Two to Conquer (41 page)

carried off so suddenly without a word, had feared that she was being kidnapped; held for ransom, or forced into a marriage of state with someone. Surely her parole meant she was glad to find herself safe at home?

He found Carlina in one of the inner rooms, lying across a bed, sleeping. She was pale and looked like a schoolgirl, wearing some sort of dark plain robe; she had pulled a thick, graceless black mantle around herself like a blanket. Her eyes were red, against the ivory paleness of her face. He had never been able to endure Carlina’s tears. After a moment her eyes opened and she looked up at him, her face contracting in fear. She sat bolt upright, and clutched the black mantle around her body.

“Bard,” she said, blinking. “Yes. It is really you this time, isn’t it? Who was the other man—one of your bastard kin from the Hellers? You will not hurt me, will you, Bard? After all, we were children together, playmates.”

He heard her long sigh, like an explosion of relief. He said, fastening on an irrelevancy, “How did you know?”

“Oh, you are certainly very much alike,” she said. “Even your voices; but I scratched his face to the bone, thinking it was you. If he was only your witless tool, perhaps I owe
him
an apology.”

He went back to what she had said before. “Certainly I would never hurt you, Carlie. After all, you are my wife, and even now, the King of Asturias waits to join us with the
catenas
. Would tonight suit you, or would you rather wait until some of your kinsmen and kinswomen can be summoned?”

“Neither tonight nor any other time,” Carlina said, and her hands were white as skeleton joints against the black mantle. “I have sworn an oath to the Priestesses of Avarra, and to the Mother, that I will devote my life to prayer, in chastity. I belong to Avarra, not to you.”

Bard’s face hardened. He said, “Who is false to a first oath will be false also to the second. Before ever you gave oath to Avarra you and I were handfasted before all men.”

“But not married,” Carlina retorted, “and a handfasting can be broken, being unconsummated! You

have no more right to me than—than—than that guard out there in the hall!”

“That’s a matter of opinion. Your father gave you to me—”

“And took me back at your exile!”

“I do not accept his right to do so.”

“And I did not accept his right to give me to you without my consent in the first place, so we are even,”

Carlina flung back at him, her eyes blazing.

Bard thought that she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her, color high in her cheeks, her eyes bright with wrath. Women had defied or refused him before this, but he had never waited nearly so long for any one of them. Now the time of waiting was over. She would not leave this suite until she was his wife in fact, as she had really been all these years. He was excited by her nearness, and by the element of challenge in her voice and her eyes. Even Melisendra had not resisted him this way. No woman had ever been able to resist him, except Melora, and she—angrily, he banished the thought of Melora. She meant nothing to him. She was gone.

“Bard, I cannot believe you could harm me. We were children together. I bear you no ill will; let me go back to the island, and to the Mother, and I will intercede with them so that there shall be no

punishment and no curse.”

He snapped his fingers. “I do not care
that
much for any curses, whether of Avarra or any other spook!”

Carlina made a horrified, pious gesture. “I beg you not to speak such blasphemies! Bard, send me back to the island.”

He shook his head. “No. Whatever happens, that is over. You belong here, with me. I call upon you to carry out your duty to me, and become my wife tonight.”

“No. Never.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Bard, I don’t hate you. You were my foster brother, with Geremy and poor Beltran! We were all children together, and you were always kind to me. Be kind to me now, and don’t insist on this. There are so many women you could have, ladies of high degree,
leroni
, beautiful women—there is Melisendra, who is the mother of your son, and a fine little boy he is

—why do you want
me
, Bard?”

He looked straight into her eyes and told her the literal truth.

“I don’t know. But there is never any woman I have wanted as I want you. You are my wife and I will have you.”

“Bard—” her face paled. “No. Please.”

He said, “You managed to break the handfasting by a trick, because it had not been consummated, and you will not trick me that way again. You will do your duty to me, willing or unwilling, Carlina.”

“Are you saying that you are intending to rape me?”

He sat on the bed beside her, reaching for her hand. “I would rather have you willing than unwilling.

But one way or another, I will have you, Carlie, so you must resign yourself to it.”

