Touching Midnight

by Fiona Hood-Stewart

  Adrenaline pumped, making her head spin. Seconds later, she shuffled past a group of men and women in varying states of undress, congregating around a table that was awash with ale. Keeping her gaze fixed on the packed dirt floor, Cuin counted paces as she headed for the next pillar. She was close enough to reach out and touch it when an elbow sent her stumbling against a hard chest. Her hand shot out and collided with a cup. Cold liquid soaked her sleeve, and a guttural roar vibrated in her ear. A large hand gripped the neck of her robe, knuckles digging into the soft skin beneath her chin. The fetid stench of rotted teeth and infected gums made her reel as the man leaned close; then a woman with loose, tangled hair, her robe gaping to bare the rounded globes of her breasts, intervened, eyes flashing as she knocked his hand away. There was a brief, sharp altercation. The woman glared at Cuin, spat a crude warning, then wound her arms around the man’s neck and pressed her mouth to his.

  Cuin backed away, gripping her shawl even more tightly around her face as she cast around to get her bearings. Panic gripped her when she couldn’t orient herself, couldn’t see anything beyond an amorphous mass of bodies. Then a servant forged past, carrying a platter of steaming meat, and the bodies parted, and once more she caught the distinctive glint of metal. Setting her jaw, she continued her slow, clumsy shuffle toward the cold gleam—the shuffle no longer an act as she grimly concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. It took an eon to reach the last pillar, and when she did, for long moments she simply leaned into the cool stone.

  A roar from the far end of the tavern finally roused her. Reluctantly, she pushed herself away from the pillar and eyed the overlarge warrior sprawled on a bench, which had been positioned in the darkest corner of the alcove.

  Even sitting down, he was taller than any warrior she’d yet seen, a muscular, dark lion of a man, his hair thick and long and coal-black, pulled back from his face in an archaic fashion to reveal high, taut cheekbones, a thin blade of a nose and a jaw that looked like it had been chiseled from granite.

  He was relaxed, but even so, he looked dangerous. From the discreet distance she’d preserved, she could feel the fierceness that radiated from him, and her stomach tightened as if a cold fist had just closed around her innards. The fact that, for a crowded tavern, there was a lot of empty space around the warrior, as if even the hardened drinkers and harlots who frequented this place didn’t dare get too close, added weight to her instinct to turn on her heel, walk back to the temple and forget her plan.

  But forgetting her plan wasn’t an option.

  Keeping her gaze fixed on the light glinting off the strange, gray metal of his breastplate, Cuin started toward him.

  As she reached the circle of warmth cast by the brazier, he lifted his head, and the warning flash in his dark eyes made her heart pound so hard she had difficulty catching her breath.

  Loosening the wad of fabric that was pressed against her nose and mouth, she took a steadying breath. To her relief, the air at this end of the tavern seemed clearer. “I have a proposition for you.” To her dismay, her voice came out as little more than a croak.

  His gaze was dismissive. “Whatever you’re selling, old woman, I don’t want it.”

  “You haven’t heard—”

  “Leave.”

  Her teeth snapped together. “Or what?”

  His gaze bored briefly into hers, as if he could see through the shawl that obscured her face, dark eyes so coldly dismissive she felt the chill invade her flesh. With an indolent movement, he went back to feeding wood into the fire, and the hope that had driven her from the safety of the temple on a quest that was all but futile sank close to extinction. She had found her warrior, she was certain of it, but the logic that had stopped her approaching Achaeus until she was desperate was now placed solidly in front of her. If he wouldn’t ally himself with Chumac, why would he work for her?

  For long moments Cuin lingered, too exhausted to heed the warning implicit in that last glance and move, her mind running feverishly over what she had that a mercenary who appeared to have no discernible price might possibly want. Chumac had gold aplenty, and the promise of advancement and glory in the bloodbath that would follow Chataluk’s death. Aside from gold, she had nothing to offer but burdens.

