Gods of Green Mountain (45 page)

A few feet from his fire, the figure stopped and looked around, and softly called, "Dray-Gon?"

He got to his feet, about to hurry forward, when small pale hands were lifted, and the hood was removed from a head of brilliant red hair, and the firelight gleamed on citron skin.

Vitality again sagged in him, as he recognized the servant girl, Ray-Mon; the girl he had taken to a carnival so many moons ago, in the days when Sharita had treated him with cold, aloof scorn. He couldn't hide his disappointment, or make himself move forward, so she came to him, smiling, shy, her eyes dark and purple, glittering in the firelight. A few inches away she stopped and looked up into his face.

"Aren't you glad to see me?" she asked in her slightly husky voice.

All he could think of to ask was: "How did you know where to find me?"

"The Princess Sharita told me. She sent me here to live with you."

Stunned, surprised, and suddenly very angry he almost yelled, "She sent you? Why didn't she come herself?"

Ray-Mon backed away, clutching the long cloak about her. In a small voice she answered: "The princess is kept under lock and key and sees no one. It is easy for a servant girl to slip out of the palace, and out of the city unseen."

"You traveled here alone?" he asked, disbelieving she would have the courage.

"Yes, alone, and only at night. I hid during the day."

He glared at her bitterly. "I will take you back tomorrow. This is no place for you to be, and soon I will leave this valley."

"No, you can't. The princess says you must stay here."

"Be damned to what the princess says I must do! She sends me a servant girl to take her place, so that she can live in safety in the palace, and be a queen! That's the kind of love she has for me!"

The deep purple eyes scanned over his angry face. "If she had come, would you be happier?"

Dray-Gon pounded his right fist into his left palm, wanting to strike something violently. "Yes!" he flared bitterly. "I would be happier, but I would take her back tomorrow to the palace. This is no place for her or for you to be confined within walls, to see no one but yourself and hear no voice but your own, is no life at all."

Now she came slowly toward him. "But with me here, it will be different, Dray-Gon. See," she said, allowing the cloak to fall to the grass, "I have worn the necklace you gave me every day, praying for your safety, because I love you. I have loved you from the first day we met."

She was beautiful in her own way, and had all the curves and charms of Sharita, yet he turned away and sat again before the fire, and picked up his knife to whittle fiercely on the small figure, so fiercely, he ruined his work. "Tomorrow I take you back to the palace," he said harshly, "and you can tell the princess I don't want her conciliatory gift. You don't love me, Ray-Mon; you don't know me well enough to feel anything but a kind of infatuation. Love doesn't spurt up like an instant bonfire, consuming all reason, it flickers and falters, and sometimes almost goes out. The fact that it doesn't go out, despite all the rain that falls on it--that's love. Now bed yourself down and go to sleep, for tomorrow night early, I'm taking you back."

Hunching down by the fire, she took over the meal he was preparing in a small pot, and from his supplies, she added a pinch of this and that to his stew, and silently served it to him when it was done. He ate it, acknowledging it was better than anything he had prepared yet for himself. Yet, he didn't thank her. She ate silently as he did. Raising her eyes only occasionally to look at him. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

While they ate, their two horshets were nuzzling and becoming acquainted with one another. The male and female puhlet were nestling down together, making small throat noises as they rubbed against one another.

Reunited

A
s the small fire sputtered out, and the night grew cold, Ray-Mon timidly asked: "Where am I to sleep?"

"Anywhere you want! The tent--I will sleep out here."

"But there is a dampness to this valley, and the ground will be wet with dew in the morning. You will catch cold."

Alertly Dray-Gon lifted his head to stare at her. "How would you know that?"

Color flooded her face. "The princess told me from Es-Trall's descriptions of how it would be living here."

"All right," he agreed. "I will set up another tent, since you brought one with you." As he unpacked her bags of supplies, he was amazed to see how well she had planned for this trip, just as if she had given it much thought. Then he realized what he was doing, and hastily put all her things back in the bags. She was leaving tomorrow. Definitely!

