Ildiko shrugged. “You’ve still to work out a credit with the dock master for those goods damaged in shipping, but my work here is done.” She stood, wincing at the low ache in her back from sitting on the hard stool for so long. “Good evening.” She glanced at the thin edge of glowing light in the distance. “Or good morning as the case may be.”
She accepted the dock master’s profuse thanks for her help and promised a return visit should they experience a similar problem in future shipments. Her gaze settled on the captain who was busily snapping orders to his sleepy crew to ready the barge to sail. She hoped a lesson in delays might prevent him and others from trying another stunt like this one in the future.
The fortress was still a hive of activity as the household staff worked to prepare for the next evening’s feast. Ildiko didn’t stop to inquire how things progressed. As long-time steward of Saggara, Mesumenes handled such events with an expert hand. She simply stayed out of his way and approved or requested changes when he or Cook asked specifically for her input.
At the moment, she was doubly grateful for their efficiency. All she wanted was a bath to wash away the stink of the wharf. Her maid Sinhue waited for her in her bedchamber, her nose crinkling before she smoothed her features into a polite mask.
Ildiko laughed. “No need to hide it. I know I smell foul. I’ve the wharf’s reek on me.”
The two women worked together to strip off Ildiko’s clothing, and soon she was naked except for a light blanket she wrapped around herself to ward off some of the room’s chill. She huddled in a chair by the lit hearth for warmth while Sinhue left for the kitchens to order a hip bath and food.
Were Brishen here, she’d order a bigger bath for the two of them to share. Ildiko sighed, staring into the flames dancing merrily in the fireplace. He’d taken Anhuset and a patrol with him to his territory’s western border. Word had reached Saggara of numerous raids on Kai homesteads, with the theft of cattle, sheep and horses and the death of one family. Reports had been mixed as to who the culprits were, with some proclaiming them as Kai while others swore they were Beladine raiders crossing into Kai lands from Serovek Pangion’s territory.
She hoped it wasn’t the second. Since Serovek’s help in rescuing both Ildiko and Brishen, not to mention Anhuset, he and Brishen had gone from amicable neighbors to close friends. A fine thing except for the fact their respective kingdoms took an ever more belligerent stance toward each other. Ildiko prayed neither would declare war. She hated the idea that the two men might have to face each other as enemies on the battlefield.
Sinhue returned with a contingent of servants bearing the tub and jugs of water, along with covered platters of food. In no time, Ildiko sat submerged to her waist in hot water. Sinhue occupied herself with setting a nearby table until her mistress was ready to wash her hair.
While the tub wasn’t designed to recline in, one side had a high back, similar to a chair, that allowed Ildiko to rest against it. Were it not for the delicious smell of the nearby platters teasing her nose and making her stomach gurgle, she’d sit for a long soak. Instead, she hurried through the bath and hair washing, eager to sit and eat.
She was in the midst of wrapping a warmed drying cloth around her torso when the door connecting her bed chamber to Brishen’s opened behind her. Sinhue bowed in that direction, and Ildiko turned, spotting her husband in the doorway.
Still dressed in mud-splattered armor and leather and a cloak whose hem dripped more mud onto the floor, he stood on the threshold, his grin both sensual and sharp. “Hello, pretty hag,” he said in tones that sent a pleasant shiver down her back that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Brishen!” Heedless of the fact she was still standing in the tub, Ildiko lunged for him, tripping over the tub’s edge in her haste to reach him. Sinhue’s quick reflexes saved her from an embarrassing sprawl.
The grinning servant passed her to Brishen who’d cleared the distance between the doorway and the tub in a quick stride. “I leave the hercegesé to your care, Herceges.” She bowed a second time. “Ring if you need me.”
Ildiko waited until the door closed behind Sinhue before speaking. “Well, there went my plan to greet your homecoming with dignity and grace,” she said in a rueful voice.
