The Fall of Neskaya (25 page)

Deftly, she stepped to put the stool with the
rryl
between them.

“Oh, so it’s like that? You want to play games? Good! I like a woman with spirit.”

“I will not be pawed like some barmaid! Remember who I am, and that I have just lost my husband!”

He circled around the chair and placed both hands on its back, grinning more broadly now. “Your pretty little maid wasn’t so shy. What was her name? Betheny, Britteny, something like that. Oh, yes, she was most welcoming.” He ran his fingers through his golden hair, and she saw it was slightly damp as if he had just come from the bath. And bed.

Taniquel’s hands tightened into fists as her face flamed in earnest. She managed to think instead of physically striking him. Why would he tell her this? Was taking her lady-in-waiting for an afternoon tumble an unsubtle reminder of his power, something designed to humiliate her? Did he intend to keep the girl as
barragana
under her own roof?

“You have no decency!”

“Oh, I have a great deal of decency. Like the
cristoforos,
I take no woman unwilling. We must understand each other.”

She shook her head. “You mean that
I
must understand
you
. That
you
intend to do whatever you please, whether
I
agree or not.”

“Just the opposite. What happens depends entirely on you.” He moved toward her, hands low, voice soothing as for a young and restive horse. “I have no desire to frighten you. Look at you, trembling like a leaf. I would have you tremble for quite a different, infinitely more pleasurable reason. I’m a simple man, easy to win over. A word here, a caress there, and you’ll have my heart at your feet. You’re a very beautiful woman, did you know that? I shall bring you looking glasses of silver polished like the face of Mormallor, so you can see the light of your face. How ravishing you are, with your cheeks all red like that!”

Taniquel swayed on her feet, half-lulled by his rhythmic words. She shifted to keep the stool and chair between them, only slower now, so that he gained on her.

“No, don’t move away,” he murmured. “I won’t hurt you. I only want to touch your cheeks, to feel your hair. It’s like a cloud of unspun silk. I’ve never seen anything like it. You have nothing to fear from me. Nothing will happen unless you want it to. And believe me, my lovely, that when you beg me to touch you, when you welcome me with the passion I know is within you, I will have no desire to look elsewhere.”

Taniquel flinched as if he had slapped her. He was suggesting—this arrogant lecher—that she beg him to touch her, that
she
make love to
him!

“I have not consented to this marriage,” she said stiffly.

“Why do you make things so difficult for yourself? We will be married, and I would far rather have you as an eager bride. Was your first marriage such a burden? Are you a secret lover of women? If so, I will show you the pleasures to be found in the arms of a real man. Oh, yes, I look forward very much to showing you that. And every word out of your mouth only tells me how very much you need it.”

Taniquel gasped, but managed to keep silent. He was
enjoying
her resistance! She lowered her eyes, trying her best for the appearance of confused modesty. Perhaps if she seemed to be persuaded . . . “Please, it has all been so sudden. I need a little more time.”

“I am no barbarian, as you will see. I grant you until our wedding night. I will even leave you now, so that your ladies may properly dress you. Something that suits your coloring, I think.”

With those words, he left her. Taniquel stood for a moment, chest heaving as if she’d run the length of the castle and back again.

I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here now.
But if she did not appear at dinner, the hunt would be up within the hour. She could not get far enough to escape them. Somehow, she must find a way to keep Belisar at bay and that accursed
laranzu
out of her thoughts until her chance came.

Minutes later, Verella, Betteny, Piadora, and a coarse-faced girl she didn’t recognize, swept into the room. Betteny giggled a great deal, and Piadora looked as if she’d been crying again. The new girl jumped whenever spoken to and could only stare in confusion at the contents of the wardrobe.

“No, not that,” Taniquel said when Betteny held out the gown of peacock-hued silk. The color turned her skin into creamy porcelain and heightened the brilliance of her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to appear healthy, lively, or beautiful. She pointed to a stiffly embroidered tunic of dull orange, a gift from the old King, who had no color sense. She’d worn it exactly once and had kept it only in his memory, for the orange made her look, as Padrik had put it, “half cousin to a fungus, kept out of the light in damp dark places.”

“That one.”

Piadora wrinkled her nose. “The embroidery is very beautiful. See how skillfully the threads of gold are worked into the starburst design, but . . .”

“But it’s something your grandmother would wear!” Betteny giggled, smoothing her own softly draped bodice across her generously curved breasts. “It won’t show anything of your figure!”

Taniquel sighed inwardly. “It is both costly and dignified. Entirely suitable to honor the new King.”
And you can have both of them together if you want them!

The last few days had seen the sitting room transformed. A huge, age-worn carpet replaced the runners which had showed the pale stone Padrik loved. Taniquel didn’t recognize the furniture; it must have come from one of the rooms in the old, disused wing. As before, a table, this one even more richly set, had been laid out for three.

King Damian, no longer in soldier’s gear but a robe of midnight-blue velvet trimmed with patterned black-and-white marlet fur, sat in the huge chair before the fire. Belisar stood leaning on the mantlepiece, a goblet in one hand. His eyes gleamed in the firelight. The
laranzu
glided in from one of the smaller rooms to stand behind them.

Taniquel tried not to look at the gray-robed figure, though she felt his attention upon her. The pressure of his mind on hers was slight, but relentless.

Damian greeted her without rising. With an effort, she kept her features composed. She bowed deeply, then allowed Belisar to seat her at the table.

