by Anne Bishop
Lucivar grinned. So there was a little temper under that quiet disposition. He'd have to work on that. Shouldn't be too difficult. He excelled at getting witches riled up.
When he got back to the side doorway, Tassle was waiting for him.
*I tried,Yas, but she wouldn't listen.*
"No, she wouldn't have."
Tassle hung his head. *Because I am kindred.*
"Nope. Because you have a cock instead of breasts. She probably patted you on the head and promised to stop soon."
*She did.* Tassle looked at Lucivar with interest. *Did she pat your head?*
"No, she didn't." If she'd been capable of lifting another rock, she would have tried to brain him, but patting any male wasn't exactly on her mind at the moment.
The daylight was almost gone, so he couldn't see the full extent of what she'd done in the past two days, but what he could see was enough to make him shake his head.
Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. The woman was insane.
That was the only explanation he had for Marian trying to clear, close to half an acre of land in order to plant a few vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Of course, being a hearth witch meant having a tidy streak that went down to the marrow, so she'd never be content with seeing weeds beyond her little beds. Which meant she'd be out here working too hard every time he turned his back.
She'd drive him up the walls inside of a week…and she was already doing that on a regular basis just by being where he could see her.
He understood her wanting the garden. Besides the practical reasons of growing some of their own food, it would be hers. Her work, her accomplishment, her… claim.
He looked at the land again, turning that thought over. Everyone needed something to call their own. She lived in it and took care of it, but she thought of the eyrie as his place. But the garden… Something of her own, apart from him. Something she would want to see change with the seasons. Which meant she intended to stay, even if she didn't realize it yet.
She'd never be able to clear all of this and have the pleasure of seeing vegetables ripen and flowers bloom this year. And if he tried to help her now, she might see it as his way of reminding her that the land didn't really belong to her.
Moving away from the eyrie, Lucivar stopped when he reached a place where he could look down at Riada…and smiled. He had a way he could prepare the ground for her. Now he just needed a reason to get her away from Ebon Rih for a couple of days…and a little help doing it.
"My fingers are shriveled," Marian complained, clutching the towel, she'd wrapped around herself.
"But you can almost stand up straight," Lucivar replied as he led her to her bedroom. "All right. On your belly."
"What?"
A slash of fear.
Gritting his teeth, he gave her a little push toward the bed. "The soak was the first part of the treatment. A rubdown is the second."
"No, that's all right. I can…"
He didn't say anything, he didn't touch her. He just looked at her. The coven never argued with him when they were on the receiving end of that look. Marian didn't either. She stretched out on the bed.
After flipping the sheet up to her waist, he straddled her. She jerked up when he vanished the towel. Her shriek of protest turned into a different kind of shriek when he called in a bottle of liniment and poured some on her back without using a warming spell on it first. Leaving the bottle of liniment floating on air freed both hands to push her down and rub her tight muscles.
"It stinks," Marian said.
"It's supposed to smell like that," Lucivar replied. "It's a reminder not to do stupid things that make you need it."
She didn't answer him. Just as well.
When he finally worked most of the stiffness out of her shoulders, she said, "You had a visitor."
"Who was it?" He poured more liniment into his hand and used a warming spell on it since she wasn't resisting the rubdown anymore.
"She didn't say."
Lucivar stiffened. After a moment, he smoothed the warm liniment over Marian's back, giving the area around her wings special attention. "Probably Roxie. Did you let her in?"
"No. Didn't like her." Marian's eyes were closed. Her voice had the slur of someone half asleep. "That's why you have locks on the doors."
"That's exactly why."
"Thought so." She took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. "I made stew."
He stopped kneading her muscles and leaned over far enough to see her face. "Are we still talking about Roxie?"
"No. Dinner. Stew. You can eat some."
"All right."
Her messages delivered, Marian fell asleep.
After studying her for a long moment, Lucivar decided nothing short of dragging her into the bathroom and holding her under a stream of cold water would wake her. So he finished her back, then pulled down the sheet and rubbed liniment on her legs. When he was done, he vanished the bottle of liniment, pulled up the bedcovers, and put a warming spell on them to keep her from getting chilled during the night.
