by Karen Nilsen
The only two problems I could foresee with this plan were if Merius refused Herrod's offer or married the hussy before he left. The first of these did not worry me, not with Merius's zeal for constantly challenging his own mettle. As for the second, Merius was reckless but honor-bound. To keep his honor, he had to have a career separate from mine before he could marry without my blessing. Therefore, he would not marry the Long Marsh wench until he had joined the king's guard or made some other bid for independence from me and his inheritance. Such as going off on a campaign without asking my leave.
I turned back to Herrod. "You have my permission to recruit him. The true test of a warrior is in battle, and Merius deserves that test. I have only one request: don't tell him that you spoke with me."
"Why?"
"I don't want him to think that his father is interfering in his affairs. Twenty is a proud age."
Herrod chuckled. "I remember twenty. I strutted around like a fighting cock, tensed to punch the first man who hinted that I had gotten my commission because my father was the commander and not because I'd earned it. You will not be mentioned, sir, not unless Merius mentions you himself."
I shook the hand he offered. "Thank you."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The door to Eden's chamber was slightly ajar. I knocked perfunctorily and pushed it open. She stood in front of her looking glass, smearing rouge on her face. Her eyes shifted in my direction briefly before she returned to her reflection.
I shut the door and leaned against it, my arms crossed. "You have the cheeks of a consumptive dock whore. Wipe it off, for God's sake."
She smiled, her gaze never leaving the mirror. "The king forbade us to wear our hair down, but he didn't say a thing about face paint."
"That's because he assumed women of breeding would have better sense."
“Prince Segar seems to like it."
"Royalty oft has a peculiar taste for the common. Just don't keep up the habit after you're through with him."
She gave an impatient shrug, putting the lid back on the rouge pot with a clatter. "Or he's through with me. You seem to forget that princes discard their mistresses, not the other way around."
"You're hardly his mistress, Eden, and thank God for it."
She looked at me oddly. "But I thought that's what you wanted--a royal mistress in the House of Landers. The influence the Landers could have through me . . ."
"Is exactly the kind of influence we don't want," I interrupted. "Having a royal mistress in the House is like having the most bountiful harvest in a fallow year. Everyone's jealous gaze would be fixed on the Landers, and some would try to seed our fields with salt. We never want to be the most favored at court--the most favored are the ones most likely to lose their heads when the winds of fortune shift. If he starts giving you jewels and having his minstrels write songs about you, I'll send you away to the Sarneth court. Do you understand?"
Eden nodded as she picked up a perfume bottle. "I suppose."
"I'd rather you'd never attracted his eye in the first place, but since you have, we might as well make use of it." I stepped forward and pulled out the letter she had given me yesterday. "Here, that reminds me. Put this back where you found it."
"Is it what I thought?"
"Yes, and worse. Our prince is bribing the poor Bishop for the secrets told him in confession."
Eden laughed. "I have no doubt he's learning much--about cheating for coppers and overindulging on watered wine. Who confesses to the Bishop but virtuous fools like Cyril?" She pulled the stopper out of the bottle and began to dab perfume on her bare shoulders and between her breasts.
The faint scent of roses filled the air. Rose water. I choked on the smell, remembering how Arilea would get up naked from our bed and go directly to the washstand where she kept a bottle of the stuff. She'd splash it all over her body before she put on her chemise. She had never worn any other scent. Every morning, I'd smell rose water first thing, even before my coffee. It had been all over my clothes, my skin, the sheets every time we lay together. Even now, years after I'd smashed the bottle and cursed her, my traitor body knew the fragrance and hardened to it, a mindless predator picking up the scent of his prey. I gagged and gripped the back of a chair. Arilea might as well have bathed in the stuff, the bitch. I had no doubt that her burial shroud still smelled of roses, her bones even . . . My hand over my mouth, I reached for the door knob.
Eden turned and stared. "What is it?"
"Only whores wear that scent," I managed as I dragged open the door. It slammed behind me. The sound reverberated down the corridor, followed by the faint, mocking echo of a woman's laughter.
