It was clear that Lemnos didn’t like the position he’d been put in; he just as obviously couldn’t find a way out of it he liked any better. After a moment or so he sighed heavily and cleared his throat. Xena yanked off another chunk of warm, tough-crusted bread and popped the bite in her mouth. She had one ear tuned to the still-motionless Rammis and her eyes were fixed on Lemnos, eyebrows high.
“Oh, all right.” The words came out too high, nervous sounding. He cleared his throat. “You’re asking to get your throat cut, you know. Draco hates you. He hasn’t had a good word to say about you in a long time.” He gestured toward his fallen companion. “I mean, where do you think he got the attitude, Xena?”
“Rammis? Maybe his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby, how should I know? I can deal with Draco,” she added shortly. Pausing, she tore off another chunk of bread. “This is good; I didn’t know you could bake, Lemnos.” She gave him a sly grin. “You never baked anything for me, Lemnos.” It was an attempt to lighten the mood in the windswept kitchen; it didn’t work.
“My father was a baker,” he replied gloomily. “In Thebes. He sold bread and the like to the rich, and he died very poor. Guess I never told you because you never asked, all right?” He sighed. “I shoulda stayed there, kept the shop after he died, ’stead of going out for gold and glory. Maybe I’d still be alive tomorrow. Right now I don’t like my chances so good.”
“Now, Lemnos.” She hadn’t expected such a heartfelt reaction from him. But Lemnos had always been a nice little man, at bottom. Response in kind would only shift things onto the wrong plane and he’d probably see sentiment from her as a sign of softness. She chuckled, gaining a startled and wary look from him. “Lemnos, you’ll probably live forever. You’re useful to Draco, you’re keeping him fed. And he’s practical. You know he’ll protect you better than he watches over himself, so long as you keep him happy.”
“Oh. Sure. And what if someone who does a better job comes along?” He swallowed hard, primmed his lips. “I nearly met my replacement last month; a man who could make pastry sing. Unfortunately, he doesn’t—didn’t—do so well with the pretty bits when he was drunk, and he had a powerful friend in a jug of wine.” A brief silence. “He downed too much Aeolian sweet red and burned the crust.”
“Too bad for him,” she said coldly. “Don’t tell me how Draco rewarded him. You about done there, my friend?”
“Almost,” he replied absently; his fingers were moving at dizzying speed, folding bits of leaf around small pieces of fish or meat, twisting little sprigs of grass or branch around the whole packet to hold it in place, drizzling a pungent liquid over these. He patted leaves into a patterned bed on another painted wooden platter, drew a clay bowl from one of the ovens, and began setting shining, dripping slivers of meat in a glyph-like pattern across the flattened greenery, then drizzled ruddy oil over everything, to create yet a third pattern. “This isn’t the meal, you realize,” he said. His hands seemed to have a life of their own.
Xena watched, fascinated. Pattern upon pattern upon pattern . . . She scrubbed at her eyes, shook her head hard. “Gods, Lemnos, I hope not; there isn’t enough there to keep a dryad alive!” Lemnos cast her a crooked grin. “Let me get something straight. He eats this—this stuff? He actually likes it?”
“Yeah.” He considered this, and laughed despite his situation. “Okay, he claims to like it, but sometimes I wonder. Because—well, listen, you probably won’t believe me, but . . . ’Bout a year ago we raided some rich guy’s northern summer palace—two palaces he owned, this guy, one down on the southern Mylitos coast, another in northern Macedonia—”
“Macedonia ? You guys are getting around, these days—”
“Sure. Anyway, this rich feller—wish I could remember his name, but anyway, two palaces. You have any notion, Xena, how much it takes to transport all your people, your special bits of finery, your special food, all that? To another location days or weeks distant? So you can do the exact same thing except somewhere else, and then do it again when the seasons change?”
“Lemnos—I think you’re a Minoan at heart,” Xena replied cheerfully. “Everyone equal, all money equal, land equal, men and women equal, possessions equal—what’s the fun in that?” Well, she amended privately, all but the one involving physical being . . . Some simply couldn’t manage if everyone started on a level field.
