by Cate Rowan
Especially his foes. But they were always looking for a stumble, a misjudgment they could use to their advantage. Seeking out malcontents they could entice to their cause. And with petty cases like these, someone would always be dissatisfied.
“O Lord,” the latest complainer shrilled as his forehead touched the floor, “I beg of you: please do not allow my neighbor to insult my family! Last week he built a fence that cuts off our access to our own lirrfruit trees! My cook can no longer gather our own fruits to brew for breakfast…”
Kuramos’s hands twitched, aching to curl into fists. Tradition, indeed—ancient family conflicts and jealousies played out again and again, differing only in the details. Today Death stalked the corridors of his palace, yet here he must sit, pretending all was well. If he did not, if word of the illness reached his foes, the strength of his rule and of his very dynasty would be shredded by poisonous treachery.
And how well his enemies had already pruned that dynasty! They’d sliced off its leaves and branches, burned and hacked at it until only twigs remained to shake in the oncoming gale.
The goddess would have Her revenge at last.
“But O Lord,” whined the neighbor who’d built the offending fence, “consider what he keeps from you: his own father sold me that land and those trees! A handshake sealed the bargain thirty years ago, and though I have permitted his cook to take fruit from our trees until now, it is within my right to fence my own property. Furthermore—”
At precisely the moment when the sultan knew he would burst a vein if he didn’t wrap his hands around both neighbors’ necks, a shriek echoed through the great hall.
Kuramos’s gaze streaked to the open doorway of the antechamber and he shot to his feet, palming the hilt of the scimitar belted at his waist. His guards had leapt to attention at the scream, then relaxed at what they saw. Kuramos, however, remained in a fighter’s stance as he took in the spectacle.
A splendid blonde in foreign garb wrestled with three palace guards for control of a well-stuffed travel pack. Her prudishly long skirts swirled around her as she gave one man an impressive clout across the chin. Adding to the confusion was Kuramos’s own jencel, dive-bombing the guard who gripped the hellcat’s squirming waist.
“You fools!” the woman yelled. “You’ll crush them! Lay one more hand on that pack and you’ll wish your life were over!”
Amazingly, the guards’ faces reflected a curious mixture of contempt and…fear.
The woman turned toward the crowd of astonished courtiers but her gaze raced past them all to slam headlong into Kuramos’s. The impact sent his pulse staggering. Eyes blue as cornflowers, and as cutting as tempered steel…
“You!” she shouted into the room. “Is this how you treat the Healers you beg to come to your family’s aid? Call off your dogs!”
Murmurs shot through the room. The nobles stared at the disheveled and furious woman, and then their gazes rose to their sultan—some with horror, others with venomous pleasure.
But Kuramos’s mind was already roaring like wind over desert dunes. The woman’s indigo skirts were Tegannese in style… Gunjan, who’d been sent to fetch the Royal Healer of Prince Alvarr, was with her…
His jaws ground together. Aghast and furious, he finally understood the last words of Dabir ib Rubai.
“She” had come.
The dark, empty blur of the magical Crossing from Teganne had lasted only a few moments, with Varene’s unease lightened by the pinpricks of Gunjan’s talons on her shoulder and the rough canvas of the pack she clutched in both hands. But when she emerged in Kad’s FireRing, everything went wrong.
Through the blur, an incredulous male voice roared out: “A woman? Where’s the Healer? Teganne has deceived us!”
Shapes like flat diamonds glinted and rose around her. She fought to focus her eyes, and soon realized a cadre of guards with raised spears surrounded the Ring. Her heart almost leapt into her skull.
Gunjan launched himself over the guards’ heads, screeching, “She IS the Healer, she IS the Healer!” Even after the men reluctantly lowered their spears, their contemptuous expressions displayed their thoughts: A woman, a Tegannese Healer—a sorceress!
Varene glared back, swimming in a sea of adrenaline fury. Flight wasn’t an option—she had no power to go back through the Ring. That left only fight, and she was alone and unarmed. She bit her tongue and took a shaky breath, struggling for control.
