Sorcery Rising by Jude Fisher

your Treasury debts, then?’
    That startled him. He had not thought she studied the ledgers with such a sharp eye. ‘Oh yes, it would settle my obligations.’
    ‘Which would leave you clear to run for the last remaining seat on the Council, would it not, Father?’
    His eyes narrowed. It was just as well women had no public voice if they spent their time thus, spying and calculating and picking over men’s characters and ambitions like vultures over carrion.
    ‘It is time for you to take a husband, Selen, and I think Tanto Vingo will make you a good match.’
    ‘And I have no say in the matter?’ Her voice was icy.
    Tycho smiled. ‘None at all.’
    ‘And what if I will not speak my vows?’
    ‘I will have you whipped till you do.’ The image of her on her knees, stripped to the waist with the lash curling its red tongue across her sweet skin was almost too delicious to contemplate.
    ‘You would not dare—’
    ‘Oh, do not dare me, daughter. It would profit you nothing.’
    ‘Oh, but profit is all you care about.’
    Tycho raised an eyebrow. ‘Not the only thing, daughter; but, I grant you, one of the dearest to my heart.’
    ‘Heart? You? When Falla made you she placed a spent coal between your ribs.’
    He laughed. ‘Ah, daughter, daughter. What a happy man young Tanto will be with such a viper to nestle to his bosom at night.’ He sighed. ‘Be sure, my dear, to paint your mouth nicely, won’t you, when they come for the formal betrothal tomorrow?’
    In the silence that followed he could sense the way her face tightened under the gauze; could feel the way her eyes went to slits and a muscle twitched in her cheek.
    ‘So you would sell me like a whore, would you?’ she asked at last. ‘Why not have done and pimp me to the northern king?’
    His hand struck her cheek so fast it shocked them both.
    ‘Heresy!’
    Her head came up defiantly. ‘At least the Eyrans treat their women with a degree of decency, instead of hiding them away, wrapped like confectionery, taking them out only to service their lusts.’
    ‘By Falla, you will be silent!’ he roared.
    ‘Or you will hit me again? But it would be rather a shame to spoil the merchandise, would it not, in the event of the Vingos requesting a closer inspection? They might not pay up the full amount for damaged goods.’
    ‘You will present yourself at the appointed hour tomorrow, Selen, mouth shut and painted prettily; or I will give you to the Daughters, so help me Falla.’
    And with that, he turned on his heel and left.
    Selen stared at his departing back and felt hot misery well up inside her. How could he treat her like a commodity, to be bought by the highest bidder? Did he have no human feeling left for her at all? When she had been a little girl – before the Veiling – she remembered him watching her play with the deerhound puppies in the courtyard. Then his face had not been so stern. What had changed in him, that he would cast her aside thus? It was no empty threat, of that she was sure, giving her to the Daughters of Falla, for her father was a man of violent passions. It was not just the pursuit of wealth and power that made him burn: it was also his love of the Goddess. He worshipped Falla with a fanatical love, an extremism rarely seen even in the most devout of Istrian men, an adoration that bordered on fetishism. Everywhere in the villa there were figures of the Goddess – in ivory, in sardonyx, in wood, in silver – her naked image, as narrow-waisted and flat-chested as a boy, guarded the front door, twined about by her companion cat; stood warriorlike in corridors, was ensconced in niches with votive candles; hovered balefully from the ceilings of the bedchambers; kept watch grimly over the tiled bath; one hand tucked behind her, the other covering her mouth. Her eyes, and those of the feline that accompanied her, were on you always. And always, always the brazier stoked with offerings, stinking with incense and death. It was,