By Anne Fraser and Barbara Zuchegna
With assistance from Sharon Pickrel and Jean Lamb
Copyright 1999

Chapter Thirty-Five

Incredibly, Richard's outer office was still full of people, all of them deeply engrossed in whatever the hell they were poring over, their voices a soft, sibilant background hum to the strident ringing of telephones.

Telephones? Adrian looked around, bewildered. When he'd left for Khelat, the phone system was not just out of order; according to the palace servants who'd been rounded up, it was one of the first things Zanjani's guards had destroyed when they took over and the entire town had been without phone service ever since.

Obviously, no longer. Desks had materialized, lining the outer perimeter of the large room, at which harried-looking men sat, answering telephones, and often surrounded by other vigorously-talking men with large ledgers or mapbooks in their hands. The big worktables still filled the middle of the room, with even less leg room around them now, since they'd been moved closer together to allow for the surrounding desks. And all around the tables, men plotted and studied and searched through records and discussed whatever the hell they were finding or planning or trying to figure out.

When Richard strode across the room toward his private office, the noise level dropped and the activity level increased.

Richard waited at the door to his office until Adrian had passed inside, and then closed the door firmly on the curious and surreptitious little glances from outside.

"I am assuming," Richard said mildly, crossing behind Adrian to sit on the front edge of the massive desk by the windows, "that all went well at Khelat."

Adrian drew himself up, trying hard not to look like a kid who'd been caught playing with himself. "Very well, Richard."

"I would be pleased if you would give me your report."

Adrian did. It sounded pretty good, at that. Fourteen surviving Khelat vampires, now all sworn to Shapour as their blood sire. One Sa'idi vampire badly injured ... a man named Mehdi ... but recovering. Minor injuries to many of the Sa'idians had already healed. Jake and Ed Perry were unhurt. Khelat was under the control of half a dozen of the Sa'idi vampires who had volunteered to stay behind and assure the good behavior of what was left of Bahram's get.

"All in all," Adrian said, with a note of irresistible pride, "an efficient exercise."

Richard nodded thoughtfully, then said, "Tomorrow night, I would appreciate it if you would see to having the Khelat creatures brought into Saravan. They must be put immediately to work in some beneficial capacity if we are to reassure the populace that they are no longer a threat."

"I'll take care of it." Should he have brought them with him tonight? No, dammit ... there wouldn't have been room in the vehicles. But something about Richard's manner was making him feel...

"My congratulations, Adrian," Richard said abruptly, in a different tone. "While I am hardly an objective observer, I do think that although you captured my posture very well, you exaggerated my manner of walking somewhat."

Oh. Adrian, if he could have, would have blushed. "I'm an actor, Richard. Moderate exaggeration is usually necessary to capture the spirit of the subject. Do you object?"

"Not at all. But I would not have made a speech."

Adrian already knew that. Richard never made speeches. "The occasion seemed to call for it," he said defensively. "There was a large crowd waiting for our return."

"They were waiting," Richard said patiently, "in hopes of seeing another execution. They have witnessed several today, and believe that since work is still going on here, they might reasonably expect more."

Oh. "Execution?"

Richard sighed lightly. "Several members of Zanjani's government whose crimes were too gross, and too widely known, to demand more extensive investigation. It was necessary to demonstrate to the people that their former oppressors were no longer a factor in the government now being formed. It encourages them to wait for events, rather than attempt to precipitate them."

Well, that made sense. But it was a bit disappointing that the crowd hadn't been waiting for his own victorious return from Khelat.

Before he could think of anything to say, though, Richard went on, "Shapour might have had an easier time with the translation had you chosen to speak in French. As it was, I think the message you were attempting to convey might have been misunderstood. I will admit that my own elementary acquisition of Farsi is far from extensive, but even I understood what he was saying to the crowd, in your name. Did you know, for instance, that you promised the people that there would be no more bad fucking in their houses?"

He did? It was the first time he had ever heard Richard use the term, but it was said with perfect equanimity.

"Or that spanking would no longer be allowed?"

"I didn't..."

