“Are you saying there was
unspoken
disbelief?”
Delin interrupted to ask, the words deliberately casual. The point was an important one, but it would never do to show it.
“Well, of course there was unspoken disbelief,” Relana answered with a laugh as she squirmed a bit under his hand. “You must realize, my dear, just how powerful and wealthy Rigos’s dear father is. It’s possible to do anything with enough gold and influence, including having your son cleared of a murder charge. Everyone knows that, so I’m surprised that you don’t.”
Delin tried to look contrite as he nodded again, privately delighted that Relana had—typically!—forgotten where she’d first heard that. By now everyone she knew had been told the same, but not by Delin or anyone in his group.
“Well, as I said, we were all surprised when Ollon appeared,” she went on. “We thought he had finally come to his senses and was prepared to enjoy the party, but he ignored everyone and marched straight over to Rigos. And he looked absolutely awful, wearing rumpled clothing and needing a shave, just like a commoner. He’s also lost weight and doesn’t seem to have slept much, and the alcohol on his breath is enough to make one ill.”
“How did Rigos look?” Delin put in casually. “Especially after Lord Ollon appeared in front of him?”
“Well, the boy actually looked a bit drawn,” Relana decided after a moment, turning some so that Delin’s right hand might slide into her wrap above her thighs. “He strolled in as usual when he arrived, but something that was part of the usual seemed to be missing. When Ollon appeared in front of him, he blanched and actually looked close to fainting. By then there wasn’t a sound in the entire room, so everyone was able to hear every word of their exchange.”
“Are you enjoying the party?” Ollon asked him in a very flat, emotionless voice. “Elfini loved to attend parties, and probably would have been here tonight. Except that she can’t be here because she’s dead.”
“Not by my hand,” Rigos protested faintly, still as pale as milk. “I give you my word that I had nothing to do with her death. I’ve been cleared of the charge, cleared twice! Why won’t you believe me?”
“It’s not me who disbelieves,” Ollon returned, still speaking emotionlessly. “Elfini keeps coming to me in my dreams, demanding to know why her murderer hasn’t been punished yet. She’s the one who doubts your highly valued word, since your father’s wealth and power don’t impress the dead. You murdered her, but everyone is letting you get away with it.”
“That was when Rigos began to cry, sounding like a heartbroken child. He sank down to the floor and just sat there crying, and after a moment some of the men took Ollon aside, while others of them got Rigos up on his feet and out of the room. Rigos kept saying, ‘I didn’t, I didn’t,’ in the most pitiful way, as though he knew no one believed him but he still felt it necessary to make the denial. Once he was gone Ollon simply left, not even nodding to his own wife where she stood with her friends. She was terribly embarrassed, of course, and had to work very hard to keep the scene from ruining her evening.”
“My goodness, I am sorry I missed it,” Delin murmured, shifting a bit himself so that her meager but nicely wielded Air magic might stroke his privates in the proper way. “It must have simply made Lady Kilia’s party. After all that, surely nothing else of any interest happened?”
“Only Ildemar’s usual performance once he drank too much,” Relana murmured in answer, leaning a bit closer to Delin. “He began to cry just as Rigos had, mourning the fact that the poor boy might be innocent after all, but no one would ever believe him. Leave it to Ildemar to weep over the plight of a murderer… Have I ever told you how aroused I become when you listen to me rather than order me to silence?”
“Any man who refuses to listen to your lovely voice is a fool,” Delin assured her, exultation adding to his own arousal. He would have given almost anything if he could have seen Rigos groveling on the ground, begging for a belief that would never be granted him. Delin’s anonymous note to Lord Ollon had pointed out how easily a guilty man might be exonerated, and the accusation had sent Ollon to confront his sister’s murderer.