A dubious guardsman poked his spear into her canvas sack of herbs and remedies. The liquid silverwort she’d carefully sealed in a pig’s bladder welled up through the slice.
Lout! She pinned the guard with her gaze. “What manner of Kaddite idiot are you?”
The beefy guard, clearly unwilling to accept impertinence from an infidel female, raised his palm to strike her. She kicked up, and the surprise in his eyes as he doubled over, wheezing and gripping his groin, was a momentary salve to her pride. Too late, she realized she’d worsened things. The next guard rushed her, cocking his fist.
A man behind her boomed, “Halt, Liro!” Before she even had a chance to turn, she’d been pinioned horizontally under the boomer’s exceedingly large and hairy arm.
“Let me go!” She twisted, struggling, but he strode into a broad hallway with her dangling beneath his tree-trunk arm like a child’s straw doll. Another guardsman swung her pack into his arms and a second followed, while the others stayed behind to guard the Ring.
“Don’t shake that!” she yelled at the oaf with the pack.
“Obey her order,” rumbled her captor.
My order? Varene, pinned and staring down at the marble floors speeding past, choked back an ironic laugh.
The hairy man’s arms clamped her ribs like a vise until she could barely breathe. Enough! Writhing like a snake, she managed to squirm from his grasp. She dove behind him to grab her pack, but the other guards scrambled to seize her, their big sandaled feet slip-sliding on the polished marble, arms flailing at the shrieking jencel as he swooped and clawed.
When Varene turned and spied an astonished audience, she knew she stood before the court of the sultan. Her gaze swerved instinctively to the dais and the dominant stance of the dark-haired man upon it.
The sultan whose tale of deathly illness had tugged her from her homeland wasn’t at his children’s bedsides, as Alvarr or Jilian or any caring parent would have been. He was holding court over a throne room full of lavishly dressed and bejeweled noblemen, as though nothing were wrong.
“You!” she shouted at him, struggling to free herself from the guard’s relentless grip. “Is this how you treat the Healers you beg to come to your family’s aid? Call off your dogs!”
A hush befell the room. Varene, still shaking in rage, took a harder look at the Great Sultan.
Eyes as green as the merciless ocean stared down at her, and the onyx curl that strayed over his forehead in no way eased the force of his gaze. He’d set his mouth in a feral line that could have tipped toward kindness or to cruelty in a second. The vee of chest bared by his low kaftan displayed the powerful muscles of a soldier who understood the right of might. The snowy pearl dangling from his left ear only augmented the hardness of his expression.
As her courage traitorously deserted her and she swallowed, his voice roared out like a thunderclap.
“Leave me. All of you but her!”
Gunjan, her unexpected ally against the guards, emitted a shivery cheep and soared away. One of the guards pushed her into the throne room. As one, the troop executed a deep bow and backed out of sight. When every noble in the room mirrored the guards’ retreat, the ridiculous panorama of forty obsequiously bobbing backs nearly erased Varene’s apprehension.
Nearly.
As the double doors behind her slammed closed, she realized she was alone with the Sultan of Kad. A sultan whose eyes glittered ominously.
“Come here.”
She held defiantly still, but the man commanding her was a monarch and she was not. Despite
her high title, she wasn’t even a blooded noble. In Teganne, that hadn’t mattered. Here…
She moved reluctantly toward him, traversing each foot of the long room as if approaching her grave, but her spine was ramrod-straight and her chin high. She’d earned her position through dedication and excellence—more than was true for some of those born to rule!
He said nothing as she approached, just crossed his gold-banded arms and brazenly took her measure, from her bedraggled ponytail and glistening brow, down her long, wrinkled gown to her scuffed silk slippers.
She halted several feet from the dais under his fierce appraisal, and soon became all too aware that she’d neither bowed nor curtseyed to him. Doing so now seemed… a bit belated.
Besides, what she really wanted to do was punch him.
She took a deep breath, wishing it were possible to start over and hold her temper. “I’m sorry. I only meant—”
“I do not recall giving you permission to speak.”
