Volume 13: Tales From the Sanctioned Brothel: Part I: The Painted Boy
Chapter 7
Something Real
Kai—because he had to be Kai here—plucked the glasses off Bors’s nose and placed them on the cedar chest beside the bed. “These keep jabbing me. Anyway, I want to see you properly.”“But I want to see you.” Stripped of his glasses, his head pillowed on Kai’s chest, Bors looked younger, a just-born creature squinting against the light. He was still fully dressed.All they’d done so far was the blow job and some cuddling. It wasn’t Kai’s usual routine, but Bors seemed to enjoy taking it slow, so Kai was glad Einara had encouraged him to play this by ear. He was so used to lying back and letting things be done to him that he’d nearly forgotten how to be attentive to a partner.He pulled Bors tighter into his arms and received a gratifying shiver in response. “You’re adorable like this, Fir,” he said. “After you come.”“Am I?” Bors looked genuinely surprised. “Don’t call me Fir, though. Not you.”He inched himself up Kai’s body till he reached his chest, where he bent over the sunflower tattoo. A finger traced the outline, grazing Kai’s nipple and producing small waves of sensation. “This is so complicated. Did it hurt?”“That one? Nah. Some of the others did; it depends on where they are.” Kai didn’t want to admit that his dose had kept him from feeling most of the pain. “It’s less painful than, well, embarrassing. The Fira like to watch it being done, and they can be so damn smug about it. They think it means they own me.”He stopped short. He didn’t normally complain about this stuff, didn’t even let himself feel it. This was what came of lowering his dose.But Bors didn’t seem to find his weakness repellent. He gazed up into Kai’s face with an expression that might have been sympathy. “They can’t own you. No one owns you.”“Well, obviously.” Kai wished he believed it. But you couldn’t go through the role-play night after night—I’m yours, Fir; I’m nothing, do what you want with me—without some of it rubbing off. Anyway, he was a fuckup who was better off with someone telling him what to do.Bors was tracing the petals of the sunflower again. “Anyway, a tattoo doesn’t have to be a slave mark. In Thurskein, there are people called the Free Northmen who ink themselves to signify their connection to the old powers. The Spark, the wind, the ocean, the sky.”Bors sounded so wistful that it took Kai a moment to grasp that these Free Northmen were probably his targets. Dangerous subjects whom he surveilled and reported on. “Like Hargists? They have tattoos.”“Like Hargists, yes, but the Free Northmen aren’t nihilists.” Bors’s tone was still oddly dreamy. “They believe in the values of our ancestors—family bonds, strength, self-control, endurance, honor. They just don’t believe in technology or our modern way of living, alienated from the natural world.”Kai snorted. “If they don’t believe in technology, they’re not going to get far with rebellion. The government will mow them down. They are rebels, aren’t they?”“No!” Bors sounded almost offended. “Some of the younger elements make trouble, of course. Firebrands. But the Northmen don’t work to dismantle the system or the Levels. The worst they’ve done is spread themselves beyond the Laborer cities and take over the illegal sap trade in the Outer Ring.”“That sounds like a lot, actually.” Kai propped himself on one elbow. Maybe this was just his bias, but sap seemed like the only commodity in Oslov worth controlling. What else made the long Reddan winters bearable? “Is Int/Sec worried about these tattooed Northmen?”“Int/Sec is never ‘worried’ about anything.” Bors reached over Kai for his glasses, bristling with his usual alertness again. “The threat the Northmen pose to security is limited to our Sanctioned Sweetbush, and don’t bother trying to feed Hulda that tidbit, because I’m sure she already trades with the Northmen in the Outer Ring. Their main concern is that they want to practice the old religion, which is also why it’s so important to them to take control of the sap trade. They think the drug should have a ritual function, not recreational. Otherwise, they’re not openly anti-government, and in some ways, they’ve actually strengthened the work ethic in their sectors of Thurskein. And they all vow solemnly never to touch a keyboard or access a net, which limits the damage they can do.”Kai had to smile, because most Drudges were forbidden to do those things anyway. “You sound almost like you’re defending them.”