Justi hurried now, turning left, then right, then left again, moving past the knots of people outside tavern doors or walking down the street, keeping the cowl close to his face as he passed the glowing lantern of another utilino on her rounds, then striding quickly down a deserted lane where the houses seemed to lean toward each other from either side of the street as if weary. He went to a door painted a light blue that seemed pale gray in the night. He pushed it open; inside, a young woman turned from stirring the fire in a shabby but clean room.
“Ah, Vajiki,” the woman said, though Justi knew that she knew well who he was and his true title. “We wondered. . My lady’s upstairs, waiting for you. .”
She took the cloak he handed her silently and placed it on a hook next to another. He went up the stairs and knocked on the door at the landing before pushing the door open. Candles glowed about the room, touching with gold the tapestries on the wall. Naked nymphs and rampant satyrs cavorted there in woven fields, entwined in dozens of inventive embraces. The only furniture in the room was a canopied bed with two night stands.
A room such as one of the grandes horizontales he’d known kept-blatantly sexual, blatantly inviting. The similarity secretly amused him.
Francesca would be appalled if he mentioned the comparison to her.
The draperies of the bed were moved aside by a delicate hand as Justi entered. He could glimpse the woman laying there, her hair unbound and spread over the pillow. “I’m sorry to be late, Francesca. I. .”
The memory of Mahri’s strange admonitions made him shiver. “I had an encounter on the way here.”
She frowned, her face at once concerned. She tossed aside the blankets; through the gauze of her gown he saw the hint of darkness at the joining of her legs and the shadows of her breasts. “Dearest, you look as if you just walked through a ghost.” Her eyes were large with pupils the color of newly-turned, rich soil.
Justi forced himself to smile. “It’s nothing,” he told her. “Nothing.
Not when I’m here with you again.”
He closed the door as she came to him in a miasma of perfume. He embraced her, she pulled his head down to her, pressing soft and gentle lips to his, and he would forget everything else for a few hours…
Ana cu’Seranta
The sun was dancing on her eyelids.
Ana blinked and raised her hand to shade herself from the glare.
She glimpsed lacy cuffs and felt the warmth of a thick blanket over her.
She raised her head: she was in a room she’d never seen before, large and richly decorated with a single door. On the wall opposite the foot of her bed was an ornate fireplace within whose hearth Ana could have easily stood upright, and to her left white curtains billowed inward with a breeze from a balcony. The night robe she wore was not one of hers.
The door opened and a head peered in: a young woman, the white, loose cap of a house servant futilely attempting to contain her red curls.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re awake, O’Teni.”
The door closed, only to open again before Ana could move from the bed. Two more servants entered: a middle-aged, stout woman and a younger woman who from their shared features must have been the
older woman’s daughter. The daughter bore a tray with a silver teapot and plates of fruit and bread; the matarh hurried over to the bed. “Stay there, O’Teni. Here, let me put this tray up over you. Now, a few pillows behind your head. .” A moment later, the tray was placed before Ana as she sat up against the headboard. A sumptuous breakfast steamed in front of her, fragrant, and she realized that she was famished.
“Where am I?” Ana asked, and the servants chuckled in unison.
They had the same laugh, also.
“The Archigos said you’d probably be confused when you woke,”
the older woman said. “You’re in your own apartments, across the plaza from the temple.” The daughter went to a chest across the room and pulled underclothing and a green robe from the drawers, placing them gently over the foot of the bed. The older woman fluffed the pillows around her, then went to the balcony doors, pulling back the curtains.
Ana could glimpse the domes of the Archigos’ Temple behind her. “Are you feeling better, O’Teni? Go on, eat the toast before it gets cold, and here, let me pour you some of this wonderful tea; it comes all the way from Quibela in the province of Namarro. The Archigos, he said that Cenzi touched you after your appointment and that’s why you were so exhausted, and we were to let him know when you woke. I’ve already sent Beida to tell him.”
Ana half-listened to the woman’s prattling as she sipped the tea (which was indeed wonderful, flavored with spices that flirted coyly with her tongue) and ate the bread and fruit before her. She learned that the woman was Sunna and the other one, who was indeed her daughter, was Watha, and that Watha was betrothed to a minor sergeant of the Garde Kralji, “but he’s on the Commandant ca’Rudka’s staff, and very visible to the commandant;” that they came from Sesemora and their family name was Hathiga, currently without any prefix of rank though the Archigos had promised them that they would become ce’Hathiga in the Rolls next year; that they’d been in the Archigos’ employ for the last six years and were now attached to Ana’s apartments.
By the time she’d learned all this, she’d eaten her breakfast, performed her morning ablutions, and allowed the servants to help her dress. Beida knocked on the door as she finished. “The Archigos is in the reception room, O’Teni,” she said with a quick pressing of hands to forehead. “He said to come in as soon as you’re ready.”
The reception room was, like the bedroom, lavish and large, with its own balcony and fireplace, set with a desk, leather sofa, and plush matching chairs. The Archigos was standing out on the balcony, so small that for a moment Ana thought he might be a child. Then he turned and she saw the ancient face, the stunted arms, the bowed legs and bent spine. “Good morning to you, O’Teni Ana,” he said. “Please, come out here. . ”
She came to stand alongside him. The morning was cool, a breeze ruffling the folds of the soft, grass-colored robes she wore and bringing them the scent of wood fire from the breakfast hearths of the city. She was looking down to the courtyard of the temple from four stories up- the top floor. Directly across, seemingly nearly at eye level, the golden domes of the temple itself reflected sunlight back to the sky. As she looked, watching the people below scurrying about their business, the wind-horns sounded First Call. Automatically, Ana went to a knee and bowed her head; she felt the Archigos do the same alongside her. She silently mouthed the morning prayers: as the wind-horns continued to call, the strident sound carrying the burden of the city’s prayers skyward to Cenzi and the other gods. As the last notes died, Ana rose again. The Archigos held out his small hand toward her. “If you would. .” She helped him rise, the dwarf groaning as his knee cracked once in protest.
“Old joints,” he said. “I wonder if you could cure them.”
With the words, the events of the evening before came back to Ana: Matarh, the spell of healing, the darkness closing around her. . “My matarh. .”
He smiled up at her, his lips caught in folds. “She is doing quite well, from what I understand. I sent Kenne to your family’s house this morning to inquire after her, knowing you’d ask. He was told that she slept easily last night, that her cough had vanished, and she is conversing with your vatarh and the house servants as if nothing had ever happened. It would appear that a minor miracle has occurred, eh?” One eyebrow raised as he glanced at Ana. “She also doesn’t remember what happened in the temple last night-which is just as well. I would suggest that you don’t remember it, either.”