This work is a product of the author's imagination, places, events and people are either fictitious or used fictitiously and any resemblance to real events, places, or people, living or dead is entirely coincidental. The author retains full copyright to the material, and sincerely hopes you like it! If you have something to say about it that isn't flaming me then email me at: jae.monroe@yahoo.com
Acknowledgment: Thanks so much to Richard for all his editing.
The Gift of Ys
By
Jae Monroe
Chapter 8
"'Tis not good, this trouble between you two."
Isidore awoke to a voice he hadn't heard for a while. "Kylar," he said as his eyelids flickered open, "I'm so glad 'tis you."
"I'm glad 'tis me also, but you must tell me why you left your master's bed last night," Kylar told him sternly.
Isidore looked around him, seeing he was, in fact, back in that bed. "How did I get back here?" he asked.
"I daresay he brought you back, and was in a filthy mood because of it," Kylar told him.
"How do you know thus?" Isidore asked, stretching out and frowning as his eyes caught the view of that unpleasant scene on the ceiling.
"Well, I don't know that he brought you back; but you are here and he did tell me that you left his bed, right after he punched me in the ribs for making light of his black mood," Kylar told him easily.
"He punched you?" Isidore asked, rolling over and regarding him with surprise, though he really shouldn't have felt any, for Kerim was just so ornery as to take offence even to one as light-hearted as Kylar.
"We punch each other all the time," Kylar told him dismissively.
"Ah, so 'tis play fighting," Isidore said, remembering he had seen his brother engage in the same.
"We never play around; 'tis insulting to hold back," Kylar said, his expression affronted.
"So you punch each other for real?" Isidore asked.
"If we did not, we would be suggesting to one another that we did not think the other could withstand the brunt of our strength, and thus would an earnest fight ensue to prove that this is not so," Kylar told him.
"But you do not look hurt," Isidore told him, his expression revealing that he thought Kylar was inflating the truth.
"I have had years to get used to the strength of my friend's fists; but if you do not believe me..." He lifted his vest and there on the left side of his chest, the well muscled flesh over his ribs was an angry red and beginning to swell.
"Well, now I know where to hit when you make any of your usual licentious statements," Isidore told him disgustedly. Stupid Dajani, brutalising one another for no reason.
"Ah but after the sight of my naked chest, you shall be gagging for all my usual licentious statements," Kylar replied with a grin.
"I shall be gagging alright," Isidore replied with rolled eyes.
"Ah, you wound me, little one; you wound me and my entire excessive ego." Kylar feigned a wound to the other side of his chest.
Isidore smiled reluctantly. "Did I tell you how glad I am 'tis you?" he asked.
"You did, but you can tell me again," Kylar replied.
"I shall, after you let me have some privacy for dressing," Isidore told him.
"Ah, I remember you are embarrassed about your boniness," Kylar said sympathetically.
"I am not bony!" Isidore said, dropping the sheet down to reveal his chest right down to his belly-button. "You can plainly see that there is not a bone poking through that should not be."
"I can," Kylar said thoughtfully. "But I really need to see more ere I am entirely convinced."
Isidore flushed, realizing what he had almost been tricked into doing. "Get out! Get out! Get out!" he yelled, reaching over to the stand by the bed to find something to hurl at the irritating Daja.
Kylar acquiesced before he was clobbered with the large tusk that Isidore had found on the bedside table. Since Kerim had many such trophies mounted on the walls or just placed here and there on the surfaces in the room, Isidore would never be lacking for missiles. He had to wonder how their owner would feel about having them hurled at him, however, and sighed in disgust; damned man would probably throw them right back. No, no, that was unfair, and whilst Isidore seemed to be subjected to nothing but injustice, he could not rightly subject the man to the same. To give credit where it was due, Kerim was never brutal with him, even after those times he had held him still by force. Isidore had failed to find a single bruise to show for it.
"Truly this trouble between you is worrisome." After Isidore was completely washed and dressed, these were again the first words Kylar said to him upon entering the chamber.
"You were right in what you said upon our first meeting; he is quite thoughtless and cruel," Isidore told him from the dressing table as he tied back his hair.
"I did not say he was cruel," Kylar corrected him.
"Well I am saying he is so," Isidore replied.
"He is not intentionally, Isidore," Kylar tried to explain.
"Oh? So you think he does not intend to hurt me?" Isidore sniffed. "I say he knows exactly what he is doing and what impact it has on me, or any other. And he does it anyway, just to show that he can."
"It is not well you speak of my friend like that," Kylar told him quietly.
"You are quite right; undeserving as he may be of it, he has your friendship ere I do," Isidore replied, turning back to the mirror and scowling as the wisps of hair already made their way out of his braid. Angrily he shoved them back in, and then yanked out the whole thing to start over when he made a mess of it in doing so.
"Perhaps you might be a little more understanding of him; he is new to his role as you are to yours," Kylar said.
"You mean as Svarya?" Isidore asked, looking up from the dressing table, his hair in disarray.
"No, I mean as your Daja-protector," Kylar told him.
"Aye, I suppose for the time I am here I can be understanding," Isidore conceded.
Kylar frowned. "You speak as though this time is limited," he said.
"Well, the way we are going, it shall not take much time ere he grows tired of me," Isidore said, feeling comforted to think thus.
"He may grow tired of fighting with you, aye," Kylar warned.
"You say that as though I should avoid it," Isidore replied. "But I most look forward to it for the sooner he grows sick of me, the sooner he will send me back home."
Kylar shook his head. "That will not happen. Even if he does grow sick of you, he has taken you into his house so you have none to return to."
"I do in Sheq-Kis-Ra," Isidore replied.
"Do you tell me that they gave you only for a period?" Kylar asked.
Isidore sighed, remembering his father's words. "No, I was given in perpetuity, but...my father did suggest he might choose to send me back if he grew sick of me."
Kylar smiled slightly. "Do you think he will grow tired of you?" he asked.
"I think he already has," Isidore told him, his eyes lighting with hope of the same. "He believes I am prone to disobedience, and when he punishes me he cannot use me, and so it shall not take so long for him to relinquish me back to my home."
"But I have told you this will not happen even if he does grow tired of you," Kylar told him.
"Not if I had no home to return to, but I do," Isidore replied.
"No, you do not. Best you stop trying to vex him and accept that you will remain here," Kylar advised.
"I do not try to vex him." Isidore whipped around while he was redoing his hair. "I am not a vexatious person; he is simply intolerable."
"Best you learn to tolerate him." This was said with a warning note.
"Best he sends me back, I think," Isidore argued, and there was a note of desperation in his voice that he hoped only he had heard. "I wish he would, Kylar, especially as he grows so frequently vexed with me. 'Tis not good that the both of us are forced to endure each other's company when neither of us enjoy it," Isidore said sadly.
Kylar had his own opinions about how much his friend enjoyed Isidore's company, but he kept them to himself for now, merely telling the boy: "he will not send you back."
"All the same," Isidore said as he turned back to the mirror to do his hair for the third and hopefully final time, "I shall keep hoping that he does."
"You are excessively hard on him, Isidore," Kylar admonished Isidore who turned to him with a look of incredulity.
