Essca's first sight of the gem steeds scared her badly.
It wasn't as though she'd been able to see them from a way off, allowing her to get used to them while they were still small, in the distance. The curtain of invisibility surrounding the hillock on which they were camped prevented her from seeing them until they were almost amongst them. Tak had done his best to warn her, of course, assuring her that they wouldn't hurt her and that their great strength would protect her from their enemies, but even so her first sight of their great heads, swaying back and forth on the ends of their long, serpentine necks, terrified her and it took all Tak's coaxing and reassurance to persuade her to remain within the camouflaged area, where she couldn't be seen from the castle.
"What's the situation?" he asked the Captain, who told him that all was well. That nothing had happened while they'd been waiting. Tak could see that he was curious to know why he'd returned without Lord Ruby and who the girl was, but the Captain said nothing, knowing he would be told if he needed to know and wouldn't if he didn't.
That was Barl's way, anyway, but Tak didn't have it in him to treat a loyal retainer that way and so he gave a brief summary of what had happened in the castle, ending with an assurance that Barl was okay. Was continuing the negotiations and would return when the deal was done, signalling for the wing guard if he ran into trouble.
Tak knew that the other Gem Lords disapproved of his treatment of the mundanes, socialising with them as though they were his equals and thereby giving them dangerous ideas, and for a moment he found himself wondering whether they might be right when he saw a look flitting momentarily across the Captain's face. Tak's job was supposed to be to guard and protect the other Gem Lord, that look said. He was being derelict in his duty in leaving him there alone. Then the soldier nodded, though, acknowledging the courtesy he'd been shown in being given the explanation, and asked permission to return to the running of the camp. Tak nodded, and the Captain saluted and turned away.
Tak saw Essca watching the interplay with interest, in between keeping a wary eye on the gem steeds. "You okay?" he asked her.
"Yes," she replied. "I was just noting the contrast between your treatment of your men and the way underlings are treated in Sholl. There, the slightest infraction is punished with whippings and beatings almost to the point of death. It's gotten to the point where many people flinched involuntarily at the mere sound of a stern voice."
"We're you whipped and beaten?" asked Tak, frowning with anger. Her only response was to drop her eyes, though, and Tak felt his hands tighten into fists by his sides.
He decided to change the subject. "We'll have to wait here for a day or two I'm afraid," he said. "Until Barl's finished in the castle. It'll only be for a while, and then we'll be going back home where I can promise you a much more comfortable life."
"I'm fine," said Essca, her eyes shining as she stared at him. "This is a big improvement on the dungeon. A big improvement on Sholl, come to that."
Tak looked uncomfortable as he nodded. "I'm also afraid privacy will be a bit of a problem. We don't have enough tents for you to have one for yourself."
"I assumed I'd be sharing yours," she replied with a smile. "We are lovers, after all."
To Essca's astonishment, Tak actually blushed. A wizard blushed! "I don't have a tent," he told her. "We never thought I'd be sleeping in camp, with the men. We'll be sleeping out in the open, with magic spells to protect us from the elements, but sanitary issues are going to be a problem. The best I can suggest is that you use one of the tents to do what you need to do, before the men settle in for the night. There's a bucket you can use. One of the men will dig a hole for you to empty it into. Same again in the morning, after the men are up. Do you think you can live with that?"
I'm sure I can, but lack of privacy doesn't bother me. In Sholl both sexes share the same facilities. I'm perfectly used to washing and squatting in front of men. It doesn't bother me."
One of the soldiers sitting nearby looked up with interest. Tak glared at him and he hurriedly looked away. It was a trivial exchange, over in a moment and immediately forgotten by both men, but Essca's eyes widened in astonishment. "In Sholl, that man would now be being stripped for a whipping for his lack of respect."
"For overhearing a conversation?" asked Tak, equally surprised.
"In Sholl he would never have been sitting close enough to overhear the conversation to begin with."
"If I was saying anything I didn't want him to hear I would have used a Cone of Silence. Anyway, use the tents whenever you have to, but remember the men won't appreciate having their sleep disturbed in the middle of the night. If you have to go after dark, you'll have to trust to the darkness to protect your modesty."
"Modesty? Oh yes, I know what modesty means. Another of your quaint customs."
A strangling sound came from the soldier, as if he was struggling to hold in laughter, and Tak glared at him again before taking Essca's elbow and guiding her away.
"It'll only be for a day or two," he assured her. "Then you'll live the rest of your life in a palace, with servants to see to your every need."
He squeezed her arm fondly, then turned away, hiding a yawn with a long fingered hand. They'd been up and about for most of the night and were both pretty tired. He meant to get a few hours of sleep before the yellow sun rose too high, refresh his mind so he could check his spells. See if they'd changed since the last time he'd read his spellbook.
He turned to look at Essca, and was astonished to see a look of utter adoration on her face, which she hid by hurriedly looking away, blushing with embarrassment. It made Tak's heart dance with hopeful excitement. Was it possible she loved him already? Or was it still just an act?
It didn't matter, he decided. Even if she was trying to con him, true love would come sooner or later. One day, she will come to love me as much as I love her, he said to himself as he spread his sleeping blankets at the edge of the camp. I don't care if it takes twenty years. I'll wait, I'll give her as much time as she needs.
☆☆☆
The next day was bright and warm and Tak awoke at around midday to find Essca sitting nearby, watching him with her luminous blue eyes. "Good morning," she sang, beaming happily. "Did you sleep well?"
"Well enough," Tak replied as he stretched the sleep out of his arms. "Would you mind seeing the Captain about getting us some breakfast?" He looked up at the yellow sun. "I mean lunch. I haven't eaten since that banquet yesterday and I didn't eat much of that."
