Stormqueen! (19 page)

“Darren,” she pleaded, kneeling beside his motionless form. “Darren, get up! I didn’t mean to hurt you, only you mustn’t try to maul me like that. I don’t like it. Darren! Darren! Did I really hurt you? Cousin, kinsman, speak to me!” But he was silent, and in sudden terror, heedless of her disheveled hair and torn gown, she ran toward the door of the ballroom.

Donal
! It was the only thought in her mind.
Donal will know what to do! I must find Donal
!

Donal, alert to his sister’s cry of panic, resounding in his mind even though it was not audible within the ballroom, bad made a hasty excuse to the elderly friend of his grandfather who had come to speak with him, and hurried in search of her, led by the soundless cry.

That bastard Darren
! He opened the balcony door and his sister fell into his arms, her hair half unbound, her dress open at the throat.

“Dorilys!
Chiya
, what has happened?” he said, his heart pounding, his throat sticking with dread. Gods above, would even Darren presume to lay rough hands on a girl of eleven?

“Come,
bredilla
. No one must see you like this. Come, smooth your hair,
chiya;
lace your bodice, quickly,” he urged, thinking grimly that this must be kept from their father. He would quarrel with his kinsmen of Scathfell. It never crossed Donal’s mind that such a quarrel might redound to his personal benefit. “Don’t cry, little sister. No doubt he was drunk and did not know what he was doing. Now you see why a young woman must not drink so much she has not her wits about her, to keep young men from getting such ideas. Come, Dorilys, don’t cry,” he begged.

She said, her voice shaking, “It’s Darren… I hurt him. I don’t know what’s wrong; he just lies there and will not speak to me. He kissed me too roughly. At first I wanted him to kiss me, but then he grew rough and I made him stop, and he hit me - and I was angry and I - I made the lightning come, but I didn’t want to hurt him, really I didn’t. Please, Donal, come and see what is wrong with him.”

Avarra, merciful goddess
! Donal, his breath coming in gasps, followed his sister onto the dark balcony, kneeling beside Darren, but already he knew what he should find. Darren, his face raised to the dark sky, lay motionless, his body already growing cold.

“He’s dead, Dorilys; you’ve killed him,” he said, drawing her into his arms in fierce protectiveness, feeling her whole body shaking like a tree in the wind. Around the heights of Castle Aldaran the thunders crashed and rolled, slowly fading into silence.

CHAPTER TEN

And now,” said Lord Scathfefl somberly, “if the gods will, we shall hear the truth of this dreadful business.”

The guests had been cleared away, escorted to their rooms or to their horses. Over the heights of Castle Aldaran the great red sun was beginning to show a wet crimson face through the heavy banks of cloud. Darren’s body had been carried to the chapel deep in tht heart of the castle. Donal had never liked Darren, but he could not keep back pity as he saw the young man lying stark and astonished, his clothing disarrayed, his head flung back in the spasm of agony and terror which had ended his life.
He came to an undignified end
, Donal thought, and would have arranged the young man’s clothing in more seemly fashion; then it occurred to him that this would remove all traces of Dorilys’s only defense.

Blood-guilt on so young a child
, he thought with a shudder, and stepped back from the corpse and went out to Lord Aldaran’s presence-chamber.

Margali had been roused from the heavy sleep which had fallen over her at the cessation of pain; she was there, a thick shawl thrown over her night-robe, Dorilys sobbing in her arms. The girl looked like an exhausted child now, her face blotched with long crying, her hair coming down in stray locks and tendrils, her swollen eyelids drooping sleepily over her eyes. She had almost stopped crying, but every now and then a renewed spasm of sobs would shake her thin shoulders. She was sitting in Margali’s lap like the child she was, though her long legs dragged on the floor. Her elaborate gown was bedraggled and crushed.

Over the child’s head Margali looked at Lord Mikhail of Aldaran and said, “Will you have truthspell, then, my lord? Very well, but let me at least call her nurse and put the child to bed. She has been awake all night, and you can see - ” She moved her head, indicating the weeping, disheveled Dorilys, clinging to her.

“I am sorry,
mestra
. Dorilys must remain,” Aldaran said. “We must hear what she has to say, too, I fear, and under truthspell… Dorilys” - his voice was gentle - “let go of your foster-mother, my child, and go and sit there beside Donal. No one will hurt you; we only want to know what happened.”

Reluctantly, Dorilys loosed her grip from Margali’s neck. She was rigid, gripped with terror. Donal could not help but think of a rabbithorn before a pack of mountain beasts. She came and sat on the low bench beside him. Donal put out his hand to her and the childish fingers gripped it, painfully tight. With her free hand she wiped her smeared face on the sleeve of her gown.

Margali took her matrix from the silken bag around her throat, gazed for a moment into the blue jewel, and her low, clear voice was distinctly audible, though she was almost whispering, in the silence of the presence-chamber.

“In the light of the fire of the jewel, let the truth lighten this room where we stand.”

Donal had seen the setting of truthspell many times, and it had never ceased to awe him. From the small blue jewel, a glow began, slowly suffused the face of the
leronis
, crept out into the room, creeping slowly from face to face. Donal felt the shimmer of the light on his own face, saw it glowing on the blotched face of the child at his side, saw it lightening the face of Rakhal of Scathfell and the paxman who stood motionless at his back. In the blue light Mikhail of Aldaran looked more than ever like some aged and molting bird of prey, motionless on his block, but when he raised his head the power and the menace were there, silent potential.

Margali said, “It is done, my lord. The truth alone may be spoken here while this light endures.”

Donal knew that if falsehoods were knowingly spoken under the truthspell, the light would vanish from the face of the speaker, showing instantly that he lied.

