Idol of Blood (17 page)

He sensed something coalescing from the impulses, something sharper and more angular than the thick blotches and smoky layers that lay like a haze upon the surface of the paper. He added these in graphite, and soon the spires and flourishes of a mad, foreign architecture began to rise from among his primer of impulses like stones erecting themselves out of dust.

In the past, when he'd drawn a picture, it told a story, documenting a moment in time, but this was empty of narrative. Pearl found himself glad he could hear no voices attached to these structures, for they seemed to him like reanimated corpses, dark revenants that ought not to have been raised. But someone was raising them.

Twenty: Inundation

Ume arrived in
Soth
Szofl thoroughly tired of being Cillian Rede. It had been the right decision, though, to travel in his guise. Ironically, there had turned out to be no other women aboard
The Lady's Bounty
. The only ship that sailed to the continent this time of year,
The Lady's Bounty
was a working cargo ship rather than a passenger conveyance, and Cillian had signed on as a cabin boy—a position granted only after “softening up” the captain with Ume's unique skills.

The arrangement with the captain meant he was Cillian's only patron, which made the trip somewhat more bearable than it might otherwise have been, but this had also resulted in daily harassment from the rest of the crew, who knew precisely what services Cillian was providing. Verbal taunting and the occasional “accidental” tripping and shoving, however, was nothing new to Cillian, and no one had dared do any actual harm to the captain's “boy”.

The captain himself had been a bit of a guilty pleasure. Except for brief transactions of necessity—including the unpleasant interlude with Nesre—Ume hadn't been intimate with a man since the Expurgation. Captain Paravar was an excellent specimen of his sex. And best of all, despite his commanding demeanor on deck and his taste for young men of Cillian's type, Arvati Paravar was a bottom.

Ume had discovered the captain's inclinations just after the conclusion of her “interview” for the cabin-boy post. Sitting back on her heels as she wiped a stray bit of the captain's enthusiasm from beneath her cheek and onto her tongue with the back of her hand, she glanced up to see Paravar observing her with interest while he buttoned up.

“Haven't known many boys as skilled as you.”

“I'm not exactly a boy,” said Ume without going so far as to disavow being a man.

Paravar mistook the statement for a declaration of masculine prowess, his eyes drawn to the prominence between her legs. She couldn't deny that servicing him had piqued her own interest. “Indeed.” He raised his eyebrow with a guardedly hopeful look. “I'm not averse to a bit of turnabout.”

Ume pushed herself to her feet, setting them well apart, hands on her hips as she looked him over. “What sort of turnabout?” The captain seemed to lose his nerve under her direct gaze, and Ume decided to act on her hunch, grabbing Paravar's hair at the nape and spinning him forcefully toward his desk so that he had to catch himself with both palms against the desktop. “Is this the turnabout you mean?” she murmured at his ear, pressing close behind him so he couldn't fail to read her body language.

Though he made no move to extricate himself from Ume's grasp or from the subservient position into which she'd placed him, Paravar attempted to maintain a semblance of control. “I must insist upon complete discretion.” The forceful statement lost a bit of its impact when his voice wavered on the last word at the sudden jerk of Ume's fingers against the buttons at his fly.

“I am nothing if not discreet,” Ume assured him. “Now be quiet if you mean to give me your quid pro quo.” She kept a supply of linen sheaths in her pocket in the event she acquired a patron who might insist on penetrating her—though in general it wasn't a service she cared to provide—but she hadn't imagined she'd end up using one herself. In her days as a courtesan, she'd rarely been called upon to perform such an act. Just slipping the sheath on and tying the lace was inordinately thrilling.

Ume tugged Paravar's pants down to his thighs. “I assume you keep some kind of oil handy?”

His legs were trembling as he jerked his head toward the credenza opposite the desk. “Liquor cabinet.”

Ume left him where he was and found a bottle of olive oil among the hard alcohol. Wax still sealed the stopper.

“You don't do this often, do you?” Ume studied him as she worked out the cork. “Don't worry, Captain, I won't be rough.” After having kept his head low during the exchange thus far, Paravar dared a glance up at last, and his expression said he'd been hoping otherwise. “Unless you'd prefer it,” she added with a bit of her signature purr. He ducked his head again and she smiled, rubbing the oil into the sheath. “As you wish, Captain.”

