Dangerous Gifts (28 page)

I shuddered. “Politics.”

“Indeed.”

“So,” I said. “Do you still want me to listen to people talk about stuff I don’t understand and which, quite frankly, will bore me so much I doubt I’ll be able to remember a word of it?”

“Yes.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Something
is
going on, Babylon. Something someone with influence in the Section doesn’t want me to find out. This makes me
exceptionally
eager to find out what, in fact, it is, and who is behind it.”

His eyes glittered darkly, and I wondered if whoever it was realised just what they’d taken on when they decided to mess with Darask Fain.
Including me
, I thought with something of a chill, although messing with him hadn’t been my original intention.

“So long as I can still watch Enthemmerlee,” I said.

“Since I will be there, it can be assumed that that damned oath of yours will ensure that I fling myself between her and any potential assassin.”

I didn’t think it would improve matters if I pointed out that some weapons can go through two people almost as easily as one.

“What will you be doing?” I said. “Apart from any flinging that may be required.”

“I am going to be attending as Darask Fain, potential investor. I, too, will be listening to the chatter, but I may be seen as a possible rival. People might be less cautious about what they say in your hearing.”

“You think they might try and seduce me with exciting talk of crops and trade percentages?”

“I doubt they will try and seduce anyone at all. Not at the Gudain court.”

It was time I took over from Rikkinnet. I wasn’t looking forward to standing outside Enthemmerlee’s door all night; too damn much time to think.

R
IKKINNET GAVE ME
an unnervingly sharp once-over. “Trouble?”

I shook my head. “Nothing to do with this, no.” At least, I hoped not. “Rikkinnet, do you know the servants here?”

“No, I do not,” she said. “You think because I follow Enthemmerlee I am a servant?”

“Dammit, no! I just thought you might know the household, that’s all. Last night the servants were partying, because of Enthemmerlee; I couldn’t tell if anyone was missing. If they didn’t think it was something to celebrate, they might be a threat. Or a potential threat.”

“I think that Dentor is a much more obvious threat.”

I gritted my teeth. “It isn’t always the obvious threat that bites your arse.”

“One Ikinchli with a badly aimed stone is not all Ikinchli.”

“It wasn’t...” I looked at the dent in my shield, and was suddenly overwhelmed with a sort of weary anger. “Never mind. I’m just trying to do my job. If you think I’m the wrong person for it, you persuade them to send me home. Right now, I’d damn well thank you for it.”

At that moment Enthemmerlee’s door opened. “Madam Steel? May I speak with you?”

“Of course,” I said, with some relief.

“Rikkinnet, please, go; you haven’t eaten.”

She looked at the two of us with an expression I couldn’t read, nodded, and walked off.

“And you, have you eaten?” Enthemmerlee said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Enthemmerlee gestured for me to sit down. She remained standing herself, fidgeting with a lamp, adjusting the wick, turning it down low. The room, like all the ones in this damned house, was too low in the ceiling for its height. It was too large, and too full of oversized, elaborate furniture; turning down the lamp should have made it cosy, but it simply allowed shadows to leap from the walls and cluster around the big, empty bed. I shuddered, hard, but fortunately Enthemmerlee wasn’t looking.

“I understand we have another guest?” Enthemmerlee said.

“Oh, yes, Mokraine. I’m sorry about that.”

“Sorry? Why?”

“Well, it might complicate things. I had no idea he planned to follow me here... Well, I don’t think he was following me, actually. I don’t know why he’s here. Neither does he.” Well, not in a way I could understand, anyway.

“He doesn’t know?”

“No. He gets confused. A lot.”

“And he is a warlock? I know almost nothing about those who use magic. We have so little here.”

“He is. He was very powerful, once. I don’t think he’d damage anyone on purpose, but he should be treated with caution.”

“Poor man. Is there anything we can do to help him?”

“I don’t know. Him being here... I’ve no idea if that’s a good sign or a bad one, and I don’t know what drew him any more than he does. He might actually be useful, but he is, potentially, dangerous.”

“Should we perhaps provide him with transport home?”

