Sorcerer's Legacy (8 page)

“I thought I was not to see you until this evening’s banquet.” Her voice, maddeningly, reflected false bravado rather than surprised nonchalance.

The man stopped before her. His smile brightened. Animated with life and spirit, the Prince’s face was handsome—not so gentle as Cinndel’s, but certainly not unpleasant. “I was impatient.” He studied her with frank admiration. “Can you blame me? And having stolen this glimpse of you, I become all the more so, Lady.”

He reached out as if to touch her fallen hair. Elienne kicked the stool at his shin and stepped back, but the man dodged lightly to one side.

“Minx.” With easy good humor, he moved again in pursuit. “You’ll not escape me. You are my Consort, by the seals of the Grand Council, and by Ielond’s writ. Do you play games with me for sport?”

“You’re a stranger.” Elienne paused, taut with alarm, behind a table. Her hands left sweaty prints on the rare wood, vividly betraying her fear. Yet subbornly she resumed her charade. “I would like to know you better. I cannot please a man I’ve only just met.”

“But you have.” The impostor stopped and leaned expectantly toward Elienne across a spread of ornaments on the tabletop. “You have pleased my eyes past bearing. I have but seven days to establish my right of succession. We’ll have time enough later for talk. Years’ worth.”

His hand shot out and seized Elienne’s arm. The grip was light, almost bantering, but Elienne saw threat in the contact.

She shoved the table rim hard into the man’s groin. Glassware pitched over the brink and struck, decking the parquet with a sparkling spray of costly fragments. The man gasped. But instead of losing his hold, his fingers tightened cruelly and he yanked Elienne to him. “Lady.” The word came half-strangled from his throat. For a long moment he wrestled for breath. “That was an affront. A man in Pendaire can face execution for striking a Prince.”

Elienne went lax in the impostor’s arms, and smiled, clothing the murder she felt inside with tenderness. “But I am no man,” she said softly.

He chuckled. “Bless Ma’Diere, you certainly aren’t.” Entirely without courtesy, he brushed the hair away from her face, leaned down, and kissed her mouth.

Elienne permitted him. She could do nothing effective with her arm pinned, and resistance would not entice the man to drop his guard. Though the touch of the man’s lips revolted her, she feigned response, grateful she was not the inexperienced virgin she had been made to appear. Fatigue and excessive responsibility had made Cinndel difficult to please in the last months before his death; this man’s wants were simpler, Elienne sensed, and when he raised his head at last, his face was flushed, and a light sweat shone on his brow.

“Ah, Missy, that was more polite.” But his grip on Elienne did not loosen, and his intention was evident. He wished to bed her ahead of the Prince. If he succeeded, her Consortship would be suspended until it could be proved she had sustained no pregnancy. There would be no way to avoid having Cinndel’s child ascribed to this stranger’s paternity. Should that happen, Elienne realized Darion’s chance, and her own, would be irrevocably lost.

Chapter
5

The Hand of the Healer

THE MAN
easily
lifted Elienne off her feet. “You’re a small thing,” he said, and stepped over the fallen glass toward the bedroom door.

Elienne leaned against his shoulder and teased his ear with her tongue. The taste was bitter, but she maintained her ruse. “Be easy with me, my Lord,” she whispered. “I beg you.”

The man squeezed her, studying her face in the firelight. “A moment ago you were willing enough to play rough.”

Elienne lowered her eyes. “Your pardon, Lord. My sister once said men prefer women who show a little spirit.”

“And did your sister teach you that kiss?” he mocked lightly.

Elienne flushed. Hoping her squirm would be mistaken for embarrassment, she buried her face in the loose satin that clothed the man’s arm, and strained to loosen her wrist from his hold. Once her hand was free to reach the knife in her sleeve, there would be no need to endure further.

The impostor’s smile returned. Reddened by firelight, his expression this time displayed wolfish eagerness.

Chilled even through the warmth of the man’s embrace, Elienne said, “Please, you’re hurting me.”

“All right, Missy.” The man became serious. “My Council members tell me that you were gently born. We’ll make that gently bred as well.” He laughed quietly to himself, as though wanting to taunt Elienne into further rebellion. Although the jest made Elienne’s pulse leap in her veins, she controlled her instinct to resist.

The man laid her on the wide bed in the darkness. The fingers that circled her wrist tightened cruelly as he brushed her forehead with his lips. But passivity could not conceal the heavy, racing pound of her own heart, loud in her ears over the distant rush of surf. The man seemed not to notice. “Shall we have light for our first time?” he said in her ear.

Elienne masked raging annoyance with complaisance. “If my Lord wishes.” The maneuver with the table had evidently warned the man off. He wanted light so he could keep an eye on her. Her only chance was to bait him until desire made him careless.

