Emissary (17 page)

It was a marvellous sensation and Ana genuinely did feel every inch of herself relax beneath the strong-fingered ministrations of Kett, for perhaps the first time since entering the palace.

Warmed pouches of wheat were placed on her eyelids whilst Kett finished smoothing the oil into the front of her body and Ana felt herself drifting into a light doze, until she heard a voice that she recognised, and it instantly chilled her to the marrow.

‘Almost ready?’ the voice lisped.

‘Just her hair to be dried, brushed and dressed,’ Elza said softly.

‘Kett, you’ve done well,’ said the voice, ‘she looks calm—just how we need her.’

Kett said nothing and Ana felt frozen to the marble-surfaced table on which she lay, naked and vulnerable.

‘Ana,’ Salmeo said firmly. ‘You are almost ready in your preparations.’ He removed the wheat bags and she managed to muster a small amount of defiance to load into her stare. ‘Just hair and clothes to go,’ he continued, hardly noticing her glower but looking up and down her body making soft noises of appreciation.

‘I don’t need your help to get dressed, Grand Master Salmeo,’ she replied but carefully tempered her voice.

He stroked her belly, and his gap-toothed smile was prompted at her flinch. ‘No, but I am required to perform one final act upon you before I hand you over to our Zar for his pleasure.’

She sat up, fearful, and Elza made a hushing sound. ‘Now, Miss Ana, this is the usual practice, the way of the harem.’

‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned Salmeo.

He sighed theatrically. ‘Pity, I thought we could make this easy on you, Ana.’ He clapped his soft hands and four grave-looking Elim arrived. ‘Do I need to ask these men to assist?’ He held his sharp-pointed fingernail in the air,
freshly painted red for the occasion. ‘Make a decision, Ana. It can be a crowd or it can be intimate—just the two of us…again.’

She knew she had lost her small fight and nodded, holding back the tears at her hopeless rebellion.

A signal from Salmeo dismissed the Elim. Ana stole a desperate glance at a frightened-looking Kett and nodded, begging him to understand the intent of her message. He nodded back. He had understood.

Salmeo missed neither gesture, although he pretended he noticed nothing. ‘Go about your other business, Kett. I’ve left a list of errands—they require you to go to the bazaar.’

Kett bowed and hurried away, hardly daring to believe that he had all but been given permission to go precisely where he had planned to.

‘Can Elza stay?’ she begged.

‘Leave us, woman,’ Salmeo said cruelly in answer. ‘She cannot save you this, Ana. Where is the emollient?’ He directed his question at the slave who dutifully held out a pot of the paste Ana recognised from her first night in the palace. Then she patted Ana on the leg and left her to Salmeo.

They were alone and so she closed her eyes to shut him out.

‘As I told you once before, Ana, you can make this go easy or if you fight me you can make it hurt.’

‘Just do it!’ she growled, tears flowing freely now through her tightly clenched eyelids.

She missed his lascivious smile as he first caressed her between her legs before he plunged his fingers into her body once again, taking his time, massaging her so she would open more willingly. He moved his fingers into and out of her, lingering, knowing just where to touch her to win a gasp.

‘Feels nice, doesn’t it,’ he said, knowing she was holding her breath at the sensation. ‘Don’t clench against my fingers, Ana. Relax yourself. It’s good practice for Zar Boaz.’

She refused to say anything, hating herself for responding physically, even though his touch made the bile rise to her throat. Sadly the effect it had on her traitorous body was the opposite, although she fought against rising in tandem with the soft throb he had won from her beneath his pudgy fingers.

‘Now, Ana,’ he said, voice thick with his own lust, ‘I can see you’ll be very responsive to our Zar. Right here,’ he said, pushing and rubbing harder, ‘is where he needs to touch you to make you slippery and ready for him. If he doesn’t do it, do it to yourself, girl, or what he does do will hurt badly. He will have little idea, I’m guessing. All clumsy thrusts and eagerness, I’m sure, not precise and soft…and knowledgeable like Salmeo,’ he lisped in a lover’s voice, tantalising her further with his oiled fingers until she
groaned. She tried to push his hand away but he slapped her hard.

‘Don’t, Ana. This is my time with you and I’m giving you a very good lesson. Without this advice it could go badly tonight. Remember what I’ve said, what I’ve shown you today.’ Ana felt her whole body trembling, privately begging him to finish what he’d begun, but still somehow resisting the call of his insistent fingers.

Suddenly he stopped and she all but shrieked, not sure whether it was from disappointment or relief.

