by Gail Dayton
“If a person can’t push around many folk, he’s more likely to push those he can.” Torchay had seen it often, especially in the army.
“Your patience is impressive.” Obed drummed his fingers on the ship’s rail. “Mine is stretched to breaking. I’ve never liked wasting time. There’s too much to be done.”
“Peace, ilias.” Torchay touched Obed’s shoulder and pointed. “Could that be our little Bureaucrat?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The man was far from little. Tall and stout, with a belly that strained the shell buttons closing his black padded vest, he bowled aside the scurrying laborers as he made his ponderous way to the ship. The gangplank bowed slightly as he trudged up it. He took a sailor’s hand for support and thudded to the deck.
The captain approached the bureaucrat first, bowing and scraping his way through a sheaf of papers and seals. Then he escorted the local to where Torchay and Obed waited. Stone’s suggestion that Torchay wear warrior’s red and all of his blades seemed to be a wise one, for the bureaucrat’s bluster faded at the sight of him. Torchay folded his arms, flexed his muscles, scowled, and the bureaucrat went pale.
Obed spoke, telling the story they’d agreed upon. Torchay could understand a word here and there, since Obed’s Tibran was only fair. The bureaucrat spoke and Obed translated.
“This is Oughrath, Bureaucrat vo’Haav.” Obed stumbled over the difficult consonants. “He requires a deposit be made against our potential purchases. Common Tibran practice, though I’m sure he takes a cut of it. When we make the payment, we’ll receive our certification and robes.”
“Robes?”
“White, to mark us as foreign traders, since we plan to travel inland. Apparently robes work better than mere badges.”
“For six of us?”
Obed turned back to fat Oughrath and asked. “Yes,” he said when he got the answer. “Robes for our entire party. Even our slaves. We want to protect our investment after all.”
Torchay nodded. The Tibrans, including Aisse, would pass as casteless slaves, bought after one of this continent’s incessant wars. Kallista would pose as a young—male—clerk. No legitimate trader brought women to Tibre. “Pay him.” Torchay pulled a purse off his belt.
“Half now, half when he brings the robes.” Obed took the purse and counted out seven gold coins, placing them one by one in Oughrath’s sweaty palm. With a last surly glare, the bureaucrat departed.
An hour later, he returned, leading a laborer bearing a bundle of white cloth in his arms. As Fox took each robe from the laborer, Obed gave another coin to Oughrath, and a seventh when the exchange was complete, while Torchay watched, bristling with blades. The bureaucrat handed over a stack of papers, seeming to recite a speech long memorized. Then he was gone.
“What was that last bit?” Torchay touched Fox’s arm, directing him toward the stairs.
“Warning us to be sure to wear the robes at all times, especially our slaves.” Obed brought up the rear. “If they’re caught without the robes, they could be confiscated or damaged.”
Torchay muttered a few choice curses under his breath. This “mission” of Kallista’s was madness. The whole countryside lay ready to attack if they made one slip. But where she led, he was bound to follow. Not bound as their marked iliasti were, but bound nonetheless. Later, she’d told him. When this ends. He wanted to hope, but would any of them survive the ending?
In the cabin, they shared out the robes. Torchay collected Kallista’s gloves before they left the ship together to find lodging. Without naitani, Tibre had no requirement regarding gloves. They would make her noticeable.
“Stay near the docks,” Kallista murmured. “Let’s avoid trouble as long as we can.”
Obed nodded, leading the way. Torchay brought up the rear, sleeves rolled up to expose the blades at his wrists.
Stone pulled his own sleeves down over his hands and tugged his hood forward to hide as much as possible of the telltale gold of his skin. He checked Fox’s hood, then felt a little tingle as Kallista drew magic.
“A veil,” she said, “to blur their image of us.”
Stone pushed through the crowd after Obed, feeling strangeness stack on top of strangeness as he watched to be sure none of his iliasti were separated from the group or trampled. He couldn’t understand anything the locals said, though at the beginning of spring, he’d been one of them.
