Chapter 7
“He’s not going to poison you, miss,” the one woman said to Tashama.
“That’s not what I’m afraid of.”
“What are you afraid of?” Prince Aleron walked into the room. The ladies quickly curtsied. He motioned for them to step aside. Holding his hand out to the pillows, he waited for Tashama to comply.
“If we are to dine, can we not sit at a table?”
“Sit,” he said.
“Do you often bring prisoners here to dine with you?”
He took her arm and nudged her toward the cluster of pillows. After he encouraged her to sit, he sat beside her. He studied her eyes, then passed her a goblet of wine. “Drink.” He touched his gold cup to hers.
“To what?”
“To the end of hostilities between our peoples.”
“All right.” She took a sip of the wine, then smiled. “It tastes like mint julep with a sprig of…cinnamon.”
“I’m pleased you like it.” He handed their goblets to a waiting servant, then said to another, “The first course.”
Fruits and cheese were served, and Tashama leaned back on the pillows slightly. She pulled off a cluster of blue grapes, then held it over her head. After grasping a grape between her teeth, she lifted the branch above Aleron’s head. He smiled at her, then grabbed the grape with his teeth.
When they’d both eaten a slice of cheese and several more grapes, he reached for the goblets. He handed Tashama hers. She sipped some of the wine, then said, “Can I try yours?”
“It would taste the same as yours.” The low-cut, form-fitting bodice of Tashama’s gown caught his eye. He raised his goblet. “A toast.”
“To?” Tashama raised her drink.
“To you.”
“Why me?” She lowered her goblet.
He reached under her veil and touched her blond hair as it curled about the pillows. “I’ve never seen such beautiful tresses.”
“A different toast.” She pulled a pillow over her bodice.
“To the end of the war!”
“To the end of the war!” she repeated with enthusiasm, then drank her wine.
The prince reached for her goblet. She reached for his, and he smiled. “We’ll have the next course of the meal.”
When sausages and rice were served, the prince spooned a sample for Tashama, but when he took a spoonful for himself, she grabbed his wine cup from the steward. She took a sip of his wine. “It doesn’t taste as good as mine. Here, taste mine and see what you think.”
“I think,” the prince said and handed the goblet back to the servant, “we can only handle one course at a time.”
Tashama sighed deeply. “That’s why we should have sat at a table while we ate.”
She lay back on the pillows with her outstretched arms above her head. He motioned to a servant to bring the next course. Carissian nodded to him from the doorway. The prince buttered a slice of bread for her. “What were you doing all alone at Lake Curaca when my men first found you?”
“Washing the blood from my arms.” She pulled the veil from her hair, then tossed it aside.
The rainbow-colored cloth fluttered to the floor.
“Yes, but why were you there?”
“A mistake. He made a mistake.”
“He?” Aleron’s dark brows rose.
“My dear friend, yes.”
“His name?”
She stared at the floor for a moment and tried to recollect his name. When it wouldn’t come to her, she shook her head.
“Where was he?”
“Who knows?” She rocked her left leg back and forth. “I was there, and he was not.”
“You were spies then?”
She turned over on her side, then smiled at Aleron.
“You have the warmest eyes—dark brown with golden flecks—the same oval shape as the hart’s.
” She reached up to pull a wavy strand of dark brown hair behind his ear.
He kissed her hand, then laid it on the pillow in front of her.
He faced Carissian. “Well, does she speak the truth?”
Carissian frowned back at him. “Every word, my lord.”
The prince turned when she touched the golden threads that circled in intricate swirls on his tunic. Her slender fingers traced the maze along his chest. He twisted his mouth in thought. “Will you remove your gowns for me?”
She rolled over on her stomach, then covered her head with a pillow. Carissian grumbled, “I didn’t expect this kind of questioning of the prisoner, my liege. You’re supposed to distract her while I probe her thoughts.”
“What was she thinking when I proposed the question?”
“You wouldn’t want to know.”
“Her answer was no, then.”
Carissian motioned for the servants and ladies to leave. The room emptied. “She desires to, yes, sire. If you think we can get further with the questioning this way—”
“You mean for me to have my way with her when she’s not truly herself—”
“Perhaps in the throes of passion, she will quit blocking my attempts to win her thoughts.”
“Is she blocking them now?”
“No, the drink has muddled her thoughts. A thick fog fills her mind now.”
“What is she thinking?”
“She’s curious whether your chest is as smooth as a cow’s teat or as hairy as a goat.”
The prince wrinkled his brow when her fingers caressed a satin pillow nearby. “I take it she doesn’t like hairy chests.”
“You have no problem in that regard.”
“What else is she thinking?”
“She envisions you in the garden when you caught sight of her when she stood in the window. Your smile, dark hair, and eyes enthrall her. Her own people are all very fair.”
The prince folded his arms. He leaned over and pulled the pillow away from her cheek. “She’s asleep.”
“She dreams.”
He touched her blond curls floating over her cheek. “What does she dream of?”
“She’s talking to someone in a strange room.
I cannot see his face because she’s looking out the window now.
A massive black funnel shoots down from the dark clouds above.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Then she observes a blue-winged butterfly—no, she realizes it’s a water sprite—something she hadn’t remembered before now. ”
“At our lake?”
“Yes, her arms hurt, and she’s trying to wash them in the lake. She doesn’t like Oshon. He hurts her arm. She’s confused about you, however. You’re angry with her, and she’s distressed. But then you seem to like her, and she feels renewed hope.”
“Renewed hope for what?”
Tashama rolled onto her back.
“She’s waiting for you to kiss her. She has never been kissed before, and she wants to know what it would be like from your lips.”
The prince stared at Carissian. “Have her taken back to her room.”
“She’s dangerous—this one. One of the maids said your prisoner could swim like a water nymph in our great lake.”
