Mating Dance
Chapter 5
Jak:
It was a crazy week, and one of the best of my life. I thought a lot about the fact that this Mar woman, this formidable fighter and I spent what seemed like an hour beating each other bloody. –That nobody won the fight, so the Big Heads on both sides had to sit down again and negotiate a settlement. –That while they were still working on it, Jess and I . . . well, how to put it? We fell in lust? Certainly that, but it turned into something more pretty quickly. I thought it had something to do with the fight. I marveled at a woman who could give and take punishment like her. I also marveled at what a quick healer she was; already the only visible marks of her injuries were some scarring on her lower lip, and a lot of discoloration on her cheekbone, ribcage, and lower right leg.
We were going to be married; both sides wanted it; our marriage would seal the deal that they were hammering out and possibly reduce the chances of future trouble between us. That suited us, although we couldn’t picture getting out of bed long enough to perform the rite. Already the need for Jess to be gone for half a day on some political business seemed unbearable. The ceremony, apparently, would be a big deal, and about a month after she told me of the plans, I decided that it was time for me to take some responsibility, at least to inform myself of what would be needed. I hadn’t yet actually left the Healing Grounds. She hadn’t told me I couldn’t, but something always came up. If I mentioned I needed to get something in town, one of her sisters would appear with it less than an hour later. So one day I just decided to leave Jess a note and head out.
Jess:
When I found the note, all the folly of my plan was nakedly obvious. I had enchanted Jak to disregard the glaring discrepancies between my injuries from the duel and his, as if that would be enough. Although I had duty in Leila’s bodyguard that morning, I frantically dispatched all my sisters of the house to find him and bring him back, all the while knowing somehow that it was too late, and that to have believed I could make this ruse work indefinitely, I must have enchanted myself. I thought I could hear the gods laughing at me.
Jak:
The Mar people are so rich that a woman can make a living doing nothing but selling flowers—things that anyone can pick for himself in a meadow. This woman supplied her shop through ten acres of land, tended by debt slaves, where she grew nothing else. I was coming out of her shop, where she had harangued me about a “fitting floral presence” for the ceremony, when I saw Mort.
He was part of a small entourage that surrounded our minister to the Mar, an old man before the duel who looked much older now. By the sword Mort carried, I guessed that he was part of the old man’s bodyguard—although, after the fool that the witch called Lelia had made of him in the negotiations whose outrageous outcome had sparked the war, he was more in need of a bodyguard at home. Now the old man looked both tired and grim, and all his guards seemed to wear the same face of sullen rage.
They all seemed excessively sour about an honorable draw—or, more reasonably but still excessively, pessimistic about how the negotiations would be settled. The old man met a lady with an even bigger entourage of female fighters at her back and flanks, a woman whose snow-white hair only accentuated, through its luxurious thickness and the barely lined, beautiful face that it framed, how far she had succeeded in defying time. And in her train, immediately behind her in a place of honor for a guard, was Jess, in armor, complete with a polished steel helmet, breastplate, and greaves. I stepped behind a busy cart selling sweet pastries, feeling a little uneasy about the irregular way I had left the house. The white-haired woman who defied time and the white-haired man who looked ravaged by it met at the doorway of their consulate hall. I saw her flash a brilliant smile at him and step forward to take both his hands, as if he were her dearest, oldest friend, or even lover. This time, he merely nodded, standing there with his head still lowered, and she led him into the building. I was pleased to see that Mort took up a station outside the main door and that Jess went inside with her charge.
I sauntered up to Mort. It was good to see him, even if he did stand as if he had a poker up his ass. To be expected, I supposed. Guard duty.
“So,” I said. “They went looking for somebody who could look really nasty standing still, and there you were. It’s good to see you, asshole.” I grinned. He kept his eyes locked straight in front of him.
“Look,” I laughed, “I know this is official stuff, with the Big Heads all getting together, but you could spare a glance and a word for your buddy from the ranks. I knew ya when, back before we both got famous.”
“You got famous?” I didn’t like the way his voice sounded.
“What’s wrong, man?”
“Nothing, I guess. Slavery seems to agree with you.”
I laughed. “Slavery? Well, I guess you could see it that way, but sooner or later you’ll get hitched up yourself. You know it’s true.”
“I would have died,” The words came out like spit. “And the guy I used to know would have died. I don’t know who the fuck you are, so take two steps back, Sir, and stay off my perimeter.”
“Come on, Mort, aren’t you overdoing it a little? We fought to a draw, but that’s not the end of the world; it just means we have to get better at negotiating, and I’ve learned a few things about—“
“About how to lose? Did she mess your head up? She did. You’re her little mindless puppy now.”
“Watch your mouth, Mort—
“You didn’t fight to a draw. She kicked your ass. You don’t believe me, limp on over to a mirror and take a long look. Your eye socket is still purple, and the white of the eye is still bloodshot; you took a nasty punch there. You’ve still got a sleeve of pale skin from the cast they put on the arm that I saw her break. Did you forget about that? Look at yourself. And look at her. You lost, and we lost the New Lands.”
A mist was lying on the bottom of my mind, wanting to rise up and hide all these doubts, but it wasn’t thick enough. The memories began to wink back into existence: the pain of that knuckle in the eye, the panic as I felt my eyes swelling shut, the broken arm. Even with just those injuries, if she had wanted to kill me, she could have.
“What am I going to do?” I asked. Probably the weakness in the question shamed him. First he said, “If all that was on me, I know what I’d do.”
Then his shoulders slumped, and he moved his hand back and forth in the air in front of him, as if he could erase what he had said.
“Look, I know I wasn’t the one in the Circle; you were. You did your best, probably I couldn’t have done any better, let’s leave it at that. But it’s better for you to stay here; back home there’s a lot of bad blood about the loss. . . the New Lands. Listen, I can’t be talking now; I’m on duty.”
As he spoke, he looked away from me, and I remembered his looking away from me in the crowd after I had lost, when she had claimed me as a slave, denying me an honorable death. Then she had denied me even my knowledge of the truth, even the knowledge of what woman I might have wanted by my own choice.
That was when the big doors opened, and the retinue came out. She was already looking toward Mort; she knew she’d find me near him. Concentrating on anything but the immediate safety of Leila was already a dereliction of duty, but when Jess saw me she broke right out of formation, turning her back on her charge, and ran toward me. We looked at each other’s faces. Hers was white with fear, and her eyes were pinched by what looked like some kind of pain. I hoped it was pain.
“Stay the fuck away from me, “ I growled at her through a rusty throat. I thought she cringed a little under the force of the pure hatred behind the words. Then, with frightened eyes, she raised one hand to gesture toward me, and she started to say, “Sleep, my—“
Jess:
I took one look at him talking to his friend and I knew that my fear had come true. He knew again that he had lost, knew how much he had lost, and now he knew as well that I had entered his mind and rewritten his memories to spare him pain—and to suit me. Our eyes met, and his had all the hatred of me that I had ever feared, and more than hatred; there was the deep, shuddering repugnance of someone who felt himself invaded by something loathsome. I had never imagined anyone in the world feeling that way about me. I told myself I was healing him again; I had to wash this poison out of his mind. I called out, “No, Jak, no, please don’t . . .“ And then, without thinking it out, I tried to sweep his eyes closed with a gesture of my right hand and said, “Sleep, my—“ before he stopped my mouth with a punch in the face. I heard the sound of my own sword clearing the scabbard and waited for the deathblow with a strange detachment. When I could see again, he and the sword were gone.