Kei's Gift Read online

They had decided today was a good day for Kei to resume his duties, a sufficient time to heal coinciding neatly with Punus-feast, when most of the staff would be taking their day of leisure, going down to the civic square to see the celebrations and enjoying food stalls and free entertainment after the sacrifices. In other circumstances, Kei might enjoy seeing it too, but Arman was reluctant to let the man be exposed to large numbers of strangers until his confidence completely returned. He wouldn’t be able to protect him all the time—he had his own duties to perform today, and there was always the delightful prospect of Kei possibly being forced to endure meeting Arman’s father. Arman didn’t want a fragile soul exposed to that acid tongue.

  “You should stay here until I get back. I’ll only be a couple of hours.”

  “Yes, I will. I’ll have a wash though, while everyone’s out.”

  Arman frowned at that, even though this was also necessary, even more so, to prevent the kind of filthy accusation Mayl had threatened to put out about Loke, and which Arman had no doubt her servants already believed. No one who knew Arman would seriously have credited he had been sodomising his childhood friend and servant. But Kei was a full-grown man, a remarkably handsome one at that, and without the excuse of injury, his bathing in Arman’s rooms would be seen as meaning only one thing. Arman didn’t want to offer any supporting evidence for Mayl’s spite. It would do too much harm in too many quarters, and not all of it to him. “Can’t you wait until this evening?”

  “Won’t they be back by then?”

  Arman sighed. “Oh, do as you wish. You know, you’re a lot of trouble for a servant.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord.” Kei’s eyes were downcast as he spoke.

  “It’s not your fault, you idiot. I know it’s not easy for you either.”

  Kei looked at him. “No, it’s not. But it’s far easier than it could be. I have you and Karus-pei to thank for that.”

  “Yes, well....” Arman was surprised—and warmed—by the unexpected, probably unearned gratitude. Such a generous spirit, when he had been so badly harmed. “Come on, eat up, I’m tired of Karus’s cook giving me those mournful looks because she thinks I’m still not feeding you.”

  “I’ll be heavier than you in a month if I keep eating her sweet cakes,” Kei said with a grin. “She feeds me non-stop while I’m there.”

  “That’s because Karus has the appetite of a bird these days. It’s frustrating to the poor woman. Indulge her. It won’t be for long.”

  Kei looked down. “No, my lord. I hope it won’t.”

  And there it was again. Every conversation had this shadow over it. Kei’s hostage status, the siege, the fact there was only one realistic outcome to the war.... Perhaps they would meet again in their next lives, if the Darshian beliefs were true, and then they could be friends without reservation. A nice idea, anyway.

  Arman ate and then dressed in his armour—the less dazzling version, for, as he explained to Kei, there was no point in inuring people to his majesty. Kei gave him a grin at that comment. “My lord, I doubt that could ever happen.”

  Which, if Arman were prone to blushing, would have made him blush. He wasn’t, but he was still oddly pleased at the compliment. He liked to think he wasn’t a vain man, but living with Mayl and the disdain of his father made him forget very often that he wasn’t exactly repulsive by conventional standards. Not that it did him any good, but that he didn’t revolt Kei, who had to be used to very different standards of attractiveness, was something which pleased and surprised him, being a sign of a lack of resentment on Kei’s part for which Arman was grateful.

  He pulled on his best cloak. “I’ll be back soon. Stay out of trouble,” he said, strapping on his sword.

  “Yes, Arman,” Kei said, and this time there was no humour in his eyes.

