Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 4

The girl entered the solarium of the Brennan estate with a baby nestled in her arms, the door closing softly behind her. While the girl waited to be noticed, Catherine Brennan sat behind her desk, dropped her quill into the inkwell, and stroked its hawk feather as she blew across the words she’d written on the wrinkly parchment. Only after it was dry did she look up.

The girl was young, seventeen at most, and the spacious solarium made her look dainty standing there. Her hair was dark and quite curly, contrasting with her crystalline blue eyes, which seemed inhumanly bright, sparkling in the sunlight streaming through the windows. She’d given birth recently; of that Catherine had no doubt. The mother’s breasts looked swollen, and she retained some of her baby weight, her midsection pushing against a burlap shift that was too small for her. Despite that, Catherine could see the girl was quite attractive. In fact, she looked much like Catherine herself, with round, ruddy cheeks and thick lips. It was no surprise that her dear departed Matthew had bedded the girl.

“Sit down,” Catherine said.

The girl did as she was told, moving sheepishly toward the desk and plunking herself into the chair opposite Catherine. The girl shifted uncomfortably in her seat, refusing to look Catherine in the eyes.

“Luna Glover, is it?” Catherine asked.

The girl nodded.

“Do you know why I sent for you, Luna?”

The girl shook her head.

“Come now. You might be a whore, but you aren’t stupid. I repeat: Do you know why I sent for you?”

Luna finally brought up her gaze and spoke so softly it sounded like a slight breeze leaving her lips.

“I do, Miss Brennan,” she said.

“And why is that?”

“Because I. . because I was. . with your husband.”

Catherine tilted her head and pointed an accusatory finger at the girl. “You were not with my husband. You fucked my husband. For coin.”

“It is just an expression,” Luna mumbled. “I meant no offense.”

At that response, Catherine smiled. “Of course not. Please, Luna, I need you to understand something. We are both women in a man’s world, and there needs to be trust between us-that is, if you want us to remain friends. You want us to be friends, don’t you?”

Luna hesitantly nodded.

“Good.” Catherine sat back in her chair, pinned up her hair, and adjusted her bodice. “Now answer me this, Luna. How did you meet my poor Matthew?”

The girl’s face scrunched with uncertainty before she replied. “He paid for me in a brothel in Tarrytown. Said he was stopping in on his way to Veldaren, for business.”

“Tarrytown is near Felwood, is it not? A long ways away. How did you end up in Port Lancaster?”

Luna bit her lower lip as the baby squirmed in her arms.

“Luna, you can tell me,” Catherine said. “Remember, there must be truth between us women.”

For a moment Catherine thought she’d still remain silent, but then the words came forth in a great rush, like water pushing through a broken dam.

“The big man came, the one who brought me here today. . he paid Madam Pritchard a bag of gold and put me on a wagon. He said Master Brennan wished to have me near. Of course, to a woman like me, it’s obvious what a man means when he says something like that.”

“Interesting.” The big man was Bren Torrant, Matthew’s old bodyguard and the one Catherine had paid to turn on her husband; he was the high merchant of Port Lancaster and the self-appointed lord of freight in all of Neldar. Of all the girls she’d questioned, this one was the first to admit Bren had a part in her coming to Matthew’s bed. “And did Matthew greet you in your cottage by the wall, or did you come here?”

“Both, Miss Catherine. Sometimes he would come to me, but other times a man would take me on a boat to a tunnel and lead me to a big room with lots of beds.”

“When was the last time you visited this tunnel?”

“A long time ago, Miss Catherine. Maybe two years?”

“I see. And when was the last time he took you?”

Luna didn’t answer.

“Tell me, Luna. Tell me now.”

The girl glanced nervously at her child, then back at Catherine. “Three months ago, just after our. . just after my baby was born,” she said softly.

“At the cottage he placed you in?”

“Yes.”

Catherine stewed. Even as things were going to shit around them, even after the attempt on his life that she had secretly paid for, Matthew had still risked sneaking out on his own for a midnight tryst. There were times when Catherine regretted having him killed, but now was not one of them.

“And how old is the child?” she asked.

“Five months, Miss Catherine.”

“Does it have a name?”

Luna nodded, and tears began to dribble down her cheeks. “Mattia, Miss Catherine.”

Mattia. What a pathetic name. “A girl, I take it?”

“Yes,” she said, unwrapping the cooing baby and lifting her up so Catherine could see the lack of male bits.

