A Lotus for the Regent (27 page)

Kamen nodded.
“But there's no real proof. He never showed his face, so it's Ajalira's word
against his.”

“
Do you really have to accuse him, though?” Saerileth asked. “That
you are certain is sufficient. You can rule against him now.”

“
True,” Kamen said. “There's no way I'd set Ansim Kimereth on the
Ausir throne now.” He looked down at Ajalira whom he still held cradled in his
arms. “But how did you overcome them all?”

Ajalira was
about to answer when raised voices prevented her. Fat Banar came panting down
the corridor with hands waving in the air.

“
What's this? What's this? Bloodshed in my halls? Oh, Melara, have
mercy! Oh, our minuets are turned to dirges!”

Banar's slaves
crowded around him and tried to prop up his obese frame as his knees buckled,
and he moaned, and his eyes rolled in his head, and he fanned himself.

“
They are justly killed,” Ajalira said, her voice hard as the steel
with which she had dispatched her kidnappers.

“
I am undone.” Banar's voice was a wail.

“
You will be compensated,” Kamen said. “Do not fear that word will
get out about this. The one who has committed this treachery will do everything
he can to keep his deeds silent. Besides, I am done with Godswatch.”

This set off
another round of weeping from Banar.

“
My lord?” Ajalira looked up into Kamen's eyes.

“
We'll stay another night until the tides are right, but then we're
gone. I'll not brook any more shenanigans. If the Ausir want a King, then he'll
be crowned by Jahen back in Arinport.”

Though Tivanel
Seranimesti did not approach, he watched from the end of the corridor with a
curious eye. Kamen looked at him and nodded, and he hoped the Seranimesti lord
took his meaning. Kamen was acknowledging the new Ausir King.

Chapter Seventeen

The door closed
behind them, and Ajalira was alone with Kamen in their chambers. He smiled at
her, and she thought her heart would burst with love.

“
You've gotten me bloody.” He teased her, smearing the blood across
his chest.

She saw,
however, that not all the blood belonged to her enemies, for a long gash was on
his left forearm. “What happened?” She caught his arm and held it. The cut was
clean, but the angle was odd.

“
I took an oath.” Kamen's lighthearted tone could not distract
Ajalira, and, still holding his arm, she looked up into his face.

“
Was this for me?” She knew the answer before she asked. It was not
the Sunjaa way to seal an oath with blood, but Kamen had done so. “What was
it?”

“
Of course it was for you, Lira.” Kamen leaned his brow down to hers.
“I told them it was war if they didn't give you back.”

Ajalira closed
her eyes. Kamen had, despite her cruelty in thinking she should leave him,
loved her enough to go to war for her sake. She pressed herself against him,
thrusting her hands up into his dreadlocks. “My love.” She could not find any
other words. “My love.”

Kamen laughed
and crushed her to him once more. “Lira, it's
all right
. I am here. I am
not going anywhere, and I am not letting
you
go anywhere, either. Not
ever.” He smoothed back her disheveled hair as he spoke. “But what happened,
exactly, after I left? How did they capture you? Did they—hurt you?”

“
No.” Ajalira locked her arms around his neck. “They were saving me
for the Kimereth lord.”

The flash of
fury in Kamen's eyes delighted Ajalira, as did the rough kiss he gave her
before he let her go on.

“
When you left, I wandered to the balcony. I was not paying attention
to anything, just … just sobbing.” Ajalira felt her cheeks burning, but she was
not ashamed of having wept at the thought of division from Kamen. “Then five
men set upon me. I killed one before they struck me with a poison dart.”

“
Poison?” Kamen's eyes narrowed. “Doubtless the assassins on the
Aramina
were also hired by the Kimereth.”

Ajalira nodded.
“I was not able to take one of the man's bones, though. If I knew what they had
done with his body, I would go claim my spoils for you.” Suddenly the
recollection of her missing dagger sent Ajalira to the balcony, where she
dropped to her knees and began to look for it.

