WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (23 page)

Conar's lips hardened at the mention of the man who had been chosen by the slave traders and Princes of the Hasdu who dealt in human flesh to root out the Samiel and execute its leaders.

"If what I heard from that slave warden this morning is true, Belial is Mahmed Allajon's right hand man," Azalon informed the others. He glanced at Conar. "He might know of a way to get into Abbadon undetected, Khamsin."

"There is no way to get into Abbadon undetected," Conar replied, shooting out his long legs. He crossed his ankles and brought the heel of his right hand up to rub at his eye. "We're safe there."

Rupine glanced at Balizar, then Asher. "Are your eyes bothering you, Khamsin?"

Conar shook his head although he continued to rub his eye. "I don't see as clearly as I once did," he answered, lowering hand. "But that was to be expected, wasn't it?" His lids closed tiredly.

"No more headaches?" Rupine pressed. At Conar's slow denial, the physician breathed a sigh of relief. He thought back to all the symptoms the sorceress at Odess had warned him to be on the lookout for and inquired after Conar's strength. "Has there been any more weakness in your legs? How about your bladder problem? Have you had to go more than …?"

The strange alien eyes snapped open and impaled the physician with a warning. Though no words were spoken, none having been needed, the answer had to satisfy Rupine for the man knew the Outlander would not discuss his health. Rupine looked away from the fierce stare.

"Where are you going?" Balizar asked as their leader pushed himself from the ground with a grunt of pique.

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"Where I won't be bothered!" Conar snapped. He strode angrily away, leaving his men to stare after him with concern.

"He's not doing as well as he would like us to believe," Azalon remarked. "Most of the time I don't think he can even read the messages coming in from Abbadon."

"He can't," Asher agreed. "I've been reading most of them to him."

"Stubborn man," Balizar commented. "I caught him squinting in the mirror yestermorn, trying to trim that bush he's got growing on his face. That's why he don't shave no more. He can't see to do it properly." The warrior clucked his tongue in annoyance. "Like we wouldn't do it for him if he but asked!"

"Rider coming in," Azalon told them.

Balizar sighed and stood up, dusting the sand from his robe. He lifted his hand to shield his gaze from the blazing noon day sun. "Looks like Rachel," he said. As the identity of the rider became clear to him, Balizar grinned. "It is."

Asher sighed. "He's not going to like her coming here." He got to his feet. "Why can't women ever listen when a man gives an order?"

Rachel Stone dismounted, throwing the reins of her bay gelding to one of the former slaves.

She cast a quick look about her and was pleased to see so many had been rescued. There didn't appear to have been any more casualties among the men of the Samiel and that pleased her even more. Her sharp green gaze flitted about the encampment, searching for one face in particular.

"Why are you here?" her brother, Asher, asked as she joined the men at the wagon.

"Where is Khamsin?' she countered, ignoring Asher's scowl.

"He told you not to come, Rachel," Asher reminded her.

A faint smirk passed over Rachel's pretty face and she turned away, looking for Conar among those milling about. "I have a message for him that couldn't wait until he came back to Abbadon." She shook her head when Asher asked what was so important that it required her to risk their leader's ire. "Believe me when I tell you that you don't won't to be the one to tell him this."

"Tell him what?" came a gruff growl from behind them.

Rachel turned and her pretty face became exotically lovely as she found Conar glaring her.

"You are well, milord?" she asked, going to him. Her quiet voice shook with hesitation.

Conar put his hand behind her neck. "Walk with me, lady," he demanded, pulling her away from the others.

They made their way through the throng of sweaty, stinking bodies to the place where the horses were tethered. A small oasis of crystal clear water and drooping date palms stretched overhead.

"Did anyone get hurt this time?" Rachel asked to forestall the anger she saw building in his tanned face.

"Kamir," was the reply before Conar let go of her and pointed to a shady expanse of sand.

"Sit."

