Clan and Crown (8 page)

Clajak grabbed his boots from the floor
and slunk back into the sleeping room. He froze when Egilka
muttered in his sleep and shifted. He watched as the Imdiko moved
about on the bed, perhaps seeking the prince’s warmth. After a
couple of seconds, Egilka subsided and sank into unmoving
silence.

Clajak looked at the handsome, sleeping
face. Egilka looked peaceful. Seeing the Imdiko relaxed made the
prince realize how grim the other man usually looked. Yes, Egilka
had placed too much stock in nonstop duty. His reasons were valid,
but still...

The thought brought up the memory of
another Egilka. An angry Egilka who had turned on Clajak five years
ago, throwing a barrage of fists, his face a mask of utter
rage.

It had come after a series of Tragoom
incursions along the Joshadan border had been reported. “Five
shuttles have been hit with thirty deaths, including that of a
Matara,” the Fleet representative had reported to the Imperial
Clan, along with Clajak and Egilka. “She was not a lifebringer, but
still...”

Like everyone else, Clajak had winced
at the report. The order had been given to beef up patrols, along
with a request to the Joshadans for permission to search their
space for the hated Tragooms.

After the monthly meeting with
department heads had been concluded, nineteen-year-old Clajak had
walked out of the Government House with Egilka. Clajak didn’t
remember where he had been headed off to that day. Egilka, as
usual, was returning to his research lab. Their paths coincided
along a stretch of sparsely-peopled, pink-sanded beach between the
cliffs and the sea.

“Pretty awful about those Tragoom
raids,” Clajak said to his quiet companion. “Thank goodness that
Matara wasn’t fertile. Things could have been a lot
worse.”

“I’m sure her family feels differently,
my prince,” Egilka said in a cold tone.

“Of course. But the Empire as a whole
isn’t going to suffer much, not over a woman who couldn’t have
children.”

Egilka came to a halt and grabbed
Clajak. “Women are more than objects of breeding ability. When it
comes to intelligence and skill, they are no less than us. In fact,
they are often our superiors.”

Clajak blinked at him, startled by the
vehemence in the Imdiko’s tone. “I know that, Egilka. My mother is
greater than any man I know, including my fathers. But you can’t
argue that women who can bear children are our priority. After all,
curing Kalquor’s infertility problem is your obsession.”

Egilka’s tone was like acid. “No woman
is lessened by her inability to carry a child. Every last one of
them is sacred.”

Clajak shrugged, his youthful smugness
making his words careless. “Sure. Some are just more sacred than
others.”

Looking back, Clajak realized Egilka’s
long stretch of silence after that statement had been due to a
monumental struggle to keep from losing control. The Imdiko’s face
turned purple. His fists clenched. His jaw tightened until veins
popped out in his neck. In the end, Egilka had not been able to
leash the fury building inside him.

Clajak had to hand it to Egilka. Had it
been him, the prince would have started pounding right
away.

Egilka’s words grated between clenched
teeth. “My sister was infertile. She killed herself over attitudes
like yours, you asshole.”

Egilka’s bony-knuckled fist clogged
Clajak’s mouth. All at once, the Dramok prince found himself flat
on the soft sand with his intended clanmate on top of him. Egilka
beat the hell out of him in short order. By the time the Royal
Guards watching over the pair dragged the sobbing, cursing Imdiko
off, Clajak’s nose was a ruin, his lips split, and both eyes were
well on their way to being swollen shut.

Clajak had still managed to shout to
the guards, “Don’t hurt him! He had cause! I deserved
it!”

Knowing Clajak as they did, the Royal
Guards settled for holding Egilka back. They allowed him to scream
obscenities at Clajak while the bloodied prince caught his breath.
The red-uniformed guards must have been amused at the fracas, but
their brutal Nobek faces never cracked the first smile. They stood
holding Egilka helpless between them, letting his fury spend itself
until he was rational again.

Half an hour later Clajak sat in his
suite’s entertainment room, waiting for his doctor’s arrival to
treat his injuries. Egilka being Egilka, he had stayed with
Clajak.