"I am hard on him?" he repeated dumbly.
Kylar nodded. "He is but young, verily the baby of our group."
Isidore laughed without any real mirth. "I doubt that man was ever a baby," he muttered.
"Think you he sprang up from the woody glens like one of Tamir's forest-spirits, or perhaps he emerged from the bowels of the mountain like one of Hotep's incarnates?" Kylar asked with a grin.
"I am glad you said it and not I," Isidore replied, snapping the clasp at the end of his braid and letting it drop behind his back with its familiar weight.
"I will not have been the only one to say thus of him; and I hate to disappoint you, little one, but he was indeed a babe and then a child and then a youth and in fact could still be considered one for he has seen only one and twenty years."
Isidore's mouth dropped. "You jest," he breathed.
Kylar shook his head. "In this I am earnest, he is but twenty-one years old. It is because of his size that people think he is older and, indeed, expect more of him than he is capable of delivering. It has been thus all his life, and though he would say it is a good thing, it has hardened him more than necessary to be robbed of his childhood, since he never properly looked like one since the age of ten." The Daja grinned. "I'm afraid he suffers from quite the opposite problem as you, Darima."
"Well he is welcome to my juvenile features if I may have some of his adult ones, and then we might both be happy," Isidore said facetiously, caring little for the Svarya's plight which he felt, in this land, was infinitely preferable to his own.
"Perhaps you might commiserate with him for suffering from, if not the same prejudice of his behaviour as you, a prejudice nonetheless."
"Perhaps he should try a little harder to live up to others' expectations of his maturity." Isidore was in no mood to bestow upon that man any charity.
"I believe he does, Isidore," Kylar replied in his friend's defence, "and always has, but I often felt he was hardened more than usual, for his size and his skill became apparent at so early an age. He was accepted into warrior-training two years earlier than usual which, though an honour, meant he had little time and less encouragement to engage in those light-hearted activities of a child. And he trained a good deal of his time with his father who was, by all accounts, a most brutal task-master."
"Well and so," Isidore replied, unmoved, "a hard man has begotten a hard man, or misbegotten him as it would seem. I only wonder what I did to so anger the gods that they would deliver me into his rough and unruly hand."
"Perhaps you were delivered to temper it?" Kylar suggested. "If you would stop fighting him you may find it easier to love him."
"There is nothing to love," Isidore blurted out, his tone disgusted.
"I thought you would know better," Kylar said reproachfully. "You, who have given your life to the study and emulation of Ys, I did not expect to give up so easily.
"I know not why you have put these expectations on me," Isidore said, his furious darkest-blue eyes meeting the disapproving green ones of the Daja before him. "I owe him nothing but service and respect as my Svarya; I certainly owe him nothing of my heart, especially when he is the least deserving of it!"
"I don't believe that," Kylar argued. "I believe he deserves to be loved."
"Then you love him," Isidore replied, unimpressed.
"That is an insult here," Kylar replied.
"Then I take it back," Isidore answered with a sigh. He certainly did not want to make an enemy of the one man who did not start out that way.
"If you would but stop fighting him," Kylar insisted once more, "you might grow to like him, and love may well follow."
"I do not intentionally fight him," Isidore argued. "But, betimes, things can get the better of me and then I speak out against them. He then uses this as an excuse to bring out his rod of arbitrary Dajan principles and beat me about the head with it."
"If it will help, he has suffered from the so-called rod of Dajan principles also."
"Hah!" Isidore looked unimpressed. "You expect me to believe that? No, he was the inventor of such principles, or at least his grandfather was, and then he only wrought the rod more."
Kylar sighed. "If this is how argumentative you are and how unwilling you are to accept him in any form, then I can see why he grows vexed with you." His tone was resigned.
Isidore scowled into the mirror. They all laid such expectations on him; that he should somehow be better, more apt to taking that man's abuse, and yet he was not. He was no martyr, in spite of their best efforts to make him one.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," he said after a time, looking up into Kylar's green eyes. "But I am not right for him, I am not what you were waiting for." He sighed, getting to his feet and walking into the parlour where his breakfast was laid out on a tray. "Although he is exactly what you told me he was: brusque, thoughtless and whether he offends unintentionally or not, he is most offensive nonetheless."
"Did you want a charming man?" Kylar asked with a grin.
"I...would want a caring man; he should not be full of sugary nothingness, but he should be kind."
"And what if he has had nothing of kindness, how do you expect him to know how to bestow it?"
"He must have been loved by his father, hard task-master or not."
"I daresay his father admired him considerably, but we are often hardest on those we expect the most of, and Kaan da Jaal was hardest on Kerim, more so than on his other son, though it was Janiyar who would lift the sceptre."
"What happened to him?" Isidore asked suddenly. "We were told he was adjudged unfit."
"He was," Kylar answered guardedly. "And then he was murdered."
Isidore gasped. "Did they...I mean who was behind it?" Treason, to a Svaraya, was a most upsetting subject and, to the general populace, a forbidden one. Which, of course, was why he had not heard of it in Sheq-Kis-Ra. To speak of treason was proscribed, so it was seldom spoken of among the upper-classes and not spoken of at all among the common classes on pain of, for the latter, having one's tongue pulled.
"A man who had befriended him, but his family had feuded in the past with the House of Jaal. It was very complicated, and all had suspected there was something dubious about their friendship, for they were inseparable. Eventually their suspicions were found to be merited."
"And this false friend?" Isidore whispered.
"Kerim-ya avenged his brother's death." Kylar's tone was abrupt and his expression inscrutable, so Isidore decided not to push that topic.
"And so he has had some upset in his life," Isidore conceded. "I will try to be more understanding, I promise. But I cannot be who you want me to be to him, Kylar; I truly feel that is not my role."
"I know you find him difficult and will not believe there is aught of merit to him, but I happen to know differently. Whilst his manner is abrupt and rude and he is often heedless of how his actions affect others, a lot of that has been nurture rather than nature."
"So you will tell me he trained under a cruel warrior and now he has a cruel hand in his own dealings. So be it, but that does not tell me why I am the one who must suffer every manner of indignity and mistreatment so that I might temper it." Isidore lifted a slice of meat and took a bite from it. "His manner of mistreatment might be acceptable to your Darani, but I have not been brought up to suffer such ill-use."
"He has had little dealings with Darani, Sherim-Ran or otherwise," Kylar informed him.
"That cannot be so," Isidore said, lifting his cup of morning wine. "He is Svarya, he can have had every Dara within the castle and a good many without."
"Aye," Kylar agreed. "But only for the past twelve-month. Before then, he had very few dealings with Darani, for they all avoided him."
Isidore looked at Kylar seriously. "I mean no disrespect, but if he was the way he is with me towards them, I cannot be surprised on hearing they were averse to spending any time with him, no matter their origin."
"Perhaps, but he has become like that over time. I think his resentment and coldness did grow over the years; he did not start out like that." Kylar sighed, wondering how he could present his friend's case to this boy who seemed so indisposed to receiving it. "If you will know, I have known Kerim the longest: he trained in Baan-Yavin which was the neighbour-province to my own and so my father and I visited there not infrequently.