He ate a bowl of quickly warmed stew, told Tassle to keep watch, and flew to the Keep, where he'd left Jaenelle a couple of hours ago.
She closed her book and studied him. "What brings you back here tonight, Brother?"
Her knowing he was there as her brother and not as a Warlord Prince who served in her court made this a lot easier. "I need a favor, and I don't want to explain why."
Tarl, the head gardener at SaDiablo Hall, was the first man to arrive that morning. Which figured, Lucivar thought as he raised a hand in welcome. Tarl had probably come in the Hall's small private Coach and stayed out of sight until the driver caught the Winds and guided the Coach to the next destination…with Jaenelle and a flustered Marian inside it.
Jaenelle had timed the note commanding Marian's assistance perfectly. Arriving late yesterday morning, it had given Marian enough time to wash out clothing and cook enough food that he could heat up so he wouldn't starve to death in her absence but not enough time to do anything else except get herself cleaned up and pack the small trunk Jaenelle had thoughtfully sent over from the Keep with the note.
Now Jaenelle and Marian were gone for the next two days to do some shopping, Tarl was here, and the other men would be arriving shortly.
"Morning, Prince Lucivar," Tarl said.
"Good morning, Tarl."
"Going to be a fine day."Tarl's eyes lit up with something close to lust when he looked at that half acre of rocky, weedy ground. "Sooo… it's a garden we're making out of this, is it?"
"Yes," Lucivar said cautiously.
"And…" Tarl broke off at the sound of other men's voices coming from the stairs leading up from the landing place. "You called in the tithe?" he asked softly.
Lucivar nodded. "From Riada. I need this done in two days."
As part of the tithe owed to the Keep, every adult in Ebon Rih owed five days of labor each year along with the financial tithe. As the Warlord Prince ruling on his Queen's behalf, he received two of those days. He'd spent part of yesterday making sure word was spread throughout the village that he was collecting those two days from the men.
The men began to gather round, talking quietly among themselves.
"Well," Briggs, who ran The Tavern with his wife, Merry, said. "What's to be done here, Prince?"
"A garden," Tarl replied before Lucivar could. "But what kind of garden?"
It sounded like an innocent question until Lucivar realized every man now crowded around them had stopped talking in order to hear the answer. He didn't look at any of them. He didn't dare look at Tarl, whom he could have cheerfully strangled at that moment. There wasn't a man on this mountain who wasn't going to go home tonight and report Prince Yaslana's answer to the women in his life…which, in Tarl's case since he worked at the Hall, was Helene and Mrs. Beale.
Lucivar took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Lady Marian wants a kitchen garden, a bed for herbs, and some flower
s."
A few men grinned. Others nudged their neighbors or exchanged knowing looks. By tonight, everyone in Riada would know Lucivar Yaslana was interested in far more than Lady Marian's housekeeping skills. Which was fine…as long as Marian didn't panic when she found out.
Tarl prowled the ground nearest the eyrie, frowning a bit at one thing, nodding at something else. He made his way through the men, crossed the flagstone courtyard in front of the eyrie, and continued on to the other side. He came back a few minutes later, looking thoughtful.
"Right," he said. "I've got the feel of it. I expect your Lady wants to be doing her own planting on this side of the eyrie, but we can take care of the other side."
"Other side?" Lucivar said, feeling like he'd taken a bad slide on what he'd thought was solid ground.
"Lady Marian's a hearth witch, isn't she?" Tarl said, making the question close to a demand. "She'll spend the rest of the summer fretting if this side is put to rights and the other side is left so untidy. We've got two days and"…he looked around as men shifted to make room for newcomers…"plenty of hands to do the job."
Lucivar closed his eyes and accepted that he'd kicked the first pebble, so he couldn't complain…too much…about the avalanche that came out of it. "Fine."
"Right, then," Tarl said, rubbing his hands together. "The first thing we have to do is move those rocks."
