592 - I feel a great deal in your presence

“Now if she were a virgin, she would require a male member of her family to be with you, to serve as”—Eo said an Arkan word. “You know what I mean by that? A person who’s there to ensure that she stays a virgin.” What did Arkans think I was going to do, rape her? But then maybe that person was there to restrain the woman, too. “But she’s a widow, so it is not required. What I will do is stay long enough to make some pleasant small-talk, then say I am called away and tell you to enjoy yourselves. Skorsas already told the kitchen where to bring your dinners.”

“Thank you,” I said, the dryness of my throat making my voice catch. I cleared it and took some more drops of the medicine.

“Don’t think about how you look or seem,” he said, as we came close to the door of the Intimate Pearl Parlour, and I wished he’d drop his voice, in case she was here already. “Look at her, and think about how she looks. The nerves will be overborne by the happiness.” Excellent idea, I saw. Wound in around my nervousness was desire to see her, and joy that I would in a moment. “Now we are here a bit early; that’s custom, and it’s also custom for the woman to arrive a bit late. So that they don’t run awkwardly into each other in the corridor, but you get to welcome her in.” That’s why he hadn’t dropped his voice.

We went in and sat down. The Intimate Pearl Parlour is so called, it seems, because the marble is all pearl-coloured, and there are actual pearls mounted on it here and there. The frames of the paintings all have lines of pearls. Mamin, I’ve never described how ridiculously opulent the Marble Palace is, have I? Well, you get the idea. I am ashamed to live here.

About half a tenth after I sat down—he steered me to the central chair, covered with pearl-coloured satin, and hovered around me standing, like a servant around a throne—there was the sound of an Arkan lady’s fan tapping delicately on the door. Eo rose to let her in, signalling me to get up, though I had not forgotten.

Mamin… it was not hard to think about how she looked. My fast-engorging penis ensured that. She was not in her work attire, as she had been when I’d seen her before (though that was plenty elegant), but in a beautiful teal silken gown that clung beautifully to her body between her breasts and hips, then flared out somewhat and went right to the floor, and had sleeves that extended into gloves, as Arkan women’s formal gowns do. Her hair, someone had to have fussed over for a while; it was curled into big loops that bounced entrancingly around her face as she moved, held in place by teal ribbons. At her throat she wore a necklace that was a lacework of diamonds.

Just like a perfect Arkan, I touched my comb to her fan, when she extended it, as Arkan custom requires when a man and woman meet. She smiled, tilting her head, her teeth white and perfect. My heart leapt, and my penis strained toward her.

The small-talk went… well, something I had forgotten; Sera Milera doesn’t speak Enchian that well. Horror yawned before me: once Eo was gone, how would we converse well about anything? I’d already realized I’d have no idea what to talk to her about. What would it be—Haian things? Too technical. Yeoli things? We were the enemy. Arkan things? I knew nothing, and I couldn’t discourse on how strange I found Arko; she might be insulted. Of course I could compliment her, but you cannot make a whole conversation out of that. This made it much worse.

Ask her about herself… Of course, why had I not thought of that sooner? But then what if she was shy to tell me more than a little? And didn’t ask me about myself, though even if she did, I wasn’t interesting enough to talk at length about. Just as I was thinking this, Eo said, “You know, Kaninjer, this could be a fine opportunity to learn more Arkan.”

“Yes, yes, I could teach,” Sera Milera chimed in eagerly. Perhaps she was as nervous about making conversation as I was.

“Well!” Eo said, shortly after that. “I am called away to Palace duties. May you two have a very lovely meal and evening.” We both blushingly thanked him, and, as if it were planned as well as one of Chevenga’s battles, which I’m sure it was, the food arrived just as he was leaving.

That gave us a topic; she could teach me the Arkan names for ingredients, and I could teach her Enchian, which she seemed eager to learn. Then I asked her to tell me about herself.

It was a struggle, but good practice for both of us. She was twenty-four, I learned. Her father and older brother had come to grief in the sack, staying in their town-house; her mother and younger brothers and sisters had fled to the country estate and so survived unscathed. She had been a lady-in-waiting to one of Kurkas’s concubines, a third daughter of one of the Fortunate Fifty families, who’d fled into the city that night and came to a fate Sera Milera did not know.

That had also happened to her husband, one of Kurkas’s bodyservants, though his corpse had been found and known, so she could be certain and wear the widow’s signs. She herself had hidden in the Marble Palace. I thought she spoke casually of him, for how recently he had died, making me think maybe it hadn’t been a love match; probably their parents had arranged it.

I told her about how my encounter with fire-coral had motivated me to become a healer, how I’d hesitated to go on service until my uncle had come back and Chevenga had sought a personal physician, and I hadn’t had more than the odd date with a woman before she-who-called-herself-Sirichao. “Oh, Ser Kanijas,” she said in sympathy, when I told her what happened there. “My heart… that… awful…” Will you be my final cure?

Now it was time, Spirit of Life help me, to open my heart, and tell her my feelings toward her. But how to say it? I could almost hear Chevenga’s voice in my ear. Just be yourself… exude innate Kaninchaness.

“Sera Milera,” I said. “I must be honest with you… I feel a great deal in your presence. It makes me happy… my heart lifts, I feel warm all over, my penis engorges.”

She seemed to understand me until the last part, when her gaze went quizzical. Arkans are very expressive with their faces, because they won’t use their hands, of course. “Pardon, Ser Kanijas? I don’t understand… ‘penis’?”

“Penis… I don’t know the Arkan. The male part, you know, down here…” We’d made each other understand a lot through gestures, though she was shy about it, doing them tiny and graceful with her teal-clad hands. So I pointed between my legs. “Penis,” then mimed an erection by relaxing one finger then pointing it upward. “Engorged.”

Sera Milera froze, like someone witnessing an atrocity. Her two hands whipped up to cover her face, and she stared at me between her fingers as if I were one of their demons of Hayel.