Gold Throne in Shadow (42 page)

Kennet rubbed his jaw, torn with indecision. Christopher relented. The boy was seventeen years old. He'd seen Christopher treat Lalania like an equal. She'd had the run of his camp, passed on orders from him to the troops. And now she was sitting on top of his warhorse, her coat hanging open to reveal the soft curve of a perfect breast.

Three men boosted Christopher to the back of the horse. Lalania put all of her charms to work, convincing Royal to stand still through these strange shenanigans. Christopher probably couldn't have done that.

Then she wrapped his arms around her tightly, where they stayed of their own accord. Clenching her fists in Royal's mane, she kicked the horse in the ribs, and it lumbered into a gallop.

Once again Christopher rode under the twinkling starlight, but much more uncomfortably than before. His legs hung down, inert and useless. What really bothered him was the feel of Lalania's soft skin on his arms. She had burst loose from her coat and now jiggled and bounced with every step.

“Gods, I am pathetic,” she muttered. “I have to paralyze my paramour to get him to cop a feel.” She adjusted her coat to cover herself again, no mean feat while they galloped bareback through the murky dark.

“Pathetic” wasn't the word Christopher would have chosen. “Traitorous” seemed more appropriate. The curious pace they had set for the last three days, alternating between hurried and ambling, the choice of route she had taken, all made sense now. She had been a part of this. She had brought him here only when everything was ready and delivered him to his enemies.

He wondered when her plans had turned to ambush. Was it the night she had spent trying to seduce him? When he was teaching her how to use the pistol? Or perhaps weeks ago, after the ulvenmen had failed to kill him.

Perhaps she and her College had been planning it all along.

Royal could not keep this pace for long. But he didn't have to. A mile or so up the road a covered wagon waited, surrounded by armed men and more pretty girls. Lalania pulled to a stop amongst them, calmed Royal while strangers lifted him down. The horse didn't like this. Flattening his ears, he kicked with one rear leg, and a man went flying.

The girls immediately burst into song, lutes and lyres twanging soothingly. Lalania wrapped her arms around the horse's neck, whispering into his ear. Royal turned in a circle, looking for his master, but they had already spirited Christopher into the wagon.

Into a long pine box, padded with straw. They stretched him out, made him as comfortable as possible, arranged his limbs as if he was sleeping.

A beautiful redheaded woman with ivory skin and shockingly green eyes pinched his lips open and fed him three drops of a bitter liquid from a crystal vial. It burned on his lips and tongue.

“Shhh, my lord,” she whispered soothingly.

The wagon began to move.

The lights went out.

Christopher, sick with rage, brokenhearted at betrayal, incensed to white-hot fury that these people had cooperated with his child-killing assassin, went to sleep.

17

CONTINUING EDUCATION

H
e did wake in luxury. After he got over the fact that he had woken at all, he noticed the bed was smooth, the blankets warm and soft, the room discreetly lit by stones in shaded sconces. His first conscious act was to reach to his side, groping the mattress next to him.

His sword was gone.

Seconds later more facts penetrated. His clothes were gone. Tapestries cloaked the walls in tasteful elegance. The bed was huge, a four-poster absurdity out of a Victorian picture book. A fire burned in the hearth at the other side of the room.

He added
waking up naked in a strange place
to the list of things he really, really hated.

Sitting up, he found a set of silk pajamas on the nightstand. Like everything else in the room, they were finely made. He had not experienced such elegance in his time on this planet.

But he knew it existed. Lalania's speech came back to him, about Faren and the Church and the things they chose not to buy. This room was what lords lived like, if they wanted to.

The door opened, and a woman backed into the room, wearing a sheer gown that would have been completely see-through in any stronger light. As it was, it more than hinted at firm curves and fresh skin. When she turned around, he saw why she had entered the room in such a curious fashion. She was carrying a hot kettle that leaked steam, held carefully away from her body by hands bound together with a silver chain.

