Lani and Eskkar usually found time to return to their bedroom for a few more hours of ease. After the noon meal, Eskkar would stroll around the village, talking to the shopkeepers and craftsmen, and, more often than not, Lani would accompany him, though she would leave him early enough to prepare for the day’s supper. Before the evening meal, Eskkar and Grond would wash up at the well in the square, along with their bodyguards, all of them getting the dust of the village off their bodies.
After supper Eskkar spent time with his soldiers, talking and joking, as they, too, relaxed from their labors. But after an hour or two, Eskkar would leave the men with their ale and their women, and he and Grond would return to their house and their women.
Lani and Tippu would be waiting, and the four of them would sit out under the stars facing the square, talking, laughing, or sitting quietly, with an occasional sip of well-watered wine to keep them refreshed. The nights had grown cooler, but it remained pleasant to sit beneath the starry sky and enjoy the night air. Eskkar held Lani close to him, his arm either around her shoulders or slipped inside her dress to enjoy the feel of her skin, and just as often her hand would rest between his legs, stroking him gently until he grew aroused, then whispering promises in his ear for later in the evening.
Sometimes Sisuthros or one of the other senior men joined them, but mostly Eskkar and Grond had the nights to themselves, as the others sought their own companions at day’s end. As the darkness increased, if no one was around or watching too closely, Lani would kiss him. Once she even leaned over and took him into her mouth for a few moments, a more certain reminder of what would come later.
During most of those nights, another visitor would join them. The dark gray cat that had appeared in Eskkar’s room that first night would cautiously prowl its way to their table. Where it spent its days, no one knew. Lani had befriended the animal weeks before Eskkar’s arrival, and now it stayed nearby, or came into the bedroom searching for her. Always alert and constantly looking around, the scruffy male cat would search out Lani’s hand for a brief stroking, then poke her with his paw until she gave him something to eat.
In time the cat permitted Eskkar to pet it, though the hint of a growl would be heard if Eskkar rubbed too hard or too long. After the cat had eaten whatever scraps they had to offer, it often sat on the table and dozed, its legs tucked underneath its body, but ready to dart away at any moment.
If the food had been good and plentiful, it might even purr for them, the low sound only lasting a few moments before the animal remembered it was supposed to be a fierce hunter.
Eskkar never spent much time with cats. As a young boy in his camp, dogs had kept his family company, but cats were almost unknown in the lives of barbarians. Cats couldn’t follow a wagon a dozen miles each day, and Eskkar had rarely seen them until he came to the villages.
Nevertheless everyone knew that a cat came blessed from the gods, and brought good luck. Cats were plentiful on the nearby farms and in the villages, appreciated for their ability to hunt the rodents that ate and soiled the stored grain. Lani’s cat, as Eskkar called it, seemed sure of its place, and in the last few weeks, Eskkar had come to enjoy its company.
Tonight the stars shone gleaming white overhead. Eskkar and Lani sat side by side, facing the square, their backs to the wall of the house, at a small table. Grond and Tippu had their own table, a discreet distance away, where they, too, whispered to each other. A single guard watched at the entrance to the house, twenty paces away. The rest of the square stood empty at this time of night, and the incessant creaking sound from the well as people drew up the water had finally stopped.
Lani’s cat reclined on the table between them. It had dined on chicken scraps, then washed its face and paws, and now dozed lightly. Eskkar glanced up at the heavens, and knew it would soon be time to go into the warm house and warmer bed, to spend another hour making love, before falling asleep in each other’s arms.
“Tell me more about Akkad,” Lani urged, her arm around Eskkar’s neck and one hand stroking his manhood.
“I’ve already told you everything there is, Lani,” he answered. She asked the same question every night.
“Tell me something new, then,” she insisted, her hand tightening around him. Eskkar sighed, then found some new detail to talk about. She listened carefully as he spoke about the city, its people, the farms, the traders, even the wall surrounding it. Whatever he told her, sooner or later involved Trella, and then more questions would arise.
“Do you miss your wife so much, Eskkar? Are you not happy here?”
“I have to go back to Akkad, Lani, you know that. My son will be born soon, and I must be there. I’ve already stayed away longer than I planned.
In another two or three days, we’ll start for Akkad.”
“You will take us with you?”
She asked that question often. “Yes, Lani, you will come with me.
Though I’m not sure what I will do with you there. Trella will not be pleased with you.”
“As long as you do not forget me, Eskkar. I could not bear that.”
Trella’s reception of Lani had bothered him more than he admitted.
He needed to keep seeing Lani, but wanted Trella as well. As the time to return to Akkad grew closer, the problem had become more confusing.
Now even talking about Trella made him uncomfortable.
“I will take care of you and your sister.” He kissed her cheek and her ear. “And I will come to visit you as often as I can.”
“Do you promise, Eskkar? I don’t want to be apart from you.”
He reassured her again, and finally she seemed satisfied. The questions stopped and she relaxed, snuggling against him, her head on his shoulder.
His right arm reached around her, his hand inside her dress as he held onto her breast. He rolled her nipple between his fingers, and felt her shiver from his touch. She had very sensitive breasts, and he had discovered that he could sometimes bring her to arousal merely by playing with them. It was a new and erotic experience that never failed to excite him.
Now he leaned back, enjoying her presence and her touch, his head resting against the rough mud-brick of the house. He reached out slowly with his left hand, and gently stroked the cat’s neck, just behind its ear. Eskkar had learned not to make any sudden movements around the animal.
Not much tamer than a wild creature, even after all this time, it remained skittish and always ready to show its claws.
Tonight it let him stroke its rough fur, though the cat lifted its head toward him, as if to reassure itself, before lowering its head once again before settling down, its feet folded under its chest.
Eskkar’s hand was knocked aside as the cat’s head snapped up and to its left. Before Eskkar could follow the movement, the cat launched itself off the table with a blur of motion too quick to be seen. Eskkar turned toward whatever had alarmed the cat. Though used to the darkness, he saw nothing at first, then a faint reflection of something silvery moving toward him.
For a big man, Eskkar could move rapidly when he needed to. He shoved Lani away with his right hand, using his left to reach under the table and fling it up and between him and his attacker. “Grond!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, and then dropped to a crouch as the sword slashed the air where his head had been an instant ago. Chunks of dried mud sprayed from the wall where the blade struck. The table had hindered the stroke, not by much, but just enough to buy one extra moment of precious time.
Eskkar threw himself to the left, away from Lani, and found himself at the feet of another assailant. That man’s sword missed as well, an overhand swing that sliced into the air where Eskkar had just been, the attacker expecting Eskkar to move away, not at him. Before the man could thrust down with the weapon, Eskkar gathered his feet under him and drove his shoulder into the man’s stomach, and this time they both went down.