Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

48. In Her Majesty's Service

After we made love, I dozed off, but not for long. I woke up and listened...

Jackals mocked the calls of the sentries walking the villa's grounds. Normally, I slept through their disgusting songs, Ondrey's snores and the Killer's pointy paws whenever the darn cat used my body as a shortcut to my husband's chest. But tonight, there was something disturbing in the air. A suspicious smell intruded between the sweetness of the flowers, cooling mudstone and exhausted bodies. It wafted through the blackened opening to the balcony.

Ashanti.

I listened harder, but nothing moved in the room or without. Tired of the cicadas' screeching and the jackals' forlorn calls, I slipped the dagger from under my pillow and fumbled with the bed-curtains.

A disembodied voice said in the darkness, "I'm the wonderful agent in Her Majesty's service, Ismar. Sorry for waking you, but now we have time to talk... join me, but please, don't wake your husband. Fighting a man his size is tiring."

There was no hint of fear when he spoke about fighting Ondrey nor an explanation why Ondrey would attack him. His words smoothed their way into my ears, promised without promising, coated my mind in silk. Disappointment sank my stomach: it wasn't Parneres' rich singing voice.

"I shall atone for the disappointed sigh I hear," the owner of the voice—and of a cat-like hearing—continued.

I parted the two sheets of muslin that covered the exit to the balcony and peeked through.

The balcony wound its way along the entire second floor. Her Majesty's agent was sitting in a meditation pose a few steps away from me. Nothing in his figure indicated a strain from infiltrating a heavily guarded villa perched at the edge of a barren rock. Probably, it was par for the course.

Two sources of light illuminated my midnight visitor's face: the starlight from the just out stars, and the violet glimmer of his eyes. I had never seen an Ashanti addict who had the glow that bad. As if in response to my thought, the agent lifted a pomander ball perforated with infinity spirals to his nose and inhaled.

"How else was I supposed to survive your marital delights, Ismar?"

The face, unmistakably, was that of the assassin I had chased through Palmyr years ago. The one I gleaned in the Ashanti's fumes. He gave me a horse who looked exactly like my lost Breva.

He smiled, his chipped front tooth gaping between the white, even ones. "Ismar, valeira. Ust convinir pratiksatum in'arkeya veyona."

Fueled by the whiff of the cursed herb, his eyes shone brighter violet, fixed on me. So strange after the downcast gaze proper for a man. I became aware that my shift was the thinnest linen and I was back-lighted by the stars. So I made sure that this light, however faint, also caught on the blade in my hand.

"I don't speak the Mother of All Tongues," I said.

"I had been waiting for the longest time to meet you," he translated with a wave of his hand. "I thought you weren't instructed in it, regrettably so... but you said your wedding vows without an accent and I wondered ever since. Maybe you'll be open to learning a few words from me...but never mind." He waved his hand through the air again, dismissing the linguistic chit-chat.

"I'm glad for an opportunity to finally introduce myself. My name is Taffiz."

"Are you still under orders to kill me, Scorpia? Or is it a... Scorpion?"

"I would prefer it if you called me Taffiz. Far less dramatic that way." He scratched his neck. "My orders depend on the outcomes of our mission here. I suggest we call a truth until then. Yes?"