Allegiance, page 17
part #3 of River of Souls Series
He learned more about Galt himself than the man suspected. Galt cared too much and too passionately about Lord Kosenmark’s fate. It confirmed much of what Khandarr’s own informants had reported on the man when he first arrived. Young for his position as master of the shipping guild, with enough enemies and allies for a man double his years. He had attempted marriage twice, the first contract broken off with numerous ugly rumors. The second, not even a contract this time, came to nothing when the girl ran away. The identity of the second girl, and her history after fleeing from Melnek, was well known. Therez Zhalina, who renamed herself Ilse Zhalina. Raul Kosenmark’s lover, now presumed dead, though Khandarr doubted those reports. He let Galt ramble on about his desire to serve the king and his councillors to the best of his abilities. He wanted, he claimed, nothing more than the king and his ministers to remember him when they next discussed matters of taxation.
A man clever at his own trade, Khandarr thought, staring upward at the ceiling. But a fool with matters he does not understand.
“Enough,” he said abruptly. “Tell me what you want. Do not lie. Do not flatter.”
“I want…” Galt sucked in a breath. Here was the moment of truth and passion. “I want Kosenmark dead,” he said. “I want his lover shamed. I know she’s alive. I’ve heard rumors. For that, my lord, I would do anything.”
He was honest, at least. Too honest to survive in Duenne’s Court. But Khandarr only wanted a few months of the man’s service.
Meanwhile Galt waited in obvious anxiety for Khandarr’s reply.
“I want … your allegiance,” he whispered.
“You have it, my lord.”
“Good. Now … my orders. Listen to your spies. Bring me reports. Everything. Everything,” he repeated. “Promise.”
It was a temporary assignment, meant only to bind Galt to him. He thought Galt appeared disappointed, but at least the man had the wit to bow and smile. “Whatever you command, my lord.”
A soft rapping sounded at the bedchamber doors. One of Khandarr’s servants spoke with the intruder. “My lord. The girl you ordered.”
He had not ordered a girl. A glance at Galt told him the answer.
“I will send her away if you prefer,” Galt said.
“No. I want … to see.”
He signaled to the servant. The girl slithered inside. She was young, scarcely old enough to sign the contract for her duties, though that might be a trick of her mannerisms. She was dressed in a translucent web of honey gold lace, edged with silk ribbons, the airy confection gathered around her waist with a thin sash of the same material. Her costume was hitched back with more ribbons, and her sex was shaved clean.
Khandarr took in her dark slim form, her full breasts, the way her eyes canted over her high cheekbones. It was too, too predictable. Galt was an idiot to let his urges be known so completely.
“I do not need her,” he said. Then as Galt made to dismiss the girl, he lifted a hand. “Keep her. And you. Stay.”
Galt paused, clearly uncertain. “My lord?”
“Use her. Here. I will watch. Then we talk … about how you can please me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
NIGHT IN THE royal palace reminded Nadine of Lord Kosenmark’s pleasure house. Oh, there were differences. A royal palace had more guards, more servants, and kept more regular hours, at least on the surface. But as she prowled along the dim-lit corridors, lined in marble with mosaics covering walls and floors, she considered it a matter of scale, not the details themselves. Intrigue permeated the air. It informed every word and gesture, and the silences and stillness in between. It led to intricate maneuvers, to secrets given and traded. That she had succeeded in gaining a position here as a courtesan, serving the courtiers and minor nobility, only strengthened the impression.
And both had a king, of sorts. Raul had ruled the pleasure house absolutely, extending his will through loyal minions. Armand … With Armand, one had only to observe the men and women who occupied the lesser tiers of influence to know that two men ruled in Duenne, though one pretended to serve the other.
It was because of Markus Khandarr that she had volunteered to serve in the midnight hours. An injury had left him with bouts of insomnia, and he often sent for young women from the courtesan wing to service him with lips and hands and sex, so that sated by pleasure, he could sleep. Nadine had never visited his room, but she talked to other women who had. He seldom spoke, other than to give specific directions. Suckle. Fondle. In the vernacular of the trade, treat him like a sausage that needed skinning and sizzling. Afterward, he required the woman to massage his legs until he dozed.
A discreet man, even gripped by passion. But from time to time, Nadine collected wisps and whispers of gossip.
Tonight, for instance. The youngest courtesan, the one named Evanna, had returned from her duties brimful of news. The Old Man had summoned her, she said, but this night he had ordered her to pleasure another while he watched.
“I had not suspected such imagination,” Evanna said, laughing.
“Pah!” said Georg, one of the oldest courtesans. “You cannot convince me of that. He demands sex as one might demand a drink of plain water.”
Evanna pouted. “I tell you, tonight was different. He ordered the other man to take me. Told us both to strip. Said he wanted proof the other man could please him.”
“The Old Man said that?” Georg’s attention was snagged at last, and he rose in a fluid motion to sit upright, his lips parted and eyes bright. “And did they…”
“No. He only watched. But once…” Evanna paused and glanced around, and when she continued, it was in a low whisper that Nadine could barely hear. “Once he said a name, this while Galt was heaving and puffing on top of me.”
