"No." Krasta shook her head. The room seemed to keep moving a she stopped. "Let's ride around the town in my cam-age - or even into the country."
"In your carriage?" Valnu frowned. "What win the coachman thin[..]."
"Who cares?" Krasta said gaily. "Powers above! He's only a coachman."
Valnu silently clapped his hands. "Spoken like the true woman nobility you are," he exclaimed, and got to his feet. So did Krasta, hoping the process looked smoother to him than it felt to her. They retrieve their cloaks from the little antech amber just outside the main room - the night had its full share of autumn chill - then went upstairs and out in the darkness.
That darkness was well-nigh absolute. Though no Algarvian dragons had yet appeared over Priekule, the city escaped itself in black.
A good many carnages waited outside the Cellar while their nob owners reveled the night away. Krasta had to call several times before could sort out which one was hers.
"Where to, milady?" her driver asked when she and Valnu climbed up into the seat behind him. "Back to the mansion?"
"No, no," Krasta said. "Just drive about for a while. If you happen to come on a road that leads out of the city - well, so much the better."
The coachman stayed quiet longer than he should have. When at last he spoke, he said was, "Aye, milady. It shall be as you command." He clucked to the horses and flicked the reins. The carriage began to move.
Krasta hardly noticed his words. Of course it would be as she commanded. How could it be otherwise, when she was dealing with her own servitors? She turned to Valnu, a vague shape in the darkness beside her.
She reached out for him as he was reaching out for her. The coachman paid no attention. He knew better than to pay attention… or, at least, to be seen paying attention.
Under the cover of their cloaks, Valnu's hand found the bone toggles that held her tunic closed. He undid a couple of them and reached inside the tunic to fondle her bare breast. Careless of the coachman, Krasta moaned. When her mouth met Valnu's this time, the kiss was so fierce, she tasted blood: his or hers, she could not tell.
His hand slid out of her tunic. He rubbed at the crotch of her trousers.
She thought she would burst like an egg then. Valnu chuckled. His hand dived under her waistband, His fingers, long and slim and clever, knew exactly where to go and exactly what to do when they got there. Krasta gasped and shuddered, for a moment blind with pleasure. Valnu chuckled again, as pleased with himself as he was with having pleased her. The horses plodded on, hooves clopping on cobbles, Stolid as the animals he drove, the coachman minded the reins.
Krasta thought of ordering Valnu out of the carriage now that he'd given her what she wanted. But, sated and tipsy, she felt more generous than usual. She rubbed him through the wool of his trousers. After an abrupt inhalation, he murmured, "I do hope you won't make me explain myself to my laundryman."
She laughed and rubbed harder. Nothing could have made her more inclined to do just that than his hoping she wouldn't. After a moment, though, still in that uncommonly kindly mood, she unbuttoned his fly and drew him forth. She stroked him some more.
"Ahhh," he said softly.
Had Krasta gone on for another minute or two, she would have made Valnu explain himself to his laundryman: of that she had no doubt.
Instead, she lowered her head, saying, "Here. I will give you a treat you could have only from a noblewoman." She took him in her mouth. His flesh was hot and smooth.
His fingers tangled in her hair. Above her busy lips and tongue, he laughed. "You are quite a lot of woman, my sweet," he said, "but what you're doing there hasn't been a secret of the nobility for a long, long time, if it ever was. Why, only last week this pretty little shopgirl-"
In spite of his hands, she raised up so suddenly that the back of her head caught him in the chin. "What?" she hissed as he yelped in pain. Fury filled her as quickly and completely as lubriciousness had. Before he could even start to set himself to rights, she pushed him with all her strength.
He had time for only a startled squawk before he tumbled out on to the cobbles.
"Milady, what on earth -?" he began.
"Shut up!" Krasta snarled. Careless of her left breast peeping out from the undone tunic, she leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Take me home this instant. Make your stupid beasts move or you'll be sorry for it, do you hear me?"
"Aye, milady," the coachman answered: not a word more, which was wise of him. He flicked the reins. After what sounded like surprised snorts, the horses moved up into a trot. Krasta looked back over her shoulder. Valnu took a couple of steps in pursuit of the carriage, then gave up. He vanished in the darkness behind her.
Absently, Krasta did up the toggles he had opened. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, again and again. Disgust filled her, so much that she almost had to lean out of the carriage and vomit it forth into the road way. It wasn't what she'd been doing; she'd done that before, and always been amused how such a small thing could make a man behave as if treacle filled his veins.
But that her mouth had gone where a commoner's - a pretty little shop girl's, Valnu had said - mouth went before… She could imagine nothilig more revolting. She felt ritually unclean, like a man of the Ice People, who had accidentally slain his fetish animal.
After she got back to the mansion, she routed Bauska out of bed had the servant fetch her a bottle of brandy. She rinsed her mouth sever times, then imperiously thrust the bottle back. Bauska took it awful without a word. Like the coachman, she'd learned better than to ask questions of her mistress.
With his comrades, Tealdo tramped along the wooden quay in the harbor of Imola toward the Ambuscade, from whose flagpole fluttered the Algarvian banner. All the army that had spent so long training was now filing aboard the ships that filled the harbor in the former Duchy of Bari.
Tealdo marveled to see the men all together. He marveled even more to see the ships A together. "We haven't put together a fleet like this for a cursed long time," he said over his shoulder to Trasone, who marched along behind him.
"Not for a thousand years the officers say" his friend agreed
"Silence in the ranks there!" Sergeant Panfilo bellowed. Someone fortunately, someone well away from Tealdo - made a noise that probably came from his mouth but sounded as if it had a different origin. Panfilo stormed off to see if he could catch and terrorize the miscreant.
Up the gangplank Tealdo went. His feet thudded on the timbers of the deck. The sailors scurrying around there and the men who traveled the lines of the rigging like outsized spiders did not strike him as an ordinary naval crew. That was only fair - they weren't an ordinary naval crew, nor anything close to it. Every one of them was a highly trained yachtsman.
But that art was no longer obsolete, thanks to the ingenuity of Algarve's generals and admirals. Tealdo wished he would be able to watch the great sails fill with wind as the fleet weighed anchor. Instead he went down to a poorly lit compartment with whose cramped dimensions he was all too familiar. There he and his company would stay till their journey ended… or till something went wrong.
Maybe Captain Larbino had something similar on his mind, for he said, "Men, what we do here tonight will go a long way toward winning the war for Algarve. The Sibians shouldn't realize we're coming till we shop up on their doorstep - we'll catch them with their kilts down.
Nobody has gone to war with a fleet of sailing ships for hundreds of years.
They'll never expect it, and their mages likely won't be able to give'em much warning, either. If we sail over a ley line… so what? We don't draw any energy from it, so they won't notice us. We'll be as safe as we would on dry land till we get into Tirgoviste harbor. Make yourselves comfortable and enjoy the trip."