Master of restless shado.., p.40
Master of Restless Shadows, page 40
part #1 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
“Not in the way you probably expect.” Atreau found himself answering honestly, though really he had no reason, except that it had been so long since anyone had seemed to care about his private life; there was always so much more at stake for more important people. “She and I are long past entertaining romantic illusions of each other. We have been for years. We’re too much alike, really. She can be quite clever, quite calculating—but no more than I’ve been. So when it comes to my brother—” Atreau wasn’t certain of how to express the conflict he felt. His desire to protect Spider tangled up with his hope for Inissa’s pampered future, and both seemed always at odds with his wish for happiness for them both.
“If she’s truly like you and does love your brother, then I’d say he must be a very lucky man to have won her affection.”
Atreau laughed and Master Narsi looked briefly affronted.
“Oh, don’t look like that,” Atreau said. “You can’t honestly think anyone fortunate to be caught up with a scoundrel like me.”
“Merely caught up—as you say. No. Though it could be an enjoyable enough way to pass a few hours,” Narsi replied. “But to be loved, that would be a different thing altogether, I think.”
“Altogether worse,” Atreau couldn’t keep from adding. “Unless that bout of poisoning somehow burned all memory of my reputation from your mind.”
“I’m aware of your public reputation. However my personal knowledge of you differs from the stuff of hearsay and gossip. Considering how greatly I’ve profited from the briefest time in your company, you must admit that I have grounds for my belief.”
“Between a chaste kiss and forking over a great purse of silver, yours is certainly not the average encounter. I’ll give you that.” Seeing Master Narsi’s satisfied expression, Atreau felt a strong desire to fluster him. He stood and leaned close to Narsi. “Perhaps it’s time I rectify your impression of me?”
To his surprise Narsi smiled playfully and stood as well, leaning forward, so that his face was nearly against Atreau’s.
“Perhaps it is.”
Earlier, he’d resisted the urge to spy on Narsi, not wanting to sink to the level of a perverted old voyeur or further stoke his own fascination with the young man. But occasions when he might safely admire another man—particularly one whom he found so pleasant—were rare and had grown dangerous since he’d left his school days behind.
So for just a moment Atreau indulged in a long, shameless study of Narsi’s tall, lean body. What Narsi’s modest clothes hid, Atreau could remember from that first time he’d visited Narsi’s rooms and caught him naked: a broad chest, taut buttocks and such a splendidly heavy prick that it left Atreau’s mouth dry. But since then he’d found himself as fascinated by the young man’s intellect and resilience as his physical beauty. Atreau recollected the sensation of Narsi’s hands on his bare skin. He’d been gentle but unquestionably assured.
He wondered how Narsi’s full lips would feel on his flesh. How would he taste? A surprisingly powerful surge of arousal coursed through him. His heartbeat quickened in a mixture of excitement and alarm. It had been years since he’d experienced so strong of a stirring or allowed another man to distract him so completely. There was an undeniable thrill to feel desire and sense that it was returned.
Atreau reached out, drawing Narsi’s body to his own. At the same moment Narsi embraced him in return. They kissed deeply, tasting and inviting each other with lips, teeth and tongues. Narsi tasted of smoky tea and felt blood-hot and breathtakingly assured. For all his youth he was no neophyte. His strong fingers traced the Atreau’s spine, sliding down to the curve of his ass and guiding Atreau’s groin to brush against his own. A ravenous desire surged through Atreau.
He pulled from Narsi, but only far enough to shove Narsi’s shirt aside and grip the buckle of his belt. Narsi stroked his shoulders and smiled at him slyly.
“This morning, when you said you had a proposition for me, was this what you meant?” Narsi asked.
For a hazy aroused moment Atreau had no idea to what Narsi referred. He just wanted to get both their clothes off and feel the glorious heat of thrusting, naked flesh. He nearly agreed. But then Narsi’s actual question registered and he remembered.
The proposition he’d intended had been to make an agent of Narsi—to use him as he’d planned to use Xavan and to endanger his life just as flagrantly. The thought of Narsi holding himself to an idealistic, youthful promise made it all the worse. All Atreau had truly done to earn Narsi’s admiration was to drink himself sloppy and misplace his money.