“I think it might be advantageous to keep him around a bit, if you’ve no objection. There are things he can do, even in his present state, that might be useful.”

“Then I will be guided by you on this. But if it seems he may become a threat, your advice will be required on how to deal with him.”

“Of course.” What advice I could give, I didn’t know. Apart from knocking him out when he was distracted, I really wasn’t sure how to deal with a (possibly) very powerful and (definitely) less than sane warlock. Fain had claimed to have a plan; I wondered if he really did.

“Is it right that he is able to read minds?”

“Not precisely. Who...”

“Oh, Scholar Bergast mentioned something.”

“Well, he’s got it wrong. Mokraine can pick up powerful emotions, occasional individual images, but not complex thoughts. He couldn’t snatch the words you’re about to say out of your head. He might have some idea about how you felt at the time, but that’s all. And maybe if you had a very clear mental image of something, he might get that. At least, I think that’s how it works.”

“I see.”

“Was it Mokraine you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No. I... Madam Steel... I... Oh, this is very difficult. I hope you will forgive me.”

I wondered, with unseemly hope, if I was about to be fired.

“I need...” Enthemmerlee moved her hands in a gesture of graceful helplessness. “I need your advice.”

“Oh, right.”

“Please, sit. I...”

I sat down. Her cheeks glowed with that soft green blush, and she stared anywhere but at me. I began to get an inkling.

“Lady Enthemmerlee? This advice, are you asking me because of my profession? Not the soldiering, I mean.”

“I hope... Yes. I don’t mean to, I know you are here as a bodyguard, and I don’t wish to have you think that I see you as...”

“A whore?” I said, as gently as I could.

“Is that...”

“One word for it. There are others. I don’t know if you can understand this, I know things are very different for you. But it’s what I do, Lady Enthemmerlee, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m very good at it. I trained to do it. I make people happy. If I get it right, they go back to their lives feeling better about themselves and the world around them. So you won’t offend me by calling me what I am. Please, ask me anything you want, I’ll try to help.”

“For us,” she said, still staring at her hands, “I mean, for the Gudain... We do not talk of it. It is like, well, urination. Necessary, but not something one thinks about much, or for polite conversation. Or any conversation, except to speak to a healer, if things go wrong. One does it when it is necessary.”

“But what about desire?” I said. “People can make all the rules they like, but lust happens.”

“Did you notice anything about the streets of the town, as we drove through?” she said.

“It looked rather empty,” I said.

“Did you notice
who
was on the streets?”

I thought back. “Ikinchli, in the main. Servants. A few Gudain.”

“Yes.” She stood up, and went to the window, and drew the curtain back a little; I nipped up alongside her, hoping those damn guards on the gate were still doing their job.

“Lady, it would ease my mind a deal if you wouldn’t stand in the window with the light behind you.”

“Oh, of course.” She sighed, and moved away, letting the heavy curtain fall back. “I do not know what I expected to see.” She turned to me, her gold eyes lambent in the soft light of the lamp. “There are more Ikinchli than Gudain. Many more. The trend has been increasing for several generations. We –
Gudain
– no longer breed well.”

“The smoke,” I said, without thinking.

If she was shocked at what I’d said, she gave no sign. “The
privaiya
smoke. It affected you, which is proof of something I have suspected for a long time. The smoke is called the gift of the Great Artificer, given only to Gudain, so that they may control their animal lusts, and concentrate instead upon the higher purposes for which they were created. But you are not Gudain; and that to me says that it is no tool of any Great Artificer, but a drug and a curse.”

“But you attended,” I said.

“Oh, yes. To do so was, well, politic. I suspected it might no longer affect me, and I was right.” She clenched her hands. “Yet if I campaign to ban its use, as part of
privaiya
worship, I will be seen as campaigning against the Great Artificer, as introducing animalistic Ikinchli ways... The Gudain need no further reason to fear and mistrust me. Yet they are wiping themselves out. The Ten Families, particularly: they bear fewer children every year.

