figure, gathered at the waist and then cascaded down to the ground. Mauritane realized that until now he had only seen her in her thick wool prison uniform and the traveling cloak she'd been wearing since they left Crete Sulace.
'This all belongs to Faella,' she said. 'She insisted I wear it. There may have been a bit of wine involved.'
'I am… impressed,' said Mauritane, suddenly finding it difficult to speak to her. 'I would not have thought you comfortable in such clothing.'
Raieve scowled, but her mood was unspoiled. 'We have dresses in Avalon, too, Mauritane. We are not animals.'
'I would not have thought otherwise,' said Mauritane.
'Even during the worst of the Unseelie occupation, we danced,' said Raieve. She moved closer to him. 'Do you dance, Mauritane?'
He took a step toward her. 'In happier times,' he said.
She stepped even closer and he could feel her breath warm on his neck. His blood rose. 'They say an Avalona woman is every man's dream: a lion on the battlefield, a swan on the dance floor, and a vixen in the bedroom.'
Mauritane finally stepped back. 'I can't see you as anything other than a soldier!' he said, a bit too loudly. 'You must understand that. This…' he gestured toward the party, 'this is a bit of playacting so that we can collect the money we need. Nothing more. Keep that in mind, will you?'
'Of course,' said Raieve, her eyes blazing and her jaw set. Her voice lowered. 'I must have forgotten myself.'
'I'm sorry,' said Mauritane, as she turned and started back toward Satterly.
'You should be,' she hissed over her shoulder.
Inside the home's large banquet hall, the party was well under way when Silverdun arrived with Faella. He winced a bit when his name was announced with fanfare, but a quick scan of the room revealed no one who looked remotely familiar. Surely in a city like Estacana there would be no trouble.
'Keep your head up, love,' scolded Faella, rapping his shoulder. 'You act as though you've been caught cheating at cards.'
'You have no idea the things at which I've been caught cheating,' he said, swallowing heavily.
Faella was radiant. All eyes were on her, and Silverdun could see that this was everything she'd ever wanted. A poor girl, the daughter of a commoner, draped across the arm of a nobleman. Silverdun sighed. Despite his worries, he had to admit that he was in a way more comfortable than he'd been in years. He'd always been better with verbal sparring than with a blade. The life of the pretty folk, however shallow it might actually be, was a beautiful thing to behold.
'They're all looking at us,' Faella whispered. 'Is that what it's like?'
'What what is like?'
'To be of the nobility?'
'I suppose,' said Silverdun.
'I see a great future for us,' she said. 'Oh, so much.' Silverdun hoped she was talking about their night together at the inn, but he feared that she meant something rather more involved. Still, he reasoned, he'd eluded girls far more skilled in coquetry than Faella. It was only a matter of the right words at the right moments and she'd never even realize that she'd been dumped. If nothing else, he would be gone in the morning; that was the one saving grace of being on a secret mission, wasn't it?
And yet, he'd enjoyed himself as a mestinal. More than he cared to admit. As he and Faella stepped onto the dance floor and began moving with the music, he began thinking about what it might be like traveling with Faella and her mestina, savoring the applause in all the cities of the kingdom.
And the girl moved like a dream. She danced the way she made love, slowly and with great deliberation, with an elegance that belied her youth. Looking across the room, he saw Satterly stumbling along with Raieve in his arms and smiled. The look on Raieve's face was priceless.
For many years, Silverdun had made a career of living in the moment. Before he'd gotten wrapped up in his mother's religion, he'd been one of the most celebrated rakes in the City Emerald. Why had he ever stopped? It seemed that at some point his life at court had become impossibly shallow, but now he could hardly remember why. The music, the dance, the wine, the girl. They were all intoxicating, each in their own way. For the moment, he decided, he would forget Mauritane, forget their bloody mission, forget everything but the girl in his arms and the daydreams of things that could never happen, but might. Oh, they might!
Then he saw a familiar face and his heart leapt into his throat; the daydream vanished like a bad glamour.
'Perrin Alt!' came a booming voice from across the room. 'You scoundrel!'
A woman approached, a very fat woman in a bright purple dress draped with pale pink flowers. She held a large goblet of pink rosewine. Silverdun struggled to remember her name.
'Lady Amecu!' he blurted out, having plucked the name from some dim recess of memory. As they always had, the name came to him just as he needed it. 'What a pleasant surprise!'
'For a moment I couldn't believe it was your handsome face that I was seeing,' Lady Amecu declared, her hand against her breast. 'And who is this charming young creature I see on your arm? The daughter of an eastern prince, no doubt?'
'I am Faella,' said Faella, curtseying deeply.
'Ah,' said Lady Amecu, her eyes darting quickly away from the girl as if she'd just seem something that horrified her.
'I would not have expected to see you so far afield of the City Emerald,' said Silverdun, trying to keep his voice even. This woman could ruin everything! The wrong word in the wrong ear and they would all be arrested before dawn.
'I'm only here for my sister's betrothal,' said Lady Amecu. She took Sil verdun's arm, drawing him away from Faella, careful not to look directly at the girl. It was a great breach of propriety for her to even acknowledge that a girl of Faella's class even existed, and she was in no hurry to repeat her mistake. On the positive side, the same sense of propriety made it impossible for her to ask what Silverdun was doing with her in the first place. 'Ila is such a dumpy thing,' Lady Amecu confided to Silverdun. 'A fat, ugly little troll. Father had to search far and wide to find a husband for her.' She took a deep swig from her wineglass, a most unladylike gesture, and Silverdun realized that she was drunk.
'The man is a baron out here,' she said, 'and with a good reputation. 'But still…' she began, unable to finish the thought.
'We do what we must,' said Silverdun. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Faella glaring at him, standing alone on the dance floor. He smiled his most winning grin and turned back to Lady Amecu. 'Why, I once had a cousin who was so ugly, my uncle considered marrying her to a wild boar!'
Lady Amecu laughed heartily, spilling wine down the front of her dress. She gasped, but an attendant hurriedly came and wiped it with a spelled cloth that removed the stain in an instant.
She leaned in even closer and Silverdun could smell the wine on her breath. 'Now, you must tell me, Silverdun. If I recall correctly, the last I heard you were… indisposed.'
There it was. Lady Amecu knew all about him. She was letting him know that she carried his fate in her hands and that he was now completely at her mercy.
'You know how rumors get started,' said Silverdun helplessly. 'In point of fact I've been here in the East managing some old family lands. I just had to get away from it all, you know. I see that my enemies at court are spreading slander, as I suppose they must.'
'So, you mean to say that you were not convicted of treason and shipped off to Crete Sulace?'
It was out on the table now. There was no way to avoid it.
'What do you want?' he said.
'Oh, I think you know what I want,' said Lady Amecu. She pressed her more than ample bosom against his arm and Silverdun suppressed a groan. 'I'm drunk and you're handsome and I believe I hold your very life in my hands, do I not? I'm told that can make a woman quite attractive.'
Silverdun had to admit she had a point.
