Alma Katsu - The Taker

“I’m angry with you,” I replied, “but it’s because you’re lying to me. You’re trying to crush my feelings for Jonathan.”

“I’ve managed to make you quite upset, haven’t I? Granted, I’ll allow that you can usually tell when I’m lying-and you’re the only one who seems to have that skill, my dear-but I’m not lying to you this time. I almost wish I was lying. Then you would not be so hurt, would you?”

It was too much to bear, being pitied by Adair at the same moment he was trying to turn me against Jonathan. I looked over at Jonathan as he peered over his cards to the pot in the middle of the table, absorbed in the faro game. I’d begun to find Jonathan’s presence a great comfort, like a resonant hum within me. Of late, though, I’d noticed a melancholy undercurrent from Jonathan, which I’d assumed was sadness for having left Evangeline and his daughter. If what Adair said was indeed true, might he not be melancholy for the unhappiness he caused me? It made me wonder for the first time if the obstacle to our love-the defect, as it were-lay with Jonathan and not me. For it seemed almost inhuman to be unable to give yourself over wholly to one person.

A trill of feminine laughter interrupted my thoughts, as Tilde threw down her cards in victory. Jonathan flashed a look back at her, and in that look, I knew that he had slept with her already. Slept with Tilde though he didn’t find her particularly alluring, though he knew to be wary of her, though he knew if I found out, I would be devastated. Despair lit up in me like flash paper, despair for what I was helpless to change.

“Such a waste.” Adair was at my ear instantaneously, like the serpent in the Garden. “You, Lanore, are capable of such a perfect love, a love like nothing I have ever seen. And why you choose to waste it on someone as unworthy as Jonathan…”

His whisper was like perfume on the night air. “What are you saying? Are you offering yourself up as a more worthy object of my love?” I asked, searching for the answer in his wolfish eyes.

“Would that you could love me, Lanore. If you really knew me, you would see I am unworthy of your love. But one day, perhaps you will look on me as you look on Jonathan, with the same favor? Impossible, it would seem, given your devotion to him, but who knows? I’ve seen the impossible happen, every once in a great long while,” he said slyly, but when I tried to ask him to explain himself, he merely wrinkled his nose and laughed. Then he rose from the divan and called to be dealt in on the next round of faro.

Ignored, I went into the study to find a book with which to divert myself. As I passed Adair’s desk, the light from my candle fell across a sheaf of papers left on the blotter and my eye went as though by magic to Jonathan’s name, written in Adair’s hand.

Why in the world would Adair be writing about Jonathan? A letter to a friend? I doubted he had a friend in the world. I held the pages closer to the candle.

Instructions for Pinnerly (the solicitor’s name, I’d learned).

Account to be established for Jacob Moore (Jonathan’s false name) with the Bank of England in the sum of eight thousand pounds (a fortune) transferred from the account of … (a name I did not recognize).

The instructions called for several other accounts to be set up in Jonathan’s false name, drawn from the accounts of other strangers in Amsterdam, Paris, and St. Petersburg. I read it over twice more but could make no sense of it, and left the page as I’d found it on the table.

It appeared Adair was so smitten with Jonathan that he was taking steps to provide for him, as though adopting him. I admit I was slightly jealous and wondered if a fund had been set up for me somewhere. What would be the point, if Adair had never told me as much? I had to wheedle and beg him for spending money, as did the others. It seemed only another sign that Adair had taken a special interest in Jonathan.

Jonathan seemed to accept his new life. At least, he didn’t object to being made to share Adair’s indulgences and vices, and he didn’t bring up St. Andrew. There was only one vice Adair hadn’t shared with his new favorite yet, one that Jonathan would not decline if it were offered. That vice was Uzra.

Jonathan had been living with us for three weeks when he was introduced to her. Adair asked Jonathan to wait in the drawing room, as I clung jealously to his side, and then Adair brought Uzra in with a flourish, the odalisque dressed in her usual swath of winding cloth. When he released her hand, the fabric dropped to the floor to reveal Uzra in her glory. Adair even had her dance for Jonathan, swaying her hips and twisting her arms as Adair sang an improvised tune. Afterward, he had the hookah brought down and we reclined on cushions thrown on the floor, taking turns sucking on the carved ivory mouthpiece.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she? So lovely that I haven’t been able to part with her. Not that she hasn’t been trouble: she’s a devil. Thrown herself out windows and off rooftops. Thinks nothing of giving me fits. Still burns with hatred for me.” He traced a finger down her nose, despite the fact that she looked as though she’d bite that finger off if given the chance. “I suppose that’s what’s kept her interesting to me over the years. Let me tell you how Uzra came to be with me.” At the mention of her name, Uzra tensed visibly.

“I met Uzra on a trip to the Moorish states,” Adair started, unaffected by Uzra’s distress. “I was in the company of a noble who was negotiating for the freedom of his brother, who had foolishly tried to steal some treasure from one of their leaders. I had by that time a fair reputation as a warrior. I had fifty years’ experience with the sword, more than most men. I had been bought, as it were, to help this nobleman, my loyalty paid for in coin. That was how I came to be in the East and stumble upon Uzra.

“It was in a large city, in the marketplace; she was following behind her father, and draped as custom demanded. All I could see of her were her eyes, but that was enough: I knew I had to see more. So I followed them to their encampment on the outskirts of the city. Speaking to some of the men tending the camels, I learned that the father was the leader of a nomadic tribe and that the family was in the city so that she could be given to some sultan, some indolent prince, in exchange for her father’s life.”

Poor Uzra was completely still now. She had even stopped drawing on the hookah. Adair wrapped a tendril of her fiery hair around a finger, gave it a tug as though reprimanding her for her aloofness, then let it fall.

“I found her tent, where she was attended by a dozen women servants. They formed a circle around her, and thinking she was hidden from view, helped her out of her robes, slipped the fabric from her cinnamon skin and unfurled her hair, their hands fluttering all over her body… Chaos broke out when I burst into the tent,” Adair said with a throaty laugh. “The women screamed, ran, fell over each other trying to protect themselves from me. How could they think I would settle for one of them when this mesmerizing jinn stood naked before me? And Uzra knew I’d come for her, from the look in her eye. She barely had time to cover herself with a robe before I swooped down on her and carried her away.

“I took her to a place in the desert where I knew no one would find us. I took her over and over that night, heedless of her crying,” he said, as though he had nothing to be ashamed of, as though he had as much right to her as he had to water to slake his thirst. “The sun came up the next morning before my delirium started to subside and I was sated with her beauty. In between our pleasures, I asked her why she was being given to the sultan. It was because her tribe held a superstition about a jinn with green eyes who would bring pestilence and suffering. They were fearful, the idiots, and they petitioned the sultan. The father was ordered to hand her over or be killed himself. You see, to break the curse she had to die.