PRINCE OF THE WIND (2 page)

De Viennes pointed a finger at the boy. "He has brought such punishment down upon his
own
head by refusing to show respect to his betters. Look at him! There is no fear in his eyes! No fear in his heart! Well, by the gods, I’ll put that fear where it belongs! It seems his former master surely did not!"

Du Mer hurried to his Overlord and laid the hand of a long-standing friendship on the prince’s shoulder. "Don’t do this," he pleaded in a whisper only de Viennes heard. "He doesn’t look as though he could survive such treatment."

"Then he shouldn’t have challenged me!" the prince shouted. He made to leave, but du Mer tightened his hold.

"Let me talk to him! Please." Du Mer locked gazes with Gunter de Viennes. "If I can get him to show you the respect you want, will you forgo the punishment?"

"And then what?"

"Let me buy him."

De Viennes’ brows shot upward in surprise. Guy du Mer had never owned a slave, nor did he believe in slavery. "For what purpose?"

Du Mer shrugged. He looked around at the child. "I don’t know yet, but something tells me the lad is special."

"Special?" the prince questioned, his mouth dropping open with amazement. "As in
Romny
special?"

The others mumbled. The gypsy Duke was known to have the sight. If he said the boy was "special," chances were he was.

"Aye," du Mer agreed. "I will take him to Downsgate where I can—"

"Ahhhh," de Viennes drawled. "I see where you are going with this." He glanced at the boy. "He
would
make a fine match for one of your illegitimate brats, wouldn’t he? To enhance the power you wield by producing others like him?"

Guy du Mer’s mouth tightened. "I want no such thing."

"Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of it. I can see as much beneath all that filth as you can, old friend."

"And, pray tell, what is it you think you see?" du Mer snapped.

"Striking male beauty," Prince Francisco Ortega interrupted. He walked toward them, a leather purse bouncing in his delicate white hand. "If you are bargaining for him, Your Grace, I will offer twenty gold sovereigns."

"I am no slave to be bought and sold! I am Chalean!" the boy shouted.

"As if Chaleans can’t be bought and sold!" one of the barons joked. "I’ve two working in my quarry even as we speak!"

Fury erupted from the child. He spun around in the Master-at-Arms’ grip and landed a savage kick to Boucharde’s shin, bringing a shriek of pain from the husky knight. "I am a Cree, the gods damn you all! You just try selling a Cree and see what happens!"

"Cree?"

The name circulated in a shocked whisper among those gathered. Grown men stepped back from the thrashing lad and quickly put distance between themselves and him. Sir Gerard let go of the young man as though the torn clothing in his hands had scalded him. He, too, backed away, his hand going to the dagger at his thigh. His knees bent into a fighting stance as he held the boy at bay with a gleaming point of Ionarian steel. Not a man there laughed at the ridiculousness of an overly large knight pointing a deadly weapon at an unarmed teenager.

The boy stood his ground, glaring back at the men grouped in front of him. Obviously recognizing fear when he saw it, he lifted his torn lip in a tiny smile of contempt.

"I am Riain Cree." His smile widened at their gasps. "Son of Aidan Cree!"

"The gods help us," du Mer breathed.

"Could he be one of Cree’s by-blows?" De Viennes, equally stunned by the pronouncement, turned to question his boyhood friend.

Du Mer chewed on his lip for a moment, scrutinizing the boy. He shook his head. "He has not the ugly looks of the Cree clan. But he has their irritating arrogance. Who else would dare admit to being one of those demon-spawned Crees, but a true Cree?"

"If there is any chance he is one of them," Ortega said, fear of the Crees obviously curing him from any unnatural interest in the boy he may have had, "you’d best kill the bastard and be done with it! Bury him quickly and quietly and hope no word of it reaches Cree’s ears!"

"If you do," the lad shouted, "you will have the entire might of Chale and Oceania down around your miserable hearts! I am legal-born!"

"Legal-born?" Du Mer’s brows came together over his pug nose, then he sucked in a stunned breath. "By the gods, Gunter, don’t you see who he must be? He is the one they’ve been looking for." He turned a strained look to the prince. "Aidan’s youngest boy. The one Hesar kidnapped a year ago!"

