Bookworm (15 page)

There was a brief pause as the waitresses came around, serving the soup to the guests who had ordered it. Some of the female guests had had to leave the room to go to the washroom, Elaine realised; they’d been just as strongly affected by the dance as she had, perhaps even more so. The knowledge in her head suggested that the dance was primarily a mating ritual for warriors from one tribe as they visited another tribe to ensure that they found women who weren’t related to them. There was a lesson in that somewhere.

The soup tasted surprisingly good and the splash of cream set it off nicely. Once she’d eaten enough to satisfy her, Elaine glanced around to see that some of the lights had come back on, revealing who some of the other guests were. She half-wondered if she would run into her Guardian at the Darlington – it was just the sort of place he would have enjoyed – before deciding that he was unlikely to attend if he didn’t have any money left. The Darlington insisted on cash in advance, apparently. It saved embarrassment later on.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” a voice boomed, from out of the darkness. “Would you all care to rise for the honourable Prince Hilarion of Ida and his companions.”

Elaine glanced at Bee, and then rose to her feet. About half of the crowd had joined her, while others were choosing to shun the newcomers openly. Prince Hilarion himself was a handsome man, with long dark hair and a smile that was utterly devastating; his escorts were almost identical, save for the colour of their hair. One had bright orange hair, a colour that couldn’t be natural, while the other was blonde enough to be mistaken for Millicent. All three of them carried swords as well as wands, something that struck Elaine as odd. A sorcerer who needed a sword for his own personal protection was no sorcerer at all.

Prince Hilarion gazed around the room, his bright eyes moving from person to person, as the usher escorted him to the royal box at the front of the stage. For a moment, Elaine was convinced that he was looking directly at her before he looked away, clearly counting the number who had stood up and comparing it to the number who had remained seated. Few people would dare to alienate a contestant for the post of Grand Sorcerer, but not everyone took the Prince seriously. What could one expect from a man who had never studied in the Peerless School. The odds the touts were offering would be enough to make someone rich for life if they gambled – and won – on Prince Hilarion.

He seemed odd to her eyes as he sat down, his companions taking the seats beside him. A thought nagged at the back of her mind until she remembered the work of the great Sorcerer Niven. It was simple for a magician to use a sword as a cure for impotence, provided that one took the blade to bed with oneself! Any sorcerer who carried a sword was almost certainly impotent, but would Prince Hilarion know that? He hadn’t had a formal education in magic as far as anyone had been able to find out, just tutors. And those tutors had apparently refused to be interviewed.

Bee caught her sleeve as the lights dimmed again and the female dancers came back out into the stage. “Does his sword mean that he’s impotent or merely doesn’t have enough faith in his magic to defend himself?”

“I don’t know,” Elaine admitted. Trust a guy to remember what use a sword had for a magician. “He could be hoping that people will underestimate him by wearing the sword.”

She shrugged as the dancers came into view. They’d changed, removing their traditional dresses for loincloths that covered their thighs – and placing shells on their nipples. Elaine glanced over at Bee and saw him staring in awe as the dancers started to move, using their arms to call attention to their breasts and thighs. If the dance the males had performed was intended for the women, this one was intended for the men...even with wards surrounding the stage, its effects were spectacular. Who knew what it would be like for a tribal boy, barely on the verge of manhood, to be confronted with such powerful evidence of feminine sexuality? Or for the girls when they saw the men.

The dancers finally bowed, the shells covering their nipples dropping off as they turned and retreated from the stage. A long series of sighs ran through the room as the men were released from their hypnotic trance, staring around at their wives and partners. Bee at least had the grace to look embarrassed, although he’d probably seen her staring at the men with just as much interest and enthusiasm. Some of the men also had to leave the room as the waitresses started serving the main course. Elaine smiled at Bee, who’d ordered a complex dish of chicken and beef, before she started to dig into her steak. The meat was surprisingly tasty and tender, although given the cost it had better be good. Most of the Darlington’s customers wouldn’t have hesitated to complain if they felt that they hadn’t had their money’s worth.

