telling you this at dinner, but you and Quatama changed the subject and spoiled his anticipated fun.”
This time Leianna didn’t find her voice; this revelation rendered her temporarily speechless. She glared at Bael instead.
Affaeteres continued. “Bael’s relationship with Sharlan is only one small part of what you will have to deal with. But really, son, you should have told Leianna seven years ago.”
Leianna had parked herself on one-half of the loveseat, but now she moved deliberately closer to her far end, away from Bael. “What she said,” she agreed angrily. “You should have told me seven years ago.”
Bael remained as still as stone. “Leianna.” His voice held a warning note.
“Yes, Bael?” She waited, clamping her fury, wanting to scream at him.
“We’ll discuss this later.” He glanced at Affaeteres, then lowered his gaze. “I wasn’t expecting Mother to spill the beans.”
“Well, she’s spilled them and they stink! For Mother Aff’s sake, I won’t kill you right now.”
“I’m immortal.”
“I’ll find a way!”
All three sat silently for a good two minutes, then Affaeteres spoke. “I had to tell her, Bael. If you delayed any longer, it would seriously jeopardize your and Ashtoreth’s hope for this alliance with Heaven. And your relationship with Leianna would not survive further deception. I’m sure once you explain to her about Sharlan, she’ll understand.”
“I will?!” Leianna couldn’t help herself. “What’s to understand? He cheated on me!”
“No, he didn’t, dear. Actually, technically, he’s cheating on Sharlan with you.”
“He’s married?! Are you married to Sharlan?”
“No,” he said, “and I’m not cheating on Sharlan or you. I have a relationship with both of you. I just haven’t worked out your sudden reemergence in my life.”
“Sudden?! It’s been seven years!”
“They went very quickly. Look! Do you want me to explain or not?”
At least they were facing each other on the loveseat, Bael’s eyes connecting firmly with hers, rather than his standing, towering over her. At five feet two inches, it mattered very much to her right now that they weren’t standing, that she wasn’t staring up at him, all six feet four inches of him. How often had his tall, muscular frame made her feel protected; how often had he delighted in her smallness, calling her his little one. Now she simply felt small, small as a trinket to be used at his whim. But she’d let him explain. Paybacks could come later. “Go ahead. Tell me why I should understand.”
“All right.” He stood up, pacing a few steps.
“And don’t stand up!”
Bael stared at her, and a look that was halfway between mirth and sadness crossed his face. He sat down, facing her again. “Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. Having you back in my life was a treasure, one I wasn’t sure would last if this alliance project failed.”
“Bael, we were reunited.”
“Shh! Let me explain please.” He took her hands in his, holding them lightly, and she allowed this, keeping silent.
“When we were first cast into Hell,” Bael began, “it was a vast wilderness and untamed. These lizard creatures were later found to have some intelligence and a rude language of grunting, hissing and honking sounds. After we destroyed a large number of them, they took to leaving piles of tribute to us, first the rocks they saw us gather as fuel and weapons, and, later, food: strange, multichambered berries on thorny bramble branches, a sponge-like fruit that yielded sweet water when cut, and, to our dismay, dead lizards and snakes and crustaceans of an unknown species. They began to follow us as we traveled on, and when we caught them sneaking about our shelter, they lay down, seemingly fearful, exposing their scaleless bellies to us. We knew enough of animal behavior to recognize their submission to us.
“After a long while, they conquered their fear, but not their awe and curiosity. They made constant noises, attempting to communicate with the folk, and Nergal began studying their sounds, sorting them out. They took to his interest intensely. He soon discerned the rudiments of their language and began teaching them a rudimentary version of our own tongue. Over time, he succeeded.
“We learned the name they gave themselves, the Guggithim.But among ourselves, we simply called them the saurs, which meant lizard in our own language. Over the millennium, they evolved, adopted our language and now are part of Hell’s population.”
“They don’t sound very safe to have around,” Leianna ventured.
Bael laughed softly. “You know how it’s said that books should not be judged by their covers? The saurs, it turned out, were not attacking us. They were trying to pull Sharlan over to meet their tribe. They hadn’t realized their claws were cutting her. My counter-attack, killing that saur, confused and terrified them. When we continued to kill them when they came too closely, they finally made their signs of submission, to communicate their intentions and to stop our violence.”
Leianna pulled her hands from his. “This is all very fascinating, but doesn’t help me to understand about you and Sharlan.”
“It will,” he said. “The saurs traveled with us and pointed out the real dangers in Hell. Their territory encompassed the sixth and fifth levels of Hell; they had never been above them before. On the sixth, there were vast swamps with large reptiles resembling your crocodiles, except that their tales were stumped and their bites poisonous. And there were wildcats as large and treacherous as your extinct saber-toothed tigers, and other mammals and reptiles that posed a threat, as well as a rather oversized bird that resembled a griffin that seemed to enjoy aerially attacking the angelfolk. To guard and protect our womenfolk from these dangers, and others that developed over the centuries, the folk created a harem structure.”
“New dangers?” Leianna asked.
“The same dangers that drove men on Earth to create harems to sequester their women. The danger of a male not authorized to be with a woman.”
“Bael, harems enslave women.”
“Not necessarily. They were created to protect the females of the household.”
“So your harem has nothing to do with, umm, you know what.” She glanced at Affaeteres, who had listened to this whole exchange placidly, until now. She said, “Sex, Leianna. The harems may have been initially for protection here, but now they are mostly about pleasure and property, with women chosen for the harems by Hell’s upper classes. And, yes, some women, like Sharlan, are in them simply to keep unwanted attentions by unwanted men at bay. These females are fairly free to come and go as they please, as long as they do not favor any male other than their appointed masters. Even today, especially in Hell, there is an advantage to having a societal hands-off sign, even if you have to give up your freedom for it.”
Leianna shook her head at this concept. “Are all the women in Hell in harems?”
“Of course not,” said Affaeteres. “Only those still desirable. I, for example, will never be in one. It’s a matter of status.”
Leianna, confused, protested. “You’re still beautiful.”
“Yes, but there is another reason, besides no longer being attractive, to refuse harem protection. I long ago ceased to let Lucifer or any other male apprise me of my worth or decide my actions for me. I suggest you never allow Bael or Ashtoreth to judge your own values for you, not unless you agree with and support those values.”
Bael, chagrined, added: “You are also the wife of Hell’s emperor, although he considers his name as sufficient as a title, and you are the mother of his sons, Hell’s royal princes. You are protected beyond any harem structure.”
Leianna