Rachel did as she was told and waited until he was seated beside her before drawing in a long breath. Exhaling slowly, she turned to face him and found his inscrutable gaze fastened on her.

"Tell me," he said.

"A message came for you," Rachel answered. "From St. Steffensberg." She saw his face turn carefully blank.

"Oh?"

"I thought you would want to know right away."

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He looked away from her. "Usually when it's a message you think I should know about right away, Rachel, I don't like what I hear."

"And you're especially not going to like this," she countered.

"They're all right, aren't they?" he asked, not looking at the woman beside him. "Catherine and the babe?"

"As far as I know."

His head came around. "What do you mean: 'as far as you know'?"

"When the message was sent to you over two weeks ago, the two of them were fine," she told him. She bit down lightly on her lower lip before giving him the news she knew would anger him. "Sajin has left the Outer Kingdom and should be here sometime this week."

Bright red blood infused Conar's face and he let out a vulgar curse that turned the air around them blue. "
What
?" he shouted. "
Why
?"

Rachel blanched at the absolute fury stamped on her lover's face. She didn't like being the one to tell him why the Kensetti was on his way to Rysalia; why there was no longer a need for him to stay in St. Steffensberg to protect Conar's precious wife and child. Her heart was already hammering in her chest and she could hear the quiver in her voice when she finally told him the bad news.

"Your wife took your daughter and set sail for Serenia the night of the Rhiad raid. Ben-Alkazar knew nothing of her plans until it was too late to do anything about it. The ship had already sailed."

Conar sat perfectly still, his mouth open, staring at Rachel. Nothing the woman could have said could have stunned him more than this bit of ill luck. Nothing, save Catherine or the babe being kidnapped by Mahmed's men, could have put more fear in his heart than the news that his wife and child were sailing west to his homeland.

"Khamsin?" Rachel questioned, growing concerned with the look of abject horror on the Serenian's face. She could see a vein throbbing dangerously in his left temple and his fists were clenched so tightly on his thighs his knuckles had bled white.

"How the hell ...?" he began before leaping to his feet. He looked about him, seeking something to smash or throw or kill with his bare hands, but only the strained and worried face of his mistress registered. Rachel would be the last object to feel the brunt of his fury. An explosion of sheer frustration shot from his clenched jaw and he spun around to slam his fist into one of the date palms. "SON-OF-A-BITCH!" he bellowed.

Rachel winced as her lover's knuckles cracked into the wood of the tree. She could not help but smile as he shook his fist as the pain finally caught up with him. Had it not been for the snarling, cursing invocations coming from him, she would have laughed.

"I can't believe she did that!" Conar thundered. He plowed his right hand viciously through his golden hair. "Or that that goddamned nomad ALLOWED her to do it!"

"Sajin knew nothing …," Rachel started to remind him, but stopped as he spun around and fixed her with a glower that should have stopped her heart.

"He sure as hell doesn't know nothing!" was the shout.

"What's happened?" Balizar asked as he and Azalon came running. "Is there a problem?"

"Oh, nooooooo!" their leader sneered. "No problem at all!" He kicked the sand much as a child being denied his heart's wish. "Everything is just
perfect
!"

Balizar turned his attention down to Rachel. "What did you tell him?"

The woman's face tinged pink. "His wife took their child and set sail for Serenia two weeks ago."

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"Oh, hell!" Balizar muttered.

"I'll beat that bitch black and blue when I get back to Boreas!" Conar threatened, but the others knew he wouldn't.

"Can you handle this?" Azalon asked Rachel and at her silent nod, he jerked on Balizar's sleeve and the two made a hasty retreat, glancing back only once at the livid man who was pacing a gully in the sand.

"Do you believe this?" Conar snarled. "Of all the foolish things for that woman to do!"

Rachel circled her knees within the protection of her arms. "I'd have done the same thing."

Conar flung around and stared at her as though she, too, had lost what little sense he had credited her with.

"I would have," she repeated.