"Shapour did, for you." Richard had not moved from his seat on the edge of the desk. It was unlike him to be still for so long. It dawned on Adrian, even in his growing mortification, that although Richard looked as relentlessly neat and self-contained as always, he was teetering on the near edge of utter exhaustion. With no change of his facial expression, or of his tone of voice, Richard said now, in exactly the same dispassionate voice, "He also placed his hands on you before the crowd and made it clear that, in his eyes, he has claimed you as his personal catamite."

Adrian stiffened at the nasty little word. Was Richard about to dare to tell him with whom he was and was not allowed to...?

But Richard went on, his eyes as perfectly serene as Adrian had ever seen them, "Shapour is, at best, a flawed vessel. I had hoped to generate in him a sense of responsibility that would make of his natural ability to lead the stature necessary in the man in whose care we leave this place." His voice strengthened a little ... a very little, and Adrian thought that Richard had little strength left to give to it. "I will not go from this place and leave it in the hands of another despot."

He pushed himself carefully away from the edge of the desk, sighing. "Adrian, my friend, I would not presume to advise you. Perhaps you can do what I cannot. Shapour is a natural bully, who might have been made into something better. To govern well is to serve, not to master, but Shapour sees himself as master ... over his people, and over you." He was moving, slowly, toward the door, and as straight as he held himself, there was no disguising the exhaustion that dragged his every step. "I leave him in your hands," he said, companionably, with the faintest of smiles. "I know already that you will understand if it becomes necessary to eliminate him."

Eliminate him? Adrian, fighting anger, guilt, confusion, tried to imagine "eliminating" Shapour. With a silver diesel engine, maybe? At full throttle?

"Richard..." he said, not exactly sure whether he was going to tell Richard to go to hell or tell him he was crazy.

Richard took it out of his hands. "Forgive me, Adrian," he said softly. "We will talk tomorrow. You have done more than enough for one night, and I think I have used up whatever resources I had left for this day. Goodnight, my friend."

He opened the door and went out ... and pulled it closed behind him. And no one had to tell Adrian that he'd done it to leave Adrian alone to think. Damn him to hell.

Thinking was not what Adrian Talbot had been planning to do tonight.

She was waiting, out on the gallery, when he returned. He came up behind her, closed his arms around her, and lowered his face into her hair. He was upset; she could feel it before he had entered the room.

"I think," he said softly, against her hair, "there can be no greater joy in life than knowing I can return and find you here. Sweetheart, I love you."

She had wrapped her arms over his, holding them around her. "What is it?" she asked. She had kept the bond open; she could feel what he felt. But she could not penetrate his thoughts without deliberately probing, and she would never do that to him again. "What's happened?"

"Nothing." He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Liliana, for all of my life, I have used the bodies of women to escape the turmoil in my own mind. I don't want ever to do that to you. When I come to you, it must be with nothing in my mind but how much I love you, how much I want you."

She turned within the circle of his arms, looking up at him. "Richard, I want you to be able to turn to me ... for any reason." She went up on tiptoe to kiss him lightly. "My dear love, you will never be alone again."

His kiss was not light at all ... but not passionate, either. It was the gentle outpouring of his love and his humble gratitude that she had found her way back to him.

"So tell me," she whispered, as his mouth moved, exploring lovingly, across her cheek and then along the definite line of her jaw. "You'll have to tell me, sooner or later."

He sighed. It took him a while, but finally, he said, "I had to manipulate a friend tonight. I am not proud of it."

"Adrian?" She knew quite a lot about Adrian ... about how Richard felt about him, although they had not discussed him at all.

"Yes."

"That's what all the shouting was, in the square out front?"

"Yes. But it wasn't because of that. Adrian enjoys an audience; I have no objection."

"Then what?"

He was really uncomfortable with this, she realized. He was having trouble putting it into words. "The leader of the Exalted, Shapour, has been making much of himself because of his affair with Adrian. Their liaison is not an uncommon thing among his people, and Adrian is very desirable. But I must work with Shapour to make of him a worthy leader before I can leave this place, and his feelings of possession of Adrian are interfering."