“Fun,” Lemnos replied darkly. “You and Draco both wait until we find a way to redistribute the wealth!” He caught his breath sharply, suddenly remembering who he was—and who he was with. But Xena merely smiled and waved him on. After a moment he cleared his throat and nodded. “All right—anyway. This noble had two complete palaces, and he was whining about losing one of ’em!”
“He wasn’t whining for long, I wager.”
“I don’t bet! Well, not with you, Xena, you know that.” He eyed her sidelong. “No offense, okay? So we bust in right in the middle of this amazing banquet, some kinda combination betrothal for his kid and a welcoming-back ceremony for—who’s that, spends winter in Hades? The plant goddess’s kid with the pomegranate?” Xena shrugged, not much interested. Lemnos wasn’t very interested either. He waved oily fingers in dismissal. “Anyway, for this supposed virgin goddess and also because of the betrothal thing—it’s the virgin crossover, goddess and betrothed kid, got it? Well, the old guy’s filthy rich, and so, of course, lots of fancy food everywhere.
“Me, I’d’ve sent ’em all to Hades to chase gold coins across a very convoluted plain! A hot one—supposing there’s a Hades and gods to run it; you can’t prove that by me! Anyway, one of the guests—he could talk faster than a hungry bard—was trying to talk his way out of being spitted. The surprise was, so far it had worked. Bigger surprise, it’s Draco standing over him and he hasn’t cut the rich little slime’s gullet—he’s listening to this nonsense!” Gabrielle’s got a male counterpart out there somewhere, Xena thought. Now, that’s scary. The little baker snorted. “Me, I got no clue what he was saying, I just know the result. The lippy barstid goes free, and all of a sudden Draco’s going for all this kinda pre-meal nonsense himself— just for himself, of course; he’s still Draco and he ain’t about to waste this kinda time and supplies on your average stupid village flattener. He eats the stuff, gabbles about the this and that of it—I don’t know what half that stuff means, I just figure, he eats it, doesn’t offer to kill me, and it’s okay, you know? Pour whatever wine he wants with it, then come back down here and break out the big platter with the baked joints. Last night”—he enumerated on dripping, sticky fingers—“it was four partridges, a quarter of boar—well, you get the idea.”
“Same old Draco,” she murmured.
“Well—not really,” Lemnos temporized; he licked his fingers absently, made a face at them, and dipped them in a bowl of water, then dried them on his britches; shiny tracks ran along both thighs from knees to the hem of his shirt. “Oh, he’s just as cold-blooded and evil-minded as ever; you wouldn’t believe what he did to everyone else in that summer palace, let alone some of the tricks he pulled getting us all across mainland Ithaca, just so’s we could reach the shore back there!”
“I’d believe it,” she replied flatly.
“Ah—sure.” He seemed to remember who he was talking to, all at once. “Okay. He’s—I dunno. Used to be, he talked about nothing but taking over the world, or how to mangle a village or a palace properly, so everyone would know he’d done it, you know: leave his particular mark and he didn’t have to bother leaving witnesses alive to spread the terror. It made him a proper social leveler. Now, I liked that. Coin redistributed, those with too much made to share—I saw the whole thing that way, and I thought he did, too. Lately, it’s been—well, I don’t like to say.”
“Tell me.”
“You wouldn’t believe me. More—oh, how’s history gonna see him; how’re the bards gonna play this one? Not—understand me,” Lemnos added hastily, “he’s not getting old, or looking over his shoulder for Ares to cart him off, like he useta joke about, nothing like that. He ain’t one bit soft.”
“I wouldn’t be fool enough to think that, Lemnos.”
“Well, sure, I know that. Just—ya know—” He looked quickly around, then went on in a very low voice, “He’s been a little—different—since the last couple towns we hit, before Ithaca, I mean. I think something got him thinking about his—what’d he call it?—his legacy, that kinda stuff.”
