The Laurentine Spy Read Free

sniggered again. “Thought of action excites the Admiral.”
    “Action?” Athan raised his glass and drank. The wine was smooth on his tongue. It tasted of dark plums and spice.
    Seldo hiccupped. “More wine,” he said loudly.
    Athan waited until a servant had refilled Seldo’s glass. “A campaign?”
    “More of an acquisition.” Seldo reached out to grab the skirts of a passing courtesan. Wine slopped from his glass. “Here.” He thrust the woman at Athan. “This one’s for you, Donkey. I don’t like redheads.”
    I don’t want her. “My thanks,” he said, while the whore settled beside him.
    Seldo had hold of another woman, who leaned obligingly into his embrace. She bit his earlobe lightly, then licked where she’d bitten. Seldo hiccupped again.
    Fingers stroked up Athan’s thigh. He ignored them. “An acquisition?” He raised his glass again and swallowed. Dark plums. Spice. “You’re too cryptic for me, Seldo.”
    Seldo turned a flushed face to him, drunk, eager to display his knowledge. “They shall give us what we want.” The words slurred together as he spoke.
    “Oh?” Athan took care to make his tone desultory, almost bored. He yawned. “Why?”
    Seldo leaned close. “A little trickery,” he whispered. He raised his glass to Athan and drank greedily.
    A little trickery? What did that mean? Athan looked at the redheaded whore. Plump white flesh spilled out of her scanty costume, but he had no desire to touch her. He smelled alcohol and sweat on her, and the scent of other men’s pleasures. Her fingers were busy unfastening his breeches and her pretty, painted face wore a look of false excitement.
    We’re both bored by this, you and I.
    Athan leaned his head back against one of the brocade cushions. He closed his eyes and groped for a fantasy, something that would arouse him and enable him to perform as expected.
    His imagination came to his rescue. It was no bored courtesan who touched him. It was the prim and noble Petra, her red hair coiled neatly on top of her head. Never mind that Lady Petra didn’t like him, the fingers that stroked him were hers, as were the skilled mouth and tongue.
    Thoughts of Lady Petra pleasuring him aroused him very nicely.
     
     
    T HE BLOCK OF stone swung aside. Saliel ducked her head and stepped down into her bedchamber. The secret door pivoted shut with a touch of her hand. She leaned against it. Safe.
    No. The light and warmth gave an illusion of safety, but she was no safer here than she’d been in the passageways. Less, perhaps.
    She sighed and straightened and looked around the bedchamber, reassuring herself that everything was as she’d left it. Black stone walls, dark tapestries. The furnishings were sumptuous and the bed narrow, as befitted a virgin of noble birth.
    Saliel shivered, less from cold than from the bleakness of the room, and went to sit beside the fire. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and halted. It was an unnerving sight. She looked ghostly, her face pale above the stark white of her high-necked nightgown. The only color was the long plait of red hair that hung over her shoulder. Her image looked trapped inside the ornate and heavy frame of the mirror, caught in some terrible place. Which, in truth, I am.
    Saliel turned away from her reflection and sat on the rug before the fire. She drew her knees up and hugged them, shivering. Sometimes it was hard to remember why she’d chosen this life. There were moments when the fear and the loneliness seemed beyond all proportion to the prize at the end. But the prize was worth it. It was.
    “A cottage,” she whispered. There was no one to hear her, but she spoke in Corhonase because in this room she was Lady Petra. The guttural words roughened her voice. “By the sea.”
    She stared at the glowing embers, imagining it. A home of my own.

 
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    S ALIEL SAT ON the stool, her hands folded in her lap, while the maid pinned up the heavy braids of hair.