Gods of Green Mountain (18 page)

He thinks I have everything, Sharita thought. Seriously she considered before replying. "In truth, I have asked myself that same question many times. Let me tell you how I spend my days, and then you might be able to understand why I might not have as much as you think. First, I am awakened very early in the morning, because I have a succession of tutors that come one after the other. A princess has to be prepared to be a ruler, so I have to learn all the provincial languages--yours included, which I speak rather well, don't you think?" He nodded, half-smiling.

"Then," Sharita continued, "I must keep abreast of the news, so I read at least twenty newspapers a day, and several hundred books per month. And I am supposed to be knowledgeable about most every subject, so that keeps me busy. I don't really give a damn about the way bygar is made, but I must know, so I won't appear stupid if ever the subject comes up. Like tonight; I can tell you that a few humming insects did live on old El Sod-a-Por. No one ever noticed, because they were deep asleep." She gave him a flashing smile. "Do you want to hear more about my day?"

"Everything...every detail!" he stated so emphatically that it caused her to smile again.

"Well, it will be a long telling, so I'll give you only a brief outline. After a full morning of tutors educating me on every subject, I grab a hurried bite of lunch, so I can be ready for the afternoon's activities. You see, a princess must always, at all times, look beautiful and well groomed, and that means hours and hours of standing and having clothes fitted, and while I do this, I dictate letters to my secretary in reply to hundreds of letters I receive each day from people I have never met. I think it is nice that they write, but I wish sometimes they had other things to do. Then I waste other hours while my hair is washed and brushed and curled, and my nails are done, and I am oiled and perfumed, and made to feel uncomfortable if I sit down and wrinkle my dress. Then there are certain social functions that I can't escape, or else someone will be very insulted, so I go, hating every minute of it. I have two days a week that are really my own, in which I can walk about my apartment as casually dressed as I wish, and that is where I stay on those days, because only up there can I be really free to be me: just a girl, who would like very much to be like other girls, without every moment planned in advance.

"Nothing unexpected ever happens to me. Though everyone thinks I lead a glamorous life, it is really the life of a drone: study, study, study, and prepare for the day when I will rule. And study again to always be polite, and more study on how to converse with people when they don't want to listen, and how to smile when I feel like crying, and how to look comfortable when my feet are killing me from standing for hours in the hot sunlight watching a parade I don't want to see.

"So, on my free days, I stay with little pets who expect nothing of me at all, but love, food, and water."

During this long recitation, Dray-Gon had fully relaxed, and sat now with his arm stretched along the back of the bench, his fingertips just lightly touching Sharita's shoulder. "You make it all sound very dull, I admit. But you still haven't told me what you want that you don't have."

"It's funny," she said in the easy manner in which she talked to her father, "I know so much better what I don't want than what I do."

"Then, by listing what you don't want, by the process of elimination, we will perhaps discover what is left over for you to desire."

"Oh, that would take too long!" Sharita laughed, beginning to enjoy herself. "You would end up either extremely bored by my extensive list, or would consider me very ungrateful, spoiled, and totally uncompromising."

Dray-Gon smiled widely, his strong teeth shining in the moonlight. "I could never be bored with you, princess. And I can't imagine that you are any one of those three unpleasant things."

"But I am," she said truthfully, "not only one, but all three...and I have other unpleasant personality traits too. Just this morning I heard from my father about them. He lectured me thoroughly, so I felt humbled when he left..."

"Did he ask you to be nice to me?" asked Dray-Gon in a soft voice, his hand moving to stroke her bare back. "If he hadn't asked you to be pleasant, you wouldn't be sitting here with me now, would you?" With that, he quickly seized her in a strong grasp, and drew her hard against him, crushing his lips down hard on hers. A long, thorough kiss that Sharita tried futilely to avoid, as she struggled to push him away. She had been kissed before, but never like this. Not so ruthlessly, so demandingly. She was gasping, breathless, with her heart pounding when his lips traveled lower, to her neck, to her bosom.

Summoning all her strength, she shoved him away, jumped to her feet, and ran back toward the palace stairs that led to the terraces and the ballroom beyond.

Dray-Gon caught her roughly by the arm, halfway there. "Why are you running? Are you afraid of me? I thought a princess never lost her control--and there you are, running away like a common schoolgirl!"

She tore her arm free from his strong grasp, and spat at him passionately, "Why did you wear that coat?"

He was taken aback. Surprised. For a moment he couldn't understand what she meant. He glanced down at his jacket, lifting his brows to eye her quizzically. "What's wrong with this coat? It is a very good coat. Warm enough when it's cold. Cool enough when it's hot."

"It's a coat made of puhlet fur!" Sharita flared angrily, her eyes snapping with fire. "You wore it here deliberately as a direct insult to my father, to all Upper Dorrainians, and to me!"

"Upper Dorrainians were not too proud to wear puhlet fur when they needed to..." Dray-Gon said in the beginnings of his own anger.

"That is exactly the point I am making! We wore puhlet fur when we needed to! When we had no other source of clothing warmth. Now we wear manufactured clothes. We don't kill our animals; most especially we don't kill the puhlets, who were responsible for all our good fortune!"

"That, my dear princess, is a debatable point!"

"Then by all means, let us debate! My mother is a native of Bari-Bar, and I have inherited some of what they have in excess. So go on...make your point!"

"Here and now, princess? This hardly seems the proper time and place. I had hoped for a less formidable pastime." He grinned at her in a rakish, bedeviling way. "I don't think my kisses were nearly as unappreciated as you pretend. Thinking back, I recall you responded, so you are not made of ice as I've heard."

