"No, well, nothing like that -- " The deep blush which had suffused Denisius's face returned full force, and the knowing leer curling Vos's lips, even as they clamped about his rieldo cigar, only made things that much worse.

Vos grabbed a plainer wooden chair as a few tavern girls cleaned up the stage, scooping up the coins the appreciative patrons had cast at the tiger-dancer. The Summervale drumbeats had ceased, the drummer departing for other halls in the Four Winds, giving Denisius the slyest wink Lord Marhollow had ever seen as he passed by. Now the only music was that of distant instruments from elsewhere in the Four Winds, and the cacophonic mingled voices of a good-sized crowd.

Sitting at an angle to his master, Vos passed him a fresh cigar. Rieldo leaves, heavier than the kossun smoke Vos disdained, were impossible to find in Marhollow, and rare even in the capital. In Munazyr they were plentiful: rieldo plantations were a thriving business across the Straits in the kingdom of Porium. The grin on Vos's scarred face grew, his eyes glittering with good humor. Denisius thought he looked noticeably drunker than he had at any of the taverns they had visited in Gallowsport or on the road.

"You know, milord, I think it's time we staged a coup against old Erstan. Not a violent one, no need to take your father's head." Denisius glared at him as he clipped off the tip of the cigar with his pocketknife, swearing under his breath as some crumbled leaves spilled on his fingers. He hadn't quite learned Vos's trick of neatly severing the end with a single swipe of the blade. "No offense to him, milord. It's just I think I could see myself preferring your leadership style. First wolves, now tigers?"

"I don't think this is very funny, Vos."

Vos seemed not to have heard. After taking a long, pleasurable drag of his cigar, he spread his hands expansively, the smoldering stub clenched between his fingers sketching his grand designs in a trail of pungent smoke. "I can just see it. 'The Lord Marhollow's harem was as diverse as his menagerie, but even the wisest scholar really couldn't decide which was which. Ah, but when they saw the addled smile on his lips, none could blame him for his tastes.'" Vos doubled over, laughing hard, his weathered face flushed with drink and good cheer. But when he saw the scowl on Denisius's face, he drew himself into a more sober pose. Denisius was glowering down at the floor as he tried to ignite his cigar, desisting when Vos extended one hand and lit it with his own.

"I don't mean to offend, milord," he said as Denisius lifted the cigar to his lips. "You surprised me, is all. That's not something you see a lot, a Namarri falling head over heels for any human."

Denisius blinked at him, then coughed dankly. He wasn't sure he cared for these things. "Head over heels, what is that? Another joke at my expense?" Normally he didn't sound so waspish, but his head was still swimming from the encounter with the tigress -- he could still smell her jungle scent clinging to him -- and Vos was, most unusually, putting him in a mood reminiscent of ones usually provoked by his brothers.

Vos regarded him curiously, rolling his cigar in his fingers. "You really don't know, do you?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't, so why don't you enlighten me?"

Vos's smile receded. "She's not really a whore. Very few Namarri are. Oh, she'll take money to let a human bed her, but that's not the point. The point is to humiliate humans into giving them piles of coin for a chance to do something that means absolutely nothing to them."

"Nothing? They what, don't enjoy sex?"

Vos doubled over in laughter again. Denisius frowned, drawing small hesitant puffs on his cigar and resisting an urge to spit on the floor. "Gods no. They love it. They make an art of it. It's practically the center of some of their religions. But when it comes to humans, well, it's not much more than rubbing your own prick when you're alone is to you. They hold us in such contempt that while it'd be easy to milk us of every bit of coin we've got, most of them don't lower themselves to doing so. This one, Demelza -- I'd bet she's either got some special grudge against humans, or she got rejected by some warrior back in Summervale and this is how she's punishing him." Vos leaned back in his chair, watching as the stage was taken by a Q'Sivari magician in flamboyant yellow and purple robes, spinning large silver rings on his fingertips. "The men are even worse for things like that. I never know if they're passionate or crazy. Maybe it's the same thing."

Denisius nodded, no longer feeling quite so stung, though it didn't make the cigar taste any better. "She -- erm -- said it'd be no charge at the end."

Vos nodded, savoring his own cigar with much more satisfaction. "You caught her curiosity. 'Here's this soft human who obviously wants me, yet he keeps saying no.' Once you'd actually bedded her, she probably would have lost interest. But as soon as you showed her something she couldn't have for a change, she wanted it. They look like cats and they act like the damned things, too." Vos stubbed out his cigar on the heel of his boot (Denisius did likewise, even though he'd smoked less than a fifth of it). "Now, maybe you could've kept intriguing her, stoking her curiosity, holding something back until she went crazy for wanting it. Best way to seduce a Namarri, even one who's not acting the whore for kicks in a human city: make them think they want something of yours, then don't give it to them. Sooner or later actual affection might grow, but gods know it isn't easy."

Denisius pondered this, taking a long sip of his beer, glad to wash away the taste of rieldo. "You sound like you've got experience."

"Oh, I don't tell those stories, milord."

"Just pretend you know everything and let the rest of us think you actually do?"

Vos grinned. The scars on his face had lessened but were still clear and livid. Galena Orthis had said it might take a year or more for them to fade entirely. "Something like that." With a lusty cry he haled down a tavern girl and ordered two Aznian liquors.

"Oh. Oh no, I don't care for those, Vos. You can have mine."

Vos was looking at him in a speculative, almost pitying way Denisius didn't much care for. "Don't like Aznian spirits? Why? Because of your brothers?"

Denisius looked down into his beer and muttered something.

"Forgive me for asking, milord. I know it's a sore point."

"It's fine. I'll share one with you, I suppose."

Vos smiled. Denisius wasn't sure how much Vos knew about some of the abuses Lorith and Steffen had heaped on him over the years, but everyone in Coldspring Hall knew about his coming of age feast. After dinner Lorith had sneaked both his brothers into their father's hunting lodge to welcome Denisius to manhood with some Aznian liquors. The drink he poured for his younger brother had been doctored with some herb he'd picked up from the apothecary in town, and Denisius had briefly run mad, hallucinated that he was being chased by snakes; that his clothes had turned into snakes. Screaming, he had stripped off and sprinted naked through Coldspring Hall, terrifying the sleeping residents, then vanished into the night. The chamberlain had found him the next day, clad in nothing but some leaves, hungry and suffering from exposure, on the edge of his father's hunting preserve.

Erstan had threatened to disinherit Lorith for the prank and name Steffen the heir. If that was how he intended to run Coldspring Hall and Marhollow, he had raged, then he could learn manhood in the Emperor's cohorts on the edge of the Scorched Desert. But eventually the Lord Marhollow's anger had lessened, and Lorith continued to best his brothers in the training yard and on the hunting grounds, and soon any serious punishment was forgotten. As had happened before, and would happen again before he left for Losris Nadak to court Ammi Kerrell. Steffen had simply gone along with it, again, not for the first or last time.

Why any of this should make Vos smile, he surely didn't know. But when the spirits came in their small crystal cups, he said something Denisius had only rarely heard in his life from anyone at all: "Lorith couldn't have done it, you know."