"It is," Ethan admitted uneasily.
"If you'd followed my advice—which I gave you out of love—you'd have been made an officer in his army at once. You'd have suffered no inconvenience or hardship, and you and I would have stayed together. My feelings for you haven't changed, darling. I swear to you that they haven't." She reached out, touched his shoulder and let her hand slide down his bare arm.
In spite of his desire to maintain at least a surface calm, Ethan could no longer hide his anger. There was an undeniable physical spark that was created whenever he and Melanie touched, and the realization that she could still arouse him was a bitter and unpalatable brew. "I suppose you were demonstrating your love," he said caustically, "the day you came through the slave compound with Boline and kicked me in the face."
She had anticipated his accusation, and she was ready with her answer. "I had no choice that day," she said, and her frank eyes matched her tone. Her attitude indicated that she was explaining, not excusing, and there was a humility in her that Ethan had never seen before. "Marinus knew that I loved you. We'd had several frightful arguments about you, and once he beat me. Don't forget that the day I came to the slave camp with him I was still under his protection—and at his mercy. I abused you only to win favor for myself with him. And I hoped, more desperately than you'll ever know, that you'd understand. And that you'd forgive me."
Either she was a superb actress or she was taking refuge in complete candor, and Ethan was unable to make up his mind what to believe. "If you valued your position with Boline so highly," he said slowly, "your calm right now makes no sense. You've been torn away from all of the luxuries you enjoy, and you've been brought to a primitive Indian village. You face a future that's full of uncertainties, but you don't seem to be disturbed."
"I'm not, darling. I'm with you again." Melanie lifted her arms and would have placed them around his neck, but Ethan continued to stare at her stonily. She let her hands fall to her sides again. "I'm no longer Marinus' favorite, and I haven't been for a long time. In another month or two he would have passed me along to one of his council—to someone like Jacques Gomez, perhaps. And I can assure you that I've had no desire to be treated like a common bawd. I thought I was in a hopeless trap, and then—when your Carib came last night—I suddenly saw a way out. More than that, I saw a way to be reunited with you again. So of course Fm happy. Nothing so wonderful has ever happened to me."
There was a certain logic to her argument, and Ethan had to concede that there were no contradictions in anything she had said. His feeling that he was walking on the thin edge of a precipice became stronger, and he unconsciously fingered the handle of his knife. "Thank you for telling me all this," he said. "I'm sure it will help me to think of you with less rancor in the years to come. Now, as to the information about Prudence. Precisely where is she being held? And what—"
"Not so fast, darling." Melanie took a single step backward and looked him up and down. "That tan is very attractive." She smiled lazily as he was about to interrupt "I'm not sure you heard what I said to you a few minutes ago. I'll tell you everything I possibly can about the girl— I'm sure that my knowledge would make a vast difference between success and failure when you try to rescue her. Without my explanation, I can guarantee you that you'll never set her free. With my information, you'll have a chance."
"Well?" Ethan did not trust himself to say more.
"You may recall that I have a condition."
"What is it?" he demanded gruffly.
Melanie shifted her position slightly, and through some feminine magic her stance became provocative. "Before I tell you anything, I insist that you exercise your prerogatives as a husband."
He stood very still, staring at her.
"Do you find me so unattractive?" Her breasts out-thrust, she favored him with a tantalizing smile.
"No. I don't."
Melanie reached around swiftly to the back of her gown and untied the lace that fastened her bodice. Then she shrugged, almost imperceptibly, and the silk fell away from her and slid slowly to the earth floor. Positive of her allure, she moved toward Ethan. "Take me, then."
Her body, encased now only in a lace corselet and a filmy petticoat, swayed as she walked. Ethan's desire for her, until this moment so dormant that he would have sworn that it was virtually dead, was rekindled. This was the woman with whom he had enjoyed the most passionate experiences of his life, and when he saw her revealed in such an intimate state of undress, he was engulfed by memories that were at the same time fierce and tender.
She had won, he realized, but he had not lost, and he reached for her. Melanie laughed triumphantly, and Ethan's arms dropped to his sides. Then he raised his hand and slapped her hard across the face. Melanie neither flinched nor cried out. Unmoved and unmoving, she laughed again, and her effrontery was so brazen that it had a provocative quality to it.
"If it pleases you to strike me, you may hit me again," she said huskily. "But no matter what you do, you can't deny that you want me. You'll always want me."
Very slowly she untied the ribbon that held her corselet in place, and with fingers that moved deliberately she unfastened the garment. As it fell away from her she gazed at Ethan and her eyes told him that her desire for him was as real and as strong as was his for her. He could not deny that he wanted her, but he felt an urge to humiliate her, too, and it was his turn to laugh as he came close to her, placed his right arm around her and with his free left hand caressed her breasts.
