Warrior (45 page)

Fortunately for Welenara and her son, the princess had few friends in the harem. One of Hablet’s other wives learned of the plot and betrayed her, no doubt hoping to replace the Lanipoorian princess as his senior wife. Hablet had beheaded Her Serene Highness, the Princess Shanita of Lanipoor, when her daughter was a mere two months old and anybody who did not wish to share the late princess’s fate had wisely made no mention of Hablet’s first wife in the hearing of Fardohnya’s king since that day.

Her legacy, however, was still causing him grief. It was in search of Shanita’s only child that Hablet had come to the harem gardens this morning.

Following the sound of shouts and laughter, he rounded a bend in the gravelled path and discovered a number of his children—both legitimate and baseborn—engaged in a boisterous game of rope ball on the lawns surrounding a Harshini-style pavilion. In the shade of the white circular podium, with its delicate wrought-iron arches that looked as if they’d been crafted out of spun-sugar, a number of his wives, three of his currently favoured
court’esa
and several slaves responsible for the care of his many children watched over the game, smiling indulgently. The women sipped chilled fruit juices and watered wine and gossiped about those other wives and
court’esa
whose absence made them the only reasonable topic of conversation.

Hablet stopped and watched the game for a moment. It was called rope ball because each of the players held a short piece of red or blue coloured rope behind their backs, to prevent them touching the ball with their hands. To drop the rope was instant disqualification and a point to the opposing team.

The ball was an inflated pig’s bladder and, with their hands restrained, the only way to move the ball into the goalposts at either end of the lawn was to kick it. This resulted in a great deal of hilarity, much falling over and some none-too-gentle pushing and shoving as the players attempted to gain control of the ball.

He spied his eldest child in the mélée, playing for the red side. She wasn’t the tallest player or the most skilled, but she was invariably voted captain of their impromptu teams, a disturbing tendency that told Hablet more about his daughter than she probably realised.

The game stopped when Hablet stepped out of the shadows of the flowering hibiscus shrubs on the edge of the lawn. Dropping their coloured ropes, the younger children ran to him when they spied their father, gleefully ignorant of his mood. The elder girls and several of his baseborn sons held back a little, having learned to be cautious of him. That amused Hablet for some reason. He wasn’t sure why.

Maybe he just liked the notion that his children could fear him as much as they professed to love him.

“Adrina!” he called over the heads of her younger siblings after he’d greeted them each by name.

She looked up when he called her, revealing her best feature, which was eyes the colour of polished emeralds. They were the eyes of a temptress. Bedroom eyes, Lecter Turon called them, although he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

Adrina favoured her mother in looks, which Hablet found rather disturbing. She had a luscious head of wavy, dark hair and a body that would undoubtedly blossom into sinful voluptuousness when she was older. At eighteen, she had yet to outgrow completely the coltishness of youth, but what she lacked in natural beauty or grace, Adrina more than made up for in wit and intelligence.

And that was what made her so damned dangerous.

“Father?” she replied with no hint of fear. She was flanked by her two closest siblings, Hablet’s baseborn sons, Tristan and Gaffen.

Tristan was the same age as Adrina. He was Welenara’s son, the one Shanita had tried to poison, and tall, fair, blue-eyed and far too popular for the bastard son of a king with no heir. Lecter was already advising the king to throw him in the army and send him south to the Sunrise Mountains. Out of sight and out of mind, Lecter kept saying. And it wasn’t a bad idea. At worst, the boy might kill a few Hythrun.

At best, Tristan would be killed himself in the upcoming battle, and the problem of what to do with him would be solved. But Hablet couldn’t bring himself to do it. It would break Welenara’s heart and, besides, Hablet genuinely
liked
Tristan. Until he had a legitimate son, he really didn’t want to see the boy killed, even in the noble pursuit of Hythrun blood.

Gaffen, on the other hand, was much less of a problem. His mother had been a
court’esa
, too.

