Chapter Five
See the unedited version of this story at JLA Unlimited.
VVVVV
A general's private quarters were comfortable and cool, having been earned through years of hardship and heat. High windows caught the early evening breezes and directed them downward into the room. Real oil lamps, rather than the torches found in soldiers' barracks, lit the space. The general had also earned one other item regular soldiers lacked: a bed.
Bashari, who had spent most of his life sleeping in a hammock, found he couldn't sleep on the mattress. It was too soft, yet too hard, and he missed the gentle sway as he slept. Therefore, he installed a hammock that he used each night instead. And with the exception of the first week in his quarters over five years earlier, Bashari hadn't used his bed.
Until today.
"Is it uncomfortable?" he asked against her cheek. His hips pressed forward slowly, then backed away. Again, he pushed forward.
"Certainly not," Chayara sighed into his ear. "It's exquisite."
"Not this." He thrust only a little harder. His fingers moved from teasing her breast to stroking her feathers. "Laying on your back. On your wings."
He felt her lips on his earlobe. "It's awkward." Her hands traced the line between their bodies, tickling his ribs. "But I find I enjoy this feeling. You above me, claiming me."
His stomach clenched and Bashari lifted his head. He forced himself to say her name, rather than her title. Merely having impure thoughts about the Queen was enough to get him killed, but to be reminded that he was claiming her as his own --- stealing her from the King --- Bashari felt his testicles try to crawl closer for protection.
Chayara's fingertips came to rest on his temples; her green eyes were soft in the lamplight. "We're able to see one another's face," she said, a gentle smile on her lips. "Where I come from, seeing a person's face ... " Her fingers traced his eyebrows, his nose, his cheekbones. " ... is very intimate." She stretched her neck and kissed his lips with the barest of contact.
Bashari felt his muscles relax and he allowed his hips to continue the previous movements, increasing in pace as Chayara's moans grew more urgent.
"Please," she breathed, her teeth still latched onto his lip.
Power surged through Bashari then. A woman --- the queen and goddess of the land --- was under his control, begging him to provide her with pleasure. Who was he to deny such a request?
Chayara's head fell back to the pillows and her eyes squeezed shut. A cry started low in her throat. Bashari covered her mouth with his, swallowing her scream, not wanting the soldiers in the nearby barracks to hear the commotion. Her body convulsed once, then again, and Bashari let go, spilling himself deep within her with a groan.
As their quakes died down, Bashari withdrew. He didn't move off her, though, as her wings took up all the extra space.
Chayara raised her hand to his cheek and stared into his eyes. "My love."
"My life," he promised.
She kissed him and when she pulled back he saw sadness in her eyes. His stomach knotted. For a battle-hardened general, he'd spent more time in the past week with his heart in his throat than a new recruit on the front line of battle.
"What troubles you?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"Katar will be back from Nebet soon," she said. "I must return to the palace."
He sighed, knowing the truth of her words. Given the lateness of the hour, there was a good chance that Katar had already arrived. That fact didn't concern Bashari, though, as he had no intention of letting his lover go so quickly after their coupling.
"We will bathe," Bashari said, knowing their routine. He pushed himself up and away. "Then I will escort you home."
He took his time, leisurely washing each part of her, feeling her warmth as she scrubbed him in turn. When they were clean and dry, she dabbed the perfume she'd brought, the same she always wore, to her hair and her wrists. He watched her, longing to sweep her back into his arms and love her again. Instead, he bowed as she donned and straightened her mask.
She was his Queen again. Bashari hid his sigh.
Dark had descended on the city. Each step was painful as they approached, and finally, he took her arm and led her without protest around to the garden where there were fewer eyes to watch them go. He could part with her --- for now, only for now --- not far from where they'd made love.
Her smile told him she understood, and she squeezed his arm.
He ought to give her something, a token to remind her of him when they were apart, but everything he owned was in his quarters, and none of it appropriate for a lady.
