Her spins had the extra snap that separated excellent from merely good. Knowing that what the master wanted from the dance was not just excellence, but arousal, she emphasized the erotic moves—dancing with more fire and less grace. She managed to make the simple practice costume into something much more erotic. The drummer was better than she had thought. He added the last touch of spice that turned the dance from esoteric and airy into something that belonged only in the most private of clubs or bedrooms.
When Rialla stopped dancing, there was silence.
Breathing heavily, she looked at Winterseine, and was reassured by the satisfaction on his face.
“I want her. Father.” Terran’s rasping voice broke through the silence. Rialla had been so focused on Lord Winterseine, she hadn’t seen that his son was with him.
“No,” replied Winterseine. “She’s been Laeth’s slave for who knows how long. You know as well as I do the loyalty that a slave can develop for her owner. I’m not letting her run loose in the keep until I am sure that she is properly retrained.”
Terran looked away from Rialla and focused on his father. “I want her,” he repeated.
Rialla turned her impassive gaze to Winterseine. A strange expression crossed his face, and it took a moment for her to recognize it as fear. It was such an odd reaction that it distracted her from her distress at having attracted Terran’s attention.
Lord Winterseine turned to the dancemaster and said curtly, “See that she is taken to my son’s chamber this evening after baths. I’ll send a guard to escort her.” He turned and left. With a last look at Rialla, Terran did the same.
The dancemaster bowed his head in submission and gestured for Rialla to wait with the others, while he made sure that the injured slave had been properly treated.
Rialla stood where he placed her and closed her shaking hands over her arms, not bothering to wipe off the sweat that crept down her face. There would be more there before the day was done. She had made the dancemaster look bad and hurt one of his students. He was not going to make the rest of the day easy. Rialla tried to forget what would come after that.
When Rialla emerged from the baths, it was Tamas, Winterseine’s manservant, who waited for her. The thin silk shift that the bath attendants had given her didn’t cover much, and what it did cover was clearly visible through the fine fabric. Seven years a slave had left her largely uncaring about her state of dress or undress, but Tamas made her wish for a blanket to cover herself with.
She kept a bland expression on her face when his hand wrapped around her arm, but the emotions that he was forcing on her by his touch made her ill; so did the thought of what was in store for her.
He led her into the keep and up a back staircase. On the third floor, they walked down a long corridor to a locked door that Tamas opened with a gilt-edged key.
The room she was led into was large and open, larger than the suite that she and Laeth had been given at Westhold. The floor was covered with soft woven carpets in dark colors. The stone walls were whitewashed to make the room look even bigger than it was.
“Stay here and wait for his lordship.” She heard the key turn in the lock as Tamas left.
With resignation that just barely covered her panic, Rialla walked around the room. It didn’t appear to be a bedroom; there was no bed or cot anywhere. Two long, yellow velvet benches provided seating on Rialla’s left and right, drawing attention to the wall opposite the door she’d entered.
A stylized cat was scribed from floor to ceiling in blue so dark that it was almost black. It was bracketed by two doors that were the same shade of blue. In front of the cat figure was a raised platform that extended from one door to the other. A small rose-colored marble altar occupied the place of honor on a small rug in the center of the platform. Terran, at least, seemed to be taking the worship of Altis seriously.
Next to the bench on her right was a low table on which was a neat row of books between two black bookends. Rialla knelt in front of the table and slipped one of the thin volumes out and opened it. Script Darranian was almost beyond her power to decipher, but she read enough that she could tell that she held a journal in her hands.
Men’s voices echoed from the outer hall.
“… there are other things more important.”
“With the mages behind us, it will be much easier.”
“I told you. It doesn’t matter if the mages bow to our whim or not. There are other things to be done and I will not waste power on trivialities.”
She slipped the journal back in place and ran to the door. The distortion from the hall was so great that she couldn’t tell who was speaking, but she recognized the touch of Winterseine’s mind. Since she couldn’t feel anyone else in the hall, she had to assume that the other man was Terran.
When Terran entered the room, Rialla was sitting on the floor with her head properly bowed. He ignored her at first, walking directly to the platform before the altar. He knelt on the rug and bowed his head in apparent prayer. Rialla’s neck grew stiff as she waited.
Finished, he got lightly to his feet and walked back to stand before her.
“Stand up,” he said.
Rialla stood. Terran walked around her once, stopping directly in front of her.
“I remember you, when Father first brought you here. You were frightened of everything.” He reached out and touched her chin.
She shuddered visibly. Even when her empathy had been crippled, she had an awareness of other living creatures that was missing with Terran. Being touched by someone she couldn’t feel on more than a physical level made her feel as if she were being caressed by a corpse. She felt a rising desperation, a need to leave that was fast becoming irresistible.
“Easy,” he said softly. “I know you’ve been with Laeth for a long time now, but I will give you time to adjust. Come, there is a better place for this.”
The deep blue carpet was soft under Rialla’s calloused feet as she shifted carefully off the bed. Silently she picked up the shift that she’d worn to the room and put it on. Without looking at the man sleeping on the bed.
Rialla left the bedchamber and slipped into the outer room, emerging on one side of the raised platform.
Rialla walked quickly to the table that contained Terran’s journals, sparing an uneasy glance at the cat on the wall behind her. If anyone knew what Winterseine’s plans were it would be Terran, and he might have written them in his journal. Rialla would rather have had the dagger to prove Winterseine’s guilt, but she couldn’t go through this again, not even to ensure that slavery in Darran would be ended.
She looked at the books, but knew from her earlier perusal that they were not obviously dated. As she hesitated, she heard a faint rustle in the bedroom.
She snatched the first book on her left, hoping that it would be the most recent one, and strode quickly to the door. To her surprise and relief, it was one of the guardsmen, not Tamas, who waited just outside to take her back to her cell.
With a subtle use of her talent that she’d almost forgotten, Rialla turned the guard’s attention from the book she held. Because of her intervention, he saw nothing unusual in a slave taking a book from Terran’s room. If no one questioned him about it for a day or so, he probably wouldn’t remember he’d ever seen it.
Tris paced the cell restlessly. She was late. Much later than could be easily explained by normal delays. He’d checked the baths and they were empty. She’d been blocking her thoughts since early in the day and he couldn’t break through. He stilled and cocked his head when footsteps sounded in the corridor. He slipped quickly into the shadows when the key was turned into the door.