He was also fair-haired (Hablet had a particular weakness for blondes), big and solid and probably the most dependable of his baseborn children. His only ambition was to join the navy as soon as he was old enough and travel the world. His only fault, as far as Hablet knew, was how easily enticed into mischief he was by his half-brother and half-sister. They formed a triumvirate of trouble that Lecter often advised him he would be wise to break up. The closeness of his three eldest children might cost him his throne some day, if he wasn’t careful.

Or so his chamberlain was fond of telling him.

“Walk with me, petal,” the king commanded. “I want to talk to you.”

Adrina stepped forward, smiling. She had to know what he wished to discuss with her, yet she appeared unbothered by it. Falling into step beside him, his daughter slipped her arm through his and led him away from the pavilion and the eager, straining ears of her numerous stepmothers.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Daddy?”

“Don’t you
Daddy
me, young lady,” he scowled, as they stepped onto the gravelled path. “You know damned well what I want to talk about.”

“Balkar of Taranipor, I suppose,” she replied with a sigh.

“I was expecting to announce your engagement this morning, Adrina.”

She laughed. “Don’t be absurd, father! I wouldn’t marry that fool if he was the last man in Fardohnya.”

“At the rate you’re turning them down, my petal,” the king pointed out peevishly, “you may very well end
up
marrying the last man in Fardohnya. When I said you could choose a suitable consort, I didn’t mean you could take your pick of every eligible bachelor in the country.”

“If only you’d
offer
me every eligible bachelor in the country,” she shot back. “Instead of just the poor, idiot, backwater ones.”

“How can you tell? You’ve rejected every man I’ve offered!” he accused. “Half of them before you even laid eyes on them.”

“Bring me a man with wealth, power and ambition, Daddy,” she suggested with a mischievous grin. “Just watch how fast I agree to marry him then.”

Wealth, power and ambition
. Hablet shuddered at the mere notion of Adrina married to a man like that.

“You can’t just keep rejecting suitors, Adrina. People are starting to talk; you’re getting a reputation for being a shrew.”

“Good. Maybe then the weak-spined ones will stay away.”

“Do you want to be an old maid?”

“If the alternative means taking a husband like Balkar of Taranipor, then I don’t mind at all.”

He shook his head in despair. “What am I supposed to do now? You offended the entire Taranipor family.”

“You probably care less about that than I do,” she laughed.

“Won’t you reconsider? He’s quite well off, you know.”

“I know slaves who are richer,” she declared. “Your chamberlain among them.”

Hablet sighed. “Lecter only has your best interests at heart, petal.”

“And I’m the demon child,” she scoffed.

Hablet looked down at her and shook his head. “You cost him a great deal, you know. The bribe he accepted to promote Balkar as a suitor was substantial. Now he’ll have to return it.”

“I’m heartbroken,” Adrina replied, clearly delighted by the prospect.

Hablet smiled. As a spectator sport, very little rivalled watching the sly eunuch and his equally devious daughter trying to outsmart each other. The animosity between them was legendary and, by comparison, most of the other political shenanigans that went on at court were mere skirmishes. If he was honest with himself, he knew that for fear of being robbed of his main source of entertainment, Hablet let Adrina get away with just about anything. He let her reject husbands; he let her aggravate Lecter Turon; let her dictate far more about her own fate than was proper for a well-bred Fardohnyan lady. It drove Lecter Turon mad. And that seemed only fair, too, because if the king
had
been cursed by Jelanna after Lecter killed Riika Ravenspear, then it wasn’t mischief he was creating, so much as justice.

But even if it wasn’t justice, it was fun. The look on Lecter’s face whenever Adrina turned away another suitor was priceless.

Sadly, when they finally found her a husband, Adrina would have to leave the palace and the games would be over. Hablet would be lucky if he saw her again.
Which
, Hablet had to admit,
is why I
indulge Adrina as much as I do
. By Hablet’s estimation, his chamberlain had taken close to a quarter of a million in bribes on this one matter alone since Adrina had turned sixteen. And he’d had to give the vast majority of it back, because bribes of that significance were usually dependent on a successful outcome.

Hablet had no objection in principle to his chamberlain using his position to enrich himself. But it was useful to remind Lecter Turon occasionally that he was a slave and that nobody was invincible—or indispensable. The eunuch was clever, conniving and manipulative (which was why Hablet kept him around). A man like that could be just as much a liability as an asset. Adrina kept him in check by being just as clever, conniving and manipulative. It was why he kept Adrina around, too.

