III.
Hanna's clients were wrong. The Patrician was not clockwork. Only when he saw her eyes were closed did he allow his gaze to wander away from her face. It was somehow less… rude…to look upon her that way. And because he was not a machine he admired the shadow along the curve of her breasts in the candlelight; and because he was not clockwork he allowed his gaze to linger a long while at her navel, a flat and fertile land that emptied in the south in the basin of her hips and spilled into the delta below…
"Hanna," he said. She opened her eyes. He was looking at her face again. "Are you enjoying yourself?"
She sensed that the question wasn't what he'd intended to ask. She sat up. "It's more important that you enjoy yourself, sir."
In one smooth movement, the Patrician got to his feet and moved the mirrors away. "If you are asking if I am a satisfied client, I would say… yes. To some extent." He held out a white dressing gown for Hanna.
"To some extent?" she said as she slipped her arms in the gown with a twinge of regret. She'd thought things had been moving in the right direction. "I am sorry about the laughter, sir. Sometimes I get a bit…"
"No, no. I've already forgotten about that." A dark look crossed the Patrician's face, a sign that perhaps he forgot less easily than he admitted. "In recent years I've been quite disappointed with the Ladies, I'm afraid. Several months ago I decided that this will be my last Hogswatch as a guild client."
Hanna followed the Patrician back into the sitting room, where he tended the fire for a moment with a metal poker.
"Mrs. Palm will be… She'll…" Hanna couldn't think of a strong enough word. Angry wouldn't do it. Furious was too mild. Mrs. Palm had spent several weeks vexing Hanna about the burden of Hogswatch duty, the importance of the tradition, the significance of the Client, how unfortunate it would be for the guild if the arrangement changed. Hanna could imagine Mrs. Palm's face when she got the news. Displeasure wouldn't approach it. Someone would have to be blamed and it was clear who that would be.
"Surely things haven't been that bad, sir," she said.
"Tiresome Ladies five years running," said the Patrician.
"Have you talked to Mrs. Palm?"
"It is not her choice but the goddess Fate's, hmm? And I haven't yet discovered how to contact her."
"Perhaps the nomination system could be changed."
"I doubt that would help."
The Patrician set the poker aside and turned from the fire. He watched Hanna for a moment, then sat beside her.
"You have been quite…entertaining. But I'm afraid your general conduct tonight is more proof that the guild is not producing the type of Ladies appropriate for my service."
Hanna rummaged around the sofa for the paper she'd ripped earlier. She found a square of it on the floor and began folding it quickly. Mrs. Palm, she thought, would expel her from the guild. That was clear. She'd made the warning earlier in the evening in veiled language that Hanna had understood loud and clear. Hanna would be expelled and her clients would be strewn to the winds, to any seamstress who could grab them. It wasn't right. She'd worked for years, had toiled for…
"You will not be blamed," said the Patrician as if reading her mind.
"Mrs. Palm will expel me."
The Patrician looked taken aback. "Dear me. Rosemary must be quite stricter with guild members than I thought. I will certainly make it clear to her that the decision was made before you came."
"It won't matter. She…" was worried that something like this would happen on my watch, thought Hanna. The paper under her hands wasn't shaping right, was revealing itself to be a concoction of lopsided folds, ragged creases. She tore it in frustration and threw the pieces at the fire.
The Patrician watched them flare.
"What would change your mind, sir?"
He sighed. "I make decisions carefully after long, deliberate thought. I don't easily change them."
Hanna found it difficult to speak. She looked straight into his eyes instead, an attempt without words to make him understand what expulsion meant. It would be the end of her career. Without guild membership she could not work. When her savings ran out, perhaps she could work in her sister's brewery, but it was a terrible fate for a woman who had dined with diplomats and heard the secrets of the city's noblemen.
