Read Pleasure Island [The Chronicles of Lidir] for Free Online

were folded. Each had the same stance and the slightly glazed, indifferent look of guards. They were young - about as old as Anya - but Travix must have been a few years older. She held her head a little to one side and lifted her chin, so she was forced - or she chose - to look obliquely down at Anya. Her lip appeared drawn up very slightly at the side away from Anya. As Anya waited for her to speak again, Travix's gaze lifted. Her eyes were a clear ice blue. They impaled a short fat crewman who still held one of Anya's boots. Uncertainly, he lowered his body by bending his knees until the boot touched the deck beside Anya's feet. Then he released it, straightened and backed away in tiny shuffling movements. Travix's gaze returned to Anya. The woman seemed to be assessing her from head to toe.
     
    Anya in turn tried to fathom this person. She was tall - or perhaps it only appeared that way, for the crew stood before her with shoulders hunched and eyes downcast. Her hair was shoulder length, blonde, thick and straight, like filaments of pale gold wire, drawn back and tied with a black ribbon. In her left earlobe was a single gold ring. Seeing that earring reminded Anya of her Prince. Beneath Travix's collar was a scarf. Her hands, on her hips, were slim, but the nails were short, like a man's. She had pale eyebrows and her cheeks were weather-reddened. As the woman's head turned, Anya's breath caught. Travix's face was scarred; there was a curving pale red line down her right cheek and a fine furrow across her upper lip. The lip lifted in a faint half-smile, and the woman's eyes narrowed - as though she were mocking Anya's discomfiture at seeing this disfigurement. Her teeth were pure white, and very slightly crooked below the line of the cut.
     
    Anya winced, for though the severed lip was long ago healed, she was imagining it happening - the sword slash cutting across the cheek, the blue steel slitting it, then slipping against the cut flesh of the lip, then grating shrilly against the teeth, before being drawn sharply away. For some reason - something about Travix's look perhaps - she imagined that cut being delivered not in the heat of battle but in coldblooded punishment. In her mind's eye, she could see the lip lifting afterwards to a mocking smile, the pure white teeth flooding red with blood, then the tongue licking out to taste and test the raw-nerved pulpy slit. It sent a peculiar shiver through Anya's belly.
     
    Travix had not failed to notice; now she looked down to where Anya's hands still crossed below her belly. The lip curled once again to that same disdainful smile. Anya coloured. The blue eyes flashed at her. Suddenly annoyed, afraid - of the eyes, of the peculiar feeling that had touched her belly, and of the premonition of wicked sensuality that now inveigled her mind - Anya spat the words out:
     
    'Who are you? What do you want of me?'
     
    There were murmurs from the men. Anya bit her lip. She ought to have bitten her tongue. Travix slowly looked round at all the faces. She did not look at Anya as she spoke. It was as if she were intent upon preventing this insubordination from spreading to the crew.
     
    'Ah - the Princess of Lidir, I presume.' There were uneasy chuckles from the men. Now Travix did look at Anya and Anya turned bright red. 'For you see, my dear, I judge you not by your manners - nor yet by your frippery -' her velvet booted toe touched the ragged trousers wrapped round Anya's ankles; the chuckles turned to laughter -' but by the disquiet your hasty defection appears to have provoked.' She turned; the men quickly moved aside as if her gaze had cut a swath through them. She took several paces towards the rail, then said slowly, almost to herself, her voice tinged momentarily with a faint note of uncertainty: 'Even now, your puny ship would try to follow.' Then she turned sharply on her heel and strode back to confront Anya. Her lip curled again in a twisted smile: 'But your pigeons