Dangerous Gifts Read online

  He was still slumped in his chair when I left. Probably a waste of half-decent wine and a better story, but the best I knew to do.

  On the way back, I kept my ears open, both inner and outer, and heard nothing but rain, the shift of the beasts in their stables and the subtle scrabblings of small creatures going about their overnight business in the wet leafmould.

  Halfway back to the house, it hit me properly. Babaska. She had found me, and she wanted something. I didn’t know what, I didn’t know if I could go on keeping her out, I didn’t even know how I’d managed to shut her out this time. My hands and feet went to ice, and I shook like rat in a dog’s jaws. I wrapped my arms around myself, and waited for it to be over. When the shivering finally let go, I felt as leaden-weary as though I’d been fighting for days.

  At least now I knew why my gut had been unhappy about leaving Scalentine. It seemed disease and powerful magic weren’t the only things the portals blocked. And perhaps my use of the device had opened a door that might otherwise have stayed shut, even outside Scalentine.

  “WHAT IS IT?” Fain said, snatching the door open. “Is something... No. It can’t be something wrong with Enthemmerlee, can it, or I wouldn’t be standing here. You know, I’m somewhat weary of feeling like a damn weathercock.”

  “A weathercock?”

  “Twitching with every breeze that might bring a threat. It’s hardly restful.”

  He did look tired; his beautifully curved cheekbones were more prominent, and shadows had been brushed under his eyes with an artful hand. It was the sort of look that would make the susceptible long to soothe away whatever troubled him.

  “You look tired,” he said, startling me.

  “I was about to say the same.”

  “Well, we both have our troubles.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Then I suppose you’d best come in.” He gestured me towards a chair, and paused. “You appear to need a towel.”

  There were some of the house towels, embroidered with the reaching lizard, done in scarlet. They were thick, velvety things, almost as good as the ones we had at home. The ones back in my room were mostly slung over the backs of furniture. I’m not naturally tidy. Fain, on the other hand... if he hadn’t been standing there, holding out one of the towels, you wouldn’t have known the room was inhabited, there was so little sign of him scattered about.

  “Thank you,” I said, and took the towel. “Has there been any news?”

  “News?” Fain went to the window and ran the curtain through his fingers, frowning at the faded cloth.

  “From home.” I coughed. “Through that loathsome device of yours.”

  “You really do dislike it, don’t you?” I watched him carefully, but there was no extra weight to his voice. If he knew I’d used the thing in his absence, he gave no sign.

  Of course, the next time he used it himself, the woman on the other end would no doubt tell him. Then I’d be up to my knees in shit.

  What had I been thinking?

  Perhaps something wanted you to...

  “Yes,” I said, meaning it. “I do dislike it. A lot. But I admit it’s a very useful thing, and I just hoped...”

  “No. There’s been nothing. We do not use the device casually, but if there had been anything of importance, someone would have contacted me.”

  I didn’t know whether or not to feel relieved.

  “Now,” Fain said. “Since you’re here. The ball. There will be outsiders, according to what the family were telling me earlier. And I would be grateful if you could mingle with the crowd. Keep your ears open.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “Chatter about grain prices. Chatter about trade, and borders, and so forth. Merchants’ chatter.”

  “Oh, yes. I wanted to talk to you about that. You noticed anything about the food?”

  “The Gudain cuisine is quite lively.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. But they don’t have bread.”

  “No? Well, one can live without it. Why?”

  “Mr Fain, they don’t have grain. They don’t grow it. They don’t eat it. It’s not part of their diet. So why would someone be stockpiling it and planning to try to sell it to them?”

  He laced his fingers under his chin. “Hmm. Interesting. Then perhaps something else is going on.”

  “You were talking to Lobik. He didn’t have any ideas?”

  “No, although his grasp of the politics of the situation is astute. Remarkably so, considering that he was deprived of any real education until adulthood. A most extraordinary man.”

  “Enthemmerlee’s lucky to have him, then.”

  “Indeed. So long as the Gudain do not see her as too heavily influenced by an Ikinchli; that, too, is a danger he is aware of, but there is little he can do except not make it obvious when he is giving her advice.”

  I shuddered. “Politics.”

  “Indeed.”

  “So,” I said. “Do you still want me to listen to people talk about stuff I don’t understand and which, quite frankly, will bore me so much I doubt I’ll be able to remember a word of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Something is going on, Babylon. Something someone with influence in the Section doesn’t want me to find out. This makes me exceptionally eager to find out what, in fact, it is, and who is behind it.”

  His eyes glittered darkly, and I wondered if whoever it was realised just what they’d taken on when they decided to mess with Darask Fain. Including me, I thought with something of a chill, although messing with him hadn’t been my original intention.

  “So long as I can still watch Enthemmerlee,” I said.

  “Since I will be there, it can be assumed that that damned oath of yours will ensure that I fling myself between her and any potential assassin.”

  I didn’t think it would improve matters if I pointed out that some weapons can go through two people almost as easily as one.

  “What will you be doing?” I said. “Apart from any flinging that may be required.”

