Chapter 29 | The Tale of Two Kingdoms

Public Revelations

Paggday morning found Temmin once again on the rosy marble steps of the Lovers' Temple. He had foresworn a carriage, riding a horse from the Keep's stables; he didn't want to leave Jebby overnight in an unfamiliar place, and it had been hard even for him to miss the palace guard trailing at a discreet distance this time.

He was dressed less formally than before, in riding clothes. It had grieved Jenks sorely until Temmin had made some remark about not being in clothes long anyway, which had sent the valet rummaging for the finest of his master's vests and pants that he could muster with a plea to "at least make sure when the clothes come off that you're a credit to Whithorse, your highness." He had also insisted on dabbing a little cologne on Temmin's neck and handkerchief, "nothing too strong, just a blend of oakmoss, lime and a very little rose I've had made up." Issak wore scent. Didn't he? Temmin remembered something smelling very intoxicating while kissing him. He sniffed at the handkerchief he'd taken up without thinking before tucking it back in his pocket, and took the last few steps.

This time, no one waited for him at the top. He stood there looking a bit lost until Senik the postulant found him. Senik was wearing more than a scarf this time, but somehow the simple linen trousers and open shirt played up his almost disturbing beauty more than nudity had done. "This way, Temmin Supplicant." He led the prince toward the center of the Temple, to the grand public worship space where dozens of people milled about, praying, lighting candles and incense, and building small towers of flowers and sweets at the feet of the enormous twin statues of Nerr and Neya. Senik marched him straight between the entwined statues' legs to a little door. "This is the Supplicants' Chamber," said Senik, opening it. "Next time, just let yourself in."

"Thank you," said Temmin.

To his great surprise, Senik kissed him full on the lips. "That's how we say 'thank you' here, Supplicant. It's also how we say 'you're welcome.'" He kissed Temmin more fully, and the prince's eyes drifted closed. When he opened them, Senik was gone.

Temmin blinked. "All right, then. I'll just..."

He trailed off, realizing he spoke to no one, and walked uncertainly through the little door into a windowless room heated near skin temperature. Its floors were covered in thick, soft carpets, its walls draped in dark rose-colored silk. Arranged around a low table were the low, wide, backless couches piled with pillows that the Temple seemed to favor. On one of the couches two figures lay wrapped in each other, moving slowly.

The room was dim. Temmin couldn't see exactly who they were or what they were doing. A lazy voice--Issak's--called out, "Close the door, Temmin, it's noisy out there. Then come here." Temmin quickly shut the door behind him and moved closer. "I said, come here. Oh, fetch him, Anda." One of the figures rose from the couch, and Temmin realized they were three--Issak and the two other Supplicants, Anda and Bessa. Bessa had been in the middle, and was so slight he hadn't seen her; she'd been buried beneath Anda's much fuller body. He'd thought of Anda dismissively as fat and plain up until the point she'd kissed him senseless. As she came toward him, he still found her over-round for his taste, but much more appealing--rather like a well-stuffed sofa he'd like to take a nap on, he thought, right up until she grabbed him by the ear and pulled him sweetly but firmly to Issak.

"When I say 'come here,' Supplicant, I mean 'here,'" said Issak, sitting up. He was in loose linen trousers like Senik's, and nothing else. "'Here' being wherever I am, not near wherever I am. Do you understand?"

Temmin rubbed his ear ruefully as Anda sat down on the couch near the others' feet. "Yes, beg pardon, I'm sure. You looked...busy, is all." Bessa laughed and stretched her long, slender body.

Issak smiled down at her fondly. "Bessa was telling me what she'd learned this week. What have you learned this week, Temmin?" he said, eyeing the prince.

Temmin blushed. "You were there, as I recall." Bessa patted the couch, and he sat down awkwardly on its edge.

"You've learned nothing since? Nothing at all?" Issak took Temmin's hand and drew slight patterns on its palm with his fingers.

Temmin shuddered; out of the corner of his eye, he saw a calculating look fleetingly cross Anda's face, as if she was taking notes. "Was I supposed to be learning something elsewhere?"

"We learn things all the time, every second," said Issak softly, keeping his eyes on Temmin's. "What did you learn while you were away?" His fingers moved from Temmin's palm to slip slightly up his arm under his shirt cuff.

"Nothing that applies here." They kept it so warm, why was he shivering?

"Are you so very sure?" whispered Issak. He must have made a signal of some kind, for Bessa sat up and began untying his stock. Anda slipped behind him and slid his coat off his shoulders. "Everything you learn elsewhere applies here. And everything you learn here applies elsewhere." Bessa'd made short work of his stock and waistcoat and was working on his shirt buttons; Anda pushed his braces off and reached around for his trouser fastenings.

"This is just about sex, isn't it?" said Temmin, desperately trying to concentrate on a corner of the room.