"I met Kerim when he was but six years old, and I was nine, though I thought he was my age or older, because he was already as tall as I was. He had not begun training yet and was visiting Baan-Yavin with his father to ascertain, I suppose, whether or not he was to spend half his training there, with Svar Bryn dal Illin."
Svar Bryn dal Illin, Isidore thought, and he wondered where he had heard that name. Kylar was continuing, however, so he put it from his mind.
"My father, as Svar of Baan-Yorrn, took the opportunity, when it was presented to him, to pay his respects to the Svarya. He brought me along, and there I met the younger Svaraya of Sherim-Ra. He was very serious, I noted, and would never step a foot wrong. And he was always covered in bruises. I was to later learn that this was because his father was already subjecting him to the beatings."
Isidore gasped. "A six-year-old boy?" he asked.
He knew of the beatings: part of training a young warrior was to subject him to beatings where he could not fight back. It was a matter of pride to see who could remain the longest under such a form of training, and Isidore had heard that for pride some young warriors would sustain ghastly injuries. But warrior training did not start until ten years old at the earliest.
Kylar nodded. "As I said, he was forced to become a warrior much earlier than the rest of us. The next year, of course, I began my training and after that I saw him but rarely, though we had become friends after our first meeting. He trained half his time in Baan-Yavin with Svar Illin and half with his father whilst I went to the south to do my training.
"I grew to notice, as the years passed, that he only became harder in his demeanour and countenance; he was brutal with Dajani and scarce noticed the Darani but to order them about. I wondered about his behaviour toward the latter, for his behaviour toward the former was nothing unusual for a Yavinite. Svar Illin was the harshest task-master next to Kaan da Jaal himself, but both men were gentle enough towards their Darani, so I asked him if, perhaps, he was of the Sheq-Kis-Ran bent.
"After he punched me, he told me that he had as little time for the Darani as they had for him and, indeed, he grew tired of having his overtures being responded to with horror and revulsion, for they were put-off by his size. So he ignored the Darani for the most part and they, in addition to having little desire, also found little reason to court his attentions. Because he was the younger son of the Svarya he had aspirations only to march the borders; not a life that any Dara would find desirable, or even bearable, and so it stood. Betimes he would bend one over and avail himself of their arse as he had occasion, but other than that, he never outwardly sought them.
"It has been but one year that he has been Svarya and subjected to the fawning of Darani who otherwise would have shunned him, but now the position as his favourite is a lofty and sought-after one. Unfortunately, he has fallen into the trap of picking the most beautiful of the blooms offered to him, heedless of their thorns. That is, until he was given you, Darima." Kylar looked at him meaningfully.
"He would tell you, and probably has, that I am most thorny," Isidore told the Daja.
"Aye, and perhaps you are," Kylar replied.
"Do you find me to be so?" Isidore asked.
"When we speak of him you are very prickly," Kylar pointed out. "But you have a good heart, I believe. I said you might take care of him and I stand by that. You might think otherwise and he has even caused me to wonder at times, but I maintain that he has a good heart, despite his outward displays; only he knows not how to bestow it."
"If our hearts are fated, I'd like to think I'd know it," Isidore suggested after a time spent considering the case Kylar had put across. "Truly I cannot see that I am the right one for him; he does so frequently grow vexed with me and I with him, to be honest."
Kylar looked at him curiously. "Are you afraid of him, Isidore?" he asked.
Isidore looked a little taken aback. "No..." he said slowly. "I am not afraid of his physically hurting me, at least. As for the emotional hurt, I am quite prepared for that and have perhaps, unbeknownst to myself, taken a leaf from his book and am hardening myself against it."
To his surprise, Kylar grinned. "Aye, you look the picture of Dajan hardness at this time."
Isidore gave him a withering look. "Think you hardness is only a Dajan trait?"
"No," Kylar's grin turned suggestive. "I believe all men are capable of hardness."
Isidore gave him a disapproving look but said nothing, looking down at the breakfast that he hadn't even touched as yet, and pretending to be engrossed in examining the contents of the tray as he felt the beginnings of a reluctant smile turn up his lips. "Stupid Daja," he muttered while he selected an item.
"It is well I have a pretty face then," Kylar commented blandly.
"Says you," Isidore answered archly, taking a bite of fruit.
"Do you know," Kylar said with an amused expression, "that is exactly what Kerim says when I expound on my virtues."
"Beauty is not a virtue," Isidore replied, ignoring the attempt to have him agree, even tacitly, with Kerim.
"I suppose not," Kylar replied. "Still, we are more disposed toward the beautiful ones."
"Then 'tis your folly," Isidore replied, lifting a slice of cold chicken and taking a bite.
Kylar smiled slightly. "I meant 'we' as men, not 'we' as Dajani, do you tell me Darani are not predisposed towards the attractive ones as well."
"In a partner, I believe Darani value strength of character over fineness of face," Isidore argued.
"And in those who are not partners?" Kylar asked.
Isidore frowned. "For what reason would one care what one's friends looked like?"
Kylar grinned. "Have you not noticed that your pretty packaging has got you more than you would otherwise have got?" he asked Isidore.
Isidore frowned. He was about to answer in the negative, for most of what he got was due to his birth, but then he realised that his father and brother, two who were not constrained to give him what he asked on account of his status, had on more than one occasion said that if he didn't look so gorgeous he wouldn't get half the things he asked for. Of course, that was jesting, he knew, for his father and brother gave in to him because they loved him and wished that he would be made happy. Even so, as he thought more on it, it did strike him that fineness of face did often make a person think another was more worthwhile than one who had a plain or homely appearance. Ones whose features were coarse were considered to somehow be less...virtuous, as Kylar had put it. And he wondered at it; why men tended to ascribe attractiveness to an admirable disposition when there was no reason for it to be so.
"Perhaps you are right," he conceded, "of some men, Dajan and Daran alike. But a pretty face quickly loses its worth when 'tis accompanied by a weak character, and that is true of all men, Dajan and Daran alike as well."
"Well then," Kylar said, clasping his hands. "'Tis good that none of us suffers from such fleeting value; you with your boniness and I who am attractive only to my own eyes."
"You suggest we suffer instead from having no value at all," Isidore giggled.
"Aye, to others, perhaps," Kylar commented.
"I find it interesting that a Daja would suggest that a sense of inner worth is all that is necessary to make a man content with himself," Isidore said honestly.
"You are saying Dajani are more concerned for what others think of them, than for what they think of themselves?" Kylar asked.
"Are they not relentlessly protective of their pride?" Isidore asked.
"Pride is not vanity," Kylar pointed out. "Vanity requires a man to continuously show himself off as being worthy to others, regardless of what he inwardly believes. Pride means a man will not let himself be proved as unworthy by others, because such would be a lie to what is in his heart."
"And so you have identified how a vain man and a prideful man might be indistinguishable to all but themselves," Isidore pointed out.
"I have done no such thing," Kylar argued.
"You have," Isidore argued back. "The way you have put it, a vain man would seek to prove himself to others so that he might preserve face, a prideful man would prove himself to others because he wishes not to have their sentiments about him conflict with what he knows to be true in his heart. Therefore you cannot prove whether this outward display is born of inner worth or just the wish to display it."
