DESPERATE ALLIANCES Read online

  Imoshen shook her head, unable to speak. She resented never having the chance to know Reothe without the fate of Fair Isle coming between them. He took her other foot and she looked into the flames to hide her thoughts.

  “Now your hands.”

  “I can do them.”

  “Show me.”

  When she did, she realized bending her lingers around a bottle to take out the stopper would be painful.

  “Do not weep, Imoshen.”

  “I am not weeping. My eyes leak.”

  He laughed. It hurt her far more than the burns, because she wanted to hug that laugh and never relinquish its intimacy.

  “My beautiful liar,” Reothe whispered. “Don’t look at me like that. I swear I will forget my vow.”

  “What vow?”

  But he only shook his head. “You will not be able to hold the reins tomorrow. We will have to share my invalid wagon.”

  Imoshen wanted to argue, but he was right.

  “Now your other hand,” he ordered.

  Offering him the other hand, palm up, she found the sweep of his long fingers almost hypnotic. She could have sat like this for hours, bearing the pain just to have him near her, unthreatening.

  A quick smile illuminated his features. “Now that I know you will be in the wagon with me, I will not insist on riding until you are well enough to do so. That was why I wanted to see you. It did not suit me to ride in a wagon like someone’s grandfather.”

  Imoshen snorted. “I nearly set fire to the room because it did not suit your dignity to ride in a wagon? It would have been quicker to send a message.”

  “Quicker, but not nearly as instructive.”

  She drew a quick breath. “You are an unprincipled creature, Reothe. Is everything and everyone grist for your mill?”

  His smile faded, revealing his underlying acute intelligence. “Ask yourself this, Imoshen. What is really important to you, and what would you give up to ensure that outcome? I know my answer.”

  “There we differ, Reothe, because my question is not what, but who. I will not sacrifice people for ideals—”

  He laughed and stood. “That is what you say. Maybe it is even what you believe. But I see you using True-people every day to serve your purpose. In denying your T’En nature you deny what you could be. Look what happened tonight.”

  “This was an accident because you surprised me.”

  “But why didn’t you sense my presence?”

  Imoshen looked away.

  “What game are you playing, Imoshen, pretending to be a Mere-woman, when we both know—”

  “I will not be lectured by you of all people!”

  The baby woke with a shrill cry of panic. Coming to her feet, Imoshen gasped in pain and almost fell. Reothe caught her. The pair of them swayed as he struggled to keep his balance.

  “Sit down, I will bring him to you.”

  When Reothe lowered the baby into her arms, she tried to undo the bodice of her gown but her hands were too sore. Wordlessly, he knelt at her side, his long fingers un-plucking the lacings. Her breasts ached with the rush of milk. An equal rush of heat pooled within her.

  Reothe tucked the bodice under her swollen breast and helped guide the baby’s urgent mouth to her nipple. A gasp of relief escaped Imoshen. She pressed her forearm to her other breast to stem the flow of milk.

  Reothe drew in a ragged breath. When he lifted his eyes to her face, she knew that he wanted her with every fiber of his being, and her body responded with an instant tug of recognition that went beyond conscious thought.

  She looked down and took a long, deep breath. It was a mistake. His body’s scent had changed, triggering a rise in her heart rate. A dangerous, sweet languor stole the strength from her limbs.

  “I...” She had to clear her throat. “I will not compromise my vows.”

  “I know.”

  But he drew nearer to inhale her scent, and shame filled her, flooding her cheeks, because she wanted him.

  “You intoxicate me, Imoshen.”

  “Please, don’t do this.”

  “Don’t fear me.” His tone surprised her and he held her eyes. “I won’t trick you again. When you come to me, it will be of your own free will. Nothing less will satisfy me.”

  Her mouth went dry, and she seemed to feel her heart beating like a great drum, throbbing through her limbs, each beat a tide of desire, ebbing and rising through her flesh.

  When the secondary meaning of his words hit her, tears stung her eyes. “I trusted you—”

  “I did not ask you to trust me. I asked you to join me. I told you I would win whatever the odds.” His voice was sweet and reasonable. Yet...

