Victoria continued to smile. “You no longer need to wear rags. You are such a pretty girl, and this will make you even prettier. Do you like the pink? It comes from cliff roses that grow in the canyons.”
The dainty dress seemed unsuited for the girl’s life of running through the desert and hunting lizards. Thistle looked at Nicci, who responded with a hard honesty. “In general, I dislike the color pink.” So much so, in fact, that Nicci had once used Subtractive Magic in a wildly inappropriate fashion just to erase the pink dye from a satiny nightdress she had been made to wear in the Wizard’s Keep.
“I think I like my old dress better,” Thistle said. “This one is very nice, but I wouldn’t want it to get dirty when I follow Nicci on her explorations. We’ve got the whole world to see after we kill the Lifedrinker.”
Victoria chuckled. “But, child, you’re with us now, here at Cliffwall. You will stay and be one of my acolyes. I will teach you how to read and understand the spells, and soon enough you will be able to memorize hundreds of books. You will become our newest memmer.” She patted the girl’s arm.
Nicci felt on edge. “But is that what the girl wants?” Thistle looked back and forth from the matronly memmer woman to the sorceress.
“Of course it is,” Victoria said. “I will take you under my wing, child, clean you up, and train you.”
Thistle squirmed on her bench. “I want to read better, and I want to learn things, but I won’t just stay in Cliffwall. Nicci can teach me while we’re out exploring the world. For Lord Rahl. It’s an important mission.”
Victoria gave a dismissive gesture. “Flights of fancy, child. Better to read adventures than have them for yourself. I can protect you.” She gripped the girl’s bony shoulders, squeezing hard.
Thistle ducked and slid closer to Nicci, leaving the pink dress on the table. Nicci rose to her feet, on her guard. “Enough, Victoria. The girl is with us.”
The memmer woman looked angry, as if unaccustomed to anyone defying her wishes. She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “You know the child needs care and an education. We’ll train her how to remember.”
Nicci’s voice was as hard as forged steel. “Thistle must make her own choice. Her life is her own to control.”
“I want to hunt lizards and climb the canyon walls,” she interjected. “Nicci promised to take me across the Old World.”
Nicci assessed the increased level of tension in the room. The scholars had stopped eating, listening to the escalating verbal battle.
Victoria fixed her gaze on the sorceress. “Are you the girl’s mother? By what right do you make decisions for her?”
“No, I am not the girl’s mother. I was never meant to be a mother. That was a choice I made.”
Victoria’s mood shifted in an unexpected direction. “And have you ever thought it might be the wrong choice? Why would a beautiful, strong, and obviously fertile woman like yourself choose not to create life? I wanted so badly to have children but wasn’t able to!” Her voice rose as she grew more incensed. “No one has ever denied me an acolyte before. Who are you to deny me?”
Nicci thought of many answers, but chose the one with the most power. “I am Death’s Mistress.”
CHAPTER 48
After the satisfying meal in the warm banquet hall, Bannon could still taste the sweetness of the honeyed fruit from dessert. He patted his belly on his way back to his quarters. After sleeping outside in the dying foothills the previous night, he found the simple stone-walled room with its sleeping pallet wonderfully safe and homey. It reminded him of his own room back on Chiriya, when he’d been a young man, when he and his best friend Ian had talked about their dreams … before his father had started beating him, before the Norukai slavers took Ian, before the world fell apart.
Bannon closed his eyes and blocked those thoughts. He cleared his mind, breathed in and out, and repainted his memories with bright, if false, colors. Ready for a good night’s sleep, he dropped the fabric door curtain for privacy and removed his homespun shirt, which was still encrusted with harsh white powder and dried sand-panther blood. Humming to himself, he tossed the shirt to the side of the room; tomorrow, he would take it to the Cliffwall laundry. In the meantime, he had a spare shirt and trousers, neatly folded on the unused writing desk.
Someone had delivered a fresh basin of water for him, along with a soft rag he could use as a washcloth. It was the sort of thing his mother would have done to take care of him. He dipped the rag in the water and used it to scrub his face. It felt refreshing and wonderful. Someone had even put herbs in the wash water to make his skin tingle. He soaked the rag in the basin again, rinsing out the grit and grime. He squeezed out the excess water, then looked up, startled as the hanging cloth moved aside from the door.
