“I had to…ahh. Make certain…ohh, Jonah!…that Anora would…don’t stop, you devil!…keep him the night. Ohh, that is so good! I adore…sharing pleasures…with you, Jonah, my love.”

He used her vigorously. Gaius Prospero hadn’t been in her bed in several years, but Jonah knew it would infuriate him to know that his former slave was even now pumping his love juices into Vilia. He had considered seducing her, but she had taken the initiative with him even before he had bought his freedom. She was a deliciously lusty woman, and would make him a fine empress one day. A man could have many beautiful women with whom to share pleasures, but a woman like Vilia, intelligent and ambitious, was rare. Gaius Prospero was a fool to consider tossing her aside for the beautiful faerie Lara. But I will encourage his folly, Jonah thought as Vilia began to moan with her crisis. He kissed her again to stifle the cries, feeling her lush body shudder with release.

Her legs fell away from him. “Oh, that was good!” she half groaned.

“Was she whipping his fat bottom?” Jonah asked.

“She had just begun,” Vilia laughed softly. “He cannot, it seems, become aroused anymore unless she does. But once he is stiff he works her vigorously.”

“Leaving me the leisure to work you even more vigorously,” Jonah said in her ear.

He took her by the hand. “Come,” he said. “We will go to my chamber.”

“You could have a house of your own,” Vilia said to him. “Why do you persist in remaining in that tiny cubicle here in this house?”

“To be near you, of course,” he told her.

“Liar,” she said. “But flattering. Now the truth, Jonah.”

“If I am in the house then no one else can get to him without my knowing it,” Jonah said. “You and I must be his only influences, Vilia.”

“Agreed,” Vilia answered. “Now what was tonight all about, Jonah?”

“He was curious. Your son saw Lara in the marketplace today and came to him with the news. We tracked her to the Garden District, and an inn near the City’s main gate. He desires her, but then you always knew that. But it is the man she travels with, and this land of Terah, that is of more interest to us. For now I have convinced him to keep his energies focused upon the Outlands invasion.”

“Yes,” Vilia said. “There is much wealth for the taking there, and it is time we put those savages under our thumbs.”

They had reached Jonah’s small chamber, and entering it fell in a tangle of arms and legs to the bed, pulling off each other’s garments.

“What is to be done about Lara?” Vilia asked him.

“Nothing for now,” Jonah said. “In time we will deal with her. She might even make us a good ally, for her magic has grown strong. But for now I think she will be surprised that we have left her alone, and perhaps it will gain us her goodwill at some time in the future.”

And Lara was indeed surprised that nothing more came of the dinner with Gaius Prospero. She had set Verica to guarding their door, but they slept undisturbed. And the following morning a messenger arrived from the emperor with papers giving them free access to any part of the City. “They want something,” she said suspiciously.

“What?” Magnus asked her amused.

“For one thing, that snake, Jonah, wanted to know where Terah was,” Lara said.

“What did you tell him?” What had she told him? She had been edgy, and extremely cautious since last night.

“That it is was many weeks’ journey from Hetar’s farthest borders,” Lara replied. “If he considers my words, he will have to wonder which borders. Jonah is a shrewd and clever man, Magnus. He will eventually find us if he seeks us.”

“I think for now their invasion of the Outlands will consume them,” the Dominus said wisely. “I am looking forward to meeting King Archeron at Kaliq’s palace. Shall we leave the City today?”

“Nay,” she said. “If we are no more seen then Gaius Prospero is foolish enough to believe we are afraid of him. He has sent us safe passage, and so I will show you more of the City today. And before we depart I will take you to the tournament field where my father won his admittance into the Crusader Knights.”

“Will you see John Swiftsword again?” Magnus asked his wife.

Lara sighed. “I do not know,” she said. “I am still upset that my brothers do not know of my existence. What point is there to seeing my father again?”

“Perhaps it would comfort him to know that you truly hold no malice toward him for all that has happened to you over these last years. Your words yesterday appeared to give him food for thought. And I do not believe he is a man who often thinks beyond what he has been told by those he accepts as authority.”

“I will send a message to him,” Lara said. “If he would see me before we leave then I will go to him.”

