The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy (32 page)

I went down the steps and opened the cabin door. The cabin was tiny, but immaculately laid out. To the left of the stairs was a small kitchen, which Cymea told me later was to be called a galley, with spirit cooker and even a tiny oven, a washbasin with cunning metal and rubber pump, and cupboards. On the right was a table with charts in pigeonholes, a small settee, then a jakes with a chamber pot. The walls were rubber coated, and there was another pump with a hose on it for showering.

The cupboards were full of all sorts of preserved, smoked, and magically preserved food, most likely stocked for escape from Renan.

“It appears this boat has everything,” Cymea said from behind me.

“All except one thing,” I said. “Its owner was obviously Sleepless Sleth.”

“Lift the stairs, fool.”

I found the steps were hinged, and behind them was a bedroom, with a large single bed almost filling the space. I almost thumped my head on the deck above me, but it was big enough once you’d stepped down into the compartment. The bed was already made up with blankets and sheets, and pillows were stacked against the rear of the compartment.

“All right, it
does
have everything,” I said, then yawned. I suddenly realized how long it’d been since I’d had more than an hour’s doze … three days? Longer? Exhaustion slammed down.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Hunger came, and the fear and energy that’d kept my body at fever pitch disappeared. I blinked, vision blurring for an instant, sat hastily down on the settee.

“Irisu with a cane but I’m tired,” I said.

“Dead,” she agreed. “Can you make it until I do a pot of soup? We’ll sleep better.”

“Where are you getting all this energy?”

“I’m still young,” Cymea said. “Remember what that was like?”

“If I had the energy, I’d chase you around the deck and throw you overboard for that.”

“Save your strength and read me the instructions on the soup packet.”

I did, and somehow, mutually yawning at each other, we managed to eat. I washed the dishes, then figured out how to drain the basin, refill it, and wash my face with the soap I found.

Cymea sat on the settee, trying to stay awake, owling at me.

“Your turn,” I said. I checked the deck and the river, saw no one through the drifting mists and wind, went below, lifted the stairs, and collected blankets and two pillows.

Cymea finished scrubbing her teeth with a small brush, turned.

“What are you doing?”

“Making up a bed for myself.”

“On that couch?”

“I’ve slept on smaller.”

“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “There’s room enough for half a dozen in there. Half a dozen having an orgy.”

I was too tired to either be noble or argue, put the blankets back, and arranged the bed. I was about to pull my boots off when I became aware of how appallingly filthy I was. I went back out.

“What now?”

“I’m ashamed of myself.” She lifted an eyebrow as I pumped water into the chamberpot, found a towel, took the soap, and opened the hatches to the deck.

“You’re mad.”

“Probably,” I said. “But I’m going to be cleanly mad.”

“Have fun,” she said.

I went on deck, pulled my boots off, wincing at how badly I smelled, stripped off my clothes. I sluiced with river water, washed, rinsed, washed again, and made myself carefully wash my hair. It was terribly tangled, and I noted I was losing more every day. I was impossibly tired, but now I was too cold to nod off, so I rinsed my undergarments. I went down the steps, dried myself, and hung my dripping clothes here and there to dry.

I remember lifting the steps, and seeing that great warm bed spread in front of me, a lump that must’ve been Cymea, stumbled toward it, and the world ended.

• • •

I awoke without an ache, without a twinge, and feeling the world was marvelous. I wondered idly how much time had passed, pulled a curtain away from one of the cunning octagonal portholes, saw gray daylight, with misty rain blowing past, looking as it had when I collapsed.

I was alone in the compartment, looked for a towel to hide my nakedness, and found my clothes neatly piled at the foot of the bed. They were quite dry, and smelt of violets. I dressed, except for socks and boots, and made my way out into the main cabin. Cymea was curled up on the settee, reading a book she must’ve found in the shelves. Her close-cropped hair shone dark and lustrous, and I smelt a perfume, exotic sandalwood and musk.

“Good morrow,” she said. “I thought you’d died.”

“I did,” I said, showing my teeth. “But a magician brought me back from the Wheel. How long did I sleep?”

