The plump man knelt, shaking with fear. His position had ensured that while the rest of the city starved, he had remained very well larded. Now it seemed that he would have to pay the price for all those meals. "Your Royal Highness!" He wrung his hands. "I can't get you fresh bilberries. You don't even like them!" He held his position because he always remembered her likes and dislikes perfectly.
She ignored the perfect truth of his statement. Her mouth opened in a vixenlike grin, little white teeth clenched. The green eyes narrowed. She pointed out of the diamond-pane windows, across the sprawl of Shapstone City, to the surrounding hills. The voice was cruelly honeyed. "The hills are purple with them. Get us some, now!"
She knew as well as he did that the Morkth troops held the city in a vicious siege. They had for the last five months. She knew that those close, purple hills were as unreachable as the moon. But she played a toxic little game with him. The uninitiated would have failed to understand it, but she was, for lack of anything better to practice on, manipulating him. She would reduce him to abject fear and pleading. Then she would forgive him if, of course, he obliged with a few other trifles. The game was partially to relieve her boredom, but partially because this was what she'd been trained to do, from very early childhood.
Yes, she was pampered. Yes, in almost all respects, she was allowed free rein. But she knew what she was. She was simply a pawn in her father's machinations. He planned to use her to further his Empire dream, and for this he had trained her. She could have her way with all but her instructors. They had shaped her to his design. She knew how to manipulate. She could have written volumes on court intrigue, and how to turn it to her own ends. She'd been taught by the best. She could have seduced an eighty-year-old eunuch if need be. They'd had some very unusual palace guests to teach her the theory of bed arts. Theory only: her virginity had some considerable value in certain circles. However, she'd been taught how to fake that, too. She knew far more than any apothecary about poisons, where to find them, how to make them, and how to administer them. She was an expert with a thin-bladed dagger. She was also sixteen and tired of waiting. She felt her talents were being wasted.
Now for the strike. The pleas would begin in a moment. She turned her face away toward the door, in time to see the second of her ever-present guards stagger and fall. The man who had pressed the razor-tipped spike in through the guard's ear was smiling, sharklike. She'd seen him often enough before, but now she scarcely recognized him. He was a minor courtier, always servile, and exquisitely polite, like so many others. She'd not realized how power and triumph could transform a face. She shrank back.
"Scream and I'll kill you, you little cow." His voice was cruel and deliberate. Blood still dripped from his fingers. Behind him stood several more armed men.
"Try not to, Lord Blis," said a voice from down the passage. The princess was an expert on tone, and this speaker did not sound as if it would concern him greatly if she was mutilated, but not quite dead. "We have her father, but it would be nice to have two little `gifts' for our great liberators."
The tall, sardonic speaker stepped into the room. The naked and bloody falchion in his hand belied his otherwise foppish appearance. With a single sword-stroke he severed the head of the still kneeling majordomo.
"You promised me I could have her!" There was a mixture of fear, chagrin and a dangerous edge of insanity in the guard killer's shrill demand.
"And so you shall, my dear Blis. And so you shall. But only for the next half an hour. The gates are opening now, and I want her alive when our `friends' arrive. But they won't mind if you've used her first."
The courtier smiled, a dribble of spittle leaking across his thin lips. "Yes, Emperor Deshin." He looked at her, his wild eyes hungry. "She'll be . . . alive!" He laughed. "Leave me ten guards. They can take it in turns when I've finished."
The tall man lifted a disdainful lip. "The title is premature, Blis. And I doubt if even the most desperate will use a girl after you've finished with her. Enjoy yourself . . . her body will be worthless to the hive anyway." He looked at her then, his eyes cold with hatred. "You're not going to be raped, little Princess. Rumor has it that you'd enjoy that. Blis has no interest in sex. He can't get it up, so he likes to use knives instead." With this chilling finish, he turned and walked out, ignoring the dangerous glitter in his ally's eyes. The girl wished desperately that she'd not used Count Deshin for one of her little games. But it was too late now. She could hear him selecting guards outside. The door closed.