The Nomad - By Simon Hawke Page 0,38
the Stony Barrens dial they had a chance to wash the dirt of their journey away. They did not see Valsavis, but there were private chambers located at the far end of the baths, through several small archways, where those clients who had paid for the best rooms could enjoy a superior class of service, with beautiful, naked young attendants to scrub their backs and wash their hair and perform any other services that they might have in mind, for certain additional fees, of course.
“Mmm,” Ryana sighed with contentment as she lay back on the tiled step in water up to her neck. “I could get used to this.”
“I much prefer to bathe in the bracing, cold waters of a desert spring or mountain stream,” said Sorak with a grimace. “It is unnatural to bathe in heated water.”
“Perhaps,” Ryana said, “but it feels soooo good!” Sorak snorted. “All this water,” he said, “delivered here by aqueducts and heated by fires underneath the floor… Even in the largest cities, most people have to wash from buckets they must draw from public wells and carry back to their homes.” He shook his head. “I feel like some pampered and decadent aristocrat. And I must say, I do not at all care for the feeling.”
“Relax and enjoy it, Sorak,” said Ryana. “We are paying dearly for the privilege. And after the way those misbegotten, flea-bitten marauders treated me, I enjoy thinking that the sale of their goods and belongings paid for all of this.”
“We did not come here to luxuriate in hot baths and quarters fit for a templar,” Sorak said. “We came to find the Silent One.”
“There will be time enough for that,” Ryana said. “With Valsavis tagging along with us?” Sorak said. “What difference does it make?” she asked. “He has no reason to prevent us from finding the Silent One. If he is merely a mercenary here to enjoy himself, as he claims, then he should not care what we do, one way or the other. But if he is an agent of the Shadow King, then it would be in his best interest that we find the druid, because, as you have pointed out yourself, he will want to follow us so that we may lead him to the Sage.”
“I will be very curious to see what he does when he discovers that we are bound for Bodach,” Sorak said.
Ryana shrugged. “If he offers to come with us, then we will have all the more reason to suspect his motives.”
“Yes, but it will still not prove them conclusively,” Sorak said. “He might simply be tempted by the treasure of the ancient city.”
“As you said before,” Ryana replied, “there is nothing we can do about Valsavis for the moment. And we may be suspecting him unjustly. We shall simply have to wait and see what he will do.”
“Yes, but I do not like not knowing,” Sorak said.
“Nor do I,” Ryana replied, “but worrying about it will change nothing. Try to relax and enjoy yourself. We will not have such an opportunity again anytime soon, if ever.”
She leaned back into the water and sighed deeply with serene contentment. But Sorak kept staring at the archways in the rear, wondering what Valsavis really had on his mind.
* * *
Valsavis lay stretched out, naked on his stomach, upon thick towels laid on a wooden table while two beautiful young women worked on his muscular back and legs. They were skilled in their trade, and it felt good to have their strong fingers deeply probing his muscles, easing the soreness and the tension. He knew that he was in superb condition for a man of his age—for a man of any age, for that matter—but he was still not immune to the effects of time. He was no longer as flexible as he once was, and his muscles now developed lumps of tension far more frequently than they had when he was younger.
I am getting too old for this trade, he thought. Too old for chasing across the desert, too old for sleeping on the hard ground, and too tired for playing at intrigue. He had not expected to fall in with the elfling and the priestess as he had. His initial plan had been to follow them, at a distance, and then, to add some spice to the chase, allow them to discover that he was on their trail, so he could watch what they would try to do to shake him. However,