She snatched her hand out of his reach and flung herself down, as far away from him as she could, pulling the heavy mantle around her, and he could hear her sobbing in its shelter. He pulled the heavy mantle off her, though she clung to it, and flung it angrily to the floor. He could not bear to see Carlina cry. He had never been able to endure her tears, even when she cried because a kitten had scratched her.

It seemed that he could see her now, nine years old, thin as a stick, with her hair in thin plaits like black ropes, sucking her scratched thumb and weeping.

“Damn it, stop crying, Carlie! I can’t stand to see you cry! Do you think I could ever hurt you? I don’t
want
to hurt you, but I have to make sure you can’t get away from me on that pretense again. You won’t be angry with me afterward, that I promise you. No woman has ever minded,
afterward
.”

“Do you really believe that, Bard?”

He didn’t bother to answer that. He didn’t believe it, he
knew
it. Women had all kinds of excuses to keep them from doing what they wanted to do anyway. He remembered Lisarda, wretched little slut, she hadn’t minded afterward, either, she’d loved it! But women weren’t brought up to be honest about these things. Instead of answering, he bent over her and pulled her into his arms; but she struggled away, fighting, and her nails ripped down his cheek.

“Damn you, Bard, now you have one to match your paxman, and you’re no better than he is!”

His helpless frustration turned to anger; he grabbed her hands roughly, holding them both in one of his own.

“Stop it, Carlie! I don’t want to hurt you, you are
forcing
me to hurt you!”

“You always justify yourself, don’t you?” she flared at him, raging. “Why should I make this easy for you?”

“Carlie, there’s no way you can talk me, or trick me, or persuade me out of this. I am going to have you and that is all there is to it, and while I don’t want to hurt you, I’ll do whatever I have to to keep you quiet. I let you escape me before and all my troubles came from that. If Geremy hadn’t come

interfering, that Festival, you’d be my wife and we’d have lived happy all these years; Beltran would still be alive—”

“Do you dare to blame me for that?”

“I blame you for everything that has happened to me since I let you refuse me,” he said, angry now,

“but I am willing still to take you as my wife, and this is your chance to make amends!”

“Amends? You must be quite mad, Bard!”

“You owe me this, at least! Now if you will be sensible and not straggle so foolishly, it could be as pleasant for you as for me, and that’s the way I’d rather have it. But whether or no, I’m stronger than you are, and if you’re sensible you’ll know there’s no use whatever in fighting me. Here—” He pulled at her shawl. “Let’s have these clothes off.”

“No!” Her voice was frantic; she backed away in terror. Bard set his teeth. If the little cat was set on fighting, he’d stop her now. He pulled off the shawl and flung it away, grabbed the top of her tunic and tore it down all the way, pulling off the torn fabric and hurling it to the floor. The undertunic followed, the thin cloth tearing down quickly. Her nails left scratches on his hands, and she beat and battered at his face, but he ignored her. He lifted her, still struggling, and dumped her into the center of the bed, lowered himself beside her. She kicked him, and he struck her, brutally, with his open hand. She cowered away, in her thin chemise, and began to cry.

“Carlie, my sweetheart, my love, I don’t want to hurt you, there’s no sense in fighting me.” He tried to take her close in his arms, but she turned her head away and wept, twisting her head from his searching mouth. Infuriated by her crying, when he intended so much tenderness, he slapped her again, hard, and she stopped fighting, and lay quiet, tears pouring down her face. Damn her! It could have been so good for both of them! Why had she forced him to do this?

Enraged—and simultaneously aroused—by the way in which she was spoiling the moment he had

dreamed of for years, he flung himself on her and pulled up her chemise, roughly parting her legs with his hand. She arched her body and tried to throw him off, but he pressed her roughly down. She gasped and lay still, shrinking away, sobbing. She did not struggle again, though he
knew
he was hurting her; he saw her teeth clamp hard in her lower lip and saw flecks of blood there. He tried to bend and kiss it away, but she jerked her head roughly aside, rigid as a corpse in his arms, except for the tears still flooding down her face as if only they were alive.

