Beasts of Tabat (21 page)

“But certainly not unknown. You’ve looked the other way on more than one occasion.”

“Can you imagine how much scandal this would cause?”

“I would think you would welcome this. My changing my habits. Perhaps attaching myself to a student enough to want to step aside as Champion.”

“Is that what this is all about? It’s still utterly wrong, Bella. They all worship you. Don’t destroy their idol. Don’t dishearten them.”

Before I can reply, Skye returns. Her arms fold in mimicry of Lucya’s.

Lucya says, “Skye, this is not permitted.”

Skye says, “Why? I’m old enough to take a lover.”

“It’s not about your age. Teachers should not fuck students. If you cannot stop listening to your quim’s demands, go and take a lover from among the other girls. There’s plenty enough of that.”

Skye goes beet red, but squares her shoulders. She looks to me to defend all this.

“We can wait, Lucya,” I say. Skye’s mouth thins but she doesn’t say anything.

“Very well,” Lucya says.

There is silence. It becomes apparent that Lucya has no intention of allowing Skye and I to speak to each other alone. I raise an eyebrow at her.

“It’s not as though I won’t get to talk to her at some point,” I say. “She is my student, after all.”

“I will have a promise that no conversations of love will take place,” Lucya says. “Else you will be her teacher no longer.”

This does rouse a protest from Skye, who steps forward and says, “But my parents are paying to have me study with Bella Kanto. That is why they agreed to enroll me in the school.”

Trust Lucya to squeeze a student whose skill should have won her a scholarship.

I glance at her. She understands what I’m thinking and manages to shrug and look a little shamefaced all at the same time.

Skye says, “Please, headmistress. I … we … will do as you say. But I must study with her. I must learn everything that she has to teach me.”

She looks back and forth between the two of us. Her eyes are open wide, imploring as though we were considering sentencing her to execution or not. How long has it been since I felt anything that deeply?

Lucya looks to me for confirmation. I nod.

A year is not very long.

* * *

Lucya stares me down as I leave. Underneath the argument about Skye lies the older one, the one about the Championship. Winter’s battle is in a week. She’ll try again to make me step down.

She doesn’t understand. That’s not what the city wants, nor is it what I want—to give way bloodlessly, painlessly. They’ll take Winter’s crown from me only with a fight.

Too many rules. Too much to think about, too many people trying to make me do what they want.

So that night, I go out. I start in Berto’s, where things are civilized, and after that I seek other places. I drink strong ale and stronger wine, and find a group of fellow Gladiators more than willing to accompany me on my rounds.

We end the night in a brothel, where I take a pair of brothers to bed, young and supple as Selkies. But even as they work in tandem, touching, stroking, licking, biting, it’s not them I’m thinking of. I’m thinking too hard about things and I can’t lose myself in the act. Finally I send them away and gather my clothing.

Home and bed. That is what it is to be Bella Kanto.

* * *

I have promised not to fuck Skye.

I have not promised not to woo her.

Servants and tradesfolk are up at this hour, but no one else. Gray light filters over the trees outside, their bare branches a dark shimmer of ice.

I love this time of day, when the world is chill and still.

Skye is waiting when I arrive outside the school. Her cloak is new and stylish, thick blue wool bordered with gold braid, embroidered with little blue flowers that peek out slyly from amid the profusion of gilt, as sly as her face peeping out of its hood, smiling and greeting me.

“Have you been waiting long?” I say as I approach.

She shakes her head, and I smile.

“No matter,” I tease her. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

We walk towards the tram. Ice glazes the streets and the aetheric lights flicker, readying to go out. Blue shadows jolt along the gutters.

“You must get used to early hours,” I say.

“Why?” she says, challenge in her tone.

“A Gladiator must be ready to fight at any hour. You must learn to shake off slumber, not succumb to it and grow fat and lazy.”

She rolls her eyes.

Half a block down, we pass Figgis Bakery. Its ovens already send out smoke, and the smell of browning loaves reaches us as we pass and a cart trundles out, readying for deliveries. We both inhale appreciatively, exchange glances, and smile.

