High Couch of Silistra (2 page)

“Put the eyepiece against your eyes so that the metal bar between is in contact with the bone at the bridge of your nose. Now, press the left-hand circle, once only.”

I held the expanded cube before my eyes. It was contoured so that it rested against the bones of my face snugly, letting in no light. I pressed the left-hand circle.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then I saw her.

She was standing before a window set into umber gol, the same shade as Rathad’s keep. Her dress was the simple wide-sleeved white and silver of the Keepress, chald-belted, and flowing translucent to the floor. Her belly seemed a trifle rounded, but her breasts were high and firm, the nipples standing well up. I thought her much more beautiful than I. Her skin was the rare Silistran white, transparent and delicate. Her eyes were the gray-green of the predawn sky. Her hair was the color of the finest northern thala, black, blue, and glistening silver. She was smaller than I, wider-boned. Otherwise we were much alike. Her nose was as mine, deliciously straight, chiseled, and haughty. I could see her nostrils flaring as she breathed. Her mouth, also, was like mine, full, sensuous, with a touch of cruelty at each indented corner. Her cheekbones were high and wide, her chin tiny yet firm, with the subtlest hint of a cleft in its middle. But for the size and coloring, her stamp was heavy upon me.

She raised a fine-boned hand to her forehead, and then I heard her voice, musical and breathy.

“Little one, spark of life that kicks and twists inside me, now that the moment is here, I do not know how to say what I must. Since you have received this, my life has been well-bartered.” My mother cleared her throat, rubbing her belly absently with her hands.

“I have some fear that Rathad and others may press guilt upon you. Let me assure you, by my own mouth, that you were conceived in love, with full understanding of the consequences, and, values weighed, that my Me for yours is little to give.

“Oh, Estri, for that is the name you will bear, at this time in my life, when I most wish to be warm and loving, to give you all of motherhood and sustaining purpose in a few short moments, I find myself cold with fear and stiff with self-consciousness. How will you see me, daughter? I did not desert you willingly. The arrangements for your upbringing have been well attended to, your social and economic position secured. But what is it to be without the touch of a mother’s hand, the comforting circle of her arms, in those difficult times of youth? No recording can give you that which has been denied by fate and need. If you can bear me no ill will for the frailty of my flesh, I will know it, for I have demanded of my eternal spirit that it watch over you all your days. I have no doubt that this will be so.” She stopped, swallowed hard, blinking.

“That is the worst of it, I think,” continued my mother.

“Now that there is understanding between us, child unborn, I would speak to you of your father, and what was between us, your parents. Though we were couch-met, it was as if I had known him for a thousand forevers. Our races are only semicompatible, hence the long term which I will carry you, and my projected death at your birth. The benefits to the issue of such a union far outweigh the debits. You will live twice, perhaps three times the normal Silistran span. Were you slow maturing, little one? You now know the reason. Within you lie dormant abilities far beyond the ken of those around you, and in time you will come to know them.

“We are as children to your father’s people, and he did me great honor in choosing me to bear his get. Which brings me to the chaldra I would put upon you. It is my wish, and that of your sire also, that you seek him and meet with him, be it here on Silistra or upon the planet of his birth. Little help can I give you in your task, for there is a testing in its accomplishment, but be sure that there is reason greater than any you could dream in our request. The time is short, and I must hurry.” She looked down for a moment at something off the screen.

“You—will soon see the moment of your conception. What prompted me to record our coupling, I do not know, unless it was the meeting that preceded this record. You will understand, when you view it, why you have not received this until, in your own blossoming maturity, you have become wise in the ways of men.

“When the record is ended, put your hand beneath the cube, and receive the ring of your father. The ring is the key. Keep it on your person, even in sleep, until you rest within your father’s house. It will identify you and keep you safe among his people, should your search take you so far.”

She smiled, a smile I will never forget.

“It is, child of my heart, a great sadness to me that our meeting and parting be so close together. Remember, Estri, I love you and am with you ever. Tasa, Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi.”

