Masquerades - Kate Novak [93]
Lord Victor reached out and grasped her wrist. "Alias?" he entreated her.
"Yeeesss?" the swordswoman answered, making no attempt to pull her captured arm away.
Lord Victor moved closer, standing on the step just beneath hers. He looked up into her eyes. "Give me a token," he demanded with a grin, "or I shall never let you go."
"A token?" Alias replied with a little laugh, not certain she'd heard him correctly.
"A token to show your regard for me, at least, that is, I hope you have some regard for me, for my feelings, for what you mean to me. Please. Some trinket to remind me of you when we're apart."
Alias thought of her new earrings, but somehow they didn't seem enough a part of her. "I don't think I have…" she started to say, then she thought of something appropriate. "Wait. You have to let go of my hand first, though."
Victor released her and held out both his hands cupped together, waiting for his boon.
With a deft motion Alias released the peace-bond knot tying her sword to her scabbard. She drew out her sword and raised it to her head. She held out the strand of hair she wore in an ornamental braid and sliced the braid off with the blade of her weapon.
She slid her sword back into its scabbard. After curling the braid into a tiny loop, she laid it in the young noble's palms. "Your token, milord," she whispered.
"Accepted gratefully, milady," Victor replied, bending briefly to one knee. He tucked the red ringlet into his shirt, then his arms snaked out again and grasped the swordswoman about her waist. He pulled her toward him until they stood lips to lips.
They kissed again.
Finally the young noble released the swordswoman. Alias ran up the steps and into the hotel. Lord Victor climbed back into his carriage and urged his horses forward.
*****
As the carriage rolled away, the halfling and the saurial could hear Alias moving toward them in the hallway, singing a love song.
"Oh, yeah. She seems really guarded to me," Olive mocked the paladin. She sat back down beside the chessboard and righted her overturned king. "Your move, Dragonbait," she said.
The paladin sat across from the halfling, his brow furrowed as the hamlike scent of his anxiety wafted out the open window.
Fourteen
Melman's Place
It took the swordswoman only a few minutes to change from her finery back into her armor, but in that time the weather had turned. Clouds roiled in from the east, veiling the moon, and mist rolled up from the bay and the river, shrouding the streets. Despite the cover this provided the three adventurers, Olive insisted they take one extra precaution to elude any possible Night Masks who might be spying on them-leave the city via the Thalavars' secret underground tunnel.
Once outside the city, Olive crept southward, keeping in the shadow of the city wall, with Alias and Dragonbait following behind. Since only the halfling had been both conscious and free of the sorceress Cassana's magical controls when they'd last used the tunnel that led to Cassana's former home, they had to rely on Olive to lead them to the outside entrance. They sneaked over the fence into the Ssemm family stockyards and made their way to the eastern end of the yards.
As the halfling rustled through an overgrown dry wash searching for the entrance, Alias and Dragonbait kept watch at the wash's rim. The moon broke through the clouds for a few moments, and then Alias could make out seven mounds to the southeast.
There was a good deal of activity in the stockyards to the west of the dry wash. Caravans were being readied for departure in the morning. Alias shifted nervously, worried that she would be discovered trespassing, and Orgule Ssemm would add his complaints to those of Ssentar Urdo, further annoying the croamarkh.
"Olive," she whispered. "What's taking you so long?"
"I'll bet the passage hasn't been used since Finder and I came through it. The gully is really overgrown," the halfling whispered back.
An eternity of heartbeats seemed to pass before Olive called out to report her success.