"So you told Adrian he had to break off the affair?"

"No." His eyes, in the little light from the stars, were unfathomably dark. "Had I done so, we would have argued. Adrian has his pride, my love."

"What did you say to him?"

"That I trusted him to know what to do."

"Richard..."

He shook his head; she was going to tell him that tact was not an abuse of his friendship with Adrian, and he was aware of it. "My love, I have spent my life evaluating men and using whatever I found in them that would achieve my ends. But this man offered me friendship, and has never asked anything more of me than that. He does not deserve to be manipulated as if he were no more than another intractable obstacle in my path. In respect of our friendship, I owed it to him to speak plainly to him, and I did not."

She studied his pale face thoughtfully. "Because, if you had, he would have been angry."

"Yes. And perhaps acted other than I wished for him to do."

What he was really saying, she knew, was that once again he had weighed responsibility against his own wishes and that responsibility had won. It always had ... and always would.

Lily was wise enough to know that there was no point in trying to persuade him that he was wrong. He wasn't. He valued Adrian Talbot's friendship, and he had betrayed it, in however small a way, because of the responsibility he had taken on for the people here. She didn't think that Adrian, if he knew, would resent it very much. But nothing would change Richard's dissatisfaction with himself that he had done it. As much as she loved him, she couldn't help him with this except in one way.

She raised her arms and pulled his head down to her. "Richard, my love," she said sadly, "do we have to write off entirely the business about escaping from turmoil in sex? You tend toward turmoil quite a lot, you know. I'm beginning to think that if you stick to your guns on this one, I'm the one that's gonna get the short end of the stick."

She kissed him, and moved her body against his as eloquently as she knew how. And felt the sudden laughter bubbling up inside him.

"Liliana," he said, pulling his mouth free, "I'm very much afraid that, finally, I will disappoint you with my lack of vigor."

"Oh, no you won't," she said determinedly. She took his hand and led him, unresisting, toward the bed. "You're going to sleep for a few hours, my dear man, and then you're going to dazzle me with your vigor."

And he did.

Adrian, when he walked out of Richard's office, was barely recognizable as the proud hero of Khelat. All swagger was gone from his walk, his borrowed finery seemed ridiculously large on him, and his expression was glum. Jake, who was waiting for him along with T'beth, recognized Adrian's attitude. He'd sunk back into the dark depression that had haunted him before the rescue party had arrived in Sa'idi.

T'beth saw it, too, although she hadn't known that Adrian had been this distraught before her rescue. She turned to Jake.

"I mean this in the nicest possible way," she hissed at him. "Bugger off."

"What?" the anthropologist stared at her.

"Go find yourself a beer, or a girl, or both," T'beth urged him. "I gotta have a talk with the Brat about his sex life, and we don't need you hanging around, going all red and looking uncomfortable."

Jake opened his mouth to protest that he would do no such thing; then he remembered Shapour putting his hand on Adrian's ass. He closed his mouth again. "I think I'll go get a beer or something," he said, as casually as possible. "See you guys later." He waved to Adrian, who had now drawn up level to T'beth, and took off down the hallway.

The look in Adrian's eyes as he watched Jake disappear around a corner made T'beth wince.

"Why do you hurt yourself?" she asked before she could stop herself.

The full power of those teal eyes was turned on her. Luckily, she was immune. Mostly. "Why don't you mind your own business?" Adrian growled. It was a measure of how upset he was that there was no "f" word in the sentence. Adrian didn't swear when he was really upset.

"Because you are my business," T'beth replied. "It's my turn to rescue you."

"I don't need rescuing."

"What did Richard say to you about Shapour?"

"How..." Adrian shook his head. "Get out of my mind!"

"I'm not reading your mind, you idiot. Richard was watching when Shapour grabbed your butt. It doesn't take a detective to know that that is what Richard wanted to talk to you about."

Adrian sighed. "He doesn't want Shapour to get the idea that he can boss the Sa'idians and Saravanians around. Shapour will just be another Zanjani, if we let him get away with it. So he wants me to make it clear to Shapour that I am not his property."

