The Same Type of Animal
It was a nice house, if you liked these flat-roofed, windowless lowland places.
There were colourful tiles on the ground and the archways in the courtyard, and a kind of artificial spring trickling water over carved stone in the middle of it, and there were plenty of places to sit out of the hot sun.
That was the main thing Vanu appreciated.
The air in Torakand was thick and moist and felt heavy in his lungs.
“Is it always like this in the summers?” he signed as he sat on one of the cushioned benches in a shaded alcove off the courtyard.
“Like what?” said Davanu.
Vanu peeled the neck of his shirt away from his collarbone and flapped the fabric to generate a feeble breeze.
“Hot.”
“I’m reliably informed that this is not hot. This is warm … ish. For real heat you have to go much further south in the great kingdom of Zash.”
Vanu looked at him curiously. “Are you planning on doing that?”
Davanu shrugged, smiling. “Maybe someday. First I want to go back to our mountains. But that cannot be until my work down here is finished.”
“What work? When you left the Summer Pass, I thought you were coming down here just to trade.”
“I was. But then you turned back the Great King’s army from Hawakhurta.” Davanu’s smile glowed with admiration—with something like pride. “I want to help you.”
“You’ve always helped me,” Vanu replied. “You’ve given me so much strength. But help with this? I don’t see how. You’re not a raider, you’re a trader.”
Davanu’s gaze was keen. “You’re not a raider, either. When did you ever go on a raid for your own gain? When did you ever take plunder from anyone but the invader king’s men?”
“I haven’t ever,” Vanu admitted. “But just because—”
“It’s not who you are. You’re a warrior fighting for your people—you’re a leader and defender of men. I want to help you stand before the Great King of Zash and negotiate a peace for the Hawakhaba. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Vanu stared at Davanu as the force of his friend’s insight struck him.
It was true. He hadn’t dared form the thought, but it was true.
When he let himself daydream about the future, he didn’t imagine himself holding back the Zashian king’s forces forever.
He dreamt of a time when he wouldn’t have to.
So this was what Davanu had wanted him to come down to the city to discuss.
“That is what I want,” Vanu said aloud.
Davanu was so pleased that he leaned over and kissed him.
They fucked on the roof of the house that night.
Well, on a bed on the roof, and the roof had a wall around it, so it was more private than you’d think.
And made love was the way Davanu described it.
He was the only person Vanu knew who used the phrase when talking about two men, but it fit—it suited the kinds of things Davanu liked to do.
He talked a lot during sex, crooning over Vanu’s body and calling him beautiful.
It was something Vanu had come to like because he liked Davanu, not the other way around.
But he did like it now, this slow, sweet appreciation, and he had missed it.
“Haven’t done this in the open air in a long while,” Vanu remarked as they lay together afterward. “Lucky I don’t make much noise.”
Davanu kissed his throat softly, his beard tickling Vanu’s skin. Mention of Vanu’s voice always made him sad. Vanu had forgotten that. He knew Davanu didn’t mean it, but the sadness always made Vanu hate his voice. But it was dark, so he had no choice but to speak aloud.
“Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine,” Davanu said. He stroked Vanu’s chest. “A Zashian. Madurasha of the Kuro Clan. He may be willing to help us negotiate peace. I think he will, if we make our case well.”
“I’ll get Darma to come interpret,” said Vanu.
“He’s your … ”
“My interpreter.” He looked at Davanu. “We’re not sleeping together, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I suppose it was. I’m not jealous! After all, I married Vituatha.”
Vanu had not intended to bring that up, but now that Davanu had, he thought he ought to get something straight.
“Guess you don’t want her knowing about this … ” He gestured to Davanu’s hand on his chest.
“Oh, she knows. Not that we’re up here right now, but she wouldn’t have any trouble guessing.
She knows I need a man every now and then.
I have a couple of lovers I see regularly in the city.
No other women, though. That’s how she likes it.
” He smiled fondly in the dark, but not at Vanu.