Her teeth snapped shut with an audible, insolent click. How dare he? She was here to save his family. One of her eyebrows rose to her hairline and several choice invectives seethed on her tongue.
“So,” he drawled. “You are the Royal Healer of Teganne.”
How she hated the way he said “you”—as though she were far less than he expected! She clenched her jaws so tightly she thought her teeth would grind to dust. After all, he hadn’t given her permission to speak.
“Yes,” he said, inclining his head gravely. “You should now answer.”
An enraged rush of breath shot out of her. “I’m the Royal Healer you sought, yes.”
“What is your name?”
“Varene na Seryn. Of Teganne.” Where no one in the royal court would treat a visiting Healer in such a scornful manner!
He narrowed his eyes. “Well, Varene na Seryn of Teganne. By presuming to command me—in this very throne room and in front of the highest-ranked nobles in Kad—you gave me and my entire realm flagrant insult.” His nostrils flared. “Far worse, your loose tongue has confirmed for those nobles what had only been rumor before: that there is a grave illness among the Ruling Family. My family.” He stepped off the dais, looming over her. “You’ve handed them a weapon: the knowledge that my throne may soon be vacant for the hyenas to battle over!”
Her jaw slackened. None of that had been her intention. She recalled now that Gunjan had asked her to keep things quiet, but the “welcome” she’d been given had been far beyond the pale.
“So, traveler.” His face, now only inches from hers, radiated displeasure. She fought the urge to recoil. “You may be the Royal Healer of Teganne. You may be the friend and privileged servant of that shivering hare, Prince Alvarr. But in my palace,” he said, eyes flashing, “in my realm, the holy birthplace and land blessed of gods, you will treat ME with respect. Is that clear?”
Ire surged through her blood. Undeniably, it had been a mistake to loosen her tongue. Discretion was crucial in her profession as well as in royal courts. But after the attack she’d faced for doing the man a favor, his hubris was unbelievable. “Certainly,” she ground out. “And how, exactly, would you like me to address you?” Arrogant Ass?
A caustic smile curled his lips. “‘O Lord’ is proper, as is ‘Great Sultan’.”
“I see.” She waited two eons-long heartbeats before she continued. “O Lord.” The words caught like chalk in her throat.
No doubt he’d noticed the delay. She would bet those cold eyes of his didn’t miss much.
Without responding, he let his gaze roll past her as if she were beneath his notice. The rest of him followed, striding by her like she was flotsam in his wake.
She turned, agape at his arrogance. Was he just going to leave her standing here?
But instead of stalking off, or calling his guards to throw her out, he picked up her travel sack of herbs and gently swung it over his own royal shoulder. “Come, Varene na Seryn. I will take you to your patients.”
The glance he cast her was measured and sure. Then, without looking back, he stepped through an arched doorway along a side wall.
Varene stared after him, blood hammering in her temples. Kuramos’s quicksilver shift of mood, his hospitable, almost deferential gesture, left her bewildered. The cloak of indignation she’d clung to since her arrival now sagged somewhere at her feet.
Next slumped her certainty. In the palace of the Great Sultan of Kad, perhaps all was not as it appeared.
Her pulse stumbled like a drunken drummer as she followed Kuramos out of the glittering throne room.
CHAPTER FIVE
Varene entered a hall lined with tapestries of opalescent cities, vast grasslands and desert sand—the landscapes of Kad. The sultan of those exotic places strode ahead of her, tall and imposing, with a masculine grace that snared her attention.
Although Kuramos carried her sack of remedies—chivalrously, she supposed—he also marched in front as if she were a peon who mustn’t share his air. Nor did he turn to make sure she followed. His confidence raised a growl that hovered at the back of her throat.
She wasn’t quite sure why it felt so good to be angry. It just did. And that made her think. As their footsteps echoed down the hall, she considered the temper she’d displayed to him and his court.
Sticks and stars, where had her sense gone? She believed in respect for authority, and always had. She’d even helped foster Alvarr’s respect for others—she’d been a mentor to the princeling since he was orphaned at age twelve. But Teganne was less formal, and respect wasn’t so rigidly displayed.
