62 - Diem of Carnal Licentiousness

The mind wants to shy away from evil, and yet sometimes is pulled helplessly to it. I woke too early, next morning, imagining myself in a lockstep fight with my brother Iperaiga, in which we both knew one of us must die, or both would, watched gleefully by the one who forced us. Forbidden to speak to each other, we shared our horror only through our eyes, tried to tell each other in looks, it should be me—you’re semanakraseye. No, it should be me, because I’m going to die soon anyway...

I came to full wakefulness nauseated and breathing hard. Kallijas tightened his arm around me and whispered, “It’s all right, Sheng,” in his sleep; Skorsas stroked my hair in his sleep. They are both skilled at this, I thought. It’s from all the practice they get, sharing a bed with a madman.

That was Minis’s insanity. No chance he couldn’t have come away from what Kurkas did to him untouched. All over the city, those who were lucky enough to survive still have nightmares from what I did, and I don’t even have the excuse of being a child. He’s grown up, he’s over it, he’d never dream of doing such a thing now.

It occurred to me, though, he’d only done a handful of sessions with a psyche-healer on Haiu Menshir, and another handful with Surya. Was that enough, after the childhood he’d had? I had not recommended him on the condition that he seek complete healing, and of course Surya was going to come to Yeola-e with me. I’d had the election too much in my head yesterday to tell him he must. Today, I thought.

Well, perhaps tomorrow; today was Diem Wards Back, the second day of Jitzmitthra, on which all is backwards; for a short time at least I’d put on rags and beg on the street. And it was his birthday. He would turn nineteen. He wanted to commemorate it quietly; “I had my fill of obscenely-extravagant birthdays when I was growing up,” he said.

Did that mean his full coronation, if he and Kall won, would be done on Diem Wards Back too? I hardly dared imagine it.

On the day of the election, when Minis had offered to make it up to him, Miksas had flatly spurned it, saying, “People are still voting. You just want to look good so they’ll vote for you.” When Minis came to me, close to tears, I said, “Just wait until the election is over and announced, and then, whether you’ve won or lost, offer again.”

“But… that’s too late,” he said.

“Then you are doing it just to look good?”

His eyes froze in horror; whether in horror of his own callousness, or of having been caught out in it, one could not read in their crystal blue.

“You are nervous for your own prospects, and for Arko’s,” I said. “Everyone worries about his reputation; I know. And you don’t remember it well, you have tried to erase it from your mind. I know you hate the evil in yourself. But the first correct thing to do with another’s pain that you’ve caused is understand it.

“I’ve told you about chiravesa…” As if a question about a Yeoli custom must be answered in a Yeoli way, he signed chalk. “You know… you never told me what became of your little brother… Ilesias, right?” He nodded, but didn’t say what had, and I felt I should not ask. “I remember how you set out to learn to love him. Imagine him older, and each of you given a sword and told—”

He grabbed his hair with two fists, the almost-Arkan prayer gesture again, and started sobbing. For all he’d never been to war, with his upbringing and his quick mind, he could imagine it all too well. I held him, and after a while it subsided. “I will go to Miksas again,” he had whispered, in the end. “After I have won, or lost.”

Yet it was laughable to think of the worst darkness as Arkan, I thought. Fourteen Yeolis plotted to kill me. I clenched my eyes shut, buried my head in Kall’s arm-pit. He turned over and wrapped both arms around me without waking. I tried to remind myself of Rafas’s words. They are not really Yeolis any more.

I got up, though the sky was only purpling; if I filled my mind with the constitution, it would drive these things out. Through my office window, the city lay predawn-grey and silent as a passed-out drunk, sleeping off the first night of Jitzmitthra. A short line of flame in the fuchsia sky caught my eye: a wing-courier was diving down, election results in his satchel, the edge of his wing catching the brilliant orange dawn sun.

The Diem of Carnal Licentiousness comes only on the six-day Jitzmitthra of a leap year, which it was this year. There is but one ceremonial required of the Imperator; an act of public copulation, usually with his wife, at noon; they aim to reach ecstasy the moment the Marble Palace clock strikes. This was one Jitz ritual that Kurkas had liked to do, generally with the boy he fancied that day.

