Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

Brand waved the paper I had signed. 'I see this is dated three days from now. I am still yours to command.'

I felt a twinge of shame. 'I wasn't sure what you would do once you were free. I'm still not sure, and I may need your help in the next day or so.' I paused, but he was silent, so I went on, 'I shall talk to the Military Commander today. I want you to follow me tomorrow, and I want legionnaires stationed all around the city within easy call, no matter where I end up. I'll signal you to fetch them if I need them. No signal will mean I'm going on to the Mirage and the arrest of the Mirager can wait.'

'And if sp, then what? What will you do? How will you get back? Who will help you?'

My lips twisted. 'What's the matter, Brand? Worried I won't be around to pay you what I've promised? Well, don't worry, I'll draw up all the papers tonight, and have them properly witnessed.'

His eyes narrowed. 'I may well be a bastard, but you can be even more of a bitch. Doesn't it occur to you I may just be a little worried about you? That I might just help you simply because you ask? You didn't have to postdate my freedom, Ligea. Vortex take it, what you are proposing is more than dangerous, it's suicidal.'

'I'll be all right. If there's a way in, there'll be a way back. You will wait here in Madrinya for me?'

'Yes, I'll wait, damn you. And if I haven't heard from you in, um, say, two months, I'll come after you.'

'Now that would be suicidal. What I really want you to do is keep Aemid off my back. If she gets a whisper of what I'm doing, she'll be screaming it to every Kardi in Madrinya and my life will be worth less than the contents of a begging bowl.'

He looked disbelieving. 'She wouldn't hurt you.'

'She'd have me killed rather than see anything happen to her precious Kardiastan. Keep an eye on her. If I disappear into the Mirage, tell her I've gone back to Sandmurram. Anything but the truth. I shall leave her manumission paper with you just in case anything happens to me, but don't tell her I'm freeing her too. Not yet. How is she, by the way?'

'Resting. She looks a shade better.'

'I'll get changed and go to see her. You go to the Military Commander's office and ask when it's convenient for me to call.'

'Please,' he said.

I stared at him, uncomprehending.

'You may as well get in the habit of saying it now,' he told me. 'I shan't be a slave much longer.'

I resisted another urge to pitch the inkpot at him.

When I went in to see Aemid, I made sure the lamp was unlit and the room was dim. I didn't want her to

notice I'd rid my hair of its gold highlighting and its curls.

She still looked tired and old, but she was fighting back, a good sign. I suspected that her physical weakness was as much caused by her mental state as anything else. She had held a dream in her head for over twenty-five years, and the reality diverged so much from her vision that she couldn't cope with it.

We talked for a while, neutral topics, then I asked, 'Aemid, did you bring any xeta for me from Tyrans?'

She shook her head. 'There.was no point. It has to be taken fresh or it doesn't work.'

'I shall buy some here then.' r 'You'll be lucky. It doesn't grow here, Legata.'

'It doesn't? Then what do women use?'

'A drink prepared from a root extract. But it doesn't work quite the same way as xeta. You can't just take one dose whenever necessary; you have to take it every day, and it doesn't work well until you've been using it some time. It's called gameez.'›; 'Damn.'

'What have you been up to?' Aemid looked worried.

'Never mind. Just a passing fancy. I'll get some gameez.'

'You don't normally let your loins do your thinking, Legata.'

Abashed, I said, 'No, I don't suppose I do. He just took me by surprise, that's all, and his – his technique was very good.' So good I couldn't put him out of my mind. Goddess, I thought, how can I have lost myself so easily, lost who I am, in this man's arms? Am I no better than those silly highborn matrons back in Tyr, giggling over legionnaire officers riding past on their gorclaks?

I'd had time to think about what had happened by then. Surely something had enhanced normal desire -

I flushed just thinking about my lack of restraint – but it hadn't been a drug. It had been something to do with the lump in the middle of my palm. Something to do with being Magor, whatever that was. I wanted to be angry with Temellin, furious he had taken advantage of my inability to resist the stimulus. Instead, I just remembered how good it had been.

After I left Aemid, I had to deal with an irate Legate of the legionnaires, outraged that one of his men had apparently been killed by a slave of mine. I thought of telling him I had done it myself while on Brotherhood business, but decided the fewer people who knew about that, the better. Instead, I told him, in freezing tones, that I had no such young slave girl, which a routine inquiry in the slave quarters would have confirmed, and how dare he accuse my household without making such a logical inquiry first? I then told him what I thought of his legionnaires and his discipline, making it clear I had heard about the incident with the gorclak race the day before, and that I'd also heard it said the slave girl was only defending herself against rape. By the time I'd finished, the officer was not only staggered by the extent and rapidity of Brotherhood intelligence, he was terrified that I was going to report him to his superiors for failure to maintain disciplined troops. He left apologising and humbled.

That night I tossed on my divan with the smell of another man still in my nostrils and his soft laugh in my ears. And I was honest enough to admit the reason I was thinking of not having the Mirager arrested the following day was that I was none too sure it would be possible to capture him without involving one of his underlings, a Kardi called Temellin.

He waylaid me before I reached the well, grinning. He took the ewer from me, as well as the small bag of clothing I had brought along – but he was looking at the other item I carried. The sword, well wrapped to disguise its shape, was tucked under my arm. He touched it reverently, and the smile he gave was as joyful as a child's laughter. 'That's it!' he said, almost as if he were afraid to believe it. And then, awed, 'You just walked out of the Governor's residence with it under your arm?'

I nodded. 'Who was there to question me? The Legata went out herself this morning. Anyone else seeing me leave the villa would have assumed I was on her business. And believe me, no one would question her orders.' The evasions slipped off my tongue as easily as water rolls from a gorclak's hide. I had to be careful with my wording; this man had a lump on his palm. What if he could read lies the way I could? Temellin would know I hid my emotions from him, of course, but then he did that to me too. I had to assume that was normal behaviour for one of the Magor. For one of us. Goddess but that

expression stuck in my craw, as unwelcome as a fishbone.

'You didn't have any problems getting it?'

'None. She didn't think any of the slaves could lift it, let alone steal it!'

He gave back the ewer and took the sword from me instead, his hands caressing the hide covering, but he didn't unwrap it. Tears glistened and his fingers shook.

Tears? What in all of hellish Acheron was it about this sword that was so damned special?

'I was worried about you,' he said. He was trying to change the subject, to give himself time to regain control of himself. I thought he was acting more as if he'd just had a reprieve from death, than a man who had just retrieved a weapon for his ruler; I could sense relief so deep, nothing less seemed to make sense. Maybe that's it, I thought. Maybe this Mirager was going to kill him if he didn't find it. Maybe it was Temellin's fault it was lost in the first place. He'd told me the day before that I'd saved his life, but I hadn't taken him seriously. Now, I wondered.