Sword-Maker(127)
The woman enjoyed her bedding.
With studious care, I kept my eyes above the artful droop in the silk of her underrobe, falling away from her breasts. “You did have something to do with it. Wasn’t it you who offered Del as a wedding present to Hashi, so he’d give me to you?”
Lids lowered minutely. Black lashes veiled her eyes. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Maybe not. But that’s a pretty nasty way of trying to keep me, wouldn’t you say? It nearly got me castrated.”
She sat upright stiffly. “That wasn’t my fault! How was I to know Hashi would be so annoyed?”
Annoyed. Interesting word: annoyed. I’d have put it more strongly, considering the penalty Hashi demanded in retribution for me sleeping with a woman who slept with whomever she liked—and was widely known for it. Hashi himself had known.
I lifted eyebrows. “Are you sleeping with Esnat?”
“Of course I am.” Elamain’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Hashi’s dead … I had to retain my position somehow.”
“Sons don’t often marry their father’s wives.”
“I don’t have to marry him, Tiger. I only have to sleep with him. Esnat is—” She paused.
“A fool?” I supplied.
She made a gesture of casual acknowledgment with one graceful hand. Then stretched the hand toward me. “I was hoping you were in Iskandar. Come to me, Tiger. Let us rekindle what we once shared.”
So much for Sabo’s assurances. “I can’t, Elamain.”
Silk slid lower. “Why not? Have I gotten old and fat?”
She knew better. Elamain was no fatter than she’d been a year and a half before, when I’d helped rescue her caravan from borjuni. And though she was that much older, it didn’t show anywhere. She was a lovely, alluring woman.
And I’m not made of stone.
I cleared my throat hastily. “Sabo said Esnat sent for me.”
Elamain pouted again. “Because I told him to.”
“Sabo said that, too. So, now I’m here. Was it business you wanted, Elamain … or something else entirely?”
Elamain stopped pouting. Her eyes lost their seductive cast and took on another expression. Elamain was thinking.
A woman like Elamain—thinking—can often be dangerous.
“There is someone else,” she said.
“Maybe,” I agreed warily. “Maybe it’s just that I don’t feel like—”
Elamain didn’t let me finish. “No man has ever not felt like it,” she snapped. “Not with me.”
The situation took on an entirely new complexion. Now I was curious; women are often baffling creatures. “Are you serious?” I asked. “No one? Ever? No matter the circumstances?”
“Of course I’m serious.” Elamain wasn’t amused. “No man—not a single man—has ever said no to me.”
“And that means something to you.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. Lovely, dusky cheeks. “How would you feel if you ever lost a sword-dance?”
“We’re not talking about a sword-dance, Elamain … we’re talking about you sleeping with men. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“One is very like the other,” she retorted, “and not in the obviously vulgar sense, either.”
“Elamain—”
She rose. Straightened flowing silks. Crossed the carpeted floor to me. “There’s someone else,” she declared. “A man like you would never say no otherwise.”
It intrigued me. “A man like me? What is a man like me like?”
“A man like you is all man; why should he say no?”
Elamain had a point, although it didn’t please me. “Are we all so predictable?”
“Most of you,” she agreed. “Not a single man I’ve ever met—except Sabo, and other eunuchs—has been blind to the bedding, and what it might be like. You certainly weren’t.”
No.
“And no man,” she went on, “whom I have invited into my bed has ever refused the chance. Even men with sworn women, or men with wives at home.”
No, I imagine not. She’s that kind of woman.
Elamain frowned. “Except you.”
“I’m not blind,” I told her. “I’m not even deaf. And I’m certainly not a eunuch.”
“But you won’t go to bed with me.”
I sighed. “Elamain—”
“Because there is someone else.”
I said it clearly: “Yes.”
A faint crease marred her brow. Then, abruptly, it cleared. “When you rescued my caravan, there was a woman with you … a Northerner. You don’t mean her, do you? That woman who thinks she’s a man?”