Part 25 (2/2)

Hircha was in the water a long time. He'd almost gotten up the courage to join her when he heard her breathless pants. She pulled her gown on and sat down beside him. ”You took a great risk.”

”I know.”

”Just to learn this trick of s.h.i.+elding your spirit?”

”And to find out whether he would agree to teach it to me.” He searched her face as intently as he had searched the Zheron's. ”Can I trust him, Hircha? Is he . . . is he a good man?”

”He can be reckless. Quick to anger-but equally quick to apologize. When I first came here . . .” She swallowed hard. ”I was sold to a pleasure house. I was expected to . . . to lie with strangers. To serve their desires.”

”But you were only nine!”

For the first time, he understood the fate of the boys and girls who had been sold to the ”great houses.” Forced to endure what he had endured-and to smile at their violators.

”Everyone suffers, boy! Life is suffering.”

”Xevhan took me away from that. He gave me my life back.”

Could grat.i.tude alone account for the softness of her expression, the huskiness in her voice? Or did she love him?

Two tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. She scrambled to her feet and turned away.

Do something. Take her in your arms. Comfort her.

But after he rose, he just stood there. A helpless, terrified boy-just as the Pajhit had said. Finally, he whispered, ”Please. Don't.”

With a small cry, Hircha flung herself at him. His arms came around her. His cheek rested on her wet hair. She smelled of the sea and an earthy musk that must be the scent of her body. Through the damp gown, he could feel her heat.

”Thank you. Thank you for being so kind.”

Her eyes were as clear and blue as the sky, her kiss as delicate as the brush of b.u.t.terfly wings. Sand scratched his cheeks as she cupped them between her palms. Her mouth parted under his. Her tongue darted between his lips. He started and felt her smile. Her tongue moved more slowly, caressing his. He groaned and pulled her closer, groaned again when he felt her body pressing against his: the soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the warm belly, the firm thighs.

He reared back. Her hand snaked up to explore his cheek, the curve of his ear. Then it curled around his neck and pulled his head down again. When she released him and stepped back, he gave a strangled cry of protest, but she just smiled and pressed her fingertips to his lips.

She pulled the gown over her head and this time, he didn't look away. Nor did he stop her when she unknotted his khirta, although he could feel himself flus.h.i.+ng hotly when it fell to the ground. He knew he was scrawny and skinnyshanked, but her eyes admired him and her smile told him he was handsome and her hands told him she wanted to touch him and be touched, to fondle and explore.

She pulled him down onto the sand. If it was a dream, he didn't want to wake. He only wanted more of her. At home, there had been dreams that jerked him awake in the night, his seed spurting on his belly, his heart racing as he lay on his pallet, breathless with fear that someone had heard. And the days when he sneaked away to his secret place on Eagles Mount, the sun hot on his belly, his fist moving urgently between his legs. Nothing like the gentle stroking of her fingers, the shock of teeth grazing his nipple, the tickle of damp curls teasing his loins.

Her soft cries maddened him. His ballocks ached with need. He wanted to have what other men possessed. He wanted to bury his shame in her softness. He wanted to take her, fierce and rough and hard, and feel her helpless beneath him, crying out, begging him . . .

He wrenched away and staggered to his feet. His hands shook so badly he could barely wind the khirta around his hips. And all he could say was, ”Oh, G.o.ds. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't.”

Chapter 20.

HIRCHA WATCHED KEIRITH stumble down the beach. Before he vanished from sight, one of his guards appeared and led him toward the city.

She listened to the lapping of the waves and the pounding of her heart and thought about fleeing. But he would find her. He always found her. So she pulled on her gown and shouted for the bearers and let them carry her back to the palace.

He was waiting for her in his chamber, sitting motionless on one of the stone benches. His eyes were half-closed and his head rested against the wall. The qiij always left him sluggish, but rarely did the lethargy come on him this quickly.

She kept her eyes lowered as she approached. There was no need to tell him of her failure; she had felt his spirit enter hers, had felt him inside of her throughout the encounter with Keirith, his touch as intimate as the boy's. Felt, too, the painful wrench of his parting.

