“Her inquiry is a complication that many who have agreed to this venture fear, good sir. Perhaps even in sufficient measure to withdraw their support if it becomes any more intense.”
Kane ignored the veiled threat as he slipped a small flask out from inside his coat and took a sip. The fiery liquid did little to dull the ach at his temples. Yet as much as he hated to admit it, Pelton was right, Danielle’s threat had put a viper among the sheep, and if he were not careful, all his hard work would be for nothing. Or worse, he’d find himself standing trial for slave trafficking, and soon after the executioner would have his head and the buzzards his corpse. Somehow he had to find a way to hold the whole tenuous alliance together long enough to get the bill before the General Council in the next month or two.
Kane was still considering how holding the alliance together might be achieved successfully when the carriage suddenly slowed to a stop. He frowned, wondering what was going on. They were on the track that wound up through the fields and woods of Lord Helidon’s vast estate, but the manor house was still some miles away. In fact, it wouldn’t even be visible until they reached the next ridge, and there was no obvious reason they should stop short of their destination.
The carriage rocked slightly as one of Helidon’s grooms stepped down and opened the door.
“What in Vellum’s name is going on?” Kane demanded.
“Apologies, but you are being hailed, Milord.”
Kane scowled as he stepped down from the coach and looked in the direction the coachman pointed. To his surprise, Cassandra, Helidon’s second daughter, was riding her chestnut mare toward them and waving vigorously. She seemed utterly heedless of the flock of sheep scattering across the pasture in front of her.
At a loss as to what tidings could have brought Cassandra riding out to meet him, Kane gave curt instructions to Mr. Pelton and the coachman to continue to the house without him and to inform Lord Helidon he’d be along shortly. The whip cracked and the carriage jerked forward as Kane walked between the mossy oaks lining the driveway and climbed over a small stonewall into the pasture on the other side.
Ten yards away, Cassandra, her pretty freckled face flushed from her ride, pulled back on the reins and dismounted in a flurry, her long amber curls bouncing on her shoulders. “Milord.” She stopped to catch her breath.
“You hailed me?” Kane said.
“I did.” She ran forward, her smile turning lascivious. “Are you not pleased to see me?” And not waiting for a reply, she slipped her arms around his neck and lightly kissed his lips and then his cheek, slowly making her way to his ear.
Kane tolerated her affections. Cassy was pretty enough, to be sure, and he had happily taken her to his bed on his numerous visits to the Helidon estate over the past six months, but he was in no mood for dallying, not after the two whores he had enjoyed in his cabin for much of last night and with all that was troubling his thoughts.
“What is this?” he asked.
Annoyance flashed across her brow and she stepped back. “You are not pleased to see me?”
“Of course I’m pleased to see you. Don’t be ridiculous.” He pushed past her and walked to her horse. “However, you clearly want something, or you wouldn’t have ridden all this way in a dress cut so low. And it’s not as if I don’t have more pressing matters with which to deal at present.”
To his bemusement, she actually looked hurt at the suggestion. Crossing her arms under that lovely chest, she said moodily, “The first ships have arrived from Zemithia earlier than expected.”
Kane blinked at her, pleasantly surprised. The vessels weren’t due for another week or more—this was good news indeed! “Any word on the condition of the merchandise?”
“Nothing that I was told,” she said in the same injured tone. “Father and His Eminence left for the slave keep some hours ago, and I was given instructions to take you to them as soon as you arrived. I thought you’d want to go immediately, so I came to find you.”
“Then you thought correctly, and I’m grateful,” Kane replied as he took the reins of her horse and swung up onto the saddle. Once settled, he offered Cassy his hand.
She took it grudgingly and swung up behind him, saying, “You, sir, are a beast.”
Kane smiled devilishly. “And you love me more because of it, Milady.”
Her arms wrapped around his middle and she rested her head against his back. “But do you love me?”
Kane knew instantly what this was about. His improving mood failed again and he sighed impatiently. “Oh, I see. This again, is it? Hardly the time, I would think.”
