Allis woke up slowly, her head pillowed on Temmin's shoulder. Just past her nose she could see long strands of her black hair laced among the curly gold ones furring Temmin's chest; she'd neglected to braid her hair the night before. She would have tangles to brush out.
She slipped from Temmin's grasp; he burbled in his sleep and turned over. She smiled at his broad, white back and frowned at his now just-as-white neck. The tan he'd always had from life spent more in the stables and hills than in fashionable drawing rooms had faded in his year at the Temple. It saddened her. The color gave him a common touch; it humanized him. While everyone respected his father King Harsin, few loved him. Temmin would be a king people both respected and loved, she was sure of it. When he ended his Supplicancy next year, she hoped the tan returned. She didn't want to think about next year.
How late was it? Well past dawn; the drawn curtains let in light. It must be blinding in her public rooms. There, the walls were painted soft white, the color of the Goddess Neya, accented with Nerr's red and the entwined rose-pink of the Lovers Joined. Issak's public rooms mirrored hers, all in red with white and rose accents. In their private rooms, the Embodiments could have things as they pleased, an extravagance in lives tradition and service circumscribed into the narrowest of channels.
Allis turned onto her back and gazed up at the blue ceiling. She kept her own rooms in colors of the sky—blue, gray and white. They reminded her of her childhood before Maman died, when she'd sneak up into the brothel's attics and look out over the verdigris rooftops of Ouve, the seaside capital of the duchy of Belleth. The sky there was just this blue, and the clouds all white and gray would float by like the ships leaving the harbor. She would imagine she and Issak and Maman sailing free in one of those puffy ships high in the air, over the city, over the harbor, over the sea far away to some place where Maman would be well and the three of them could live without Maman having to work for Mistress Polls.
When Maman got sick Allis wanted to go to the Sister's Temple to pray to Venna the Healer, but Mistress said a whore's children could never go inside any Temple. Allis found a copper in the gutter and bought a figurine of Venna from a street seller instead of sweets. She prayed and prayed to Venna in her secret attic for Maman to get well so she might finish paying her indenture to Mistress and they could all leave.
Then Maman died, and Issak and Allis had to work for Mistress to pay Maman's debt. No more sneaking up to the attic window. No more windows at all. Just men.
They were ten years old.
Teacher came for them a few spokes later and took them through a mirror to a Mother's House here in the City. One night not long after, the House of Polls burned to the ground. Allis loved the idea of burning down the house where she and Issak had been forced to do things no child should do, and wished she'd set it alight herself—during the day, so that the house's black smoke would rise into Ouve's blue sky. The memories the house contained would sail from their lives forever. The child in her thought perhaps if that cloud ship had sailed, no one would ever have known.
The adult in her knew the King would have found out anyway. When he sent Lord Litta to blackmail the twins, the child in her had wailed in shame and grief, but the grownup Allis remembered her mother. Liddy Obby's sheer force of will had somehow kept her children from anything other than menial work in that house, even as her body withered. Allis could be that strong.
When she and Issak turned the tables on Litta it satisfied almost as much as the brothel's destruction. They paid a great price in some ways for telling their story to the newspapers; now everyone knew. But it bought more than the breaking of Litta's hold on them. As long as the whores paid their fees to Pagg's Temple, prostitution was legal. Child prostitution was not, though enough coin bought anything. In telling the secret, Allis and her brother unleashed a tide of reform that swept through the brothels of Tremont; it freed more than one child kept as they had been. Best of all, Temmin had come to her in spite of knowing, in spite of everything the King had put in his way.
Them. Temmin had come to Them, Nerr and Neya, not her. He owed his allegiance to the Lovers, not their Embodiments.
She kissed his shoulder, slipped out of bed, brushed the tangles from her long black hair and pulled on a clean set of the thin linen skirt and tunic she wore within the Temple's confines. The Lovers' Embodiments always wore undyed, undecorated Temple garb and only one color at a time in their other attire; their beauty should be adornment enough. Some day after they retired, she would wear more than one color at a time—patterns, even. She'd put her hair up like other women, and she'd never, never have an all-white room again, nor Issak an all-red one. She walked into her private sitting room, knocked on the door between it and her brother's, and stepped through at the muffled invitation.
