Part 47 (1/2)

Nish talked at length about Jal-Nish. 'We were just tools to him, a part of his plan to climb to the top. Dutiful, successful children were required, so he had them, but he never seemed to care about us. Now he is scrutator, I am told, but even that will not satisfy him.

'And yet,' Nish continued, 'he is my father and I love him. When I saw him lying on the edge of the cliff, his face torn to shreds, his arm smashed, I wept. My father begged to be allowed to die, but I could not let him go. Poor man! How he suffers now.'

'I loved my man and my boys too much.' She stared at the flames. 'They are gone but I cannot move beyond. I just don't want to!' she wailed, reaching out until her fingertips touched the fire.

'The war burns burns me, now and forever,' she said. 'I can't get past it either. How me, now and forever,' she said. 'I can't get past it either. How can can there be war? How can we birth our babies, in love and pain, bringing them up as best we can, and then, when they are still children, send them to the slaughterhouse of battle? Where is the meaning in that? I cannot find any.' there be war? How can we birth our babies, in love and pain, bringing them up as best we can, and then, when they are still children, send them to the slaughterhouse of battle? Where is the meaning in that? I cannot find any.'

'You must despise me,' he said.

'I do not. You have suffered too, Nish, but you have overcome it. I cannot. Their deaths go round and round; I can't break out of the circle. And do you know why? I don't want to, because it would mean leaving behind everything I love.'

She leaned away from him. 'My sister tells me to move on. I am still young and must live. Why? I say. What advice would you give me, Nish?'

'How can I tell you anything? I don't know what you need.'

'What do you you need?' need?'

'I would have swapped everything I've ever had for an embrace with my mother or father.'

'I gave my boys that! It did not save them.'

She bent forward, and in the flickering candlelight the front of her dress hung down and he saw the valley between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Once he would have feasted on her but now Nish pulled his eyes away. It was not seemly.

She caught the direction of his glance but to Nish's surprise she reached for him. 'Hold me.'

He took her in his arms, but the distracting thoughts refused to go away. When had he last held a woman? Ullii, in the balloon, months ago. He imagined what Mira's dress concealed. She was no girl; Mira was a mature woman, fourteen or fifteen years older than he, yet he desired her. As she drifted her hand across his back, he wondered if she felt the same for him.

Her man had been dead twelve years and she still mourned. But there is truth in wine and she'd had a lot of it. Too much. He desired her but not this way. Pulling back, he reached for his cup. She smoothed her dress at the front.

'You've told me your past, Nish,' she said. 'What of the future? Are you going back to the army, to kill and kill again?' She said it with a bitter twist of the mouth that turned his mood.

'I am ambitious, Mira, as you know. Selfish, too. But I want to stop the war, and I know how it might be done.'

Taking his hand, she drew it to her, examining it in the firelight. Nish had a strong, square hand, not elegant but workmanlike. 'I like you, Nish. Not because you are handsome, or tall, or clever with words. You are none of those things. But you don't lie about yourself. Or to yourself!'

Her words made him think about Ullii. Kindness and gentleness was what she had liked most about him; and yet, when Nish thought about himself neither of those attributes came to mind. He had not thought himself to be particularly honest, either. Privately, Nish considered himself cold, calculating and out for what he could get.

'Honest?' he exclaimed.

'You know all your faults, Nish, and are not afraid to admit them. I know many people who are honest in their business dealings yet lie to themselves all the time.'

He did not answer.

'How can it be done?' she asked.

'What?' He had lost track of the conversation.

'End the war.'

'Vithis wants Tiaan, and especially her marvellous flying construct. If I could find them I would offer them to him in exchange for an alliance against the lyrinx. The war would be over in weeks.'

'So you would end the war by making it worse.'

'Only for a little while.'

'To do so you would sacrifice Tiaan to her enemy?'

'It would not be like that ' he began. He was deluding himself. Vithis would not bargain; he was not that kind of man. And he never forgot an injury. To give Tiaan to him must doom her.

'You're right,' he said. 'You see so much more clearly than I do, Mira.'

'That's because I neither hope nor believe.' She was slurring her words a little. 'So I am worse off than you.'

'Just the construct then,' he said. 'I will just deliver that to him, if I can find it.'

'And you truly believe that will end the war? Do you trust such a man, who has stated that he wants to conquer our world?'

'Then what am I to do?' he cried. 'My every idea you demolish. If I listen to you I will never do anything at all, for fear of doing the wrong thing.'

'Then do not listen to me. Trust your own judgment, Nish. Do what you think is right. And if you fail, at least you will know you tried. I cannot even try any more.'

He looked at her dispa.s.sionately. The distracting thoughts had gone away. The flickering firelight blushed her pale cheeks, put a sparkle in eyes that were dead in daylight. Then she leaned toward him and he saw her bosom again.

She caught his eye. Nish flushed. 'Ah, I'm sorry, Mira,' he said. 'I am a man of base desires, and it has been a long time '

'Why base, Nish?' She swayed in her chair. 'It is a fine thing and you should not apologise for it. It has been a long time for me too. Come here.'

She drew him to her. Nish knew that it was the wrong thing to do, but he'd had nearly as much wine as she had, and lacked the willpower to resist. Mira put his hand to her breast, and while he was occupied there she was working on the fastenings to her gown, all the way down.

The dress fell open. She had the odd scar and stretch mark, but none of that mattered one iota. She pulled him to her breast. Her hand slipped inside his s.h.i.+rt. Nish nibbled at her ear, her throat, her bottom lip. He kissed her eyelids and they fluttered against him. She sighed; she gasped.

'Ah,' she said, easing her knickers out from under her hips and pulling them all the way down.

Nish worked on his belt buckle, which did not want to come undone. She helped him with it, and the trousers, easing them down. They touched, skin to skin, and he wanted to hug her, to touch, to cling, but Mira was impatient now. Sliding her arms around his back, she pulled him down on her.

'Cham,' she said, squeezing him tightly. 'Ah, Cham. Now, now.'

Nish went still in her arms and his desire vanished. She was thinking of her dead partner, not him. His first urge was to tear himself away, but that might hurt her more. Should he pretend he had heard nothing?

He pressed himself against her. She spread her thighs, guiding him, but as soon as he touched her there she cried out 'No! You're dead, Cham!'

Nish reared back, not knowing whether to try to calm her or quietly disappear.

'Dead!' she screamed at the top of her voice. 'You're dead, Cham. Get off! No, no, no no!'

Down the corridor people began shouting and yelling. Feet thumped along the hall. Nish shook his head, trying to clear the wine away. What would happen when they found him with his trousers around his ankles and Mira naked on the floor, screaming her lungs out? They'd put a rope around his neck and heave him up over the branch of the nearest tree, and nothing he could say would make any difference.