"It wasn't how much you ate but what you ate that interested me," said Essca, her eyes glowing.
Tak flinched at the memory. "Yes, well, we won't go into that again. Go get some food. In the meantime I have to study my spellbook. And then we'll talk. I want to know all about you, who you really are, and I expect you'll want to know more about me as well. We'll tell each other the truth about ourselves.
It turned out that Essca was, in fact, her real name, or at least part of it. Francesca Foldvary of the High Sholl. A member of the ruling class of that city, although that was no protection from the whippings and beatings that were handed out from the very highest to those below them. Francesca was a pretty name, but Tak knew she'd always be Essca to him. It was the name he'd first known her by. The name he'd fallen in love with.
She was one of three apprentices of Velzen, a name all the Gem Lords were familiar with from the reports handed in by their spies in that city. Velzen was renowned for his sadistic cruelty, and the thought of his beloved spending the earliest years of her life in his power, subject to all his most perverted pleasures, sent waves of anger coursing through him, inflamed by the similarities to his own childhood.
As they told each other their stories they both felt a bond forming between them, the camaraderie of a shared suffering, and they found themselves holding hands with no memory of having reached out to each other. Essca refused to describe her apprenticeship in any great detail, merely going pale and shuddering whenever it was mentioned, and Tak didn't press her, deciding to spare her the more graphic details of his own childhood for the same reason.
"I've got no idea who my real parents were," she said, staring down at the ground in front of her. "Just ordinary people, probably, who led ordinary lives but who had the misfortune to bear a girl with wizard potential. I've got no doubt at all that they're dead, along with whatever brothers and sisters I might have had. I have absolutely no memories of them. I must have been little more than a baby at the time."
Tak nodded. "Modos Gomm let me stay with my parents until I was twelve, so I've got a lot of memories of them. I'm not sure whether that makes me more fortunate than you or less. Sometimes I miss them so much, even after all these years, that I almost want to cry out with the pain of it."
Essca stared at him wonderingly. "My earliest memory is of being taught to read by Mother Gant," she continued. "A hideous old crone with eyes as hard and cold as chips of ice. She would show me a word and a picture, and I had to learn that the word was the name of the object in the picture. If I couldn't read back the word when she showed it to me five minutes later she would make me hold my hand out and whip it with a leather cord." She opened her hand and stared at the palm. "It's a wonder I've still got any use in this hand, the amount of punishment she inflicted on it. I learned fast, though. I could read as well as an adult by the time I was five."
Tak shook his head in wonder. "At that age I was hoeing weeds in my father's fields and had no idea there was any such thing as writing. My whole world back then consisted of one small farm and the sky covering it. I think I had some vague idea that there might be other farms out there somewhere, but to me they were as distant and unknown as the planets."
"Oh I knew all about the world from the earliest age," said Essca with a bitter smile. "My education was quite comprehensive and I was expected to be an attentive pupil. By the time I was ten Mother could name any city in the world and I could tell you all about it. Its location, population, industries, major imports and exports. Its strategic value and military strength and the names of its rulers and military leaders. No matter how well I learned, though, no-one ever praised or congratulated me. I was punished if I failed to learn and that was all."
"Domandropolis," said Tak with a smile.
Essca sat up straight. "A city of two hundred thousand located in the Oss plains to the north of Yinnfarsia. Main industries agriculture and textiles. Major exports fruit, cereal and textiles to Ushella, Yinnfarsia and Narlarion. Major imports, steel and quarried stone from Borovia and Anvak. Wool and oil from Cay. Little positional strategic value due to its location at the extreme limit of the human world, but of great importance to regional politics because of the power of its wizards and the possession of an aerial cavalry of flying reptiles. Like most cities, ruled by its wizards. The Gem Lords."
"Spot on," said Tak, grinning. "Well done."
She smiled at the praise, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. Tak reached out and gathered her into his arms. "There now. There, there. It's all right, it's all over now. You're free of them. You're free now."
"I hope so," she said, struggling to regain her composure. "What if they come after me, though? They wouldn't lift a finger to save me from torture and execution, but my defection to another city would surely stir them to action. There's so much I can tell you about my masters..."
"I won't let them hurt you," promised the Gem Lord. "The full resources of the city will be devoted to your protection. Anyone who tries to hurt you will answer to me."
Her eyes glowed adoringly. "I love you," she said, and then froze in horror, as if terrified that he'd think she was just playing her part. An attempt to seduce him for foreign masters.
Tak stared in in surprise and delight. "What did you say?"
She stared, terrified, back into his eyes. "I said I love you. I mean it! I swear! I really do!"
"I didn't dare hope!" the Gem Lord replied. "I mean, I loved you from the moment I first saw you, but I didn't dare hope you'd love me in return so fast. You're not just saying it? Out of some misguided sense of gratitude perhaps?"
"Some misguided sense of gratitude?" she cried in disbelief. "You're unbelievable! You don't think that what you've done for me entitles you to anything in return? No, I'm not just saying it! I love you! I love you, I love you!"
She was shouting the words out loud now, and the whole camp was staring at them in amazement, the most hardened warriors looking uncomfortable about overhearing such an intimate exchange. They made a big show of going about their businesses, averting their eyes as if afraid he'd fly into a rage for being eavesdropped on.
They needn't have worried, though. The two wizards were so entranced with each other that they wouldn't have noticed if an earthquake was destroying the camp, and they simply sat there, staring dreamily into each others' eyes, whispering sweet nothings to each other, for the rest of the day.