The Patrician (6 page)

Her anxiety swelled as did her impatience when he hesitated. Did he still doubt her even after she had spoken of his past?

“Very well,” he conceded. “I have had a number of robberies with large amounts of merchandise stolen these past months. I would know who is responsible.”

She closed her eyes for effect. He must think she was reaching for the answers before she recited the instructions.

“There is a group who seeks wealth without the earning of it through their own labor. Much of your property has been sold already.” She had no idea if this was true, but it was important he think the revelation was forming in her mind.

Bryna shifted nervously at the hiss of frustration he released. “But the rest, as well as those responsible, still reside in the larger city across from my master’s
taverna
.”

“Alexandria?”

She hoped so. With a nod, she continued, “Tonight you will find them hiding in a large building.” Carefully, she recited the exact directions given her by Coeus and then held her breath when he remained motionless by the door, considering her words. Had her directions seemed too contrived? Too rehearsed?

The man inclined his head, reached into his purse and tossed a large silver coin in her direction. Bryna caught it against her chest.

“For you, seer.  A very entertaining story.”

He still did not believe her? “I tell what I see.” Her chest tightened at the lie.

“It was a fine performance.”

Dagda, the man was smug. The shot of anger his dismissive attitude sparked felt good among the roil of anxiety and weariness in her gut. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. If he heard desperation in her voice, he might not follow the instructions and her chance to be rid of this prison would be lost. “Yet you do not believe me, though I have proven skill.”

He made a tsking sound. “You are a very argumentative slave. A lashing might cure you of your querulous nature.”
Her stomach fluttered with fear. He could do that, complain to Coeus, and demand she be punished. She was a slave and slaves did not challenge their masters. She touched her tender lip. Others would have begged forgiveness for the affront, but even now her pride would not allow her to bend. The best she could do was to lower her head in deference.

He gave a noncommittal grunt and pulled open the creaking door.

Darkness engulfed Bryna, smothering her, sucking the breath from her body. Figures flashed by in rapid succession. She was in a dark room filled with sounds of a struggle. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t discern what was happening. A loud curse preceded the sound of shattering pottery then dead silence. She swallowed hard to open her closing throat. The true vision of the man.

She leaped from her seat and hurried to him, placing a restraining hold on his arm. His flesh was warm, the muscles firm beneath her hand, which sent a different wave of sensations coursing through her. Sensations she had no time or right to consider. That same unsettling familiarity swirled through her.

“Master, you must be very careful in your pursuit of these thieves. There is great danger involved.” Gods, please do not let Coeus hear.

The man did not jerk away but turned and stared at her, the sunlight from the open door illuminating his face. For a moment Bryna couldn’t breathe as she gazed into searing, gold eyes. Her legs turned to liquid. It was him. The man from her vision. 

A day’s growth of beard darkened the square, masculine line of his jaw. She stared at his lips, blushing as she remembered how they had trailed down her neck setting her skin on fire.

He looked at her strangely, but did not rebuke her for her breach in propriety. Gently, he removed her hand from his arm. Could these bronzed, blunt edged fingers be the same ones that only hours before had set her on fire with their touch?  For a moment his fingers intertwined with hers, causing the muscles in her stomach to bunch. An odd mixture of relief and loss flowed through her as he released her.

“You need not concern yourself with my safety oracle,” he said with an amused shake of his head. He gave her a long look that seared her and without another word stalked out.

Bryna stared at the closed door and tried to calm her racing heart. He was going to his death. And she had done nothing to stop him.

As she watched, the door creaked back open. The turbaned man was standing there with an anxious Coeus peeking over his shoulder.

“Kill her.”

***

Jared strode along the cobbled path separating two single story warehouses. The area was completely deserted. Situated across the harbor from his own warehouses, he knew these half dozen deteriorating buildings had long been abandoned and were destined for demolition. A consortium of merchants, including him, had bid on the property to expand the number of berths open for ships to dock. But the landlord had balked at their offer, calling it an insult. Jared rubbed a hand down his face. The bastard stalled negotiations in a futile attempt to squeeze another coin from their coffers, a difficult task when that coffer was bare.

