:If they bothered to take any notice, they’ll wait to see if you mind teasing, then give you both a bit of a word about it, now and again,: Kantor told him. :Other than that, they’d probably begin a betting pool as to when the two of you decided to stop flirting and get down to something serious.:

:Serious—: he ventured.

:Bedding,: Kantor said bluntly.

Alberich bit his tongue. Quite by accident—Kantor had startled him. :But—:

:Sorry. Didn’t mean to shock you. But if this gets past flirting, Myste is going to expect it to go there. Heralds are—well, by the standards of a Karsite, they’re flagrantly immoral and utterly hedonistic when it comes to the ways of man with maid. Not that she is. Myste, I mean. She’s not a maid.:

Maybe he should have been shocked, but he wasn’t. Startled, yes, but not shocked. Well, not that Myste wasn’t a maid, anyway.

In fact, he was relieved. It had been a long time since he’d—well—and then it had been someone he’d paid. He didn’t have any practice in the more polite forms of congress, and he was probably going to step on his own feet more than once if things—got past flirting. And the ache in certain parts of him let him know in no uncertain terms that his body certainly wanted it to get past flirting. Far past flirting.

As for how she came to be not a maid, well that was her business.

Unless she made it his. And then it was even more her business…

:Good man. Slow and cautious. She’s in no hurry and neither should you be.:

:As long as she doesn’t run in terror from my face,: he said dryly, :I doubt there is anything else about me that cows her. Underneath, that woman is someone that would appall people if they only knew her. There are things she will not compromise on. And things that she would kill over, if it came to that.:

Which was, of course, how she was getting away with purloining secrets out from under the very noses of the owners, and with their cooperation. At some point, perhaps in that last battle, Myste had found, or gotten, her courage. Now he doubted that anything could effectively stand in her way if she believed in or wanted something badly enough.

Like me—?

He sat firmly on that thought and crammed it back into the little mental cupboard it had come out of.

Back to business. :What do you Companions know about ciphers?: he asked. After all, better to cover all possible avenues with this one.