“Of course not. I respect them, though—they’re not shirkers.” Bors put on his glasses, looking thoughtful, and curled himself back up on Kai’s chest. “I wonder how much the Northmen know about Bronn and his Dissident connections. They started in Sector Five of ’Skein, but they’ve established quite a presence in Sector Six, where he was born. Vera Linnett is the Admin there now; she spends a few months of every year in ’Skein with her son.”“Their son,” Kai pointed out slyly, tucking all this away for future reference.“Yes. Well. My man inside Six says the shirkers have been far less active since the Northmen came to power, because the Northmen are more popular with the youth.” Bors sighed. “Without the Northmen, we’d have almost no one to monitor at all.”“That’s good, though, right? You hate shirkers.” Kai was sick of this political talk. In one easy movement, he rolled Bors off him, onto his back, and brought his full weight down on top of the little spy.Bors squeaked and stiffened under Kai’s bulk. Kai laughed gently, bringing the pressure of his thigh to bear on Bors’s crotch. “What do you think I’m gonna do? Ravish you?”Bors relaxed again—then tensed in a new way as Kai worked him through his trousers. “You’re just so strong,” he breathed.“Mmmm. But you know I won’t hurt you.” Bors hardened quickly, but he had no more pacing than a schoolboy; if Kai hadn’t known just when to pull back, he might have come already. Lack of experience, Kai supposed.Bors squirmed, trying to push Kai’s hand away even as his hips rutted toward it. “You already made me come once. It’s, it’s my—” He broke off, his eyes forlorn and magnified by the glasses.Kai’s chuckle was even gentler this time. “Are you trying to say it’s your turn? You know I don’t work that way.”“What way? I can’t—I can’t pleasure you?”Fine. Maybe this was what Einara meant about offering Bors “something real.” Kai tugged his hand out from between them, ignoring Bors’s involuntary sigh of protest, and rolled over and arched his back, giving Bors a good view of the growing bulge in his thin lounge pants. “You really want to take a turn, love? Have at it.”He expected Bors to do exactly what he’d been doing. Instead, Bors grabbed hold of the elastic and peeled the fabric down to free Kai’s cock.Kai froze, remembering the healing welts and old scars on his thighs. Most of them were on his backside, but occasionally the lash slipped. He didn’t feel ready to show Bors that panorama just yet.To his relief, Bors seemed too busy bending down and lapping timidly around the head of Kai’s cock to notice anything amiss. For a moment, the sensation shocked Kai—a deep-down, tickling, teasing thrill that curled his toes and arched his spine. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him this kind of attention.Bors lacked the skills to follow through, though. Kai lay patiently and endured the spy’s tentative ministrations, craving a deeper, more receptive envelope for his straining erection. He was tempted to grab hold of Bors’s hair and thrust himself into the reluctant throat, but the thought passed.“That’s so good,” he said encouragingly, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, feigning the throes of ecstasy. “Fucking amazing, Bors. If you could just—maybe bring in your hand again? I’ll come faster that way. Oh yes. Like that. Unbelievable. Yes.”When Bors made his way out into the corridor, stunned and shaky, Aunt Hulda’s lackey was waiting there.“What is it?” he asked as the tall, blond girl fell into step just behind him. Evening was coming on, and it was mortifying to think that someone like Karishkov might happen by and see him here. Besides, he was impatient to get back to his screens in the Blinding Tank. “Does Hulda want to see me, after all?”“No, Fir. I just wanted to make sure everything was to your satisfaction.”“How considerate. So my aunt can manipulate me and threaten my friend, but she still won’t face me?”The lackey was as respectful as she’d been last time, yet Bors thought he detected subtle irreverence in her reply: “If I may be honest, Fir’n Director says the two of you have never gotten on that well. That’s why she sent me in her place.”Maybe she was mocking him because he’d been born a Drudge—everyone here knew. Bors bit his lip. He wouldn’t take offense—not after the transcendent hour he’d just had in Kai’s arms, touching and being touched. He didn’t want to ruin the memory of today, but he could show this little slut how dignity looked.“Well then,” he said, “you can tell Hulda I think it’s shameful how you’re using Kai. He’s sick, and you’re making him sicker to wring more value out of him. The Sanctioned isn’t supposed to profit anyone except society at large. I could report you both.”The girl didn’t flinch, just kept walking a step behind him down the blond-wood-paneled corridor, hands behind her back. “You could indeed, Fir.”