  Flames licked around the wood Achaeus had just thrown into the brazier and flared high, momentarily throwing his features into sharp relief—the spare cheekbones, the sleepy cast to his eyes, the barbaric metal breastplate that spanned his chest—and for a moment time itself seemed to stop. Blinking, she wondered if the fumes she’d breathed had made her drunk.

  The design emblazoned on the strange, dull breastplate was a sun.

  Warily, Cuin studied the insignia that proclaimed Achaeus’s allegiance—not a bird or a mythic animal, or the fanged creature that Chumac and Hotec served—but the sun, and for the first time since Chumac had walked into her temple that afternoon, hope surged.

  Gaze fixed on the elaborate sun motif, a close match to the motif carved into the doors of the temple, Cuin straightened to her full height—taller than almost any man she’d ever met. Achaeus thought she was a prostitute, selling her body to whoever had coin. If that was the only avenue to get him to listen, then she would use it. “I’m not old.”

  He didn’t bother to lift his head. “And I don’t have to pay for it.”

  Boldly stepping further into the light, she drew the shawl far enough aside that he could glimpse the lower part of her face. “I don’t need money. I was proposing paying you.”

  His head finally lifted. His gaze fastened on her mouth, and a faint gleam of interest surfaced. “That’s a new twist.”

  His hand snaked around her wrist and jerked her closer. His calloused thumb rubbed over her palm, the faint abrasion sending a raw shiver up her spine.

  His gaze settled on her mouth again. “With that soft hand you’re not the old woman you’re pretending to be, and you’re no more a prostitute or a servant than I am. Let’s see who you really are.”

  He caught the corner of the shawl and yanked, baring her face. Abruptly, he was towering over her, fingers digging into her shoulders, black eyes locked with hers. He muttered something curt in a language she didn’t understand as Cuin snatched at the tail end of the shawl, desperate to drag it over her head before one of Chumac’s men noticed her. Her fingers snagged on wool, but in her haste she fumbled, and the garment slipped to the floor.

  He muttered the curt demand again, his voice hoarsening; then the world spun as she found herself pressed back into the shadows of the alcove and pinned against the rough stone of the wall. With the cold metal of his armor biting into her breasts, his breath warm on her cheek, one muscled thigh pressed against hers, the fact that her face was naked and exposed suddenly became secondary.

  Achaeus smelled like a wild animal—not heavily of body odors, but clean and faintly musky: of river water and wood smoke, and the sharp, resinous herbs that were used for bathing. The fact that he bathed should have been reassuring, but this close, he was even taller and more forbidding than she’d expected.

  His gaze caught hers and held it. “Your eyes,” he said slowly, biting out each word. “You look like you come from Ilium.”

  She blankly registered that his reaction to her eyes hadn’t been because he associated their unusual color with the temple. “I’ve never heard of—” She swallowed, and tested the strange, liquid sound of the name “—Ilium.”

  He continued to watch her, as if gauging the veracity of her words. Gradually the tension eased from his face, but he didn’t release her. “Ilium fell. Her people are…scattered.”

  “I’m not from your city,” she said carefully. “And you’re right, I’m not a prostitute or a kitchen maid. I’m the Cadis.”

  She frowned as her assertion that she was the high priestess tumbled out, breathless and lacking her usual calm.

  “You’re lying.” His tone was cold, neutral—but, most importantly to Cuin, untainted with the contempt that C
humac encouraged amongst his men.

  She pointed to her eyes. “These make me the Cadis. But if you still don’t believe, then follow me, and I’ll prove who I am.”

  He studied her at length, as if contemplating some kind of minor insect species and deciding whether or not it was an annoyance. Amusement curved his mouth, and abruptly she became conscious of her disheveled state. Mud caked her sandaled feet and the hem of her robe, soot was smeared on her hands and shawl, and the reek of ale rose from a damp patch on her sleeve. Apart from the fact that she was filthy and unkempt, she was also dressed as a servant, a necessary disguise that now worked against her.