Her thoughts suddenly crowded out of the way to allow something else, an observation, to catch her attention. She realized she wasn't the only one beaming messages with the eyes. The Patrician's seemed to be telling her that decisions could be changed. Perhaps. Hanna blinked and thought his eyes said: Convince me.
She got to her feet. "I suppose I'll toss my guild card in the fire, shall I? I won't be needing it." She marched into the bedroom and rummaged in the pocket of her gown. The Patrician followed and watched her flourish the card at the fireplace. "Fourteen years in the flames," said Hanna.
He stopped her arm and gently took the card away. "There is no need to overreact. Rosemary is a reasonable woman."
"She is, sir, but not about this." They were close now, and closeness was Hanna's specialty. She touched the Patrician's beard, just at his chin, then slowly swept the back of her fingers along the line of his jaw. "Perhaps you could reconsider."
"I'm afraid not."
She touched his hair then, the little strands just behind his right ear. This close, she noticed that he smelled a bit dusty, like a well-used book.
"Couldn't you put off the decision another year?"
The Patrician shook his head. Hanna's hand trailed to the buttons on his collar, and when he didn't react, she went on tiptoe and brushed his frown with her lips. He made no move to embrace her or to kiss her back; neither did he pull away. This passivity was not something Hanna was accustomed to. She kissed him again, longer, her arms wrapped round his neck. His reaction was minute. He stooped a little to allow her to stand more comfortably. He did not reach for her.
When they parted, Hanna saw in his face an absent look, as if his mind was elsewhere.
"Please reconsider," she said quietly.
He shook his head again.
She whispered in his ear. "Please."
There was no answer. Hanna looked in his eyes and sought a spark of something she could use. There was nothing.
"I can be more convincing," she said.
"Don't be foolish."
It was what Mrs. Palm had told her earlier in the evening. Hanna knew she was sometimes foolish, that everyone was at some time or another. But she'd be damned if she would allow herself to be called it twice in one night.
A slow smile spread across her face. Her fists grasped the length of the Patrician's robe as she sank to her knees.
He came to life then.
"What do you think you're doing?"
The hem of his robe was above his knee now. As Hanna hooked an arm around his leg, his muscles tensed. She pushed his robe up higher and gingerly touched the scar at his thigh.
"I demand that you end this nonsense," he said. It was his most patrician of voices, solid authority, designed to be obeyed. Hanna ignored it. He tried to step away but she had a good hold on his legs.
"Release me this instant," he hissed as he bent to push her away. Hanna held on.
Despite his protests he was obviously…intrigued…by the turn of events. Hanna did nothing about it for the moment, merely grasped the rest of his robe and raised the hem so she could work without obstruction. She began planting very small kisses along his leg.
The Patrician wavered like a tower in a strong wind. His hands sought support and found it in one of the bed posts.
"Continue this and I swear you will…"
Her kisses moved higher.
"This folly of yours will not…"
Hanna paused to do some delicate work with her fingers. It could be said she had very cunning hands. Some of the best in the city.
"You fool…" said the Patrician. Hanna didn't know if he was referring to her or himself. She didn't really care. His hands found her hair, began pulling out pins and dropping them on the floor.
"You want to continue to patronise the guild, don't you?" said Hanna, glancing up at him. His eyes were closed. He looked furious.
"Don't you?" she said.
The Patrician tightened his grip on her hair. She went back to kissing him. His breathing changed.
"Fool…"
"Don't you?"
"No blackmail."
"Then tell me you'll stay with the guild."
She kissed him some more, teasing, torturing.
"All you have to say is yes," she said.
"No."
She resisted his pressure, the tearing of her hair, and kissed him again. "Say yes."
"Blackmail…"
"For gods' sake, say yes."
What the Patrician didn't know, and what made Hanna so confident of success, was that she could do this to him for hours. Keep him right there on the edge. She had reduced other men to desperation. The Patrician was not that far along but the night was still young.
