Fantasyland 02 The Golden Dynasty (27 page)

“I, uh… okay,” I replied, his serious face
melted and he smiled at me.

I smiled back.

Then he looked at Lahn and jerked up his
chin with a, “Kah Dax,” turned and strode away. I watched him reach
Nahka who was stopped some feet away and swing his son up into his
muscular arms, attach him to his hip, throw his other arm around
Nahka and guide her away. She looked back and waved as did her son.
I waved in return.

Narinda remained rooted to the spot, staring
at me and I was about to mouth something to her before I heard Lahn
bark and my body started. I started paying attention to my
immediate surroundings and saw The Eunuch was close and clearly had
been there awhile, he had something to say too and he was biding
his time to speak.

But his eyes dashed to me twice in the brief
time mine rested on him and something about that struck me as
wrong.

Before I could put a finger on it, he spoke
and Diandra translated. “The Daxshee is nearly dismantled, King
Lahn, we ride in an hour.”

“Dohno,” Lahn muttered on a jerk of his
chin, The Eunuch inclined his head and his eyes darted to me yet
again before he turned and moved quickly away. I lost sight of him
when Lahn curved me into his front again, both arms around me and I
looked up to him as he spoke and Diandra interpreted. “We ride soon
under a sun that still holds heat. Will you be all right on Zephyr
or do you need cover?”

“Zephyr,” I replied instantly, ignoring the
fact that he was being solicitous and therefore sweet.

Lahn went on after a squeeze of his arms.
“My tigress, the pink in your skin has turned to honey but the sun
will beat for four to five hours yet before losing its strength. I
do not wish you to have another turn.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him and I would.
Late afternoon sunshine was a lot different than sitting in it all
day, I now had an enforced base tan and anyway, I had to do
something about these whacked out tan lines. I hadn’t seen myself
but I had to look like a freak.

“This is a promise?” he pushed and I locked
eyes with him.

“
It is a promise, my king, I will be
fine,
” I stated
and his jaw clenched.

Then he muttered, “Nahna Dax.”

Your king.
Not just Lahn.

He didn’t like that, I could tell.

Whatever.

I held his eyes as I waited. He held my eyes
as something worked behind his.

Then he gave me a squeeze and muttered,
“Okay, Circe. Veeyoo…” then a bunch more stuff that Diandra
translated as “I will see you as we ride.”

I nodded, he gave me another squeeze with
another sigh, he looked over my shoulder and jerked his chin up and
I looked too to see a warrior nod and move our way.

My guard.

Then he let me go.

I moved away quickly, closing the box and
shoving it under my arm and Diandra was instantly at my side.

Before she could say a word, I spoke.

“Are you okay?” I asked and she blinked.

“Pardon, my dear?”

“Did your husband take a hand to you last
night?” I clarified.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Of course not.”

“He was angry,” I reminded her.

“He was, Circe, but he just yelled at me, I
yelled back because, you were right, neither of us knew we were
doing anything wrong. It was all innocent. It took awhile for me to
calm him down, get him to hear me but I did and he realized it was
an innocent mistake and all was well.”

“So he doesn’t hit you?” I asked and she
eyed me.

Then she answered quietly, “Not anymore, my
dear,” then quickly, “and not for some time.”

“Right,” I muttered.

“My goodness!” We heard and both our heads
swung to Narinda who was standing in front of us and we would have
bowled her over if we didn’t stop. She lifted a shaking hand toward
my cheekbone then she dropped it, grasped my hand and tugged me
close. “Oh Circe,” she whispered. “What on earth happened?”

“I displeased my husband last night,” I told
her shortly, Narinda reared back in shock, her face paling
instantly and Diandra sucked in breath.

I turned to her and she had her mouth open
to speak.

And I knew what was coming so I lost it.

