Path of the Eclipse (49 page)

“Naturally,” she said, evading his question, “if you and I were of less mature years, it would not be wise, but given the circumstances, there can be no objection.”

Saint-Germain said nothing, but his compelling eyes never left hers.

“You have been here more than a month, and I have been most remiss in my duties toward you. I have felt you might be insulted.” She had a moment’s desire to send him away from her and end this useless talk, but she plunged on, heedless of the caution that had risen in her mind. “This house is not like my brother’s court; I am not constrained as he is to observe strict rituals. Protocol has no importance here.”

“I have not felt insulted, Padmiri.” His voice was low and filled with compassion. “You have been a haven to me.”

She was so startled by this that she could not think of any reasonable remark. She saw her hands close in her lap and watched them as if they were wholly unknown objects she had never before encountered. “I am most pleased to hear of it,” she said finally, finding that traditional response wholly inadequate.

“I hope you will feel that way when I leave here,” he said, and the sadness in his tone made her throat close with pity.

“Why should I think otherwise?” She did not want him to leave, no matter how awkward she might feel. No one she had known before had treated her in this way, without subservience or superiority.

“That is rather difficult to explain,” Saint-Germain said lightly, sardonically. He hoped that she would not insist because he did not want to leave this house, not only because it was a welcome and necessary respite from his travels, but because he genuinely liked Padmiri.

“I hope that someday you will,” she responded, matching her attitude to his. She knew it was her right to order him to tell her anything she wished to know, but she could not bring herself to do this. She smoothed one silken sleeve. “Saint-Germain, who are you?”

“How do you mean?” He was very much on guard now, though his demeanor did not change.

“I mean what I ask. You are a Westerner, an alchemist, obviously educated, obviously traveled. Even here in Natha Suryarathas we hear rumors now and again. Kings are deposed and imprisoned, countries rise and fall, borders change. It is much the same here. Has your country fallen to an enemy? Or a friend?” She could recall the rebellion here three years before and hoped that this man had not lost so much.

“My country has fallen,” he said truthfully, “but that is not why I travel.” He knew that he could give her a few convenient lies and she would accept them; he could be very convincing. But he did not want to deceive this woman who had provided him with safety.

“Very well, Saint-Germain. I will not prod you.” The nervousness she had felt earlier was fading as they spoke. She no longer felt that she ought to bring their conversation to an end.

“Do you know, Padmiri,” he said with a rueful smile, “I don’t wish to be provoking. In all candor, I will say that when your brother suggested I come here, I was not very pleased, but I knew it was wisest to do as he ordered. You’ve been generous to the point of indulgence and I am grateful. That’s not why I accepted your invitation this evening.”

Padmiri had learned to put little trust in gratitude and so she said, “This was curiosity, or amusement?”

“No.”

Her honey-colored skin grew rosy and she felt both absurd and excited. It had been years since anyone had stirred her this way and she was relieved that there was so much life left in her. “What was it, then?”

“Affection.” He looked through the light and shadows to her eyes again. “If I wished to express gratitude, I would give you a jewel or a book and that would be the end of it. Your company, however is another matter.”

“I’ve had four lovers in my life,” she said as if she were discussing a question of literary style or an obscure line of poetry. “It’s one of the few advantages of being unmarried and of my rank. My brother has not disapproved as long as I have selected those lovers from among musicians and poets. Those who aspire to military and political power he will not tolerate. There was one such man, and they say he was killed by Thuggi, though I doubt it.”

“I am no poet, but I know music and love it,” he said quietly. “I give you my word that I have no interest in attaining political or military power.” He had had both in the past and found that there was more risk in them than advantage.

Though she had wanted him to say something of this nature to her, she was so startled that she blurted out, “I am not a young woman.”

“I am not a young man,” Saint-Germain responded calmly, thinking that after all the years he had walked the earth, young and old were trivial words to him: with thirty centuries behind him, the difference between age fifteen and fifty was hardly significant.

“No, but I think you are younger than I am.” This was disastrous, she told herself. He would become disgusted with her if she said more.

