“Your father,” he told her, “Marek Rymiit… other people.” “Well then I guess we had better marry,” she said. “Each other,” he said.
A look crossed her faceplain as daythat told him in no uncertain terms that the very thought of that was a fate worse than death for her. She couldn’t bear the very idea of it.
“I’m tired,” he said, and took off his shirt. “You’re drunk.”
He shook his head again and winced at the dull agony. “Not anymore,” he said.
“There’s no reason for you to feel sorry for yourself, Willem.”
“Isn’t there?”
Her expression changed again. She pitied him. He hated that.
“I’ll kill you,” he said, “if you ever look at me like that again.”
She took a short, shallow breath, and the look of pity disappeared, replaced in an instant with confusion.
“Are you trying to scare me?” she asked.
He slid out of his trousers and said, “No.”
“Then why would you say something like that?” she asked as he walked to the bed.
He sat down and said, “I’m tired of people not thinking much of me.”
“Then you should do something worthwhile.”
He reached out to touch her face, and she flinched away, so he did too. She smiled in an apologetic way he found confusing.
“May I touch you?” he asked.
“I came here so you could touch me,” she whispered. He touched her face. Her skin was softnot warm but hot.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Do you need to know that, really?” she asked. He could feel her jaw working under the flesh of her cheek. “How long has it been since you asked my father for my hand in marriage?”
Willem’s face went hot, and he tried to stand, but she held his arm. He didn’t struggle against her weak grip.
“Other people have been straightforward with me,” he said. “I’ve been told what to do, and what to expect in return. But it seems as though every time I do what I’m sure people want me to do, they return that with ever greater contempt.”
“You’re not from here,” she whispered. “Innarlith can be an unambiguous place.”
He leaned in to kiss her, but not all the way.
“That’s not true at all,” he whispered.
She leaned in the rest of the way, and their lips met. The kiss took the pain from his head, the stiffness from his joints. With the briefest flick of her tongue she pulled back.
“Everyone wants gold,” she whispered. He could feel her breath hot on his face with every syllable. “They all have different ways of”
He kissed her, and their tongues met. He pulled away when he thought for a moment that he might pass out.
“trying to get it,” she went on, “but that’s all anyone here wants.”
“That’s true everywhere,” he said, moving his hands from her face, down her long neck to her shoulder. He traced the edge of her shoulder blade with a finger and she put a hand on his chest.
“You were a pretty boy,” she said as if trying to convince herself that that had any significance.
“I’m no boy,” he said, and moved his hand down to wrap around one perfect breast.
“No,” she whispered, her flesh responding to his touch even if her voice didn’t.
“I will love you,” he whispered, “if that’s what you want.”
She shook her head and replied, “That’s the last thing I want.”
She leaned in and let her lips play along the side of his neck. He closed his eyes.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. “No,” she replied.
A tear came to Willem’s eye, and he wrapped his hands around her neck, but didn’t squeeze.
“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered. “Are you going to strangle me in your bed, with your mother in the next room?”
He clenched his jaw closed so tightly he thought his teeth might shatter.
“If I thought for a moment you could do that,” she breathed. “I never would have come.”
He kept his hands on her throat, and took a deep, steadying breath.
“If that’s where you want to touch me, suit yourself,” she said. “I want you inside me, Willem.”
He took his hands away from her throat. “That’s a good boy,” she whispered. Halina, he thought. I’m sorry.
46
18Alturiak, the Yearof the Shield (1367DR) The Sisterhood of Pastorals, Innarlith
Marek Rymiit couldn’t believe they’d allowed him entry. He’d seen the building from a distance a few times. One part temple, one part convent, the Sisterhood of the Pastorals seemed cut from glass. He’d never seen so many windows, or uninterrupted panes of glass quite so enormous. His off-hand comment to the dour old woman who’d shown him in, that the clerics and lay-worshipers who called the place home “should surely think twice before throwing stones,” was utterly lost on her.
She took him to a hothouse of sorts where Halina knelt on a flagstone floor, digging with her hands in a pot of dirt. Dressed in a simple peasant’s smock, no shoes on her feet, her hair a tangled mass pinned up out of her face, she looked twice her true age. She didn’t notice him standing there, looking down at her, for what felt like a terribly long time. The dour sister shuffled off, and Marek ignored her stern, warning glance.
“Has your dirt goddess made you deaf, girl?” he said.
Halina was so startled, she tipped the pot over, spilling dirt into her lap and burying the little plant that sat on the floor in front of her.
“Uncle?” she said, looking up and blinking.
“One and the same.”
“How did you…?” she muttered, still blinking.
“I presented myself at the door and asked for you,” he said. “That will be the last time, I should add, that I will answer a partial question. You may be surprised to see me, but let us take that as a sign of your own shortsightedness and move on from the shock and awe of it so that we can speak in complete sentences.”
Halina looked down at the floor and said, “If you’ve come here to take me hoto take me to your house, I’m afraid I will not be going with you.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he said. “I made promises to your mother, my younger sister, that I would see to your care after her death. Surely I can’t allow you to just wander off without explanation.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” she muttered, still not looking at him.
Marek stepped back from her and let his attention drift to the many potted plants that lined the glass room. He touched the petal of a large red flower.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been to this part of the Third Quarter before,” he said. “It doesn’t smell as vile right here as it does in the rest of the quarter.”
The Sisterhood of Pastorals sat only one major thoroughfare east of the Golden Road, barely more than a stone’s throw from the north gate. Across the street to the east was the impoverished and crime-ridden Fourth Quarter.
“The sisterhood is a beacon for the people who call this part of the city home,” Halina recited. “It reminds them of the beauty of nature and the loving embrace of the Great Mother.”
“Yes,” Marek drawled, “I’m sure the beggars and drunkards of the Fourth Quarter are delighted to accept the Great Mother’s loving embrace in lieu of food.”
“Please,” Halina whispered, and her voice had a desperate sound to it that grated on Marek. “Please don’t say things like that. Not in here.”
The Red Wizards looked around and smiled. He was in Chauntea’s temple after allenemy territory in some ways. He made a show of shrugging and moved to another potted plant that he pretended to examine.
“If you intend to stay here,” said Marek, “I will be happy to be rid of you.”
Halina let go a long, hissing breath then said, “I’m just trying to lead a good life.”
That perked Marek’s interest. “A good life?” he asked. “And what is a good life? Planting flowers in pots at the command of a pack of” He stopped before saying “nature witches” aloud. He was, after all, surrounded by nature witches. “Well, there now. I’ve done it myself. Perhaps there’s something in the air here that makes it difficult for one to finish a thought.”