A field of honor. Bloodshed. Death. The faces of the wounded pleading with him for comfort.
Crashing waves and a furious sky boiling overhead. A ship that rode high upon cresting waters. A faceless woman locked in the hateful embrace of an enemy.
He shook his head angrily despite the debilitating pain that lanced through it. He could not see the woman’s face but he knew in his heart of hearts, down to the very depths of his soul, that she was his wife, his mate, the one he intended to spend his eternity with.
“Sitara…” The name wafted over the wind, reaching his ears in a soft caress of silken limbs and velvet-smooth lips. “Sitara…”
There was an impression of a curvaceous body lying beneath his. Of long black hair dragging seductively across his naked body. Of a sweet, tight sheath that clung lovingly to him and milked him as a man should be relieved of his juices.
“Sitara.” Once more the wind whispered her name to him and he repeated it, savoring the sweetness of it upon his tongue.
“Good afternoon to you, Devrim!”
The images spun away from him and fled beyond the mountains though he reached out to snatch at them, to keep them from leaving.
He looked down at the speaker—wanting to curse the old woman who had greeted him, but her toothless grin drove a wayward pain through his heart.
“Good afternoon, Grandmother,” he replied.
“Tell Alara I will have the poultice ready for her tomorrow,” the old woman told him, waving as she disappeared into her own dwelling two stories below the one in which he sat.
“Alara,” he repeated, knowing that was the woman’s name who claimed she was his wife. Not Sitara. The two names sounded nothing alike but the one was a confection upon his tongue while the other was a sharp, bitter taste.
“Did you say my name?” she asked from the doorway. “Did you at last remember my name, beloved?”
“Alara.” He said it again with force, his jaw clenching.
“Aye,” she said, sighing peacefully. “I knew you would remember given time.”
He watched her go back into the kitchen and looked about him. He still had no idea who he was, but he knew he did not belong in this stone house perched upon the mountain. He belonged with the woman whose face he could not conjure, whose body was clutched in the hands of his enemy.
Who the enemy was, where he was, he did not know. What he did know was he had to find a way to escape the clutches of the imposter who made his every waking moment a trial.
“Here we go,” she said, coming in carrying a tray that held two plates of food and two goblets of iced tea. She sat them down on the table beside him then pulled up a chair for herself. “I hope you like it.”
He looked at the food and a warning bell went off in his head. “May I have some bread, my wife?” he asked, forcing himself to use the title for the first time.
“Of course!” she said, and got up to go into the kitchen as he knew she would. When her back was to him, he switched the plates and the goblets and was sitting still when she came back, his hands in his lap.
“Eat!” she said, handing him the bread.
He watched her dig into the food with the gusto with which she always seemed to do everything from gardening to suckling him. No morsel of food was ever left on her plate, and while he ate sparingly, she devoured the meal. It wasn’t until she was clearing away the dishes that he saw her step falter, her body waver. She shook it off, continuing on into the kitchen, but when she came back into the bedchamber, she seemed disoriented, her speech a bit slurred.
“I must be more tired than I thought,” she said, putting a hand to her head. Her brows were drawn together.
“Headache, my love?” he asked in a gentle voice, his eyes narrowed.
“Aye,” she said.
He smiled at her but that smile never reached his ice-cold eyes. “Why don’t you help me to bed and we can take our rest earlier. I find I am sleepier than usual.”
She nodded and reached out to give him her hand. She staggered against him and he had to steady her for a change. With his arm around her waist, her arm around his, he led her to the bed.
Before she lay down, she stepped back, nearly falling. “We mustn’t forget your water,” she said before a huge yawn. “You need to drink lots of water.”
He sat down on the bed and watched her make her unsteady way across the room. She poured him a glass of water and brought it back to the bed. She held it out to him.
“I’ll drink it later,” he said, and when she would have protested, he snaked out a hand to grasp her wrist. “Come here, woman!” he snarled, pulling her onto him.