The desolation in his face surprised her. “I am … somewhat older than I appear.” His next question was asked with gentle sincerity. “Are you curious about my age, Padmiri? Or is there something else you want of me?”

Had she been younger and less conscious of her dignity, she would have fled from the room. It had been going so well, and now she was on the verge of panic. In the names of all the gods, what was it about this man that affected her so? She looked away in confusion.

“If all this—the beautiful lights, the deep shadows, the scent of sandalwood—is to tempt me, I’m flattered, but it is not necessary.” He rose quickly, fluidly. “Believe this.”

She knew that if she were truly frightened, she had only to call out and Bhatin would come to her aid. She was in no danger whatsoever. Her breath quickened as Saint-Germain crossed the room toward her. “You are too…” Her voice stopped.

“You may tell me to go and I will,” he said softly. He was close enough that she could reach out and touch him, but she was still. The shadows from the filigree screen masked his expression.

She hesitated and he took a step backward, “I don’t know,” she murmured.

“I have misunderstood you, I fear.” He was polite, and she felt this made it worse. “Will you forget my importunity?”

“No,” she said, a bit more loudly than she had spoken before. “I have not been importuned.”

Saint-Germain did not move. “Well, Padmiri?”

She looked up at him. “My mother died with eight other wives on my father’s funeral pyre, and I thought it was a terrible waste. She was a sensible woman. She studied the Vedas and made regular sacrifices to the gods. She lived as my father wanted her to and died as he wished. I promised myself that I would not put myself in a similar position. My uncles were horrified, but my brother made no argument. Dantinusha once admitted that it helped to have an unmarried sister when he bargained with neighboring Princes. After a while, when I still had no husband, I left the court, for I was becoming an embarrassment. I had taken one lover while I lived with my brother and he was most distraught. He threatened to banish the man, or have him castrated. When my brothers and cousins rebelled, they tried to convince me to take their part, and I refused.” This came out quietly, as much of her anguish had faded to a remote ache which she could bear. “I have my studies and my music, which are more than I had hoped to have.”

“Ah, Padmiri,” Saint-Germain said as he reached out his hand to touch her hair.

“My mother schooled me well, and my uncles often asked how I came to be so undutiful a daughter. I don’t know.” She turned her face up to him. “I don’t know.”

He went down on his knee beside her. “What benefit would there be in doing as your mother had done?” With swift, easy motions he smoothed her hair back from her face. “Long, long ago in Egypt it was the custom for men to be buried with their slaves so that there would be servants for them in the afterworld. Ages later many of these tombs were rifled and looted, the skeletons and mummies of the slaves thrown away or taken and ground up as medicine. What did that do to the men they were supposed to serve? How did the death of your mother lessen that of your father?”

“I have spoken with many great teachers and they have told me that though I have achieved some competence as a scholar, I have betrayed myself for refusing to live as virtuously as women of my caste ought.” She liked the way he touched her. It had been a long time since a man had brought her such a feeling of newness. Surely, she thought, he feels the lines of my face, and yet he is as patient and gentle as a wise man is with a bride.

Saint-Germain leaned back against her cushions. “An easy thing for them to say. They did not have to face a burning pyre.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Come. Lie beside me. If I offend or disappoint you, tell me.”

“Why?” A vestige of reluctance held her back.

“So that I may give you pleasure,” he answered.

“No—why should you do this?”

He met her eyes. “You ask, when your own holy books have complicated instruction in gratification?” He saw her make a slight movement that was almost indiscernible. “You have done such worship, haven’t you?”

“Not for some time,” she said in an oddly muffled voice. “I am unmarried and there are certain matters…” She dropped back against the cushions. “I am being an old woman. I am afraid of what you offer.”

“You don’t know what I offer.” His voice was less beautiful, and the sorrow was back in his face.

“You are a man.” She sighed as the illusion of newness left her.