De Viennes had already made the connection and he felt his stomach beginning to knot with unease. "We’ve no intention of doing harm to you or any other Cree," the Northwinds prince assured the lad. "Our fight is with Olan Hesar. We thought you were one of his."

The boy staggered, his grimy face losing the color of anger. Apparently his outburst, and a year of whatever starvation and physical abuse he had suffered, seemed to have taken its toll.

"If you are who you say you are," the prince continued, "we will care for you until word can be sent to your father to fetch you."

"I can take myself home," the child stated with an arrogance that was obviously more bravado than fact. "Just give me a mount."

Guy du Mer grinned. "And you’ll row yourself to Chale on board him, will you?"

"I will find a way across the river," the lad spat. He looked wildly about him, backing slowly away from the threat Sir Gerard posed, never taking his eyes off the shimmering point of the knight’s blade.

"You’re ill, son," du Mer cautioned and started forward. He put up both hands when the boy seemed ready to bolt. "I’ve no doubt you would try for home, but you’d die in the trying."

"What do you care?" The boy had gotten as far as the door and was fumbling for the handle.

"How far do you think you’ll get?"

"As far away from you thieving Zonelanders as I can get!"

"You would dare call us thieves?" a baron challenged, his beefy face nearly purple with rage. He started to say something else, but du Mer shushed him.

"I’ll take you home," du Mer promised. "You may hold me personally responsible for your safe conduct."

Riain Cree angrily shook his head. "My father is looking for me." He cracked open the door and started backing out of the room. "He’ll be—"

From outside, two guards appeared and grabbed him from behind. One sent a brutal blow to the back of the boy’s head to still his struggles.

"The gods damn it!" Guy du Mer leapt forward, his lips drawn back from clenched teeth.

The teenager collapsed into Guy’s arms.

"By all that’s holy," du Mer whispered. "He’s burning up with fever!"

Men cautiously shuffled forward, their faces as anxious as du Mer’s. Sir Gerard sheathed his weapon and hunkered down beside the Duke.

"Is…is he dead?" de Viennes could barely say.

Du Mer put two fingers to the boy’s filthy throat. "Not yet, but unless we get him to your Healer, he’ll not see morning."

She thought he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. His skin was a dark golden tan that brought out the rich luster of his midnight curls. Beneath his closed eyelids, edged with long, thick, ebony lashes, were twin cauldrons of fathomless molten gold. His lips were soft and voluptuous, a ripe shade of peach that looked as luscious as the fruit and just as sweet. His teeth, as white as the snows high atop Mount Serenia, were straight and even behind those heavenly lips.

He smelled of cinnamon and spices too rare for her to know their taste. The heat given off his thin body from the high fever, which had nearly taken his life, brought his scent to her from clear across the room. She breathed in the smell, her belly doing funny little clutching spasms as she did. That a boy-child of fifteen or sixteen should so arouse a woman of her advancing years did not concern her; there were virile young men of thirteen and fourteen roaming the corridors of the Four Zones who were fathers many times over. That she had never encountered one who would give her a second notice did, however, concern her, and she had made up her mind that this one would be different.

"Maeve?"

Suzanna looked up from her mending as another soft groan came from the boy. She laid down her father’s shirt to go to the bed. She placed the back of her hand against his cheek and frowned; the fever was still high.

"Milady?" he begged, his eyes twitching beneath the blue-tinged lids.

"Hush, now, Riain," Suzanna ordered in a stern voice. She wondered who "Maeve" was, this woman he called for in his fever. "I am here. You need no other."

The boy struggled to open his eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead, plastering the silken curls to his flesh. The febrile color on his cheeks seemed to actually pulse with heat. Although he was better, the fever still raged, still took a heavy toll on his strength.

"Help me," he whispered. His lids fluttered open. His gaze was unfocused, steaming hot as he looked into her face. "Lady, please. I have to get home."

Suzanna swept the curls from his face and sat beside him. She reached for a cloth soaking in iced water on the bedside table, rung it out, then dabbed the sweat from his face and neck.

"You have Labyrinthian Fever." She dragged the cloth over his pathetically thin chest. "It must run its course. You’ll not go anywhere for a time yet."

"Am…I…going to die?" His hoarse voice was almost painful to hear.

"You are not," she answered crisply.