Chapter Eleven--Safire
As the pale light of morning drifted through the room, I became aware that I was wonderfully warm, the first morning I had been warm in this drafty stone palace. I wiggled my toes, content. It felt like there were a hundred purring cats in bed with me. I stretched. Something scratchy rubbed against my side, a rough wool blanket perhaps. It reminded me of the blanket Dagmar had knitted for me when she was five and I was two, a knobby scrap of knotted yarn that I had insisted on sleeping with every night before it finally unraveled. Smiling at the memory, I nestled against the blanket, and it tightened its arms around me . . . my eyes flew open. Blankets didn't have arms.
I glanced down, realizing that I wore no clothes. A sinewy forearm, too large and hairy to be my own, lay across my middle. Merius . . . last night . . . what had we done?
Already, I could hear Dagmar's shrill voice. Wanton, wicked girl, wanton, wicked girl, it chanted over and over again gleefully. Father would disown me, perhaps try to force me into a convent. I'd be like that servant girl he'd sent away last year, the one whose belly had grown too large under her skirts, the one who had cried and screamed when Boltan had closed the gate behind her. I'd begged Father to let her come back, but all he would say, tight-lipped as Dagmar, was that I was too young to understand, that some sins could not be tolerated under the roof of a virtuous House.
Merius murmured something unintelligible, pulling me closer. Dreaming, I supposed. His hand moved over my nakedness, and I felt my skin flush. Even asleep, he knew how to touch me. Father and Dagmar would say he had seduced me, dishonored me. But it didn't feel like dishonor when he touched me. I brought his wandering hand to my mouth and kissed it. His skin was callused and warm, with the acid taste of ink from the faded stain on the outside of his palm. I had given him what I would never be able to give another man again, all for the feel of his hands on me. And I would do it again without a thought, despite Dagmar's voice in my head, Father's angry reproach. The waiting woman inside stirred, and suddenly everything but him seemed far away. Ring or no ring, honor or dishonor, I would let him have whatever he wanted of me.
"Safire," he said then, awake.
"Hmm?"
In answer, his mouth traveled up my neck and across my jaw, stopping only when he reached my lips.
"Merius . . ."
"Yes, sweetheart?" he murmured into the hollow of my shoulder, nipping playfully as he moved downwards.
My breath caught in my throat, and I gasped, "But what about breakfast?"
He chuckled. "My love, this is breakfast."
"We can't--it's light out. It's morning." Late morning I added silently, noticing how the sunlight reached halfway across the clothes-strewn floor.
"It's morning?" Merius propped himself up on his elbow and glanced around blearily, his hair sticking out in all directions.
I slid to the edge of the bed and put my feet on the cold stones. "Ughh," I shivered, pulling a blanket from the tangle of bedclothes and wrapping it around me.
He sat up. "I'm thinking that I could join the king's guard,” he said suddenly. “Herrod promised me a commander's post in a year if I joined. We could marry in four months, when my training is over and I'm free to live where I want as long as I report for duty . . ."
"Marry?" I clenched my arms together, my eyes traveling over the heap of our en
tangled clothes, abandoned so hastily the night before and not thought of since. "You know, Father let all the good fields go with Dagmar's dowry. All that's left for my betrothal are the woods and fallow pastures. And our House couldn't get a council seat if Father stood on his head for a year. Your father will hardly see me as fit for your bedmate, much less your wife.”
He toyed with the edge of the blanket halfway down my back, and I started at his touch. "Shh," he whispered. His finger traced my spine all the way up my neck to the base of my hairline, where it stopped. Then he buried his hand in my hair. I arched my neck and closed my eyes, dowries forgotten. He stroked my scalp until I was limp against him, and his arms went around me. I sighed, resting my head on his chest.
"It wouldn't be what you're used to, I know--what either of us is used to, actually,” he began, his voice rumbling in my ear. “I would be sacrificing my offices and lands, and the rewards are small, at least the first several years until I've proven my loyalty. We'd have to take rooms in the city at first, maybe hire one servant for the cooking and mending . . ."
