Natural Consequences (56 page)

“Especially me? What, did Lorelei do something to you to make you feel less bad for her
, too?”

“Lorelei isn’t the one who made me feel special,” ventured Amber.

Jason felt that one. “
Wow
,” he winced. “Yeah, you’re not making me feel any better with this. Kinda makin’ it all worse, actually. And—“ he turned back to look at her again. “You kissed me.”

“Yes,” Amber nodded.

“Like, a
lot
.”

“Yeah. I liked it.” Her eyes flicked up at his, then down again. “Sorry.”

“How’s that—how’s that even
legal
? I mean how are you supposed to build a case on that?”

Amber’s frown returned. She was genuinely tempted to tell him how likely she was to lose her job over it. Training and dedication held on. “How’s anyone build a legal case about a demon and her boyfriend fighting vampires? You’d be surprised what my group can get away with.”

Jason sat back in his seat, facing forward and feeling glum. He glanced through the trees and saw three people in business attire, one woman and two men, all approaching with guns drawn.

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Jason grumbled, but put his hands up on the roof of the car as instructed.

They left her alone in the room, chained to a chair and flanked by cameras and lights. One set of her chains was made of cold iron. Another seemed to be inlaid with silver. The sole decoration of the room was a crucifix set in the wall beside the door. She considered, absently, that the mortals employed every plausible myth and superstition that did not explicitly cross the boundary between Judeo-Christian faith and sorcery.

Lorelei would have preferred the latter. Sorcerers could present significant challenges, but it was a rare practitioner indeed whose power and guile matched hers at every level. It had been a long time since Lorelei had crossed a vessel of faith that could genuinely harm her, though—and never had she faced one like this.
Had she not been at full strength, the encounter might have ended her.

Moments after Hauser and
the rosary in his pocket left the room, Lorelei felt the chains constrict. Her normal visage steadily reasserted itself. Lorelei slowly grew back into her usual statuesque figure and height. For a brief instant, Lorelei felt a wave of relief. The effects of Hauser’s rosary were only temporary, or perhaps contingent on his presence. He cut her powers and muted her enchantments, but he did not completely unravel her. She was weakened, but that would pass.

That understanding did not era
se her feelings of humiliation.

Half the city turned out in the market that hot summer’s day. Anyone free to leave their homes or their duties came from villages far and near. Only so many men came to participate in the auction, and few of them had the wherewithal to bid upon the greatest prize. Some came knowing they would be outbid, but wished to make a valiant go of it. Some knew that they would profit from the overreaching of their competitors. But most came simply to watch, and to dream.

The beauty, Amata, was finally of age to marry.

“I do not know how my voice will hold out today,” said the crier, an older man in a robe with a graying beard and a kindly face, “but I will do my best. My son will take over for me if I cannot last the day.” His eyes swept the group of young women, all of them freshly bathed and primped as best they could be. Amata was not the only lovely girl, but her flawless skin and her shapely figure stood out even among the other pretty girls waiting near her. Some were excited. Many could not hide their trepidation. A few could barely hold back tears.

“Remember to smile,” the crier told them all. He turned to the gaggle of prettier girls, all off to one side from the rest. “Wealthy men have come today. Very wealthy men. Shine.” The crier held out his arm, gesturing for the girls to walk out into the open space cleared for the auction. Amata led the group out, plainly being the prettiest of the bunch.

The crier’s smile remained as the passing girls—one by one, two dozen this year—became less and less comely. Then came one with her large nose. One with her ugly scar and her limp. He smiled at them all.

And then came the last, shuffling, older than the rest. Her head hung low.

The crier took her thin hand and smiled encouragingly. “This time, Beletsunu,” he told the small girl. Her lazy eye refused to look at him, but the good one met his gaze. The other girls had helped with her black hair, sweeping it back and around to cleverly help it look thicker on her scalp. They used powder to smooth out the pox scars on her cheeks. Nothing could be done for the crook in her nose, or the crook in her posture, or the shape of her jaw. She knew better than to part her lips when she smiled.

“You are kind, sir,” she told him, and meant it.

