Christmas Carol (25 page)

The Winter Solstice did matter to the others.
Out of a growing fondness for their little company, Carol kept her
opinions on the celebration to herself. She sat on a bench beside
Nik at the dinner table, increasingly aware of the way his thigh
brushed against hers from time to time.

“Our plans are complete,” Nik said to all of
them. Pushing aside the chipped plate that held the last few scraps
of his evening meal, he leaned forward, looking from face to face
as he spoke. “There are a dozen other groups like this one, all
willing to join with us on the night after the holiday ends. For
reasons of security there will be no further contacts among the
groups until the uprising begins. So, my friends, enjoy the
holiday, but do not drop your guard when you are outside this
house, and maintain the usual identification procedures when going
in and out of it.”

The party broke up at that point. Those
assigned to kitchen duty began to wash and put away the dishes. A
few members drifted toward the basements, to sleep. Bas and Jo
disappeared into his room next to the kitchen, from where Bas could
hear anyone attempting to enter the house. Pen and Al headed for
the stairs leading to the upper floor. And Nik took Carol’s hand,
keeping her close to his side as the others dispersed.

Looking up at him, she saw in his eyes the
knowledge that lay certain and sure in her own heart. He did not
need to ask the question, and she knew she did not need to answer
it, but all the same, she did.

“Yes,” she said, her voice quiet and calm,
and free of all doubts or questions.

“I have a machine that will play recorded
music.” Nik lit the two candle stubs in the holder on the library
desk. “Sometimes when I dream of you, in the dream my favorite song
is playing and I hold you in my arms while we move together as
though I know the steps to a long-forgotten dance.”

“I would like to hear that music.”

From a drawer of the desk he removed two
disks and a flat black box about the size of his hand.

“This is old equipment,” he said. “We found
it when we were cleaning out one of the rooms. Luc is clever with
machinery; he works with it at the water-cleaning plant, and so he
was able to make this player function for me.”

Carol expected the sound to be as scratchy as
a tune from an antique phonograph record, but obviously Luc had
known what he was doing when he repaired the disk player. The music
was clear and pure. The strains of an old waltz filled the library
like the echoes from a long-ago ball. Carol caught her breath, and
her eyes stung with sudden moisture.

“I do not know this dance except in dreams,”
Nik said, holding out his hands. “Will you teach me?”

She went into his arms, and showed him where
to place his hands, and counted out the steps for him. And all the
while, her heart was beating to an ancient refrain. The music
filled her ears and her mind, drenching her in reawakened
happiness.

“It’s easy,” Nik said after a few minutes.
“But then, I have an expert teacher.”

It’s easy if some part of you already
knows the steps
, she thought.

When the music stopped he went to the machine
and set it to play the same waltz over again.

“Do you always hear the same song in your
dreams?” she asked, watching his long fingers moving on the
equipment. “Never another song?”

“It is always the same, but I cannot be
certain if the music was already in my mind or if I learned it when
I was finally able to use the player. The first time I heard the
recording, it seemed to me as though the song was familiar.”

It was
, she thought. Three hundred and
fifty
years ago, you knew it well
.

The second time they danced, he was much more
sure of himself and of the steps for the waltz. He caught Carol in
his arms and whirled her around the nearly empty library as if they
were on the polished floor of a grand ballroom. Looking into his
eyes, seeing his smile, she felt the centuries drop away until once
again they were betrothed lovers entranced by newfound desire,
caught in hope and in dreams of a bright future together. When the
music stopped a second time he stood holding her, looking hard at
her, and she knew he had seen the image in her own mind.

“How strange,” he murmured, blinking as if to
clear his sight. “How wonderful. It was like a waking dream. We
were somewhere else, a place beautiful and shining with
candlelight.”

“I know. I saw it, too.” She smiled at him
with trembling lips.

“It was not just the music,” he went on, “nor
the memory of the dreams I’ve had of you. It was real.”

