Char shook his head vehemently.
Azak stretched, as if it hurt to stretch. “You don’t have the brains you were born with. Now take away those scraps so the vermin don’t fight over them all night.” He turned to Inos. “Beloved, do you wish to go outside?”
“No.”
Azak’s red eyes swung back to his men. All three scrambled to their feet and headed for the door, Char carrying the remains of the meal. The door thumped shut behind them. Azak twisted himself around, turning his back on his wife. Even he moved like an old man.
Wearily, aching everywhere, Inos spread out her bedding and then dug in her saddlebag for her jar of elvish unguent. Trying very hard not to wince aloud, she hauled off her clothes and began salving her abrasions, gently massaging the bruised muscles at the same time. Many of her blisters had bled, and even the clean bits were black and blue. She did this every night, and Azak always turned his back. That might be a politeness—for her sake—but more likely he was avoiding the torture of viewing beauty he could not possess. If so, he had not guessed how little allure he was missing at the moment.
She had never wanted anything in her life so much as she now wanted a bath and change of clothes. She wondered if there were a God of Suppleness, Who might listen to a repentant cripple. She really ought to go the bathhouse, but Azak would insist on escorting her there, and a djinn hanging around those quarters might well provoke a lynching. She promised herself that she would do it tomorrow.
“Azak?” she remarked as she smeared.
“My love?.”
“Where will we go in Hub? You can hardly expect to walk up to the Red Palace and have the warlock ask you in for a cup of tea. These things take time.”
“Some inconspicuous hostelry.”
“I have friends and relatives in Hub. Senator Epoxague is a distant—”
“No.”
“Kade always spoke very highly of his daughter, and—”
“No!”
Useless to argue with the ox. Her head was stuffed with rocks; she could hardly keep both eyes pointing in the same direction. Maybe in the morning she’d try to talk some sense into him. She squirmed to an even more painful position to get at some of the difficult places.
“Inos, I want your parole,” Azak said.
He had turned around and was watching her, but she was too weary to feel embarrassed. Besides, he was her husband and entitled to look. And her battered brain seemed strangely unable to digest what he had said. “Parole? What do you mean, parole?”
His face was in shadow, but she recognized the expression. Here we go on the insanely jealous ride again . . .
“I mean that you will make no approach to these friends and relations, nor—”
“Gods give me strength!” Inos muttered. She capped the salve jar and pushed it into her saddlebag. “You think I’m planning to desert you, is that it?”
“You are my wife!” he shouted.
Yes, that must be what he was thinking. And she recalled the elves’ offer, Lith’rian’s offer. After a few days’ consideration, she had somehow seen as obvious what had not been obvious at the time—that the offer must have come from Lith’rian. Who would dare commit a warlock to anything without his knowledge, or venture to speak in his name? Who knew what a warlock looked like? Inos might even have met him. He might have been one of the riders, possibly even Lia’scan herself.
What a fool she had been not to accept! By now she would be a pretty girl again, instead of a freak; dancing at balls in Hub, perhaps, while Azak would be rotting in an Imperial jail. That would be a kinder fate than Rap had met in a Zarkian jail.
She pulled on her filthy nightgown, thinking that her whole life seemed to be a steadily growing mountain of errors, a human trash pile.
“Your parole!” Azak demanded angrily.
“Parole?” Inos repeated. She had not told him about the message from Lith’rian. She wasn’t going to. She grunted with effort as she reached for the blanket. “I’m your wife. I swore oaths to you and to the Gods. Why should I desert you now?”
His eyes shone like rubies—not like sane, ordinary-sort-of eyes. “You are in the Impire and have the advantage of me . . .”
Inos eased herself down on her back, and then had to rise on one elbow again to pull the saddlebag over. She heaved it behind her head as a pillow, and even that was an effort. “You already have my most solemn vows, husband. What more can I say? I am a woman of my word.” She sank back with a sigh and pulled the scratchy cover up to her chin. “You can let the three deadly virtues back in now, if you want. I’m respectable.”
He came scrambling closer and knelt beside her, glaring down menacingly. Mad as a bull camel at mating time? No—it was just that Azak was accustomed to holding all the cards, and here he was out of his element and unsure of himself.
“You’re tired,” she said. “Don’t get carried away.”
“You will swear your parole! Swear that you will not—”
Inos failed to suppress a yawn. “Azak! If I wanted to escape from you, and turn you in to the Impire as a spy, and return to my friends . . . do you really think it would be difficult?”
He bared his teeth in fury. He actually had a hand on his dagger, too. It would be funny if she wasn’t so beat.
“Swear, or I shall tie you to the saddle, and tether. . .”
“Oh, don’t be so silly! You’re my husband and I’m stuck with you. If I wanted my freedom, darling, all I need do is scream. In the postyard. In the streets. Even right now.” She yawned again, enormously. “Help me, sirs, these wicked djinns have taken me prisoner and are dragging me off to their den of lust. I haven’t done that, have I? I don’t mean to. Now can I go to sleep, please?”
It was likely only a moment, but when Azak spoke again his voice jarred loudly, as if she had already slid over the lip of sleep.
“You are right,” he said, “and I am wrong. I apologize.”
Amazing—historical “Mm? Well, don’t be surprised if it happens again some time.” Sleep . . . “This senator? Would he truly be willing to help, or would he turn us over to the imperor’s torturers?”
“Don’t know if he has any torturers,” Inos mumbled. “Not officially. Of course Epoxague will help. I’m a relative, sort of.”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are. They’ll be thrilled to discover they have a sultan in the family. The nobility always stand by one another. Unless they actually catch you plotting treason, yes, they’ll help.”
“Then tomorrow you will send a letter and set up a rendezvous.”
“Yes, dear. Tomorrow. Now may I sleep?”
Several ways:
As many several ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial’s centre;
So many a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose . . .
— Shakespeare, Henry V
FIVE
Trysting day
1
At a hostelry on the outskirts of Hub, Andor had just sold the great coach. It had served its purpose well, but it showed the wear and tear of that service—two of the fancy lamps had fallen off, and a steadily growing crack in one of the springs had been worrying Rap for the past few days. He had mentioned it to Andor, so he could draw it to the buyer’s attention, but Andor hadn’t.
Now Andor had rented a town carriage, a smaller but even more opulent contraption, suitable for a lady of rank. “Really ought to have the Krasnegarian arms emblazoned on the doors,” he remarked cheerfully. His broad hat and stylish cloak glistened brightly, although the rest of the busy yard seemed drear under a steady drizzle and a lowering dank sky.
It was still barely noon. Gathmor was up on the carriage roof, fastening wet rope over the luggage with expert sailor knots. Rap was making friends with the two grays he had selected. Foggy and Smoky, he had named them, and they were content with that.
Princess Kadolan was fretting under an umbrella. She looked bedraggled, her hair lank in the wet air. “I am still not sure that I agree with Sagorn’s plan,” she said.
Andor smiled and opened his mouth, but she stepped quickly over to Rap. ”We should have consulted with you,” she said. “Doctor Sagorn and I had a long talk again, this morning—about our best course of action.”
They had been arguing the point for days, and Rap had rarely bothered to listen. He was in Hub, and premonition was making his skin crawl. It lay on his heart like lead. “Ma’am?”