Viking Ecstasy (18 page)

The proof of his danger,
Tanaka thought,
is that he sounds sincere
. Only his eyes, that window to his dark and deadly soul, revealed that he was not truly happy with her return. Tanaka looked at him, but said nothing.

"Kahlid has been the spiritual leader for this palace in your absence," Abbakka said. "But now that you have returned, after you have rested and fully recovered your strength and spirit, then you will resume your position as high priestess."

"I need only recover my strength," Tanaka replied quickly. "My spirit is undiminished."

The rage flamed only for an instant in Kahlid's eyes, and it was invisible to everyone but Tanaka. But she had seen it, and there was no mistaking that Kahlid was not pleased about relinquishing the position of High Priest which he had coveted for so long.

"Yes, that sounds wonderful," Kahlid said, his smile broadening to amazing proportions. "It is good that this . . . unfortunate business is in the past."

Tanaka looked straight into Kahlid's eyes, but she could not see into his soul now. He was protecting himself, hiding his innermost feelings. She had not thought it was truly possible for her to hate any man who had not actually committed an act of violence upon her, but as she looked at Kahlid, she realized she had that capacity.

"You won't mind giving up your position?" Tanaka asked innocently, again staring intently into his eyes, testing his skill as a liar.

With a casual shrug, Kahlid replied, "Of course not! The sooner you resume your rightful place, the happier all of us will be. It is not right when the world and its people are not in balance."

Neenah piped in, "There! Now that that is settled, I think a feast is in order! A huge festival so that all the people can celebrate Tanaka's joyous return with us!"

Abbakka smiled warmly, first at his wife, then at Tanaka. "She's right. You're as important and loved by the people as you are loved by us. They'll all want to see you." Abbakka's gaze went up and down Tanaka briefly, sadness had etched lines in his gaunt, wise face. "We will swathe you in the finest clothes in all the lands," he continued, his tone soft and sincere, his voice almost prayerful. "You shall be treated with the respect befitting the high priestess that you are."

"Thank you," Tanaka replied.

Kahlid said, "Yes, I'm sure you will be happy to be suitably attired after your . . . ordeal." He drew the word out slowly, making it slightly obscene, as though he could not only imagine the horrors that Tanaka had endured aboard Ingmar the Savage's boat but also wished that he could have seen those horrors with his own eyes.

He's happy that horrible things happened to me,
Tanaka thought in a flash of intuition. It had never occurred to her before that someone from her own palace would be pleased that she had been kidnapped and treated hideously.
He wants to know all the gory details.

The realization sickened Tanaka.

"I have summoned extra servants for you," Neenah said. She took a half-step closer and whispered. "If there's anything more you need, just tell them. They know you're to be given anything you want."

It was a superfluous order, since as high priestess there weren't many things that were beyond Tanaka's authority to demand, but she appreciated the intent nevertheless.

"Thank you" Tanaka said, then excused herself, happy to leave the disquieting aura of Kahlid and anxious to return to Tabor. She would show herself to him as a high priestess in her own palace, and then she would joyously give herself to the powerful Viking warrior who had saved her life.

❧

"The wench! The swine! I wish she'd been dragged through the rivers of hell and raped by jackals!" Kahlid hissed, his hands balled into fists of impotent fury.

"We'll think of something to be rid of her," Lysetta said, reclining on Kahlid's bed.

She watched her lover pacing his room, and she wondered whether he would want her soon. Often, his rage triggered a sexual impulse in him, and he always took it out on her. She didn't mind all that much, though she wasn't in any real mood to feel him sweating upon her as he thrust into her with the anger of a madman wielding a dagger instead of a phallus.

"Abbakka made it clear that she's the high priestess once again. He made that very clear!"

"Abbakka can change his mind."

Kahlid wheeled to face Lysetta, his eyes ablaze with a murderous fire. "Not Abbakka! Once he makes up his mind, nothing changes it!"

Lysetta realized that arguing with Kahlid when he was in such a state would accomplish nothing worthwhile and it might just get her slapped. He did that sometimes when he was really mad and he couldn't see any other way out of an argument. She raised a hand, crooking a finger for him to come closer.

