The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 12: Freemen: Section III: Uta

Uta: The Palace: Qemassen

"Hand me another pen, would you?" Samelqo stretched out his palm to Uta without looking up.

Uta plucked one from beside her and handed it to him. He nodded his thanks, dipping the pen in its ink and scribbling his signature.

He'd been composing and signing documents all evening, working like a madman. Overwork and fastidiousness all but defined the heq-Ashqen, but tonight there was an especial frenzy to his movements. He was on edge; he had to be. Uta might be the only one capable of seeing it, but she knew Samelqo was as ravaged by his guilt as Eshmunen was. It was no light weight he bore on those shoulders. It never had been.

Or maybe Uta was only able to think that because this time she and Dashel, and not Dashel alone, were going to save Aurelius. Maybe it was because Samelqo eq-Milqar, her husband, the man who'd saved her life and was, perhaps, her only true friend, was going to die by the hands of Zioban's soldiers—men Uta had called to her like hounds.

Guilt made the heart generous.

Samelqo coughed, but he didn't stop writing. The dim light of evening erased for a moment the wrinkles in his skin, yet with another tilt of his cheek deep shadows were etched like gravestone inscriptions. Young or old, he was at home in this place, surrounded by his star-speckled walls and his scrolls—not to mention his coded messages to eq-Anout. He'd scribbled off at least three drafts of one of those tonight before discarding each one.

"You should rest, Sese." She was staring at him, she realized. She'd been staring at him since he'd asked for the pen.

"Sese?" His eyebrow twitched and he smiled in amusement.

Uta frowned. She was as preoccupied as her husband. "I'm too old to change my ways."

"You were the one who demanded we do away with such courtesies."

He was looking at her now. Uta couldn't bear it. She bowed her head, feigning a deep concentration on her copying work. The surface of her desk was scratched and stained, not the desk of the heq-Ashqen's wife. Not something presentable to the fine guests Samelqo entertained in these rooms. "My desk needs repairing."

The banality of the statement cut through her. Samelqo would never have occasion to do such a thing, so why ask it of him? A sob knotted in her throat and to disguise it, she darted a glance at the window.

It was already dark outside, and so early. The men she'd sent for would be here soon. She wouldn't be able to go back.

"Uta!" Samelqo leaped to his feet, his chair scraping the floor.

They're here.

But no, no one stood beneath the arch of the doorway with knives drawn. "So why had Samelqo called out?

Her work. Ink bloomed on the papyrus before her.

She shuffled the mess to the side, thick dark ink slick against her skin. Her thoughts wouldn't settle long enough for her to remember how to clean up. "Perhaps it is I who should rest."

She sat and stared at her hands. The opaque puddles that splattered her calloused skin changed form with the flicker of the light and subsumed her native flesh blotch by crude blotch.

"Indeed." To Uta's dismay, Samelqo retrieved a scrap of cloth and started mopping ink from her flooded palette. The ink had turned the fine brown grain black.

She sat back down, gripping the seat of her chair. "I'm tired."

"Then rest." Samelqo sat down himself but didn't resume his coded missive. When he spoke, he did so quietly. "You've been troubled ever since the Eghri. Do you hate me so?"