The Necromancer's Grimoire (39 page)

The priestess pointed a long finger at her. “Exactly. You are ‘his', as he is so fond of explaining endlessly to all who will listen, but he has not claimed you as other men do to their women.” Her eyes became far away again. “He has not pierced you with his body and forced his seed within you.” Her face twisted with puzzlement. “He desires your body as fiercely as he desires vengeance, but has shown remarkable self control.” She raised her eyebrows. “And you have desired to have this man's body be joined with yours…” Nadira felt her face get hot and she fidgeted on the cool bench, wondering just what exactly the priestess was seeing and in what detail. “…but both of you have denied the yearning of your flesh. Why?” The priestess turned questioning eyes upon her and they demanded an answer.

Nadira met her gaze. “He will not take my body. He fears my death. I will not take his body, for I will not torment him with his fear. I will say to you, now, that I know I will not become with child unless it suits me, and I know I will not perish bringing it into the world. He will not hear these truths, though. His fear screams too loudly in his ears.”

“Remarkable.” She turned her head away and frowned. “He will die in agony…”

“No!” Nadira leapt to her feet. “No prophecies! Please! Oh, no…” She fell to the floor and covered her ears, but the priestess' voice was inside her now.

“Let me finish, girl. He will die in agony if he is not released. He will destroy himself from within if not joined with you. Is one man's life worth all the goodness you could do with your own?”

Nadira rolled herself over on the stone floor and gazed with exhausted resignation at the dark ceiling. “Can we not do both?” she sighed. “Is there no compromise? Why must it be one or the other? Surely there are priests who have concubines in their chambers. Cannot a priestess have her own? Are men the only ones who are permitted some comfort in the night? If all things are possible, why must we follow rules blindly?”

The last word echoed off the walls and faded to silence. Nadira closed her eyes and breathed the perfumed air into her body. She did not expect an answer from the priestess. She was too busy asking herself what it was she really wanted.
Do I give up my love and my friends to focus my life on the pursuit of knowledge? Do I return to the world of violence and greed to exist as a servant to others? Even as a free woman I would be as a servant to customers, as a wife is servant to a man, as a mother is bound to a child. There is no true freedom for a woman outside these walls.

Her reverie was broken by the soft laugh of the priestess. “'Cannot a priestess have her own?'” She laughed again, harder this time. “In all my years no novice, no acolyte, nor priestess, has
ever
suggested she needed a kept-man in her quarters. Never.”

Nadira sighed again and shook her head. “It has happened now.”

“Yes. And I have an answer for you. No man may stay in the temple, for it is certain the women and girls will fear him. But this does not mean that he cannot be kept in the city.” She extended a hand to help Nadira to her feet. “You know that he will not stay with you until his enemy is dead.” Nadira nodded, reluctantly acknowledging the truth. The priestess continued, “Tell him, or not. The decision is yours. You can do remarkable things, Nadira the Precious One. But you cannot turn a wolf into a lap dog.”

“No. Indeed, I cannot.”

“This small brown one, however.” The priestess paused. “This one…he is yours as much as the tall dark one. He is a lap dog that you are turning into a wolf. He loves you and cannot have you. He takes risks and his soul becomes darker with his need and frustration,” she smiled, “yet he will not place his seed inside you either. What is it about you, Precious One, that these men withhold their manly desires when you are present?”

Nadira struggled with an answer before she realized the older woman was teasing her. She let her breath out slowly. “Please, it is no laughing matter to either of them.”

“No. Forgive me. I see the scars on the back of the brown one, the scars on the soul of the dark one. It is no laughing matter. But I will tell you that I have never seen this before, and I have lived nearly ninety years. I have never seen men deny themselves a thing that they wanted. In this world, men struggle to take what they want. They lie, murder and steal to get it. Those that don't get their desire regret that they have been bested by others and mete out their anger and frustration on the weak and innocent. This is what I have seen. You come here to learn the knowledge of the ancients, Precious One, and on your first day you teach the ancient one a new lesson. Go now. Come back on the morrow. Come back. We will share what we know. Both of us.”

When she emerged from the cave entrance, Garreth stood and held a hand out to her. He smiled. Nadira took his hand and he led her down the path to the sea and along the shore back to the city. As they walked in silence she looked up at him. He had aged more than the others since Richard's death. Gray hairs were entwined in his golden braid that hung down his back to his belt. Deep wrinkles creased his eyes and the skin on his arms was no longer tight, but seemed to cover his muscles like a loose tunic. Nadira could not look at him and think of the evils of the world. His body was still hard and strong, his pace steady and a bit too fast for her. She trotted along beside him until the sounds of her panting slowed him out of courtesy. He looked down at her and grinned, pointing to the buildings in the distance.

“Yes. I am eager to get there, too.”

He pointed back toward the cave and raised his eyebrows.

“I met with her. It is good.”

He nodded and turned his attention to the path on the rocky beach. Those few words were enough for him. He was not a man of complicated ideas. Nadira squeezed his hand with affection and was rewarded with a smile and a grunt.

Montrose was alone in the room when Garreth pushed the door open for her. He was sitting on the low stool, his weapons laid out in a series of shining lines on the bed beside him. It was warm in the room and he had removed his shirt, it lay folded neatly beside his horn cup on the table. He had a soft cloth in his hand and was rubbing the steel of his broadsword that lay across both knees with a mixture of olive oil and beeswax he had melted together. The sweet honey scent permeated the room. He looked up as she entered and gave her a soft smile in greeting, but did not cease the back and forth motion of his hands. Nadira could see the evil of the world here, in her own room, and wondered at it.

“Did you meet with her?” His voice was low and deep, slow and steady. He did not look up for her answers, concentrating his cloth on the joints of the steel where the hilt joined the blade.

