Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (18 page)

Likewise, he gulped down wine one moment out of sheer nerves only to refuse the cup the next when with sick fear he recalled jokes he had heard at his Aunt Bel's table about bridegrooms who had drunk themselves into such a sodden fog that they could not perform their husbandly duty.

Lavastine spoke little and then only to respond laconically to congratulations thrown his way. He needed to say nothing; this triumph had cost him plenty in the lives of his men, but he had gained a nobly-connected bride for his heir together with a seat, by virtue of her lineage, among the great princes of the realm.

Certain distractions gnawed at the edges of the feast: Liath returned, and Prince Sanglant made such a spectacle of himself that Alain was briefly diverted from his fear that Tallia would faint dead away at the high table; the tumblers caught Tallia's attention with their tricks, and for a happy if short span of time he got her to smile at him as he admired—not her, never her, let him show no interest in her or she would retreat as totally in spirit as a turtle pulls into its shell—but rather the lively cart-wheelers and rope-balancers, thin girls of about Tallia's age who had a kind of hard beauty to their faces composed of equal parts skill and coarse living.

The tumblers retreated. Wine flowed. Toasts came fast and furious and then—Ai, God!—it was time.

Servingwomen cleared off their table, he hoisted Tallia up and climbed on after, and eight young lords actually carried the table with the pair of them on it to the guesthouse set aside for their bridal night; crude, certainly, and boisterous as every person there laughed and called out suggestions, but Alain didn't mind the old tradition if only because Tallia had to hold on to him to keep from sliding off. She looked terrified, and actually shrank against him when he put an arm around her to pull her firmly to his side. She was as delicate as a sparrow.

"Here, now," he whispered. "I'll hold you safe." She trustingly pressed her face against his shoulder.

The crowd roared approvingly.

Ai, Lady, Perhaps it was he who would faint. He was deliriously happy.

They let the table down unsteadily by the threshold, and he helped Tallia down. She still clung to him, more afraid of the crowd than of him.

"Who witnesses?" cried out someone in the crowd.

A hundred voices answered.

The king himself came forward to speak the traditional words. "Your consent having been obtained, let this marriage be fittingly consummated so that it can be legal and binding. Let there be an exchange of morning gifts at this door after dawn to signify that consummation." He laughed, in a fine good humor after enough wine to soak a pig, a good meal, and the company of thrilling entertainers and all his good companions. "May you have God's blessing this night," he added, and as a mark of his extreme favor offered Alain his hand to kiss. Alain bent to one knee, took the king's callused hand, and kissed the knuckles. Tallia, sinking to both knees beside him, pressed her uncle's hand to her lips with a faint sigh. The lantern light made their shadows huge along the wall, like elongated giants.

Lavastine stepped forward to open the door for them, an unexpected gesture more like that of servant than lord and father. Alain caught his hands as well and pressed them to his lips.

Everything seemed so much larger and fuller this night: the noise of the crowd, the brush of wind on his face, his love for his father which suddenly seemed to swell until it encompassed the heavens, the joyous barking of the hounds, who had not been allowed to escort them for fear that they would frighten Tallia and become too unruly among such a large and boisterous crowd.

Lavastine took him under the elbow and raised him up. This close, Alain saw a single tear snaking a path down the count's face. Lavastine paused, then took Alain's head gently between his hands and kissed him on the forehead.

"I beg you, Daughter," he said, turning to Tallia. "Make him happy."

Tallia seemed ready to swoon. Alain put an arm around her to support her and, with cheers and lewd suggestions ringing out behind them, helped her in over the threshold.

Servants waited within. A good broad bed stood with its head against one wall of the simple chamber, made comfortable with a feather bed and quilt and a huge bedspread embroidered with the roes of Varre and the black hounds of Lavas. Obviously the bedspread had been in the making for some months. At the other wall stood a table and two handsome chairs. On the table sat a finely-glazed pitcher and a basin, for washing hands and face, and next to them a wooden bowl carved with turtledoves that held ripe berries, and also two gilded cups filled with a heady-scented wine. A wedding loaf, half-wrapped in a linen cloth, steamed in the close air of the little chamber, making his stomach growl. The shutters had been put up to afford privacy for this one night.

The servants unlaced his sandals, untangled him from the complicated knotwork that belted his tunic, removed her blue linen gown, and quickly enough they both stood silent, she in a thin calf-length linen shift and he in knee-length shift and bare legs.

"Go on," he said, giving each of the servants a few silver sceattas as they slipped out. "May God bless you this night."

At last he was alone with Tallia.

She sank down beside the bed in an attitude of prayer, lips pressed to her hands. He could not hear her words. She shivered as at a cold wind, and he saw briefly the shape of her body beneath her shift, the curve of a hip, the ridge of her collarbone, the slight fleeting swell of a breast.

Ai, Lord! He spun to the table, poured out some cold water, and splashed it in his face. He had to lean his weight on the table while he fought to recover himself. Distantly he heard the hounds barking wildly. From the great yard he heard music, the nasal squeal of pipes and the thump of drums. No doubt the celebration would go on all night.

At last he turned. She had not moved. On a whim, he poured more water into the basin and earned it and a soft cloth over to the bed. Setting it on the floor, he knelt beside her.

"I beg you, my lady," he said as softly as if he.were coaxing a mouse out from its hiding place beneath St. Lavrentius' altar in the old church at Lavas Holding, "give me leave to wash your face and hands."

She did not respond at first. She still seemed to be praying. But at last she turned those pale eyes on him as a prisoner pleads wordlessly for a stay of execution. Slowly, she uncurled her hands and held them out to him.

