On Monitum
(Originally written in 1997, by Lynda Williams, then revised with input from Alison Sinclair.)
Scene: One of Amel's visits to Monitum during Erien's childhood and Amel's Envoy Period. The relationship between Amel and Eva, as portrayed here is the one established in the novella Kath. The setting is Eva's cottage on the Stable Home Estate, provided by Di Mon. She is well-established as Di Mon's lyka's. Amel is an occasional visitor in the capacity of Royal Envoy, flying on Ameron's business. He and Eva are old friends, in bed, and her relationship with Di Mon does not preclude such an arrangement.
Amel sat up in Eva's bed and listened to the sounds drifting in through her open window. It was spring on Monitum. A fair morning breeze stirred a white curtain. Birds were squabbling in flute-sweet melodies over who was most attractive to the females. He was alone in Eva's bedroom but he knew where she was. He could hear her playing the piano.
He rose naked and paused, in his search for a dressing gown, over a stringed instrument that he found in her closet. It was one he had given to her, brought with him from a visit to Ann. The instrument, known as a violin, was of modern manufacture but ancient design. He plucked one of the strings, toying with the idea of picking up the bow and trying to play it, though he'd given it to Eva in the first place after failing to warm up to it himself. He liked guitars better than violins, if he couldn't lay hands on a tri-lyre. Somehow the violin struck him as too serious an instrument.
He played music for fun. Eva played to wring emotion from you.
She was doing it now and he didn't like it even though the music moved him, or perhaps because the music moved him.
He rummaged her closet, resisting the music's pull. Eva's piano, working its magic in the room devoted to it, was a beautiful old heirloom that Di Mon had given to her. The music poured over him with raw emotion that made him hurt in its embrace each time it coiled itself up tight in sorrow.
He pulled on the first serviceable dressing gown he found and gave up the fight to resist the music, deciding that he would join Eva, listen for a short while, and then ask her to play something lighter.
It was only a short walk, on bare feet, to the piano room. Amel came in quietly, thinking he would not disturb her until her was close enough to touch her.
He was surprised to find a boy of about eight years of age standing, entranced, and listening.
Erien, Amel realized, studying the small, steady-looking child in front of him..
Amel hadn't seen him for a couple of years, and then in only in passing.
The child heard Amel enter. He turned his head to look, breaking the spell the music had cast over him. Then the playing stopped and two sets of eyes fixed on the interloper.
Eva smiled. "That dressing gown is too big for you."
It was courtesan aplomb. They both knew it was indelicate for him to be wearing Di Mon's dressing gown in front of their small visitor, but it was true that it was too long. Di Mon had a head's height on Amel.
"It was in the closet," Amel floundered.
"Good morning, Immortality Amel," Erien greeted him stiffly.
"Good morning," Amel said, feeling wrong-footed. The boy's stare had a disapproving air about it.
Eva pushed back the stool of the piano to rise and join Erien. She put a hand lightly on his shoulder. "Amel brought Ranar, from Rire," she told the child. "Ranar is a good friend of Di Mon's. He'll convince him to seek treatment." She squeezed Erien's shoulder reassuringly.
Erien left without speaking again.
Amel collapsed on Eva's couch with a groan. "Gods," he bemoaned his less than formal entrance. "I can be stupid."
"He knows you come here, Von," she said, using the name she had given him what felt life a life time ago, when she had taken him in as a cringing child and taught him the dignity of courtesans. "And I have told Erien that Di Mon told me, years ago, to make you welcome when you visit."
He frowned. "You make it sound like I'm your client."
"Well?" she smiled. "Do you think I'm too old for it? He is worth it, you know."
The change of topic threw him. The pronoun she used could have applied to either Di Mon or Erien, as far as Eva knew, or was supposed to know. "Worth what?" he asked, puzzled. "Who is?"
"Erien." She paused to let him absorb that. ""He is worth it. Whatever you paid for him."
"I don't know what you mean?" he said, more harshly than he meant to.
"All right," she agreed to accept the denial.
Amel sat forward, elbows on his knees. "What is really up with Di Mon? Asking me to fetch Ranar I can see. I'm the only one he could dispatch on that mission. But why didn't he let me leave after I delivered him? He isn't sending him back again immediately! Ranar, at least, would have the sense to refuse. It's not an easy trip for him."
"I don't know what Di Mon plans. Not particularly."
"But in general terms?"
She gazed back at him, mute, then said, in a fragile tone. "Stand up, please."