“If I don’t, it’s only because I do want to help Kai. And you know it.”“I want to help him, too.”They were nearly at the door of the lobby. Rather than step into that more public space, Bors wheeled on her. “No, you don’t.”She gazed back, the blue eyes so placid they absorbed his irritation. “I execute Fir’n Director’s orders, but I don’t always agree with them, Fir. To see a fine man like Kai enslaved to the sweetness—that saddens me.”Bors blinked, disoriented. Her accent was no different from his, but no Oslov would ever call sap “the sweetness” or use the archaic word “enslaved” in a modern context. “You’re an Outer?”She smiled ruefully. “An Oslov citizen now. My papers are in order.”“I don’t doubt it.” Bors had heard of Admins and officers posted in the Wastes who made pets of Outers and fast-tracked their citizenship. When they got tired of them, they sent them to pad the ranks of the city’s brothels. Not all barbarians meant ill to the Republic, he supposed, but how many of these whores were properly vetted? How many of them had been raised to see the Republic as their oppressor—sometimes with justification?The girl bowed her head. “Citizenship is a great honor, Fir. I try to be worthy of it. My father was an Oslov.”“Hmm.” Bors let his lip curl. How many Outers had some version of that sob story?She seemed earnest, though, her gaze tight on his. “My mother’s people were brutes, and I never wanted to live among them. But they do know one thing: how to treat sap with respect. For them, it’s a sacred gift, a pathway to the eternal.”Like the Northmen. Bors’s mouth twisted again before he could stop it. “For us, it’s a temptation to corruption. If Whyberg could see how we barter goods and secrets for vials, he would be appalled. Not that it’s my place to judge a sanctioned form of recreation,” he added hastily. “I don’t make the laws, only execute them.”The girl stared for an instant. Then she smiled at him—a shockingly sweet, lovely smile, all dimples and sparkling eyes. “I’m glad you care for Kai, Fir, even if it’s only a little. Together, maybe we can help him.”Bors’s face burned. He’d never felt attracted to a woman in his life, certainly not to an Outer, but some part of him longed to bask in the light of that smile. Maybe all elite sex workers had that power.Kai certainly did. Bors still felt a little giddy from the bliss they’d experienced together, a blush staining his cheeks as he heard the echo of Kai’s moans in his imagination. Who would have thought giving pleasure could be as thrilling as receiving it? And before and after, when they lounged in bed and talked—maybe those parts were the best of all.“I care for Kai more than a little. As an old friend, of course, and nothing more,” he said severely, to cover his self-consciousness. “I hope to see him again. But I have boundaries, and my aunt should understand that. What I told Kai—” He swallowed. “It’s valuable, I think. But I told him only because the knowledge means nothing to my superiors.”The girl’s smile faded, and her eyes narrowed complicitly as she leaned in, extending her hand. “I understand, Fir.”“Do you, though? If Hulda thinks she can start pumping me for secrets, she’s wrong.” The ultimatum could make this idyll with Kai his last, but he might as well take the pill now.She didn’t seem troubled. “Let me handle Hulda. I have a way with her, Fir. If you come back next seventh-day at four, I’ll make sure you’re admitted.”She agreed with him. Perhaps, if he figured out some real treatment for Kai, she might help. Bors clasped her knuckles, superior to inferior. “Thank you,” he said, almost surprised at his own earnestness. “What should I call you?”“Einara. You honor me with your trust, Fir.” She smiled again, with just a hint of that radiance this time, and turned and left him.“Nice work,” Hulda said. She was knitting in her bath, needles dipping in and out of the steam. “Between you and Kai, you may just worm your way into the spy’s cold, dark heart.”“He’s your nephew.” Kneeling on the tile, Einara massaged the old woman’s shoulders. “This doesn’t bother you?”“Not at all. We aren’t harming him. Maybe we’re even helping him self-actualize by showing him who he is.” Hulda gasped. “Oh, that’s good. Anyway, Bors is already more useful than I expected. Tilrey Bronn mentioned to me that he had a son, but I had no idea he meant Vera Linnett’s son, that sly devil. And to think Councillor Gádden married the mother to make the boy legitimate. That’s quite amazing—revolutionary, almost. It proves Gádden’s devotion to his lover. I’m feeling a bit more secure in his loyalty now.”