Uriel Wayne Dana Alfred
……
Uriel had come up to the fourth floor of the main building ahead of Ferzen, and she let the washing of her hands in the lavatory eat a little time. When his footsteps carried down the quiet corridor, she shook the water from her fingers and stepped out as if she had only just happened to be leaving.
A step. Ferzen halted.
He glanced at her, then went on, and Uriel followed behind him. She had thought it before: for a black mage, the build was needlessly solid. Watching it, she remembered the day that body had pinned her beneath it, the hands that had groped her, the mouth that had licked her, and heat climbed into her face.
“Your wife… I don’t see her today. What’s the occasion.”
Before he could turn the handle she failed to keep the question down, and put it to him as he was about to go into the office. Ferzen met her eyes for a brief moment, as if it were nothing worth explaining.
“She’s unwell. I told her to rest.”
That was all. He went in, and was gone.
Unwell…
When she herself had been sick, hadn’t he looked after her even after his duty was over? Picturing that plain, unremarkable woman groaning alone at the house, Uriel felt a faint superiority rise in her.
Pathetic bitch…
A moment later she turned the blame on herself and let out a sigh. Nothing uglied a person like envy and jealousy, or so they said. She shook her head and began preparing for the morning lecture.
“Now that I think of it…”
His lecture was in the morning as well, wasn’t it.
Noon.
Lecture done, Uriel came out of the classroom, paused a moment in front of her own office, and let her eyes slide toward Room 404. She took the handle and tried it, carefully.
Click.
Locked.
“…”
Well. His wife was ill. Once his business was finished he would have gone straight back. Annoyed with herself for having expected anything, Uriel dropped her hand, went into her office, set her materials down, and left the main building to eat.
She had been making for the front gate when—fully aware that it was a foolish thing to do—she pressed a palm to her brow, sighed, and turned instead toward the lot at the rear.
“…”
And there it was. A carriage bearing the crest of Brutein.
Not in the office, and the carriage still in the lot. So he had gone out into the streets for a meal after all. Uriel lengthened her stride.
The noble students attending lectures in Hall A were on their lunch hour as well, and the street of restaurants was more crowded than usual. Finding, among all of them, the one where Ferzen was eating would have looked difficult from the outside. Narrowing the field was not difficult for Uriel. The food he preferred—his palate—she knew better than anyone.
She stopped before the restaurant most famous for its goat as a main, and opened the door with care.
A refined interior. Very few seats.
“…”
She could see Ferzen from behind, eating.
“I’m sorry. Every table is full at the moment, so…”
“That man.”
“Yes?”
“Ask him… if he’ll share.”
The attendant, bent at the waist, turned his head to follow her finger.
“Ah… an acquaintance, I take it? Very well. Please wait a moment.”
Requests to share a table were common enough. The attendant smiled and went quietly over to Ferzen, who was eating in silence, and inclined his head. Ferzen set the knife down and glanced back. When those eyes found her, Uriel flinched for no good reason and looked away.
By the time the attendant returned, she knew her palms were damp.
If he refused, he refused. To be nervous over a thing like this.
“Miss.”
“What did he… say.”
“He agreed at once.”
“He did…?”
She uncurled the fist that had gone awkwardly sweaty and crossed, slowly, to Ferzen’s table, and sat. When she only stared at him, blank and wordless, he stopped cutting the meat and asked in a flat voice.
“You came to eat, didn’t you. Order.”
“I was… still deciding.”
“Were you.”
At that, Ferzen gave a short laugh. Their tastes would be the same, and she would know perfectly well what this place served as its main. Fretting over a menu was absurd on its face.
“And what are you laughing at. It’s unpleasant…”
She clicked her tongue as she said it, and in the end ordered exactly what he had. Uriel herself seemed to have nothing to add. She only kept drinking the cold water.
“Anyway, your lecture should have ended at eleven…”
“There’s still work left on the final examinations.”
“…”
“If you’ve nothing else to do, I’ll take you in the carriage when I go back. What’s left should be about half an hour after I’ve eaten.”
Uriel propped her chin on her hand, making a show of indifference.
Ah…
Then she remembered that the first time they had shared a duty shift, he had disliked precisely this, and she lowered her hand without a word. The faint crease between Ferzen’s brows eased, and she grumbled inwardly.
Your preferences… Do you even know how closely I’m minding them.
“…I won’t refuse. Finish eating. I won’t bother you with talk.”
Hobbies, the amusements he favored—everything was the same, so she could have kept a conversation going easily enough. She didn’t. She leaned back and let herself be comfortable.
Ten minutes or so passed that way. The party at the next table left, and the appetizer came: a salad with a thread of sourness to wake the appetite. She was quietly forking it up when she saw, beyond, at the door, Gerard coming in with his friends, and her brow tightened.
“Ah…”
Of all times…
She could wish not to be seen, but the only empty seats were the ones beside them. Meeting him was only a matter of time.
And sure enough.
“Uh… h-hello. Professor Ferzen. Professor Uriel.”
His friends noticed the two of them first and offered, with great care, the most awkward greeting in the world. They did not sit. They turned toward Gerard at the rear, the one who passed for the leader of the group, and stood there crooked, watching his face.
“…”
Gerard’s expression crumpled at once, as if he had bitten into filth.
“Yes. Enjoy your meal.”
Ferzen paid them no mind at all and went on eating. Caught between the two men, Uriel was not at ease. Even setting aside the fact that Ferzen had put himself in the middle of it, Gerard would at least have told his own friends that an engagement was being discussed. This was the sort of scene that smashed a man’s face. His pride would be bleeding.