Issak's rooms reflected the forests he'd dreamed about as a little boy. Navigating Ouve's stinking back alleys and bustling marketplaces as he carried and fetched for Mistress, he'd imagine himself in the fairy tale forests from the books Maman read to them when she could. "I bet Tremont has lots of forest," he'd said to Allis once after Maman died. "I want to ride the whole country, all the way from Ouve to Greenvale. How far d'you think that is?" She'd always replied that when they'd paid Maman's debt, she'd buy him a horse and he could find out. "Only if you go with me," he'd answer. Issak thus chose greens and browns for his rooms: moss, sage, leaf; bark, rosewood, the amber of sap. He found it restful to the eye after the Temple's relentless parade of pinks and roses.
Issak lounged barefoot on his brown velvet couch as he read the papers; a coffee pot and a tray of pastries sat on the low table before him. "Did you just get up, too?" Allis said.
"No, I was up before noon," he answered, adding in the back-alley Ouve patois they used only when alone, "Alla time per dem, é no time per we, ehn? Café?"
Allis accepted a cup of coffee, yawned and settled against him on the couch. "What time is it?"
"Just after two."
"We knew we'd be home late. What could you possibly've had on your schedule the morning after a ball?"
"The Eldest Sister died early this morning and I had to discuss protocol with the senior staff and the Most Highs. It's been a decade or so since the last high official's death. We let you sleep in," he added, kissing the top of her head.
"Wirdun? Hardly unexpected. How old was she?"
"Well into her eighties. I can't remember the last time I saw her but for the Venna's Day Spectacles."
"The Sisters carried her across the Promenade to attend the last two Nerr's Day Spectacles, or so I'm told."
"Can't really say we saw her—we aren't exactly ourselves on Nerr's Day," Issak chuckled. "Imvalda is acting Eldest Sister for now, though it looks as if she's going to get a run for her money as far as the official succession goes."
Allis frowned over her cup. "I thought Wirdun made her succession clear. She wanted Imvalda to follow her."
"Oh, she could have engraved it on the Hearth, but the senior Sisterhood still has to vote on the successor."
"But who else—not Ibbit? Oh, surely not Ibbit!" Allis reached for the last pastry on the coffee tray.
Issak snatched it away at the last minute and dangled it just out of her reach before surrendering it with a grin. "Here, eat this for me. Oh yes," he resumed, "The Queen is the Hearth's highest-ranking patron, and Ibbit enjoys the Queen's favor. The Queen's favor. One way of putting it. One hesitates to ask Temmin what he thinks of that particular affair."
Allis snagged a napkin from the table and wiped the crumbs from her mouth. "I don't think he knows."
"How could he not know?"
"They're quite discreet."
"One look and any second-year postulant would know. Tem's a Supplicant!"
"He is also her son. That's always been a blind spot with you—parents and children."
Issak blinked at her. "I suppose to people who grew up the usual way that'd make a difference." He brought his cup to his lips and added casually, "Anda says he wasn't in their room last night, by the way."
"No, Tem stayed with me." Allis slid her eyes the smallest guilty fraction from her brother's. "It was his birthday."
"Allis, you're playing a dangerous game," he murmured. "You know this. We no per he, he no per we. Giving him more of yourself than you would any other Supplicant is not a kindness to either of you."
"Spending the night with him on his birthday is hardly special treatment for a Supplicant."
"That's not what I'm talking about."
Allis studied his linen-clad shoulder for a moment. "You're mistaken. In any event," she said, looking back up at him, "is Ibbit a serious threat?"
Issak let her change the subject. "Her influence over the Queen is said to be considerable, and it's swaying a significant number of the Capital's senior Sisters. I don't know what the representatives who'll be arriving from the hinterlands will think, but it wouldn't be the first time a royal connection has swayed the selection of a high priest or priestess."
"But she's suspected of the Annikan Heresy."
"She's never given herself away in public, nor has anyone ever spoken out against her within the Sisterhood. If she is an Annikan—and from her disdain of the male Temples I can only believe she is at the least a sympathizer—she's a very cautious one."
