“But the queen handled all that much too quickly, so I had to find something else to occupy her,” Listan went on. “I asked her to look at the laws Waysten passed for his own purposes, our purpose being to rescind the ones that turned honest men into outlaws. She did that as well, and then she had a closer look at the rest of the laws. She decided that there were other laws that could use rescinding, but she didn’t want to act hastily. So she sent for that man Torban, who used to be a teacher, and asked his opinion.

  She also had Torban bring in someone else, someone who could argue for the laws she wanted to repeal.”

  “Getting all sides of the picture before making a decision,” Derand said with a nod and what was probably a foolish smile. “It’s too bad people actually on a throne aren’t wise enough to do that. So that’s what she’s involved with right now?”

  “Well, no, not entirely,” Listan replied, and now the man looked the least bit uncomfortable. “She’s working on restructuring the laws, but at the same time she’s also ? reorganizing the people. All the beggars are being rounded up, fed, and given clean clothing, and some of Torban’s friends are finding jobs for those who are willing to work. Those who have no interest in honest work are being kept together, waiting until you can decide if they should be thrown out of the city or simply put down. I’m supposed to tell you that if the group is thrown out of the city they’ll probably take to stealing from the farms and disrupt food deliveries into the city, but the decision about what to do with them has to be yours.”

  “How nice of her not to usurp my authority,” Derand said after blowing out a breath of annoyance, no longer smiling. “And I’ll bet gold that by the time I’m ready to make the decision she’ll have included any members of the thieves guild still left alive. She’s really giving me no choice at all, but clearly doesn’t want me to feel left out.”

  “I think it’s your standing and image the queen is concerned about,” Listan said slowly, as though thinking the matter through as he spoke. “She knows it’s foolish to keep people around who want to use society instead of be a part of it, but she also knows that the power and fighters are yours. If she took it upon herself to decide a matter that was yours to decide, she would be usurping your authority and making you look weak. She seems to be going out of her way not to do that.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right,” Derand said, now wondering why he’d gotten annoyed. Seea was doing exactly what he’d hoped she would, seeing to time-consuming and boring preparatory work and providing him with recommendations for the decisions that were his to make. Maybe it was the fact that she’d gone ahead and started projects that should have had his approval before they were begun. But she couldn’t have gotten his approval, not with him dead asleep in his bed?

  “I think I’m ready to get up and walk around a bit,” Derand said abruptly, putting aside his tea cup. “If I don’t plan to make this city my home, and I don’t, I have to get back into good enough shape to leave it.

  And not in a coach or wagon.”

  Listan nodded as he put aside his own cup and stood, ready to give whatever help Derand needed.

  Listan knew as well as Derand did that Derand couldn’t return to Arvin looking the least bit weak without having half the kings he’d conquered trying to take him down. Strength was the only thing the men of the Federated Kingdoms respected, so that was the only thing they could be shown.

  But strength was something Derand didn’t have much of at the moment, a fact he learned once he’d thrown aside the bedcovers and gotten to his feet. Standing up had taken a special effort, and the idea of walking even as far as the end of the bed seemed like a project meant for one of the legendary heroes of popular myth. But the effort had to be made so Derand took the walk, but once he’d returned to his starting point he was covered with sweat and had no choice about collapsing back into the bed.

  “Your strength will return fairly quickly, my king, but for now it might be best if you rested,” Listan said as he helped Derand to lie flat again. “The wounds were certainly giving you trouble, but the more they heal the less trouble you’ll be given.”

  “Yes? The wounds? ” Derand gasped out, pretending that that was the trouble. But the wounds were only throbbing faintly, a small amount of pain to be felt behind the throbbing. It was the water in his muscles that plagued Derand the most, and even as he raged silently at the feeling of helplessness the weariness took him down into sleep again.

