‘I am now.’
‘I think you are an accomplished womaniser, and there is no truth to your words.’
‘Then judge me by my deeds, my lady. My name is Sieben.’ He whispered the address of the house he shared with Druss and then, taking her hand, he kissed it.
Her messenger arrived at the house two days later.
She moved in her sleep. Sieben’s hand slid under the satin sheet, cupping her breast. At first she did not stir, but he gently continued to caress her skin, squeezing her nipple until it swelled erect. She moaned and stretched. ‘Do you never sleep?’ she asked him.
He did not reply.
Later, as Evejorda slept again, he lay silently beside her, his passion gone, his thoughts sorrowful. She was without doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever enjoyed. She was bright, intelligent, dynamic and full of passion.
And he was bored. . . .
As a poet he had sung of love, but never known it, and he envied the lovers of legend who looked into each other’s eyes and saw eternity beckoning. He sighed and slipped from the bed, dressing swiftly and leaving the room, padding softly down the back stairs to the garden before pulling on his boots. The servants were not yet awake, and dawn was only just breaking in the eastern sky. A cockerel crowed in the distance.
Sieben walked through the garden and out on to the avenue beyond. As he walked he could smell the fresh bread baking, and he stopped at a bakery to buy some cheese bread which he ate as he strolled home.
Druss was not there, and he remembered the labouring work the young man had undertaken. God, how could a man spend his days digging in the dirt, he wondered? Moving through to the kitchen, he stoked up the iron stove and set a copper pan filled with water atop it.
Making a tisane of mint and herbs, he stirred the brew and carried it to the main sitting room where he found Shadak asleep on a couch. The hunter’s black jerkin and trews were travel-stained, his boots encrusted with mud. He awoke as Sieben entered, and swung his long legs from the couch.
‘I was wondering where you were,’ said Shadak, yawning. ‘I arrived last night.’
‘I stayed with a friend,’ said Sieben, sitting opposite the hunter and sipping his tisane.
Shadak nodded. ‘Mapek is due in Mashrapur later today. He cut short his visit to Vagria.’
‘Why would that concern me?’
Tm sure that it does not. But now you know it anyway.’
‘Did you come to give me a sermon, Shadak?’
‘Do I look like a priest? I came to see Druss. But when I got here he was in the garden, sparring with a bald giant. From the way he moved I concluded his wounds are healed.’
‘Only the physical wounds,’ said Sieben.
‘I know,’ responded the hunter. ‘I spoke to him. He still intends to sail for Ventria. Will you go with him?’
Sieben laughed. ‘Why should I? I dori’t know his wife. Gods, I hardly know him.’
‘It might be good for you, poet.’
‘The sea air, you mean?’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Shadak gravely. ‘You have chosen to make an enemy of one of the most powerful men in Mashrapur. His enemies die, Sieben. Poison, or the blade, or a knotted rope around your throat as you sleep.’
‘Is my business known all over the city??
‘Of course. There are thirty servants in that house. You think to keep secrets from them when her ecstatic cries reverberate around the building in the middle of the afternoon, or the morning, or in the dead of night?’
‘Or indeed all three,’ said Sieben, smiling.
‘I see no humour in this,’ snapped Shadak. ‘You are no more than a rutting dog and you will undoubtedly ruin her life as you have ruined others. Yet I would sooner you lived than died – only the gods know why!’
‘I gave her a little pleasure, that’s all. Which is more than that dry stick of a husband could do. But I will think on your advice.’
‘Do not think too long. When Mapek returns he will soon find out about his wife’s . . . little pleasure. Do not be surprised if he has her killed also.’