Without further ado, she set the bottle aside and pushed Paravar forward onto the desk with her hand roughly gripping his hair. Clutching the dark, thick curls, she pulled back his head until he gasped, entering him at the same moment. The captain groaned, hanging on to the edge of the desk with white knuckles as she worked herself in. Though he clearly hadn't indulged in this desire often, once she was fully inside him, it was also clear he was no novice to it.

Ume held nothing back, and Paravar shook beneath her pounding hips with obvious pleasure, though he was already spent. She'd once had a patron with a fetish for a cock emerging from a skirt, whom she'd topped in a similar manner, but she'd had to be very careful with him as he found it difficult to relax fully. There was no such inhibition with Paravar. The captain fairly melted into the desktop, moaning and grunting under her aggressive thrusts and letting her yank hard on his hair, until Ume spilled into the linen with a groan of relief.

Paravar recovered his poise swiftly when she'd pulled out and discreetly pocketed the sheath, turning around as he buttoned up once more with a gruff expression. “Very good, cabin boy. You'll do quite well.” He placed a gold piece in Ume's hand and dismissed her.

It hadn't exactly been a chore to bend the hard-muscled sea captain over his desk and give him what he asked for after a long day of performing menial tasks on the ship, or to stand over him and grip his hair by the forelock while he took Ume deep into his throat with enthusiasm. It was only the guilt over enjoying it while Cree might be at that very moment discovering Ume's note that took a bit of the shine off the adventure. That and knowing the end of the journey meant the possibility of finding out Pearl had come to harm.

In any event, as refreshing a change as it was, Ume was a bit bored with always being in control and missed Cree more with every encounter. And after a month of it, Ume was definitely bored of wearing shapeless pants and tunics in dull hues and rough fabric, keeping her hair stuffed under a cap, and not having access to her usual toiletries or the luxury of a bath.

The latter was the first thing she indulged in after stepping off the boat. She'd earned a generous purse from Paravar, who'd been a bit sad to see Cillian go, and she used it straightaway to buy a couple of conservative Szofelian gowns—a bit dowdier than the Deltan or northern styles, but finely made—and a soak in the public bath. Szofelian bathhouses were wonderfully steamy affairs in beautifully tiled rooms, with every luxury a man could want. That, of course, was the privilege of traveling as Cillian instead of Ume a bit longer, but she meant to take her few privileges in life where she could get them.

Clean and soft and smelling of lovely herbs and spices, with her muscles relaxed after an obligatory vigorous massage, Ume took her purchases to a modest room-for-let and put herself back together as she pleased. She'd planned to start her search for Pearl as soon as she'd dressed, but there was no longer any need for that. The talk at the bathhouse had been all about the latest marvel in
Soth
Szofl. Ume was relieved to know Pearl wasn't in grave danger, but unnerved at the idea of him being on display and serving the public as Meer.

According to the talk, there were specific hours every day wherein the Meer received petitioners, and her next opportunity to be one of them would be first thing in the morning. Ume dressed in her new empire-waisted frock in a warm-gold raw silk that complemented her hair and eyes, with a contrasting headscarf in summer-sky blue. The headscarf wasn't an essential piece of women's wear in Szofl, but it was reminiscent of the ritual of the veil that Ume preferred.

She'd bought the plain scarf in the market on the way back from the bathhouse, along with a little bag of glass seed beads in the hue of antiqued gold, and spent the evening sewing the beads in a spiral pattern on the bottom half to give it glitter and weight as she wrapped it across her throat and over her shoulders. In being chosen to be received by a Meer, as in everything, appearance mattered.

She arrived at the court just before sunrise, where a sizeable queue was already forming, pleased to see that heads turned as she emerged from her hired cab. The more attention she received from other petitioners, the more she would attract the attention of those in charge of selecting petitioners from the crowd.

The doors onto the Meer's altar room opened just as the sun crossed over the threshold of the cut crystal windows surrounding it. Ume had chosen her colors carefully to maximize the early morning light so she would be impossible not to notice, but she hadn't counted on Pearl's brilliance. He sat as she'd first seen Alya, on a sparse throne raised above the height of the crowd on a simple dais. The sunlight made a halo of his hair of gleaming platinum. Not as long as it had been in the single glimpse she'd had of him in Nesre's cage, it hung over one shoulder below the collarbone, the ends braided with crystal-blue topaz beads to match his eyes.

