Tzimisce

Tzimisce “Excellent. I shall have a guest apartment prepared at once.” Ilias smiled his lazy cat smile and Myca felt, quite distinctly, his lover’s amusement through the bond they shared. “A houseful of guests for the first time all winter, my stapân Vykos. We are, indeed, fortunate.” “Indeed,” Myca echoed, though he failed to appreciate how Ilias could consider this development a good one. “My lord Malachite, we will, of course, extend to you three nights and three days, and all safety and welcome within our walls.” Malachite bowed low and rose with the ghost of a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “My lord is too gracious.” *** Malachite’s arrival put edges on the tension that had begun building in the monastery over the four nights of Ilias’ seclusion and the subsequent, fruitless investigation of Nikita’s correspondence. Sir Gilbrecht was positively champing at the bit. Now that it was obvious that the roads were clear enough to travel, and their duty as he felt it was done, he saw no reason to linger. Lady Rosamund was better bred and more thoroughly diplomatic in every respect, but even she was beginning to show signs of restiveness and a desire to be gone back to the arms of her lord. Only Sir Landric, of the original trio of visitors, seemed at all inclined to delay leaving and his opinion was solicited by no one but Ilias, who suggested quietly that the boy might be worth cultivating as a friendly, or at least not entirely hostile, ear in Jürgen’s court. Myca accepted that possibility while keeping in mind he had Jürgen’s ambassador—and, if rumor were true, his would-be consort—in hand, and that