“I think not,” Ildiko replied, and her voice had taken on the same resolute tone her husband's had only moments earlier.
Brishen chuckled. “Go on, cousin. You won't win.”
“Hold that thought for when I return, husband,” Ildiko said to him, and the grim promise in her reply chased his half smile away.
The two women were halfway to the room reserved for her when Anhuset said “You're going to confront him about his own visions and the light flare of sorcery you've seen with him, aren't you?”
Ildiko nodded. “Count on it. You did me a favor by describing Serovek's own experiences. If you'd told Brishen in confidence, he might not have told me, afraid I'd worry.”
“But you're already worried.”
“Such is the reasoning of men, Anhuset,” she said and rolled her eyes, making Anhuset take a step back.
She soon followed Ildiko into one of the spacious chambers usually reserved for guests at Saggara. True to her word, food, a pitcher of wine and a hip bath filled with steaming water awaited her. Towels and soap were stacked on a chair next to the bath, along with a rinse pitcher, and clean clothes were laid across the bed. A cheery fire danced in the hearth to chase away some of the room's cold.
Ildiko gestured to the chair. “It appears they forgot a comb, and you're in desperate need of one,” she said, more matter-of-fact than insulting. “I know you well enough by now to know you'll refuse a maid, so I'll send someone up to drop the comb off to you.” She left Anhuset standing next to the table of food, pausing on the threshold, one hand on the door. “We're glad you're returned, Anhuset. I don't think I've ever seen Brishen afraid until you didn't come back when expected.” She closed the door softly behind her.
Anhuset stared at the surface of planking studded with nails and bound with strap hinges. “Then you never saw him when he feared for you, hercegesé” she said softly.
With no choice but to give Brishen the time he requested, she ate the food brought and drank the wine, though if someone were to ask her what she consumed and how it tasted, she couldn't say. It was sustenance, nothing more. Her mind was elsewhere, or specifically, on someone. Every worst-case scenario played out in her mind regarding Serovek's fate. A cursory or bypassed trial, an even faster execution via the gallows rope or the headman's ax. She shoved aside her half-finished plate and downed the rest of the wine.
Steam no longer wafted off the water's surface in her bath, but it was still warm enough. Besides, she wasn't using it to relax but to wash away days of road dirt and sweat, not to mention the spit and blood Ogran had managed to splatter on her. She was thoroughly sick of being splashed with bodily fluid from human males.
What about Serovek? the small evil voice inside her mocked.
That's not even in the same realm, she thought as she peeled off her filthy clothes and kicked them aside before stepping into the bath. She sank to her knees, allowing the water to rise to her chin and lap at her earlobes. The memories of making love to Serovek chased away the less pleasant ones of battles and beatings and blood. They blunted the sharp edges of the panic that threatened to suffocate her.
He'd lived up to his reputation as a superior lover. He'd made her body sing under his hands and mouth. Even now it hummed at the memory him inside her, the stretch and swell of his cock as he thrust into her, a slow up and back motion that increased in speed as he cupped her buttocks in his hands and suckled the sensitive hollow where her neck curved to her collarbone.
Her body missed him, but her spirit missed him even more. Anhuset had taken lovers before who, while maybe not as well endowed, knew how to please their partners as well as Serovek did. She didn't miss or crave them, didn't linger on the recollections of their intimacy, wouldn't remember their faces if some of them didn't serve under Brishen's command here at Saggara. The margrave though… she missed it all. The sex, yes, but just as much or even more, the time they spent together in conversation or the completion of mundane tasks, even the fear and thrill of fighting. Those previous lovers had never looked at her beyond the intimidating sha who had the regent's trust and was good with a sword. The margrave had, from the very first moment he met her, made it plain he was very much enamored with what he saw. Not just sha-Anhuset, the Kai warrior, but Anhuset, the prickly, guarded woman who knew her way around a blade but couldn't conquer a hair ribbon if her life depended on it.
“Don't you dare die on me, you arrogant bastard,” she said, glaring at the opposite wall as if Serovek stood there watching her with one of his bold smiles.
Dwelling on those lovelier moments made her heart ache, so she pushed them down into the recesses of her mind and tended to her bath. By the time she was finished, the water was murky, and she still hadn't washed her hair.
Ildiko returned with a procession of servants in tow carrying a smaller tub and several buckets of more warm water. A pair of burly servants hauled in her chest of clothes. They set their items down where she instructed and shooed them out when they were done. Ignoring Anhuset's dour scrutiny, she peered at the water and curled her lip. “As I thought. No longer fit for getting your hair clean. Are you done? If so, step out and I'll help you with your hair.”
“I don't need help, and why did you bring my chest?”
“Have you seen your hair?” Ildiko eyed her as if she were a little dim. “You need help.” She pointed to the chest. “You know best what you'll want to wear for your journey to Timsiora. You can dress and pack in here, then come downstairs when you're finished. Now, out of that bath.”
Muttering to herself about wasting time and being just dirty and not an invalid—all which Ildiko blissfully ignored—Anhuset stepped out of the larger one to kneel in the smaller one and allowed Ildiko to wash her hair for her.
“This is wrong,” she protested after the first dousing with one of the water buckets to thoroughly wet her hair. “It's my task or even the task of a servant since you think I need help, not that of the hercegesé.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Ildiko replied. “I'm washing hair, not scrubbing floors. Besides, I don't want you terrorizing the servants with all the glaring and scowling and snarling.”
While Ildiko might not have been scrubbing floors, she set to scrubbing Anhuset's head with the same zeal until the strands squeaked when finger-combed and her scalp stung. Anhuset remained undecided if she'd just been groomed or tortured. It was a far cry from the leisurely washing and combing Serovek had given her.
“Done!” Ildiko finally, blessedly pronounced and handed Anhuset a comb and a towel. “You can finish the rest.”
Anhuset held both and stared at Brishen's wife, wondering why she'd forgotten that this weak, human woman was the same one who once bludgeoned a Kai assassin to death with a shutter pole. “This is revenge for all the bruises I left on you during our sparring sessions, isn't it?”
Ildiko's laughter didn't persuade her otherwise. “If I wanted revenge, Anhuset, I would have sent you a plate full of roasted potatoes for your dinner and lied by saying that Brishen ordered you to eat them.”
“Like he did at your wedding.” Anhuset still hadn't forgiven him for pulling rank in that manner.