Two to Conquer (4 page)

With all this, why should he worry about his father, sitting home and listening to the poison that filthy hag Jerana poured into his ears?

But I wish my brother were here. I wish Alaric could know I am the king’s champion and his son-in-law

…
he would be seven, now
.…

At the appointed time he stepped forward, prompted by Beltran and Geremy. Carlina was standing at the right hand of her father’s seat. Bard’s ears were ringing, and he hardly heard the king’s words.

“Bard mac Fianna, called di Asturien, whom I have made my banner bearer,” Ardrin of Asturias said,

“we have called you here tonight to handfast you to my youngest daughter, the lady Carlina. Say, Bard, is it your will to enter my household?”

Bard’s voice sounded perfectly steady; he wondered at that, because inside he was shaking. He

supposed it was like riding into battle, there was something that steadied you when you had to be steady. “My king and my lord, it is my will.”

“Then,” said Ardrin, taking Bard’s hand in one of his, and Carlina’s in the other, “I bid you join hands before all this company and exchange your pledge.”

Bard felt Carlina’s hand in his; very soft, the fingers so slender that they felt boneless. She was icy cold, and did not look at him.

“Carlina,” said Ardrin, “do you consent to have this man for your husband?”

She whispered something Bard could not hear. He supposed it was a formal phrase of consent. At least she had not refused.

He bent forward, as ritual demanded, and kissed her trembling lips. She was shaking. Hellfire! Was the girl afraid of him? He smelled the flowery scent of her hair, of some cosmetic that had been dabbed on her face. As he drew back, a corner of her stiff embroidered collar scratched his cheek a little. Well, he thought, he had had enough women; soon enough she would lose her fear in his arms, they always did; even if now she was a dressed-up doll. The thought of Carlina in his bed made him feel dizzy, almost faint. Carlina. His, forever, his princess, his wife. And then no one could ever again call him bastard or outcast. Carlina, his home, his beloved… his own. He felt his throat thicken as he whispered the ritual words.

“Before our kin assembled I pledge to wed you, Carlina, and to cherish you forever.”

He heard her voice, only a whisper.

“Before… kin assembled… pledge to wed…” but try as he might he could not hear her speak his name.

Damn Queen Ariel and her idiotic plans to rid herself of him! They should have had the wedding and the bedding tonight, so that Carlina could quickly lose her fear of him! He was trembling, thinking of that. He had never wanted any woman this much. He tightened his hand on her fingers trying to

reassure her, but felt only her involuntary flinching of pain.

King Ardrin said, “May you be forever one,” and he loosed Carlina’s hand, reluctantly. Together, they drank from a wine cup held to their lips. It was done; Carlina was his bride. Now it was too late for King Ardrin to change his mind. Bard realized that until this moment he had felt that something would come between him and his good fortune even as they stood together for the handfasting, that his

stepmother’s malice, or Queen Ariel’s, would come between him and Carlina, who meant to him a

home, a place, honor…
damn all women! All women except Carlina, that is
!

Beltran drew him into a kinsman’s embrace and said, “Now you are truly my brother!” and Bard sensed that somehow Beltran had always been jealous of his friendship with Geremy, too; now the tie with Beltran was so strong that Geremy had nothing to equal it. Beltran and Geremy had sworn brotherhood, exchanging daggers, before they were out of childhood. No one, Bard thought with a brief surge of resentment, had ever asked
him
to swear the oath of
bredin;
not him, bastard and outcaste… well, that was over, over for his lifetime. Now he was the king’s son-in-law, Carlina’s pledged husband. Brother-in-law, even if not sworn brother, to Prince Beltran. Somehow it seemed to him that he walked taller; catching a glimpse of himself in one of the long mirrors adorning the Great Hall, it seemed that he looked handsome for once, that he was a bigger and somehow a better man than had ever looked into that mirror before.