  “I am going to be attending as Darask Fain, potential investor. I, too, will be listening to the chatter, but I may be seen as a possible rival. People might be less cautious about what they say in your hearing.”

  “You think they might try and seduce me with exciting talk of crops and trade percentages?”

  “I doubt they will try and seduce anyone at all. Not at the Gudain court.”

  It was time I took over from Rikkinnet. I wasn’t looking forward to standing outside Enthemmerlee’s door all night; too damn much time to think.

  RIKKINNET GAVE ME an unnervingly sharp once-over. “Trouble?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing to do with this, no.” At least, I hoped not. “Rikkinnet, do you know the servants here?”

  “No, I do not,” she said. “You think because I follow Enthemmerlee I am a servant?”

  “Dammit, no! I just thought you might know the household, that’s all. Last night the servants were partying, because of Enthemmerlee; I couldn’t tell if anyone was missing. If they didn’t think it was something to celebrate, they might be a threat. Or a potential threat.”

  “I think that Dentor is a much more obvious threat.”

  I gritted my teeth. “It isn’t always the obvious threat that bites your arse.”

  “One Ikinchli with a badly aimed stone is not all Ikinchli.”

  “It wasn’t...” I looked at the dent in my shield, and was suddenly overwhelmed with a sort of weary anger. “Never mind. I’m just trying to do my job. If you think I’m the wrong person for it, you persuade them to send me home. Right now, I’d damn well thank you for it.”

  At that moment Enthemmerlee’s door opened. “Madam Steel? May I speak with you?”

  “Of course,” I said, with some relief.

  “Rikkinnet, please, go; you haven’t eaten.”

  She looked at the two of us with an expre
ssion I couldn’t read, nodded, and walked off.

  “And you, have you eaten?” Enthemmerlee said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Enthemmerlee gestured for me to sit down. She remained standing herself, fidgeting with a lamp, adjusting the wick, turning it down low. The room, like all the ones in this damned house, was too low in the ceiling for its height. It was too large, and too full of oversized, elaborate furniture; turning down the lamp should have made it cosy, but it simply allowed shadows to leap from the walls and cluster around the big, empty bed. I shuddered, hard, but fortunately Enthemmerlee wasn’t looking.

  “I understand we have another guest?” Enthemmerlee said.

  “Oh, yes, Mokraine. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Sorry? Why?”

  “Well, it might complicate things. I had no idea he planned to follow me here... Well, I don’t think he was following me, actually. I don’t know why he’s here. Neither does he.” Well, not in a way I could understand, anyway.

  “He doesn’t know?”

  “No. He gets confused. A lot.”

  “And he is a warlock? I know almost nothing about those who use magic. We have so little here.”

  “He is. He was very powerful, once. I don’t think he’d damage anyone on purpose, but he should be treated with caution.”

  “Poor man. Is there anything we can do to help him?”

  “I don’t know. Him being here... I’ve no idea if that’s a good sign or a bad one, and I don’t know what drew him any more than he does. He might actually be useful, but he is, potentially, dangerous.”

  “Should we perhaps provide him with transport home?”

  “I think it might be advantageous to keep him around a bit, if you’ve no objection. There are things he can do, even in his present state, that might be useful.”

  “Then I will be guided by you on this. But if it seems he may become a threat, your advice will be required on how to deal with him.”

  “Of course.” What advice I could give, I didn’t know. Apart from knocking him out when he was distracted, I really wasn’t sure how to deal with a (possibly) very powerful and (definitely) less than sane warlock. Fain had claimed to have a plan; I wondered if he really did.

  “Is it right that he is able to read minds?”

  “Not precisely. Who...”

  “Oh, Scholar Bergast mentioned something.”

  “Well, he’s got it wrong. Mokraine can pick up powerful emotions, occasional individual images, but not complex thoughts. He couldn’t snatch the words you’re about to say out of your head. He might have some idea about how you felt at the time, but that’s all. And maybe if you had a very clear mental image of something, he might get that. At least, I think that’s how it works.”

  “I see.”

  “Was it Mokraine you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “No. I... Madam Steel... I... Oh, this is very difficult. I hope you will forgive me.”

  I wondered, with unseemly hope, if I was about to be fired.

  “I need...” Enthemmerlee moved her hands in a gesture of graceful helplessness. “I need your advice.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Please, sit. I...”

  I sat down. Her cheeks glowed with that soft green blush, and she stared anywhere but at me. I began to get an inkling.

  “Lady Enthemmerlee? This advice, are you asking me because of my profession? Not the soldiering, I mean.”

  “I hope... Yes. I don’t mean to, I know you are here as a bodyguard, and I don’t wish to have you think that I see you as...”

  “A whore?” I said, as gently as I could.

  “Is that...”

  “One word for it. There are others. I don’t know if you can understand this, I know things are very different for you. But it’s what I do, Lady Enthemmerlee, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m very good at it. I trained to do it. I make people happy. If I get it right, they go back to their lives feeling better about themselves and the world around them. So you won’t offend me by calling me what I am. Please, ask me anything you want, I’ll try to help.”

