Chapter Eight #2
“I … I know. Are you all right?” he asked, his voice a hoarse rasp as his vocal cords continued to heal.
“I am fine. It is not me you should be worrying about but yourself. Here, now. Rest and let me sing.”
“But …”
“Shh. Rest.”
She pulled him back to her breast and he did exactly that.
He relaxed and rested and listened to her sing until all of his skin had regrown, replacing the burns with red scars.
Now he could feel the stroking of her hand over his shoulder, down his arm, down his back, all the way to his hip, always in the same direction, as if she were soothing a cat, taming it in her lap.
This time when he sat up and leaned away she didn’t stop him.
He turned his gaze on her. She was lit by the fullness of the moon, her skin silvery in the dark.
He felt as if he had never been as intimate with a woman as he was that night, in those hours.
And he had loved his wife a great deal. Had been utterly devoted to her.
His brothers had teased him for being besotted and had warned him it would make him blind to her flaws.
But he hadn’t cared. Right up until the moment she had proved them right, he hadn’t cared.
But this intimacy was something beyond that foolish, young love. He didn’t fancy himself in love with Jileana of course. He would never be that ridiculous over a woman again. But this intimacy meant far more than the foolishness of love imagined.
He grabbed hold of her suddenly, slinging her into his lap until she was astride his thighs, her lithe, naked body pressed close to his, her mouth but a scant inch away from his as his hand thrust into her partially wet hair.
“What do you want of me?” he asked her fiercely, his hands gripping her tight.
“Nothing,” she assured him.
“I don’t believe you. You must want something.”
“Only the pleasure of your company for two more days,” she said.
And suddenly he was afraid that two more days wasn’t going to be enough.
The thought blindsided him, scared him. He pushed it down by kissing her hard and punishingly.
She took the heated abuse, absorbing it and his confusion.
He felt her wet fingers against his throat and he broke the kiss, gasping for his breath.
“Then you shall have it,” he said.
Braxia, the finia of Kriza, was fuming in her lowly bedchamber. She paced the floor, back and forth, the beads of the belt hanging from her waist clacking together with her every step, her weighty skirts rustling, and her slippered feet scuffing the dusty floor.
“Look! Look what I am reduced to! Sleeping in this … this … hovel! While that barbarian sleeps in my bed! My luxurious sheets! My back is in agony for sleeping on this rock in this room they have banished me to. The barbarians don’t even have the courtesy to give me a place of honor at their table as a defeated but worthy opponent.
And now one of their leaders has killed my most trusted maidservant, Sorna!
She served me faithfully for years. But at least she gave her life in honor of her mistress.
If only she had gotten close enough to kill him! ”
“She may well have,” Wizol, the city fortunary said, “but he was not sleeping alone last night … an unexpected occurrence.” Wizol had been ejected from his place in the vaults of Kriza, his ledgers and the city’s gold commandeered by the barbarian men.
Now he was forced to watch as they pawed through his figures and fondled the coinage he had been responsible for, the greedy pigs that they were.
No doubt they would strip the coffers bare.
The truth was, no one was really certain what the invaders were going to do next.
Surprisingly, there had been no raping of the women, no mass destruction or pillaging.
They had taken the city in an organized, if violent, manner but had kept their kills limited to those who had taken up arms against them, leaving the innocent alone.
There was something to be said for that.
At least the barbarian leaders had some control over their men.
But that control had been Kriza’s downfall.
That and the fact that Krizans were used to fighting their battles on the sea.
They had been so busy looking for enemies approaching from the ocean that they had turned their backs to the real danger.
“What I should have done was pack my armada full and abandon the city. Why did I not think of that? But at least some of our ships were able to escape.”
“They will hunt them down, mistress. Their plans to do so were overheard earlier today.”
“Tell me something of the whore the barbarian leader took to his bed last night,” Braxia mused to the fortunary. “Perhaps we can enlist her to kill him. Given enough coin she might kill him while in the vulnerable throes of rutting.”
“What gold? They have taken it all.”