"And so?" Kylar asked with a frown.
"And so, why bother with the challenge? Men, both vain and prideful, will undertake it. But none will know, upon their victory, if such was attained because the man was preserving his pride, or simply his vanity. So we are back to my point. Does merely the inner sense of self-worth matter to the Daja? Is it enough that the Daja knows he has inner value even if no one else may know of it, since the outward display of strength by way of challenge or the like is no delineator?"
Kylar regarded him for a number of moments. "If such is the case, then a lot of us have wasted a lot of our time," he said in a voice of some discomfort.
"Perhaps you have," Isidore commented, savouring his victory for some moments before he felt it necessary to relieve Kylar of his obviously mounting disconsolation. "But you might console yourself by thinking that perhaps pride, borne of inner strength is a more powerful motivator than vanity which has nothing backing it up, and therefore the majority of challenge-winners will be so because they had the former as their motivation."
"Ah, little one," Kylar sighed, looking not in the slightest bit pleased that Isidore had seen fit to help out his side of the argument, "you would unman me further by picking up my sword, dusting it off and handing it back to me after you have dashed it from my hand."
That day, they went into the main city, to the Temple of the Svaryani. Isidore had wanted to go back to the Temple District, but Kylar had refused, given the way their previous visit had upset the boy, and so had decided to take him to the secular rulers' temple instead and Isidore hadn't argued, guessing that to do so would have been rather unkind. And, he was inclined to be kind to Kylar this day since he had just reduced challenge, the warrior's fundamental method of asserting all that they valued, namely strength and power, to little more than a quest for vanity. It was not that he believed it was that; challenge had its rightful place, as did meaningful debate. It was merely that he did sometimes wonder if it was done for the right reasons.
Inside the building, he was reminded of just how important challenge was to the Sherim-Ranians as he looked at the exhortation emblazoned above the door: 'Let Him Challenge The Svarya.'
It was how edicts were issued in Sherim-Ra, with the suffix: 'And if any will question this decree: let him challenge the Svarya for it.' Perhaps that was why Kerim's elder brother had been adjudged unfit for rule, then, Isidore mused sadly; if he could not rightly issue that challenge, then his rule would forever be questioned. And it was certainly a barrier to any Dara ruling here, he thought, as it was in Sheq-Kis-Ra, though his father preferred the mantra: 'those who defend the land do gain the right to rule it.' It was one of the rare times Kenit da Jornn became intractable, Isidore thought with a small frown, upon discussing why Darani were forbidden from rule. His father would not budge on that topic; presenting the idea that only warriors were fit to rule as some kind of corollary to an absent theory that had never been proven. Or, at least Isidore had not seen the proof and doubted he ever would.
"Come," Kylar was urging him as he stood mired in his own thoughts whilst outwardly appearing to examine the sign above the archway. "You will want to see the Hall of Heroes, will you not?"
The Sherim-Ran Hall of Heroes, Isidore imagined, would be exactly the same as the one in Sheq-Kis-Ra, though this one would have marble busts of all the Svaryani of Sherim-Ra whereas the brother-city had all the Svaryani of Sheq-Kis-Ra, including his own father. As he followed Kylar, he remembered his first visit to the Hall in Sheq-Kis-Ra when he was but ten years old. As a young boy, he had marveled upon seeing the bust of his father that represented him so accurately. It was of pristine white marble; a cold and pure image of his father, capturing the contours of his face but none of its emotion. The sculpture had been a formidable portrayal of the man whom Isidore had come to know as warm and loving; not the scary and heartless Daja who glared at him from empty white eyes.
Then he sighed, remembering the discovery that had come next; that there would never be a bust of him in the Hall of Heroes. Barik, at the time sixteen, had already been to the Hall with his father when Isidore was too young to go, and had informed him proudly that some day, two years after he was made Svarya, he would be enshrined in the Hall of Heroes with a marble bust of himself. Isidore had been exuberant for his brother's good fortune, then he had asked if, someday, he too would get a bust in the Hall. His father and brother had looked uncomfortable and Kenit had promised him he would have Isidore sit for a bust when he was old enough for the likeness to be his adult one. But upon his pressing on the subject, he had learned that this would never go in the Hall of Heroes, for as Dara he would never be a Svarya and therefore never be a Hero. So he would never be enshrined.
He had refused the bust, no matter that his father had told him it would be some years before he was old enough to sit for one (implying that by then he would be resigned to his fate as a Dara). He refused even the future prospect of one, for the thought of such would only remind him of this earliest discovery of how his status would forever confine him.
"You have a bust of Koric the Unifier?" Isidore asked, startled out of his maudlin thoughts by the sight of the ancient bust of one of the earliest Svaryani of Pasia. It was not done in the fine marble that they had used for the past hundred or so years. Instead it was carved out of a rougher stone that made the features coarse and barely recognisable, except for the large scar that was carefully carved down the side of his face, from hairline to chin; a gruesome disfigurement, and one self-inflicted in response to the loss of his lover according to the legends.
"His demesne was in our eastern lands," Kylar answered. "The province of Yon-Tamar was where Goriyar the Destroyer holed up after fleeing Lodur's City."
"Indeed," Isidore murmured, remembering the legend, though he had learned it differently from Kylar he imagined. To that end, he asked, "do you know how the Ysian disciples tell the legend?"
"I do not," Kylar answered, intrigued.
"We tell it as the legend of Ayansi and Koric," Isidore told him, his voice thoughtful as he remembered the tale as it was told in the Book of Ysian Vessels. "Ayansi was an early follower of Ys, a Daran noble who had escaped the dictatorship of Goriyar the Destroyer and had taken to hiding out in an outlying rural village of the Ancient Lands. The legend goes that he had apparently passed a beggar in the streets of the town in which he was fugitive and kicked dust at him for getting in his way. When he had returned to the house in which he was lodged for the night, he had been struck unconscious by Ys who then appeared to him in a dream. The god of pure love had asked him why he had forsaken him that day. Ayansi had not remembered the event to which Ys was referring, which infuriated his god who struck him across the cheek. Then Ys created a vision depicting the very event that Ayansi had neglected to remember, and the Ysian disciple had seen his callous treatment of one less fortunate than himself. To teach a lesson to Ayansi for his lack of heart, Ys ordered him to love the beggar.
"Ayansi awoke from the dream oblivious to it until he looked in the mirror. Achingly beautiful had Ayansi been before the vision. He found that the slap Ys had delivered had left the left side of his face blistered and weeping as though burned. Then he remembered the vision and the events that had precipitated it, and the fate to which Ys had condemned him. All followers of Ys face the same choice eventually; whether to turn from their god and live a normal life, free of both the curses and blessings of Ys, or whether to face up to the fate which Ys has in store them.
"So this noble, who had formerly been so beautiful it had moved some to tears, and who was now scarred cruelly by Ys, chose his god nonetheless and chose to bear the scar for the rest of his life so that he might still bask in Ys's love. And so he left his rooms to find the beggar and effect his seduction with the now devalued coin of his beauty. What Ayansi did not know, however, was that the scar he saw in the mirror was not, in fact, on his face, but rather on his heart. He had gone to the beggar thinking to find his seduction a difficult one, given his now diminished appearance, but he was still as beautiful as he had always been. Only he was forbidden from ever seeing it himself.
