Wizard of the Grove (10 page)

Mikhail didn't see the hand extended toward him, nor the welcoming smile. All he saw was Tayer gazing up into the leaf-green eyes of the creature who held her. Throwing aside his sword, he charged.

The two men were matched in height, but Mikhail was heavier and fighting from the depths of his pain. The suddenness of his attack allowed him to get his hands around Varkell's throat and the muscles of his arms bulged as he tried to snap the other's neck. This thing had taken Tayer from him.

Pushing Tayer to safety, Varkell swept Mikhail's feet out from under him and they crashed to the ground.

The fall and his own weight broke Mikhail's hold, but he quickly gained another. From a distance, a saner part of his mind cried out that this would solve nothing, but he couldn't, wouldn't stop. Varkell made no attempt to return the attack, merely defending himself against Mikhail's assaults. A blocking elbow hit Mikhail in the mouth and his lip, caught between tooth and bone, split. As he jerked his head free, six drops of blood arced away—where they landed, the grass died. They thrashed about the clearing, tearing great gouges out of the velvet sod, first gold head on top, then silver.

Finally Varkell gained the top and kept it. Mikhail looked up and fell into, the other world that burned in Varkell's eyes. Seeing what Tayer loved, and loving it himself, in spite of himself, he turned his head and closed his eyes in defeat. Tears seeped out through his lashes
and left glistening trails down his cheeks. There was nothing left but the pain. There would never be anything but the pain.

“I yield,” he said softly. “You have won.”

Varkell stood, but Mikhail didn't move. He wasn't sure he could. He knew he didn't want to. The peace of the Grove, too deep to be shattered by the battle just ended, began to lap at the edges of his soul.

“Mikhail.” The voice was a summons impossible to deny. “Look at me.”

Mikhail opened his eyes. He saw, standing before him, a tall young man with silver-white hair and leaf-green eyes. The other-worldliness was gone.

“No, never gone.” Sorrow clouded the words. “Just pushed aside for a time so we can talk.”

“Who are you?” Mikhail asked, getting slowly to his feet. “What are you?”

Varkell pointed to the young birch in the circle of ancient trees.

“In that spot, amidst the roots of a tree long gone, were buried the bodies of a hamadryad and the mortal man she loved. Out of their love came the Royal House of Ardhan. Out of their bodies and the roots of the holy tree grew the tree you see here. I came from the tree.”

“Are you a god?”

“No, only a messenger.”

Varkell turned and smiled sadly at Tayer. His eyes blazed as she came into his arms. “And, may the Mother help us all, the message has been delivered.”

The look he then turned on Mikhail was far removed from mortal understanding, but a greater part of it held the full weight of pain Tayer had only reflected.

“She carries my child, Mikhail. This is the last time I shall see her.”

“It burns, Cousin,” Tayer said softly, “this brightness within and brightness without. I can no longer bear them both.”

Mikhail stared at them. He felt large and stupid. “What can I do?” he asked, knowing he would do whatever they wanted but not knowing what he could possibly do that would help.

“The joining planned for Tayer must not happen. You must join with her yourself.”

“She doesn't love me.”

“No, she doesn't.” Varkell could not lie. “But when I am gone, she will.”

Mikhail looked at Tayer and then within himself. The flame of love he had carried for so long still burned, perhaps now more brightly than ever. Tayer had been chosen for glory; he could love that as well. He nodded and held out his arms.

Walking like one in a dream, Tayer came to him and rested her head against his chest with a sigh. Holding her gently, as if afraid she would break, Mikhail bent and laid his face upon her hair. When he looked up, they were alone in the Grove.

On the ride back to the palace, Mikhail pondered how much to tell the king. In the end, he decided not to mention the Grove. He'd not have believed it himself without proof. As everyone seemed to know of his love for Tayer, Mikhail felt his best chance lay in convincing the king that Tayer cared for him in return, hoping the older man's love for his daughter and his desire to see her happy would cause him to call off the arranged joining.

He glanced at Tayer riding serenely beside him. It could only help that she was so obviously a woman in love.