He paused at the corner of the last building. By the faint light of the moon, he counted down five structures from the eastern entrance. The seer had instructed him to search the fifth building. There, she had said, he would find his answers.

The seer. Jared’s thoughts drifted back to the cheerless room. He had expected to find a toothless hag with a hairy wart on her nose, wrinkled skin and an eagerness to share her one eye with others of her kind, cackling with glee at the gullibility of those seeking her counsel.

But he had found no Fate of Grecian myth.

Instead, the light from the doorway had revealed a girl, not as young as to be called a child, indeed she had possessed a woman’s full curves. His lips curled into a smile as he remembered how the thin material of her shift had outlined soft, rounded breasts that he knew would fit perfectly in his hands.

Even in grayness of the room, he had discerned curls of firelight hair escaping from beneath a hideous red veil. Her skin was smooth as cream and more fair than any woman he knew— until he’d entered the room, then a blush had stained her cheeks, flowing down the graceful curve of her neck, deepening to a deep rose at his verbal jabs. His cock twitched at the memory.

The only flaw in her beauty had been a cut and bruised lip. A burst of anger at jolted him. Who would mar such beauty? The answer had to be the fat pig of a master. It was the way of society, he was well aware, that a slave could be disciplined in any manner. They were property, true but he was opposed to harsh punishment.

A burst of boisterous laughter snapped his thoughts back to the present. Jared placed a hand on his knife and leaned back into the shadows. The laughter dissolved into a slurred rendition of an ode to Bacchus. The drunken poets faded as they continued their search for liquid inspiration.

He shook his head in disgust. He might as well be under the influence of spirits himself, chasing the oracle’s fantasy. He should be gathering hard facts, evaluating the pattern of thefts, formulating a plan to put an end to the criminal acts. It was what he did best. Staying busy, keeping focused on the mundane aspects of life. It kept the painful void within his soul at bay. Yet here he was, in the middle of the night, chasing apparitions.

It hadn’t been his intention. He’d intended to listen politely, leave quickly and report to his uncle that the effort was just as fruitless as he’d thought.

But then she had known about his boyhood prank.

Upon leaving the oracle’s room, he had all but knocked a kneeling Coeus onto his ample posterior. Under Jared’s hard glare, Coeus’ blustering explanation of how he had dropped one of his rings in the dirt withered to a sullen silence. It did not matter in the least to him if the man had aught else to do than eavesdrop on the nonsensical fortunes told by his slave. Though why Coeus found it necessary to listen was beyond his comprehension, unless the slave risked his reputation with lies.

There was his answer. The girl was a liar.

It would explain her nervous reaction. He shook his head in amusement as he remembered the look she’d given him as if she’d seen a shade from the Underworld. Shades wouldn’t have had the same physical reaction he’d had when her hand had touched his arm. He would have enjoyed it much more had she touched him elsewhere.

A liar. That had to be it. There were those who believed that lying was as elemental to a slave’s existence as air or water. Perhaps she had been promised a pretty bauble or an honored place in the brothel. Or, he thought wryly, a more attractive head covering.

But he had gone to the
taverna
expecting no less. He didn’t believe in oracles, or prophesy, or divining solutions through mysterious means. But the girl did. A smile tugged at his lips. There had been no mistaking the fire in the depths of those green eyes when he mocked her abilities. Odd that he found that appealing.

A hard chill shuddered through him. He brushed it, and thoughts of the slave, away. He’d wasted enough time. Making no attempt to conceal his movements, he strode toward the entrance of the last warehouse.

A sliver of moonlight lit the way through the open portal fading quickly into total darkness. Feeling his way along the wall, Jared entered, knowing he would disturb nothing more menacing than rats and spiders. But they were large spiders, and he did not relish stirring their tempers. It would take only a moment for him to make a circuit of the room to verify its vacant state. He had sent word for Damon to meet him here and together they could get to the business of catching the thieves.