"You aren't," said T'beth. She watched Adrian's face very closely. "Are you?"

"Of course not," he muttered, but he didn't meet her eyes.

T'beth sighed, inwardly. "What did he do to you?" she asked. "Tell me, or I'll drag it out of your mind, and whatever it was, you'll get it far worse from me."

That was not an idle threat. T'beth had beaten the crap out of him more than once. Adrian stared at the floor and told her what Shapour had done that first night.

"And you let him?" she asked. Adrian's tastes ran towards S&M at times, she knew, but still ... Shapour had apparently not bothered to ask for consent first.

"Have you seen the size of him?" Adrian replied.

"No wonder he thinks he owns you! You are going to have to take him down a few pegs."

"With what bulldozer?"

"No, no, that's not the way." T'beth thought. Her usual method was to hit first and try to negotiate while the other party was on the floor, curled up in a ball while screaming and holding his groin. Being subtle was not the lady's long suit. That was more Adrian's line, really. "Ad lib, Talbot," she said. "There's this guy, he's really big, he's after your butt, and you don't want him. What do you do?"

Adrian's head came up. He could handle this. He was more at home with a script than with improv, but he was an actor. "I tell him," he replied. "In public."

"Go get 'im, Brat Prince."

He hugged her. "Thanks, T'beth. You're a great sister."

She disentangled herself from his embrace. "Don't go and get mushy on me, or Shapour will be the least of your problems."

His insouciant grin was back in place. "Ah, you know you love me."

Her reply was a finely-aimed boot. Rubbing his offended dignity, Adrian went in search of Shapour.

The tall black vampire was standing amongst many Sa'idian Exalted. They all nodded to Adrian as he approached, indicating their appreciation of his leadership. Shapour did not nod, and Adrian's eyes narrowed.

"Hail, Ah-dri-an," said one of the Exalted.

"Greetings, my friends," replied the actor. "It was good work we did tonight, and I thank you all. Tomorrow evening, we must bring the Khelat vampires here and put them to work so that the people can see they are reformed." He looked directly at Shapour. "I will expect you to see that," he said, and his tone was that of a commander, not a catamite.

Shapour seemed taken aback, as if his dog had given him a direct order in a tone that expected to be obeyed. "Why, Ah-dri-an?" he asked. "They drank my blood; they are mine to command. It is not necessary to bring them here."

"I have said that it is necessary, Shapour," Adrian said. "The Khelat vampires are not yours to command; they are yours to lead. The best way to lead is by example, don't you agree?"

Shapour frowned. When he got this boy alone... "I do not like your tone," he hissed in French. "Are you trying to make me look like a fool? Do you want another spanking?"

Adrian didn't bat an eyelid. "You promised the people no more spankings, remember?" he replied, also in French. "And no more bad fucking. Really, Shapour, I'd like to know how you'd guarantee that. And I am not trying to make you look like a fool. It doesn't require any trying on my part."

The other Sa'idi Exalted were looking at each other. One or two spoke enough French to have understood this exchange and were smirking. Shapour saw his leadership teetering.

"I will deal with you later," Shapour growled at Adrian.

"No, you will not," said the actor, whips cracking in his voice. "Any deals between us are through, Shapour. I am not interested in petty bullies who throw their weight around and think they are leaders simply because they are bigger than anyone else. That is not leadership. I am extremely sorry that I chose you to be the one the Khelat vampires would swear allegiance to; they should have a better example of leadership. I should have made them come here and swear to Richard. He is a true leader. I would suggest you take lessons."

Adrian turned smartly on his heel and walked away, leaving Shapour standing, puzzled and slightly forlorn, in the midst of grinning Exalted.

For Richard Plantagenet, the days were never long enough. For Adrian Talbot, who was working harder than he ever had in his life, the nights were too long. For Jake Fowler, Ed Perry, and Will Scrope, the variety of skills they discovered that they did have, after all, was an endless amazement. Whatever task Richard asked of them, they found themselves able to accomplish, and they weren't always certain exactly how they did it. But a truly astounding amount of work was getting done.

