* * *
The Monral sipped his tea and drank in the sight of Sharana, sitting in a chair across a low table in the guest wing common room. His beloved needed him far more than he needed her, in large part due to the apothecary’s drug, but she had been away from him long enough to create a deep need in both of them. That she had accepted his invitation and accompanied the
odalli
woman back to the stronghold demonstrated the depth of her need.
He had not expected the Paran’s bond-partner to come to his own for tutelage, but the opportunity was delightful. The drug prevented him from reading her, but even in his blunted state, he could read physical language well enough to know he had the Paran’s bond-partner deceived. Over the course of the evening’s conversation, she began to respond to him with more warmth than she did to Sharana. When the evening grew old, he gave the
odalli
a friendly smile.
“You grow fatigued,” he said.
She heaved a sigh. “Forgive me. The day has been long.”
“Take quarters in my stronghold tonight. To do otherwise would invite danger.”
“Why would anyone harm me?” the woman scoffed.
Sharana glared at him.
“Anything can happen to the unwary.” He took another sip of tea. “I do not want an ally’s beloved to come to harm when she could take shelter under my protection.”
The
odalli
’s face flushed red, giving her a strangely attractive glow. “My gratitude,” she said, an odd note of relief in her voice.
“Excellent!” He gestured for a servant. “Then enjoy the hospitality of Monralar. A servant will show you to guest quarters.”
She stood and stretched, the action drawing attention to the gentle curve of increase swelling her form. “My gratitude, high one,” she said again, and bowed before following the servant out.
Sharana turned on him the moment the door closed. “What are you doing?” Her voice was a hiss.
“Ensuring the safety of a guest.” He set his tea on the low table. “Tell me your impressions of her.”
She started. “You think to use me?”
“Are you not a daughter of Monralar?”
Sharana quit her chair and went to stand at the windows.
“I have no violent intent toward her, beloved.”
She whirled. “Do
not
presume to call me that!”
“Forgive me. You have fled my presence, but my heart is still yours.”
“Then cease this hopeless scheme against the Sural before you destroy us all!”
He rose and took a few steps toward her. The guards did not interfere. “Will that bring you back to my side?”
She squinted at him. He suppressed a smile.
“You know I have sent Farric off-world,” he said. “That part of my scheme walks without me.”
“You can call him back.”
“I could.”
“Then do it.”
“Be—Sharana. Think about our world taking its place among the space-faring races of this galactic arm. For that reason alone, I will not call him back.”
She turned and leaned a shoulder against a window. Her voice softened. “You know why I cannot live with you.”
“We can neither of us survive if you do not.”
A sigh gusted out of her. “Laura is… indeed a sensitive,” she said. “With some instruction, she did succeed in blocking out the city. It spent her to do it, and she appeared to be terrified should her barriers fail.”
He lifted his eyebrows and leaned against the back of a chair.
“More, she is difficult to read, even for me. Perhaps it is her human upbringing, but her mind is a whirl of movement and confusion.”
“A perfect spy.”
“No. She tells too much with her face, and she seems unaware of the delicacy of her situation. And her Paran, whom you know to be a clever man, would be a fool to send her here to commit the crime of espionage while she increases with his heir.”
“What, then?”
She shook her head. “I believe she is merely what she says she is—the holder of an empathic gift, looking for instruction.”
He rubbed his chin. Not a spy, then. With such sensitivity, he might find a use for her in the unlikely case that she survived the Paran’s eventual assassination.
“Come back to the stronghold,” he said, the words out before he could stop them.
“I cannot live with your continual summons and attempts at contact.”
“Then they will cease.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“We need to bond,” he whispered.
“No.”
“Give us one night. You need it. I need it. Then we can go on without it, if you remain here, in contact with me.”
He touched her with his senses. Bond-hunger raged in her. She swiveled her head to look at him, her eyes hot and hungry.
“Give me one night.” He reached for her hand.
She hesitated—not at all.
