Two women attended her. They behaved as gracefully as any of her attendants had ever done, and answered freely, except when she put questions regarding where she was, and who had placed her here in this attractive cage.
“But I’m in Karmiss,” she said.
“Look at this velvet, madam. How well it suits these pearls.”
The pearls were black, Karmian riches. Yet they would never reply exactly.
But then, she did not need to be told, that was only some vestige of pride—to pretend herself ignorant and afraid.
His men guarded the house, which she came to see was a mansion-villa. Though she might go anywhere in the tower which she had woken to, the rest of the mansion proved inaccessible. The garden, too, was only to be enjoyed from a balcony. She saw distant figures in the fields, but no other servants. It was a relief. If any might have heard, she would have felt obliged to cry out.
Four days went by. Each seemed twice its length. At night her sleep was feverish. Her body ached, but not with any sickness. Sometimes, attempting to read one of the books, or wandering the tower, or seated on the balcony, she seemed to sense some stir in the house—a scarcely audible conversation, a footstep sharp on a walk below—and her heart would spasm with a kind of agony, thinking he had arrived. But her response was never justified.
On the fifth day toward sunset, however, every symptom was shown her that he was indeed imminent. The women brought fresh and surpassing clothing, complex jewels. They were agitated as they contrived to dress her hair. In the chamber where she ate, the braziers now necessary had been lit and perfumes added. Extra candles appeared and were set on fire.
“We must hope,” she said tartly to the women, “the Lord Kesarh won’t be late.”
When they were gone, she paced about in the violent and disquieting afterglow.
She had, captive that she was, no choice but to receive him. But no, the ease of that was false. It had all been made easy for her, but she found at last she could not lie to herself. Since infancy, she had been molded to her existence. Given to the Storm Lord six years before, she had looked for nothing save those things her molding assured her were hers by right. But Raldanash did not want her. She had had some warnings. She tried to be stoical. To remain so, faced with a life of such stoicism. Then, in the darkness of that dawn near Kuma, Kesarh had crossed the black river like the river of arcane myth which separated the living from the shades, and bound her to him by his shadow across her face, the grasp of his hands, the will behind his eyes. Kesarh, unlike Raldanash, had wanted her. And she. Yes, she had wanted to be wanted by Kesarh.
And her integrity was revolted.
Very well, she must receive him. But like this? Garbed and gilded for him like one more dish upon his table—
She ran to the mirror and wiped her face clean of cosmetics. She took down her sculptured hair and shook it loose. Shedding the gems and the velvet, she took up the dress she had traveled in, which they had cleansed and returned to her when she asked for it—she had not then known why—but which was dulled by the journey, no longer gracious, in places even torn.
She was only just in time.
As she stared at her transformation in the mirror, the outer door was opened and then firmly shut.
She learned then that she could not move.
So it was in the mirror’s surface that she saw him come through that chamber with the candles and braziers and table, and stand framed in the doorway of this.
You have seen him, she thought, turn and confront him. He’s no more than you behold in the glass. But in the glass he was enough to take her breath from her. Somehow she made herself turn. She avoided his eyes, looking directly through him.
He said, “I thought the women were to dress you.” She could not stop her ears. His voice came into them.
“They did everything you wanted,” she said. “Now I’ve done as I thought fit.”
“Yes,” he said. There was no irritation, no mirth. No expression at alclass="underline"
He went back into the outer room, and she was impelled to follow him and to say: “Am I at last to have an explanation for your atrocious act against me?”
He wore black. They had said in Dorthar that was usual. He seemed all blackness against the flaming wax. He was pouring wine, which he now offered her.
“No.”
He drank the wine himself, straight down, all of it.
“You are,” he said, “on the estate of my counselor, Raldnor. At Ioli. Soon it will be expedient to move you elsewhere. I apologize that, as yet, I can’t receive you in my capital of Istris.”
“I’m your hostage against Dorthar,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Just mine.”
“This insult to the Storm Lord could mean war.”
“There will be war anyway. Nothing like this ever caused a fight that wasn’t already spoiling.”
“Why,” she said, “did you—”
“You know why.”
She met his eyes not meaning to. He and she were yards apart. She looked aside from him and her blood seemed full of water.
“I recall for you some woman who died.”
He said nothing.
I, too, should have died, she thought, before I submitted to this. But the idea was empty, a fallacious ritual. Even to her it seemed sickeningly coy.
There came a plea outside the door, and he told them to come in. Unknown servitors appeared; a lavish meal was set out. That seen to, Kesarh sent them away.
He indicated the table.
“And chance some other drug or potion? No, my lord.”
“You mean to starve yourself for virtue’s sake.”
Their eyes met again.
“Don’t suppose,” she said, “I can willingly accept anything of yours.”
He came toward her then, crossing over the bright room as over the lightless river. He did not touch her. He said, “Starvation’s a slow, comfortless way.” He drew the dagger from his belt and offered it as courteously as he had offered the wine. “She killed herself,” he said. “Why not you?”
Ulis Anet did not look at the dagger. It had no value for her. She knew she could never employ death. The words meant more.
“Who was she?” she said.
“My sister.”
She tried to shrink from him.
“You offered rape to your sister? She preferred suicide.”
“What else?”
She gazed at him, striving to see through him to mockery or rage or pain. But she could not; he was like Raldanash in that.
Only the heat beneath the cold darkness was not the same at all.
She must not attempt to force his hand with her, push him to violence or the rape she had mooted like an invocation. Again, it would be too easy. She could give in to superior strength and need not blame herself.
“Allow me to withdraw,” she said.
Even that might exacerbate. She had sounded cool and meek, colorless—she lowered her eyes. It was difficult to do.
“There’s no need for that,” he said. He was dangerously urbane now. “I’ll dine elsewhere.” He walked to the door. She did not look up. She did not know that in the modest gown, her long hair down her back, face unpainted, she was more than ever an image of Val Nardia, that morning when she had departed for Ankabek. By the door, he said, “Tomorrow I’m sending you to a house nearer the capital. It’s pleasant, and there’s a decent road. Anything you want can be got for you.”
“Let me have passage back to Dorthar, then,” she said to Raldnor Am Ioli’s mosaic floor.
“Forget Dorthar. When the war’s done I’ll give you Karmiss.”