“Put it away,” Catherine said, waving her off, and Luna hastily wrapped the child back up. Satisfied, Catherine rose from her chair and walked around the desk, breezed past the girl and her baby, and cracked open the door to the hall. Bren was standing there at the top of the stairwell, leaning against the wall, with his hand resting atop the hilt of his sword. It looked like he was sleeping.

“Bren,” she said sharply, and his eyes popped open.

“Yeah?”

“Come in here. Now.”

He kicked himself off the wall and followed her back into the solarium. Catherine walked up to Luna and held out her arms.

“Give the child to me, Luna,” she said.

Luna hesitated, momentarily pressing the child tighter against her chest before offering her to the lady of the house.

“Thank you,” Catherine said, gently rocking the child for a short moment. An ugly thing, but then again most babies so young were ugly. She looked at Bren and nodded. The big man let out a sigh as he drew his sword.

“Sorry, lady,” he said, the only warning he gave Luna before his sword cleaved open the woman’s throat. Her body dropped, not even a scream in protest, as blood poured across the fine floor. Catherine watched it flow as Bren sheathed his blade, then handed the baby over to him.

“Bring her to Ursula, and tell her to find a suitable wet nurse.” She kicked Luna’s corpse. “Then get back up here and get rid of this. . thing. Have Penetta and Lori mop up the blood afterward. I don’t want so much as a stain to show.”

“Will do,” Bren said. “Oh, thought I’d let you know, your special guest has arrived. He’s waiting for you at the pier. Odd fellow.”

Her heart fluttered. “Thank you. Now go.”

Bren hurried out of the solarium, trying in his gruff voice to soothe the weeping infant and failing miserably. Thank the gods you have actual talent with a sword; otherwise, you’d be useless. Catherine snatched up the letter she’d been writing when Luna entered, rolled up the parchment, tucked it into her bodice beside the one already stowed there, and swept out of the room.

As she descended the staircase, she breathed deeply, trying to find a balance between her excitement and her guilt. Luna was the ninth, and last, of Matthew’s mistresses in Port Lancaster, the sixth to have had a child by him. Luckily, the Brennan family curse-the scarcity of male offspring-had stricken Matthew as well. Catherine was thankful for that, for while she could eliminate his whores in the name of preventing future embarrassment, the prospect of murdering children did not sit well with her. The girls would be well cared for, but if he’d had a male child, under Neldar law that child could potentially challenge for the family fortune somewhere down the line. For Catherine, this was an unacceptable risk after all she’d suffered for.

Thinking of the children made her contemplate her own, and she stepped off the stairwell onto the estate’s third floor. She heard laughter and walked briskly down the hall, stopping when she reached an opened door. She peeked around the doorframe, saw her four girls sitting on the floor and laughing as their nursemaid Brita read stories from an old tome. She turned away, her heart thrumming in her chest as she slipped from the bedroom and crept farther down the hall. At the next doorway she dipped inside to find little Ryan Brennan, two years old and angelic in his nakedness, sleeping soundly in his crib. Though she did not want to wake him, she couldn’t help but reach down and place a hand on his small back, feeling his little lungs expanding with each breath. Ryan’s flesh was warm and a shade darker than Matthew’s or Catherine’s. His hair was slightly different as well, his curls tighter than hers and her husband’s had ever been. She smiled. Matthew wasn’t the only one who’d kept secrets.

Ryan stirred, and Catherine backed away before he woke. She stole a quick glance out the window. It was approaching the high point of the day, the sun climbing into the sky. She did not have much time.

She beat a quick retreat, hurrying down the stairwell to the estate’s next floor. For a moment she hesitated, thinking of heading to the pier to greet her guest as quickly as she could, but in the end she stepped off the stairwell. Best to get this regrettable business over with first.

This time when she reached a door, it was closed to her, and she paused to let down her hair and flatten the wrinkles in her finely crafted cobalt dress. After taking another deep breath, she rapped on the door.

“Who is it?” a brusque yet feminine voice asked.

“Catherine.”

“Come in.”