"I know just what you need to clear your head," she whispered in a husky purr. "Just what will set your mind at ease."

She had not realized how distraught Kahlid was until he turned down her invitation with a distracted wave of his hand. The thought of Kahlid not wanting sexual release, especially when he was this agitated, frightened Lysetta. She sat up straighter on the bed, moving a pillow behind her back so that she could lean comfortably against the wall.

"She must be stopped," Lysetta said, her dark eyes taking on a distant quality as she began plotting Tanaka's ruin. "We've worked too hard to get this close to Pharaoh Abbakka to let that girl cast us aside now."

"But how . . . when every time Abbakka looks at her, he sees a high priestess who speaks to the gods and gets answers from them?"

Lysetta smiled suddenly, and there was a sensual glint in her eyes when she looked at Kahlid. "Do you think she's got feelings for that man who brought her back —that barbarian?"

Kahlid's eyes narrowed with uncertainty and suspicion. "The Viking? I can't imagine her finding anything appealing about him. A massive creature, from what I've been told. His eyes are the color of the sea. Strange . . . how very strange that must be."

"What if I should become . . . acquainted with the Viking?" Lysetta postulated, thinking aloud, formulating the plan as she spoke. "And what if Tanaka really does have feelings for the Viking. Then surely that could prove to Pharaoh Abbakka that Tanaka isn't everything he thinks she is. If she suffered from the mortal failings of jealousy, lust, greed, hatred . . ."

Kahlid scowled. "Abbakka knows that you and I share a bed! He knows everything! What difference does it make to him if she sleeps with the barbarian?"

"It is acceptable for you to have me as a lover," Lysetta continued, her tone growing increasingly confident. "You're a man, after all, and having a lover, or even several lovers, is acceptable for a man, especially a man of your power. But what about a woman, Kahlid? Do you think that Abbakka would turn a blind eye to Tanaka's indiscretions as easily as he would to yours?" Lysetta laughed throatily. Her mind, was deeply sensual and faintly cruel. "And if the people knew their high priestess was spreading her legs for a barbarian! . . . what kind of slovenly harlot would do that? Surely not a high priestess worth respect. And what would the wagging tongues say if Tanaka argued with me about my relationship with the barbarian? What then, Kahlid, would Pharaoh Abbakka say?"

Kahlid looked at Lysetta, eyebrows raised quizzically. "You would go to bed with the barbarian for me?"

Lysetta grinned wickedly, shaking her head. "No, darling, I would go to bed with the blond barbarian for us. I don't intend to be a harlot my whole life. When you are High Priest to Pharaoh Abbakka, then I am someone special within the walls of this palace. When you are only a priest, then I am only a whore."

Kahlid nodded in understanding, not even feeling a twinge of jealousy at the thought of Lysetta having sex with the Viking. He resumed his pacing, turning her plot to discredit Tanaka over in his mind.

From every angle, it looked like a solid plan. But what he did not realize was that Lysetta was equally as interested in discovering what it would feel like to have the strong Viking making love to her as she was in seeing to it that Tanaka did not ascend to her former place of stature within the palace.

"You were destined to be with me," Kahlid said quietly, his thoughts far away as he planned the outrage he would display when he "discovered" that Tanaka, the Viking, and his own mistress, Lysetta, were all involved in an utterly immoral triangle of deception and debauchery.

He hardly heard Lysetta leave the room.

T
anaka's living quarters had not been altered since her kidnap by Ingmar a season earlier.

Had it actually been just that summer? Only a few desperate months that she had been gone from this room, she thought, standing in the doorway to her chambers?

The familiar sights of her quarters almost made her cry. Almost, but not quite. She had been riding such an emotional boat tossed about on stormy seas since her return home that it seemed she was always on the verge of tears, and that simply wouldn't do. She saw herself as a woman with vast reserves of inner strength.

"You remember?" the servant, Habibah, asked.

Tanaka glanced at the girl. Habibah was several years younger than Tanaka and had lived in the palace all her life. Tanaka had always liked her, and the look of concern on Habibah's face told the high priestess that she had at least one servant who was loyal and honestly pleased to have the high priestess return to the palace.