"Considering what happened to Anniki, I should think so," shivered Allis.
Issak frowned. "She and her followers slaughtered every male in the Healer's House at Turus, right down to the newborns."
"Oh, she deserved it, but I would think her head hanging on Marketgate and her body burnt and spread to the winds was example enough to deter anyone from following her."
"Not if you believe Anniki was trying to bring about the return of the One True Goddess and eternal peace on earth. Her followers believe she's a martyr to the greater cause."
Allis snuggled into her brother's side. "I don't see how anyone could believe a single goddess split into many, or that killing all the men would put her together again. Surely Ibbit has to have seen Venna come down into Her Embodiment!"
"Venna is a special case, apparently. Even those who see the Embodiments possessed sometimes don't believe. You know what some say about us."
"'Play-acting whores' I believe is the term," murmured Allis.
Issak put his arm around her. "Mm. Well, if the Queen advocates for Ibbit, she could very well beat Imvalda. Ibbit isn't friendly outside the Hearth, but the Most Highs say within it she is quite the charismatic leader, while Imvalda is seen as...more the administrative type, shall we say. Ibbit has a real chance."
"If she wins?"
Issak shook his head. "It's a bad business. Tensions between the Sister's Temple and the rest of us at the least. If the Sister's Temple leaves the covenant entirely, the destruction of all seven Temples at the worst."
"Do the Most Highs think Ibbit's an Annikan?"
"She was at Turus that day. While not all the Sisters there were Annikans, suspicion still attaches. The Most Highs say Ibbit is smart, but not half as smart as she thinks she is. If she's an Annikan, she'll slip up eventually. But that's not what I want to talk to you about and you know it."
Allis rose from the couch and shook out the folds in her clothing. "Your concern is noted, brother. Now, na gimme thy grief. I need a bath, and I want it before Tem wakes up."
His birthday concluded, Temmin reported for duty once again in his role as Lovers' Temple clergy. After a morning spent helping teach Postulants, he went to the petitioning rooms, where Lovers and Beloveds met with worshippers needing private blessings and guidance. Sometimes the petitioners just needed a sympathetic ear or a caring bedmate, but sometimes matters required more delicacy. Such was the assignment Temmin held in his hand. He read it, panicked and tried to calm himself as he walked down the narrow hallways to where he would meet the needy couple.
Temmin opened the door to a tiny room and moved uneasily through it, checking the covering on the low, wide Temple couch, plumping the mound of cushions that served it for a back, making sure the arms would come away if need be. He inspected the room's supplies. Spare towels? Yes. Oil? Yes. Blankets in case of shock? Whose? This is ridiculous. "I can't do this."
"Of course you can," said a mellow baritone behind him. Temmin stumbled toward the voice: Barik Lover, the highest among the senior Lovers save their high priest. Unlike most of the Lovers' clergy, Barik kept what was left of his graying hair as closely cropped as the warrior priests of the Brother, leaving only enough hair at his nape to form a small queue. He was over fifty and thus old to Temmin's nineteen-year-old eyes, and he was a good head shorter, but Barik possessed a wrestler's build and the calm assurance of a man who could take down someone twice his size. He entered the room and tweaked the hem of Temmin's red linen Temple shirt, rich with the embroidery that marked him as a Supplicant. "You've worked in the petitioning rooms before."
"This is different. I need help."
Barik stopped Temmin's nervous adjusting of the privacy screen in the corner. The smaller man's hands were as big as Temmin's own, and hairier; the senior priest gently, firmly scooted Temmin back toward the room's center. "Leave it alone. You know your job, and you're good at it." Temmin still hung back, kicking at the floor like a little boy. Barik gave an exasperated grunt, reached up and grabbed the recalcitrant young man by the ear. "What's gotten into you, Temmin Supplicant? You've not acted like this in some spokes. Do I have to march you down to the schoolrooms and embarrass you in front of the Postulants?"
"No, Barik Lover!" squeaked Temmin.