“I did.”

He glanced up for a moment, the blue eyes merry, the black lashes framing them in peace now. He was happy. This work with the instruments of death gave him peace. Nadira wondered at such a thing. He returned to his polishing, turning the blade to work on the other side. He dipped his cloth in the small bowl beside him. “Did she love you at first sight, as I did?”

Nadira laughed softly. “She did.”

“I had no doubt.”

She watched him work for a long moment. The warm Mediterranean sun had bronzed him about his shoulders. The muscles of his arms and back moved to and fro with his work. The dark curling hairs of his chest and arms glistened with the heat and with his labor. Nadira lowered herself to the other stool and rested her chin on her hands, elbows on her knees. She smiled as he pushed a lock of hair up and over his forehead; it immediately fell back over his eyes. He made a grim line with his mouth. She had promised to cut it weeks ago, but she loved the curls that only appeared when it had grown long enough to touch his shoulders. With a twinge of guilt, she saw now that the length annoyed him.
I will cut it for him soon
, she promised herself.
It gets caught in the links of his armor.

He raised his arm to rub the blade and she saw the thick scar that seamed him from high under his arm down over his ribs to end on the bone of his hip. She let her mind wander back to the day he had staggered under that blow. She didn't realize she had sighed until he stopped rubbing the steel and looked up at her through the ropes of his hair. “What is it, little one?”

“I am looking at you and thinking how happy I am.”

He smiled, flashing his white teeth. “As am I. I never want to shut a heavy door against the freezing rain and biting wind again. This weather is delightful.”

“I wasn't thinking about the weather,” she answered dryly. He went back to his polishing.
Can I send him to Egypt? Can I bear it? Perhaps he will forget his anger.
She looked at the little arsenal on the bed.
No.
Three daggers of different lengths lined up beside a shorter and lighter sword, all waiting for their turn to be lovingly polished and protected from rust before one day fouling themselves in the gore of an unlucky man. She turned her head. His brigandine hung over the back of the only chair in the room, its gleaming steel rings testifying to the care he had already spent on it. It had to be continually oiled to protect him from the blows from other men who would try to take his life. Her throat tightened.
This wolf will never be a lap dog
.

“My love.” Something in her voice must have startled him for he immediately laid the sword down and stood, alarm on his face.

“What is it? Tell me.”

Nadira had meant to calmly explain her thoughts, but the sight of him looming over her, so concerned, brought tears to her eyes. Instead of the reasoned conversation about vengeance and grief and duty that she had planned, she found herself sobbing. He picked her up and carried her to the bed. She curled in his lap and sniffed until he handed her a clean cloth for her face. He smelled of honey and warmth and his arms were solid against her body. She put her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his, feeling comfort in the rough stubble.

“What is it? What did the witch say to you?” he asked again, this time low and soft, his voice a soothing rumble in his throat.

She answered him, “I must lose what I found to gain it back again. It makes no sense, yet it is a real truth.”

“Tell me what you need and I will provide it.”

She tried to smile, but her face was too tight. “It is you who need what I have to provide. Giving it to you, I may kill you. But not giving it to you, I will certainly kill you.”

Montrose's hands tightened around her waist as he pulled her away so he could look her in the eyes, confused. “What are you saying?”

“I love you.” A tear tracked down her cheek.

“Yes?”

“I love you, but I must send you away, and I cannot follow to protect you.”

“Protect me?” His eyes moved up and down her body and his voice told her how foolish he thought her words were. Then the blue eyes darkened. “Send me away?” Now the voice was hard, and his hands tightened even further on her waist.

Nadira took a long slow breath, looking deep in his eyes, which shone with profound hurt and confusion. She forced the words out slowly. “Massey,” she breathed, “is in Alexandria.”

She had expected to be thrown to the floor and that he would, in her imagination, leap up, seize his sword and brandish it over his head with a roar of triumph. But he did not. He brought her to his chest again and kissed the top of her head, but she heard his heart galloping inside him.

“Alexandria,” he murmured.

“Yes.”

“How do you know this?”

Nadira paused. It was too late to pretend a lie to save his feelings. “Richard told me,” she said in a broken whisper. “I traveled to the land of the dead, and he told me to tell you.”

She held him tighter, not knowing what his response might be. He made a strange choking sound, so she clutched him with all her strength, thinking now he would fling her to the floor as he leapt up, but again he did not. He did not rise from the bed. Instead, his chin dropped to his chest.

She twined the curled ends of his hair around her fingers and waited for him to calm himself. When his shorts breaths faded to an even rhythm Nadira took her cloth and gently wiped his eyes. The blue in them was like the sea after a storm, and his voice was as rough. “Did he say anything else?”

“He does not blame you for his death. He knows what he did.” Montrose nodded, his gaze unfocused. She continued, knowing he was thinking of Richard. “He is content there. He says there is a library the size of the whole world and he is reading every book.” This brought a sad smile to his face. “But…” She hesitated.

“What?”

Nadira squirmed. “Must you go to Alexandria, then? Must you return violence with violence?”
 
Was he as vicious as the priestess said?

He narrowed his eyes. She thought he must be imagining having Massey in his grip because his hands squeezed her painfully. She wriggled on his lap until he released her.

He said slowly, “I cannot let him live.”

She expected this answer and made a little strangled sound.

Montrose continued, “He will wreak havoc on the lives of many more, killing, stealing, and cheating until he is stopped. Can you think of it that way? Does that
 give you comfort?”

He is trying
. Nadira looked up at him. 
Not vicious then. Righteous, perhaps, in his ignorance.
 
He will not understand until he has experienced this worldly violence and is sated with it.
 In her head she heard the priestess' soft voice
. Let him go
.

She nodded. “Go then. Will you take Alisdair and Garreth?”