The Emperor's blades

42

As he pushed back the canvas flap that served as a door to the tent, the delicate scent of incense wafted over him. The servants had been as busy with the interior of the pavilion as they had with the outside, and now it glowed like something out of his childhood memories. Dozens of paper lanterns-red, gold, green-cast playful shadows onto the floor. Delicate tapestries from Mo’ir hung from the walls while intricate woven rugs covered the packed earth.

His eyes barely flickered over them, fixing instead on the wide bed that dominated the space, a bed decked in silk and strewn with plump pillows. He cast about for a chair or bench, but the servants who had carted the entire kit up the mountain evidently considered lamplight more important than seating. There was nowhere to go, nothing to turn to except that enormous bed. Triste froze just inside the door, but he did his best to appear casual, approaching the mattress, running his hands over the cashmere blankets gingerly.

“Well,” he said, “at least it’s big.…”

Triste did not respond.

Kaden turned, casting about for one of Heng’s jokes to ease the tension, but all thought of joking vanished when his eyes fell on her.

She stood trembling just inside the door, her dress pooled on the carpet at her feet. She wore nothing beneath. Involuntarily, almost instinctively, Kaden drank in the sight of her: slender legs, satin skin, the full curve of her breasts. In Annur, outside the temple of Ciena, stood a marble statue of the goddess herself, the incarnation of physical perfection, the apogee of human pleasure. He had overheard men joking about that statue, about what they’d like to do with the goddess if they could get her alone, and on one outing, Kaden and Valyn had spent some time furtively staring at the idol, intrigued by a beauty they could only just apprehend. Compared to Triste, however, the marmoreal curves and elegant proportions seemed awkward, almost misshapen.

He groped for the Shin exercises he had spent so many years mastering, exercises that would cool the heat and bring reason to the chaos cluttering his mind. It was no good. Triste was slender, fragile even, but that fragility drew him with more force than knotted cord, and for the space of a few heartbeats, he was frightened of himself, frightened of what he might do to her. He tried to avert his eyes, but he could no more look away than he could stop his own heart.

Suddenly, with a small cry in the back of her throat, Triste threw herself at him, propelled, he realized, by wine and fear rather than lust. She crashed awkwardly into his chest, knocking him backward, and they collapsed on the bed in a tangle of limbs. Kaden tried to pull away, but she clung to him, desperately ripping at his robe.

“Wait,” he pleaded, trying to calm the girl without drawing attention from beyond the insubstantial canvas walls of the pavilion. “Stop!”

The words only spurred her frenzy. Each year, Kaden helped to tie goats for shearing and slaughter-and each year, he found himself shocked by the strength in the body of an animal driven to panic. That same panic had seized Triste, and for several heartbeats she overpowered him, driving him down and backward despite his greater height and weight. Her hands around his wrists might have been manacles, for all his ability to break her grip. She’s stronger than I am, he thought, amazed even in the midst of the contest. Then something seemed to snap in the girl. She fought still, but the impossible power had gone, and Kaden was able to subdue her at last. When he finally managed to extricate himself, he looked down to see her violet eyes welling with tears.

“We must,” she sobbed. “We must. We must!”

“Must what?” Kaden asked, although he had a pretty good idea already. “We don’t have to do anything,” he added quickly.

Triste shook her head so violently, he thought she might hurt herself. “They told me,” she cried. “They told me we must.”

Kaden stood quickly, straightening his robe about him and turning to examine one of the priceless tapestries hanging from the wall. It depicted a battle, he realized gradually, some sort of conflict between gorgeous men and women, half naked but wielding long spears against ranks of foes in drab, gray armor. He bent all his energy to the study of the weave, the alternation of color and pattern, using the focus to still his pulse, slow his breath, relax … everything, and after a long, awkward minute he was able to look back at Triste. She was crying softly.

“They may have said we must,” he began, trying to put more resolve into his voice than he felt, “but they also told me that I’m the Emperor, and as your Emperor, I command you to put on some clothes.”

