“He said he would let you go to Bingtown? Preposterous! Why would he promise you such a thing?” His eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. “Or is that what you demanded in return for your favors? Did my father ever lie with you?”

A year ago, when he had first dared ask her that question, it had shocked her into silence. He had asked it so often since then that the silence was a reflex now. It was the only true power she had over him. He didn't know. He didn't know if his father had had what she refused him, and it gnawed at him.

She recalled the first time she had ever seen Cosgo. He had been fifteen, and she was nineteen. She was very young to be a Heart Companion. It was surprising that such an elderly Satrap would even take a new Companion. When she had been presented to Cosgo as his father's new advisor, the young man had looked from her to his father and back again. His glance had spoken his thoughts plainly. She had blushed, and the Satrap had slapped his son for his insolent gaze. Young Cosgo had taken that to mean that his base suspicions were true.

When his father died, Cosgo had dismissed all his father's Heart Companions. Ignoring all tradition, he had sent them off without the mercy of shelter and sustenance for their declining years. Most had been elderly women. Serilla alone he retained. She would have left then, if she could have. As long as she wore a Satrap's ring, she was bound to the Satrap's side. Cosgo was Satrap now. Her vows demanded that she stay and advise him as long as he desired it. Her advice was all he could require of her. From the beginning, he had made it plain he wished more. For his other Heart Companions, he had chosen women more educated in the flesh than in diplomacy. Not one of them refused him.

Traditionally, the Companions of the Heart were not a harem. They were supposed to be women with no other loyalties than to the Satrapy. They were supposed to be what Serilla was: blunt, out-spoken and ethically uncompromising. They were the Satrap's conscience. They were supposed to be demanding, not comforting. Sometimes Serilla wondered if she were the only Companion who remembered that.

Serilla suspected that if she ever did allow him into her bed, she would lose all power over him. As long as she represented a possession of his father's that he could not claim, he would want her. He would pretend to listen to her, and occasionally actually follow her advice in an attempt to please her. It was the last vestige of power left to her. She hoped she could use it as a lever to gain her freedom.

So now, she regarded him in cool silence. She waited.

“Oh, very well!” he suddenly exclaimed in disgust. “I will take you to Bingtown, then, if it means so much to you.”

She teetered between elation and dismay. “You'll let me go, then?” she asked breathlessly.

A tiny frown creased his brow. Then he smiled at her. He had a tiny thin mustache that twitched just like a cat's whiskers. “No. That is not what I said. I said I'd take you there. You can accompany me, when I go.”

“But you are the Satrap!” she faltered. “For two generations, no ruling Satrap has left Jamaillia City!”

“It is as you said. This will convince them of my sincerity when we negotiate. Besides. It is on my way to Chalced. I have been invited there numerous times. I had already decided to go. You shall accompany me there, after we have settled the rebellious rabble in Bingtown.” His smile widened. “There is much you can learn in Chalced. I think it will be good for both of us.”

CHAPTER SEVEN - A Bingtown Trader's Daughter

SIT STILL.

“It hurts,” Malta protested. She lifted a hand to touch the hair her mother was twining into gleaming coils. Her mother pushed her hand away.

“Most of being a woman hurts,” Keffria told her daughter pragmatically. “This is what you wanted. Get used to it.” She tugged at the weight of shining black hair in her hand, then deftly tucked a few stray strands into place.

“Please don't fill her head with nonsense like that,” Ronica said irritably. “The last thing we need is her going about the house feeling martyred simply because she is a female.” Malta's grandmother set down the handful of ribbons she had been sorting and paced a restless turn around the room. “I don't like this,” she said suddenly.

“What? Getting Malta ready for her first beau?” There was bemused, maternal warmth in Keffria's voice.

Malta frowned to herself. Her mother had initially refused to accept Malta being treated as a woman. Only a few weeks ago, she had said her daughter was much too young to have men courting her. Did she now approve of the idea? Malta shifted her eyes to try to see her mother's face in the looking-glass, but Keffria's head was bent over her hairdressing task.