If he took advantage of that, would he really be any better than his father? Here he was ready to slake his lust while knowing that he’d use and discard his lover like nothing more than a playing card. Atreau’s arousal chilled as self-loathing flooded him. He drew back from the warmth of Narsi’s arms.
“No. It wasn’t anything like this.” Atreau’s own half-hard flesh repulsed him now. “Actually, I can’t . . . this won’t work between us. I’m sorry, but it can’t . . .” Rarely did words fail Atreau, but just now, with his intellect and his heart at such odds, he struggled and stumbled. He found himself simply shaking his head.
“Can’t it?” Narsi asked gently, as if coaxing a bashful virgin. “We’re doing no one any harm.”
“You certainly do no harm, Master Narsi,” Atreau replied. “But I cause myself and others no end of suffering with my dalliances. Too often I allow things to go beyond reason, making romances out of what should have been no more than jokes—”
Seeing the hurt in Narsi’s face Atreau found himself backtracking. “Not that you are a joke, far from it. But I am. Worse, actually, because at least a joke ends with laughter. Despite all the amusing bedroom scenes I’ve put to paper, the truth is that as a lover I’m selfish and cowardly and inconstant. My affairs end soon and badly. Violently . . .” Atreau swallowed hard against everything he left unsaid. Miro’s bloody body, his daughter’s grave, men and women whose names he hardly recalled but had still kissed and sent to die for the good of Cadeleon.
All trace of desire had drained from Narsi’s face. Now, he studied Atreau with the coolness of a judge—or perhaps it was a physician’s assessing gaze that he turned on Atreau. He said nothing, waiting as if he knew there was one more thing for Atreau to say. The inevitable cliché.
“If I could, I would rather be a friend to you,” Atreau managed at last. He tensed, expecting anger and frustration, feeling that he deserved Narsi’s ire. To his surprise Narsi merely sighed, then stepped back entirely out of Atreau’s reach.
“I suppose,” Narsi said, “it rather defeats the point to offer any argument when the issue is one of mutual enthusiasm.”
Atreau shook his head, more at his own contradictory desires than in response to Narsi. It wasn’t lack of enthusiasm that worried Atreau but far too much.
“Well . . . if that’s how it is”—Narsi took a moment to straighten his shirtfront—“then it’s for the best that you told me, before we progressed to any positions that would’ve made the conversation awkward and possibly unintelligible.”
Atreau laughed as much from relief as the idea of hungrily sucking at a stiff cock while attempting to groan and mumble a claim of disinterest.
“You’re taking this with remarkable grace,” Atreau told him.
Narsi flashed a wry smile. “I suspect that my ability to feel too distraught by anything short of poisoning is at a low point just now.” Narsi turned his gaze to the dancing flames of the fire. “It could be an aftereffect of the muerate.”
Atreau doubted that. He’d not noticed Narsi to betray shock or alarm under most circumstances. Perhaps that reflected a physician’s discipline in calmly dealing with gruesome wounds as well as doomed patients.
“Speaking of the poisoning,” Narsi went on quickly, pushing them both away from the awkward brink of intimacy and rejection. “You didn’t happen to get a chance to look at the dead guard’s body after I lost consciousness, did you?”
“His body?” The change of subject caught Atreau off guard but was welcome. “I saw him briefly laid out in the churchyard, while the staff was debating what to do with his poisonous remains. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m certain that I saw a symbol branded into his chest. The same one that Lady Hylanya drew for me when she was describing the enthralling spell she’d glimpsed on her would-be assassin. Do you remember?”
Atreau nodded, though he was thinking of Xavan and his fellows.
“But it wasn’t her assassin who was branded,” Atreau corrected, “it was the fleet, shadowy fellow who drew attention away from the assassin.”
“Ah, yes. You’re right.” Narsi nodded. “But I think that we can assume that the assassin and the shadowy man are comrades. After all, he knew what the assassin was going to do, when and where. Also he endangered himself to protect her.”
