Dreams Made Flesh (The Black Jewels #5)(22)
Author: Anne Bishop

She’d never be able to clear all of this and have the pleasure of seeing vegetables ripen and flowers bloom this year. And if he tried to help her now, she might see it as his way of reminding her that the land didn’t really belong to her.

Moving away from the eyrie, Lucivar stopped when he reached a place where he could look down at Riada…and smiled. He had a way he could prepare the ground for her. Now he just needed a reason to get her away from Ebon Rih for a couple of days…and a little help doing it.

"My fingers are shriveled," Marian complained, clutching the towel, she’d wrapped around herself.

"But you can almost stand up straight," Lucivar replied as he led her to her bedroom. "All right. On your belly."

"What?"

A slash of fear.

Gritting his teeth, he gave her a little push toward the bed. "The soak was the first part of the treatment. A rubdown is the second."

"No, that’s all right. I can…"

He didn’t say anything, he didn’t touch her. He just looked at her. The coven never argued with him when they were on the receiving end of that look. Marian didn’t either. She stretched out on the bed.

After flipping the sheet up to her waist, he straddled her. She jerked up when he vanished the towel. Her shriek of protest turned into a different kind of shriek when he called in a bottle of liniment and poured some on her back without using a warming spell on it first. Leaving the bottle of liniment floating on air freed both hands to push her down and rub her tight muscles.

"It stinks," Marian said.

"It’s supposed to smell like that," Lucivar replied. "It’s a reminder not to do stupid things that make you need it."

She didn’t answer him. Just as well.

When he finally worked most of the stiffness out of her shoulders, she said, "You had a visitor."

"Who was it?" He poured more liniment into his hand and used a warming spell on it since she wasn’t resisting the rubdown anymore.

"She didn’t say."

Lucivar stiffened. After a moment, he smoothed the warm liniment over Marian’s back, giving the area around her wings special attention. "Probably Roxie. Did you let her in?"

"No. Didn’t like her." Marian’s eyes were closed. Her voice had the slur of someone half asleep. "That’s why you have locks on the doors."

"That’s exactly why."

"Thought so." She took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. "I made stew."

He stopped kneading her muscles and leaned over far enough to see her face. "Are we still talking about Roxie?"

"No. Dinner. Stew.You can eat some."

"All right."

Her messages delivered, Marian fell asleep.

After studying her for a long moment, Lucivar decided nothing short of dragging her into the bathroom and holding her under a stream of cold water would wake her. So he finished her back, then pulled down the sheet and rubbed liniment on her legs. When he was done, he vanished the bottle of liniment, pulled up the bedcovers, and put a warming spell on them to keep her from getting chilled during the night.

He ate a bowl of quickly warmed stew, told Tassle to keep watch, and flew to the Keep, where he’d left Jaenelle a couple of hours ago.

She closed her book and studied him. "What brings you back here tonight, Brother?"

Her knowing he was there as her brother and not as a Warlord Prince who served in her court made this a lot easier. "I need a favor, and I don’t want to explain why."

Tarl, the head gardener at SaDiablo Hall, was the first man to arrive that morning. Which figured, Lucivar thought as he raised a hand in welcome. Tarl had probably come in the Hall’s small private Coach and stayed out of sight until the driver caught the Winds and guided the Coach to the next destination…with Jaenelle and a flustered Marian inside it.

Jaenelle had timed the note commanding Marian’s assistance perfectly. Arriving late yesterday morning, it had given Marian enough time to wash out clothing and cook enough food that he could heat up so he wouldn’t starve to death in her absence but not enough time to do anything else except get herself cleaned up and pack the small trunk Jaenelle had thoughtfully sent over from the Keep with the note.

Now Jaenelle and Marian were gone for the next two days to do some shopping, Tarl was here, and the other men would be arriving shortly.

"Morning, Prince Lucivar," Tarl said.

"Good morning, Tarl."

"Going to be a fine day."Tarl’s eyes lit up with something close to lust when he looked at that half acre of rocky, weedy ground. "Sooo… it’s a garden we’re making out of this, is it?"

"Yes," Lucivar said cautiously.

"And…" Tarl broke off at the sound of other men’s voices coming from the stairs leading up from the landing place. "You called in the tithe?" he asked softly.

Lucivar nodded. "From Riada. I need this done in two days."

As part of the tithe owed to the Keep, every adult in Ebon Rih owed five days of labor each year along with the financial tithe. As the Warlord Prince ruling on his Queen’s behalf, he received two of those days. He’d spent part of yesterday making sure word was spread throughout the village that he was collecting those two days from the men.

The men began to gather round, talking quietly among themselves.

"Well," Briggs, who ran The Tavern with his wife, Merry, said. "What’s to be done here, Prince?"

"A garden," Tarl replied before Lucivar could. "But what kind of garden?"

It sounded like an innocent question until Lucivar realized every man now crowded around them had stopped talking in order to hear the answer. He didn’t look at any of them. He didn’t dare look at Tarl, whom he could have cheerfully strangled at that moment. There wasn’t a man on this mountain who wasn’t going to go home tonight and report Prince Yaslana s answer to the women in his life…which, in Tarl s case since he worked at the Hall, was Helene and Mrs. Beale.

Lucivar took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Lady Marian wants a kitchen garden, a bed for herbs, and some flowers."

A few men grinned. Others nudged their neighbors or exchanged knowing looks. By tonight, everyone in Riada would know Lucivar Yaslana was interested in far more than Lady Marian’s housekeeping skills. Which was fine…as long as Marian didn’t panic when she found out.

Tarl prowled the ground nearest the eyrie, frowning a bit at one thing, nodding at something else. He made his way through the men, crossed the flagstone courtyard in front of the eyrie, and continued on to the other side. He came back a few minutes later, looking thoughtful.