The Mage in the Iron Mask - Brian Thomsen [45]
Undoing his robe, he bellowed loud enough to be heard throughout the entire villa, "Hal! Poins! It's time for my afternoon practice session. Hurry up boys! I want to be finished with enough time left so that I can take a bath before my company arrives!"
I'm sure Master McKern will appreciate it, Hotspur thought to himself, as well as anyone else caught down wind.
The soft padding of slippered feet, followed by several huffs and puffs and the clash of steel, let the dwarf know that practice had begun, and that the ladle could be returned to its proper place, the risk of nibblers now nil, as the chronic perpetrator was otherwise engaged.
* * * * *
In the Apartment in the Tower of the Wyvern that the High Blade shared with his Wife:
"The First Princess of Thay approaches," a eunuch elven herald announced.
"Well, it's about bloody time," the High Blade hissed to the captain of the Hawks, who was stationed at his side. "She knows I hate to be kept waiting, particularly in my own home."
"Unfortunately, your majesty, it is her home as well," Rickman whispered in return. "The fact that it annoys you is probably why she does it."
The doors to the suite flew open with a slight push of mystical wind, and Selfaril and Rickman stood up to receive the Tharchioness, who entered flanked by her lady-in-waiting, Mischa Tam.
"Darling," the Tharchioness cooed, her arms open to receive her husband. "I am sorry to have kept you waiting."
"You, my dear," Selfaril replied with all the sincerity of a polygamist professing his chastity, "are always worth waiting for."
The two met, once again in the room's center, and exchanged their requisite kisses that never involved their lips actually touching each other.
Selfaril was the first to resume insincere spousal blandishments. "If all women looked like you after sleeping in all morning," he expounded, "all of the men of Faerun would gladly forego having their breakfast made for them."
"A simple woman such as myself," the Tharchioness replied, "has few duties more important than maintaining her desirability in the eyes of her husband. I only regret that it denies me the pleasure of your company when I awake. An empty bed is a poor follow-up to a sleep of dreams."
"I am sorry, dear, but you know that duty demands that I attend to affairs of state even before the cock crows."
"And after, and during," the Tharchioness replied, adding, "With all of your duties, one might think you could do with a respite… or perhaps a retreat?"
"If only I could spare the time," Selfaril countered shrewdly, then, with an expansive gesture toward the her lovely half sister, added, "You are blessed with the lovely Mischa Tam as a sister. I, alas have no one to substitute for me. After all, it's not as if I had a brother to call my own."
"Such an idea," the Tharchioness replied. "I don't think I would be able to stand it. One of you is heaven. Two of you would be…"
"Interesting?" he interrupted.
"A challenge," she replied, her hand beginning to play with a Thayan pendant that hung around her neck, thus drawing her husband's attention yet again to her desirably ample cleavage.
"Well met," he replied.
The two spouses stared into each other's eyes, both conveying their animal attraction, and cunningly trying to read the other's mind. Their desires were so similar, and they both knew it. It was a pity that their ultimate goals were mutually exclusive.
A courtier approached Rickman and whispered in his ear.
"Your majesty," the captain interrupted, "various envoys await your and the princess's arrival in the antechamber. They bear gifts and petitions from far-off lands and important companies."
"Must we?" the Princess asked her husband with a pout.
"We must," he replied with a restrained leer.
"Than we shall," she answered, and arm-in-arm they entered the antechamber, doors forced open by the gentle yet powerful breezes that were conjured by the Tharchioness.
Out of routine