“Mmmm.” She considered this for a long, silent moment, finally picked up the last of the bread, and tore it in half. “Good stuff.” She tore the half into two more pieces, popped one in her mouth, then spoke around it. “I don’t know, Lemnos. Doesn’t sound like the Draco I know . . . You’re not trying to fool me, are you?”
“My heart to the gods if I lie,” the little man replied solemnly. He cast her a quick, suspicious glance. “And I’m not Draco; I got one. Heart, that is.”
“Thought you didn’t believe in gods.”
“I don’t.” A smile tweaked the corners of his mouth. “Why I’d make a vow like that, right?” He turned back to his preparations, a frown etching his brow. “Draco, though; it’s not—I mean, it’s like the food thing—it’s not a big thing, it ain’t always, and he hasn’t changed that much, it’s just, if you know him, you’d know he’s kinda gone odd.” He balanced the small platter on the corner of the larger one and began the cautious process of picking them up.
Xena leaped to her feet, took the smaller from him, and inclined her head. Her smile was ironic. “So—lead the way.”
Lemnos cast his eyes up, fastidiously readjusted two bits of slivered meat so they did something to the pattern, then straightened the platter and crossed the chamber to lead the way out the door she’d entered. Rammis was beginning to stir, groaning; his eyes fluttered open and he tried to lever himself up on one trembling arm; his other hand was feeling around for his knife. Lemnos sighed in exasperation and gave him a wide berth; Xena leveled a kick at his chin that snapped his head back into the wall with a sickening crack. He slid bonelessly to the floor, moaned once. Lemnos gazed down at him, his face expressionless—he was good at that, Xena remembered, the little wealth-redistributing Minoan rebel—then eyed her thoughtfully. “Still breathing,” he murmured.
“Planned it that way,” she replied. “He’s not worth killing. Lead the way.” He sighed, very quietly; she raised an eyebrow at him, gestured toward the door with her chin.
The chamber Draco used for his meals was at the far end of the hall from the queen’s apartments. Torches and lamps were everywhere, lighting pale blue walls that had been painted with scenes of the sea, where ships rambled across a stormy surface, while beneath the waves swam monsters and fish. A pale-faced, gray-bearded palace servant attended the long, low table and its only occupant. Draco reclined on a soft couch, his bronze, sculpted chest and arms bare; a pair of soft suede britches hung loose around his hips. He waited while a deeply purple wine was poured for him; he lifted the small cup and before drinking, sniffed the contents, then set the cup down and shook his head. “I like the other; leave the bottle.” The brown-clad old man backed away and moved as quickly as trembling legs would take him, through the door Lemnos had just opened.
The warlord looked up as his cook cleared his throat, rather tentatively, and held out the tray. “Ah! What have you for me tonight—by Ares, Lemnos, are my eyes going?”
Xena eased around the little cook, tray balanced on one hand. “Draco, didn’t your mother ever tell you to wear a shirt in the dining hall?”
He stared at her for a long moment, eyes wide; torchlight made a ruddy highlight of recent pouches under his eyes and long marks from nostrils to the corners of his mouth; the scar that ran the length of his sun-darkened face, forehead to chin, was pale by comparison. The mark she’d put on him. All was silent for a moment. Then he let his head fall back and laughed uproariously. She waited him out; Lemnos set the tray at the warlord’s elbow, and, with one unhappy look at Xena, backed away, one wary step at a time. He finally turned, just short of the door, and walked quickly and quietly out, easing the heavy carved panel closed behind him.
Draco came up onto one elbow, then swung his legs down to the floor and used both hands to wipe his eyes. “You know,” he said finally, “I always expect to see you just—happen into a room or my tent, just like this, poof, a magician’s trick. And there you are. You still caught me by surprise!” He wiped damp hands on his chest and grinned hugely. “To answer your question, my mother died while I was still puking breast milk; I’d have a hard time remembering anything she told me. Besides, this isn’t the king’s so-pristine family dining hall; this is the old Trickster’s private hideaway. You know, one for dull family life then and this—where he’d entertain the boys. Lots of wine, dancing girls, the whole bit. Compared to what garb some of those guys still had on by the end of a long night, I’m positively decent.”
