Silk Dreams - Songs of the North 3 (10 page)

“Chloe was once a favorite in a great man's harem. For this purpose she was trained from childhood.” Damian skewered Valdis with an assessing glare. “I can see this shocks you, but in her village, a position in a harem is highly coveted. A safe, secure life behind the sheltering zenana walls, pampered and well fed, is more than most parents of limited means can aspire to for their daughters. If she'd conceived a son she might even have been elevated to the status of a wife.”

Damian released his hold on Valdis's chin, but she found she still couldn't look away. She stared at Chloe in horrified fascination, her mind trying to make sense of the woman's truncated features. Chloe met her eyes for a moment, then cast her gaze at Valdis's hemline.

“You may cover yourself now, Chloe,” Damian said in a milder tone. “Come with us to the courtyard.”

Chloe reattached her veil. Valdis noticed that a piece of carved wood was cunningly incorporated into the half-mask and fitted over the slits so that with the fabric in place, Chloe's deformity was virtually undetectable. She might still be deemed a desirable woman.

Unless, of course, she spoke. Her missing nose was the reason for Chloe's unusual hollow-sounding voice.

As they walked back to the courtyard together, Valdis's mind whirled. She'd known Damian wanted to use her for some unspecified assignment. He'd treated her with such deference, she never suspected he would turn into some sort of procurer. Despair clawed at her belly. She wanted her freedom so badly.

She never expected the price would be so high.

When they reached the spurting fountain, Damian inclined his head toward Chloe. “I will leave you to your lessons then. She must be ready in three weeks' time. Can you do it?”

Chloe cast an appraising glance at Valdis. “She is well-formed and moves with grace despite her size. Her height is most unfortunate, but cannot be helped. No doubt you saw other qualities in her that outweigh her obvious deficiencies.”

Valdis flinched at the candid assessment. She'd felt gawky around the smaller women of the house at times, but she never expected pity from a woman without a nose.

“Valdis must be intelligent enough, else you would not have trained her,” Chloe said. “In three weeks' time, our progress will please you, my master.”

Damian gave a quick nod and strode from the courtyard.

“What a pig!” Valdis said in Norse. Then she switched to Greek. “I'm sorry he forced you to remove your veil in public. It was wrong of him.”

The covering shifted and Valdis suspected Chloe's lips lifted in a sad smile.

“He only did it to teach you. Besides, my punishment was deserved. Do not fault the master for my sins,” she said. “If not for him, I would have died in the streets long since. Damian Aristarchus is a great man.”

“I hardly think the term 'man' can be applied to a eunuch,” Valdis said with a sniff.

Chloe's eyes flashed a warning. “Do not judge people based on what they have lost. What remains is the most important. Testicles do not define a man. Courage and heart make a man. And if you add compassion, it makes an exceptional man.”

“If he's set on delivering me to a harem, he's not shown much compassion.”

Chloe cocked her head at Valdis. “Where did the master find you?”

“At an auction.” Valdis shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Chloe narrowed her eyes. “And in the time since you have lived beneath his roof, has he beaten you?”

“No.”

“Worked you to exhaustion?”

Valdis shook her head. “Frustration, yes. Exhaustion, no.”

“Starved you into a more biddable frame of mind, perhaps?”

“If anything, I've gained flesh since I came to Miklagard.”

“So has the master made you sleep in the stables?”

“No, he has treated me well,” Valdis admitted. “But going to a harem, being some man's property—”

“You are already that.”

Valdis sighed. “I have known no man. To be taken without care, without love ...” Her voice caught in her throat. “I don't think I can bear it.”

“Then you are not as strong as you look,” Chloe said with bluntness. “A woman can bear a great deal more than she thinks.” A shadow passed behind her large shimmering eyes. “Even the death of love.”

Chloe seemed to retreat into herself for a moment, then she clapped her slim hands together and assumed a graceful pose.

“Come, Valdis. We dance. And maybe you will forget that the world is only about yourself.”