“It’s not a faultless assumption, but I’ll accept it for the time being,” Atreau allowed.
“How kind of you.” Narsi smiled. “But what I’m wondering is whether the murdered guard and the shadowy man who protected the assassin could have been the same person?”
“Maybe . . .” It didn’t seem quite right to Atreau. Dommian’s killer—not the stocky, dead guard himself—had seemed more like the fleet figure who’d eluded and outdistanced Hylanya’s defenders. He fit the description of Captain Ciceron’s assailant, as well. That brought Atreau back to considering Oasia’s connection in all these assassinations. He scowled down at his empty hands. If he was going to accuse Oasia of any involvement in Ciceron’s and Dommian’s murder, he would need to be very sure, very careful and in possession of solid proof. Fedeles wouldn’t be convinced by anything less. Years ago he might’ve simply trusted Atreau’s intuition, but now Oasia held too powerful of a grip on him. Atreau felt certain that any error on his part would present Oasia with an opportunity to tear down the last bonds of Fedeles’s friendship, upon which Atreau depended completely.
“You think I’m wrong. I can tell by your expression.” Narsi appeared more amused than chagrined. Atreau had to admire how quickly Narsi shed any possible resentment and slipped into the role of conspirator. How refreshing it felt to be able to disagree without inciting anger. Narsi dropped back down into his seat by the fire. “Come along then, tell me why.”
“Because I believe the man who murdered the guard might have murdered Captain Ciceron as well as being the fellow who protected Hylanya’s assailant.”
Narsi leaned back in his seat with a thoughtful expression.
“But we know both Dommian and the unknown man were under the control of the same thrall, which implies that they were agents of the same person. Why would one kill the other?” Narsi asked at last.
“I couldn’t say,” Atreau admitted. Though a suspicion gnawed at the back of his thoughts. Dommian had originally come from Hierro Fueres’s household, and he wasn’t the only member of Oasia’s personal staff who’d previously served Hierro. Perhaps conflicts between brother and sister had followed Oasia into Fedeles’s household. Atreau thought again of that blood-soaked kerchief he’d handed back to Master Ariz. Oasia eschewed all traces of her family’s heraldry, and yet that square of cloth had clearly displayed the Fueres swan.
“Do you think we could somehow get into his room? Dommian’s room, I mean,” Narsi clarified before Atreau could ask. Narsi leaned in closer, and his eyes seemed to light up like the flames dancing in the hearth. “I happened to have discovered that he belonged to the duchess’s personal guard, so he was housed in the main building not the barracks. With a private room, he might have felt secure enough to keep a journal or leave letters lying about. There might be something there to indicate either who his master was or why he was murdered.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, but Atreau wasn’t keen to drag Narsi into the enterprise. Not when he knew so little of what they would be up against.
“How did you come by this knowledge?” Atreau inquired.
“It’s customary for a physician to offer condolences after losing a patient. When I went to the barracks to do so, the men-at-arms told me.”
“You are very clever, aren’t you?”
Narsi’s smile took on a rather smug curve in response to the compliment, but then his right hand bumped against the arm of the chair and he winced in obvious pain.
“Shouldn’t you still be in your sickbed?” Atreau asked, and Narsi rewarded him with a sour expression.
“I’m sick of my sickbed,” Narsi pronounced. “And if we tarry, someone else may well clear out the guard’s room before we have any hope of discovering anything.”
Atreau bridled at how quickly Narsi assumed he should be the one directing matters. At the same time, his assessment of the situation was correct and astute.
“I even know which room he was assigned to.” Narsi made it sound like an enticement and Atreau laughed.
“Very well. Give me a moment to find a clean shirt. Then we’ll see if we can’t make something of a dead man’s worldly goods.”
An uneasy air seemed to haunt the duchess’s wing of the mansion—or perhaps it was merely a draft stoking Atreau’s uneasiness at anything having to do with Oasia Quemanor. Only seven years ago she’d dispatched mercenaries to murder him and Elezar. And though Fedeles had since settled the matter, Atreau knew that the duchess would still like to see him dead.
