Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (13 page)

RhiHanya
and LiHoun whispered quickly in Li as their eyes flicked over to him and then
away. RhiHanya lifted her palm. It was a Ponongese gesture very much like a
shrug, but the subtle message behind it escaped him. LiHoun rolled a kur and
lit it, as if that were his final say in the matter.

RhiHanya
turned back to him. “PhaSun is in Old Levapur. I left a message with the Pha
that it was safe for her to return to the Red Happiness, but who knows if she
heard it?” Her sour frown made Kyam think that talking to the Pha clan leaders
had been an unpleasant job, but she didn’t want to complain about it.

“Inattra suspected as much.” Kyam knew these two could
gather information quicker than he could. He leaned toward them and lowered his
voice. “Unfortunately, I can’t go into Old Levapur. If I go alone, I’ll never
be seen again. If I take soldiers, I’ll provoke a riot.”

“They don’t like us either,” RhiHanya admitted. “If there’s
one thing the Pha hate, it’s someone from another clan ordering them around. So
of course they get stubborn at the worst possible times.”

“I wonder if PhaSun would come out of hiding if she
thought it would get Inattra into trouble. You know, pass on some sort of hint
that I’m going to tell QuiTai rumors I heard when I go back to the fortress
later this afternoon…”

LiHoun chuckled when RhiHanya said, “She’d come out of
hiding in a heartbeat if she thought she could get convince QuiTai to fire
Inattra. She’s had it in for Inattra since the moment he became Madam.”

Kyam
tapped his bottom lip. “If only someone would go back to the Pha and tell
them–”

“Hah! Don’t
for a moment think we work for you, Thampurian,” RhiHanya said. “Go talk to
them yourself.”

A
coughing fit shook LiHoun’s thin body. “Too direct,” he muttered from behind
his hand.

“I’m not
here to protect delicate Thampurian feelings. He takes what I have for him the
way I see fit to give it, or he gets nothing,” she said.

“She’s in
training, Mister Zul,” LiHoun apologized to Kyam.

“Don’t
you go making excuses for me. I’m fine the way I am, brother.” She turned back
to Kyam. “Well? How many hours do you think you have to waste before your
friends hang her?
Shu, shu, shu
. Get
moving.”

He felt
like a jungle fowl caught pecking in the grain basket. Kyam checked his pocket watch.
He’d lost too much time already with nothing to show for it.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” RhiHanya
asked.

Kyam glowered at her. “I know one thing –
you
can get the Pha to hear what you
have to say, even if they pretend to ignore you. I can’t. If I so much as set
foot in the slums, there’s going to be trouble, and I don’t need that
distraction right now. So you’re going back there and you’re going to convince
them to tell PhaSun whatever she needs to hear to come talk to me. I don’t care
if it’s hard or they’re rude to you. Just do it.”

As she drew in a sharp breath, LiHoun put his hand on her
arm. “Time is wasting, sister. Teach the Thampurian manners on a day with too
many hours, not one with too few.” The old man gave Kyam an angry look and then
tottered toward the Red Happiness on his bandy legs. RhiHanya followed him in a
cloud of indignation.

The soldier
stood
in a gently rocking rowboat with one boot in an inch of filthy water
and the other braced on one of the seats. He’d put his hand out for Nashruu’s,
but drew back. “Maybe we should ask…”

Nashruu’s smile was her most ingratiating. She had hoped
to get by on charm alone until she was forced to use the sterner stuff.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She knew the question was aimed at the man behind her. It
was already clear he didn’t care what she thought. It was so easy for
Grandfather to say, ‘Go to the fortress and offer Lady QuiTai our help in
exchange for her promise to be my agent’ and expect it to be done. But maybe
she
could
get it done, after she
convinced these two to do as she asked.

Perhaps if she stripped right here on the beach, calmly
placed her clothing in her bag, shifted into her sea dragon form, and swam
across the harbor to the fortress… No. She would be criticized for
overreacting. If she wanted to force them to do what she wanted, she’d have to
be ladylike about it. Subtle. Sneaky. She hated that.

