01 - The Compass Rose (16 page)

With a sigh, Kallista motioned Torchay into the lead. Aisse carried their overnight bags, trailing behind them. Porters would deliver their trunks to the upriver boat once passage was arranged. She stopped at the shipping office to take care of that matter first. Then she headed toward the barracks.

The local military presence was situated near the river, since that was where most of the trouble in Turysh arose. Of course, a great deal of that trouble was created by the passions, tempers and pranks of the several hundred high-spirited young men garrisoned there while fulfilling their mandatory military service.

Kallista entered the inn that catered to barracks traffic and bespoke a large room, one of those reserved for naitani. She sent Aisse up to deliver the bags and approve its suitability, mostly because she didn’t want to climb stairs and Torchay wouldn’t go without her. While they waited, Kallista rubbed her temples. Her head ached.

“You all right?” Torchay steered her into a chair in the inn’s spacious public room.

“Tired is all.” She propped her elbows on the table in front of her. “And Turysh always gives me a headache. I need to visit my parents while I’m here and that just fills my heart with joy.” Her voice sounded as joyous as a funeral dirge.

“You always enjoy seeing Dardra.”

“That’s true. Because my fifth mother always seems happy to see me. The twins should have finished their training by now. Maybe someone will have word of them. But let’s eat here first. We’ll go visit right after and escape before dinner.”

The twins were sedili born to Kallista’s birth mother when Kallista was twelve. She’d been one of the girls’ caretakers and when Karyl’s North magic had awakened, they’d become closer.

“Your choice. They’re your family.” Torchay signaled the waiter and pointed at the tabletop.

“Why haven’t we ever visited your family?”

“Because my family doesn’t live in a convenient spot like Turysh, but away north in the Devil’s Tooth Mountains, as you well know. Besides, I haven’t quite as much family as you. I only have four parents, not twelve. Do you even know how many sedili you have?”

Kallista shrugged. “I quit counting when I left for the academy. Temple families are different, though. You know that. The temple has to be staffed, so there’s always somebody new marrying in when somebody leaves for whatever reason. I could probably count two dozen parents if I wanted to.”

Aisse returned and looked around as if hunting a spot where she could hide. She worried Kallista sometimes with her timidity. Torchay stood, getting her attention, and Aisse, relief on her face, made her way to their table.

“That was a nice thing to do for a spy.” Kallista leaned back watching him.

“You’ve taken responsibility for her. That makes her my responsibility as well. She doesn’t speak enough Adaran to be left alone here. Especially since she’s afraid of men.”

“True.” Kallista took note of all the male eyes following Aisse across the room. Her bruises had faded enough that she was well worth following. A gratifying number of glances flicked Kallista’s way as well and she couldn’t help smiling. She would have no trouble at all hooking a man to scratch her itch.

They ate their lunch—fish cakes, fried potatoes and some kind of greens that smelled awful and tasted worse—then headed through town to the Riverside Temple. Turysh boasted six temples to serve the population. Riverside was the oldest, but the Mother Temple had been moved years ago to the city’s center, away from the noise and turbulence near the docks. Kallista had grown up in the midst of it.

Her visit went about as she expected. Her birth parents forced smiles and asked politely after her welfare, managing never to touch their eldest child. North magic disturbed Kallista’s mother. She seemed to believe the inanimate things North magic dealt with might corrupt her own East magic healing talent. Yet both her children with magic were of the North.

Only Kallista’s fifth mother, the temple administrator, seemed truly glad to see her, enveloping Kallista in a plump, fragrant hug and asking when she was going to make an honest man of Torchay. The joke fell a little flat this time, mostly because Kallista felt a tiny twinge of envy as Dardra gave Torchay his hug. Kallista vowed to begin trolling her line as soon as they got back to the inn. She needed a man badly if the sight of her fifth mother hugging her bodyguard disturbed her.

Aisse’s presence was remarked upon. She got a hug too, but was left to her privacy as Dardra caught Kallista up on all the family news. The twins were indeed through with their education and would soon return to Turysh to set up their business. Karyl was a far-speaker and Kami would manage the business end of things. They had met a pair of sedili, men who had just finished their military duty. The wedding was to be in three months. Kallista was expected to attend.

