Yet Myrmeen was called the She-Dragon for good reason. She slept less, worked longer, ran harder, fenced better, and thought faster than almost all who served under her. She was the only woman in all Arabel that Dauntless feared.
That was why his “Acting Captain Dahauntul, to see the Lady Lord of Arabel on official duty” was respectful as well as gruff, and the first two gateguards stepped aside with alacrity.
The second pair demanded the password. Dauntless, who’d chosen it and given it to them himself, along with their orders, just after dawn, said it to them now rather coldly. They kept their faces expressionless as they handed him on to the third set of guards-four, this time, bolstered by a war wizard young in years and Art, who watched him stop and stand on the glyph that would show them his true shape and likeness, then the glyph that would cause any magic at work on him to blaze forth like pink fire.
Neither showed them anything suspicious, of course, and they escorted him into a room where a woman in worn and plain battle-leathers, with a sword scabbarded at her hip, was leaning on her long arms over a table spread with maps, conferring with several scared-looking city courtiers.
“ I haven’t forgotten giving orders that these sewers were to be checked by a patrol every sixth day, Bluthskas-why have you?” she was saying sharply, tapping two many-branched lines on the largest map.
“Lady, I-”
“Lady Lord, I-” Another courtier corrected, before Myrmeen could.
She nodded, let them both see her rolling eyes, and said, “Get out of here, both of you, to think up whatever excuse you want to offer me. Make it good; I’m in need of entertainment.” She turned her head. “Dauntless! Good to see you. More cheery news?”
Ornrion Dahauntul saluted. “Lady Lord, I’ve not judged its cheeriness, one way or another. It has one virtue I have noted: ’tis short.”
Myrmeen gave him both a nod and a snort of appreciation, and gestured for him to deliver his report.
Dauntless plunged right in. “Two tendays ago, or a few days less, a band of adventurers arrived in the city. Interestingly, they do not appear in any of the gateguard reports. They took rooms at the Falcon’s Rest, but moved on to Rhalseer’s rooming house after only two nights. They have been guests of Rhalseer’s ever since, and do most of their drinking at the Black Barrel. Despite staying at one of the lesser rooming houses of the city, they seem to have plenty of coin to invest, and some shrewd idea of where to place it. They have avoided weapons-outs and brawls, but are suspected of having been involved in a double slaying: that of the professional slayer Indar Crauldreth, late of Marsember, and an accomplice.”
Myrmeen’s eyebrows lofted. “They must have really upset someone-or upset someone truly wealthy. And they took him down, too! What else have they been up to?”
Dauntless shrugged. “Much thievery, we suspect, but can prove nothing. None of their victims have seen fit to talk to us.” He and Myrmeen shared wry knowing grins.
“There are two holy men amongst these adventurers, and probably two minor wizards. They show no signs of preparing for travel to elsewhere.”
“Are they chartered?” the Lady Lord of Arabel asked.
Dauntless spread his hands. “I know not, Lady Lord.”
Myrmeen’s lips thinned. “Bring their leader, if they have one, here to me,” she commanded, “and we’ll put a little scare into them.”
Azimander Godal was very tall. His beard was long, thin, pointed, and gray-white with age, and his brown- mottled head was bald for the same reason. Yet his eyes were bright with alert wisdom, his manner impeccably dignified, and his robes splendid and cut to echo the latest fashion.
Just now, he was giving the Lady Rharaundra Yellander a very direct look. “Forgive me, Lady Yell-”
“Rhar,” she purred, reaching out one long-nailed hand to stroke his cheek. “Call me Rhar. Please.”
“Very well, Lady Rhar. I cannot help but observe-and I pray you forgive the bluntness of this-that you have hithero spoken to me as if I were a barely tolerated annoyance, and called me to my face a lowborn simpleton unfit to share air with you, at that.”
He had to admit that the Lady Rharaundra Yellander looked sleekly elegant at all times, and breathtakingly beautiful, to boot-and just now, with her long jet hair loosed to tumble around her shoulders, and her strikingly cut shimmerweave gown, she looked stunning.
She’d have looked stunning even if she weren’t thrusting herself at him, lips parted and tongue licking them hungrily, eyes fixed on his with longing.
“I said much to goad you to anger,” she whispered, “so you’d remember me and think of me. And I would have good reason to apologize to you and… submit to you. I–I need to be humbled, by a man who awes me-as you do, more than any other I’ve met.”
“Me, Lady?”
“Rhar, please, Azimander. I desire not to be a ‘lady’ with you, but… a woman who deserves to be called something considerably more wanton.”
The elderly war wizard blinked at her. “You must admit this is sudden, Rhar.”
“My husband and our everpresent spy, the house wizard, haven’t both been apart from me for more than two seasons, Az. This is my chance.” She crossed her wrists, one over the other, and held them out to him.
“I beg you, Azimander,” she whispered. “Take me.”
Wizard of War Azimander Godal got up from the bench unhurriedly, straightening to his full looming height. The Lady Rharaundra was a tall woman, but even if she’d gone up on tiptoes, she could not have matched his stature. He looked down at her, face expressionless.
Rharaundra looked back up at him, rolling over onto her back, wrists still held crossed, and wriggled forward onto the part of the bench where he’d just been sitting. Her movements dragged her gown down, baring skin.
Godal took two swift steps back from her, waved at her to stay where she was, and half-closed his eyes. She heard him muttering a spell and lifting one hand to make an intricate gesture and point at the air. He kept on pointing as he turned himself, slowly, all around-then let his hand fall, nodded, and said, “We are truly alone. I must admit I feared some treachery on your part, La-Rhar.”
Rharaundra gave him a reproachful look as she crawled languidly off the bench. Standing, she shook out her hair with her fingers so he could see nothing was concealed in it, turned slowly around under his gaze, and murmured, “Treachery how, Az? This is all I have, and am. I would prefer to be more moonlit, mysterious, and teasing, but I am mindful of how careful war wizards must be. Behold this bench, yonder.”
She went to it. “Bare. Simple. Nothing beneath or behind, here against the railing. Nothing on it but”-she gave him a wink and smile, and sat herself upon it provocatively-“me. Safe enough?”
Slowly-very slowly-Azimander Godal smiled. And nodded.
He walked forward unhurriedly, undoing his sash. It fell away and took his overrobe with it, revealing a belted underrobe with its open seam down one leg rather than centered as the overrobe had been.
“May I?” Rharaundra breathed, reaching for the underrobe. Godal shrugged and spread his hands wide in invitation.
She took it.
“Leave your boots on,” she whispered, as the bench creaked under their weight.
It was some time later that she turned around, giggling and slapping, beneath him, and Godal found himself on his knees over her, his back to the railing-and it was then that she rose up under him, with a catlike growl of triumph, to drive him upright, chest to chest.
“Farewell, Az,” she whispered, a flash of triumph in her eyes-and plucked something up from behind him even as she shoved hard on his stomach, pushing herself back onto the bench And hurling him the other way.
Over backward, the railing she’d just unspiked falling away as his back struck it, leaving him to plunge head first, down into the dark and shadowed great hall beneath the balcony they’d been dallying on.
Azimander Godal bit his lip in sadness as the ring on his finger winked into life, slowing his fall to the gentlest of downward driftings.
“Just for a moment,” he said softly, “I believed you, Rharaundra. I let myself hope.”
Then his boots touched the tiles, and he cast another spell.
Up above him, on the balcony, the softly cursing Lady Yellander started to scream in terror. “Wizard! What’re you doing? Get out of my mind! ”
“Az,” he told her. “Call me ‘Az.’ And I’m not going to turn you into a bat or a frog or a mewling idiot: I’m just
