Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

not holding you prisoner,” Calan insisted. “I am preventing you from walking off the edge of a cliff. Already I have sent a runner to your husband to inform him of your whereabouts. Would you wait for him to send you a guard, or would you prefer to brave the night streets alone?”
    “But the rest of my men…”
    “They are only three,” Calan said. “And how many women would you take with you? Don’t be foolish.”
    The high priest rubbed his hand against the side of her face, and for a reason she could not understand, she did not slap it away.
    “As of tonight, we are ending the bloodshed,” Calan said. “We will wear holes into our sandals as we scour the streets. We will shine a light into every dark corner. We will sing a song of joy to drown out the ugly shouts of hatred. Our eyes are open, Lady Keenan. Sleep well on your bed, and know that you are safe here. Think on what I have said, and then when you return to your husband, tell him what you have heard. Do I truly ask so much of you?”
    “I’ve long heard whispers that the thieves had bought off the priests of Ashhur,” Madelyn said. “You should have helped us against the thief guilds, yet spent years doing nothing. Now you tell me to feel safe in your house? I will not sleep, old man. I still have my dagger, and with my back to the wall and my eyes to the door, I will wait for my husband.”
    Calan smiled a sad smile.
    “Such spirit,” he said. “A shame it is born not of love but mistrust and desperation.”
    He turned and left. True to her word Madelyn shut the door, sat on her bed, and stared at the doorway until it was only a barely perceived blur.
    Safe or not, desperate or not, she would tell her husband what had transpired. Any veiled threat, no matter how gently given, would earn his wrath.
    Daytime was surprisingly pleasant, but it was the nights that made Alyssa cringe with every wayward glance at the setting sun. In daylight she spent time with a charming Yoren and his favored mercenaries. She laughed as they sparred, told filthy jokes, and took turns trading verbal barbs at each other’s prowess in blade, bow, and bed. Her meals with Theo Kull, of poorer quality than what she might have had at her father’s, were still plentiful.
    But every night Yoren came to share her bed. With teeth clenched she endured his grunting atop her, his careful movements slow and methodical. He was proud of himself, she knew. Every time she faked a moan or bucked beneath him, he acted as if he were the greatest lover the world of Dezrel had ever known. But she had to fake it. Had to play the part, as much as it sickened her. The worst was when he put his hands around her neck. Once it had only been a game, a thrill for someone as highborn as she to feel a man’s threatening grasp amid the love play. Now those hands had an eagerness that frightened her, their actions too closely resembling what he’d do to her the moment the Gemcroft wealth was safely in his grasp.
    “Something the matter?” Yoren asked, sitting beside her.
    “Thinking of home,” she said, hoping the comment innocent enough for the inquiry to end. The two sat before an enormous bonfire, their arms linked. The contact felt like a perverse lie to Alyssa. With her free hand she secretly fondled the dagger hidden in her skirts. She’d thought of using it several times. Once she had even reached for her discarded dress and the dagger hidden within, right when Yoren was climaxing and his hands seemed to clutch her throat with inhuman strength. As her fingers had touched the hilt, he’d finally relented, and so had she.
    One of the mercenaries tossed another large log onto the bonfire, startling her from her thoughts with his shout.
    “Where’s the music we was promised? I’ve got a song to sing, yet no music to sing it with. I ain’t singing without no song!”
    Alyssa faked a smile. The cold of winter had come on strong with the approaching night, and the mercenaries had successfully begged permission to build a bonfire to ward off the cold. The bulk of the camp, minus some servants and patrolling men, were seated around that bonfire. Veldaren’s walls were in the far distance, but Alyssa felt certain that anyone walking along their breadth could spot their fire with ease.
    “Here’s your music,” one sellsword shouted, following it up with a loud burp.
    “Give me some more of Gunter’s cooking, and I’ll give you some music of my own,” another man shouted.