“Oh!” With her most helpless squeal, she teetered into the
soldier’s arms, jammed her satchel into his knees, then squeaked again as he
grabbed her around the waist. Her pretty blue sun spectacles dropped near his
feet. There was much apologizing and stepping around each other as the soldier
retrieved them for her. She plunked down on the tiny seat set into the bow and
extended her hand for her glasses.

While she’d never gloat openly, she was rather pleased
with herself. Lady QuiTai probably never had to resort to such silly scenes.
She got to threaten them or have her thugs beat them. How Nashruu envied that!

The soldiers huddled together. They seemed to suspect her
fall onto the little boat was an act. She held onto her parasol tightly as a
gust of wind threatened to take it from her hand. She sat primly, set her jaw,
and tried to appear as intimidating as her mother-in-law. The soldiers’
conference ended in shrugs. Thankfully, one sat on the far bench and grabbed an
oar while the other untied the boat’s line from the cleat.

Nashruu had never seen such pale green water. In Thampur,
it was either angry gray or cold sapphire. Here it was so clear. She could see
reefs far below the rowboat surrounded by white sand, plants gently swaying in
the current, and sharks endlessly circling.

The monolith stones that rose high overhead also
fascinated her. She’d seen one standing as a lone sentinel in the midst of the
Sea of Erykoli the day before, ferns and vines clinging to the white rock. Bird
nests seemed to fill every crag and nook on the leeward side. At the water
line, urchins and anemones hung on despite the constant waves. The monolith
stones in the harbor were much the same, although the vegetation growing over
them was more varied than on the one far out at sea.

This island was endlessly fascinating. She’d have to
explore it more. Grandfather said no one except the plantation owners crossed
the Jupoli Gorge Bridge. Levapur was such a small part of a big island. How could
anyone resist exploring it?

There would be time for that later. Right now, she was on
a mission. She twisted about to see where the rowboat headed.

The circular fortress at the end of the breakwater struck
her as useless. The longer she looked at it, the less sense it made. From what
she could see, the militia inside didn’t seem to even take note of the ships
sailing past its walls, except to occasionally wave at sailors in the rigging.
They couldn’t stop a Ravidian ship from sailing into the harbor. Perhaps, like
the fortresses sitting on the seaward islands of Surrayya, it was equipped with
ballistas to shoot flaming harpoons and oil at enemy ships, but she saw no
evidence of such weapons on the ramparts.

It made
no sense, though, to make it so difficult to reach the fortress by land. One
could try to climb over the enormous, wet, barnacle-encrusted rocks of the
breakwater, but it wouldn’t be easy. They obviously wanted to make it as
difficult as possible to walk to the front gates of the fortress.

Ah! She’d
figured it out. The fortress had been built to protect Thampurians from the
Ponongese, should the natives ever revolt. Thampurians could shift into their
sea dragon forms and swim quickly to the protective walls. The Ponongese would
have to row over.

She was quite pleased with herself.

Her theory also explained why twice as many arrow slots
faced the harbor as the sea. And maybe that’s why the executed prisoners were hung
from the ramparts facing the harbor rather than the seaward side. She averted
her eyes from the corpses.

They were nearly at the breakwater when she saw the short
dock for the fortress. Up close, the stone walls were much more intimidating.
She was going to walk in there, get Lady QuiTai to agree to work for
Grandfather, and then tell Colonel Hurust to release her. That’s what
Grandfather expected her to do. Unfortunately, he hadn’t told her how she was
supposed to affect this miracle.

Nashruu had been lectured, quizzed, and tutored
relentlessly for years. It had all been a waste. She was completely unprepared
for this. Her shoulders slumped as a wave of doubt eroded her confidence. She
was going to mess this up. Lady QuiTai would be hanged because of her, and
Grandfather would make her come back to Thampur in disgrace.

Her mouth twitched. Wasn’t that usually the other way
around? One got sent to Levapur in disgrace, not recalled home. As she laughed
at herself, her spirits rose.

~ ~ ~

Nashruu walked into Colonel Hurust’s office in the
fortress. It was a small room on the third floor with a view of the ramparts
below. The battered furniture looked as if it had been bought as a temporary
solution and never been replaced. His small desk was cluttered with files.