"I will not give in to…blackmail," he said. As Hanna worked, the Patrician pulled the last of the pins out of her hair and twisted the locks tightly in his fists, his only means of retaliation. Tears gathered in her eyes.
"Say yes," she said.
"No."
"Havelock."
"How dare you?"
Another kiss. "Havelock, you will stay with the guild. Say yes." He said nothing. She sampled him then, a quick flick of her tongue that made him shudder.
"Say yes."
"No…"
She said it softer. "Havelock."
"No. No."
She could hear in his voice that he was weakening, his anger dissolving. When before he had tried to push her away, now she had to fight to keep him from pulling her too close.
"Say it," she whispered.
"I warned you."
Hanna stopped and glanced up at him. His eyes were still closed but anger was no longer what showed on his face. Still, his mention of a warning bothered her.
"End this now," she said uneasily.
She listened to his breathing and hoped he had the sense to give in. When he finally said yes, the word was so soft that she could barely hear it.
She was so relieved that she allowed him to pull her to him. He seemed to forget her completely, merely plunged toward his own release. She was the method, the means, nothing more. And then, as Hanna thought she would drown…
…he stopped. He gently pushed her away and she collapsed, gasping. He undid the buttons at his collar with some difficulty – his hands shook – and pulled his robe over his head. He grasped Hanna's arm and pulled her to her feet. She disentangled herself from her dressing gown and climbed into bed, the Patrician following, already reaching for her.
Hanna had been in the guild long enough that commerce had long ceased to excite her. There were a few clients, here and there, with whom she was glad to share a bed because of their playfulness, sensitivity or nobility of spirit. But with the Patrician, she couldn't help but observe things analytically. It wasn't his fault; commerce was less a matter of technique – who was good in bed and who wasn't – and more a matter of personality. In the days when she hadn't known the clients she was with, Hanna had often made a game of guessing their personalities based on how they conducted themselves in bed.
The Patrician puzzled her. She sensed somehow that he was aware of every move he made, had consciously decided to touch her here or kiss her there. And unlike most men, he kept his eyes open. She had to turn away sometimes to break his blue stare. He'd run his teeth along her neck then, lingering vampire-like at the main vein. If it wasn't for his breathing and the soft moans – these she suspected he threw in for her benefit -- Hanna wouldn't have known he was enjoying himself.
And of course, he couldn't hide the tension in his muscles, how his body seemed to coil. She put a hand on his heart, guild policy for all clients over a certain age. It beat as it should, like all men's. He finally closed his eyes, his body clenched, and there was an escape of breath with a moan that unlike the others sounded genuine, and then… relaxation. She saw in his face something of a catharsis, an allowance of a few uncontrollable moments.
He rested his forehead on her chest for a moment and dampened her skin with his breaths. Hanna searched for the right word for what she was feeling. It was something like pity. For the most part, he made love like a seamstress. He was too aware. For this, she pitied him like she sometimes pitied herself.
He rolled onto his side and pushed his hair off his forehead. "Not altogether…sufficient," he said.
Hanna hoped she knew what he meant. "For some women, it's not so easy," she said. "I think it insults my clients if I dramatize."
He watched her a bit longer, then his eyes drifted shut. "The hook next to the wardrobe leads to the bath," he said. "If you require it."
Hanna slipped out of bed, padded over to the hook and pulled. A wall panel slid open beside her. Inside was a small but clean privy, warmed, she guessed, by some shared pipes with the fireplaces in the sitting room and bedroom. There were towels and pitchers of water, which she used to clean herself up. The guild had strict rules of cleanliness.
Back in the bedroom, she blew out the candles and climbed into bed again. She had a personal policy to remain with clients until she was sure they were fast asleep. There was something comforting about her presence. She'd just settled in when the Patrician opened his eyes.
"This won't do," he said.
"What won't?"
"This…" He touched her hip. "…selfishness."