“Mortals cannot swim. The woman was mistaken.”
“As I said. The prisoner explained to the ladies that she wasn’t mortal.”
Aleron stared at his advisor in disbelief. “What do you think?”
“Of course she’s mortal. Her arms were cut, she was in pain, and she was bleeding.
She dipped her head under the water of the bath and walked along the bottom, that’s all.
Beneath the cover of the roses, the women assumed she was swimming when, indeed, she had her feet on the tile floor of the bath the whole time.
But the point is she’s extremely cunning. ”
“You think she’s still dangerous, then?”
“I haven’t discovered her true identity.
The healer told our guard that her name was Mary, but it was not correct.
Dallas is not either. She hides her identity from me like a turtle who ducks into the safety of its shell.
” Carissian motioned for a servant to remove the prisoner.
“She has the confidence of her people—she’s an emergent leader, despite being a woman.
Sending her to the compound was a mistake.
Even with her being spirited away from there, much unrest has been reported at the camp. ”
The next day, Tashama stretched in bed, realized she was naked, and then opened her eyes quickly. She pulled the sheer curtains around her bed aside. An auburn-haired lady sewed on a tapestry in a chair nearby. “Where am I?”
“At Prince Aleron’s palace, miss.”
“No, no, what room is this?”
“Your room, miss, for the time being.”
Tashama collapsed back in bed. She rubbed her bare arms. “Where are my gowns?”
“On the peg on the wall over there, miss.”
Tashama held her covers to her chest and peered at the gowns. “Who removed them?”
“We did, miss.”
“We?”
“The other ladies and I.”
“Oh.” Tashama lay back down.
“Would you like to dress now?”
“In the same gowns?”
“Yes.”
“Can I not have my own clothes back?”
“They’re being examined.”
“Examined?”
“The cloth is not like anything we’ve ever seen before. The prince’s head tailor is examining the material as we speak.”
“All right then, help me to dress.”
The petite lady lifted the gowns off their satin padded hooks. “The prince said you were awfully agreeable last night.”
“What did he mean by that?” Tashama hurried to slip the shift over her naked figure.
“I wouldn’t know. Carissian dismissed us.”
“Carissian was there?”
“Yes, midway through the meal.”
“But you say you were dismissed?” Tashama pulled the satin gown over her head with the lady’s help.
“Yes, it seems the business with you was to take a more personal direction, and we were not allowed to witness the outcome.”
“Does the prince often interrogate his prisoners in such a manner?” Her voice irritated, Tashama’s face grew hot.
“You are the first he has had in his chambers.”
“Prisoners, you mean.”
“Well, I cannot say about the prince’s personal interest in women, miss.”
The young lady tried to fix the veil to Tashama’s hair, but she brushed it aside. “I don’t wear such a thing on my hair. Take it away.”
“But, miss, the women always wear their hair veiled. To not do so, would entice the men entirely too much.”
“Fix it to your own hair then. I haven’t worn one since I arrived at Maldovia, and I’ve found the men have not come unglued over me here.”
“Unglued, miss?”
“Too interested in me—enticed—whatever it was you said, for heaven’s sakes.”
The lady shook her head as she put the scarf back on the peg. “That’s because you looked so strange before.”
“Strange?” Tashama moved to the window and stood in the breeze.
“Yes, well, your attire for one, and your eyes were blackened like the raccoon. Your arms were shredded. You really were a sight. But now—well, now, it would do well for you to follow our customs.”
“I’m not one of you.”
“No, but your own people have the same custom.”
“They do?” Tashama turned to face the lady.
The lady’s lower lip dropped slightly. “Why would you not have known this?” She took a step backward. “Breakfast will be served shortly. Wait here.”
The lady hastened out of the room. Tashama walked through the glassless window onto the tiled path and hurried down one until she came to a wrought-iron gazebo shimmering like white lace in the sunshine.
She took a deep breath, then backtracked and headed down a path intersecting with the first. Picking up her pace, she traveled a reasonable distance before voices stopped her dead in her footsteps.
“You let me kiss you yesterday, why not today?” the distinctive deep voice of the prince said.
“You entertained that Karthlander woman in your chambers last evening, I was shocked to learn.”
“Carissian believes she’s a threat to our realm. I’m forced to take extreme measures to learn how so.”
“By wooing her in your chambers? That’s the lamest…oh,” she said, then giggled. “Stop it.” She laughed. “You cannot kiss me in that manner. I forbid it.”
Boots running in the direction of the prince made Tashama take a step back. “The Karthlander prisoners have revolted at the Sheian Compound,” Oshon said.
“And?”
“They made their escape.”
“But the woman wasn’t there to aid them.”
“They found her plans left behind in the healer’s tent.”
Boots clicked on the tile pavement, then the prince said, “How do they know she wrote them?”
“Carissian has examined them, sire. He said it was the same as the writing he had seen her use before.”
The prince stormed down his path with the men, but another ran to intercept him. “The Karthlander woman has slipped out of her room, sire!”
“Find her!” The prince continued on his way.
Tashama ran back along her path and crossed the intersection.
This time, she headed straight until the path dead-ended at a ten-foot-tall blue door.
She stared at the brass handle for a moment, then touched it.
She envisioned the sorcerer’s eyes meeting hers when she felt his presence on the door handle, and she pulled her hand away.
Voices headed in her direction, and she turned back to the path.
“She has to be in the gardens! Her door into the palace was guarded!”
She grabbed the handle and twisted, then as the door opened, she hurried into the darkened room.
After closing the door behind her, she ran her hands over the knob in an attempt to locate a lock.
Not finding any, she hurried into the center of the room.
She paused to get her bearings, but couldn’t see anything in the abyss.
Taking another step, she gasped to find the floor had vanished beneath her feet.