Sharita's eyes darkened with rage. "That is exactly the fault with you Lower Dorrainians! You refuse to be serious, ever, on any subject but play! Ask a direct question, and a Lower will always find some way to be evasive! I had hoped a direct confrontation would compel an honest explanation of that coat--but what do I get? Just a supercilious comment about kisses!"

He bowed very low before her, in an exaggerated demonstration of respect and subjugation. "You are so right, princess," he said sneeringly. "I stand accused. All of Lower Dorraine stands accused and found guilty. We are evasive, slippery, devious, incapable of being straightforward, honest, and sincere! We leave all those commendable character builders to the intelligent and superior people of Upper El Dorraine!"

"You are altogether impossible! I knew you would be!"

"Quite naturally I am altogether impossible--considering who and what I am!"

She glared at him, almost breathless, surprised to find her small foot raising and stomping hard on the ground like a child. "You are a crude, uncouth barbarian! A savage!"

"Can I help that? I am from Lower Dorraine. What other way can I be?"

"I suggest you and your father leave immediately!"

"No! No one gives me orders. I didn't plan to come and do it this way--I had my own way planned, but my father insisted I come along with him, instead of by myself, so I could be formally presented. But I have no intentions of leaving until I have what I came for, and that, my dear Sharita, is you!"

The princess paled and backed away a few steps. "How many wives do you have now?" she asked in scornful contempt.

"I can't recall--I think one for each night in the week."

"Then you don't need another!" she flared, her face flaming with color now as she began to tremble. "That is another detestable thing about you barbarians--more than one wife at a time! It is sinful!"

"Why?" he bit back, thrusting his strong face close to hers. "More females are born than males, and if we don't have more than one wife, some women will go through life without a husband--and we live a mighty long time to be tied to one tiresome woman forever."

"Oh, but you are one degenerate, despicable man! Do you realize how abhorrent that sounds to me? I will never,
never
be a member of any man's harem!"

"Never
is a great big absolute word, princess, and you can play your game of resisting, for it lends to the excitement of the conquest. And you may have forgotten that our 'kind' are expert at playing games--it is our one forte--and we seldom, if ever, lose."

Sharita swallowed, refusing to back away another step, though his hands gripped her shoulders so hard she was certain to be bruised. "I don't believe you at all..." she stammered in disbelief. "A few minutes ago, when we were introduced, you stood there speechless, quivering like an inexperienced, callow boy, and now you tell me you have so many wives you can't recall the number."

"I was struck dumb by your beauty. I knew you were beautiful, but I never guessed how you would make me feel. I felt like a callow youth when you looked at me with those haughty arrogant eyes. Then you looked me over, just as thoroughly as a man looks over a woman he hopes to bed, and I realized you were human after all, not some vision too heavenly to touch."

The princes lifted her hand and slapped Dray-Gon's face, leaving the red print of her palm on his cheek. He looked angry enough to slap back, but he smiled instead.

"Sharita, for you I will divorce all my other wives," he said in a voice so low and soft it seemed a purr. Then he was laughing as Sharita turned about and ran, forgetting entirely her instructions on courtly and royal dignity, that she should never, under any circumstances, run.

Ras-Far spotted his daughter coming toward him, and he smiled. Wanting to question her as she sat again at his side, but the set expression on her face warned she would harbor no inquiries. Tomorrow he would ask, when they were alone in her apartment, and her little pets were about her, she would turn to him, be needing of his understanding.

A few minutes only passed before a handsome young nobleman from nearby Bar-Troth swept a low bow before the princess. "I would be very honored if the most beautiful girl in the world would dance with me."

Sharita threw Dray-Gon, who had followed, a devastating hard look, plainly letting him know this was how a gentleman acted. The young man before her was the same man who had been treated very coolly only months before at her birthday ball. But this time she smiled and responded in her most charming way. Floating off on his arm, without looking at Dray-Gon, who was now with his father.

Once more the music soared; once more the flashing dancers spun to its delight. Previously closed doors were opened to reveal long rows of tables spread with an array of epicurean delights, and fountains flowed with the red, purple, and clarified white wines of the pufars grown in darkness.

Overhead, through the skylights, the transparent dome revealed the plum night sky. No one looked up to see the stars vanish one by one. Not one of the dancers trembled when the dark clouds swept in and swallowed each of the triple moons.

Out on the wildplains, the tender young trees again were forced to bow to the ground, groveling before the mighty, blustering cold winds from Bay Gar. All of the tree fringes so newly sprouted were torn without mercy from the pleading limbs. The sky opened, and a torrent of water spilled. The winds took the rain and drove it rapier sharp at the hills, at the dry dun-colored earth, at the shimmering domes of the cities. The sluicing waters gouged through the ravines, through the earth crevices, washing them clean of what life had started there, and what animal life had hidden there.

The playfulness of Bay Gar seemed to arouse the sleeping giant of Bay Sol. It arose, stretching and yawning, eager for the game. Ominously it spun, gathering power as it raced in a headlong, pell-mell fashion, baring its teeth and snarling as it headed toward El Dorraine.

Over the upper borderlands, the hot winds charged and clashed with the cold winds. The crackling thunder of their meeting split the heavens, and rocked the ground below! The weather seemed to draw back, and then charge forward once more, making a second attempt to create the most thunderous crescendo ever heard! Jagged yellow fire-arrows sizzled down and spat on the mountains; upon the hills. They sliced huge boulders apart as neatly as a sharp knife separates soft melon fruit! The split boulders tumbled, taking others with them, and the rock fall grew into a swelling avalanche. The rushing waters loosened those boulders that might have held.