The Pharoah Contract

He could see nothing of her but one small hand where she held the side of the tank. He tried to quell his desire, to regain a cautious perspective, but his desire refused to cooperate. It painted pretty pictures in his memory, until he could think of nothing but Nisa.

“And you — do you plan to wash?” she asked, in a soft voice.

“Why not?” he answered. He soaped and rinsed in the prescribed Pharaohan manner, and it was very pleasant to rub away the dust and blood and sweat. He felt clean for the first time since he had left the Vigia. He stood on the step at the tank’s edge, looking down at her for a moment. She floated on her back, eyes closed, her hair a cloudy swirl, her breasts like white water flowers. Ruiz sighed, and then slid into the tank.

“How long may we stay?” she asked, without opening her eyes.

They were alone in the bathhouse, and Ruiz speculated that word had spread through the paddock: The undead phoenix and the mad casteless slayer were using the facilities. “As long as you like,” he said.

“Good.” She smiled and arched her back, so that her breasts emerged deliciously from the water.

Ruiz felt a little out of breath.

She allowed her legs to sink and turned to face him. He could almost feel the warmth of her body through the water that separated them. He floated silently, heart thumping.

“Did you see?” she asked in a wondering tone. “The scars… gone.”

“Yes, I saw.”

“Truly, you were right about the doctors here. Though now I’m not so sure that I didn’t dream the scars. The scars… and what went before.”

Ruiz was uncomfortable with that line of thought, but before he could think of a way to divert her, she pushed her shoulder lightly against his. Her skin seemed so exquisitely smooth… it was difficult for Ruiz to hold any other thought in his mind. But he didn’t shift away, and in a moment she pressed more firmly against him. Her face was very close to his; he felt her breath on his cheek, sweet and warm.

“Wuhiya, you were at Bidderum, I remember you at the gate. Did you see my death? No, don’t tell me. It was too ugly. If I didn’t die, I came close enough to satisfy the gods, and now I’m guiltless.”

He felt no curiosity about her crime; all his curiosity was focused on her body. What would it feel like to run his hands over those lovely contours, to touch her inner heat? He had the eerie sensation that she heard his thoughts — they were so close now — but she didn’t draw away.

“It’s odd, but I feel more alive now, in this terrible place, jostled by commoners who’d like to see me dead, than I can ever remember feeling in my father’s palace.” Her voice was slow, musing.

A long moment passed, and then he felt the tips of her breasts touch his chest. “Will you touch me?” she whispered. “Here, where the wounds were.” She took his hand and drew it across her belly. He found that she was as pleasant to touch as he’d imagined.

He wanted her with a fixity that amazed and horrified him. What was wrong with him, that he could so forget his precarious situation? She sensed something of his ambivalence and drew back, eyes wide and hurt.

“What is it? Is it that I am still dead? That I’m rotting and don’t know it yet? Do you fear a taint?” Her voice broke on the last word. “Will the grave infect you?”

He thought she might cry, for the first time, and it came to him that for reasons he could not understand he would find her tears unbearable.

“You’re alive. There’s nothing of death in you, Noble Person.” He touched her taut waist, pulled her close again.

She resisted for only an instant. “Show me this, make me believe it,” she said. “Make me know I’m alive.” She gripped his hips with her strong thighs, and pulled his head down so that he could kiss her breasts.

Afterward, he would remember the slow surge of the water as he moved inside her, and her upturned face, eyes closed, lip caught between small white teeth.

Shining through chinks in the bathhouse walls, the sunlight dappled her with golden glimmers.

But also he would remember that, although she was skillful and eager, there was in her lovemaking an odd detachment, a certain impersonality in the melting looks she gave him, a curious restraint to the soft sounds she made. By all the rules of his existence he should have found that detachment reassuring, but it made his heart ache a little.

* * *

Through some remnant sense of propriety, she insisted that she must leave before he did, and he saw no reason not to humor her. As Nisa stepped out into the sun, Ruiz heard her gasp. He went to the shadowed doorway, where he could watch and not be seen by those who stood in the square.

First he saw Corean the slaver, dressed in the same white shipsuit; her uniform, he supposed. Beside her stood the Mocrassar bondwarrior, the cyborg, and the conjuror that Dolmaero had called Master Flomel. Half a dozen Pung guards stood to the side.

Master Flomel caught sight of Nisa, and he jerked to attention, delight spreading over his narrow face.