He gasped. Down the center of each palm an ugly scar, still suppurating on her left hand, scored the flesh. Her skin was like a delicate parchment, thin and almost translucent but for those horrible gashes.

He touched them gently with the damp cloth, letting the water soak in to soften the scabbing and the hard runnels of pus. "These must be tended, Tallia! How did you come by these?"

He looked up to see a faint blush stir on her pallid cheeks. Her lips parted; her eyes were very wide. He shut his eyes and swayed into her, caught the scent of her, the dry powder of wheat just before harvest and a trace of incense so fleeting that it was as if it retreated before him. Their lips did not touch.

She whimpered, and he opened his eyes to discover that she had recoiled from him and now, with a hand caught in his grasp, had begun to cry.

"God's mercy! I beg you! Forgive me!" He was a monster to force himself on her in this way. But he could not bear simply to let go of her. Without looking her again in the face, he tended her hands, patiently wetting the scars and gently swabbing the pus from them. When he finished, he dropped the now-dirty cloth into the basin. She was still crying.

"It hurts you. I'm sorry." He could only stammer it. He could not bear to see her in pain.

"Nay, nay," she whispered as he imagined a woman might who, having been violated, is compelled to grant forgiveness to the one who assaulted her. "The pain is nothing. It is not for us to tend the wounds given to us by God's mercy."

"What do you mean?"

The blush still bled color into her cheeks. "I cannot speak of it. It would be prideful if people were to think that God had favored me, for I am no more worthy than any other vessel."

"Do you think this a sign from God—?" He broke off as understanding flooded him. "This is the mark of flaying, is it not?"

"Do you know of the blessed Daisan's sacrifice and redemption?" she asked eagerly, leaning toward him. "But of course you must! You were privileged to walk beside Prater Agius, he who revealed the truth to me!" She was very close to him, her breath a sweet mist on his cheek. "Do you believe in the Redemption?"

He scarcely trusted himself to breathe. Her gaze on him was impassioned, her pulse under his fingers drumming like a racing stag, and he knew in his gut that she had unknowingly revealed to him the means to soften her heart.

But it would be a lie.

"Nay," he said softly. "Prater Agius was a good man, but misguided. I don't believe in the sacrifice and redemption. I can't lie to you, Tallia." Not even if it meant the chance she would open fully to him.

She pulled her hands away from him and clasped them before her, resuming an attitude of prayer. "I beg you, Lord Alain," she said into her hands, her voice falling away until the mice scrabbling in the walls made a greater sound. "I beg you, I have sworn myself to God's service as a pure vessel, a bride to the blessed Daisan, the Redeemer, who sits enthroned in Heaven beside his mother, She who is God and Mercy and Judgment, She who gave breath to the Holy Word. I beg you, do not pollute me here on earth for mere earthly gain."

"But I love you, Tallia!" To have her so close! Her hands pressed against an embroidered golden stag, covering its antlers and head. A pair of slender hind legs, a gold rump and little tuft of a tail peeked out from under her right wrist. "God made us to be husband and wife together, and to bring children into the world!"

The sigh shuddered her whole body. She climbed onto the bed and lay on her back, utterly still, arms limp at her side. "Then do what you must," she murmured in the tone of a woman who has reached the station of her martyrdom.

It was too much. He buried his face in his hands.

After a long time, still hearing her ragged breathing in anticipation of the brute act she expected, he lifted his head. "I won't touch you." He was barely able to force the words out. "Not until you get used to the idea of— But I beg you, Tallia, try to think of me as your husband. For—we must in time—the county needs its heir, and it is our duty—Ai, God, I—I—" His voice failed. He wanted her so badly.

She heaved herself up and knelt on the bed, offering him her hands. "I knew Prater Agius could not be wrong, to speak so well of you."

He dared not clasp her hands in his. It would only waken the feelings he struggled to control. "Agius spoke well of me?" That Agius had thought of him at all astonished him.

"He praised you. So I always held his praise for you in my heart, he whom God allowed a martyr's death. Here." She patted the bed beside her. "Though I am the vessel through which God has sent a holy vision, do not be afraid to lie next to me. I know your heart is pure."

She arranged herself so modestly on her side of the bed that he knew what she meant him to endure, although perhaps it did not seem like endurance to her. But he must do what would please her if he meant to teach her to trust him—and to love him. Wincing, he lay down stiffly on his back and closed his eyes.

Her breathing slowed, gentled, and she slept. He ached too much to sleep, yet he dared not toss and turn. He dared not rise from the bed to pace, for fear of waking her. If he woke her, so close beside him, and she opened her eyes to see him there, limbs brushing, fingers caught in unwitting embrace, lips touching-Madness lay that way, thinking on in this fashion. He did not know what to do, could not do anything but breathe, in and out, in and out. A plank creaked in the next chamber. Mice skittered in the walls, and he could almost taste the patience of a spider which, having spun out its final filament in one upper corner of the chamber, settled down to wait for its first victim. He had forgotten about the bread. Now, cooling, its mellow scent permeated the room and tickled his nose. Tallia shifted on the bed, murmuring in her sleep. Her fingers brushed his.

He could not bear it.

He slid off the bed and lay down on the floor. The hard wood gave him more welcome than the luxurious softness of the feather bed, and here, with his head pillowed on his arms, he finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

He arrived back at Rikin Fjord first of all the sons of Bloodheart—those who survived Gent—and Rikin's OldMother welcomed him without surprise.

"Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter." An OldMother never forgets the smell of each individual blind, seeking pupa that bursts from her nests. But she will stand aside once the battle is joined, as all OldMothers do. She does not care which of her sons leads Rikin's warband now that Bloodheart is dead, only that the strongest among them succeeds. Yet the WiseMothers know that the greatest strength lies in wisdom.