Barik shook him once. "No, because unlike them you were chosen by the Lovers Themselves. Remember that. I'm going to fetch these petitioners, and when we return you will be calm, cool and professional. Won't you?"
"Yes, Barik Lover!"
Barik took him by both ears, pulled his head down, and kissed him. "Don't let their goal disturb you, Tem. Just give them what they need." Barik gave Temmin's ears a final tug with a little tchk and a smile, and strode out the door.
Temmin sighed. He ran his hands through his hair, blanched, and ran to the mirror to straighten the resulting haystack; he had to re-tie his queue, the blasted thing. What he wouldn't give for his manservant Jenks—no, Jenks always turned green in his presence whenever the topic of sex came up. He couldn't imagine the poor man following him around the Lovers' Temple. He'd gotten better at caring for himself at least, and it gave him a sense of accomplishment. He wondered how Jenks was doing back home at the Estate. They'd never been apart this long.
Temmin sank down on the wide, low couch and picked up his paperwork; the Esterills needed help conceiving a child. No notes on the problem, only that they'd married a year ago and no child had come—any number of explanations for that. A Postulant Beloved opened the door and ushered in the two worshippers: a slender young man whose olive skin and dark hair marked him as part Alzehni; and a rosier, chestnut-haired young woman. The woman immediately seized Temmin's attention. While her husband had the excited, eager humiliation many petitioners brought to the Temple, she was impatient, wary and openly mortified. The lines around her mouth were recent, and the pain in her eyes looked out of place in a countenance that favored cheerfulness.
Temmin rose to his feet, schooled himself into unreadable, impartial empathy, and gestured to the couch. "Mr Esterill, Mistress Esterill, please sit down. I am Temmin Supplicant. Yes, that Temmin," he smiled as their expressions changed to astonishment.
"Oh, Your Highness—" began Esterill.
"Please, here I'm just Temmin Supplicant."
He exchanged pleasantries with them, soothing their fear of him until they relaxed, or rather the gentleman relaxed; the wife sat monosyllabic, her hands still gloved and clenched in her lap. Temmin looked down at his notebook. "I see you're petitioning for assistance in conceiving a child. May I ask what the problem is?" The wife's eyelids flickered, but Esterill's eyes caught his. Ah. "Mr Esterill, you're a lover of men, primarily?" Esterill nodded; his wife thinned her lips. "Mistress Esterill, you didn't know this?"
"Of course I knew, but..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Most lovers of men have wives. They have children all the time. Gyors is the oldest son, we have to have children to carry on the name, and to inherit! If we don't, I'll be blamed and he'll set me aside—"
"I won't set you aside, Meggan!"
"Your family will insist, unless you tell them it's your fault, and you won't do that, will you? It will be my fault if I can't bring you to it." She turned to Temmin. "I wanted to go to the Sisters, I thought they might give him some sort of medicine, a blessing, something—"
Temmin held up a gentle hand. "Mr Esterill, you can't perform with a woman, can you?" Mistress Esterill blushed to her forehead.
"I've tried everything," said Esterill, shaking his head. "My married friends all have children. Some even enjoy their wives as a…a change of pace. But I just can't, no matter what. I've tried closing my eyes, I've tried Meggan—er—facing away from me, but I can't come up to the mark. It's not Meggan's fault," hastened Esterill. "We do quite well together otherwise. I thought I might manage it with a girl I like as well as Meggan—I do like you, Meggan, so very much—but...no, it's entirely my fault."
Temmin nodded, thinking. A barren woman would go to the Mother's Temple for sacrifice and if that didn't work to the Sister's Temple to see if something might be done for her medically, but when the man could not perform, the couple came straight to the Lovers' Temple. The Lovers and Beloveds would do what they could, calling in the Sisters for medical advice. If no solution could be found, the senior clergy would sort through the Lovers without charms against children for close physical matches to the husband, choosing at least two men so that no one could be sure of the father. The wife then discreetly visited the petitioning rooms until she conceived, or until it was plain she could not.