The invitation had no warmth to it, which filled Catherine with dread, but she shoved open the door nonetheless. Standing in front of her bed inside the large chamber was Moira Elren, the exiled daughter of Clovis Crestwell, Karak’s first child. Moira had been in the Brennan house for over a year, given to Matthew as collateral by Peytr and Rachida Gemcroft for the Brennan estate’s assistance when the merchant fled Haven for the Isles of Gold. Though Moira was certainly aging and almost a score older than Catherine’s thirty-six years, she still appeared to be younger, the gift of the blood of the First Family that ran strong in her veins. She had washed the dark dyes out of her hair after helping the women of Port Lancaster slaughter the last of Karak’s soldiers who remained in Neldar; her short-chopped locks were now their original silver, making her sapphire eyes seem all the paler. The woman also looked to be a waif, with the typical dainty facial features of the Crestwell line and a slender form made to appear even frailer with the tight black leathers she wore, but that appearance was deceiving. Moira more than made up for her lack of strength with incredible quickness and guile, and Catherine had never seen anyone more deadly with a sword. Even Bren, though he weighed more than two of her, feared the small woman. Tread lightly here, she thought, and though her heart pounded, she put on her most confident face.

Moira sat down on the featherbed in the middle of the spacious bedroom. “What do you want?” she asked. Catherine looked around, saw the room still bare save the bedding and a heavy bag resting on the floor. Moira had moved into this room a week ago, yet there was virtually no sign she lived here.

“What is that?” Catherine asked, jutting her chin at the heavy bag.

“My things, not that it’s any of your business,” Moira replied sharply.

“I assure you, it is my business, Moira. You are my hostage, my compensation. Your duty is to me.”

Moira threw her head back and laughed. “My duty was to your husband, not you. That deal was broken the moment you had his bodyguard impale him with a sword.” She scowled then and turned away. It was a look Catherine had gotten quite used to.

It had been three days after Matthew’s death that Catherine finally told her hostage what truly happened in Rat Harbor. She disclosed all of it-even paying the bandits whose attempt on her husband’s life had failed because of Moira’s presence. Moira’s reaction had been. . unfavorable, and nothing Catherine said about Matthew’s failings as a spouse and merchant improved things.

“I don’t care what you think about the deal, Moira. The facts are the facts: You are a servant now, nothing more and nothing less. You will do as I say, when I say-end of discussion.”

Moira swiveled around to face her. Her movements, combined with her silver hair and pale flesh, made her look like some evil specter. Quick as a cat she crouched down, her hand darting beneath the bed and withdrawing one of her light shortswords. With a single flick of her wrist the scabbard clattered across the room. Moira pointed naked steel in Catherine’s direction.

“I am not your slave,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “The next time you dare act as such, I will cut your throat.”

Catherine laughed. “You could do that, yes. However, I don’t think you would like the repercussions.”

“Come now. You really think I fear your sellswords?”

Moira took a step forward, waggling the tip of her shortsword. It danced inches from Catherine’s neck, and it took all her composure not to back away or flinch at the sight of the sharp steel.

“You won’t touch me, Moira,” she said. Amazingly, her voice didn’t so much as quaver.

“Why shouldn’t I? You’ll die before you make a sound.”

“Because the moment I’m discovered murdered, or even harmed in any way, fifty similar letters will be sent by bird to the Isles of Gold.”

At last Moira flinched, the tip of her sword dipping ever so slightly.

“Saying what?” she asked, doing well to hide the worry in her voice.

Catherine smiled. At last she was back in control. At last this wild woman knew who was in charge. She took her time telling her, enjoying every moment, every syllable.

“Saying how close you and my maidservant Penetta were while you lived beneath my roof. How very close. . and how Penetta knows things about you that I dare say only a lover should know.” She smiled as she plunged her fingers into her bodice and removed the first of the two rolled-up bits of parchment. “Each letter is addressed to Rachida Gemcroft.”

The sword dropped, clanking on the floor. Moira grew even paler than normal as she took the offered bit of paper, unrolled it, and read the words. The woman seemed to deflate. Her eyes were bloodshot when she tore them away from the letter’s contents.

“Every one. . ”

“Yes,” said Catherine. “I wonder, just how would the love of your life react to hearing of such infidelity?”

The silver-haired woman said nothing as she backed up a few steps and plopped back down on the featherbed. The letter fluttered from her hand to the floor. Her face was drawn out and dejected, her shoulders slumped. Catherine felt her confidence rise, confidence that left her once she gazed at the window on the other side of the room. She had to finish this business quickly if she was to make her next meeting, the most important one, in time.

Taking out the second parchment, already sealed with wax, she stepped forward and placed it in Moira’s limp hand.