Audrey slipped in, her dark brown eyes glittering. She did not knock or ask to enter. Shirtless, Bannon was instantly embarrassed. He dropped the rag back into the basin. “I’m sorry—” he said, then wondered what he was apologizing for. “I was just washing up.”
“I’ve come to help you,” Audrey said with a smile and let the cloth hanging fall back into place.
As she moved toward him, her deep brunette hair was long, loose, and lush. Unlike the white woolen gown she usually wore, her dress seemed tighter than usual, its bodice cinched at her narrow waist and below her breasts to emphasize their swell. “After all you’ve been through, Bannon Farmer, you shouldn’t have to wash yourself.”
“I—I’m fine.” He felt his cheeks grow warm again. “I’ve been washing myself all my life. It’s not … usually a job that requires more than one person.”
“Maybe you don’t require it,” Audrey said, taking the wet rag and dipping it into the herbed water, “but why turn down help? This is a much more pleasurable way to bathe.”
All arguments vanished from his mind, and he realized he had no worthwhile objections anyway.
Audrey drew the moist cloth across his chest to wipe away the grit. She moved more slowly than necessary, but her intention was not merely to clean him. She wet the rag again and used it to caress his chest, then down along his flat stomach.
Bannon realized his throat had gone entirely dry. He bent away in further awkwardness as he realized that he had become aroused, prominently pressing out from his canvas trousers.
Audrey discovered it as well. She pressed her hand against his trousers, and a low groan came out of his throat without him even realizing it. He quickly touched her wrist. “There’s no need—”
“I insist. I want to make sure you’re thoroughly bathed.” She undid the rope at his waist to loosen his pants, which had become remarkably tight.
Bannon squirmed. “Please, I—” He stopped and swallowed again. If anything, his throat had become drier. He wasn’t sure whether he was asking her to please stop, or please continue. Audrey reached into his loose pants and used the washcloth to stroke him with its moist softness.
“I want you completely clean,” she said, then pushed him back to the pallet, but Bannon’s knees were weak and he was ready to collapse an
yway. As he lay there looking up at her with shining eyes, Audrey loosened the laces of her bodice, removed it, then slipped out of her white shift, letting the soft wool slide away from her creamy shoulders to expose her ample breasts. The dark circles of her nipples reminded him of the berries she had fed him at the banquet table not long before.
He gasped with wonder at the sight, and she turned to him let him admire the curve of her back, the gentle swell of her perfect buttocks. But Audrey wasn’t going away from him. She just wanted to snuff one of the candles, leaving only a single orange flame flickering in its pot. It was enough light for them to see, but most of the time Bannon had his eyes closed. He gasped many more times as she joined him on the pallet, pressing him down on his back. She slid one leg over his waist and straddled him.
When returning to his quarters, Bannon had been exhausted and sleepy, but now sleep was the farthest thing from his mind.
He touched Audrey’s skin, felt its warmth, then reached up as she leaned forward, inviting him to cup her breasts. When she shifted her hips to settle on top of him and he slid inside her, he felt as if he had fallen into the embrace of paradise. And it was.
Bannon lost all sense of time, hypnotized by the sensations that Audrey showed him. And when she was done and climbed off of him, she leaned forward to kiss him long and full on the lips, then trailed her lips down his cheek, and his neck. He let out a long, shuddering sigh of ecstasy. He was even more exhausted now and not at all tired. His entire world had changed.
As Audrey picked up the supple white shift and pulled it over her head, his heart already ached for her. “I … I don’t know what to say.”
She giggled. “At least you knew what to do.”
“Does this mean that you—you’ve chosen me? I’m sure I’d be a good husband. I didn’t know that I wanted to get married, but you’ve made me—”
She laughed again. “Don’t be silly. You can’t marry all of us.”
“All?” he asked, not understanding.
After Audrey finished dressing, she came back to his pallet, where he lay drifting and happy, his entire body tingling. She kissed him again. “Thank you,” she said, then slipped out of his chambers, darting silently into the corridors.