One of the cargo handlers leaned against the outside bulkhead, another kneeling before him, apparently just having completed a brief encounter, as the kneeling man was licking his partner clean. They ignored her as they tucked away their cocks and went back inside. She glanced around but saw no others concealed in the shadows cast by the deck lamps.
If she’d been thinking logically, she would have headed inland for her solitude. Few traveled even the main road up to the castle at night. She might have sat beneath a tree in complete comfort, and forgone this tankard of wine more suited to stripping paint than drinking. But then she would not be listening to the slow lapping of the water against the sides of the boat and feeling the easy rocking beneath her feet.
She set her tankard on the deck and dangled her feet over the side, hooking one arm around a post and resting her feet on one of the ropes that traversed the side. She inhaled the sea air and tried not to think of Maxime. She need stay ashore only tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps she would hire a light boat and go out alone, or take Norris and give her a lesson or two in handling small craft. Also, there was the business of visiting the enclave of naturalists down the coast; she had samples to show them, of resins and dried flowers, dried leaves and seeds. Some were probably useless except for the sake of study, but others might have monetary value. She had particular hope for one of the resins; not only would it bring in considerable coin, of which she and her crew would receive the largest share, but the trade itself provided a useful excuse for information gathering, among peoples who’d had little contact with the duchies thus far. The new resin might be as valuable, or more so, as the balsam she’d found on her last trip; it was reputed to have medicinal value.
The boat’s motion and her own exhaustion lulled her to a doze. She dreamed Maxime was there, settling in behind her on the deck, and insisting she call him by his name; then she came awake and realized she had heard his name, and more than once.
Voices carried by the breeze to her ears. A man’s voice with a sleek accent was saying, “Julien will reward me well if I bring Maxime to heel.”
Julien the king? Referred to so informally? The king had sent a man here recently, Maxime had told her. Was this the messenger Maxime had spoken of, or someone else?
The other man’s voice was also accented, and more indistinct. Imena heard only fragments of his reply: “Your business—she won’t—I could—” An indistinct murmur, then she clearly heard, “An accident.”
Imena stiffened. Men speaking softly of accidents did not bode well. And who was she? What wouldn’t she do? Cause an accident? Pay for an accident to happen? Or something else entirely?
Imena couldn’t identify the exact source of the voices. The men could be concealed behind a heap of cable opposite from where she sat, or they could even be on one of the adjoining craft. Until she had a hint of which direction to move, she didn’t dare risk alerting them to her position.
The first man said, “I will arrange everything. You may return, and report back to me if there is any news.”
“—king asks?”
They did refer to Julien, then.
“You know nothing. I will take care of that rutting tomcat Maxime. He won’t trouble Julien any further. And when I’m rewarded with this duchy, I will reward you beyond your wildest dreams.”
The clink of coins carried even better than the sound of voices. It was clear Maxime was in danger. Imena didn’t wait to hear more. She eased soundlessly over the boat’s side and slithered down ropes until her foot touched water. She took a series of deep breaths as silently as she could, then slid beneath the cold water, keeping one hand on the boat’s hull as her guide.
She had to go to Maxime, and quickly. But first, she would need to find Chetri.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER SYLVIE LEFT HIM, MAXIME CALLED FOR A bath in his quarters, but it did not make him sleepy as he’d hoped. He sent the servants away and spent several hours at his desk, reading the accounting for the past couple of days and then placing his seal on various permissions, customs documents and requisitions to supply the castle. All had been meticulously prepared by his aunt, Lady Gisele, and two of her children, whom she was presently training in the fine art of bureaucracy. He tried not to think about how little he was actually needed here; no longer was he necessary to distract Julien’s attention from the business of the duchy, because now everything was legal, open to inspection.
Being a duke felt more like extra bonds than the freedom he’d thought the position would represent. He was tempted, sometimes, to run. To head down to the docks and take ship for elsewhere.