Bashari had an idea. He pulled his knife, and as she watched, flung it. His aim was true, cutting a daylily from its viny hold on a tree branch. He caught the flower mid-fall
As he presented it to her, she teased him, "You didn't have to do that. I can fly."
"When we're together, so can I."
They were in the shadow of the palace, but no one was around, no one would see. He drew her body to his and kissed her tenderly, desperately. The scent of the lily in her hand and the flowers in the garden mixed with her perfume in the warm night breezes, and he was lost.
From far away, he heard a sharp noise, and he pulled away from her with one last press to her lips.
"Go in without me," he breathed. He couldn't tell her to go to Katar, not without breaking his own heart.
"I love you," she whispered back, and touched his hand, and walked away, still holding his gift.
When she was gone, Bashari climbed up to retrieve his dagger. As he tugged it free, the blade snapped in half.
VVVVV
Chayara went first to her room, finding a place to set the lily so she could spy it from her bed. Then she went in search of her husband. He was not in the throne room, nor in the war room, and she began to wonder if he'd returned at all.
She found a servant hurrying through the corridors. "Wait. Has the King returned?"
"Yes, my Queen," bowed the chambermaid. "He is dining."
"Thank you." Chayara changed direction. Sure enough, Katar lounged on the pillows beside the table, moving the food around on his dish without tasting it. Three servants stood at bored attention around him. She considered sending them away, and then decided against it. She didn't want to be alone with him, not yet.
She forced a smile to her face. "I thought you might be home."
His head jerked, and he turned to face her. "My Queen," he said simply.
"How did you fare in Nebet?" she asked, taking her seat beside him. One of the servants immediately brought her wine and another left to bring her dinner.
"As well as I expected. Den Qa'a had only a handful of loyal supporters. The rest of his followers turned tail as soon as our forces arrived." He ripped a joint free from the roasted fowl before him and chewed the meat from the bone.
"Congratulations on your victory. What will you do with Den Qa'a?" she asked, as her food was set in front of her.
"Nothing. His women can attend to his corpse. I won't abide traitors, Chayara."
"Of course not," she said quietly. The smell of her meat was too rich, and she pushed the dish away from her.
Katar continued to disjoint his dinner, although Chayara noticed he wasn't eating, just ripping it to bits. "Nebet won't forget us soon. I left Den Qa'a's head and the heads of his supporters over the gates of the city." A tiny piece of his food flew and hit her in the face, bringing with it the pungent aroma of the meat and the spices, and her imagination was too ready to provide a different head above their own city gates.
"Excuse me," she said, bolting for the door, but she'd only just made it out of the room before she heaved up what was left in her stomach from her earlier meal. She coughed the last of it out, then sat back. She was secretly glad that the servants came after her, retrieved rags, and cleaned up without comment.
Katar came to the door. His face was unreadable under his mask, even to her. "Are you well?"
"My stomach's been ill these past few days. It's nothing." It wasn't exactly a lie; her stomach had been giving her grief lately, as guilt gnawed at her. She offered a weak smile. "I think I'll go to bed now."
"I'll come with you," he said, and helped her to her feet. She tried to stay calm, not cringe from his touch. This was Katar. This was the man she'd married, the man she had once loved more than life. His comment about the traitor had been coincidence, nothing more. He would never hurt her.
Back in their room, she undressed quickly and slipped beneath the sheets, placing her back and wings to him, counting the breaths until he would come to bed with her, slide up behind her.
The breaths counted out longer than she'd thought, and she rolled over. Katar stood beside the bed, masked and clothed, watching her through the mosquito netting. "Katar?"
"You still want a child, don't you?"
Chayara sat up, pulling the sheet to cover herself. "You don't."
"If a child would make you happy, I will give you one." He began to tug at the fastener to his loincloth. Every muscle in her body tensed as she saw that he was already aroused.
"Not now," she said. "Not tonight." She placed her hand on her abdomen. "My stomach." She tried another smile. "Tomorrow. We can try tomorrow."
Katar stopped undressing and stared at her. For a moment, she wasn't sure what he was going to do. If he would come to bed and let her sleep. If he would try to mate her anyway.
