by Tanya Huff
“Like your mother did?” She spread the fingers of one hand on his chest and smiled with satisfaction as he tried unsuccessfully to flinch away. “Maybe if your father had been a little more open to change, she wouldn’t have gone. Wouldn’t have run off with that Cemandian trader. Wouldn’t have caused your father so much trouble trying to get you back.”
“Stop it!”
Olina waited long enough for it to become obvious she moved only because she wanted to, then she turned on one heel and strode back toward the fireplace. “It occurs to me,” she said thoughtfully, “I should be speaking to King Theron, not to you.”
“What are you talking about?” He jerked away from the wall and shoved at a lock of hair that had fallen forward out of the tie.
“Well …” She bent and threw another piece of wood on the fire. “… if King Theron were to tell you to open the pass to expanded trade, you’d have no choice.”
“King Theron?”
“He is your liege lord,” she reminded him dryly. “You do remember that great-grandfather, your great-great-grandfather, surrendered Ohrid’s ever so valued independence to Shkoder. If King Theron says jump, my dear Pjerin, you ask how high on the way up.”
A muscle twitched in Pjerin’s jaw. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about King Theron. I am Duc of Ohrid and I will not allow increased trade with Cemandia.” Hands curled into fists he charged toward the door, whirled, and glared down at the Cemandian trader. “See you that remember it, Albek!”
“I will, Your Grace. Oh, and I was sorry to hear about your dogs.” His sincerity was undeniable. “To lose them both at once must have been very upsetting.”
Pjerin stared at the Cemandian, conflicting emotions twisting his face. Unable to find an answer, he snarled what might have been a wordless agreement and slammed out of the room.
“Well, that bit of unexpected sympathy certainly confused him,” Olina observed. “Which I’m sure was your intention.”
“If he doesn’t think of me personally as an enemy, it will make things easier tonight.” Albek sighed and stretched his feet back toward the fire. “Besides, I was sorry to hear about his dogs. I had a dog once myself.”
“Spare me.”
“You play him very well.”
Olina snorted. “It isn’t difficult. He’s too arrogant to see past what I dangle in front of him. It never even occurs to him that I have as little desire to run a tollgate between Shkoder and Cemandia as he does, that I want a part of something bigger.”
“That you want to control a part of something bigger.”
“That goes without saying.”
“I liked the bit about King Theron. A nice touch. I can use it.”
“Of course you can.”
“But you still seem hesitant.”
“I’m still considering your certain amount of risk,” she told him dryly.
“Olina.” Albek shook his head. “I’ve studied every possibility and this leaves us with the greatest chance of success. Consider,” he raised a finger, “the accidental death of the duc would require a full investigation before the title could go to his son. The bards would not only question us but the kigh as well, and that risk is far too great. While the kigh are not always around, we can’t take the chance they won’t be watching.” He closed his eyes for an instant as fear beaten into him his entire life threatened to break through his control, then he raised a second finger. “Assassination, the same result. But …” A third finger lifted to join the other two. “… if he condemns himself by his own mouth, there will be no further investigation, there never is. You will be left to regent for the child with a shocked and saddened people behind you.”
“And it will all be over.”
“Oh, no. It will just be beginning.” He dropped his hand and laced his fingers in his lap, adding with no change of expression in either face or voice, “You’ve bedded him.”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a question, but she chose to answer it anyway. “Was it that obvious?”
Albek smiled, wondering why she’d chosen to let him know, fully aware she did nothing without a reason. “Wasn’t it intended to be?”
“Perhaps.” Pushing herself away from the mantle, she advanced on the trader. “At nineteen he was an enthusiastic partner, but as he got older …”
“He insisted on retaining control?”
“Essentially.”
“And the boy, Gerek?”
“What? Do you suddenly think he’s my son as well? Don’t be a fool.” Amusement and disdain were equally mixed in her tone. “Gerek is exactly what we say he is; the legally witnessed child of a woman who had her eye on timber rights. Pjerin, in turn, wanted an heir but had no interest in being joined; not after the mess his father made of it. She got her favor. He got his heir. I thought you spoke to Gerek’s mother? You told me that, in your not so humble opinion, as long as her son was safe and happy she would be no problem.”