To be fair, Atreau felt much the same about her.
So much beauty and poison, she makes oleander pale with envy and puts the bronze asp to shame.
“The inlay on these hallway walls is quite pretty.” Narsi traced a finger along the polished wood panels as they walked. Then he added, much more quietly, “Do you think one of them might hide the entry to a secret passage?”
“More likely that would be nearer the duchess’s suite, above us.”
“Oh? What makes you think so?” Narsi asked.
“Because the mansion was rebuilt just after the Mirogoths had been driven back out of Cadeleon. At the time, all the noble families were at pains to have a means of secret escape in case the armies of witches and shape-changers invaded again.”
“But is there just the one, or do you think there might be several?” Narsi asked.
“Who knows?”
“Well, I’m beginning to suspect that there’s a passage or something like it that leads to my exam room. I don’t know how else the cat is coming and going.” Narsi quieted as two footmen came around the corner of the corridor. The youths bowed their heads and did their best to appear busy with their duties but Atreau didn’t miss the set of dice one of them carried. He and Narsi passed them, and when they came to an intersecting passage, they turned down the darker corridor on the left.
Twenty feet along they stopped at an unassuming door on the right.
Atreau had brought his lock picks, but as he neared the door he noted a faint glow seeping from beneath it. He leaned close to the wooden panel and listened but heard nothing. Narsi cast him a questioning glance and Atreau silently pointed down at the seam of light shining from within. The light flickered as someone in the room passed near the door. Someone had already beaten them into the place. Atreau stepped back.
Probably best to slip away before anyone saw them here.
Narsi nodded. Then to Atreau’s surprise, he stepped up and gave the door a jaunty rap. For several moments no response came and Narsi lifted his hand as if to knock again. The door suddenly swung open.
Mistress Delfia gazed at them from the other side. A kerchief covered most of her auburn hair and a dark apron shielded her simple dress. She’d rolled up her sleeves and obviously had been engaged in some heavy work.
“Master Narsi and Atreau.” She greeted them almost as if announcing their presences, though Atreau saw no one with her in the cluttered room. “Whatever can I do for you?”
Atreau’s mind raced for an excuse. He couldn’t claim any relation to the dead guard. Though perhaps he could say the man owed him money from a wager.
“I’m afraid that I insisted that Lord Vediya bring me here.” Narsi stepped past Mistress Delfia as if she’d invited him in. “I feel I owe it to the fellow to know something of him . . .” Narsi paused a moment, his expression turning genuinely sad. “There was so little I could do for him other than witness his demise. I didn’t even learn his name.”
“He was called Dommian.” Mistress Delfia stepped aside as Atreau followed Narsi into the small room.
A single lamp on the small dressing table lit the space, though deep shadows still filled the corners and added to the feeling of abandonment and disarray. Stripped bedding lay strewn across the floor and the mattress flopped on the bed frame at a haphazard angle. The wardrobe doors hung open, displaying traveling clothes, a winter coat and leather armor. The guard’s personal weapon rack bristled with spears, pikes and blades, more in keeping with the armory of a mercenary than a simple house guard. The collection of books piled on the man’s dressing table bespoke more than a passing interest in Cadeleon’s early history as well as the ancient holy scripts.
The place reeked of stale, alcoholic sweat—sweet, filthy and very familiar to Atreau in the worst of ways.
“Did you know him?” Narsi asked Mistress Delfia.
“Not well, no.” Mistress Delfia’s posture embodied feminine humility—head bowed, arms close to her sides—but also served to keep her expression shadowed and her strong hands hidden. She stepped after Narsi.
Before Mistress Delfia had brought her bloodied brother to Narsi’s exam room, Atreau might not have noted just how silently the woman moved. But that evening Atreau had recognized in her a strength and self-possession that reminded him far too much of Sabella to be ignored. Now, he noted the toned quality of the woman’s shoulders and forearms and he recognized that the flowery sheath of her belt knife disguised just how long of a blade she wore tucked into the folds of her dress.
