Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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afterwards; he'd consider it a breach of responsibility. So hell take over as lmperator . She studied
his eyes, trying to find ambition underneath that brown ingenuousness, not believing, despite Ivahn, that it
couldn't be in there somewhere. No sign showed. "So I've retired the demons." he went on. "And yet
terror at night still has its uses. You get the idea?"
"Hmm." Megan took her cider, wrapping her hands around the cup's coolness, and thought. "You
want… portents of divine favor, for Yeola-e, perhaps."
"You've got a good feel for this," he said.
"And yet fearful… hmm. They're afraid ofyou , aren't they?" He made the "yes" gesture, wordlessly. An
understatement if I ever saw one , she thought.Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it . "You sauntering around
in their camp would cause something of a stir, wouldn't it?"
He chuckled, almost shyly, a boyish sound. "I think so."
"I can do that."
"All right: do it. We'll go over passwords and how their camp's set up and all that now, and again
tonight. What else do you need to know?"
She hesitated, decided to leave it till after everything else. How he could have a map of the Arkan camp
with such detail was beyond her, but there it was, apparently accurate; she committed the main features
to memory. In half an hour— "Take your time, don't hurry for my sake, take care," he kept saying—she
knew all she needed to except one thing; the time had come. Ihave to . She swallowed an internal
balking.
"I need to put my hands on your face and arms,kras ." She forced sheepishness out of her voice. "To get
a good idea ofyou to make the image real."
He just said "Right", and sat still while she did it. Not even any jokes about how he could hardly protest
the touch of a beautiful woman; yet he didn't get tense about it either, just sat, until she started to feel one
or the other would make her more comfortable.
The warm feel of his skin, muscles hard underneath, she took in, the shape and angle of his jaw and ears,
trying to ingrave it in memory, to concentrate on doing it…Stop feeling that,Megan , she told herself
sternly.This is business, however attractive he is. He's a man .He's a king, whatever name Yeolis
put on it, who can probably smell on me, under the Clawprince, the river-quarter scum…
She finished. "I feel as if I've had my portrait done by an artist," he said. "Well, I guess I have."
"Thank you," she answered, curtly without shortness, and went back to her cushion.He reminds me of
an old friend . She hadn't thought of her first love, Serkai, in years.Always up front about everything;
that was a lot of why I loved him. Dah, and those pushups he was always doing, wanting to be the
best Palace guard there was. I wonder where he is now ?
"Come to my tent at around midnight," Chevenga said. "I'll send for you. We'll go over the same again.
Until then."
"Kras." They exchanged salutes, and she climbed down out of the cart. Trotting back to her place in the
column, Megan found herself wishing it had been longer, and that their meeting would come sooner.