For Lily, who for the first time saw the man she loved fully occupied with work that took all his time and attention, it was necessary to be content with the nights he gave to her. She had discovered what she had really known all along. However much she loved him, however much he loved her, working gave him something she never could, and she would have to accept that and make the best of it. Richard was using all the powers of his mind to shape the people here into a functioning society very different from what they'd known before, and if it exhausted him, it also gave him a satisfaction that nothing else had been able to do since he first came to this modern world. When he was finally free to come to her, there was a serenity deep inside him that nothing she had done for him could have given him, and Lily was wise enough to be grateful for it.

Shapour could have been a problem. But Adrian had done what was necessary, and Jake was there, in Richard's office, the next evening, to see the result.

Richard had asked Jake to come to see him, to discuss with their resident anthropologist exactly how much they would be able to alter the conditions under which women lived in this society, and the truth was that there was little they could do.

"I have been studying this," Richard said, holding up a copy of the Koran, as if he expected that Jake would know it by heart, "and I find nothing in it that establishes the seclusion of women. The text states that there is to be equality between the sexes, for the most part."

"Uh ... Richard, Islam wasn't a specialty of mine," Jake said uneasily.

Richard might not have heard him. He went on, "Where the book mentions women, it advises gentle treatment of them, and it uses the word 'equal' to describe them, although it says that men are a degree more than equal." He shook his head, as if he found this unfathomable. "But nowhere does it say that women are to be kept in purdah, or that they must be covered totally, or that they are to be denied the rights that are allowed to men."

"That isn't uncommon in religion, Richard," Jake said, on a little surer ground. "In most religions, there is a whole body of traditional beliefs that grows up around the original sacred texts. Sometimes it's codified, sometimes not. But it's just as binding. The seclusion of women is very deeply embedded in old Islamic tradition."

They were still talking about this when the door slammed open and Shapour strode into the room.

He had found clothing, at last, that fit him, and he was resplendent in red silk tunic and pants and overrobes of snowy white. A huge turban of the same colors, adorned with a magnificent jeweled brooch, sat on his dark head, adding another eight inches or so to his already considerable height. Shapour was already impressive; in this getup, he was damned near awesome. To Richard he said, in French, "Send the half-blood away." There was an expression on his dark face that expected no argument.

Richard regarded him calmly. "Jake and I have work to do. As do you. I believe Adrian directed you to bring the Khelat vampires into the city tonight?" Richard's French was very precise. Jake could follow most of what was being said. Like many Canadians, he understood a hell of a lot more French than he would attempt to speak.

Shapour glowered at the smaller king. His voice lowered dangerously. "I will not be mastered by any mortal man."

"And I," Richard said, in the same patient voice, "have far too much to do to attempt any such thing. If there is a problem, you will have to tell me what it is."

Shapour's eyes flickered toward Jake, but steadied again quickly. "Adrian," he said.

Richard looked annoyed. Looking annoyed with a very large, very angry vampire didn't seem to Jake like the smartest move he could have made. "Any issues that have arisen between Adrian and you are of no concern to me so long as they don't interfere with what each of you is required to do. As this one appears to be doing now."

Shapour took a step forward. His voice lowered still more. Jake could have sworn the windowpanes rattled. "Vaje Richard, do not rely too much on the debt we owe to you. It is not your place to interfere among the Exalted."

"No," Richard agreed, with a trace of impatience. "My place is to instruct where you are ignorant. You must learn to exercise the responsibility you have assumed here. That is a skill no one else can teach to you. But I don't have time to force on you what you will not willingly seek to learn. The choice is yours, Shapour. No one among your people is as naturally gifted for leadership as you are. You can put those gifts to use, with my help, or you can retreat into your caves and sneak out in the night to prey upon those to whom you give nothing of value in return."

Jake sat on his straight-backed chair, trying very hard to be invisible while Shapour seemed to swell to twice his normal size ... and then stop. You could almost see his mind working. He reminded Jake of the genie in "Aladdin" when he blew up to giant size ... except he didn't sound much like Robin Williams when he finally said, "I will not be made to look foolish before my own people."