* * *
Laura stretched and yawned and opened her eyes on the familiar-yet-unfamiliar sleeping room of her guest quarters. Every province built its stronghold to a similar plan all across Tolar, or so Marianne had told her, differing only in details and in the local stone used to build them. Unfamiliar calls drifted in along with cool air from the door she’d left open. The birds—the flutters—sounded different in Monralar.
She scrambled off the sleeping mat to bathe and start the day. When she arrived in the refectory, few people remained from the morning meal. Among them was the Monral.
“Good morning,” he called from his heavy, throne-like chair.
She halted. “You speak English?”
“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “It has been some years since first I heard it spoken, and I made it a point to learn. Come. Sit at my table.” He swept a hand toward the chair at his right.
She hesitated. “Isn’t that your heir’s place?”
“It is, but he is away, as you know.” He smiled with genuine friendliness. “Come, sit where we may speak in comfort, beloved of my ally.”
Laura flushed as she took the chair to the Monral’s right and snagged a roll from one of the platters on the table. The Monrali ruler appeared more relaxed than he had the day before.
Much
more relaxed. Carefully, she pondered the layers of self-satisfaction and sexual satiety radiating from his presence. He hid something beneath them, but then, so did the Paran. Rulers couldn’t avoid keeping secrets.
This one smiled, though his face seemed unused to the expression. “Did you sleep well?”
“Um, yes I did, thank you. I apologize for oversleeping—I forgot the sun rises later in Parania than it does here.”
“Has it been difficult to accustom yourself to living on a planet after so many years in space?”
In the middle of raising a piece of fruit to her lips, she went still. No one on Tolar had asked that question before. The unexpected thoughtfulness brought an answering smile to her face.
“Why, yes, actually,” she replied. “I spent forty-one years living on Earth Fleet ships after only nineteen years in my family’s estates on Earth. And then there were so few foods here that I could eat, before I took the blessing. It was a little trying.”
“And now you increase with a provincial heir.” The Monral’s smile turned warm. “How fortunate that our law does not forbid this of
odalli
.”
Laura blinked. “
Odalli
? An outsider? But I’m—”
“Of course, no ally will think less of you. Or of your Paran.”
“Of my Paran? Why would…” Her throat tightened. She dropped her gaze to the food in her hands, appetite gone. “Oh.”
“Have no concern, artist,” he said, rising from his chair. “You are among friends here, and it is my honor to ensure your safety.” He inclined his head to her before continuing. “So tell me about your life in Earth Fleet.”
The man was
so
difficult to read—his feelings were not so much guarded as
muted
. As she prattled on about shipboard life, she could sense his interest in the subject, and in her, along with his disdain for any mention of Central Command. He was endlessly curious about Earth’s five major colonies, and it was only with difficulty that she steered the topic around to her other major concern, having realized too late that the Monral already knew about the circumstances under which she had come to Tolar.
“So,” she said, “Your son will not even discuss Marianne or me while he is in human space?”
“Certainly not,” the Monral replied, looking her in the eye. “
Odalli
you may be, but Marianne Woolsey is under the Jorann’s protection, and you are the bond-partner of my ally. I would never see either of you directly harmed.” Again the feeling of
mutedness
came over his presence, and she closed her eyes as she probed as lightly as she dared.
A guard in Monrali colors flickered briefly, and the Monral nodded.
“Sharana awaits you in the library, artist. I hope you will tell me more about life outside our world, perhaps, before you leave. But…” He radiated sudden concern.
“Yes?”
“I ask you not to trouble my bond-partner with questions; her work has caused some barriers between us and until she can resolve them, her life is more complicated than usual. I assure you that neither Sharana nor I bear you any ill will for having the temerity to carry a provincial heir.” He smiled at her kindly.
“Thank you,” she whispered, stomach knotting, as she turned and left.
* * *
Three days later, she sat with the Paran in his quarters, after he thanked and dismissed the guards who had escorted her from the border with Monralar. At a look from Laura, he also dismissed the guards in his suite, who took up their stations outside the door.
