(eng) Alan Burt Akers - Dray Prescot 28 by Delia of Vallia

Author:Delia of Vallia [Vallia, Delia of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter eleven

Nyleen Gillois

The silver rod struck again.

Tangled up with a naked woman as she was, Delia had to make up her mind.

Her instinct was simply to get up and take the silver rod away and give the flunkey woman a taste or two. That was also the act of a slave who wished to commit suicide. The flunkey woman, dragging at her to pull her off, hit again.

With a twisting heave as though struggling to get free, Delia half-hunched around and so took the silver rod into her left hand. Naked flesh, pink and glowing, bulged up before her eyes. Concealing her movements, she gave the rod a hefty pull and then instantly rolled the other way. She started to yell, adding to the shrieks from the other two.

“Your pardon, my lady! I was trying to help!”

That vicious pull on the rod yanked the flunkey woman forward, caught unexpectedly and off balance.

She staggered. In the next instant she would go head first into the bath.

Delia considered enough was enough.

She got her body in the way, rear-ended the woman off, and then bent to the other who screamed in her nakedness upon the matting. Delia hauled her up.

“There, there, my lady. It’s all right. You are unhurt, praise be!”

She did not care to give the praise to any particular deity or spirit until she knew a little more of this platinum-haired woman’s predilection in religious matters.

“You touched me, slave!”

“Yes, my lady. You would have been boiled—”

“Silence!” screamed flunkey-woman.

“Oh, do hold still. Ilka, do!”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Now you, slave. What is your name?”

“Alyss, my lady.”

“Alyss. I see. And you saved me from the boiling water?”

“I could do nothing else, my lady.”

Let her chew on that one. Delia had the idea that too great a pressure on a sense of gratitude would be wasted on this woman.

“Let me look at you—” The great lady stood up, gave herself a genteel shake and, oblivious of her nudity, sized up the slave before her.

At that moment the opposite doors burst open and three hulking great warriors burst in, swords drawn, shields up, glaring and spitting, ready for blood. They skidded to a halt on the marble, and then began to hop up and down.

“My lady!” the Hikdar shouted.

“I’m perfectly all right, thank you, Nadia. You’d better leave. Otherwise you’ll bum your feet off clear up to the ankles.”

“Yes, my lady!” And: “Quidang!” The three Jikai Vuvushis bashed their swords against their shields, turned smartly, and trotted off. Smartly.

As though the antics of her guards cleared the atmosphere, the great lady unbent graciously. A dent at each corner of her mouth might have been mistaken for amusement. Delia stood, unmoving, silent, waiting for events. Great ladies were unpredictable — by Krun! who better than her to know that? — and it might be very necessary in the next moment or two to be cunning, groveling, tearful or grateful.

The woman flunkey, this Ilka, came forward with the white robe, which she wrapped about her mistress.

All the time the pearl-clad handmaid had remained in a stasis of terror, her hands clasped together on her breast.

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