“
Lira?” Kamen stood at the balcony's edge. “They didn't leave his
corpse.”

“
My dagger.” She rose. “The one you gave me.”

“
I found it.” Kamen opened his arms to her, and she ran to them. “It
was how I knew they had set upon you.” He smiled. “It was the same dagger I
used to seal my oath.”

Ajalira covered
his face with kisses once again. The very thought of division from Kamen had
roused Ajalira's love, always on the verge of spilling over, into a raging
torrent. She could not ever kiss him enough. Her hunger for him overwhelmed
her, and a low growl rose in her throat.

As his hands
wandered from her waist to her breasts, a discreet cough arrested them.

“
Regent. Lady Ajalira.” Saerileth's placid face showed no emotion at
finding them, blood-stained and bleeding, kissing each other as though they
were trying to devour each other.

“
What is it?” Kamen addressed Saerileth, but he kept his eyes fixed
on Ajalira's face.

“
The Ausir lords are clamoring for your return.”

“
Let them.” Kamen stroked back Ajalira's hair. “Lira hasn't told me
yet how she escaped Kimereth's men.”

Saerileth did
not precisely smile. Ajalira noticed that Saerileth, as a consummate Lotus,
displayed almost no emotion whatsoever. “Perhaps, Regent, I should take your
lady away to have her bathed? Then you could tell the Ausir whom you have
chosen.”

“
But I am not going to go to one of them.” Ajalira raised her chin
defiantly.

“
That means that they will have to accept that there is someone with
a better claim to the throne elsewhere.” Saerileth nodded toward Ajalira's
belly.

“
If they want to have the line of Tamar on the throne, then the
King's crown will go to Kamen!” said Ajalira.

“
She meant our future sons, Lira.” Kamen patted her belly. “If I
place one of these Ausir on the throne, they will still doubt—for our children
would have a claim.”

“
They will have to endure it,” said Ajalira. “They would do best to
keep friends with the Sunjaa then.”

“
Banar has offered to host a festival celebration, a ball, tonight,
to feast in honor of the naming of the King.” Saerileth nodded toward Ajalira.
“So your lady needs a bath, as do you, Regent. Or will you go to the festival
clad in the blood of your enemies?”

“
I will go clad in the colors of Tamar,” said Kamen. “I will use that
to make my declaration. I will declare the Ausir King not only by rights of
arbitration, not only because they have asked me to do so, but because, in
right of Lira, the throne is mine to give.” He laughed. “If I'd thought of it
that way earlier, we could've avoided this mess, too.”

Ajalira knew he
was trying to comfort her, and she nuzzled her face against his shoulder.

“
Still, Lady Ajalira would have been carried off, regardless of your
words, Regent.” Saerileth continued to refer to Ajalira as a Sunjaa would, as
“Lady Ajalira”, not “Lady Zomalin”. “The Kimereth would have taken her to cut
off your ability to choose. Once Lady Ajalira's birth-blood was known, they
sought a way to cut you out of the decision. Had Lady Ajalira chosen to leave
you, Regent, and go to the Kimereth, as they thought that she would, then your
declaration of King would have been pointless. Even the Seranimesti would have
followed the Kimereth then, for the Seranimesti have acknowledged Lady
Ajalira's claim more readily.”

Ajalira
shuddered. “They are despicable.”

“
What are your house colors?” asked Kamen, drawing Ajalira back to
the present.

“
I have only the falcon of the Itenu,” said Ajalira. “No colors at
all.”

Kamen laughed.
“And the colors of the Tamar House?”

“
They were black and green.” Ajalira smiled. “Is that what you would
have me wear?”

“
We will both go clad as royal Ausir tonight, Lira.” Kamen turned to
Saerileth, who still stood, motionless and patient, waiting for them to finish
their lovers' teasing. “Tell the Ausir that I will, at the celebration,
announce the King, and I will catch the morning tide. The coronation will be in
Arinport, for there is no reason to stay in this place overrun by traitors.”