* * *

Riain closed his eyes, only vaguely disturbed that the woman hovering over him was running the cloth under his arm, then down his side in a manner decidedly not nurse-like. Though the icy water helped to relieve his aches and wash the sticky, clammy feel off his flesh, he felt unclean where she touched him.

"My father?" he asked.

The woman pursed her lips, not answering. Instead, she twisted on the bed, tossed the covers from his legs, and began to wash his belly.

Riain felt the cold wash of air across his legs. He did not need to look to know he was naked, and acute embarrassment made him lift his hands to cover his manhood.

"There is no need for misplaced modesty!" the woman snapped, pushing away his hands. She turned and fused her gaze with his. "I have bathed you every day, three times a day, for nearly two weeks, young man. There is naught of you I have not seen nor touched." She lifted a thick brown brow in amusement. "Or watched with keen interest."

Her bold words made Riain blush. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed her to finish with her work.

"You do not like being touched?"

"Nay, Lady. ’Tis unseemly what you do." He tucked his lower lip between his teeth to keep it from trembling

She laughed. "You have much to be taught, Sweeting." She reached out to touch his shoulder, but a firm rap on the door stopped her.

"Come!" she ordered, throwing the covers over Riain.

Prince Gunter de Viennes entered the room ahead of his steward. "How is he?"

The woman folded her hands in front of her. "He is awake and fussing about being bathed, I’m afraid, Father."

The prince grinned and strode to the bed. "Then he’s feeling better!"

"Shall I stay, Milord?"

The prince waved a dismissive hand and pulled up a chair to sit beside the bed. "Has he eaten?"

"A little broth earlier this morn," the woman replied at the door. "He needs to eat more."

"Aye, much more before Cree’s man comes to fetch him."

At the mention of his father, and despite the wicked headache plaguing him and the illness that made him feel as weak as a kitten, Riain pushed himself up. "You have notified my father of my whereabouts?"

Prince Gunter smiled hesitantly. "Not exactly." He looked away, cleared his throat, and dusted an imaginary speck of lint from his breeches. "We have not yet been able to get word to your clan, but we will keep trying."

Riain frowned. Did they mean to hold him ransom as had Olan Hesar? Were they afraid of what the Clan would do once they found out Riain had been mistreated at the hands of these Northzoners?

"You need not fear reprisal from my father for what your man did," Riain said. "I did not tell him who I was, therefore you cannot be held accountable for the beating he gave me."

Gunter winced, obviously uncomfortable. "I have heard many tales of Chalean vengeance. I would not welcome war with your people. We have managed to avoid it for two generations."

Riain understood the man’s dilemma. The son of a powerful man—a prince in his own right—had been brutally treated by this man and his court, threatened with death, had been even on the verge of being lashed and sold into slavery. It was not a situation that was conducive to good relations with an already unfriendly kingdom.

"I will defend you to my father, Your Grace. You have my word as a Chalean prince."

A long, relieved breath came from Gunter. "I am most thankful, Milord." He hesitated, then put out a beseeching hand. "But what of Sir Gerard?"

Riain’s eyes narrowed. "What of him?"

"Boucharde is a good man. He wholeheartedly regrets his actions. As you said, he had no notion of who you were, and was only obeying my orders."

"A little
too
well."

The prince sat forward. "He is fully prepared to pay for his mistake—"

"And pay he shall."

Gunter’s shoulders slumped. "Tell me what I can do, Milord, to keep my man from having to die by a Chalean executioner’s ax."

This surprised Riain. All his life, he had been given to understand that there was no honor in the Zonelanders. They were thieves and poachers, pirates and slavers. He had been told of how they were almost as bad as the Viragonians, the scourging terrors of the sea lanes. Of how the princes of these lands were vicious and cruel, treating their people like cattle and having no regard for any life other than their own.

But here was the Northwinds’ Prince Regent begging for the life of a mere servant? Even given that servant was a knight and Master-at-Arms, such behavior was not in keeping with the way Riain had been led to think of these people of the Four Zones.

Yet, his father’s own man, Sir Duncan Brell, Briarcliff Keep’s Master-at-Arms, was much beloved of the Cree clan. So beloved, in fact, Riain suspected his father would give his life for the man if the need arose.