She made no attempt to stop him—on the contrary, she swayed slightly, pressed her body against his and raised her face to him. He kissed her. Her ardor was so intense that he forgot his resolve to teach her a lesson, and their passion mounted simultaneously. Her skin burned as his lips brushed her shoulders and he buried his face in her neck. Their embrace was as relentlessly savage as their strange surroundings, with no thought of gentleness or tenderness. Melanie's long nails dug into Ethan's bare back, and she bit his ear lobe until it bled. His arms crushed her to him so tightly his shoulders ached.
Their passion became greater than either of them could endure, and when the tension reached a peak and caused them to sway from side to side, Ethan picked Melanie up and carried her to the sleeping mat in the far comer of the room. They sank down onto it, locked in a deep and fervent embrace, and neither saw the face of Luki, baleful and intense, appear for an instant in the window-frame.
Fourteen
THE NEW Imperial compound just inshore from the north beach is made up of seven buildings and is surrounded by a stone wall," Melanie said. "The largest house, in the center, is where Marinus lives when he's on the island. His civilian staff, including members of the council, use the house to its right, and the officers of the high command sleep in the house to its left. That is, as you face toward the beach." She paused and pushed back a stray lock of her blonde hair.
Ethan, who had been scratching a rough diagram in the dirt floor of the hut with his knife as she had been speaking, nodded. "How high is the wall?"
"Roughly ten feet. Now, then—the two buildings at the far comers of the compound are for the sentries of the Imperial guard and the servants. About halfway between them, but located fairly close to the big house is the women's building. That's where your Indians found me, and that's where you might normally expect to find the little Courtney wench, but she isn't there."
Melanie leaned closer to him in order to examine the plan. "Here," she said, pointing, "directly adjoining the building closest to the beach at this corner—that is, right next to the barracks of the Imperial guards—is a small house that Marinus uses for various purposes. It has a torture chamber where he amuses himself from time to time, and since all of the windows are barred and the doors are of metal, it's convenient as a little prison, too." She smiled in vindictive triumph. "That's where Mistress Courtney is being kept, and that's where she'll stay until she's taken to Marinus tomorrow night."
"Not if I can help it," Ethan muttered.
>
"There's precious little you can do," Melanie declared cheerfully as she stroked the back of his neck. "The whole compound is always heavily guarded, and I'm certain that the number of sentries on duty has been doubled since I disappeared. It's impossible for anyone to get in or out of the prison, and as it's so close to the barracks, even a minor disturbance will bring out practically the whole of the Imperial guard. They're the finest soldiers in the army. All of them are willing to die for him."
Ethan stared at the diagram for a few moments, idly trailing the point of his knife around the line representing the compound wall as he digested the information Melanie had just given him. Then, suddenly, he plunged the blade into the ground. "A number of Boline's fanatics will have their wishes granted tonight."
She sat upright and looked at him in astonishment. "You'll actually try to rescue the girl in spite of all that I've told you?"
"Of course. I can see now why you've been willing to tell me the details. You thought I'd be too discouraged to make the attempt. You were wrong."
"Ethan, be sensible." Melanie shook back her hair and let it ripple down across her shoulders. "You and I are together again, and we've proved—how much we can mean to each other. You'll only be killed if you go down to Marinus' headquarters. And what do you stand to gain? Nothing! You flatter yourself if you think the Courtney wench will have anything to do with you."
"Nothing you can say will change my mind."
Melanie's glance was pitying. "There are times when I admire you for being stubborn, but now you're just being short-sighted. Mistress Courtney has an assured future, in case you don't know it. Marinus is certain to be attracted to her, particularly now that various exotic touches are being added to her appearance. He'll shower favors and gifts on her, and she'll live on a scale such as few women have ever known. There are worse fates than being the favorite of the Emperor of the West."
Ethan withdrew his knife from the ground, wiped off the blade and stood. "There are only two weaknesses in your argument. You don't know Prudence. And Boline isn't really an Emperor."
"Not yet, but—"
"And he won't ever be one, if I have anything to say about it. Melanie, I hope for your sake that you've been telling me the truth. If I shouldn't return tomorrow morning, at least one or two of my warriors will survive and make their way back here. And if they told the head man of the village that you lied and deliberately sent me into a trap, you wouldn't enjoy your punishment. The Carib are a primitive people, and your charms wouldn't save you."
"I've told you the truth," she said, looking directly at him. "I have no reason to lie to you any more, darling."
He stood and gazed down at her. "I'll have a better idea of that by the time I come back. Good-by, Melanie."
For the first time since he had known her there was real panic in her face. "Don't let anything happen to you, darling," she begged. "I—I don't know what would become of me—alone—in a land of savages."
Ethan smiled ironically. "You'd manage," he said.
A rescue party of fourteen men was organized, and Poda, refreshed after sleeping most of the day, insisted on joining it. All were armed with knives and blowguns, each carried a length of grass rope and, at Ethan's insistence, each was supplied with a two-foot strand of the inner shoot of a weed known as the tringo. Incredibly thin and wiry, this string made a unique weapon that the Carib had used for centuries in their wars against each other, and Ethan had included its use from the start of his training program. In the hands of an expert it was as deadly as the poison of a blowgun and was equally silent. A warrior holding both ends of a strand of tringo could approach an enemy from the rear, slip the string over his victim's head and draw it tightly around the man's throat. When properly applied, the tringo could kill in a few seconds, and the enemy would die without making a sound.