“No, I don’t
think
the Monral suspected anything; he and Sharana both treated me like a sort of clumsy child, in a good-natured way. They had no idea how many years I’ve lived under surveillance in human space.”
Or how well Mama taught me
, she added to herself. “And he certainly seemed determined that his son Farric would not give any information to Earth that he didn’t want them to have.”
“That does fit the character he is reported to have, yes.”
She looked at him in sudden surprise. “Reported? Haven’t you met him yourself?”
The Paran shrugged a shoulder. “It has been many seasons since we have met face to face; the few times the Parania my mother sent me to Monralar, I met only his advisors, or his heir. But as for the other reason you went to Monralar…”
He looked into her eyes.
“Have you decided whether he is truly ambitious, or just what you call a
troublemaker
?”
She took a deep breath. “He definitely intends to unseat the Sural, no question about it. And he never said as much, but he thinks he can. He is amazingly reserved in his feelings toward the rest of the Tolari ruling caste.”
“Then what worries you, beloved?”
“It’s his feelings about Earth and its colonies, and about Central Command. I think he
is
ambitious, and that he wants to extend Tolar’s influence into human space, even if it means war, war with Earth.”
“And his bond-partner, the scholar?”
“She seemed a good sort, and I’m guessing she’s not very supportive of whatever he is planning, but who can say how much influence she has? They hardly mentioned each other when I was around. But what about you? What will you do?”
The Paran considered. “Beloved, there is not much I can do, without exposing you to a charge of espionage.” She knew his taste for human ways, but obviously outright spying went too far even for him. “My province is allied with both Suralia and Monralar; the Sural moves slowly but more surely. Tomorrow I will begin again to regather the coalition my mother built, for the good of Tolar.”
Humans filled the sporting arena in the human sector on Capella Free Station with their bodies, their voices, and, above all, their odors. Farric took shallow breaths, grateful for the treatment that he and his companions had received before leaving Tolar. It sufficed to render the smells tolerable. It did not eliminate them.
A wooden… roof… hung from the ceiling, well above the center of the arena. A human stood below it, dressed in ornate robes—they reminded him of the ceremonial robes his own people wore when they went before the Jorann, but with fewer layers of fabric. He positioned himself on one side of a ring perhaps six paces across. Two more humans entered the ring and threw a white substance. These men, large and wearing little else than a thick band of cloth around their waists that held a cloth covering their genitals, began a stylized dance, facing each other across white lines drawn in the ring’s sand, raising empty hands and stamping their feet. The robed man participated with stiff postures.
Farric and Bertie sat on thin cushions in the front of a square near the ring, with two guards on high alert to each side of them. Human bodyguards, here at his friend’s behest, lounged on cushions to the rear of the box, their relaxed attitudes a deception, along with several Den builders wearing the medallions of station security. All the guards, his own, the human, and Den alike, watched everything except the men posturing in the ring.
“What does this ritual signify?” Farric asked of his companion.
Bertie sat up straighter and leaned forward, a stray lock of golden hair slipping free of the black ribbon tying it back. He pushed it behind his ear, pale blue eyes fixed on the ring. The irony had not diminished of finding such eyes on a man who had become Farric’s closest human ally.
“It’s ancient,” the human replied. “The white stuff they’re throwing is salt, to purify the ring. The foot-stamping drives away evil spirits.”
“Interesting.” Farric shook his head. “They appear strong.”
Bertie laughed. “They are. That’s the point. Just watch. They’re almost done with the ritual.”
The smaller of the two large men caught the other’s eye and bounced on his heels, chin lifted, before returning to his corner for more salt. Laughter sprinkled through the crowd, but Farric sensed doubt enter the larger opponent, though it did not show on his face. The physical control impressed him; humans tended to allow their bodies to reflect their thoughts.
“The smaller one will prevail,” Farric said.