“You must have noticed how these halls echo; this house is meant for a family, not this sad remnant. And once it would have been full. But our servants outnumber us ten to one. And this creates another problem. Selinecree... There were no men of the appropriate class for Selinecree to marry when she came of age, and she would not consider marrying outside the Ten Families. Many others are the same. I don’t know if you have worked with beasts, you have had such an interesting life...”

“I’m not sure what you mean, like herdbeasts?” I said. “Not since I was very young. Mainly, in latter years, I’ve just acted as a guard when they were being driven across bad country, that sort of thing. Why?”

“If the flock is too small, and the beasts are bred too close, there are consequences. Unhealthy ones.”

“Oh. I know what you mean. I’ve seen it in court circles, and in isolated villages.” I could remember more than one place where the majority of the inhabitants all had disturbingly similar features... Not to mention a few other things about them that were disturbing.

“Chitherlee’s mother. She is weak. Both physically and... She would never have been able to look after Chitherlee. And she is not the only one.”

She rested her hands on the table, opening and closing her fingers so the delicate webbing between them stretched, relaxed, stretched again. “The Gift of the Artificer. Perhaps it is. Perhaps the Great Artificer did not like his own creation very much.”

She pushed herself away from the table, and started to pace the room, shadows passing over her as she moved. “I have read histories. And I have learned this. Being outnumbered, especially in a time when resources are scarce, makes any group more defensive, more determined to attack any threat before it even exists. I believe this imbalance in the population is a large part of why treatment of the Ikinchli has worsened, and more severe laws have been passed, even in my own lifetime. I wonder sometimes if it is merely a just reward for the folly and arrogance of my...
former
race. That perhaps it would be better this way; that eventually the Ikinchli, with no help from me, would be freed from their oppression, because there will be no Gudain left to oppress them. But foully as the Gudain have behaved, I cannot stand by and witness this. And even if I did, they will cling to power for more generations, during which more children will be born like Chitherlee’s mother and more Ikinchli will suffer. And it is not just the smoke. The smoke is only one of the Gudain’s attempts to separate ourselves from desire, to prove how very unlike the Ikinchli we are. Even without the smoke, we are crippled by this. So, I need your help.”

I stared at her. “What exactly do you want of me, Lady Enthemmerlee? I’m not a herb-wife or a healer; I certainly don’t know how to make people more fertile. Any expertise I have tends in the other direction, to be blunt.”

“No. It’s your... other profession, that I think... I mean, I hope...” She tugged at one of the curtains so hard that a section of it tore away from its mountings, and she looked at it helplessly as it sagged. “I’m sorry, this is very difficult for me. But my entire race is out of the habit, the practice of desire. It is destroying us.”

Oh, boy. “I’m a good whore, my lady, but I think getting a whole
species
primed for wick-dippage is more than I could manage.”
Not when you were the Avatar of Babaska,
memory muttered. I shoved it aside.

Enthemmerlee looked bemused. “Wick...?”

Oops. People who never talk about nookie aren’t going to have a lot of metaphors for it. “Sex,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “If you could, from your experience, advise me, yes, I would be grateful. But I was merely explaining the background.”

Well, it isn’t unusual to have a client walk a mile around the thing they want to say before they say it.

“Background to what?” I said.

She sat down. “When my marriage took place,” she said, “I thought I was prepared. I knew the basics. I knew that once it was over, the transformation would begin, that it would be painful, perhaps fatal. I did not know that even making the attempt would be so difficult for me. It was not necessary for me to admit to, even to
feel
desire. Malleay had to.”

I nodded. He had to feel desire, or the essential aspect of the marriage, Enthemmerlee’s transformation, couldn’t have taken place. Gudain and human anatomy were that alike, at any rate.

“If it had not been for Lobik,” Enthemmerlee went on, “I think we would have failed. He was so kind. So understanding. With me, and with Malleay. He understood that... He knew, and he...”

I waited.

“He knew I felt desire. For him. And he was not disgusted. He was happy.” She realised she was crying, and wiped impatiently at her eyes. “I did not know... I did not realise it was possible. There was even pleasure. Not much, that first time, but it was there. But poor Malleay... He tries to think like a revolutionary, but he is still a Gudain. He felt desire, but this disturbed him; greatly.” She paused.