Hanna met them in the stableyard.

“He's been asking for you both,” she told them. “You'd better hurry. He's waiting in the small audience room.”

Mikhail took Tayer's hand and together they went into the palace, Hanna trailing along behind. Heads turned as they passed and the halls filled with rumor. Tayer, listening to the song of another world, didn't hear. Mikhail set his jaw and pretended not to.

“Sire, I have to speak with you.”

The king looked at his nephew and then at his daughter.

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I should say you do.”

His Majesty had not been impressed when Tayer's absence had been discovered and he was less impressed when she showed up five
hours later with Mikhail. What must the envoy from Halda be thinking?

“Sire, your daughter and I wish to be joined.”

Keeping his face carefully noncommittal—he'd been afraid something like this would happen since the first time he'd seen the light in Mikhail's eyes—the king sat down and peered over steepled fingers at Tayer. “Is that what you wish, child?”

“Yes, Father.”

“This talk of your joining is a little sudden, is it not?”

“If I'd known you were arranging a joining, Sire, I would've spoken sooner, but I was away on the border . . .”

“Defending the country. You grew up in my household, Mikhail, I know your worth. However, nothing prevented Tayer from speaking when I made her aware of my plans.” Although he'd carefully kept Mikhail from finding out, he'd made sure Tayer had no objections before he sent the Messenger to Halda.

Mikhail held his breath and sent a short prayer to the Mother that Tayer remained enough in the world to lie.

“I was unsure of my feelings, Father,” she hesitated then looked almost shyly up at Mikhail. “It wasn't until I saw him on his return that I knew.”

Mikhail smiled at her and gently squeezed her hand. It seemed very small in his and very cold. Then he gave his attention again to the king.

“If Tayer joins with Halda,” the older man said thoughtfully, “Ardhan gains a valuable ally. What does the country gain if she joins with you?”

“The country would gain less, it's true, but you would have comfort in the knowledge that your daughter was happy. Sire.”

The king raised a bushy eyebrow.

“And you don't believe she will be happy in Halda.”

“No, Sire.” Mikhail met his gaze steadily. “If she joins with the Crown Prince of Halda, it will be a joining without love.”

“Do you love her?”

“Oh, yes, Sire! With all my heart!”

Only a fool would doubt the sincerity of Mikhail's response. The king was no fool.

“Tayer?”

For the first time since she had entered the room, for the first time in many months, Tayer looked at her father directly. He drew in his breath sharply under the full impact of her eyes. He couldn't question the love they held—he couldn't know the love was not for Mikhail.

“If love is the way of it,” and he wondered how he could've been so blind to think that Tayer had no more than a sibling's affection for her cousin, “you have my blessing. I will do what I can about Halda.”

“I will join with him, Sire.”

“What?” The king spun around, Mikhail stared at his sister in astonishment, and even Tayer rejoined the world long enough to look surprised.

Hanna got up from the stool where she'd been sitting and stepped forward.

“Hanna, child, I didn't know you were there.”

Hanna smiled strangely. “Yes, Sire, I know.”

“What's this you've said?”

“I am willing to join with the Crown Prince of Halda. If he approves, you'll still have an ally and Tayer will be happy.” The Mother forbid, said her eyes, that Tayer should be unhappy.

“That's a very noble sacrifice you're making for your cousin,” the king began kindly, wishing that either Hanna's mother or his beloved queen still lived. “And we are all touched that you're willing to put her happiness ahead of yours but . . .”

“I'm not doing it for her,” Hanna explained, wanting someone to understand, just this once. “I'm doing it for me.”

“To go away from your family, to join with a man you've never met.” Mikhail took a step toward his sister, his hands spread in puzzlement. “What is there in that for you?”

“A place of my own,” Hanna answered softly, turning to face him. “Where I am not overlooked. Where I am myself, not Tayer's cousin or Mikhail's sister or the king's niece. You and Tayer have each other,
why can't this be for me? All my life I've been the second princess; I'd like to be first for a change.”

