Bradley Beaulieu - The Winds of Khalakovo

He turned, holding the fur-lined collar of his coat tight against the gusting wind. Over the tops of the nearby homes the lights of Palotza Radiskoye could barely be seen on the mountain overlooking the city.

He knocked again, softer this time, wondering if he’d made a mistake, but just as he was about to walk away, the flickering light of a lantern shone through the thick, wavy glass of the door’s high window. The door opened, and there stood Rehada Ulan al Shineshka, wearing a thick nightgown and a circlet that held a softly glowing gem of tourmaline. When he saw her face-how beautiful she looked in the golden light of the lantern-he nearly made his apologies and headed back toward Radiskoye. And yet, there was-as there always seemed to be-a beckoning luster in Rehada’s dark eyes, even as tired as she must be, even dressed as she was.

Without a word being spoken, she stepped aside, allowing Nikandr to enter her home. They moved into a lush sitting room. A host of large pillows arcing around the hearth, and the air, beneath the faint smell of jasmine incense, was redolent of garlic and ginger.

From his coat Nikandr took a small leather bag filled with virgin gems and placed it on the mantel. Then he threw two logs from the cradle onto the remains of the evening’s fire and began stoking the flames. Rehada did not acknowledge her payment as she moved to a silver cart topped with an ornate shisha. Normally they would have smoked tabbaq, the most common of the smoking leaves, but she chose instead a cedar box from the cabinet built into the base of the cart and retrieved several healthy pinches of dokha, a mixture of tabbaq, herbs, and fermented bark that came from Yrstanla’s western coast. It was extremely rare among the islands, and for a moment Nikandr nearly refused her, but he knew enough to know that this was a privilege that Rehada bestowed upon precious few patrons.

Tonight was going to cost him, so he was willing to accept such a gift. He lay down on the pillows as Rehada stepped between him and the fire and placed the tray carrying the shisha on the carpeted floor. The slosh of liquid came from the base until it had settled, and then all was silence save for the faint whuffle of the burgeoning fire.

After lighting the dokha in the bowl at the top of the shisha, Rehada offered him one of the silk-covered smoking tubes. He accepted it and for a time simply breathed in the heady smell of honey and vanilla and hay, wondering how long it had taken and by what route it had traveled along the thousands of leagues from its point of origin to Volgorod. How many wagons had brought it from the curing house to the edges of the Yrstanlan Empire? How many hands had carried it on its way to Khalakovo? How many ships had borne it? How many lungs had tasted of the same harvest?

“You look thin,” Rehada said, perhaps growing tired of the silence. She held two snifters of infused vodka, one of which she handed to Nikandr as she settled herself gracefully upon the nearby pillows.

“The work on the Gorovna…” Thankfully the wasting had given him a small reprieve-tonight he felt none of its effects.

“Ah, your other mistress.”

Nikandr, ignoring her gibe, drew upon the tube and held his breath before slowly releasing the smoke up toward the ceiling. “That was you at the hanging, was it not?”

The silence lengthened as Rehada took the second tube in one hand. Anyone else would have sucked from the mouthpiece, but not Rehada. She placed the ivory mouthpiece gently against her lips and drew breath like one of the rare, languorous breezes of summer. Her hair, like many of the Landless women, was cut square across the brow, not propped up in some complicated nest like the women of royalty. She held her breath-a good deal longer than Nikandr had-before exhaling the smoke through full, pursed lips. “There are those I would say farewell to before they depart these shores.”

Visions of the boy swinging in the wind next to the two peasants played within his mind. “Who was he?”

The space between Rehada’s thin, arching eyebrows pinched, but she did not otherwise show her annoyance. “What does it matter who he was?

I have witnessed the deaths of those who I’ve never met.” “If you had never met him, you wouldn’t have acted like you did.” “What makes you so sure?”

“The look you gave me.”

She regarded him levelly, the shisha tube held motionless near her mouth. “I knew that boy, but the look was not for him, nor was it for you.”

Nikandr paused. “Borund?” He searched his memory for the few times they had discussed her past, but he was unable to remember what connection she might have with the Prince of Vostroma. “I don’t understand…”

“Then perhaps your wife could explain it to you.” She pulled on the shisha tube and released her breath, much more forcefully than she had the last time.

And suddenly he understood. Borund, as Rehada well knew, was Atiana’s brother. Could it be she had been jealous? Or perhaps the juxtaposition of death and marriage had made her pause; she, like so many of her people, was always making emotional connections like that and contemplating them for days or weeks at a time.

“Now that she’s come…” Rehada allowed herself another long pull before setting the mouthpiece aside. “Now that you’re staring face-to-face with the prospect, will you marry her still?”

“There’s little choice. She’ll be my wife within the week whether I like it or not.” Nikandr smiled. “Though I may have delayed it by a day or two.”

“And how might you have done that?”

“I should be up at the palotza now, signing the wedding documents.”

“You’ve said how prickly the Duke of Vostroma can be.”

Nikandr nodded, and his smile widened. “ Da, he can be that…”

Rehada regarded him, the firelight and the shadows accentuating the features of her face. “You aren’t bound to her yet. You could go where you will.”

At this Nikandr’s smile faded. “You’re not so naive as that.”

“If anyone is naive, it is you. You tell me every time you come how much you love the wind. Surely you have enough money to buy a ship. You could take to the winds, travel the world…”

“I’m not Aramahn.”

“Meaning what, that you cannot bear to be parted from your precious family?”

“I may voice displeasure from time to time, but they are my life. They are my love.”

“If I had one rachma from every man that’s spoken those words…”

“You’d what, take to the winds?”

“I’ve done my traveling. I’ve found my place.”

Nikandr drew breath from the shisha as if it had somehow insulted him. “And I haven’t?” he said while forcing the smoke from his lungs.

Rehada raised her brow and tilted her mouth in a quirky smile. “ You’re the one running from your marriage.”

“I’m not running,” Nikandr said. Rehada was prodding him, but the effects of the smoke had already taken the edge from his anger and his feelings of being trapped on the Hill. Without willing it to, his mouth twisted into a smile that was a mirror image of hers. “Well, I suppose I am pulling at the tether a bit.”

“Why do you never speak of her?” Rehada asked. “Tell me what she’s like.”

As he downed half of his vodka, the lemon-infused liquor searing his mouth, throat, and finally his stomach, he turned to Rehada and admired the graceful curve of her eyebrows, her long eyelashes and full lips. The orange tourmaline held in the circlet glowed ever so softly. He knew good and well the sort of hezhan that gem granted, and he couldn’t wait for the heat of her to fill him, for the touch of her red hot skin, so unlike Atiana Vostroma’s, which was certain to be white as bone and cold as winter’s chill.