The Warrior King (Book 4) (9 page)

“You’ve battled dragons, but it’s
people
who scare you?” Darik asked with a smile. 

“They’re terrifying,” she insisted. She looked at him with those big, wide eyes. He couldn’t help but be charmed by her earnest expression. “Aren’t you hot? Take off your clothes and get in the water.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Oh? Why?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“Darik, you know what I think?” she blurted suddenly. “I think we should be married.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Do you want to?”

“I—” His voice caught.

“I thought you wanted to. Was I wrong?”

“Did I say. . . did we ever . . .?”

She laughed, and it was such a bright, delightful sound that he couldn’t help but grin back. “In the mountains, what you said. You want to marry me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he said, finding his voice. “It’s just . . .what exactly did I say again?”

“Is there a problem?” Her smile turned shy. “Why don’t you do it then?”

“All right,” he said, making a sudden decision. “We’ll be married. Let me talk to your mother.”

“What does my mother have to do with it?”

“I don’t think she likes me.”

“She doesn’t like you one bit. She’d just as soon dismember you and feed you to our fledglings. But that’s nothing personal.”

“It sounds rather personal. And painful.”

“You’re a Flatlander. She’s not like Father, she doesn’t want anything to do with your kind. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. We’ll live alone in the mountains anyway, and soon enough she’ll have to deal with you. Even if you wanted to ask my mother, she’s not here. I want to be married now, don’t you?”

Again, he found himself blinking stupidly. “Now? How would we get married now? There’s nobody around to do it.”

Now Daria looked confused. “Do what? We’re both here. We’re the only ones who will be getting married. You did mean what you said, right? You want to get married? Once we’ve decided, we may as well get married right away.”

He was still trying to figure out how they would get married right now. Was getting married for a griffin rider nothing more than a mutual declaration? There was no ceremony, no trading of wedding goods from one family to another, no public exchange of kisses, no declaration of marriage from one’s family, owner, or guild? Apparently not.

“Even though you’re leaving in a few hours?” he said.

“
Especially
because I’m leaving in a few hours. If we wait, it might be weeks or even months. Or one of us might be killed. We’re in a war, after all. If that happens I don’t want to say I had the chance to marry you, but never did.” 

“In your culture, marriage is only two people, right?”

“Isn’t it in yours?” She looked concerned, then horrified. “That’s right, you people have harems. I’d forgotten that.”

“I won’t have a harem,” he said hastily. “That’s only for sultans and khalifs. I only wanted to be sure I wouldn’t also be married to your mother, your cousin, your sister or uncle or something.”

She laughed. “That’s so funny. Now take off your clothes and get in here.” She rose partway up, the water running down her neck and over the gentle swelling of her breasts, and tugged playfully on his foot. “Hurry up, let’s get married before the wizards come back.”

He rose and turned as he peeled off his robes and then tugged at the drawstring around his small clothes. All this talk and the proximity to Daria had left him aroused, and he was embarrassed to have her see.

“What do I say to make us married?” he asked as his small clothes fell to the brick floor.

“You don’t
say
anything,” she said. “You come down here, and we make love. Don’t tell me you don’t know what making love means.” He turned, and her eyes widened as she looked down at his crotch, and then she gave a mischievous grin. “Your
body
seems to know what to do. I’ll show you the rest if you don’t know how. Not that I’ve ever been married before, of course, but I know. People have told me what to do.” 

And now he understood exactly what Markal had meant when Darik insisted he would not take advantage of the beautiful young griffin rider.

Sure, you say that now. Wait a bit until she’s feeling better.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked when he remained standing above her.

“Let me be clear. If I get in the water, you want to make love with me?”

“Yes, more than anything.”

“And if we do, we’ll be married?”

“Matched and mated for life, to raise children and griffins in the mountains until one of us shall die. And may the Mountain Brother grant us long life and many fledglings.”

Darik cast his eyes around the empty room, half expecting to see Markal standing to one side, giving a warning shake of the head, maybe even running toward them, waving his hands in alarm. But there was no one.

The Harvester take me, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I want this woman, and she wants me.

“Yes, let’s be married.”

Darik climbed in the water, and Daria threw her arms around his neck.

Chapter Nine

The instant Faalam made his accusation, Sofiana sprang into action. Lassitus had her wrist, and his grip was tightening even as the head eunuch spoke. She drove her elbow into Lassitus’s fat belly. He grunted and released her. The older eunuch was on his feet and grabbing for her, but she danced out of his way and fled for the door.

The guards had heard the commotion and were drawing their scimitars as she burst past them. But they had been lounging, apparently not expecting any sort of threat, let alone someone coming from
inside
the head eunuch’s chambers, and she was by them before they could grab her. If not for the danger of her situation, she might have appreciated their bulging eyes and slack-jawed amazement. This wasn’t even a woman, they were thinking, she was only a girl. No girl would ever defy the harem rules, let alone make a run for freedom. 

One of the men shouted a warning, and the other grabbed for a mallet and made for a brass bell that hung from the wall on a metal crook. She hadn’t spotted it on her entrance, being too absorbed in the moment, but now she recognized it as a warning system for when assassins or thieves entered the sultan’s harem. It would ring over the palace and bring more armed guards.

But before the man could reach the bell, Faalam’s voice cut him off. “You fool, no! They’ll have our heads.”