Temmin, with his golden hair and bright blue eyes, looked nothing like the dark-eyed, olive-skinned Esterill. In any event he refused to get a child out of wedlock. It meant nothing but pain for everyone. The instant he ascended the throne, any sons of his would become magically known to Teacher anyway; they'd be pried from their families like a precious jewel from a pot metal ring, for no child of his would ever be called "bastard" or go unacknowledged. Teacher couldn't see daughters; if Temmin hadn't drunkenly assaulted Mattie last year no one but the girl's mother would ever have known she was his half-sister. No, never would he become a father like that.
Temmin glanced at the screened window set high in the wall, leading to the gallery between the ranks of petitioning rooms. Barik probably watched, observing his work for later discussion. He might give up now and tell the Esterills to come back once the Temple had found good likenesses among the Lovers, but first he must suggest another path. "Mr Esterill, you say you and your wife have tried 'everything.' Has that included another man?"
Mistress Esterill murmured in dismay; Esterill gave an apologetic shrug. "Meggan and my particular friend do not get along."
"Is what I'm suggesting what you had in mind, Mr Esterill?"
"Oh, no, no! I cannot allow a stranger in my bed!" cried the wife. "I'm married—it means something—I'm married!"
Her husband tried to capture her fluttering hands. "Meggan, calm yourself."
"The Temple is not your bed, and I'm not a stranger. I'm a Supplicant." Temmin poured sympathy upon her in every way he knew—through his expression, his body language, the tone of his voice, and she began to calm. "Are you a believer?"
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"Do you believe that I am a representative of the Lover on earth?"
"...Yes."
"What we do in these rooms is a sacrament. Would a sacred act be so very bad?"
She looked doubtful. "Will I have to take part—other than, than with Gyors?
"I will not touch you if you don't wish me to."
For a moment she looked as if she wished he would, but it passed. "If this is what it takes to get a child, then I will do it. But you must promise me something, Gyors."
Esterill took her hands. "Whatever you want—silk gowns—jewels—that smart new silver chocolate pot I saw you sighing after—travel! You once said you wished to winter in Alzeh, we'll rent a villa just before Fall's End, or stay with my cousins at their country home, they have beautiful orange groves—"
She shook him away. "No, no. You must promise me two things: that you will not shame me in public; and that I may conduct myself as I see fit once I have given you a son."
"As you see fit? Meaning what?" he said.
"For instance, that I may visit the Lovers' Temple for my own sake, or...or take a lover elsewhere, and that if I have another's child you will recognize it as yours. I will, of course, be completely discreet. I will never shame you."
Esterill hesitated. "Two sons. Before that, you may come here and only here to...receive care I cannot give you, but only at no risk of a child. After you give me two sons, any lover you take must resemble me enough that I might recognize a resulting child without public ridicule."
Mistress Esterill lowered tear-filled eyes. "I had other offers, but I loved you, Gyors. You told me you loved me." Esterill looked away, shamefaced.
Temmin waited until they regained some composure. "Let us continue. Am I agreeable to you, Mr Esterill?" The man nodded, a small, sly smile springing to his lips. "Mistress Esterill, am I agreeable enough to you?" She waved one hand in a small, assenting gesture. Temmin ran through what he'd learned from the Sisters who taught medicine at the Temple. "Is this a time of the moon at which you are likely to conceive? Very good. Would you care to go behind the screen to undress?"
She ducked behind it, coming out moments later minus her coat, hat and gloves but still in her dress. "Have you changed your mind?" said her husband.
"I have removed what clothing I must. More I will not do."
Perhaps keeping her as covered as possible might make things easier, thought Temmin; Esterill would need to be brought to a fever pitch and kept there long enough to disregard his wife's body, poor woman. Temmin turned the lamps down low. "I think it best, ma'am, if you lie with your feet touching the floor—so," he said, gently arranging her legs. "Your skirts should be raised in readiness. Here—" he indicated a small, shallow pitcher he still thought of as a creamer— "is a beaten egg white. I know it seems odd, but the Sisters teach that it helps in conception. No—don't drink it!" He swallowed his laughter. "You must put the egg white inside your vagina. The Sisters say it nourishes the man's seed. Do you need my assistance?" She shook her head, and he turned away to give her what privacy he could.