He’d been one of the Warriors swaggering through town, taking what he wanted. Now he hurried with his head down, looking out for the safety of a blind man and two women, people who would have been beneath his notice before.
If he had not been marked by Kallista’s god, would he have shunned Fox when he lost his sight? Stone wanted to think not, but he knew better. He might have made sure Fox had food, clothing, maybe a blanket. But he wouldn’t have been able to protect him from the rest of it, even had he wanted to.
As for the women…Stone had never paid much attention to women before, other than as warm comfort on a cold night. He’d never dreamed he could like them without sex playing any part.
Obed stopped in front of an open door from which the yeasty smell of beer and garlicky scent of cooking emerged. He looked back at Kallista where she stood just in front of Stone. She nodded, a slight dip of her head, and Obed entered.
Moments later, they’d taken possession of a large parlor and adjoining sleeping rooms on the second floor. Kallista threw off her robe and the sudden appearance of her sweetly curved body in her tight-laced tunic brought a surge of lust skittering through Stone. Though after that long, abstinent voyage, something as simple as the line of her neck beneath her queue or the turn of a graceful hand could inspire lust.
He wanted her. Not just because she was the only female remotely available to him, but because she was Kallista. Even if the women’s quarters of every caste in Haav were thrown open to him, he would still want Kallista. He’d never known what a difference it could make, having sex with a woman he liked. And that was without even touching. How much better would it be if he ever got to have real sex with her again?
“Stone.” Kallista got his attention, pointing toward one of the smaller rooms. “In there.”
He was already moving when he asked why.
“Because you’re making me crazy. Fox, you too. Follow Stone.” She caught Fox’s arm and turned him, giving him a little push.
“I should go find us mounts,” Obed said, edging toward the door. “For our trip to the capital.”
Stone didn’t blame Obed for wanting to leave if he didn’t want to play. It was the not-wanting-to-play part he didn’t understand.
“We don’t go anywhere alone.” Torchay tossed a robe at Obed and picked up his own. “Not any of us, not ever, as long as we’re in Tibre.”
“I go—I will go with you.” Aisse shrugged back into her robe, shoving the knotted ball buttons through the loops to hold it closed.
“Fine.” Kallista waved the others off.
Stone shuddered, feeling her reach inside him to gather the magic as the parlor door closed on the departing trio. Kallista paused in the bedroom doorway, watching as Fox climbed onto the bed next to Stone.
“Come.” Stone patted the small space between him and his partner-ilias. “You know you’ll end up on the floor if you don’t. This is much more comfortable.”
“We’re only doing magic.”
“Nothing wrong with being comfortable while you do.” He propped himself on an elbow, watching her. “Don’t you agree, Fox?”
“I think you should avoid the floor.” Fox turned on his side facing her, echoing Stone’s position.
She shook her head, a crooked smile on her face as she came through the door, shutting it behind her. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into these things.”
“Because you know you want to do exactly what we talk you into.” Stone scooted his back against the wall, making a little more room. He shivered again as the magic lurched, pulling tighter, when Kallista s
lid into the space between them. Even with the link that made it possible for her to call magic at a distance, there was still a difference when they touched. More intensity. More power.
She turned to face Fox, and Stone took a chance, leaning in to kiss that curve of her neck that had driven him mad during their time at sea. This time, Kallista shivered, and he grinned, slipping an arm around her waist to pull her back into his erection. Her waist was thicker than he remembered, and she had a little belly on her. The lazy days on the ship had had more of an effect than he realized. He liked the changes. They made her…normal.
“Fox, what are you doing?” Kallista jerked back into Stone. “Keep your trousers on, soldier.”
“I am. Just trying to simplify the cleanup.” He passed a handkerchief across her to Stone. “One for you, brodir.”
Kallista sat up as Stone was trying to stuff the cloth down the front of his pants, her elbows and knees transformed into dangerous weapons. “Well, that spoiled the mood.” She let go the magic and the delicious tension faded away.
