“Yes, my captain, their souls,” Shalle said, pressing into the captain. “How is your soul at the moment?”
Tephe reached over and drew Shalle into a long and welcome kiss. “I do confess it is better than it was,” he said, when he had parted from the kiss.
Shalle lingered, eyes closed, smile on lightly parted lips, then moved away. “But not as good as it could be.”
“You can tell that from a kiss,” Tephe said.
“I can tell that from you,” Shalle said.
Tephe smiled at this. “That quality of knowing is why I am here,” he said. “Your rooks tend to the crew.”
“Yes,” Shalle said.
“And you to the officers,” Tephe said.
Shalle smiled. “I think you’re well aware of what my job is, and who is under my care, my captain. I see all the officers, and would see Priest Andso, if he’d ever step inside the rookery, and he’d rather set himself on fire than do that.”
“How is their faith?” Tephe asked.
Shalle looked at the captain quizzically for a moment, then changed expression. “Clever of you to ask me that question.”
“It is not my intent to be clever,” Tephe said.
“No,” Shalle agreed. “I know why you’re asking. The attack at Ament Cour. The number of battles the Righteoushas engaged in this tour. This attack by the god. The stories of other gods resisting.”
Tephe was surprised. “The rumors are out already?” he said.
“Not rumors,” Shalle said. “The Priest Andso was not subtle about using Lieutenant Ysta. It’s all over the Righteousby this point.”
“Stupid man,” Tephe muttered.
“That’s blasphemy,” Shalle said, lightly.
“I did not say ‘stupid priest,’ ” Tephe said. “I said ‘stupid man.’ ”
“That’s the sort of cleverness you say you don’t intend,” Shalle said.
“Neal—Commander Forn—says that the faith of the men has diminished of late due to these events,” Tephe said, returning to the subject. “Do you see it? Do the other rooks?”
“We haven’t been looking for it,” Shalle said. “The crew comes here to have their release and to have their moment of joy, but you know that is not all we do. We comfort in other ways. By hearing and listening and allowing them to be the things they can’t be when they are on duty or with their crewmates.”
“And?” Tephe said.
“Now that you’ve brought it to my attention, many of those I and my rooks have tended to this tour want something else besides release,” Shalle said. “They want that too, of course. But they also want to talk. They want to be held or touched without arousal.” A wave to the rook figurine. “They give us little things and trinkets.”
“They’re worried,” Tephe said.
“More than worried, I think,” Shalle said. “Ean, you and I have been on three tours of duty together, here and on the Holy, and before that the both of us had other tours. Doesn’t this tour feel different to you?”
“We have been given defeats we have not had before,” Tephe said. “This would naturally give rise to doubts.”
“I don’t know,” Shalle said. “The crew may have doubts because they are dealing with defeat. But it may also be that because we have doubt, we have been defeated.”
“I am not sure of that,” Tephe said.
“Neither am I,” Shalle said. “But I get the feeling that there is something deeper at work here, Ean. It’s been present since the start of the tour but I haven’t had words for it until now. I needed you to bring it directly into my attention.”
“And this relates to the crew’s faith, you think,” Tephe said.
“It might,” Shalle said. “The men know what they know. They feel what they feel. In their souls, in the places where Our Lord moves through them, they sense what Our Lord senses. Our Lord is being challenged now by other gods in a way He has not been for centuries. If we sense in ourselves what Our Lord senses, then maybe we’re all sensing something new.”
“What is that?” Tephe asked.
“Fear,” said Shalle.
“Now, that isblasphemy,” Tephe said, after a long moment.
Shalle smiled. “A rook lives to comfort the faithful, or so the commentaries say. If speaking these words give you comfort, then Our Lord might forgive me.”
“Of all the things these particular words of yours bring me, comfort is not one of them,” Tephe said.
Shalle rose from the chair and let the robe ties slip, exposing smooth skin beneath, and leaned again toward the captain. “I don’t believe that,” Shalle said. “You are a captain. And you are you. When something affects your crew, you don’t rest until you know what it is. Until you understand what it is. And so I speak understanding to you. If the words don’t comfort you, the knowing does. And that’s good enough for me.”
Shalle hovered over Tephe now, robe open, leaning, slender sliver chain holding an iron Talent, hovering between small and perfect nipples. Tephe longed to take one in his mouth, and did. Shalle groaned and placed a hand behind the captain’s head, pressing him into the nipple, which he began lightly to bite.
Tephe had longed for Shalle since they first met on the Holy, where Tephe had served as first mate. He was drawn first by words, carried by Shalle’s warm and quiet voice, which rejected the careful distance and protocol of the High Speech favored by the Bishopry Militant, the cant which a young Tephe had struggled so hard to master and could not bring himself to leave off. Words slid, informal and inviting, from Shalle’s mouth to Tephe’s ear. Shalle’s other qualities made them apparent soon after; not the physical—another rook was assigned to the officers—but the apprehension and intelligence and practical knowledge of a ship and its crew. When Tephe was offered the command of the Righteous, he requested Shalle to lead its rookery.
And he made sure to assign Shalle to the officers.
Shalle had disrobed Tephe with a rook’s typical efficiency, straddled him, and took hold of his penis and began to stroke it. Tephe was confronted again with the rook’s Talent, dangling near his face. He took hold of it.
“I still do not know what your Talent is,” Tephe said.
“I think you do,” Shalle said, and with a quick motion slid Tephe into the place they both wanted him to be. Tephe drew his arms around Shalle’s waist and stood, causing the rook to laugh out loud and clasp hands around his neck to avoid the chance of him slipping out. Tephe turned and pushed Shalle into the bed, thrusting as he did so.
“This seems familiar,” Shalle said.
“Enough,” Tephe said, and thrust again, hard. Shalle’s hands moved from his neck to his hips, bidding him do it again. He did. Shalle moaned in delight.
After they were done, Tephe’s attention returned to the rook figurine. He picked it up again.
“It’s not that interesting,” Shalle said, draped across his chest.
“Not in itself,” Tephe agreed. “But for who it is from. I still have trouble imagining Quartermaster Usse offering you a bauble.”
“I thought it was very sweet of him,” Shalle said. “He was a very gentle man with me.”
“Then all of that gentleness went to you,” Tephe said.
“No,” Shalle said. “He spoke of his children with gentleness. And of his wife, though she left him. He said he always expected it and didn’t blame her. It’s hard to be married to a man who will never leave his ship.”
“He never did leave it,” Tephe said. “Until the end. Until he left it in a shroud.”