Chapter 6
The tent flap jerked aside while torchlight cast shadows into the hospital. The royal guard studied Tashama for a second, then announced over his shoulder, “She is here, Your Highness.”
Aleron walked into the tent dressed entirely in black. His smile stretched across his face, and she folded her arms.
Oshon entered the tent, and the prince motioned to her. “Bring her with us.” He hurried outside.
“You’re to come with me.” Several of the prisoners had taken up position at the entrance of the tent, and Oshon said to her, “If you make any trouble for us, we’ll start killing prisoners.”
Tashama kissed the healer on the cheek. “I’ll see you again.”
Cheers resounded when she waved her hand at the men while the royal guards flanked her. “We will be free!” she shouted, then walked with the royal guard, the crowd following her to the gates.
The camp guards doubled their numbers and bolted up the stairs to the wall walk while the ones in the compound unsheathed their swords.
Aleron watched the imprisoned soldiers stir into a frenzy. Oshon boosted Tashama into the saddle of a horse. As they rode from the compound, the guards rushed to close the gates while the prisoners surged toward them like cattle being prodded into a pen.
A cry of “We will be free!” was raised by the prisoners, and the prince kneed his horse to a canter. Tashama kept pace with him and studied his facial features. She turned her head from his view when she caught his eye, demurely, more like the way he expected his women to act.
Riders, a few horses in front, carried torches of flame, casting an eerie glow in the dark. The fragrance of pine scented the air, and an owl hooted in the distance.
“What am I to do with you?” Aleron asked. “You are dangerous left to your own cunning ways in the compound, so my guards have told me, but Carissian assures me you are just as much of a threat to me should you return to the palace.”
“Then he is feeble-minded. How can a mere woman be a threat to a”—Tashama hesitated, and considered the cut of the prince’s tunic—“powerful figure such as yourself? Why do you listen to such a man?”
He noted the sarcasm in her voice and dismissed it. “Carissian didn’t wish for me to come for you. He wouldn’t say why.”
“Yet, you came anyway. Release me, Prince Aleron. Let me return to Karthland. I didn’t believe Maldovians or Karthlanders, for that matter, took women hostage. In taking me prisoner, you’ve violated the rules of war.”
“I think not.” The prince rubbed his chin in thought. “If you would be dangerous to me here, then you would undoubtedly be more of a threat to me there, though I’m at a loss as to how this could be so.”
“You do not truly believe I’m dangerous to you.”
Her fingers were unadorned, and he assumed she could not be mated. “How old are you?”
“Old enough.” The breeze tossed a loose curl in her face, and she tucked it behind her ear. “I’ve heard it said you have never visited the compound before.”
“The time was right.” Aleron studied her fingers and added under his breath, “You are not linked.”
By early morning, Tashama was escorted into the palace. This time, the guards deposited her in a room where peach and gold sheer silks billowed out from a ten-square-foot window. Reaching the floor, the window served as an open doorway into gardens.
The gold doors leading back into the palace were shut behind her, and Tashama ran to the window and gazed at the garden.
Pink, blue, purple, and yellow colors of numerous floral varieties filled islands that dripped into the peach-tiled walkways, and the smell of heavenly flowers scented the light breeze.
Movement on one of the paths caught her eye.
She frowned when one of the members of the royal guard walked off the walkway, followed by Aleron.
He smiled at her. She tilted her head up in defiance.
Feminine voices caught her attention as three women, dressed in gaily colored shimmering sheers of blues and golds laced over opaque satins, entered her room.
Tashama’s back stiffened when they hurried to join her.
“Come with us, miss.” The one smiled at her.
“Where to?”
The ladies tugged gently at her arms, then, feeling her resistance, pulled her into a room off the main one.
“In here.” The lady waved at a Roman-style bath of marble. Fudge swirls whirled about the glassy surface of the ivory tiles covering both the tub and the surrounding floor and walls. Tashama was reminded of her favorite ice cream flavor—fudge ripple.
“A bath.” Tashama hurried to pull her turtleneck over her head. Then, as the woman gasped at the sight of her lacy bra, she held her shirt in front of her breasts. “Could I have some privacy, ladies?”
“We’re to help you, miss.” The lady yanked the shirt from Tashama’s grasp, then tossed it to another.
They pushed her to sit, then as one helped her off with her shoes, another poked at her bra. Tashama reached behind her to unhook the fastener. She pulled it off and covered her naked breasts with her hands.
“And those.” One of the ladies pointed at her jeans. She unfastened the belt. The lady touched her jeans button to her annoyance. “I can do it!” But the ladies soon had unbuttoned and unzipped the zipper despite her protests. She pulled off her jeans.
The ladies stood back to study her lace bikini-cut panties. Tashama turned her back to the women, slipped her panties off her feet, and then hurried into the bath. “Oh.” She dove under the blanket of roses, dipping in the water with the waves she’d made, then she resurfaced. “It’s so warm.”
“She can swim like a water sprite,” the one whispered, and the others nodded.
