“Sara.” Lance groaned and kissed her throat, making her arch her neck. His fingers found her stiffened nipples and plucked them through the silk while his tongue traced her collarbone. Sweet heat bloomed inside her.
“Sara, look at me.”
Her eyelids felt weighted; she dragged them open. Beneath her, Lance’s eyes glittered with fever. “I need to be inside you.” His body strained upward in illustration, making liquid heat surge between Sara’s thighs.
“Yes,” she said fiercely. “Yes.”
She reached down between them and tore at the drawstring on his underwear until it loosened enough that she could shove it down out of the way. Lance didn’t help at all, his own fingers busy stroking her slick opening and making her cry out.
At last his erection sprang free. When Aunt Evina had explained this part to her, Sara had been sure she wouldn’t like it, but this was Lance. She wanted him inside her. Eagerly, she positioned herself over his stiffened rod and began to impale herself.
The blunt penetration felt good, but after a few inches he reached the barrier of her virginity. Sara squirmed, discomfort warring with her need to be filled by him.
“Wait,” Lance gasped. But she didn’t want to wait, she wanted to feel. She rocked back on her knees, sliding up a couple of inches, then slammed herself back down. Pain and pleasure together arrowed through her. She held still, trying to make sense of the sensations rioting along her nerve pathways.
Lance’s muscles locked underneath her, his face a mask of restrained passion. “I can’t—can’t go slowly,” he gasped.
“I don’t want you to,” she said clearly. Instinct made her rise above him again and slide down. Yes. There. A little pain lingered, but not enough to slow her down. She began to ride him, going from a canter to a good hard gallop.
“Slow down,” Lance gasped, but she didn’t listen, racing toward some unseen glorious finish line and then—
Yessss.
She collapsed bonelessly on top of Lance, even as his hands clenched on her hips. He slammed home twice more, making stars burst in her vision, and then groaned, finding his own release.
* * *
It had finally happened. She’d given in to the wildness. Her virginity was gone, an irrevocable act. Lying beside Lance while he slept, Sara waited for the self-recriminations to come, but discovered she felt no regret. As the Child of Peace, she would be spending the next five years of her life in Kandrith. When she returned to the Republic she would no longer be of prime marriageable age. And if need be, Aunt Evina could invent some story of her being widowed during her long absence.
No, she didn’t regret making love with Lance. She was fiercely glad he’d been her first, that she’d have this memory in place of Claude or Nir rutting on top of her.
None of which changed the fact that she couldn’t let this happen again. What she felt for Lance wasn’t as bad—yet—as her girlish infatuation for Julen. At fifteen, she’d been convinced Julen was perfect in every way, the handsomest and smartest man in the whole world. She knew Lance had faults: he was stubborn, often grumpy and despised the noble class. Oh, yes, she could enumerate his faults well enough. The danger lay in the fact that his virtues—his kindness, integrity and courage—outshone them in her eyes.
If she allowed passion to rule her, it wouldn’t be long before she started seeing Lance as perfect, before her loyalties to her father and country began to erode. Because, after all, a perfect man could never have had anything to do with the Favonius massacre so what would be the harm in confiding in him?
She had to put some distance between her and Lance. Starting now.
After reassuring herself that Lance’s fever hadn’t grown dangerously high, Sara rolled out of bed and dressed in her Kandrithan clothes, this time in pale green. She was poking dubiously at the embers of last night’s fire when the cottage door opened, letting in the sound of rain. Valda had returned.
“Good morning,” Sara said, but Valda was neither smiling nor alone.
Another woman, dressed all in white, came through the door and stood just inside the cottage. The dripping hood of her cape framed a round face with blond hair going silver. “You are the companion of the man named Julen?” she asked in a peculiar monotone.
Alarm prickled across Sara’s skin. “What’s the matter?”
Valda nudged her. “Just answer the Listener’s question.”