He obeyed, his concern fixed on her. She came to stand so close that he could feel her breath before she spoke again. "Hold me," she said.
He took her very carefully in his arms, as if she were a china doll, although their love making last night had been hotter and fiercer than her normal, friendly virtuosity.
She held him as tightly as she could. He could feel her shaking.
"Von, dear Von," she whispered. "Di Mon has sent for you, not Ameron, because he is afraid of Ameron. Ameron stopped him giving up two years ago. And -- I don't know what I think any more. Perhaps it is his right. He is suffering."
"The cancer?"
"That too," she said, bleakly.
"Listen," Amel took her by the shoulders to force her to look at him. "It isn't your fault."
She blinked through forming tears. "My fault?" She asked, losing color.
"It isn't your fault that he's -- suffering."
"I have wondered," she confessed. "I've thought that maybe if I was younger..."
"No, Eva!" he insisted, cupping her face with one hand. "Don't. It's not you."
She nodded, accepting, but finding the certitude just as difficult as the doubts. She inhaled with a slight sniff, a single tear escaping silently. "I love him." Her brow furrowed over the complexities of this confession. "I must love him. I have been moved by the sheer joy of pleasing him in anything from a tune to arranging his next Swearing. Even Erien I love because he loves him. But I think it is Ranar he'll trust the child to if he --" She could not complete the thought. She touched her hair, instead, and tidied a tear from her eye. "I do not envy Ranar the unfinished business he would leave him with. His love knows no mercy."
"Do you think Ranar is all right with him?" Amel worried. "Di Mon spirited him away the moment we set down, and when I finally gave up waiting at the manor last night to come join you, no one had seen either of them."
Eva shook her head, "Di Mon would never harm that Reetion."
"If you say so," Amel said, uneasily. He ran his fingers through his feathery, disordered hair. "You can read him. I can't. I've never been able to do anything right in his presence. He rattles me."
"Of course," she said.
The unmistakable air of an unspoken secret between them made him queasy. He didn't want to understand her. He didn't want to know, or know that she knew. He was anxious, at the same time, to ask if knowing what they did was not cause to worry more -- not less -- about Ranar's safety.
"Let's get you dressed," she said, and took his hand to lead him back to the bedroom.
"I always did love dressing you," she told him, conversationally, as she hunted through drawers. "You have one kind of beauty in clothes and another nakedness. Your face is as lovely as any woman's, but the rake lurks behind the dancer's eloquence. Any moment you might devastate me with a smile as sweet as childish innocence, or scream sex in the curve of your hip, simply by turning in surprise or dipping to pick up a napkin. Here, put these on," she interrupted herself, and stood back to watch him pull on a pair of soft pants and a stylish tunic that were taylor made for him although he'd never seen them before. "There are times when I find it hard to keep my hands off you," she told him, with no hint of teasing or humor. He realized why as she continued. "I have asked myself how I would feel if I hated myself for those feelings. If it threatened all I held most precious, because it might overcome and betray me. Then," she stroked the backs of her fingers down his face. "I can understand why he dislikes you."
Amel caught the hand as it fell away, breath caught in his chest. "What is he planning, Eva?"
"He hasn't confided in me," she admitted. "But whatever it is, do it for him? Please?"
Amel felt himself bristle and hated himself for it. "I brought Ranar here at his command," he said. "I shouldn't have done that much."
"Why? What business is it of Ameron's?"
"Eva -- "
"Hear him out. There's no harm in that."
"You know what he wants, don't you?" Amel demanded.
"Maybe." She shook her hair back. "I think he wants to attach Erien to Ranar. Give him over, somehow, into his protection. I'm not sure how. He could hardly set Ranar up, here, officially. But he wants Erien off his hands so he can give in to his illness without worrying about him." She looked down. "I have told him I will go with him to Luverthan. I have told him I will stay here, if he prefers, and let -- someone else -- go."
He held his breath for long seconds. Then he turned his head aside, not wanting her to see the fear building up in him.
"Has this cost me your regard?" Eva asked, stoically.
"No, Eva, of course not," he said, and let go of his fear all at once to take her in his arms again without it interfering with the bond between them. "Di Mon loves you, too, you know," he said and felt her stiffen, as if to reject a false comfort. "I know, I know," he refuted her silent objection. "But he care about you Eva. And he trusts you."
He felt her nod, in his arms, and her tension lesson. She set her palm against his shoulder and whispered, half-exhausted by unresolved emotion, "Make love to me again, Von."