  The next time Derand awoke he felt a good deal better. The vagueness around his thoughts was gone and he was able to sit up without help, and when a meal was brought he finished most of the food without any trouble. For dessert he left the bed and walked to its foot and back, sitting down again with only heavier breathing -and faintly aching muscles - to show for the effort.

  “Better,” Derand said as he settled himself against the pillows again. “By tomorrow I expect to make it out to the sitting room, and then the hard part will be over. Did my wife show up while I was asleep?”

  “As a matter of fact she did, my king, and she seemed pleased that you were slowly returning to yourself,” Listan responded from the chair he sat in again. “She suggested that you send for her when you’re up to having visitors, as there’s something she wants to talk to you about.”

  “You sound as if you know what the something is,” Derand observed, seeing Listan’s wry expression. “Is there a problem you haven’t mentioned?”

  “Oh, not exactly a problem,” Listan responded, now looking a bit uncomfortable. “When you and she first returned here to the palace, the queen was very worried about you. I had the apartment next to yours prepared for her so she could have the privacy she couldn’t have had here, and then I ? arranged for a sleeping draught to be put in her tea. If I hadn’t she would have spent the night sitting up at your bedside, worry and guilt causing untold harm.”

  “And instead she had a good night’s sleep,” Derand said with a nod of approval. “So where does the problem that’s not a problem come in?”

  “The queen ? disliked the idea of having been put to sleep against her will, so to speak,” Listan said, obviously choosing his words carefully. “She told me so in no uncertain terms, then told me she means to ask you to ? punish me for the ? intrusion.”

  “Does she now?” Derand said, feeling the grin he wore. Listan had known he’d probably get away with keeping his king drugged, but he wasn’t quite as certain about what he’d done to Seea. She was Derand’s queen and wife, after all, and men usually did what they could to please the wives they loved? “What do you suppose she’ll ask me to do to you, old friend?”

  “I ? think I’d rather not speculate,” Listan answered, obviously trying not to look worried. “Yarrow also told me that she wasn’t pleased with all the chores I’d found for her to do, and it might be best if I ?

  refrained from visiting her apartment unless I came in force. Yarrow was laughing when he told me that, but I didn’t take it as a joke. He and his squad have learned to admire the queen, and her orders to the squad would naturally supersede my own.”

  “Naturally,” Derand agreed, enjoying himself enormously. “Well, we’ll just have to see what she asks for before I decide whether or not to go along with it. And now I’d like to hear the reports made by the men after the takeover.”

  Listan looked as if he wanted to pursue the previous subject of discussion, but he’d been given an order by his king and knew he couldn’t argue. What he didn’t know was that Derand was in the midst of punishing him for three days of forced sleep in the only way he could use. Listan was a friend as well as being Derand’s most loyal follower so Derand would never harm the man, but that didn’t mean Listan couldn’t be teased unmercifully for a time. The longer Listan worried about whether or not he would be punished, the longer he would hesitate next time before doing something for Derand’s “own good.”

  The next day and a half saw Derand’s strength slowly returning to what it had previously been. The second night he even had a dream, one that he really enjoyed when he remembered it. In the dream he and Seea were at a fancy ball in someone’s palace, the two of them moving through the crowds in the ballroom with Seea holding to his arm. He’d had to punish her for some reason before they left for the ball, using the insertion she so disliked and a hard spanking, and by now she was truly desperate.

  “Husband, please!” she’d whispered as they strolled, a smile on her face to disguise what she really felt.

  “I’ll admit I earned that punishment, but I simply can’t wait any longer! You have to find a way to ease me right now!”

  “During a ball?” he’d murmured back in a drawl. “It won’t be easy to find a private corner, so why don’t we just wait until we get home?”

  “Oh, no, please, I can’t wait!” she whispered at once, all but squirming as she spoke. “I’ll do anything you say if only you ease me! I burn for you, husband! Please!”

  The way she looked at him made Derand do some burning of his own, and the opportunity had been too good to let go by.