  She sucked in a breath, frustrated that she’d forgotten the most important part of the negotiation. Reaching inside her robe, she pulled out a purse and extracted a bright gold piece, stamped with the temple seal.

  “What in Hades do you think you’re doing?”

  His hand closed on hers, obliterating the gleam of the coin. Before she could object or catch her breath, she found herself jerked into an even darker corner of the room. His hand closed around her neck, keeping her pinned against the wall, head tilted at an acute angle so he could continue to stare down into her face with that cold, remote gaze. “If you’re the Cadis, you can tell me in which direction Ilium lies, and whether or not my men and I will ever see it again.”

  Cuin was beginning to feel like a rag doll, her legs weak, her senses reeling from the assault of dealing with such a potent male. His grip wasn’t tight enough to cut off her breath, but there was no way she could free herself. She closed her eyes briefly and reached for calm. She had wanted his attention, and now, for a reason strange beyond imagining, she finally had it. “I know not in which direction your fallen city lies. I’m not an oracle—I’m a healer.”

  With a biting curse, he slowly loosened his hold. The roughness of his fingers against her skin sent an involuntary shiver through Cuin. Achaeus looked big enough and savage enough to take on half of Chumac’s army single-handed, and, according to the information one of the servants had brought back from the markets, he was expert enough in combat to do it. He also commanded a small force of men, a number of them as strange and outlandish as Achaeus himself, and every one of them armed with weapons that cut through copper and wood like a hot knife through butter.

  Excitement stirred in the pit of her belly, rose up and gripped her as thoroughly as the large hand that still manacled her neck to the wall. Achaeus was larger, fiercer and much more complicated than she’d ever imagined he would be, and it was all she could do to school herself to stillness as she tolerated his hold and stared boldly back.

  If she could control him, she just might be able to outwit Chumac.

  Four

  Achaeus continued to study her, his gaze cold. “You’re flashing temple coin, and you’re soft enough to be an initiate, but there’s no way you’re the Cadis. Chumac has her locked up tight. She never leaves the temple grounds.”

  Cuin swallowed against the bitter gall of his words. She was aware that the temple’s situation had deteriorated drastically, but she hadn’t known their position was so publicly known. “The temple has a maze of passages. I used one of the secret tunnels to get here. If you’ll just loose me—”

  His grip tightened, chopping off the flow of words. He glared down into her eyes, as if he found them fascinating, and muttered again in that liquid, archaic language.

  Cuin struggled to inhale and couldn’t. Her fingers curled around his big hand and wrenched, and the pressure on her windpipe eased. “I don’t speak your language.”

  Abruptly she was free, leaning against the wall, glad for the support, since her legs had turned to water.

  His gaze flashed in something close to an apology. “You look like you should.”

  Cuin lifted a hand to massage her throat and swallowed. The skin felt tender and sensitive where he’d gripped her. She hadn’t enjoyed the experience, but beyond the insult of touching, he had done her no real physical harm.

  Achaeus folded his arms across his chest. Flickering light from the brazier slanted across his face, making him look even bleaker, illuminating the swell of one muscled bicep and the dull sheen of the heavy blade hanging from his hip. “If you were a man,” he stated mildly, “you’d be dead, but since you’re a woman—and fair—I’m intrigued enough to listen to your proposition.”

  Cuin’s heart thumped in her chest. It took long moments for her to realize that she had actually achieved, if not all, then at least a part of her goal. “Thank you.”

  With fingers that were stiff with cold and a little shaky, she stuffed the coin pouch back in her robe. She wouldn’t make the mistake of offering him money again until they’d settled on terms. He obviously had his own brand of etiquette, and his own way of doing business. Until she had learned his ways, she wouldn’t risk offending him. “We can talk at the temple.”

  He jerked his head, indicating a door off to the side of the tavern, and, pulse still pounding, she draped the shawl over her head and followed him into a narrow avenue that ran between the tavern kitchens and what looked like the tavern keeper’s house.