Elienne kissed the fingers that rose to caress her face. They tickled across her jawline and came to rest, heavy with implied threat, across the bared column of her throat. After a suggestive squeeze, the man released her wrist and fumbled after a striker for the unlit candlestick on the bedside table. The spark flared, gleamed whitely against a puckered scar crossing swarthy knuckles.

Fear numbed Elienne’s resolve.
That same hand had drugged Darion.
She reached to draw the knife then, despite the hold on her neck, but the man leaned suddenly over her, compelling her to wait. Her tenseness this time did not escape notice.

“Frightened, Missy?” he said softly.

Elienne swallowed and tried for a smile of seductive invitation. “Of what would I be frightened, my Lord?” The meek tone she intended came out sounding cowed, yet she had no other alternative. If she fought him openly, his size and weight would quickly overpower her.

Elienne threaded her arm beneath the impostor’s elbow and drew him into an embrace. His skin smelled sourly of ash soap and herbs. The odor repulsed her. But without use of her other hand she could not draw the knife, which waited cold and heavy in her sleeve. The man pressed against her and covered her lips with his mouth.

Elienne endured, and while he was occupied, explored the fine cloth of his tabard with spread fingers. What lay beneath roused a stab of warning. The man was muscled like a bull. He stretched out alongside and wound one arm under her shoulders. Elienne felt her wrist pinned helplessly beneath his weight. She tried in vain to shift position. The man kissed her again, demandingly. His free hand roved from her throat, across her breast, and downward. Overwhelmingly conscious her move must be made quickly, Elienne leaned into his embrace with a show of sudden passion. The man sought the fastening of her bodice. She rolled and managed to block him.

Undetered, he pulled clear and ran his palm, hard, down her leg. Though she had not planned to kick, he must have thought she might try. His booted foot ground her ankle into the coverlet. Elienne started in pain. Her show of acquiescence had not convinced him. She felt the limp silk of her chemise slide inexorably upward. Cold air raised gooseflesh on her exposed thighs.

With lips and tongue, she strove to delay him. But panic caused her to shape her response too thoroughly. The man broke into hot sweat, and a deep quiver shook his frame. Elienne immediately realized her mistake. The man was now inflamed enough to finish what he had started without need of further motive. His shaking fingers tore away her last, thin undergarment with a sharp jerk.

Terror exploded across Elienne’s mind. She twisted her face away from his kiss and clasped his broad back, desperate to free her pinned hand. The man rolled, half crushing her. He fumbled at the points that fastened his hose. A hard, sweaty fist yanked at knotted laces and jabbed Elienne in the stomach. She gasped. The man swore. His breath blew ragged and hot against her face. His belt buckle mashed her hip as he shifted against her.

But in his haste, he miscalculated. Elienne seized her chance and tugged her numbed arm from beneath him. She shoved her freed hand between his shoulder and the moist flesh of his neck, the knife in her other sleeve almost within reach.

The man strained against her, intent upon conquest. He arched his back to hold her while he wrestled free of his tangled points. His shoulder quivered, dropped, and Elienne’s fingers closed at last over the knife’s pearl handle. Half-smothered by the animal heave of the man on top of her, she clawed the blade free of its sheath. Though the awkward angle of her arm prohibited a sure stroke, hesitation would place her beyond all remedy. As the man lifted himself to take her, she twisted the knife and struck.

The man felt her tense with the thrust. He jerked instinctively back. The blade’s sharpened edge glanced across bone and opened a gash in his scalp.

Blood coursed down Elienne’s wrist. Hot as tears, it splashed her face as the man flinched. His bellow of surprise stung her eardrum, and his hand closed reflexively, pinching the exposed flesh of her groin. She cried out. One fleeting, startled moment, his grip relaxed. She tore free. He cursed and pitched himself across the bed after her. Heavy fingers caught the trailing end of her hair.

Elienne lashed out. The man fell back with bloodied knuckles and a fist full of trimmed curls. His quarry withdrew, beyond reach.

“Animal,” said Elienne hoarsely as he dragged himself off the mussed coverlet and stood. The fine gold of his tabard was splashed red, and beneath, loosened points hung snarled like the frustrated remnants of a child’s thread game.

The man hitched at his hose. “I’ll have you executed.” He tossed away the severed hair.

“You’re not Prince Darion.” Elienne’s voice shook. She stood her ground behind a large wingchair, sticky fingers clenched around the little knife. “More likely you’ll face execution for laying hand on what isn’t yours.”

“Bitch.” The man reached up, felt the slice on the back of his head. “You’ll regret this.”

He lunged and caught the wingchair full in the chest. Though Elienne was small, long days spent in the saddle in Trathmere ensured she was not weak as her size suggested. As the man recovered his balance, she ran through the door into the sitting room. He followed, gasping for breath.

Elienne said boldly, “I know you for an impostor, and I can even guess your name. It is Nairgen, is it not?” She positioned herself behind an ungainly potted fruit tree.

The man swerved in pursuit, smashed his shin on a footstool. “
Demons!
” The room was arranged like a maze.