He put up her tent, and placed a cot, and mutely gestured to her that all was ready. Just as silently, she left the dying warmth of the fire and entered the tent to undress. Illuminated in her tent, every movement she made was sharply silhouetted as this article of clothing was taken off, and then that. Naked, she slipped into bed, but not before she had given Dray-Gon ample opportunity to see how beautifully she was formed beneath those shabby, cheap, ill-fitting clothes. Deliberately she had done that! Why he had never even seen Sharita without clothes, not even silhouetted through the golden cloth of a tent. A few times he had seen her in a transparent nightgown--briefly seen, never enough. He angrily threw dirt on the guttering fire, and then threw a disgusted look at the two horshets so contentedly amorous.

He stripped off his clothes, bathed in the rock basin pool, and before a mirror in his tent, he shaved his face. Mocking himself as he did. He thought of Sharita locked in her rooms, refusing to eat; waiting for her wedding day to Arth-Rin--and she had sent him a substitute bride! Damn her! The trip to the Gods had changed nothing! It was still the same old war between men and women!

Partially asleep, Dray-Gon heard the flap of his tent move, and then the whisper of perfumed scent. Ray-Mon was close. It was very dim in the tent, but he could see well enough to observe she wore nothing but the silver-chained pendant around her neck--the one he had given her long ago. "I don't love you, Ray-Mon," he murmured, even as he lifted his covers and invited her into his bed. And she came, willingly slipping in beside him, pressing close, covering his lips with hers, and filling him with so much instant passion, the rest became a blur of ecstasy saved up for a princess, and given to a servant girl.

In the morning she was up and had breakfast going before he came out of the tent. His clothes she had washed in the pool, and they were hung up to dry on a line he had strung. He saw his boots clean and shining from freshly applied polish, and a flat rock was spread with a tablecloth, and star-flowers were in a small vase centering the improvised table. Imagine, she had brought a vase...As she worked, he couldn't see her face too well, for her long silken red hair kept falling forward to conceal her profile. Already she had made a home out of a barren valley.

The breakfast she prepared was the most delicious meal he had eaten in weeks and weeks. Repleted, he guiltily tried not to think of Sharita locked in her room and refusing to eat. After breakfast, he set out as customary, to climb the highest mountain and use the telescope to check the palace tower, and see if the royal flag flew there today. But Ray-Mon came and stayed him. "Let this be our day, for you will take me back tonight, and you do care for me just a little bit more today than yesterday, no?"

He looked at her, torn with indecision. But she ran, throwing off her clothes as she did, looking back over her shoulder and challenging him to catch her. Then he was running after her, throwing off his clothes, catching her, and throwing her on the ground, both laughing like children until lust came and took them both again.

Then he would continue the play and start to toss her in the pool...but she backed away, suddenly terrified-looking. He taunted, teased. Oh, she was afraid of water, was she? Didn't she know how to swim? Then he would teach her to swim before the day was over. With that he ran and caught her, and threw her into the rock basin pool. She screamed with the shock of the cold water coming from deep inside the inner-earth. Dray-Gon jumped in to save her--but it wasn't needed! She could swim better and faster than he could. Out of the daylight she swam, following the stream of water as it entered into a mountain, and into darkness. He caught hold of her flashing foot and hauled her back, roughly holding her as she struggled to free herself. "What's the matter?" he managed to blurt, throwing water from his head and mouth. "Why are you so afraid--I'm only playing!"

"Let me go, let me go!" she cried, fighting him. "If there's one thing I hate, it's a man who uses his strength on a woman."

Into the sunlit pool he swam, hauling her along by her long hair. By the Gods, she was almost drowning him in her efforts to get away, when only a few minutes ago they had met in joy and passion, and she had held nothing back. She broke from his grasp, and quickly sprang from the pool, and ran naked over the grass. Only seconds was she free before he caught her again, and threw her down on the grass. Straddling her, he looked down in shocked amazement. She was smeared with red dye, streaking her body. Grabbing up an article of clothing she had discarded, Dray-Gon roughly began to dry her hair. The cloth came away as scarlet as blood--and tinged with green stain from her skin. With her eyes wide and half-frightened, she allowed him to finish what he had started. Then her hair was all wild about her cleaned face, almost silver, almost gold, and tinged pink where the dye still clung.

"You fool!" he cried. "You wonderful, beautiful, crazy girl! Why did you do it this way? Your eyes--I can understand the temporary hair dye, and the stained skin--but your purple eyes?"

