The Lion's Daughter (55 page)

She
nodded sweetly, “I always thought a man assured of his skills
would have no need to boast.” He laughed. “You are trying
to provoke me, I think.” “You said I must not show my
true feelings. You did not say I may not speak them, even in a
whisper. Must I tell pretty lies as well as make pretty faces for
you?” She gave him ananother infatuated look. “Once,
years ago, you kissed me, and I spit the taste of you from my mouth.
Do you think your lips will taste less vile to me now?”

“That
may be easily settled.” He paused, his blue eyes with
amusement. A few feet away, Risto scowled horribly.

“Shall
I kiss you before all this rabble?” Ismal asked. Esme shrugged.
“They all believe I'm your whore. Soon I shall be in truth. I'm
already sick with shame. Nothing you could do would make it worse.”

Risto
was beside himself with impatience. “Master!” he hissed.

Ignoring
him, Ismal lazily gathered Esme into his arms.

She
heard Mehmet's chuckle and Risto's curses and raucous shouts from
sailors nearby. She was aware of Ismal's hand at the back of her neck
and the warmth of his breath as his face lowered to hers. She was
aware, too, as his mouth slanted sensuously over hers, that his
boasts had not been idle. In spite of herself Esme was taken aback by
his skill, and her lips parted without her ordering them to. He was
annoyingly good at it, to confuse her at all, but it was only for a
moment. Cold resolve quickly dispelled the fog in her mind.

She
let her hands slide caressingly to his waist. Her heart beat fast but
steady while her fingers inched toward the dagger under his cloak.

He
began to draw back, and Esme's hand paused. “This was not wise,
little one,” he murmured against her lips. “I shall not
be able to wait all the long day for more.”

“Curse
her!” Risto snarled, moving nearer. “Half the town comes
to watch. How long will you dally here?”

Even
Mehmet murmured a warning, but Ismal wasn't listening. He had turned
out to be a man like other men, Esme thought grimly, as his mouth
sought hers for a deeper kiss. His brain was not doing all the
thinking at present. Hers, on the other hand, was fully alert. She
was aware of the onlookers' scattered cheering and vulgar advice. She
felt the building heat of his kiss and the growing tension in his
slim frame. Arching against him, she reached cautiously toward the
dagger.

Every
nerve tingling, every sense painfully acute, Esme heard the gulls'
cries, the waves' pounding against the sea wall, and a distant
pounding from the shore. Hoofbeats
...
hurried footsteps
...
new shouts among the cheers. She
heard, yet it all seemed lifetimes beyond. The present was revenge
...
a
hairsbreadth away.

She'd
barely touched the dagger's hilt when Ismal's body stiffened. In the
next instant, he'd wrenched her about and the blade lay against her
throat.

All
the quay went very still. The bystanders came into sharp focus: ten,
twenty, no, at least fifty men, and not one moved. Every eye was on
the blade.

Including
Varian's.

Esme
blinked, but the vision remained.

She
wanted to shake her head, to clear it. The faint scratch against her
throat told her she was awake.

It
was
Varian
who stood not twenty paces away. He held a pistol. Why the devil did
he not fire it? Ismal was a full head taller than she. A babe could
have put the bullet through his evil brain. Surely Varian could.
Twenty paces, she thought wildly. Only dueling distance. Why did he
not shoot?

“Ah,
you prefer not to test your skill, my Lord Edenmont,”
Ismal
said amiably. “Very wise.
If you wish your wife to go on living, you must also tell this rabble
not to hinder me. And put your weapon down, if you please.”

Varian
lowered his pistol, but didn't drop it. “Let her go,” he
said.

Ismal
ignored him. “You may come out now, Sir Gerald. What str
ange
allies you make
—
but
you are too fat to hide be
hind
his
lordship.”

Holding
his own weapon pointed downward, the baronet emerged from the crowd
gathered behind Varian.

Ismal
began backing toward his ship, and his bodyguards quickly moved to
shield him. No one else moved. They wouldn't, Esme thought
despairingly. Ismal had let them know she was the lord's wife. No one
would risk getting her killed.

No
one, however, had to get on some accursed ship with Ismal and submit
body and soul to him. Esme reminded herself that hundreds of Albanian
women had thrown themselves

from
cliffs rather than submit to their enemies. She was as brave as any
of them. She'd not go with this man, not alive. Varian had
come for her. She'd not leave
shame behind to haunt him.

“Kill
him!” she screamed. “Avenge Jason! Avenge
me
,
Varian!”

The
blade nicked her throat, and she saw Varian's pistol go up.
I
love you,
she told him silently.
Then she bashed her head back against Ismal's windpipe. Just as his
grip slackened, something exploded nearby, and Mehmet stumbled. Esme
drove her elbow into Ismal's groin. He staggered
back, dropping the knife. Mehmet
lurched toward her. Esme dove for the knife, and there was another
explosion. For an instant, the world flashed with blinding color. She
heard Varian's cry, far away
...
and her father's voice, somewhere
in the black wave surging toward her.
I'm
dying,
she thought, and the wave
sucked her down.

OBLIVIOUS
TO THE crew swarming from Ismal's ship and those rushing forward to
oppose them, Varian raced toward his fallen wife. He'd seen the small
dark man aim his pistol at her just as Varian had fired his own at
the big, ugly one. But someone had got hold of the smaller bastard
already, and all Varian cared about was Esme.

Though
pandemonium raged about him, all he knew when he bent over her still
form was terror, sharp as the blade that had rested against her
throat a moment before. As he laid his shaking hand against that
throat, tears started to his eyes. A pulse throbbed faintly under his
fingers.

As
he began to gather her up, a hand ripped into his scalp, violently
jerking him back.