“So is this, the here and now.” She could no
longer bear the intrusion of the past upon the present. True, he
was, in a mysterious way she did not understand,
Nicholas
,
but he was also Nik, and the man he was in this future time was a
brave and noble person. He, too, was worthy of her love.

She knew they would soon lose each other, but
whether he came to her as Nicholas or Nik she would not stop loving
him, and the love was what was important. In all the world, in any
time, love was all that mattered.

“I have not had a woman for many long
months,” he told her, his voice low. “Not since well before last
Winter Solstice. I have been so consumed with planning, and with
making certain all of my friends would be safe, that I have taken
no time for myself. For these few remaining days before the
uprising begins, will you lie with me, Car? Will you stay with me
for the entire night?”

“I have already said yes,” she reminded
him.

“I thought it best to put it into words so
there can be no misunderstanding. You have seen how I live. I own
few earthly possessions and my existence is a dangerous one. I can
offer you nothing but my heart, and what hope there is for our
cause.”

“There are no greater gifts than love and
hope,” she whispered.

He took her face between his hands, smiling
when she raised her own hands to hold him in the same way. Slowly,
prolonging their anticipation, they drew closer, until at last
their mouths met, and held, and melted into one warm and blissful
joining of lips and tongues and richly burgeoning desire.

It was a long while until he released her.
Leaving her to stand reeling from the effects of his kiss, he took
up the pottery candleholder and thrust it into her hands.

“Hold on to this and don’t burn yourself,” he
ordered. Before she could ask him what he intended, he swung her
off her feet and into his arms.

“Nik, this is dangerous,” she cried, trying
to shield the candle flames and hang on to him at the same
time.

“It is the least dangerous thing I have ever
done,” he responded. He carried her out of the library to a room
that opened off the main hall. He managed it without incinerating
either of them, but looking at the flames reflected in his eyes
when he put her down on his bed, Carol thought it would not be long
before they were both consumed.

With unsteady hands she set the candle-holder
on the floor beside the bed. Then she looked around. It was a bare
little chamber, a space stolen from the back end of the old drawing
room. The familiar carved molding along the ceiling stopped
abruptly where it met the plain expanse of a more recently
constructed wall. There was one long window curtained in olive
green blankets. She was sure the opening behind the blankets was
covered by boards. There was a small chest of drawers, and a wooden
chair with two slats missing from its back. The bed, covered with
another olive blanket, was wide but hard and lumpy. That was
all—walls, covered window, bed, chest and chair, and two candles.
It looked like Paradise to Carol.

Nik sat on the bed beside her. While she was
looking at the room he had stripped to the waist. Carol ran her
fingers along a wicked-looking raised scar that crossed his
chest.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was a gift from one of the civil guards
some ten years ago,” he said. “I was fortunate. They did not learn
my identity, and my friends got me safely away. I have been more
careful since.”

“You could have been killed!” she cried. “You
could still—”

“Not another word,” he commanded. “What
happens three days from now is in the future. I will not spoil the
intervening days and nights by worrying. Not when I can have you in
my arms.”

As he spoke he was working at the sash and
the buttons of her raincoat. The house was so badly heated that
Carol had immediately adopted the habit of her companions, and at
all times wore as many layers of clothing as possible. She’d added
the old cloak Pen had found for her when she went outdoors.

“So many garments,” she murmured, letting him
remove the raincoat with its woolen winter lining and then the
cardigan sweater. Beneath this she still had on a gray wool
turtle-neck sweater and matching wool trousers.

“The clothing only makes you appear more
provocative,” he said. “I have spent many delightful moments
wondering what lay beneath it.” He paused, looking with some
amusement at her plain cotton bra and briefs before removing them,
too. Then he waited, giving Carol time to finish undressing him.
His eyes glinted with easy male humor when she gulped at the sight
of his proud flesh.

Like the rest of the house, his room was
cold. Carol began to shiver. With a sound deep in his throat that
was part chuckle and part growl of rising passion, he quickly
tumbled her under the covers and got in beside her. The thin,
patched sheets were cold, the blankets were inadequate. Only Nik
was warm. She clung to him as if her life depended on his heat.