“Well, I sort of woke up sometime in the night, then went back to sleep. Then I woke up again, not long after dawn, and saw that it was storming too badly for us to chance traveling, so I went back to sleep. Got up an hour ago, made some more soup. There’s some left in that pot.”

“Is soup all we’ve got on board?”

“No … but I’m not a very good cook, and all of the stored foods look like they’d take a lot of work.”

“Nice to know you’ve got
some
faults,” I said. “I assume magic dried my clothes?”

“In this weather nothing else could’ve.” She looked about the compartment. “When I was a child, it was wonderful being on that riverboat. I guess I forgot how cold and damp a boat really is.”

“Whyn’t you cast some variance of the clothes spell and dry the room out?”

“Oh, for the sake of … I’m a ninny. I never thought of that.”

“Tsk. That’s the failing of youth … stupidity rules. So while you do that, I’m going to go out to bathe.”

“Gods,” Cymea said. “Aren’t you overdoing it?”

“No,” I said. “Any fool can be dirty and uncomfortable.” I grabbed the soap and lowered the stairs. “Don’t peek. I’m bashful.”

“Pah! And by the way, I already made myself beautiful and clean, while you were playing Great Snoring Beast.” Cymea was digging into her pouch for herbs and such, and I went on deck. More awake than before and dry, it was even colder than before, but I stiffened myself, stripped off, and jumped overboard, trying to suppress a yelp as I went into the cold, gray water. I surfaced, and saw a head peering out.

“Are you drowning?”

“No. Freezing. Get back inside.”

I washed twice over, and most of the ground-in filth from the campaigning came away. I got back aboard, toweled and dressed, considered the river. It was almost half a league from shore to shore, with islands dotting the white-capped water. The wind had picked up, and the branches covering our hide whipped back and forth. I shivered and went below.

The compartment was warmer and no longer felt dank. Two tiny braziers were just smoking out.

“There are virtues to magicians,” I grudged, and started digging through the supplies.

About an hour later I had hot-spiced rice, dried fish, various dried vegetables reconstituted, some dough I charitably called bread rising in the oven, and various condiments and jellies on the tiny table. I bowed to Cymea.

“Your repast, m’lady.”

We ate hungrily, not talking much. Cymea was very easy to be around. I didn’t feel I had to entertain her or talk if I felt like being silent, and evidently she felt the same. We finished, and I found a net bag, sluiced the dirty dishes in the river, dried and put them away.

I took out my battered map, compared it with the river charts.

“Cymea,” I said, “I don’t know anything about sailing, but it doesn’t look like a good idea to be traveling until the storm breaks.”

“It isn’t,” she agreed. “Maybe we could, if we had to, if we had a sail. But we’ll just be drifting with the current now. And if something happens to the rudder … it’s a long swim to shore.

“How far north do you want to travel?”

“Just looking at the map, now, I’d like to keep to the water until we get to the Kallian border. Then we can put ashore and do it the hard way from there.”

“Agreed,” Cymea said. “A boat’s a lot softer on my sitter than a saddle. And we’ll travel faster with the river, anyway. So that’s our plan. Now what?”

“We could explore the island.”

Cymea looked disappointed. “It’s a mud wallow. I thought you were going to propose something sensible, like a nap.”

“Hah! I don’t need one,” I said. “You young whippers use up all your energy, and us old fuds know how to husband our strength.”

Cymea yawned, and reflexively I yawned with her. We both laughed.

“They say it’s impossible to store up sleep,” I said. “But I never believed it. Ever since I became a soldier I always thought there was a plot to keep me from getting enough of it.”

“Try being a conspirator,” she said. “Nobody ever meets anybody except after midnight.”

The reminder of the Tovieti froze me for an instant, but I brushed that away. The past was dead, and all that counted was the present. Perhaps I showed the thought, for she turned away for an instant, then back.

“I’ll send your own orders back to you,” she said. “Don’t speak.”

She lifted the stairs, went into the bed compartment, and I heard creaks and such, then, after a while, “Very well.”

I went in. Cymea was invisible under the blankets. I undressed, leaving my underclothes on, slid under the covers, careful to remain on my side of the bed.

“You once made a suggestion about one of the qualities the man I choose to love should have,” she said, voice muffled.