  “Having you do anything I say will make the effort worthwhile, I think,” Derand had replied after a long moment. “All right, wife, let’s look for that private corner I mentioned.”

  An eyeblink later they were at the opened doors that led into a garden, so Derand guided Seea outside and down the steps. Couples and small groups moved in all directions as they strolled and talked, the paths lit by torches so that the strollers might see where they were going. Derand led Seea off on their own stroll, all the way down to the final torch and then beyond. There weren’t any strollers down this far, or at least there didn’t seem to be, so Derand took Seea over to a stone bench that was almost completely hidden in the darkness. He hadn’t seen the bench until his eyes adjusted to the dark from the light of the torches, so the area ought to be private enough.

  “It’s here or nowhere, wife,” Derand had said softly to a squirming Seea once they stopped. “If you don’t like this spot, we’ll just wait until we get home to ease you.”

  Even in the dark Derand had been able to see that Seea wanted to protest the possibility of someone coming along and seeing them, but she’d been much too hot

  to refuse the opportunity. She let him guide her to the end of the bench and then into leaning down on it with her forearms, and then he’d raised her skirts while she stood bent over. Untying her undergarment took only a moment and then, with the undergarment down around her ankles and her skirts up over her back, Derand had rolled up a kerchief and put it in her mouth.

  With all the necessary done, Derand had finally been able to put his now-raging desire to Seea’s. When he thrust deeply into her she tried to scream with delight, which was why the kerchief had been necessary. She also tried to howl when he came in contact with her still-sore bottom, which was a second reason for the presence of the kerchief. Derand had stroked his wife over and over and over, more than sharing the pleasure she felt until his own release finally ended the time. And the thought that someone might come along and see them had somehow added incredibly to the delight? Maybe, he thought when remembering the dream, he might be able to arrange that for real at some time?

  By the third day after waking up from a drugged sleep Derand was feeling well enough to stroll through the palace. He spent quite a lot of time in Waysten’s former apartment, going through the paperwork and files that Waysten had kept. It had come to Derand to wonder if Waysten had had secret allies in his efforts, allies who were defeated kings in the Federated Kingdoms of Arvin.

  “Have you found anything, my king?” Listan asked when he joined Derand in the room that had been Waysten’s study. “I’ll admit I’ve been hoping there would be nothing to find.”

  “No such luck,” Derand answered with a small growl, dropping the report he’d been reading back onto the desk. “There is someone Waysten was in touch with, but there isn’t a single clue as to who it could be. Names are very deliberately not used, so it looks like we’ll have to ask Waysten before he’s executed.”

  “Unfortunately, questioning Prince Waysten won’t be possible,” Listan replied with a sigh as he dropped into the chair standing in front of the desk. “The shock of the beating he was given combined with having been thrown into his own dungeon has unhinged the prince’s mind. I went to see him just now, and he does nothing but lie on the dirty straw in his cell, staring into space. If he’s touched he starts to whimper, but speaking seems to be beyond him.”

  “How about Limond?” Derand asked after cursing under his breath. “Waysten’s father ought to know the names of the people his son was dealing with.”

  “The former King Limond is in only slightly better shape than his son,” Listan reported with a sigh. “His sobering up has been brutal, and the shakes have him with a vengeance. I offered to bring him a bottle of anything he liked if he told me the names of Prince Waysten’s allies, and that started the man crying.

  Apparently Prince Waysten knew better than to give sensitive information to a drunk.”

  “And you said that Tellita didn’t even know that her brother had been defeated,” Derand finished up with disgust in his voice. “That means she’s another one who won’t have any idea of who Waysten was dealing with, so who does that leave?”

  “I hate to say it, my king, but that leaves no one,” Listan said after nodding confirmation of Derand’s guess about Tellita. “Prince Waysten had no real advisors or confidantes, so there was no one for him to share the information with. Whoever the traitor is, his identity will remain a secret.”