“What name was that?” Nadine said.
“Kosenmark.”
Nadine only half listened to the rest of the conversation. Then she rose and gave her excuses to the senior guard, saying she needed to visit the house physician about these terrible cramps that had come over her quite suddenly.
An hour later, she had collected more wisps, more tantalizing bits of gossip.
And such astonishing gossip it was. Lord Kosenmark taken prisoner. The old duke himself demanding an interview with Armand of Angersee, which the king, amazingly, had granted. Now this business with Markus Khandarr and someone named Theodr Galt, head of a shipping guild from the border city of Melnek.
Melnek, where Ilse Zhalina once lived.
Nadine did not return at once. She wandered the halls and galleries, taking care to visit the physician as well. If anyone investigated later, they would find she had spent a pleasurable interlude here, another there, with less exalted members of the palace staff. A sergeant twice passed over for promotion. A bored runner outside the residential wing designated for visitors. One of the kitchen girls just coming off duty. The kitchen girl gave the sweetest kisses, and Nadine was tempted to offer the girl more, but she knew she had to return eventually to her work.
She came at last to the servants’ corridor between the kitchens and the king’s private quarters. A risk, a very great risk, but her instincts said that tonight marked a turning point for Armand and Khandarr both.
All because of that great arrogant creature named Raul Kosenmark.
Footsteps sounded behind her. Nadine spun around.
A woman rounded the corner—a young woman, dressed in dark loose clothing, her hair tied back with a ribbon and falling free to her waist. She stopped. Her hair swung around as she drew back a step at the sight of Nadine.
“A pleasant evening,” Nadine said.
There was enough light to make out the woman’s features—skin the color of honey, eyes like polished copper, full flat cheeks and a voluptuous mouth. She wore loose dark trousers, a jacket of black silk gathered at the waist with a sash. Nadine’s first impression was that no noble would dress so sensibly, nor deign to enter a servants’ corridor. Her second was that the woman observed her as closely and dispassionately as she herself observed the other.
“Pleasant enough,” said the woman. Her voice was low, melodic, tinged with laughter.
So, you are clever enough not to make excuses, Nadine thought.
She tilted her head, smiled invitingly.
The other woman regarded her steadily. She had a familiar air. Nadine cast her memory back over the past two weeks—the clients she had pleasured, the hundreds of courtiers, runners, chambermaids, scribes, and others she had encountered. None of them like this woman. Where, oh where …
And then, the puzzle pieces clicked together.
The golden skin. The arrogant lift of her chin. The sound of a woman’s contralto voice, but in a man’s body.
“You came to rescue your brother.”
The reaction came far more quickly than she had anticipated. Without warning, the woman drew a knife from her belt and attacked. Nadine sidestepped the first blow—all the while admiring the speed—gripped the woman’s wrist, and slid under the blade to draw her close. Its point had nicked her cheek in passing, and she felt blood trickling down her neck. She ignored it. “You must excuse my impertinence. I dislike knives.”
Their dance had taken them underneath one of the lamps. Both of them breathed heavily, the rise and fall of one chest in counterpoint to the other. The other woman attempted to draw back, but Nadine kept her arm locked around her waist. Now she could discern other details, which had been invisible before. The fine texture of the woman’s jacket, with a subtle pattern woven into the cloth. The scent of perfumed soap. The calluses on her palm, which spoke of constant practice with a sword.
She knows weapons, but she had never attacked another before, not in earnest.
The woman glanced down. She must have noticed the scar at Nadine’s neck, because her eyes widened. “I see why you might not like knives,” she said. “Why did you threaten me?”
“I did no such thing. I merely observed what was obvious. Which sister are you?”
Those brilliant brown eyes narrowed. “Which courtesan are you?”
Nadine gave a low, gurgling laugh. So quick, so clever, this one. “Guess.”
Kosenmark’s sister shook her head. “I have no time for games. My brother—”
“Is locked in a cell, two floors below. Your father spoke with the king. The outcome displeased Markus Khandarr. More I cannot tell you.”
The tension in the woman’s arm eased. Nadine, however, did not loosen her grip, nor did she move to withdraw from the embrace. There was still a chance that Kosenmark’s sister might choose to kill rather than trust Nadine to keep silent.
“You must be Nadine,” the woman said at last.
“So my mother told me, years ago.”
A brief smile lightened the other’s expression. “I am Heloïse.”
The oldest of Kosenmark’s three sisters. He called them all dangerous, she remembered.
“How did you learn about my brother?” Heloïse asked.
“Why did your father not tell you?” Nadine replied.
Heloïse dropped her gaze and shifted her weight, a move calculated to throw the unwary off balance. Nadine merely smiled and drew her companion closer. Heloïse had rose-colored lips, as full and mobile as her brother’s. How to tell if the differences outweighed the similarities?
“I will not stab you,” Heloïse said, glancing up toward Nadine through her eyelashes.
Nadine recognized a technique as deliberate as Evanna’s. Or Georg’s.
“No, you will not,” she agreed. “Tell me the truth. You had no idea your father spoke with the king, did you? Does your entire family keep secrets from one another?”
