“Oh dear, Laio.” Kaeska’s face was instantly sisterly concern. “Are you in difficulties with your weavers?”
Laio hastily denied any such thing and began to explain how she had only been looking to help the foolish Tani Kaasik. Kaeska nodded and sympathized, but every time Laio looked to be coming out ahead, Gar innocently sank another barbed comment into the sensitive conversation. I was surprised to see Mahli remain aloof from the fencing but she concentrated on discussing household matters with Shek Kul, which seemed to keep Kaeska all the more determined to pursue the issue of Laio’s mistakes.
As the night deepened beyond past the slatted shutters, I saw the greater moon rise above the battlements, not yet quite at the half as it waned, with the lesser moon just showing an edge above the trees. I tried to remember when I’d last seen an Almanac and how many days the Emperor’s Chronicler had decreed for Aft-Spring this year. As far as I could estimate, from what I remembered of the charted phases of the two moons, we would be in the early days of For-Summer, around the 5th or 6th.
Soft-footed house slaves answered Shek Kul’s abrupt summons with small lamps and I hastily gathered my wits. Delighted to realize this interminable evening was about to end, I saw my own relief trebled in Laio’s eyes. Gar and Kaeska linked hands in high good humor and led the way up the broad central stairs though I saw the satisfaction on Kaeska’s face falter when she turned and realized Shek Kul was giving Mahli the support of his own arm. When Shek Kul did not leave his wives at the landing to go to his own apartments on the floor below, Kaeska abruptly dropped Gar’s hand with a theatrical yawn.
“Do forgive me, I am so tired.” She turned away almost instantly toward her own suite. “Irith!”
The poor wretch hastened up the remaining stairs like a beaten hound and Kaeska swept through the opened door to her own apartments without a backward glance.
Shek Kul muttered something I did not catch as he was embracing Mahli at the time. She laughed loudly as she took Grival’s arm down the corridor, a sound that would have carried clearly through the louvered doors of Kaeska’s apartments as she passed.
“To bed!” Shek Kul kissed Gar briskly and then turned to catch Laio around the waist with a swiftness that caught everyone by surprise. He swept her off her feet and planted a smacking kiss on the exposed swell of her bosom. Laio giggled with delight. At her nod I hurried to open the door to her bedroom. As I stood to let the Warlord and his wriggling armful past, I saw Gar’s face, scarlet and a suspicion of tears in her eyes. She turned on her heel and strode down the far corridor toward her own rooms.
Beyond hoping that she didn’t take her chagrin out on Sezarre with a cane switch, I had no time to worry about Gar’s feelings. Shek Kul had Laio’s dress off her shoulders and down to her waist, hands cupping her ripe breasts, by the time I had dragged my pallet out into the corridor and fetched the canvas bag that held all the possessions I was allowed.
At times like this it was nigh on impossible to pretend to myself that I was a servant, not a slave. I was weary and ravenous, my back and shoulders were knotted with pain and, for all anyone cared, I might as well have been a door-post. Shek Kul’s falcons were treated better than us body slaves sometimes. I cursed softly to myself, loosened the thongs on my chainmail and bent over, arms outstretched to shrug it off over my head. The crash it made hitting the polished wood of the floor seemed to echo all around the silent corridors and I froze for a moment, half expecting a rebuke from Laio. I need not have worried; there was scarcely a pause in the sounds of rising passion coming through the flimsy door.
Getting the weight off my shoulders was some improvement, but my aching muscles still screamed their indignation. If I’d been able to go and find Sezarre or Grival, we could have helped each other out with some of the remarkably effective rubbing oils the Aldabreshi favored, but I now knew that once a Warlord’s lady has retired to her rooms for the night her slave is expected to stay with her. Unless he is sitting on his bed in the corridor like a hound that can’t be trusted with the furniture, that is. I couldn’t even hope for a proper bathtub for a hot soak in the morning. Laio had told me in no uncertain terms that only mainlanders wallowed in their own filth, while decent people rinsed themselves clean with fresh water. Rubbing my own shoulders as best I could, I tried to ignore the clamorous demands of my stomach. I hadn’t been this hungry since Laio had arbitrarily kept me without food for a day and a half as punishment for some mealtime transgression that I had never fully understood.
Shek Kul’s wordless expressions of pleasure were settling into a regular rhythm behind the door of Laio’s room and her uninhibited responses were answering him enthusiastically, accelerating to moans of rapture. I knew from previous nights that, when it came to chasing a snake through the undergrowth, the Warlord was a man of considerable stamina for his age, so I padded stealthily away on bare feet. The pages who spent their days in a lobby off the stairwell were always provided with water and I reckoned I should at least be able to get a drink to stave off the worst pangs of hunger.
The stairwell was at the corner of the hollow square that formed the central keep of the Warlord’s residence. Each wife’s suite of rooms ran along one inner side of the square, overlooking a central garden that had some special significance I had yet to fathom. The staircase was at the corner, where Kaeska’s rooms met Laio’s. I moved cautiously, not wanting to alert Kaeska to the fact that I had left my station. As I reached the stairs, I saw bars of light on the dark wooden floor, revealing a lamp was still lit in Kaeska’s sitting room. I swore silently to myself and crouched low, not wanting to risk being found crossing to the pages’ room.
“So what are you going to do to help me?”
Kaeska’s low words drove all thoughts of thirst clean out of my head. Apart from anything else, she was speaking in passable Tormalin. The blood started to pound in my veins, almost deafening me, and I fought to curb my racing heartbeat.
“Whatever I do for you will depend entirely on what you are able to do for me.” The Elietimm accent was unmistakable, for all that his Tormalin was better than Kaeska’s. His tone was uncompromisingly harsh.
“Of course, I will do all I can.” Kaeska was abject, pleading. “Haven’t I already done well? You said you were pleased with me, you said you could reward me—”
“The Queen of the Moonless Night must be properly venerated if she is to answer your prayers.” The Elietimm sounded contemptuous. “She must have worshippers in every domain.”
I forced myself to breath slowly and evenly, to concentrate on getting every word. I had certainly never heard of this Queen he was talking about. How often do you see a clear night with no trace of either moon, anyway? Maybe once in a handful of years?
“I will travel, I will spread your teachings. I have done your bidding, have I not? I told Gar to secure that slave for Laio—” Kaeska’s voice rose in something approaching panic and was cut short with what could only be a slap.
What hold did this man have over her that he dared lay a hand on a Warlord’s wife without losing it in the next breath to her body slave’s sword?
I moved to the corner with agonizing care, lying prone until I could edge my way forward and look into the room through the lowest slats of the door. Kaeska and the Elietimm were sitting on cushions, facing each other from either side of a low table where a candle flickered under some kind of incense burner. This was no mere scent to deter insects; a chance draft wafted a taste of the smoke in my direction and I recognized the acrid, seductive tang of smouldering thassin leaves. I caught my breath, and not just from the fumes. Chewing thassin nuts is one thing; it’s a habit that’s hard to break, but beyond dulling your senses and staining your teeth, it won’t do you too much harm, not taken in moderation anyway. Taking the smoke is quite another matter; any sworn man who started that would soon find himself paid off with a Lescari cut-piece for his oath fee. No one is going to trust a swordsman who might turn his blade on imaginary three-headed monsters at any moment.