He fetched a low padded footstool. As he placed it between her feet, he bit back an exclamation of pity. She had drawn her skirts up over her head. Temmin folded them down in concern to find her crying silent tears; she turned her face away. He took a handkerchief from a ready stack by the couch, pressed it into her hand and turned back toward Esterill.
Temmin found the man deeply unattractive. Esterill was handsome enough, but Temmin could not be sympathetic to a man who'd deceive a girl into a loveless marriage. Nevertheless, duty required him to find something about Esterill to desire. "There is always something to desire about a person even if it is only his absence," went the Temple saying. He cleared his mind and focused on Esterill's own excitement, making it his. He opened his thin linen trousers and stroked himself, watching the petitioner for cues.
Esterill dropped to his knees and took the hardening cock into his mouth; he'd done this before, a great deal judging by skill alone. Temmin allowed himself a pleased, sincere groan, and Esterill's own erection twitched in response. Ah, he likes noisy. With each stroke, Temmin made sure to make his appreciation known, an easy task until a tiny noise from beneath Meggan Esterill's skirts reminded him how she suffered. She wanted a child enough to consent to this, thought Temmin; he focused on the mouth taking him deeper and deeper.
By now, Esterill was frantically stroking himself as he swallowed Temmin's cock. Temmin fisted a hand in his hair and pulled him off. "Stop," Temmin growled in his best command voice. "You will come when I say." Esterill let out a happily wretched moan, put his hands on Temmin's thighs, and set to work with increased fervor.
A year ago, Temmin would not have been able to hold out this long against such a determined assault. But he'd been learning the Patience, and now he could last for close on an hour of even intense pleasure. He drifted off under the spell of Esterill's mouth, using memories to fan his own excitement: Issak teaching him the Patience, bringing him to the brink over and over again until he wept for release; the enormously endowed Barik driving Allis through climax after climax until even she begged off and he took Temmin instead.
His balls tightened, bringing him back into the room. He pulled Esterill off him; the man's eyes were glazed, and the tip of his erection dribbled. Almost ready. He smacked Esterill's face with his cock, amused as the other man desperately tried to recapture it. When he was sure of his own steadiness and Esterill's desperation he stood up and dragged the other man whimpering to kneel on the footstool. He climbed onto the couch, straddling poor Mistress Esterill, and pulled the man's mouth onto him. A few long sucks, and he removed himself again. "Do you want to come?"
"Yes!" sputtered Esterill.
Temmin reached down between them and guided Esterill's cock into his wife. "Spend for me." Esterill thrust into his wife in an uncaring frenzy, but a nauseous flicker in the man's eyes made Temmin enter Esterill's mouth again; Esterill mewled, instantly focused on him. Would his climax trigger Esterill's? The man was buried in his wife now; it might be enough. Temmin closed his eyes and let himself forget the unhappy woman beneath him and his dislike for the man swallowing him. Think of Issak sucking me, think of Allis, think of…of Alvo… The mouth picked up speed, taking him further and further until he scraped the back of the throat, buried to the root and fucking that hot, delicious mouth—
Temmin came in dutiful pleasure. The man screamed around the still-hard cock in his mouth, hips jerking as he came himself, pounding hard against his wife.
When he'd finished, Temmin withdrew and climbed down from the couch, fastening his trousers. The man sunk back on his heels, gasping and shuddering as he stared between his wife's open legs. "I did it. I did it. Will it be enough? Will I have to go through this again?"
Temmin hid his disdain. Will you have to go through this again? "It's hard to say. Sometimes the once is enough. Sometimes not. There is a basin in the corner, a mirror and towels as well." Esterill began to clean himself and comb his hair. Temmin continued what the Sisters had taught him about conception and turned to Meggan, who lay limp on the couch, feet still on the floor and skirts over her head. "Mistress Esterill? I'm going to touch you now, but just to make you more comfortable, that's all." He gently toweled her mound and thighs dry, and swiveled her unresisting body until she lay fully upon the couch; he smoothed her skirts back down. "I'm putting pillows under your knees, and under your hips as well. You must stay still for a time."
"Will it bring a child?" she whispered to the wall.
"The Sisters teach that it helps."