Issak gripped Temmin's jaw in his surprisingly strong, elegant hand. "Look at me." Temmin gasped, and everything became very still. He locked onto Issak's suddenly fierce green eyes. "You will address my sister and me as 'Holy One' from now on. Do you understand?" Temmin nodded mutely, astonished. "Sex is about everything, and everything is about sex, at least as you contemplate the Mysteries this Temple is trying to teach you. I don't know what they teach in the other Temples. For all I know, Farr's priests teach that everything is about battle and battle is about everything, in fact, I'd bet on it. But I am not the Embodiment of Farr, or Eddin, or Pagg, I am the Embodiment of Nerr. I'm here to teach you what I know, and to guide you closer to the Gods on Nerr's path." Temmin was naked from the waist up and openly shaking now, and Issak observed him closely. "You did learn something in your absence, didn't you. What did you learn, Supplicant?"

"I don't know, Holy One," said Temmin in a very small voice.

Issak brought his face very close to Temmin's and narrowed his eyes. "I think," he said slowly, "I do." He suddenly released Temmin and stood up. His face was merry and his eyes were twinkling in the low lamplight as he reached down and pulled Temmin to his feet. "Get the rest of those clothes off, and give him a set of Temple garments," he told the girls, moving away to lean against a wall. He watched Temmin finish undressing to the skin and pull on the linen trousers and the open shirt. Temmin's arousal was as clear as his own, hard against the thin fabric. "When you come here next," said Issak, "these clothes will be hanging on the rack over there"--he nodded to a set of pegs hanging on the only spot of wall that wasn't swathed in silk. "You'll be expected to change into them as soon as you arrive."

Temmin found his voice. "What about them--Holy One?" he said, remembering the honorific at the last moment. He jerked his head toward the girls, who were carefully hanging his clothes on a little wooden rack in the corner; they were still in their clothing, Anda in a simple light blue muslin dress, and Bessa in a straw-colored one.

"You caught us in the middle of things," murmured Anda. "Normally we'd be wearing temple garb like yours."

"What--in trousers?!"

Bessa mocked his astonished face. "No! That would be shocking! No, silly, skirts."

"We don't wear them for long anyway," said Anda, returning to recline on the couch. "Come back to me, Bessa, and take your hair down first. You have such beautiful hair." Temmin watched Issak for signs of disapproval at Anda's commanding tone, but saw none; the Embodiment stayed propped up against the wall, arms folded across his smooth, bare chest, and watched the girls with a small smile on his handsome face.

Bessa finished taking the pins out of her hair. Once uncoiled from its prissy bun, her reddish-blond hair fell in a smooth, shining stream to her waist. Temmin watched it swing gently back and forth as she walked; it really was beautiful hair, too beautiful to adorn a beanpole like Bessa, he thought. "Shall he sit with us?" she said over her shoulder to Issak.

"Have a care, he's still virgin and must stay that way a little longer," Issak said, nodding his approval.

Bessa smiled and took Temmin's hand, pulling him down with her on the couch next to Anda. "What I've learned," she said softly, "is that making love with your clothes on is different than making love naked. Not worse, just...different. Sometimes better," she grinned.

"How did you learn this, Bessa?" said Issak.

Bessa blushed, her freckled skin turning rosy. "Stealing a few moments with my lady's maid, Holy One."

"A few moments?" said Anda.

"Many moments," she dimpled, looking up at the other girl through her pale lashes. "But not moments we wished to be caught in, especially not caught naked. I can explain away a lot, but not that."

"I don't understand," said Temmin. "If you're not supposed to be having sex with your maid, why are you? I mean, I should think you get plenty here."

Bessa looked at him as if he'd said something extremely stupid, and Anda rolled her eyes. "As it happens," said Bessa, "I love Silsha. She's not my only love, but I do love her, and it's in my marriage contract that she comes with me and remains my servant and no one else's. I don't want a new husband to discover he's not the only one between my thighs until I'm sure of him."

"But you're a Supplicant. Surely you're not virgins when you're done here? Is it some great secret that you're Supplicants?"

The girls looked at him again as if he were a child. "Once we're married we have to be as careful as any other woman," said Anda. "But we're daughters of families with good breeding but no money--and I'm the younger daughter, to boot. Any dowry my family can scrape together is going with my older sister as her portion. And as you can see, Amma didn't bless either of us with great beauty--oh please, stop," she said as Temmin made to interrupt, "I'm not fishing for compliments, I know my limitations and Bessa knows hers. The chances of my making a brilliant match based on looks are slim. My choices were to stay at home and tend to my parents in their old age, to join the Sister's Temple, or to come here and hope I'd be accepted as a Supplicant. I'm lucky the Most Highs and the Holy Ones saw something in me, can you imagine me in the Sister's Temple? My fee will be paid by whomever marries me; I'm an investment my parents and the Temple are making. My prospects are quite brilliant now. I won't get pregnant while I'm here, and no man cares how many lovers I've taken in my training, as long as I can at least pretend he's my last."

"Fee?" blinked Temmin. "There's a fee for this?"

"Not in your case," said Issak blandly. "Bessa, you were demonstrating."

"Well, not so much demonstrating," blushed the girl. "It's just something I discovered this week, that's all."

"What is it you like about it--making love fully dressed?" said Anda, pushing the other girl's long hair over one shoulder, baring her neck. "Standing up, too, I'm guessing?"