  “For now,” Derand qualified as he stood and stretched. Only twinges came from his wounds, and soon even the twinges would be gone. “I’ll probably have another look through these papers before we return to Arvin, but I intend to spend the rest of the afternoon soaking in a bath and getting prettied up. My wife will be joining me for dinner, and tonight she’ll be back in my bed.”

  “And she’ll be able to see that you’ve completely returned to yourself,” Listan added after also standing.

  “I think you were wise to wait until now.”

  “I had more trouble waiting than in getting my strength back, but the wait was necessary,” Derand said, a good portion of his mind on what going to bed would bring. Not sleep, this time, not for a long time?

  “My wife needs to see that I’m back to my old self, not shuffling around like an old and toothless derelict.

  I don’t want her feistiness drowned under guilt.”

  Listan smiled but said nothing, so the two men left the former Prince Waysten’s apartment. Derand didn’t mention that he’d come across some of Waysten’s toys that he’d taken for his own. Seea hadn’t needed encouragement that night in the cabin, but if she did happen to need some help in getting over her guilt Derand meant to be prepared.

  The rest of the afternoon went just as planned, and Derand enjoyed his bath and pampering. The palace’s servants were very good at pampering, a service Derand usually avoided, but this time he actually enjoyed the attention. After the bath, massage, and shave only a few small bandages were put over the remnants of his wounds before he was helped into clothes. He then went out to the sitting room and watched the food being delivered.

  Seea arrived just as most of the servants were leaving, and Derand found himself surprised. He’d expected his wife to be wearing a gown, but instead she wore trousers, a tunic, and short boots. About to protest an appearance he considered inappropriate, Derand abruptly pulled himself up short. Making a fuss about clothes right now would be stupid, and it was still much too soon for him to be stupid with Seea and not regret the consequences. Maybe, once they’d been together for a few decades, he’d be able to speak without thinking first?

  So Derand stepped forward and said with a smile, “Good evening, wife. I’ve missed seeing you these past few days, but now that you’re here the world is perfect again.”

  “You can’t be serious, saying something like that,” Seea protested with a surprised laugh as she came forward from the doorway. “You sound as if you’ve been reading a really bad romance novel.”

  “And you sound as if you could use a dose of romance, good, bad, or otherwise,” Derand returned with a grin. “Has Listan really been working you that hard?”

  “Don’t even mention that man’s name,” Seea answered with a mock growl as she stopped a few feet away from Derand. “He’s been smart enough to stay away from me these past few days, and lucky for him he was. Which reminds me: since he’s your man, I want you to punish him in some way that will make him hesitate the next time he thinks he knows what’s best for me.”

  “I’ve been trying to find a fitting punishment for that attitude for years now without having any luck,”

  Derand told her ruefully, firmly keeping himself from closing the distance between them. “The problem is Listan really would give his life to save mine, and I think he’s learning to feel the same way about you. Do you really want to find a way to make the man less loyally devoted?”

  “I want to find a way to make the man less meddlesome,” Seea stated, obviously not swayed in the least by what Derand had said. “It is possible to be devoted without feeling you have the right to run the life of the person you’re devoted to. If you haven’t been able to think of anything to do, then I’ll have to give the problem some thought.”

  “Can your thinking wait until we’ve ? gotten acquainted again?” Derand asked, feeling the way his grin had changed to a smile on the wry side. “You’re standing so far away? Does that mean you don’t want me to touch you?”

  “I ? know you’re still not completely healed,” Seea answered after a brief but definite hesitation, her gaze no longer meeting his. “The last thing I want to do is

  cause you even more hurt? “

  “My getting hurt wasn’t your fault,” Derand said, doing some firm stating of his own as he moved closer to her. “If you want to get technical, the fact that I wasn’t hurt even worse than I was is due to no one’s efforts but yours. You know you were wrong to run from me and you were soundly punished for that foolishness, so why don’t we forget about it and go on to more pleasant things? If you believe I’m not healed enough, you’re in for a nice surprise.”