A Lotus for the Regent (25 page)

Ajalira could
see in her mind's eye Kamen rolling his eyes. No political finesse, nor yet any
openness. Still, a guard willing to abduct a lady to please his lord must be
someone fairly close to the lord, someone trustworthy, someone who had been
long with his lord. Probably someone from his home estate, likely a relative.

“
Which one?”

“
That is not something I may say.”

As the guard
spoke, Ajalira concentrated on the sounds, on the cadence, on the accent. She
was Tamari herself, and that accent, being stronger and more pronounced than
any other, was easy to determine.

“
So you will not even tell me where I am being held?”

“
In his custody.”

“
For what purpose?” Ajalira could afford to be irritating. Any slip
in the guard's composure would benefit her, but she gave up any hope of
determining aught from the accents. The Seranimesti and Kimereth were too
geographically close for that to be of any use.

“
He intends to claim you.” The guard actually shuddered.

Ajalira knew
that the shudder was put on for her benefit. Despite their views on chastity
for their women, Larenai men would fuck prostitutes whenever possible. They
just would not marry them.

“
Claim me?” Ajalira's confusion on that point was genuine. Was that
not Kamen's prerogative? To bestow her on the Ausir whom he named King? Her
heart shriveled at that thought. She belonged to Kamen only.

“
Yes.” This time the guard's voice held only satisfaction. “And then
there will be no place for you but with him.”

A knock at the
door drew the door-guard's attention, but the chief of them still stood by
Ajalira, pretending to attend to her wants. When the wine was handed in,
Ajalira noted that the door-guard screened her from view. She assumed then that
she was not known to be here at all. That could work to her advantage. When she
was ready to make her move, she would scream. That should at least alert the
servants.

But then she
listened to the footsteps of the departing servant, and she knew that screaming
was useless. The footsteps faded far too quickly. Even with her Ausir hearing
and Lotus training, she could not follow the steps to the end of the hall. This
room must be in some way muffled. There had been such rooms at the guildhouse,
rooms insulated in such a way that sound would not carry in or out of them.

“
Your wine.” With a flourish, the guard bowed insolently and
presented her with the mug.

Unbidden, there
sprang to her mind the deference of King Jahen's household toward her. The
Sunjaa did not see her as worthless. They saw her as highly honored in
belonging to Kamen.

Ajalira shook
her head and focused her wandering thoughts. She did not fear poison. If they
had wanted her dead, she would already be so. She sipped at the wine and
continued to draw out her guard. Any information could help her, any hint or
clue as to her captors' plans. “What do you mean that there will be no place
for me but with your lord?”

The guard
smiled, a slow, lecherous leer that told Ajalira everything.

This lord,
whichever of the two contenders it was, intended to rape her. It was not an
Ausir custom, though it sometimes happened among the men of Godswatch where
they now were. Marriage by abduction and rape—Ajalira knew that it was her own
sullied state that made the Ausir lords think they could deal thus with her.

But Kamen was
nobler than they, and
he
did not see her as unworthy.

“
He would force the concubine of the Regent?” said Ajalira, shaking
her head. “That would be unwise.”

“
The Regent has already dismissed you, my lady.” The guard's leer did
not alter.

Ajalira's throat
closed up, and for an instant blackness swam before her eyes. Kamen had given
her up? Why? Of course, he
had
thought she would insist on such a
course. It would be like him to act quickly and thoroughly. If she were to
leave him, he would not hold her. His own nobility of nature would forbid it.

“
Nothing to say, my lady?”

“
What is your name?” Ajalira forced down her fear. Even if Kamen had
intended to give her up, thinking that was her own desire, he would not do so
if she asked him to keep her. He loved her; she clung to that thought.

“
You need not concern yourself with that, my lady.”

Every time he
said “my lady” it was like a slap in Ajalira's face. He so manifestly despised
her. She drew herself up.
Kamen
found her worthy. Who was this honorless
lackey willing to abduct a woman to gainsay Kamen? “I do concern myself. If I
am to be the Ausir Queen, you shall have to deal with me hereafter.”

“
I am forbidden to reveal my name—or my lord's name—until such time
as he has already … taken possession of you.” The guard bowed and withdrew,
leaving her with the door guard only.

“
Are you equally forbidden to speak to me?” Ajalira rose, and as she
walked toward the door guard, she tested the length of the chain on her
shackles.

“
Yes, my lady.” The guard did not turn his head to look at her, and
Ajalira smiled. That would serve her turn.

“
So you, too, court the ire of your Queen?”

“
Mirsa's cunt!” The door guard made the sign against evil, two
fingers facing out held before his mouth. “You shouldn't—”

Ajalira nodded,
pretending that she had not noticed either his peculiar curse or his revulsion
from the idea of her being Queen. “I see.” She stood, as if absently, not four
paces from the guard.

He was Kimereth.
She was sure of it. The ejaculation “Mirsa's cunt” was a curse no Seranimesti
would make. They had, ever since Faloth Seranimesti had been made the first
high priest of the goddess Abrexa, worshiped her and her alone. For the
Seranimesti, Abrexa was the only goddess. No Seranimesti would swear by any
other god.

It was, of
course, not proof. Ajalira understood this. She could prove nothing from the
idle exclamation of a guard, but she was sure within herself. Still, it would
not hurt to draw out further such words, just to be more certain.

“
I shall never marry your kinsman.” She spoke on the assumption that
these trusted allies, those in the secret of their lord's intended rape of the
soon-to-be Queen, were related to the Kimereth lord.