Momentary silence. Draco broke it. “Hey, that reminds me.” He slapped one knee, swung his legs back onto the couch, and dropped onto one elbow. “Someone told me they’d heard the damnedest thing about you recently, that you’d climbed into a dancer’s sheers, veils and all, and entertained some king’s old pig of a throat-slitting adviser—and all that so you could rescue a baby?”
She set the tray on the table before him, then settled one hip next to it, her free leg swinging. Draco watched it, fascinated, then blinked furiously and brought his eyes back to her face. “You know I can dance, Draco.”
“I’ve heard,” he corrected her.
She flicked him a smile, eased farther back onto the table; his eyes had gone back to the swinging leg once more. “Maybe it was my baby.”
“Your—” He gaped, wide-eyed, then slapped his knee and laughed again. “That’s a good one! Yeah, when I heard that story, I thought, there’s another one of those myths growing up around Xena.” One enormous hand slammed the table, rattling cup and painted clay bottle together; he caught the wine before it could spill. “I don’t know how you do it, Xena. You’ve got a lot of stories out there. More things than you could ever’ve done. Me—” He patted his bare chest, grimaced. “Me, half the time they don’t even know who it was hit their village, or took out all their girls, or their hidden cache of gold, or—or whatever. Lot of stuff I’ve done, it’s credited to some god or other, or maybe another warlord. Worse yet, some little creep like Hesiod gets his name on the job.”
Xena smiled, raised her eyebrows. “Well, that’s one you won’t have to worry about stealing the light from your torch. Last I saw of Hesiod, he was a grease splotch on a back road.”
“Oh. Really?” She laughed quietly; he laughed with her, much more loudly. “Say,” he added in a suddenly serious voice. “How’d you get here? I’ve got all but three of the boats in Ithaca sunk to the bottom of the bay out there, and men watching for anything coming from the mainland or out to sea.”
“I told Lemnos I walked.” She let her gaze scare him for a moment before her mouth quirked, and he laughed again. “You want the truth?” she said, when he had gained control of himself. “The queen sent a message out a while back, to King Menelaus of Sparta—”
“I know what he’s king of,” Draco interrupted flatly.
“All right.” Xena crossed her arms and leaned back, her shoulders squared. Draco blinked, went very quiet indeed. “She wanted to find out where Odysseus might be, because he surely wasn’t home. Menelaus—” She considered the humor of it for the first time. Helen’s brutish, arrogant husband, fresh returned from Troy, and after all that fighting, still no wife—and no idea that I’m part of the reason he doesn’t have his wife. Amusing. Distracting. “He sent word for someone to go to Ithaca, find out from the queen what was going on here.” She gave him a cold little smile. “I found his messenger before anyone else did. Lucky me.”
Draco frowned slightly. “Lucky—how?”
Her smile broadened. “Very lucky. Ithaca wide open—once someone dealt with a few freelance brutes who only needed to be killed, kicked out, or brought under control. My control, of course.” She raised one eyebrow, gestured toward the two cooling platters. “If you want any of that, you’d better eat it before it congeals.”
“Oh, mmmm, right.” He selected one of the wrapped and oiled bundles, popped it in his mouth, and briefly closed his eyes to properly savor the tastes; less than a heartbeat later one eye opened and fixed warily on his companion. Xena laughed quietly and edged back farther from him. “I’m not here to run you through, Draco. Not today, at least. Here—eat. Lemnos went to a lot of trouble, playing with all that, don’t let me get in the way of your culinary pleasures.”
“Mmm. Maybe if you were on the other side of the bay, or better yet, the great gray sea of Atlantis, maybe then I’d trust you.” He chewed, swallowed, made a little displeased face, but squared his shoulders and finished the stuff, washed the last of it down with wine. “Delicate—yet pleasing to the palate—”
Her laughter drowned him out. “Come off it, Draco! Eat the nasty little bits if they please you, but don’t try to impress me with your vocabulary or your taste buds. I know both.”