"You don't have to--"
He kissed her. These were deeper, warmer kisses than before, but Hanna had the feeling that the Patrician was using them to distract her from what he was doing under the covers. Touching her, exploring, deciding on a course of action. Once he had, and Hanna knew it by how his kisses grew more shallow, his fingers became her center of attention. She felt warmth growing inside of her, spreading like a blanket.
It was a slow process but the Patrician was a patient man. He caressed her and kissed her and listened to her breathing quicken. On her face he saw enjoyment, but the type one gets, perhaps, from drinking a good cognac. It was not what he wanted. He ducked under the covers.
Hanna raised them. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
He traced his fingers across her navel, her hips. Hanna let the blanket drop. She was quite sure that what she thought was about to happen couldn't possibly…
She let out a gasp as if she'd been drowning and just surfaced for air. The shock couldn't have been stronger if she'd grasped a lightening rod in a storm. She gasped again, her eyes squeezed shut. No, she was thinking, he would never… How could he…? The shocks continued and she tried to bite her lip to keep quiet but it wasn't long before she was talking – she didn't know what she was saying really, after awhile, something between "oh" and "gods" – and wrapping her fingers in his hair. Beneath everything she remembered that her clients had said the Patrician had a silver tongue. How useless, she thought. Useless. Like a feather is better, soft and playful and … gods…
Because he was a patient man, the Patrician worked slowly and meticulously. He was really quite pleased at Hanna's reaction.
"Stop!" she cried. She released his hair and flailed at the headboard, her hands closing round the pillow. The Patrician obeyed immediately. Hanna pushed back the covers and moaned, "Why did you stop?"
And so the Patrician, who was a quick learner, learned the double language of Hanna's brand of ecstasy. She cried for him to stop, but he didn't. She sobbed for it to end, but he ignored her. Only when she begged, loudly, her words almost incomprehensible, and then her body calmed, weak from fatigue, did he stop. He surfaced into the air again. Hanna lay breathing, eyes squeezed shut, a hand limp over her eyes.
"I believe," he said, "that refreshments are in order." He slid out of bed and went into the sitting room.
Hanna still gasped, the air in the room not enough. She was having serious doubts that she was awake. Surely her imagination had invented a Patrician with such a…talent. She refused to call it a skill; it would imply that he practised and that was something she couldn't accept. Not him.
He reappeared carrying a tray loaded with a water pitcher, a corked pot that smelled of chocolate, some fruit and a few open faced sandwiches. Hanna sat up and gulped down the glass of water he poured for her.
"Where did you learn to do that?" she asked. He poured her a second glass, which she also drank down quickly. He appeared to be considering his answer carefully.
"Cocoa?" he said. "It has a bit of rum in it, I'm told. Quite nice in the cold." Hanna nodded. He continued sipping water.
"A little knowledge of anatomy goes a long way," he said finally. "And of course, after spending a number of years keeping all manner of citizens in this city happy, I should think I can manage it with one woman." He smiled disingenuously.
Hanna shook her head and drank the cocoa. "Don't let word get out," she said. "Women would chip away at the walls of the palace with pickaxes and chisels to get to you."
"I shall certainly keep quiet if you will."
They drank and ate in silence for a while. When they were finished, they stretched out on the bed.
"Do you know the time?" Hanna asked.
"Just after four." The Patrician closed his eyes. "Do you have an appointment?"
"At dawn."
She rested her head on his chest. He pulled the blanket over them both.
"Dawn is at 7:56, I believe," he said. "The wizards have a more reliable way of calculating than the almanacs."
She yawned.
"Sleep," said the Patrician.
"It seems such a waste of time."
He smiled at the canopy. "Time is as regular as the sun rise and unstoppable as the tides. I have always found that comforting. The problem with time, of course, is that it is regular as the sun rise and unstoppable as the tides. It comes without our bidding and we don't know what it will bring."
Hanna yawned again, her mind drifting already. Her head rose and fell on his chest as he breathed. An unstoppable tide, she thought, as she fell asleep.