Warrior (65 page)

Perhaps even before she plotted to kill Marla’s son.

Elezaar didn’t kid himself about his fate if Marla ever discovered he’d known something all these years which might have prevented any attack on Damin.

For that sin alone, I would be condemned
.

And Marla wasn’t exactly renowned for her mercy when it came to any threat to her children.

But it’s only a problem if this slave really is Crysander
, he reminded himself, desperately hoping it wasn’t.

With a heavy sigh, Elezaar glanced out of the window. The faintest hint of pink was beginning to lighten the darkness. The three days were up and today he must tell Bekan if he was interested in the slave Venira wanted to sell him.

The slave named Crysander.

“I want to see him,” Elezaar told the doorman when he appeared at the barred gate a few hours later. “I’ll have to examine him, question him, before I decide if I’m interested or not.”

Bekan nodded. “I’ll come back tomorrow then.”

“No! Not here!” He thought frantically for a moment, wondering how he could get away from the townhouse. “There’s a tavern two streets from here. It’s called the Lucky Harlot. I’ll meet you there.”

Their supplies of wine were getting low, Elezaar knew. With the plague showing signs of slowing down, it wouldn’t be too difficult to convince Marla it was safe enough to make the short journey to the Lucky Harlot to arrange some fresh supplies. “Be there at noon. And bring the . . . merchandise.”

Bekan nodded and walked away, leaving Elezaar standing alone in the kitchen yard, his heart pounding as hard as it had in his nightmare.

With Damin out of the city on a cattle raid and likely to be gone for the better part of two weeks, Starros breathed a huge sigh of relief. They could all relax for a while, Leila most of all. Mahkas couldn’t keep pushing her at Damin if he wasn’t in the palace and Starros was convinced the prince had volunteered to take part in the raid for that very reason.

In Damin’s mind
, Starros thought,
facing a battalion of Defenders is probably preferable to
spending another night listening to Mahkas’s unsubtle hints across the dinner table
.

Well, mostly that reason
, he amended with a faint smile, as he headed down the long corridor of the main wing of the palace, towards the servants’ quarters and his room. It was after midnight and Starros was looking forward to finding his bed. Most of the slaves were asleep, and only the guards, posted throughout the palace as a precaution against assassins, although Damin wasn’t even in the city tonight, were still awake.

Starros was usually the last one to find his bed. He had long ago decided “assistant chief steward” was merely a euphemism for “working twenty-two hours a day to make Orleon look omnipotent.” Still, the old steward was generally a good man, and Starros had grown up in the palace.

He knew Orleon asked nothing of him he hadn’t done himself.

As he walked past Lord Damaran’s study, Starros noticed a light under the door. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should disturb Mahkas, and then decided he might as well. If he didn’t, the chances were good he’d be called from his bed as soon as he fell asleep if the regent decided he wanted anything later.

Starros knocked and opened the door without waiting for an answer. Mahkas was sitting at his desk, bending over a letter he was writing, squinting a little in the candlelight. He glanced up at the interruption with a frown.

“Is something wrong, Starros?”

“No, my lord. I just wanted to check if there was anything you needed before I go to bed.”

Mahkas thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “No. I’m fine.”

“Good night then, my lord.” He bowed and turned to leave.

“Starros!”

“Sire?”

“That
court’esa
Damin was talking about the other day, the one from the Beggars’ Quarter. Is there anything I should be concerned about?”

Starros smiled. “I think Damin was just having a bit of fun with you, my lord. Fyora works at the Pickpocket’s Retreat. She’s a friend of Wrayan Lightfinger’s and old enough to be his mother. He kissed her hand once, that’s all. I don’t think you need lose any sleep over it.”

“I should have realised he was just trying to scare me into letting him go with Almodavar.”

Mahkas smiled thinly. “He hasn’t changed much, has he?”

“No, sire. Not much.”

The regent put down his quill and examined Starros for a moment, his face creased with concern. “You do understand, don’t you, lad,” Mahkas asked, uncharacteristically concerned about Starros’s feelings, “how . . .
inappropriate
it is that you still think of Damin as your best friend?”