“Not mine.” Stone struggled to his knees and twisted around to put himself behind her, thinking hard about how beautiful she was and how much he wanted her in any way he could get her. He didn’t know how this connection between them worked, didn’t know if he could send her a specific message through it, but he was damn well going to try. If he was only getting sex once a month, he wasn’t about to give up his once.
And maybe it was working. She let him move close, relaxed against him when he urged her to. He bent to kiss her neck and she tilted her head, offering access. Stone took what she offered, laying kisses from the curve of her shoulder along the soft pale skin to the hollow beneath her ear. His hands slid forward, touched her sides, moving toward her breasts, but she caught them, set them firmly back on his knees. He didn’t protest, because she called the magic again, drawing it from every dimension of his body with a caress so erotic his vision went dark.
Or maybe he’d just shut his eyes. He slid boneless to lie on the bed when she did. She leaned into Fox, kissed him. Somehow Stone could feel it. Not as if he were kissing Fox himself, but knowing how it felt to Kallista when she kissed him. She pulled the magic tighter, making them all three gasp, then she let it go, whipping it higher, faster as they rode it together.
Stone lost all sense of himself, tumbling arse over ears in the wild magic, fighting to hold on, make it last longer. But as before, he was the first to break. He shouted, shuddering as the fierce delight broke over him. His climax triggered the others. Kallista cried out. Fox kept silent but seemed to shake the more violently because of it.
“What,” Stone said long moments later when he could see and hear and breathe again, “do you suppose it would be like if we had ordinary sex while you did that?”
“Saints and sinners,” Fox muttered, borrowing Obed’s oath, his face tucked into Kallista’s neck, “I’d never survive it.”
Kallista kissed his forehead, then rolled to her back and kissed Stone’s jaw. “After, maybe we can try it.”
“Why not now?” Stone pulled Fox’s arm across Kallista’s waist and settled his own above it, just under her breasts. “I don’t mean now now, obviously, but why wait till after? Who knows if we’ll still be alive, after? I don’t understand what you have against sex, anyway.”
She sighed. “It’s not that I have anything against sex, exactly…”
“It’s us,” Fox said.
She twisted toward him and kissed his mouth. “No, I do not have anything against you either. Or Obed. You’re all gorgeous. And Torchay, well…”
“So, what is it?” Stone said. Anything that would get him more sex…
“I don’t know. Stupidity?” Kallista caught Stone by the throat of his tunic and pulled him in for his own kiss, then squirmed out from between them to stand. She straightened her tunic and smoothed back her mussed hair. She looked as if she would rather discuss anything besides the current topic, but Stone wasn’t ready to let it drop.
“Does that mean you’re going to start having sex with us? The regular kind?” He pulled the clammy handkerchief out of his trousers. It seemed to have done mostly as intended.
Kallista blushed and looked away. “I…”
“If you don’t have anything against sex, and you don’t have anything against us, I don’t see what the problem is.” Did women always make things more complicated than they had to be?
“Because it’s not just sex.” She began to pace the small room. “Even doing it this way with the magic, it’s more than just sex. I care about you and I care about Fox, and every time we…make love, I care more.”
“And you don’t want to.” Fox sat up and swung his feet off the bed.
Kallista stopped and looked at them sitting side by side. She swallowed hard, her eyes haunted. “It scares me,” she said finally. “More than facing down the entire Tibran army with all its cannon.”
Stone blinked. Kallista, admitting to fear?
She took a deep breath. “But I don’t seem to have any choice. I seem to care as much for Aisse even though I don’t have any inclination to have sex with her. We’re ilian. It doesn’t seem to make any difference how hard I fight it. I still care.”
All the emotion free-floating around the room made Stone want to pull a pillow over his head. Or make a joke. “So,” he said. “Sex? You and me? You and Fox? You and Obed and Torchay?”
Kallista laughed and Stone let out a relieved breath. “I think Obed might object to sharing,” she said.
