Harvest - 01 - Harvest of Rubies by Tessa Afshar

Author:Tessa Afshar
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Religion, Historical
ISBN: 9780802479150
Publisher: River North
Published: 2012-04-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“Poisoned?” I remembered Teispes knocking on my do or, and delivering the tray with a pleasant smile. “Of course. It was Teispes.” I felt completely paralyzed as I beheld Caspian’s unconscious form, his belly rising and falling with fast, shallow breaths.

“Did you drink any of it?” Darius asked again, and now I understood the intensity of his manner.

“No. No, I didn’t.”

Darius let out a breath and let me go. “Does he always deliver your food personally?”

“No. This was the first time. He said he wanted to ask my pardon, and that he was sorry he had followed your orders to treat me with contempt.”

“I gave no such order.”

I shrugged. “He said he came to make peace. His mistake was that he brought me a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh from your library. I became too engrossed in the story to touch the food or the wine. I would have drunk it soon enough, but then you came. And Caspian got to it first.”

Darius became a whirl of motion. “Bardia,” he said, his voice calm, but commanding, “do you have a purge we can give him? It’s probably too late already, but we should try.”

“I don’t know how it would work on a dog, master. It might just send him over the edge.”

“It’s a chance we must take. He’ll die anyway, if we do nothing.”

I couldn’t hold back a cry at that news. I laid my head against Caspian’s and wept. Bardia said quietly, “I’ll fetch the herbs right away.”

Darius rushed to the door. One of his men stood at attention outside my chamber. I overheard enough of his command to know that he had sent the man to arrest Teispes.

When he returned, he knelt by Caspian. Gently, he began to rub the dog on its chest. “Do you think he is suffering?” I asked.

“Not anymore. He is in a deep sleep.”

I nodded. I had begun shivering and I couldn’t stop. Darius’s hands on my shoulders made me jump. I realized that he was wrapping me in my cloak. He must have risen with the silence of a cat, for I never noticed his movements. He came back to crouch before me.

“You’ve grown to love him?”

I nodded. He had been my champion through danger and my companion through many lonely hours.

Darius pulled the cloak closer about me and settled the fabric around me until I was covered from neck to feet. “Thank you,” I whispered. He rose to fetch a blanket with which he covered Caspian.

“He is the brightest dog I ever had,” he said. “And the most faithful.”

I realized that although he wasn’t weeping, he too was mourning; he merely held his grief deep inside. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Perhaps if I had managed this affair in a different way, he wouldn’t have been hurt.”

“This is not your fault. It is that man’s doing and he shall pay for it. What manner of evil would unleash such murderous behavior? What will become of Persia if our men turn into cheats and murderers? And to think I gave him the run of my household.

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