Shiri by D.S

Author:D.S.
Language: eng
Format: epub

XIV

Shiri passed through the gardens slowly. How had it come to this? She could barely look at him anymore, and yet she could not stop seeing him. Everywhere she went she saw his face, every time she closed her eyes she felt his lips, every time she slept she wished he was beside her. Yet, every time he came to her and tried to speak she hated him.

She heard a stealthy footfall behind her and spun. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was not her master’s wife. “You make a habit of sneaking up on unescorted ladies?”

Old Solon winked. “Only the pretty ones.” A small black creature, half way between a kitten and a cat was snaking in and out between his feet, tangling itself up in his legs and looking determined to trip him.

“I didn’t know you had a cat.”

“A cat? I don’t have a cat.” The old man cursed, commanding the animal to leave him be. The kitten chose to ignore him. He rolled his eyes. “I threw the pest a scrap the other week and ever since I can’t get rid of it.” He glared down at the creature, before apparently realising he was fighting a losing battle, bent to give his resolute escort a rub between the ears. The kitten seemed delighted.

The old man grinned up at her before regaining his feet. “Already the gardens are looking better. I have some seeds in my workshop, come on I’ll show you.”

He knows she realised.

He headed towards it, still talking merrily as he beckoned for her to follow. “I think some basil and perhaps a few sprigs of belladonna would-”

“I don’t know what to do,” she blurted. “Sometimes I think to run.”

Solon paused in mid-step. “Nay, Shiri, not that above all else, ‘twas luck alone that saved the last ones, any but Yuya and they would have paid a heavy price.”

She turned from him. Worth the risk if it were my life alone. “When Tjuya discovers ... she might ... she might...” she held a protective hand over her belly. “She comes to me whenever he is not around you see ... she comes and makes me serve her in whatever small way gives her pleasure. Though she does not seem so interested of late, and her demands that I kneel grow less frequent.”

“Some mercy there then, mayhap she grows weary of the battles.”

Shiri shook her head. She loses interest because she thinks me broken. “She was bluffing,” she said at length. “I should have seen it then. She will not betray him. I see it in the smiles she gives him every day.”

“Treachery was born in a woman’s smile.”

“You think she would yet go against him?” she looked suddenly nervous.

He shrugged. “Who can say? But I’d wager it would take more than the flight of a slave to drive her to it. Her fate is bound to his now.”

“As is mine,” she stared passed him, “and theirs.” Amaris and Yocobel were hard at work at the far end of the garden, weeding and scattering seeds.

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