Brishen’s mouth quirked, and his right eye shone with a nacreous gleam. His left eye was gone, gouged out months earlier by raiders in a bout of torture. A black patch covered the empty eye socket but didn’t hide the jagged scars that split the skin above his eyebrow and below the eye rim. “I like this plan much better.” His long-clawed fingers traced a delicate line along the edge of her towel where it lay against her breastbone, one corner tucked into her cleavage. He held her hand in a light grip with his other hand. “Miss me, wife?”
“Eh, maybe a little,” she teased. She leaned into him, savoring his touch. Despite the lethality of his claws and his ability to use them like knives, she harbored no fear for her safety. For all that he was a warrior born and bred, with the superior strength bequeathed to all those of his race, Brishen Khaskem had always been a gentle husband. Ildiko tried to embrace him and frowned when he stepped out of reach, still retaining his hold on her hand.
“I’m filthy, wife, and need a bath of my own.” His nostrils flared, and his voice lowered to a more guttural timbre. “Lover of thorns, but you smell good enough to eat.”
She arched an eyebrow and glanced at the platters on the table. “Considering our people’s respective histories, not to mention that wolf smile when you say such a thing, I’m not sure if I should be flattered or scream for help.”
Her comment recalled a conversation from a few months earlier. Anhuset, not he, had been the one to verify a bit of gruesome history shared by Kai and human. Ildiko was sure she’d gone pale as chalk when Brishen’s cousin told her how the Kai once hunted humans for food.
She’d stared at Anhuset for a long moment, trying to determine if the other woman teased or spoke fact. “Then Serovek wasn’t bluffing when he threatened to turn that Beladine raider over to the Kai as road rations if he didn’t tell us where they held Brishen.”
Anhuset had shaken her head. “He wasn’t. Threats work best when they’re grounded in truth.”
Brishen’s stomach growled. Ildiko tugged her hand free and took a step back. “I’m certain I taste like a boiled potato,” she declared.
He scowled. “Then you’re safe from me, my beauty.” He strode toward the table with its enticing scents and lifted the covers off the various plates. His eye closed in ecstasy as he popped a tidbit into his mouth and chewed. Ildiko’s knees wobbled, and a burgeoning heat began to pool in her belly and between her thighs. Who knew someone could look that seductive while eating?
He stole another bite before offering her an apologetic shrug. “I haven’t eaten since yestereve. We tracked a band of cattle thieves to the western boundaries. We killed two and took the other ten prisoner.”
She dreaded his answer to her question. “Kai or Beladine?”
“Kai.”
Her shoulders sagged. She did her best to hide her relief. Killing his own countrymen was surely not an easy thing for him, but at least there was no increased chance of cross-border hostilities if Brishen had meted out Kai justice to Beladine thieves.
She peered more closely at him, touching on his face, shoulders and slender waist thickened by layers of armor, his legs encased in heavy woolen trousers and boots laced to the knees. He bore the splatters of mud but not blood, and there were no rips in his clothing.
After more than a year of marriage, he had grown far more adept at reading her expressions. Something in her face must have revealed her concern. “I am well, Ildiko. Just tired and starved.”
She sighed. “I can’t help it. I worry for you when you lead these patrols. I don’t sleep until you return.”
His features softened. “Then you don’t dream of me when I’m gone,” he complained before giving her a wink.
Ildiko turned to gather up the night rail Sinhue
had laid out on her bed and casually let the drying cloth drop. She smiled but didn’t turn at Brishen’s gasp. “Now that you’re here, I can sleep. Then I will dream of you.”
His voice took on a noticeable rasp, thick with desire. “Put that thought away now, Ildiko. There’ll be no sleep for either of us for many hours.”
She shivered, both from the cold and anticipation before slipping on the garment. A disappointed exhalation made her glance over her shoulder at him. “Well then, Herceges, why are you just standing there pilfering my supper? Shed that muddy armor and make good on your threat.”
Brishen chuckled. “Not a threat, a promise.” A knock at the door separating their bedchambers turned his attention from her for a moment. “That would be Etep with my bath and food. Will you join me?” He grabbed both trays off the table set for her by Sinhue.
That he would even have to ask such a question made her shake her head. “I would have ordered those for you if I’d known you were here, husband.” She followed him to the door, frowning when he sidestepped her attempt to touch him once more. Her fingers practically throbbed with the need to caress him—a need born from desire as well as concern that he was well and whole.