Why am I here? Marian asked herself as she looked around the two-story building packed with furniture.
"Tell me again why I'm here?" the man beside her asked.
Jaenelle looked over her shoulder at him. "Because you're male."
"And I'm being punished for this because… ?"
"You're Lucivar's father."
He sighed. "I thought that would be the answer." He paused, then added, "Lucivar wanted to select his own furnishings. He said so. Several times."
Jaenelle turned to face them. "That's what he said. He changed his mind, and he picked me to do the shopping for him. And I picked the two of you to help me." She smiled at her helpers in a way that was not the least bit reassuring.
Marian glanced at the man to see what his reaction would be. Lucivar's father. S. D. SaDiablo. That was how Jaenelle had introduced him when they'd all settled into the Coach for the journey to Nharkhava. It was only because Luci… Prince Yaslana had mentioned it that she knew his father was the Steward of the Dark Court at Ebon Askavi. Being the Steward of the most powerful Queen in Kaeleer made him a very influential man. And yet, here he was, helping his daughter buy furniture for his son.
Of course, his daughter was the Queen of Ebon Askavi and his son was the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih. But still…
So it brought her back to the question of why she, a Purple Dusk hearth witch, was here with them. Surely they weren't interested in the opinions of Prince Yaslana's housekeeper.
"If we're going to select furniture for all the rooms Lucivar intends to use, at least for the immediate future, I suggest we split up," Prince SaDiablo said. "We'll be able to look at more of what's being offered."
"Good idea," Jaenelle said. "I'll start over there." As she turned, one of the men who had been hovering nearby leaped forward to meet her. She smiled at him.
"I'll take a look at the dining room furniture," Prince SaDiablo said. His hand lightly brushed Marian's shoulder. "Why don't you accompany Jaenelle?"
"Oh," Marian said. "Wouldn't you rather…"
"Let me rephrase that."Amusement filled his gold eyes. "Age and rank have their privileges. You, my dear, drew the short straw and, therefore, get to deal with Jaenelle."
"That's not reassuring," Marian muttered.
"I didn't say it was."
As he moved past her, the other man waiting to help them said, "This way, High Lord."
Marian watched the two men make their way down the aisles of furniture. High Lord? What an odd title. Maybe it was his official title as the Steward? Although… She'd heard it before. She just couldn't recall where or why.
She shook her head and hurried to catch up to Jaenelle.
It took her less than a quarter of an hour to realize Jaenelle Angelline had more energy than a roomful of puppies and less sense than any of those puppies when it came to choosing furniture that was suitable for an eyrie, let alone the home of a Warlord Prince. How was she supposed to tell the Queen…or even Lucivar's sister, for that matter…that the lamp Jaenelle was admiring with the lumpy base and the froofy, fringed shade made her shudder just to look at it? Or that the small table, which would probably look lovely in the drawing room of an aristo house, would look pathetic in rooms that had the weight of stone and were extensions of the mountain on which they were built?
She tried to be tactful, reminding herself that she was just the housekeeper, but when she saw Jaenelle eyeing a hutch with elaborate curlicues…
"No," she said firmly.
Eyebrows rising in surprise,Jaenelle turned to look at her. "Why not?"
Because I don't want to spend half a day dusting the thing. Which wasn't an appropriate thing to say, especially when the man assisting them was listening so attentively. "It's just not… appropriate," Marian said weakly.
Jaenelle narrowed her sapphire eyes. "So far, nothing we've looked at has been 'appropriate.' "
That was true.
"But I haven't heard you make any suggestions," Jaenelle continued.
"Oh, but I'm just…"Those sapphire eyes stopped her…and made her think. She wasn't "just" a housekeeper at the moment. She was Eyrien. She didn't know anything about aristo houses, but she knew Eyrien dwellings. Of the three of them, she probably did know best what was appropriate for Luci… Prince Yaslana's home.
Turning away, she began studying the other hutches available. Clean lines. Strong pieces. Lucivar's eyrie had more windows than most, which gave the rooms more light, but the wood always had to complement stone.
