This Forsaken Earth (30 page)

“I’ve not danced since Psellos’s lessons, gods know how many years ago.”

“It’ll come back to you.”

They stood still, facing each other, and as the music picked up and became a proper tune, it did come back to him. They drew together, his right thigh touching her left, his left hand in the naked small of her back, the touch of her skin a shock to him even now. Rol’s feet found the floor of their own accord, and they stepped off together into the path of the music. Rowen moved easily in the compass of his arms, and a perfume of lavender rose from her white throat.

Mirkady’s gaze was fixed on them, two dark eyes watching the way their bodies swayed and bent and gave. Two by two, other couples joined in the dance, until the floor became crowded and people were moving in and out of each other’s orbit with momentary contacts, caresses, grazes. The stateliness of the music belied the heat between the dancers. Hidden safely amid the throng, Rol pressed close against Rowen, his thigh at the crux of her legs. He slid his hand down her back by increments, until his fingers were under the low-cut line of her dress and he was able to stroke the silky crease at the very base of her spine. She leaned away from his touch. He bent his neck so that their foreheads were almost touching, but she turned her face aside. More than anything in the world he wanted to crush that slim body in his arms, and bite down on those dark lips. But though their flesh was pressed together, she would not meet his eyes. They moved through the evolutions of the dance with a perfection of grace that had no fire about it at all. Brother and sister.

The music ended. The dancers drew apart and applauded. Rol and Rowen looked at each other. There was color in her cheeks and he could feel sweat trickling in the small of his back.

“I told you it would come back to you,” the Queen said coldly.

Rol bowed to her, the blood thundering in his head. Something indefinable went across Rowen’s face—sorrow?

Then she turned on her heel and walked away.

The music began again, tinkly stuff Rol did not much care for, but it went down well enough with those on the floor. The scores of partners broke up, reassembled, moved to the new rhythm with the same intent, appraising looks on their faces. Rowen remained on the floor, as slim and upright as a black sapling. She danced with Mirkady next, and then General Blayloc, and then faces Rol did not know. He stood beside Elias Creed at the rear wall of the ballroom and sipped at his rum, watching, turning away, watching again.

“For God’s sake, Rol,” Creed said, “take one of those serving-maids outside and scratch that bloody itch.”

“Am I so transparent, Elias?”

“I thought for a moment you were going to start in on her in the middle of the dance. There was folk watching who didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

“All right, damn it. Where’s Gallico?”

“Over by the punch-bowls, where else? How that fellow can talk. It’s a wonder his guts don’t tumble out his mouth.”

“Giffon?”

“No idea. I’m hoping he’s found himself a warm spot.”

“You’re a real romantic, Elias.”

“We could all be dead this time tomorrow. Even these noble fillies here feel it. No one ever died wishing he had fornicated less.”

“But not with his sister.”

Creed regarded Rol mutely.

Rol laughed. Clapping Creed on the shoulder, he went off in search of more rum. At least, that was what he told himself he was searching for. He found himself missing Fleam’s weight at his hip—no one carried weapons to a ball. Abel Harkenn had disappeared.

He made do with the fizzy Court stuff instead, and belched as he tossed back glass after glass of the stuff, snatching them off passing trays and dropping the empties in the potted plants that lined the end of the ballroom. In the corner of his vision, Rowen’s dark shape seemed to flicker and dart like a mote stuck in his eye.

“Rol Cortishane,” a woman’s voice said, and he halted in his tracks, swaying a little.

“That is your name, my lord, is it not?”

“That’s my name.” A knot of ladies stood before him like a clutch of butterflies. All well dressed—but then, who here was not? All young, personable, and all slightly drunk.

“Queen Rowen’s brother, it is said. Can this be true?”

“Half brother.” Rol scanned their faces, reading possibilities. He was in no mood for flirting. As Elias had said, he simply wanted the itch scratched.