The grayed screen flickered, became what could only have been the magnificent keep of my mother, the Keepress.

I saw her, upon the silver covers of the couch, and her skin glistened with sweat. Her breasts rose and fell with her impassioned breathing, nipples flushed and erect. She leaned back on stiff arms, naked, her marvelous long legs outstretched, slightly spread, her feet beneath the iridescent coverlet.

The room was candlelit, and the light flickered and glowed about her.

“Come, then, barbarian god,” she taunted, teeth flashing, “come and take me, if you can. Put that deathly seed of yours where it will do the most good.” She laughed low, and tossed her head. Her hair fell curling across her left breast.

“You must petition me more prettily than that, well woman, before I fill your belly.” The second voice was deep, undeniably commanding, full of strange sibilances. “Surely you cannot expect to do so little, and receive so much. Show me the skills that have made you high-couch here. Or, perhaps, you do not truly possess them?”

With a leap from the darkness, he was on her, one knee beside each of her breasts, his hand still upon her throat. He turned his head to her left shoulder, and his face, eyes heavy-lidded in his heat, was clearly defined.

He was indeed and truly my father. His eyes and hair were the color of molten bronze, his skin but scant tones lighter. His body was light-boned for his mass, and the muscles rippled in long flat slabs as he crouched above her.

I watched him use her, and I have never seen a woman so diabolically aroused, so freed from the bonds of mind, so deliciously debased. He brought her, leaping to his hand, to the edge of climax three times before he allowed her to attempt to please him. Finally, acquiescing to her desperate pleas, he lay back and allowed her to work her skills on him. Their multilingual love-abuse encompassed all that I knew and went beyond.

Once he pulled her head from his lap, and holding her arched back by the hair, said in archaic Silistran, “You are truly worthy to be high-couch,” and thrust her head back down.

When he was ready, he lifted her into the air and set her down upon him as one might lift a young child of no significant weight. If she had been beneath him, the violence of that final coupling surely would have crushed the life from her there and then.

The last thing I saw was my mother nestled in the crook of his arm, her tears rolling down his shoulder, to settle in the hollow in his throat.

The screen went blank. I started to lift the cube from my face, only at the last moment remembering my mother’s instructions. My hand shot out to catch the ring as it fell from the opening bottom of the cube.

I did not look at it, but pushed the cube across the table to Rathad, this long while waiting.

He looked at me, for my permission to view it. I could not speak. The room swam before my eyes. I nodded my assent and leaned back in the carven thala chair, the ring clutched unexamined in my fist, to let my tears flow while my mother’s brother viewed the cube.

I had not cried for some years, and as the moisture of my grief and joy poured out of me and filled my lap, my confusion went with them. I knew what I must do. I raised my head to tell Rathad, but he was still sunk deep within Hadrath’s record.

Dispassionately I deep-read him, knowing that he could not feel the touch of my mind while so engrossed in my mother’s story. If foreseeing is my weakest skill, deep-reading is my strongest. I can, in moments, and without trancing, acquire from any sentient being an accurate estimate of his basic nature, motivation, and any deep-seated emotion he is feeling. I did so. I was pleased with what I saw. Rathad would be less troublesome to me in the near future. He was deeply moved and full of remorse. Whether or not he had treated me fairly, he now felt that he had not, and that was sufficient. If he had caught me at it, however, I would have lost that which through my mother I had gained. I withdrew almost immediately.

My father’s ring was still clenched in my right fist. So much was happening, my head was so full of plans, I had not even looked upon it.

I brought my fist to eye level and slowly opened my stiff fingers. I had clutched it so hard that the blood had been forced from my hand. It lay facing me, on my wet palm. The metal was a pale yellow in color, perhaps gold. It was very large and heavy. I could have fit two fingers within its circle. I remembered the hand that had worn the ring, and I shivered. Within the bezel was set a glowing black stone, as large as titrium half-well coin, and in the black stone itself were a thousand white points of light, scattered in a seemingly random pattern. As I looked closer, I determined that these were not characteristic markings of the black stone, but tiny inset gems, some as small as a pore on the skin, some slightly larger. One of the bigger stones was not white, but a brooding blood color. This was set in the upper-right corner. If this random patterning could be said to resemble a spiral, then the red stone was far out on the north-eastmost arm. I had never seen such a ring. The craftsmanship was exquisite. I turned it. The sides were covered with raised script, but it was no language with which I was familiar.