"I will allow you your rest." He blew out the lamps and left her there.
Chayara allowed a tremble to go through her body as she lay down again. She'd avoided him for this one night. She couldn't keep pushing him off, certainly not when she'd pursued him for so long on the matter. Her season should last another week, and ...
In the darkness, Chayara frowned. Hesitantly, she reached up and stroked her breasts. The sensitivity had faded. Her season had ended early this year, and she hadn't noticed.
Katar would notice, as soon as he nuzzled her neck, breathed in her scent. He was distant tonight, weary from the battle and hard travel, but his senses were as keen as hers and he could tell almost as easily as she when her time came and when it left. He would be gratified to find out she was finished. He would probably take her north sooner, and they would be alone.
She had to run.
Chayara closed her eyes. She was so tired, and her head ached, and her stomach still roiled.
Tomorrow she'd talk with Bashari and they would plan an escape. The hope calmed her.
She reached out and stroked the flower he'd given her, reached her other hand between her bare thighs to stroke herself. In her mind's eye, Bashari was there with her, his mouth and hands working in place of her own fingers.
This wasn't the first night --- alone or with Katar --- that she'd pretended she was with Bashari. This was the first time she'd done so knowing firsthand what it felt like to have him inside her. Her memory provided his rich scent, his soft sounds, the spicy taste of his mouth, the feel of his warm skin pressed against hers. It didn't take long.
Idh-yaa! Yes!
Her climax convulsed her, and she rode it, wishing Bashari was with her.
Chayara closed her eyes and fell quickly asleep, and she dreamed of a life with her love among green hills where she was not afraid.
VVVVV
Katar sat on his throne, thinking murderous thoughts.
He couldn't wipe the memory from his mind: his wife and his closest friend, locked in a passionate embrace. Hath-Set's words came back to him, bringing rumors he'd hoped were idle gossip. The General, that human, had his hands all over Katar's wife. Katar's one hope, that Chayara had played reluctant victim to Bashari's insistence, had been dashed at last when she'd denied Katar even in her heat.
There were words on Thanagar for women like her, and he muttered them under his breath, releasing each like a curse. She would pay. They would both pay.
"My Lord," said Hath-Set.
Katar's head jerked up. "What do you want?"
"Only to serve you," said the priest. "Only ever to serve you."
"You at least are loyal, aren't you?" Katar said, brokenly.
"Oh, yes, my King." Hath-Set bowed and approached the throne with careful steps. He reached Katar and knelt down before him, placing his hand atop Katar's own as it rested on his leg.
"How could they? How could she? I gave her everything!" He'd tamed this land for her, built her palaces, sacrificed and bled for her.
"Women are fickle and untrustworthy creatures. This has always been so." Katar felt the slight pressure as Hath-Set squeezed his hand, began rubbing Katar's knuckles.
"But I am bound to this woman as long as we live," he said coarsely.
"Yes, my King."
He recalled so clearly the day they'd met, the day they'd been assigned as partners. He remembered being almost too shy to ask her on a date. Then had come the wormhole and the crash, and it had not been long before they were lovers simply out of loneliness. His mother's earrings --- which he'd gladly have given her --- were light years away, but still they had wed. He had pledged his heart to her forever, and now to discover that she wanted another, a human, struck him to the core.
She'd never loved him.
Katar stood suddenly, sending Hath-Set tumbling down the steps. Without another word, Katar strode back to his room. He would wake his wife and he would demand the truth from her and he would claim her body for his own again and then he would wring her faithless neck.
Chayara lay sound asleep in their bed, her breaths making the sheets rise and fall softly. So calm, so lovely and peaceful, as she had been each night of their marriage.
Denied him. She was well within her season and she'd denied him. But he'd spent almost thirty years denying her, too.
With a sob, he turned from the doorway and ran out into the night-shrouded garden.
His brain seethed. Chayara, beautiful and naked the first time they'd coupled beneath a luminous moon. Hath-Set's whispers. Bashari, kissing Chayara passionately, holding and touching her like a lover.
