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Kiaya Khatun entered the wagon carrying her most valuable cargo and found him sitting upright on a cushion, head turned to better hear the heated conversation that was taking place just outside. "There is a self-important prince here who thinks to offer his protection for this leg of the journey," she informed him.
Lymond turned to look at her. "As I won't be fulfilling that function for a while yet, I suspect you had best accept."
"I have accepted," Kiaya Khatun said. "I only came to tell you it would be best if he did not see you."
"That is simple enough." Lymond opened his eyes wide and said sweetly, "After all, what could I need that is not in this wagon with me?"
The words flattered her, but she felt sure the intent was mocking. Kiaya Khatun had ascertained that he harbored a good deal of bitterness about her part in the events in Stamboul. There was plenty of time for that to heal along with his body; and if it did not, well, it did not particularly matter, so long as performed as she expected him to.
"How is your patient progressing?" Kiaya Khatun asked her physician a few days before they arrived at the border where Vishnevetsky would leave them.
"He is recovering rapidly, as you predicted," the physician replied. "He grows restless staying in the wagon."
"Tell him he has only a few days more to wait," Kiaya Khatun said, secretly pleased.
She summoned Lymond to eat dinner with her the first day they were free of Vishnevetsky's company. He was punctiliously professional, conversing chiefly about the affairs her household, which he would soon direct. "But I must ask after your health," Güzel finally said at the end of the meal. "My physician says you grow restless. Your former energy returns?"
He shrugged. "No doubt it will be tested soon enough."
"We can put it to the test now." Güzel had removed her overgowns before he arrived and donned a heavy cloak over her shift. Now she rose to stoke the braziers, loosening her cloak fastenings as she did so. "Can I persuade you to kneel?"
There were quiet sounds behind her as he got to his knees. Güzel dropped her cloak and turned to find him with his hands clasped in front of him, his face shuttered. He was composing, she thought, a polite refusal. She crossed the short distance between them and tilted his chin up with one finger, her pointed nail digging into the skin. "Do we have a relationship of compulsion? You can refuse."
He said flatly, "I recall that I promised to go where you wished and perform any task you set before me."
Güzel dropped her hand. "This is not a task. You may go."
He acquiesced as he did to everything else.