Starliner(78)

"Would you agree that 'My skin is whiter than the milk,' Ran Colville?" Lady Scour asked.

One of Lady Scour's hands flicked her blouse like a bullfighter's cape. The smokey fabric might have been translucent in strong light, but it was effectively opaque beneath the dining room's paper lanterns. The single garment, unless surprise and the mere glimpse had deceived Ran, was the only thing Lady Scour wore over her breasts.

"I would agree with anything your ladyship said," Ran replied. "Because of your rank, and your beauty . . . and because of my respect for your mind, all three."

He chose his words carefully so as not to bring up the fact that her words had been from Clerk Colville. The line just before the one Lady Scour quoted was, "It's all for you, ye gentle knight. . . ."

The clan mistress leaned forward chuckling. She took a shellfish from a dish of pungent sauce and popped it into Ran's mouth. He chewed and swallowed. The tidbit, like most of the meal that had preceded it, was excellent. He'd forced himself to stomach only a few items, and those more for texture than taste.

Lady Scour held out her thumb and forefinger, still red with the sauce. "Go on," she said. "Lick them clean. You wouldn't have the mistress of Clan Scour going about with greasy fingers, would you?"

Ran began to laugh. He was man enough to be flattered by the attention, and Lady Scour was woman enough to be—interesting. Whatever sort of flesh wrapped the package.

The Szgranian's fingertips seemed slightly warmer than a human female's would have been, but Ran couldn't claim perfect objectivity.

Another lady-in-waiting, this one clad like a yellow beachball in swathes of gauze, flounced into the dining room. She whispered in her mistress's ear.

Lady Scour nodded, then rose to her feet with the grace of a willow tree swaying. "Very well," she said in satisfaction. "Now, Randall Colville, for the entertainment But you'll have to be perfectly quiet. Stay close and let me guide you by touch, because there won't be any light."

She led Ran toward the wall behind her couch. He didn't realize it was a door until Lady Scour touched a band of dark wood. A section of balanced paneling pivoted open on its vertical axis.

The hallway beyond was narrow and almost completely dark. Ran's eyes had adapted enough during dinner to make out a faint glow fifty meters along, but that was all.

The court ladies stared after their mistress and her guest, but they continued to sing. An instant before the door rotated closed again, their voices dissolved into giggles and whispers that Ran couldn't make out.

Lady Scour touched Ran's shoulder and hand and the point of his hip, where her fingertips rode lightly, shifting like valve tappets on a cam lobe.

"Very quietly . . ." Lady Scour whispered, her breath warm on Ran's ear.

The screen at the corridor's end was double-walled like the panels of the palanquin. It looked down into a lantern-lit room in which Szgranians writhed together. For a moment, Ran wasn't sure either of the number or the intentions of the folk he watched. There were too many arms and they could have been locked in murderous violence.

The scene came into mental focus: it was a couple, and they were making love.

"Rawsl," Lady Scour breathed into Ran's ear. "I asked my maid Siris to entice him into this room."

A soft plosion of warmth did duty as a snort. "Rawsl would never wonder why. He thinks he's irresistible."

The couple lurched and staggered around the room. The female was silent, but Rawsl snorted loudly. He held Siris from behind, clutching her four breasts and spreading her thighs. The maid's feet were off the floor, and her six arms reached back to clasp him.

"Are you that strong, Ran Colville?" Lady Scour whispered as her multiple hands undid the pressure seams of his uniform. "I'm much heavier than Siris. Only someone very strong could support me."

Ran hadn't noticed it happen, but Lady Scour had lost her clothing somewhere. The down on her skin was soft and warm by comparison with the hard fabric of her dress.

"You're not that heavy," Ran said as he turned from the screen to his hostess.

She wasn't human—but neither was Rati, the Hindu goddess of lust.

And nobody could deny that Lady Scour was female.

She had thin lips and a tongue as long and coarse as a cat's. As they kissed, she undressed him. Though the pattern of human clothing must have been at least slightly unfamiliar to her, the Szgranian's six hands and suppleness made an easy job of it.

Ran's eyes had adapted to the current level of light. When he stepped out of his trousers, his elbow nevertheless thumped the wall of the corridor in which they were engaged.

"There's a chamber through that door . . . ." Lady Scour said, nodding vaguely toward what seemed a blank panel, but she didn't stop what she was doing.