The Diplomat (25 page)

There were few things less appealing than listening to Bannon’s unsettling chatter. “Enjoy your lurking,” Rema said, turning her back on him.

She returned to the midship and sat on a stool near the mast. On the subject of unsettling personalities, it wasn’t long now until she had to face her master. There was no way to know when Ormun would want to hold the marriage, but likely he would be as taken with Elise as Rema herself had been. Her features would seem exotic to him—her white, rounded face, her arched lips and mysterious eyes. He would certainly want her in his bedchamber as soon as possible. The idea of that was too terrible to contemplate, and Rema shut her mind to it completely.

A hand touched her shoulder. It was Elise, beaming as usual. The confession of love had changed her demeanor for the better, impressing a serene assurance upon her words and actions, and every smile she gave Rema seemed to carry a subtle complicity. “That awful captain says it won’t be long now. What will happen when we arrive?”

“You’ll be met at the docks. Then I’ll take you before Ormun and give him my final report. I’ll need to change soon into my uniform.”

“Do you need help getting dressed?”

It was odd to think of the confidence with which she’d fended off Elise’s first clumsy advances. Now, as Elise looked at her with ardent eyes, Rema trembled with frustration in the very places that most desired an enchantress’s touch. She smiled with difficulty. “You’ll have to watch what you say to me in Arann.”

“I dreamed about you last night. You kissed me on the lips and then I kissed you back. But a little lower.”

Gods, she was bold. Rema checked to be sure nobody was standing near them. “You’ll have to watch what you dream too.”

“I’d love to perform that act upon you. I’d make your whole body shiver until you lose that admirable self-control in a fit of moaning. And then I’d sit astride you, my mound pressed to yours, and with every thrust of my hips, you’d surrender yourself a little more to me…”

Rema’s heartbeat gathered pace. “Elsie, you’re going to get us into trouble.”

“Nobody’s listening. Let me talk frankly while I can. I have to keep my mind away from what’s coming.” A forceful ocean breeze swept across them, tossing Elise’s hair into the wind. “I wish I had a moment alone with you. Just one more.”

Given how near they were to Ormun now, it was hardly an unfair request. “I’m sure we could find pretense to retreat to your cabin. You’ll need help packing, for one thing.”

“You sly thing.” Elise’s face lightened beneath a giddy smile. “Then let’s go quickly, before your usual tact returns and you change your mind.”

With the spectacle of land to distract the sailors, the women managed to retreat below decks without attracting notice. Entering Elise’s cabin was much like walking into a library that had recently exploded. Books were everywhere, jumbled in tangles of paper and leather, and the musty odor of their pages seemed to have become a permanent fixture. Clothing spilled from trunks, various trinkets and vials were piled upon the sole table, and ink had been spilled across the floorboards.

“Your brothers were right,” said Rema. “You are messy.”

“A brilliant mind like mine has no time for cleaning.” Elise took a biscuit from a bowl at her bedside. She bit into it, tentatively at first but then furiously as it became clear the biscuit had no intention of being broken. “I hope there’s real food in Arann. If I must be a slave wife, I intend to be the fattest slave wife the Empire has ever seen.”

“Banquets are among the few things I can guarantee you. The imperial court eats to excess.”

“And its master weds to excess. With so many wives already, will I be expected to bear him children?”

“You’ll be expected to share his bed. As you must know already, with your medical books, there are ways to avoid becoming with child. Ormun has so many at this point he won’t even notice if you fail to bear him any.”

“The thought of sharing his bed makes me shudder.” Elise twirled her hair around her fingers. “What if I marry you first? Then Ormun won’t be able to marry me, because I won’t be an unwed princess anymore.”

“You’re already betrothed to him. Your parents agreed.” Rema smiled. “Not that I wouldn’t love to marry you.”

“Think of it. We’d live together in this mansion of yours. Neither of us would do any domestic duties, so the whole house would overflow with my rubbish.”

A warm rush of pleasure moved through Rema’s body. Imagine that—the windows of her mansion obscured by a mountain of books. “I wonder how the master of unions would react. I don’t think he’s ever been called upon to marry two women.”

“In Danosha, people would think the idea was lunacy. Only the church or the king can approve marriages, and the priests all think I have a forked tongue and a lizard’s tail. My father’s a little irreligious, but he’d never offend the church by letting two women be married.”