He moved to a tray of letters already opened and ready for him to peruse. As he’d feared, Julien hadn’t waited for his formal refusal of Diamanta; another envoy was on the way.
Maxime glanced at the piles of legal texts he’d assembled. He would need to shift a few of his secretaries to that duty, for copying documents if nothing else. Because no one was watching, he put his head in his hands for a few moments and allowed himself to curse at length. He didn’t want to do it, but he would start in on the legal tomes tomorrow. For now, he composed replies to some of Camille’s letters, and to a personal one from Henri, whom he was beginning to consider a friend, as well. He briefly considered sharing his worries about marriage with Henri, but what could the boy tell him in return? Henri was barely twenty, and though acknowledged as legal consort to Camille, his situation was vastly different from Maxime’s.
When he’d finished, he wiped off his signet ring and laid it in its dish along with the carved stamp that bore the same design, an octopus curling around the initial letter of his name. He blew out the lamp, tossed his robe over the back of his chair and walked naked into his bedroom. The floor, heated by piped water from the hot springs, soothed his feet. Sometimes he stretched out upon the warm tile, with a pillow to prop his head, and reviewed the day’s work in his mind. Today, though, he planned to go straight to bed. Perhaps sleep would organize his thoughts on Imena Leung and how he could entice her to listen to his point of view.
His bed, with its intricately carved wooden canopy, loomed in the dim light of a single yellow lamp. The servants had carefully tidied the heaps of goose-down-filled bedding and pillows and attempted to straighten the mountain of leather-bound books and encased scrolls stacked near the bed’s head. Despite their efforts, the pile leaned dangerously and soon would create a landslide of reading material in five languages.
It didn’t matter if the room was a mess. He rarely entertained anyone in here. He preferred the baths and the adjacent chambers; it was safer that way, easier to keep his partners at a distance. The only woman he’d fucked in his own bed was Camille, and he didn’t count her, exactly; they’d known each other for such a long time that she didn’t seem like a mere sexual partner, and besides that, he’d known she was in love with her stable boy, Henri. It had been safe to have her here, safe to let her see his things spread about. He’d known she wouldn’t ask more of him than he was willing and able to provide for her.
Strangely, after he’d shared this room with her, and they’d finally consummated their relationship, he’d known they were finished as lovers. It was as if a string, pulled tight for decades, had finally snapped, and his burning desire for her had flown away with it. He was grateful they’d had other commonalities between them, and remained friends.
He ignored all the books, even a half-finished legal treatise on marriage laws and the manual he’d lately been reading on stellar navigation. It was written in the court language of the Horizon Empire, and though like all the aristocracy of his duchy, he’d studied the language since boyhood, it was rough going, with technical vocabulary that wasn’t usually required for normal trade relations. He was still trapped in the introduction. He had hoped to ask Imena to help him; she’d been trained in stellar navigation and he suspected she would have a gift for teaching it.
He blew out the lamp before sliding wearily between soft cotton sheets. He’d been awak
e since the dawn, waiting for Imena’s visit. He closed his eyes and the world tilted into sleep.
He woke to a familiar touch and scent—Imena. Groggily, he smiled. He didn’t mind her in his rooms. He didn’t mind her here in the least. Her callused hand clamped over his mouth. “Get his feet, Seretse,” she said.
Maxime struggled to blink awake. A sailor had a firm grip on his ankles, and another grabbed his shoulders as Imena removed her hand from his face. “Quiet,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t struggle.”
He hadn’t thought she played these sorts of games, but he was willing to go along, even when the two sailors laid him on a cinnamon-scented wool carpet and proceeded to thoroughly wrap him within its folds. He tried to lift a hand to clear fabric away from his face only to find it trapped. “Imena—” In the other room, he heard his door open.
“Quiet! Chetri, did you find the courier?”
“Aye, Captain. Here she is.”
Maxime heard a laugh, quickly muffled, then Sylvie’s voice. “Well, well, Captain. You want him after all. I never would have thought you’d have your muscled crewmen carry him off.”
