“You can stop looking down your nose at her. You might behave differently if you thought you had only five years to live.”
“I’m sure that I’d do just what I am doing. I’d marry the man I love and live happily ever after.”
“At a silent breakfast table. In a house where you aren’t allowed into the library and where you’re supposed to supervise everything that a horse like Harry eats.”
“Stop it! I’m sick of hearing you say terrible things about the man I love. Did you love this Nyssa?” She shouted the last.
“When you tell me the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.”
Claire looked away from him. He was such an infuriating man. He could drive a person insane. No wonder someone shot at him, tried to kill him. She looked back at him. “Is your arm all right?”
“I’ve had worse.”
She smiled at him and suddenly all her anger evaporated. Sometimes when she was with him she forgot that he was Captain Baker. She almost forgot all the things that he had done and written, all that he knew. “Tell me about your journey into Pesha.”
“So you can put it in your biography of me?” he asked angrily.
“Because I want to hear. Brat said that you’d told her stories of Pesha. What really happened? Did Powell enter the city with you?”
“No. I went alone.” She smiled because she had been correct about Powell’s lack of participation.
She turned to watch him as closely as she could. He was becoming so familiar to her that she could sometimes read his expressions. Those dark, almost black, eyes of his didn’t seem to change but she knew that he was pleased by her questions. Then, quite suddenly, the atmosphere became charged. He was a man and she was a woman and they were alone together.
Claire wasn’t sure why, but her heart began to flutter within her breast. She looked out the window of the carriage. “Tell me a story,” she whispered.
She didn’t look at Trevelyan when he gave a deep sigh.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Three days before you entered Pesha.” She took a breath and looked back at him. She had to make him talk.
“What were you wearing? How did you disguise yourself? How did you learn to speak Peshan? What do the other women in Pesha look like—besides this Nilla, that is?”
“Nyssa,” he said with a smile, then began to tell her of his journey.
Trevelyan was a good storyteller, having an actor’s sense of timing, of where to leave the listener wanting more. He told of finding a man who had once been a slave in Pesha and taking the man with him on the long journey in search of the sacred city. He told of talking with the man and studying the Peshan language.
When Trevelyan started to tell of entering the city, Claire held her breath. Even though she knew the ending of the story, the way Trevelyan told it made her fear for his life. She could tell from what he said that the city was not made of gold, as fable had it, but was just a small, enclosed city, ancient beyond words, filled with old stone houses and, from Trevelyan’s description, even older men.
“And what of the women?” she asked.
“The only women in the city are Nyssa and her eight maidens. The maidens serve the Pearl of the Moon for her five years as priestesses, then, after her death, they’re sent back to their families. While they’re in Pesha the maidens aren’t allowed to consort with any of the men.”
“Consort?”
“Sleep with them. Make love with any of them. Cohabit,” he said.
“But Nialla is?” Claire asked quickly. “Allowed to consort, that is?”
“Nyssa may do anything that she wants. Do you want to hear more about the city or are you only fascinated with Nyssa’s love life? Perhaps your fascination is caused by the barrenness of your own love life.”
“Ha!” Claire said. “Go on with your story.”
He told of Nyssa’s having rescued him, having saved his life, for if he had been discovered he would have been killed. He told of staying with her in her private apartments. He described the apartments, telling how they were filled with the stolen treasure of hundreds of years. He described swords taken from medieval Spaniards, jewels taken from around the necks of Crusaders. He described silks and furniture and paintings. “Only the best is good enough for their priestess.”
“Until they kill her,” Claire said. “Do they kill her with a very sharp ax? I do so hope they are thoughtful in their method of killing the woman they have worshiped for five whole years. I’d hate to think of her being tortured.”
“You shouldn’t talk about what you know nothing of.” He clenched his teeth together for a moment before continuing to tell her of his journey.