“Uh, yes I am.” The Listener sounded like another title, like the Watcher, but what did it mean? She was wearing a white dress and a white vest. In the skipping song, white had symbolized— She couldn’t remember.
“He has been arrested and deemed guilty of cheating at cards,” the Listener intoned.
God of Malice! Julen was supposed to be on his way to the Gate by now. Sara felt a strong surge of anger—how could Julen have been so stupid? She thought frantically. Lance was still sleeping; maybe she could still save the situation.
“Julen is my subordinate. I apologize for his behavior. I’m willing to pay his fine.”
“His trial is this afternoon,” the Listener said. “You can apologize then if you’d like.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Sara said, her heart beating hard. “Julen is a citizen of the Republic. You have no right to detain him.”
Valda snorted. “This isn’t the Republic, and he deserves to be arrested.”
Sara raised a placating hand. “We don’t know that. We haven’t heard his side of the story.” Not that she thought Julen incapable of cheating at cards. It just seemed unlikely that he would have been clumsy enough to be caught.
“His trial is this afternoon,” the Listener repeated.
She turned to go, but Valda stepped forward and touched her shoulder. “I’ll see you again tonight, Madge.”
“I hope so.” The Listener smiled back at her.
Sara blinked. She hadn’t realized Valda had meant she’d be staying with a pillow friend like some of Aunt Evina’s sophisticated crowd had. Not that it made any difference. Sara’s mind immediately returned to the problem at hand: extricating Julen from jail and getting him on a horse and on his way.
If she was very lucky, Lance might sleep all day and—
“Listener, I would be pleased if you would wait a moment,” Lance said, poking his head out from behind the curtain. He still looked flushed, but his eyes were clear, and he’d pulled on his tunic and trousers. “Do either of you know—” He stopped, shook his head and started again. “I need to know what was at stake in the card game.”
“Money, I think,” Valda said, looking puzzled.
“A ruby ring was bet against a horse,” the Listener said precisely.
Sara’s stomach lurched. Now she understood what Julen had been thinking.
Lance’s jaw set. “Listener, I’d like to ask Sara a question and have you judge its truth.”
Truth, that was what white represented. Sara swore inwardly.
“I will judge,” the Listener said.
Lance turned to Sara and all this morning’s tenderness and passion were erased as if they had never been. He looked at her the same way he had the first day in the carriage: as an enemy, a noblewoman.
And wasn’t that what she was? Sara waited in bitter silence.
“Did you order Julen to cheat at cards or steal a horse?” Lance asked harshly.
Sara lifted her chin. “No.” It was the truth—she just hadn’t inquired closely into how Julen intended to obtain one.
“Truth,” the Listener declared.
Lance still looked suspicious, but he didn’t ask any more questions. “My thanks, Listener.”
The Listener inclined her head, touched Valda’s shoulder in passing and then departed back out into the rain.
Sara couldn’t stand the silence. “I take it a Listener can truth-tell in some fashion? What do they sacrifice?”
Lance seemed to debate with himself a moment before replying. “Listeners sacrifice their hearing for the ability to hea
r only truth. When someone lies they hear a kind of harsh buzzing instead.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.” Not compared to Lance’s.
“It is a sacrifice,” Lance declared, vehemently. “She’ll never hear a white lie, that she looks well when she doesn’t. She’ll never hear thunder or the sound of rain. If there was a runaway horse, she would not hear the sound of hooves and know to get out of the way. She cannot hear questions. She will never hear music, or a loved one’s voice, or a child’s laughter. A Listener is wrapped in silence, set apart.”
Sara stared at Lance, taken aback. He’d clearly thought this through in great detail. Why?
“People are wary of Listeners,” Valda said sadly. “They guard their tongues, lest they betray their petty secrets. I know better, and it’s still hard for me. That’s why I live here in the house my husband built instead of with Madge—that and I’m not ready to leave behind the pear tree my mother gifted me with.” Valda looked at Lance. “The Kandrith is a Listener too?”