‘No finishing for you, Ana. We want you swollen and eager like this. You must remember this feeling. This is the point you must reach tonight before he enters you and then you will be ready and it won’t hurt and you will satisfy him because your own urges will be in concert with his. Do not try and take your own pleasures either, my girl.’ He ignored her soft panting. ‘The Valide will give you strict counsel before you are led into the Zar’s chambers, but heed my own warning—you are there purely to satisfy Zar Boaz, not the other way around. You will do everything he requests, perform any act he requires. Do you understand?’

She nodded bleakly, hating the unsated feeling that her body was experiencing as it slid from the delicate ecstasy that the eunuch had so cunningly achieved. Salmeo’s little finger slipped back into her and she gasped again.

‘Relax, Ana,’ he said and she saw his smile this time as his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. ‘Now to the true purpose of my visit. I must break your hymen so you don’t give our Zar any trouble entering you.’

And Salmeo put his stained red nail to its ugly purpose as Ana arched her back and cried out her pain and her resentment.

She bled, proving once again that Lazar had delivered the perfect prize to the harem.

Pez’s plans to see Zafira had unravelled. He had not been able to find her in the morning as he’d intended and things were getting rather late in the day now after his run-in with Lazar. He had tried to find Ana but had learned through one of the Elim that she was being prepared for the Zar. He made use of the quiet to wield the Lore to help mend the crack that Lazar’s fist had inflicted on his jaw but it didn’t do much to lessen the pain. That would be with him for a while until it fully healed.

He decided that flying to the temple was just too risky—he had been flying too much lately. Instead he slipped away from the palace in the late afternoon and took a stroll down to the temple. As always when passing through the grand bazaar Pez got lost in his own thoughts. He loved it in this bustling, thriving city within the city, but because there were so many people around him, and Pez had allowed his concentration to lapse, he did not notice the figure that followed him down the hill from the palace and blended into the moving mass of humanity.

He was instantly recognisable to most but unless he was actually performing for them they tended to leave him to himself as many were frankly scared of the contrary dwarf. Pez did nothing to alleviate this vague sense of disquiet for passers-by and kept up a mindless stream of gibberish interspersed with humming. It took little effort on his part and allowed him to drift in his thoughts until he arrived at the temple, where he did find Zafira, laying out some sea daisies before the statue of Lyana.

He cartwheeled around the temple, inwardly begging the Goddess to forgive him his silly antics in her place of quiet worship, knowing in his heart she would likely find it amusing.

‘Ah, Pez, I wondered when I’d see you.’

‘I want some fruit,’ he called aggressively, rubbing his jaw gingerly from the pain of talking. He grabbed her arm, listing all the names of the fruits he loved, and dragged her into the far corner, checking surreptitiously that there were no other people in the temple.

‘I came earlier,’ he whispered.

Zafira was surprised by his behaviour but then again took it in her stride. She had long ago given up second-guessing why Pez did anything. ‘I had things to do.’

‘Well, I have more important things for you to do. I told you, I need some fruit!’ Pez respected her privacy but couldn’t hide his own worry.

‘Oh?’

‘Take me to your kitchen, flitchen, gitchen, ditchen.’

Zafira beckoned. ‘Come, Pez, I have some fruit upstairs,’ she said, openly playing along. Then whispered: ‘Let us take a final cup of quishtar together before our lives change irrevocably.’

‘Mine already has,’ he mumbled.

But she had turned away and Pez was not forced to see the pain fleet across her wrinkled face at his words. He followed her now in silence, dragging his knuckles on the ground as he had seen the monkeys in the zoo move, slowly ascending the stairs.

Once upstairs he moved to the window, staring out wistfully.

‘We are alone,’ she confirmed, sensing his anxiety, needing to assure him that he could drop his act.

He didn’t turn from the window but spoke softly. ‘You must leave Percheron today…now.’

She smiled gently. ‘Leave?’

‘It’s time,’ he said, more kindly. He glanced around, ensuring no-one could possibly eavesdrop, and as an extra measure reached out with the Lore, felt nothing. He said what was on his mind. ‘I know who Maliz is.’

Zafira took her time answering. Pez assumed it was so she could wipe the alarm from her expression at his words but he was wrong. Fear was etched clearly on her face and had no intention of leaving. ‘Already?’

He nodded, shouted out the names of more fruit in a demanding voice this time before dropping almost to a whisper again. ‘It can be no-one else. He sensed my presence at the palace and knows Lyana will be close, but then you already know who she is.’ He didn’t mean it to sound quite like the accusation it did. ‘I want pomegranates!’ he yelled and then fell quiet, staring out from her window at Beloch, as Zafira maintained her own dread silence whilst she brewed quishtar.