Even so, she shouldn’t have antagonized a sultan. Even if he did need her and her skills more than she needed him…
Ah, take care. She wasn’t in Kad on her own terms, no matter how much she wished it. And on this mission she was also a representative of Teganne, of her prince and princess, and of her very profession. She needed to act in accordance, no matter how much this place and its vexatious inhabitants shoved her off-balance.
As the sultan passed the two guards at the end of the hall, they slammed the butts of their spears on the polished floor. When she crossed their vision seconds later, they stood stone-still, as if she were invisible. Hmmph. Though it was better to feel unnoticed than have those spears waving in her face again.
They emerged from the echoing silence into an enormous courtyard rioting with flowers and palm trees. As she and the sultan walked a wide path, the blooms' scents burst over her. Leaves rustled all around them; geckos scurried, bees whirred, and birds called jaunty alarms. Water splashed from fountains into tiny, perfect ponds where rainbow fish swished and dove among the lilies. The overpowering heat of the afternoon suddenly made her long to dive among them, too, and live a simpler existence.
Along the white walls edging the courtyard, graceful doorways beckoned her toward other halls and rooms. Simple half-oval arches vied with others shaped like elaborate keyholes. Through the latter she caught glimpses of cushions and rugs, draped silks and gauzes, and wondered if they were the quarters of Kuramos’s wives, or perhaps even his concubines.
Paces ahead, the sultan passed under one of the half-ovals into a hall, shifting abruptly from light into shade. Though Varene’s legs were long, she had to stretch to keep up. He might be a royal headache, but he was the only person she knew here; it wouldn’t do to lose him.
At the end of the hall, he laid her sack down, still without looking back. A door swung open beneath his touch, and his back tensed as he stared into what was beyond.
Varene followed him into a majestic bedroom, her slippers nestling into plush rugs. Satins of wine, silver, and gold draped the bed canopy while plump pillows clustered on a graceful divan. A breeze infused with juniper wafted from the mountain slopes beyond the wide window and sunlight danced across the carpets. But the sense of languor invoked by the furnishings contrasted with its inhabitants.
A small boy, perhaps four or five, lay with closed eyes near the edge of the enormous bed, u
nder snow-white sheets that underscored his pallor. The brunette beside him sat up, staring at Kuramos and Varene. The slit in her long, tight skirt of scarlet silk reached her thigh, displaying a shapely leg. A slim midriff of golden skin led to an impressive bosom in a scarlet brassiere, showcased by a diamond-mounted emerald nestled at the top of her décolletage. Jewels dripped from her earlobes, fingers, and painted toes. Her eyes, too, flashed like polished emerald, and exuded hauteur. As she gazed at Varene, her expression mutated into distaste. She turned to Kuramos. “Who is she?”
“Varene na Seryn, the Royal Healer of Teganne.” His voice deepened with an undertone Varene couldn’t identify.
The woman’s eyes flicked back to her, dismissively. “Why did you bring her? Bairam—”
“Is doing his best.”
Varene was almost certain the words “for what that’s worth” were hanging in the air.
“He was here a moment ago, but left to confer with the others,” the brunette sniffed. “So you’ve brought a woman? A Tegannese infidel?” Her gaze raked over Varene, then turned its scorn on the sultan. “You would have her ensorcel our son?”
“She’s here to heal Tahir.”
“This… this heathen stranger? A Teg witch?”
Varene stiffened and narrowed her eyes, but Kuramos was faster.
“Sulya!” his voice lashed out. The woman flinched, but covered it well. “She’s our guest, Sixth Wife.”
His wife! And the sixth… Varene stared at the beauty who’d married the sultan even though five others had already done the same. A distasteful custom, the harem system. Why would any woman accept such a horrid compromise?
Yes, Kuramos’s outer form was gorgeous and his position as sultan, all-powerful. And perhaps he exuded some sort of…mesmeric force. All considered, he might be worthy of someone’s private erotic dream. But his unfettered arrogance surely drove his women into seething rages. And for them to share a husband with five others? Faugh!