“I did.” Albek brushed a honey-colored curl back off his face and let both shoulders rise and fall in a graceful shrug. “But I had to explore the possibility. You understand.”
“Yes, I understand.” Her voice held an edge. She straddled his outstretched legs, and slowly, deliberately, stroked her gaze down the length of his body and back.
He shifted in the chair. “I do have to go, as I said, tomorrow morning.”
“Of course you do. The pass doesn’t defy the weather and won’t remain open much longer.”
“And tonight …” He tried to look away, found he couldn’t, and wet his lips. “Tonight, I must concentrate on Pjerin.”
“How pleasant for you both.” Olina bent forward. Her eyes still holding Albek’s, she grasped both arms of the chair and made him a prisoner beneath the arch of her body. Her smile became decidedly feral. “All things considered then, I suggest that we don’t waste the afternoon.”
* * * *
“Papa, why don’t you like Aunty Olina’s friend?”
“Because I think he’d sell his own mother if the price was right.” Pjerin lifted his son out of the bath and set him on the hearth, wrapping him in the towel that had been warming in front of the nursery fire.
“Oh.” The piping voice came out a little muffled through the enveloping fabric. “How much does a mother cost?”
“Why? Do you want one?”
Gerek’s head emerged, hair sticking out in damp black spikes, expression indignant. “I got one,” he reminded his father. His mother came to visit sometimes and sometimes, although he didn’t like it as much—because his grandpapa was very old and didn’t care much for small boys even when they tried hard to be quiet—he went to visit her. “And I got you, and Nurse Jany, and Aunty Olina, and Bohdan, and Rezka, and Urmi, and Kaspar, and Brencis …”
“Wait a minute.” Bohdan was his elderly steward; Rezka ruled the kitchens, and Urmi, her partner, was the stablemaster; Kaspar was Gerek’s pony. Pjerin made a point of knowing the names of all his people, high or low, and occasionally four-legged. “Who’s Brencis?”
“A goat.” Gerek shrugged at his father’s ignorance and obediently turned to have his back dried. “Aunty Olina likes him.”
“Who? Brencis?”
“No! Albek!” Standing naked in the firelight, he scratched the back of one leg with the other foot. “If you don’t like him, how come you let him stay around? You could make him go if you wanted to.”
“Your Aunt Olina likes him. And this is her home, too.”
“Oh. Bohdan doesn’t like him neither. Bohdan says that Albek is so slippery even the Circle couldn’t hold him.”
“Arms up.”
Gerek raised his arms and poked them through the sleeves of his nightshirt. “Does that make him a bad man, Papa? I thought everything was in the Circle?”
Pjerin made a mental note to speak to Bohdan about his choice of words. And then he can explain theology to a four-year-old. Maybe it was time they had a priest at the keep. “Everything is in the Circle, even Albek.”
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br /> “But Bohdan said …”
“Never mind what Bohdan said.”
Gerek peered up at his father from under his lashes. Ever?”
“Never mind what he said about Albek, you terror. You still mind what he says the rest of the time.” The next few moments degenerated into a wild free-for-all that ended with Pjerin flat on his back and Gerek perched on his chest demanding his surrender.
“You win. I surrender.”
“Kiss my finger.”
“Is that part of the surrender?”
“No. It got bit by a chicken.”
“What were you doing in the henhouse?”
“Helping.” At Pjerin’s frown he hastily added, “Really helping. Not like last time.”
Pjerin raised his head off the floor and kissed the proffered finger. Then he continued the motion, scooping Gerek into his arms and rising lithely to his feet. With the boy cradled against his chest, he stepped around the pair of servants removing the bath and settled down into the only piece of furniture in the room large enough to hold his weight.
