Free The Lion's Daughter by Loretta Chase

them over the tub handles. Then she
sat down upon the floor in her usual cross-legged position and
studied her hands.
    Petro
stood cringing by the door.
    “You
will apologize, Petro, for your tasteless prank,” Varian said.
“Even now, our young friend must be devising ways to get even,
and I had much rather not be caught in the middle,
    thank
you.”
    Petro
promptly dropped to his knees before her and commenced banging his
head on the floor in an exaggerated salaam. “A thousand
thousand pardons, little one,” he said abjectly. “May I
be forever cursed, may my limbs rot and fall off, my—”
    “Don't
be ridiculous,” she snapped. “It is not as though I have
never seen a man without his shirt before.” As Petro hastily
rose and resumed his dignity, she looked up at Varian, . and a faint tinge of rose washed
her cheeks. “All I saw were your shoulders and that was hardly
for a moment, and —”
    “And
it's a very deep tub,”
Varian said.
    The
rose deepened. “So it is. Also, my mind was altogether
elsewhere, I promise you, or I should never have rushed in upon you
in that mannerless way. Did I not order the bath myself? But I
forgot, because —”
    “Because
you were in a great hurry to tell me something, I think.”
Varian crouched before her. “What was it?”
    She
gave a quick glance at the doorway, then turned back to Varian and
whispered, “Esme has been killed.”
    “I
beg your pardon?”
    “Rrogozhina
had word days ago of the abduction. That is why they all rushed out
to welcome you, and why they fall all over themselves to make you
comfortable.”
    “So
it must be,” Petro agreed. “I was much amazed to see all
the women come out, with the little ones.”
    “But
days ago?” Varian asked. “That's impossible. How —”
    “In
Albania, word flies through the air, like the birds,” she said.
    “Aye,
master,” Petro eagerly put in before she could continue. “They
cry out from one mountain to the next. A great, ear-breaking shriek
it is. And such faces they make —”
    “Never
mind that. What about your — about
Esme being killed?” Varian asked her.
    “Bajo
sent word, in the manner Petro tells you: mat Jason was murdered and
an English lord's son taken by bandits,” she explains. “But
Bajo also reported that Esme was killed in the villains' attack. Do
you see how clever he was? By now word has surely reached the
villains who sought me — that
is, Esme — and —”
    “And
so there won't be any more abduction attempts.”
    “Now
you've no need to be uneasy,” she said confidently. “All
is as I told you — even
better. No one will guess I am not who I pretend to be, and the
people will make your way easy. Farther south they are doubtless
looking for Percival, or have already found him and are keeping him
safe. Also, by now the villains must surely be fleeing both Ali's and
their own master's wrath.”

    ABOUT
THIS TIME, some thirty miles south of Rro-gozhina, several unhappy
villains were arguing in harsh whispers while a twelve-year-old boy
slept nearby. Half the party felt he should simply be abandoned where
he was. Even now, Ali Pasha's men might be on their trail. The other
half argued that the boy merely represented an unfortunate mistake.
If he came to harm, however, even Ismal could not protect them.
Besides, the child had given no trouble — except
when anyone touched his leather bag. Since it proved to contain only
rocks, of no value whatsoever, they concluded he was a trifle
unhinged by the recent excitement.
    “Only
a mile west is the abode of a priest,” Mehmet pointed out. “We
can leave the boy with him.”
    “Aye,
you need a priest badly enough,” said Ymer. “That game
piece the master gave you is cursed. Since we got it, there has been
nothing but trouble. We go to the house, the girl is gone. We hasten
to the shore, and half of Durrës waits, armed. Two of my cousins
are killed, and we carry away an English boy, a lord's son, by
mistake. Now the Red