“I could have handled that better,” the
Imdiko mumbled, his expression one of humiliation.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Clajak
slurred around his aching jaw and busted lips. “I had no right to
say those things. I’m sorry about Cyrt. I thought she’d died from
an accidental overdose.”

Egilka stared at the hands clenched
between his legs. He sat splayed on a seating cushion while Clajak
lay on a nearby lounger in the prince’s greeting room. “That’s what
we told everyone. She committed suicide, Clajak. She wasn’t
fertile, and she felt like a failure because of it. Because of our
culture and our celebration of women who can have
children.”

Clajak stared at him through his
not-quite-swollen-shut eyes. “Surely your parent clan told her she
was worth more than her womb? That her value wasn’t tied up in
giving birth?”

Egilka looked up at him, his eyes
overbright with tears. “Of course. But society as a whole – look at
the way the Empire is, my prince. We place so much value on fertile
Mataras. I understand that, because they are our hope that we won’t
die out. However, no one stops to think of the pressure that puts
all women under. Our culture in its desperation has downplayed
their other contributions. It’s to the point where the barren ones
don’t recognize their worth anymore.”

Clajak considered it. His own mother,
who he worshipped beyond all others, had been pregnant several
times. All but Clajak had ended in miscarriages and still-births.
He had heard rumors that before he was born the Royal Council had
pressured his fathers to de-clan Irdis. It hadn’t mattered that she
was an able and just leader. For many, it had come down to her
ability to have a child.

With the awfulness of the situation
dawning on Clajak, he told Egilka, “Tell me about your sister. Tell
me of what mattered about her, why she meant so much to
you.”

The invitation brought a ghost of a
smile to Egilka’s face. “Cyrt was funny, always ready to make
everyone laugh. She was a good listener. There was never a moment
that I couldn’t open my heart to her and share my feelings. We were
close in age, but she watched over me like a much older
sister.”

Clajak thought of his many siblings who
had not survived to be born. He’d often wondered how it would have
been to have had brothers and sisters. Egilka had been the closest
thing to realizing that wish. “She sounds like an Imdiko,” he said,
making sure his tone came out complimentary.

“She had a lot of those attributes,”
Egilka agreed. “But she was also ready to take the lead when
something appealed to her. She was adventurous, like you. I don’t
think she feared anything.”

“I wish I had known her,” Clajak said.
“I bet she would have punched me a long time before you
did.”

That made Egilka laugh out loud. “You
wouldn’t get away with half of what you do around Cyrt. She
wouldn’t have bullied you, though. She would have gotten you to
behave and made you like doing so.” He sobered again, his eyes
distant with remembering. “When the final test results came back
negative for fertility ... it took all that spirit away. In spite
of all the wonderful things she was, she saw herself as a failure.
I promised her memory that I would find a cure. I swore I’d see to
it that our women were no longer judged on whether they could have
children or not.”

Clajak’s sentiment was heartfelt when
he said, “I’m sorry, Egilka. For what I said and for how I’ve
thought. No woman should be made to feel worthless over something
she can’t help.”

A sad version of Egilka’s smile
returned. “That’s a start, my prince. We’ll make a decent man out
of you yet.”

* * * *

Clajak lingered in the
doorway of the inn’s room, looking at Egilka sleep. He
wondered,
have I become that man to you
yet? Or do I still have a long way to go in your eyes? I guess I’m
still finding my way, but we’ll make it work, Egilka. One of these
days, I’ll make you proud that you’re my Imdiko.

Clajak blew him a kiss and crept to the
door. Leaving his lover dreaming, the prince hurried out to enjoy
the rest of the night.