He could not recount how many occasions one or another of his numerous flirtations had asked him that question, and always he would have preferred they had not. Unfortunately, it was a woman’s nature, the need to possess, and as a member of the royal family who was endowed with darkly handsome looks and afforded a reputation as a libertine, it was a plight he seemed to suffer more than most. There were, of course, certain benefits to be had by virtue of his birthright. His bed was always warm, his companions lovely and varied. Hence, the thought of actually marrying had seldom crossed his mind except when in jest with his drinking fellows—and perhaps when he thought of Lady Faith Galloway, the only daughter of King Richard of Corenbald. But that was a lost and bitter cause, and one he preferred not to think about.
“Please don’t be angry with me, for I love you very much,” Cassandra said, as Kane wheeled the horse around and kicked the beast to a trot. “I just thought that, with the news from Illandia, you might now be willing to take just one woman and wed her—a woman such as me. After all, my father is the realm’s pre-eminent shipping merchant, and you are already linked by this business venture.” She kissed his shoulder, then added, “And I know I make you happy in bed.”
Kane frowned. “What news from Illandia?”
He felt her hesitate. “You have not heard?”
“Well, that depends—of what news do you speak?”
“The Lady Galloway and your younger brother are engaged to be married. Your father has given his public blessing, and King Richard has agreed. The news reached us yesterday. I would have thought that your Uncle would have told you?”
Kane felt his throat tighten and it took a moment for him to reply. “Yes…well, he didn’t. Though this isn’t exactly unexpected. The Lady Galloway has always had a certain fondness for the little sprog, and they have been intimate for some time.”
“I never understood what you liked about her anyway,” Cassandra continued. “She might be pretty enough for a dark-haired woman, but in every other regard, she’s so much like your sister that it’s quite horrible to contemplate. A Goddian reformist by faith, outspoken about her silly free republicanism, a trained soldier, no less, and she has the title of First Sword of her father’s realm.” She pressed her ample breasts firmly against his back as she nattered on with scarcely a pause for breath. “Some say she has killed as many as a dozen men and that she is positively a monstrous beast when she has her sword in hand and her wolf beside her. I’ve also heard it said that she’s as randy as an old strumpet and freely pleasures her men, common and highborn alike. It’s quite disgusting, and it’s simply scandalous that your father tolerates such a marriage. I think the Archbishop is right—there is a special place in the fires of Vellum for women such as her. And more confusing still, she loves your sister as if they were blood and loathes you utterly—you have told me so yourself—so why would you dote on her?”
Kane didn’t bother to reply. The news had hit him harder than he had thought possible, but he could hardly argue with Cassandra’s summation anyway. He did always feel powerless in Faith’s presence, and in turn, she had always made her dislike for him plain enough. When they were still children, before the Amthenium Peace Treaty was brokered to end the annual crusade to the walls of the holy island city of Amthenium, he, Eden, Danielle, and Michael had spent each summer at Wanstead Castle, home of Corenbald’s royal court. All their visits to the mountain
ous realm had become predictably the same. He and Danielle would inevitably find some trifling matter to fight about, and Faith would side with Dee and fiercely defend her like a loyal younger sister. Even then he had found her enchanting, and the passing of the years had only made him feel that attraction more acutely. Why she could so easily affect his sensibilities, he did not know, for as a rule, he saw women as merely a pleasant distraction or a bothersome nuisance, depending on his mood and appetite. Yet there was something about Faith that left him defenceless, and never more so than now that he knew she and Michael were to be wed.
He deeply resented how this news made him feel, and he was not about to let himself dwell on the subject. He eyed the low stonewall ahead and spurred the horse to a gallop. They made the jump easily, and after a short ride down a track, he slowed their pace and guided the mount through a wood to a shallow stream. The track, which led to the slave keep, ran just below the ridge of the forested hill across the stream. From there it was a good hour’s ride to the keep itself.