Valdis perched on the edge of the fountain and splashed cool water on her face. What Chloe called dancing felt more like contortions to Valdis's gangling frame. She learned to writhe like a serpent and isolate parts of her body to move with sinuous slowness while holding the rest immobile. Valdis created graceful waves with her long arms, making sure to tuck her thumbs and keep her wrists supple. After all the undulations, Valdis felt as if every joint in her body were loose as an unpinned carriage wheel.

“Very good, Valdis,” Chloe said. “You have made exceptional progress. I had no idea someone so large could move with such grace.”

“And I had no idea someone so small could hurl insults without a qualm,” Valdis returned. “In my country it is said that a fox baits a bear at his peril.”

Chloe cocked her head. “You are right. I should not berate you for your oddity any more than you should pity me for mine.” The little woman settled beside Valdis as if they were dear friends instead of prickly acquaintances. “Forgive me. You are the first new person to see me unveiled in a long time. The shock on your face was ... unsettling. Living here with those who know me and care for me, I had forgotten how hideous I must be. I am sorry for taking my anger out on you.”

Valdis was stung by Chloe's apology. “You aren't hideous. You said you deserved your punishment, but what could you have done to warrant such a thing?”

Chloe spread her graceful hands in a self-deprecating gesture that was purely Eastern. “As the master said, I was a favorite in a great man's harem, but I took a lover. When I was found to be guilty of impurity, my punishment had to be vicious and highly visible as a warning to others.”

“I've heard that harems are closely guarded. How could you possibly have taken a lover?”

Chloe's dark brow arched with delicacy. “When one is in love, the how ceases to matter. Love finds its own way. In my case, my love was within the household walls. He was a harpist and I was deemed a fine singer. It was natural for us to spend time together practicing for each evening's entertainment.” Chloe closed her eyes for a moment, as if conjuring the feel of her lover’s talented fingers strumming across her body. “At first, the eunuchs were vigilant. Later they grew complacent and our longing seized every opportunity to sate itself.”

“But you were caught?”

Chloe nodded. “The priests tell us, ‘Be sure your sins will find you out.’ Mine certainly did. We were taken while trying to escape the household together.”

Valdis let her new friend's sadness wash over her. “So your lover no longer wanted you after they cut off your nose.... That's what you meant when you said a woman can bear much, even the death of love.”

Chloe's eyes seemed to sink deeper in their sockets. “No. He never saw me harmed, but I was forced to watch while they took him apart joint by joint. He died in agony, cursing my name. I could not fault him for it, but no sweet memory of our lovemaking can overshadow those ugly rants. That is the death of love.”

Valdis gnawed the inside of her cheek. She decided she would not look for Erik outside her window when the moon rose full. She might dare much for him, but she couldn't bear the thought of seeing him tortured for her sake.

“Only then, after he died, did the knife-wielders turn their attention to me. I thought they would kill me. That would have been a mercy. But they chose to do the more hurtful thing. I was maimed, cut as you see me and cast still bleeding to the streets. By disfiguring me in this way, my voice was altered. I was unable to support myself as a singer. I could either beg or prostitute myself to those pox-ridden wretches whom other whores would not accommodate. A noseless woman has no cause to be choosy, you see,” Chloe explained. “Or I could starve.”

In the silence that stretched between them, Valdis heard only the patter of the fountain and the slight rustle of the breeze in the tip of the cypress.

“Starvation. That was the course I had chosen for myself,” Chloe said. “And then the master found me, cowering in the Forum of the Ox. He remembered hearing me sing at a banquet and somehow still recognized me, though I can't imagine how. Damian Aristarchus lifted me from the streets and brought me here to work in this beautiful villa. And I serve him with a grateful heart. If I have regrets, it is that I no longer know a man's love.”

Chloe gave herself a small shake. “But that is past. I have found forgiveness if not forgetfulness and if I can spare you my anguish, I am content. Be wise and learn of me, Valdis. Guard the flower of your womanhood, for it is the most precious gift you possess.”