“Ah—hmmm. Yeah. All right, it’s raw fish and whatever he’s dipped it in, it still tastes like raw fish. Oily fish.” He smiled crookedly, though his eyes were dark. “This is a lot more fun without you sitting there and laughing at me.”
“I’m sure it is. I hope for your sake the fish was fresh. So, what do you have in mind for the rest of Odysseus’ palace? From the looks of you, you’re planning to take it all over, slide a crown onto your handsome forehead, and be damned to Menelaus, Nestor, Agamemnon, and all the rest of them.”
“That’s about it,” Draco replied cheerfully. His eyes narrowed. “All right—I see you taking over the mainland, either terrorizing the grubby peasants or protecting them from all corners. Whichever mood is currently taking you. Why here, though?” She picked up a sliver of meat from the second tray, smiled, and held it to his lips. He laughed softly and ate it.
“Maybe I didn’t know you were here until I stepped off my raft.”
“Sure.” He snorted. “You don’t do things that way. You knew an army was out here, and I’m ready to bet you knew whose. You don’t fool me, Xena.”
“Who said I was trying?”
He scooped up more of the meat slivers, popped the lot into his mouth. “Not bad, those,” he mumbled around them. “Help yourself.” She picked up one, sniffed it, shrugged and tossed it back onto the platter. Draco grinned and chewed, swallowed it with some wine, and leaned back. “So, why are you here? You can’t hope to take Ithaca away from me; you can’t rob the old king’s vaults because even I haven’t found them yet, let alone a way into them. And forget taking the queen and her whining brat away from me, if that was your plan.”
“Got it all figured out, have you?”
“Enough of it. Not that I’m too worried, Xena; I’m the one with an army out there. It’s not as big as some I’ve had, but it’s the best bunch of fighting men I’ve ever assembled.”
She picked up the sliver of meat she’d dropped, smiled, and held it tantalizingly near his nostrils, wafted it back and forth just above his head, then lowered it into his open mouth. “Maybe this is just where I wanted to be.”
He choked, nearly splattering her with bits of marinated goat. “I offered you that chance well over a year ago, and you turned me down in damned convincing fashion! You’re lying. Why?”
“I’m not,” she replied evenly. “So I don’t need to prove anything, do I? But last time you offered me half of your bed, the exchange rate was a camp full of grubby lowlifes like Hesiod and nasty, mouthy little Rammis.”
“Rammis—you met him, did you?” She nodded; he sighed faintly. “Just great. Where’d you leave the body?”
“He’s still alive. Next time he may not be. I don’t like little men with big attitudes and bigger knives. Forget Rammis. You’ve got more to offer me this time.”
“Oh?”
“Sure.” She shoved the large tray aside and eased down onto one elbow, set a finger under his chin, and smiled into his eyes. “You couldn’t offer me a crown before. Now you can.” She smiled, exposing neat, white teeth. “Queen Xena. I like the sound of that. Don’t you?”
He considered this in silence for a very long time, narrowed eyes fixed on her face as he felt for the wine jug. He poured some and drank it down. “Maybe. I’m still wondering why you think I’d trust you that much, though.”
“I don’t think that.” She let go his chin and sat back, one foot braced on the edge of the table, the other swinging loose. “Any more than I’d trust you, Draco. We start from here, take it a day at a time, all right? I’m not offering to warm your bed tonight.”
“As if I’d accept.” He laughed shortly, though his eyes were suddenly all pupil and his voice sounded odd. Not thinking with his brains anymore, Xena thought in satisfaction. Nice to know you can still twist him that way. Even if she didn’t mean to take advantage of the situation. “Ah—well. Actually, you know . . .” He poured more wine, leaned back again on the soft cushions. His eyes had never left her face. “Actually, I’m planning to marry Queen Penelope.”
“She’s said she’d agree?”
He sat up. “Are you jesting? She’s said several things to and of me, words that I didn’t think a queen would know! But she’s got two problems: a long-missing husband who may or may not ever show up, and if he does he won’t be in any condition to battle an army that’s dug in here. And the other is that pampered, spoiled kid of hers.”