“Are you just going to ignore me, then?” Cassandra demanded as he guided the horse across the stream.
Kane had put off thinking about the news of Faith and Michael’s pending engagement some way back, and he was now anticipating the meeting at the slave keep, thinking that the good news of the ship’s early arrival should temper their present concerns and make Helidon a little more reasonable. Cassandra’s constant chatter, to say nothing of her questions, was an annoying distraction. “To be quite frank with you, Milady, why in the world would I want to wed one woman who will inevitably become as fat as a sow and twice as ugly when I can bed whatever young filly takes my fancy, and do so without the tiresome nagging of a wife?”
“You, sir, are most cruel. And besides, that was not my question…or at least not my only question. Perhaps you should listen more closely when a lady speaks?”
“And you should watch your tongue, madam. As for the matter of my boyhood sentiments toward the Lady Galloway, that is none of your concern.”
“You’re a beast,” she hissed by his ear before slipping off the horse and standing there, her arms folded, as she glared at him.
“For the sake of the gods, woman, what are you doing?”
“I am not going with you, that’s for sure. And don’t think you’ll share my bed this night. I understand that Lady de Brie is right to call you a beast with no conscience. I offer you my heart and you throw it back at me.”
“Then have it as you will. It’s no loss to me,” Kane said before kneeing the horse on.
Cassandra lifted her chin defiantly and said, “I hope she kills you.”
Kane reined in and glanced back over his shoulder. The girl was pacing away through the woods, muttering to herself. “What did you say?” he called out.
Cassandra stopped and scowled at him, her green eyes afire. “Of course, you haven’t heard. Well, I shan’t be the one to tell you, either!” She hoisted up her dress and walked on.
Her impudence struck a nerve, and while her words made no sense, there was an undeniable threat to what she had said that made him uneasy. Kane kicked at the horse’s flanks and was soon caught up, trotting at Cassandra’s side over the uneven ground. “Are you threatening me, madam?”
Cassandra stopped abruptly. “Not me, but your sister is, and I say again, I hope she kills you.”
Kane wasn’t sure he understood. Danielle was going to kill him? She had a temper, but she wasn’t so foolish as to plot his death or say so in public.
Cassandra clearly found his confusion amusing, and after flashing him a cruel grin she said, “When His Eminence arrived yesterday, he brought news from Illandia, part of which was to say that your father has rejected the church’s petition. It seems that your sister will be allowed to compete in the Illandian Spring Tournament in two weeks as he had already decided. And there’s talk that she will almost certainly take your title from you.”
When Kane opened his mouth to reply and no words came out, Cassandra laughed at him, and then walked off into the woods. “You fear her! And you should. His Eminence said Danielle was seen practicing her sword work in the palace garden with her unnatural friend, and she was at least that woman’s match,” she yelled back from a safe distance.
“Shut up and be on your way,” was the best he could manage, before he closed his eyes, sorely aware that his sword hand was trembling.
CHAPTER FOUR
After spending a few minutes collecting his thoughts, Kane drew the horse back around and set out alone for the slave keep. For a while he muttered about his poor luck and cursed Danielle’s eloquence and their father’s propensity to be swayed by it. He had truly believed the Archbishop’s petition would change their father’s mind.
Gradually, though, the idea of facing dear Danielle again began to grow on him. In truth, the tournament offered a certain challenge that he found appealing: an opportunity to reassert his authority and, with any luck, to restore her fear and thereby put her in her place, and in front of all Arkaelyon to boot.
As he rode along the track beneath the forest canopy, he worked the various strategies he had devised to defeat his sister around in his mind. Pondering this subject had become a veritable pass-time for him over the last eight months. Danielle was gifted when it came to swordplay; there was no question of that. Her speed certainly made her a threat in a game where each strike counted as a point. But like all wielders of the sword she had her weaknesses. Kane smiled as he considered them. It was then that his eye caught a movement in the woods ahead. He slowed his mount to a trot just to be careful. The estate was well guarded by Surlemian mercenaries, but with the rumours that Danielle was preparing to sink him, he could not be too cavalier regarding who might be lurking about.