"The beggar had seen it and been subdued by it, especially as Ayansi had taken him back to his rooms to make love to him. Upon removal of the beggar's clothes, and after cleansing him of his filth, the truth of Ys's punishment had been made apparent to Ayansi as he stared on what he now knew to be the true ruler of Pasia: the true Svar-ya.
"Thence had Ayansi become lover to Koric, and the first subject of the rightful Svar-ya of Pasia. Though the rest you will likely know as it is more a story for the book of Lodur, we followers of Ys still tell it from the Daran disciple's point of view. Koric gathered his army and marched upon those of Goriyar the Destroyer. The tyrant was forced into full retreat to his fortified city in Yon-Tamar, as you would tell me, and would not relent while Goriyar the Destroyer still laid claim to the rightful Svar-ya's title. So he laid siege to the city.
"To end the siege, Goriyar sent his men out to kidnap Ayansi so that the Destroyer might use him as a bargaining chip. However, when he saw the beauty of Ayansi, he thought that no man, upon tasting him, could not be utterly enthralled by him. So he ordered Ayansi to be killed, thinking it would destroy Koric to lose his love.
"Though he was right in his assumption for Koric's heart was utterly broken by the loss of his love, Goriyar had not reckoned on arousing the fury of Ayansi's other lover. Lodur's first-born cursed Goriyar's cause from then on. His fortifications turned brittle and useless; his weapons rusted beyond repair; his defenses failed and so he was easily defeated. You know that he survived the battle and was taken prisoner afterward, but the rightful Svar-ya demanded he receive no punishment before his death. As Ayansi would have wanted it, he was released and exiled; allowed to live out his life on the outskirts of Pasia and remaining unpunished."
"That sounds like the soft thinking of a Dara," Kylar surmised with a grin.
"You might think thus," Isidore commented. "But towards the end of his life Goriyar, who had thought the same, began to question his good fortune. It was revealed to him in a vision about his after-life that every kindness he received while living he would pay for once dead. Every consideration he was given in this life would Mol-Hotep extract from him in the one after."
"I see," Kylar commented. "So Ayansi wrought his vengeance without having to lift a finger in his own after-life."
"I would more think that it was Ys who wrought the vengeance," Isidore told him.
"I thought Ys was not a vengeful god," Kylar said with a frown.
"All gods like balance," Isidore replied. "'Tis those who delight in the tortures by which it is brought about that might be considered vengeful."
"And which gods might those be?" Kylar asked curiously.
"There are a few," Isidore replied, looking skyward as he tried to recall the names.
"Hotep, obviously, and his big brother, Jadin; the Daja-ya; Aegis; Kodos and, interestingly, Kim--"
"So the peace-god delights in vengeance?" Kylar interrupted curiously, not thinking Kim would be associated with vengeance.
"Kim and Kodos are a strange pair," Isidore said, referring to the gods of peace and war, respectively. "There are those who believe their relationship is only a little more functional than that of the all-father and the fertility-mother. But then there are those who believe that they are far more inter-dependant than any dare believe. These propose that, without war, no peace may be gained. They hold that Kim is, in fact, a most vengeful and unloving god; a representation that peace must be gained no matter the price. I have read little on Kim and Kodos, I must admit, but from what I have read the idea is that the end always justifies the means, which is apparent from the legends of Kim."
"Indeed," Kylar said as they moved along to the next set of busts, all minor Svaryani that Isidore could not recall from Pasian legend. "I notice that you refrain from giving your opinion on that debate, little one."
"And so I do, but here I claim ignorance as the reason for my reticence, for I really know too little of Kim and Kodos to pass judgment on the theological debate that surrounds them," Isidore replied as they crossed the gleaming marble of the hallway, dappled with light from the suns that were happily beating away outside. It was much hotter in Sherim-Ra than in Sheq-Kis-Ra, Isidore was reminded, and he shifted uncomfortably in his thick velvet attire. Perhaps there was somewhat of practicality in the skimpy clothing that the Darani here favoured, he thought reluctantly, and he noted that the Dajani dressed with only slightly more covering: trousers that went down to the ankles though these were covered to the knees with cross-gartered boots, and sleeveless vests that left their thick arms and most of their chests uncovered as well. Still, he was Sheq-Kis-Ran, and his modesty would never allow him to show as much skin as even the Dajani in Sherim-Ra, so it was his to suffer the heat in his smothering attire.
"Here you will see the men of the House of Jaal," Kylar said, walking briskly to the next set of busts so that Isidore had to hasten behind him. "There is none of Kerim-ya, he must wait another year ere he is enshrined," Kylar said with a grin. "Perhaps he will have learned to sit still for five minutes by that time. But look; you will see the five men that preceded him:"
Isidore regarded the busts, all cold greyish marble. Kerim's great-great-great-grandfather was closest to him; Vornn da Jaal. The likeness was poorly taken, Isidore could see, and guessed it was more due to the quality of the tools than the sculptor's skills although both were likely to blame. Sculpting had only really been perfected about seventy-five years ago with the advent of better alloys of the metals from which the tools were made.
The next bust reflected that it had been completed after the advent of these better sculpting techniques; the features much more refined, though still coarsely executed. This Svarya had ruled for fifteen years, before his son had taken the throne. Isidore moved to the sculpture of this son, the next Svarya: Vemiyar da Jaal. The representation was exquisite, Isidore noted, the features so well rendered that Isidore imagined he could see every hardened line, every cruelty of his person in his expression. And the eyes; the shape and depth of them. They only lacked that cold blackness to be exactly those eyes he looked at every day.
Kerim was his very image, Isidore thought, and this was the man who had stripped the Darani of their rights; who had relegated them to a place in society little better than slaves. This was the man who had, only for the loss of a drunken bet, refrained from marching on Sheq-Kis-Ra and, instead, had signed their Peace Accord.
Isidore's first instinct was to step away from that unnerving portrayal of Kerim's grandfather who so distinctly resembled him it was frightening. But his next urge was the one he listened to, and this one brought him closer to the sculpture, his eyes tracing over the features. And then he caught it; the subtlety of the lines that upon first glance were easy to miss. The expression, upon second perusal, looked...almost tortured. Some would say driven, but Isidore would say tortured, or at least goaded; yes, that was a better description. Vemiyar da Jaal looked as though he was infernally goaded by something, or someone; perhaps only himself. Or his own demons; Isidore could not know.
"Did he rule thirty years?" Isidore asked, recalling the term but vaguely.
"He did," Kylar answered.
"He wrought much in his time," Isidore noted solemnly.
Kylar noticed the boy's choice of words but said nothing in response to them. It must be hard, he thought suddenly and for the first time consciously, to be Daran in this land.
Isidore, meanwhile, had walked to the last bust, that of Kaan da Jaal, Kerim's father. There was a little resemblance in this man to Kerim, Isidore noted, but not nearly as much as he had seen in the previous bust, and he wondered if Kaan da Jaal looked more like his other son, Janiyar. There was no bust of Janiyar da Jaal, Isidore thought, and sympathised for the son who was not judged fit to be Svarya, not fit to be Hero, for he knew too well what that was like.