The girl who had spoken to him was a little painted blond thing not out of her teens and he dismissed her out of hand. But there was one other who caught his eye: tall, dark-haired—of course she must be dark-haired—and less simpleminded-looking. There was a coolness about the way she met his eyes that Rol responded to at once. I am nothing if not consistent, he thought.

The little blond girl was chattering away, demure and lascivious at the same time. Most of her friends giggled and nudged her elbows and bleated at her raillery, but Rol ignored her. “Why aren’t you dancing?” he asked the dark-haired girl. She was somehow outside the little feminine fellowship that faced him.

“I never much cared for it.”

“Rafa has big feet,” one of the other ladies giggled, and the girl Rafa looked down.

Rol took her by the hand. “Come with me,” he said.

Momentary alarm, then an impish smile. He led her away, abandoning her companions to drop-jawed outrage and perhaps, the gods knew, some envy. He liked the warmth of the girl’s hand. When it threatened to slip out of his fingers in the press of the crowd, it was she who took a firmer grip, no nonsense about it.

“I need to get some air,” he said to her, and meant it.

“I have a window in my room. It opens,” she said, tossing her head.

“Where’s your room?”

“Down by the kitchens. But it’s not a bad place.”

Rol looked her up and down. “You’re a kitchen maid?” he asked in astonishment. She looked frightened and embarrassed at the same time.

“A chambermaid. Our mistress gave us these gowns for the night, out of her own wardrobe, and said we might join in the ball. She wanted more young ladies on the floor, she said.”

“Who’s your mistress?”

“I serve the Queen.” Rol’s stare was disconcerting her. “My name is Rafa. I’m from Oronthir. I was a slave once, but—”

“Take me to this room of yours,” Rol said.

When he opened the window, the blessed chill of the night air swooped in like something hungry for heat. He stood in the draft and felt tiny hard flakes of snow smite his face, fine as sand. He was kneeling on Rafa’s narrow iron-framed bed, as it was tucked just below the thick windowsill, whilst behind him she worked to raise a flame in her tiny fireplace, her skirts gathered up over her knees to keep them out of the ash. Turning round, Rol admired her white legs and feet—she had kicked off her cheap shoes upon entering the room—and savored the freezing night air as it flooded around him.

“Let me do it.” The girl was making a meal out of striking fire, and as she rose, still holding the hem of her fine gown—Rowen’s gown—Rol knelt beside her and brushed ash from her shapely knees, making her start, wide-eyed. She dropped the gown’s hem, covering her legs.

“It’s all right; I won’t eat you.” She sat on the bed behind him as he struck flint and steel, coaxing sparks into a nest of fine-shaved tinder, then blowing on it and transferring the rising flame to the kindling in the hearth. There was peat by the fireplace, in black, hairy bricks, and he set these on the fire one by one, taking pleasure in the simple exercise, the sureness of it. When he straightened he found to his surprise that Rafa was in bed, blankets pulled up to her chin, her fine gown a bouffant pile on a chair. She had closed the window, but the air in the room was still cool, not yet taking warmth from the peat. Rol sat on the bed and touched the girl’s long black tresses where they lay unbound on the pillow. The stifling, raucous crowds of the ballroom seemed very far away now, though their noise, and that of all the other revelers throughout the palace, could be felt as much as heard, a low vibration in the air.

“You said you were a slave,” Rol said.

“I was born of slaves, and so that made me one, too, but the Queen, years ago, she freed all the slaves in the palace on the condition they serve her seven years.”

“That was charitable of her,” Rol said.

“I have five years left to serve, and then I can go where I like.”

“Where will you go?”

Rafa frowned. She had an endearing frown that pursed up her mouth. Rol bent and kissed it before she could answer. Her lips moved under his. She looked at him with no trace of coyness remaining. “Come into my bed. It’s cold.”