Brishen nudged the door open wider with his boot to reveal his personal servant Etep standing across the room setting another table with more food while the same group of servants who filled her tub emptied buckets of water into another bath. “I was barely through the entry hall’s door when I begged for these things. I’ve several days of road dirt on me, and I stink of cattle.”
Unlike the hip bath delivered to Ildiko’s room, this one was a full tub that allowed the bather to stretch out. Steam, scented with the cool fragrance of juniper, rose off the water’s surface in wispy tendrils.
Brishen’s bedchamber was an icy crypt compared to hers, the fire in the hearth as yet unlit. A servant crouched at the opening, preparing kindling around the logs. Ildiko shivered and excused herself to retrieve a heavy robe and slippers from one of the clothing chests in her room. When she returned, the servants were gone except for Etep who set to work helping Brishen out of his armor.
She settled into one of the chairs next to the food-laden table, pulled her knees up to the seat, and tucked her cold feet under her robe.
Brishen regarded her with a narrowed eye as she sampled the various offerings set out for their supper. He shrugged out of the loosened brigandine cuirass and handed it to the waiting Etep. “See you don’t devour it all, Ildiko. I’m hungry enough to eat the plates.”
“I’ll try and control myself,” she promised in a casual voice. She grinned at his low growl. “Bath or food first?” The scent of spicy pepper and savory sauce tickled her nose and made her mouth water.
“Bath.” Brishen dismissed Etep when he was down to his long shirt and trousers. “I’m dirtier than I am hungry.” He stripped off the shirt, flinging it to a far corner of the room. The trousers followed. Ildiko’s sharp inhalation made him pause as he stepped into the bath’s hot water. His eyebrows arched, and a faint smirk played at the corners of his mouth. “Why are you staring like that, wife?”
Ildiko snorted. What a silly question. The Kai were, by nature, a leaner, more muscular people than most humans, and Brishen was no exception to the rule. He possessed a horseman’s solid thighs and the arms of a man who trained often for war. Smooth gray skin stretched taut over broad shoulders and a sculpted chest and stomach. Were he to turn, she’d be treated to an equally impressive view of a powerful back and firm buttocks.
Her gaze settled on his thighs and stayed. While a Kai male differed in some ways from his human counterpart, the two shared the same construct when it came to the endowments of manhood. They also shared the commonality of bragging about and comparing said endowments. Living in a military garrison among rough soldiers, Ildiko had inadvertently overheard more than a few masculine boasts .
Brishen, both confident and humble, didn’t brag, but judging by the impressive erection that rose under her steady gaze, he certainly had cause to do so. “Now look what you’ve done,” he complained.
She laughed. “You brought it on yourself. How can I possibly look away with you prancing about in all your glory?” She rose and tightened the belt on her robe. “Stop dawdling and get in. I’ll play lady’s maid and wash your back and hair.”
He did as she instructed and breathed out a pleasured sigh when he sank into the water to his neck. “I think I’ll like being a lady.”
The fire in the newly lit hearth crackled merrily. Ildiko left Brishen to float lazily in the bath, an expression of pure bliss gracing his features as he rested his head on the tub’s edge and draped his arms over the sides. She moved the stack of drying cloths closer to the hearth to warm and poured a dram of wine from a carafe into a goblet.
He looked asleep when she returned to the tub, goblet in hand. His right eye was closed, the left eye socket still concealed by the black eye patch he wore when he sank into the water. Neither vanity nor shame moved him to keep it on. He’d simply forgotten he wore it. He opened his good eye and caught her admiring him.
“You’re either planning my seduction or my demise,” he said in a voice slurred by fatigue. His long fingers wrapped around the goblet, and he raised it in toast to her thoughtfulness.
A small footstool by the hearth served as an excellent perch, and Ildiko placed it behind the tub where Brishen’s head rested. “Neither,” she replied. “I’m planning to wash your hair.” She gave him time to drain the wine while she retrieved a shallow pail, pitchers of cold water and a cake of soap.
