Arch Wizard

'Tell me,' she murmured. 'Not how you think I look, but what you want to do to me.'

'Take you,' he said hoarsely.

She drew her knees together against his chest, to hold him at bay. 'There will be a price, Lord Tesmer,' she said gravely, sounding gentle but firm-neither teasing nor scornfully dismissive.

Irrance frowned, not knowing how to take this. 'My Lady?' he asked gently.

'Treat with me as an equal, Ranee,' she replied, addressing him as she had when he was a young and splendid lion among men. 'You hate the bite of my words, and how I rule you; you think I know this not? So in return you give me sullen silence, and play the war-commander behind my back, and tell me little of how you order our soldiers and what they do. Little enough, and less truth.'

Lord Tesmer was still and silent against her knees for a long time before he brought the edge of one hand down between them to ease them gently apart, and murmured, 'It will seem odd to discuss tactics, as I would with my warcaptains in the stables, as we…'

'Couple,' she murmured helpfully, and added in a whisper, 'Let's try it.'

He smiled, shaking his head in rueful wonder, then commanded sternly, 'Begin.'

'You have been readying our soldiers for war,' she replied without hesitation, parting her legs and reaching for him between them, the mirror in her lap now.

He surged forward, lowering himself onto its glow, and replied, 'I have. Mindful of what you said earlier, of mayhap fleeing Ironthorn rather than conquering it.'

'Meaning, I hope, you're taking every care not to get caught up in fighting?'

He hesitated, then lowered his mouth to her breasts rather than replying. She smiled thinly as he licked, nipped, and sucked, then closed her fingers around his most tender of areas, tightened them into a claw that made him stiffen and gasp, and said pleasantly, 'My Lord Tesmer, I do believe I have somehow failed to hear your answer.'

'Falcon, Clara, don't-' That gasped protest ended in a little cry as her fingernails almost met through his flesh.

'You no longer want to try it?' she asked him sadly, putting all the reproach she could into her gaze.

Their noses were perhaps the length of her hand apart; she saw him wince as much as she felt it.

'I… I do neglect to tell you things,' he admitted. 'Out of habit, it now seems.'

'It does indeed,' she agreed softly, letting go of what she'd clawed and stroking it in gentle apology. 'Please, Ranee.'

He drew in a deep breath, nodded in very much the same manner as her favorite gelding customarily tossed its head, and said in a rush, 'Well, we can't dwell in Ironthorn and not daily draw blade or bend bow when those of Lyrose and Hammerhand menace us, surely?'

'Of course not. Yet you seem strangely reluctant to tell me just what frays our warriors have tasted these last few days. I'm neither blind nor an idiot; I would know if we were besieged, or many of our soldiers were rushing off elsewhere in the vale-and we are not and they are not. Which means whatever fighting they've been doing can't be more than a skirmish or two, at most… wherefore I find myself puzzled indeed at your reluctance to discuss it. Irrance, what's going on?'

He made as if to pull back from her and sit up, but she moved with him to keep them joined, clasping her arms and legs about him with sudden strength. They stayed pressed together on the bed, the radiance of the mirror leaking out from between them.

Lady Tesmer's movements made her lord growl with pleasure and grin at her. She smiled back, then took his lips in her own and kissed him every bit as aggressively as minstrels always insisted conquering lords forced kisses from captive wenches.

When their lips parted again, both of them had to gasp for breath, but Irrance Tesmer couldn't keep a widening grin off his face. His lady moved under him again, making him groan with delight and setting him to moving, too. Rocking, slamming into her.

As that surging rhythm built, he gasped, 'Let me… let me say this my way, Tel. The Hammerhands are dead; the father, or vanished; the daughter, and their warcaptains are enraged at that. Too furious with Lyrose to have anything to do with us but loose arrows our way if we dispute with them or bar them passage; they're bent only on besieging Lyraunt and taking it. They carve up dead Lyrose warriors and send the flesh into Lyraunt tied to flaming arrows, and they slaughter Lyrose horses and roast them under the Lyraunt walls. Word is that House Lyrose is now reduced to just mother and daughter. Magrandar and his last and most worthless son, Pelmard, are both dead.'

Telclara Tesmer frowned. 'So how then are the men of Tesmer caught up in this? It would seem to me that until Hammerhand exterminates Lyrose or dies in the trying, they have no time for us.'

'True,' her husband admitted, looking away from her fierce gaze for a moment, 'but I… I am weak. I could not resist.'

'Resist what?' Lady Tesmer could not quite quell a sharp edge from creeping into her words.

'Sending our best bowmen to watch the siege from afar, and slay the best of their warcaptains and boldswords-just a handful I've marked, mind-with well-placed arrows.'

'Their best officers.'

'Yes,' he murmured, bowing his head as if expecting a storm of her fury to explode in his face.

Two strong hands caught hold of his ears and dragged his face down to meet hers. She kissed him hard- and bucked under him, harder, until he exploded with a roar of release.

'Gods above and below, Ranee, but I'm proud of you!' she panted, eyes shining. 'Just the right thing to do! Keeping our blazon out of sight and no arrayed Tesmer force for Hammerhand to glare at, yes?'

'Yes!' he panted happily. 'Exactly thus, yes!'

She twisted and arched under him then, moaning and biting her lip, and her hands tightened like claws on his shoulders. Irrance Tesmer found himself gripped firmly in many places at once, and froze just as he was, sweating happily as he grew the beginnings of a fierce grin.

Under him, his lady growled low in her throat, like an angry hunting cat, her fingernails raking him. It was a sound of pure pleasure, loud and long.

He flinched not under her clawings, but kept still and silent, holding her until they both calmed back to gentleness-which was when she interrupted her own slowing pants to say smilingly, 'So now tell me what you're keeping back from me. What darker thing haven't you said yet?'

Her lord stared at her, then shook his head and laughed ruefully. 'You're beyond the Falcon, Tel, you are! How did you…'

'I've been reading your face and voice quite well for more than a score of years now, Irrance Tesmer,' his lady replied meaningfully. 'Now give, Ranee.'

'I just did,' he jested, then met her mock-angry gaze with a raised finger and the graver words, 'Earlier this night, and I tell you true now, some of our bowmen watched the Hammerhands howling at the walls of Lyraunt Castle-and as we put arrows into a few Hammerhand backs, lorn flew out of Lyraunt and commenced to savage the Hammerhold knights.'

'Malraun,' Lady Tesmer said quietly. 'Sending them at the last to try to salvage something while his spell- might and attention remain elsewhere.'

Her lord nodded. 'I saw it in that wise, too. It stands as proof of the danger you warned against, yes. Yet, Tel, I still hunger to be Lord of Ironthorn; I think I always will, until I am.'

'Ah, but Lord of Ironthorn now, just in time for Malraun to arrive and blast and burn you, me, and all this vale? Or Lord of Ironthorn in some year to come when there is no more Malraun lording it across too much of Falconfar? I still say we must very soon be ready to flee into the Raurklor-all Tesmer folk, our warriors with us-if need be. Try not to get caught up in any wider fighting yet, so we can stand ready for anything.'

Irrance Tesmer nodded. 'You have always been the shrewder of we two, and any man can see the wisdom of being ready for anything. Yet tell me, if you would, the thinking that led you to this counsel.'

Staring gravely up into her husband's eyes, Lady Telclara Tesmer murmured, 'I see the Master's hand in this, but I've not yet seen what he desires. When he tells us, then we'll know if ruling Ironthorn is a stride ahead from us-or if our lives are going to be turned toward something else altogether.'