"I can cook," I said.
"I doubt it'll come to that, sweetheart, but we'll have to mind our coin, at least until I get a commander's post."
"I can mend too. But Merius, I won't hold you to last night."
He grew still. "You don't want to marry me?" he said softly.
"Of course I do. But not if it means you give up everything. Your position . . . You can't sacrifice that for me . . ."
"Sacrifice what? An inheritance I've never wanted? A dull life writing endless treatises and letters and playing toady to the king? The constant headaches of managing an estate? Safire, I don't want to become like my father--do you know he was a decorated commander in the king's guard? He could have led men into battle, yet here he is, withering away in a councilor's position."
"What happened?"
Merius shrugged. "I don't know. Something with his brother Gaven who died before I was born. The point is, I wouldn't be sacrificing anything. You'll be the one who's giving up the life you were born to. But I swear that it won't always be rented rooms and salted fish five days a week."
"Merius, I've never even had a lady's maid--I'm used to doing for myself." Then I covered my mouth with my hand, realizing what I had just said. Of course, I had betrayed far worse last night with that comment about Peregrine and the ten thousand silvers. Dagmar and I had promised each other we would never discuss Father's debts with anyone, especially at court, and here I had let slip more to this man than to my confessor. "I shouldn't have said that . . ."
"Why not? If it's the truth . . ."
"It seems that being in your arms loosens my tongue."
"And other things," he said, lazily trailing his fingers over my breasts.
I tried to ignore him, though my cheeks grew hot. "I could sell my drawings for extra coin."
"Does that mean you accept?"
"Accept what?"
He chuckled. "My proposal, love."
"I gave you my maidenhead. What do you think?"
He leaned over and kissed my forehead. Then he kissed my lips, coaxing them apart only when my fingers tightened in his hair. "Such an innocent," he muttered finally. "How can you love me, Safire?"
"How can I not?" I retorted, swallowing. "And I'm not an innocent, Merius. No one is."
He looked down at me, his eyes dark. "You shouldn't marry me--I've had poor teachers. I'll be good to you, but I'll likely not be good for you."
"Things that are good for one are usually tiresome," I giggled. "Now, let me up--I need my clothes."
I eased out of his arms and sat up, wincing at the cold floor. It was only after I'd padded around the foot of the bed that I remembered I was naked. My dress and undergarments lay in front of the hearth, sunlight gleaming over the satin. I sensed his eyes on me and could feel the blush already warming my skin. No wonder he thought I was such an innocent. I deliberately took a long time to find my shift, turning this way and that as I pulled it over my shoulders and laced up the front. Then I raised my head and met his gaze. The skin stretched tight across the bones of his face, his mouth drawn into a narrow line. His eyes glittered, unblinking as we stared at each other. Slowly, I began to play with the laces, tugging at the ends. He leaned forward on the bed as I teased out the knot. The laces slithered through their holes, and the bodice of the shift fell open. I smiled, making sure he got the full view as I bent down and shook the wrinkled shadows out of my dress.
"You little vixen," he said hoarsely as he settled back on the bed.
"Do you still think me an innocent?" I laughed as I tightened the laces again and bit into one of the pears he had brought last night.
He didn't answer, standing up and stretching before he came around the bed. "Here, toss me a mango, sweet. I'm starved."
I obliged readily, pretending not to watch him as he leaned against the wardrobe, pulled a dagger seemingly from nowhere, and began to pare slices from the mango, all the while not wearing a stitch. He had trained as a swordsman and hunter since he was a boy, a lean, dangerous weapon of a man, sharp as a blade with that silver aura gleaming all around him. And those hands . . . He glanced up then and took a bite of mango.
"Caught you looking," he said, grinning.
I swallowed the last of the pear. "Ass."
"Nothing wrong with looking. There's no need to blush, sweet."
"But . . ."
"Shh." He popped a mango slice in my mouth, silencing me. "Do you know what I'd like to do?"
"What?"