“I know you hate me, but I do what I must to protect myself and my family. Don’t blame me for your own failures. Besides, you won’t have to look at my face any longer. Tomorrow you leave Port Lancaster.”

“Where will I go?” asked Moira without looking up.

“You are to take five sellswords of your choice and head for Omnmount. The letter I handed you is for Cornwall Lawrence, and it is for his eyes only. Make sure he reads; make sure he understands. Afterward, make your way to the docks outside the settlement and sabotage as many barges and skiffs as you can. Even if they are my own, destroy them. We will build more. If Karak wishes for food and supplies while he’s traipsing about Paradise, he can raise them with his own godly hands. Once that is done, consider yourself free from my service. So long as you don’t act against me, you will have nothing to fear.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” asked Moira softly.

Catherine swept toward the door.

“You don’t,” she said. “Good travels, Moira Elren. I hope I never see you again.”

Once in the hall, she exhaled deeply. It was a shame to send the woman away. Moira was more capable than anyone, better than even Bren and the sellswords at keeping her safe in a dangerous, unpredictable world. Yet Moira’s fear of what Catherine held over her head meant she was the only one she could trust to complete the tasks she had given. Had she assigned one of her sellswords, he might abandon her and sell his services to a different bidder.

“Sacrifices are necessary,” Catherine whispered. Just as her sacrificing Matthew had united the women of Port Lancaster to her cause.

She lifted her skirts and hastened down the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time on her way to the estate’s front entrance. Her excitement grew each time her slippered foot touched ground, and soon all her worries-Matthew’s legacy, Karak, the dead girls, Moira-dropped away. They were replaced by a face, one of exquisite, exotic beauty, covered with skin of the deepest brown.

A plain covered wagon awaited her outside the estate. She climbed in and ordered the driver, a girl of no more than twelve, to take her to the docks. Catherine dropped the curtains on either side of her as the horses began to clomp along Port Lancaster’s cobbled streets. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart pounded in her chest. She nervously fiddled with the bottom of her skirts, fraying the hem along the way. She didn’t care.

The ride seemed to take forever, and by the time the wagon stopped moving, she was so overcome with anticipation that she felt close to vomiting. She pressed her lips shut, lifted the curtain, and stepped out of the carriage. The dockhouse and the pier loomed before her, a long, sleek skiff tethered to the dock, gently rocking in the undulating waters of the Thulon Ocean. It was the only ship in the harbor. His boat. The young cart driver turned in her seat, facing away from her as she’d been told to do. Catherine took a deep breath, placed a hand over her breast, and slowly made her way toward the dockhouse.

The gravel street gave way to the dock’s slatted struts. The soft slippers on Catherine’s feet swooshed against the wood, kicking up bits of dust. The dockhouse itself was a sturdy but harsh-looking square construction of wood gone gray from the constant assault of sea salt. The door was propped open, and she stepped through, breathless.

“Hello?” she said.

“My love?” replied a strong, soulful voice.

Catherine followed the voice down the dockhouse’s long hallway and around the corner into the main storeroom. He was there, sitting at a small table in the middle of the room, eating a blood-red orange. Fish netting, anchors, spare timber, spears, harpoons, and oaken lockboxes surrounded him. He looked up at her, his complexion nearly black in the sparse lighting the dockhouse offered, just as handsome as the first time she’d seen him. When he smiled at her, his teeth shone like polished pearls.

“Catherine,” the man said, bowing slightly.

Her hands moved to her belly, rubbing it, feeling the gentle rise four months in the making. She smiled in return and took a step into the storeroom. “Reginald,” she purred. “It has been too long.”

“It has. It truly has. But please, my dear, call me by my true name.”

Catherine smiled coyly. “Very well, Ki-Nan.”

He stood from his seat and approached her, dressed in a pair of short leather breeches and a sienna vest with no tunic beneath, revealing the black hairs on his chest. She nearly ran at him, colliding with his strong body and wrapping her arms around his back. Their lips met, their tongues probing. Catherine savored the salty taste of his mouth, thrusting her pelvis against him each time their tongues intertwined. Their lips then parted, and Ki-Nan made his way down her neck, planting tiny kisses, before stopping at the swell of breast above her bodice, taking in a mouthful of flesh and sucking. Catherine felt like she would explode.

“Do you wish for me to stop?” asked Ki-Nan, breathless.