How long had they been together? How blind had he been? His imagination needed little prompting to give him image after image of his wife and his best friend, pale and dark, winged and smooth, rutting like beasts in Katar's own bed. Katar knew too well the little noises Chayara made in the back of her throat during sex, could easily hear Bashari's deep voice, moaning her name.
In his mind, Chayara undulated atop Bashari, her perfect body thrusting and twisting in time with his. Bashari's muscled thighs pounded her as they muttered dirty things to each other, while a ghostly, ghastly Hath-Set stood in a dark corner, watching and noting the perfidy of women.
Tears streamed down his face, his thoughts aflame with pictures of the two people he loved most on this world naked and gasping in their betrayal.
He fell to the ground, still crying, in too much pain to crawl back inside.
He wanted to die.
VVVVV
His thoughts were too much on her. Two nights Bashari had spent in Chayara's arms, and now the prospect of a night without her was terrifying. There were papers to read, scrolls on reallocation of manpower, on the distribution of rations to the far garrisons. Normally, he hated this kind of minutia and handed it off to Teti-en or Nesamun, but tonight he needed what distraction he could find.
When the lamps burned low, he set the paperwork aside with a sigh. Still unable to sleep, he exercised in the darkness of his room.
"General Bashari!" The shout came from outside.
He got to his feet in an instant and he dashed out into the barracks. The men slept, but for a few. He looked around, confused, eventually striding up to where Mshai sat by Sebi's side, trying to raise his spirits.
"Someone called my name," Bashari said.
"Not us, sir," said Mshai. "And I didn't hear anything." Sebi said nothing.
"You're sure?"
Mshai nodded.
Bashari frowned. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks. He considered staying, seeing if he could help cheer Sebi, but the look on the man's face told him it would be no use. "I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me."
"Of course, General."
He went back to his room and crawled into his hammock. He'd considered trying to sleep in the bed, wrapped in her lovely scent, but that would drive him to distraction all over again.
He slept fitfully, even so, and when he woke just before dawn, the rosy light creeping in through his windows pushed him the rest of the way from his uneasy dreams. He climbed out of his hammock, and then noticed a dark shape in his bed.
A snake, long and brown, curled slumbering in the middle of his sheets. Had he slept in his bed, he would have died.
Bashari grabbed the new dagger he'd claimed last night, not as good a fit to his hand as his old one but serviceable enough. Two slices of the dagger, and the headless thing bled out on his floor. Heart hammering more than he'd like, he left his room in search of his breakfast.
VVVVV
Hath-Set smiled to himself as he went through the morning ritual to welcome the sun. Surely the body would be discovered soon and a shout would go out from the soldiers' barracks: the General, victim to a cobra's bite, a terrible accident.
No shouts came as day broke.
There might be a simple inquiry first. Soldiers kept to their own, would be frightened of bringing what they thought was bad news to the King.
He desired to know, and he could not wait, so he made his way to the wall nearest the training yard, where the early risers were already gathering for their exercise. He spied Teti-en among them and frowned. When the usurping General was confirmed dead, that sharp-tongued fool might very well receive a snakebite for himself.
There was still the Queen to consider. Hath-Set quailed at the thought of murdering a goddess, had to gird himself with the reminder that this was his god's wish. Her execution made a vicious kind of sense: the Queen was a whore, and the King could never again trust that she would stay faithful. Any child she gave him might not come of his own divine flesh but instead be sired by another. Hath-Set would end the kingdom himself before he allowed it to be ruled by Bashari's bastard.
Lost in these thoughts, he did not notice at first as the General came out into the training yard. Then the soldiers greeted him loudly, and Hath-Set cursed under his breath to see the man, hale and healthy.
This would never do.
VVVVV
Chayara woke from a dream she didn't remember to find herself alone in her bed. As she shook the sleep from her mind, she couldn't remember who was supposed to be there with her, and she looked around the room for Bashari until she remembered fully where she was and that Katar had come home.