“Are you frightened or only freezing?” he
teased.

“How could I be afraid of you?” She put her
hands on his chest, running a finger along the ridge of scar
tissue. While he nibbled at her earlobe, she sighed with pleasure.
“I am cold, but I do believe you will find a way to warm me as
quickly as possible.”

“I will try.” He moved from earlobe to throat
to shoulder. He reached her breasts and she arched against him,
moaning. Heat filled her and she was vividly aware of his hardness
against her thigh. Her need for him was a painful ache. Their
teasing banter ended suddenly. Unable to control herself, she
grabbed for him.

“Car,” he groaned, “I’d be gentle if I
could.”

“Don’t wait.” She shifted, giving him ready
access to her hot and moist flesh. “You don’t have to be gentle,
either. I don’t feel gentle, myself. I feel greedy. I want—want all
of you—Nik!”

She screamed as he filled her, and then she
wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him closer, ever
closer, rising to meet him as he pounded into her in a fury of
passion. It was as though he exploded inside her. Carol bit his
shoulder, trying with the last fragments of thought available to
her to stifle her cries. She was unsuccessful. She gave up the
effort to keep some modicum of control over herself because it was
too distracting when all she wanted was to follow him into the
place where he now was, where blinding, searing passion canceled
out all thought of yesterday or tomorrow, where there was no time,
but only the present, the moment, and the two of them together,
made one in love.

When she recovered enough to think again, she
was still in his arms and he was still part of her. She marveled
that she had ever thought his room was cold.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, his rough cheek
against hers. “That was too fast. I should have been more careful
of you but, Car, I lost my mind. Never—never before—”

“It was just right.” She kissed him to stop
the unnecessary apology. “Just what I needed. Time enough to be
slow later.”

“I wish I could be sure we
would
have
the time.”

“We have tonight.” She moved a little, then
gasped in shocked surprise. He had not withdrawn from her and he
was growing hard again. She closed her eyes, enjoying the
sensation.

“It’s amazing what a year of abstinence can
do,” he murmured, and fell to devouring her once more.

Neither of them made any pretensions to
innocence. They did not discuss their romantic histories, or talk
about the future they knew they could not share. Instead, they
devoted the night to enjoying each other, to giving— and taking—as
much pleasure as possible in the hours before dawn.

Thus it was that when Bas rapped on Nik’s
door, to warn him it was time for him to be up and dressing if he
intended to be in the square before the Solstice ceremony began,
Carol stretched beside her lover, and kissed his cheek and the scar
on his chest and then his mouth, and did not feel the least bit
injured or insulted when he rolled away from her and got out of bed
and began to dress.

She lay watching him in the light of the
now-guttering candles, knowing an inner peace and completion she
had never experienced before. As during the hours of the night, so
now in these few moments before the festival day began, she did not
think of any other time or place or person. There was only Nik.

“You’d better hurry,” he urged, seeing her
with the coarse green blanket pulled up to her chin. “The square
becomes crowded and it’s often hard to find a place to stand where
you can see what is happening.”

Breakfast was a simple meal, only a chunk of
coarse brown bread left from the previous night and a cup of hot,
flavored water that Bas called tea, but that tasted like no tea
Carol had ever drunk before. She thought it was a mixture of dried
herbs rather than real tea, but without complaint she swallowed it
for its warmth and to wash down the dry bread.

With Jo’s help Bas was already preparing the
feast, and the kitchen was surprisingly warm. Carol noticed that
there was an oven built into the chimney, and presumably this oven
was being heated in advance. Bas trussed up the chicken the women
had purchased the day before and placed it into a roasting pan.
With so small a bird there was room left in the pan for plenty of
the root vegetables that made up most of the diet at this cold
season of the year. Peeled chunks of turnips, parsnips, carrots,
and potatoes went in around the chicken. Bas threw some chopped
onions on top and Jo sprinkled in a few herbs. Then the lid was
secured and the whole thing put into the waiting oven.