“Lord General—” a voice interrupted Paul as he strode along the hall. For a moment he thought Bard had suddenly turned up in the hallway nearby, then realized that he was being addressed. So he had come to look
that
much like Bard! He was about to reveal his identity, then realized that no one was supposed to know that Paolo Harryl and Bard were so much alike. He scrabbled swiftly in his mind for memory of the man’s name.

“Lerrys.”

The man’s eyes rose to the scratch on Paul’s face. “You look like you’ve been fighting with one of those bitches in red,” he said, chuckling. “I hope you tore her earrings right out of their holes, sir.” In
casta
the phrase assumed a slight double entendre, and Paul, though the joke was a little less sophisticated than he’d have found funny in his own world, laughed companionably and didn’t answer, except with a knowing grin.

“I heard they’d all deserted, sir. Going to punish them, or outlaw them, or anything? Might give the troops some fun, and it would teach women to stay in their proper place.”

Paul shook his head. “Falcons don’t fly after cagebirds. Let them go, and good riddance to them,” he said, and went on to his own rooms, thoughtfully. As he had foreseen, Melisendra was waiting for him.

She put up her arms and kissed him, and he realized that all the way back from the Island of Silence, he had been looking forward to this moment. What had happened to him that a woman could get under his skin that way?

“How is Erlend?”

“Well enough, though I wish we could send him to safety in the country,” she said, “or better, in the Tower. Although—” she paled, “after what befell Hali, I am not sure there is any safety in the Tower, or anywhere else in this land.”

“Send him to the country, if you will,” Paul said. “I am sure Bard will not object; but why do you think he would not be safe here, Melisendra?”

“I have Aldaran blood,” she said, hesitating, “and there is the
laran
of precognition in that line. It is not reliable—I cannot always control it. But sometimes… It may be only my fear, but I have seen fire, fire in this place, and once when I looked at King Alaric I saw his face surrounded in flame…”

“Oh, dearest!” Paul held her close, realizing suddenly that if anything should happen to her, nothing would be left in this world or any other that could contain light of happiness for him. What had happened to
him
?

She raised her soft hand to touch the scratch on his face.

“How did you get this? It looks too small for a battle wound.”

“And it is not,” Paul said, “for I got it from a woman.”

She smiled and said, “I never inquire what a man chooses to do when he is on campaign. I imagine you have had enough women, but can’t you find willing ones? I shouldn’t think, my handsome one, that anyone would refuse you.”

Paul felt himself blushing, remembering the beautiful redheaded wench he and Bard had shared. God knows she had been willing enough. But she had been, at first, only comfort for the knowledge that Melisendra was not there, and later, an excuse for confrontation with Bard. “Such women as I take are willing, my love,” he said, wondering why he bothered to explain this—what in the world had come over him in the last few months? “This was a captive, a woman Bard ordered me to bring to him.”

That was it. I resented getting a woman for him. I’m not his damned pimp
! Angrily, he identified the cause of his anger, and Melisendra, dropping into rapport with him, said, “I’m surprised at that. There are few enough women to refuse Bard. Although the Princess Carlina, I am told, fled the court, there had been some talk of marrying them when they were boy and girl.” And as again she followed his

thought, her small hands flew to her mouth and she stared at him.

“Carlina, in the name of the Goddess! He sent
you
—to incur the wrath of Avarra, to shift the curse to you.”

“I don’t think that was all his reason,” Paul said, and explained that he was immune to the spells laid on the Island of Silence.

She listened, troubled, shaking her head in despair. “Any man who sets foot on the Holy Isle must die…”

“First of all,” Paul said, “I’m not afraid of your Goddess. I told Carlina that. And she’s his wife—”

Melisendra shook her head. “No, the Goddess has claimed her. Perhaps it is through her that Avarra’s vengeance will strike. Nevertheless he cannot escape it.” She shuddered, her face white with horror. “I thought even Bard had had his warning, when he was driven from the island before,” she whispered. “I don’t hate Bard; he is the father of my son, and yet—and yet—”

She paced the floor, distracted, distressed. “And the penalty for him who rapes a priestess of Avarra…