Isidore sat in the parlour with a tome of the Daja-ya propped in his lap. After their visit to the Temple of the Svaryani, he had managed to convince Kylar to retrieve some texts from the Temples of the Sun-Brothers, though the Daja had only agreed on the condition that Isidore remain at the Temple of Ys while he did so. So Isidore had taken the opportunity to engage in some prayer to his god while Kylar had obtained the texts he had requested; which was very kind of him.
Perhaps it was the after-effects of a day spent in Kylar's easy company, or perhaps it was because he felt he knew a little more about Kerim prior to becoming the harsh Daja he currently was and what could have led him down that path, but Isidore noticed two things when Kerim returned from his day's activities, entering the parlour with some vigour. The first was that, when not scowling, Kerim was actually quite pleasant to look at, in a dark way. And the other was that he really was young. Perhaps the second insight resulted more from his now informed eye, but he noticed that there was a kind of youthfulness to both his features and expression. And, though his hard black eyes made him look much older, it was not so difficult to believe he had seen but four years more than Isidore.
One result of this was that Isidore resolved to be a little more patient with the man, understanding now that he was new to this, to being Svarya, to being a Daja-protector, indeed to being an adult. The other was that Isidore was damned if he would accept one more punishment if it was to be delivered by a man who was only four years his senior. That he had received two already, which was two too many in his view no matter how he looked at it, now irked him even more. Given that Kerim had only newly obtained the maturity to govern himself, he certainly shouldn't be governing Isidore in such a paternalistic manner. And so it was with this eye of patience and forbearance that Isidore now regarded the Svarya.
"How went your day, Darima?" Kerim asked him. Having spent a bare half hour consulting Kylar about it, he now turned his attention to the boy.
"Well, Kerim-ya, and yours?" Isidore asked politely.
"Well." Kerim looked a little disconcerted by Isidore's calmly pleasant response.
"That is good," Isidore commented, "for the Svarya's mood will reflect on his household, I know, and so if your day has left you content then so might your household be."
When Kerim continued to stare at him, Isidore remained politely attentive. Deference required that he not go back to his task until he had been dismissed from the Svarya's attention.
"Aye, perhaps," Kerim replied finally, nodding dismissively to Isidore before leaving the parlour. As he walked through his door Isidore distinctly heard him mutter, "though you could have something to do with that, you little prude."
The strange thing was, in this comment Isidore saw little from which he could take offence. Rather, it seemed very much borne of a young man's orneriness attributable to unanswered lust. He laughed silently to himself, going back to the book of the Daja-ya he was reading, which added to his mirth when he saw how much was attributed to the brutish big-brother-god.
As he was reading the old text, deciphering the antiquated dialect as he went along, he heard the door open again, and then he was aware of being watched. His heart sped up in his chest and he hesitated slightly before he looked up.
"Come, Isidore," Kerim instructed. "You will bathe me before dinner."
Ah! Lodur help him. Bathing the man? All his superior calm began to dissipate as he thought desperately on how he might get out of this. No. No; remember he's little more than a youth, Isidore told himself, though his skin prickled and, before he could so embarrass himself by actually breaking out in a nervous sweat, he shut the book resoundingly.
Rising and according the Svarya a nod of deference, be he only four years older than Isidore, he made ready to follow Kerim into the bathing chamber. Kerim himself was a little disconcerted by Isidore's ready acquiescence and wondered where all the bristliness had disappeared to and, more importantly, why it had absented itself. Strange boy, he thought, all hot and cold; one minute fiery and perverse, the next cool and deferent. Now he was raising not a brow at their being put through the intimacy of a bath. Well, this superiority was not to be borne, he decided, and so resolved to ensure that by the end of the bath, Isidore was well aware of who was in charge of whom.
In the bathing chamber, the steam rose from the half-filled bath, blurring the flames of the candles that back-lit it. "Is that enough water, my lord?" Isidore asked, feeling a little uncomfortable to be in such close proximity to the man, so that the opportunity to leave and call forth more water was too good to pass up.
"Any more and once I get in there, it would flow over the edges, getting you all wet," Kerim informed him. "To which end, you might want to remove your upper clothes."
"It is well, my lord, they are in need of washing so it will not matter that they get wet tonight." Isidore's heart skipped as he said this.
"Suit yourself," Kerim said casually, then took a step back from Isidore, standing expectantly. Isidore stared at him. "Undress me," the Daja said with a sigh.
"Can you not do so yourself?" was Isidore's involuntarily impolite answer; he couldn't for the life of him keep the words to himself.
Kerim's expression was a mixture of incredulity and indignation. "Aye, but you are here," he said slowly, as though he was talking to a simpleton. "And so you will undress me."
Isidore suppressed a scowl, not at the task, but at the way he was being demeaned to perform it. "Very well, my lord," he said aloud, and, as he got to his knees to untie the cross-gartering on the man's boots, he muttered under his breath, "since you are incapable of doing so yourself."
He gasped as he felt a large hand encircling his arm, drawing him reluctantly to his feet. "What did you say, Darima?" Kerim asked, his expression darkening.
It was patently obvious that Kerim knew the answer to that so Isidore didn't bother lying. "I stated what was apparent to me, my lord."
Rather than the expected scowl, Isidore was confounded to see the Daja grin. "I wondered when this newfound docility would be at its end," Kerim commented thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should fuck you again, despite your protestations that you dislike it, as I remember you were most docile after that."
"I am a man, and given to such weaknesses as Lodur saw fit to place in us all," Isidore gritted out. "And I assure you there is no shame you could hope to pour on me that I don't already feel."
"That sounds like a challenge," Kerim said with a raised brow.
"It is not, my lord," Isidore said with difficulty, since he felt as though his throat would close up from trepidation. "And so now I must prevail upon your honour and remind you that you gave your word that you would not touch me. Though my lord may have renounced the honour of my kind, I presume that he does not want to do the same to his own."
"Such a pretty speech," Kerim noted, "and from such a pretty mouth," he grasped Isidore's chin and ran his thumb over the boy's lower lip, "that it occurs to me to extract from you somewhat else for your impertinence."
Before he knew it, Isidore felt the man's lips against his own, kissing them relentlessly as he was held still, with one arm wrapped around his shoulders, and one large hand pressed to the back of his head. He tried to slip his arms in between them and push away, but they did little to separate them until Kerim saw fit to give him his lips back, nibbling them slightly for good measure as he ended the kiss. Then he stood back, smiling.
"I don't know why you are looking so smug," Isidore fumed, all his calm completely eradicated by that unwanted kiss. "If that was meant to stir my ardour, it has utterly failed, I can think of nothing more repugnant than having a kiss forced on me."
"I thought you found nothing more repugnant than your own wanton behaviour of three nights ago," Kerim answered.
Isidore's cheeks flamed, but as he was opening his mouth to make a retort, he was interrupted.
"So now you know the cost of your impertinence: a kiss for every time your tongue runs away from you, which might serve to help you keep it in check."
Isidore shut his mouth, his cheeks still burning. He looked straight ahead, at the middle of the man's belly where the base of the 'V' of his vest resided.
