handed me a goblet, his gaze not quite meeting mine.
Arrangements? What do you mean, Master?'
'I have urged the opinion that you are too inexperienced to be Co-Ascendant without an advisor. The Council has decided that you must nominate your proxy as soon as possible.'
'You,' I said.
He nodded once. 'Me.' He lifted his cup. 'With thanks to the gods.'
'With thanks,' I echoed.
We drank. I felt my gut churn uneasily as the sour rice wine met the coco/at.
'What will happen now, Master?'
'Now we play our game to its end. You will study and learn to control your power. I will secure our position in the Council.
We will be very wealthy and very powerful by the time your tenure as Mirror Dragoneye ends.'
'Yes, Master.'
'You must stop calling me Master,' he said roughly. 'You are Lord Eon, and when you confirm me, I will be Lord Brannon. That is how it must be.' He looked into his wine, the muscles in his jaw tightening. 'That is how it must be.'
CHAPTER 7
The bathing room in the Peony guest apartment was larger than my master's library. I shifted on the carved stool in the scrubbing corner, the wooden seat hard under my bare rump. The walls were tiled in mosaics of the city's three river gods, and at the far end of the room a precious mirror stretched from floor to ceiling. Faint weaves of steam rose from the large twelve-sided soaking pool sunk into the middle of the mosaic floor, constantly renewed and warmed from pipes below. The room smelled of ginger and heat. I smoothed the thin loincloth over my hips, wishing I had one to cover my chest as well.
'Close your eyes,' Rilla said.
A warm weight of water broke over my head, streaming down my unbound hair. I coughed and opened my eyes as she held my arm out and rubbed its length with a rough cotton cloth.
'Did you finish the tea?' she asked.
I nodded, still tasting the residue of dirt. The brew was not sitting well with the mix of cocolat, wine and the braised fish that the physician had sent to ease my fast.
Rilla worked the cloth vigorously down my other arm, hissing as the movement chafed her blistered skin.
'You're hurting your hands,' I said, pulling away from her grip. '1 don't need to be washed. I had a bath for the ceremony'
Rilla grunted, taking hold of my arm again.
'You're a lord now. Lords bathe every week.'
I laughed.
'No, truly,' Rilla said with a final wipe. 'When I was getting your clothes, Lady Dela's maid told me that her mistress bathes every day' She picked up the second bucket, wincing as the edge caught her palm. 'That girl has a tongue that flaps like washing hung in a high wind.
Close your eyes.'
'Why would Lady Dela bathe so much?' I managed to say before the water broke over me again.
Rilla squatted at my feet. 'I suppose it's because she's a Contraire.' She scrubbed my right leg.
'They probably have to purify themselves or something.'
A Contraire?'
Rilla gently touched my bad leg. 'May I?'
I nodded, carefully lifting my foot off the ground. Some of the pain in my hip had returned, but not all of it.
Rilla wiped the cloth down my shin. A Contraire is a man who lives as a woman.'
I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes. 'Lady Dela is a man?'
'In body she is. Her maid says she even has a prick.' Rilla leaned back on her heels. 'But she has a woman's spirit. According to the Eastern Tribes, a Contraire has two souls: male and female. She has both Sun and Moon energy A Contraire in the tribe brings luck.'
'So it is accepted.'
Rilla snorted. 'It is in the Eastern Tribes. Here, she is tolerated by the court because it is the Emperor's pleasure. But there are some who whisper she is a demon with the sight. She was even attacked a while back. That's why she has a guard.'
'Did they find out who did it?'
'No, they are still searching. Lady Dela was sent by the Eastern lords as a gesture of goodwill to His Majesty He is embarrassed that their gift has been harmed.'
'Does it work the other way around? Can a woman have a man's spirit?'
Rilla sloshed water against my back. Are you thinking of yourself?' she asked, lowering her voice. 'But you don't have a male spirit. This is all play-acting, isn't it?'
I shrugged, hunching over as she sluiced the water off me. How could I explain that it was not all play- acting? That I felt more of the male spirit within me than the female. A fierceness that whittled me down to a sharpened spear of ambition. And as a boy, I was applauded, not punished, for such raw energy. It was not beaten out of me for my own good, or worn away by women's chores.
'I'm not sure what I am,' I said slowly 'Perhaps I just can't remember how to act like a girl.'
'Well, that's probably for the best,' Rilla said. 'Safer for us all.' She handed me the cloth. 'I expect you'll want to wash your front yourself
I rubbed the cloth over my breasts and belly, quickly dipping it lower when she turned to drain a bucket.
'Go and soak now,' she said. 'I'll lay out your clothes and be back to dry you.'
She patted my shoulder and hurried out of the room, shutting the door with a sharp click.
I draped the loincloth over the stool and walked over to the pool. A mosaic of the Nine Fish Wealth Circle wavered at the bottom. I bent and dipped my fingers into the water. Very warm bordering on hot: a good heat to ease the small gnawing pain in my hip. I straightened and started for the shallow steps that led into the water but my attention was caught by movement in the mirror. Myself. Naked.
So bony and pale. I ran the flat of my hands over my chest and sides, feeling the small softness of breast and corrugation of rib. There was no exaggerated flare of hip like Irsa — I turned side on — or round behind, but the curves of womanhood were still there. Luckily the heavy tunics and trousers of court-wear would hide them. I traced the scar that puckered my thigh. I was hit by a cart and dragged behind it. That's what my master said but I couldn't remember any part of the accident. Only the dim shape of a man leaning over me with a tattoo across his face: the driver, perhaps, or a bystander. Just thinking about it sharpened the pain in my hip. I faced the glass again. The scar was not as big as I'd thought. And the strange twisted set to my leg was not as severe.
I moved closer. My reflection frowned. Something was different about my face since I had seen it in the Rat Dragon mirror. Less softness, more bone. I touched my cheeks, feeling the sharper shape of adulthood. My eyes looked larger, lips fuller. It was a face that was tipped more to the female. I pulled back my wet hair, holding it up on top of my head in a straggly imitation of a Dragoneye loop. A boy wearing a man's clothing and hairstyle. May the gods let that be what they all saw.
But it was not just appearance. It was movement and attitude and something else that was hard to name. Four years ago, when my master bought me, we had spent the long journey back to the city turning me into Eon. I had studied the boys on the roads and at the inns. How they moved decisively, and took up space, and made competitions of hauling water and chopping wood. I began to act like them, feeling years and years of subdued female movement expanding into glorious freedom. My master drilled me in the men's world of letters and numbers, and I practised how to sit with my legs apart, my chin up and my eyes bold.
But most of all I learned how not to be watched.
