A Distant Tomorrow by Bertrice Small

cock.” He chuckled.
    “Do you have spies everywhere, my lord Gaius?” Arcas asked his host dryly.
    “Everywhere,” Gaius Prospero agreed with a smirk. “I hear your father and Lara ride each afternoon along the beach. The soft earth would certainly make a good bed.”
    “It does,” Arcas answered, not showing his irritation. “I’ve taken many a girl in the dunes by the sea, my lord Gaius.” Was the smug and power hungry Master of the Merchants suggesting that his father was Lara’s lover? The thought that his father might have gotten what he could not have infuriated Arcas. A long time ago Lara was meant to be his personal Pleasure Woman, but that the Head Forester had seen her and paid an obscene sum to possess her. When Arcas had learned of Vartan’s death several months back from the ubiquitous Jonah, Gaius Prospero’s valued right hand, he had begun to consider the possibility of having Lara for his own again. Once he had told her he would never have kept her as a slave—but that had been a lie. If he could have her, he would imprison her in his apartments and never let her free. She would be only for him. For his pleasure. For his eyes alone.
    To consider that his father had gotten there before him was a thought not to be tolerated. Archeron was newly widowed of Arcas’s mother. Could he have loved Alina, and been so quick into another woman’s bed? Yes, he could, if the woman was Lara! And Gaius Prospero knew it or he wouldn’t have said it. Arcas thought the Master of the Merchants had actually enjoyed imparting the information to him. Damn Gaius Prospero to Limbo, he who intended packing the new High Council with his adherents, and having himself elected emperor of Hetar! But the pleasant smile Arcas wore never faltered. Finally he arose.
    “I should be getting back to the Council Quarter,” he said. “King Balasi and I want to depart early. I will see you in a few weeks, Gaius Prospero. My felicitations to your two wives, the lady Vilia and the lady Anora.” Then with a bow he left Gaius Prospero. He did not look back, or raise his hand in farewell.
    The Master of the Merchants smiled to himself as his guest departed. He had been unable to resist taunting King Arcas with thoughts of his father and the beautiful half-faerie woman. He knew how very much the younger man desired Lara. When the Winter War of five years ago had ended, and Gaius Prospero had gathered all the information he needed to learn how he had failed to annex the rich mountain region of the Outlands, the Master of the Merchants had discovered that the daughter of the Crusader Knight known as Swiftsword was responsible in great measure for his defeat. It was she who had advised the Outlanders against him. At first he could not believe it. He had been amazed that the exquisite creature he had bought from her father to sell into one of the great Pleasure Houses of the City had become such a skilled warrior and strategist. Once he had lusted after her himself, but now he considered her his enemy. He would have his revenge on her for that earlier defeat, and engineering her husband’s death was just the beginning. And yet he wondered, if she came into his life again, would he still desire her?
    It had taken five years to regain his popularity among the people. Five years to quiet the outcry against him by his fellow magnates, to calm the leaders and men of the Mercenary Guild. Seven carts piled high with Hetarian dead driven into the heart of the City was not a memory easily erased. And though they had buried those unfortunate dead quickly in mass graves, the stink of their rotting bodies had lingered in the air for days, reminding everyone of just what had happened—and who was responsible.
    It hadn’t been his fault, he convinced himself. But he had been unable to ride out in the streets for weeks afterwards. On the rare occasions he had ventured out, surrounded by mercenaries paid to protect him, people had cursed him and