The king's heavy brows drew in over his nose and he studied his niece as if seeing her for the first time. “We never knew you felt this way . . .”

“That,” said Hanna, “is part of the problem. Please, Uncle.”

And the king nodded.

“If Halda agrees . . .”

A Messenger was sent and Halda agreed. One unknown princess would do as well as another in the opinion of the crown prince, who had little interest in being joined at all. At the end of a week of state festivities, a proxy joining was held on the dais of the People's Square. Hanna managed to look regal in the ridiculous clothing demanded by the occasion and gave her responses in a strong, clear voice that carried to the meanest viewpoint at the back of the Square.

“I still don't understand why you have to do this,” Mikhail said, as attendants carried her back into the palace and the Great Doors closed.

“If you'd understood,” Hanna told him sharply, removing the cumbersome headdress, “I wouldn't have had to do it.”

Mikhail looked to Tayer for support, but she only smiled sadly and shook her head. With the light she carried had come understanding, but it was far too late to start making amends.

The next day, Hanna left to live with a husband she had never met and, although Mikhail and Tayer both watched until she rode out of sight, she never once looked back.

Tayer and Mikhail were joined by the king in a quiet ceremony; a ceremony they both considered to be unnecessary. In their hearts, they knew they had been joined that day in the Grove. Tayer's condition soon became obvious and her father was delighted.

“The Mother has blessed this union,” he declared, so enchanted by the idea of a grandchild he ignored the unusual aspects of the pregnancy.

For the most part the rest of the court took their cue from the king. Tayer was insulated from gossip and Mikhail heard little of it, for only
a fool would speak in Mikhail's presence, but what he heard caused him great uneasiness.

“Tayer?”

With a visible effort, Tayer brought herself back from the light. She smiled at Mikhail, who knelt at her feet, and gently touched the tumbled mane of his hair.

“Tayer,” he hesitated, considered what he was asking and found, with no little surprise, that the question was painless. To think of Tayer with another man would have torn him to pieces, but to think of her with Varkell brought only a renewed sense of wonder. “Tayer, the child you carry, when did you conceive?”

“A month after you left for the border.”

Mikhail cursed beneath his breath and Tayer looked at him in puzzlement.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

“When the child is born, the court will know it isn't mine. Your time will be either a month too early or a month too late.” Convincing the court, and her father, that he'd impregnated her before leaving would've been bad enough but nothing compared to what was likely to happen. A royal child was meticulously examined and then presented to the people, making an eight-month lie impossible to sustain. He didn't want to think of what Tayer would go through then.

“Don't worry.” She took one of his hands and placed it on the gentle swelling of her stomach. “It has been taken care of.”

And suddenly, Mikhail felt that it had.

Tayer's pregnancy was not an easy one. Throughout the long winter, as the child grew within her, she seemed to fade. Cheekbones cut angles into her face and her hands became thin and frail, almost transparent. She gave all her strength, all her life, to the child. Her eyes still shone as bright, or brighter, but few could meet the unearthly beauty of her gaze. Mikhail, looking beyond the beauty to the glory that consumed her, was himself consumed with worry for his young wife.

Winter finally ended. The grip of ice and cold released and the first greens of spring began to appear. The time came when, by Mikhail's
count, Tayer should deliver; and then it passed. Taken care of, yes, but Mikhail worried that Tayer would not be able to bear the burden much longer. Every day he carried her out to the gardens, but it did little good, for every day she grew weaker. At long last, on a cloudless summer afternoon, the pains began.

The midwives expected trouble. The princess' hips were narrow and she wasn't strong. The birth, they feared, would rip her apart.

“And if it comes to it,” sighed the younger as they scrubbed their hands, “who do we save, the mother or the child?”

“Both,” came the reply and the voice held conviction that even Lord Death would have hesitated to challenge.

When everything was ready, they let Mikhail into the room. He sat by the bed and held Tayer's limp hand in his. Her grip tightened and she whimpered. He doubted she knew he was there. He'd never felt so helpless.