The group left Dama's village without fanfare or farewells of any kind, and Ethan did not look in the direction of his own hut to see if Melanie was watching his departure. It was enough for him to know that he had further complicated an already delicate balance of human relationships. If his mission succeeded, he would be faced with the immediate necessity of providing in some way for Melanie's future safety and welfare, and he realized that she would be adamant in her refusal to leave him. Her position was a strong one, he thought uncomfortably; not only was she his legal wife, but by sleeping with her again he had given her a valid claim to his protection.
But he had no desire to spend the rest of his life with Melanie. He wanted Prudence and no one else.
The problems of unsnarling emotional knots was secondary at the moment, however. His first task was to bring Prudence away from Boline's camp, and the dangers of the operation were so great that they drove everything else from his mind as he led the Carib braves through the jungles. Melanie had unquestionably been right when she had said that her own disappearance would cause the guards at the Imperial compound to increase their vigilance, and Ethan knew that the soldiers would open fire at the first hint that intruders had again infiltrated into the area. Stealth was the only possible tactic to use against highly trained men who were expert marksmen, and Ethan hoped that his Caribs could accomplish a second time what they had done just twenty-four hours before.
If Melanie had indeed told him the truth, Prudence was a captive in a building that was practically a fortress, and he had no idea of how he would storm it. He and his warriors had no tools to break down metal doors or pry apart window bars. It was futile to even think in such terms, for the noise they would create under such circumstances would certainly bring the whole army down on their heads. Ethan could only hope that when he saw the prison he would find a last-minute inspiration.
He set a rapid pace, and although he did not know it, the grim warriors who accompanied him exchanged satisfied glances from time to time as they followed him. They had been afraid that he would be clumsy in the jungles and would hamper them, but they saw now that in the months he had been their teacher he had been their pupil, too. He moved with the silent ease of one who had spent all of his life in a trackless wilderness.
As the mountains gave way to gentler hills it grew dark, and Ethan relinquished the lead to Poda, who knew the precise location of the Imperial compound. The march was accomplished at a furious clip, and the group stopped only once to rest for a few moments beside a brook, in which the braves bathed their faces and hands. When they resumed their trek, Ethan reflected that his own situation was more perilous than any he had ever before been called on to face. If he should be taken prisoner, he was sure to be recognized, and he was positive that Mari-nus Boline would not be satisfied to let him die quickly. A special torture would be applied to the one man who had ever successfully defied the Emperor, and Ethan considered it probable that Boline would take great pleasure in forcing Prudence to watch his slow execution.
A tight smile lighted his face for an instant, and he promised himself that under no circumstances would he be taken alive. In the space of a few more hours the rescue of Prudence would be an accomplished fact or he would be dead.
Suddenly, at a signal from Poda, the warriors strung themselves out in single file. Ethan began to make out a series of sounds different from the noises of the jungle, and when he heard the faint, booming echo of the surf he knew that the end of the journey was close at hand. A rhythmic stamping next attracted his attention, and even before the party came to the end of the jungle and he peered out into the clearing ahead over Poda's shoulder, he identified the sound as that of a sentry in heavy boots walking his rounds.
Poda moved off to the left, past a long row of barracks, and he stayed just inside the fringe of trees, where he could not be seen. Then, beyond several sand dunes, a high wall came into view, and when Poda halted Ethan knew that this was the Imperial compound. A three-quarter moon had risen, and its tropical brilliance added to the task ahead. Sentries, who were patrolling the wall in pairs, were plainly visible and Ethan realized that he and his companions
would be soon clearly seen, too.
There was nothing to be gained by delay, however, and after he and Poda had gripped each other's shoulders, they started to crawl out into the open, with the other warriors behind them. They inched across the cleared ground so slowly that Ethan was sure someone would see them at any moment and would give the alarm. But the soldiers apparently found security in numbers tonight, and sentries who had been accustomed to making their rounds alone took comfort in the presence of their stalwart companions. This feeling of safety made them careless, and Poda, who was directly ahead of Ethan, reached a spot only fifteen feet from the stone wall before he stopped and pressed himself close to the ground.
The sentries on duty in this sector needed only to turn their heads slightly in the direction of the jungles to see the Caribs who had emerged into the open, and it was inevitable that one or the other would soon catch sight of the intruders. But Poda was not waiting for the enemy to discover him. Reaching into the pouch that he carried over his shoulder, he drew out his blowgun and a tiny arrow dipped in poison.
Ethan would have preferred another method of either disposing of the sentries or slipping past them. A sergeant or an officer of the guard was sure to make the rounds of the outposts at fairly regular intervals, and when he found two of his men dead, he would raise an immediate outcry. There was no practical alternative to Poda's proposal, however, and Ethan fitted an arrow into his own blowgun, then raised it as the sentries executed an about-face and started back along the wall.
Devil's Prize Page 15