Instead of answering, Catherine leaned back, grinned, and grabbed his crotch.

“We haven’t much time,” he gasped. “I must be on the open water before dusk.”

“I know. I don’t care.”

They made love, first atop the table after swiping the basket of oranges aside, then in a pile of netting, then beside a rack of fishing poles, her breasts pressed against the wall while he took her from behind. Ki-Nan was rough yet measured, never thrusting so hard as to actually hurt her, his brown skin slick with sweat. Catherine’s insides were on fire, her nipples sore from being bitten, and goose pimples covered her every inch. She had to grind her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from screaming, lest anyone who might be lingering outside the dockhouse hear.

Finally, the dark-skinned man spilled his seed inside her, letting out a low, animalistic groan. They both collapsed on a pile of musty tarpaulins. They nuzzled and squirmed for a long while afterward, cherishing the wantonness they both felt. It had been much the same the six other times they’d been together. It seemed neither wanted the feeling to end nor looked forward to the coming weeks upon weeks they always spent apart.

Ki-Nan Renald was a fisherman by birth, a trader in training. He had first visited Port Lancaster nearly seven years ago, at the behest of his employers, the brothers Connington. He had happened upon her in secret one night while Matthew was away in Veldaren, coming to ask if the lord of freight would be interested in forming a truce in regard to the disagreements between the two houses. Catherine knew she should have been distrustful, but Ki-Nan disarmed her with his direct way of speaking and his exotic beauty. He’d said he was from Ker, the unofficial southern province of Ashhur’s Paradise. How a man from Paradise had come to be in the employ of merchants from Neldar was lost on her, and it was a subject Ki-Nan never broached, even when she asked.

That was fine by her, for though his voice was deep and soothing, what Catherine wanted from him had little to do with talking. They had made love that very first night, and every time they’d seen each other since. Catherine had stopped taking crim oil in the aftermath of his visits long ago, and the results of that decision now slept peacefully in the estate and showed in the puffiness of her abdomen. No one in Port Lancaster save her trustworthy maids Lori, Penetta, and Ursula, who had helped her keep the affair a secret, knew it. She had even kept Bren in the dark.

Ki-Nan’s hand went to her belly. “I can feel it,” he said.

She playfully slapped his cheek and nibbled his chin. “You can? So tell me. . is it a boy or a girl?”

“I am not clairvoyant, love,” he said. “But I feel much.”

“Yes, you do.”

Ki-Nan rolled onto his back, staring at the dockhouse ceiling while fiddling with his chest hair. “And how is my son?” he asked, frowning slightly.

“He’s fine. Perfect.” She leaned up on her elbow and stared at him gravely. “But Ki-Nan, you must promise that those words are not spoken by you in any company but my own. Should anyone find out that Matthew’s only heir is not of his own blood. . ”

“No need to explain that to me, love. But my son is two years old, and I have never laid eyes on him.”

“You will. Please believe me, you will. If everything falls into place, and I can convince the other houses to join my cause, I will no longer be simply a regent. I will be the lady of the house, in station as well as name.”

“You rely too much on things beyond your control,” he said, shaking his head. “And what of the war in the west? If Karak should return home, all your careful planning will be for naught.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “That is what you are here for, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” he sighed. He looked to the window on the western side of the room, set high on the wall, and Catherine followed his gaze. The sun shone in the cloudy glass. It must have been two hours at least since she’d entered the dockhouse. It was amazing how time seemed to have little meaning when they were together. “It is late. Is the new cargo in my skiff as I asked?” he inquired.

She nodded. “It is. Sixty extra swords, lifted off Karak’s own dead soldiers. Bren nearly pitched a fit when I told him we needed to give them up, but I convinced him they served a greater purpose. Speaking of which, you do have the three crates my late husband gave you, correct?”

“I do. They are well hidden, and guarded by those I have pulled to my side.”

“Good.”

“And now seriously, my love, I must be going.”

Catherine groaned as Ki-Nan gave her one last kiss on the lips, then stood up, retrieved his leather breeches, and slid them on.

“Promise me you’ll come back,” she said. “Promise.”

“That I cannot do.”

“If you promise, then I will promise to take you for my husband.”

His lips spread into a wide, toothy grin.

“With such reward, how could I not? I promise with all my heart. Now if you will excuse me, Lady Catherine, my ship awaits. Shower my son with kisses for me. War waits for no man. . especially when that man is a giant twelve feet tall.”