Later, when the minstrels struck up for dancing, he led Carlina out. The dance broke couples up and recombined them in elaborate twisting measures, brought them together again; as they passed and re-passed in the dance, joining and loosing hands, it seemed to him that Carlina was less reluctant to take his hand. Geremy was dancing with one of the queen’s youngest ladies, a red-haired maiden named

Ginevra—Bard did not know her other name; she had played with Carlina when they were little girls, then become a waiting-woman. Bard wondered briefly if Ginevra shared Geremy’s bed. Probably; what man would spend so much time and trouble on a woman if she would not? Or perhaps Geremy was still trying to persuade her. Well, if so, Geremy was a fool. Bard himself never bothered about high-born maidens, they tended to want too much in the way of flattery and promises of devotion. Nor did he care for the prettier ones; they promised more, he had found, and yielded less. Ginevra was almost plain enough to be properly grateful for masculine attention. But what was he doing, thinking of such things when he had Carlina?

Or rather, he thought sullenly, as he led her toward the buffet for a glass of wine after the hearty dancing, he
didn’t
have Carlina, not yet! A year to wait! Damn it, why had her mother done this?

Carlina shook her head as he would have refilled her glass. “No, thank you, I don’t really like it, Bard

—and I think you have had enough,” she said soberly.

He blurted out, “I would rather have a kiss from you than any drink ever brewed!”

Carlina looked up at him in astonishment; then her red mouth crinkled in a small smile. “Why, Bard, I have never heard you make a pretty speech before! Can it be that you have been taking lessons in gallantry from our cousin Geremy?”

Bard said, abashed, “I don’t know any pretty speeches. I’m sorry, Carlina, do you want me to learn the art of flattering you? I’ve never had time for such things.” And the unspoken part of that, with resentment,
Geremy has nothing else to do but sit home and learn to say pretty things to women
, was perfectly audible to Carlina.

Suddenly she thought of Bard as he had been when first he came to be fostered there, three years ago, and he had seemed to her a great countrified sullen lout, refusing to use the manners he had, sulking, refusing to join in their games and play. Even then, he had been taller than any of them, taller than most men, and more broadly built. He had little interest in anything but the arms-play of their lessons, and had spent his playtime listening to the guardsmen tell tales of campaigns and war. None of them had liked him much, but Geremy said he was lonely, and had gone to some trouble to try to coax him into joining their games.

She felt, suddenly, almost sorry for the boy to whom she had been pledged. She did not want to marry him; but he had not been consulted either, and no man could be expected to refuse marriage to a king’s daughter. He had spent so much of his life in war and preparation for war: it was not his fault that he was not gallant and a courtier like Geremy. She would rather have married Geremy—although, as she had told her nurse, she would rather not many at all. Not because she had any great fondness for Geremy; simply that he was a gentler boy and she felt she understood him better. But Bard looked so unhappy.

She said, drinking the last unwanted drops in her glass, “Shall we sit and talk a while? Or would you like to dance again?”

“I’d rather talk,” he said. “I’m not very good at dancing, or any of those courtly arts!”

Again she smiled at him, showing her dimples. She said, “If you are light enough on your feet to be a swordsman— and Beltran tells me you are unequalled—then you should be a fine dancer too. And

remember, we used to dance together at lessons when we were children; would you have me believe

you have forgotten how to dance since you were twelve years old?”

“To tell you the truth, Carlina,” Bard said hesitantly, “I got my man’s growth so young, when the rest of you were all so little. And, big as my body was, I felt always that my feet were bigger still, and that I was a great hulking brute! When I came to ride to war, and to fight, then my size and weight gave me the advantage… but I find it hard to think of myself as a courtier.”

Something in this confession touched her beyond endurance. She suspected he had never said anything like this to anyone before, or even thought it. She said, “You’re not clumsy, Bard, I find you a fine dancer. But if it makes you uncomfortable, you need not dance again, at least not with me. We will sit here and talk awhile.” She turned, smiling. “You will have to learn to offer me your arm, when we cross a room together. With the help of the Goddess, I may indeed civilize you one day!”

“You have a considerable task on your hands,
damisela
,” Bard said, and let the tips of her fingers rest lightly on his arm.

They found a seat together at the edge of the room, out of the way of the dancers, near where some elderly folk were playing at cards and dice. One of the men of the king’s household came toward them, evidently intending to claim a dance with Carlina, but Bard glowered at him and he discovered some urgent business elsewhere.