To her surprise her father came himself to the inn that afternoon just as they had returned from walking about the City. Honored to have such a fabled member of the Crusader Knights in his house, the innkeeper invited them into his garden, bringing wine and other refreshments of a much better quality than they had previously seen. Then he reluctantly withdrew.

“What does Gaius Prospero want of you, Daughter?” Lara’s father asked.

“Nothing, it would seem. He was simply curious,” she answered.

John Swiftsword nodded. “Tell me in detail what happened to you from the morning you were taken from my house,” he said to her.

“Very well,” Lara answered him, and then she began to speak.

“You were very brave,” her father noted as she told of her escape from the Forest Kingdom. “And clever to make a friend of the giant.”

“I became friends with him because we were both outsiders,” Lara said. “In the beginning I despaired of ever knowing happiness again. It was only when Og told me how my grandmother had cursed the forest folk, and what it was they wanted of me, that I thought to flee.” She continued on with her tale, and he listened.

“The Shadow Princes are a part of Hetar, and yet they go their own way,” John Swiftsword observed as she told him of her time in the desert.

“They are men of great ethic and intellect,” Lara replied. “And their magic is wondrous. I believe those who rule Hetar respect that, and they are wise to do so.”

“And they reunited you with your mother?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She told you all?” he queried.

“Yes,” Lara replied.

“And you do not hate me?” he said softly.

“You were a boy, Father. And your nature is a weak one, I fear,” Lara said.

He laughed ruefully. “Aye, it is,” he admitted to her.

“Your path is yours, and mine is mine,” Lara told him. “You were a good father to me while I was in your care. I love you. There is no ill will in my heart toward you.” She continued on with her adventures in the Outlands. She told him of Vartan, her first husband, the great Lord of the Fiacre. “You have two grandchildren, a boy and a girl. I will not tell you their names lest you tell someone you should not,” she said. “I am sorry, but the times in which we live bid me to caution.”

“And then you went to Terah?” her father said.

Lara told him of Vartan’s death and how she had learned it was a political assassination arranged by Gaius Prospero.

“I do not understand why the emperor would do such a thing,” John Swiftsword said wearily. Almost everything she had told him was in conflict with what he had been told, or heard, or had spent his life believing. This was his daughter, and yet she was a stranger to him. His daughter had never lied. But could this woman lie? Was she lying now? It was all very confusing to him. He was a man who functioned best in a controlled environment such as the world of Hetar had always been. Until now.

“Gaius Prospero believed in his ignorance that without Vartan, the strong union of Outlands clan families would disintegrate. It was not so, of course. But he planned even then to invade the Outlands again.”

“The Outlands belong to Hetar, Lara,” her father said. “We are only taking back what is rightfully ours. We will bring civilization and a better way of life to those people now living there. Hetar is a great world.”

“I cannot believe you believe what you are saying, Father!” Lara cried. “You know perfectly well that until recently, nothing was said of the Outlands but that it was a savage place peopled by barbarians. Hetar needs room to expand, and they think to take the Outlands.”

“Will they fight?” her father asked her.

“They are a people with a long history of independence,” Lara told him.

“We will win,” he said. “It will not be like last time when we were caught unawares,” John Swiftsword told his daughter. Then he looked carefully at her. “Were you…” he began. “Did you…?” He could not finish the question.

“Did I partake in the Winter War? Yes, Father, I did. We killed many Mercenary soldiers, Andraste and I. She sings when she fights, you know. It can be quite chilling to hear her deep, dark voice above the mayhem of battle. The last man I fought, I spared, because I recognized the son of Mistress Mildred.”

“Wilmot. I remember him. A good man. You say he and his mother are safe?”

“They are with the Shadow Princes, and very well,” she assured him.

“Where will you go now, Lara?” her father asked her.

“Home to Terah,” she told him. He did not need to know their travel plans. She could not be certain he was not spying for Gaius Prospero. Well, she had told him nothing the emperor did not already know.

Magnus Hauk listened to the conversation between father and daughter. He realized that he felt sorry for his father-in-law. John Swiftsword was a decent man, but as he had himself admitted, he was weak. Magnus could see that Lara’s tale of her adventures had disconcerted and even bewildered him. He had trusted the daughter he once knew, but he was not certain he could trust this daughter before him now. The Dominus decided to give the Hetarian something on which he could depend.