“I understand he’s Krakandar’s prince, my lord,” Starros assured the regent. “And that I’m only the chief assistant steward. It’s Damin who doesn’t care what people think.”

“Then I will have to rely on you to make sure he remembers who he is,” Mahkas said.

“Yes, my lord.” He turned to leave, wondering why Mahkas was in such a garrulous mood.

Normally, he spared Starros little more than a grunted acknowledgement of his presence.

“You’re still good friends with my daughter, aren’t you?”

Starros froze, wondering if this was the beginning of an interrogation that could only end with him in serious trouble. He turned to Mahkas and nodded carefully. “Well, yes, I suppose . . .”

“Can
you
tell me what it’s going to take? The gods know nobody else seems able to!”

Starros shook his head in confusion. “I’m not sure I follow you, my lord.”

“What’s it going to take to make her understand that she needs to be more . . . I don’t know . . .

how should I put it . . .
accommodating
towards her cousin?”

“You mean Damin?”

“Of course that’s who I mean! Do you think
you
could talk to her? Leila always listened to you when you were children. She respects your opinion. And I know you’ve always had her best interests at heart. Perhaps . . . if
you
spoke to her, as her friend, she might come to understand her duty in this matter.”

Dear gods, I can’t believe he’s asking me to do this!

“Er . . . my lord, I really don’t think it would be appropriate for the assistant chief steward to speak to someone as exalted as Lady Leila about anything so . . . intimate.”

Mahkas sighed heavily. “Perhaps you’re right. The gods know it’s taken me long enough to get her to treat you according to your status. It would undo everything I’ve been trying to teach her to have you suddenly become her best friend again.” He nodded approvingly. “Your sense of propriety does you credit, Starros.”

“Thank you, sire.” Starros thought he might choke if he didn’t get out of there soon. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yes,” Mahkas replied absently. “Good night, Starros.”

“Good night, my lord.”

Closing the door behind him, Starros leaned against it and took a deep, calming breath before taking another step, horrified by the direction of his conversation with Mahkas. He was still trembling from the fright a short while later as he turned into the hall where his room was located, holding the candle a little higher to light his way.

What’s it going to take to make her understand that she needs to be more accommodating
towards her cousin?
No wonder Damin was so anxious to get out of the palace.

Starros wondered how Damin was faring, roughing it out in the wilderness with nothing but a thin travel blanket for warmth, the rocky ground for a bed and his saddle for a pillow. They’d be well into Medalon by now, Starros estimated, perhaps even on the way back if they’d encountered no resistance. Damin was probably having the time of his life. The young prince had talked of being a Raider for as long as Starros had known him, and he would have walked away from his own mother’s funeral for a chance to join them on a raid across the border.

Looking forward to finally seeing the end of his day, Starros reached his own room and wearily opened the door, startled to find the room filled with light. Almost every flat surface was covered with short, fat candles, ablaze with soft, warm radiance.

Stretched out on his narrow bed was Leila, her long, fair hair unbound, wearing nothing but the emerald necklace she had worn to dinner this evening.

Starros slammed the door shut hurriedly and then leaned against it, staring at her in shock.

“Leila!”

“You were expecting someone else?” she asked, pushing herself up on one elbow with an elegantly raised brow.

“What are you
doing
here?” he gasped.

“Waiting for you, lover.”

He was flabbergasted by the risk she was taking. “You just left the door
unlocked
? Suppose it wasn’t me who walked in just now?”

“Then you’d have rather a lot of explaining to do, my love.”

He forced a smile, his heart still thumping at the danger. Then he looked around at the candles curiously. “What’s all this then?”

She lay back on the bed, folding her arms behind her head, which did nothing but draw his attention to her small, perfect breasts and make it very hard for Starros to concentrate on what she was saying. “You told me how much you hated the fact that we only ever meet in the darkness, lover. I wanted there to be some light.”

