Beneath the Veil Read online

  "Of course I am. I've been afraid my whole life." For some reason, that made me laugh. "No, that's another lie. I'm not afraid any longer. If I wasn't who I am, I might not have been able to be part of this revolution."

  "I didn't know. I really didn't know." She shook her head again, then reached to stroke down the length of my hair once more. "You're so beautiful. I could never have imagined you are the same as I am."

  I took her hand, our fingers entwined. "Women can be beautiful too, Galya."

  She shook her head and bit at her lip again. "Oh, no. Beauty is for men."

  "You don't believe that."

  She gave me a curious look. "It's not a question of belief. 'Tis the truth."

  "I look at you, and I see beauty. You don't need cosmetic or fancy clothes to enhance it." I touched the soft curls on her head. "And I think a short hairstyle like this would be far more practical."

  That made her laugh again, and she hugged me. "I feel like such a fool."

  "You shouldn't."

  She leaped nimbly to her feet. "I'm ready for you to teach me more."

  That made me smile. "Fighting, not something else?"

  "You are like a man."

  I couldn't take insult at her words. "It's all I've ever known how to be."

  "'Tis not such a horrible thing."

  "You can say that truly?"

  She nodded and rubbed my shoulder. "I judge people on their actions, not what they carry between their legs. If I give myself up to hate for the sake of hate, nothing but evil will come of it."

  "Daelyn says the same thing." I grimaced at the thought of Rosten's face, beaming, as he watched the woman burn. "I'm not so noble."

  Galya bent, picked up the dagger and held it out in front of her with perfect poise. "Teach me how to defend myself."

  So I did.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  A cold and darkness fell over Alyria that was not solely due to the arrival of winter. Snow coated the streets and buildings with white that quickly became gray from ash and soot. Daelyn and his lords began a new fashion of hats and cloaks lined with the fur of the elusive dahveet, a mountain cat. Hunting the cat gave them the perfect excuse to go out into the hills and continue their nighttime escapades. Though the longer nights gave greater opportunity at escape, the bitter cold and frequent storms made it nearly impossible to send the women and children across the border into Elitan.

  We used the time, instead, to spread the word of our plans among the city's women. We needed to use caution lest the words fall into the wrong ears, whether by carelessness or from a woman who held more loyalty to the man of her house. What surprised me was not how many women came to the bath houses ready to do more than cleanse their bodies. What stunned me was how many did not.

  "You're threatening their entire existence," Daelyn told me after one evening spent in the bathhouse with no new converts to our cause.

  "But we're offering them their freedom!"

  "At what price? I told you this would be no easy cause. These women have known nothing else their entire lives. We're asking them to do the impossible."

  "It's not impossible."

  He laughed at my expression as I stripped him out of his clothes. He no longer insisted on privacy in the bath, since I already knew his truth, and in fact, he reveled in my being able cater to his every need in a way he'd never before experienced.

  I poured scented oil into his bath and helped him scrub himself all over, then poured heated water over him to rinse into the drain in the floor. When he was clean, I helped him into the steaming water.

  "You could do this yourself," I grumbled, but good-naturedly.

  "But it's so much nicer when you do it." His wicked grin made me laugh.

  "You just spent all night in a bathhouse, only to come home and bathe alone. I wonder at your sense sometimes."

  "Eight months ago you'd have pissed yourself before saying such things to me." He didn't sound angry, only sleepily content. "Be a love and wash my hair."

  I gave an exaggerated sigh, but filled a pitcher with clean hot water. "You are impossible."

  He wriggled in the water. "But you adore me."

  I had no answer for that, because he was right. I looked over his body as I worked the thick lather into the length of his amber hair. But for the swelled buds of his breasts, smaller even than mine, and the lack of equipment between his legs, Daelyn did not look like the other women I'd grown used to seeing naked. He didn't even need to bind his chest, for the small buds of his breasts could easily pass for pads of muscle. His waist and hips were trim and his stomach flat. Like my own body, he'd exercised himself into lean muscularity, but even I boasted more curves than he.

  "You're staring."

  He'd opened his eyes. I poured another pitcher of hot water over his hair, then wrapped the length of it in a thick towel. I wasn't embarrassed to have been caught staring, but it did seem impolite to comment.

  "I take a drug," he said quietly.

  "What?"

  "A drug. A powdered root. I've taken it since childhood. It kept my bosom from growing and my flow from regularity. It likely left me infertile, as well, though I don't know for certain since I've never been properly fucked by a man."

  "Not even –" the words blurted out of me before I could stop them.

  He looked amused. "Not even Lir, no. I can't risk pregnancy. I'm sure you can understand that."

  "Does the drug make you sick?"

  "Sometimes. But I don't think it'll kill me, if that's what you're asking. It makes me nauseous when I take it without food, and I think it's the reason why my flow is so painful and heavy despite its infrequency. But it's worth the price, for I've gone bare-chested in front of my men with none the wiser to my condition. I doubt you could say the same."

  "No." I put aside the pitcher and the soap. "Shall I ring for some supper, or will you take it elsewhere?"

  "I don't fancy going out in that cold tonight. Here will be fine. Send word to the others. We'll have a fine feast here in my chambers. Have the cook prepare something warm and spicy."

  "And are you ready to get out of the tub, my prince? Or shall I leave you to simmer awhile longer as well?"

  He made a shooing motion with his hand. "Let me soak until I'm as wrinkled as an oliphant. There's plenty of time."

  I left him to his luxury and decided to walk down to the kitchen myself to oversee the night's meal. Though the rooms were overwarm from the huge fireplaces and wood-stoves, the halls were chilly. I rubbed my fingers together to warm them, and at the last moment took a quick jog down a darkened corridor toward a back set of stairs that would let me reach the kitchen much sooner than the regular route.

  I felt oddly content as I hurried through the dark hall. I had a place, now. A function. A purpose. I had friends, and I had love, even if it wasn't exactly of the sort about which poems were written. I was...happy.

  The thought made me pause, a whistle on my lips. Happy. There had been few times in my life when I could recall feeling this way. I liked it.

  "Well, if it isn't the fetchencarry."

  The voice curled out of the darkness and was followed an instant later by Vermonte himself. Clothed in gray and black, he'd blended almost perfectly into the shadows. Only the glowing ember of the tip of his cheroot gave away his presence – that and the sudden feral brightness of his teeth as he grinned.

  From Vermonte's mouth the word became an insult. I bristled, my happiness fleeing in front of Vermonte's nastiness.

  "What are you doing here, my little fetchencarry?" His voice was slurred, and I smelled the sweet tang of herb on his breath as he leaned close to me and flicked the tassel on one of my shoulders.

  "I'm going to order some dinner."

  "Ah." He puffed again on his cheroot, then blew a gust of smoke into my face and made me cough. "And am I to be invited to the sumptuous repast, or is that honor to be saved for Daelyn's current favorites?"

  I pretended not to notice the bitter