  Arman suppressed a sigh as he left. His life had come to this, that there was more danger to a Darshianese hostage inside his own home than there was on the battlefield. If the Darshianese were right, he must have been a very great sinner in his past life.

  ~~~~~~~~

  The kitchen was empty. Kei put the dishes in the sink for washing—Arman had told him not to worry in future about cleaning them, or doing his or Arman’s laundry, for there were people employed to deal with that and they damn well would do, he’d said—then he crept as quickly and quietly as he could to the washroom. He took a hasty bath, not wasting time waiting to draw hot water since he could bear cold, dressed in clean, fresh clothes, and hoped he’d be able to escape back to Arman’s rooms without being seen at all. He now wished he’d listened to Arman’s advice and waited—his stomach had been churning since he’d left Arman’s chambers.

  Unfortunately he was out of luck. He heard Mykis’s voice as he came out of the washroom, and unless he wanted to hide in there indefinitely (and perhaps be discovered skulking, which would be humiliating to say the least), there was no choice but to walk out and hope Arman’s warnings would protect him.

  It did, a little. Mykis only scowled at him, but didn’t speak as Kei emerged. Mykis wasn’t alone, however. Peri, the hisk-faced boy who acted as messenger and general hand about the gardens (and who had gladly passed many of his duties to Kei before Arman put a stop to it), was there too—as was Arman’s wife. Kei couldn’t rush past her with impunity, so he stopped and bowed respectfully, hoping she would think him beneath her notice.

  In that, he was also out of luck. She handed something to Peri, said something to him about “Mekus” and dismissed him, before walking over to Kei. She said nothing, merely giving him that same cold appraisal as she had the day he’d arrived. She said something to Mykis, whose scowl deepened. “Sei Mayl wishes to know if you are now fully recovered.”

  “Please tell her yes, I am.” Kei stared straight ahead, trying not to catch either of their gazes.

  Mykis repeated the information, or Kei assumed he did. She tapped her fan against her lips and walked around him slowly, like he was a vase in the market she was considering buying. She said something else. “She wants to check you’re healed. Take off your shirt, boy.”

  Kei started and looked down at her in horror. “My lady—”

  “Are you deaf, boy?” Mykis snapped. “Take off your shirt. It’s not like it’ll hurt you,” he added with a sneer.

  Kei fumbled at the ties of his shirt, his face burning with embarrassment. She watched him calmly, betraying no emotion in her expression, but Kei sensed her malice, and something...less wholesome. He swallowed as he took his shirt off, holding it in front of him, and wished he was anywhere on earth than here. This was worse than being beaten.

  Again, the slow appraising look. She said something to Mykis, who smiled unpleasantly and made an unmistakeably sexual gesture towards Kei’s body, which made her laugh. Kei couldn’t believe a married woman, a pregnant one at that, would engage a servant in this...this lascivious assessment, nor make what were clearly prurient comments on the half-naked body of another man in this way.

  At last she was satisfied, and Mykis curtly told him to put his shirt back on. “My mistress wants to know if you enjoy serving her husband.” The way Mykis said ‘serving’ left little doubt what he really meant—Kei couldn’t tell if that was how she meant it, but somehow he suspected she did.

  “Sei Arman is a good and kind master,” Kei said. Let them make of that what they wanted.

  She gave him a knowing look as his remark was repeated back at her. “My mistress says to take care, my master has a habit of risking his servants’ lives.”

  Kei looked at Mykis then. “Is this a remark you want me to pass back to Sei Arman as from your lips, Mykis? Tell your mistress I have no concerns or fears working for her husband. He treats me with kindness and respect, as an honourable person should.”

  Sei Mayl’s lips tightened as Mykis reported Kei’s comments, and she snapped something back at him. “She wants you to remove yourself from her presence. As do I.”

  “Gladly,” Kei said calmly, walking without haste f
rom the kitchen, but still half expecting Mykis’s fearsome cane to land on his back at any moment.

  He kept his composure until he got back to Arman’s rooms, and then he sank onto a chair, his hands shaking and sweaty. Gods, how could there be people like this and Arman in the same city, let alone the same house? He pitied Arman deeply over this home of his. At least one day, Kei would escape. Arman would never be free—at least not, Kei suspected, without paying a high price in scandal and loss of face. There were definitely benefits to not being of any nobility of any kind. If this was what it meant to be a lord in this society, the Prij were welcome to it.

  He couldn’t help but wonder over the constant innuendo he’d heard about Arman and Loke. It didn’t seem unusual for a manservant to sleep in his master’s rooms, so Kei could only assume the closeness between the two of them had led people to speculate there was something improper going on, even if that very speculation made Arman’s wife look something of a fool. Arman had never mentioned anything of the kind regarding Loke, even though he freely admitted, at least to Kei, to loving Loke much more deeply than he could ever have done his spouse. But had Arman really been sleeping with the boy?

  Arman didn’t appear the type, somehow. Despite his non-relationship with his wife, he seemed to suffer none of the sexual frustration beginning to build in Kei now he’d stopped being beaten, starved and worked to a frazzle. Kei’s urges, fuelled by his memories of lovemaking with Reji, were a constant but easily bearable irritant, a background to his life he took for granted as part of being a man. But Arman appeared to be without interest in such things—never making any remotely ribald comment or indicating he noticed the attractiveness of anyone, and certainly never referring to Loke with anything other than reverence.

  Kei was no expert on the man, and he had only had a short time to observe him, but it was still puzzling. Arman was a handsome, desirable man, in good health, and, apart from his period of wild grief over his friend’s death, a remarkably stable person. Why he would suppress his natural instincts this way?