  “For us,” she said, still staring at her hands, “I mean, for the Gudain... We do not talk of it. It is like, well, urination. Necessary, but not something one thinks about much, or for polite conversation. Or any conversation, except to speak to a healer, if things go wrong. One does it when it is necessary.”

  “But what about desire?” I said. “People can make all the rules they like, but lust happens.”

  “Did you notice anything about the streets of the town, as we drove through?” she said.

  “It looked rather empty,” I said.

  “Did you notice who was on the streets?”

  I thought back. “Ikinchli, in the main. Servants. A few Gudain.”

  “Yes.” She stood up, and went to the window, and drew the curtain back a little; I nipped up alongside her, hoping those damn guards on the gate were still doing their job.

  “Lady, it would ease my mind a deal if you wouldn’t stand in the window with the light behind you.”

  “Oh, of course.” She sighed, and moved away, letting the heavy curtain fall back. “I do not know what I expected to see.” She turned to me, her gold eyes lambent in the soft light of the lamp. “There are more Ikinchli than Gudain. Many more. The trend has been increasing for several generations. We – Gudain – no longer breed well.”

  “The smoke,” I said, without thinking.

  If she was shocked at what I’d said, she gave no sign. “The privaiya smoke. It affected you, which is proof of something I have suspected for a long time. The smoke is called the gift of the Great Artificer, given only to Gudain, so that they may control their animal lusts, and concentrate instead upon the higher purposes for which they were created. But you are not Gudain; and that to me says that it is no tool of any Great Artificer, but a drug and a curse.”

  “But you attended,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. To do so was, well, politic. I suspected it might no longer affect me, and I was right.” She clenched her hands. “Yet if I campaign to ban its use, as part of privaiya worship, I will be seen as campaigning against the Great Artificer, as introducing animalistic Ikinchli ways... The Gudain need no further reason to fear and mistrust me. Yet they are wiping themselves out. The Ten Families, particularly: they bear fewer children every year.

  “You must have noticed how these halls echo; this house is meant for a family, not this sad remnant. And once it would have been full. But our servants outnumber us ten to one. And this creates another problem. Selinecree... There were no men of the appropriate class for Selinecree to marry when she came of age, and she would not consider marrying outside the Ten Families. Many others are the same. I don’t know if you have worked with beasts, you have had such an interesting life...”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, like herdbeasts?” I said. “Not since I was very young. Mainly, in latter years, I’ve just acted as a guard when they were being driven across bad country, that sort of thing. Why?”

  “If the flock is too small, and the beasts are bred too close, there are consequences. Unhealthy ones.”

  “Oh. I know what you mean. I’ve seen it in court circles, and in isolated villages.” I could remember more than one place where the majority of the inhabitants all had disturbingly similar features... Not to mention a few other things about them that were disturbing.

  “Chitherlee’s mother. She is weak. Both physically and... She would never have been able to look after Chitherlee. And she is not the only one.”

  She rested her hands on the table, opening and closing her fingers so the delicate webbing between them stretched, relaxed, stretched again. “The Gift of the Artificer. Perhaps it is. Perhaps the Great Artificer did not like his own creation very much.”

  She pushed herself away from the table, and started to pace the room, shadows passing over her as she moved. “I have read histories. And I have learned this. Being outnumbered, especially
in a time when resources are scarce, makes any group more defensive, more determined to attack any threat before it even exists. I believe this imbalance in the population is a large part of why treatment of the Ikinchli has worsened, and more severe laws have been passed, even in my own lifetime. I wonder sometimes if it is merely a just reward for the folly and arrogance of my... former race. That perhaps it would be better this way; that eventually the Ikinchli, with no help from me, would be freed from their oppression, because there will be no Gudain left to oppress them. But foully as the Gudain have behaved, I cannot stand by and witness this. And even if I did, they will cling to power for more generations, during which more children will be born like Chitherlee’s mother and more Ikinchli will suffer. And it is not just the smoke. The smoke is only one of the Gudain’s attempts to separate ourselves from desire, to prove how very unlike the Ikinchli we are. Even without the smoke, we are crippled by this. So, I need your help.”

  I stared at her. “What exactly do you want of me, Lady Enthemmerlee? I’m not a herb-wife or a healer; I certainly don’t know how to make people more fertile. Any expertise I have tends in the other direction, to be blunt.”

  “No. It’s your... other profession, that I think... I mean, I hope...” She tugged at one of the curtains so hard that a section of it tore away from its mountings, and she looked at it helplessly as it sagged. “I’m sorry, this is very difficult for me. But my entire race is out of the habit, the practice of desire. It is destroying us.”

  Oh, boy. “I’m a good whore, my lady, but I think getting a whole species primed for wick-dippage is more than I could manage.” Not when you were the Avatar of Babaska, memory muttered. I shoved it aside.

  Enthemmerlee looked bemused. “Wick...?”

  Oops. People who never talk about nookie aren’t going to have a lot of metaphors for it. “Sex,” I said.