He tested his surrounds once again with the Lore and finally permitted himself to feel safe. ‘Is it my imagination or does Beloch have cracks in his stone that were not there before?’

Zafira joined him at the small window, handing him a steaming bowl of quishtar. ‘I’ve never seen that before and I look at Beloch every day. How odd.’

‘His brother’s too far away for me to note if he’s cracking too,’ Pez said, wincing at the hot liquid around his aching mouth.

‘They are crumbling like us,’ she said sadly.

‘We’ve never been stronger, Zafira, we have to believe this.’

‘Who is it?’ she said, an edge in her voice.

‘Can you not guess?’ It wasn’t meant to be mischievous. He wanted to see if the clues were strong enough for Zafira to work out.

She frowned and sipped her brew. ‘I obviously know him for you to suggest I guess.’

He nodded gravely and she held his stare.

She puzzled at it for a few moments before saying, ‘The Vizier?’

Pez closed his eyes momentarily in silent despair. Maliz had been under their noses for perhaps a year and they hadn’t noticed. Yet the clues had been there—Zafira’s guess confirmed it.

‘Am I right?’ She sounded incredulous.

He nodded sombrely. ‘I believe Maliz has taken over Tariq, yes.’

She turned away from the window, distracted but not disbelieving of him. ‘How can it be? How did we miss it?’ she hissed.

‘It is the way of how he works, Zafira. We are not meant to know. That’s his disguise but it works in our favour too. He doesn’t know who we are either.’

‘But the changes—they’re so obvious,’ she countered, frustrated as she put her bowl down. ‘We should have been more focused. We should have been looking for him.’

‘And we would not have arrived at this conclusion any earlier, I’m sure of it.’

‘What makes you sure of his identity?’

‘Something Lazar said triggered the thought and then it was so obvious I’ve hated myself since,’ he said, touching his jaw.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

He waved away her enquiry to let her know it wasn’t important.

His discomfort was instantly forgotten when Zafira exclaimed ‘Ana!’ clutching a hand to her chest.

Pez nodded. ‘You could have told me what you suspected and not let me have to work it out for myself,’ he admonished softly.

‘Ellyana insisted we say nothing to anyone about Ana.’

He disliked Ellyana all the more for hearing that comment. She had known from the start about all of them but continued to deliberately keep them in the dark, blundering around, not trusting anyone but themselves. He forced himself to move on, rather than dwell on Ellyana. ‘Well, Lazar and I agree that Ana is safer at the palace than anywhere else. She has certain protections that the harem gives her. Tariq has little access to her physically.’

Zafira sneered. ‘Protection of sorts. If Maliz suspected who Ana is he would already be making his moves to destroy her.’

‘Well, he doesn’t suspect yet, but we have to be very careful. That’s why I think you should leave the temple, leave Percheron.’

‘What prompted this? Tariq?’

‘Everything! Tariq, Lazar returning to the city, which will reveal you as a liar. And I discovered that Ana’s been formally chosen by Boaz. She will be presented tonight. There’s so much to discuss but no time.’

The priestess did not seem perturbed by any of this news and returned to Ana’s true role, the one
that mattered to Zafira. ‘Have you spoken to Ana about…’

‘Yes. She accepts…as Ana always accepts.’

‘She has known all along. She just had to find it deep within. She was drawn to Lyana’s statue, the temple, she knew.’

‘I wish I knew what happens next.’

‘None of us do, Pez. That’s how it always is. We fight when required.’

‘Fight? How?’ He aired his thoughts aloud only through frustration. Pez knew Zafira had no answers.

She shook her head helplessly. ‘I really don’t know. That’s why I won’t leave.’

‘You have to leave,’ he insisted. ‘You are in danger here.’

‘More danger than you or Ana?’ Pez hadn’t expected her to debate the point and had no ready answer, so she continued. ‘Don’t be naive, Pez. I felt the danger before you did. You may recall our conversation here thirteen or so moons ago when I mentioned that I felt I was part of something but didn’t know what. I was frightened, you may also remember.’

‘I do.’

‘Well, I’m still frightened but now I know what I’m part of and I won’t run from it. Lazar’s return is the least of my worries. This is my calling. This is why I’m here. I just wish I wasn’t so old and useless to her cause, but still Lyana has chosen me as she has chosen you and Ana.’

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps I’ve already played my part. Perhaps in having conversations with you and Lazar on the evening of the Choosing and then Ana through that same night, my role is already done. The temple is where we have all met. It might be that I bind us through the temple which is the focus of Lyana in Percheron—all that is left of her.’