"No one," Richard said, "can make a leader look foolish unless he does it to himself. At ten o'clock tonight, the leading citizens of Saravan will convene in the audience chamber to present their choices for their new civic officials. I have asked for this meeting at that hour so that you will have returned from Khelat and can attend. If you wish to be the man to whom these people turn for judgment, you must begin tonight."

There was a long moment of silence. Richard waited, but his impatience was clear. He wanted to get back to his discussion with Jake. Jake wanted to get back to Toronto ... or anyplace else that was out of Shapour's reach. The big vampire was clearly furious, but he was frustrated, too, and he seemed to be teetering on the edge of violence.

But then, amazingly, he bowed and said, "At ten, then, Vaje Richard," spun on his heel, and swept out of the office. Without waiting to be told, Jake hurried over to close the door after him.

"Jeez, Richard," he said, "sometimes you push it, you know?"

Richard looked faintly surprised. "Not at all," he said, as if explaining what the big and little hands on the clock signify. "Shapour wants to be what he was born to be. Anything else is extraneous. Do you think it would be possible, Jake, to establish a bureau of women's affairs within the city government, with female representatives who would make weekly visits to each household? In that way, we might at least be able to identify where abuse occurs and prevent it."

It took Jake a minute to switch his frame of reference. He said, "Not if you tell them that's what it's for. But if you used older women, and you said the purpose of the visits was to insure that the women were living good little Moslem lives, you might get away with it."

Richard looked pleased. "Very good, Jake. I’ll leave it in your hands. Please see Ardeshir immediately about creating such an office, and confer with him about the choice of women to serve as staff. Perhaps T’beth could assist in presenting this as an option to the women of the harem who have no families to which they can return."

They were not going to discuss Shapour any further, obviously.

"And just how long were you planning to stay in this Arabian Nights dream?" Donalore's voice was acid, but her eyes were genuinely concerned.

They were in the library of the suite Lily and Richard shared in the Saravan palace, a room Lily had improved by installing a large, comfortably cushy couch. This was not the same suite they had originally used; Richard could not survive for long without windows or some other access to the open air. So Lily had moved them across the corridor and down a ways, beyond the huge bathroom, to a suite with wide glass doors to the gallery above the inner gardens. These were open now, pouring warm afternoon sunlight and the distant hum of bees into the quiet room. Lily was curled up at one end of her new couch, her back against the heavily-padded armrest, her bare feet drawn up under her. Doni sat at the other end. They were both sipping from tall, frosted glasses of lemonade.

Liliana smiled lazily. "You already know, Doni"

Doni frowned. "As long as he stays, right?"

Lily didn't answer. She didn't have to. Her smile spread slowly, so full of contentment it almost hurt to see it. Doni had not mentioned it to Lily, but she had been to see Anne Neville earlier in the day.

Donalore would like to have been angry for Lily's sake, too, but there was no arguing with the improvement in Lily's health and her obvious happiness. If she was besotted with Richard Plantagenet, then at least he seemed to feel exactly the same way about her, and there was a glow about Lily that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Three weeks of Richard's company, even though he had little time to spend with her, had restored Liliana as if she had never suffered any illness at all.

"And just exactly how often do you get to see His Royal Nibs, except to service him in bed?" Doni asked sourly.

Lily wasn't about to be offended. "He tries to come for lunch and again for dinner. He can't always, but he tries. Doni, I'm not neglected. Trust me."

It was on the tip of Doni's tongue to say something very nasty about just who wasn't being neglected, but she bit her lip and said nothing. It wasn't Lily's fault. Dammit, it wasn't even Richard's fault. It wasn't anybody's fault.

Lily didn't need her empath's extraordinary perception to know exactly what this was all about. She said, very calmly, "How is Anne?"

Doni's eyes turned down to her glass. "Fine. Better."

"And the baby?"

"Well." Doni looked up again, her dark eyes full of aching sorrow. "Lily, I'm sorry. But she's so..."

Doni's voice trailed off. She was going to say that Anne was so miserable, and yet the truth was that she had no idea anymore what Anne felt. Anne would not talk about it.

