The Golden Horn (20 page)

“Who lets you think that?” Indignation put all
her fears to flight. She pulled away from him, only to take his face in her hands
and kiss him on the lips, shivering him to his foundations. “You’re
a man,” she said with conviction.

“I’m afraid.” And of that he was, folly
though he knew it to be.

“Of course you are. So was I, my first time, and it’s
worse for a woman than for a man. I soon got over it.”

“I—I don’t think—I’m not
ready—”

“No?” She looked down; he blushed. “Your
body most certainly is.”

“I can’t,” he said in sudden desperation. “It’s
useless. I was a monk for too long. I’m still a monk. I’ll never be
anything else. Let me go!”

She was not holding him. Nor did he take flight. Even as he begged
for release, his fingers lost themselves in her hair; her arms circled his
neck.

“The body knows,” she whispered in his ear. “Trust
it.”

The body, yes, and the power. Gently, delicately, he wove himself
into the web of her mind. All its threads were air and fire, eternally shifting
and changing, yet at the center of them ever the same. Whatever shape she chose
to bear, she remained herself.

Her awareness enfolded him. For an instant it turned upon itself;
he saw through her mind a structure of perfect order, a temple of light, its
center a sphere of white fire. Himself as she knew him, taking shape about the
fire, a slender youth in the habit of a monk that bound him like chains. Yet as
he watched, his bonds melted away; he lay beside her clothed only in his skin,
drawing her into his arms.

She was warm even to burning, and supple, and
slender-strong; slim almost as a boy yet curved where a boy would never be.
What his eyes had known against his will yet unable entirely to escape, his
hands now explored in wonder and delight. “Oh, you are beautiful!”

“And you.” She kissed his brow and the high
curve of his cheekbone, and after an instant his lips. She tasted of honey.

Before he had truly partaken of her sweetness she withdrew, turning,
drawing him with her. He was above her now, her arms about him. Her hands ran
down his back, along the knots and ridges where the whip had gouged deep. “I
love you,” she whispered. “I have never loved anyone else as I love
you. Nor ever shall.”

She had forsaken all the armor with which she faced the world,
all her sharpness and her mockery and the hard fierce glitter of her wit. Her
eyes were meltingly tender; she tangled her fingers in his hair and brought him
down to meet her kiss.

Deep within him a seed burst and sprouted and grew and put forth
a blossom, a flower of fire.

She moved beneath him, opening to him. His blood thundered
in his ears; his body throbbed. He was all one great song of love and terror
and desire, and of sheerest, purest joy.

Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair!
Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as
Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners.
I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of
frankincense….

To all his words and songs and fears she had but one, and
that one lost in light. “Yes,” she breathed, or thought, or willed.
“Yes!”

Thea sighed with contentment and settled more comfortably in
the circle of Alf’s arm. His free hand, moving of its own accord, found
her breast and rested there, as Nikki’s kitten curled purring on the
curve of her hip.

She traced an aimless wandering pattern on his chest and shoulder
to make him quiver with pleasure, and let her hand come to rest over the slow
strong pulse of his heart. “I love you,” she said.

“Still?”

She laughed softly. “Still! I knew there was fire
under it all. And such fire!” She kissed the point of his jaw, paused,
nibbled his neck with sharp cat-teeth. “There are lovers and lovers. With
some, once is enough. With others passion lasts for a little while, then fades.
But a few—a precious few—are like the best wine in the world. The
more one has, the more one craves, and one never grows weary of it. You, my
little Brother, are one of the last.”

“I know you are.” His lips brushed her hair. “Now
I know why the Church calls it a sin.”

“Only the crabbed old men in their cloisters. Which
you, my love, most certainly are not.”

“Not any more.” For the first time he sounded
almost glad. “So this is what all the poets mean.
Dulcis amor!
”

He sang the Latin so sweetly and so passionately that her heart
stopped. Then she laughed. “Sweet indeed! Now I’m sure of it; you
were born for this.”

“To each living creature its own element.”

