“I was born for love.”

“Then listen to the romance of politics. Kasi is the Auditor of Predictions. He has been lax in his duties. There is a sudden necessity for him to meet a pure love, unsullied by a lifetime of crass bargaining, who has such high ideals that she could not love a man who has not demonstrated his integrity. Kasi is the man who will make Hoemei maran-Kaiel the new Prime Predictor.”

“I’m frightened. Just a little bit. Have you ever been in the pay of Kasi mon-Kaiel?”

“Once Aesoe gave me to Kasi as his reward for cleverly delaying the audits.”

“That’s why you are so cynical! Aesoe knows and he’s trying to block the full play of kalothi!”

“Come. Your crone will dress you for the evening. She will cry to lose one so sweet as you.” Humility kissed the girl who was to become her sacrificial card.

60

THE PARTY FLOWED from Aesoe’s seething energy, pulsing with his pulse, beating at the skull’s temples to the music of God. And Aesoe took the stage of his celebration to reveal in compact speech his newest Racial Future, every word arranged for the cymbals of oratory so that Vision seemed to blend with the dancing.

At his side was the faithful Liethe woman known to the Palace as Sieen. His friends were glad she was there to fill the void of Kathein’s abandonment. Sieen was the symbol of the continuity of loyalty. She praised her man. She defended him. She advised him. Tonight when the whisky was poured, she added color to his Vision by describing troop carriers, longer than planets, stuffed with loyal kembri scarred-men as they slipped across nebulae to bar the reaching Riethe. Aesoe smiled at this dream, vaster than any thoughts of Hoemei.

The Fire Dance came late in the evening when the party was building to a sensual throb and enough barrels of whisky had been emptied so that even a sky lit up by the stellar explosion of Getan seed did not seem preposterous. Redflies, under the persona of Star, modified her dance to the constraints of the Circling Focus of Seduction. The elemental flame of her motion darted through the audience or warmed the fire watchers with licking undulations but always her eyes found a moment’s heartbeat to settle upon the radiating cicatrice of Kasi, to flit away, to be pulled again into his aura. He drifted closer like a convection current drawn to a temple torch.

Her arms rose, her head flashed and stilled while her hair continued its sweeping caress of her shoulders. One smile flew from her face and did not return. Humility, as Sieen, was in place and on tiptoes whispering, “She is a virgin,” to the ears of a heart caught admiring the smile, now disappearing on downcast eyelashes as the fire burnt to ash.

Kasi turned to Sieen urgently. “Introduce me to her.”

“She makes you feel young again, does she?” said Sieen, pulling him off to the dressing rooms. “Star, this is a friend of mine. I think he liked your dancing.”

The dancer, in a clever reversal of her own dream of seduction, would not look at her guest at all, but dressed slowly so that he could be warmed by the ember glow of her body. “I’m pleased that you like me. I’m new in Kaiel-hontokae. I have no friends here.”

Later, much later, he would be allowed to touch her body and then Kaiel and Liethe would slip out for a long walk in the park or maybe along the raceway of the aqueduct where there was danger and he could protect her. Only when the dawn was red on the clouds and his desire properly fanned would she let him enter her body.

Humility, pleased with an underhanded job well done, made the sign of the Chopped Nose as she left the dressing room. That wanton will go far. She met the ghost image of her own first man. He had loved her as a farmer loves his fields and she had murdered him. Orders. Love had been the only way to get to him through his wall of guards. But where was Aesoe?

A hand was laid on her shoulder from behind. “Let’s depart before the brawl begins,” Aesoe said. “I was watching Kasi. Is he growing the lecher’s tumor?”

Alone, Aesoe’s gaiety vanished into morose depression. Sieen undressed him, massaged him, oiled him. She chattered to fill his silence. “You were great tonight. I saw! As you talked every Kaiel grew by a full thumb-height!”

“Did their breasts stop sagging?” he grumbled, half reviving.

“Mine were tingling.”

“I’ll have to work on Xoniep’s report tomorrow. God’s Nose, and early, too.”

“I have it memorized. I can tick off the essentials whenever you wish.”

He laughed. “I need a hundred more like you.” But a secret thought caused the relapse of depression. He stopped Sieen’s hands, got up, went to his study.

She knew he had chosen to stand and stare at the portrait of Kathein and think his thoughts. It was not a true likeness, but clever paint that put into her face the strength of character that Aesoe wished she really had. The artist was a floor-kisser who had never seen more than the feet of his patrons.

Humility left for the bedchamber, calculating the necessities, here the pillows fluffed, there the curtains parted to make best use of the dawn light he would never see again. She undressed and chose to wear only the golden ankle chains with their dangle of jewels, gifted to Sieen by Aesoe and worn now by a dozen se-Tufi Sieens, that faithful myth who loved him so much he could do no wrong, so much she took his love when he gave it and called in her replacement when he didn’t. He often chided her for her tolerance of his foibles.

She recited the cue mnemonic of the Attributes of the Male as keyed to Aesoe, checking out every detail that might facilitate his pleasure. She arranged the candles. She brought down the delicate goblet that Kathein had given him, cold with the soft blue of fine glass. Her other fingers took hold of a tiny cut monstrosity, a gift from the Prime Predictor that had brought tears to the eyes of some Sieen long ago when Aesoe had been a more thoughtful man. It was one of his cues. The Liethe who drank from that glass was Sieen. She found a bottle of common Oza, a liquid as pale blue as Kathein’s goblet, pale as the dew on the flowers of Assassin’s Delight. How he loved this common Oza that was brewed in a thousand cellars!

She fluffed her hair and styled it with silver combs in fantastic shapes that would not keep by themselves. All to be beautiful for him. She chose a position on the pillows from the Bewitchments of Form, plucking her instrument with a calling sound to seduce him from Kathein’s portrait as the green bower of a desert well calls the stricken traveller.

“God’s Sweet Smile but you’re ravishing. I’m the wrong man for you. Tell your crone to demand more coin.” He stood by the door, the riot of his fierce cicatrice somehow muted.

“I adore you. I am happy. There will be happiness for you, too. Kathein will come back.” Her words triggered the rage to the forefront of his eyes. Protected by the White Mind, she did not react as she read those eyes. The decision to destroy has been made. Hoemei, my love! Hide! Hide!

“Kathein return to me? I see no such vision.”

“You do not know women. Hoemei is a fantasy to her. She’s in love with a sinewed man who can reach as far as the stars. I know. Hoemei will disillusion her. She will be back. She will cry and the tears will yet wet your feet and roll between your toes because she will be sorry and you will forgive her because you love her. This time when she comes to you she will appreciate you as she never has.” Sieen changed the tone of her voice from hope to doom. “But if you destroy Hoemei, her fantasy will stay intact and her emotion will set like lava cooling to stone. I caution patience. Wait. Calm yourself.”