The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [48]
“Yes.” Disna glanced at Rhodry, her smile disappearing in an oddly abrupt way. “She wants you to run an errand. She’s in her bedchamber at the moment.”
Rhodry assumed that he was to take a note over to Malina’s, but when he came into the chamber, he found Alaena sitting, as carelessly as a girl, on the floor in front of her jewel chest. When he hovered uncertainly in front of her, she motioned for him to sit down, too, with a flick and a point of one slender hand. Beside her on a cushion lay a tangle of emerald necklaces and two heavy gold arm bracelets.
“Pommaeo gave me these. I want you to take them over to the temple of Selenta as a gift to the priestesses. They run an orphanage, and they can sell these off a bit at a time when they need coin.”
“Very well, mistress. Are you going to give me away, too?”
Alaena laughed in a peal of musical amusement.
“No, I don’t think so, really.” She reached up and put her hands on either side of her face. “Well, come along. Kiss me.”
More in shock than pleasure, Rhodry kissed her on the mouth.
“You do that much better than Pommaeo ever did. Yes, I think I definitely like the slave better than the stupid master.” She glanced at the jewelry beside her. “Oh, that can wait.”
The meaning was unmistakable, but Rhodry hesitated, half-panicked. All his intuitions were screaming that it would be very unsafe for both parties if a slave had an affair with his mistress, no matter how common it was for men to take their female slaves. No doubt it’s worse for the slave, too, he thought; I’ve no desire to end up getting flogged in the public square or suchlike.
“How can you look so shy?” She was grinning at him in her wicked way. “What about all those other women I saw in your tiles?”
“They weren’t as far above me as you are. You own me body and soul.”
“Then you’d best do what I want, hadn’t you?”
This time she reached up and kissed him. The hungry feel of her mouth, the soft warmth of her body, the way she pressed herself against him, all conspired to made him forget that he’d ever thought this a dangerous idea.
From that time on, Alaena would often summon him to her bedchamber on one excuse or another or even tell him to slip out of bed at night and join her. Yet most of the time, she treated him exactly as she had before, as an exotic servant who often needed a good slap to teach him a lesson. Although he was glad enough of the sexual comfort she was giving him, Rhodry honestly wished that the affair had never begun. On the one hand he felt that his lovemaking was just another of the well-trained footman’s dudes; on the other, he knew that it threatened his secure niche in the household. What if she tired of him and decided to sell him off to remove an embarrassment? Although Alaena realized his reluctance, it amused rather than annoyed her. She liked ordering him into her bed, and once he was there, he could never refuse her.
Since at night he was creeping out of the room they shared, he had no doubt that Porto knew what was happening in the mistress’s bedchamber, just as Disna did, though neither of them betrayed a thing, not by one word or gesture or giggle. Once or twice, though, Rhodry overheard Porto making a sharp remark to one of the other slaves that was obviously designed to keep the scandal within strict limits. Finally Rhodry was sick enough of feeling shamed to bring the matter out into the open. He was restacking the woodshed one afternoon when Porto came out to tell him that there would be guests for dinner that night.
“You’ve done a good job on the shed, boy, and I’m afraid it really needed it. I’m getting too old for that kind of thing. You do all your work well.”
“Thanks. Yes, I’m sure I do. All of it.”
Porto stiffened, his eyelids flickering.
“Oh by Zaeos and all your gods!” Rhodry burst out. “Do you think I like these goings-on? I’m scared sick.”
“You’re sensible, boy. More so than our poor little mistress.”
“Tell me something, will you? How much trouble is there going to be over this? I don’t want to be beaten to death in the marketplace just