land became utter desert, field turned to rock, furrow to chasm. Even if steel did not pierce their bodies, many among the Soulenai laid down and died because of their great sadness.
Those left alive wept, wondering if they were cursed.
As they wept, a great river rose from their tears, running through the pebbles and the cracks in the rock and following the course of the chasms, dividing the desert, and giving life along its banks.
The Soulenai sat on the banks of the river and ceased their weeping, but their hearts still sorrowed. No matter where they went, what they did, war would follow, and eventually all would die. What use the beauty of the river when none would be left to enjoy it?
But as they grieved ane
w, their sorrow dryeyed now, a song rose about them. It was an ugly song, and the Soulenai thought it suited the harshness of the desert and rock about them.
One thought to ask, “Who sings?”
“We do!” And ten thousand frogs lifted their heads from the banks of the river and saluted the Soulenai.
“What strange creatures are these?” the Soulenai asked, for none had seen frogs before.
The frogs introduced themselves, and then made great glad cry.
“Soulenai Saviours! For millennia we were locked inside a myriad of pebbles, trapped, as if by sorcery. But then came a wet such as we had never dared dream, and it was your tears. The river formed, and we sprang into life. Thus for you we offer our song.”
The Soulenai smiled, glad that they had helped at least one race. “We thank you, Friends Frog. You sing a beautiful song.”
The frogs laughed. “You think it ugly, but we do not care. Soulenai Saviours, our song is a gift, and we would tell you how to use it.”
“A gift?”
“We will give you a land where you may live in peace forevermore, Soulenai Saviours.”
“Oh! What is this land?”
“We know it only as the Place Beyond.”
I stopped, pretending to pause to wet my throat with wine. This was dangerous. I risked another glance at Boaz. He sat with his eyes closed, his breathing gentle, and I could not tell his thoughts. Magus waiting to trap, or man yearning for the comfort of his lost mother and unknown father?
“Please, go on,” he said, and opened his eyes. They were bright with tears.
I returned to the tale.
The Soulenai were cautious. The frogs sang of hope, but the Soulenai had seen hope dashed before.
“See!” cried the frogs, and opened their throats in song.
The Soulenai saw. They saw a land where the mists still lingered. They saw a land of sea and stars, plunging cliffs and sweeping plains. A land where they would not be disturbed. They saw a land of such peace that it was magic in itself. It was a land where eternity laughed. A land where the unborn frolicked with the dead and yet no-one knew the difference between them.
“We think we like this land, this Place Beyond,” said the Soulenai. “But how do we reach it?”
“Follow our song,” cried the frogs. “Listen, understand, let our song rock and soothe you, let it touch you, touch you, touch you. Let it hold you, touch you, love you.”
And so they did.
The Soulenai followed the path of the frogs’ song, for they were of such magic they could understand the song, and they went into the Place Beyond, and none have heard of them since.
But I think that if you let the Song of the Frogs rock you and soothe you, if you let it hold you and love you, then you too may be able to reach this Place Beyond, for it is surely a wondrous land.
“I think that is where my father took my mother,” Boaz said into the silence. “I think that he understood the Song of the Frogs. I think that is why my mother died of grief. She had lost not only her lover, but the Place Beyond.”
“Perhaps that is where they are now, Excellency,” I said softly.
“Perhaps, Tirzah, perhaps.” He sighed. “I wish I could understand the Song of the Frogs. I think I would like to visit this land called the Place Beyond.”
Even now I still thought of entrapment, but I also thought of something that needed to be asked.
“Excellency?”
“Yes?”
“Excellency, what was your mother’s name?”
Boaz stirred in his chair, and took the book from my hands, replacing it in the box.
“My mother’s name was Tirzah.” His eyes were still on the box.
Such emotion overwhelmed me I found it hard to speak. “Excellency, why give me your mother’s name?”
“For the frogs you carved me that day, Tirzah.”
And yet he had dashed them to the ground. Killed them. Would I ever understand this man?
“Tirzah?”
“Yes, Excellency?”
“It would please me if, in my bed, you would call me Boaz.”
And so I did.
