Mouth falling open, the dark-faced nobleman stared at the arrow pointed at his face. Abruptly he spun about and ran, dodging from side to side, shoulders hunched, as if simultaneously attempting to avoid her arrow and steel himself against its strike.
She followed every skip and leap, keeping the arrow centered on him until he had disappeared among the shrubs. Then she released the breath in her tight lungs and the tension on her bowstring together. Thoughts she had disciplined from her mind came flooding back.
Lord Karentides, her father, had been a general of the Zamoran Army, as well as the last scion of an ancient house. Campaigning on the Brythunian border he chose a woman from among the prisoners, Camardica, tall and gray-eyed, who claimed to be a priestess. In the normal course of events there would have been nothing strange in this, for Zamoran soldiers often enjoyed themselves with captive Brythunian women, and the Brythunian slaves in Zamora were beyond counting. But Karentides married his captive. Married her and accepted the ostracism that became his.
Jondra remembered his body—his and … that woman’s—lying in state after the fever that slew so many in the city, sparing neither noble nor beggar. She had been raised, educated, protected as what she was, heiress to vast wealth, to blood of ancient nobility. The marks were on her, though—the height and the accursed eyes of gray—and she had heard the whispers. Half-breed. Savage. Brythunian. She had heard them until her skill with a bow, her ready temper and her disregard of consequences silenced even whispers in her hearing. She was the Lady Jondra of the House Perashanid, daughter of General Lord Karentides, last of a lineage to rival that of King Tiridates himself, and ware to anyone who mentioned aught else.
“He would not have hit it once, my lady,” a quiet voice said at her elbow.
Jondra glanced at the balding servant, at the concern on his wrinkled face. “It is not your place to speak so, Mineus,” she said, but there was no rebuke in her voice.
Mineus’ expression folded into deference. “As you say, my lady. If my lady pleases, the girl sent by the Lady Roxana is here. I put her in the second waiting room, but I can send her away if that is still your wish.”
“If I am not to wed,” she said, replacing her bow carefully on the rack, “I shall have need of her after all.”
The second waiting room was floored with a mosaic of arabesques in green and gold, in the middle of which stood a short, slender girl in a short tunic of dark blue, the color Lady Roxana put on her serving maids. Her dark hair was worked in a simple plait that fell to the small of her back. She kept her eyes on the tiles beneath her small feet as Jondra entered the room.
An ebony table inlaid with ivory held two wax tablets fastened face-to-face with silken cords. Jondra examined the seals on the cords carefully. Few outside the nobility or the merchant classes could write, but servants had been known to try altering their recommendations. There were no signs of tampering here. She cut the cords and read.
“Why do you wish to leave the Lady Roxana’s service?” she asked abruptly. “Lyana? That’s your name?”
“Yes, my lady,” the girl answered without raising her head. “I want to become a lady’s maid, my lady. I worked in the Lady Roxana’s kitchens, but her handmaidens trained me. The Lady Roxana had no place for another handmaiden, but she said that you sought one.”
Jondra frowned. Did the chit not even have enough spirit to meet her eyes? She abhorred a lack of spirit, whether in dogs or horses or servants. “I need a girl to tend my needs on the hunt. The last two found the rigors too great. Do you think your desire to be a lady’s maid will survive heat and flies and sand?”
“Oh, yes, my lady.”
Slowly Jondra walked around the girl studying her from every angle. She certainly looked sturdy enough to withstand a hunting camp. With fingertips she raised the girl’s chin. “Lovely,” she said, and thought she saw a spark in those large, dark eyes. Perhaps there was some spirit here after all. ‘‘I’ll not have my hunts disrupted by spearmen panting after a pretty face, girl. See you cast no eyes at my hunters.” Jondra smiled. There had definitely been a flash of anger that time.
“I am a maiden, my lady,” the girl said with the faintest trace of tightness in her voice.
“Of course,” Jondra said noncommittally. Few serving girls were, though all seemed to think the condition made them more acceptable to their mistresses. “I’m surprised the Lady Roxana allowed you to leave her, considering the praises she heaps on your head.” She tapped the wax tablet with a fingernail. ‘‘In time I will discover if you deserve them. In any case, know that I will allow no hint of disobedience, lying, stealing or laziness. I do not beat my servants as often as some, but trangression in these areas will earn you stripes.” She watched the sparks in the girl’s eyes replaced with eagerness as the meaning of her words broke through.
“My lady, I swear that I will serve you as such a great lady deserves to be served.”
Jondra nodded. “Mineus, show her to the servants’ quarters. And summon Arvaneus.”
“It shall be done, my lady.”
She dismissed the matter from her mind then, the sounds of Mineus leading the girl from the room seeming to fade to insignificance. Replacing the tablets on the ebony table, she crossed the room to a tall, narrow cabinet of profusely carved rosewood. The doors opened to reveal shelves piled with scrolls of parchment, each bound with a ribbon. Hastily she pawed through the pale cylinders.
The incident with Amaranides had crystallized a decision. That the whispers about her parentage were still being bruited about was reason enough to end her consideration of marriage. Instead … .
Amaranides had said she liked to best men. Could she help it that men, with their foolish pride, could not accept the fact that she was better than they, whether with bow or horse or on the hunt? Well, now she would best them properly. She would do what none of them had either the skill or the courage to do.
She untied the ribbon about a scroll and searched down the parchment until she found what she sought.
The beast, my lady, is said to be scaled like a serpent, but to move on legs. Winnowing out obvious exaggerations caused by fear, I can reliably report that it has slain and eaten both men and cattle. Its habitat, my lady, seems, however, to be the Kezankian Mountains near the border between Zamora and Brythunia. With the current unrest of the hill tribes, I cannot suggest … .
The parchment crumpled in her hands. She would bring this strange beast’s hide back as her trophy. Let one of Amaranides’ ilk suggest he could do as much. Let him just dare.
Tamira scurried down palace corridors in Mineus’ wake, barely hearing when the balding old man told her of her duties, or when he spoke to other servants. Until the very last moment she had not been certain her plan would work, even after so much planning and labor.
Forty gold pieces she had obtained from Zayella, and all had gone in preparation for this. Most went to Roxana’s chamberlain, who provided the use of the Lady’s private seal. There would be no checking, though, to trip her up, for the Lady Roxana had departed the city a day past. Tamira allowed herself a smile. In a day or two she would have Jondra’s fabulous necklace and tiara.
“Give attention, girl,” Mineus said impatiently. “You must know this to help prepare for the Lady Jondra’s hunt.”
Tamira blinked. “Hunt? But she just returned from a hunt.”