  Perhaps being married to that bitch would put a rope around anyone’s balls, Kei thought, allowing himself a bluntness he would never express to Arman. He hoped sincerely the happiness Arman did not get from his marriage, he might yet gain in fatherhood. But the upcoming birth, just a couple or so months away, was something Arman never referred to, not to Karus or to Kei. It was if he forgot most of the time he had a wife or child on the way at all.

  As promised, Arman was back in less than two hours, for which Kei was grateful—being alone in his house inevitably left him feeling anxious, uncomfortably conscious of his vulnerability and how much his present safety depended on the goodwill of a single man. If Arman tired of him, or was told to send him away, Kei could easily end up under the control of another Mykis, and this time, without a powerful patron to protect him.

  “What’s happened?” Arman said quietly as he came in and shut the door. “You’ve got that spooked jesig look in your eyes again. Has someone done something to you?”

  Kei took Arman’s ceremonial breastplate from his hands, and hung it on the stand. “No, not really. I just encountered Mykis earlier...and your wife. No one hurt me.”

  “Good. And how was the honoured Sei Mayl? As pleasant as ever?”

  “She’s apparently concerned for my wellbeing.”

  Arman raised an eyebrow. “That I find most unlikely. Ignore her. She likes to torment. If it would not have offended my father, she’d have done it to Loke too.” He rubbed his forehead. “Gods, why do I go to that every month? Would it trouble you to work your magic on my head again?”

  “Of course not. Lean forward.” Kei put his thumbs gently against the pulse points and massaged, while he used his mind-mover’s gift to ease the blood vessels making Arman’s head throb. It only took a minute before he felt Arman relax. “Better?”

  “Much,” he said with a sigh. “I wish I knew how you did that.”

  “Trade secret, my lord.” Arman gave him a weary grin. “Why do you go to that if it annoys you so much?”

  “Because it’s expected twice over of me. I’m a general and of the senatorial class. Piety is obligatory in us.”

  Kei had learned more of the Prijian religion from Karus, who genuinely believed in his gods and took comfort from them, although he wasn’t a superstitious man or a gullible one. He sensed Arman’s faith was less solidly founded, but it wasn’t an area he would tread in. Religion was a touchy subject with the Prij, the bedrock of their state and their belief in their right to rule other nations. Asking about it opened up a thurl’s nest of questions, which could lead to bad feeling. Kei wasn’t going to risk that.

  He turned the conversation to the celebrations he was to attend in three days’ time, and Arman’s role in them. Mykis and Arman’s distasteful wife were left aside as something neither of them wanted to talk about, and lunch with Karus, finally over his cold and back on his feet, improved Arman’s mood again. The day with its unpromising beginning, turned out in the end to be a good one for all of them.

  Kei left Arman talking quietly with Karus indoors, while he and Jena enjoyed the last of the daylight out in the garden which made them both homesick, but yet was a source of comfort too, with the familiar scents and colours. “I can’t wait to see the others,” she said, sitting on the grass under the big tido palm. “Does it sometimes feel to you like we could be here forever?”

  “All the time. Yet Darshek could fall any day now. It’s ironic it would mean we go home but the others would be captives, maybe. I don’t know what to wish for any more.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.” She looked around to see if they were being overheard. “You don’t think a rescue will come now, do you?”

  “No. I think the siege is working too well. So much for their damn plans and promises—we should have all fled to Darshek instead of a few of us.”

  “But then we’d all be captured when Darshek fell.” She sighed. “Why us? Why can’t the damn Prij stick to their own damn islands and leave us in peace?”

  He took her hand as he sat down. “It’s their nature. Like some men are more argumentative, and some women more lusty.”

  She gave him an odd look, and grinned at their joined hands. “Is that a comment on anyone in particular?”

  He stuck his tongue at her. “Not you, you prim little healer. You want to hope Aldik hasn’t moved onto someone else by the time you get home. Ow!” She’d poked him hard in the stomach. “Well, it’s true.”

  “He wants a quiet life. He doesn’t have a roving eye or I wouldn’t put up with him.” Her lover was a widower who didn’t care she was infertile. His children were grown, and she had him all to herself. It was an arrangement a lot of gifted people had, and it worked as well as turning to one of their own kind, often not an option in the villages. The only other alternative was casual romps with normals, who then discarded them for proper spouses when they were ready to build a home and a family.

  Still, when Kei saw what Arman had to put up with for the sake of a so-called normal life, he was happy to be the way he was. “I wish all married people were like that,” he said heavily.

  “Oh? What’s happening?”

  “Arman’s wife,” he said in a low voice, worried about being overheard. “Tell me, if you had a choice between skinny, bruised old me and Arman, who would you choose?”

  She grinned. “Him, of course. He’s like one of their gods. He’s taller than you even, and I didn’t think that was possible. And that amazing hair...for a Prij, he’s beautiful.”

  “Exactly. So why was she giving me the once over in the kitchen, do you think?”

  “What?” He shushed her. “Are you joking? She’s pregnant.”

  “Yes, I know.“

  “Ick.”

  “Exactly.”

  She looked at him in concern. “Be careful. The last thing you need is to be accused of raping one of their women.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.
” “I don’t encourage her. She’s not my type for a start.”

  “Oh, right. So who is your type? The golden general?”

  “Jena,” he said, shaking his head in exasperation. “Don’t even think that as a jest.”

  “That’s all it is. He’s a handsome man, but he’s not one of us. They don’t want to pollute the pure Prijian blood with that of nasty primitive Darshianese. We’re safe.”

  “I hope. Come on, Cook must be ready to serve dinner by now.”

