merchant enterprises in Faerun. It was the custom for the Beguine women to learn and to manage the accounts of the House, and such work wasn’t to Vorsha’s taste. Her talent was for the small domestic arts that most ignored yet, unknowingly, took great comfort from. She couldn’t discuss trade routes or profit margins with her husband, but she could make his House a home. Fortunately, her children-her two daughters and a son now absent in the service of House affairs-had favored their father in their business acumen.
If Nicol was disappointed that his wife didn’t share his interest in the intricacies of trade, he never showed it. He was kind to her, always, and had been since their wedding night.
But over the years, they had begun to grow apart. And to her great shame, for Vorsha had been raised a virtuous woman, even in the beginning of their marriage Nicol couldn’t excite her as his brother could.
For a long time she’d known Sanwar looked at her with desire. She felt the heat of his gaze as she passed him in the halls, or from across the rooms where he lurked apart while company gathered. For a while, to an inexperienced young wife, it was exciting enough to feel his longing touch her like questing fingers.
And then, finally, he touched her. In a dark corridor in the family quarters of the House, she had turned to find him behind her, his eyes hot on her body. He had pushed her into a secluded corner, almost roughly, and she didn’t resist. No-she seized him and pulled his hard maleness against her. The step of a servant down the hallway made them spring apart, both breathing heavily, lips parted and eyes shining.
She had sworn it wouldn’t happen again, but it did. Then she had sworn that she would never go to his bed.
But she did. Again, and again, until she finally reconciled herself to leading two lives in House Beguine-as virtuous wife to the master and as wanton mistress to the master’s brother.
Today she came to find out for herself the extent of the argument between her husband and her lover, and had sworn to herself-as she did before almost every encounter with her brother-in-law-that she would only talk to him, and resist tumbling into his bed. But it was no use-enflamed by his conflict with Nicol, Sanwar pushed her against the wall, pressing his body against hers with an urgency that could not be denied.
“Stop,” Vorsha managed, feeling her limbs melt beneath her and clinging to Sanwar’s shoulders in response. “We must stop this madness. It can only hurt us, and hurt the House.”
In answer, he cupped her breast with one hand and felt her nipple harden against his palm in response. “Do you really want me to stop, Vorsha?” he whispered, his breath hot on the curve between her neck and shoulder. “Tell me to stop again, Vorsha, and I’ll do it.”
He pulled away from her a fraction, still leaning against the wall. She snaked a hand around his neck and pulled him against her. “No, please don’t,” she managed. “Don’t stop.”
He scooped her up by her thighs and, when she wrapped her legs around his waist, he carried her to the bedchamber with no more preliminaries. Let Nicol have the last word in business matters. Let him hold his brother’s wishes of no account. Here in the bedroom he was in control, and he could make his brother’s wife respond in ways Nicol had never imagined.
Chapter Six
SHADRUN-OF-THE-SNOWS
1585 DR-THE YEAR OF THE BLOODIED MANACLES
It was early spring, with the pale green buds of mountain flowers fighting through a stubborn crust of snow, when the messenger came for Lusk. The runner, a long, lanky human, almost fell from his foam-flecked horse and staggered exhausted into the gathering hall at Shadrun-of-the-Snows. An attendant ran to him and called for refreshment. The messenger refused to rest, and with his remaining breath begged to see the “tiger-striped deva.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Lusk was listening to the messenger’s tidings with his head bent close, so that no one else overheard, and an expression that brooked no interference from anybody.
Taking the time only to pack a few traveling essentials and to check that his weapons were in full working order, Lusk requested and was granted the use of two of the sanctuary horses. Yet again, as she had a year ago, Lakini stood on the flat-topped Watcher’s Rock that marked the turn from the road to the sanctuary path to watch him go.
Bithesi watched with her. She was a slight, shy-seeming woman who had charge of Shadrun’s animals and directed the merchants how to shelter and pasture their beasts. Lakini liked her for her hidden strength, her unobtrusive toughness, and the way she could both appear inconsequential and calm a panicked ox seemingly with sheer willpower.
“What does he seek?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Lakini. “It’s a place in his heart where I don’t wander, and the doors are closed to me.”
Together they watched as the tall deva, his robes rippling around his roan’s flanks, and the messenger, almost falling off his gray in sheer exhaustion, disappeared around a bend in the road.
“
Bithesi looked up at her curiously. “ ‘
Lakini considered before answering. She’d never had to translate the phrase before.
“Simply put, ‘in this life or the next one.’ ” Lakini hopped off the flat rock and automatically surveyed the road and the fringe of trees bordering it before she turned back to the sanctuary. Bithesi trotted along at her heels, studying in her turn every bird that hopped beside the path or in the redbud, and noting that the squirrels were thinner than usual coming out of the cold season. It had been a harsh winter on Shadrun’s mountain.
“It didn’t sound like a simple word,” Bithesi remarked, pausing to examine some tracks by the side of the road, where a patch of snow remained. If foxes were about and hungry from the cold season, she would need to doublecheck the poultry’s pens for weakness. If it was something bigger, she’d need to ask an adept for a warding.
Lakini chuckled. “It isn’t. You have sharp ears. I can’t convey the meaning entirely in Common-best I can do is ‘as we have met in other lands and times and lifetimes, and as we have crossed snow and sand to exchange daggers, so we will certainly be together again before or after this world tears our bodies apart.’ ”
Bithesi laughed. “That’s not very poetic, is it? I liked plain cryptic
“That’s what you get for asking for a translation. Next time let the mystery stand.”
Bithesi went to find an adept to charm the cages, leaving Lakini to search for the grooming brush in the stable. The deva found the simple labor of tending the horse, whether worn beast of burden or magnificent war charger, soothing, and a good workout for her arms. Having secured the poultry to her satisfaction, Bithesi returned to the stables and watched her tall, mask-marked friend brush the glossy hide of a delicate-footed lady’s mount, polishing it to a shine.
“Lakini, forgive me my prying,” she said eventually, as the deva lifted a forehoof to examine it. The horse mumbled at Lakini’s braids where the pale hair that branched off her mask blended with the dark. “But what you were telling me-the unpoetical part. About meeting in other lifetimes, and the world tearing you apart. I’ve heard that kind of sentiment before, from bards and books. But there’s something about you-and something about Lusk- that makes me suspect it’s not some pretty phrasemaker’s conceit. And it makes me wonder …”
“What do you wonder?”
“What are you?”
There was a long pause, punctuated by the delighted chuckle of a chicken finding a beetle, and the squabble of the other fowl claiming the prize.
What do I tell her? thought Lakini. That such as Lusk and I fall from incarnation to incarnation, like water from a celestial sea poured from one stone jar into another? That we exist, transparent, like crystals in a glass of oil?
Lakini smiled and put the hoof down, gently pushing the beast on the shoulder so she stood square. “Why, Bithesi,” she said, “I am nothing of this world.”
