Fifth Quarter (14 page)

Traffic had increased as they'd approached Kiaz, and Vree had been forced to concentrate on controlling her horse, leaving no time to worry about drawing Gyhard into conversation. "Why aren't we stopping?" she demanded as the gelding took offense at a cart of fish and danced a couple of steps to one side. "We've passed two perfectly good inns."

"Perhaps by your standards," Gyhard told her, the memory of other inns evident in his voice. "We'll be spending the night at Evion's, across the bridge."

"Why shouldn't they?" Gyhard asked absently, his attention momentarily distracted as one of the brothels lining the road folded back the shutters around the second-floor balcony, indicating it had opened for business. Dragging his gaze off the taut, silk-covered curves of the robust and very flexible young man securing the tall, louvered panels against the far wall, he cleared his throat and repeated, "Why shouldn't they?"

"Told you." Bannon's mental voice was matter-of-fact. "Another day or two and he won't be able to keep his kilt down."

Vree ignored him. "If this inn caters to rich travelers, why would it accept two butt-sore riders?"

"Because we have a great deal of money." He patted his bulging belt pouch. "And what's more we're very well-dressed, riding expensive animals, and I intend to behave as though I have every right to be there. An attitude I'm sure you've had intensive training in assuming given that you usually work where you have no right to be. What are we missing?"

The road ahead had momentarily cleared. As her horse seemed inclined to continue toward the bridge, Vree glanced over at her companion. "We have no servants," she said.

"Died."

"What?"

"They died." Gyhard smiled, his expression suddenly so like one her brother had molded those same features into that Vree started and had to hurriedly relax her grip on the reins. "Died of one of those flux diseases while we were in the south."

"Both of them? How? No rich sot would go to a place without healers."

"Oh, there were healers, but our servants were Olaki."

"Why would anyone hire one Olaki let alone two?" The Olaki were a small sect who believed their god would heal them with no direct intervention up to and including, in extreme cases, bandaging. They were a standing joke in the army where the burial squads were often called Olaki healers.

"Because besides being stupidly mortal, the Olaki also believe that a life of service will strengthen the bond with their god. This makes them excellent, albeit frequently replaced, servants."

"What about their horses? Or did our loyal but stupid servants run alongside?"

"We sold their horses for a tidy profit as we had no wish to lead the now useless beasts all the way back to the Capital."

Distracted by the necessity of guiding her horse through traffic and up over the arc of the wide stone bridge that lifted the South Road above the Pymba River, Vree wondered when this riding nonsense became instinct as Gyhard kept assuring her it would. "It's an asinine story," she muttered through clenched teeth. "
You
can tell it."

"I had every intention of doing so."

A wide marble portico separated Evion's from the North Road. As Gyhard led the way up to one of the columns, a well-scrubbed girl of about ten ran out to take their reins.

"Will you be staying the night, sirs?" she asked as Gyhard dismounted.

"We will." He flipped her a quarter-crescent.

She snatched the coin out of the air with practiced dexterity, and it disappeared into a fold of her blue tunic. "Very good, sirs."

After eight days in the saddle, Vree no longer returned to earth feeling as though she'd gladly cut off her own legs. Muscles hurt more from hours of use than abuse. "What about the saddlebags?" she asked when Gyhard started for the inn's double doors.

"Leave them. The page will bring them to the rooms."

Vree stared down at the girl who stared fearlessly up at her. "If any thing's missing, I'll cut your living heart out and feed it to you. With onions."

The page made a face as she vowed not to touch a thing.

"I never imagined that you'd have such a way with children," Gyhard murmured as they went inside.

"I hope you don't mind that I turned down the services of a bath attendant," Gyhard said, coming out of the larger of the two bedrooms wearing a loose robe, "but you're not exactly schooled in the behavior this establishment expects, and I didn't want to put unnecessary pressure on you."

Vree shrugged. "If they swallowed that stupid story you told about the servants without choking, they'll believe anything."