“But Bronn is still our ally, isn’t he?” Einara dug the heels of her hands into the knots in Hulda’s shoulders.“Of course, my love. And it’s always useful to know one’s allies’ secrets . . . just in case.”Einara didn’t let her relief show. Sooner or later she’d find a way to meet Tilrey Bronn. He and Bors Dartán, with his access to classified files, might be her best chances of learning who had sent a missile to Michigan to kill her mother and sister.Ever since her lethal rashness with Irin Dartán, she’d been even more cautious about whom she told. She had dared to ask Hulda, who already knew her great secret, but the old woman had simply shaken her head. I wouldn’t be surprised. When it comes to foreign affairs, our government strikes first and asks questions later. And it doesn’t tell its citizens a thing. “And the Free Northmen?” Einara asked with deliberate casualness. “Could they be useful allies?”“Oh, those bearded puppies. It’s true they’ve taken over the trade, but only because the Kauvilaas feuded themselves into exhaustion. If the Northmen really did grow and tap their own sweetbushes, they might be a powerful force, but I don’t see that happening.”“They’re popular with the people, though. That counts for something.” If Kai’s impression could be trusted, even the ultra-loyalist Bors was weirdly enamored of the Northmen.“Vapid streaming dramas and undrinkable rotgut are popular with the people, too.” Hulda made a dismissive noise. “Do you know, the Northmen’s so-called leader is just eighteen? He claims to be a Councillor’s misborn son, begotten on a Skeinsha, bridging two worlds. It’s all theater.”Hulda might not be intrigued, but Einara was. “How romantic,” she said, camouflaging her eagerness in sarcasm. “I hear they wear beards, too, like my countrymen. I’d like to meet them, just to see. Maybe you could send me with the vials in Svesinov’s place?”“And risk your falling in love with one of those handsome Northmen and running back into the Wastes with him?” Hulda nabbed Einara’s braid and tugged her down for a kiss. “Not likely, my sweet girl. You have secrets, and you’ll stay within these walls where I can keep an eye on you. Now, why don’t you take my knitting and help me towel off?”
Kai—because he had to be Kai here—plucked the glasses off Bors’s nose and placed them on the cedar chest beside the bed. “These keep jabbing me. Anyway, I want to see you properly.”
“But I want to see you.” Stripped of his glasses, his head pillowed on Kai’s chest, Bors looked younger, a just-born creature squinting against the light. He was still fully dressed.
All they’d done so far was the blow job and some cuddling. It wasn’t Kai’s usual routine, but Bors seemed to enjoy taking it slow, so Kai was glad Einara had encouraged him to play this by ear. He was so used to lying back and letting things be done to him that he’d nearly forgotten how to be attentive to a partner.
He pulled Bors tighter into his arms and received a gratifying shiver in response. “You’re adorable like this, Fir,” he said. “After you come.”
“Am I?” Bors looked genuinely surprised. “Don’t call me Fir, though. Not you.”
He inched himself up Kai’s body till he reached his chest, where he bent over the sunflower tattoo. A finger traced the outline, grazing Kai’s nipple and producing small waves of sensation. “This is so complicated. Did it hurt?”
“That one? Nah. Some of the others did; it depends on where they are.” Kai didn’t want to admit that his dose had kept him from feeling most of the pain. “It’s less painful than, well, embarrassing. The Fira like to watch it being done, and they can be so damn smug about it. They think it means they own me.”
He stopped short. He didn’t normally complain about this stuff, didn’t even let himself feel it. This was what came of lowering his dose.
But Bors didn’t seem to find his weakness repellent. He gazed up into Kai’s face with an expression that might have been sympathy. “They can’t own you. No one owns you.”
“Well, obviously.” Kai wished he believed it. But you couldn’t go through the role-play night after night—I’m yours, Fir; I’m nothing, do what you want with me—without some of it rubbing off. Anyway, he was a fuckup who was better off with someone telling him what to do.
Bors was tracing the petals of the sunflower again. “Anyway, a tattoo doesn’t have to be a slave mark. In Thurskein, there are people called the Free Northmen who ink themselves to signify their connection to the old powers. The Spark, the wind, the ocean, the sky.”