Kane heard a familiar voice give a command in Surlemian, and he relaxed immediately. A moment later, four mercenaries emerged from the wood a short distance ahead. They were all attired in the flowing back robes preferred by Surlemian warriors and carried a scabbard long sword across their backs. A command was given and three of the riders turned their mounts for the keep and galloped off. The fourth rider approached Kane at a trot, his long blond hair jouncing about his broad shoulders, a grin on his bearded face.
“Kane, you old rogue, you’re well met.”
Kane smiled back. “As are you, Orson. All goes well I hope.”
“Aye. Though I see you have had traffic before you,” the young Surlemian lord replied, looking at the dirt track. “Perhaps as many as eight riders and a coach.”
Kane hadn’t noticed the tracks, but he assumed the wheel marks belonged to the same coach he had arrived in, and that it still carried Mr. Pelton. The wheedling little toad was on his way to give his master warning, no doubt.
“Yes, well, I hear the ships have arrived earlier than expected. Old Helidon and his Eminence have gone on ahead, and I am to catch up.”
Orson’s bushy blond eyebrows rose as he handed Kane an uncorked water skin. “Arrived already? Have they, now? Can’t say I’ve heard. I left Captain Irwin to take care of the keep these past five days while I was overseeing the boundary patrols, and no messenger has yet arrived to tell me this news.”
“The messengers probably can’t find you, you slippery devil,” Kane said before taking a drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and handed the skin back. “Problems out there again?”
Orson’s expression grew serious. “Aye. Your Lord Protector suspects something’s up, I think. The lads caught a reformist priest and his daughter nosing about yesterday evening. Bloody close to the interior they were, too. How they got past the patrols, only Al-Um and the twelve prophets know.”
“Did they give up any information?” Kane asked.
“Nothing useful,” Orson replied, waving a fly away from his face.
“You disposed of them?”
“Took the priest’s head myself, and after the lads had their way with the woman, they slit her throat. The wolves will have them
by now.”
Kane nodded approvingly. “Then stay vigilant. Our need for secrecy won’t be necessary much longer.”
“So you have the majority we need?”
The prince kicked his mount forward, saying over his shoulder, “I must get the bloody thing past Helidon first, but yes, if we pay the bribes I’ve agreed to pay, the bill could be presented to the General Council at the next monthly sitting and Arkaelyon will have its first slave market in two centuries—and we will be both very rich men because of it.”
“About time,” Orson said as he brought his horse around and set off up the track after Kane. “I reckon I’ll put a sum of gold down on that land in the hills above Pietis soon, then. I would like to have the vines in by this time next year.”
“You, a wine merchant? I’d never have guessed,” Kane said with a boyish grin. He knew quite well that Orson had always had a fascination with the manufacture of wine and that he claimed that the rich fertile land of Pietis’ hill region produced the best fruit. His father was North Surlemia’s chief emissary to the Arkaelyon court, and even as a boy Orson had taken an unusual interest in the subject. When he was older, that interest had turned to consuming as much of the stuff as possible. But despite his love of the grape, Orson was a formidable swordsman, and well respected throughout his homeland and by tournament competitors everywhere. When Kane had need of mercenaries to guard the Helidon estate and keep the illegality taking place there secret, the first man he thought of was his old friend.
“Well, you’ll just have to hold your judgment until you’ve tasted my first cask, won’t you?”
“That I will.”
They had been riding a short while, talking casually about what they each intended to do with their newfound wealth, when Kane turned to a new subject. “Have you heard about the fate of his Eminence’s petition to keep my sister from competing in the up and coming tourney?”
Orson chuckled. “Aye. I heard a couple of fellows chatting about its failure in a tavern over by Old Man’s Lake. I thought they were joking, spreading the false gossip that makes its way out this far as truth, but you say there is in fact truth to it?”
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