But that wasn’t quite enough. It made a marvelous basis for what had to happen next, but in and of itself it was largely innocuous. Rigos was beaten down but not totally crushed, and that’s what he had to be: totally crushed. Delin’s father had pointed Rigos out too often as the better man for Delin to be satisfied with anything less. As though having secured an appointment really made Rigos the better man. Delin would show them, he’d show them all…
“Oh, my dear!” Relana moaned, and Delin returned to an awareness of her to discover that his fingers had clamped tight to her nipple. His right hand also pinched her tender womanflesh, and surprisingly her response was faster and stronger than usual. Relana, it seemed, enjoyed being given pain, a key to her inner being which had eluded him until now. She’d enjoyed lying with him, but tended to enjoy each of her lovers right up until the time she told them not to bother coming back.
“I think you’ve been something of a naughty girl,” Delin murmured, doing nothing to ease his grip on her. “For that reason we’re going to have to punish you, to teach you not to be so much of a tramp. And you
are
a tramp, aren’t you?”
“Ohhh, yes,” she moaned, her eyes now closed as her body shuddered faintly with delight. “And I do need to be punished, so that I’ll learn to be a good girl.”
“That decision is mine, not yours,” Delin told her softly but coldly, overriding the urge to tighten his grip. “You will be punished in the manner
I
choose, with what level of severity
I
decide on. Go now and fetch a leather strap, as well as a cloth to stuff in your mouth. It would be a pity if we were interrupted because you made too much noise.”
She nodded jerkily but without hesitation, and all but jumped to her feet when he released her. She rushed over to a beautifully made cabinet, opened it and rummaged inside, then stumbled back to the couch with a length of cloth in one hand and a broad razor strop in the other.
“No, don’t sit down again,” Delin ordered easily. “Give me the strop, put the cloth in your mouth, and then remove that wrap.”
She wasted no time doing as he’d said, not even when it came to removing her wrap. She’d never let him see her naked body before, and it was no wonder. Her figure was still quite good under clothing, but once bared it was obvious that she’d borne children and was no longer a young woman. She whimpered as he examined every inch of her body with his gaze, turned to let him see the back of her when he gestured for her to do so, then tried to gasp when he grabbed her without warning and pulled her across his lap.
“You’ll find this lesson rather painful, but it’s for your own good,” Delin said as he put one hand in the middle of her back and raised the strop in the other. “When the punishment is done you will serve me with your body, and I expect to hear nothing about how tender you are. If I do, you’ll become even more tender. Do you understand me?”
She nodded spasmodically, then jumped at the first stroke of the strop. The heavy leather left a beautiful band of red behind it, and after another four strokes the red band had covered her entire bottom. That was when she really began to squirm and tried to protect herself with her right hand, but Delin captured the hand in his own left and continued with the punishment. In point of truth it should have been her back that he strapped, giving her what all women deserved, but first he needed to establish his dominance over her. Once he had he would find it possible to do anything he pleased to her, just as he did with the sluts in the pleasure parlors.
The woman writhed and whimpered and squirmed every time the strop cracked across her blazing red bottom, a clear signal of just how deeply in need she was. If he entered her now she would explode like a volcano, Delin knew, but that wasn’t going to be happening yet. He had something else to do once he left Relana, but that appointment was hours away. He would stay there and amuse himself with a slut until it was time to leave, a stroke of luck he hadn’t been counting on. Relana usually eased him out the door once he had satisfied her…
Delin chuckled to himself as he applied yet another “stroke of luck,” enjoying himself quite a bit. But not as much as he would enjoy himself later, after he left the woman. Yes, that was what he really looked forward to, the ultimate delight which would settle his problems with Rigos permanently…
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Delin’s horse tried to turn in the direction of the residence when he mounted, and Delin was almost sorry that he had to disappoint the beast. He told the horse softly that his next stop would be a much shorter one, and then they would go straight home. He himself needed to be up early in the morning, so the additional stop couldn’t be anything
but
short.
Which was a real shame, Delin thought with regret as he moved through the stillness of the night. It would have been pleasant to take as much time as he had with Relana, but morning was only a few hours away. He had to be asleep in his bed at the residence before then, and yet he also needed to do a good, thorough job. Pleasure was the only thing available to be sacrificed, at least extended pleasure was. Just seeing to the chore would be pleasant in itself, that and a consideration of the results which would obtain.
