Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [211]
“We don’t need the Torch’s money.”
Any doubts lingering in Cauvin’s mind vanished when he heard those words from Leorin’s mouth. He couldn’t think of a time, even before the Hand, when gold and silver hadn’t been foremost in Leorin’s thoughts. She didn’t want him talking to Arizak.
Leorin didn’t want him looking for Bec either. “That boy will turn up in a day or two whether you’re out looking for him or not. He’ll tell his parents some sweet story, and you’ll get the blame, same as always. How long have you been here? You must be hungry.” She ripped into the bread on her trencher. “Sweet Mother, I’ve had it with the Stick. I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
Cauvin took the piece she offered him and wondered if she thought he hadn’t heard what had gone on between her and the Stick in the corridor.
“I get so tired of him and his threats,” Leorin continued. She brought the trencher over to the bed and set it on a heap of her clothes beside Cauvin. “Help yourself. Imaging him, telling me not to come downstairs tonight! Does he think that Twandan whore can keep the peace in the commons? Let her try! Mark me on this, Cauvin: They’ll be breaking tables before the night’s out. And the Stick’ll be climbing the stairs on his knees, begging me to come down to make everything right again.”
Leorin plucked a good-sized morsel of meat from the stew. She leaned across the trencher, dangling it a few inches from Cauvin’s mouth. He reached, intending to take the morsel from her hand, but she snatched it away and hid her hand behind her back. When Cauvin lowered his hand, Leorin let him see hers again.
Frog all—she wanted to play lovers’ games, which reminded Cauvin of the scolding he and Soldt had received from Galya. Galya probably wouldn’t approve of Leorin. Shite for sure, Mina didn’t.
When Mina served supper, she served it the Imperial way with four trenchers, four knives, four spoons, and four dainty Imperial forks for capturing food that couldn’t be speared or ladled. At the stoneyard, two to a trencher was uncivilized; a man and woman sharing one was froggin’ indecent. If Grabar wanted a morsel from Mina’s trencher, she’d jab it up with her fork then deposit it on the edge of his trencher and, shite for sure, she wouldn’t dare look at his face while the morsel was moving.
No froggin’ wonder, then, that Cauvin had daydreamed of sharing his trencher with Leorin, whose table manners were far less Imperial than her looks. He’d wasted whole evenings imagining a trencher shared on this very mattress. And now, when the moment was in his froggin’ grasp, he wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it.
“Oh, stop worrying about Bec!” Leorin chided. “I’m telling you, he’ll turn up. There’s no reason to worry anyway. He’s not your brother.” The morsel fell back into the stew; Leorin returned to her dressing table. “What you need is wine.”
Leorin had brought a flagon up with the trencher. She shook a few drops of water from a goblet already standing on the table, then filled it from the flagon. From his perch on the mattress, Cauvin couldn’t see the either the goblet or the flagon, but he could see Leorin’s arms. By watching their movements, he knew she’d added something to the goblet she handed him with a parted-lips smile.
“This will get you in the right mood. Drink up!”
“A toast,” Cauvin suggested quickly.
He offered Leorin the first sip and was bitterly unsurprised when she rushed to the table. She came back with the flagon in her hand.
“To our future!” she proposed, and when Cauvin was slow to respond, added. “To my husband.