Gerek squirmed around until he was sitting half on his father’s lap and half beside him tucked into the angle of the big chair. Stretching his bare toes out toward the fire, he said, “Can I stay with you for vigil this year?”
“Of course you can.”
“Can I have my own candle?” His voice was hopeful, but he obviously didn’t expect a positive answer.
“Yes.”
“Really? Truly?”
Pjerin hid a smile at the tone. Last year, Gerek’s candle had very nearly set the keep on fire when he’d fallen asleep and it had dropped to the floor but not gone out. Fortunately, the burning tapestry had smelled so bad that he and Olina had been able to put it out with only a handbreadth of damage done. This year, they’d be more alert. “Really. Truly.”
With a satisfied sigh, the boy leaned his head against Pjerin’s chest. “Nees sang me a song about the sun coming back,” he said.
“Is Nees another goat?”
“No! Nees the bard!”
“Nees?” Pjerin frowned. He couldn’t remember a bard named Nees and, with Ohrid right on the border, they didn’t get many walking out so far.
“You know, Papa, the one who was here when it rained so much and she sang me stories and she kept making Aunty Olina mad by smiling at her.”
Then he remembered. Olina had been in a mood; at her most challenging and ready to remove the evening from the Circle altogether. The bard had said quietly, I wouldn’t. You’ll lose. To his surprise, Olina had studied the younger woman for a long moment, nodded, and blunted the edge of her tongue. He’d been the only one close enough to hear the exchange but—if even Gerek had picked up on it—the results had obviously been noticed by the rest of the keep. That wasn’t likely to make Olina happy if she found out. “You mean, Annice, Ger.”
“Yeah. Nees.”
Frankly, the bard hadn’t looked like the sort who could give Olina a run for her money. Although she’d worn the same annoying air of cocky independence that marked every bard he’d ever seen, the expression in her eyes had been contemplative rather than combative. Hazel eyes, the kind that turned almost green when … He shook himself free of the memory. It had ended up an interesting night all around. “So the bard sang you new stories, did she?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, maybe you should tell me a story tonight.”
“No.” Gerek snuggled into Pjerin’s side, fingers playing with a damp spot caused by a spout of bathwater accidentally rising to meet a shirt. “You tell me about the dragon who wanted to be a boy.”
“But you’ve heard that one a thousand times, Ger.”
“So?”
Pjerin smiled, inhaled the clean scent of his child, and began. “Once upon a time, there was a dragon who wanted to be a boy …”
* * * *
The knock on the heavy oak door of the tiny room he used for a study was so faint, Pjerin thought at first he’d imagined it. When it sounded again, he threw his hair back over his shoulder and turned to face it, calling, “Come.” He hated ciphering and anything would be a relief from the columns of figures Bohdan had insisted he go over tonight.
Almost anything, he amended a moment later. “What do you want?”
Albek stepped apologetically into the room, a pottery carafe in one hand, two heavy mugs in the other. “I saw you were still up. I thought we might …”
“Have a drink together? Don’t be an ass.” He dragged the chair around to face the other man and scowled. “What my aunt does is her own business, but I don’t drink with Cemandians. Get out!”
“I was hoping, that is, I hoped that until Olina went to sleep …”
Pjerin’s scowl deepened. “I thought you got along with Olina?”
“I do.” Albek’s smile had picked up a slight twist of desperation. “But I can’t … get along with her … again. Not so soon.”
“You’re limping.”
“Nothing permanent. I assure you I can still leave in the morning.”
“Good.” Pjerin exhaled noisily and shook his head. It wasn’t pity, exactly. It was just that Albek wore an expression he’d seen in his mirror more than once before he’d finally found the strength to tell her no and make it stick. “She’ll go exactly as far as you let her, you know.”
“I know.” The Cemandian trader’s tone was distinctly tart.
In spite of himself, Pjerin almost smiled. “She won’t look for you in here.”
Albek shifted his weight and winced slightly. “My thought as well.”
“What’s in the jug?”