“No!”
Ismal screamed. He swung his pistol at Varian's head. Varian's arm
shot up, and the weapon struck his elbow. Pain shrieked the length of
his arm. Rolling sideways, he grabbed Ismal's leg and brought him
down. Ismal kicked free and flung himself at Varian, sending him
sprawling back. Varian's skull struck the wharf with devastating
force. His ears rang, and the sky spun crazily above him. Yet he saw
the pistol swinging toward him again. He grabbed Ismal's wrist and
slammed it against the wharf's edge. Ismal only grunted, but his grip
loosened, and the weapon skidded away.

“You
fight me for a whore,” he gasped. “My whore.”

Yanking
his hand free, he slammed his fist into Varian's jaw, sending him
reeling back. Varian saw black for an instant, then blood red; Then
all sense of pain vanished.

He
struck, was struck in turn, and it was nothing. All that existed was
Ismal, to be killed. They struggled furiously, more evenly matched
than Varian could have guessed. Slight as he appeared, Ismal was
powerful and quick. Blow after blow seemed to have little effect, and
as they rolled toward the quay's edge, his knee drove into Varian's
gut with the force of a cannonball. In the next moment, he was on his
back, staring

up
into Ismal's contorted face, fighting for breath and conciousness
while he struggled futilely with the powerful hands squeezing his
throat. Through the darkness slowly suffocating hi
m,
Varian
saw
Ismal's smile. “My whore,” he panted. “My Esme.”

The
words raged through Varian like hellfire. Grasping Ismal's wrist, he
dug his nails in. With all his remaining

strength,
he wrenched the hand away and dashed it against the pier's edge.
There was a crack and a low animal howl, and Is
mal
jerked away, his face twisted in agony. Varian lunged up and knocked
him aside. Ismal tried to scramble free, but his useless hand made
him slow. Varian caught him and began

pounding
his head against the pier. The once beautiful face was smeared
with dirt and blood. Ismal's head
lolled helplessly, but a glitter lingered in his half-closed eyes.

“My
whore.” The words oozed from his bloodied lips. “My
Esme.”

Just
as Varian raised his fist, he was shoved backward. He looked up in
time to see a blade flash toward him.

WITH
A PAINFUL effort, Jason thrust Mehmet's lifeless body aside and
struggled to his knees. The chess pieces lay strewn about him, along
with his wig and spectacles. He was getting too old for this
nonsense, he thought. He'd lost his taste for waterfront brawls long
ago, and this one ought never have begun. It was that sapskull
Edenmont, dashing to the rescue, and that fool girl, with her own
heroics.

Esme
was at least safely out of the way. Bajo had hauled her clear of the
fray before returning to help Jason clear a path to the main part of
the riot, where Edenmont battled Ismal. Ismal's crew, unfortunately,
had got the same idea, along with Mehmet, and flailing bodies now
blocked Jason's view of the place he'd last seen the two men
struggling. Rising to his feet, he saw his brother knock one man
aside with the butt of his pistol. Another attacked, taking Gerald
down, but Gerald flung him off and scrambled to his feet. Furiously
he fought his way out of the press of battling men.

The
sight was so incredibly out of character that Jason was momentarily
distracted. He came abruptly back to the present as a bloodied sailor
sprang from the crowd at him. But not quickly enough. The sailor's
fist crashed into his chest, and Jason staggered back, perilously
near the edge of the quay. A hand pulled him to safety, and the
sailor, swinging wildly into the air, toppled over the edge.

Jason
turned to his rescuer, and the words of thanks died on his lips as he
met his brother's grim gaze.

CLENCHING
HIS TEETH against the agony of his crushed wrist, Ismal crawled to
the shelter of a heap of casks. He'd taken up the pistol Risto had
dropped when he attacked the English lord. It was nearly impossible
to reload the weapon with one hand, but Ismal refused to acknowledge
impossibility. He was certain a few men remained aboard the
Olympias.
With luck, he might still get away.

The
vicious throbbing of his hand was making him violently ill. Afraid
he'd lose consciousness, he focused his being on reloading. Though it
seemed to take lifetimes, he managed at last and peered out from his
hiding place.

Two
figures stood between him and the
Olympias:
Sir Gerald
...
and a man who was supposed to be
dead.

If
his mouth had not been swollen and caked with blood, Ismal would have
smiled. All became stunningly clear, all the Red Lion had done, and
why. Ismal admired him for it, because he must admire a man who could
outwit him. Had he realized
...
oh, much would have been
different, and certainly he'd never have walked into what he saw now
was a trap: Edenmont and Sir Gerald on one side, the Red Lion on the
other.

At
present, however, only the two brothers blocked his way, and they
were quarreling, oblivious to all else.

Though
he'd only the one bullet, the decision was easily made. Ismal stood
and, mustering every iota of will to make his left hand obey, aimed.
Smiling inwardly, his heart light as an angel's, he pulled the
trigger. The second report followed the first so quickly that they
seemed but one ringing vibration. But suddenly fire was raging
through his flesh, and a black pit yawned before him, flames licking
in its depths.

“
Esme,”
he gasped
...
and fell.

•
• •

SLOWLY,
VARIAN LOWERED the pistol. The
wharf seemed unearthly quiet. Or perhaps the buzzing in his ears
drowned all else. He didn't know, didn't care. He'd driven a knife
into one man's gut and just fired a bullet into another.

Risto
lay dead at his feet
...
Ismal was an unmoving heap not
ten yards away
...
and beyond, Sir Gerald
—
fallen,
too, because Varian had pulled the trigger an instant too late to
save him.

He
turned away. So much blood. The world stank of it. He was stained
with it and stank, too.