I slipped my first and middle fingers within the band and closed my hand into a fist once more. I wished there was a way to make it smaller, but I knew I would not so deface it. I put my right hand within my left, and both in my lap. I would have to find another way to wear my father’s ring. I considered the possibilities until I heard Rathad place the cube back upon the table.

His face was ashen white and his eyes bleary. He leaned his elbows upon the table and supported his chin with one hand. In the other he held the letter. He extended it to me. I shook my head and made no move to take it.

“Not yet,” I said. “That which has waited so long can wait a while longer. Summon a runner. I will leave with Santh tomorrow morning. There is much to do before the next sun’s rise. If Ristran is still here, I will meet with him in my keep, and we will take our mid-meal there together. If not, then I will do the same with the highest-ranking Day-Keeper you can produce by that time. I will also need the toilet women to help me prepare. Send a chalder also to Jana’s room, for she will be high-couch while I am gone.” Jana and I thought alike on most social and political issues; she had met her chaldra of reproduction, and I liked and respected her. She would enjoy being high-couch, but not so much that she would be unwilling to relinquish the position when the time came.

“Impossible,” Rathad snapped. His face had regained its normal color.

“Which?” I asked.

“All of it. You cannot leave the Well until the chaldric priorities have been determined, if at all. How many chains do you wear? Are all of them meaningless when compared to this adventure? Such tasks are usually carried out before major responsibilities are assumed. The Day-Keepers must decide. I have never heard of a three-hundred-year-old woman, of responsibility and position, romping off to do the chaldra of the mother. Perhaps they will allow it, but not until the papers have been filed, the purifications done, the ceremonies complete. It will take time.” His voice was very loud, his face red. “And your chald. You cannot go without another. It must be made, wound, prayed upon. The chalder will never be able to produce one for you in a matter of hours, should he wish to, which he will not. You cannot possibly leave before Detarsa fourth seventh. It will take the full pass to arrange things. I do not agree with you about Jana. There are those more deserving of such an honor.” He rubbed his hand across his face? “But if you insist upon her, she must be readied to take on your duties. All these things take time. It is now the last of Macara. Give me these twenty-eight days, and when the pass is done, I will not obstruct you. Truly, I do not obstruct you now, but simply remind you of the forms to which you must attend. Perhaps the Day-Keepers will uphold you. The circumstances here are very unusual. But whatever comes to be, you must meet your fate with an eye to the traditions of this Well, and with dignity and grace.”

“I know you mean well, Rathad, and that you would not obstruct me. I ask you again to attend to these things for me. Only summon for me the Day-Keeper and the chalder, and the others that I need. I feel certain that this matter can be arranged in a way acceptable to all concerned. If I am wrong, then I have but taken mid-meal with the Day-Keeper, and discussed certain matters with the high-chalder. I will take Santh to the Liaison First’s tomorrow, whatever the outcome, so I will need the fitter and the toilet women. I will let the subject of Jana rest for the present, but the rest must be done.” I smiled my most winning smile.

“I think I should like parr and eggs, fresh fruit, cheese, and wine. Perhaps enough for three, for the high-chalder might also be hungry. Do hurry, for midday is close upon us.”

Shaking his head, a smile playing across his lips, Rathad strode to the mirrored doors with a swirl of his iridescent web-cloth robe. I heard his muffled voice giving instructions to the runner just outside. I sighed with relief. I had been unsure I could persuade him.

When he reentered, he did not sit again behind the table, but came to lean against it by my side, so close that I could see every white curling hair that poked its way through the straps of his thonged sandal. He handed me the old yellowed envelope once again, and this time I took it.