Bors sounded so wistful that it took Kai a moment to grasp that these Free Northmen were probably his targets. Dangerous subjects whom he surveilled and reported on. “Like Hargists? They have tattoos.”
“Like Hargists, yes, but the Free Northmen aren’t nihilists.” Bors’s tone was still oddly dreamy. “They believe in the values of our ancestors—family bonds, strength, self-control, endurance, honor. They just don’t believe in technology or our modern way of living, alienated from the natural world.”
Kai snorted. “If they don’t believe in technology, they’re not going to get far with rebellion. The government will mow them down. They are rebels, aren’t they?”
“No!” Bors sounded almost offended. “Some of the younger elements make trouble, of course. Firebrands. But the Northmen don’t work to dismantle the system or the Levels. The worst they’ve done is spread themselves beyond the Laborer cities and take over the illegal sap trade in the Outer Ring.”
“That sounds like a lot, actually.” Kai propped himself on one elbow. Maybe this was just his bias, but sap seemed like the only commodity in Oslov worth controlling. What else made the long Reddan winters bearable? “Is Int/Sec worried about these tattooed Northmen?”
“Int/Sec is never ‘worried’ about anything.” Bors reached over Kai for his glasses, bristling with his usual alertness again. “The threat the Northmen pose to security is limited to our Sanctioned Sweetbush, and don’t bother trying to feed Hulda that tidbit, because I’m sure she already trades with the Northmen in the Outer Ring. Their main concern is that they want to practice the old religion, which is also why it’s so important to them to take control of the sap trade. They think the drug should have a ritual function, not recreational. Otherwise, they’re not openly anti-government, and in some ways, they’ve actually strengthened the work ethic in their sectors of Thurskein. And they all vow solemnly never to touch a keyboard or access a net, which limits the damage they can do.”
Kai had to smile, because most Drudges were forbidden to do those things anyway. “You sound almost like you’re defending them.”
“Of course not. I respect them, though—they’re not shirkers.” Bors put on his glasses, looking thoughtful, and curled himself back up on Kai’s chest. “I wonder how much the Northmen know about Bronn and his Dissident connections. They started in Sector Five of ’Skein, but they’ve established quite a presence in Sector Six, where he was born. Vera Linnett is the Admin there now; she spends a few months of every year in ’Skein with her son.”
“Their son,” Kai pointed out slyly, tucking all this away for future reference.
“Yes. Well. My man inside Six says the shirkers have been far less active since the Northmen came to power, because the Northmen are more popular with the youth.” Bors sighed. “Without the Northmen, we’d have almost no one to monitor at all.”
“That’s good, though, right? You hate shirkers.” Kai was sick of this political talk. In one easy movement, he rolled Bors off him, onto his back, and brought his full weight down on top of the little spy.
Bors squeaked and stiffened under Kai’s bulk. Kai laughed gently, bringing the pressure of his thigh to bear on Bors’s crotch. “What do you think I’m gonna do? Ravish you?”
Bors relaxed again—then tensed in a new way as Kai worked him through his trousers. “You’re just so strong,” he breathed.
“Mmmm. But you know I won’t hurt you.” Bors hardened quickly, but he had no more pacing than a schoolboy; if Kai hadn’t known just when to pull back, he might have come already. Lack of experience, Kai supposed.
Bors squirmed, trying to push Kai’s hand away even as his hips rutted toward it. “You already made me come once. It’s, it’s my—” He broke off, his eyes forlorn and magnified by the glasses.
Kai’s chuckle was even gentler this time. “Are you trying to say it’s your turn? You know I don’t work that way.”
“What way? I can’t—I can’t pleasure you?”
Fine. Maybe this was what Einara meant about offering Bors “something real.” Kai tugged his hand out from between them, ignoring Bors’s involuntary sigh of protest, and rolled over and arched his back, giving Bors a good view of the growing bulge in his thin lounge pants. “You really want to take a turn, love? Have at it.”
He expected Bors to do exactly what he’d been doing. Instead, Bors grabbed hold of the elastic and peeled the fabric down to free Kai’s cock.
Kai froze, remembering the healing welts and old scars on his thighs. Most of them were on his backside, but occasionally the lash slipped. He didn’t feel ready to show Bors that panorama just yet.