“Listen carefully, Sylvie,” Imena said. “Chetri, go with Seretse and Kuan.”
Maxime relaxed. Imena clearly intended to tell Sylvie her plans for him. She might play games, but she didn’t plan to put his entire castle into an uproar. He remembered the envoy from King Julien that would be arriving in the next day or so and began to struggle. Someone, probably Imena, kicked the carpet with a bare foot and said, “Get him out of here!”
He realized even a complicated game like this one would be unlikely to last more than a day and a night, and if the envoy arrived during that time, someone would send him a message. He had quite a lot of work to do, but courting his future wife was work, as well. He relaxed into the spice-scented carpet—the sensation of soft wool all over his bare skin reminded him of pleasurable encounters of the past—and let the crewmen carry him from his rooms and out into the corridor. They exited, he thought, through one of the side entrances and loaded him, still wrapped in the carpet, onto a cart. He heard a pony snort. Two men climbed onto the bench seat, shifting the cart’s weight, while the remaining man, probably Chetri, stayed in the rear with him. Maxime could just sense the weight of Chetri’s hand on the outside of the roll of carpet; the hand rested just over his genitals. Maxime grinned, wondering if Chetri was intended to be part of the evening’s entertainment, as well. If Imena had no objections, he certainly wouldn’t raise a protest.
Soon he smelled the sea. Chetri and the two crewmen slid his carpet from the cart and carried him down the dock, their feet slapping hollowly on the boards. He almost protested when he felt a cargo sling being adjusted around his carpet, but closed his mouth when he remembered his role. She’d told him to be quiet, so quiet he would be.
It was rather exhilarating, being swung into the air and into a boat, rowed for a distance, then lifted much higher and swung across to what he assumed was Seaflower’s deck, more exhilarating because he couldn’t see, move his limbs or balance himself in any way. He had to give over control completely. Imena was delightfully devious. He’d chosen even better than he’d imagined.
The sailors manhandled his carpet down a set of shallow stairs, which told him they were beneath the captain’s cabin. He remembered the low-ceilinged space there. Temporary bulkheads could be erected at different intervals. It was sometimes used for passengers, sometimes for cargo, and at present smelled strongly of mangosteens and farm animals, who were kept below. His carpet was carried into a space that felt smaller, a temporary cabin perhaps, and set on the deck. The sailors departed in a hurry. The door shut and a chain rattled. They did not leave a light.
He wondered how long Imena would be, and if waiting was part of the game. He didn’t think he was intended to remain rolled in a carpet until her return; or if he was, he didn’t intend to behave, as the pressure of fabric against his face was beginning to irritate him. He shifted his weight, struggled and rolled to one side then the other. The folds of the carpet loosened. He persevered, and was soon free.
The cabin was small, only just long enough for his outstretched body, the ceiling too low for him to stand without stooping. There was no bunk or chair, but someone had provided a pair of loose trousers, a blanket and a spread towel that held a large jug of water, a loaf of bread, several oranges and a waxed-paper package of soft cheese, which he identified by smell and by the faint light filtering through tiny cracks between the boards of the temporary bulkhead. His searching fingers soon found an enameled box, as well: candied balsam, probably from the same shipment as the box he’d given to Diamanta. The food indicated his wait might be lengthy, and they didn’t intend to stint on him while he was aboard. He was grateful someone had thought to leave a chamber pot, as well.
It was a good thing Imena had told Sylvie where he was. He pushed the towel with the food into the corner and spread the carpet as far as it would go, folding the edges under so one end made a sort of pillow. He leaned back against it, pulled the blanket over himself and in moments was asleep.
Imena shoved her hastily scribbled transcript of the conversation she’d heard into Sylvie’s hands. “So there is a woman involved, but I wasn’t able to tell how, or what, her intentions might be.”
Sylvie made a face. “Where His Grace is concerned, she might be any one of dozens. Including you, Captain Leung.”