It was a ridiculous commencement of his imperial prerogatives, but he had to start somewhere. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that she had ignored him, wrapping her naked body tightly into a ball instead. So much for the irresistible heft of the Emperor’s decree, he thought to himself.

“He said that you would want to,” she moaned, hugging her knees to her chest in a way that covered her breasts but accentuated … other things. Kaden quickly looked away again. “He said if you didn’t want to, that it was my fault. Now they’ll kill her,” she choked. “They’ll turn her out of the temple and she’ll die.”

In spite of himself, Kaden turned back to her, curious and disturbed.

“They’ll kill who?” he asked carefully. “Who is threatening to kill whom?” As he spoke, he picked up one of the blankets folded at the foot of the bed and hastily draped it over her shivering form. Huddled under the fabric, cheeks streaked with tears, she suddenly looked like the frightened girl that she was. “You can tell me,” he added gently.

Triste shook her head miserably, but met his eyes for the first time, her face filled with blank resignation. “My mother,” she responded when the sobs had subsided enough to allow her to speak. “Tarik said if I didn’t lie with you, he would see that my mother was turned out of the temple and forced to earn her living as a common whore.”

“What temple?” Kaden asked, anger slowly replacing the confusion inside him. “Who is your mother?” He remembered Adiv’s mocking smile at dinner, the smugness with which he had presented Triste as Kaden’s “gift.” Sanlitun may have promoted the man to the Mizran rank, but Kaden didn’t intend for him to stay there long if this was how he treated innocent girls.

“Louette,” Triste responded. The shuddering fear had gone out of her, replaced by a deep, unplumbed grief. “That’s my mother’s name. She’s a leina.”

Kaden stared. The leina were the high priestesses of Ciena, women trained since childhood in the arts of pleasure, all the arts of pleasure. “Stuck-up, too-good whores,” Akiil called them, but he was only half right. The leina did trade their skills for money, but they had no more in common with the whores of Akiil’s Perfumed Quarter than a two-penny fishmonger did with the Vested merchants of Freeport.

The leina were a religious order. Like the Shin, they spent their time in study, exercise, and prayer, but unlike the monks, they would have scoffed at the never-ending rigor of the vaniate. Ciena’s priestesses were devotees of pleasure. They spent their days and nights studying dancing, fine wines … and other, more alluring arts. The richest men spent princely sums to share the company of a leina, even for a single night, such princely sums, in fact, that Ciena’s temple in Annur boasted nearly as much gold, marble, and silk as the Dawn Palace itself.

Regardless of the wealth lavished upon them, however, the women owed their devotion to the goddess they served rather than to the men who paid so richly for their attentions. There were rules governing the behavior of the leina, observances to be paid, holidays to be observed, tradition to be respected. A man could not simply arrive at the temple, toss a jingling sack of Annurian suns on the counter, and demand to be served. It didn’t work like that, at least not in the stories Kaden had heard. Even Emperors owed respect to the handmaids of a goddess.

“Adiv can’t do that,” he said. “He might be the Mizran Councillor, but he’s not in charge of Ciena’s temple.”

“He can,” Triste insisted, nodding vigorously. “You don’t know him. He can.” She sat up on the bed, hugging the blanket tightly to her chest.

“Well, I’ll see that he doesn’t,” Kaden replied firmly. “It’s as simple as that. I’ll just see that Louette, that your mother isn’t harmed.” The words sounded confident as they left his lips, and he dearly hoped they were true.

For the first time, Triste regarded him with what might have been hope. It was buried deep beneath fear, suspicion, and doubt, but it was there. Kaden’s heart warmed at the sight.

“How did Adiv … find you?” he asked slowly.

A cloud passed over Triste’s face, but she answered readily enough. “I grew up in the temple. My whole life, I lived there.” With a sweep of her fingers she brushed back her black hair, revealing the necklace tattoo. At least, it looked like a tattoo, but Kaden had never seen work so delicate.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Goddessborn,” she replied.

