Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

First impressions curdled as he appraised the painted terra-cotta animals and plaster figurines. Whoever had added those did not know what taste was. Gaudy cushions and low gilt tables were being set out for dining. Half a dozen slaves—all male, all Florengian, a couple of them little more than boys—were laying out meats and fruits and well-shaped loaves. His mouth ached. Rumble ...

Swordsman Nerio was likewise engaged in wiping off sweat and red dust, but he was also issuing orders to servants, who ran to carry them out. He noticed Benard's attention on him and wandered in his direction, still breathing hard but clearly amused.

"You are surprised?"

"Who owns this place?"

"Why, the lady Hiddi." Nerio had learned his wide-eyed innocence from her.

"She is married? Or had a rich father?"

The wide-eyed innocence was very close to wide-eyed mockery. "I cannot discuss the lady's affairs, master artist. I am sure you may ask her yourself." He spoke a more citified brand of Vigaelian than Hiddi did, and his smile was almost a smirk, brazenly hinting that he enjoyed his employer's favors.

Hiddi now approached, having descended from her chair still cool and ravishing, and now openly amused by her guest's breathless, sweat-soaked condition. He had never seen woven mist like her dress. There was very little of it to see.

"You approve of my residence?" she inquired, spider to fly.

"It's magnificent, my lady." It had been until she started making it over.

"Only my very special friends get invited here, Benard."

"I am honored."

"It will be a treat for you. My cook is an expert. I always eat off gold plate, of course."

In Benard's experience, gold plate was absurdly impractical stuff, chilling hot food instantly. "I am really impressed."

"I think, though, that you should be rubbed down before being fed your hot mash. Follow me." Hiddi floated toward the house.

He followed, fascinated by the movement of her hips and keeping his hands off her only by great effort. "Your goddess rewards you well."

"Of course She does." She swept into a shadowy chamber where one of the younger slaves was tipping water from a steaming jar into a bath. "That will do, Cosimo. We shan't need more."

The bath was set below floor level, unpractically wide and shallow. The room was luxurious, with glazed tiles on the walls and floor depicting flowers and shrubs full of birds that made the room's dimness burn with brilliant colors. Unfortunately, Hiddi's taste predominated. The effect was hideous enough to hurt Benard's eyes. He could guess the hack artist who had done it; wealthy people heaped gifts on him for creating such monstrosities. Suspecting a trap, he scanned the room carefully for inconspicuous images of holy Eriander, but found none.

The boy padded out on bare feet, sneaking a monumentally inscrutable glance at Benard as he passed.

"You favor Florengians, I see."

"Animals, like all men," Hiddi said, testing the water with a foot no goddess would spurn and no peasant could even imagine. "All slaves, since I can enslave any man I fancy anyway. Of course, I march them through my bedroom all night."

He squirmed at her sarcasm. No woman had ever disconcerted him so much, not even Ingeld. But there was no drawing back now.

"Of course. Six at a time, I presume?"

"Are you going to bathe like that, or undress?"

"I don't need help to wash myself."

"Wash? You never had a woman in a bathtub, Florengian?"

None of her business. "I shall need instruction."

"I'll call for Nerio." The pink gossamer floated down around her feet. Without removing a single jewel, Hiddi stepped into the water and turned to face him. "You only need a moment, don't you? One quick yowl, you said?"

"What I need," Benard said, pulling off his smock, "may be a lot less than what I take."

As it turned out, there were several yowls and a terrible lot of splashing at the end.

♦

Much later, and in another room, Hiddi said, "Sun's setting. I must go and serve my god."

They were sitting on the edge of the sleeping platform. She was running a tortoiseshell comb through her silken hair, and Benard had been mentally rearranging furniture. He still had an arm around her. He wondered where his clothes were.

The platform bore soft mats of red and purple, which clashed with the wall hangings, which fought with the rugs. The room held far too much ill-sorted stuff —chairs, chests, tables, even a grotesque image of Eriander, which he had covered with a drape before joining Hiddi on the sleeping mat to repeat their earlier love-making in the bathtub. The entire house was an artistic junk heap, an obscene misuse of wealth. Her cooks and gardeners were skilled, her house servants well trained and respectful, but the only real beauty in the place was Hiddi herself. Sometime during the afternoon Benard had removed all her assorted jewels, having persuaded her that she was both lovelier and more cuddlesome without them.

He should not be so petty. All his bodily needs had been satisfied without stint. Life bore a rosy glow.

"When can I see you again?" he asked.

Her smile was a purr. "You enjoyed romping with your little Nymph, mm?"

"A day to be remembered always. I trust I gave satisfaction?'

"Indeed you did." He waited for her to bring up the subject of his gold.

But what she said was "You are a true artist! Come and see me any time you like, Benard. I serve the god at night. I'm here all day." She rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't have many friends. I have to sleep sometimes, but I won't mind you waking me. I'll tell Nerio to let you in whenever you want."

twenty-four

FABIA CELEBRE

came awake with a start. She had been sleeping soundly, with one hand, as had become her habit, stretched out beyond the edge of her mat to rest on the cold earth. She had been dreaming of darkness and how to make it. She opened her eyes and saw nothing.

The Wrogg was certainly the greatest highway of the Face, writhing in vast loops of reeds and sluggish water across the flat lands, navigable from Lake Skjar almost to its source in the Ice. Prevailing winds blew sunwise in summer and the Wrogg flowed the other way, so the swarming riverboats, which in sum housed more people than any city of Vigaelia, could ride the breezes upstream and rely on the current to bring them back. The riverfolk were almost a race apart, worshiping simple nature gods and speaking their own tonal dialect known as "Wroggian." They shunned villages and towns, preferring to pitch tents on the levees at sunset. Many of them boasted that they had never slept under a roof. At dawn they raised red triangular sails and moved on.

Fabia was in her personal leather tent, so tiny that she could not sit up in it. She could not have been asleep long, for the riverfolk were still singing, celebrating a chance reunion with friends they had not seen in years and might not meet again for many more. She was used to that by now. What had awakened her?

Came a whisper, "Fabia Celebre!"

Ah! She nodded.

"I am Mist." The voice came from outside and at her level, as if the speaker were lying on the grass to evade the guards' notice.

Wide awake now, Fabia rolled over on her side. "It is about time! Why have I heard nothing from you until now? It's ages since we—"

"Not so loud. When did you expect to hear from us? The nights you spent in the palace next door to its mistress? During the voyage across the lake, when you were hung over the rail like bright green laundry? Or perhaps at Yormoth, where you shared a room with the Queen of Shadows? Or since then, while you've been guarded by a dozen Werists and never a stone's throw away from her? Are you not worried that she may keep watch on you in her own dark ways? You think it is easy for us to come at you unobserved?"