Perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was simply that she had nothing left to feel with tonight.
Or perhaps it was just that she was in a kind of shock. She certainly felt stunned. It was one thing to believe that someone wanted to frighten her; it was another to know that someone wanted to kill her.
She hated to think about it, and hated to remember that Faro was a trained killer. It was not how she cared to think about him, but it was a good thing for her that he had learned those things. If he hadn't-
She fell asleep before she could finish the thought. They replaced the plants; they fortified the house when they were gone. The cost of the plants and the arms she obtained for Faro ate into their money, but she could not grudge the expense. They saved every copper-bit they could, and they continued to be very wary.
It was just as well, for within six days they were attacked again.
This time it was by a band of eight, a larger group than the one that had attacked them before.
Once again they were on their way home, but this time from a more modest encounter. And this time it was in broad daylight.
The circumstances were odd, too. A woman who often booked public entertainments had thought that other Mazonites might be willing to pay to see Xylina's woman-trial restaged. Xylina was dubious, and Faro ominously silent, but she decided that the woman was too important to offend by an outright "no." They went to hear her out, but in the end, Xylina felt she could not put Faro through that kind of humiliation a second time. Bad enough that she had once ridden him like a broken horse. It would be worse for him to recreate his moment of defeat twice a day for however long audiences continued to come. And they might not come at all; that, too, was a possibility. Or they might come in such small numbers that their share would not be worth the loss of other, more "respectable" income. And what about being naked? Xylina had not liked that at all, though she understood the need in the arena. The men could be clothed, because they were under the control of the trainers and never had any weapons to conceal, but the women had to prove they brought nothing in with them. Not only did Xylina not want to parade naked again, she didn't want to press her thighs and breasts against Faro's body again. Not now that she realized how he had reacted. Not in public and not in private.
She declined, however, on the grounds that such a show might anger the Queen, being a blatant display of her own ability to conjure. That reason had taken some quick thinking on her part, for the woman could not possibly take offense at such an excuse. She pointed out that such re-creations could be viewed as a challenge.
It was a pity; the woman lived in a lovely home and had at least fifty or sixty slaves, and it was obvious from her prosperity that the spectacles she staged were generally very popular. The room they had been received in was all of the finest marble, with comfortable, suede-covered couches for Xylina and her hostess, and a leather-covered stool for Faro. The entrepreneur herself wore fine silk breeches and a tunic dyed in expensive scarlet, and Xylina was served a generous selection of expensive cheeses, savory breads, thin-sliced meat and succulent fruit, with the leavings going straight to Faro. The rest of the house was like this part of it: cool and luxurious, though not as sumptuous as the villa. This woman evidently had a high degree of success in judging what others might well pay to see. But Faro's set expression and the smoldering embers of his eyes told Xylina that this would be too much. She could not offend him this way, by ordering him to do this. Not after all he had done for her.
"Truly," she said to her hostess, trying to appear modest and thoughtful, "I wish that I could. But I have no intention of even making it appear that I was challenging the Queen's power. Now I'm sure you understand that I have no ambitions for the throne; I would not know how to govern, and I would make a very bad ruler, I fear. Yet our Queen is suspicious, and has reason to be-and even if I proclaimed my lack of ambition from the rooftops, she would still suspect a challenge."
Their hostess frowned, but nodded. "You have a point, and a good one," she replied grudgingly. "What you say is very likely. Our good Queen has challenged others on the basis of things much less suspicious."
"And only think how it would look to the Queen that you had been the sponsor of such a display!" Xylina added, as if in afterthought. She clapped her hand to her mouth as if dismayed. "Demon-spawn! She would think that you had ambitions to be the power behind the new monarch! She might well decide that you had posed a challenge through me!"
"Holy mothers, you're right!" the Mazonite exclaimed, her brown eyes going wide with alarm, jerking her head up so that her sandy curls bobbed with agitation. "Perhaps I had not thought this out completely."
Now was the time to soothe her, before she decided to turn around and report this to the Queen's agents. "I promise you, if you can think of a way for Faro to perform that will be successful without appearing to challenge the Queen, I shall be most pleased to enter into such a venture," Xylina told her calmly, rationally. "I think that would be a most successful spectacle. Perhaps something involving his strength-not a fight with another gladiator, for that would be too much like the combats that the Queen sponsors-but perhaps he could undertake to fight a wild boar, or lift heavy objects, or break a wild horse-"
"I shall think on it," their hostess said, her anxious expression betraying her mixed emotions-greed for the money she could earn from the original idea, warring with real fear of the Queen. And not without reason; the Queen had right-of-challenge too, just as any of her subjects did if they wished to try for the throne. If she felt an unspoken challenge had been issued against her, she could issue a challenge of her own, and the challenges she made were invariably to the death. Only self-exile could save the Mazonite so challenged from the inevitable end.
After a moment of struggle, the fear won, and the woman escorted them to the street, promising to keep in touch.
It was hard to walk through the cool marble hall, past the front garden with its lovely waterfall and artistically shaped trees, knowing that the wherewithal from just a few successful "re-enactments" could have made her house look like this one. But she had not had a friend for so long-no, she could not betray him in that way. Not for something as stupid as gold.
Their hostess left them at the front door, leaving a slave to see them to the gate to the street. The gate shut behind them with a click that sounded very final to Xylina. "Well, at least we got a meal out of this," Xylina said philosophically, looking back over her shoulder to talk to Faro as they made their way down the street. Walls in this part of town were all the same, with the only variations being in the gates set into them. The paved street was hemmed in on either side by stucco walls of a pale beige. It was almost sunset, but there was plenty of deep gold-tinged light. The streets were bare of traffic. The entrepreneur had specifically invited Xylina to share supper, probably hoping to get her into a more conciliatory mood with food and drink, and Xylina had made certain to eat heartily; the other inhabitants of the city were within their own doors and gates, enjoying their own evening meal right now.
Faro's expression lightened considerably, once they were out of those walls. "You should do something about my costume, if we get many more invitations like this one," he replied from behind her. "I could have filched enough fruit, bread, and cheese for all of tomorrow's meals, if I'd had somewhere to hide it. As it was, I only purloined two of those wax-covered cheeses."
Xylina turned to look at him, wondering if he was joking.