The last two or three times, I heard on good authority, he’d done it with the Imperial bedchamber harness equipment, setting it right up on the Presentation Platform. One of them had been during that first Jitzmitthra when I was freshly arrived at the Mezem.

The year after I’d taken the Crystal Throne had been a leap year too, so Niku and I took the Presentation Platform this year as old hands. Fortunately her morning sickness tends to end about a bead before noon. As before, she arrived by wing, wearing the gold-thread and gossamer dress that is barely visible, showing every curve of her body, and is only for flying, too long to walk in. It trailed behind her like the half-imagined sparkling tail of some giant bird too exotic to be anything but a dream.

Being young, we didn’t find it hard to both strike at once, at noon, with the clock, to the roar of the crowd.

Then it was back to the constitution.

†

Late in the afternoon, Rafas Izan, my Minister of Internal Serenity, whom Binchera will always let in if I’m not meeting with someone, comes to my office. No costume, still; does he never let his hair down, even now? As ever, his face is stony serious. “Are we entirely in private?” he says. I sign chalk.

He prostrates himself, again from his heart. What is this about? He goes down close enough to me to clasp my ankles with his pristinely-gloved hands. While I stand stunned, and frozen so as to keep my balance as you must if you are on skates and something constrains your feet, he comes up to kneeling, running his hands tenderly up the sides of my legs.

He looks up at me, his eyes calm as a still pool and burning, both at once. “It is Diem of Carnal Licentiousness,” he says softly. “Next one, you will be gone. You’ve been bathed in too much darkness, and not enough blessing. I am going to give you the sexual homage that is your due.” He wraps his arms around my hips. I begin to speak, and he tightens his arms. “I am not asking, Shefen-kas.”

He lets go one arm to slide his hand up under the edge of my tunic, finds my belt-buckle and undoes it with skillful fingers. Brushing one as if by accident against my standing manhood, making me gasp, he gently lets the white-and-gold-of-Imperium trousers down, to my ankles. Around them he tightens the belt, fairly firmly, so I must depend on his hands not to fall.

He lets go of me for a bit, so I must absolutely freeze, then grasps my wrists in his hands, and turns my hands backs-inward in the beginning of the submission hold. He brings them together behind my back, and grips them both with one, his own fingers long and strong enough that I doubt I could twist loose if I tried. He wraps his other arm around my thighs.

It suddenly occurs to me that the trap-booth people are watching it all. But I have the same thought that he obviously has had: if it’s Yeolis, they think nothing of it, and if it’s Arkans, they think nothing of it today. I am panting, my breath rushing with a hiss between my teeth; my heart is hammer-banging in my ears.

“I know it is in your blood and in your heart,” he whispers, “to be controlled by those who are beneath you, and to give yourself to those who serve you. So it should always be. Let me show you that one Arkan, at least, understands.” He does not wait for me to answer, but takes my manhood deep into his mouth, so I cannot answer, at least in words.

Rafas makes love as he lives: with a firm hand, striving to do his best, single-minded and with a love in him far bigger than for any one person. The Gods are in him; I can feel them. I cannot help but give myself to him so entirely I feel as if my spine will melt. I come shatteringly, almost passing out, and find myself sitting in my office chair with my head on his arm when I can next think.

He stays with me until I am recovered enough that I have my will back. I reach to lay my hands on both sides of his face. He draws up straight. “You want to pleasure me in turn,” he says. “I heard, you always do. No… pass it on to someone else, Shefen-kas. To you, I want only to have given. I know you know how that is.” And he is gone, leaving me to the constitution.

It was but paper before; now as everything is more brilliant and sharp-edged in my sight, the gold of my pen like a miracle and the curlicues on the edge of my blotter making my heart dance, the constitution shines white as a dream of hope, and the ink of the writing is the clarity that brings the certainty between people that ensures peace.

On fire with inspiration, I start again. Internally, I feel the deepest serenity.

†

It wasn’t a dream, actually. It really happened. It was my true goodbye to Rafas. I realized afterwards, this was something he’d only do one day in every four years, his whole life.





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