“So maybe Torchay won’t. I won’t—but you know that.” He worked hard to keep his tone light and teasing. “Fox won’t either. He has no objection to anything, remember?”
“You’re hopeless.”
“No, no. I’m hopeful. Sex? Please? Often?”
She left the room shaking her head at him to answer a knock at the parlor door. The laborers had arrived with luggage from the ship. She never did answer his question.
Aisse stayed close to Torchay as they walked through the streets of Haav, hood up, head down. The robe that flapped around his calves dragged the ground on her and she liked it that way, liked being covered head to toe, hidden from everyone’s eyes. She’d never ventured into this part of town until she’d been loaded on a ship to sail to Adara, never left the warriors’ section of town once she’d been assigned there. Her mother had been assigned to Craftsmen’s caste and Aisse had grown up running the streets around forge and foundry, past the workshops of weavers, tanners and potters. That was where the Ruler had found her, two years before her coming-of-age.
She forced the memory from her mind. She was Adaran now. Ilian. Safe. If any saw through her disguise and demanded sex, she could say no. Torchay would defend her. Obed too. And they would be overwhelmed and killed for trying to defend her. No Tibran would allow such a thing.
So much pain stabbed through her at the thought, she stumbled. Torchay caught her arm. “Careful, Tiger aila. A slip could expose too much.”
“Yes.” She would not slip, would not make a mistake. But if it happened, she would give whatever was demanded. She would not be the cause of Torchay’s death. Of any of their deaths, for Stone would fight too, and even blind Fox. They belonged to each other.
And somehow, because she knew she could say no, the thought of saying yes didn’t disturb her so much. Sex wasn’t important enough to die over. She had done it before and could endure it again if she had to. But…was it always something to be endured? Kallista didn’t seem to act as if it were.
She sidled closer to Torchay. “You think Kallista is doing magic with Stone and Fox?”
“Aye. Now be quiet. Your voice will give you away.” Torchay shook back the sleeves of his robe to expose his blades, and folded back the unbuttoned sides as he followed Obed into the horse market. Aisse scurried to stay between them, kicking the skirt of her robe at every step to keep from tripping over it.
The men moved from trader to trader, inspecting horses, rejecti
ng most, but occasionally coming to terms. Torchay would hand the purse to Obed who would pay. Warriors didn’t sully their hands with trade if there was a merchant about to do it for them. Then Obed would hand the lead of the newly purchased horse to Aisse.
Eventually, they had six horses and two pack mules to lead back down the docks to the inn. Obed took the reins to half the animals and Torchay stalked alone. The white robe worn open merely declared him foreign. All else, from the red of his tunic to the red of his hair, blazed out his warrior status and kept all they passed from approaching.
“Torchay…” Aisse skipped ahead to catch up with him, the horses she led breaking into a brief trot.
“Should you be seen talking to me?”
“We’re foreign. They expect strangers to do strange things. Kallista says that you will teach me what I want to know.”
“Aye, that’s true.” He slowed his pace slightly, making it easier for her to keep up. “What are you wanting to learn?”
“How sex can feel good.”
Torchay lost a step. “You want to learn what?” He seemed on the edge of shouting.
“About sex that feels good. Are you angry? Kallista said it would be all right, but if—”
“She said that, did she?” He did sound angry.
“I asked if she could use the magic to show me, but I’m not marked and it only works if you are, so she said you would do it if I asked you, but if you don’t want to—” Aisse resigned herself. She would satisfy her curiosity another way. Or forget the idea. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know that badly. “Forget I asked.”
“I can’t very well do that, can I? Not now you’ve asked it. And I did no’ say I didn’t want to.” He opened the gate to the inn yard and turned it over to the stable boy to hold as they entered with the new horses. “Hush now. No talking.”
They turned the animals over to the inn’s horse-groom laborers and went inside. At the top of the stairs, Torchay paused outside the door to their rooms after Obed had gone inside. He moved close to Aisse, crowding her against the wall. “Are you sure this is what you want?”