Heloïse laughed softly, bitterly. “Oh, secrets. Damned, cursed secrets. We are poisoned with them, all of us. If I had only known that my fool brother intended to visit this court, I would have beaten him senseless with a club, then locked him in a prison myself.”
“Your brother inspires such longings in most of his acquaintances. Where are your two sisters?”
“At home in Valentain. Standing behind you with a knife. Locked in conference with our father, discussing their future. Pick one, it might be true.”
“I dislike guesses as much as you,” Nadine replied. “Do you have rooms in the palace?”
Heloïse regarded her with increased wariness. “I do. The king … Let us say the king wishes one member of the family to reside here, and I prefer the distance from my family. Why?”
“Because I prefer the comfort of a soft bed to this bare corridor.”
She squeezed the bones in Heloïse’s wrist. Heloïse gave an annoyed cry and dropped the knife. Nadine kicked it away and stepped back. “Send for me tonight,” she said. “Give whatever reason you like to your maids, whatever will convince them you prefer a woman this once—”
“Not only this once,” Heloïse breathed.
Interesting. Nadine sensed that more secrets lay beneath that simple confession. But she would not let herself get distracted. “Then your excuses will be genuine,” she said. “You’ve heard rumors. You are sick with worry. You want a distraction. You want a woman versed in massage and pleasure both.” Swiftly she bent down and retrieved the knife in one swift motion. “You want,” she said, “a woman who loves women best of all. That would be me.”
Her gaze caught Heloïse’s and to her great surprise, her pulse leapt in desire.
You are lovely, she thought. Lovely and brave and true. Even to someone as worthless as your brother.
It took her a moment to recollect herself, and her position. The other woman studied her with an expression that reminded Nadine uncomfortably of Lord Kosenmark.
Heloïse nodded slowly. “I believe you are right. We have a great deal to discuss. Until next hour, then.”
“Until next hour,” Nadine replied.
But as she wound through the palace, back toward the courtesans’ quarters, her thoughts strayed from the machinations of kings and dukes and lords, back to the warmth of skin against skin, of a voice that called up an echo inside her heart, and the impulse of a desire she thought she had lost years before.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT WAS MARYSHKA Rudny’s favorite hour of the day—the moments just before sunrise. The night watch had returned to their homes not long ago. The rest of the village lay quiescent, with only a rill of water from the nearby river to break the dawn’s calm.
She knelt beside her garden, fingers plucking the leaves from summer savory and comfrey, blossoms from red clover, the last hidden strawberries and raspberries. She didn’t need much daylight to work. She knew every furrow, every root and leaf in this patch. When she finished with one crop, she laid a cloth over it and moved on to the next. Next spring, she thought, she might send a basket of comfrey roots and leaves along with Karel Hasek, when he went up the valley to trade at Dubro’s garrison and the nearby town. Get a handful of jewelweed seeds, or better, a few young plants.
The raspberries were scarce this year. She washed a handful in the dewy grass and ate them, still thinking about next year’s garden. The village of Ryz was hardly more than a collection of shadows at this hour, but higher up the slopes, light was trickling down the mountainside. Down and down, over the meadows on either side of the river, and across the plowed fields—none too big this year, with the rains late and Lev Kosko’s old mare going lame.
A breeze gusted over the slopes, and Maryshka shivered inside her quilted jacket. That wind carried a hint of frost. Next month might see the first snows.
A poor harvest, an early winter. And rumors of troubles along the border. Duszranjo was not so far away from Veraene, for all that the mountains stood so high.
She glanced toward the eastern ranges that divided Duszranjo equally well from Károví’s central plains. They stood like tall sentinels, shrouded in dark blue cloaks. Even as she watched, a scarlet ribbon unfurled behind them and a speck of golden sunlight spilled through a notch between the two highest peaks. The few remaining stars stood out like pale freckles against the blueing sky. A moment later, they, too, had disappeared.
Day. Time for cooking breakfast and chores. Even now, she could hear her mother stirring about inside the house.
Maryshka stood and hoisted the basket to her hip. Just as she turned toward the door, a movement across the river caught her attention. She paused and shaded her eyes with one hand. A shadow, large and misshapen, lumbered over the hillside opposite the Solvatni River. Her heart gave an uncomfortable thump. Was it Matej or Lev who said the king was raising extra troops for his army? Surely they wouldn’t take anyone from Ryz.
We have so few already.
As she watched, the shadow lurched and swerved to one side, immediately dispelling the thought of soldiers. They rode in patrols of five or six, or marching in formation, not stumbling from ridge to ridge. And none of them crossed into Duszranjo from the eastern notch. They came from the north, from Dubro, along the river path.
As the shadow approached, it divided into two. Now she could make out a horse and … a pile of bags? A rider? Yes, a rider, slumped over the horse’s withers. A smaller figure led the horse by its reins. They had gained the lower slopes. Very soon they would reach the ford.
The chancy mountain breeze swirled around and buffeted her face with a strange new scent. Green and sharp. It reminded her of winter nights, the pine kindling burning in the fireplace. Or how the grass smelled under her bare feet in the hot summer sun. A familiar scent and yet like nothing else she had known.
She set down the basket and ran to the house.