He bit out a sharp expletive as his shin connected with a solid object. Crouching, he ran his hands over a large urn, tracing the bas-relief figures around the neck of the vessel. The twists and flourishes were floral. He pressed his lips together. He’d lay a large wager that in the light, he would find a black Simian pottery vessel suitable for one Mistress Pelicia.

Edging around the urn, he fingered other objects; bundles of papyrus, countless amphorae, and what felt like a carved cedar chair he had ordered from a craftsman in Crete. A bag dislodged from the pile of goods landing next to his foot. Soft granules spilled over his toes, releasing a cloud of pepper dust that set him to sneezing.

It was his missing cargo. It didn’t matter how the barbarian witch had known, but it did matter that he catch the perpetrators and reclaim what was his.

He ventured deeper into the warehouse but could see nothing. Even the moon had disappeared, causing the doorway to dissolve into the blackness. No matter. He would just follow the wall with his hand until he found the opening. Then he would notify the authorities.

Before he could take another step, his ears caught the sound of leather scraping stone. He slipped his knife from its sheath and waited. There was only silence.

A torch flared, blinding him with its sudden brightness.  Jared squinted against the light, thrusting his knife in the direction of a gray cloaked figure. A hand shot out from beside him, knocking the weapon from his grasp.

He growled in fury and swung around to the left, feeling some satisfaction as his fist connected with a solid jaw. Before he could relish the howl of outrage from his attacker, the back of his head exploded in pain. He crumpled to his knees, saw an iron pot spattered with he could only assume was his blood. He mustered all his strength, willing himself to stay conscious. The bitch! She’d sent him into a trap!

He began to wobble then felt a hard foot kick him onto his stomach. The edges of his vision blurred, narrowing until all his mind’s eye could see were a pair of lying emerald eyes. The blackness enveloped him and he fell into the void.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

T
he refrain played in his head like a drum until the sheer force of the emotion behind it dragged him back to consciousness. With effort, Jared pried his eyes open and stared into total darkness. No light, no shadows to bridge the cold, wet chasm. So this was death?

A twinge of disappointment at the bleakness of the afterlife took him by surprise. Why should it bother him? Unlike his uncle, he’d never believed in the existence of paradise.

His head felt weighted as though twenty bars of iron had replaced his skull. Slowly, he turned it to the right, not fully convinced it was going to stay attached. A groan rolled from his lips as an excruciating pain gripped his neck, spreading like fire into his shoulders. Gods, it felt like a bird of prey had dug its talons into his brain.

Before his muddled thoughts could comprehend the reality that he was alive, the hard floor beneath him tilted sharply, rolling his stretched out form across an uneven surface. He stopped only when a chain attached to his wrists snapped out straight, jerking his shoulders into agony and his addled brain into terrifying clarity.

Another pitch and roll and his battered body slammed back against a wall. Splintered wood gouged into his bare shoulders. Jared grabbed the tether in his hands and using the momentum of the swaying room, hoisted himself to a sitting position. Disoriented, he pushed back the waves of dizziness and braced his legs against the floor. This time when the room shifted, he stayed in place.

His vision blurred, but he didn’t need to see to know he was on a ship. A ship in the midst of a tremendous storm. The vessel groaned in protest, every timber creaking and shuddering so violently with each new cresting of a wave he was certain it was disintegrating.

His nostrils flared. The sharp scent of pitch permeated the airless hold. Necessary to waterproof the hull of a ship, a good seafarer would use generous amounts of the thick substance inside and out. Another wave hit the ship, saltwater seeping along the seam at his back. Gods.

He shifted but there was no comfort to be found. Coupled with the smell of moldy grain, the erratic motion of the ship, and his head wound, it was all he could do not to vomit. He forced himself to breath slow and deep until the nausea faded but to no avail. Gripping the chain, he leaned over and emptied his stomach.