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He'd lived up to his reputation as a superior lover. He'd made her body sing under his hands and mouth. Even now it hummed at the memory him inside her, the stretch and swell of his cock as he thrust into her, a slow up and back motion that increased in speed as he cupped her buttocks in his hands and suckled the sensitive hollow where her neck curved to her collarbone.
Her body missed him, but her spirit missed him even more. Anhuset had taken lovers before who, while maybe not as well endowed, knew how to please their partners as well as Serovek did. She didn't miss or crave them, didn't linger on the recollections of their intimacy, wouldn't remember their faces if some of them didn't serve under Brishen's command here at Saggara. The margrave though… she missed it all. The sex, yes, but just as much or even more, the time they spent together in conversation or the completion of mundane tasks, even the fear and thrill of fighting. Those previous lovers had never looked at her beyond the intimidatingshawho had the regent's trust and was good with a sword. The margrave had, from the very first moment he met her, made it plain he was very much enamored with what he saw. Not just sha-Anhuset, the Kai warrior, but Anhuset, the prickly, guarded woman who knew her way around a blade but couldn't conquer a hair ribbon if her life depended on it.
“Don't you dare die on me, you arrogant bastard,” she said, glaring at the opposite wall as if Serovek stood there watching her with one of his bold smiles.
Dwelling on those lovelier moments made her heart ache, so she pushed them down into the recesses of her mind and tended to her bath. By the time she was finished, the water was murky, and she still hadn't washed her hair.
Ildiko returned with a procession of servants in tow carrying a smaller tub and several buckets of more warm water. A pair of burly servants hauled in her chest of clothes. They set their items down where she instructed and shooed them out when they were done. Ignoring Anhuset's dour scrutiny, she peered at the water and curled her lip. “As I thought. No longer fit for getting your hair clean. Are you done? If so, step out and I'll help you with your hair.”
“I don't need help, and why did you bring my chest?”
“Have you seen your hair?” Ildiko eyed her as if she were a little dim. “You need help.” She pointed to the chest. “You know best what you'll want to wear for your journey to Timsiora. You can dress and pack in here, then come downstairs when you're finished. Now, out of that bath.”
Muttering to herself about wasting time and being just dirty and not an invalid—all which Ildiko blissfully ignored—Anhuset stepped out of the larger one to kneel in the smaller one and allowed Ildiko to wash her hair for her.
“This is wrong,” she protested after the first dousing with one of the water buckets to thoroughly wet her hair. “It's my task or even the task of a servant since you think I need help, not that of thehercegesé.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Ildiko replied. “I'm washing hair, not scrubbing floors. Besides, I don't want you terrorizing the servants with all the glaring and scowling and snarling.”
While Ildiko might not have been scrubbing floors, she set to scrubbing Anhuset's head with the same zeal until the strands squeaked when finger-combed and her scalp stung. Anhuset remained undecided if she'd just been groomed or tortured. It was a far cry from the leisurely washing and combing Serovek had given her.
“Done!” Ildiko finally, blessedly pronounced and handed Anhuset a comb and a towel. “You can finish the rest.”
Anhuset held both and stared at Brishen's wife, wondering why she'd forgotten that this weak, human woman was the same one who once bludgeoned a Kai assassin to death with a shutter pole. “This is revenge for all the bruises I left on you during our sparring sessions, isn't it?”
Ildiko's laughter didn't persuade her otherwise. “If I wanted revenge, Anhuset, I would have sent you a plate full of roasted potatoes for your dinner and lied by saying that Brishen ordered you to eat them.”
“Like he did at your wedding.” Anhuset still hadn't forgiven him for pulling rank in that manner.
“Just so.” Ildiko walked to the door, her shoes making wet, squeaking sounds on the floor from being splashed. She paused with her hand on the handle and turned back to give Anhuset a long look. Any amusement had fled her expression. “What is Serovek to you now, Anhuset?”
Everything.
The word thundered in Anhuset's mind, and for a moment the world shifted beneath her feet before she steadied herself and returned Ildiko's stare with a guarded one of her own. “He is Lord Pangion,hercegesé,” she said in an indifferent voice. “Beladine margrave of High Salure and friend to theherceges.”
Ildiko's gaze didn't waver for long, excruciating moments. A tiny smile flitted across her lips. “I thought so.” She opened the door, closing it behind her with a quiet click.
Anhuset stared at the door for a long time while water dripped from her skin and hair to puddle at her feet. She finally toweled off, combed out her hair and dug through her chest of clothes until she found what she wanted—sturdy tunic and trousers, a padded hauberk and riding leathers. The first two she'd wear now as she met with Brishen. She'd don the hauberk and leathers before she left for Timsiora. The servants had also delivered her worn travel satchel to which she added on change of garments in case the others weren't fit to wear by the time she reached the Beladine capital.
A servant, waiting in the corridor, instructed her to meet thehercegesin the library. Anhuset climbed the rest of the stairwell to the third floor where the knowledge amassed by previous Kai kings was stored in a room nearly as big as the great hall, with tall windows that looked onto the redoubt below and the lands beyond that fell under Saggara's protection.
She expected to find both Brishen and Ildiko there, but only Brishen waited for her, his back to her as he stared out the windows. “Herceges,” she said, announcing her presence and bowed when he turned.
He motioned for her to join him at the windows. A small table and chair were nearby, the table's surface covered with unfurled scrolls. Brishen pointed to them. “Beladine law, or at least as it was when those scrolls were added to this library. I don't think much has changed since then.”
She drew closer to the table to peer at the scrolls, reading what was surely the dullest accounting of anything ever written and pitying Brishen for having to make sense of it. “What did you find?”
His brow furrowed, whether from concentration or concern, she couldn't tell. “A way to save the margrave if you can't convince the king of his innocence. You may still have to employ it even if you do convince him, and from what I know of Rodan, I wouldn't be surprised if he forced you to do just that.” His frown deepened. “It's dangerous, cousin.”
Every time he addressed her by their familial ties, he revealed his worry for her. “What is it?”
“According to Beladine law, the accused has two choices – stand trial before the king, in which witnesses to his guilt or innocence plead their case and the king decrees final judgment or the accused may name a champion to fight for him. If the champion wins, the accused will be declared innocent. If he loses, the accused is declared guilty, no matter the testimony witnesses.” The corners of Brishen's mouth turned down. “It's a fight to the death.”
Anhuset swayed, lightheaded from relief. She could act as Serovek's champion. Diplomacy was not her strength unless it was practiced with a weapon instead of words. She had everything to lose or everything to gain in such a scenario. She didn't even have to think twice. “I'll get my things.”
She'd pivoted for the door when Brishen snapped out, “Wait.” He set his hip against the table's edge, the casual pose belying his troubled gaze. “If only it were so easy to send sha-Anhuset in to wipe the floor with an adversary and emerge the victor.”
Her triumph was momentary, defeated by his enigmatic statement. “What else, Brishen?” A sudden thought occurred to her. “I can't go without your leave. Do I have it?”