"You know, Vree, insults aren't usually considered foreplay."

"I said the story was stupid. I didn't say he was."

Watching her eyes narrow, Gyhard smiled. "I'll leave you two to discuss whatever it was you were discussing while I bathe. Don't worry about going second. Our private chamber taps into the boilers that supply the common baths, so there'll be plenty of hot water."

Gyhard settled into the steaming water and allowed himself to relax for what seemed like the first time in eight days. The journey thus far had been less stressful than he'd feared it might be and much too stressful to have been comfortable. He shuddered to think what it might have been like without the riding lessons forcing his brooding companion to cooperate.

His six-day gallop to the Capital had been drastically amended by the army's insistence on using infantry above all else. It had never occurred to him that the inevitable assassin whose body he intended to steal would not be able to ride. And it had certainly never occurred to him that said assassin would be part of a team.

Stretching the kinks out of his back, he reached for a loofah and froze. Suppose the sister had arrived in Aralt's tower first? Could he have made the jump into a woman's body? Would he?

"I am luckier than I have any right to be," he murmured. "And far stupider than I would have thought." He'd had an equal chance of the assassin being a woman right from the beginning and he'd never even considered the possibility.
Perhaps I'm getting old
.

He frowned, pushing the thought aside. In the beginning, one hundred and thirty-two years ago, he'd wondered if, in spite of an infinite supply of new bodies, his life force would someday weaken and he'd die, sharing the fate of everyone and everything else. It had been some time since he'd allowed that speculation to surface.

He would live forever.

He would never die.

And soon, I'll once again have a life worth living
. He'd been rich and he'd been poor. Rich was better. Rich and powerful, better still.

There was nothing wrong with the body he now wore. On the contrary, there was a great deal right with it. He worked the muscles in his arms, watching them roll beneath the slick surface of the skin. He could understand why young Bannon wanted it back.

Only five days left, my children. When are you going to make your next move
? Scooping a handful of soft soap from the glass jar on the edge of the bath, he began lathering his hair. They had to be planning something, that was a given. But what? Young Bannon didn't seem the type able to beat his own body to the point where the life in it barely held to consciousness. For that matter, Gyhard doubted that his loving sister could strike the blows.

He rinsed, surfaced, and remember the feel of her gaze. She had amazing eyes. Darker than her brother's, almost too large for her face; every now and then over the last eight days they'd burned with emotions too intense for her to contain. Hatred. Rage. Frustration. Fury. Her lithe assassin's body like a sculpted vessel made to hold dark passions…

Unable to stop himself, Gyhard burst out laughing.
Gods keep me from thinking like a bad poet or an apprentice bard
. Glancing down the length of his body, he shook a chiding finger at his groin. Governor Aralt had been an old man. It had been a long time since he'd had such a spontaneous reaction. "And you, you should be ashamed of yourself. Your own sister."

Except that she wasn't
his
sister.

And she was a beautiful woman.

And not only does she intend to kill you
, he reminded himself.
But you intend to ensure that neither sister nor brother remain as a threat once they've helped you achieve your new life
.

If anything, that intensified the physical response.

I'd forgotten the immediacies of being twenty
, he sighed and surrendered to the moment.

Strenuous exercise and a scalding hot bath had helped Vree regain both her composure and her distance. Dinner threatened to undo it all.

A parade of servants in blue tunics carried dish after dish to the low table in the center of the suite's main room. Sitting cross-legged on a pile of cushions— while the inn's dining room provided benches and chairs, Gyhard had requested the suite with southern furnishings—Vree stared at the food and wondered what half of it was.

"You can't spoil this for me." Grinning broadly, he passed her a bowl of glazed vegetables. "So you needn't bother trying."

She sighed, closed her eyes, and opened them again. The very last thing she needed was for the two of them to start agreeing on things. "I see my brother's body," she said. "But you wear it differently."