"I'd like to spend all day in bed with you, showing you just how innocent you are."
"Do you know what I'd like to do?"
"What?"
"I'd like to draw your hands."
He glanced at them, spreading out his long fingers. "Why?" he asked finally.
I thought a moment and then smiled. "Because your hands can hold a sword or a pen or a woman with equal skill. There are men who can do one or maybe two, but all three? You're a rare catch indeed, my love."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I hummed a half-forgotten ballad as I walked along the hall from my chamber to the staircase, filling in the parts I couldn’t remember with a made-up tune of my own. My humming echoed off the stones of the walls and floor and the vaulted ceiling and came back as a separate sound from me, not my commonplace, sometimes flat singing voice, but a far richer, more mysterious sound, a fey elf-maid summoning her love in a faraway woods perhaps. I gave a little skip and laughed at my own silliness. Everything seemed so different this morning. Even the flagstone floors, dull last night, gleamed in the sunlight as if someone had strewn minute diamonds over the surface.
“She waited for him in the wood bower/Clad in a gown of vines, leaves, and flowers,” I sang as I started down the staircase, making up my own words to fit the visions in my head. I’d have to draw this scene later with my charcoals, the fair elf maid and her verdant gown. “The light and shadows glowed green around her/She sang with the birds . . .” I trailed off, hearing heavy footfalls several landings below me. A man in boots, probably. The footfalls grew louder as he ascended, and a vague darkness dulled my joy like dust settling on glass. I almost turned around, then stopped myself. Ninny--why should you turn around? You don’t even know who it is. So I continued down the steps, resuming my song with a loud defiance. Even though I had told myself I didn’t know who it was, I felt no surprise when Peregrine rounded the corner of the landing directly below me.
We both stopped, looked at each other for a moment before I averted my gaze from him and started down the steps again. My hum grew louder in my ears the harder I concentrated on ignoring him. He wouldn’t dare stop me here, not on this stairway that everyone used. He didn’t have the nerve. The ambergris scent of his aura reached out to me, barely noticeable under his cologne. I kept humming. As far as I was concerned, the swine wasn’t there. He wasn’t worth my notice.
He made no move to block my passage, but instead waited until
I was almost past him before he reached out and grabbed my arm with lightning speed. He has a swordsman’s reflexes, like Merius was my first thought.
“I missed you at dinner last night, pet,” he said.
I opened my mouth to yell for help, but before I could utter a sound, he clapped his hand over my lips. “Shh, I just want to talk to you.” I shook my head violently and tried to wrench myself away, but his grip only tightened. Why had I been such a stubborn fool? I should have fled the instant I saw him. “Now, I’m going to take my hand from your mouth, and if you scream, so be it. Since the last thing I want to do is harm you, you’ll look like a hysterical woman and give the gossips plenty to wag their heads about. Safire, you don’t need more attention drawn to you--there are already whispers here of your peculiar habits, your father‘s debts.”
I swallowed. No, I wouldn’t scream--I was too desperate to breathe. His hand over my mouth forced me to inhale through my nose, breathe in his cologne. When he finally took his hand away, I gasped for air and glared at him. “The only rumors of me here are the ones you’ve started, you foul swine.”
He grinned with perfect teeth, his amusement rendering my rage impotent. “Now why would I spread rumors about my future wife?”
“Because you’re a scoundrel. Your attempts to coerce me into your bed would be comical if they weren’t so pathetic.”
His amusement tightened, his grip painful on my arm. “Force my hand, sweet, and you’ll regret your pride tenfold. I’m not an easy man when thwarted,” he said.
“And I’m not an easy woman when forced.”
“Safire, what kind of man do you take me for? I would never force myself on a woman. All I’ve done is woo you the way you wanted . . .”
“This is what you call wooing? Accosting me in the stairwell? Threatening me with my father’s debts to you?”
He flicked his tongue over his teeth, staring down at me like a snake sizing up its prey. “I’d woo you properly, if that’s what you wanted. You’ve made it obvious, though, that proper behavior would get me nowhere with you.”