“Colonel Hurust–”

The colonel’s secretary, Major Rheagus, spun around. His
hair was curly, unusual for a Thampurian, and rose above the high dome of his
bare forehead. Ill-advised academic’s whiskers surrounded his wet little mouth
that made smacking noises when he spoke. He gave Nashruu the most astonished
look. “I told you to wait outside in the hallway.”

“Did you? Oh, how dreadfully embarrassing. I didn’t
realize you meant me.”

“There wasn’t anyone else out there!”

Nashruu wiped away an offending bubble of spittle that had
landed on her cheek. Colonel Hurust gripped the arms of his chair as if he
might flee any moment. His neck overflowed his uniform collar as if he believed
he was still the gawky youth he’d been when he’d entered the military academy.

Her eyes were drawn to his hair. There was an unreal
quality to it, as if it had been waxed and then sculpted into shape by a doll
maker. Something about his pursed lips and stubby fingers reeked of prissy
habits.

When she
managed to move her gaze from his astonishing hair to his eyes, she was
startled to realize he was also judging her. She saw the sneer in the spread of
his nostrils.

“Look at
my manners. Colonel Hurust? How do you do?” She inclined her head just enough
for it to count as a bow.

That should put him in his place
, she thought.

After a
long silence, in which the men stared at her, she quietly cleared her throat. “I
suppose I must make the introductions then. I am Ma’am Zul, wife of Governor
Zul.”

“I humbly beg your pardon, Ma’am Zul. We don’t receive
many guests here,” Colonel Hurust said. He didn’t seem to regret that.

“How sad. You must feel so isolated.” She sat down and
placed her satchel at her feet.

If Major Rheagus’ eyebrows rose any higher, he’d have a
proper hairline for a man his age.

“We prefer to keep apart from the contamination,” Colonel
Hurust said. He suddenly leaned forward. “Does your husband know you’re here?”

She didn’t like to lie, but she knew what would happen if
she told the truth. “Yes.”

“He allowed you to come here without an escort or–”

“I’m surrounded by the gallant men of the colonial
militia. How could I be any safer?”

Colonel Hurust apparently didn’t like being interrupted. “This
is a prison.”

“Exactly.”

Now he was ticked off. That didn’t worry her. Maybe his
wife shrank back when he scowled, but he wasn’t nearly as scary as Grandfather.

“I came here to see a prisoner. Lady QuiTai.”

Colonel Hurust chuckled. His secretary chortled. That was
worse than any other insult. She hated the rising heat in her cheeks as they
belittled her.

Then, for no reason she could understand, he rose from his
desk and said, “Come on. I haven’t got all day.”

He strode from his office at a quick pace. She struggled
to keep up as her narrow skirt forced her to take mincing steps. When she fell
behind, he didn’t slow down. At the stairs, she gritted her teeth and raised her
hem almost to her knees so she could keep up. If a soldier saw her legs, she’d
never be taken seriously.

She lost sight of him at the bottom landing as she quickly
pushed her skirt back down. Hurrying as best she could, she turned a corner and
found him waiting at a double-biolocked gate to the prison section of the
fortress.

Hurust didn’t have to say a word to make it clear he was
doing this on a whim, and that he could easily change his mind. That was more
unnerving than the laughter. Was she supposed to be grateful and obedient now?
Or was he accommodating her because he liked her bravery? There was no telling
with men.

Nashruu followed Colonel Hurust across the lush grass. The
parade ground reminded her of the first time she’d seen Voorus at Thyrinmun,
Thampur’s elite military academy. He’d looked so dashing with his new stripes,
and she’d felt so wicked. Men had affairs all the time, but outside of plays
and operas, she’d never heard of a woman taking a lover and living to tell
about it. Not that she’d ever told anyone. Grandfather made the price for
letting out that secret graphically clear.

A delightful ocean breeze ruffled the longish grass, and gulls
wheeled far overhead in the cloudless sky. As far as prisons went, she imagined
this one was quite nice.

Colonel
Hurust stopped at a thick door with a grill at eye level. He lifted the rusting
iron ring to knock on the door.