“No, Beletsunu. I am not kind. I am certain.” He squeezed her hand again. The other girls could put all the powder and flowers on her they wanted, but he knew that nothing could do more to help an ugly girl shine than hope.

There was reason for it this year. He would begin with the prettiest, taking competing bids for the beauty, Amata from men who had longed for her—and what a struggle that would be! Yet the losers would also surely pay well, once Amata found a husband, to take home a bride who might not be as beautiful but would still be lovely enough to assuage their loss.

As tradition held, the prices won by the pretty girls would then be offered as dowries for those who were not so pretty. Hope could help an ugly girl shine; a handsome dowry could help her even more. The crier had more pretty girls this year than not, and among them was the beauty, Amata.

In all his years, the crier had never been left with a girl unable to fetch a husband until Beletsunu. She had remained standing, three years in a row, while the crowd dissipated and mocking jokes echoed through the marketplace at the end of the auction. But not this year.

He had reason to hope. So did Beletsunu.

* * *

“Do not speak,” said Milkilu as they entered her new home. He was a wealthy man. Tall. Fit. Handsome. It was the second time he had given her such instructions.

The crowd in the marketplace had not scattered once Beletsunu stood alone and unclaimed. They remained, out of curiosity and mirth, to see how great a dowry the crier would have to offer so that Beletsunu could finally find a husband.

No one expected Milkilu to step forward, though as the dowry grew quite high few could blame him. He’d barely lost out in the bid for Amata’s hand in what became a close and bitter contest. No one expected the kind smile on his face as he spoke out, though, or the way he effortlessly took Beletsunu’s hand and kissed it, right there in front of everyone. Beletsunu expected it least of all.

He offered his surety to follow through with the marriage. He spoke with her parents. Made arrangements. Gave her hope.

And then, leading her from the ceremony to their home, with its opulent gate and its spacious gardens and its servants, he said only three words: “Do not speak.”

She shuffled behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides. She naturally wanted to ask if she had done something wrong or offended him somehow, but did not want to disobey her husband on her first night as a wife.

The home was spacious. Opulent. Most families had only one room to their home; Milkilu had many. She passed a sitting room, and a kitchen, and a storage room with a pallet where one of the servants could sleep. Beletsunu followed her husband, awaiting instructions and hoping for a chance to make amends for whatever transgression she might have made.

She saw their bedroom then, with its lush cushions and soft blankets and comforts she had never known.

She saw the naked, painted whore who waited in the center of the bed.

“Wait here,” grunted Milkilu. He pointed to a space just outside the door and then walked inside. She saw him shed his tunic and leave it pooled at the entrance, and could not bring herself to watch as she heard the sounds from within.

Beletsunu stared at the corner. She stood close to it, close enough that she could see little to either side, because it meant that no one could see her ugly face. She had done so since childhood, and did so now, and then as now tried to control her tears. She put her hands over her ears to block out the grunts and moans and wet noises from her husband’s bedroom.

“Beletsunu!” she heard him call harshly. “Come!”

She wiped her eyes and shuffled in, trembling, knowing not what she could do but obey. She looked up at her naked, handsome husband, who stood by the bed glistening with sweat and with his manhood coaxed to readiness by the nameless woman’s touch.

“Ugh,” he groaned, looking away. “No. I cannot do this. Not even if I close my eyes and have a real woman to help me. If you are asked, we laid together on our wedding night and you took ill.” He shook his head, and then pointed out of the bedroom again. “There is a pallet in the storage room. That is where you will sleep. Try not to make noise. My servants will show you your chores in the morning. Go.”

Her mouth quivered. Her voice refused to come, but she managed in a whisper, “Husband…?”

Milkilu pushed his whore aside to step forward and slap B
eletsunu across the face, driving her with a single blow to her knees. “Do not call me that,” he snarled. “Do not ever call me that. I married you for the dowry. Nothing more.”

Beletsunu looked up at him in horror. She should not have been shocked, and she knew it. There had always been the concern that he was only interested in her large dowry. It seemed so obvious. But there were his words, and his smiles, and his polite gestures toward her family. She had allowed herself some hope that he would, at the very least, be kind.