“Not quite as other men. You wished to know why I wish to give you pleasure. Very well. My pleasure, my
only
pleasure is in your pleasure.” He waited while she considered what she had heard. “If you do not wish to have that pleasure, then send me away.”

“And you? Is pleasure all you require of me?” She looked at the shadows on the ceiling, which wavered as a finger of wind passed over the oil lamps.

“Not quite all,” he admitted. He rose, bending over her as he took her face in his hands. “Padmiri, yes, I will take something from you. But only when you are fulfilled.”

She did not entirely believe that this was happening to her. It was too much like a dream or a memory. Neither of her last two lovers had been so persuasive, so determined. She had thought at the time that they had been mature in their dealings, free of pretense. Now she thought that she had forgotten too much. “It’s been some time since I’ve experienced that. I don’t know if it is possible in someone my age. But, Saint-Germain, I would like so much to know that satisfaction again.”

He smiled, his dark eyes warm. “Then let me try, Padmiri.”

She had learned from her other lovers that this was the moment to put her hands behind his neck and draw him down to her. She had almost made a ritual of this over the years. She hesitated, and then lowered her arms.

“Padmiri?” Saint-Germain said without alarm.

“I’ve done that too many times before. I do it without thinking, or feeling; it’s a habit.” She closed her eyes, her mind unwilling to stop making comparisons. When was the last time she had made love in this room? Which of her lovers had preferred this place, or any place but her bed? She felt rather than saw Saint-Germain’s small hand smooth the frown from her forehead.

“You haven’t let go,” he said, sinking onto the cushions beside her and propping himself on his elbow.

“I … I know that.” She rubbed her temples.

“Don’t be concerned, Padmiri. Despite what your erotic scriptures say, there is no prescribed course this must take. For the time being, we can talk, you and I, and when you would like, there will be more we can do.” He put his arm across her, just below her breasts.

“Why don’t you go ahead and do as you must?” Her resignation was a disappointment. She had hoped to sustain that new feeling for a little longer, or to be able to recapture it.

“I’ve told you, that’s not possible, or practical.” He rolled a little nearer, and his hand slid down to the rise of her hip, there was no urgency in his movements; when he was comfortable he lay still.

“Have you been disappointed with women before?” she asked some while later.

“Often. And they in me.” He cast his mind back to the concubine he had had in Lo-Yang, so lovely and so passive. He would have preferred outright refusal and rejection from her in place of that gelid acquiescence.

“You have had many lovers?” She was fairly certain that he had. If what he had told her of himself was true, there would have been many women in his life.

“Yes.” There was neither guilt nor boast in the word.

“Men as well as women?” There had been a time when she had had a Bengali slave who had claimed to love her and had performed a number of unexpected acts on Padmiri’s body, but that was some time ago, and no other woman she had met had awakened similar longings in her.

“Yes.”

“Why?” It was a question she had always wanted to ask and had never dared to.

“These things happen, Padmiri.” He bent unhurriedly and kissed the tail of her eye. Then, very slowly, he opened the fastenings of her silken robe.

Her eyes were almost closed, and she shivered as his hand brushed her shoulders. Let it go, let it go, she told herself, and discovered that this time it was easier. She wished that her body were firmer and more opulent, but Saint-Germain made no complaint. His hands came down to her breasts. Skillfully, fondly, he caressed her, never rushing, never demanding. “Not, not there. Not yet.” She was startled to hear how husky her voice was. He began to kiss her, now on the mouth, now on the eyes, on the shoulder, the breast, the thigh, the throat.

Padmiri had not been shaken by passion in several years and had thought that she had lost the capacity for such excitement. Yet when Saint-Germain had parted her thighs to touch her in glorious, subtle ways, she felt the first joyous tremor pass through her, and it seemed to her that there was a greater intensity than she had ever known. Her arms were around him and she tangled one hand in his loose curls so that when he pressed his lips to her neck as the wonderful, shattering spasms shook her, she felt her own fulfillment echoed in him.

It was so good to know that she was not beyond this sensual triumph! Padmiri released him at last, giving his ear an affectionate tweak as she began to laugh.