As if they had been waiting in the corridor for his signal, a quartet of servants rushed into the room, setting out covered dishes, trenchers of fine white bread, and two bottles of wine still powdery with dust from the cellars. As they seated themselves and the servants removed the covers, Taniquel recognized the artistry of her cooks. A joint of spring lamb, crusted with herbs and tiny garlands of garlic cloves, nestled among piles of honey-glazed root vegetables. Tiny roasted fowl spread wings whose feathers had been replaced by layers of wafer-thin redroot slices. One of the servants opened the wine, an older vintage that always smelled to Taniquel like sunshine mixed with ripe plums and smoke.

At the table, Damian lifted his goblet, swirling the wine to intensify the aroma, and sniffed deeply. Taniquel watched, a bit surprised that an outlander should know how to approach the proper tasting of wine. The savory smell of the meats and the pungency of the herbs sent her senses whirling.

He sipped, his expression one of inner concentration, and swallowed. Then he smiled with such evident pleasure that she thought he might have conquered Acosta simply for its wines. Few areas on Darkover grew suitable grapes, and fruit wines tended to be too sweet for Taniquel’s taste, but cold-tolerant vines flourished in the Acosta valleys and brought forth drier, more complex flavors.

The officer filled her goblet and then Belisar’s.

“To the future of Acosta,” Damian said. “To its new King and its beautiful Queen, who in three days’ time will join as one to bring prosperity as rich as this wine.”

“And to the sons who will rule after us,” Belisar added. He drank his wine in a gulp, not pausing to savor it.

Sons!
Taniquel lowered her eyes, bending over her goblet to hide her startlement. Surely he couldn’t know, not yet! No, he meant the sons
he
would sire upon her.

“Sir,” she said, once she had collected herself, “let us not hurry things. A royal courtship must be conducted with dignity. I am but newly a widow.”

Damian began carving a slab from the haunch of lamb. Dark juices oozed from the slash, dark as living blood. He placed a sliver on her plate, the inside still faintly pink.

“Please, drink. Eat something.” Belisar lifted her goblet and held it out to her. “Or are you still being stubborn?”

She took the goblet. The smell, so evocative of happier times, blended with the savory smell of the roasted meat, the pungency of the herbs, the aroma of the freshly baked bread. A pulse beat sent little lightnings of pain through her temples. How easy it would be to take a sip—she could taste it already on her tongue, slipping down her throat like ruby heat.

Never had she felt so terribly, so dangerously alone. She glanced from one face to the other—father and son, mirrored in their happy certainty—and there, in the corner, shrouded against the light, the unmoving figure in gray. She could not see the man’s face, but with that fragmentary
laran
, she felt him probing her in earnest—

Instead of the ice of their first contact, fire now bloomed behind her eyes, lancing through her skull. Her vision swam. His mind pressed against hers, searching for a way past her barriers.

With an expression she hoped looked like resignation, Taniquel began to eat. Taking one slow mouthful after another, she tried to concentrate only on the taste of the food. It wasn’t hard. The crust of the bread broke between her teeth. She tasted its soft yeasty interior. Savory meat juices swirled over her tongue. A tiny piece of gristle crunched. She focused on each sensation, as if building a wall of placid gluttony. Slowly, the fiery pressure receded, leaving a deep ache in her temples.

“What did I tell you?” Damian said to his son. “She is not only beautiful but reasonable. A fitting bride, and one you will not have to wait for until she grows up to be truly yours.”

Damian and his son smiled and went on with the conversation, small pleasantries about the food, the wine, the rain, something about one of their horses. Taniquel murmured empty comments when it seemed expected of her. Watching them from under lowered lashes, she saw the shift in their expressions. For now, they clearly believed they had won her cooperation.

The headache eased a bit by the time she fled back to her quarters, but did not dissipate. She dismissed her ladies, barred the door behind them, and went to the chest where her old, everyday clothes were stored. Her hands shook and her stomach roiled with tension and wine, but she could not afford to rest. Not yet.

She did not know how completely she had been able to fool the
laranzu
. But she knew with bone-chilling certainty that she could not continue to do so much longer. She had run out of time. To delay the inevitable search, she must make them think she was still within the castle. This meant taking nothing whose absence would be noted.

There!
Crumpled in a corner was the amber-colored wool she had worn the day of the battle. Dark stains ran along the hemline. It was cut loose to a dropped waistline, with a skirt that was full enough to move easily in, which was why she had worn it. She pulled it on and rolled up the tunic and underdress of undyed
chervine
wool, along with extra underthings and heavy socks. Quickly she assembled the rest, a small purse of silver coins from the last market fair, a couple of old, bent copper hair ornaments, the cloak she had worn at the funeral. Dressed in the stained, rumpled amber wool, covered with an equally stained cloak, her hair tucked in an old kerchief, she looked more like a servant girl in her mistress’ cast-offs than a young Queen.

One more thing. Her lips curved as she took the gown of peacock-colored silk and stuffed it between the flower box and the balcony wall. It was raining again, harder this time, turning the silk into a dark, sodden mess. Betteny would immediately notice its disappearance and conclude Taniquel was wearing it.

Slipping behind the headboard of the canopied bed, she pressed the stumpy brick which unlocked the narrow door. Beyond lay the warren of passageways where she and Padrik had played at brigands and spies, once or twice eavesdropping on their elders, slipping out of the room when a stern tutor was on his way. Perhaps every generation of Acosta children had used them, she didn’t know. Now she would never know what her son might make of them.

The passageway was chill and shadowed, but dry. She had already decided not to take a candle, lest the light, gleaming through one of the many peepholes and crannies, attract the eyes of some watchful Ambervale guard. Her fingers, lightly skimming the familiar walls, were guide enough.