Forget Me Not, (3 page)

“
Your gloves, left in the
garden.” He held out the small white things, looking like broken
birds in his hands. He wore the brown of a gardener, his knees
mud-stained and his peach skin rose-tinged from sun.

She quickly took them from
him, glancing up at his dark gold eyes before she put them on. One
more layer couldn’t possibly hurt. Her heart pounded as she
struggled with her duty, the need to end a war, to do her part, and
the terror of having a barbarian in her country, in her home. At
least the customs of Barbarians would allow her to show as little
of herself to the Barbarian as possible.

The trumpets blew from the
dock a few miles up the river, the signal that his ship had
arrived. Taking a slow breath with eyes closed, she steadied
herself then wandered out to the patio that overlooked the
river.

She stepped carefully
towards the edge although the stone balustrade looked quite sturdy
after the masons had done their work. She leaned on her elbows,
relaxing against the sun warmed stone, idly watching the ship
upriver unloading its cargo. It felt like a world ago when she’d
boarded a vessel so much like it, eager to find her fate in a new
world. It was supposed to be an adventure like the stories her
uncles would tell her after they’d returned from new lands. Of
course one by one they hadn’t returned. When she had, she’d been
stripped of her hopes and innocence.

She stared down at the
water lapping beneath her against the stones until she stretched
out her arms and called to the world below.

The small magics flowed
through her as she sank her awareness down into the water’s cool
depths. A fish slipped against her, a silver finned trout. It
followed her and the song she sang as she rose towards the light
and burst into the sun. She opened her eyes and looked down at the
beautiful fish where it danced on the surface of the
water.

After one last spinning
jump it disappeared beneath the waves. The small magics, the
mystics were elven lore as old as the heart of forests, the peak of
the mountain. Unbelievers could not see such things, would call
such unproven things tricks, lies, but the fish was real
enough.

She glanced back to the
boat and adjusted the still-dry gauze around her face. She would
not practice any small mystics for as long as she hosted the
ambassador. The mystics appeared an illusion to the Barbarians. She
hadn't actually been in the water with her skin, therefore to them,
it hadn't happened. They did not understand the world that lay
beyond the flesh.

It had been years since
any Barbarian had been invited to the High City, more years than
the Wind Spinner had lived. She rubbed her chest absently, her hand
above the deepest scar as she listened to the wind, trying to lose
herself, distract from the sound of the procession as the
ambassador approached. It did no good. The wind, usually more than
willing to transport her away from memories was adamant about
bringing the sound of shouts as they neared.  He stirred the
city that preferred to remain motionless, barely breathing as it
passed through time.

She could almost see the
ladies leaning out of windows, leaning far over to catch a glimpse
of the stranger walking over the pale path below. Tan skinned,
golden eyes and dark hair as well as the way he moved would make
him different. Barbaric. Exciting, dangerous, and something they
might not see again for another hundred years.

“
One can hope,” she
muttered then shook her head. She’d spoken Barabbas.

Chapter 6

Balthaar, General of
Barrabas and ambassador-spy, stood on the dock, bracing himself for
the moment when he may very well be wrapped in chains and dragged
down to a dungeon. Ranks of Rasha stood before him, two rows of
silver armored Elsyrians, swords sparkling in the
sunlight.

The blue-skinned Elsyrian
from the ship slipped beside Balthaar and bowed carefully. “You are
welcome to the High City. Your escort will take you to your host.”
He gestured towards the ranks of Rasha.

Balthaar nodded back and
stepped towards the Rasha with firm footsteps. He would not flee
however his skin crawled and he yearned for his sword.

The soldiers marched on
either side of Balthaar. The city itself was breathtakingly
beautiful, rising from the river in waves of white broken by the
green of trees and ivy. The reception of the inhabitants upset his
expectation of cold looks, suspicion and barely veiled contempt.
Prepared for rotten fruit to be thrown, flower petals bewildered
the hardened general.

Long slender arms
stretched towards him, pale but tinted blue, green or pink, with
silver nails. Their eyes were too far to detect the color, but
smiles gleamed, smiles instead of snarls.

He forced a smile of his
own, but knew it looked more like a grimace. He'd seen enough Elves
dripping silver blood off the end of his sword, watched the light
fade from their eyes as they cursed him. He hadn't seen beauty in
their features for a very long time. For a moment it seemed a woman
gazed on him with eyes like amethyst, but instead, the purple
fragmented into pink petals.

He forced his heart to
slow its beating. The mission may be his personal curse, but the
Emperor's will was Balthaar’s. He nodded and straightened his
shoulders, longing for the weight of his sword across his back. He
had to use his long ago training as a viceroy to the Emperor before
he'd taken up the sword. He could not think of these creatures as
beauty, as anything other than those who would pass beneath the
Emperor's way.  

He gave up smiling as he
walked, ignoring the ladies that hung above him from their
elaborately carved stone windows, tried to block out the sound of
their greetings, the song of their voices intertwining into a
complicated melody that made his chest ache.

He walked unarmed into the
heart of the Elven city, where magic seeped through the cracks in
the stones beneath his feet, magic that he knew better than a
Barbarian should. Some said the Barbarians ignorance was their
greatest strength, but since he'd led the soldiers, it was his
acceptance of the Elves and their twisting of minds that had helped
him turn the tide against them.

He wished to be there, on
the field of battle facing his enemy head on instead of walking
defenselessly into their arms, an ambassador-spy sent on a mock
infiltration to discover their weak points. He couldn’t be
comfortable among the welcoming creatures whose blood would flow
into these stones, cursing him eternally.

