Dan Chernenko - Scepter of Mercy 02 by The Chernagor Pirates

Author:The Chernagor Pirates [Pirates, The Chernagor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sosia hurried up to Lanius. Some strong emotion was on her face. Had she found out he’d been dallying with serving women again? He didn’t want to go through another row.

But instead of screaming at him or trying to slap his face, Sosia burst out, “He does! Oh, Lanius, he does!”

Lanius knew he was gaping foolishly. He couldn’t help himself. “Who does?” he inquired. “And, for that matter, who does what?”

She stared at him as though he should have understood at once what she was talking about. “My brother,” she answered with a grimace. “And he does … what you’d expect.”

“Are you sure?” Lanius grimaced, too. That was very unwelcome news. “Ortalis is hurting serving girls again, even though he’s hunting? Even though he’s got a wife?”

“No, no, no!” Sosia’s expression said she’d been right the first time— he was an idiot. “He’s hurting Limosa.”

“You’re crazy.” The words were out of Lanius’ mouth before he had the chance to regret them. Even then, only part of him did regret them, for he went on, “I saw her yesterday. She looked as happy as a moncat with a lizard to chase. She’s looked—and sounded—that way ever since they got married. I don’t know why, but she has. She loves your brother, Sosia. She’s not pretending. Nobody’s that good an actress. And he does go out hunting. If he were hurting her, she could come to you or to me or to Anser and scream her head off. She hasn’t. She doesn’t need to do it, yes?”

“I don’t know.” Now his wife looked confused.

“What exactly do you know? And how do you know it?”

“I know Limosa’s got scars on her back, the same sort of scars … the same sort of scars Ortalis has put on other girls,” Sosia answered. Lanius grimaced again, remembering Cristata’s ravaged back. Sosia’s eyes said she noticed him remembering, and knew he was remembering the rest of Cristata, too. But she visibly pushed that aside for the time being and continued, “And I know because a serving woman happened to walk in on Limosa while she was bathing. She doesn’t usually let any servants attend her then, and that’s strange all by itself.”

The king nodded; it was unusual. Did it mean Limosa had scars she didn’t want anyone to see? Try as he would, he couldn’t think of anything else.

“But Limosa hasn’t said anything about this?” he asked.

“No.” Sosia shook her head. “She chased the maidservant away, and she’s been going on as though nothing happened ever since.”

“I wonder if the maid was wrong, or if she was making it up,” Lanius said.

“No,” Sosia repeated. “I know Zenaida. She wouldn’t. She’s reliable.”

“Well, so she is,” Lanius agreed, his voice as expressionless as he could make it. He wondered what Sosia would have called the serving woman had she known he was sleeping with her. Something other than reliable, he was sure.

He went through the palace the next morning looking for Limosa, and naturally didn’t find her. Then, after he’d given up, he came around a corner and almost bumped into her.

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