He started giving orders to Lassitus and the guards, but when Sofiana burst into the harem on the other side of the courtyard, the women and girls inside raised a cry, and she could no longer hear what Faalam was saying. Hands reached for her, and women demanded to know what the commotion was about.

“Assassins!” Sofiana cried. “Run! They’ll kill us all!”

Her words had the desired effect, and the women staggered to their feet, kicking aside pillows and knocking over censers of burning incense. When the eunuch guards came running into the harem moments later, twenty naked and half-naked women were up and blocking their way. Sofiana got out the other side and into the open again. She sprinted across the courtyard. From behind came shouts and high squeals. A quick glance over her shoulder showed one of the harem guards fighting his way past the women and into the open air.

Sofiana raced from one courtyard to the other. When she rounded a corner and saw that she was alone, she threw herself over a short stone wall and into a flowering bush. Sharp branches and thorns tore at her silk clothing and scratched her hands and face, but she forced herself to remain flat and still. A second later, someone came racing into the courtyard and stopped, gasping and wheezing, before racing off again. She poked her head up to see the back side of one of the guards, then glanced in the other direction to make sure that the other wasn’t following hard on his heels.

When she saw that he wasn’t, she eyed the vine climbing up the courtyard wall to her right. Get over that wall and she’d be into a courtyard that wasn’t connected to this one. She began climbing.

But when Sofiana came down the other side, she found that she was in some vizier or other palace official’s private garden. Gilded bird cages hung from metal hooks, filled with brightly colored whistling birds. A fountain bubbled in the middle. There was no way out except through the arcade and into the apartments on the other side. Moving quickly before someone came out and spotted her, she stole across the courtyard, scrambled into the branches of a peach tree, and jumped up to the wall. She lowered herself down the other side, dropping the last several feet to the ground.

And found she was back in the baths again where she’d been a couple of hours ago. This was perfect. She knew that if she passed around the pools, she would be down toward the rooms where Princess Marialla, King Daniel, and the rest of the Balsalomians were staying. Someone there could help her.

She wasn’t surprised that the outdoor pool was empty, but when she came through the arched doorway into the dim interior, it was also nearly empty. It had been filled with bathers a couple of hours earlier when Chantmer sent her to be washed, and with the sun only beginning to dip toward evening she’d expected to find it crowded with people, the better to hide herself. There was only a solitary pair of bathers around the other side. One was a dark-haired woman already in the pool, with the water lapping around her shoulders. The other was a young man with his back turned to her, already out of his robe and now dropping his small clothes.

Sofiana had been scandalized earlier to see men and women bathing together, but had quickly recovered. She didn’t much care to see men naked, but she’d traveled with enough of them on the road over the years to see all sorts of rude and uncouth behavior: men pissing in the road, passing gas, bathing naked in ponds, even rushing into random taverns to look for whores and other unsavory women. But as she studied these two, trying to figure out how to get around them, she could clearly see that the young man was rather disgustingly aroused by the woman in the water, and she was gesturing right at his crotch. It was scandalous. This was a public place!

When he turned and slipped into the water, she caught a glimpse of his face and blinked in shock. It was Darik, the lout. Seducing young palace girls. Probably the woman was the daughter or concubine of some important person or other; he’d get himself killed satisfying his desires. The young woman wrapped her arms around Darik’s neck and kissed him lustily.

Sofiana didn’t wait any longer. She strolled over. “Darik, what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

The two lovers gave a start of alarm. The girl kept her arms wrapped around his neck, but Darik pulled away with a guilty expression.

“Ninny, what are you doing here?” he asked. His face was red and he looked angry.

“Don’t call me
Ninny.
Only Whelan and Daniel are allowed. And the khalifa,” she added. “My name is Sofiana.” 

“Will you answer the question?” He eyed her. “You’re all scratched up. And you’ve been running. Is something wrong?”

Sofiana was still irritated. Chantmer told her that Darik and Markal were going to smuggle her out of the palace, and yet the boy was getting naked with this girl, who was clearly not an innocent victim of Darik’s lust by the way she’d been kissing him so hungrily. The girl turned an irritated gaze in her direction, and Sofiana recognized her.

“Oh, it’s you. The griffin rider.”

“I know you,” Daria said, her expression softening. “You’re the king’s daughter. The one Markal wants to rescue.”

“So what are you doing then?” Sofiana demanded. “The two of you should be waiting for me, not in here—” She waved her hand. “You know!”

“Sofiana, why are
you
here?” Darik asked, and now he seemed merely exasperated. “Did the wizards send you in?”

“No, I’m running for my life, you idiot.”

This got Darik’s attention. “What have you done?”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

He turned his back before climbing out of the water and reaching for his small clothes and his robe. Daria made to follow him out, but Darik told her to stay in the water, then dressed and turned back to Sofiana for an explanation.

She told him about Chantmer, which brought an angry retort about the wizard’s treachery, and then about what had happened with Faalam and Lassitus.

When she was done, Darik sighed. “Your timing could have been better, you know that?”

“It’s all right,” Daria said. “We’ll get married another time.”

“Married?” Sofiana said. “What are you two babbling about? And where is everyone? The baths were full before.”

“We have to get her out of here,” Daria said, still in the water. “Take her up to where Narud found you and wait for the wizards.”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” Darik said.

“I’ll go with you.”