“Shampoo? Soap?” Tashama asked.
The ladies leaned over a wicker basket and pulled out a bottle of jasmine-scented soap.
One of the ladies handed her the container.
Tashama ran the slippery, sweet-smelling fragrance over every inch of her skin.
She lathered her hair with a rich, golden soap and rinsed it thoroughly.
Studying the shape of the bath, she observed bubbles bumping the roses in one corner.
Slipping beneath the rose petals, she swam the length of the pool to the corner of interest. She surfaced and touched the bubbles with the tips of her fingers, smiling.
Melting into the built-in seat, she lay against the jets, forcing the warm water onto every inch of her back.
She closed her eyes and rested her head against the pillow attached just above the water line.
Her mind drifted to thoughts of the prince as his fingers touched her arm lightly. He ran his hand through her hair, but he’d never done such a thing, and she opened her eyes in surprise.
Carissian and the ladies stood near the entrance of the bath. His pale gray eyes studied Tashama’s thoughts. He was touching her. Not the prince.
Angered, she imagined a blank sheet of paper and wrote across it in heavy black ink: GET OUT! He shook his head and motioned for the women to dry her skin. He vanished in a puff of white mist, and they lifted towels from a basket.
Tashama jerked one of the towels from the lady’s grasp. “What kind of a sorcerer is he to witness a lady bathing? He’s a bad one, I can tell you!” Not seeing her clothes, she said, “Where are my things?”
“You must wear these, then you must have an audience with our prince.”
“Once in a lifetime was enough for me.” They held a sheer, pink silk, sleeveless gown out to her. “There’s to be more than this for me to wear, surely.”
The ladies giggled. One grabbed a miniature fan and shot the air into Tashama’s hair. “They say the clothes you came here in are just as revealing. But there is an undergown to go along with it.”
“Hogwash.” Tashama considered the gown.
“It has been said,” one of the ladies replied, as she pulled a pink satin slip under the sheer one, “our lord had you monitored every minute of the day at the prison camp.”
“Oh?” Tashama pulled her hair out of the dress. “And what do his spies say?”
“You move the men like no general can. They were afraid of you, miss. They said no good would come of your being there.”
Tashama smiled. “True.”
“They say, Carissian cannot read your thoughts. He fears you may be as powerful as he is. I’ve never seen him so concerned over a mortal before.”
“We want to know how you did it.”
“Did what?”
“Moved the men, miss.”
“Don’t let them rule you, for one. I mean to say, you can let them think they do, but in the end, make sure you have your own way.”
Two of the women giggled, but the third remained silent. “And the sorcerer?”
“I’m not mortal.” Tashama smoothed out her skirts. “But then I imagine, Carissian already knows that. He has been forewarned.”
One of the ladies pulled a blended, pastel-colored sheer, lacy overdress over the satin one Tashama wore.
“Can I not have my undergarments?” Tashama touched her bodice. She examined the other ladies’ gowns. “The style of your gowns sufficiently covers your bodices.” She looked at hers and frowned. “I’m revealing much more than I want in this.” She touched the silky edge. It barely covered her breasts.
“The gown is as His Highness wishes it.”
“I will not see him then.”
One of the ladies gasped. “You cannot refuse to see His Highness, miss. It just isn’t done.”
“I can,” Tashama said as one of the ladies fastened a veil to her hair. “Come, ladies, get me another gown, or one of you switch your gowns with me. Then I will see your prince and all will be well.”
“He had the gown designed specifically for you, miss. If you don’t move around too much, the gown is not all that revealing.”
Tashama folded her arms. “Very well, I’ll stay here.”
The royal guard appeared at the door, and one of the ladies said, “He’s ready for you, miss.”
“I’m not ready for him.” Tashama sat in an oversized, pale-blue, velvet chair.
She sank into the goose-down pillows, and the lady motioned for the royal guard. The leader of the escort waved to two of his men, who responded by grabbing Tashama’s arms and half-dragging her to the door as she grasped at the doorframe.
One of the ladies frowned at her. “If you would go calmly, you would reveal much less than you desire.”
She motioned for the men to take Tashama to the prince’s chambers. They yanked her from her tentative grip on the doorframe. Tashama glanced down at her bare feet. “I don’t have any shoes.”
“He would rather you were without.” The lady walked beside the guard.
“What? He likes his women barefoot and…” Tashama stopped her speech as the ladies all turned to hear what she had to say. She closed her mouth and said nothing further.
“Barefoot and what, miss?”
“Nothing,” Tashama said.
“Barefoot and nothing doesn’t make any sense,” the lady said.
Seeing her nipples pressed against the thin satin, Tashama shook her head. “The prince is not a gentleman.”
They walked into the prince’s apartments, and the ladies directed Tashama to sit on the colorful pillows in the corner of the room. She shook her head.
“He wishes to dine with you here.”
“On a bunch of pillows? Not at a table?”
“Sit please, miss.”
Tashama backed up to the door.