Chapter 3

Simulated sunlight streamed into the
room through faux-window vids. The golden illumination pulled
Egilka out of pleasurable dreams of making love to Clajak. He
blinked at his unfamiliar surroundings, his body automatically
stretching to get circulation moving. A delightful soreness
announced itself in many muscles, along with his backside. It
reminded him of the delights of the night before and of the
incorrigible but charming Dramok who had delivered them. The same
one who had filled his dreams speaking sweet words and looking at
him with a wondrous mixture of love and lust. Egilka’s cocks
throbbed with anticipated bliss of more gratification.

The Imdiko rolled over, still balanced
between memory and dream, not yet noticing the cool absence of a
bedmate. He was sure he’d see Clajak smiling at him or still
drowsing in contented slumber. When the rest of the sleeping mat
proved empty, shock came like a brutal blow. Egilka shook his head,
unable to accept what his eyes told him.

Clajak was nowhere to be
seen.

Egilka’s hand shot out, testing the
sheets in the space where he’d last known the prince to be. The
linens were crisp and cool, testifying that the man who he’d fallen
asleep next to had departed some time ago. There was no telling
when the calculating bastard had left or how far he’d managed to
run by now.

All the pleasurable warm feelings fled.
The air rang with curses as Egilka burst from the bed and stormed
to his carrysack. The Imdiko yanked on an outfit consisting of a
light shirt and pants. As he did so, he tried to ignore the sick
feeling of betrayal knotting his gut.

He found a hair tie and stomped into
the bath facility to gather his long hair in a ponytail. Staring at
his irate visage in the mirror, he asked himself, “Well, what did
you expect? This is Clajak we’re dealing with. You should have kept
watch over him all night to be sure he didn’t skip out! Damn it,
how stupid am I going to look returning to Kalquor without
him?”

The fury ebbed a little, showing Egilka
the welling hurt that pierced his anger. Clajak’s confession of how
he’d desired Egilka for years had sounded sincere. That the prince
had admitted pain over not being seen by Egilka as anything more
than a boy had touched the Imdiko. Then when Clajak had loved him
with such compassionate command, Egilka had allowed himself to hope
their union might be more than about duty. Last and best had been
that sweet sinking into the feeling of security, of being with
someone who would look out for him as much as he’d look out for
Clajak.

All along, Clajak had been plotting his
escape, turning on the charm as Egilka had seen him do to others so
many times before.

“I’m an idiot,” he told his reflection.
“He’s a shit. I will kick his ass all over the place for playing
me, and then I’ll give him the ass kicking that I deserve for
letting him play me. Maybe then we’ll both learn our
lesson.”

First, he was going to have to find
Clajak.

Egilka’s first stop was the greeting
desk in the foyer of the inn. He spoke to the amethyst-furred
Joshadan there. Clajak had been seen all right, leaving not long
after the Imdiko had fallen asleep. It hadn’t taken Clajak even an
hour to skip out after fucking Egilka.

The Imdiko seethed with anger but took
pains that it didn’t show. He asked the helpful Joshadan for
directions to a certain drug dispensary Yuder had recommended. The
Nobek emperor had mentioned Egilka might visit it should Clajak
prove reluctant to go home. The Crown Prince had probably left
Dantovon by now, laughing his stupid ass off at having eluded
Egilka. In case he hadn’t, the furious Imdiko thought it best to be
prepared.

Egilka thought that if he’d been smart,
he would have visited the dispensary the moment he’d set foot on
this twice damned planet. Muttering under his breath to himself, he
set off for the center of the city.

The day was already muggy with rising
humidity. The nearby jungle’s fetid smells mixed with that of open
air food vendors, the ozone wash of poorly maintained shuttles, and
body odors of dozens of different species in various stages of
cleanliness. Amusements tempted at every turn; liquor dispensaries,
drug parlors, and clubs blaring music to theaters with acrobatic
and freak shows. There were arenas with sporting exhibitions.
Gambling halls also abounded.

However, it was sex that Dantovon sold
more than anything. Egilka could barely walk half a dozen steps
before someone beckoned, promising the handsome Kalquorian pleasure
he’d never known before. The brothels, open around the clock, rang
with continuous calls from its workers. They trumpeted enticements
from the ordinary to the bizarre.