“I remember … and remember getting my head bitten off for making it.”

“You were being unseemly at the time, sir, and I was concentrating on business. But I will now tell you what one of the virtues must be. He must have warm feet in bed.”

“That’s an excellent quality,” I said. “But doesn’t everyone have warm feet there?”

The response was a pair of icicles pressed against my calves. I yelped.

“Good gods, woman, did you soak those in the river while I was washing up?”

She giggled, slid them down until they were on mine.

“Warm like fresh-baked bread,” she said. “That’s good, very good. But my feet aren’t really that cold.”

“The hells they aren’t! There were icebergs off that gods-damned prison island I was on that were warmer.”

“Sorry, O General of the Armies. But there’s something far colder.”

She slid closer, and
very
cold, but very silken flesh pressed against my belly, my thighs. Reflexively, I pulled back. Cymea was completely naked.

“Jaen on a tightrope! Your butt’s even more frozen!”

“Jaen, you said?”

“It was a slip,” I said. “I meant Varum.”

“I’ll take the slip as it slipped.” She giggled again. “And is that what you always wear to bed?”

“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” I said. “Remember? And whatever happened to concentrating on business?”

“What sort of business should we be concentrating on?” she asked in a husky whisper.

I was about to move back and cuddle her icy buttocks, but my cock stirred, came awake, so I stayed where I was. She was still for a bit, then rolled over to face me, pulling down the blankets.

“You’re willing to let a woman freeze?”

“I thought we were supposed to be taking a nap.”

She looked at me carefully. “Damastes, you know how old I am?”

I nodded.

“And you’re, what, thirty?”

“Almost thirty-eight.”

“Does the difference bother you?”

I smiled wryly. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t see why it should.” I was speaking the truth, remembering Marán hadn’t been much older when I met her, Alegria a couple of years older, and I’d bedded Steffi, in the village of women, without more than a moment of hesitation.

“Or am I being too forward?” Cymea reached out, curled chest hairs around her fingers. “Of course not.”

“Or perhaps you’ve never kissed a sorcerer?”

“That’s certainly true.”

“Well?”

Her lips parted under mine, and our tongues slid against each other, and I pulled her to me. I felt her nipples firm against me, and I slid my hand down, caressing her buttocks, running a finger between them. Cymea sighed, lifted her left leg over mine, came closer. I kissed her neck, teased the lobes of her ears with my teeth, ran my tongue in and out of her ear. Her breathing came a little faster.

I rolled her onto her back, half-lay across her, supporting myself on my elbows. Her eyes opened.

“I heard you were called Damastes the Handsome,” she whispered. “You are, you know.”

“And you’re very beautiful, you know.”

She smiled. “Nobody gets told that nearly often enough, do they?”

“Anybody who doesn’t say that to you has a certain problem with his eyes.”

She opened her lips, and I kissed her for a very long time, then nibbled at her neck, down across her chest until I found her breasts. I kissed them, teased her nipples between my teeth, while my hand stroked her stomach.

Her hand moved down my chest and pushed at my underclothes. I untied them, pushed them down to my ankles, kicked them away. Her fingers found my cock and, very gently, caressed its length, ran a finger around its tip.

“You’re very big, Damastes.”

“I’ll be bigger when I’m inside you.”

I kissed her stomach, ran my tongue in and out of her navel. Her legs opened, and I kissed down her smooth abdomen. She had only a tuft of hair around her sex. I kissed her lips, sliding my tongue back and forth, then moved between her legs.

She lifted one leg across my back as I ran my tongue up and down her sex.

“Am I wet?”

“Yes,” I said, and slipped a finger into her. She gasped, lifted her hips to my moving tongue. I kept caressing her clitoris while I moved my finger slowly in circles inside her.

Cymea murmured wordlessly, her hands smoothing the back of my hair as I loved her.

“Does that feel good?”

“Yes … yes …”

“Shall I put another finger in you?”

“Please.”

She moaned hard when I did, and I licked my left finger, slid it into her anus. “Oh gods!”

I kept both fingers and my tongue moving, working inside her. “Do you like that?” She just gasped.

“Would you like something else inside you?”

“Yes, Damastes. Yes.”