"So will you undress me now, Isidore?" Kerim asked patiently, then he smiled, though Isidore did not see it. "Or would it help if I undressed you first?"
Though he could absolutely wish to run in the opposite direction, Isidore stepped forward in all haste, reaching up and yanking at the leather ties on the side of the man's vest, pulling them free none-too-gently. Once undone, he reached up to the man's shoulder, pushing the vest upwards, but he was too tall for Isidore to be able to do so without bringing his body into too close contact, so he simply informed Kerim that he would have to do the rest himself, resisting the urge to pronounce that this was because he was an overlarge lout. He was glad for his restraint because, without it, Kerim surely would have been vengeful enough to make him do so regardless. Meanwhile, Isidore set to the unenviable job of removing the man's trousers. Well, he certainly wouldn't have begrudged any other castle Dara had they offered to do so in his place, because he wanted to have as little to do with that area of the man as possible.
Once the Daja was completely naked, Isidore kept his eyes averted and remained on his knees under the pretense of gathering the man's discarded clothes into a somewhat ordered pile. When he still perceived Kerim was standing before him, he gritted out, "I will not peruse you in your nakedness, my lord, so do you get into the bath and we may continue this farce."
"Farce?" Kerim asked, though he mercifully stepped into the bath. "I assure you I am quite in need of a bath. And you never minded my nakedness before."
Isidore said nothing, merely slamming the washcloth into the water which, as the man had predicted, was now reaching the rim of the bath-tub once his mass was inside it. He viciously doused it with water, rubbing in liberal amounts of soap.
"I think you may cease delaying the inevitable, Isidore," Kerim commented.
"I am working up a lather, my lord," Isidore responded, spiting him by continuing to rub the soap within the washcloth.
"Yes, I perceive you might be," Kerim replied suggestively and Isidore made no reply for one or two moments, until the purport of the man's statement, said in such a lascivious tone, sank in and he looked up in amazement.
"Lecher!" he pronounced, full of indignation. "You should be thrice your age to be such a lecher."
"And I may well be by the time you get around to washing me," Kerim answered irritably.
Isidore slapped the wash-cloth on his chest, rubbing so vigorously that there was no way Kerim could derive any kind of satisfaction from such harsh caresses of the soapy cloth. The whole time, he could not help but mutter the odd invective, completely under his breath this time, for he would not make the same mistake, that the Daja did not have perfect hearing, again.
Kerim, meanwhile, was pleased beyond measure that he had managed to completely eradicate the boy's superior calm, and, not content to stop there, he decided to get him thoroughly hot and bothered.
"Do you know, I only thought to please you," Kerim commented as he was scrubbed viciously by his bathing attendant. For good measure he injected some clearly feigned hurt into his tone.
Isidore made no response, simply continuing his ungentle path over the man's skin.
Upon seeing that Isidore refused the bait, Kerim continued, "I knew how much you liked my naked body; I thought it might please you to run your hands all over it...again."
Isidore's blood boiled and he looked up at Kerim, appalled. "Vain cockerel!" he accused, the scrubbing forgotten. "Do you honestly think I would get within a mile of your cursed body, naked or otherwise, if I wasn't forced to?"
"I have reason to believe you would," Kerim replied, smugly confident.
"One mistake," Isidore hissed, resuming his scrubbing because it was near completion and he wished to remain in that intimate circumstance as briefly as possible. "Yet you will continue to flatter yourself that it bespeaks of any finesse on your part. Well, I know better than to pluck the peacock's plumage, for he has little to commend him but that. Therefore you can continue to stroke your vanity by assuming that you and no other man could have done to me what you did."
"Oh, perhaps you really are so wanton, my little Sheq-Kis-Ranian, as to have your blood turn to fire under the touch of any man," Kerim conceded. Then he raised a brow as his eyes met Isidore's. "And 'tis not my vanity that needs stroking."
Isidore dropped the cloth. "I am done, my lord."
"You haven't finished washing me," Kerim informed him.
"I'm not..." Isidore cleared his throat of the words that stuck in it. "I'm not washing you there."
"But I might be dirty there," Kerim said innocently.
"I've no doubt you're filthy there, but it will rot and fall off before I'll administer to it."
"That sounds like a wager," Kerim raised one dark brow.
"One that you would ill-serve yourself to make, my lord," Isidore said seriously.
"Very well," Kerim conceded, his eyes following Isidore as he rose to lay out the drying cloths.
By the gods, he did not want to bring betting-pride into this; the boy was right that it would serve him ill to do so. It was enough though; he'd not only well and truly broken Isidore of his damnable and supercilious calm but had also got the boy entirely hot and bothered, if his flushed cheeks and glittering midnight-blue eyes were any indication. Now, he thought with not some little consternation, he had to think of a way to get out of that stupid promise he had made the boy to not touch him. Be damned, he had only made it to spite Isidore. He'd only wanted to extinguish that flame of self-righteous indignation he had seen flaring up in the boy's eyes when he had thought that Daran 'choice' was but an illusion. Which it was, but Kerim had not wanted to hear a bloody diatribe on it at the time, so he'd let Isidore believe it was, in fact, a reality. Now he could guess at who that truly spited. So, while he was considering how best to brazen out of his promise, he instructed Isidore: "Go and prepare my clothing for the evening's meal while I administer to that which you would have us both believe you disdain."
Isidore did not deign to respond to the barb; he'd responded to too many of them this evening he realised, to his chagrin. Instead, he walked into the bed-chamber and went to the chests to bring out those items of the Svarya's clothing that he might want to wear for the evening's meal. He wondered why Kerim had had him do it, when surely he would know what items he desired to wear.
Too late, he realised the probable reason when he looked down at his own sopping camic at the precise time Kerim entered the chamber, completely naked. His cheeks flamed for two reasons as he whipped around, walking to the chests of his own clothes and lifting the lid with somewhat unsteady arms. Damned man; just when he thought he was getting used to the bastard, Kerim had to bring out the lecher.
Well, as the infuriating Daja so frequently pointed out, their naked bodies were nothing new to each other, so he simply began the process of undressing, deciding he would keep his trousers and just change his upper clothing. He could sense Kerim moving about the chamber while his back was turned, but he put from his mind the man's activities, merely concentrating on removing his camic and undershirt.
"Such soft skin you have." Isidore jumped when he felt Kerim's hand on his shoulder, running down his upper arm, caressing over the curve of his bicep.
"My lord did give his word," Isidore said stiffly, his body held rigid.
He was swung around, and stood, ridiculously holding his clothing against his belly, as though it might protect him from the man's stroking fingers. "Let us clarify this, Isidore. When I said I would respect your request not to be touched, I was referring to sex only. From all other things, kisses, caresses and a host of other touches you would fain have me believe you dislike, I will not refrain."
"I disagree," Isidore argued. "I said I wish not to be touched and you said you would respect that. Indeed, you told me I had no reason to climb on my high-horse and engage in my usual disparagement of the social constructs of your home, because of your willingness to cease touching me. Now do I find that was but half a promise?"
"Cease your prattling on this," Kerim said irritably, "or it will be no promise at all."
