The Invisible Ring (The Black Jewels #4)(19)
Author: Anne Bishop

Brock didn’t miss much, though. “I meant no insult, Lord Jared,” he said quietly. “Any man with working brains knows a consort—and a pleasure slave is nothing less than an unwilling consort—is trained to do more than warm a bed. He dances on temper’s edge, and a good consort makes it easier for the rest of us. I just thought—well—” Brock sighed, resigned. “What kind of stories?”

A consort danced on temper’s edge, but seldom felt the cut. Not like a pleasure slave did. And that tiny question that kept flickering on the edges of Jared’s mind flashed to the front. Howwould the Gray Lady treat a consort . . . or a pleasure slave?

That thought stirred a memory.

“When I was fourteen,” Jared said, “the Province Queen came to our village. Can’t remember why now, or why she wasn’t accompanied by the District Queen.” He frowned, trying to remember. “Maybe that was the year the former Queen stepped down and the new one wanted to see everything in her territory. Anyway, all the boys old enough to have begun formal training but still too young to be allowed to stand with the men had decided to wait on the main street, just in case we could be of service.”

Brock grinned at him in perfect understanding.

“My father is the Warlord of Ranon’s Wood, so he was the Lady’s escort while she was there. He had gone to the official landing place outside of Ranon’s Wood to meet her Coach and wasn’t home when I came downstairs, dressed in my best clothes. I casually told my mother I was going to meet a couple of friends—which was true since we were all going to be on the main street. She never said a word about my clothes, never asked where I was going. She just smoothed my collar and said, equally casual, that my younger brothers would be staying home with her that day.

“Ranon’s Wood is a fair-sized village, but there weren’tthat many boys within that age group, so we all had a little piece of the walkway on either side of the street staked out as our territory. At the time, I thought we’d just been clever enough not to draw the notice of the older youths. I learned much later that they’d been asked to stay in the background unless specifically summoned.”

“If your father wasn’t there, who’d have that much influence?”

“My mother. She’s a Healer.” Warmed by the memory that was now as bittersweet as all of his memories of Reyna, Jared’s voice swelled with unmistakable pride.

Brock nodded, silently respectful.

“My father’s eyes glazed when the carriage reached the beginning of the main street and he saw all of us spread out like that. But the Queen ordered the carriage to stop and said she wanted to walk a bit. And walk she did. I was the first one on that side of the street, and my father, may the Darkness embrace him, never said a word. I don’t know what the Queen was thinking, but I saw her glance at the street and immediately offered to escort her across so she wouldn’t get run over by another carriage—not that there were any carriages moving on the street. She accepted my hand, and I led her across. Except then her official escort was on one side of the street and she was on the other. Naturally, the nearest boy offered to escort her back across.

“She never laughed at us, never gave us the slightest impression that there was something odd about being shepherded back and forth as she slowly made her way up the street. The last boy at the top of the street handed her back to my father, who had been keeping pace, and he took her into the coffeehouse.

“To this day, I have no idea where he was supposed to have taken her or if she got any refreshment before he slipped her out the back door to avoid more assistance.” Jared smiled.

“Did he tell your mother?” Brock asked.

The mud and the rain—what did they matter compared to this?

“My mother and several other witches dined with the Queen that evening. Since it was Ladies only, my father stayed home with my brothers and me. For several days after that, every so often my mother would glance at him and giggle while his face turned red.”

They walked for a minute in companionable silence.

Then Brock said, “Corry and Cathryn are walking up ahead. Randolf s keeping an eye on them, and keeping Eryk away from them.” He paused. “They’re holding hands.”

Jared and Brock grinned at each other.

“Go on,” Brock said, hitching a thumb toward the wagon. “Go warm up for a bit and make yourself useful. You might tell her that story. I think Thera would like it, too.”

More than willing to get out of the rain and give his legs a rest, Jared waited until the wagon caught up to him. Then he let it pass. He stared at the back of it, turning the thought over and over in his mind, testing it against instincts sharpened by the cruelty he’d seen, and endured, over the past nine years.

Then he hurried to catch up, suddenly wanting the warmth, wanting something to eat, wanting to see if he could read anything in those hard gray eyes when he told her the story.

He wasn’t sure he trusted the Gray Lady. Yet he felt certain that in some other village on some other street, she, too, had allowed herself to be needlessly shepherded so that a few young boys could proudly say they had served.

Chapter Eight

Krelis stared at the spelled brass button in his hand and then at the uneasy guard. “Are you sure?”

The guard’s face tightened. “I made no mistake, Lord Krelis.”

Krelis waved his hand, an oblique apology for insulting the man’s skill. His voice thickened with frustration. “What in the name of Hell is shedoing ?”

The guard shrugged. “There’s a Coach station less than a mile from that inn—but there’s a better inn right next to the station if she’d intended to buy passage and go on to the Tamanara Mountains.”

Which is precisely what the bitchshould have done.

“The innkeeper was sure it was the Gray Lady?”

“An old Queen dressed in gray with twelve slaves. I found that button in the guest servants’ quarters because the slave quarters weren’t ‘comfortable’ enough for her new toys. Maybe she’s trying to tame the Queen killer with sugar instead of the lash.”

Krelis felt his blood chill. “What Queen killer?”

“The Shalador pleasure slave who showed his temper a couple of weeks ago. He would have gone to the salt mines of Pruul, but she fancied him.”

Krelis let his breath out slowly. Fool! He’d already seen the list of slaves, and the Sadist wasn’t on it. Besides, the High Priestess only sold Daemon Sadi’s services. She’d never sell him outright—and she’d never let a dangerous enemy have any kind of control over a male that deadly.