Cursors's Fury

“Thank you, Countess,” Lady Aquitaine said. “Thank goodness someone in this room can be reasonable.”

“I’ll go first, Countess,” Rook said quietly. She walked to the door, eyes lowered, and waited until Bernard grudgingly moved aside. “Thank you.”

Amara slipped out after her, and Bernard followed close behind her. Rook went into the bathing room, and Amara began to follow her, when she felt Bernard’s hand on her shoulder.

She stopped and glanced back at him.

“Crows take it, woman,” he said quietly. “Is it so wrong for me to want to protect you?”

“Of course not,” Amara said, though she couldn’t keep a small smile off her face.

Bernard frowned down at her for a moment, then glanced back at the hotel room and rolled his eyes. “Bloody crows.” He sighed. “You got me out of that room to protect me.”

Amara patted his cheek with one hand, and said, “At least one person in that room is mad, Bernard. One has already run you through once. The other could kill you, have the body gone, and make up any tale she wanted by the time I got back from the bath.”

Bernard scowled and shook his head. “Aldrick wouldn’t do it. And he wouldn’t hurt you.”

Amara tilted her head, frowning. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I won’t shoot him in the back or hurt Odiana.”

“Talked about this, have the two of you?”

“Don’t need to,” Bernard said.

Amara shook her head. Then she lowered her voice, and said quietly, “You’re too noble for this kind of work, Bernard. Too romantic. Aldrick is a professional killer, and he’s loyal to the Aquitaines. If she pointed her finger, he’d kill you. Don’t let yourself believe otherwise.”

Bernard studied her face quietly for a moment. Then he smiled, and said, “Amara. Not everyone is like Gaius. Or the Aquitaines.”

Amara sighed, frustrated, and at the same time felt a flush of warmth run through her at her husband’s… faith, she supposed, that there was something noble in his fellow human beings-even those as cold-blooded and violent as the mercenary swordsman. At one time, she knew, she would have thought the same thing. But that time was a considerable distance behind her. It had ended the moment her mentor had betrayed her to the same man and woman now in the room with Lady Aquitaine.

“Promise me,” she said quietly, “that you’ll be careful. Understanding with Aldrick or no, be careful of turning your back on him. All right?”

Bernard grimaced, but gave her a reluctant nod and bent to place a light kiss on her mouth. He looked like he was about to say something else, but Amara’s little scarlet shift caught his eye and he raised his eyebrows at her. “What’s that?”

“My costume,” Amara said.

Bernard’s grin was not-quite-a leer. “Where’s the rest of it?”

Amara gave him a very level look as she felt her cheeks warming, and she turned and walked firmly into the bathing room, shutting the door behind her.

Rook was already sitting in one of the small tubs, bathing briskly. She folded a modest arm across her breasts until the door was closed. Then she went back to bathing, while watching Amara obliquely.

“What are you looking at?” Amara asked quietly. The words came out far more belligerently than she had intended.

“A master assassin of the High Lord currently on the throne,” Rook replied, her tone laced with only the barest trace of irony. “I’d prefer I wasn’t alone in the bath with her.”

Amara lifted her chin and gave Rook a cool look. “I am no assassin.”

“Perspective, Countess. Can you say you have never killed in service to your lord?”

“Never with an arrow fired from ambush,” Amara said.

Rook smiled, very slightly. “That’s very noble.” Then she frowned and tilted her head to one side. “But… no. Your training was unlike mine. Or you’d not blush quite so easily.”

Amara frowned at Rook, and took a deep breath. There was no profit in bickering with the former bloodcrow. It would accomplish nothing but to waste time. Instead of replying sharply, thoughtlessly, she began to undress and to bathe herself briskly. “My education as a Cursor did not include… that sort of technique, no.”

“There are no bedchamber spies among the Cursors?” Rook asked, her tone skeptical.

“There are some, “ Amara said. “But every Cursor is evaluated and trained a bit differently. They intend us to play to our strengths. For some, it includes an education in seduction. My training was focused in other areas. “

“Interesting,” Rook said, her tone detached, professionally clinical.

Amara tried to match her tone. “I take it your own training included how to seduce men?”

“To seduce and pleasure, men and women alike.”

Amara dropped her soap into the bath in surprise.

Rook allowed herself the hint of a chuckle, but it died quickly as she frowned down at the bathwater. “Relax, Countess. None of it was by my choice. I… I don’t think I would care to revisit that sort of situation at all if there was any way I could possibly avoid it.”

Amara drew in a breath. “I see. Your daughter.”

“A by-product of my training,” Rook said quietly.

“Her father?”