Seeing two possible hutches, Marian went over to examine them more closely.
Saetan watched the two women wander among the furniture, amused at the way Jaenelle now meekly followed Marian instead of the other way around.
*Witch-child?* he called on a Black psychic thread.
*Papa?*
*You weren't really interested in that lamp, were you?*
Jaenelle snorted. *Of course not. It's hideous. I didn't think I'd have to find so many things that wouldn't suit before Marian jumped in.*
Saetan pressed a fist to his mouth and coughed to hide the chuckle. The man attending him wouldn't understand his amusement. *I found a dining table.*
*A real one?*
*Yes, a real one.* He watched Marian as she opened the doors of a cabinet. Even from a distance, he could see her excitement, almost sense the longing as her fingers stroked the wood…and saw her shoulders slump as she turned away from it. *What is that, witch-child?*
*A sewing cabinet,* Jaenelle replied, still examining it. *There are shelves for cloth, little pegs for thread, bigger pegs for skeins of wool, all kinds of drawers to hold supplies.*
*And the asking price is something she can't afford, even with the wages Lucivar is paying her.*
Jaenelle nodded, keeping one eye on Marian while she gently closed the cabinet doors.
*Are we adding it to our purchases, witch-child?*
She turned and smiled at him from across the large room. *Yes, we are.*
Prince SaDiablo had excellent taste, Marian decided as she looked at the table and chairs he'd chosen for the dining room. High Lord, she reminded herself. The men helping them with their purchases kept calling him High Lord, so she should address him that way, too.
"This is wonderful," Marian said, stroking her hand over the gleaming, dark wood. Big enough to seat eight Eyriens, it would still fit easily into the dining room without feeling crowded if a storage hutch and narrow serving table were also added. Looking past the chosen table, she spotted a small pine table. "Oh, yes, that's perfect."
"Why is this perfect?" Jaenelle said, following her.
"It's not even finished."
"That's why it's perfect," Marian replied, giving the table a push to test its sturdiness. "Eyrien males need a worktable for cleaning and honing weapons, doing repairs, things like that. And there's a small room in the eyrie that seems like it was designed to be a weapons room…a storage place for an extra bow, quivers of arrows. There's even pegs already in one wall that would hold bladed sticks, so…" She shrugged.
"So you want a table that's sturdy but is going to get rough treatment," Jaenelle said.
"Exactly." Marian smiled.
Jaenelle smiled back. "I'm sure it was a weapons room originally and had a similar table in it. Cousin Prothvar and Uncle Andulvar will be pleased with your choice. So will Lucivar." She brushed a finger over the top of the table. "I noticed some of the other craftsmen are displaying bowls and vases. I'm going to take a look."
"Fine," Marian said. The room was turning slowly, making her feel light-headed.
Lucivar was a common name in Askavi, but Prothvar was rarely used anymore, and Andulvar…
No one had used the name Andulvar since the time of the Demon Prince…the Ebon-gray Warlord Prince who had once ruled the Black Valley… just as Lucivar now ruled Ebon Rih. Lucivar had mentioned his cousin Prothvar. He'd mentioned his uncle, too, but not by name. And he'd said his family took a little getting used to, but he hadn't said why. If what she was thinking, as impossible as it must be, was true…
"Marian?"
A deep, soothing male voice washed over her. The room swayed. She looked at Lucivar's father.
Lucivar Yaslana. Prothvar…Yaslana. Andulvar…Yaslana.
"Darling, what's wrong?"
S. D. SaDiablo. High Lord.
"Aren't you feeling well?"
She was sitting down, looking up at him as he bent over her, concern in his golden eyes, his hand resting lightly against her face.
"You're him," she whispered. "You're really him. The High Lord. Of Hell."
He didn't move, but she could sense the warm man pulling away from her.
"Yes," he said quietly, withdrawing his hand. "I'm the High Lord of Hell."
She didn't know much about the High Lord except that he was more powerful…because he wore a Black Jewel…and supposedly more dangerous than the Demon Prince, but the one thing she did know about him from the stories Eyriens told was…