Nights of Villjamur (46 page)

'And you're sure the Council will accept such a claim?' Delboitta's eyes positively glistened as she gazed intently into his face.

He knew of the secret numbers of Ovinists in influential positions. There were enough politicians who were promised positions of power, enough men and women seduced by rewards to commit to his schemes; guards were under his influence, Inquisition officers freely accepted his coin, and where cash hadn't done the trick, he'd lined up plenty of Caveside gangs to intimidate anyone who might get in his way and give them something to think about. Everything was in place.

After taking supreme office he would initiate his schemes, an inchoation for more aggressive politics. Control over the means of production would be given to only the most profitable landowners. Slavery would be extended for greater productivity. Those at the very top would be rewarded handsomely. The Empire's wealth would flourish.

'I have made more than enough preparations . . .' He trailed off, remembering his military defeat. He would divulge that in time, and ascertain a way to blame it on the Empress's strategies. 'And then we'll arrest them, the Empress and her sister,' he said. 'Perhaps best at the Snow Ball, so that every gossiping bitch and bastard inside this building will immediately start spreading the news. I want her deposed quickly and . . . well, I see myself as a likely elected candidate to replace her, don't you think?'

Delboitta grinned her agreement with impeccable teeth. She then reached up, caressing his cheek, followed her hands with her lips. 'Does this mean,' she whispered, moving her palm to his groin, 'that you'll let me please you,
Emperor
Urtica?'

For a moment he couldn't work out which was the bigger turn-on: her suggestion, or his future title.

'Who are you, really?' Eir whispered, her hands on Randur's hips.

They were rehearsing a slow dance that evening, the
Yunduk
, and the only communication so far between them had been Randur whispering softly in her ear to correct her posture. No music this evening to accompany them, but they now understood the rhythms by heart, a liquid grace in every step. They were practising in one of the many unused corners of Balmacara, a disused chamber long forgotten by most of the inquisitive courtiers.

The more reticent he was, the more she wanted to know, the more she needed to understand him. After years spent in isolation among Imperial tutors and the urgent whispers of guardsmen, this islander had burst into her existence and already shown her more of life than she had ever known. Even his most casual comments suggested an exotic origin, his very presence spoke of some
other
place, a region perhaps physical or possibly mental, it didn't matter, just that it was somewhere not bound by stone and ice like her childhood environment.

And she had seen beneath the veneer of his arrogance.

'I thought we'd been through this stuff already.'

Her fingers tightened, gripping his waist. 'We have, and yet we haven't. I want to know who you actually are, Randur Estevu.'

'You'd only be disappointed,' he suggested dismissively.

'I'm not so sure I could be. I find your efforts on behalf of your mother are very honourable.'

'I'd rather not talk about that.'

'Tell me,' Eir changed the subject, 'instead of just sleeping around, have you ever
actually
been in love?'

He stared down at her, and by his hesitation she knew that he was surprised.

She continued, 'What I mean is, in love with anyone other than yourself.'

He laughed, drew their bodies even closer so that they were touching at the waist for the next dance sequence. Their steps flowed smoothly, beginning to be expressive of new depths, and wherever his feet went she was there with him, in unison, in perfect time.

'No,' he replied. 'Being in love hasn't really been my
style
. I never really cared much for the girls on Folke anyway. To begin with, they were all a little unclean for my liking.'

'You've very high standards for someone coming from such a poor region.'

'Wasn't always like that,' he grunted, and she felt a sudden guilt that she had labelled him in such a way.

After a moment's consideration she said, 'I thought as much. Your manners are far too good, for one thing. You eat well. And I've noticed how you always let a lady step in front of you when proceeding down corridors.'

'That's not always for their benefit,' he smirked.

'Randur, come on, be serious.'

'Sorry.' He grinned. 'We were once a very wealthy family, before the Empire really took a grip on our island. The one thing I've learned is that opportunity is linked to wealth in Jamur territories. Whoever owns the most resources has the most power and influence and opportunity, and that's just not how life should be. You - you can do anything you could think of in these halls. But back then we once had servants and all that, then we lost our land - my mother never really told me how, but we lost it anyway. Everything was gone; but she brought me up well. She brought me up rather strictly, perhaps. My father, you see, died before I ever got to know him, and I had a couple of sisters, but we were never that close. So everything was up to my mother.' After a pause, he added, 'I owe her a lot.'

'From all you've told me, you shouldn't blame yourself for what happened with her. You're a good man, Randur Estevu.'

He shook his head, self-consciously, as if only just beginning to comprehend himself. 'Not really. I'm a liar, a thief, a womanizer, and I get in too many fights - a good deal because of the way I dress. I try not to hurt anyone unnecessarily in the process, though.'

'But it's what you are attempting to do that carries real honour. This is an age with no great battles to speak of, no heroes for future stories. I think it's intensely honourable that a son should want to give his mother the chance to live a while longer.'

He said, 'It's not as easy as that.'

'Talk, Randur,' she urged, dancing a thin line between mockery and seriousness. What would it take for her to get this man to really open up?

'Have you ever come to feel so indebted to someone that, on reflection, everything you've ever done merely seems to have let them down?'

She said, 'Is this your way of freeing yourself from that guilt then? If you can employ a cultist to add years to her life, then you feel you have redeemed yourself?'

'Think you know so much about me?' he bristled.

'I find you fascinating, that's all,' she said, wanting to add,
in ways you'll never quite know, at this rate.

'Well, if I'm that much of an open book, you certainly don't need to try to get me to talk further.' He then steered her into another sequence of moves, where the woman did the leading. She wasn't quite managing it properly, forcing herself into awkward body-shapes, so he had to keep repeating those same steps until she could do them without thinking.