He took her hard and without mercy, pounding into her until she was crying out. His fingers raked along her well-padded hips, clawed at her thick thighs, dug into her more-than-ample buttocks as he thrust deeply and without care into her body. He ignored her legs wrapping around his hips. He ignored all else save for punishing her for all the times she had laid hands to what was not rightfully hers. When he felt his own relief starting, he pushed as hard into her as he could, as far as he could go, and held himself there as the wave of passion undulated over him. He sensed the quivers of her cunt around him. He pushed harder until she screamed with either the joy or the pain of it. He didn’t care which. After the last spurt of his semen flowed into her lying, thieving body, he rolled off her and reached for the goblet of water.
“Here, my wife,” he said. “Refresh yourself.”
Groggy from whatever it was she had attempted to feed him, she mindlessly took the goblet and gulped. He kept the goblet tipped until she had drained it then took it out of her hands and threw it across the room.
“Devrim, be more careful of our things,” she said, her tongue twisting the words.
“Your things,” he spat, and as she stared up at him with glazed eyes. “Not mine.” He drew back his fist and shut the light off temporarily in her world.
When he exited her house, he was walking slow and with some residual pain throbbing between his temples. The dizziness had almost left him but the weakness was still there. He had been too long abed before she’d allowed him to get up for him to have that much strength yet, but he intended to find that strength if it was the last thing he did.
Behind him, he had left her bound hand and foot to the bed, her mouth firmly gagged so she could not raise a hue and cry. She was unconscious from either sleep or the vicious blow from his fist. Either way, she would cause him no problems while he made his escape.
Though he had searched the house from top to bottom—making a mess of the immaculately clean abode—he had not found a kameez to go with the pants she had given him, but he had seen laundry on a line in the courtyard and he prayed the woman who had hung it had left it there overnight.
Easing his way down the long flight of stairs, he thought his feeble legs would give out on him and he would pitch into the darkness to break his neck in the fall. But somehow he made his way to the courtyard and was able to steal a kameez many sizes too large for him, but at least it covered his naked chest.
Standing at the top of the winding road that led down the mountain, the task of making that journey seemed daunting. He did not think he’d ever make it and went in search of a horse he could ride. It took some doing but he managed to chance upon a broken-down dray horse who rolled its eyes at him as he led it from its pen.
“You’re no worse off than me, old friend,” he whispered to the mount as he struggled to pull himself atop the deeply swayed back of the animal.
As though resigned to its rider as well as its late-night journey, the old horse stood still until the human could swing up on its back. He took off at a leisurely pace, seeming to know exactly where its rider wanted to go.
Hanging onto the rough, smelly mane, he focused on staying atop the animal. He didn’t want to think about the steep drop down which the animal casually made its way. When after two long hours the nag clomped onto the main roadway that led to the fortress he breathed a sigh of reli
ef and thanksgiving to the Prophet for allowing them a safe trip down the treacherous mountainside on a dark, moonless night.
What he wouldn’t give for a strong, steady mount, he thought. “A Rysalian,” he said. “One as black as midnight and…”
A memory of riding such a magnificent beast up a mountainside spread before him like an unrolling parchment. He knew toward whom he was riding and he knew it was for the woman whose face eluded him. He also knew an enemy was at his back, following in his wake.
“Remember to whom you speak, Bhaskar!” Sitara called out. “Prince Ardalan is my husband.”
“Ardalan!” he said aloud, making the poor animal beneath him quiver. “I am Ardalan and Sitara is my princess!”
Everything came back to him then—along with the beautiful face of his lady—and he urged the pitiful mount beneath him to a slightly faster pace. He had to return to Sitara as quickly as possible.
The fortress was dark save for the lights of the sentries at the main gate. Ardalan had no idea where he was, into whose hands he had fallen, but at least the people around him spoke Rysalian—if not the Soqui High Speech or Obinese to which he was accustomed—at least a dialect he could understand. He knew he had to be somewhere on the coast of the vast Rysalian Empire but where he couldn’t begin to guess.