Pez followed her line of argument. ‘Not all. The stone creatures echo her rule.’

‘What use are they to her now?’ she asked, and there was a tone of hopelessness in her voice.

‘Who knows? When we were moving Lazar from the temple on the day of his flogging to Star Island for secrecy, Ellyana made us row her up to Beloch so she could touch him—perhaps we should read something into that gesture?’

‘Bah, that was out of respect.’

‘No, Zafira. I paid attention. She spoke to him. It was a chant or a prayer or just words of encouragement. I couldn’t hear what she said but I understood their intent. She was communicating with the giant.’

The priestess appeared sceptical. ‘What’s your point?’

‘I feel like I’m ploughing through a swamp in my thoughts. I have no point. I have only seemingly meaningless observations to offer.’

‘You think the stone creatures of Percheron are
somehow involved in our struggle?’ she asked incredulously.

He shook his head, knew it sounded ridiculous. ‘As you say, none of us know much at all. We fight when required.’

The thought of the giant being somehow alive lingered between them, though, and they both glanced again at the impressive crack down his near side.

‘You don’t think he’s crumbling, do you?’ she said flatly. ‘You have a different idea of what’s occurring here.’ It felt like an accusation now.

Pez looked at her and his dark eyes gleamed. He shrugged. ‘He could be emerging.’

More surprise for Zafira. ‘Well, for all the fear you’ve brought with you today, Pez, I’m pleased you haven’t lost your whimsical style. A giant emerging from stone?’

‘He was entrapped in stone. He was real once.’

‘We’re talking centuries and centuries ago. You think he lives?’

Pez grinned and there was mischief in it. His expression heartened the priestess on a day when her heart should feel dark and heavy, aching with grief at the knowledge that Maliz had already risen.

The dwarf continued. ‘I don’t know, I’m simply airing random thoughts.’

‘There’s nothing random about you, Pez. You are the messenger, we should heed your words.’ She looked again at Beloch. ‘Why now?’

Pez became serious again. ‘Ana said something intriguing. She mentioned that this time, this battle, it would be different. I don’t know what she means by that—I don’t even know if
she
does but she seemed determined that the struggle would be different.’

‘And you think it could be Beloch and Ezram?’

‘Zafira, my mind is wandering everywhere,’ he admitted wearily. ‘Yesterday I was convinced it was something else, today I’m thinking it’s the stone creatures.’

‘All of them? Crendel, Darso?’

He nodded. ‘If the giants, why not the others?’

The priestess shook her head in attempt to ward off his incredible ideas. ‘Who did you imagine it was yesterday?’

‘I don’t know if I should share my thoughts, Zafira. You don’t share what you know.’

The accusation hurt. She grimaced. ‘No more secrets between us, Pez, I promise.’

He regarded her for a long time, decided she meant it. ‘I thought it was Lazar.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I know he’s not random either. He is involved for a reason. Ellyana’s loyalty to him suggests that. She wanted him to live but she wanted no-one to know. She has been waiting for something…something to occur or some secret signal to be given.’ He shook his head. ‘I hate all this guessing.’

‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I can’t confirm if
he’s the difference but I do know Lazar is involved.’

He swung around and faced her expectantly, a sense of anger behind that expression.

She explained, her palms up to suggest it was not much to go on. ‘Ellyana admits she doesn’t know what his part in this cycle is but that he is involved and will play a critical role. She said, as we were fighting for his life, that never before had the Lazar aspect been involved. He was a new player in the game of gods. This time it was to be different.’

‘That’s how Ana feels but she didn’t pinpoint Lazar. How could she? She thinks he’s dead!’

‘I promise that’s as much as I know,’ Zafira concluded. ‘I can’t tell you if he makes the difference but he is certainly an innovation and perhaps Ellyana was suggesting that he could be the element that tips the scales.’

‘How? Why?’

She shrugged in answer. ‘Ellyana was determined to save his life, although I think there were moments there when she, too, felt we had lost him.’

‘Why the secrecy, though? Why so much pain for those who care for Lazar?’

‘As always, secrets can protect. I have to presume that she is deliberately keeping Ana and Lazar apart, deliberately keeping him away from the palace. Jumo’s pain cannot be helped. But she probably gave herself time to see how Lazar fits
into the whole battle. And now that you’ve discovered the Vizier for who he truly is, I can only say she was right in doing so. If all of Lyana’s warriors were in one spot, it would give Ana away immediately.’

‘Well, it won’t last, Zafira. As I said, Lazar’s returning to the city.’