The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [100]
That was precisely how it happened with Tangorn, who dropped by her salon once (he had to establish contact with the secretary of the Khand embassy, who was a regular). When the guests started to leave, the beauty confronted the funny northern barbarian and said with indignation belied by sparkles of laughter in her eyes:
"Rumor has it, Baron, that you claimed my hair is dyed!" Tangorn opened his mouth to deny this monstrous lie, but realized immediately that this was not what was expected of him. "I assure you that I'm a natural blond. Would you like to confirm that?"
"What, right now?"
"Sure, when else?" Taking his arm, she marched from the living room to the inner chambers, purring: "Let's find out if you're as good in bed as on the dance floor…"
It turned out that he was even better. By morning Alviss had signed an unconditional surrender pact to which she stuck quite well over the years that followed. As for Tangorn, at first it seemed nothing more than an exciting adventure to him; the baron realized that this woman had stealthily taken up more of his heart than he could afford only when she bestowed her characteristically generous attentions on Senator Loano's young son – an empty-headed pretty boy fond of writing sickeningly sweet verses. The duel that followed made the whole city laugh (the baron inflicted blows with the flat of his sword, using it as a club, so the youngster got away with only a set of mighty bruises and a concussion), made Grager furious, and totally confused the Umbarian secret service: a spy has no right to behave thusly! Tangorn took the drubbing from the chief indifferently and asked only to be reassigned away from Umbar – to Khand, say.
Somehow he had no consistent memories of the year he spent in Khand: only the sunbleached adobe walls, windowless like the forever veiled faces of the local women; the smell of overheated cotton oil, the taste of bland flatbreads (the moment they cool they resemble mortar in both taste and texture), and the incessant whine of the zurna over it all, like the maddening buzz of a giant mosquito. The baron tried forgetting Alviss by losing himself in work – he found out that the syrupy caresses of the local beauties could not do that. Strangely, he did not connect Grager's sudden order to return to Umbar to his reports. However, it turned out that one of the ideas he mentioned in passing (analyzing the real trade volume between Mordor and the other countries beyond Anduin) had seemed so fruitful to Grager that the latter decided to pursue it himself right there, in Khand. To Tangorn's total amazement Grager appointed him chief of station in Umbar: "Sorry, but there's no one better; besides, you know the Southern saying: to learn to swim, you gotta swim."
The very next day a woman wearing an opaque Khand burka found him, gracefully turned up the veil and said with a shy smile that astounded him: "Hello, Tan… You'll laugh, but I've waited for you all this time. I'll wait more if I have to."
"Really? You must've devoted yourself to serving Valya-Vekte," he scoffed, trying desperately to surface from those damn sapphire depths.
"Valya-Vekte?"
"If I'm not mistaken, she's the goddess of virginity in the Aritanian pantheon. The Aritanian temple is only three blocks from your house, so this service won't be too burdensome…"
"That's not what I mean," Alviss shrugged. "Sure, I've slept with a bunch of people this past year, but that was just work, nothing else." Then she looked straight at him and fired a broadside: "But you know, Tan, you shouldn't have any illusions that the so-called decent folks would think your work any less shameful than mine – I mean your real work here."
He digested this silently for some time, and then found strength to laugh: "Yeah, you got me to rights, Aly!" With those words he put his hands on her waist, as if about to spin her in a dance: "And let them all go to hell!"
She