Page 56 of Swordheart
“I’m sorry, miss,” said the maid, wringing her hands. “There’s fresh blankets on the bed but the room… I’m not really allowed to touch anything, miss, except to move what was on the bed.”
“It’s all right.” Halla put a sympathetic hand on the maid’s shoulder. “My great-uncle was just the same way. We all had to work around his latest treasures. It was terrible when company came over.” The maid looked as if she might cry with relief.
She and Halla engaged in a brief, intense conversation involving laundry. Sarkis had not had to do laundry for several hundred years and thus did not feel he had much to add to the discussion.
The maid left. Halla looked at the available space in front of the door. “Will this even work for you?”
“I will manage.”
“You’ll be halfway under the bed.”
“Not the first bed I’ve slept under.”
She started to reply, stopped, and pursed her lips. “Wait. Why were you sleepingundera bed?”
“All the space under the table had been taken.”
The maid returned with an armload of clothes. Halla tookthem, then shooed Sarkis toward the hall. “Go. You can guard from the other side of the door.”
He put up only a token resistance. “What if there are assassins hiding in all that junk?”
“Then I’ll tell them hello for you.” She put her hand in the center of his chest and pushed.
Sarkis grinned. Halla was clearly far more in her element now that she was back in familiar surroundings.
Halla closed the door, then came out a few minutes later, wearing…
“What in the great god’s name isthat?”
“One of Bartholomew’s nightshirts. The overrobe is ceremonial garb from a death cult that went extinct a few decades back. Silas had about ten of them, too. We mostly used them to do chores in.” She wiggled her toes. “And these’re Bartholomew’s socks.”
The socks came halfway up her legs. The same could not be said of the nightshirt. Bartholomew was a narrow-chested man. Halla was a large-chested woman. Sarkis found his eyes drifting below her collarbone and dragged them back up.
“You may wish to… ah… belt that overrobe…” He thought, not for the first time, that women’s clothing in the south involved far too few layers.
“Sarkis, you’re a magic sword and he’s old enough to be my father. This isn’t church. No one cares.”
“Yes, but it’s cold in here.”
“What does that have to do with… oh,damn…” She yanked the overrobe more tightly around herself. Sarkis bit his lower lip to distract himself from the sight of her nipples, which had been far too visible under the thin fabric.
He had a strong urge to drag his thumbs across them, feel them get even harder against his palms, and then perhaps…
Why am I thinking these things? I haven’t noticed a woman’s body like this since they put me in the sword.
In fairness, his wielders tended to draw him only when they were in some kind of danger. It had been a long time since he had simply walked and talked, eaten and slept like a normal man. Perhaps it was no surprise that a normal man’s appetites would start to return to him as well.
Or perhaps it was simply that there was another man about, even a meek older one, and he was… jealous?
That cannot be it. I would have to be completely lost to reason to be jealous of Bartholomew. And she is not mine to be jealous of, in any event. I am her servant, not her lover.
You could be both,whispered the little voice in his head.She’s a widow, not a maiden. Widows tend to know what they want…
Sarkis recognized the voice of temptation and squelched it firmly. He’d dallied with a widow or two in his time and they’d both gone away happier for the experience, but they’d been very different women than Halla. Those had been mutual seductions, full of warm glances and lingering touches, flirtations conducted to see if both parties were interested and if so, taken to the logical conclusion.
He had only to remember Halla’s offer to share the bed with him last night to know that Halla was not an experienced seductress. Her face had blazed so red that it was probably visible clear back in Rutger’s Howe.
Her face was turning red again as she cinched the overrobe tightly. Little embroidered skulls on the shoulders grinned at him. “Is this better?”