  ~~~~~~~~

  Arman was glad on Kei’s account for the day-long celebrations of Her Serenity’s birthday, but for his own, he only wished it to be over. He didn’t enjoy the ceremonial part of his job in the least—although to be fair, the same was true of his fellow generals and the Lord Commander himself. This year, because he was the only one of the three generals actually on Kuplik, he would have an even more prominent role, having to prance about in his best armour for at least an hour, and spend at least another two listening to dull speeches of congratulations from the senators. Usually he contrived to be off Kuplik if he could on this day—no escaping it this year.

  He sent Kei to Karus’s house early, so he and Jena could go with Karus’s people to the festival. Karus thought he would not go to the square this year, having been so recently ill, and had told everyone in advance he was saving himself for the Solstice night bonfires, which he loved to watch. Arman wished him good health for that, and had promised to join him then. Privately, he prayed Jena and Kei would still be there then, to make sure Karus was well for it. It was only three weeks away—surely it wasn’t wrong of him to want to delay their departure for that short time, and for Karus’s sake, not his own. Yet the siege had to end soon. He wanted it to end. Kei needed to go home, Arman knew it very well, and would not place any obstacle in his path. But if he could just stay those three weeks....

  He rode down the docks where five hundred of his troops were assembled, all specially chosen for the honour of participating in the birthday celebrations. It would hold no surprises for him. There was to be the usual military parade with drums, musicians, dancers and children strewing flowers, starting from the north end of the Avenue of the Gods. The Lord Commander was to ride beside him. All Arman had to do was sit on the back of his well-trained jesig and look imposing, which he could do with his eyes shut—literally, since his ceremonial helmet hid them so well—but would not do so in case he actually fell asleep, as was rumoured to have happened once to one of his predecessors in the reign of Her Serenity’s father. Landing in an undignified heap on the ground for his jesig to step on would not enhance his standing with Her Serenity.