Isidore's heart seized up at this. "My lord does not seem a dishonourable man," he said carefully. "And he gave his word."
"Aye," Kerim agreed without any perturbation, "but he did not receive any time constraint on his promise, indeed he may just have been promising not to touch you from that moment to the next."
Isidore shook his head, stepping back. "No, Kerim-ya, you said you would respect my right to my body."
"Aye, but you failed to specify for how long you wished me to do so, and now that you have stretched my patience so well, I am disinclined to make the same promise once more with the comprehensiveness of terms for which you should have asked. Therefore I will say only that I will not touch you until such time as you displease me enough to make me lose what last scrap of patience I still have for you and then," his eyes glittered warningly, "all bets will be off."
"But you said Darani had a choice!" Isidore knew that the ice upon which he trod was growing thin indeed, but could not let this go.
"Darani have as much choice as Dajani give them," Kerim replied.
"So I have no choice?" Isidore answered.
"No choice but that which I give you," Kerim repeated.
"Then 'tis not my choice, 'tis yours, and I have no choice," Isidore said, his voice an infuriated growl.
"And so it may be," Kerim answered easily.
Mol-Hotep's incarnate! Isidore railed inwardly, but knew better than to say anything outwardly. Kerim had been merely toying with him all this time, allowing him the illusion of choice only to snatch it away as he pleased. Gods, what a despicable place this was; a despicable place ruled by a despicable man. And what a diabolical manner of shutting down all his forms of resistance, with the threat that, upon his raising them, he would receive his lesson in that man's bed. Kerim knew how he had been the previous time. He knew that Isidore was not immune to his touch, to his caresses, and he was going to use that against him!
"Now, Darima, don't look at me like that..." Kerim coaxed.
"Or?" Isidore asked in a low voice.
"Or my patience continues its inexorable decline."
"If its decline is inexorable then I may as well not scruple my looks or words to you, my lord, for I will end up serving in your bed regardless."
Isidore was further confounded to see Kerim grin widely. "I'm pleased you understand that, Darima," he said, then Isidore was swept up into the man's arms and held against his chest while his reluctant lips were pressed in a firm kiss. "But you need not worry yourself that I shall stake my eventual claim on your body tonight, for if you have not lengthened my patience, you have earned my indulgence with your amusing indignation, and this may serve as well for keeping yourself unmolested."
And so he was led out of the parlour, by the hand, to the meal hall as the Svarya's property, where all but the two of them thought that the eventual claim was being staked every night. Well, he thought as he stood staring into the dark red liquid of the jug of wine he was holding, internal pride he could maintain thus far. And so he did, caring not that the rest of the castle thought he was the Svarya's whore, so long as he knew that he was not. Though he wondered if there was some folly in the maintenance of this pride that Kerim had explicitly promised was only fleeting. He knew that he would be used eventually and, as the bastard had pointed out, at a time not of his knowing and one where he could be blamed for little more than exercising his right to speak his mind.
"Isidore!" Isidore jumped at that exclamation of his name, accompanied by a slamming of the man's palm on the table to get his attention. "By the gods, boy, I called you three times for more wine."
"I apologise, my lord," Isidore said sincerely, for he did owe service to his Svarya; they all did in this land. And his service, rightly or wrongly, was to personally serve him, which included at the table. He felt compelled to appease him further and so it was with a forced smile he offered, "if it will please my lord, he was the one occupying my mind."
"And obviously so thoroughly that the poor boy was oblivious to your bellowing," Kylar interjected with a grin.
Kerim lifted Isidore up, seating him on his lap, to which Isidore tried to respond with some manner of dignified acceptance. The Svarya regarded him suspiciously for several minutes and, at Isidore's placid expression, his own finally relaxed. "Very well," he said, knowing damned well he would have been in the boy's mind to plague him, not please him. He decided it was best not to publish the fact that things were not going so well between them at this time. "Perhaps I'll keep you here in future; then you may always hear my address and continue to think of me to your heart's content."
Isidore forced himself to nod, seeing that the man's words were not prompted by self-indulgent vanity; rather they were said to nettle him. "If it pleases my lord to do so, then I am his humble servant." Every word was gritted out with scarce-veiled contempt.
"A humble servant does please me," Kerim mused, swigging back his wine. "Pity, then, that all I have is a thorny Sheq-Kis-Ranian."
"Send him back and ask for another then." The words fell out of Isidore's mouth with little input from his mind.
Kerim smiled, a strange smile for there was no smugness, no anticipation of triumph, just an unreadable look in his eyes. "No, Darima," he said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Isidore's ear. "Never that."
Isidore's eyes were held by the black ones of the Svarya for several moments before he thought to avert them. For good measure, he stiffened himself even more in the man's embrace, but was not given a reprieve from it as he would hope. But at least the man ceased his overly familiar caresses and took his gaze away. He addressed the rest of his table, and periodically the other advisors who spoke to him as they had occasion.
All the while Kerim was drinking plenty of wine, Isidore noted. In fact, he wondered if Kerim and Kylar had some kind of competition going to see who could out-drink the other, for they matched each other with wine throughout the entire meal, growing more and more sotted as it went on. Jalen was absent that evening and, from what he heard of the drunken conversation between the Svarya and his other closest friend, they had supposed it was because he was visiting his Diya. Gods, Jalen had a Diya, Isidore thought with widened eyes; he certainly didn't begrudge that boy his job.
Some time towards the end of the evening and as the servants were bringing out the final course, Isidore noted, in response to some idle goading by Kerim while the man was adding to his inebriation with more wine: "Here is the third course: I think my lord would do well to soak it up."
"If I do I shall fall asleep in half an hour," Kerim informed him matter-of-factly.
"And then you should be left unhappy," Kylar said with a chuckle.
"Never that," Kerim announced suddenly, though only Isidore noted the note of sarcasm in his voice. "Come along then, Darima, we should repair to my chambers ere I have so much wine that you are left entirely unsatisfied."
Why he bothered to tell Isidore to come along, Isidore did not know, for, to his immense embarrassment, Kerim carried him right out of the meal-hall, despite his hissed entreaties to be allowed to use his own feet.
When inside the chamber, he was still not allowed to walk like an adult. He was still prevented from using his feet like a man only four years younger than the much larger and inebriated Svarya. Instead he was carried to the bed and thrown down upon it. Then Kerim climbed onto it, flopping heavily down on the mattress beside him. The natural indentation he made created a downward slope and Isidore quickly found himself rolling to lie next to the Svarya.
"Ah, you would like to cuddle would you?" Without waiting for Isidore's reply which was clearly in the negative, Kerim had thrown an arm over Isidore and gathered him against him. "Ahh," he sighed against Isidore's hair, "will you never soften towards me?" He wasn't expecting a reply so Isidore gave him none. "So soft anyway; soft even with your thorns," Kerim murmured and then he sighed heavily as the wine worked to the opposite effect that many drank it for; depressing rather than stimulating the system.
It was after thrice attempting and being unable to extricate himself from the unyielding grasp that he gave up and simply laid there, pinned against the man's body by one large arm which was flung possessively across him. After some time, he fell asleep in Kerim's embrace.