She drew back a little to see his smile. Their eyes met and
sparked; their bodies twined, to the kitten’s utter and heartfelt disgust.
Even in the midst of the fire they could laugh as it stalked to the bed’s
farthest corner and sulked there, lamenting its lost sleep.

o0o

Sophia woke abruptly. The lamp was guttering, the room silent
save for Corinna’s soft snores.

It began again. Bardas’ coughing, deep rending spasms
that shook the heavy bed. She half fell from the cot, stumbling over Corinna,
groping blindly for the medicine Alf had left. But she could make no use of it
while the storm lasted. It was long, agelong.

At last it ceased. Bardas lay gasping. His face was a skull,
his eyes deep-sunken in black sockets. Open though they were, they saw nothing,
but stared blankly into the dark. He swallowed the potion by instinct, without
even his usual grimace at the taste.

Corinna loomed beside her with a bowl of water and a cloth. Silently
the woman began to sponge the fever sweat from Bardas’ body. There was so
little of him now, skin and bare bone and the horror that devoured his lungs.

Resolutely Sophia bit back tears. Bardas needed a level head
and a steady hand, not a flood of weeping.

The new storm struck without warning, longer and even worse
than the last. When it subsided, it was only a lull. Bright blood stained the
sheet, a thin stream that did not cease.

She had lived with fear through all that black winter. But
this was stark panic. “Alf,” she whispered. “Alfred.”

Corinna straightened. Her deep voice was calm and calming. “I’ll
fetch him, my lady.”

“Please,” Sophia said. “Please bring him.”

Left alone, she took up the cloth Corinna had laid down and gently
wiped away the blood From Bardas’ lips and chin. But more flowed forth, a
great gout of it as a spasm shook him.

There was no awareness in his eyes. There was only his pain
and the battle For his life.

Corinna was gone For an interminable while. Sophia did not, would
not, count the crawling moments. Nor would she yield to her terror. Deep in her
mind, a child shrieked and pummeled the walls.

The door opened. She spun toward it in an ecstasy of relief.

Corinna’s chin was set, her scowl terrible. No tall
pale figure stood behind her. “He’s not in, my lady,” she
said in a flat voice.

Sophia drew a shuddering breath. “Of course he’s
in. He must be in. Did you look in the schoolroom? In Nikki’s room? In
the bath? Or maybe the garden. He might be in the garden. Go, look there. Go
on!”

“I looked there. Also in the library, the kitchen, the
stable, and the garderobe.”

Sophia’s hand went to her mouth. She would not scream.
She would not. If only she could think. “I’ll look myself. You stay
here. Don’t let Bardas—don’t let him—” She broke
off before her voice spiraled into hysteria. “I’ll come back. Watch
well.”

Everyone lay in his bed where he belonged, save Alf. His lamp
burned still; a book lay on the table, his clothes folded neatly on the stool
but his bed untouched.

Sophia stood on the Persian carpet and forced her mind to
work. Where had Corinna not looked? The servants’ quarters—no. Her
workroom. The larger dining room for guests, and the lesser one for the family alone.
No, and no. He might have gone out for some reason of his own, duty or the
compulsion of prophecy.

No. He could not have done that. Not tonight. Then
where—?

Abruptly she knew. She sprang forward, half running.

o0o

She flung open Thea’s door, panting, hand pressed to
her side. Three pairs of eyes met her own, wide and startled. One was the
kitten’s, differing from the others’ only in size.

Sophia released what little breath she had in a cry of
relief. “Alf! Thank God!”

He was already on his feet, snatching at his robe. She reached
for him as a drowning man reaches for a lifeline. “Bardas—blood, so
much blood, it won’t stop, it won’t—”

He clasped her hand for the briefest of instants. Then he
was gone and Thea holding her up, clad only in her tumbled hair.

Sophia clung to her with desperate strength. “I couldn’t
find him anywhere. I thought I would go mad.”

“But you did find him.” Thea drew on her robe,
dislodging Sophia’s hands with some difficulty. Once clad, she half led, half
carried the other down the passage. “Alf will do all he can. You can be
sure of it.”

