“Has he the sense to call you back, or will he want one of those lumps?”
“He was very taken with my skills. I told him who it was I learned them from.”
“What?” said Panduv.
“His appetite was still strong. The more I spoke of you, Panoov, and what you’d taught me, the stronger it became. He said you weren’t like a woman, and if it were left to him, you should be punished for looking at him the way you did.”
Panduv chuckled. Her tension left her. Another began.
“And he would like to see to it personally?” She stretched, and caught a handful of Selleb’s hair. “In Saardsinmey I wouldn’t have glanced twice at him. He would have had to woo me. He would have needed to be rich, clever, a wit, a poet. How low Zarduk casts the proud, into very pits.”
When Selleb was gone, the first milky hollowness had started in the sky. Don’t wait all day upon a call which may not come.
But there was nothing else to do with the Iscaian day but wait.
In any case, the call came at midafternoon.
The mistress waddled into the yard, and beckoned Panduv from the shade of her doorway.
“Wash and prepare yourself.”
The blood glittered in the black girl’s veins.
“Why?”
“You’re to go to the couch of the Watcher.”
“I?” said Panduv, “skinny and unlovely and Zakr that I am?”
“No insolence. I’ll have you beaten. It should have been done long ago. Make the most of Cah’s service. The High One means to sell you as a menial at the new moon.”
Panduv did not answer, but went to prepare herself for Cah’s service.
One of the little girls guided the Zakorian to that three-sided chamber where the guest was housed. The daylight, though mostly obscured in the furtive temple by ways, was broadening. It was the time sometimes called by poets in Alisaar, the Hour of Gold.
The little girl indicated the door, then ran away. Her mother, a whore, had told her the Zakorian was a demon—like all her race—and would, if the child were unwary, bite off her half-grown breasts.
Panduv rapped on a door panel.
“In.” The cry was peremptory, but mostly eager.
Panduv grimaced, composed herself, and opened the door. She stepped into golden space—a wealth of full light through a large latticed window. The patterns of the iron lattice fell upon everything, and now upon herself, and she was struck again by this image of broken lights—as in the lamplit corridor—half wondering what it might portend. Then she looked at Arud, lying on the couch. He wore a long loose shirt of linen, nothing more, but for a wristlet of silver, some prize of his that probably he never took off. Panduv, upon whom jewels and precious metal had showered, noted the vanity. But more than this, the flat belly and well-formed legs. It was a meaty body and would run to flesh, but had not yet done so. She felt again the hunger of desire, and gave him, across the gilded air, one intent gaze. Then, like a proper temple harlot, lowered her eyes. At the same moment she dropped from her shoulders Selleb’s borrowed mantle. Under it Panduv was naked, but for that emphasis of the red cord girdle, tied now upon ebony skin.
She heard him breathing. He was some while, eyeing her. Then he said, the slur of Iscah pronounced, “Come here.”
Panduv went to him, stepping meekly, not lifting her lids.
When she was close enough, he reached out both hands and took hold of her, pulled her down beside him.
“They’ve instructed you how to look at a man now, have they?”
He combed her hair with his fingers, his mouth on her breasts planting starving kisses, then one hand was under her buttocks and the other between her thighs. He rolled on top of her and entered her at once. He did not force, but neither did he attend. After a few thrusts he growled and collapsed on her, shuddering and done.
Panduv lay on her back. She waited. Presently he said to her, “I heard there were tricks you know. But you don’t know enough to give thanks to Cah.”
“You mean, to offer her my pleasure?”
He grunted.
“I had none,” said Panduv. “Or very little. Do you think it happens by magic? Is that the mystery?”
“You look too boldly and talk too much.”
“How can I teach you my tricks if I have to remain dumb?”
“You can show me. In a minute or so.”
“Then you must obey me.”
“Obey—” he raised his head, ridiculous and very handsome in astonishment.
“I must instruct you,” said Panduv. “You also cheat Cah of your pleasure. Do you think that thing you do, over in less than a minute, is worth anything to her?”
“Blasphemy now,” said the Watcher priest. But he observed her, and when she looked into his face, he grinned. “You’re so black I can hardly see any features. Only your eyes, and your lips, polished with gold.”
She drew his head down and kissed him, stroking his body now, taking time over it, so that he began to like the procedure. Even very ordinary love-modes of the ruby city would be new to him.
It was not a great while before he was aroused and wanted her again. But he was already more malleable, curious and lazy together. He let her he down on him, and when she took him in, steadying his tempo with her dancer’s pelvis, she worked for him, bringing him by stages to the pitch of uncontrollable excitement at which she lost him. On this occasion, he shouted aloud.
The light was reddening and Zastis no doubt on the rim of the east when they joined for the third time. He was much slower now. He lay back under her ministrations, gasping, and sometimes laughing in a way that pleased her: Beneath his hide he had some sense of the absurd. By now her own lust was at its wits’ ends. No sooner had they amalgamated than she found release. Remembering the dictates of Cah, she expressed herself in groans and sighs. Left to himself he followed her swiftly, and more noisily, and falling back, put an arm over her waist.
Later, food was brought to the door. Arud shared the supper with his bedmate, baked fish and cheese, figs and wine. She might have fought him for it otherwise, and perhaps he saw that, too, in her eyes.
When calm, his accent was nearly shot of the Iscaian blur. So there was no doubt when he told her she must stay with him for the night.
She had expected that. To make him want her for longer would be more chancy.
Even so, she had begun to have faith in him. She lavished on him a tenderness she had never felt for any man but sometimes pretended to out of affection. She played his body like an instrument—it was greedy but not insensitive. She offered him the bed-games of dancers and warriors and the slight but inventive perversions of the Saardsin court. He gulped all down. He was a pleasure-lover, and, too, teachable. He did not, of course, want to know anything about her.
At last he slept heavily. She lay beside him, pondering the temple, how it left him alone and shut in with a vicious Zakr “slave. But she was only a woman. She would not, for all her foul blood, be able to overcome the power of Cah, the omnipotence of men. Possibly, that would prove true.
When she was dozing, near morning, she feh him wake. He went to the vessel to urinate. Returned to the bed, she knew he lay a while in turn, looking at her. She could tell it was not only desire, now, but what else it was, she was unable to guess.
She acted an awakening. He put his hand on her, and caressed her lightly. And then he spoke the perfect words.
“Cah’s womb, but I’d like to take this with me.”
“Do it,” said Panduv. “They daren’t refuse you, here.” He was paying little attention. She continued carefully, “They said you have a long tour before you, through the mountains. The women there will be nothing. Thin as sticks—worse than I am. And not half so wise. No other holy-girl would have the stamina to make the journey with you. But I’m strong. My body is used to grueling exercise.” Then, Panduv made her voice velvet, she called him love-names, and kneeling, pressed herself to him, and murmured into his ear, “I love you. Cah’s stricken me. Let me be your property. Don’t leave me here to joy common louts. My flesh has known your flesh. After all, if you turn sick of me, if I offend you—you can sell me on the road.”