"Then I will stay like this all day."
Temmin chuckled. "Twenty minutes should be enough." She said no more. Her silence troubled him; he squeezed her hand and rose from the couch.
"May…may I go?" said Esterill, his face a sickly toad-green.
"Would you not wish to stay with Mistress Esterill?"
Esterill fidgeted. "I would prefer to wait in the vestibule if I may."
"If you'd rather. I shall stay here with your wife," said Temmin, just avoiding an edge to the last word. Esterill fled.
Temmin turned up the lamps another notch to dispel the room's gloom and his own, and went to put the towel in his hand into the laundry. In the stronger light, he noticed the blood smears on it and remembered: the Esterills hadn't consummated the marriage. This had been Meggan Esterill's first time. He cursed himself; he'd been taught better. He sat down on the floor beside the couch. Should he call for tea? Or would that make things worse? No, another stranger in the room would be more than Mistress Esterill could bear. He leaned his head back against the couch.
The woman's quiet breathing had almost put him to sleep when her hand on his head brought him back into wakefulness. "Thank you. It would have been worse without your consideration of me," she said.
Mistress, I wasn't considerate enough. "This is what we do here. Next time, you may find all this more pleasant."
"I hope I will not have to return after this."
"I thought you said you wished to come back for your own sake."
"That," she said, lifting her fingers off her stomach in dismissal. "I hoped I might yet provoke Gyors to jealousy. But he does not love me, you see. My body makes him sick. I don't have a—a member. We do very well together, but not well enough. I have acquired a brother, not a husband." She pressed her hands to her stomach again. "If I have a child, perhaps the loneliness will end. The last year, all his parents' questioning, knowing he loves another, loving him even as I discovered he lied about loving me…it's been very difficult." Her voice caught.
Temmin turned toward the couch, resting his chin on folded arms. "I shouldn't say it, Meggan Esterill, but you deserve better than this. Come back for your own sake. The Gods love you, even if Gyors can't."
She brushed his cheek. "Has it been twenty minutes?"
"At least."
Mistress Esterill sat up and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. "You've been very kind." With that, she rose and slipped behind the screen. A few moments later, she took her leave.
Temmin plopped himself on the couch and blew out all his breath. The door opened and Barik came in. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"How much of that did you see?"
"Oh, all of it."
"Even after Esterill left? Urf. I know I shouldn't have said that to Mistress Esterill, but—"
Barik reached up and put his hands on Temmin's shoulders. "No, you did right. She does deserve better than marriage to Gyors Esterill—Gyors himself deserves better than to be forced into marriage when he cannot bear a woman's touch, but that is the way of things for eldest sons who wish to inherit. He won't be unkind to her, but he can't love her. We can."
Temmin grimaced. "I'm very angry at myself even so. She was a virgin. I might have made it easier for her."
"How would it have changed things if you had remembered?"
"I don't know—I might have pleasured her at least a little beforehand in readiness—"
"She would not have let you. We'll make it better for her when she returns."
"If."
"When. She is a passionate woman." Barik kissed him. "You did well, Tem."
"I did hope to have children some day, Daddy," complained Twenna Shelstone for the fifteenth time since the old Traveler woman they called their Queen had given her the charm against getting a child. She'd used spit to draw it on Twenna's left hip. Disgusting, but Twenna was an obedient daughter and besides it left no mark. She both hoped and feared the woman was a fraud. The Traveler Queen insisted it was the same spell she used on Lovers and Beloveds; few misbegotten children came from the Lovers' Temple, and so Twenna had to assume it worked.
"It's temporary, sweetheart," said Elbig Shelstone. "You'll have children some day, but the last thing we need right now is you knocked up, even by the King. Now hold still and let the girl pull a little harder." Twenna held her breath while her maid Wendia tugged the laces tighter. "Can you still breathe? Yes? A little more, then."
"He takes the corset off, you know!" complained his daughter.
"Feh. Then look like a cow, I don't care," said her father. At her crestfallen face, he added, "You don't look like a cow, sweetheart, I'm sorry. I just want you to look your best. You've got him on the hook and I want you to keep him there."