With promises to move heaven, earth and Tibrans if necessary, in order to be there, Kallista managed to escape before the rest of the current family gathered for dinner.

“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” Torchay said as they walked back to the inn.

“No, not so bad. It was good to see Dardra. But now it’s done and I intend to play tonight.”

Torchay rolled his eyes, as he always did when Kallista slipped out of harness. Aisse looked from one to the other. “What is play?” she said in hesitant Adaran.

“Children play.” Kallista grinned and picked up her pace. “And sometimes grown-ups play as well.”

“It means,” Torchay said, “that the captain hunts—you understand hunts?”

Aisse nodded, eyes wide as she scurried along.

“She hunts for a man tonight.”

“Maybe two.” Kallista winked at Torchay just to watch him roll his eyes again.

“Two?” Aisse said. “What great-captain do with two men?” She still had trouble remembering that Kallista preferred “captain” to “great lady.” But she stuck to Adaran. Not that Kallista could tell, save by the occasional missing word.

“The same thing I would do with one.” Her grin felt predatory. “Play with them. Have fun.”

“Not have sex?”

Kallista lost a step before she burst out laughing. Even Torchay had to hide a smile. “Yes, Aisse. I will have sex with them. Him. Whoever I find. To me, that is play. Fun.”

Aisse made a face. Obviously she didn’t agree, and Kallista’s laughter faded. “It is fun, Aisse, but only if everyone wants to play, and only if it’s done right. If everybody isn’t having fun, then it’s not right.”

The Tibran woman still looked skeptical. Kallista glanced at Torchay, wondering if he was at all interested in convincing Aisse otherwise. How would she feel if he did? Kallista squirmed.

She didn’t want him for herself. Not really. She had just gone too long without, and she’d discovered a new appreciation for his finely honed physique. He was an attractive man with all that rich, wavy flame-red hair. His nose fit his narrow, bony, familiar face. And if he wanted Aisse, or any woman, he should have what he wanted.

“How?” Aisse asked. “How you hunt for man?”

This time Torchay laughed, a short bark of laughter. “She doesn’t have to actually hunt. She just walks through the room, trailing perfume and sex, and they line up behind her with their tongues hanging out. Then she just picks the one she wants.”

“When did that ever happen?” Kallista demanded. “Maybe when I was younger, but not lately. Not for a long time.”

“You don’t see the way they look at you.” He mimicked a cross-eyed moonling. “It’s a wonder they don’t fall over their own tongues.”

“You think you are so funny, don’t you?” She shoved him and he swayed slightly, laughing at her.

“Watch,” Torchay said to Aisse, tipping his head in Kallista’s direction. “Watch and learn.”

She went up to the room, where she washed and changed out of her uniform into a long red dress tunic made to be worn without trousers. It laced up the sides to fit her shape snugly. The slits up the side seams were there for ease in movement and to show off her legs. Kallista had nice legs, or so she’d been told by more than one lover.

She changed her gloves for a pair of red kid-leather ones that climbed to her elbows, and hung a pale blue faceted stone the size of her thumb set in silver around her neck. Torchay pulled her boots off for her and she slipped on a pair of high-heeled shoes, red to match dress and gloves. She’d have to be careful. She hadn’t worn the heels in months. But a woman never forgot how to walk in heels. She brushed her hair, letting it fall free to her shoulders. She dabbed on the perfume Torchay had given her for a New Year’s gift ages ago, used a bit of red on her cheeks and lips, and she was ready.

Torchay and Aisse followed her back down to the public room, Torchay because it was his duty, and Aisse because he insisted she come for the lesson. At least he’d consented to change out of his bodyguard’s black into the brown tunic that flattered him more and made him less noticeable. Aisse wore her same baggy unbleached cotton and looked virtually invisible.

Kallista hadn’t reached the bar before a crowd of soldiers invited her to join their table. While she looked them over, another table issued an invitation. When did the soldiers get to be so young? They all looked younger than eighteen, but she knew they didn’t leave the remote camps for the first two years. They had to be at least eighteen. She finally sat with the first boys who asked. They looked a little older than the others, a little closer to the end of their service.