Pleas would disgust him, excuses rouse him to anger. Without a word, she prostrated herself at his feet and waited.

One sandal tapped the floor. From the chamber above came the dull pounding of more feet and the m.u.f.fled sound of voices and laughter as the Zhiisti, freed from their morning lessons, converged on the dining hall. A trickle of sweat oozed down her breast. A fly buzzed near her ear. And still the ceaseless tapping of his foot continued, unvarying in its slow, relentless rhythm.

Her knees ached, but she remained motionless. Submissiveness pleased him. She had learned that as a child. One of many things he had taught her.

He might forgive her. Shrug off her failure and offer her a chance to redeem herself. Or he might beat her.

Once, she had known how to please him. Once, she had only to walk into this chamber to see him smile and open his arms and pull her onto his lap. He would ask what she had done that day and laugh delightedly at the things she told him. Silly, simple things like using the new oil he had chosen for her bath or walking to and fro in his chamber wearing the new skirt he had ordered-the blue one that matched the color of her eyes-just to listen to the three flounces swish. And he'd tell her to walk for him so he could hear it rustle and she would, and he would tell her she was beautiful and she'd duck her head shyly, and he would raise her chin between his thumb and forefinger and reach into the bowl that he always kept filled with honey b.a.l.l.s just for her and pop one into her mouth. And then he would bend his head and she would open her mouth yet again so he could kiss her and share the sweetness.

It was all sweetness then, before her b.r.e.a.s.t.s blossomed and the hair sprouted under her arms and between her legs. Sweet honey in his mouth and sweet oil scenting his body. And so gentle, whether teaching her how to kiss or how to take him in her mouth and suck him like a honey ball.

He was the only sweetness she knew after the raider tore her, screaming, from her mother's arms. And if she had been terrified when he first walked into that tiny room in the pleasure house, he had calmed her with his soft hands and his soft voice.

”Don't be afraid,” he told her when old Mother Las.h.i.+ left them. ”I won't hurt you.”

He held her as if she were as fragile as a wren's egg. And afterward, when his head fell back and he groaned like a dying man and his lap grew warm and moist beneath her bottom, he kissed the red marks on her arms where his fingers had clenched them and told her he would never hurt her again.

But he had. The first time he had lain with her, she had not been able to stifle her tears. He wept with her and promised it would be better the next time. And it was.

”You are beautiful,” he told her, oiled fingers easing between her legs.

”You are perfect,” he told her, lying next to her in the dark, stroking her hairless thigh.

”I love you.”

When her moon flow began, she hid the truth from him. She'd learned by then that there had been others before her and always, they were sent away when the blood came. For three moons, she kept her secret, claiming a stomach complaint, a spring chill, a nettle rash. But she could not hide the more obvious changes her body was undergoing.

That was the first time he beat her. Worse than the beating was the disgust in his eyes. She begged him to let her stay and serve him in other ways. Grudgingly, he gave his permission.

Then came the night she found him smiling down at another little girl in a flounced skirt. She fled the palace, neither knowing nor caring where she was going. Men with leashed dogs found her and brought her back. That was the second time he beat her. But instead of sending her to the pleasure house as she expected, he took the small dagger he used to slice fruit and cut the tendon behind her right ankle.

He smiled at her after, his eyes bright with excitement, his fingertips bright with her blood. As one slave dragged her out of the chamber, she heard him shouting to another to bring little Emitzia to him.

And so it had been for more than three years. A little girl on his lap was no longer enough to arouse him. A little girl on her knees took too long to bring him to climax. And a little girl screaming as he thrust into her again and again . . .

Qiij fired the appet.i.te at first, only to dull it later. Like little girls who grew up.

His foot ceased its relentless tapping. Now there was only the patter of her heartbeat. She felt a gentle nudge against her forehead. When she raised her head fractionally, the sandaled foot slid beneath her chin. Slowly, he pushed her head back. She tried to remain prostrate but the pressure forced her to fall back on her haunches. That's when she saw the braided leather whip in his lap.

She dared a look at him then. He smiled, one hand stroking the whip.

”Forgive me,” she whispered.

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