Lance nodded, his gaze brooding.
Sara wanted to hug him, but they were no longer on that kind of footing. She cleared her throat instead. “I assume the Listener will preside over Julen’s trial?” In the Republic, trials took place in a Temple of Hana with two acolytes arguing the case. For very important trials the God of Justice was supposed to provide a sign of guilt or innocence, but Sara had heard it whispered that the outcome depended on which party had made the most generous ‘donation.’
Lance shook his head. “Julen has already been deemed guilty. The Listener will be there to judge his promise to abide by his punishment.”
“What is the usual punishment?” She wondered if there was some way she could send to her father for more money if need be.
“Repayment of some kind. The Justice will decide what.”
Valda must have noticed her puzzled look because she added, “The Justice is the person most wronged by the offender. Whoever Julen cheated.”
“The ruby ring will probably content him,” Lance said dryly, “though it would be his right to demand what Julen tried to steal from him. Two years’ labor.”
“Two years?” Sara squeaked. “For cheating at cards?”
“Horses are rare in Kandrith,” Lance said.
Sara felt herself pale. Of course. Horses couldn’t pass through the Gate, so stock must be limited.
* * *
The jail proved to be an empty wooden granary. The guard—a dour farmer with a florid face—agreed to let Sara in after Valda spoke to him. In place of a hinged door, the square granary had two parallel grooves into which boards could be slotted as the grain level within rose higher. The farmer removed the top five boards so that Sara could put one leg over and get in—an impossible task if not for her split skirts.
Pointedly, he replaced the boards afterward, leaving Sara blinking in the dimness. There were no windows, but light fell through a number of gaps in the walls. The air tasted dusty with chaff.
A small pallet, similar to the one Sara had slept on, had been provided. Julen rose from it as she came inside. “Lady Sarathena, how good of you to visit me.” He looked his usual handsome and charming self with only the shadow of a beard to show that anything was amiss. “May I offer you a seat?” He indicated the pallet.
Sara ignored the gibe and crossed her arms. “You snail-brained idiot. What were you thinking? You’ve endangered everything.”
Julen’s lip curled. “I am slandered. When I find out who has accused me I shall challenge him to a duel.”
Sara clapped her hands. “Prettily said—but it won’t work. When you were arrested, do you remember a woman in white who asked you if you’d cheated?”
“Yes,” Julen said cautiously.
“That was the Listener, a Kandrithan truth-teller. She judged you guilty. That’s why you’re in jail. Avowals of innocence are not going to help you.”
Julen stared in disbelief for a moment, then swore heartily.
When he finished, Sara continued on mercilessly. “The trial this afternoon is to determine your punishment. Whoever you cheated will be the judge. If we’re lucky it will only be a fine and not hard labor.”
Julen winced.
“Now tell me exactly what happened.”
“After leaving your illustrious company yesterday, I made inquiries about buying a horse. No one was willing to sell, but I managed to drum up interest in a game of chance.”
Sara frowned. The Kandrithans should have been lambs for Julen to fleece—without cheating. “What went wrong?”
“Nothing—at first. I was careful not to win too often. It took hours to build up a pot. I never saw such a bunch of stingy bets in my life.”
“And?”
“And then the boy got lucky. He won the pot. But I persuaded him to make a side bet—my ruby ring against his horse.”
“And you decided to make sure you won by cheating.” Sara shook her head in disgust.
“We need that horse,” Julen said tightly. “Or have you forgotten? I must get to your father with all speed.” He glanced at the floor where the shadow of the guard blocked the light. “You know the stakes. What would you have had me do?”
Sara looked away. Yesterday she hadn’t known about Listeners. If Julen had asked her permission to ensure he got a horse any way he could, she might well have said yes.
Time to make her own confession. “We have another problem. Lance guessed why you wanted the horse. He hasn’t told anyone else. Yet. But even if you get off with just a fine, it’s going to be much harder to sneak away.”