“My lord is awake,” she said, and he looked up at her face. It was the redhead from the night before, the last in a long line of women who kept poisoning him.

She poured the kettle into a large porcelain tub that rested on silvered feet. Steam billowed up, warm and inviting.

“Would my lord like to bathe?”

Of all the luxuries he missed from home, a good hot shower every morning was near the top of the list.

“Sure. I don't suppose you'll tell me where I am, first?”

“Why, at the College of Troubadours, my lord.”

She began filling the bath with water from a basin next to the wall. Watching her gown shift and drape around her as she worked was enticing.

As, no doubt, it was supposed to be. Lalania had already tried this and failed. Christopher wasn't about to sit through it again.

“That's enough. You can go.”

“My lord? Don't you want me to wash you?”

“I know how to wash myself, thank you.”

She stood there with a sponge in her bound hands, looking lost. Hating himself for giving in to his greatest weakness, he sighed.

“Tell me why you're wearing chains.”

The woman cast her gaze demurely to the floor.

“I wronged you, my lord. It is your right to chastise me, as you see fit.”

Something in the tilt of her head made him look up to the wall behind him. A collection of riding crops and horsewhips hung above the bed.

They were laying it on thick.

“Get Lala,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Do you wish two girls, my lord? Because Pia is my favorite.”

Very thick indeed.

“Yes, I wish two girls. One of whom must be Lala. Can you do that?”

“As you please, my lord.” She curtsied, the gown shimmering next to her skin, and slipped out, the door closing quietly behind her.

He stared wistfully at the bath, unwilling to walk across the room at the moment, since he had to assume he was being watched. Instead he tried to assess the situation. They hadn't killed him in his sleep, which was not as comforting as it should be. It only meant they wanted something more valuable than his life.

Considering that sober fact solved at least one of his problems, and he was just tossing the covers off to get out of bed and into the bath when the door opened again and he had to scuttle back under the blankets.

Lalania and the woman entered, the blonde with an uncertain smile and the redhead with a sultry pout. Lalania wore a ridiculous green kimono-like wrap that barely contained her. She dropped to one knee and bowed, exposing more cleavage. “You wish me to serve, my lord?”

“You made a promise.”

The smile disappeared from her face.

“I did. But I cannot promise for others.”

“Not even your College?”

“No. Especially not them.”

“Then I am done. Get me my clothes and my sword. I'm leaving.”

“My lord—” began the redhead, but Christopher cut her off.

“Shut up. I still have a head full of spells, and I will use them. On you. Now either kill me or let me go. I'm sick of this.”

“Christopher, I am sorry,” Lalania said. “I misled you. You seem to think my College is a gigantic institution swarming with learned scholars in every field. It is not; it is a handful of women trying to preserve a Kingdom against its own innate stupidity. If we have wronged you, imposed upon you, it is only because we are weak. We do what we have to.”

She had wasted his time, dragging him across the Kingdom to visit a brothel instead of a research institute. He was not going to find answers about interstellar travel here. But that wasn't what bothered him the most.

“Working with child-killing assassins is necessary? Does that excuse work for you?”

That made her angry. “She is not one of ours. We would kill her as quickly as you would.”

His face must have betrayed his doubt, because she leaned forward to speak in earnest.

“You know I dare not lie to you. Destroying the Bloody Mummers gang was always our goal. That they had left the road and taken root was an opportunity. That you were on hand to assist was . . . serendipity.”

“Then why not just tell me?”

She looked at him with sympathy, and he realized that even though she might never have lied, she had still deceived him many times.

“I cannot answer any more of your questions, Christopher. Put them to the Skald. You have come all this way; I beg you, come a few steps further. Put your questions to the Skald, and if she does not answer them to your satisfaction, I will accept whatever retribution you demand.”

“Give me my damn sword.”

“Do it,” she ordered the redhead.

The other woman bowed and slipped out, her face a perfect mask.