“We’ll eat somewhere else.”
As expected. After a short silence Gerard sent his friends out, came over to the table, and spoke with a low anger banked behind the courtesy.
“Did you not tell me yourself that there was no point whatever in cultivating a private connection? And yet here you are… Am I to take this as a silent admission that I am going to lose? I wasn’t aware you favored goat, Professor. You’ve gone so far as to share even that with Professor Ferzen.”
Uriel did not wholly deny it. Whatever card he laid down—even if he set a hundred on the table—should Ferzen add a mere ten on top, her grandfather would…
“Gerard Ren Milrain Asran.”
“…”
“Don’t be childish.”
Ferzen ate the last piece of meat cleanly, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and spoke to Gerard as if the boy hardly concerned him.
“Childish, you say…”
“Do you think it isn’t? And I’ll correct one thing in what you said. I have no need to learn Uriel’s preferences.”
“…”
Those characteristically overbearing red eyes settled on him. Gerard nearly turned his head by instinct, then clenched his fist hard and held the gaze.
“The dish she likes best is anything made from goat. Fruit: whatever isn’t too sweet. Books: every work of Cervantes. An instrument, the violin. Theater would be The Quickening, and the like.”
“So you’ve already finished looking into her. That’s what you mean.”
At Gerard’s answer, Ferzen laughed. He very nearly laughed aloud without meaning to, and only just pressed it down.
“All of those are things I like.”
Hearing it, Gerard remembered a remark of Uriel’s he had not understood at the time. It cut across his mind, and he looked at her. Uriel only lowered her head. A wordless yes, no doubt.
“You said once that you wanted to treat me to a meal. With this, I won’t have to wonder what to tell my own chef. Gerard.”
There was a mockery in it. Gerard bit his lip.
“Enjoy your meal. I’ll be going.”
He still had not opened his fist. He turned and walked off hard. Uriel watched that back for a moment and pressed a hand to her brow.
“You’re childish enough yourself…”
“Was any of it wrong.”
“It wasn’t that…”
“Uriel.”
“What.”
“When the food is on the table, don’t rest your breasts on it. It’s vulgar.”
“…”
“A strange habit.”
At the rebuke she flinched and gently lifted that heavy chest off the tabletop.
“People are creatures that always chase what’s comfortable…”
“I won’t say anything about it at home. Don’t do it outside.”
“…”
“The main has come. Eat. By the time you’re finished, I should be done. I’ll come for you then.”
“Do as you like…”
She did not try to hold him when he rose. Left alone, Uriel ate while looking at the place he had vacated, and some forty minutes later she stood up inside the restaurant.
“The gentleman who agreed to share the table has already paid.”
“A useless gesture…”
The money she was carrying was his to begin with.
“It was good.”
“Thank you. Please come again.”
She put away the money she had been about to produce, stepped out into the street, and looked around. She had not walked far before she found it, just as he had said: the carriage marked with the crest of Brutein, halted along the nearby road. She drew close and stared. The window came down, and Ferzen, a book open in his hands, glanced down at her with those red eyes.
“Get in.”
“Don’t rush me.”
“I didn’t.”
“…”
She shut her mouth, sullen, opened the door, and climbed up. The carriage pulled away smoothly, and inside it she caught the cloth at her chest and fluttered it, lightly. In hot, damp weather sweat gathered often beneath her breasts; if she didn’t air them this way the closeness was miserable, and worse, leave it too long and her skin broke out, and there was nothing to be done about that. But every time she stirred the cloth she saw the tip of Ferzen’s nose twitch, as if he were drawing her scent in, and a strange feeling came over her. She hadn’t meant to tempt him. Not in the least.
At last he lifted his eyes from the book. Uriel stopped her hand and stammered.
“It’s—it’s hot, that’s all…”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“If I smelled of sweat… sorry.”
Ferzen looked at her a moment with that indifferent face, lowered his gaze to the book again, and answered in a low voice.
“Don’t worry.”
“…”
“There was no smell of sweat. Your scent was sweet, the way it always is.”
“Wh-what are you saying… You sound like a pervert.”
“And what am I to do about what’s drifting over.”
“Breathe through your mouth, then…”
“I never said it was a scent I disliked.”
“Th-the book… just read it.”
“I am.”
He sat in a posture so correct it nearly looked uncomfortable, reading without a hair out of place, and Uriel turned her face to the window. Even so her hand went on stirring the cloth. The window was open, and still the wide interior of the carriage filled with her scent, sweet as a peach. Like spring.
When they arrived before the modest little house that had been arranged for her for the time being, Ferzen looked down at her and, in that voice of his, spoke her name as if only in passing.
“Uriel.”
“…”
“Next time, I’ll take you with me.”
Take her with him.
She turned the words over once, and then she said it.
“Say it properly. What you’ll be doing is… receiving me.”
Waiting was, for Uriel, a thing she was sick to death of. The line came out of the defiance and the hunger for recompense born of that feeling, and Ferzen did not pick at it. He only left, a faint smile on his mouth.
“Insufferable…”
A man who hardly ever smiled. Why was he like that.
“…”
When the carriage that carried him had at last slipped out of sight, Uriel went inside and took her clothes off. Cool air. Sure enough, a great deal of sweat had gathered beneath her breasts. She lifted what she had removed and brought her nose to the cloth at the chest.
There is a smell of sweat…
Uriel quietly flushed.