“
Don’t,” I whispered on a hiss, shaking my
head at the same time tears sprang to my eyes.. “Don’t. Do not tell
me more of how this place and these people work, what they do, what
are their ways. No more explanations of who they are and why they
behave the way they do.” She blinked with obvious hurt, I let
Narinda go, turned fully to Diandra and grabbed her hand, squeezing
hard. “I adore you, my friend, you already own a piece of my heart
but you and I know there is no excuse for what he did last night,
there is no Korwahk explanation that enlightens me to the ways of
him and his people that would justify him unleashing his fury on me
the way he did. You cannot look at my face, see his mark and know
the woman I am and think I could ever do, no matter the wrong he
perceives, anything to make him strike me the way he struck me and
that would be in any way okay. You know it, Diandra,” I squeezed
and shook her hand sharply. “
You know it.
”

“Circe,” she whispered, squeezing my hand
back, “please listen to me. There are things you don’t know. Things
you have yet to learn. Things Lahn knows and Seerim told me last
night he was wild with worry –”

I shook my head hard, let her go and took a
step back. “No. No, I won’t listen to you now. Maybe later when I
don’t feel the ache of the back of his hand smashing into my face
but not now.”

Then as quickly as I could, before she could
say another word and without a glance at either of them, I hurried
back toward where my cham used to be.

My guard followed.

* * * * *

I stared at the stars overhead and there
were a lot of them. They blanketed the dark sky in a twinkle of
lights that was breathtaking. I’d never seen anything like it. Not
in my life.

Then I moved my legs and my entire body
protested.

We’d ridden from afternoon into the night.
It had been years since I’d been on a horse and my body wasn’t used
to it. I forgot how much it took out of you physically, riding. Now
I remembered.

We didn’t make camp. Once we stopped, I
dismounted from Zephyr, a strapping young boy was instantly there
to take her away and then Teetru was there, grabbing my hand. My
girls gave me water to wash my hands and face, served me a simple
meal of dried meat, cheese, flatbread and dried fruit with a cup of
water and a chalice of wine. This was cleared away and I was led in
the clothes I wore that day to a stack of hides that I took to be
my bed. They were out in the open, as everyone else appeared to be
bedding, though somewhat removed from the others.

I wasn’t keen on camping though I was an
experienced camper. I was the only child of a man who was
a man
and he liked fishing, hiking
and shit like that. So he took me with him. But I’d never slept
under the stars and was uncertain I wanted to. I wasn’t in Rome,
but I was in Korwahk and therefore had to do what the Korwahks did.
So bed under the stars it was.

I slipped off my sandals and slid under the
top hide. They were set on a slab of cream stone but there were a
lot of them (giving me an understanding of why Lahn had that huge
pile in his cham) so although it wasn’t the softest bed I’d ever
lain in, it wasn’t hard stone either and my aching body was glad to
recline.

The girls had rolled some hides at the top
to act as pillows and I lay on my back and stared at the stars.

I had seen Lahn that day, several times. He
rode mostly at the front of the procession of hundreds of horses
that was followed by at least double that amount of wagons but he
would often drop back to ride next to warriors and speak with them.
I caught his eyes on me twice but he never got near me.

I rode with the women who rode behind the
men. I did this but I did it while avoiding Diandra on her roan
mount because I felt badly for my outburst. Not that my words were
wrong, just that I should have weighed them before hurling them at
a woman who had been nothing but kind to me.

I lost sight of Lahn the minute we stopped
and hadn’t seen him since.

The stars were drifting from sight because
my eyelids were drifting closed when I heard Lahn’s boots approach.
I turned to my side away from his side of the hides and heard, one
after another, his boots hit stone. Then the top hide moved. Not a
second later, I was hauled across the hides and my body was forced
to curve into the large, hard, warm one at my back.

He spoke quietly into the back of my hair as
his hand drifted up to cup my breast and I stilled. He kept
speaking and I waited for him to do something. It would be just
like him to try to have sex with me with hundreds of people camping
just feet away.

