Whisper of Waves

14

13 Marpenoth, the Year of Shadows (1358 DR)

SECOND QUARTER, INNARLITH

A copper for your thoughts,” she whispered, snuggling closer to him, if such were possible, her leg sliding up along his and her arm circling tighter so that she wound around him like a snake.

Her skin was as soft as her smile, as gentle as her manner, and as intoxicating to Willem as the finest wine.

In the tenday since they’d met, they had seen each other four times and all four times had ended up in Willem’s bed. Though it wasn’t discussed and would have been frowned upon in the most polite circles, it wasn’t uncommon. They were young, after all, and life was short.

“We’re young, after all,” Willem whispered in response, “and life is short.”

She giggled, and the series of little exhales tickled his neck. He turned his head and kissed her.

“Is that all?” she asked, her voice so quiet he felt it against his lips more than heard it with his ears.

He shook his head and she looked so deeply into his eyes all he could do was speak.

“I’m afraid,” he said.

She shook her head, closed her eyes, and dug her forehead into his shoulder. He traced a circle on her shoulder, raising gooseflesh for a moment, then eliciting a sigh from her.

“I am,” he went on, “and why shouldn’t I be?”

“Because you’re good at what you do,” she whispered into his neck, then the tip of her tongue-not warm but hot-flicked against him, sending a thrill through his body he didn’t try to mask.

“Am I?” he asked, his mind refusing to follow his body into the pure physical bliss he knew she could bring to him. “I’m not so certain.”

“The master builder seems to trust you,” she replied.

“How can he not? All I do is agree with him. That and do all the work he’s been tasked by the ransar to do himself. He’s claimed credit for enough of what I’ve brought to this project and others that should he dismiss me he would have to explain my mistakes as his own. If he could even identify them as mistakes.”

“You don’t enjoy your work?” she asked, then kissed his neck, her lips as hot as her tongue.

“I do,” he admitted. “I do very much, but sometimes … often … occasionally, anyway, I don’t feel up to it.”

“You do your best,” she whispered, her voice growing heavier, sleepy.

“That’s precisely the problem, and if I was the only one who suffered for it, that would be enough.”

“No one has suffered for what you’ve done,” she said, her fingertips beginning to play at the hair on the back of his head.

“There was a man,” Willem said, closing his eyes, concentrating on the feel of her skin against his, “who would tell you differently, a lieutenant with a promising career ahead of him.”

“Not Thenmun,” she said, then started to nibble on his earlobe.

“No,” he replied, “No, not Thenmun, but someone very much like him. I had him reassigned … exiled, almost, for arguing with a decision I’d made, for questioning my figures.”

She had no response, only continued to work at his ear because she knew how much he liked it.

“He was right, you see,” Willem admitted, “and I was wrong.”

Her tongue began to caress the inside of his ear and he drew away playfully, unable to keep the grin from splitting his face. They turned onto their sides, facing each other, and Halina pulled the thin white sheet over their heads. He couldn’t look her in the eye, not when her body lay exposed so. He couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off her and didn’t bother trying, and she did nothing to stop him.

“The master builder may have made a mistake,” he said.

“Stop it,” she whispered. “Who else would he trust the way he trusts you?”

“I told you: He trusts me for the wrong reasons,” replied Willem. “There’s someone else. Someone I … someone I used to know. He would have been the better choice.”

“Someone from Cormyr?”

Willem nodded and said, “He’s here too. He came a few days, maybe a month, after I did.”

“Then if he was so much better than you,” asked Halina, “why isn’t he becoming the master builder’s right hand instead of you?”

Willem’s heart sank and he said, “Why not indeed?”

“I believe in you,” she whispered, then they kissed.

When they parted a few minutes later, he smiled and finally did look her in the eye. He brushed a strand of hair from her crystal blue eyes with the tip of a finger.

“Why do we always end up here?” he asked, making his voice as light as he could, and finding it surprisingly easy to do.

“Well, Master Korvan,” Halina replied, her voice a mockery of a chaste lady’s indignation, but the blush in her pale cheeks was all too sincere. “You should know better not to ask a lady why she-”

“No, no, no,” he interrupted, placing a fingertip gently to her thin lips to silence her. As he went on, the tip of her tongue drew circles around his fingertip. “I meant, why do we always come here and not to the lady’s bed?”

She gently brushed his finger away with a hand she then placed on his rough, unshaven face.

“You know I live with my uncle,” she said. “Though there are many nights he doesn’t come home, I never know when he’ll be there, and I doubt he would approve.”

“You know,” he said, “you’ve never told me about this uncle of yours, just that you live with him and the two of you are from Thay. What is he, a Red Wizard come to enslave the fair city-state of Innarlith?”

A dark look crossed her eyes for so brief a moment, Willem couldn’t be sure he’d really seen it.

“I’m sorry,” he said before she could speak. “That was boorish of me to make a joke like that … to assume everyone from Thay was some-”

She silenced him with a kiss, then said, “My uncle has come here on his own, not as an agent of the realm. He has some business interests here, but he doesn’t trouble me with specifics. His name is Marek Rymut.”

She must have seen the effect the mention of that name had on him. Her eyes went wide and she took her hand off his cheek.

“Marek Rymut?” he said, pulling the sheet off his head so that they could see each other in the light from the fireplace. “Marek Rymut is your uncle?”

“You’ve heard of him,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Hasn’t everyone with a pair of ears in Innarlith?” Willem replied. “He has the ear of the ransar, doesn’t he, and friends in all the right places.”

Halina shrugged.

“And you’re only now telling me this,” he said, “that you’re the niece of Marek Rymut.”

She smiled and shrugged again.

Willem returned her smile, and his hands went to her body again. They kissed and for a moment, perhaps, Willem felt guilty for what he was about to do, but then the moment passed.

He drew away from her gently and said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t meet like this again …”

Her face became a mask of hurt and confusion, changing in a way only a woman’s could.

“Until I meet your uncle, I mean,” he said, holding her gently by the back of the neck and drawing her in for another kiss. “I should meet him. We should be introduced to him as … as a couple. To him, at least, if not all of Innarlith.”

Her face changed again, just as fast and just as completely. She thought he had said what he wanted her to think he’d said, and the look on her face made his skin crawl.

“Oh, Willem,” she said, a tear appearing at the corner of her eye, “my love.”

Then they kissed and touched each other just long enough for him to think of a reasonable excuse to ask her to leave.