They were all lovely with their fair Adaran skin, light eyes and hair in all shades of yellow, brown and red. Kallista couldn’t choose among them so she let them sort themselves out, laughing at the games of arm wrestling and dart throwing that determined who would sit next to her as she ate. Until the end of the next competition. One young man with soft brown hair and deep green eyes seemed to win more than his share of the games. As the evening wore on, she touched him and allowed his touch in return, until he opened his mouth close to her ear and murmured, “Will you come upstairs with me?”

Amused by his boldness, Kallista smiled. She stood, trailing a hand over his broad shoulders, then took his hand to lead him away while his comrades shouted out good-natured advice and abuse. Torchay would follow, of course. He’d be in the next room, but she could pretend he wasn’t. They’d learned how to make this work long ago. She stopped with her young soldier on the stairs’ landing out of sight of the public room to share a kiss. It was more sweet than hot, but Kallista let it go. There would be time for heat.

He was so young, his body not yet filled out to the promise of his broad frame. Outside the room, Kallista stopped again. She ran her hands down his back to cup his buttocks and he seized her face between his hands for another kiss. Again, it held light without heat. She opened the door. Inside the room, he stripped away his tunic before wrapping his arms around her, grinding his erection into her stomach.

“Easy, soldier.” She slowed him with her hands on his face, his chest. “Plenty of time. No hurry.”

“You sure?” He gasped for breath. “I feel like I’m going to explode.”

“Not yet, if you please.” She trailed a hand down to find the drift of fine hair descending from his navel.

He stopped breathing. She almost made a joke of it before she remembered he wouldn’t understand. He didn’t have Torchay’s obsession with breathing.

That thought spoiled her mood and she reached for it, wanting it back. She leaned close to breathe in the musky male scent of his skin. He found the side lacings of her dress and began to loosen them, running his open mouth along the side of her neck from shoulder to jawline. Kallista shivered. That was it. This was what she wanted.

She let a finger dip into the waistband of his trousers. He froze for a second before drawing her earlobe into his mouth and sucking on it. She whimpered, turned her head to the side to give him better access. She needed this.

“Tell me,” he whispered into her ear.

“Tell you what? Tell you you’re sexy? Tell you I want you? You are. I do.”

He gave a breathy little chuckle. “Yes, that. But—is it true? Did you slay a thousand Tibrans with a single word?”

Kallista went cold from the inside out. Was this the attraction? Was this what had him here panting over her like a rutting stag? “Who told you such a thing?”

She wanted to hurt him, to punish him for the gossip, but he wasn’t to blame for anything more than listening.

He nuzzled her neck. “The courier,” he said. “It’s all over barracks. How the enemy battered down the wall in Ukiny and were coming through. Until you spoke the word.”

“Is that why you’re here with me?” She backed away, her voice cold as the winter inside her. “To see what I might do? Is it the fear that excites you?” Kallista began drawing off one of her gloves, watched his eyes go wide with fear. She wouldn’t call magic, wouldn’t actually remove the glove, shouldn’t tease him at all, but the cold made her cruel.

He shook his head, swallowed hard, cupped his hands together over his groin.

“No?” Kallista tugged the glove back into place, denying the temptation. “What then? Knowing I killed so many? It wasn’t a thousand, you know. More like ten. Ten thousand. Though not all of them died. Nor did I speak. Not a word.”

She lifted her hands high like a theatrical charlatan pretending to call power. True calling required nothing so showy. “I merely—” She threw her hands wide as she had cast the magic, and the boy stumbled back, fell onto the bed. Terror showed in every line of his young face and it shamed her.

“Goddess.”
She turned away, smoothing her gloves down. “I’m sorry.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m so sorry.”

What right did she have to anger? Her motives tonight were no purer than his. Less so. He at least wanted something of her. She wanted someone else. She was just using him in a stupid attempt to satisfy that want. She should know by now it wouldn’t work. She’d have to simply endure it till it wore off.

“I—it’s the power,” he said, voice shaking. “All that magic. A woman with so much—it’s—”

Kallista nodded. That was a more pleasant thought than the alternatives she’d come up with. She picked up his tunic and tossed it at him. She yanked her laces tight again, but didn’t bother to tie them.