Vordratha moaned, and his face turned shades of a color rarely seen outside of vineyards at harvest time. The guards edged forward, but Locke held up his free hand.
“Call your friends off,” said Locke. “I’m not a strong man, but I don’t have to be, do I? I’ll twist this thing so tight you’ll piss corkscrews for the next twenty years!”
“Do as he says, gods damn you,” gasped Vordratha.
“Simply take us to Verena,” said Locke, watching as the guards slowly backed away, “and I’ll return your valuable property to you without lasting damage.”
It was an awkward shuffle, with Vordratha stumbling backward and Locke maintaining his tight, twisted grip on the majordomo’s hopes of procreation, but it did the job of keeping the guards at bay.
“Well, how now, asshole?” said Locke. “No little quips for us? I’ve never steered a fellow along by his loot sack before. Sort of like steering a boat by the tiller.”
“Camorri dog … your mother … sucked—”
“If you finish that thought,” said Locke, “I’ll wind your precious bits tighter than a bowstring.”
Vordratha led Locke and Jean up a flight of stairs to the private dining hall where they’d met Sabetha before. The guards maintained a respectful distance, but followed en masse. Vordratha bumped the door to the hall open with his backside, and Locke saw that Sabetha was already waiting for them.
She was dressed sensibly for anything from signing papers to diving out windows, in black breeches, a short brown jacket, and riding boots. Her hair was wound around lacquered pins; doubtless they contained tricks or weapons or both. Behind her were three more guards, armed with coshes and bucklers.
“Hello again, Verena,” said Locke. “We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d investigate persistent rumors that Master Vordratha has no balls.”
“Isn’t this a bit crude, even by your relaxed standards?” said Sabetha.
“I suppose having your boot-print embedded in my ass makes me cranky,” said Locke. “Tell your friends to go away.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely! Shall I tie myself up for you as well?”
“We just want to talk.”
“Release Vordratha and we’ll talk as long as you like.”
“The instant I release Vordratha, all hell’s going to break loose. I’m not stupid. For a change.”
“I promise—”
“HA,” shouted Locke. “Please.”
“We have no basis for trust, then.”
“ You’vegiven us no basis for trust. I wasn’t the one—”
“This is getting personal.” Sabetha glared at him with real irritation. She was always less in control of herself when pushed, a hot anger in direct contrast to Jean’s cold fury. Locke had spent years desperately straining to read her, and he saw now that she had no clever plan for ending this standoff. His own position—his safety assured only so long as he could keep a grip on another man’s privates—suddenly struck him as painfully ridiculous.
“I want to speak to you,” he said, slowly. “Nothing more. I won’t harm you or try to take you from this place. I swear it absolutely on the souls of two men we both loved.”
“What could you—”
With his free hand, Locke made two of the old private signals.
Calo. Galdo.
Sabetha stared at him; then something broke behind her eyes. Relief? At any rate, she nodded.
“Everyone out,” she said. “Nobody lays a hand on these men without my orders. Release Vordratha.”
Locke did. The majordomo slumped to the ground and curled up in a half-moon of misery. Sabetha’s guards slowly backed out of the room behind her, and Jean crouched over Vordratha.
“I’ll get him out of here,” he said. “I think you two want some privacy.”
In a moment, Jean had carried the slender Vadran out the way they’d come, and Locke was once again facing Sabetha in an empty room.
“We can’t just use those names as magic words every time we find ourselves at cross-purposes,” she said.
“I know. But it’s not my fault I even had to—”
“Spare me.”
“NO!” Locke trembled with hunger, adrenaline, and emotion. “I will not be shrugged off! I will not have my feelings pushed aside for the convenience of whatever pose you think you’re adopting here.”
“Your feelings?We’re in Karthain working for the Bondsmagi, damn it, we’re not children fumbling around in the back of a wagon!”
“You used me.”
“And that’s what we do,” she said. “Both of us, professionally. I tricked you, and I meant to trick you, and I’m sorry that hurts, but this is our trade.”
“Not this. You didn’t just trick me. You used the deepest feelings I have everhad for anyone, and you know it! You exploited a weakness that only exists when I’m around you!”
“Woman convinces man to impale himself on his own hard-on. There’s a very old story! The world didn’t stop just because it happened again.”
“I’m not an infant, Sabetha. I’m not talking about sex; I’m talking about trust.”
“I put you on that ship for your own gods-damned good, Locke. I knew this would happen! I didn’t just need you out of the way and I wasn’t just minding your health. I knew you’d beat your brains out against your stupid obsession.”
“Oh, marvelous. Lovelyfucking plan, because I certainly didn’t think about you onceduring the nine days it took to get back to Karthain.”
She had the good grace to glance away.
“What the hell is this, anyway? First you don’t need to justify yourself at all, and now it was for my own good?” Locke, feeling hot, angrily unbuttoned the stained, oversized riding jacket he’d taken from the stolen carriage. “And youare NOT a stupid obsession!”
“I’m a grown woman who’s telling you we cannot wind the clock back five years just because you can’t work up the courage to make a pass at someone else.”
“Courage? Who the hell do you think you are, telling me about my courage? Courageis what it takes to come after you! Courage is what it takes to put up with your self-righteous gods-damned martyr act!”
“You cocksure, self-entitled, swaggering little ass!”
“Tell me you never liked me,” said Locke, advancing step by step. “Tell me you never found me worthwhile. Tell me we didn’t have good years together. That’s all it would take!”
“Stubborn, fixated—”
“Tell me you weren’t pleased to see me!”
“ … presumptuous—”
“Quit telling me things I already know!” They were suddenly less than a foot apart. “Quit making excuses. Tell me you can’t stand me. Otherwise—”
“You … you … whew, Locke, in faith, you reek.”
“Is that a surprise? What was I supposed to do, swim back to Karthain?”
“You were supposed to stay on the damned ship! I gave very specific directions about the availability of baths, for one thing.”
“If you wanted me to stay on the ship,” he said, “ youshould have been on it.”
“You look ridiculous.” Locke fought for self-control as Sabetha slowly ran two fingers down his left cheek. “You look bow-legged. Gods above, did you leave anydust on the road after you passed?”
“You can’t, can you?”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t tell me to get lost. Not to my face, not now that I’ve called you out. You don’t really want me to go away.”
“I do nothave to explain myself by your terms!”
“Better cinch up that jacket, Sabetha, I think your conscience is showing.”