The sapphire eyes narrowed into pinpoints of anger. "Really?" he sneered at her.

"Any woman would have, milord."

It wasn't as though he didn't know why his wife had taken herself off to Serenia. He was all too aware of her ploy. She hadn't expected him to come back to the Outer Kingdom, but she had known damned well he would eventually go home to Boreas sooner or later. If she just happened to be there, firmly established as his wife and his Queen, having made herself an integral part of court life as well as being the perfect sister-in-law to Legion and surrogate mother to his sons, what recourse would he have for divorce before his own Tribunal? Their marriage could not be put aside for lack of consummation. Brianna's mere existence nullified that alternative. As for adultery? His extramarital trysts with Rachel were a possibility, but he'd wager good money that Catherine would find a way around that, as well.

"She believes she has you, milord," Rachel told him and wasn't surprised when he spat out a filthy epithet before flinging himself down beside her once more.

"I'll turn her ass over my knee and let her see just how much she has of me!" he grumbled.

"The woman is in love and has no intention of giving you the freedom she knows in your heart you don't want," his mistress said in a reasonable voice. At his look of annoyance, she smiled. "You know you love her, Khamsin."

"What the hell difference does that make?" Conar snarled. "I can't keep her safe, Rachel!"

"She's there. You're here. She's safe. You're free." Rachel watched the speculation forming in his dark gaze. "So, you stay here and she stays safe."

"I can't stay here forever," he pouted, digging the toe of his black boot into the sand. "By the time I go home, she'll be so firmly entrenched in my life there, I'll never be able to have the marriage put aside. If I had married her in Serenia, I could just have not seen her for six months and the marriage would have been invalidated according to Tribunal Law."

"She hates me," Rachel commented as though she hadn't been listening to him.

"Aye, she does," Conar agreed.

"Enough to risk a lengthy sea voyage to insure her place in your life even if I should accompany you back to Boreas when you go."

Conar flinched. "Do you think she thought of that?"

"Thought of it and decided to do something about it," Rachel answered.

"I can't have a mistress if I have a wife," Conar moaned. "That's Serenian law." He shook his head. "I don't fancy having any more flesh stripped off my back, thank you just the same."

"You can divorce her according to Rysalian law," Rachel suggested.

"What good would that do?" he groused. "I married her according to Outer Kingdom law.

I signed papers joining our two houses." He frowned. "Papers I shouldn't have signed, damn it!

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They make me a citizen of her homeland."

"But you are, for all intents and purposes, a citizen of Rysalia, now," Rachel reminded him.

"You paid taxes on Abbadon, didn't you? To insure a place for the freed men and women to live until all slavery was abolished here? You own Abbadon, don't you?"

"Aye, but I don't see …."

"As a citizen of Rysalia, you are entitled to all the privileges of Rysalian law. You can exercise any and all of those privileges and one of them is the ability to set aside a marriage you no longer wish to continue."

"She'd just ignore the decree," he told her.

"True, but if you were take a wife here …."

"Hell, no!" Conar shouted, coming to his feet to glare down at Rachel. "I don't need another damned wife!"

"Even if it meant assuring yourself that Catherine would ask for an annulment of your marriage in Serenia?"

He stared at her. Rachel could see the gears turning in his head as he thought over the reasons why her scheme might not work.

"Think, milord," she pushed him. "We are agreed that she hates me. We are agreed that she knows I will probably accompany you home to Boreas when the time comes. We are also in agreement that unless she is given an iron clad excuse to terminate your marriage, she will hold you to it." Rachel stood up and put her hand on his arm. "If you let her know you have divorced her here, that you have every intention of staying here, that you have taken a new wife ...."

"You," he bit out.

"Yes," she answered. "I'll allow you to wed no other!"

Conar's lips twitched. "And just how would you prevent it, Mam'selle?"

"I'd geld you myself, milord," she warned him. "Have no doubt that I would not should you try to
ever
slip into another woman's bed!"