“Wait here,” I say, and vanish into Figgis for a moment.

When I come back out, she keeps pace with me. I like that. Most folk complain I walk too fast, my stride too long for them. Skye doesn’t even seem winded. The advantage of youth: your lungs are new and fresh, ready to give you everything you need.

I say, “You’ve seen the Winter Garden before, surely?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s what they call the Sea Garden, but only at certain times of the year.”

“Like Winter?” She laughs at the obviousness of the answer and almost gives me a wink before she reconsiders, sobering. She’s not sure what to make of things still. She’s worried how to woo me, how to chain me to her. I’ve seen that look a thousand times before. I know how to play that mood, give them an edge of anxiety before reassuring them, make them think that they’re making me love them, while all the time they don’t know I’m sneaking up on them, making them love me.

I can’t help it. I’m Bella Kanto.

We round a corner. The crowd of birds perched on the platform’s railing burst upward, fluttering.

The platform holds only a few waiting for the next tram. Before the first morning bell, it runs every twenty glasses, and by the time one is visible creaking its way downward, the platform is almost full. A few of them glance at me and murmur to each other, but no one bothers us. If Skye notices the glances, she says nothing.

We shuffle into the car, holding onto the ironwork sides. The conductor slides the gate shut with a
clang
, and we shudder downward, holding onto the rails to keep ourselves upright. I think of the trams as new, still, though it’s been seven or eight years since they first began to build them. Skye looks out over the city where everything is gray and still, snowflakes swirling as though we were caught in a glass globe.

Wires sing overhead, glistening with melted snow.

The tram empties as the car makes its way down terrace by terrace. We step off at the bottommost, making our way through the crowd waiting to ascend. The sleepy city wakens around us as we make our way towards the docks, shops readying themselves to open, the tea shops already beginning to open their doors and entice early morning customers with the salty, fishy smell of chal. I head toward the western walkway, cut into the cliff face itself by Ellora Two Sails’ magic long ago, that leads to the Sea Gardens.

Half in and half out of the water, the gardens hold marvels of coral in shallow pools, while salt-tolerant plants, blossoms enhanced by magic, thrive in the shelter offered by the cliff wall. Ice clings along the edges of the open water, but the hot springs that bubble up from below the rock keep steam rising from the surface of the water, muting the colors below to pearl and abalone shades. White winter roses, ranging from tight buds to full-blown flowers, lavish with petals and as big as my fist, droop from their hold in crevices dug out of the rock. Snow dusts the upper outcroppings till the gray stone shimmers.

It’s false dawn, the sky beginning to show hints of color. The sound of the waves drown out any sounds from the city behind us. I slip my hand into Skye’s, guiding her through the dimness. She pauses to take off her gloves, then returns her hand to mine, fingers warm against my cold skin.

Pathways wind between the pools, each five feet wide in an intricate latticed pattern. She follows as I guide her out to the southernmost edge, where the cliff to our right gives way to an endless vista of the ocean. On the left, fishing boats are setting out, passing under the massive arch of rock that guards the inner harbor. A thin line marks the eastern horizon; the sun is waking with the city.

Her fingers tremble, trapped in mine. Neither of us speaks.

Past the pools, we reach a promontory some forty feet across with an abrupt stretch downward to the rocks where the waves labor in endless agitation. Stone benches are scattered along the flat platform here.

I use my free hand to fumble in my pocket and take out the paper bag from the bakery. The rolls are still hot from the oven; when I break mine open, steam rises from the interior.

I turn, not facing the open sea, but the trembling light on the city’s edge signaling the morning, and gesture. “Behold, the sunrise!”

We both hold our breath as the sun ventures over the horizon to fling golden light across the terraces and the harbor’s mirror and, not satisfied with the effect, produces a number of flowery pink and purple clouds with which to ornament itself. One of the most beautiful sights I know.

