“Sit down, I’m not going to eat you.”
Kori sneaked a glance at him, looked quickly away. Everyone said how big Settsimaksimin was and she’d seen him tower over the Servants and the students at the Lots, but he was far off then and she hadn’t realized how intimidating that size would be when she was not much more than an arm’s length away, even if it was the length of his arm. Eyes on the floor, she backed to a padded bench beside one of the tall pointed windows. She folded her hands in her lap, grateful for the coarseness of the sleeping shift they’d given her at the Yron. She didn’t feel quite so naked in it. She stole another look at him. He was smiling, his eyes were warm and it startled her but she had to say it, gentle, approving. She wondered if she ought to worry about what he was going to do to her, but she didn’t feel bothered by him, not like she was when that snake Bak’hve looked at her. Frightened, yes, but not bothered. She ran her tongue over dry lips. “Why did you snatch me here like this?”
“Because I didn’t want to make life at the Yron more difficult for you than it is already.”
“I don’t…”
“Child, mmmm, what’s your name?”
“You don’t know it?”
“Would I ask?”
His deep deep voice rumbled and sang at her, excited her; she forgot to be frightened and lifted her head. “Kori,” she said, “Kori Piyolss.”
“Kori.” Her name was music when he said it; she felt confused but still not bothered. “Well, young Kori, you wouldn’t like what would certainly happen to you if anyone thought I was interested in you. I’m sure you have no idea what lengths some folks will go to in order to reach my ear, and that’s not vanity, child, that’s what happens when you have power yourself or you’re close to someone with it. You’re a fighter, Kori, yes I do know that. I’ve watched you plot and scheme against me; unfortunately, I did not know who it was that plotted soon enough to stop you. Ahh, if things were other, if I had a daughter, or a son even, if he or she were like you, I would swell with pride until I burst with it. Why, Kori? What have I done to you? No, I’m not asking you that now. I will know it, though, believe that.”
She gazed defiantly at him, pressed her mouth into a tight smile that was meant to say no you won’t.
He chuckled. “Kori, Kori, relax, child, I’m not going into that tonight. I’ve got other things in mind. You were right, you know, I fiddled the Lot, I wanted you out of Owlyn, child, I wanted you where you won’t make more trouble for me. You might as well forget about going back there. Think rather what you’d like to do with your life.”
She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
am not going to permit you to teach, Kori, I’m sure you see why. You don’t want to be a holy whore, do you?”
She swallowed, touched her throat, forced her hand down.
“It’s not a threat, child; but we do have to find something else for you. You’ve got a talent, did you know it?”
“Um… talent?”
“Why weren’t you born a boy, Kori, ah, things would be so much simpler.”
“I don’t want to be a boy.” She couldn’t put too much force into that, not after the talk with Polatea. She wrinkled her nose, moved her shoulders. It was a funny feeling, talking to the man like this, she felt free to say things she couldn’t say to anyone not even Tre; it seemed to her Settsimaksimin understood her, all of her, not just a part, understood an in a funny way approved of her. All of her. He was the first one, well, maybe Polatea was the first, but Polatea wanted to close her in and if he meant what he was saying, it seemed to her he wanted to open out her life to new things, splendid things. Aayee, it was hard, she was supposed to hate him for what he’d done, for what he was going to do when he found out about Tre, was he playing with her head already? She didn’t know, how could she know? “What I’d really like,” she said, “is not to stop being a girl, I am a girl, it’s part of what makes me who I am, I like who I am, I don’t want to change, what I want is to be free to do some of the things boys get to do.” She scratched her cheek, frowned. “What did you mean, talent?”
“Magic, child. Would you like to study it?”
“I don’t understand. “
“There are schools where they teach the talent, Kori; there’s one, perhaps the best of them, in a city called Silili. It’s a long way from here, but see you get there if you think you might like to be a scholar.”
“Why?”
“Nothing’s ever simple, Kori, haven’t you learned that by now? Ah well, you’ve had a sheltered life so far. Why? Because I like you, because I don’t like killing my folk, don’t scowl, child, didn’t your mother ever tell you your face could freeze like that? Yes, you are mine whatever you think of that and yes, I am not lying when I say I loathe killing I do what I must.”
“No. You do what you want.”
“Hmm. Perhaps you’re right. Shall I tell you what I want?”
“I can’t stop you. No, that isn’t honest. I would like to hear it. I think. I don’t know. Are you messing with my head, Settsimaksimin?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to see you frightened. I don’t want to feel you hating me.”
“I can’t do anything about that?”
“Not now. If you develop your talent, the time will come when no one, not even a god, can play with your feelings and your thoughts, Kori. Take my offer. Don’t waste your promise.”
“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. Help me understand. Are you like Bak’hve the Servant in Owlyn, do you want me? I don’t think so, you don’t make me feel bothered like he does.”
He frowned. “That Servant, he approached you, suggested you lie with him?”
“No. Not yet, he hasn’t worked himself up to it yet.”
“Hmm. I’ll put a watch on him; if he’s got a penchant for young girls, he goes. And no, Kori, you’re right, you don’t excite me that way. Do I shock if I tell you, no girl or woman would?”
“Oh.” She wriggled uncomfortably. “You said you’re trying to do something. What is it?”
He gave his low rumbling laugh, settled into his chair, put his feet up on a hassock and began to talk about his plans for Cheonea.
Her head whirled with visions as immense as he was. What he wanted for the Plain sounded very much like the kind of life her own folk lived up in the Vales. How could that be bad? There was a fire in him, a passionate desire to make life better for the Plainsers. How could she not like that? His fire called to the fire in her. Maybe he was playing games with her again, but she didn’t really think so. She felt her mind stretching, she felt breathless, carried along by an irresistable force like the time she fell into the river and didn’t want to be rescued, the time she was intensely annoyed with her cousins when they roped her and pulled her to the bank; though she thanked them docilely enough, she went running back to the House, raging as she ran. She quivered to the deep deep voice that seemed to sing in the marrow of her bones. She understood him, or at least a part of him, there was no one he could share his dreams with, just like her. No one who could follow the leaps and bounds of his thought. She could. She knew it. But she also knew her own ignorance. In addition to her dreams and enthusiasms, she had a shrewd practical side. Though her life was short and severely circumscribed, shed heard more than a handful of one-sided stories meant to justify some lapse or lack. Men who let their fields go sour, women who slacked their weaving or their cleaning, children who had a thousand excuses for things they had or hadn’t done. She’d told such stories herself, even told them to herself. So how could she judge what he was saying? Measure it against what was there before down on the Plain? What did she know about the Plain except some ancient tales her people told to scare unruly boys? Trouble was, how could she trust those stories? She knew how her folk were about outsiders, nothing outsiders did was worth the spit to drown them in. What else did she know? Really know? What he did about the wood. Yes. That rather impressed Daniel Akamarino. How he kept the city clean. Bath houses for beggars even. The slave markets were gone. But girls still sold themselves on the streets and in the taverns they were conveniences provided with the beds and the bottles. The pleasurehouses were gone, older girls on fete eves told dreadful tales of those places, tales that would have had them scrubbing pots for a month if one AuntNurse or another had caught them. But Settsimaksimin’s own soldiers burned the Chained God’s priests and would burn Tre if she couldn’t stop it. The thought cleared her head and chilled her body.