"I know," Lily said. She did, better than Doni. She had shared Anne's mind and her memories. She knew Anne, perhaps, better than anyone in the world ever would.

"She doesn't mention him; she won't talk about him. But he is there, in her eyes, every moment." Doni's smile was bitter. "You know she's very grateful to you, don't you?"

"Yes."

Doni studied her for a minute, but Lily didn't elaborate, and finally Doni sighed. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I know he's not to blame, but I can't see him without seeing her, and getting angry all over again."

"He understands that, Doni. He doesn't mind. He loves her very much."

Doni's mouth twisted. "They maybe he should stay here, and take up Islam. He could start a harem. Maybe we could get Gilly to come back, too."

Lily didn't say anything, and Doni thought about it for a minute, and her eyes narrowed suddenly. "I'll be damned," she said softly. "You haven't told him about Gilly, have you?"

"No."

"Hah!" Doni couldn't keep the satisfaction out of her voice. "I would really like to be there when you do."

Lily's smile was very gentle. "Doni, I'm not afraid to tell him. He's just so terribly busy, and I haven't wanted to add anything to what he already has to think about. He won't be upset when he knows ... except to be concerned for Gilly herself. But he will be pleased about the child."

"And Gilly's connection to Gabe Tallant?"

Lily hesitated. "That will be hard for him," she conceded. It would be more than hard, and to be unable to do anything about it would be hardest of all. "But Gilly's no fool. She knows that, and she's smart enough to deal with it. He will want to go to her as soon as he knows."

"Isn't he going to be a bit upset with you for not telling him sooner?"

"Probably." Lily's smile became positively lascivious. "I'll have to work at getting back in his good graces, hmmm?"

Doni's snort was sheer exasperation. "Dear god, don't you ever think of anything else?"

"Not often," Lily said happily. "Oh, come on, Doni. Don't begrudge me. I've never been so happy in my life." She hesitated, then added, "Nor has he. That's very important to me, Doni."

"Yes. But is it because of you ... or because he's able to be a king again in this godforsaken place?"

"Both," Lily said, quite frankly. "And he's not a king. He's an organizer and a commander, and he's extraordinary as both. When we leave here, he will have to find a way to continue to be that. As Stephen has planned from the beginning."

Stephen. Doni scowled again. Stephen was downstairs, right now, in Richard's office, talking with him while Richard tended to the thousand and one details of creating a stable government in this place that would survive when he was gone. And Stephen had already told Doni, more than once, how much he wanted Richard to bring the ability he squandered here to the Refuge and the new Compound in the valley below. These people and their problems, Stephen said, were no real challenge for Richard. At the Refuge, with an enemy so powerful that even the Awakened had been helpless to protect themselves entirely and a troop of strong and largely disorganized individualists to shape into a fighting force, Richard would at last have the challenge he so desperately needed to make a place for himself in this modern world.

To change the subject, Lily said suddenly, "Did Tango come with you?"

It took Doni a minute to bring her attention back. "Yes. She's wandering around out in the garden ... with Will, of course."

"Of course." Lily's smile turned impish. "Has he got her into bed yet?"

"How would I know?"

"Of, come on, Doni. You know."

She did. She sighed. "No. He hasn't. He adores the woman ... but he may never get beyond walking in the garden. She is scared to death of men, Lily. And Will is rather overwhelmingly male."

Lily thought about it. "You could suggest that she might need some help with that, couldn't you?"

She meant using her empathic power to root out the source of Tango's fear. Doni shook her head. "Not a chance. She would be horribly offended if I even suggested it. Tango is a very, very dignified lady, Lily, and whatever happened to her in the past is walled off inside her because she wants it that way. She won't let anyone open it up ... least of all an empath. Will's on his own, I'm afraid." Her eyes sharpened suddenly. "That was neatly done, by the way."

"What?" Lily's expression was all innocence.

"Avoiding the issue we started on. How long are you ... and Richard ... going to stay here?"