“Ormun doesn’t care for churches, and neither did his father. Religion carries a different meaning in Amantis. Our people have many faiths, many different gods. We don’t get on our knees before them, but let them walk among us and share our lives.”

“Tell me about them. It’ll be a pleasant distraction.”

Rema sat on the bed with her legs crossed, and Elise knelt opposite her. “The most sacred street in Arann is the Road of the Moon. There are temples to every god and demon there, some shaped like spires, others like grand cathedrals. The most beautiful in my estimation is the shrine of Tolos. It’s an ivory tower covered in fountains.”

“Tolos. That’s the strange cult that worships a half-man, half-woman god, correct?”

“Your books have taught you well. But they’re a gentle sect, rejecting violence and even the consumption of meat, and Tolos is not half-man, half-woman, but neither of the two. Like several of Arann’s philosophers, Tolosians reject that there are only two sexes, claiming that every person has a unique sex of their own.”

“What a beautiful idea. Our priests would be impatient to burn them all alive.”

“They’d be even less impressed by the Church of the Six Suns, whose members worship a pantheon of spirits that walk unseen among the living. Their oracles stand at street corners and shout exaltations every hour of the day. Then there’s the followers of Lameth and Lamella, the Twins of Judgment. It’s said that after we die, Lameth weighs our good, Lamella our evil, and together the siblings determine our fate. Their petitioners and prophets are some of the gloomiest in the city, draped in black and waving censers wherever they travel…”

As Rema described the faiths of the city she loved, Elise listened with rapturous eyes. It was as if her heart already beat to the pulse of Arann, the White Rock of the Plains, the City of Fallen Stars, the Stable of a Thousand Horses…Rema had once wandered Arann’s streets as if intoxicated, seeing in every street and building the promise of her father’s dream. The day Togun died, a blight had set upon the city. But now, gazing at Elise, Rema remembered those feelings anew.

It was as Loric had suggested: there were prayers that one no longer knew how to speak, yet one’s soul still ached with the need to speak them. And perhaps such prayers could be spoken with lips as well as words.

With gentle fingertips, Rema drew Elise’s face toward her own. Their noses grazed, and Elise’s glazed eyes closed in expectation. As their breath mingled, their lips nearly touching, somebody knocked at the door.

Elise leapt up in a comical explosion of temper. “Not again! Door-knocking should be a crime punishable by death!”

Rema gave an unsteady laugh, still dazed by the near-kiss. Elise stamped across the cabin and opened the door. “Go away!”

“I think it might be for the best that I don’t,” said Muhan. He smiled apologetically at Rema. “My dear friends, the captain tells me that in the merest of moments we will be drawing into port. He requests both of you prepared and on deck.”

“I still haven’t put on my uniform.” Rema glanced down at her entirely undiplomatic clothes. “I’ll have to hurry.”

“Muhan, you horrible man,” said Elise. “Knocking on doors is a vile and intrusive thing to do.”

“Don’t take your temper out on him,” Rema said. “We need to get packed and ready. Anything you want to take with you directly, put in a single trunk. Everything else will be moved to the palace over the next few days.”

“You’re both monstrous.” Elise stalked back across the cabin and stood beside her books. “I don’t want to see either of you. Shoo!”

Rema hurried to her own cabin, where she unfolded her clean uniform and began the cherished process of getting dressed. Yorin had done a fine job with the cleaning, and she admired her reflection as she fastened the silver buttons. The coat’s angular cut made her more imposing, and its high collar accentuated the sharp contours of her face. Her fingers had become steady by the time she clasped the seal at her neck.

She strode to the upper deck, her boots ringing on the planks and her luggage rattling behind her. Many of the sailors were busy at work hauling on the sails and eyeing the waters, while the others watched Arann as it passed by without end. It was a city of slums and mansions clustered together in unlikely companionship, of innumerable towers and spires. It had crawled from its valley of birth onto the high sides of the mountains, so that entire streets ran at crazed angles along the cliffs, where tall houses teetered from pale rocks overlooking the sea. If Rema strained her eyes, it was possible to see the immense golden walls of the palace, each cornered with a dome-tipped spire.