Bard reached out with the hand he thought was clumsy and touched the corner of her temple. “I

thought, when we stood before your father, that you had been crying. Carlie, has someone ill-used you?”

She shook her head and said, “No.” But Bard was just enough of a telepath—although when the

household
leronis
had tested him, at twelve, he had been told he had not much
laran
—to sense that she would not speak the true reason for her tears aloud; and he managed to guess it.

“You are not happy about this marriage,” he said, with his formidable scowl, and felt her flinch again as she had done when he squeezed her hand.

She lowered her head. She said at last, “I have no wish to marry; and I wept because no one asks a girl if she wishes to be given in marriage.”

Bard frowned, hardly believing what he heard. “What would a woman do, in the name of Avarra, if she was
not
married? Surely you do not wish to stay at home all your days till you are old?”

“I would like to have the choice to do that, if I wished,” Carlina said. “Or perhaps to choose for myself whom I would marry. But I would rather not marry at all. I would like to go to a Tower as a
leronis
, perhaps to keep my virginity for the Sight, as some of mother’s maidens have done, or perhaps to live among the priestesses of Avarra, on the holy isle, belonging only to the Goddess. Does that seem so strange to you.”

“Yes,” Bard said. “I have always heard that every woman’s greatest desire is to marry as soon as possible.”

“And so it is, for many women, but why should women be any more alike than you and Geremy You

choose to be a soldier, and he to be a
laranzu
; would you say that everyone should choose to be a soldier?”

“It’s different with men,” Bard said. “Women don’t understand these things, Carlie. You need a home and children and someone to love you.” He picked up her hand and carried the small soft fingers to his lips.

Carlina felt sudden anger, mingled with a flood almost of pity.

She felt like giving him an angry reply, but he was looking at her so gently, with so much hopefulness, that she forbore to speak what she thought.

He could not be blamed; if there was blame, it was her father’s, who had given her to Bard as if she were the red cord he wore about the warrior’s braid, a reward for his bravery in battle. Why should she blame him for the customs of the land which made of a woman only a chattel, a pawn for her father’s political ambitions?

He followed some of this, his brow knitted as he sat holding her hand. “Do you not want to wed with me at all, Carlie?”

“Oh, Bard—” she said, and he could hear the pain in her voice—“it is not
you
. Truly, truly, my foster brother and my promised husband, since I must marry, there is no other man I would rather have.

Perhaps one day—when I am older, when we are both older—then, if the gods are kind to us, we may come to love one another as is seemly for married people.” She clasped his big hand in her two small ones, and said, “The gods grant it may be so.”

And then someone came up to claim Carlina for a dance; and though Bard glowered again, she said,

“Bard, I must; one of the duties of a bride is to dance with all who ask her, as you very well know, and every maiden here who wishes to marry this year thinks it lucky to dance with the groom. Later we can speak together, my dear.”

Bard yielded her, reluctantly, and, recalled to his duty, moved about the room, dancing with three or four of Queen Ariel’s women, as was suitable for a man attached to the king’s household, his banner bearer. But again and again, his eyes sought out Carlina, where her blue robe, pearl-embroidered, and her dark hair, drew his awareness back again.

Carlina. Carlina was
his
, and he realized that he hated, with a violent surge of loathing, every man who touched her. How dared they? What was she about, flirting, raising her eyes to any man who came to dance with her, as if she were some shameless camp follower? Why did she encourage them? Why

couldn’t she be shy and modest, refusing dances except with her promised husband? He knew this was unreasonable, but it seemed to him that she was trying to win the approval and the flirtatious smile of every man who touched her. He restrained his wrath when she danced with Beltran, and her father, and the grizzled veteran of sixty whose granddaughter had been her foster sister, but every time she danced with some young soldier or guardsman of the king’s household, he fancied that Queen Ariel was

looking at him triumphantly.

Of course what she had said about not wanting to marry at all—that was girlish nonsense, he didn’t believe a word of it. No doubt she was cherishing some girl’s passion for some man, someone not