One of the guards was contemplating the lady's assets with a glee and greed that equaled his master's dismay. His expression, carefully controlled, seemed to be remote and impassive-only his rapidly shifting gaze and the nervous flicker of his tongue over dry lips gave any clue to his thoughts. Behind those remote eyes, a treacherous mind was making a careful inventory of every jewel and visible possession and calculating their probable values.
When the lady's skirt lifted briefly to display a tantalizing glimpse of white leg, his control broke enough that he bit his lip. She was one prize he intended to reserve for himself; he'd never been this close to a highborn woman before, and he intended to find out if certain things he'd heard about bedding them were true. The others were going to have to be content with the ample charms of the serving maid, at least until he'd tired of the mistress. At least there wouldn't be all that caterwauling and screeching there'd been with the merchant wenches. That maid looked as if she'd had a man twixt her legs plenty of times before, and enjoyed it, too. She'd probably thank him for livening up her life when he turned her over to the men!
He had thought at first that this was going to be another trap, especially after he'd heard that old Grumio had tried to hire a pair of highly-touted mercenary women to rid him of the bandits. One look at the lady and her maid, however, had convinced him that not only was it absurd to think that they could be wary hire-swords in disguise, but that they probably didn't even know which end of a blade to hold. The wench flirted and teased each of the men in turn. Her mind was obviously on something other than ambushes and weaponry-unless those ambushes were amorous, and the weaponry of flesh. The lady herself seemed to ride in a half-aware dream, and her maid often had to break off a flirtation in order to ride forward and steady her in the saddle.
Perhaps she was a fran-dust sniffer, or there was faldis-)uice mixed in with the water in the skin on her saddlebow. That would be an unexpected bonus- she was bound to have a good supply of it among her belongings, and drugs were worth more than jewels. And it would be distinctly interesting-his eyes glinted cruelly-to have her begging on her knees for her drugs as withdrawal set in. Assuming, of course, that she survived that long. He passed his tongue over lips gone dry with anticipation. Tomorrow he would give the scouts trailing the packtrain the signal to attack.
The lady and her companion made camp a discreet distance from the rest of the caravan, as was only to be expected. She would hardly have a taste for sharing their rough camp, rude talk, or coarse food.
Kethry's shoulders sagged with fatigue beneath the weight of her heavy cloak, and she was chilled to the bone in spite of its fur lining.
'Are you all right?' Tarma whispered sharply when she hadn't spoken for several minutes.
'Just tired. I never thought that holding up five illusions would be so hard. Three aren't half so difficult to keep intact.' She leaned her forehead on one hand, rubbing her temples with cold fingers. 'I wish it was over.'
Tarma pressed a bowl into her other hand. Dutifully, she tried to eat, but the sand and dust that had plagued their progress all day had crept into the food as well. It was too dry and gritty to swallow easily, and after one attempt, Kethry felt too weary to make any further effort. She laid the bowl aside, unobtrusively-or so she hoped.
Faint hope. 'Sweeting, if you don't eat by yourself, I'm going to pry your mouth open and pour your dinner down your throat.' Tarma's expression was cloyingly sweet, and the tone of her shifted voice dulcet. Kethry was roused enough to smile a little. When she was this wearied with the exercise of her magics, she had to be bullied into caring for herself. When she'd been on her own, she'd sometimes had to spend days recovering from the damages she'd inflicted on her body by neglecting it. It was at moments like this that she valued Tarma's untiring affection and aid the most.
'What, and ruin our disguises?' she retorted with a little more life.
'There's nothing at all out of the ordinary in an attentive maid helping her poor, sick mistress to eat. They already think there's something wrong with you. Half of them think you're ill, the other half think you're in a drug daze,' Tarma replied.'They all think you've got nothing between your ears but air.'
Kethry capitulated, picked up her dinner, and forced it down, grit and all.
'Now,' Tarma said, when they'd both finished eating, 'I know you've sported a suspect. I can tell by the way you're watching the guards. Tell me which one it is; I'd be very interested to see if it's the same one I've got my eye on.'
'It's the one with the mouse-brown hair and ratty face that rode tail-guard this morning.'
Tarma's eyes widened a little, but she gave no other sign of surprise. 'Did you say brown hair? And a ratty face? Tail-guard this morning had black hair and a pouty, babyish look to him.'
Kethry revived a bit more. 'Really? Are you talking about the one walking between us and their fire right now? The one with all the jewelry? And does he seem to be someone you know very vaguely?'
