Winterheim. He was full, a little drunk, and tired. He hadn’t even had a chance to take his boots off yet, nor did it look as if he would get that chance, as his wife continued her verbal onslaught.
“Garnet was told that the slave had already been assigned-and he was unable to find out where the human was sent!”
Stariz glared at him, her hands on her hips. Grimwar faced that gaze, resentment building, wishing he knew a way to dam that torrent of words. His wife opened her mouth to speak again, and the truth washed over him: He didn’t have to listen!
Instead, he plopped down into his most comfortable chair, ignoring her so blatantly that she stammered a surprised sound then clamped her jaw shut. He couldn’t see her fierce expression as he lifted one foot at a time to allow the two slaves to pull off his walrus-hide footgear. He knew that she would be staring daggers at him, but he felt cloaked in a strange new sense of invulnerability. Why hadn’t he made this discovery years ago?
In fact, the king decided that he had had just about enough of being cowed by his wife. There was much of which he should feel proud. The wasted campaign aside, his kingdom seemed to be doing very well indeed. All the gold mines were operating at full capacity, and his coffers were gathering wealth at an unprecedented pace. His mistress had been very good to him since his return from the summer’s campaign, and he knew that she anxiously awaited his next visit. Thraid would undoubtedly be delighted and grateful that he had provided a slave for her amusement, at least until Autumnblight.
“I myself gave orders for the slave to be moved,” he finally said, leaning back in the chair and gesturing the slaves to leave. Moments later king and queen were alone. “I did not want you doing him any harm, not yet, in any event. He will be yours for the ceremony but not until then.”
“I must prepare him, and you know that! The Willful One must be appeased, and what better way than to sanctify the blood of one who did him such grievous harm? You had no right-”
“I had every right, woman!” roared the king, pushing himself to his feet with a flex of his powerful arms. Stariz halted in mid-rant, eyes narrowed, watching him suspiciously.
He shouted again, delighting in the release of his temper. “Do not forget that I am king here-king of Suderhold! You hold your station only because I have placed you there! I am tired of arguing with you over matters that are my own decisions. You too often lose sight of your place-but I am the king! I am lord of Winterheim, monarch of Suderhold. I am your master!”
She recoiled from his words as if he had raised his fist to her, and he took great satisfaction from the expression of fear on her face. He lowered his voice to a growl and bared his impressive tusks.
“I see that you are afraid of me, my queen. Remember that feeling. It is one you should remember, for you will have cause to fear me if you do not do a better job of learning your own station.”
“Forgive me, Sire,” Stariz said meekly-more meekly than she had ever said anything to the king in all their years of marriage. “I shall remember your words, and I thank you for your kindness in giving me warning.” She bowed her head, then astonished him with a curtsy!
The king was somewhat taken aback by her abrupt mood change. His temper evaporated and was replaced with a sense of bemused satisfaction. Turning abruptly, he stalked out of his apartment in his bare feet onto the promenade far above the harbor. He was well satisfied with his handling of the matter. The human slave would be forgotten for the next few weeks, and quite possibly his wife would be a little easier to live with.
If he chose to continue living with her.
That thought, daring and sacrilegious, came into his mind unbidden. He thought about his words to her. He had spoken the truth-he was the master here, and why should the master of a powerful realm not be the master of his own bedroom?
Of course, there were reasons for the marriage, all of them centering on politics-Stariz was from Glacierheim, a barony that was historically among the most restive of Suderhold’s fiefdoms. As high priestess, she was the leader of the ogre religion, pre-eminent interpreter of the will of Gonnas, a fact that she had used to her advantage on many occasions.
As for Glacierheim, that frost-bound realm had been peacefully acquiescent for years, and he had more than enough might in his own royal guards to deal with any rebelliousness that might develop there. The religious aspect of his wife’s influence was more worrisome. He knew that her clerical powers were real, that the god of her temple was a proud and willful deity, but Grimwar Bane honored Gonnas in his own way. It seemed at least possible that the powerful immortal would not bring down his displeasure merely to soothe the wrath of a scorned ogress.
More importantly, right now neither Glacierheim nor Gonnas seemed as important to the king as his own reborn sense of purpose. After all, there was precedent for the ogre ruler choosing his own desires over outside concerns. Indeed, his father had divorced his wife for a younger woman-that had been the cause of the dowager queen’s exile to Dracoheim. Perhaps Grimwar Bane himself should take a lesson from that history.
As he thought about it, the idea began to make more and more sense. He imagined a life without Stariz sticking into his side like a venomous thorn … and with Thraid’s lush body, instead, warming the royal bedchamber.
He was king, a mighty king. Why should he not have what he wanted?
“O Great Gonnas the Strong, Willful Master of Ogre-kind-grant me the wisdom to understand the danger and the power to act in your interests!”
Stariz, her face obscured by the great black mask of her station, prostrated herself on the smooth slate floor, heartsick and frightened. The massive statue of her dire deity, obsidian and standing three times the height of any mortal ogre, loomed above her, silent and impassive. Always in the past she had found that massive presence comforting.
Now, however, the fear that gnawed at her would not subside.
Bitterly she recalled her husband’s dreadful rebuke and the even more disgusting acquiescence she had pretended in order to mollify him, at least temporarily. How dare he speak to her like that? Didn’t he realize the strength, and the wisdom, that she brought to their royal pairing? Didn’t he fear her power?
In truth, she suspected that he didn’t, at least not as much as he should. If it wasn’t for her, Grimwar Bane would probably have been content merely to amass his gold and to live in his citadel, master of an ancient and steadily waning kingdom. It was she, Stariz, who had convinced him of the need to make relentless war against the humans, to drive them from their coastlines and verdant valleys, lands that rightfully belonged to Suderhold. It was she who was responsible for him bringing hundreds of slaves into the warrens of Winterheim, and everywhere in the Icereach the humans were on the defensive. She was the one who rooted out the potential rebels among the slaves, through her network of spies and the potent auguries of her god. She made examples of these recalcitrants-vivid examples-and throughout the king’s reign there was no hope of inciting of even a modest rebellion.
The king was a fool! He would throw it all away, she knew, if ever she ceased pushing him, guiding him onto the paths chosen by their dark and warlike god. He had been seduced by a pretty ogress, one who was empty of mind and character, who offered nothing to the kingdom except carnal diversion for the monarch.
Stariz began to understand. The king was right about some things: He was powerful, too powerful for her to change when his mind was set upon a stubborn path, so she would not strike at the untouchable king. Instead, she would find someone else to feel the brunt of her wrath, someone close to the king but still vulnerable. Someone whose fate would serve a warning to the king.
Someone like the Lady Thraid Dimmarkull.
Once more Strongwind was led through the halls of Winterheim, this time back down from the palace, past many levels, until he guessed that he was near the middle of the lofty fortress-city. Lord Forlane led the way, with the two sturdy guards maintaining a vigilant escort. They emerged from the long, descending ramp to follow the wide street that seemed to occupy the ring around the atrium on each level.
Soon they turned into a narrow side street, following this back from the atrium and into the shadows near the outer mountain wall. Several lamps, presumably fueled by whale oil, brightened the narrow street and illuminated the entrance to a narrow courtyard that abutted a door at the very far end. Strongwind guessed that this structure, at the fringe of the city, lay up against the solid bedrock of the mountain itself.
One of the guards stepped forward and knocked on the door, which was quickly opened by a muscular human of middle age or slightly older-a Highlander, Strongwind judged, by the man’s high forehead and blue eyes. The hair
