Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [31]
Ran had met her when he was on leave. General Hovv had been visiting the front line and, pleased with recent successes, had granted unexpected leave to all of Grek’s officers.
Whilst Liso and Maconsa had gone back to Porsim in the first available dirigible, and young Priss to the coast, Ran had opted for a period of rest in the little town of Jurrula.
He’d been there before, of course, in the early days of the war, when the reputation of its whore‐house was near to legendary. As a young soldier, he had cheerfully added his voice to those who said Jurrula was the closest an Ismetch got to heaven this side of the Veil.
All that had been years before, however, and he knew how much the charming old town, positioned high in the hills above the jungle, had suffered. Even a veteran like Ran, though, was shocked by the extent of the devastation. The wonderful old High Temple (in which he’d said prayers the night before the battle of Dalurida Bridge) was nothing but a pile of rubble. The old town square with its florid statues and fountains had vanished in a vast bomb crater. The whore‐house, even, was gone, he’d noticed with a sad smile.
Then, in a tiny eating‐house, its once‐elegant facade propped up with sheet metal, he had found Testra.
She had been waiting at table, sullenly, but he soon discovered what a lively, intelligent and very funny woman she was. Ran liked her at once. She served him at his battered table with a coquettish grin and a certain impudence rarely seen in provincial Ismetch. Ran was used to being treated as almost everyone’s superior and this girl’s attitude intrigued and amused him. When asked her name she had stated, clearly and boldly, ‘Testra,’ earning a look of disapproval from her father in the kitchen.
In the automatic scheme of things, Ran would have taken her as his lover. But she refused to respond to any of his wooing. Even, he was delighted to discover, the possibility of money and advancement.
As the days of his leave ticked away, Ran became increasingly obsessed with Testra, eating at the place three or sometimes four times a day, his blue eyes appealing to her to show some mercy.
Testra would merely smile; the fine, graceful lines of her hide tantalizingly revealed by the cut of her clothes.
On the last night of his leave, Ran had lain in his room, determined not to embarrass himself any further. He had to admit that, for once, his charms had failed him.
Then there had been a light knock at the door. He opened it to reveal Testra, grinning broadly, dressed in a splendid, plain peasant garment, a jug of fruit wine in her claw.
She’d pushed past him, slipped out of her clothes, into the bed and blown out the candle in one fluid movement.
From then on they kept in touch constantly. He took her to Porsim, which she had never seen, delighting in the naïvity of her awed reaction. He helped to pay for the repairs for her father’s business and, on subsequent leave, enjoyed eating there all the more, knowing that it was mostly down to him that the place looked so inviting and whole once again.
Ran could see Testra now if he closed his weary eyes. Feel his lids, heavy, heavy, sealing shut, cutting off the pain of reality. Testra laughing until her hide shook. Wine spilling from her wide, beautiful snout.
But then the other image would come to mind no matter how much he screwed up his eyes and wept. Him running down the streets of Jurrula as the Cutch bombs smashed into the dusty ground around him. The stench of smoke and blood. Children crying out until they were hoarse. And Testra lying in the shell hole with her chest blown open, her eyes wide with terror. Screaming, screaming, screaming.
Ran opened his eyes and slammed his fist into the mirror. The shattered glass split his reflection into a dozen fragments, each