He shrugged. He'd lived
with a curse for a hundred years. His very age was its own curse.
In spite of his experience, his acceptance of his own fate, he
sweated more than he should have beneath the cool canopy of trees.
Anyone who brushed up near him would catch his scent of fear. It
was bad enough to smell it on himself, but far worse to show his
enemy his weakness.

When they neared the house
where Balthaar would reside, he looked back and realized that they
had reached the edge of the city. Most of his tall escort had
abandoned him leaving only a few silent Rasha bearing his luggage.
Their silence mocked him.

Balthaar took a moment to
grab the end of a trunk causing the bearer to raise an eyebrow in
amusement at him. Balthaar grinned back at him, nearly snarling. He
was a Barbarian after all. He’d be expected to have common manners
like wanting to carry his own luggage. Of course, he couldn't carry
it all, not the long train of trunks and cases, some filled with
gifts, others with ridiculous outfits to wear in his performance as
diplomat. He belonged on the field or already dead, hanging from
the walls of the Emperor’s city as an example of other traitors. He
didn’t need a distraction like this at a time when his men would be
preparing for the largest assault of their short lives; likely
rendered shorter under someone else’s command.

He looked around the
courtyard, at the simple fountain tinkling musically, for the sight
of the females so he could keep his distance. The only person was a
gardener who didn’t look up from the earth as the bearers stacked
his luggage in piles behind him.

The gardener glanced at
Balthaar then rose slowly only after the other Elsyrians had
dispersed, other than his two companions from the ship. Balthaar
didn’t like the way the gardener looked at him, like the gardener
knew him better than he knew himself. He gave the gardener his most
polite smile from his days as viceroy.

The peach-skinned gardener
didn’t act like a servant. He stood like a god, his golden eyes
giving Balthaar one last final look before he turned towards the
house. The enormous, overpowering manse had a presence that
demanded attention. Balthaar glanced up at the spiraling tower and
elaborate stonework before he followed the gardener through a large
passageway into the dim interior.

Inside it was darker,
cool, and Balthaar felt himself sweating harder. They hadn't told
him anything about his host, his interpreter, simply brought him to
this ancient estate on the edge of the city and left him there.
When Balthaar’s eyes adjusted, he walked towards the grand stairs,
the gardener ahead, the two Rasha close behind.

Balthaar stood at
attention for some time before his host graced him with her
presence. It was a she, probably, but none of the other ladies of
the city had so much as their arms covered, much less the entire
face, head and body like this creature swathed in white.

She was covered like a
parody of the ladies of Balthaar’s country as if she was trying to
respect his customs, but Balthaar’s mouth twitched at how badly
she’d carried it out. Her eyes were completely obscured.

She moved like a dream in
spite of her obscured vision. She descended with the ethereal grace
none of his people would ever come near. It reminded him of
amethyst eyes.

He thought he could see
purple reflected behind the billowy gauze when she reached a few
steps from him before she tripped tumbling down the last steps and
falling into Balthaar’s arms with a solidity that belied her
apparent weightlessness. She felt cold, like a bird hanging onto
the last of its life after striking glass, heart thumping
delicately in its feeble frame. Her eyes, amethyst, stared at
Balthaar through the mists of gauze.

Chapter 7

Lady Perr watched from the
shadows as the barbarian ambassador entered the manor. He blinked
thick lashes that framed large golden-brown eyes that seemed
rational and calm as he glanced around the room. He wasn’t as broad
shouldered as most barbarians but taller, a diplomat instead of a
warrior, except that his stance was wrong. He waited at the ready,
as though he expected someone to attack him at any
moment.

Lady Perr hesitated before
she forced herself into her position atop the steps. Barbarians
were bred to be alike in their brutality, their simplicity, except
for the very elite, a few of which she'd met when she’d served her
term as Elsyrian ambassador to them.

She swallowed and lifted
her chin slightly before she started down the steps, raising her
skirt as she walked, dignity forced into each step.

It was three steps from
the bottom where he waited still as the statue of Callus when she
looked up and caught his gaze directly, or directly as was possible
with her head swathed in clouds of net. His eyes caught and held
her surely as if he'd used a small magic. She stumbled as her shoe
caught on the hem of her dead great-aunt's dress.

Falling forwards she
reached up and caught him around the neck, while his hands circled
her waist, arresting her fall against his strong, warm
body.

He smelled of cimarron.
Time stopped as she stared at him, into those eyes that didn't
belong to a Barbarian.

___

They stood in the
Emperor’s capital's plaza, voicing the same argument they always
came to. The sun shone on unwashed bodies filling the air with a
raw flavor Lady of Perr had taken time to adapt to. It added fervor
to her voice.

“
Being a slave is
ennobling? Perhaps to nobles, but I don’t hear many slaves arguing
your point.” Her passionate voice slurred some of the Barabbas
consonants.

He smiled at her, showing
his even white teeth, bright against his tan skin. “The slave plays
his part in the great order as does every other creature. We are
all creatures with greater or lesser levels of development, but
deep down we’re simple animals. Without society there is no meaning
to the individual.”

 “
I'd be more
convinced of your sincerity if you did not occupy one of the
highest levels of society.”

He leaned close to Lady of
Perr, closer than he'd ever come before, breaking the unspoken
rules of etiquette. She could smell the cimarron on his bronze
 skin as he whispered, “Unlike you? Daughter of an Empire?
Ambassador from the High City?”

She turned away, fighting
down the heat that rose to her pale blue cheeks that had nothing to
do with the harsh sun or their heated argument. She plucked a plum
from the pile of ripe fruit heaped in a cart, rolling the purple
orb in her still pale hands. The seller looked at her smiling a
gapped-tooth smile.

“
As you know, we have no
slaves. Each house has its order, but within the order there is
choice. I chose diplomacy over the ranks of the Rasha. My interest
in linguistics over small magics or armaments brought me to my
current position.”