  The touch of his fingers as he took her arm was vaguely shocking, and for a moment she stiffened until she realized he was simply sheltering her from the bustle of foot traffic as they entered the main avenue.

  “I take it we are going to the temple?”

  She risked a glance at his face and looked quickly away when she saw him watching her with open curiosity—and something else she couldn’t quite fathom. “Where else?”

  Her tension gradually dissipated, to be replaced by a slow-building elation as he continued to stroll with her up the terraced gradations of the township that led to the temple gates. Walking with the barbarian was like keeping company with a very large, very unpredictable jaguar—the link between them fragile and likely to be shattered in an instant. If she did the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, she could lose him in a second, but with every step closer to the temple gates, the vice around her heart loosened.

  Ridiculously, as they were halted at the gates and asked to identify themselves, the thought uppermost in her mind wasn’t the plight of the temple but the odd expression that had entered his eyes when he’d said she was fair.

  Cuin slipped the shawl from her head and didn’t miss the way Achaeus’s gaze narrowed when the temple guard blinked and flushed, then bowed deeply as he backed away.

  Malia, who was keeping watch in the lee of the guardhouse, stepped forward and wrapped a rich, soft robe around Cuin’s shoulders, covering the coarseness of her disguise.

  Achaeus backed off a step, his expression grim. “It seems I made a mistake—my apologies.”

  With a brief half bow, he turned on his heel, but Cuin caught his arm, halting him. “You promised you’d listen to my proposition.”

  “I promised nothing, and there’s no longer any need for discussion. I know what you want.”

  He glanced at her slim, pale fingers gripping his forearm just above the curious metal gauntlet that protected his wrist, but Cuin refused to release her hold. He would have to prize her fingers off one by one if he wanted to be rid of her. She’d got him this far; she wouldn’t lose him now.

  She took a deep breath, gambling on the honor that had made him refuse her gold when most men would simply have taken it—and her—without agreeing to anything in return. “By my reckoning, there are twenty-nine women here—six of whom are in their dotage—twelve children, ranging from seven summers to thirteen, six temple guards…and myself.”

  The silence stretched taut, punctuated by the distant tinny notes of cymbals and horns, the cacophony of sound as a fight broke out in the tavern.

  “I know what’s at stake.” He nodded toward the guardhouse and the two men stationed there. “If that’s your first line of defense, you won’t be safe for long.”

  If at all. With their wooden clubs and copper knives, the temple guard looked even more puny and ineffectual than u
sual. Compared with Achaeus, they were children playing at war. “We don’t have a line of defense,” she said bluntly. “All we have is the fact that Chumac wants the temple intact—for the time being. He’s already bought most of the guard. All we have left are a few men.”

  “Half of whom are also taking Chumac’s pay as well as yours.”

  Shock ran through her at the blunt confirmation of her own suspicions, but she didn’t so much as blink. “That’s why we need you. I’m trying to get everyone out.”

  His expression was unreadable. “Why did you come looking for me?”

  She didn’t miss the slight emphasis on the “you.” “We needed someone who isn’t in Chumac’s pay,” she said simply. “I couldn’t entrust finding that person to anyone else.”

  “And you settled on a mercenary and a foreigner. Someone who has no attachment to your temple or your politics.”

  “What would you have done, given the same circumstances?”

  “Nothing different.” His gaze swept the massive edifice of the temple. “I don’t understand you, or this place, but you’ve got guts—”

  “So you’ll take the job?”

  “—and you’re desperate.”

  “So—”

  He was silent for a moment. Abruptly, his gaze settled on hers again. “Before I agree to anything, I want to see a full set of maps of the temple and the maze. And I want you to walk me through it all, and show me the secret ways and the door mechanisms. Before you say no, understand that that is the only part of this deal that isn’t negotiable. If you want any of us to survive this, you can’t keep anything secret from me.” His gaze shifted to her mouth; then he shook his head. “I must be drunk—or sickening for something.”