  “Am I nothing but a tool to you, Reothe?” Imoshen asked sadly.

  “Come to me freely. You will be the breath in my body.” His eyes flared, the leaping firelight dancing in their dark depths. “As one we would be invincible.”

  It came to her that T’Reothe was totally ruthless but honorable by his own code, and she realized that to bond with him meant much more than she had anticipated when she had agreed to their betrothal. A single tear, shed for her lost innocence, slipped down her cheek.

  Imoshen stared into the fire.

  “You deny me,” Reothe whispered. “I offer everything I am, and could be, and you turn your face from me. How cruel is that?”

  Swaying a little, he came to his feet. Stunned, he slowly turned away. It pained her to see that his limp was more pronounced. He paused by the door as she knew he would.

  “I am weary of our battles, Imoshen. Tonight I am weary beyond thought. But my body heals, growing stronger every day.”

  “What of your gifts?” It was out before she could stop herself.

  “My gifts?” His eyes glittered. “The T’En in me is an open wound. Every day I prod it without meaning to. Every touch sends me to my knees. The pain robs me of the power of thought and speech. You did this. You emasculated the last T’En warrior. Now who will save our people?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Imoshen whispered. “If it hurts you to use your T’En gifts, don’t—”

  He laughed softly. “It is instinctive, Imoshen. Every day I am reminded of your cruel love. A love that would let me live in pain.”

  “I am more sorry than you can know.”

  His angry gaze met hers, frankly skeptical. “Do not mock your gelding, T’Imoshen; the beast may throw you yet.”

  Fear made Imoshen’s heart redouble its pace, but she would not look down. For a long moment she dared not blink, then Reothe winced and felt for the doorjamb to steady himself.

  She flinched in sympathy, understanding he had reached for his gift. “Reothe?”

  But he shook his head, closing the door on her sympathy.

  Ashmyr stopping suckling, squirmed, and gave a little cry. She lifted him to her shoulder, gritting her teeth at the pain in her hands. Though Reothe was gone, Imoshen’s body trembled with reaction. Seeing to Ashmyr relaxed her.

  “That’s what you get for gulping your food,” she told the baby. A satisfied burp escaped him. She looked into his face. He was falling asleep again. “No, you don’t. You haven’t finished.”

  Her other breast ached. She tilted Ashmyr across her body and he woke up enough to latch onto her nipple and resume his feed. She leaned her head against the back of the chair. Reothe had deliberately startled her. A rueful smile warmed her. She hoped he had enjoyed the show, but it worried her to have so little control.

  Reothe believed she could heal him and she suspected he was right, but if she did, he would become the wild card in her deck. Reothe returned to his full capabilities was someone to be feared. Yet how could she live with herself if she let him suffer? Bitter self-knowledge filled her. She would let him suffer because it was safest. But she did not want to ride in the wagon with him. Imoshen cursed softly and sought to heal herself.

  Closing her eyes, she was dismayed to find her gift exhausted. Panic flared. This was worse than when she had be
en training at the Aayel’s side. Then she had not always found the little spurt of warmth that hastened healing.

  Wearily, Imoshen opened her eyes and her gaze fell on a charred smear of ash, triggering a memory of flying coals, roaring unnatural flames. Comprehension shook her. The defensive burst had exhausted her reserves. Already she could feel a mind-numbing weariness creeping upon her. It seemed there was a price to pay for the use of her gifts. A prickle of fear lifted the little hairs on her arms. What else was Reothe keeping from her? If only she could read the T’Elegos and learn how the T’En trained their young.

  Imoshen closed her eyes as waves of pain and weariness swept over her. She could not stop an assassin now.

  This jolted her. Was there no way to defend herself? Sifting into her reserves, she found nothing, but a bright flare of external anger drew her questing T’En senses. Somewhere on the floor below, True-men were gambling. Their avaricious intensity called to her. She could taste it on her tongue, sharpening her awareness.

  She was reminded of the time she caught the Ghebites betting on their fighting birds. The buildup of their lust for blood and violence had almost overwhelmed her. That day she had only just managed to channel it into destroying the birds. Now she understood the principle involved.