“And if he brings up at the trial that I’m a spy, things could go very badly,” Julen said grimly.
Sara nodded.
“Will he implicate you as well?” Julen asked.
“No,” Sara said, then realized she was assuming he would try to protect her because they were lovers. But just as her loyalty to her family came first, so would Lance’s to his. “That is, I don’t think so.” She licked her lips. What would he do? “I’m still the Child of Peace. I don’t think he’ll risk entangling me in local justice.” Once he delivered her to his father, it would be a different matter, of course.
“Stay clear of it, if you can,” Julen told her. “If I’m jailed, you’ll need to try to pass the information on to your father by yourself. Your best bet is to use a simple code and include it among an innocent letter. If that doesn’t work, you can try to bribe someone to send a message for you…”
Sara listened closely as he gave her a quick lesson in spycraft.
* * *
Lance had already healed four coughs, a festering cut and a bad case of boils from his bed by the time Sara returned. He became aware of her as soon as she set foot in the cottage even though she hung back as he dealt with his last two patients.
The realization was…disturbing. It reminded him of how his deaf father would turn and smile as soon as Lance’s mother entered the room. But the comparison was ridiculous. He was just sensitive to her nearness because he wanted her again already. Memories from this morning sluiced through him, bringing with them a wave of heat. Despite her inexperience, she’d been wildfire in his arms.
“There,” he told the young mother in front of him. “She’ll be able to see better now.”
The mother and her red-haired daughter beamed at him, revealing identical gaps between their two front teeth, and left.
“So what did Julen say?” Lance asked, trying not to sound jealous. The fact that he had no right to feel that way only made him more prickly.
She shrugged. “He was tired of walking and wanted a horse. He almost won one on his own and succumbed to temptation.”
“You mean he thought it would be easy to cheat ignorant barbarians.” Lance’s ire rose.
Before they could get into an argument, a cry from outside attracted his attention. “Healer, healer come quickly!”
Lance lunged for the door. Only the room swayed, and he would have fallen if
Sara hadn’t put his arm over her shoulder. “I suppose it’s useless to tell you to go back to bed and let them bring the patient to you?” she asked even as she continued helping him to the door.
His lips quirked. “Yes.”
A horse stood in the middle of the street, eyes rolling. At first glance it appeared riderless, and then Lance saw why the mare was flinching with nerves. A young man lay in the dusty street behind it, arms flung out, one foot still caught in the stirrup. From the look of it, he’d been dragged some distance.
Lance’s stomach clenched, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. He hurried.
A villager caught the mare’s bridle and kept it from trotting away. “Easy now.”
Lance knelt. Grimly, he ignored the gory wound on the man’s head and put his hands on the man’s unbreathing chest. Nothing. For long moments he willed healing into him, but Loma’s healing warmth did not come.
Bitter defeat filled him. He was too late. Again.
Both the black-and-white mare and the straw-haired dead man looked familiar to Lance, but he wasn’t sure of their identity until a pregnant woman cried, “Huw!”
Half the village lined the street by now, but the anguish on Iorweth’s face stood out. “Is he—?”
“I’m sorry. He’s beyond my help.” Lance spoke as gently as possible, keeping the anger out of his voice. He hated admitting defeat. And the rote words never got any easier.
Iorweth collapsed on the dirt road, weeping.
Valda laid a cloak around the pregnant woman’s shoulders and embraced her. The village women gathered around Iorweth, while the men unhitched the horse from his grisly burden in silence.
“You need to get back to bed,” Sara said quietly.
I didn’t do anything. I’m not tired, Lance wanted to snap. He allowed Sara to steer him back to Valda’s, but paused in the doorway, frowning at the knot of women.
“Bring Iorweth to me,” Lance instructed. Shock often brought on early labor. He hadn’t been able to save Huw, but he could make sure the man’s wife and child lived.
Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 25