Instead, he slapped her again, harder this time. And then again. “Do not make me look at your vile face!” he roared. “Cover it up! Wear a cloak or a sack or something if you must show yourself, but get out of here now. Go.”

Beletsunu wanted to cry herself to sleep that night. The tears came, but sleep did not. She had always been an insightful girl. It occurred to her, as she sobbed and her husband grunted and his whore called out his name, that the man who’d taken the ugliest bride in all of Babylon had, in doing so, become a much wealthier man.

There was some chance that her family would look in on her. That they would see his kindness for the sham that it was, and that they would have the marriage annulled and force him to return both his bride and the dowry. There was some small chance that her family would care, but she did not allow herself to hope again.

She was an insightful girl.

* * *

“You must try not to anger him,” counseled Hunzuu. He wiped away the blood from Beletsunu’s nose with a rag. Of all the servants, Hunzuu was the kindest—or, rather, the least unkind. He at least paid attention to Beletsunu, and showed her what her husband expected in his house. He corrected her mistakes. He explained her husband’s wrath after the storm passed.

“I do everything he asks,” Beletsunu protested quietly. “I avoid him. I stay out of his way. I clean his bed and replenish the incense and leave out the water and the wine—“

“You mix in too little water with the wine,” Hunzuu said. He sat with her in the storage room. “I have shown you before. He beat me for the same, until I learned how he likes it. I will show you again.”

“He has beaten the other servants?” Beletsunu asked.

Hunzuu frowned. “The master, your husband, is a good man,” explained the older man. “But he has his ways, and when they are denied, he is angered. Yes. He has beaten the other servants. All masters do.”

Beletsunu watched Hunzuu with her good eye and listened closely to his tone. She heard what he did not say. That angry masters beat servants was not unheard of, or even considered shameful. Hunzuu had no need to cover for him, yet there was hesitation in his voice. “Has he killed?” she probed. “For what?”

“I must go,” Hunzuu replied. He kept the rag in his hand. “The master will send me to fetch a woman for his bed tonight. It is always this way when he has been angered.”

She put her hand on his wrist. “Tell me, Hunzuu,” she pressed. “Please. I do not… I wish to understand his anger, that I may not incur it. What happened?”

“It is nothing you need concern yourself with,” Hunzuu shrugged. “It was merely the boy who tended the horses. He was careless with the feed. There was mold, and a horse died. The master was… angry,” he finished. “As I said. He will want a woman tonight. Make sure the lamps and the incense are ready. Do not trouble about the wine. I will handle that.”

“He killed the boy over a horse?” Beletsunu asked.

“Horses do not come cheaply,” Hunzuu shrugged again as he left.

Had he paid attention, he might have noticed that Beletsunu did not ask out of shock, but rather a need for clarity.

* * *

She watched him with his women.

He preferred to have the bedroom brightly lit and gently scented. He preferred his wine cut with water. He paid little heed to the pleasure of his partners, but expected them to praise his prowess.

Some were whores. Some were servants. A few, spread over the course of months, were other men’s wives. Adultery was a crime for women, but not for men… and if Milkilu could buy a husband’s silence with his gold, then there would be no accusation to worry about.

When all was well, he settled for cheap satisfaction. When troubled, or angered, he would pay for good company to relieve his tension. He enjoyed scented oils, on himself and his women, and paid to have plenty on hand.

He liked to find quick, early satisfaction, and then to let a woman try to coax him to readiness again. His second bout would always last much longer, driving him to distraction. He was loud and careless. He would kneel on the bed, facing away from the door, and usually for his second coupling he preferred to take his women from behind.

A woman could sneak into the room while he rutted this way. Even a woman with a crooked back and shuffling feet could do it.

* * *

“Two horses!” Milkilu roared, striking Ubar with the shovel again and again. His young servant gave up any attempt at prostration or pleading for forgiveness. Ubar simply curled up and covered his head, absorbing the blows as best he could with his arms and his back. It didn’t help much.