Shield's Lady

the meantime, we’ve got things to do.”
    “You didn’t tell me what questions you asked the boys or what answers you got,” Sariana pointed out.
    “I asked them who had paid them to corner you in the House of Reflections.”
    “Someone paid them to do that?” Sariana dug in her heels with sufficient force to slow Gryph momentarily. He paused long enough to yank her back into motion and then he nodded abruptly.
    “That’s right. Did you think it was all a coincidence that you got stranded in the fun house with three teenage monsters?”
    “Well, I did wonder where everyone else had gone. I even lost track of little Keri.”
    “Someone bribed the attendant to close the place for a while, leaving you alone inside. Then that same someone sent those three kids in after you.”
    Sariana stared at Gryph in bewilderment. “But why?”
    “The kids said they were told it was all a joke. That some man paid them to frighten you into the southwest corner of the House of Reflections.”
    “What was supposed to happen there?” Sariana groped for logic in an illogical situation.
    “The boys said that the man who had paid them wanted to play hero. Something about wanting to impress you. He was supposed to appear at the last minute and grab you from their clutches.”
    “It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Yes it does,” Gryph countered roughly. “It makes a lot of sense if you figure that what was really going on was another kidnapping attempt.”
    Sariana could have screamed with frustrated anger. She recalled the two men who had stalked her in Serendipity. “But why would anyone want me?”
    Gryph shook his head at her obtuseness. “I’ve explained that. If someone gets hold of you, he’s got hold of me.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Gryph halted without any warning and swung around to confront her. His face was a tightly controlled, unreadable mask. “You keep saying that but it’s not true. You’re smart and you’re clever and you’re educated. You do understand. At least you understand some of it. You just don’t want to admit how involved with me you really are. And you have a bad habit of ignoring facts that don’t happen to suit your version of events.”
    It was too much. Sariana decided she had been through enough that day. Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not my fault if some stupid local has assumed we’re married and that you’ll do anything to keep your newfound breeding machine.”
    “It may not be your fault, but it’s a fact,” Gryph retorted heartlessly. It was obvious he, too, felt he’d suffered enough lately. He was in no mood to pacify his outraged wife.
    Sariana felt her spirits plummet once more. The fight went out of her as Gryph steered her up the gangplank of the windrigger. “You’re not even going to bother to deny it, are you?” she asked listlessly.
    “Deny what?” Gryph was no longer paying close attention. He was scanning the deck for a member of the crew.
    “That you think of me as nothing more than a breeding machine.”
    “Sariana, I haven’t got time right now to soothe your feminine ego.” He gave her a small push toward the entrance to the lower deck. “Go pack your things and mine, too. We’re leaving the ship in a few minutes.”
    She started to demand an explanation for this latest irrational decision but it was too late. Gryph was already striding toward the captain’s quarters. Sariana reached into her cloak pocket and touched the inquiring nose of the lizard.
    “One of these days, Lucky, that man is going to find out that not everything functions according to his master plan. if I didn’t want that cutter back as badly as he does I swear I’d walk off this ship this instant and disappear.”
    It was as she turned toward the cabin that it belatedly occurred to Sariana that disappearing might be exactly what she did if she got off the ship without Gryph’s protection. The memories of the genuine scare she had received in the House of Reflections were still very vivid in her mind.

    Late that afternoon Sariana found herself on a small craft called a river sled. It was another clever western invention, she was forced to concede as she sat in the bow and stared at the wide, lazy river unwinding in front of her. It required only one person to run the simple but efficient mechanism that propelled the small boat through the water with a system of meticulously designed blades. It came as no great surprise that Gryph knew how to manage the sled.