“I met him,” she said evenly.
“Then you know what I mean. So I figure, I marry her, she has to claim me as a lawful husband, or the kid’s fish bait. Then even somebody like old Nestor—he’s supposed to be so damned upright and honorable—well, even Nestor wouldn’t challenge her word, would he?”
“He’d probably know full well you’d coerced her, but none of them would start a war for Ithaca. Especially not now; they lost too much in Troy. Telemachus is too young to count; Odysseus can’t call in any favors if he’s dead. And Penelope’s male kindred are from somewhere beyond the horizon—no brothers and uncles to stick up for her. But—why bother with Penelope? You said she doesn’t like you. . . . And you don’t like the boy.”
“I’d probably live a lot longer with her on the throne next to me.” Draco stretched, eased back down onto his couch, and clasped his hands behind his head.
Xena let her eyes drift over the bronzed male scenery sprawled over the couch, and smiled. Not as wonderful as he thinks—but it’s not that bad. Reasonably exciting. Too bad the rest of him went with it. She squared her shoulders, met his eyes directly, and let the smile warm. “So. Penelope doesn’t take knives to bed with her—but I don’t either. Not unless it’s called for. What’s she got that I don’t have?”
He rubbed his shoulders against soft cloth and chuckled. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“You haven’t given me reason to think I should.” She looked up as the door opened. Draco came partway to one elbow, one stealthy hand under a dark cushion, but it was only Lemnos with a heavy tray, two bowls balanced precariously on top of it. He eased the door closed with his shoulder, staggered across the room.
Xena smiled, let Draco see she’d watched his stealthy hand movement, that she knew at least one throwing knife was under the cushion, then she rolled across the table and dropped neatly onto the low couch opposite his. Lemnos set the tray down with care, shook out his weight-numbed hands, and set the bowls next to it. The warlord sat up and slid the tray across the table. “Here. Ladies first.” Lemnos rolled his eyes; Xena laughed raucously.
“Draco, you always were a comedian!” She bared her teeth at him and chuckled briefly, then glanced at Lemnos. “Find a cup and get me some of that wine he’s been swilling down.”
Draco laughed sourly. “Since you’ve watched me drink, the wine’s all right, that it?”
“Possibly all right,” Xena countered softly. “No guarantees between you and me, remember? And I don’t know about what’s in the jug over by the door, do I? But since you weren’t expecting visitors tonight—” Lemnos sighed, fetched the jug, poured some into Draco’s outheld cup, and settled the container in a hole that had been cut for it farther down the table. Xena watched him, shifted her gaze to Draco, who ostentatiously took a drink and set the cup aside. “Fine. You take something off the platter first—then I’ll think about it.”
He sighed; his eyes were ironic. “I just don’t want you to wonder if I’ve forced a choice on you. Too much meat, too little time.” She kept her eyes on his, glanced at Lemnos, who was all but wringing his hands, took hold of one long joint, then a thick cut of goat that would be very red and bleeding in the middle. No reaction from either; Draco might be able to hide his emotions, but Lemnos—she doubted it. She shrugged finally, took the long joint, then waited until Draco caught up another long joint with blackened, crisp skin. He gave her an amused look, bit into the joint like a northern barbarian would, chewed and swallowed, washing the bite down with a gulp of wine. Xena smiled, shrugged faintly, and tore a bite loose. As she chewed, she could sense Lemnos eying both of them with resignation.
“Tasty,” she said finally. “Young goat?”
The little black cook spread his arms. “Very young. Kid.” He turned to Draco, who waved him off.
“Good work, as always.” He paused, grinning. “How’s Rammis?”
Lemnos swallowed. “Well, I—ah—I thought you wouldn’t mind if I left things for a little while so I could pack him over to the physician’s tent, get him pinned back together. . . .”
“If he’s stupid enough to tangle with her more than once in a night, I’d rather you dumped him off a wall and into the water.”