I’ve never brought another person here, never shown anyone this. It was a private pleasure up till now, something that I hid and treasured. But something about Skye makes me want to share it.

The sunlight illuminates her smile, as beautiful as any cityscape could ever be.

I’d thought I would simply bring her here to show her the garden. Not to kiss her, not to take her in my arms.

I remind myself of my promise to Lucya. It stands between Skye and me; keeps me from reaching out as I would like to. More than would
like
. Is it only my imagination that I can feel the warmth of her?

She stands too near.

I lift a hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, and somehow the gesture turns into a caress. She closes her eyes at my touch, but I feel her shiver to her bones.

Everything is touched with light. The waves whisper encouragement. I haven’t felt this alive for so long.

The strength of my desire frightens me. I pull away.

She opens her eyes, searching my face for some clue as to what she should do, but I have no answer to give her.

That frightens me most of all.

* * *

All I can think of is Skye.

When Miche comes to call, I finally send him away. I have no need for him. Life is complicated enough without him in the mix, and Skye has already proven herself a little jealous.

He is unhappy with me, which I expect. But he takes it better than I thought he would.

As he is leaving, he says, “The boy, Teo. Have you thought again about sending him to the circus? It would be a good place for him, and he would learn more there than playing errand boy here.”

Perhaps he’s right, but I shake my head again.

He seems angrier with that than my dismissal, but he shrugs and says, “Let me know if you reconsider.”

* * *

Today Alberic is receiving visitors, and there is no reason for me to be here, other than his desire to show me off, like a dancing doll on a chain, his possession, his thing that will always do as he pleases.

His audience chamber is set with narrow high windows, the glass clear as crystal, free of the bubbles and impurities that those of us not of royal blood must live with. Snow swirls past, so thick that it seems as though it is all the world. It swallows up any other details that might be visible.

Fires roar in two fireplaces, one on either side of the high-backed throne on which he sits. It was created by a Duke three generations back, whose daughter later put it away. What does it say that Alberic found it in the storeroom where it had been set and pulled it out? He is so concerned with the trappings of office. Not for the first time, I wonder what he will do when all of this is no longer his.

He hears a few requests from the Merchants, but they do not truly need his permission to send an expedition past the Southern Isles to the land filled with snow and fire or eastward to the Stonelands. They are merely obeying custom. Even if he wanted to forbid these expeditions, he could not. And why would he want to? This is what has made Tabat so great, its Explorers moving out and bringing back so many things that the city has come to rely on. Like Dryad logs.

After all of this is done, a new group arrives. The Rose Kingdom has sent an envoy to accompany the healer Alberic requested. There is no reason for him to have a skilled healer; he is no more prone to disease than any other man, but he likes to think that he does have something that no one else has, and there are no other such healers in the city.

It must be nice, to have the world dance to your bidding from the day you are born. Perhaps this is why I wonder about Tabat’s future so much, because I am looking forward to seeing this change. Will it change enough to satisfy the slight itch of irritation and envy that his presence raises in me? I don’t know that it will. I have always been skilled at keeping a grudge alive.

I remember my journey to the Rose Kingdom. We came to its western edge and the port there, bordered on one side by the beginnings of the hedge, the forest of thorns created by magic long ago which surrounds the kingdom on three sides leaving it only approachable by the sea. I had gone to bargain for something Alberic claimed he needed, but which, as always, turned out to be a matter of whim. Still, I spent two months there, learning it and its ways. Adelina has written two accounts, as dry and full of historical fact, as though her scholarly writings were creeping into the penny-wide. Perhaps that is why she wishes to write another one, to see if she can make this one interesting.

I do not know if the healer knows what sort of place he has come to. He kneels at Alberic’s feet, and seems too young to have the skill he is said to possess. His head is shaven till you cannot distinguish the color of his hair, other than the fine gilt eyebrows and thin mustache that ornament his face. I do not know that the healer will do well here. The Rose Kingdom is so different and does not have the delineations and compartments of society that fill Tabat. Here he will be an anomaly.