To his relief, Bors seemed too busy bending down and lapping timidly around the head of Kai’s cock to notice anything amiss. For a moment, the sensation shocked Kai—a deep-down, tickling, teasing thrill that curled his toes and arched his spine. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him this kind of attention.
Bors lacked the skills to follow through, though. Kai lay patiently and endured the spy’s tentative ministrations, craving a deeper, more receptive envelope for his straining erection. He was tempted to grab hold of Bors’s hair and thrust himself into the reluctant throat, but the thought passed.
“That’s so good,” he said encouragingly, throwing his head back and closing his eyes, feigning the throes of ecstasy. “Fucking amazing, Bors. If you could just—maybe bring in your hand again? I’ll come faster that way. Oh yes. Like that. Unbelievable. Yes.”
When Bors made his way out into the corridor, stunned and shaky, Aunt Hulda’s lackey was waiting there.
“What is it?” he asked as the tall, blond girl fell into step just behind him. Evening was coming on, and it was mortifying to think that someone like Karishkov might happen by and see him here. Besides, he was impatient to get back to his screens in the Blinding Tank. “Does Hulda want to see me, after all?”
“No, Fir. I just wanted to make sure everything was to your satisfaction.”
“How considerate. So my aunt can manipulate me and threaten my friend, but she still won’t face me?”
The lackey was as respectful as she’d been last time, yet Bors thought he detected subtle irreverence in her reply: “If I may be honest, Fir’n Director says the two of you have never gotten on that well. That’s why she sent me in her place.”
Maybe she was mocking him because he’d been born a Drudge—everyone here knew. Bors bit his lip. He wouldn’t take offense—not after the transcendent hour he’d just had in Kai’s arms, touching and being touched. He didn’t want to ruin the memory of today, but he could show this little slut how dignity looked.
“Well then,” he said, “you can tell Hulda I think it’s shameful how you’re using Kai. He’s sick, and you’re making him sicker to wring more value out of him. The Sanctioned isn’t supposed to profit anyone except society at large. I could report you both.”
The girl didn’t flinch, just kept walking a step behind him down the blond-wood-paneled corridor, hands behind her back. “You could indeed, Fir.”
“If I don’t, it’s only because I do want to help Kai. And you know it.”
“I want to help him, too.”
They were nearly at the door of the lobby. Rather than step into that more public space, Bors wheeled on her. “No, you don’t.”
She gazed back, the blue eyes so placid they absorbed his irritation. “I execute Fir’n Director’s orders, but I don’t always agree with them, Fir. To see a fine man like Kai enslaved to the sweetness—that saddens me.”
Bors blinked, disoriented. Her accent was no different from his, but no Oslov would ever call sap “the sweetness” or use the archaic word “enslaved” in a modern context. “You’re an Outer?”
She smiled ruefully. “An Oslov citizen now. My papers are in order.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Bors had heard of Admins and officers posted in the Wastes who made pets of Outers and fast-tracked their citizenship. When they got tired of them, they sent them to pad the ranks of the city’s brothels. Not all barbarians meant ill to the Republic, he supposed, but how many of these whores were properly vetted? How many of them had been raised to see the Republic as their oppressor—sometimes with justification?
The girl bowed her head. “Citizenship is a great honor, Fir. I try to be worthy of it. My father was an Oslov.”
“Hmm.” Bors let his lip curl. How many Outers had some version of that sob story?
She seemed earnest, though, her gaze tight on his. “My mother’s people were brutes, and I never wanted to live among them. But they do know one thing: how to treat sap with respect. For them, it’s a sacred gift, a pathway to the eternal.”
Like the Northmen. Bors’s mouth twisted again before he could stop it. “For us, it’s a temptation to corruption. If Whyberg could see how we barter goods and secrets for vials, he would be appalled. Not that it’s my place to judge a sanctioned form of recreation,” he added hastily. “I don’t make the laws, only execute them.”
The girl stared for an instant. Then she smiled at him—a shockingly sweet, lovely smile, all dimples and sparkling eyes. “I’m glad you care for Kai, Fir, even if it’s only a little. Together, maybe we can help him.”
Bors’s face burned. He’d never felt attracted to a woman in his life, certainly not to an Outer, but some part of him longed to bask in the light of that smile. Maybe all elite sex workers had that power.