He shed his clothes, glad to be rid of the peacock finery, and slipped under the blanket, his flesh meeting hers the length of their bodies, forced together by the narrowness of the bed they shared. Rafa was wide-hipped, long in the leg, with round breasts and a strong serving-girl’s back. Rol tugged her close to him, and for a while there were no words, only silent explorations, delighted and hungry. They kicked the coverings off the bed as they discovered how to fit together, and beat its iron frame against the wall with their eagerness.

When they were done they lay like spoons in a drawer, facing the fire, and Rol traced with one finger the shadows the flame-light painted up and down Rafa’s naked skin.

“Are you really the Queen’s brother?” she asked. Before he could reply she added, “You look nothing like her.”

“Different fathers, different lives. I’m a mariner. I have a ship of my own and a crew to sail her.” I will have, he thought. By the gods, I will.

“Are you going out to fight in the morning?”

“Yes.”

Rafa took his hand and set it on her breast, cupping her own over it. “Be careful, then.”

Rol kissed her shoulder, marveling that moments of such sweetness could still be found in the foul mess of this world.

“I will.”

Sixteen

A GAUNTLET OF GUNS

IT HAD STOPPED SNOWING, AND NOW THE BLACK SKY WAS
becoming blue with dawn, the moon hanging halfway to the full, reluctant to quit the world. In the vast, cobbled courtyard of the Warder, five thousand men stood waiting in patient ranks, their breaths pluming out into the frigid gloom. Here and there an officer’s horse stamped and blew, but there was no wind, and the regimental flags hung limp and heavy, their heraldry hidden.

Rol stood some third of the way to the rear among the assembled regiments. He was on foot, as were his friends—half-decent horsemanship did not a cavalryman make. Behind them were Rowen, Mirkady, and two hundred mounted guardsmen, the personal bodyguard of the Queen. Rowen’s horse was so close that sometimes, out of a spirit of mischief perhaps, it nosed Rol in the back.

He was in armor—even Gallico had been set up with a hastily cobbled set of carmine-lathered half plate—and in addition to Fleam, he bore three pistols tucked into a scarlet sash about the middle of his cuirass. No helmet, though; he did not like staring out at the world through an iron-slit.

Rol turned and looked at Elias Creed. The dark man stood with one hand on Giffon’s shoulder. He and Rol nodded wordlessly to each other. Giffon’s eyes were calm; he peered up at the brightening sky with something of a smile, remembering the joys of the night before perhaps. They both looked strangely unfamiliar in their breastplates and chain mail.

Gallico leaned his knotted fists on the head of the long war-hammer he bore and stared up at the sky also. “The sun will shine today,” he said. “I wonder how the wind is, out on the Reach.” And almost to himself: “I hope Thef got the
Astraros
home.”

A sharp horn-blast from the hulking gate-towers before them, and the thousands of men in the courtyard seemed to stiffen, like hounds that have seen the fox. There was a grinding noise, felt through the soles of the feet as much as heard, and the tall gates of the barbican began to open.

Rowen nudged her horse forward. The Queen of Bionar had donned mail so fine it seemed not to be made of metal at all, and her head was bare but for a silver circlet. She reined in at Rol’s side and one black-gloved hand was set on the nape of his neck. He did not turn, but his own hand found her ankle in its stirruped boot and gripped it a moment, no more.

The files in front began moving. There were a few rasped orders, muffled curses, the clink and clank of metal. The fire-bearers lifted the lid of their pots and blew on the embers within. Arquebusiers wound lengths of match about their fists and checked the charges that hung from their shoulder-belts. The horsemen spoke quietly to their mounts but not to one another. Flagstaffs were shouldered, and the military files became a simple mass of queuing men, bumping, jostling, and cursing as someone stepped on their heels. Back at the tail of the host, there was a clattering sound as a dozen twelve-pound culverins were manhandled forward.

Through the barbican, the day was lightening moment by moment. Blayloc’s brigade, in the van, was already outside the walls. Black against the snow, his troops began extending from column into a three-deep line. Sixteen hundred strong, they would take up a frontage of over five hundred yards.