Lynn Flewelling - The Oracle's Queen

Tamír regarded her filthy sock and the rest of her stained clothing with a wry smile. “I don’t look much like a lady, do I?”

“I don’t imagine Queen Ghërilain looked much different, after her great battles,” said Ki, as Baldus wrestled off her other boot.

“I stink, too.”

“You’re not the only one.”

Ki’s hair hung in dirty tangles around his haggard, unshaven face, and the tunic over his hauberk was filthy. They both reeked of blood and battle.

Baldus hurried over to the washstand and poured water into the basin. Tamír washed her face and hands. The water was cool and scented with rose petals, but by the time she was done it was stained the color of rust. Baldus emptied the basin out the window and poured fresh for Ki.

“Maybe he shouldn’t do that,” Ki warned. “It might not look right to people, him waiting on your squire, too.”

“People can go hang,” Tamír snorted. “Wash your damn hands.”

Trestle tables were brought to the terrace. Tamír and her people ate with the duke and his two young sons, Lorin and Etrin. Ki had played with them on their previous visits and found them to be good, solid sorts, and smart.

Lorin was a tall, quiet boy a few years younger than Tamír. His brother, who was of an age with Baldus, stared at her wide-eyed throughout the meal, as if expecting her to change form again before his eyes.

Baldus staunchly carried out his duties here, too, until Tamír coaxed him into sharing her bench, and made him eat a few morsels from her portion.

As soon as the meal was done servants cleared away the dishes and Illardi spread out charts of the harbor to assess the damage.

“The Plenimarans knew their job. While the land forces attacked the shoreline, their sailors cast burning pitch on every vessel they could reach and cut the mooring lines. I’m afraid all your warships are at the bottom of the harbor now, or burning on the far reach. Only a few small carracks escaped. Twenty-seven enemy vessels were captured.”

“Any word of how many ships escaped?” Tamír asked.

“The lookouts at Great Head claim no more than ten.”

“Enough to carry home word of their defeat,” Jorvai noted.

“Enough to carry word of Ero’s weakness, too,” Iya warned. “We cannot afford to be taken by surprise again. I have several of my wizards watching the sea, but without knowing where to look, they may not find them. Tell the lookouts to be vigilant, especially in foul weather.”

Illardi and the others left at last. A large bathing tub had been carried in and filled as they dined and Ki eyed it enviously. They’d lived in the saddle for days.

“Baldus, go into the corridor and keep watch with the guards for a while,” said Tamír. She flopped down on the bed and nodded toward the tub. “You want first go?”

“No, you go on—That is—” A week ago Ki wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Now he could feel his face going warm. “I should step out—shouldn’t I?”

It seemed a logical enough conclusion, but Tamír suddenly looked close to tears. “Do I disgust you that much?”

“What? No!” he exclaimed, astonished both by the sudden change of mood and that she’d jump to such a harsh conclusion. “How can you think that?”

She slumped forward with her face in her hands. “Because that’s how I feel. Ever since Atyion, I’ve felt like I’m trapped in a bad dream and can’t wake up. Nothing feels right! I have this empty feeling in my trousers—” Ki saw color rise in her cheeks, too. “And these?” She glared down at the hard little points under the dirty linen of her shirt. “They ache like fire!”

Ki found himself looking anywhere but at her. “My sisters said the same when they ripened. It passes as they grow.”

“Grow?” She looked horrified at the prospect. “But you want to know the worst of it?”

She pulled the shirt off over her head, leaving herself naked from the waist up except for her parents’ rings on a chain around her neck. Ki hastily averted his eyes again.

“That. You can’t even look at me can you? Every day since Atyion I’ve seen you flinch and turn away.”

“It’s not like that.” Ki faced her squarely. He’d seen naked women enough growing up. She didn’t look any different than one of his sisters, apart from the mottled bruise on her shoulder where she’d been struck during the first attack on the city. It had faded to a green-and-yellow blotch, stippled at the center with the purpled imprint of the chain mail that had stopped the arrow. “It’s—Damn it, I can’t explain it. Fact is, you don’t look all that different than you did before.”

“Lying doesn’t help, Ki.” She hunched in on herself, arms crossed over her tiny breasts. “Illior is cruel. You wouldn’t touch me when I was a boy and now that I’m a girl, you can’t even look at me.” She stood and stripped her breeches off, angrily kicking them aside. “You know a hell of a lot more about girl’s bodies than I do. Tell me, do I look like a boy or a girl now?”

Ki shuddered inwardly. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with what he saw. The dark sprinkling of hair covering her cunny looked the same as any girl’s. No, it was knowing what used to be there that made his belly clench.

“Well?” She was still angry, but a tear rolled down her cheek.

The sight of it made his heart ache; he knew how much it took to make her cry. “Well, you’re still skinny, and your ass has always been kind of flat. But lots of young girls are like that. You’re not so old yet to be—ripening.” He stopped and swallowed hard. “That is, if you—”

“Bleed with the moon?” She didn’t look away, but her face went a darker shade of scarlet. “I did, sort of, before the change. Lhel gave me herbs that stopped it, mostly. But I suppose I will now. So now you know it all. These past couple years, you were sleeping with a boy who bled!”

“Damn, Tob!” This was too much. Ki sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. “That’s what I can’t fathom. The not knowing!”

She shrugged miserably and reached for the dressing gown someone had left across the end of the bed. It was a lady’s gown, velvet trimmed with silver lace and embroidery. Tamír wrapped herself in it and huddled against the bolsters.

Ki looked up and blinked in surprise. “There now, that makes a difference.”

“What?” Tamír muttered.

“It makes you look more—girlish.” This earned him a dark glare.

Determined to make things right between them, he looked around and spied an ivory comb on the dressing table. This must have been a lady’s room, or else Illardi’s duchess had taken pains to equip it properly. There were pots with fancy lids and little odds and ends he couldn’t guess the use of.

Taking up the comb, he sat down next to her on the bed and forced a grin. “If I’m to be your tiring woman, Highness, can I fix your hair?”

That got him an even blacker look, but after a moment she turned her back to him. He knelt behind her and began working at the tangles, taking it in sections like Nari used to.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

“What am I up to?”

“Currying the skittish horse?”

“Well, it needs doing. You’re all full of knots.”

He worked in silence for a while. Tamír had thick hair, and it was almost as black as Alben’s, but it wasn’t as straight as his. When he was done, it fell in thick waves down her back.

Gradually her shoulders relaxed and she sighed. “This isn’t my fault, you know? I didn’t choose this.”

“I know that.”

She looked back over her shoulder. With their faces mere inches apart, he found himself lost for an instant in those sad blue eyes. The color reminded him of the Osiat, the way it looked on a clear day from the headlands at Cirna.