Kai certainly did. Bors still felt a little giddy from the bliss they’d experienced together, a blush staining his cheeks as he heard the echo of Kai’s moans in his imagination. Who would have thought giving pleasure could be as thrilling as receiving it? And before and after, when they lounged in bed and talked—maybe those parts were the best of all.
“I care for Kai more than a little. As an old friend, of course, and nothing more,” he said severely, to cover his self-consciousness. “I hope to see him again. But I have boundaries, and my aunt should understand that. What I told Kai—” He swallowed. “It’s valuable, I think. But I told him only because the knowledge means nothing to my superiors.”
The girl’s smile faded, and her eyes narrowed complicitly as she leaned in, extending her hand. “I understand, Fir.”
“Do you, though? If Hulda thinks she can start pumping me for secrets, she’s wrong.” The ultimatum could make this idyll with Kai his last, but he might as well take the pill now.
She didn’t seem troubled. “Let me handle Hulda. I have a way with her, Fir. If you come back next seventh-day at four, I’ll make sure you’re admitted.”
She agreed with him. Perhaps, if he figured out some real treatment for Kai, she might help. Bors clasped her knuckles, superior to inferior. “Thank you,” he said, almost surprised at his own earnestness. “What should I call you?”
“Einara. You honor me with your trust, Fir.” She smiled again, with just a hint of that radiance this time, and turned and left him.
“Nice work,” Hulda said. She was knitting in her bath, needles dipping in and out of the steam. “Between you and Kai, you may just worm your way into the spy’s cold, dark heart.”
“He’s your nephew.” Kneeling on the tile, Einara massaged the old woman’s shoulders. “This doesn’t bother you?”
“Not at all. We aren’t harming him. Maybe we’re even helping him self-actualize by showing him who he is.” Hulda gasped. “Oh, that’s good. Anyway, Bors is already more useful than I expected. Tilrey Bronn mentioned to me that he had a son, but I had no idea he meant Vera Linnett’s son, that sly devil. And to think Councillor Gádden married the mother to make the boy legitimate. That’s quite amazing—revolutionary, almost. It proves Gádden’s devotion to his lover. I’m feeling a bit more secure in his loyalty now.”
“But Bronn is still our ally, isn’t he?” Einara dug the heels of her hands into the knots in Hulda’s shoulders.
“Of course, my love. And it’s always useful to know one’s allies’ secrets . . . just in case.”
Einara didn’t let her relief show. Sooner or later she’d find a way to meet Tilrey Bronn. He and Bors Dartán, with his access to classified files, might be her best chances of learning who had sent a missile to Michigan to kill her mother and sister.
Ever since her lethal rashness with Irin Dartán, she’d been even more cautious about whom she told. She had dared to ask Hulda, who already knew her great secret, but the old woman had simply shaken her head. I wouldn’t be surprised. When it comes to foreign affairs, our government strikes first and asks questions later. And it doesn’t tell its citizens a thing.
“And the Free Northmen?” Einara asked with deliberate casualness. “Could they be useful allies?”
“Oh, those bearded puppies. It’s true they’ve taken over the trade, but only because the Kauvilaas feuded themselves into exhaustion. If the Northmen really did grow and tap their own sweetbushes, they might be a powerful force, but I don’t see that happening.”
“They’re popular with the people, though. That counts for something.” If Kai’s impression could be trusted, even the ultra-loyalist Bors was weirdly enamored of the Northmen.
“Vapid streaming dramas and undrinkable rotgut are popular with the people, too.” Hulda made a dismissive noise. “Do you know, the Northmen’s so-called leader is just eighteen? He claims to be a Councillor’s misborn son, begotten on a Skeinsha, bridging two worlds. It’s all theater.”
Hulda might not be intrigued, but Einara was. “How romantic,” she said, camouflaging her eagerness in sarcasm. “I hear they wear beards, too, like my countrymen. I’d like to meet them, just to see. Maybe you could send me with the vials in Svesinov’s place?”
“And risk your falling in love with one of those handsome Northmen and running back into the Wastes with him?” Hulda nabbed Einara’s braid and tugged her down for a kiss. “Not likely, my sweet girl. You have secrets, and you’ll stay within these walls where I can keep an eye on you. Now, why don’t you take my knitting and help me towel off?”