The Second Empire

TWENTY-TWO

The levee had gone very well, Murad thought. Half the kingdom’s remaining nobility seemed to have been present, and they had listened, agog, as Murad had told them of his experiences in the west. It was good of the King to have allowed him to do it. It announced that the Lord of Galiapeno had returned indeed and, what was more, enjoyed the Royal favour. But it had also been a draining experience.

Traveller’s tales. Is that all they thought he had to tell? Empty-headed fools.

The King had limped down from his throne and was now mingling with his subjects. He had a genius for gestures like that, Murad thought, though it was hardly fitting, not so soon after these same men who were now fawning about him had been conspiring to take the throne away from him.

If it were I wearing that crown, Murad thought, I’d have executed every last one of them.

His head was swimming. He had been able to keep down nothing but wine since stepping off the ship. I am back in my own world, he thought. And what a little world it is. Time to retire. He craved a dreamless slumber, something that would restore the weariness of his very soul. Oblivion, without the bloody pictures that haunted his sleep.

“Lord Murad,” a woman’s voice said. “How very honoured I am to meet you.”

She was a striking, dark-haired lady with intelligent eyes and a low-cut bodice. She was also very pregnant. Murad bowed. “I am flattered. Might I ask-?”

“I am the lady Jemilla. I have a feeling you probably know of me already.”

He did indeed. Abeleyn had told him everything. So this was the woman who bore the King’s child, who had tried to set up a regency. Murad’s interest quickened. She was a beauty, no doubt of that. Why was she at liberty? Abeleyn was so damned soft. She ought to be hidden away somewhere, and the brat strangled when it was born.

“I believe,” she went on, fluttering her fan under her chin, “that you now enjoy the happy distinction of being the man closest by blood to the King himself.”

“I am,” Murad said, and smiled. It would be nice to bed her. It was obvious what she was doing: fishing for a new puppet to play against the King.

“It is so hot in here, lady,” he said. “Would you care to take a turn with me outside in the gardens?”

She took his arm. Her eyes had suddenly lost their coy look. “What woman could refuse such a gallant adventurer?”

She gasped and squealed and moaned as he thrust into her, pulling her hips towards him with fistfuls of her dress. Murad clenched his teeth as he spent himself within, gave her one last savage thrust and pulled away with the sweat running down his face. Jemilla sank to her side in the deeper shadows under the tree. Twilight was fast sinking into darkness and her face was a mere livid blur. The gardens were alive with the birds’ evensong, and he could still hear the buzz and laughter of the chattering guests in the reception hall. Murad refastened his breeches and leaned on one elbow in the resinous-smelling dimness under the cypress.

“You have a direct way of approaching things,” he told Jemilla.

“It saves time.”

“I agree. You have hopes for your child, obviously, but what exactly is your fascination with me? I am no young girl’s dream. And I have been away from court a long time.”

“Precisely. You are not tainted by the events which have been transpiring in Abrusio. Your hands are clean. We could be useful to one another,” Jemilla said calmly.

Murad brushed the dead leaves from his shoulders. “I could be useful to you, you mean. Lady, your name is mud at court. The King tolerates you out of some outdated chivalric impulse. Your child, when it is born, will be shunted off to some backwater estate in the Hebros, and you with it. What can you offer me, aside from the occasional roll in the grass?”

She leaned closer. Her hand slid down his belly and over the brim of his breeches. He flinched minutely as her hot fingers gripped his flaccid member.

“Marry me,” she said.

“What?” Murad actually chuckled.

“I could not then be shunted off, as you put it. And my son’s claims would be all the stronger.” Her hand started to work up and down on him. He began to harden again in her grasp.

“This may be true, but I ask again: what do I get out of it?”

“You become the legal guardian of the King’s heir. If something were to happen to the King after my son is born, he would be too young to be crowned. And you would be regent automatically.”

“Regicide? Is that your game?” He wrenched her hand out of his breeches. “Lady, if something were to happen to the King, I would be next in line anyway, have you thought of that? I would have no need to play uncle to your bastard.”

“You may be the King’s cousin, but you are not of the Hibrusid house. You might find some difficulty persuading the rest of the nobles that your claim is preeminent. With myself as your wife, the King’s only son as your legal ward, your position would be unassailable. Call yourself regent if you would: you would be King in everything but name.”

“And what would you be-a dutiful little wife? I’d sooner share my bed with a viper.”

She sat up, and shrugged. Her bodice had come down and her heavy, dark-nippled breasts were bare. She took his hand and set it upon one of them, squeezed his fingers in on the ripe softness.

“Think on it awhile,” she said, her voice a low purr. “Abeleyn is a travesty of a man held together by sorcery alone. He will not make old bones.”

“I may be many things,” Murad said, “but I am not yet a traitor.”

“Think on it,” she repeated, and rose to her feet, tugging up her dress, shaking grass out of her hair. “By the way, your ship was piloted by one Richard Hawkwood, was it not?”

“Yes. So?”

Her voice changed. She lost some of her assured poise. “How is he? I have a lady’s maid who wishes to know.”

“A lady’s maid with a yen for a mariner? He’s well enough, I suppose. Like me, he survived. There is not much more to be said.”

“I see.” She became her assured self again, and bent forward to kiss Murad’s scarred forehead. “Think on my offer. I am staying in the West Wing-the guest apartments. You can visit me when you like. Come and talk to me. I am lonely there.” She brushed one delicate finger along the scar that convulsed the skin of his temple, then turned and walked away across the garden towards the lights of the palace, her fan fluttering all the way.

Murad watched her go. A peculiar hunger arose within him. There was something about the lady Jemilla which challenged his pride. He liked that. Her schemes were dangerous daydreams-but he would visit her, of that he was sure. He would make her squeal, by God.

He left the shadow of the tree and looked up at the first stars come gleaming in the spring sky. Abrusio. He was home at last. And that murderous nightmare he had left behind him could be forgotten. His venture had been a failure, but it had taught him many things. He had information now that could one day prove useful.

Tomorrow he would visit the city barracks and see about getting back his old command. And he needed a new horse, something bad-tempered and spirited from the Feramuno studs. Something he would enjoy breaking down.

There were many things he was going to enjoy breaking down. Murad lifted his face and laughed aloud into the starlit sky. It was good to be alive.