“It is not me,” Imena said sternly. “You will take care of this? At least until it’s safe for us to return?”
Solemn and cold, Sylvie nodded. “You may take refuge with Madame Camille if needed.”
“I don’t want to put Her Grace in jeopardy, as well. Her position is still precarious, isn’t it?”
“The Duke’s Council is growing used to her,” Sylvie said. Then she grinned. “You will take good care of His Grace?” The tone of her voice made it clear she meant the words pruriently.
Imena stared down her nose at the smaller woman. “I have to go now if we’re to catch the tide.”
A cat was meowing loudly.
Maxime woke, unsure at first what had changed. The cabin was cooler than before, and he’d dislodged his blanket. An enormous ginger tomcat had probably helped; it was sleeping behind his knees. He groped for the blanket, found it, then froze with his hand full of wool. He smelled the sea. Not the docks, but the sea. He vaulted to his feet amid feline protest. The gentle sway beneath his feet was not a ship docked, or even a ship at anchor, but one in motion, fleeing before the wind and propelled by a good tide.
“Fuck!” Maxime tried the door—fastened closed by a chain passed through bolts—then banged on the bulkhead. “Imena! Captain!”
His fist rang hollowly. He could hear it echoing across the empty deck. She hadn’t loaded cargo. Of course not. She’d hardly had time. Half her crew would have been enjoying shore leave. What was she about, heading out to sea under such circumstances? He would have been happy to entertain her in port. Why had she taken him to sea? Perhaps they hadn’t gone far?
“Captain!”
No response. In fact, not even a rush of sailors’ feet toward his door. He rubbed his sore fist and listened; he could hear feet pattering on the main deck above, distant shouting, the loud creaking of wood, the heavy hum of rope and the snap of sail. From below, he heard the grunting of pigs, chickens gabbling, a goat’s bleat and the plaintive lowing of a milk cow.
Being ignored was more frustrating than he could have imagined. He paced the narrow room, faster and faster. He was no longer in the mood for sexual games or sex, unless it was the quick-and-hard kind. What was she doing? Testing him?
If she kept him out here too long, he’d miss the king’s next envoy. And what of all the business that would await him this morning?
He might not want to deal with any of that, but he wanted it to be his choice if he did not.
After pacing off the worst of his anger, he put his back to the bulkhead and slid to the deck. I
t was too bad he didn’t have those legal texts with him; if he missed the envoy, he would need all the references he could get to keep in Julien’s good graces. But he had nothing in here, not even a treatise on sailing. He would just have to wait until someone came to his door. Then he’d beat Imena at her own game.
But first, he was going to put on some trousers.
“Captain!” Chetri called. “Sail approaching.”
Imena, who’d been about to go below and speak to Maxime, cursed. “Norris, take the spyglass and see if you can identify it.”
“Aye, Captain.” She scampered up the rigging, barely touching the ropes with her feet.
Chetri said, for her ears alone, “Looks like one of the king’s cutters.”
“Fuck him with a bowsprit,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a courtesy visit.”
“Do you think they’d take His Grace by force?”
Imena took a deep breath and concentrated on the clean salty breeze that brushed her face and scalp. As always, sea air calmed her. She was in command here, not just of the ship, but of herself. “The duchess Camille told me that King Julien is a reasonable man, but I don’t know what her definition of reasonable might be, after she lived with that insane husband of hers for so many years, while he wreaked havoc on the duchy.” She added, “I would have thought a reasonable king would have removed the man from power himself, not left it to Camille to take care of.”
“Who knows how royalty thinks?” Chetri asked. “Her Grace Camille seems a woman of good judgment in many ways, so perhaps she’s right about her king.”
“I believe she trusts him, but…whether this cutter is the king’s doing, or that of the men I heard at the Squid, or just coincidence, I can’t take the risk.”
“There won’t be any accidents on Seaflower,” Chetri said. He touched the long knife at his side.
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