The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 6: Visitors: Section II: Uta

Uta: Qemassen: The Palace

Uta et-Lohit and Samelqo eq-Milqar had been married quietly and stealthily, so that Uta felt half a criminal. She'd suggested that he request permission to leave the tower, but he'd refused, content to wed in his resplendent prison under the stewardship of a fellow Ashqen of Tanata, and with Tanata's stars looking down on them from the windows that ringed the tower.

No guests had witnessed the ceremony but Madaula. No great fanfare was made of the occasion.

It was now the early hours of the morning. Uta sat alone in Samelqo's—no, her—bed, still dressed in the fine blue stola her new husband had commissioned for her. The gold bracelets, necklace, and comb—all had been given to her by the heq-Ashqen.

Samelqo was disrobing in his bathing chamber, as though shy that she might look upon his nakedness. Shy, on their wedding night, when in only a short time they were to consummate their marriage.

It was as though Samelqo were ashamed. Certainly, he'd done nothing so far but chastely kiss her cheek, and then only for the purposes of the ritual, as if she displeased him. But if that were true, why marry her at all? No one had demanded that the heq-Ashqen tether himself to a former slave.

Uta stared across the bed at the polished bronze mirror hanging above a table. The skin of her double's face was like wet paint smeared across a wall. Her glass eye glinted evilly beneath the gleam of the fires in the braziers lighting the room.

Uta wasn't a woman to covet, only a pauper's doll dressed in a queen's costume.

She reached for the patterned sash at her waist and tugged the knot at its centre loose. She cupped her hand against her belly, imagining for the first time in years what it would feel like to grow a child inside her. Her child, and Samelqo's. Such a thing was dangerous for women of Uta's age, and conception might prove challenging, but Samelqo was the heq-Ashqen of Tanata. It was his duty to council on issues of fertility and childbirth. He would want a child, and she would give it to him.

How fantastical that so great a lineage would be twined with Uta's long line of human property. Her parents would have laughed. Either that, or cautioned her to refuse him, for what could a powerful man want with Uta except to abuse her? She wasn't beautiful or young—except in comparison with her husband. Men like Samelqo could demand whatever girl they desired.

But he wasn't like that. He never had women brought to his rooms. And there was some connection between them—there always had been. He'd never treated her like a slave, but as a colleague. He accepted her chides with prickly humour and seemed even to enjoy when she fussed about him like a wife.

Water sloshed gently from the bathing chamber, and the shadow of a man's arm shifted against its wall—smoke-grey on yellow. Samelqo had finished his preparations.

Would he expect her to be naked? Should she loosen her hair from the beautiful braids and knots Madaula had turned into a crown atop her head?

Uta clutched her skirts, crumpling the fabric between her fingers. This was no time for nervousness, and yet in her heart she was giddy as a girl. Samelqo was no Aurelius, but despite his age, desire brewed in her like mint tea in its pot. She'd never touched a man, nor been touched by one, had convinced herself it wasn't what she wanted, that her own fingers were all the company she needed. Now, those same fingers quaked as she imagined them stroking his cheek, conjuring future ghosts to prepare her to slip her hands beneath his robes.

Her mother's lantern, resting beneath the mirror where she'd laid it, flickered with orange flame. Its patterns danced on the walls and she thought of her parents again, of the Hamatri, of Zioban.