Bessa blushed even further and nodded. "I like the immediacy of it, I suppose."

"I don't think it's about being dressed or undressed at all, " said Anda, kissing her neck, "I think you like the possibility of discovery. Don't you?" Bessa let out a little moan, and her eyes fluttered shut. Anda looked inquisitively at Issak, who nodded. Anda wrapped Bessa's long hair around her arm and pulled the gasping girl to her feet with it, Temmin following in alarm. Anda marched Bessa out into the grand public worship area, dropping her hair but not the grip on the girl's nape. The four of them walked a few steps up into the gallery on Nerr's side of the temple. Anda stopped them at the chest-high wall, pinning Bessa against it as she faced out to the open space and the crowds going about their worship. "This is what you really like, isn't it, Bessa? This is what you really learned this week," said Anda, unbuttoning the lowest fastenings of Bessa's dress below the worshippers' line of sight and slipping a hand inside. Bessa's eyes went wide for a moment, and her mouth made a small "o."

Temmin was blushing almost as hard as Bessa. "Face outward," said Issak quietly on his left. "Look like you're observing the statues as we lean here against the wall. Ah, the people see you. Acknowledge them, your highness." The honorific already felt out of place here to Temmin, but he did as he was asked, nodding regally as worshippers stopped before the gallery to bow and curtsy. He felt dreadfully exposed in the thin shirt and trousers, and was deeply grateful for the wall hiding his lower half.

From the Temple floor, it appeared as if the four of them were idly leaning against the wall, watching the crowds and talking, the two girls affectionately leaning into one another. But behind the wall to Temmin's right, Anda's hand worked between Bessa's thighs through the opening in her dress. "You must stay calm, Bessa, or they will know," whispered Anda. "Even here this sort of thing is just not done." Bessa gave a small whimper, but her outward demeanor gave no indication.

He heard Bessa's breathing speed up, and he hazarded a glance out of the corner of his eye. She was quite pink and looked almost beautiful as she struggled to stay still, her small breasts straining almost imperceptibly against her bodice. "Anda!" she said softly.

Anda leaned in to whisper in her ear. "This is what you do to Silsha, isn't it?"

"Yes!" whispered Bessa back.

"And you've wished someone would do it to you, though you won't let Silsha do it, will you."

Bessa suddenly took Temmin's hand in hers and squeezed it tight. "She's--I won't allow her!"

"No, because she's your maid, isn't that right?" murmured Anda. "She belongs to you, you don't belong to her. Well right now, Bessa, you belong to us. And we say you're going to come, right here in the open, with everyone watching you, and you're not going to let on."

"I shall faint!" she said breathlessly.

"No, you shan't," said Issak, coming up behind her casually and draping an arm around her waist. "And if you do, Temmin and I will hold you up." Below the wall, he pressed her ass against his hips. Bessa clutched Temmin's hand convulsively and began to shake. She leaned herself as nonchalantly against Issak as she could and let out a long, barely audible moan. She sagged slightly against Issak's supporting arm, and Temmin helped her stay braced against the wall, the whole time the four of them looking out onto the Temple floor and the throngs going about their business. No one looking up saw anything out of the ordinary, though the Heir seemed a bit breathless and red in the face, and the young woman holding hands with him was unusually radiant.

Anda removed her hand from Bessa's dress. "Fasten yourself up as soon as you can work your fingers again, dear," she said smugly.

"Well done, Anda!" smiled Issak, leaning with his back against the wall. To Temmin's shock, he then kissed the hand she'd used on Bessa and took the fingers into his mouth one by one. "Can you help Bessa down the steps, please, Temmin?"

"I'm all right now," said Bessa shakily, but she accepted Temmin's arm nonetheless. The four descended the short stairs onto the main level and entered the Supplicant's Chamber again. As soon as they were inside, Bessa pushed Anda against the wall and kissed her ferociously. "You!" she said, mock indignant. "That was cruel!"

Anda slapped her narrow flank and laughed, ducking under her arm. "I was right, though!" She ran across the room, ducking under the drapery and through a hidden door on the other side with Bessa in hot pursuit.

Issak chuckled as they left. "She's very nearly ready, barring practice in subtlety," he said. "She flushed Bessa out into the open much more quickly than I expected her to."

"What just happened, Holy One?" said Temmin.

"Bessa's used to being in charge with her lovers, and in her home. She manages the house for her father since her mother's death, and from what I hear, runs a tight outfit. Anda helped her realize just how much she doesn't want to be in charge sometimes, though she'd never let her maid dominate her. And she uncovered a taste for danger and humiliation that I don't think even Bessa herself realized."

"Did you know?" asked Temmin.

"I'm the Embodiment of Nerr," grinned Issak. "I've trained nearly half my life to know. For instance, I've learned quite a lot about you already." Issak pulled him close and kissed him gently.

"Like what?" said Temmin breathlessly.

"We have all day for me to show you," murmured Issak, stroking him through the linen trousers. "All day and all night."

Temmin groaned and buried his nose in Issak's hair, breathing deep. Was it scent, or was it simply Issak? But underneath that question were the more frightening ones: What had Issak discovered about him? And did he really want to know?