He pushed off the door, added the candle he was carrying to the collection on the shelf, and crossed the small room to the bed. “You still shouldn’t have taken the risk, Leila. If someone had seen you . . .”

“I was careful. I came through the slaveways. Anyway, merely
thinking
of you the way I do is a risk for me, Starros,” she reminded him, a little sadly. “Why should the degree matter?”

He sat down on the bed and gathered her into his arms, holding her for a moment just for the sheer joy of it. But touched as he was by her thoughtfulness, he was acutely aware of the danger she courted. “I still don’t want you taking stupid risks for me. If your father ever suspected anything . . .”

“He doesn’t,” she promised, and Starros was inclined to agree with her. They wouldn’t have had that bizarre conversation just now if Mahkas suspected for a moment that his daughter and Starros were lovers.

“He can’t see past his own ambition,” Leila added. “If I walked into his study right this minute and declared I was in love, he’d just assume I meant Damin. Gods! I so want to tell him how wrong he is!

I want to tell him I love you. I want to tell the whole world I love you!”

Starros kissed her and then shook his head, looking at her sternly. “You’re not going to do anything of the kind, Leila.”

“Would you rather we continued like this for the rest of our lives?” She began to unlace his shirt, kissing the bare flesh on his chest as she exposed it.

“Of course not. But if we just let Damin—”

She shook her head. “Damin be damned! I don’t want to wait on my cousin’s pleasure. Why don’t we run away to somewhere new? Someplace where nobody knows us.”

He smiled at the unlikely notion, as she pulled the shirt over his head. “How would we live?”

“You could get a job,” she told him.

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is you do.”

He leaned forward to kiss her shoulder and neck. “Wrayan offered me a job as a thief once.” He nibbled her earlobe, making her laugh softly, and then bent forward to kiss her breast.

“There you go,” she murmured appreciatively. “You could be a thief and I could be . . . a Missus Thief.”

He stopped kissing her and looked at her oddly. “A
Missus
Thief? You truly are uniquely unprepared for anything other than a career as a prince’s wife, aren’t you, my love?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I could probably eke out a living as a
court’esa
,” she whispered against his neck, as she put her arms around him. “
You’ve
never complained about my skills, that I recall.”

“Why don’t you refresh my memory?” he suggested.

Leila laughed softly and pushed him backwards. “You want me to refresh your memory?”

“Then I’ll be in a position to give you an accurate assessment of your skills.”

She laughed and climbed astride him, her skin the colour of spun gold in the candlelight. “I’m going to
refresh your memory
into oblivion, my love.”

“You think so?” he asked with smile, reaching for her breasts.

She caught his wrists before he could touch her and forced them back, holding his arms down on the bed above his head. Then she leaned forward so that her lips brushed his face like the whisper of silk. “Tell me you love me, Starros,” she demanded, almost desperately.

“I love you.”

“Would you fight for me?”

“Of course.”

“Die for me?”

He smiled at her fierce expression. “Is that a requirement of loving you?”

“Yes, damn you, it is.”

“Then, yes, I would die for you,” he promised heroically.

Leila was still holding his arms above his head, but was apparently satisfied with his answer. She gave him one of those sad, hopeless little smiles, let go of his wrists and sat back on her heels, still astride him. “I would die without
you
, Starros,” she sighed. “Don’t ever leave me.”

“I won’t.” He reached up gently to touch her face and noticed a tear on her cheek. “Hey, silly girl. Don’t cry. It won’t always be like this. I promise.”

“With our luck, it’ll just get worse,” she predicted grimly.

“You don’t know that.”

After a moment of strained silence, Leila wiped her tears away with determined cheerfulness and began to work on the stiff leather of his belt, as if she refused to contemplate what the future might hold in case it ruined this moment for them. “Don’t you wish, sometimes, you could see the look on my father’s face if he ever found out about us?”

Starros shook his head, looking at her strangely. “No. I most certainly do There was something inherently wrong with discussing Mahkas Damaran with his daughter while she sat astride him, wearing nothing but the family jewels as she tried to take his clothes off. “And do you think we could talk about something else besides your father?”