Chapter 8
They don’t make statues of people who walk behind others. You have to walk out in front.
The words floated through Maldynado’s head, though he wasn’t sure where they came from. An indignant snort came to mind-he’d tried to lead the way, to walk out front, and what had happened? He’d gotten himself and his comrades captured. Maybe killed. Nothing but darkness surrounded him. Was this death?
Something prodded Maldynado in the ribs. Hard.
In the distance, a woman said, “Now, now, no need for that. Don’t leave him with any more scars. He already looks battered for my tastes.”
Mari? Maldynado couldn’t tell. His ears seemed to have water in them.
“Not mine,” said a second woman, practically purring as she spoke. “Kill the others if you wish, but let’s bring him along. We’ll be on the river for several days, and I wouldn’t mind a cabin boy to entertain me.”
Maldynado managed to get his eyelids working. Not that the view was exciting. The corner of something stone filled his vision. The bench, he realized. He lay flat on his stomach, apparently where he’d fallen. He tried to roll over, to get a look at the speakers, but ropes bound his hands behind his back. When he attempted to move a leg, he found his lower limbs also immobilized with his ankles crossed, pulled up into the air, and tied to the ropes constraining his wrists. Thick moist cotton filled his mouth. A gag. How fun. A quick glance down his body assured him that they’d taken his rapier and knife.
“That is tempting. Ravido needn’t know whether he died here or at the end of our trip downriver. The boy’s not very bright, so I doubt if we’d have to worry about him masterminding any escapes.” The woman cackled.
Yes, it was definitely a cackle, a high-pitched one that ended with a snort. Maldynado remembered it well. Mari. The other voice didn’t nudge his memory with a sense of familiarity.
“We can keep him tied up to make sure,” the second woman said. “Though I’ve heard he’s skilled in the bedroom, so it’d be a shame not to give him free use of his hands.”
Yes, it would, Maldynado thought. He remained still while the women spoke, since they seemed to be working themselves up to the idea of taking him with them on the Glacial Empress. He’d be happy to play along as lover-slave until an opportunity to escape arose. Yes, escape. He dearly wanted to tell them to slag off and that he was bright enough to plan such a thing, though it was hard to boast of one’s intelligence when one was trussed up like a hog on a spit.
Mari’s high-pitched laugh sounded again. “I’ll let you try the hands-free option, Brynia. You’re young and sexy, so you’ll have no trouble seducing him. He’s alas not been quick to acquiesce to my advances in the past.”
“You wish him stowed in your cabin, my lady?” a man asked. It sounded like that butler. He was tending to Maldynado’s accommodations after all. How thoughtful.
“Yes, but I want to question him first,” Mari said.
“Do you need assistance?” another man, this one with a deep, rumbly voice, asked.
“I doubt it. The boy has never been one to put a clamp on his lips.”
“Yes, my lady. What do you want us to do with the other two?”
“They’re nothing to me. Feed them to the alligators, so there’s no evidence that they were here.”
At that statement, Maldynado made a more vigorous attempt to turn over. The lover-slave ruse would only be acceptable if Yara and Basilard were safe, or at least not dead.
“Ah, he’s awake,” the second lady, Brynia, said. “Roll him over, will you, Dorff?”
At first, that sounded like a good idea-Maldynado wanted to see more than the bench-but as soon as meaty hands flipped him onto his side, he regretted it. With his arms and legs locked behind him, the new position threatened to rip the bottom shoulder out of its socket.
A woman’s face lowered to regard him, and Maldynado stopped squirming. He’d expected Mari, but this was a stranger, a sexy stranger. Clear blue eyes framed by long dark lashes gazed down at him. Shoulder-length blonde hair fell in a curtain about a striking face with a small mole placed artfully on the chin.
“Hello, darling,” she said. “Care to answer a few questions?”
The only thing that came to mind was, “Uhm.” The gag muffled it, but Maldynado feared they got the gist.
“I told you he’s not the swiftest,” Mari said.
She had changed little since Maldynado had last seen her. She sat on a nearby bench, legs crossed, hands braced behind her in a way that thrust her chest outward. A pair of onyx clips kept her brown hair pulled away from her face, but couldn’t hide its unruly frizziness. Her face itself wasn’t entirely unpleasant to look upon, but her dark eyes never failed to have a calculating, predatory gleam that would make any sane man uneasy. Maldynado had been a boy when she and Ravido had married, but he’d always suspected that family connections, and perhaps some manipulation on her part, had been behind the pairing.
“That’s all right.” Brynia offered Maldynado a sympathetic smile, though he knew it couldn’t be sincere. “Not everybody’s ancestors favor them in all matters.”
Maldynado craned his neck until he located Yara and Basilard. They were also tied and lay where they’d fallen, Yara by a fountain in the middle of the room, and Basilard by the wall on the other side of the bench. Neither had their eyes open, and Maldynado worried that they’d already been killed. No, they wouldn’t be tied if they were dead. He just had to figure out a way to keep them from a trip to the moat. As skilled a fighter as Basilard was, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself with his arms and legs bound behind his back.
Several burly men loomed about the room, sabers and pistols hanging at their waists. The firearms had revolving chambers to hold multiple bullets. Some carried rifles as well.
Brynia knelt beside Maldynado and untied his gag, her crimson fingernails flashing. As she removed it, she stroked those fingernails along his jaw.
“Where is the assassin, Maldynado?” Mari asked.
“The who?” Maldynado asked.
“Sicarius. My comrades very much want his life to end. The family knows you’ve been working with him. For the longest time, your father hoped he’d grow weary of your wit and kill you so that your criminal exploits-and the embarrassment to the family-would end, but my business colleagues say that the woman leads the group. We know she’s no longer an issue-”
Maldynado’s heart almost stopped. Amaranthe was no longer an issue?
“-but he’s still on the loose,” Mari said. “We thought a trap set for you might ensnare him at the same time.” She waved around the room. “We wouldn’t have gone to such elaborate lengths if we’d known it’d just be you, a thug, and a girl.”
Worried about Amaranthe, Maldynado barely heard the part about a trap.
“Who is she, anyway?” Mari sniffed in Yara’s direction. “A woman with muscles and knives isn’t quite to your tastes. You prefer those vapid, buxom girls who haven’t a thought in their heads beyond rubbing against you and rousing your interest.”
“Now, now, Mari,” Maldynado said, having a notion that he should stand up for himself so they wouldn’t know how deflated his foolish choices had left him, “there’s no need to be bitter just because I’ve rejected you. Often.”
Mari clenched her jaw.
“Ah, the pretty man has teeth.” Brynia, still kneeling beside Maldynado, patted him on the arm and smiled. “Good.”
“But,” Maldynado said, keeping his eyes toward Mari, “the past needn’t set the pattern of the future. If you let my friends walk away from here, I’ll go along with you on your trip and perform for you in whatever capacity you desire.”
“You’ll do that anyway,” Mari said. “If you perform well, your death at the end can be painless. If not… ” Her gaze shifted toward the burly thugs.