Silk Dreams - Songs of the North 3 Read Online Free PDF Page B

the
tagmata
in the yard below, to your perfumed master in the next room. They all live or die, are exalted or abased, by the one who wears Imperial purple.”
    “I suppose that includes you as well.”
    “It does. I am oath-sworn to serve the Bulgar-Slayer as long as I live,” Erik said.
    “You never intend to return home?”
    A shadow passed behind his eyes. “I'm not here to talk about me. I'm here to teach you to speak the language of the Christians.”
    “Only because of your oath to the emperor?”
    “Why else?”
    She peered at him from under her lashes. “You bid on me at the market. I thought might have another reason.”
    “I have repented that foolishness. Believe me, your master did us both a favor when he outbid me.”
    She decided to toss the knucklebones of fate and hope for the best. Valdis leaned toward him and rested her fingertips on his forearm.
    “I asked for your help at the slave market and you did what you could then. Now you're in an even better position to aid me.”
    “I'm a soldier under orders. Nothing more.” Despite his words, she saw the hungry longing in his eyes.
    “No wonder you encourage me to accept thralldom,” she said with bitterness, hoping to goad him into helping her. “You've accepted the collar readily enough. You even take orders from a eunuch.”
    He snatched her hand and gripped it tightly. “Don't confuse honoring an oath with slavery. Do you think I enjoy serving under your master? I only do it because we are both pledged to the emperor’s interests. But you're right. It makes as much sense as ... as yoking a warhorse with a mule.”
    She pressed her advantage. “Neither of us belongs here. Don't you want to hear Norse instead of the babble of tongues in this place? Don't you wish to see lights dance on the Northern horizon again? Or raise a horn of mead instead of the Christian's sweet wine?” She lowered her voice to a feverish whisper. “Please, Erik. Let us find a way to leave this place and go home.”
    She thought she had him until she said the word "home." He jerked away from her as if she were an adder.
    “Never speak to me of that again,” he said. “I cannot go home.”
    “Then at least help me leave the palace, to—”
    “And just where do you think you would go?” He folded his arms across his broad chest. “Women may own property and choose their own men in the Northlands, but let me assure you that is not the case here in Miklagard. If you venture abroad in the city without an escort, you'll find yourself in a brothel by nightfall, spreading your legs for all comers.”
    “I asked for your help and you bid on me,” she said. “How did you intend to help me then?”
    He raised a hand to stroke her cheek. “I intended to help myself, Valdis. I'd take you to my bed and enjoyed the forbidden pleasures of the North for the brief time I held you.” His face hardened like an ice-choked fjord. “Right now I'd like nothing better than to bend you over this balcony rail, pull up your skirt and rut you blind. You should thank the gods the Greek won you instead of me.”
    Valdis backed away from him, shocked by the man's raw suggestions and even more shocked at the heat between her legs. A sharp edge flashed in his pale gray eyes. She was suddenly thankful Damian was within easy call.
    “So you must regard me as your teacher, not your champion. The first lesson I have to teach you is the place of a woman in Miklagard,” Erik said. “The best a woman can hope for is the protection of a good man.”
    An unpleasant smile spread over his face. “And as you've already discovered, I am not a good man.”

 
    Fortune favors the bold. She also favors those who know how to manipulate the bold.
    —from the secret journal of Damian Aristarchus
     

Chapter 4
----
     
    “Kharan' ligo
—” Valdis said flatly, leaning her cheek upon her palm.
    “Lego,”
Erik corrected for the third time. “
Lego,
not
ligo. Kharan lego soi.
Try it