Eir suddenly felt the need to be more honest about how she herself felt. 'Randur, I find you're quite different from other men about Balmacara. You never try to impress me, and you don't compliment me for every little thing I do. Quite the opposite, in fact, because you're downright rude to me at times, and so flippant, and . . . Well, whatever in Astrid's name you're doing, it makes me more interested in you.'

'Makes sense, I suppose, what with my dashing good looks.'

'You know, I've also worked out that you only joke because you're uncomfortable with being honest.'

'Crap, my lady,' he muttered.

'Followed by rudeness when you're obviously wrong about something.'

Silence for a while, their feet moving with precision across the stone floor.

'One thing more,' Eir finally said. 'Given your certain, shall we say, moral indiscipline . . .'

'Yes?'

'Why haven't you tried it on with me?'

'Because I value my life for one thing. I don't fancy being castrated and my manhood hurled over the city walls. Also, your position, you've got official channels, as it were, in which you must operate.'

'So, would you otherwise? I mean to say, if I wasn't the Empress's sister?'

'Well, you've got a great little behind, Lady Eir, a cute smile and more than a handful of the right things in exactly all the right places. Sure, why not.'

Something about his directness, the obvious fact that he didn't care what he was saying, was
so
refreshing. And she liked that. She wanted to possess the ability to whisper dirty and loving things to him in return. 'Officially, you have my permission to make a move.'

'Fair enough.' He shrugged. 'That would be the easy thing to do, wouldn't it? But I'm not that predictable.'

She stepped back. 'Randur Estevu . . . you infuriate me at times!'

'Hey, relax. I was only joking.'

After she had calmed, they resumed the dance steps and kicks and flourishes. He placed his body against hers, the palms of his hands resting on her shoulder blades. 'I know you like me, Eir. This isn't cultist science we're talking about, just a guy and a girl, and it's all a bit inevitable. You're a handsome woman, I'm a pretty man. Anyway, the day you offered to pay my debts, that was a decent indication of your feelings.'

'Well, why haven't you reacted?'

He leaned in close to her ear, the space between the two of them becoming charged. 'Because, Stewardess, we must think only of the
dance
and for success there are certain
tensions
that must be maintained. You do want to be seen as the best at the Snow Ball, don't you?'

She was so stunned by his serious response she did not know how to reply. Instead she blurted her response. 'So even if I offered myself naked, you still wouldn't want to . . .' She wanted to use his words, but couldn't. 'Take me?'

'I couldn't because I respect you too much for that.'

'Oh. Right.' She could not resist taking advantage of this closeness, because, to hell with the dance, to hell with etiquette of the court, she wanted him
right there and then
. His cocksure brashness had reduced her confidence, and now she wanted to impose upon him her Imperial stamp.

She slid her hands further up his lissom body, gripped him, angled her head, kissing his neck, and as she tasted his skin he gave a sigh. His heart pulsed against her breasts. His arms had fallen uselessly to his sides, but soon he took hold of her head, drew her lips closer to his own. A slight groan, more rapid breathing.

She moved away slightly to regard him, and all he did was stare at her in confusion, struggling to read her. Surely this inveterate romancer would know better how to react at a moment like this?

He tried vaguely to say something, but she pressed a finger to his lips. It took all the strength of will she had to turn away, to move across to a wall tapestry. She pulled it aside to reveal a window through which a wind blew from across the city. She waited for him to come to her, determined she would not turn back to face him, the spires and bridges meaningless and empty under her gaze.

But he didn't come near, and she was driven to ask, 'Has the great Randur Estevu finally been silenced?'

She heard his footsteps approach, felt his words brush against the back of her neck: 'I don't know what to do now.'

'You're no amateur, from what I've seen.'

'Those women . . . they didn't matter. It's just that I'm not sure what I feel right now. I mean, ever since you offered to help me . . . well, I'm just not sure what it is that's going on in my head. I don't want you to think you've bought my attention.'

'Perhaps you have genuine feelings after all?' she said, expecting some witty response from him which was calculated to anger her.

Instead he said, 'I know I'll end up hurting you and I don't want to do that. Like I said, I feel I'm in your debt.'

'There are ways of clearing such debts.'

'Wouldn't that simply make me a man-whore?'

She shrugged. 'Not if you
wanted
to do it anyway.' She felt a little desperate and out of control.

'I thought ladies in high positions had responsibilities about how they acted.'

'After all this is over, the dance, I mean,' she said, 'when you travel back to Folke, won't it be dangerous?'

'Probably,' he said. 'Time is fairly urgent, because she hasn't got too much of it left.' His tone changed, became brighter. 'Anyway, if you want to, we can slip down Caveside tonight and practise before the ball. There's a street dance organized, so Denlin said, and I think we should go, because it'll get you used to dancing in public. You've enough time to slip into something a little scruffier - if you have anything scruffy, that is. It'll be cold and dirty.'

'I'm sure I can find something suitable for the occasion,' she said. 'You certainly take me to the loveliest of places.'

*

With some urgency they moved through the narrow streets, their footsteps light on the cobbles. They had tricked soldiers in Balmacara into thinking Eir was retiring early, wasn't feeling well. Eir herself felt a warm thrill of anticipation at the venture. Occasionally, she gripped Randur's hand when descending steep stairwells. The sky was a dull smear of blue-grey, the air filled with snowflakes that fell so hypnotically slowly they seemed stationary. Icicles glinted on the bridges as if they were decorated with daggers. People seldom ventured outside in the evenings these days, but you could see their faces peering from between curtains, gloomy silhouettes staring from their warm prisons.