At the head of the stair, Sophia stopped suddenly. “You—you
were—and I—”

Thea smiled. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But—”

“Come,” Thea said in a tone that suffered no
resistance.

o0o

With Alf laboring over Bardas and Corinna lending aid where
he asked, Sophia regained her self-control. Thea brought wine for her, warmed
with spices; she drank it without tasting it, mechanically, intent upon Alf’s
face.

It was grave, absorbed, yet otherwise unreadable. She
struggled to decipher it.

The coughing eased. Alf knelt now very still, one hand on Bardas’
chest, the other smoothing the sparse white hair with absent tenderness. His
face froze into a mask, white as death but with burning eyes.

Thea moved softly to stand behind him, hands resting on his shoulders.
Sophia waited, hardly breathing, for she knew not what. The only sound was the
rattle of Bardas’ breath and the creak of Corinna’s aging bones as
she lowered herself to her knees. She crossed herself and began to pray.

A priest
, Sophia
thought.
I have to send for a priest
. But
she did not move or speak.

Alf’s face tensed. Sweat beaded his brow; almost
invisibly he began to tremble. Light shimmered about him, a faint sheen like
stars on silver.

A sound brought her eyes about. The door opened barely enough
to admit a child. Nikki crept into her lap, blinking sleepily but holding her
hand in a warm firm clasp. She held him to her and rocked him, knowing full
well that it was not for his comfort that she did it but for her own.

The long night wheeled into dawn. The lamp flickered and failed;
cold grey light crept into the room.

Alf sank back on his heels. The rumble of Corinna’s prayer
caught and died. Bardas lay still, gasping but no longer coughing.

Sophia had no voice to speak. Alf raised his face to her,
the same white mask, but with eyes bereft of all fire. “I cannot heal him,”
he said softly and clearly, with all the weariness in the world.

She rose, setting Nikki on his feet. Slowly she made her way
to the bed.

Bardas turned his head a fraction. His eyes were clear but a
little remote, as if his soul had already begun to withdraw from his body. He
smiled at her; his lips moved with only the breath of a whisper. “It
doesn’t hurt any more. It’s just…a little hard to breathe.”

Alf slid an arm beneath his shoulders and raised him a
little, propping him with a cushion.

“Better,” he sighed. “Come here, Sophia.”
She came and took his hand. It returned her clasp with a faint pressure, soon let
go. All his strength bent on the battle for breath.

Yet he was losing it, inch by inch. It was not only the
corpse-light of the winter dawn that touched his face with death. Slowly it spread,
robbing his limbs of their warmth, advancing inexorably toward his heart.

His breathing faltered, rallied, caught. She covered his
lips with hers. His eyes smiled his old, private smile. As she straightened,
the smile touched his mouth. Slowly she drew back.

His body convulsed. Even before the spasm had ended in a torrent
of blood, she knew that he was dead.

Sophia had no use for the extravagance of Eastern grief. She
would dress all in black as befit a widow; she would forsake her perfumes and
her jewels and refrain from painting her face.

But the servants had their orders. No wailing; no excesses
of lamentation. The house was still and silent, even the children muted,
stunned. Later, when she thought of the day that followed Bardas’ death,
her first memory would be of Anna’s face when she heard that her father
was dead: the huge shocked eyes and the cheeks draining slowly of color,
leaving her as pale as the corpse upon its bier.

Irene wept immediately and wildly. Anna did not. She looked
long at Bardas; touched his cold hand, half in love, half in revulsion; and
went away without a word.

o0o

Alf found her in the stable, currying her pony till the dust
flew up in clouds. It was warm there from the bodies of the beasts in their
stalls: the pony, and the mules that drew Sophia’s carriage, and the old
dun mare which Bardas had ridden in his travels outside of the City. She
whickered as Alf passed; he paused to stroke her soft nose and feed her a bit
of bread.

Anna ignored him resolutely. She laid down the currycomb; he
took it up and began to groom the mare. There was a moment’s pause before
she reached for the brush.

He kept his back to her, working diligently. As he bent to inspect
the mare’s hoof, Anna sneezed. He did not glance at her. She had stopped
her brushing altogether; he felt her eyes on him.

He released the hoof and straightened. “Are you going
to ride?” he asked.

“It’s raining,” she said flatly.