Xena set her joint down, pulled out a dagger, deftly wielded the blade to swiftly cut a pile of very neat slices. Cook and cook’s master watched. “He’s stupid, Rammis—but I pushed him. And you’ve pushed me more than once in a day yourself, Draco. Let your cook keep his company.” She jammed the dagger upright into the table boards and popped meat into her mouth; she leaned forward on her elbows, eyes fixed on his.
Xena’s eyes: they were the most amazing things, Draco thought. That rare, pale blue ringed in deep azure—his mouth was suddenly much too dry. He drank deeply, waved a hand at his cook. “Ah, go on, get him out of here—just keep him out of my sight! Wretched, filthy, conniving Egyptian! “
Lemnos was trying to stutter out some kind of thanks and back away at the same time. Xena’s cool voice stopped him. “While you’re at it, Lemnos, you’d better send someone down to the ship that came in today. There’s good wine and new wheat on board—and I’ll wager both Metrikas and Krinos are getting stiff, tied up in the hold all this time. Cross, too.”
Lemnos’ lips moved; no sound emerged. Thought of a cross Metrikas didn’t do anything for his coloring. He turned and fled, the slammed door echoing behind him.
The room was quiet for some time after that—a fairly companionable silence as they finished the meat. Xena shoved her knife back into its hidden sheath, took grapes from the nearest bowl, and popped one in her mouth.
Draco laughed quietly. “Stepped off your raft, huh? And what—you didn’t wait for me to taste one of those first?”
“Comes a time you have to take some chances,” she murmured, and ate another.
“Chances.” He drank the last of his wine, refilled the cup, and settled one arm on the table. “So—how many chances are you willing to—?” He hesitated.
Doesn’t know what he wants—or how badly he wants it, she decided. Good. An off-balance Draco was exactly what she wanted. “Not that many,” she cut him off flatly. She smiled, then. “You don’t want me tonight—me, in the”—she drew a deep breath, exhaled grapes and wine in his flushed, upturned face—“flesh. Remember, you have to sleep sometime. With your eyes closed.”
He laughed, baring fine white teeth. “So do you.”
“Exactly. That’s why I prefer to wait. Right now,” she added sweetly, “I trust you as far as I could spit you, Draco. And I’d say that goes for you, too.”
“Forget all that,” he said cheerfully. “Have more wine.”
She set her hand over the cup. “I’ve had enough. So—you sleep in the palace, or just eat here?”
“My men sleep out there—Odysseus didn’t keep his army in the house, either. Once things are settled, I’ll let ’em build barracks. As to me—well, wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Not really. Not yet.” She rolled off the low couch and flowed to her feet. “That was good, Draco—a nice, quiet, long meal where neither of us tried to murder the other. We’ll have to do it again sometime. But for now, I’m going to bed.”
“Bed . . .” His mouth was dry again. He blinked, swallowed, and swung his feet to the floor. “Where are you sleeping?”
She walked around the table, stopped short of his couch. “Maybe I won’t be. Sleeping. Maybe I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” She shook her head before he could say anything else. “Maybe I’ll be in the queen’s apartments. They seem to be the safest place in the entire palace, and the decor’s nicer.”
“I—see.” He didn’t believe her; she smiled coldly.
“Do you, Draco?”
He shrugged, poured a thimbleful of wine, swirled it in the cup. “If you plan on getting it out of her, where Odysseus’ treasury’s hidden, it won’t work. I tried that.” She laughed, shook her head, started for the door. “I’ll be watching every move you make!” he shouted after her.
She turned with the open door in her hand and smiled. “Do that,” she said quietly, and was gone, the door pulled mostly closed behind her. The smile widened as she gazed down the empty corridor. It was deathly silent back in the Trickster’s party hall. Draco hadn’t moved; she was sure of it. Just as sure he was staring after her, still. “Nice to know you’ve still got it—even when you don’t want to use it,” she murmured, and with a quick glance back down the corridor and at the door behind her, she set off quickly toward the queen’s corner of the palace.