Staggering his way up to the guards, he was not surprised when they came to attention and pointed their lances at his chest.
“I am Prince Ardalan Jaleem of Asaraba,” he told the guards.
The two men exchanged a look. “Is that right?” one of them laughed. “Prince Ardalan is it?”
“I am in need of your assistance,” he said. The last of his energy was quickly evaporating and his head was back to pounding.
“If I had that crazy wife of yours, I’d need assistance too,” the other guard stated with a guffaw.
Ardalan shook his head. “You don’t understand. I am—”
“Go tell the commander we’ve got Alara’s wandering husband out here,” the guard who had first spoken told the other. “He may send him back to that insane bitch or he may not since the little bastard is absent without leave.”
“No,” Ardalan said, shaking his head despite the pain slicing through his temples. “I am not her husband. I am—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. You’re Prince Ardalan Jaleem of Asaraba,” the guard cut him off, “and I’m the Sultan of Karak!”
Rough hands gripped Ardalan’s upper arms and he tried to pull away. He fought them but it was no use. They were soldiers in their prime and he was still sick from the drugs she’d been feeding him. Though he struggled, they manhandled him into the fortress, banging the heavy metal-studded portal shut behind them.
Chapter Fifteen
Sitara bent over the chamber pot and threw up again as she’d been doing every morning for a week now. The maids who were attending her washed her face with a cool cloth and helped her to lie back down. Cool air swirled in from the tall, opened windows, flooding the room with the smell of the sea. Outside, the gently crashing waves lent a soothing atmosphere.
“Can we get you anything, Your Grace?” the younger of the two maids asked.
“A calm stomach,” Sitara joked as she straightened up. She had been sitting on the balcony, reading an Oceanian novel, trying desperately to translate the flowing words. It was the hardest thing she’d done of late, but the tale was intriguing and the hero brave.
“Perhaps you should lie down for a while,” the other maid suggested.
“I think I may do that,” Sitara agreed. She rinsed out her mouth with a cup of water then padded barefoot back to her bed. Fresh linens smelling of the outdoors greeted her as she stretched out on the starched sheets.
“Do you think you’ll be well enough to go to the market with us tomorrow, Your Grace?” the younger girl asked. “The ships are already lining up along the docks and I’ve heard the merchandise comes from as far away as Chrystallus.”
“Really?” Sitara asked. “Do you imagine they’d have some of that country’s wondrous silk?”
“Oh surely they will,” the girl answered. “And lace from Chale, wool from Virago, bright cotton prints from Necroman, and who can guess what else!”
“Then if I am up to it, I’ll definitely go,” Sitara stated. She laid her arm over her eyes and tried to quell the next bout of nausea lurking in her throat. Her bed was soft—as plush as could be found at the Palace of the Seas in the Oceanian capital.
A guest of the King and Queen of Oceania while her own dwelling was being built near Fealst on the southern coast, Sitara had fallen in love with the tropical paradise. The sights and sounds and scents delighted her and along with the five servants her mother had insisted she take along with her, Queen Enea Wynth had provided two more strong, able-bodied male servants to be at Sitara’s beck and call.
“You will need men to carry the litter for you when you travel about the city,” Queen Enea remarked. “It is unseemly for a lady of royal rank to walk amongst the commoners.”
King Darneon agreed, and now Sitara had seven servants lurking about, doing next to nothing as she lay in bed most of the time due to the sickness that had come one morning and stayed.
“You are with child,” the Oceanian healer had pronounced then gave Sitara a long, convoluted lecture on what she could and could not do, what she should and should not do, and what she was to expect in the coming months.
Refusing to believe the baby growing within her could be Sahan’s, Sitara was thrilled. As much as she had not wanted a child and had considered taking herbs to make sure she did not conceive after their one night together, she now desperately wanted the baby in her womb. It was Ardalan’s—she knew it was—and it would be all she ever would have of him.