He did not take me into the Place Beyond, but he transported me nevertheless. Yaqob and I had never had the time nor the privacy to do our love justice. Boaz and I had ample of both. And Boaz also brought laughter, which Yaqob had never thought to do. He teased me with his hands, his mouth, his body, until – driven to wantonness – I pleaded with him to make an end to it and mount me.
“An end to it?” he said. “When we have the night before us?”
But he did as I asked, and with the sweetness and tenderness he’d given me in that kiss, until I pleaded with him never to make an end to it. By that time, even he was too breathless for laughter.
An end to it there had to be, and it brought me as much release as he – which surprised me, for I had not realised that a woman could gain as much satisfaction from a bedding as a man.
He did not leave me, but lay sprawled heavy across my body, gently kissing, stroking, whispering…
…hold me, touch me, soothe me, love me…
…until we both drifted into sleep.
We slept, then we woke and Boaz, still heavy atop me, resumed where he’d left off, and it was faster, harder and more frenetic than our first loving, but it was as good, and this time my cries made no coherent words.
We slept again, and when I woke, it was to find the Magus had returned.
20
I GRABBED for the sheet, not wanting the Magus to so witness my nakedness, but he tore it from my hand, then seized my arm, half-dragging me from the bed.
He was robed in his full vestments of office, his hair tightly clubbed back into its queue, his eyes full of fury.
“Filthy whore!” he hissed. “What have you done?”
I could say nothing, fearful that whatever I said or did might cause him to kill me.
“Did you think to subvert me into subdividing the One, as Raguel did with Ta’uz?”
My eyes widened, and his mouth thinned in satisfaction. “Yes, word of Ta’uz’s disgrace reached us back in Setkoth. Think not to so pollute me or the One.”
He hauled me closer. There was nothing in his face of the man who had been with me the night before.
“Nevertheless,” he said, his voice now soft, “I did achieve good union with the One. Perhaps I should have explored this avenue of meditation previously.”
Those words hurt me more than his hands. Boaz had left the One far behind him when he brought me to his bed. But I could understand why he lied to himself.
He wrapped his arm about my shoulders to hold me tightly against him, then placed his hand over my face. His fingers gripped me painfully, and I struggled helplessly against him.
“I can make sure that you will not conceive,” he said. “Absolutely sure –”
“No, Excellency!” I cried, “there are herbals I can –”
“Absolutely sure,” he whispered, and the power of the One flooded my body.
Nothing I had felt before prepared me for this. Even the pain he’d caused me in the workshop had been inconsequential compared to what he did now.
My breath racked in for a scream, but I was in such agony I could not let it go. The power seared through me, concentrating in my belly, roping about like a blade out of control. It was surely tearing me apart.
Another surge, and my body jerked about in his arms. I don’t know how he managed to hold me, for I was convulsing uncontrollably by now.
“Absolutely sure,” I think I heard him whisper from very far away, then he dropped me on the bed.
I came to perhaps an hour later. I whimpered, for the pain was still almost unbearable.
“You will get dressed, and then you will get out.”
My hands clenched at the sheets and I dragged myself to the side of the bed. My body screamed at the abuse it had taken and at the abuse I was now subjecting it to, but I had to get out. Had to.
My v
ision blurred, and I groped about for my dress, pulling it over my shoulders. Then I struggled to my feet, bent almost double, one arm wrapped about my belly, the other feeling along the wall for the door.
“I will summon you again,” he said, and I stumbled out into the blessed sunshine.
Kiamet carried me back to the tenement building. For that I will be everlastingly grateful to him. He had kind hands and an even kinder voice, and I think he said a number of unkind things about Boaz on the way.
Isphet was appalled, as were the other two women of our quarters.
“What has he done?” she whispered as she lowered me onto my sleeping pallet.
“Ensured I will not subdivide the One,” I said, then I fainted.
She washed me, and fed me a drink which eased much of the pain, then wrapped me in blankets and let me lie back down.
“You must stay here today,” she said. “Not even Boaz would insist you made an appearance at the workshop.”
“Thank you, Isphet,” I said, and grasped her hand. Apart from wanting to know what he’d done to hurt me so badly, she’d asked no further questions.
“Sleep,” she said.
I woke in the early afternoon and lay for some time, not thinking, not wanting to think. Much of the pain had subsided, but when I lifted the blankets I saw that my belly was deeply bruised, evidence of the internal hurt.