Brishen’s appreciative “Mmmmm” as she slid her fingers gently through his tangled hair made her smile. Ildiko rolled up the sleeves of her robe, tucked the hem under her seat and set to wetting, soaping and rinsing his long locks. She tried to imagine him as an elder Kai man, with hair turned silvery white instead of its current sloe darkness. He’d still be as handsome and regal as he was now. She chuckled under her breath, amused at the idea that she once thought him hideous.
One yellow eye peered up at her. “What amuses you, wife?” The question fell away to a moan as she rubbed his scalp.
“I was just thinking you are far too handsome for your own good.”
“It’s the scars,” he said. “They give me a certain air.”
Ildiko lost her smile. Those scars. She’d have nightmares about them until she died. Not because they made him hideous but because they’d been inflicted with purpose and merciless brutality. Never in her life did she imagine she’d order the death of other men, but she’d done it to those who tortured her husband and wouldn’t hesitate to do the same a second time.
She twisted his clean hair into a heavy rope, ignoring his accusation that she was trying to scalp him. His protests changed to wordless hums of approval when she soaped his back, her slippery hands gliding over the curve where neck met shoulder and the deep valley where his spine bisected the hard slopes of his back.
His protests started anew when she passed him the soap and a cloth. “You can finish the rest while I fill a plate for you and pour more wine.”
“But you said you’d play lady’s maid to me.”
“Sinhue does not bathe me all over.”
Brishen grunted. “Wasted opportunity that.” He coated the cloth in soap and began scrubbing, his frown forbidding at her chortle.
It was her turn to frown when he stood up from the tub and reached for the drying cloth she held out to him. The movement made him pivot into profile, and Ildiko got her first glance of the ugly indigo bruise stamped on the back of his thigh.
She held back the cloth and drew closer, gaze on the bruise. “What is this?”
Wet and shivering, Brishen glanced down at himself, still semi-erect. The faint smirk reappeared. “Proof of my consuming passion for mollusk.”
Ildiko scowled, her fingertips dancing lightly along the bruise’s dark edge. “Not that. This.”
He shrugged. “Gift from an annoyed cow. I?
??m a better fighter than a drover. Felt like someone hit me in the leg with a hammer.” Taking advantage of her distraction, he snatched the drying cloth out of her hand.
“You should summon a healer.” A part of her recognized she was being unduly concerned. Many a night Brishen had returned from the training field patterned in purple bruises from knee to neck. Still, she couldn’t help her overprotective response.
As if recognizing the source of her fear, his voice gentled, and he twined her still damp braid through his fingers. “There’s nothing one can do that I didn’t already take care of on the road, Ildiko. It’s a small thing and will heal soon enough.
“You still should have sought out a healer.”
He wrapped the towel around his middle and took the second one she handed him to dry his limbs. “I was in too much of a hurry to return home. I had a wife waiting. And food.” He flashed a fanged grin at her. “Not one and the same of course.”
She swatted him lightly on the arm before scampering away on a screech when he returned the gesture with a hand to her buttock.
They caught up with each other’s week as they ate. Brishen’s foray sounded miserable, complete with rain, fighting and bad-tempered cattle. He was on his third plate of food when he mentioned the barge carrying trade goods to Escariel’s docks. “We saw the barge as we traveled back to Saggara. I expected it to be much further down the Absu. Was it delayed?”
Ildiko leaned back in her chair, twirling the stem of her goblet slowly between thumb and fingers. “You could say that. Someone in Gaur decided it might be amusing to list the weights and measures of the cargo in Gauri Old Form.” She described the visit from the messenger and her anger at seeing the manifest completed in temple script as well as the long hours at the dock completing translations.
Brishen’s dismay made her own irritation over the entire affair flare once more. “You’re an excellent helpmeet, Ildiko, but it’s disappointing this happened. I’d hoped the actual trade exchanges wouldn’t start out so contentious.”
She caressed his forearm where it rested on the table’s surface. “I as well, though I suspect we won’t see much more of that in future shipments. This was someone testing the waters.”