And for that reason, he walked arm in arm with his daughter along the gravelled paths of the harem gardens in the warm winter sunlight, scolding her rather than punishing her.

Adrina had her uses, after all.

“What am I going to do with you?” he moaned.

“Let me marry someone of my own choosing.”

“All seven hells will freeze over before that happens, petal.”

“Then give me something useful to do.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some official position at court, maybe?”

“But you’re a woman.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

He thought about it for a moment and then nodded, as one useful task came to him. “Very well.

If you promise to behave yourself, you may be my hostess occasionally for dinner when my guests arrive later in the week.”

“What’s so special about them that you need a hostess?” she asked.

“They are from Hythria.”

“Anyone I know?”

Hablet frowned. “I would hope you don’t socialise with
any
Hythrun, Adrina.”

“You’ve let me out of the palace about four times in my whole life, Father. Exactly when was I supposed to make the acquaintance of any soul not in your employ?”

“True enough,” he conceded. Interesting how she had dropped the
Daddy
, now she realised she was no longer in trouble. “But I confine you for your own protection, petal, you understand that, don’t you? There is plague out there. Hythria is rampant with it.”

“That’s just this year’s excuse, father. Hythria hasn’t been rampant with plague for the past eighteen years, just the past few months.”

“I’m not concerned about the past eighteen years, Adrina. Only that I keep Fardohnya safe now.”

“That’s why you’re massing troops near Qorinipor and Tambay’s Seat, I suppose?” she asked with a raised brow. “To keep Fardohnya
safe
?”

“Naturally. And by the way, how do you know about that?”

She smiled innocently. “So who are your guests?”

“Xanda and Luciena Taranger.”

Adrina was silent for a moment and then nodded. “Luciena Taranger. Adopted daughter of Marla Wolfblade, which makes her the adopted niece of Hythria’s High Prince, the legendary pervert, Lernen Wolfblade. Her father was a commoner—Jarvan Mariner, Princess Marla’s third husband. When Marla adopted her at the age of seventeen, she became the owner of near half the trading ships currently sailing out of Greenharbour, and rather a lot of those sailing from Fardohnyan ports, too.

About the same time she was adopted, she married Xanda Taranger, who is, if I remember correctly, the nephew of the late Laran Krakenshield, which makes him a cousin to Damin Wolfblade, the heir to the Hythrun throne. It was a commonly held belief at the time that Luciena’s adoption was contingent on her marriage to Marla’s nephew. What are they doing here in Talabar?”

Hablet frowned.
This is why she’s dangerous
, he thought. The events she described happened nigh on twelve years ago. She was six years old at the time. His next eldest legitimate daughter, Cassandra, probably couldn’t even name all her own siblings. “They’re supposedly coming to Talabar to expand their operation in Fardohnya. Should I enquire more closely about how you know all this about the Wolfblades?”

“I live to learn, Father,” she replied with a dramatic sigh. “Trapped here in the harem and denied a life with any meaning at all, the only joys I have are my music and my studies.”

“What a load of horse shit!” the king snorted, scratching at his beard. “You can’t play a note on that damned harp I bought you.”

“But it did come with a very nice music teacher,” she reminded him with a languid smile. “I got plenty of use out of
him
.”

“So Lecter informs me,” the king grumbled. “We have
court’esa
for that sort of thing, Adrina.

You’ve no need to take lovers.”

“It’s not about need, Father,” she reminded him. “It’s about want. Isn’t that what you believe?

Take what you want?”

“I didn’t mean for you to follow my advice quite so literally, girl.”

She looked up at him with those wicked bedroom eyes and smiled. “But you love me for it anyway, don’t you, Daddy?”

“There may come a time when I don’t,” he warned, annoyed that she thought he would fall for such blatant flattery. He wondered if Lecter was right, after all. Maybe he should insist she marry that fool from Taranipor. Maybe the safest thing to do was to banish Adrina from Talabar and send her somewhere she could do him no damage.