  Four men crouched two floors below her. She could sense their eager reaction to the turn of a card. One was a Ghebite, the other three were locals. It was the Ghebite who interested her. He was a mass of impulses—anger because he was losing, brittle fear because he suspected the Citadel guards of cheating him, though he couldn’t prove it, and underlying all this was the threat to his honor. He was looking for an excuse to challenge one of them. To lose was one thing; to lose all night to men who had so recently been his enemy was too much.

  The flames of his fury licked at his composure. Imoshen realized it would take only one little push to make him draw his weapon and she could siphon off the energy of this confrontation to rebuild her reserves.

  She needed it. Her hands and feet cried out to be healed and her vulnerability urged her to arm herself, but... She would not trigger violence and death to supplement her gift. What manner of creature would do such a thing?

  Imoshen looked up, suddenly aware of the room, the dying fire, and the sleeping baby. She was not that T’En creature.

  Not now, not ever!

  Tulkhan savored the productive buzz of his men at work. They’d widened the ditch until it was twice as broad as he was tall and as deep. Normally it would have been filled with sharpened stakes, but there was little timber. What timber there was had been used to support the tunnels. He had two teams digging under the port’s walls, but it was hard work in the boggy soil.

  The General stamped his feet to get the circulation going and started out, only to be stopped by a cry from little Ban. Since Kornel and the marsh-dweller had left to escort the mercenaries, the boy went everywhere with him. Ban slipped his hand into Tulkhan’s large one, a question on his lips. Without Komel to translate, he could only guess the boy was asking where they were going. Ban pointed eagerly to where the horses were picketed.

  “We’re not riding that sorry excuse for a horse today,” Tulkhan told him, aware that the child was listening to the tone of his voice. Just as his men were watching him for any sign of fear. “Today we will choose the place for our cavalry to practice.”

  The boy watched as Tulkhan paced out the area within the defenses. “I want this earth dug up to a depth of one hand, turned over, then leveled.” It was almost level now, but the soil needed to be soft and evenly turned so that the galloping horses could wheel without injury. It took years of training for man and beast to act as one, and Tulkhan did not intend to waste that with avoidable injuries. “I need hides prepared for target practice and shelters built for the horses. Get moving.”

  He did not know how long it would be before the cavalry arrived, but the knowledge that he considered it a certainty would cheer his men.

  Come dusk, the boy fell asleep and, as Tulkhan tucked the furs around him, the General looked up to see Rawset. “What news?”

  Rawset stepped into the shelter, offering two sealed messages. “I dropped the last shipload of mercenaries at the river mouth this morning. Kornel was already waiting there. I bring you word from T’Imoshen and the commander of your Elite Guard.”

  “Good.” Tulkhan hardly heard him. His hands closed on Imoshen’s message. “You must be hungry. Go.”

  As Rawset left, rubbing his forehead, Tulkhan pried up the wax seal and tilted the paper to the candlelight. The words were those of one official to another, Imoshen the statesman to Tulkhan her war general. There was no word from Imoshen the woman to Tulkhan her lover. Imoshen’s hasty, flowing script made her come vividly to life. He could almost see her finely chiseled features, and he felt her presence so strongly that for a moment he wondered if she had laid some T’En trick upon the message. When he lifted the finely made paper to his face, he could smell her scent and ached for her touch.

  Removing the wax seal, he noted the tear-shaped impression of Imoshen’s fingertip. Turning it to the light, he studied the whorls of her fingerprint, memorizing their double loop. The recurring pattern seemed to draw him in.

  “General?” Rawset’s voice recalled him, and something in the man’s tone told him it was not the first time he had spoken.

  Tulkhan looked up, surprised and a little unsettled to see the candles guttered in their own wax.

  “T’Imoshen will be in T’Diemn soon. She said any message was to go from your hands to mine to hers.” Rawset rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.

  Tulkhan understood Imoshen’s fears. “You will be my personal emissary. The merchants of T’Diemn can supply a fast ship.”