The stillness all around worked to remind Delin not to whistle, and the height of his good mood needed that reminder. Relana was well on the way to being entirely under his control, his worst enemy would soon be in a position from which no one would be able to save him, and his group had already managed to Blend. Life had changed from a living nightmare to a living dream, and he didn’t even mind having had to be careful not to cause Relana any lasting damage. There had to be a way to keep things working well, and if so, he meant to find it.
It was a fairly long ride to his destination, but once again his previous preparation stood him in good stead. He’d made it his business to learn where every powerful man in the government lived, and Ollon Kapmar was certainly no exception. With Lord Ollon being as deeply involved in the competitions as he was, his house was one of the first Delin had learned about. The man was more involved with the peasants than with anyone of decent social standing, but oddly enough that seemed to increase his importance rather than lessen it.
Or had increased his importance until now. Delin smiled as he thought about the only thing that would increase Lord Ollon’s importance after today: the fact that he would be Rigos’s second victim, directly after his unfortunate sister. The scene Relana had described in such glorious detail was even better than what Delin had hoped for when he’d sent that anonymous note to Lord Ollon about the party. Rigos now had every reason in the world to kill Lord Ollon, and with Delin’s help he would do just that.
Lord Ollon’s house looked as dark as any other from a distance, but once Delin had reached it he was able to see lamplight coming from one of the side windows. It was actually a terrace door which spilled faint light out into the inky darkness, with what looked to be a private garden surrounding it on the outside. Deep shadow suggested a hedge separating it from the area at the front of the house, and Delin realized that it could well be Lord Ollon’s study.
Moving silently to the terrace door gave Delin the opportunity to review his plan. He could see it all now, just exactly as it would be. He would step up to the door, look inside to be certain that Lord Ollon was alone, and then he would open the door and enter.
“Who are you?” Lord Ollon would demand as he looked around from his chair, his eyes smudged darkly from lack of sleep and heavy drinking. “What do you mean by simply walking into my house?”
“I’ve come to help you with your search, Lord Ollon,” Delin would say with a smile as he closed the door behind him. “You’ve been looking for your sister’s murderer, and you believe you’ve found him in Rigos. I’m here to tell you that Rigos is entirely innocent.”
“Be damned if he is,” Lord Ollon would mutter, refusing to turn loose of what he considered his prey. “And how would
you
know anyway? No one could know that for certain unless—”
“Exactly,” Delin would beam as Lord Ollon guessed the truth. “No one would know that for certain unless he were the
real
murderer. Which I am.”
Lord Ollon’s obsession would then send him into a rage, and he would rise and throw himself at Delin in attack. But Delin would be expecting that, of course, and would paralyze the man in mid-motion. Then he would stroll behind the helplessly raging fool, slip the knotted cord he’d brought along around the man’s neck, and strangle him to death. Just at the end he would release the man from paralysis so that he might be properly positioned near his desk. With Rigos being as small as he was, it would have to seem that he caught Lord Ollon unawares from behind. Then he would remove all traces of himself from the room and substitute traces of Rigos, and the thing would be done.
Delin blinked back to awareness to realize that he’d reached the terrace doors, and now simply stood staring. He really had to do something about these episodes he kept going through, these times of blacking out without realizing it. Once he and the others had won the Throne, he’d have to find a physician strong enough to do him some good. But as for right now, an important chore was waiting.
Stepping closer to the door let him peer inside, and immediate disappointment stabbed at him. Lord Ollon wasn’t seated at his desk, although it was the lamp on the desk which was lit. Had the man gone to bed after having forgotten to turn down the lamp, or had he simply gone to relieve a call of nature? It made a big difference in what Delin himself would do, so he had to—
All thoughts and plans ended abruptly when Delin noticed what he really should have seen immediately: the dark, unmoving, lumpish pile of something on the floor beside the desk. An instant’s staring told Delin exactly what it was: Lord Ollon’s body, precisely where
he
had meant to leave it. That little daydream he’d just had; could that have been reality instead, distorted by another episode?