Riding Mazeward on a horse suddenly and unreasonably skittish, he cursed himself for a fool. No proof that it was Kama-what he'd seen could have been some apparition, even the witch, Roxane, in disguise. He'd touched nothing; only seen something he thought was Kama-there were undeads in Sanctuary who resembled the forms they'd had in life, and some of those were Roxane's slaves. Though if any such had happened to Kama, he told himself, Strat would have sent word to him. At least, the Strat he used to know would have. Right then, Critias could count the things he knew for certain on the fingers of one hand.
But he knew he was going to the vampire woman's house to find his partner. It was just a matter of time; Kama's allegations were already eating at his soul. He had to leam the truth.
Kadakithis's palace was full of fish-eyed Beysibs: Beysib men with more jewelry on their persons than Rankan women from uptown or Ilsigi whores; Beysib women female shock troops with bared and painted breasts and poison snakes wound about their necks or arms-who seemed never to blink and gave Tempus gooseflesh.
Kadakithis wanted to introduce Tempus and Jihan to his Beysib flounder, Shupansea; before Tempus could protest, in the prince/governor's velvet-hung chamber, that he needed no more women in his life, the Rankan prince had called the woman forth.
Jihan, beside him, took Tempus's arm and squeezed, sensing what passed on first glance between her beloved Riddler and the lady ruler of the Beysib people.
For Tempus, noises lessened, the world grew dim, and in his heart a passion rose, while in his head a voice he'd not heard clear for years urged: Take her. For Me. Ravage the slut upon this spot/
The woman's fish-eyes widened; a snake slithered on her arm. Her breasts were fair and gilded; they stared at him with come-hither charms and it was only Jihan who restrained him, prince or no, from doing what Vashanka wanted then and there.
What Vashanka wanted? Tempus, who never backed away from any fight, took three retreating steps as Jihan whispered, "Riddler, my lord? What is it? Has she witched you? I will tear her legs off one by-"
"No, Jihan," he muttered through clenched teeth in Nisi, a tongue neither prince nor consort understood. He shook Jihan's grasp from his arm and rubbed the depressions her fingers had made: the Froth Daughter's strength nearly equaled his own. But neither of them was a match for Vashanka who, Tempus was now certain, in some way had come again. He was here- more infantile, more tempestuous than ever, but here.
And what that meant to a man who'd forsaken the Pillager and taken up with Enlil to balance a curse no longer so sure upon his head Tempus couldn't say. But there was no doubt in him that soon he'd take some woman-this one if Vashanka had His way of it-and consecrate whatever wench into the service of the god.
He just stepped forward, on his best behavior where the prince could see, one palm sweating on the hilt of the sharkskin-pommeled sword, and took her hand. "My lady, Shupansea, men call me Tempus-"
She interrupted: "The Riddler. We have heard tales of thee."
And then from behind a curtain came Isambard, acolyte and priestly apprentice to Molin Torchholder, running without regard to his priestly dignity, calling out: "Quickly! My lady! My lord! There are dead snakes in the palace! There are more snakes than there ought to be! And in the children's rooms, where Nikodemos is ... he's cut one of the sacred snake's heads off!"
Isambard skidded to a stop an arm's length from Tempus's chest and lapsed into panicked silence until his master entered the chamber. Molin Torchholder, ever mindful of his position and demeanor, did not immediately clarify his acolyte's exclamations but appraised the assembly as if they, not he, were the breathless intruders.
"Ah, Tempus. Back in town at last?" Sanctuary's hierarch inquired, his voice carefully modulated to conceal the manifold anxieties which that man's unexpected presence caused him.
"That I am." Tempus detested priests, especially this one. And so he grinned once more, thinking that Brachis, when he arrived with Theron's sailing party, would put this foul, dark-skinned priest in his proper place. "Well, Torch, your minion seemed to have a problem moments ago. Surely you've got it as well?" His sword was out by then, and Jihan's also.
Kadakithis was scratching his golden curls, his handsome but vacant face inquiring: "What's this, Molin? Dead snakes? Is your state-cult out of hand again? I told you Nikodemos was no fit guardian for those children. I-"
The Beysib monarch interjected smoothly: "Let me see these dead snakes, priest. And mind you, I'm never sure that these troubles aren't made by the Rankans who announce them."
By then Tempus and Jihan were running down the hall, toward secret passages Tempus knew like the back of his sword-hand or Jihan's female mysteries, which led to the lower chambers where, near the dungeons, Niko and the children-whom some said were more than that-were being kept.
Ischade's Foalside house was more home than haunt, less forbidding than Roxane's to the south, but hardly an inviting place to visit.
Unless, of course, one was Straton, her lover whom she'd guided to de facto power in Sanctuary's factionalized streets, or an undead such as Janni or Stilcho (both of whom had once been Stepsons), or a mageling such as Haught, who learned what he could from the witches and sought to wake the power in his Nisibisi blood.
Strat had been with Ischade hardly long enough for a candle to bum low when Haught, whom Straton hated, came gusting in the door.
The place was softly lit and full of colors; precious gems and silks and metals strewed the floor.
Straton was, by then, the finest thing she had, though-a human man, with all his prowess, not an animated corpse or witchling.
She could love him, could Ischade, with a finer passion than the rest. But she could feel in him a struggle, one that made shoulders sweat and muscles twitch. She'd known that, hold him though she would, the day must come when holding Straton would be hard.
His narrow Rankan eyes were haunted, deep-set, his jaw squared with indecision lately when he came. And now, rolling off her at the sight of Haught, a hated, half-understood rival, a symptom of all about Ischade Strat couldn't justify or wish away, he reached for a robe she'd found him, shrugged it on and, with just his swordbelt, stalked outside.
"When you're done with... it, him, whatever... I'll be seeing to my horse."
Strat still grieved for his lost bay warhorse; its death was something she could and would undo, if only she thought Stra-ton could handle the revelation that death was no barrier to Ischade.
Oh, he'd seen Janni, seen Niko embrace an undead partner. And Strat had not reacted well.
"What is it, Haught?" she asked, impatient. She didn't like the hubris growing in this Nisi child. He was difficult, growing stronger, growing bold. And she wanted to get back to Straton, who served her ends, who worked her will and excused her wiles and helped her hold her interests in the town. Ischade's interests were important. And they were too tied up with Strat now to let Haught get in the way.
So she thought to dance around the Nisi ex-slave, freed by her but not free of her. She'd only started her mesmerizing when a sanguine hand reached out and grasped her wrist.
Impertinent. This one soon would need an object lesson. She swallowed his will with a stare and let him see he couldn't even blink without her say-so. She whispered, "Yes? Your business, please."
And Haught, so pretty, so fiery underneath his slave's face, said, "I thought you'd want a warning. His boyfriend's coming. ..." Haught's chin jutted Mazeward. "What use he'll be once Crit's come hence, you might not like. So if you want, I could-"