“He's not an idiot,” Lalania said to the empty room. “He knows you're watching. Gods, can you not see? You have pushed him to the breaking point, and all he wants to do is escape with his virtue intact.”

Christopher stared around the room. Of course, he didn't see anything. “What the hell is going on, Lala?”

“I am putting my career at risk. For you. Again.”

He didn't really feel like thanking her, though. There were a lot of answers he wanted about their definition of serendipity before he was in the mood to thank anybody.

“It would have been so much easier if you had just slept with me,” she said, trying to smile. “But at least you did not succumb to Uma. For that, my vanity is grateful.”

The door opened and Uma returned, carrying a bundle that included his sword. She still hadn't put any more clothes on, but she was followed by a squad of armed men. Christopher decided to make use of their mistake.

“Out,” he said.

The leader of the guards, a middle-aged man who exuded competence despite his ridiculous handlebar mustache, spoke deferentially. “We guard the Skald with our lives, Vicar. If you wish to see her while armed, you must tolerate us.”

“No, not you, Goodman. You lot.” He pointed at the girls and then at the door. “Let a man get dressed in peace.”

With the women in retreat he began to relax. The guards were clearly unranked; they neither dressed nor swaggered like knights. More importantly, if they decided to attack him, he knew how to respond. A good clean sword fight might be bloodier than this verbal fencing, but he doubted it would be as painful.

They had cleaned his clothes. Too bad he hadn't gotten a chance to take that bath. Once he was dressed, with boots on his feet and his sword at his side, he began to feel more in control of the situation. Of course, if they still had more tricks up their lacy sleeves, that would be exactly what they wanted him to think.

The guards escorted him from the room, two behind and two in front. Uma fell in beside him, eyes wet.

“You tricked me, my lord. Now the Loremasters will administer my punishment, and I will not even have you to comfort me afterward.”

Christopher sighed. “You know what? How about if you just don't talk right now, okay?”

The building was laid out more like a boardinghouse than a college. The hallways and rooms they passed through were clean, though faded and plain. The room he had been in was a higher standard of luxury than the rest of the building could sustain.

Down a flight of stairs, around and through another hall, and they came to a barred door. Another squad of guards waited there, along with four startlingly attractive women.

“Hello, Loremasters,” he guessed.

“Greetings, Vicar,” the one in front replied. She had curly black hair and an inviting heart-shaped face, and her friendliness was only slightly compromised by the huge loaded crossbow in her hands. “We apologize for any discomfort we may have put you to. We can only plead foolishness.”

“You can punish her, if you want,” Uma whispered at his side. “She is as deserving as I.”

“I thought we weren't talking,” he whispered back. He wondered how long it would be before they started offering him boys.

Down more stairs, of a different quality. If he had to guess, he would expect to find stone or earth behind the fine wooden panels on the wall. The temperature changed subtly, and the echoes of footsteps were dampened. They were underground.

A curved hallway, and at the end of it a small round room, about twenty feet in diameter. Remarkably, real candles burned in holders on the wall, providing real torchlight instead of the magic illusion he had become so accustomed to. The effect was either spooky or romantic, depending on your point of view. A small round wooden table in the center of the room held a large crystal ball, and behind it sat an elderly woman.

She had been a beauty, once. She was still elegant and handsome, wearing a crisp white gown with sparkly bits on it, and her hair was coiffed in an elaborate style. The effect was difficult for Christopher to reconcile. She looked like a dignified society matron sitting at a gypsy fortune-teller's booth.

The woman waited patiently while the first squad of guardsmen filed into the room and took up positions behind her. Then she beckoned for Christopher to approach, leaving the Loremasters and the second squad of guards at his back.

“No doubt my staff has apologized profusely, yet I also must add my apologies. Forgive a foolish old woman for her superstitious fears, my lord.”

“Stop apologizing, and start explaining.” Any second now, Uma was going to whisper that he could spank the old lady if he wanted, and then he really was going to smack the little minx.