“We’re well suited. More than that—we’re made for each other. I’d wish that for you.”
“A wife?”
“Well, no.” His hand was on Vanu’s belly now. “I suppose a wife isn’t quite what you need. My poor Vanu.”
“I’m fine.” It was hard, in the dark with only his voice to rely on, to get across the right amount of annoyance.
“I know,” said Davanu. “I’m sorry.” He lifted his hand and combed his fingers through his beard. “I’ve a fancy to try that one trick you used to like—you remember the one—but I’m afraid this shrubbery is just going to get in the way. Should I give it a try anyway?”
He’d grown the beard for his wife—he’d already explained that. But Vanu shivered at a memory of himself, years younger, in Davanu’s house in Tsuruva, naked from the waist down and half off the bed, his legs draped over Davanu’s shoulders, as Davanu did the most surprising things with his tongue.
“Yeah,” he said thickly, because he wanted to feel that way again. As if he and Davanu Shawa were the ones who were made for each other.
“It’s all right, you don’t have to be scared,” Lill said.
He lay back on the bed, his bare limbs white in the moonlight. Vanu wanted to protest that he wasn’t scared. But was that true?
He knelt on the bed beside Lill, trying to get a better look at him, but the shadows fell so that they still concealed parts of his body.
Vanu knew he did it on purpose. He put out a hand and touched Lill’s pale thigh, and as he did so he remembered why he should not do this.
He watched helplessly as dark, angry bruises bloomed over Lill’s skin.
He heard Lill’s raw shout of pain, but he couldn’t take his hand away.
“Vanu?”
He woke with a gasp. Lill was the one kneeling on the bed, looking down at him, touching Vanu’s shoulder lightly.
“Bad dream?”
Vanu ran a hand over his face and nodded. He sat up. They were in his bed, where Lill slept most nights now.
They had been married for two weeks. Most nights, Vanu dreamt about laying hands on Lill, but while awake he never did it. Usually the dreams just ended in frustration, but this was not the first time he’d found himself hurting Lill in a dream.
He reached out to touch Lill’s hair, smiling at him. He’d have to do something to deal with the wretched dreams. There was a word the shamans used for it—loosening the grip of the thing on you, what you did to get rid of an evil spirit.
They got up, and Lill went back to his room to dress, their usual routine.
Vanu liked the surprise of what he would come out wearing, what pieces of jewellery he would put on, how he would arrange his hair.
This morning, Vanu waited on the landing outside his door to see Lill emerge with his hair down, wearing one of the filmy layers of his wedding outfit over his black shirt and trousers.
On anyone else, Vanu thought, it would have looked a mess, but on his boy wife, it was perfect.
“You look lovely,” he signed across the space between them.
Lill smiled and curtseyed before running lightly down the stairs.
Vanu followed him down. The girls were up and already at work, Mikhi and Atari returning with water from the well, Susami cooking breakfast. When the food was ready, they carried the dishes up onto Vanu’s balcony and ate together as they usually did, talking about their plans for the day.
It had quickly come to feel natural to have Lill there, an extra member of the family.
Just the way Vanu had imagined it would be—except he hadn’t imagined Lill would still be so much of a mystery to him, a fortnight into their marriage.
Sometimes he liked it, the sense of a challenge, the thought of making his boy wife happier, more at home.
Sometimes it made him worry he wasn’t being a good husband so far.
He was trying. In the warm late afternoons, when they had finished their chores, they would sit on the balcony and talk, just the two of them.
Vanu told Lill stories he hadn’t heard in the lowlands: about the nomads on the steppes beyond the mountains, the trade routes, and the famous raids of the Hawakhaba.
Also stories from his own life. He explained the bitter tangle of his parentage and what had happened to the families involved, and if Lill had trouble following the details, he didn’t show it.
He told Lill about the tricks he’d used to defeat the Zashian king’s armies, the times he’d been brilliant and the times he’d just been lucky.
He told him about raising his own army in the villages and how they’d gone down to face that fanatical shit who’d been leading the king’s troops.