“Mulled wine. Your cook has a very fine touch with it.”
“I know. How old are you?”
The question seemed to take the other man by surprise. “Twenty-six.”
Pjerin glanced down at his accounts and then jerked his head at the other chair. “Sit. If you can. I suppose we can find something to talk about that won’t have us at each other’s throats.”
* * * *
“Is it done?”
“It is.” Albek closed and latched the door. He pulled the tapestry back down into place, his fingers lightly caressing the stag as it fell beneath the hounds, then he turned and walked briskly across the room to Olina’s bed.
Clothed only in shadows and the thick, black fall of her hair, the firelight licking golden highlights on her skin, she watched him approach. “I’m amazed he even let you in. He doesn’t like you, you know.”
“I know. But I gave us something in common.”
“What?”
“You,” he told her, pausing on the hearth, close enough to the bed to read her features but more than an arm’s length away. The heat of the blazing fire was uncomfortably hot on his legs but, until he had her reaction, it posed the lesser danger of being burned.
To his surprise, she began to laugh. “Were you hiding from me, then? Taking refuge with someone who would understand?”
“Why …” he began, and stopped as it suddenly became clear. “That was why you let me know about the two of you.”
“I thought you might be able to make use of it. Was it enough for him to open his door to you?”
“Not quite. I also lied about my age. As soon as he saw me as younger than himself …” Albek spread his hands and, now that he knew it was safe, moved to the side of the bed.
“You became someone to protect, if only for a short while.” She slid her legs to one side so he could sit. “Very clever. And the drug?”
“Already in the mug. Once it relaxed him, I had no trouble.”
Olina rubbed her bare thigh against his side, and studied him through half closed eyes. “And did you take advantage while you had the opportunity? He is very beautiful.”
“My tastes do not lean toward taking advantage.” His fingers lingered on the curve of her hip. Blocked from the heat of the fire by the rest of her body, the skin was smooth and cool like silk. He had seen a rope made of silk once; it
had been far stronger than any made of a coarser, more common fiber. “As you very well know.” The oblivion he needed had been too long conditioned. “But may I ask you something?”
She looked amused. “Ask.”
It wasn’t a question he should be asking, but he found he couldn’t help himself. “The duc is your blood, your family; doesn’t it bother you that we’ve just arranged to have him executed?”
“This from the man who brought me the way to be rid of him? Who said he could recognize waste when he saw it and that he had a way to help me to the life I desired?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”
Why indeed. “My Queen would not be happy if you were suddenly overcome with remorse.” Which was true.
Olina laughed. “When I finally have a chance to hold real power? Don’t be ridiculous, Albek.”
He inclined her head, acknowledging her point. “I was deep in his memories. Sometimes, it’s unsettling.”
“And now it’s my turn?”
“There are still a few loose ends that must be tucked neatly out of the way.” Albek leaned forward and picked a pewter goblet off the pedestal table beside her bed; its contents prepared before he left to find Pjerin. “And as you are as little likely to voluntarily surrender control as your nephew …” He offered her the wine.
She wrapped her fingers around his, trapping them within her grip as she drank. Then she held them a moment longer just to prove she could. “So.” Releasing his hand, she reached out further and laid her palm against his cheek, turning his head slightly so that she could catch his gaze with hers. “Once again I will be in your complete control.” Beneath the rough stubble of whiskers, she could feel the heat of blood rising in his face. “Don’t abuse the privilege.”
Albek swallowed. “I wouldn’t,” he said, with complete sincerity, “dream of it.”
* * * *
Lilyana glanced up as the door to her solar opened. When she saw who moved wearily into the warmth of the small room, she motioned for her attendant to leave them alone.
The younger woman nodded, rose, bowed to the king and slipped around him, quietly closing the door behind her. She could be counted on to ensure that king and consort were not disturbed.
“You look like you had a tiring meeting,” Lilyana observed, allowing the book she’d been reading to fall closed on her lap, her fingers resting lightly on the carved wood of the cover. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to call for something?”