“You drugged the true Prince,” Elienne accused as he approached.

A spiky cross-weave of branches effectively prevented him from reaching around to catch her.

Elienne spoke again, galling him intentionally. “Taroith and Kennaird have surely found him. They will rouse him from the drug.”

“None of that will matter in a few minutes,” the man responded, and he thrust his arm through the bush to grab.

Elienne dropped down and threw her weight against the pot above the wedge of kindling left positioned beneath. The plant overbalanced, bearing the man with it. He back-stepped, tried desperately to save his footing. But a diabolically placed chest tripped him up. He fell heavily. His head struck a marble statue of a fish. The tree crashed awkwardly over, jabbing him with twigs and a shower of loose fruit.

Elienne approached him carefully. Her knees shook. Knife held ready, she snapped off a bough and prodded the prone body on the carpet. But the man remained limp.

Elienne uttered a rude epithet and discarded the stick. She would have to bind the man, and the room was dark. She fetched the candle from the dresser. As an afterthought, she also included the nail scissors.

Her attacker lay as she had left him, but light revealed a changed face. Elienne started, despite her certainty that the man had been shape-changed. In place of Darion’s image, she saw sallow cheeks, peaked brows, and a narrow, hooked nose. Iron-gray hair trailed in a growing scarlet puddle. But hawking after small game in Trathmere had accustomed Elienne to blood. Pragmatic out of necessity, she knelt and dipped the nail scissors in the gore and threw them on the carpet. Then she wiped the knife clean and sheathed the blade beneath her sleeve. She might have further need of a weapon.

Elienne rolled the tree aside and tied the man at wrist and ankle with drapery cord. The fall had only stunned him. She worked quickly lest he rouse before she finished. Though the wound on his head was shallow, it bled fiercely. Elienne stanched the mess with a pillow cover. Then she flung open the main door and beckoned Aisa and Denji inside.

If the sight of a middle-aged man prone on her floor and dressed in the Prince’s device startled them, their faces showed nothing. Unsettled by their cold expressions, Elienne pantomimed explanation as best she could. A rapid exchange of sign language passed between the guardswomen. Then the taller, Denji, motioned Elienne back with her spear. Aisa left the room, weapons ringing in time to her step. She vanished down the stair as Denji positioned herself like a sentinel over the man’s still form.

Badly shaken and in need of quiet, Elienne returned to the bedroom. She straightened her clothing and hair; a maid’s assistance would be required to even out the gap in her curls were she had cut herself loose, but there was no time to fuss with appearances now. Elienne combed out the tangles. She had just finished tying her hair into a knot when Aisa returned, accompanied by Garend and Faisix.

Still puffing from his ascent of the keep stair, the elderly councilman sank into the nearest chair. Garend’s red-rimmed eyes passed distastefully over the prostrate impostor and fixed upon Elienne as she came through the adjoining door. “A pity,” he said, between wheezes. Whether he referred to the man’s misfortune, or her own, was unclear.

Faisix accepted the incident without immediate comment. After the briefest glance at the unconscious man, he dug a flint striker from a nearby drawer and set about lighting the wall sconces. Elienne watched him progress from sitting room to bedchamber, aware that his eyes missed little. The distant crash of the surf masked his graceful step, lending an eerie quality of pantomime to the scene. The glare of multiple candles made Elienne feel helplessly exposed to his dispassionate gaze.

Faisix set his boot against the chest lid by Nairgen’s foot and leaned forward on crossed wrists. “Lady, what passed here?” The gold trim on his doublet glittered as he drew breath. “Aisa informs me you claim to have been assaulted.”

Elienne received his inquiry with alarmed apprehension. Whatever she said, certainly Faisix already knew why a man had sought entrance to her chambers. She related in bald terms what had occurred, but the knife was exchanged for the nail scissors in her account, and she omitted mention of Nairgen’s actions against Darion.

Faisix regarded her narrowly when she finished. After brief hesitation, he said, “How did you know this man to be other than the Prince, whom you have yet to meet?”

Elienne chose not to reveal the mirrowstone. “Excellency, my Lord Garend insisted his Grace was incapable. Drunken and senseless, I believe he said. This man didn’t smell of spirits, nor did he act in the least unfit. Truthread, if you doubt me.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Faisix straightened decisively. “I’d rather see what the man who molested you has on his mind. That might be more informative.”

Wary of soiling the impeccable black and gold silk that clothed his lean height, the Regent knelt on a clean patch of carpet. Tapered white hands fastidiously clasped the unconscious man’s head at either temple. Under his touch, the eyes soon flickered open. But Elienne barely noticed Nairgen’s unfocused stare. She chose instead to observe the Regent.

“What is your name?” Faisix tempered his words with sorcery. The command touched Elienne’s own throat with the desire to answer. But since the truth call was not directed at her, she was able to keep her silence.