Chloe leaned back and closed her eyes, obviously enjoying the play of slanting sunlight on her forehead. “Learn this as well. Today is all we have and we gain nothing from dwelling on that which is lost. Today we are strong and the sun is shining. That alone is enough that we should dance.”

She stood and clapped her thin hands. “Again.”

—from the secret journal of Damian Aristarchus

“You've made some terrible mistakes in the past,” Erik muttered to himself as he stomped out of the small chamber allotted to him. The spartan cell adjoined the stables, a not-so-subtle reminder that the eunuch thought him little better than an animal. The way Erik was following his cock around, he wondered if Aristarchus wasn't right. “This is, bar none, the stupidest thing you've ever done.”

He'd wrestled with himself on his narrow cot, alternately fighting sleep, then seeking it with urgency, ordering his body to rest, then unable to bridle his wandering mind. He finally abandoned the struggle for a moonlight stroll.

And if he chanced to pass the chamber occupied by a certain blonde she-devil, so be it. Some things you had to toss to fate.

Like reciting that love poem to Valdis.

He winced at the memory. His attempt at winning her favor was so lame, if he'd been a horse, someone would end his suffering.

What was he thinking?

The moon had risen, a round shield of silver against an obsidian sky. Its bright light shone through the line of cypress, casting sharp shadows on his path as he circuited the large square of the villa.

The rest of the house was dark, but the flicker of a candle glowed in the room he knew was hers. He stopped for a moment, only a moment he told himself, just to see if she would look for him.

This was worse than folly. It bordered on madness. He had no business involving himself with a woman, especially this woman. Still, he had all but promised her he'd be here. He might be a murderer, but he had yet to break his word.

The door to her chamber stood open with only a gauzy curtain floating across it, a wide portal to let in the fresh night.

Or a fresh suitor?

It did seem almost an invitation. A silhouette slid past the curtained door and his heart hammered like a woodpecker on gnarled oak. The shadow stopped, then retreated deeper into the room. He forced himself to breathe as he waited to see if she would come again.

Every fiber of his being strained toward the billowing curtain, but he held himself back. He'd never entered a woman's bedchamber by stealth before and he wouldn't start now. Still, without his conscious volition, he took a step forward.

The candle in her room winked out.

Valdis tried to lie down, but the moonlight tormented her, slanting silver rays through her filmy curtains and fingering across her sleeping couch. Surely he wouldn't be there, waiting for her in the dark.

Perhaps she should see if Erik really was there. No, that could lead to disaster. She tried to conjure the image of Chloe's desecrated face, but instead she saw Erik, the heat in his ice-gray eyes, the power in his warrior's body. He could show her how a man might please a woman without disturbing her all-important flower. Curiosity was driving her to madness.

She couldn't bring him to ruin.

There was every reason in the world to stay in bed.

Her feet hit the cool marble floor and she was pulling back the curtain before she could talk herself out of it. She looked out on the neatly clipped yard beyond. The world was awash in shades of gray, deep charcoal on the cypress trees, pale ash for the marble benches and nude statuary dotting the lawn, lead-gray for the paving stones of the garden path. She stepped through the door and onto the portico, silent as a wraith, her white night shift silvered by moonlight.

She looked down the length of the villa. Damian's room was dark. No light showed in any of the other rooms. Her gaze swept once more over the garden.

She didn't see Erik.

Valdis sighed and tried to quiet the downward spiral in her belly.

It's just as well,
she told herself fiercely, trying to deny her disappointment.
No good could come of
—

A flicker of movement drew her eye. A man stepped from behind the trees and stood motionless, his pale hair molten silver, his face hidden in shadow.

Valdis stepped off the slate porch and into the cool grass, the blades soft and pliant beneath her bare feet. Her breath came in short gasps, as if taking in too much might cause her to float away.

This
is wrong,
she reasoned.

But she couldn't stop her forward motion. Like the strange furry lemmings of her homeland who were compelled to hurl themselves into the sea, she was drawn to this man. There was no right or wrong about it. Like the lemmings' suicidal migration, it just was.