"Oh, all right." Lily sighed and dropped her feet over the edge of the couch. "I don't know. Not much longer, I think. Ardeshir has already gone back to Sa'idi and the mayor has moved into his office. The city council meets every night with Shapour, and Richard has stopped attending the meetings. Ed has been training the new palace guardsmen and seems to think their officers can take over any time. So there really isn't all that much that still requires Richard's presence."

"But he doesn't want to let go?"

"Oh, Doni." It was Lily's turn to look exasperated. "He has been letting go as quickly as he possibly could, in every area. The people who will be running things here when he's gone have no experience whatever at the job, and they are reluctant to let him go. Do you think he would have time to talk to Stephen in the middle of the day if he wasn't forcing them to take on more and more of what he's been doing for them?"

"Then how long?"

"Lord! I don't know. But not long. I'm sure of it."

Doni's face was grim. "Maybe you should help him decide it's time. Lily, Stephen needs help, and he's got it in his mind that Richard is the man he needs to help him." The truth was that Doni wasn't entirely certain that Stephen was right about Richard, but she wanted Lily back where she could keep an eye on her. There was, as well, the little problem of the Council of Elders and their summons for Lily to bring Richard before them, which could trash Lily's happiness altogether, for all time to come. "So when?" Doni pressed.

Her eyes were relentless. Lily looked away. "They're having a sort of celebration in Sa'idi in honor of Richard and Adrian and the others tomorrow night. I'll try to talk to him after." She glanced up at Doni. "I promise."

Whether or not he would listen, of course, was another matter entirely.

"Folklore," Jake had explained to Richard, as a conversational gambit, "is full of strange ways to destroy vampires."

This warranted a raised eyebrow. "Indeed?"

They were sitting in Richard's office, waiting for Adrian to wake up, and drinking coffee. Tonight they would head for Sa'idi so as to be there for the big party the following night.

"Yeah. Your folkloric vampire was basically a walking, shambling corpse, rotting away, needing blood; not very pretty. People thought they could be defeated by driving nails through their legs; or by things like thorns and roses; or by seeds and grains."

"Seeds and grains? I can understand the others, but the reasoning for that escapes me." Richard was storing all this way. You never knew. He couldn't imagine trying to defeat Gabriel with thorns, but you never knew.

"Vampires are supposed to be," Jake looked around for Adrian and lowered his voice, "kinda obsessive-compulsive. They see a knot, they have to untie it. They see a seed or a piece of grain on the ground, and they have to pick it up. More than one, and they have to count the damned things, too. So people scattered mustard seeds or rice or something in front of their houses to ward off vampires ... the vampires would be so busy counting the stuff that the sun would take them by surprise."

"I cannot see any modern vampire being so utterly rapt in counting seeds that he is surprised by the sunrise."

"Maybe folkloric vampires were just really stupid," Jake said with a shrug. "Or maybe modern vampires all carry calculators."

Adrian, upon waking on his divan in the palace, cast his mind out to find Jake. He heard every word that Jake and the king exchanged, and an idea for a good joke was brewing in his mind. T'beth, glancing in his direction as she rolled out of bed, noticed the smile on his face.

"Don't even think it," she warned.

"What?" he asked in wounded innocence.

"Whatever joke it is you're thinking of pulling off. You'll wind up with Shapour kicking your butt, and I'll hold you for him."

"It's a harmless prank," Adrian assured her.

"Hah." She reached over and patted him on the head. "Well, I'm going to take a walk-about, make sure everything's running smoothly," she said.

"Who is he?" Adrian asked snarkily.

T'beth just looked at him. He grinned at her. She grinned back.

"None of your damned business," she replied. "It's not Richard, so chill."

"Ed?" he asked.

She snorted and threw a pillow at him. They both dressed and left the vampires' communal sleeping area.

Adrian made his way to Richard's office. "Evening," he called out to the king and the anthropologist. He brushed against the desk, as if suddenly clumsy, and sent a container of paperclips flying.

"How careless of me!" he exclaimed. "I'll get these."

He bent over and carefully, painstakingly, began picking up one paper clip at a time and counting them as he did so. "One, two, three..."