Placing her free hand on her belly, she rubbed the slight mound. She had not written to her parents and had begged Queen Enea not to mention the pregnancy in her monthly missives to the maharani. It was Sitara’s secret for now and she wanted it kept that way.
“Your mother suspects your condition,” the Oceanian queen had commented just last evening at supper. “She keeps asking me if you are well. What am I to tell her, Sitara?”
“Tell her I am well,” Sitara stated, “for I am. There will be time to tell my mother of the child.”
Thunder boomed in the distance and Sitara sat up, her eyes wide, her fists gathered in the sheet. Since that fateful day on the beach in Kishnu, she had developed an intense fear of storms. It had been a storm that had taken her love from her just as surely as the man who had set the trap for Ardalan. She could not stop the storms, could not punish them for what had happened to her man, but she could—and did—punish at least one who had been involved.
“You will find him strutting about the streets of Ionary on any given day during the Festival of Rejuvenation,” she had told one of the male servants who had been loaned to her by Queen Enea. “He is a very vain man and it will be there he will be looking to buy pomades and philters to help keep him young.” She had handed the jar to the servant. “Make sure he—and he alone—purchases this magical pomade.”
It had not been hard to find the maiden’s briar plant among the stalls of the weekly bazaar. For the right price the herb could be purchased with no questions asked. Sitara had chosen the roots and leaves of the lethal plant carefully and had taken it back to her suite at the palace to brew the pomade herself, taking care that as much deadly liquid was instilled in the salve as she could distill from the seeping of the leaves and root.
“Instruct him on how to apply the cream liberally to his face and neck and caution him it must be rubbed in with his own hands,” Sitara had told the servant. “No other hands must touch it for it to be effective.” She had slipped the servant a thousand golden rami, a month’s allowance from her mother. “Appeal to his vanity and we will have him.”
The servant had bowed deeply, no doubt joyous at receiving what would be an entire year’s salary for him. She knew she had his loya
lty and she bid him not to touch the salve under any circumstances.
“It is for Sahan Kapoor’s ugly face and no other’s,” she ordered.
That had been nearly two months ago and Sitara treasured the letter from her mother telling her how Prince Sahan had died from a mysterious ailment that had left him gasping for breath, his body writhing in agony.
“The healers do not know what ailed him,” her mother wrote. “Perhaps it was something he ate?”
Sitara had laughed at her mother’s assumption. She realized the maharani knew her daughter had been behind Sahan’s untimely demise, but like the Kishnu healers, had no idea how the bastard had met his fate. Another shamaness or a magi would know, but would be loath to admit it.
Sahan had not been the only man in Kishnu whose fate had found its way into the slender hands of Ardalan Jaleem’s widow. A certain royal bodyguard had been found lying at the bottom of an abandoned well near the coastal town of Veijali. How he had gotten there was a mystery, but it was said the poor man had died a horrible death without food or water.
“Poor Bhaskar,” her mother had written. “Your father keeps wondering who will be the next man of his acquaintance to meet a tragic end.”
It was a hint Sitara refused to acknowledge. As much as she hated her father for his complicity in the death of her husband, that man’s punishment would have to come from his wife if he was to leave this world before his time.
As fierce winds began to blow through the casement window, Sitara fled the bed and put as much distance between her and the coming storm as she could. She did not want to hear the rain or the thunder or the piercing shriek of the lightning.
“I will protect you, my child,” she whispered to the baby in her womb as she hid in the closet, pressing her face to the wall. “I will always protect you.”
* * * * *
Halim drew in a deep lungful of the smell of land as the Halcón docked in Seadrift Harbor. The quays were bustling with activity for theirs was not the only ship to drop anchor that day. A Chrystallusian brig was berthed to their starboard side and beside her was a Viragonian longship whose decks were crawling with tall, blond men with the muscular build of the gods.
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