"Oh, never worry!" brightened Twenna. "He loves me!" And I love him, she added to herself. She'd been Harsin's favorite ever since the night they met nearly a spoke ago. She'd even made up a little song: Love at first sight, with him every night, la la! Though she had to admit that she wasn't with him every night. On the nights they were apart, though, he slept alone. Never with his wife. She knew that much. She walked to her closet and pulled out a dress.
"Not the primrose, dear, the blue with the thin white stripes."
"But primrose is the thing, you know, Daddy, ever since Princess Ellika wore it at the Heir's ball—"
"That yellow doesn't turn her complexion all sallow, and it does yours. Mistress Naister should never have suggested it for you—she must've bought too much primrose silk, or maybe she just wants you to look your worst—she is the royal women's favorite, after all. We're taking our custom elsewhere."
"But Daddy, Mistress Naister is the most fashionable seamstress in the City—"
"I've forgotten more about style than that biddy's ever known. The blue stripe with your long pearls, just falling into your cleavage—so." He helped her tie her skirts and fasten her bodice, and stood back to observe the effect. "Perfect. I should have gone into women's bespoke." He picked up her wrap and gave her a fan and her reticule. "The time for discretion is over. Let it be publicly announced that you are the King's favorite."
"Oh, but Harsin has said I must be discreet! How are you intending to announce it?"
"You will be taking the main roads to Foothill Lodge today, not the back ones."
"Through town?" Twenna winced. "I shall be much stared at tonight at the theater, then."
"Let them. They'll stare at you anyway—you'll be sitting in the Duke of Corland's box."
"Is that wise?" his daughter fretted. "I'm not sure I can stand the—the approbation of the world. Harsin will be angry." The big blue eyes filled with tears.
"That's disapprobation. No big words, that's not what he wants from you and you know it. And no crying! I will not have you present yourself at Foothill Lodge with puffy eyes and a splotchy face, not yet at any event. Not until his heart is as engaged as his pecker." Twenna nodded, blinked her eyes until the threatening tears receded, and smiled a watery smile. Shelstone smiled back his approval and patted her cheek. "You've done so very well in such a short time, I'd hate to see it all come to naught, sweetheart. Everyone's already noted the King's interest. Invitations are pouring in! If you play this right, we might end up in the nobility. At the least our creditors have retreated," he added in a mutter. "Speaking of debts! We have a powerful ally in Lord Corland—now, you mustn't speak of His Grace's sponsorship to His Majesty, am I understood? But we owe His Grace a great deal, and foremost among those debts is our discretion."
"But you said—"
"Discretion as to the debt we owe the Duke, little featherhead."
"We owe Lord Corland money, Daddy?"
Shelstone helped her into her wrap. "No, dearest, only our loyalty." He escorted her down the stairs and out the door to their smart—and unpaid-for—open chaise, giving the driver directions to take the most public route to Foothill Lodge.
Twenna hid her blushes as best she could. She was not raised to be brazen. But she was a good daughter; she did as her father told her. She focused on her upcoming tryst to ease her discomfort. Harsin was the most wonderful man in the world! He was handsome and dashing and kind and generous—especially in bed, or so it seemed to her; he was her first lover and she had no basis for comparison, but he always made sure she enjoyed herself, immensely. Then, of course, Harsin was the King! That mattered a great deal to her father, less so to her, but still! To be loved by the King!
Twenna held her head high as she came to Foothill Lodge Road. Behind her, the gossip networks of the City must already be burning as word passed from the streets to the coffeehouses to the parlors and sitting rooms of the gentry, thence to their servants and out into the wider world.
Tonight at the theater there would be a bill to pay; she would have to brazen out whispers, innuendos and open staring as she sat in the Duke's box like a target, but she vowed she would bear up. Her father said it was the right thing to do, that it might lead to elevation to the nobility. Twenna herself didn't care, but she knew her father did. Perhaps being Lady Twenna mightn't be such a bad thing. It sounded nice, and besides, as a noble lady she would certainly be able to hold her head up as high as anyone else, mistress or no.
Twenna settled back beneath the light carriage robe and smiled.