Sitting up, she flung her arms about him. "Does it matter? I love you, and now I know you really love me, and not some silly little shallow light-headed servant girl who wore your pendant every day since you hung it about her neck." From the pocket of her discarded skirt, she took the sparkling pendant he had given Ray-Mon, and fitted over it, the royal crest of the house of Far-Awn. The same created pendant he had seen about her neck every day. Then, bowing her head, she lifted her hands and used something to take from her eyes two small round disks colored purple. Again he was staring at her, looking now into eyes violet, almost blue. "It was you--all the time--at the carnival too?"

Nodding and laughing, she hugged him tight, then laid her head on his shoulder. "It was my way to find out what you were really like--to escape the palace and the guards who always follow me about. And it was a wonderful day--and the other times we met, just as wonderful. They were the only days of my life that I have lived just as an ordinary person, and experienced city life on the streets, or else I would never know. Es-Trall made for me the disks to change my eye color. He is the most marvelous little old man, and was so pleased to assist me in deceiving you. He thought it very romantic."

Dray-Gon broke in here, "But you tricked me! Deliberately set out to deceive me! Sharita, I can understand why you disguised yourself and sought to discover what I was like with a girl not a princess, but last night I wanted you so badly that I took Ray-Mon into my bed and made myself think it was you!" He seized her shoulders, shaking her, strong emotions shifting on his face like sands blown by the winds. "Even this morning, eating breakfast, I felt so guilty, thinking of you, starving yourself, locked up in your rooms! Damn it! Why couldn't you have told me sooner?"

Kisses she put on his face until all his anger simmered down. "Darling, I did it my way so you could find out whom you preferred, Ray-Mon or me. So what did I find out? Last night you whispered Sharita several times," and here her eyes teased mockingly, "but there was another night when you made love to a princess, and you whispered a servant girl's name."

Glowering he thrust her away and began pulling on his clothes. "I'm taking you back, princess! So get dressed, and quick! You've made a fool of me, pulling a deceitful, sneaky trick...and I don't like it!"

"Dray-Gon," Sharita began in her most haughty tone, not picking up one article of clothing so she could dress. "Now you sit there and listen to me! I am a princess, with a limited number of men to choose from--the sons of twenty bakarets only. And to me, you seemed the least likely, coming from a barbaric province that allows men to have more than one wife at a time. And I'd heard rumors about you and your wild ways, and everything I heard convinced me you were a savage. Yet, when I met you, determined as I was to hate you, I couldn't. So I set out to find out what you were like as a man with a pretty girl, and not as a bakaret's son with a princess. And I must say, you treated that little servant girl with much more gallantry and sweetness than you have ever treated me!"

He had only his boots and his shirt on as he glared at her. "Oh, is that so? Well let me tell you something. That little nothing servant girl was a gay, charming, pleasing, soft, and gentle loving girl while a certain cold and arrogant princess has turned me off completely!"

"If you want a meek, timid, docile wife, then don't marry me!"

"Have I asked you to marry me? Is my formal proposal on your father's desk--or hidden away inside it? Have you forgotten I am an exile and can't marry anyone! I am a nothing now. I don't exist. My name has been wiped from all the record books. When our trip to talk with the Gods is recorded, I won't be mentioned. How do you think that makes me feel?" He stepped into his pants and drew them up, his eyes flashing with anger and frustration. He bent to sweep up her shabby clothes and threw them at her. "Get dressed, my high and mighty princess--for I am taking you back so you can marry Arth-Rin!"

"I will never marry Arth-Rin," she said calmly in the face of all his temper.

"You will marry whom your father tells you to marry! You could do worse!"

"And I can do better too. So if you try to force me to leave here, when we are outside of this cave, I will scream and scream until the outlaws hear me...and then they will discover us both, and we will both die, for if they kill you, I will kill myself." She held out her arms to him. "Dray-Gon, this may well be the only time you and I have all to ourselves, without any responsibilities. Can't we think of something else to do besides fight?" For a moment he held back; then he dropped down beside her and gathered her in his arms. "We are going to have a wonderful life, darling," she whispered, "never a dull moment. Just wait until my father learns he is about to become a grandfather. He will move Bay Gar and Bay Sol to hold that baby in his arms, and he won't, unless he finds a way to exonerate both you and me from any guilt for Mark-Kan's death."