The ship sailed by a wide coastal marketplace, and the scent of spices and fruits carried on the humid air. Rema looked about for her companions. Muhan stood nearby, watching the city, while Bannon waited at a distance from the crew. The wide berth they gave him would have been amusing if it weren’t so richly deserved.

After some minutes, Elise’s head rose into view from below deck. Her dress was more modest than usual, loose-fitting at the front and with a wide black skirt that disguised the shapeliness of her hips and legs. She walked toward Rema with a trunk clutched in her arms. Her unhappy face broke into fresh wonder as her gaze met the sprawling city. “It’s larger than I imagined.”

Sailors shouted, sails turned and the ship made its lumbering way toward the broad inlet of one of Arann’s many ports. Numerous galleons and ships waited at dock, their bright wooden sides reflecting the fierce sun. Small boats drifted by with sailors hunched at their bows, and Rema returned a friendly wave while the captain guided his vessel to an empty pier.

Even from deck, it was exhausting to see the activity of the docks; merchants shifted cargo, fishermen unbundled netting, sailors relaxed on the sun-soaked grass and horses pulled carts up the cobblestone road that wound into the city. The imperial escort was waiting among the confusion: a large covered wagon, several guardsmen wearing burnished gold helms, and an imposing man in a long cape—Artunos, one of the court’s two captains of guard.

“I suppose that’s for us,” said Elise, pointing to the imperial party.

“Yes, it is,” said Rema. She rested her fingers on Elise’s shoulder. “Wait here, and I’ll have a word with Muhan and Bannon.”

Elise nodded, her eyes not moving from the escort. Rema left her luggage and dodged the sailors to reach Muhan. “I’d like to invite you to come visit me at court,” she said. “If you mention my name to the guards at the palace gate, they’ll let you in.”

“I look forward to it,” said Muhan. “I suspect you will need some time to settle, so perhaps I shall come visit tomorrow?”

“That would be best.” They both looked to Elise, and when their eyes met again, Rema saw her own discontent reflected in Muhan’s face.

“The poor woman,” he said. “She’s been rare company. Do take care of her.”

“I intend to. I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Yes, it’s so.” Muhan clasped his hands and bowed. “Tomorrow, Rema.”

“Good day, Muhan.”

After a deep breath, Rema walked over to Bannon, who paused from picking at something on his boot. “Big city,” he said. “And it’s hot as hell.”

“You ought to know. I can’t conclude our arrangement today, but I can talk to you in the palace tomorrow. Just ask for me at the door.”

“It would help to have a little coin to spend the night in a pleasant tavern. I don’t know these streets at all, and I don’t fancy rotting away on them.”

Rema frowned; she’d given all her money to Domyr, the Lyornan spy. Reluctantly, she took a ring from her finger and tossed it to Bannon. He gave her a lazy salute and crossed the deck as sailors shuffled in a panic to get out of his way. With a final insolent grin in Rema’s direction, he skipped cat-like down the plank and was soon lost in the crowd. What had she just unleashed upon the city she loved?

The captain detached himself from the muscular pack of sailors. “Well, we’re here,” he said to Rema. “I’m glad to see you brought back everything you needed.”

“Has payment for you and your crew been arranged?”

“Aye, we’ll be paid this evening. The crew are looking forward to being back with their families.”

“I hope all your future voyages are as calm as this. All the best to you, Captain.”

The distant imperial guard shifted impatiently under the sun. Rema returned to Elise’s side. “It’s time,” she said, brushing a long hair from Elise’s cheek. Elise nodded and clutched her trunk close.

They crossed the gangplank and joined a mass of sailors, merchants and fishermen chattering in many languages and weaving around one another as they conducted their day’s affairs. Rema had lost sight of the escort, and she peered through the crowd, trying to remember from where on the ship she’d seen them.

The crowd parted to reveal Artunos approaching with two golden guards at his flanks. He halted and bowed, sweeping his cape before him. As he straightened, his gaze moved to Elise. “She’s an odd-looking one. Do all their women appear so surly?”

“Watch out. She speaks Annari.” Rema smiled. It was typical of Artunos to begin by making a prig of himself. “And I happen to think she’s very attractive.”

“My apologies!” Artunos bowed to Elise, who scowled at him. “Weariness has impaired my discretion. We’ve been waiting for hours, and were beginning to think this would be the wrong day for your arrival.”