“
You will.” The door guard shrugged. “You're Tamari. You would have
to.”

“
I shall not abandon my lord, Kamen Itenu,” said Ajalira clearly. “I
already belong to him, and I can belong to no other man.”

The door guard
laughed. “We don't fear him.”

“
You should.” Ajalira felt the chill of fear settle in her belly. Not
for herself, for she feared neither death nor pain nor shame. Dishonor was her
sole fear, and that could be brought on by her own actions only. But fear for
Kamen turned her blood to ice. Would these vicious poisoners try again to kill
Kamen as they had on the journey to Godswatch?

“
No mere human is of any concern to the Larenai.”

Another word in
favor of this being Kimereth's man. The Seranimesti did not exclude the Tamari
from their considerations. A Seranimesti would have said “Ausir”, not
“Larenai”.

“
The Regent is more than a 'mere human'.” Ajalira paced the length
and breadth of the room, as she spoke, and with each step she grew more
familiar with the limitations of her shackles. “He is the leader of the Sunjaa,
mightiest nation in the west, the oldest nation in the world!”

“
He's an ugly, black ape.” The guard chuckled. “No wonder he was
content with you.”

Ajalira
swallowed the battle-cry that leapt to her lips. She would allow no such insult
to Kamen to go unanswered by blood. She moved to stand near the door guard, but
she allowed herself no more guile than keeping silence while she approached
him. She stood in front of him, and she looked proudly into her enemy's eyes as
she spat in his face.

Shock stole the
guard's voice, and he raised his hand to strike her.

That was his
mistake, and it was one Ajalira had almost ventured to expect. A Seranimesti
would have known better, would have realized that a Tamari female was a genuine
threat. A Kimereth would take her to deserve a slap on the face. She did not
reach up to block the blow, nor did she turn away. Instead, Ajalira reached out
and pulled the sword off his hip. As his hand struck her cheek, his sword in
her hand sliced through his belly.

She did not pull
the blade out as she reversed the blow, dragging the sword up through his
sternum and up to his throat. Blood poured down over her hands, and when her
foe fell dead, his death cries muffled by the insulating walls of the room,
Ajalira laughed. She knelt over the corpse and dipped her hands in his blood,
then wiped her hands on both her cheeks.

“
I offer this blood to you, mighty Alaxton Battlebringer, in
gratitude for victory over my foes and those of my lord, Kamen Itenu.”

The fallen guard
had not had the keys to her shackles, so Ajalira took up a post by the door.
Though she had never mastered the Lotus Forms, she had had, for that very
cause, to practice the preparatory exercises more often than any Lotus. She had
learned to stand, utterly motionless, for hours.

When the
Kimereth lord opened this door to violate her, he would find that Kamen's
concubine was truer than he could imagine.

Chapter Sixteen

Kamen's rage
swept him along the corridors and carried him to his apartments. Like a bull,
he shouldered his way past festhall servants and surprised guests. He stopped
in front of the oak door and stared at the carvings on its face: bearded
hunters chased a beautiful deer through the forest. Beyond the trees stood
another hunting party. The deer could not escape its fate. Its grace would be
consumed, and all that it ever was would pass thoughtlessly through the bellies
of the hunters.

Kamen gritted
his teeth and pushed the door open with a growl. Weak sunlight poured in
through the open balcony doors. A breeze that smelled of the ocean blew the
long, cream-colored curtains across the marble floor, hooking their ends on the
end tables that stood near luxurious divans.

“
Ajalira.” Kamen jogged from the front parlor to the back rooms. He
passed through the breakfast room and into the bedroom. No sign of her.
“Ajalira!”

He returned to
the front parlor, but she was not there. Kamen heard movement out in the
corridor. Throwing open the door, he accosted a serving maid who walked by with
an arm full of linens. “Girl.” He spoke in the Fihdal tongue, a trade language
of the north, and hoped she would understand.

“
Sir?” she answered in the same tongue.

“
Have you seen the Ausir lady who occupies these apartments?”

“
Yes, sir,” she said. She looked up and to the left, and she spoke as
if she were remembering precise words. “Lady Zomalin has gone to the Temple of Melara
to seek pardon of the goddess.”

“
The Temple of Melara?” Kamen did not believe her for a second. Her
lie was clear, but there was something about the way the girl spoke, as if she
believed the lie herself. “Did anyone go with her?”

The girl's
expression twisted in clear confusion, as though she wondered if she should
say. She pouted her lips as she quickly puzzled out her answer. “Yes.”

“
Do you know who?”

The girl shook
her head.

Kamen believed
her. He dropped a silver coin in the servant's hand for her troubles and shooed
her off. He then returned to the parlor to seek any clues to the shenanigans he
knew were afoot.

And it did not
take him long to discover the truth of the matter. There, on the balcony, lay
Ajalira's bloodied dagger, the very blade he had given her in Arinport. There
was a smear of blood from the door sill to the edge of the balcony. Someone had
dragged a body here.

Ajalira's
corpse-face flashed through his imagination like some hovering death-mask. Did
they kill her? Did those fucking horned devils murder her? Kamen stumbled back
through the billowing curtain and jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes,
trying to wipe away the red mist rising in his vision. His heart pounded as he
grew light-headed. He tripped out the door and into the dark corridor. He
needed to find Saerileth immediately.

“
Regent?” Saerileth's voice found him.

“
Always here when I need you,” Kamen said, distracted, “like some
summoned apparition.”

Saerileth swam
through the red mist toward him. “What's the matter? What's happened?”