“Well . . .” Liiset looked questioningly at Idri, then seemed to have her answer. “If you wish. Idri and I planned to sleep late tomorrow anyway. Very well, my dear.”
Somewhat to the king’s surprise, the envoy stood and bowed, rather as a man would, showing cleavage that made the breath stick in his throat. “I wish Your Majesty a most pleasant night,” she said, and left.
Alone with the enchanting Idri! He could hardly believe his good fortune. Meanwhile she began to play something sensuous, exotic.
“Are there words to it?” Gurtho asked.
She smiled. “It’s a love song, supposedly by an ylvin emperor to his favorite concubine.” She began to sing, the lyrics subdued but passionate, suggestive, exciting Gurtho.
“I wish you might play for me alone,” he said earnestly when she’d finished.
“But I am.”
“I mean, without these.” He gestured at his guards.
“Well then, tell them to leave.”
He stood, giving his order to their sergeant. In a minute they were gone. “Now that we’re alone,” Gurtho said, “this room seems too large. There is another, more intimate . . .” He gestured toward a door near a back corner.
She stood demurely, the small harp under one arm. Gurtho took her other arm, leading her gently, his heart thuttering. The smaller room had a luxurious couch, mirrors with expensive, nearly true surfaces, large pillows distributed here and there, and several upholstered settees. He hoped it wouldn’t alarm her; it was the setting for occasional small orgies staged for special friends. Leading her to a settee, he seated her near the middle and sat down beside her, his left knee touching her right.
“Let me sit by you,” he said, “and feel your sweet warmth as you play.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” She put her fingers on his arm. “If I seem a little breathless . . . I’ve never before been alone with a king.”
“Ah, and I’m not just any king,” he murmured.
“I knew it,” she whispered, “when I first laid eyes on you. You are a—king among kings, a—man among men.”
He found his hands reaching, his arms slipping round her, his mouth moving to hers. They kissed.
“Oh, Your Majesty,” she breathed, and they kissed again; his tongue caressed her lips, and they opened to him. He felt her hand rest on his thigh, and he fumbled at her vestlike girdle. She undid the laces and guided his hand inside it to her left breast, round, firm, hard-nippled. Her own hand slid up his thigh to his cod-piece. For half a minute they fondled one another, kissing, then he could wait no longer, for he was king, and accustomed not to courtship or seduction, but to having, taking. Dropping to his knees before the settee, he began to reach up her skirt, pawing amongst a confusion of petticoats, till she stayed his arm. “Your Highness,” she murmured, “it’s not necessary to muss my clothing. We need only remove it, mine and yours.”
Gurtho often thought of himself as inexhaustible. It was, his father had told him once, a family trait. But even so . . . Lying back for the moment, he wondered fleetingly if he’d been bewitched. No, he told himself, this had not been sorcery. Not unless thighs and buttocks, fingers, tongue and lips, were the instruments of magic. I never imagined a woman like her, he thought. And had an insight of his own, something rare as summer snow: It’s as if she knows what I’m feeling, and what to do next! Now that, he told himself, would be most worthwhile magic.
She purred in his ear. “Your Majesty seems tired.”
He grunted. “Even a satyr must rest now and then. Briefly. Long enough to let the sweat dry a bit.”
Her laughter was low and throaty. “Dry? We needn’t wait for that,” she said, and swinging astride his thighs, began to lick the sweat from his hairy chest.
26: Collecting Taxes
Macurdy turned in the saddle, glancing back at the Big Dipper wheeling inexorably through its nightly course, and remembered that night shift by the watchfires, at the abandoned squatter’s farm in Oz. How long ago? Less than three months; it seemed longer. He’d been a runaway slave with just three friends backing him, one of them a bird that might weigh fifteen pounds. Now he was Captain Macurdy, with his own little army: some two hundred seventy rebel fighting men.