“Now,” said Mikhail of Aldaran, “you must tell us what you know of this, Dorilys. How came Darren to die?”

Dorilys raised her face. She looked pitiable, her face smeared and blotched with weeping, her eyes swollen, and again she wiped her nose on the elaborate sleeves of her gown. She clung hard to Donal’s hand, and he could feel her trembling. Aldaran had never before used the commanding voice on his daughter. After a moment she said, “I - I didn’t know he was dead,” and blinked rapidly as if she were about to cry again.

Rakhal of Scathfell said, “He is dead. My eldest son is dead. Have no doubt about that, you - “

“
Silence
!” With the sound of the commanding voice, even Lord Scathfell let his voice die into quiet. “Now, Dorilys, tell us what befell between Darren and you. How came the lightnings to strike him?”

Dorilys slowly gained command of her voice. “We were warm from dancing, and he said we should go out on the balcony. He began to kiss me, and he - ” Her voice shook again, uncontrollably. “He unlaced my gown and touched me, and he would not stop when I bade him.” She blinked hard, but the truthlight on her face did not falter. “He said I should let him take me now so that Father could not delay the marriage. And he kissed me roughly; he hurt me.” Her hands went up to cover her face, and she shook with a fresh outburst of sobs.

Aldaran’s face was set like stone. He said, “Don’t be afraid, my daughter; but you must let our kinsmen see your face.”

Donal took Dorilys’s hands in his. He could feel the agony of her fear and shame as if it were pulsing out through her small hands.

She said, stammering, into the unflickering truthlight, “He - he hit me hard when I pushed him away, and he knocked me down on the floor, and then he got down on the floor beside me, and I was - I was scared, and I hit him with the lightnings. I didn’t want to hurt him; I only wanted him to take his hands off me!”

“You! You killed him, then! You struck him with your witch-lightnings, you fiend from hell!” Scathfell rose, advanced from his seat, his hand raised as if to strike.

“Father! Don’t let him hurt me!” Dorilys cried out in shrill terror. A blue blaze of lightning struck outward, and Rakhal of Scathfell reeled back, stopped dead in his tracks, clutching at his heart. The paxman came and supported his faltering lord to his seat.

Donal said, “My lords, if she had not struck him down, I would myself have called challenge on him! To seek to ravish a girl of eleven!” His hand clutched at his sword as if the dead man stood before him.

Aldaran’s voice was filled with sorrow and bewilderment as he turned to Lord Scathfell. “Well, my brother, you have seen. I regret this, more than I can say; but you have seen the truthlight on the child’s face, and it seems to me there is little fault in her, either. How came your son to attempt a thing so unseemly at his own handfasting - to try to rape his intended bride?”

“It never occurred to me that he would need to rape,” Scathfell said, anger beating through his words. “It was I who told him, simply, to make sure of her. Did you truly think we would agree to wait for years while you sought out a more advantageous marriage? A blind man could have seen that the girl was marriageable, and the law is clear: if a handfasted couple lie together, the marriage is legal from that moment. It was I who told my son to make sure of his bride.”

“I should have known,” Aldaran said bitterly. “You did not trust me, brother? But here stands the
leronis
who brought my daughter to the light. Under truthspell, Margali, how old is Dorilys?”

“It is true,” the
leronis
said into the blue truthlight. “I took her from Aliciane’s dead body eleven summers ago. But even if she had been of marriageable age, my lord of Scathfell, why should you connive at the seduction of your own niece?”

“Yes, we should hear that, too,” Mikhail of Aldaran said. “Why, my brother? Could you not trust the dues of kin?”

“It is you who have forgotten kinship’s dues,” Scathfell flung at him. “Need you ask, brother? When you would have had Darren wait years while you schemed to find some way to give all to the bastard of Rockraven, whom you call fosterling. That bastard son you will not even acknowledge!”

Without stopping to think, Donal rose from his seat and stepped to the paxman’s place, three steps behind Mikhail of Aldaran. His hand hovered a few niches above his sword-hilt Lord Aldaran did not look around at Donal, but the words were wrenched from him.

“Would to all the gods that your words were true! Would that Donal had been born of my blood, lawfully or unlawful! No man could ask more in kinsman or son! But alas - alas, with grief I say it - and in the light of truthspell, Donal is not my son.”

“Not your son? Truly?” Scathfell’s voice was contorted with fury. “Why, then, why else would an old man so forget kinship’s dues if he were not unseemly besotted with the boy? If not your son, then it must be he is your minion!”

Donal’s hand flashed to sword-hilt. Aldaran, sensing his intent, reached out and gripped Donal’s wrist in steel fingers, squeezing until Donal’s hand relaxed and he let the sword slide back into the scabbard, undrawn.

“Not beneath this roof, foster-son; he is still our guest.” Then he let Donal’s wrist go, advancing on the lord of Scathfell, and Donal thought again of a hawk swooping on his prey. “Had any man but my brother spoken such words I would tear the lie from his throat. Get out! Take up the body of that foul ravisher you called son, and all your lackeys, and get you gone from my roof before indeed I forget the dues of kin!”

“Your roof indeed, but not for long, my brother,” Scathfell said between his teeth. “I will tear it down stone from stone around your head, ere it goes to the bastard of Rockraven!”

“And I will burn it over my own head, before it goes to any son of Scathfell,” Lord Aldaran retorted. “Be gone from my house before high noon, else my servants shall drive you forth with whips! Get you back to Scathfell, and think lucky I do not harry you forth from that stronghold as well, which you hold by my favor. I make allowance for your grief, or I would have revenge in your heart’s blood for what you have said and done here today! Get you gone to Scathfell, or where you will, but come into my presence no more, nor call me again brother!”