****

Ajalira shook
out the folds of her dress. She wore green silk, with the fitted bodice and
high neckline appropriate to an Ausir noblewoman. But the gown seemed strange,
constricting and confining, and she disliked it. The black laces of her bodice,
however, did have one pleasing function. She was able slip her dagger there,
and the stiffness of the bodice, coupled with the tightness of the laces, kept
the dagger motionless. Its golden handle and glittering aquamarines were the
only part of her garments that she liked. She had refused, however, to go
without her silver crown. That symbol of her position as the Regent's concubine
was not something she would forgo.

“
You look lovely, Lira.” Kamen kissed her brow. “Do you like
my
Ausir
clothes, though?”

Ajalira smiled
and looked him up and down. His broad shoulders filled out the deep green
tunic, and the fitted black breeches emphasized the curve of his buttocks. The
colors, however, seemed almost gaudy after the simple elegance of the
white-and-gold of the Sunjaa fashions. “I can divine your figure, my love, but
I would rather see it.”

“
I feel exactly the same.”

“
But your hair is perfect.” Ajalira caressed Kamen's dreadlocks,
which had six bones woven into them. “I wish I had the missing one.”

Kamen laughed.
“My savage little Lira, wanting more bones in my hair.” He held out his arm,
and she linked hers through it. “Now to upset all the Ausir and then make it up
with the Seranimesti.”

Ajalira had
expected that the sounds of festival would have been at least a little muted,
for had not Kimereth just lost four kinsmen? But as the cheerful music of a
traditional Ausir dance greeted her ears, she realized her folly. Kimereth
would never acknowledge the loss of his kin, for that would be to admit to his
crime of abduction and intended rape.

When Kamen led
her into the large chamber, a proper feasting hall with yet still room enough
for dances, Ajalira heard the intake of a score of Ausir's breath. For her to
wear openly the Tamari colors was, perhaps, expected, but for Kamen to wear
them—she smiled as she saw both the Seranimesti and Kimereth lords approaching.

“
Your Grace?” Tivanel Seranimesti's fury was naked on his face, but
he kept his voice even, despite speaking through gritted teeth. “How comes it
that you lay claim to the colors of Ellon Tamar?”

“
Are you declaring
yourself
King?” Kimereth's control was
weaker than his rival's.

Kamen smiled as
Ajalira interpreted. “I am the lord and master of the only Tamar scion still
living. These colors are mine to wear.”

When she had
given his answer, the two Ausir blanched.

“
And you, Lady Zomalin, you brook such effrontery?” Tivanel tried to
grab her hand, tried to force her to look into his face, but Ajalira jerked
back.

“
Effrontery? That my lord should wear the colors of my house?”
Ajalira's contempt dripped like blood.

“
You cannot mean to take the Ausir throne.” Tivanel shook his head,
but Kimereth began to back away.

“
And if I should so determine, it would be no less than is my right.”
Kamen looked directly into Tivanel's green eyes as Ajalira continued her
simultaneous interpretation. “Remember this tonight when I declare the King.”

“
Yes, Your Grace.” Tivanel bowed. “I will trust that you will prove
yourself worthy of the trust the Ausir have placed in you, worthy of the green
and sable you wear.”

Ajalira could
not explain the slight narrowing of Kamen's eyes as he watched Tivanel
Seranimesti go to back to his place among his kin, but she did not concern
herself overly much. She trusted that the Seranimesti would be pleased enough
by the outcome, and as for the Kimereth, she did not care.

“
Your Grace, I must beg your forgiveness for the zeal of my misguided
kinsmen.” Kimereth paused in his departure, and though his eyes lost none of
their anger, his voice was honey-smooth. “They were justly slain for attempting
to lay hands upon Lady Zomalin. Please believe that I had nothing to do with
any of it.”