Prince Hilarion didn’t seem to be eating, Elaine noticed. Instead, he was sitting in his seat watching the other guests with undisguised interest. There was something oddly composed about his expression, as if he wasn’t particularly interested in anything apart from the guests, some of whom would be trying to work against him when the contest began. He should be trying to win their favour, or at least neutrality, but instead he was just watching them as though they were not important to him. None of the guests were going to like
that
kind of attitude from someone who hadn’t even been through the Peerless School.

Elaine puzzled over it as she devoured the last of her steak. Prince Hilarion had to know that he didn’t have the connections to make a proper bid to become Grand Sorcerer, yet he didn’t seem to be interested in attempting to make those connections. And there was the fact that he was related to the man who’d sent Elaine the charmed book. The Peerless School had taught that there were more coincidences in the magical world than anyone really understood, or recognised, but Elaine was convinced that that was too unlikely a coincidence for it to be possible. There
had
to be a connection somewhere.

She was tempted to walk over to Prince Hilarion and ask him directly, but she knew she couldn’t take the chance. If he’d wanted the knowledge from the Great Library, he had to be looking for her...and he presumably didn’t know who’d picked up the book. Or perhaps he would have tried to convince her to join him by now, or had her kidnapped...one advantage about going to Ida was that it would be the last place anyone would expect to find her. Or so she hoped.

Bee smiled as the waitress started to take away the dishes. “Do you want to watch the rest of the dancing or go walking?”

Elaine hesitated. She would have liked to see the rest of the dancing, but she didn’t really want to be near Prince Hilarion any longer than strictly necessary.

“Walking,” she said, finally. “Do you want to go to the Park?”

Bee grinned. “Why not?”

The Park was the only open space in the Golden City that was accessible to anyone who wanted to stride in through the gates. According to history, the first Grand Sorcerer had planted it himself and then left it to the entire city in his will. The terms of the will had stipulated that anyone who wanted to enter had to be allowed to enter, while the Council would have ultimate responsibility for maintaining it and protecting the plants from vandals. Elaine wasn’t sure how much of the story she believed – the knowledge in her head hinted at a very different story – but it was a ‘night’ place to go. Illuminated by moonlight, and the faint glow of the Watchtower on the North Peak, it was remarkably romantic. The shadows provided concealment for any number of activities.

Bee took her arm as they walked past a tiny set of graves buried under statues of weeping angels. The graves themselves were unusual; most bodies were cremated and then their ashes scattered on the soil outside the city. It was a tradition that dated back to the first clumsy experiments with necromancy, before the necromancers had started bringing entire graveyards to life. No one knew why the bodies in the Park had been buried instead of cremated and scattered. Some people commented that they were probably older than the Park itself and the Grand Sorcerer had hesitated to remove or defile the bodies. Elaine wasn’t sure that she believed that at all.

“Thank you for this evening,” she said, as they halted under a tree that draped a concealing shadow over them. There was magic in the Park, old magic; magic that might have more in common with the Blight than anyone cared to think. “I’m sorry about the last time we met...”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bee assured her. He took her in his arms and it dawned on Elaine that he was about to kiss her. “Your friend was very clear on that point. It definitely wasn’t your fault.”

Elaine flushed. Daria had stood up for her, believed in her...and Elaine had rewarded her by peeking into a locked chest and discovering a horrible truth about her friend. “She’s a good person,” she said. All of the stories about wild werewolves didn’t seem to apply to the one werewolf she’d actually met. “And I...”

Bee’s lips descended and touched hers, gently. Elaine felt her heartbeat starting to race as long-suppressed desires came to life in her mind. She kissed him back, feeling his lips steadily increasing the pressure on her body. It was suddenly very hard to breathe as his hand touched her breast and started to stroke it through the dress. Part of her wanted to tear off the dress and make love to him right now, even though they were in the Park. And part of her knew that that would be a very bad idea.