But his thumb did not wander across my
nipple, his hand just cupped me warmly as he continued to speak
words most of which I didn’t understand.

Then he stopped talking, his head moved, I
felt his beard against the skin of my neck as he used his chin to
pull my hair away and then I felt his tongue taste me from the back
of my ear down the length of my neck and further down the length of
my shoulder.

Throughout its journey, I steeled myself
against the shiver and fortunately succeeded in beating it
back.

At the point of my shoulder, he rubbed the
long hairs at his bearded chin back and forth which felt sweet and
nice and made my nose sting with tears that this time I held back
with sheer willpower.

He did this for a long time as if he was
staring into the darkness deep in contemplation at the same time
delivering to me a preoccupied caress that was still, nevertheless,
a caress.

Then his arm around me pulled me deeper into
him and he settled back into the hides, he tilted his big body
slightly into mine and I listened until his breath evened out.

Only then did I allow my eyes to close and
my body to fall asleep.

Take Heed

Five Days Later…

I was riding way back amongst the wagons,
the ones that carried the chams and belongings and the slaves which
were also belongings, of course, a fact I found loathsome and yet
another thing I could do nothing about for it was my
people’s
way
.

This was my new tactic. Not that I really
needed one. I had not talked to Lahn since the day he gave me
Zephyr. He clearly had Dax business to attend to and he was gone
from our hides in the morning before I woke and three of the four
nights after our first one under the stars, I was so exhausted from
the ride I was asleep and didn’t even feel him slide in beside me.
I only knew he was there when I woke in the deep of the night, felt
his arm around me, his warm body curved into mine and then I
drifted back to sleep. The one night I was awake, it was still late
and he attempted no conversation, didn’t speak soft words or rub
his beard softly against me, just curled me into him and he was
asleep within seconds and, shortly after, so was I.

But it was now days later and it was a now
when I’d avoided Diandra, and also Narinda, who was riding with the
wives who were in wagons, and it had been so long since I’d spoken
to either of them, it was too long.

I’d screwed up. I’d been overemotional (with
cause) then got stuck in my head for days and it was getting past
the point of rude, not apologizing to and spending time with my
friends. I was their queen, it might be they couldn’t approach me
and certainly Narinda couldn’t as she didn’t have a mount. But I
could do what I wished (sort of) and I hadn’t approached them.

So now I was avoiding them both, and Lahn,
by riding in the back like a sissy.

My Pop would be pissed. He hated sissies,
he wasn’t that fond of rude and he’d always told me procrastination
was the work of the devil,
especially
when you practice it before righting a wrong.

Damn.

On this thought, I noticed there seemed a
commotion amongst the slaves so I looked to the wagons at my side
then the direction they were looking which was forward. That was
when I saw the warrior galloping toward us. He was well out of
warrior space; they all rode up front with their Dax. He was also
the warrior I saw in the cham the night Lahn hit me.

Shit.

He galloped right by me but when I twisted
in my saddle to see where he was going I saw him circle back
quickly then come up on my left side. Before I knew what he was
doing I was plucked right out of my saddle (yep, right out of my
saddle,
while
both our
horses were moving) and
planted in front of him. He yanked Zephyr’s reins out of my
hands, she whinnied with irritation and then he touched his heels
to his mount, made a clicking sound with his tongue and we took off
on a gallop, Zephyr running alongside us.

Hmm. It appeared the queen didn’t ride with
the slaves.

So noted.

We kept going and he slowed when we were
coming abreast of Diandra’s horse.

Shit!

Then with both horses still moving, he
plopped me right back
on
Zephyr’s back. Before I flew off in a horse mishap that
might include a broken neck, I quickly grabbed the lip of the
saddle (they had no pommels on their saddles) swung my leg around
and both feet found my stirrups. He tossed the reins to me, touched
his heels to his mount and took off toward the warriors.

Fantastic.

These guys. He could have just grabbed my
reins and moved Zephyr and I forward but
no.
He had to manhandle me.