She lay in bed for a while, staring at the red daylily, and thinking.
Metit came in to her room just after sunrise.
"Where is my husband?" Chayara asked her as Metit helped her dress.
"I believe he is in the throne room, my Queen."
She wondered where he'd slept last night, if he'd slept at all. She didn't want to see him, not yet. Her stomach was a hard knot again this morning, but she was ravenous. "I'll eat in my room today, Metit."
"Yes, my Queen."
"Metit?" The girl turned. "After you bring the food, please see if you can locate the General and ask him to meet me here."
"Here, my Queen?" Chayara read the fear on the girl's face. It was one thing to help her Queen in an affair when the King was gone, and another entirely to bring the Queen's lover to her chamber under his nose. Then, she swallowed. "Yes, m'lady."
"Thank you, Metit." She watched the girl go, and went back to her thoughts. They had to flee, and it had to be tonight. She needed to talk with him, and if Katar was avoiding her, this was the best place for them to plan. She would tell Metit to return to her family, perhaps even see them out of the city if possible. Bashari had said he would tell two or three of his men an hour in advance.
She took a bit of papyrus and began to jot down what they'd need to take with them to ensure safe travel over the sea. Metit returned with sweet cakes and wine, which Chayara wolfed down. She added more food to the provisions.
An hour passed. Chayara finished her list, then nervously rolled it and unrolled it. What if Katar came in? What if he discovered the scroll and knew what she was planning?
A movement in the doorway, and her heart stopped until she saw Bashari. Metit remained outside. Chayara gestured to her to bring them more to drink, and then patted a spot on the bed for Bashari to sit.
"We had this conversation before," he said uncomfortably. With a sigh, she removed her mask and set it on the post beside her bed.
"I didn't ask you here for that," she responded. "We have to go. Tonight."
He frowned in confusion and then he did sit down. "Why?"
She closed her eyes. "Katar. Last night ... "
"Chayara?" She opened her eyes to see the pain and worry on his face.
"We didn't. I won't. But he knows something's wrong now. He'll find out about us soon. I don't know how he'll react, and I won't risk your life." She bit her lip. "And there may be another reason for us to have to go."
Metit came back into the room with a pitcher and two goblets. Chayara smiled as she set them on the table beside the bed. "Leave us," she instructed the girl.
"Shall I wait in the corridor?"
"Keep a watch close by. If the King comes near this passageway, come in to alert me."
"Yes, my Queen." Metit left them alone.
Bashari looked at her. "What's the other reason?"
Chayara took Bashari's hand, pressed it lovingly to her cheek, and then placed his warm palm against her belly. "Something to celebrate."
VVVVV
Metit hurried back to the kitchen to grab another tray. She found that if she walked with a pitcher and goblets, she met with no questions while she haunted the corridors near the Queen's room.
The King had been in the throne room since before daybreak, and Nafrit said she thought he'd been there most of the night. Hopefully, he wouldn't disturb them at all.
Metit's own thoughts were in turmoil.
She had aided the Queen in her romance, but the King could have the Queen, the General, and Metit herself killed if it struck his whim. What had seemed like service to her Queen now looked perilously close to treason.
She chose to cling to the small hopes she'd found this morning.
First, Ashai had asked her to walk in the garden with him this afternoon when her duties were finished. Second, the priest Hath-Set had stopped her in the hallway on her way back to her lady's room and had insisted on blessing the wine she carried while she knelt with eyes closed. Third, she had dreamed a strange yet wonderful dream that still whispered in her thoughts, of a kind man all in green who sang sweetly to her.
Metit tried to hum the song, but couldn't quite remember. Then she paused, as she saw something at the end of the corridor, a flash of gold from the King's holy wings.
Just to be safe, she would tell the Queen that her husband was near. She walked to the doorway casually, heard nothing, and ventured inside the room.
At first, she thought they'd simply fallen asleep. Then she noticed the spilled wine, the unnatural pose of their bodies, the Queen's open, sightless eyes.
Metit screamed.