Kaden shook his head at the unfamiliar word.

Triste continued, “My mother always says, ‘Men want the bliss without the burden.’ The ones who come to the temple are always rich, and they pay well, but they have names and estates. They have their own proper children to think of.”

Kaden thought he heard a note of bitterness there, but she continued without dropping her eyes.

“The leina are careful-my mother taught me all the herbs and potions-” She colored, then rushed ahead. “Even though I haven’t needed them, she taught them to me, just to be sure. Anyway, even if you’re careful, sometimes things happen, sometimes a man gets one of the leina with child. Then the woman has a choice-she can kill the baby or mark it as goddessborn.” She touched the tattoo at the base of her neck again, as though assuring herself it was still there.

Kaden had some idea where this was going; it made perfect sense when you thought about it.

“The goddessborn belong to Ciena. We can never own anything, never inherit anything, never lay claim to our fathers’ names. Most of us don’t even know who our fathers are.”

She shrugged, a frustrated, girlish gesture that seemed somehow incongruous after her matter-of-fact description of the political realities underlying her station.

“So,” Kaden pressed gently, “Adiv came to the temple looking for a-” He was about to say “gift” but changed his mind at the last moment. “-for a leina, and you were the one he chose.”

“No. Well, yes.” Triste bit her lip. “But I’m not a leina. My mother never wanted me to enter the service of the goddess.”

“But you were raised in the temple,” Kaden replied, confused.

“She raised me in the temple because there was nowhere else, but she always said that if I studied hard and made myself into a proper lady-” She paused and looked down at the blanket wrapped around her, as though remembering her nakedness for the first time. “If I made myself into a proper lady,” she persisted, her voice cracking just slightly, “my father might take me in. Not as his daughter,” she rushed on, as though frightened Kaden might reprimand her for the thought. “He wouldn’t have to acknowledge me ever, but as one of the ladies of his court, maybe a handmaid or something.”

It seemed an unlikely proposition to Kaden. Bastards were dangerous business, even if they were girls, even if they were tattooed girls. A young woman as beautiful as Triste would have dozens of suitors, and if one of them married her and then realized she was the daughter to some sort of potentate …

“I studied the low arts at the temple,” she continued, oblivious of his thoughts, “but my mother refused to have me inducted into the high mysteries.”

“The high mysteries?” Kaden asked, intrigued.

Triste colored once more. “The arts of bodily pleasure,” she responded, eyes downcast. “All girls in the temple learn the low arts-dancing, singing, all of that-but you can’t be a leina without years studying the high mysteries. My mother says you can sing yourself hoarse-that’s not what the men pay for.”

“So you haven’t done … this … before?” Kaden asked, cursing himself silently for his clumsiness.

Triste shook her head. “No. My mother never wanted…” She trailed off, staring at her hands as though she had never seen them before. “No.”

A rustling at the back of the tent interrupted her before she could say more. Eyes wide, she put her finger to her lips. Kaden nodded. Perhaps it was only wind, but the memory of Pyrre Lakatur and the ak’hanath remained fresh in his mind. Ut was an Aedolian, but he was only one man-he couldn’t watch all the walls of the pavilion at once.

Kaden gestured toward Triste’s fallen dress urgently-her nakedness seemed to make both of them more vulnerable-and as she struggled to pull it on, he cast about for something that could serve as a weapon. He still carried the short knife on the belt of his robe, but that seemed a feeble defense. The supporting poles holding up the pavilion might stave off an intruder, but they were inextricable from the canvas. A heavy gilded candlestick caught his eye-twice as thick as his thumb and two feet long. The rustling came again, punctuated by a short ripping. Kaden hastily snuffed the wick, yanked the taper out of its sconce, and hefted the makeshift weapon tentatively. It wasn’t a sword, but a solid blow would knock a man unconscious. He forced himself to move toward the sound.