"Of course I remember," Tanaka answered softly, stepping into the huge, open room that had been her living quarters since childhood. The room itself was massive, measuring sixty square feet. The bathing area was the second largest in the palace —second only to the pharaoh's. Various sections of the room were separated by ornately woven rugs and fine silks brought in from Persia, gifts from Neenah.

"We haven't quite finished preparing it for you yet," Habibah said, dutifully following her mistress one step behind and just to the right.

Women of all ages scurried about the room, straightening a pillow here, adding fresh water to a pitcher there. Since men weren't allowed in the chambers of a high priestess, filling the tub with water required two women to carry each bucket instead of one man.

"That's no matter," Tanaka replied, walking to the area holding plush, interwoven blankets. She had slept almost every night of her life upon that mattress of blankets. "I'm just happy to be home."

All her life she had been attended to by a dozen servants, so Tanaka was not overly modest about removing her clothes in front of the women. She sighed sofdy, pleased to be among her own things, and pulled the coarse woolen dress that Tabor had given her over her head. She dropped the Scandinavian garment to the floor with a dismissive groan. She never wanted to see the garment again. Next came the underdress, which she cast aside with equal disdain. Naked, she crossed to the bath, which was nearly filled.

"How have you been in my absence?" Tanaka asked, descending the steps into the tub. Habibah, she recalled, had been casting glances at a certain young military officer in the pharaoh's army when last they'd spoken.

The water was steaming and scented, almost waist deep, and absolutely heavenly. Tanaka turned to look at Habibah, who hadn't yet entered the bath, and she saw that tears trickled down the servant's cheeks.

"Have I said something wrong?" Tanaka asked, approaching her young friend. "Has the officer been hurt?"

"No, high priestess, the officer has not been hurt," Habibah answered, wiping the tears quickly away. A small gathering of servants had surrounded the bath, and all of them looked upon Tanaka with sympathy. "It is you that I cry for. You have experienced so much, and yet you worry about my heart."

Habibah stripped out of her clothes and entered the bath so that she could wash Tanaka's back and hair.

It wasn't until Tanaka had seen her loyal servant without the usual diaphanous servant's clothes that she realized why all the women were looking at her so carefully, and with such concern. Habibah, like all the others, was carefully shaven and waxed, hair removed, as fashion and the Egyptian sense of cleanliness dictated. Tanaka's body hair, to the women who were her servants, spoke silently and eloquently of hardships they could only imagine.

"Do not cry for me," Tanaka said, looking straight into Habibah's eyes as she spoke, though the words were intended for all of the women in the room. "I have been returned to my home, to the people I love, to the people who love me. I stand before you now as your high priestess, taking my rightful place among my people. There will be no sadness for me. I so decree it."

A decree from a high priestess had to be taken with the utmost sincerity. The servants continued readying Tanaka's living quarters while Habibah, immersed in the five-foot-square bath with Tanaka, washed the Oparian spiritual leader's hair as other servants continued to bring in fresh buckets of steaming water.

The warm, soapy water scented with a jubaleen herb made her skin and hair feel fresh and so soft. Habibah washed Tanaka's long, thick hair, then slowly and carefully brushed it free of tangles. Everything was exactly as she remembered. She had dreamed of these pleasures while she'd been Ingmar's captive. And when Tanaka was given a razor while she sat in the bath, the high priestess sighed with happiness, nearly finished with all that she had to do, knowing that soon she would return to Tabor and at last be able to show herself to him as a confident high priestess, not as a slave or captive.

"Is the wax being readied?" Tanaka asked, inspecting the edge on the razor and finding it satisfactory.

"Yes, priestess," Habibah replied, running a brush through Tanaka's curls. She was pleased with the delicate work she had made of cleansing and brushing Tanaka's hair, very rarely allowing the strands to tug even lightly against her scalp.

"Fine. Now why don't you tell me about that soldier? The officer who had caught your fancy, as I recall," Tanaka said, raising her leg above the steaming surface of the water and working up a thick layer of scented lather with the bar of soap.