Tears sprang to hers at the sight of him. She hadn't expected the eyes to be so like Alya's, penetrating and wise despite the distance, like little glittering gems. Everyone bowed on one knee, whether out of instinct or custom, she wasn't sure, but Ume did the same without a second's thought. There was no question that they were in the presence of majesty.

The Meer's regent stepped down from his side and walked back and forth before the crowd, selecting a handful of petitioners with a silent gesture. Ume raised her head, determined to give him a look he couldn't resist, but as their eyes met, both Ume and the regent gave a slight start. She'd seen him before, and despite his fancy clothes and polished appearance, she had no trouble recalling where.

This was the Meerhunter, Pike, whose men had nearly killed Cree when they'd abducted Ume to bring her to him. Nesre had paid the Meerhunter to find out if Ume knew where the newly renaissanced MeerRa was hiding. He'd used very crude methods in the attempt. She was still holding a grudge over the lovely sapphire velvet gown he'd ruined by holding her head under the frigid water of an abandoned mill in Mole Downs last winter.

Pike composed himself swiftly and moved on, not selecting her among the group of petitioners to see the Meer this morning. Filthy bastard. He obviously didn't fear her exposing him. The overlooked petitioners were dismissed to return to the queue outside the building in hopes of being selected when the Meer received the next round of petitioners in the afternoon.

Ume joined the disappointed crowd, fuming over the slight. Maybe she
ought
to expose him, call him out so the entire assembly knew he was a Deltan Meerhunter who was now apparently profiting off the very practice he and his kind claimed to abhor. No doubt he believed her reluctance to be exposed herself would deter her.

And it might, at that. Would it jeopardize the slim possibility she had of getting close to Pearl if her role in the Expurgation were known? She hadn't used her real name at the rooming house for fear her fame might have reached these shores and would still be remembered. The aftermath of Alya's murder had been the worst months of her life and she had no wish to relive them.

While she stood contemplating what to do, someone touched her on the shoulder, and Ume turned to find a uniformed official of the court addressing her.

She understood only two words. “Come, please.” There was no explanation given, and Ume wasn't sure if she was being arrested or just escorted away from the court entirely as the officer took her by the arm and led her firmly out of the queue.

“Where do we go?” she asked haltingly in Szofelian, having learned a few words and phrases on the ship. “I am a free citizen of the Delta.”

She couldn't make out his reply, but he continued walking with her around the side of the building to a service entrance, where he handed her off to another officer who barked at her in rapid Szofelian and took charge of her much less respectfully, gripping her upper arm as he marched her inside. Being arrested, then. Damn Pike.

Protesting against the rudeness and discomfort of his grip proved pointless, as no one seemed to understand her poor Szofelian, and Ume hurried to keep up in order to avoid stumbling. She suspected this one would simply continue dragging her if she did. He deposited her inside a small room on the second floor that held a row of hard wooden seats and no windows, and Ume sat with resignation when he pointed at the seats and snapped at her.

Left on her own, she waited over an hour with no one coming to interrogate her, trying the door once and finding it locked. There was a side door leading to another room, and Ume tried this one also to no avail. If this was torture by boredom, it was working. By the time the interior door opened, Ume was ready to confess to anything just to get out. She'd never been the patient sort.

Pike stood on the other side of the door, and he swept it aside with a mock bow. “If it isn't the illustrious Maiden Sky. Do come in.”

Ume leveled her iciest courtesan stare on him, the one reserved for patrons or prospective patrons who transgressed the bounds of propriety in the courtesan-patron relationship. No one had ever received that stare from Ume without withering in one way or another.

“What in the name of MeerAlya are you up to?”

Pike's cocky smile faltered and he took an unconscious step back. “Come in and sit down, Maiden Sky. We are both people of enterprise. Let's discuss this civilly.”

“Civilly.” Ume continued the stare for a moment before sweeping past him into the receiving room. “I'm not sure our definitions of civility are compatible, Mr. Pike.” She sat stiffly on the edge of a bench upholstered in blue velvet, which was the least comfortable seat she could find—she would do nothing that implied he was her peer—while he sat in the high-backed leather chair opposite her. “As I recall, our only encounters have involved you threatening me and physically assaulting me in your brutish attempts to obtain information I did not have. Standard operation in your trade.”