“Besides, she is not a whore. She is prava!” the finia’s maid Bela said shyly.
“A prava sleeps in my bed?” Braxia demanded shrilly.
“Yes, oh glorious mistress,” the Bela said, bowing deferentially to the finia.
The finia liked it when people bowed to her.
She never grew tired of it. It was well known that the best way to mollify her when her temper was up was to bow deferentially in front of her and to stay that way until she gave you leave to rise.
“Yes, yes,” Braxia said impatiently, gesturing the maid out of the bow. “They truly are barbarians,” she whispered in awe of the levels the invaders would sink to. “The prava are animals, beasts even lower than these barbarians!”
“That they should consort with one only shows the measure of their depravity!” Wizol said.
He was incredibly nervous. If he were caught there conspiring with his ruler, no doubt he would be slaughtered on the spot.
So far the invaders had not killed any of the servants or advisors they had come across, merely relieved them of their duties.
But that would very likely not be the case if those advisors were found conspiring to kill them.
As it was, the guards knew he was there and would likely report his visit to the barbarians.
“Look, it is clear what must be done,” Braxia said.
“There are three brothers in charge of this army. Kill the brothers and the army dies with them. Without leaders they will fall into chaos. We must do this before they have a chance to gain a true foothold. Then we can get messages to the ships in our fleet that managed to get away and have them attack from the ocean!”
“Attack our own city? But we’ve escaped with so little damage thus far,” Wizol said.
“They will not be expecting this. It is our only choice. But we must kill these brothers. What about poisoning?” Braxia asked.
“They have their own army of cooks preparing their food. Like everything else, they have taken over the kitchens. Perhaps we could manage something, but a Krizan servant now stands out amongst all these ugly alien invaders,” Wizol informed her.
“Then we must use assassins. Surely the brothers can be caught alone in some shadow, the perfect time to slip a dagger between their ribs!”
“Perhaps … perhaps the prava could be bought after all?” Wizol suggested. “We don’t know what motivates them, really. Only that—”
“They cannot be trusted,” Braxia said fiercely.
“They are dangerous and deadly. Come to think of it, perhaps we should just bide our time. The prava has no doubt affixed herself to the barbarian leader. It is only a matter of time before she lures him to his death. It is what they do. They cannot help themselves.”
“Yes. A sound plan,” Wizol said. “But it might be better for us to take direct action. Now, how shall we go about it?” The fortunary was anxious about being caught conspiring, but he was more anxious about being left to the whims of the barbarian brothers.
“Find a way! Get ahold of some poison, perhaps, something harsh and violent, and seek an opportunity to get it into their food. If you can do that, then all of our troubles will be over. They all eat together, the entire table full of advisors and generals and the brothers as well. Yes?”
“Yes, great and beauteous mistress,” the maid said with a bow. “The prava as well.”
Pleased, Braxia smiled. “Good. This is our plan. We will wait for the opportunity to present itself!”
“Yes, magnificent mistress,” Wizol said with a low bow. “It will be done.”
Braxia turned a glaring eye on her room; the small bed and the little desk and chair were the only furnishings within it.
If all went well, she would be back in her luxurious apartment within only a few days.
And to her mind, it wouldn’t be soon enough.
She had to succeed at this. She simply could not bear the idea of living a life of obscurity, a life of peasantry.
She was finia, the grandest being in all of Kriza, ruler of all and commander of its great armada.
These barbarians would be made to recognize that if it was the last thing she ever did.
Of course she was grateful to the gods that they had not killed her thus far. It was a good sign in the greater scheme of things. But she would not tolerate this disrespect, being made to live in such squalid conditions, to not even be given the courtesy of dining in the great hall with them.
No. It was very appropriate that all the barbarians should choke and die on their food. At least she could be assured of her own safety, that their rudeness would in the end protect her from sharing the same fate she planned for them.
Still, it would have been a great pleasure to sit at that table and watch them die-one by one in front of her very eyes.
Yes. She would have liked that very much.