  Rawset looked relieved, and when his hand fell to his side Tulkhan noticed the red birthmark where he had been rubbing.

  “Stay until the mercenaries arrive and you can take back news of this. Have a seat.”

  Rawset seemed to have difficulty switching from correct junior officer to companion, so Tulkhan poured him a warm beer. “Why don’t I remember you?”

  “I was part of King Gharavan’s auxiliary army,” he answered uneasily. “When you offered us the chance to leave Fair Isle, I decided to stay.”

  “Why?”

  Rawset looked down.

  “Answer freely,” Tulkhan urged. “I am a fair man.”

  A relieved smile lit his young face. “That is what I heard and partly why I took my oath of allegiance to you.”

  “Only partly?” Tulkhan was amused by his ingenious reply.

  Rawset’s eyes widened and he held Tulkhan’s gaze earnestly. “I never wanted to fight, General. I wanted to be a priest, but my village had to supply men for the Ghebite king. Remember the far western desert campaign? I had no choice.”

  “Tell me, lapsed priest. Why didn’t you agree to go with King Gharavan, then desert him and return to your family?”

  Rawset wiped the beer’s froth from his mustache. “There would be no honor in desertion. Besides, with the things I have seen these last three years...” He shrugged sadly. “I have lost my faith. It is a terrible thing to believe in nothing.”

  “Is it?” Tulkhan asked, surprised.

  “Of course. I felt adrift until...” He trailed off.

  “Until?” But Rawset would not be drawn. The General changed the subject, learning how the Ghebite Empire’s never-ending wars were resented by the conquered countries, which had to supply men and arms for the insatiable army.

  In his grandfather’s day the war had been tribal, as Seerkhan united the Ghebites before leaving the plains. Tulkhan could not remember a time when Gheeaba hadn’t been at war. To conquer and expand was the point of Ghebite existence, but now he wondered how long this could go on. How long before Gheeaba splintered into a dozen warring kingdoms?

  Would it matter if it did? The thought surprised Tulkhan.

  He caught Rawset watching him and realized he had tak
en out Imoshen’s message and was smoothing it between his fingers, over and over. “She gave you no word for me?”

  Rawset shook his head and Tulkhan put the message away, but he could feel it lodged against his skin, above his heart. He dismissed Rawset, then remembered to read the note from Jarholfe. The hired merchant scribe had written in the common trading tongue, but Tulkhan could detect Jarholfe’s forceful personality in the words. According to his man, Imoshen had taken Reothe for her lover. They had been meeting in her room late at night.

  But Tulkhan refused to believe it. There had to be a simple explanation. Resolutely, he held Jarholfe’s note to the candle flame and watched it burn. However, he could not erase the seed of doubt the words had planted.

  Chapter Eight

  Lying on the farmhouse’s best bed, Imoshen waited for Mother Reeve to change her bandages. Their journey had proved more tiring than she expected. Reothe had driven the wagon, playing her servant as though he hadn’t threatened to unseat her from the throne only the night before.

  They did not cover a great deal of ground, because Imoshen did not plan on meeting the populace of Fair Isle while unable to walk. She could sympathize with Reothe’s wish to ride but she did not believe he was ready, for when they were offered the hospitality of the Reeve’s prosperous farmhouse, he had retired early.

  At last Mother Reeve arrived with warm water, clean cloths, and herbs. While the bandages were being changed, Imoshen heard how the woman’s family had rebuilt the shell of their farmhouse when it was burned out during Tulkhan’s campaign. Now several bonded sons and daughters and the rest of the younger children all lived under the one roof. But they had plans for two more wings to house their large brood. Doubtless, Imoshen would have been treated to the life histories of every family member if the woman hadn’t been called away to serve dinner.

  Propped up against the duck-down pillows, Imoshen watched as Ashmyr was bathed by the three youngest daughters. They fussed over him until he fell into an exhausted sleep from a surfeit of attention.

  Alone at last, Imoshen wriggled, sinking deeper into the pillows, and she set about healing her burns now that her reserves had been restored. Experience had taught her that the healing never worked well if she was distracted or in pain.