“I can’t go too far,” she said, between kisses. Her hand had somehow found its way to his crotch. “I can’t...”

“Hush,” Bee said, very gently. “I do understand.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Well,
someone
had a good night,” Daria said, the following morning. “How far did you go with him?”

Elaine flushed. “How can you tell?”

Daria chuckled. “Did you look in the mirror when you woke up this morning?”

Elaine turned and glanced into Daria’s mirror. She saw a girl with smeared makeup staring back at her, with faint traces of male lips on her cheek and neck. Her face was almost unrecognisable...and she had only an hour before her iron dragon was scheduled to leave for the north. She let out a yelp and ran into the washroom, splashing water on her face and trying to wash off most of the smeared material. Some of it refused to come off until she muttered a simple charm to cancel the magic binding it to her skin.

“So,” Daria said, following her in, “how far
did
you go last night?”

“We kissed,” Elaine said. She could still feel his fingers stroking her breast, sending strange yet remarkably pleasant sensations running down her body. Who knew what she would have done if he’d pressed the issue? “And we touched...and we didn’t do anything else.”

“Good for you,” Daria said. She winked and passed Elaine a towel as she removed the remains of her underclothes and splashed water all over her body. “Did you decide you liked the experience after all?”

Elaine flushed, again. “Yes,” she admitted. “I enjoyed myself.”

“Welcome to your first step into womanhood,” Daria said. She assumed a posture Elaine remembered from some of her more boring tutors. “Now, the next step is going down on him, which means taking his cock into your mouth...”

“Not for a while yet,” Elaine said. Part of her, remembering the feel of his hardness against her hand, seemed to think that it would be a fantastic experience. The rest of her found the whole idea disgusting. He used his penis to go to the toilet as well as everything else. “I...do people really do that?”

“Of course,” Daria said. “And just you wait until you get a guy who’s willing to go down on you and use his tongue to lick you out. You’ll find it absolutely wonderful.” She shrugged. “Of course, guys are more reluctant to go down on girls than have the girls go down on them...”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Elaine said, quickly. Her ears were glowing bright red with embarrassment. And yet she’d had strange and erotic dreams when she’d closed her eyes and gone to sleep, dreams that had pushed aside the nightmares that seemed to have come with the knowledge from the Great Library. “Will you be all right here for a couple of days?”

“I owe Marla a shift or two at the parlour,” Daria said. “I dare say I will be able to keep myself amused while you’re gone. I just wish I could come with you.”

Elaine wanted her to come too, but some instinct seemed to be insisting that it was better to go alone. She didn’t want to risk exposing her friend to danger, particularly when she hadn’t been able to tell her about what had happened in the Great Library, or what she’d done with Daria’s chest of secrets. How could she even begin to tell her the truth?

“I’ll be back in a couple of days,” she assured her. At least she wouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to sleep. Lady Light Spinner’s gift of cash had solved more than a few problems for her. “Who knows? By then, they might even have found the final list of candidates for the Grand Sorcerer’s position.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Daria said. “I think they’ll be counting down right until they reach the last few seconds and
then
start jumping into the contest. Too many of them will be watching to see who else is interested before they commit themselves to the struggle.”

She shrugged. “But don’t worry about it,” she added. “Unless Deferens wins, of course. But I don’t think he has much of a chance if he alienates half of the wizards in the world just by being who and what he is. Someone else will have to deal with him, of course. I wish we had the power to do that, you know.”

Elaine shivered. She
did
have the knowledge, if not the power, to do something about Deferens and his views on what women should do with their lives. But anything she did would expose what had happened to her to the Inquisition. She was still astonished that Lady Light Spinner – or Millicent – hadn’t reported what had happened to the Inquisitors. Perhaps they’d feared how the Inquisitors would react to Millicent’s idea of fun and games, although
that
had never been a problem before. They’d had the connections to avoid the skull-wearing magicians unless they
really
stepped out of line.