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“She was expecting me to come for Runa. Same thing.” Isn’t it?
“Men! Tell me true, Sidroc, does Drifa know that you love her?”
“How would she know that if I don’t know it myself?” I mean, I do know, but ’tis hard to put it into words. Bragi, god of eloquence, has ne’er blessed me.
Ianthe threw her hands up in the air, as if he were a dunderhead. He was beginning to share her assessment.
“Sidroc, what did Drifa say when you greeted her today? How did she receive you?”
“Uh.”
Ianthe put a hand on each hip and arched a brow.
“I haven’t had an opportunity to talk with her yet. I thought to settle other matters first so I would have time with Drifa.” To show her with my hands and body what my clumsy words could not. “I had to first fight my father and get to know my daughter.”
She shook her head at him. “What have you been doing that was so much more important? Never mind. What makes you think she’s jealous?”
“Vana. She asked what I was thinking, bringing not one but two women with me to Stoneheim.”
“And what did she say when you set her straight?”
“I never got a chance—”
Ianthe rolled her eyes. “Aaarrgh! No wonder Vana treated me and Isobel with such cool regard. You must find Drifa and make things right, and you must do so afore her grievances have time to fester. Oh, and you should plan on groveling. A lot.”
“I think not! I have had more than enough of chasing my tail over that woman, the very one who clobbered me over the head with a pitcher and left me for dead, the very one who kept my daughter’s existence from me. And what did I do in return? I saved her from a life of harem servitude. I put off my departure from Byzantium to take care of her business. I filled the hold of my longship with half-dying trees and bushes. I brought her new best friend to visit. What need have I to grovel?” Somehow, Drifa’s sins did not seem so bad in the telling.
Just then, Vana was about to swan by them with her arms piled high with bed linens, but he put a hand to her shoulder to halt her progress. She stopped, but stared at his hand as if it were leprous, until he let go.
“Where is Drifa?” he demanded to know.
“As if I would tell the likes of you!”
Some women should have been born tongueless. “Drifa would want you to tell me,” he lied.
“And that is why she wept as she left?”
Wept? She wept? Oh, I am in big trouble. “Left? Left for where?”
Instead of answering him, Vana said snidely, “I see you and your mistress have found each other.”
“I am not his mistress,” Ianthe said at the same time he protested, “She is not my mistress.”
Vana arched her brows skeptically. “Never?”
He could feel his face heat with color. “Not for a long while.” And what business is it of yours, anyhow?
“How long a while?”
Ianthe was blushing now, too.
He did not want to answer, he really didn’t, but Vana appeared as stubborn as ... as Drifa. “Three months.”
“So long?” Vana’s voice reeked with disdain.
“Your sarcasm ill-suits,” he told her. Even if it is warranted.
“Your arrogance ill-suits,” she told him, then walked away, muttering, “Bloody maggot arse hole!”
