Birth: A Novella

ECLIPSIS

Book Four of Lady Amalie’s memoirs

by Amalie, Lady Aranyi
edited and with an introduction by Ann Herendeen

Copyright © 2011 by Ann Herendeen

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is purely
coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the
author or publisher.

Cover image by Danielle Jacobs with T.T. Thomas

Smashwords Edition: October 2011

Also by Ann Herendeen

About the Author/Editor

Dedication

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

Preview: CAPTIVITY

Harper Paperbacks (Kindle and Nook versions also
available):

Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander (2008)

Pride/Prejudice (2010)

Lambda Literary Award finalist, Bisexual Fiction
category

E-Books

ECLIPSIS: Lady Amalie’s Memoirs

Book One:
Recognition

Book Two:
Choices

Book Three:
Wedding

Book Four:
Birth
(October 2011)

Books Five and Six:
Captivity
(November and
December 2011)

Short Story

A Charming Ménage

In
Gay City
Volume 4: “At Second Glance”

Ann Herendeen is the author of two novels (Harper
Paperback):
Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander
(2008); and
Pride/Prejudice
(2010), a Lambda Literary Award
finalist for Bisexual Fiction; and a short story, “A Charming
Ménage,” published in
Gay City
vol. 4: “At Second Glance.”
She lives in Brooklyn.
www.annherendeen.com

I
f only we could have stayed
home.
It’s the city that did it
, I tell myself, a ridiculous
lie from a city girl. But things went wrong from the start in
Eclipsia City—and earlier, as soon as we decided to go. The
communion that had seemed stronger than the two of us combined
weakened with each new conflict, until it unraveled like a cut
rope, shaking us off into miserable freedom, even Stefan. Now, five
months into our marriage, and back at Aranyi, Dominic and I must
work to reestablish the connection. What had once flourished on its
own, without any attention from us, now requires care. And so I
have given Dominic a gift, arranged an opportunity for him, to show
him that I have kept faith as his wife, that I know his mind.

***

Dominic and Lord Roger Zichmni ride through the deep
snow. The horses walk carefully, putting each hoof down only after
testing the frozen crust. The men ride single-file, Dominic’s
hunter leading the way over familiar turf. They reach the hay barn
in the time it would take to ride leisurely to the edge of the
forest and back in summer.

“Perhaps we should rest the horses,” Dominic
says.

“Perhaps,” Roger says, guessing Dominic’s
thoughts. “I could use a rest myself.” He dismounts and pushes
through the drifts into the deserted barn, Dominic following.

***

We had traveled from Eclipsia City to Aranyi through
snow almost as deep, Dominic and I, a short month ago. Entering my
ninth month of pregnancy, and unskilled at riding, I had been crazy
to attempt so arduous a journey at this time of year. Dominic would
have dissuaded me, but I had known—we had both known—that if our
marriage was to be saved it would be at Aranyi. Our child should be
born at home, I insisted, not in a suite of rooms in ‘Graven
Fortress.

***

The barn is enormous, packed with fragrant hay that
seems to retain some of the warmth of summer and harvest time. The
men lead the horses in, humans and animals eager to be out of the
cold, and shut the doors against the wind. Every square inch of
space is filled with bales, only a few narrow walkways for loading
and unloading threading in convoluted paths.

“Here,” Dominic says, finding a shorter
stack. “We can sit here.” He sits first, leaning back on his
elbows, long legs extended, crossed at the ankles. His eyes shine
silver, third eyelids lowered, offering friendly communion with a
gifted comrade, his mouth curving in the hint of a smile, all
innocence, letting Roger come to him. There’s nowhere else to sit,
unless Roger wants to stand, like a supplicant in front of the
enthroned god.

Roger sits at the other end of the bale,
broad shoulders hunched, his tall frame folded over on itself, back
turned. His red hair glimmers with streaks of white.
So young to
be going gray
, Dominic thinks, but the Zichmnis tend to age
early and live forever. The hay prickles through the leather riding
breeches, or perhaps it’s the excitement, the beginning of an
erection that can’t be stopped or prevented when the other is this
close, body heat and pulsing heartbeats shimmering on waves of
hay-scent between them…

***

Our first month of marriage had been bliss. Just the
three of us, Dominic and Stefan and me, a perfect trio, in an
enchanted world, no demands of autumn, of city and work, only
pleasure stretching before us each long day and night. Making love
with Dominic in the Margrave’s bedroom, or alone in my room,
sharing in communion the love between my husband and his companion,
sleeping when I was sated. In the mornings Dominic and Stefan would
practice with swords and daggers, or go riding. “Hunting,” they
called it, although mostly what they seemed to catch was each
other. I would go over the books with Berend the Master Steward; it
was the beginning of harvest season, his busiest time, and he was
grateful for the help.

After dinner and the siesta I would read the
history books from Dominic’s library, or walk to the dairy house
for some cheese. Many days the three of us would sit around
talking. “We shall all die of sloth before winter,” Dominic would
say. But he wouldn’t move, just refill his glass from the decanter
and ask me my opinion of the book I was halfway through. I would
tell him and Stefan some Terran history by way of comparison, both
of them surprised that a woman knew of wars and battles, curious
despite their contempt for all things Terran.

“How come the Terrans didn’t all kill each
other off, with no Armaments Convention like ours?” Stefan, at
sixteen, could ask without embarrassment where Dominic, commanding
officer and past forty, dare not lose face by confessing ignorance.
“What does that mean, ‘civil war?’ ” Eclipsis has no concept of
nation-states, or that “regular” wars are fought across borders.
Then with a covert glance and smile towards Dominic, “Was there
really an army made up all of lovers?” I would try to answer from
memory, stumped so often without a way to look things up, while
Dominic scoffed at the wretched Terran education system in which
nothing was memorized, vowing to get me books if there was no other
way to jog my neurons.

It was heaven. Sheer, absolute paradise. If
I could come back as a young woman, have it all to do over again, I
could not improve on my month of honeymoon with Dominic and his
companion.

***

Dominic reaches for Roger’s hand, but Roger pulls
away.
Like a virgin schoolboy
, he thinks, annoyed with
himself, reddening with embarrassment, laughing to hide it.

“I wanted to thank you,” Dominic says, “for
supporting my marriage in ‘Graven Assembly.”

After what he has seen of us in Eclipsia
City, Roger is unsure if Dominic is serious or being his usual
ironic self. Roger laughs again, striving for the light reply that
will answer either way. “How could I not? I’m in favor of
marriage—these days.” His own betrothal was announced in the last
assembly session before the holiday recess.

There is a pause while Roger lets his hand
be captured. Dominic’s long fingers stroke the palm; communion
builds between them, expanding like the heated air around the
closely packed hay, like their own bodies in the tight
breeches.

Years have passed since Roger was a
resentful first-year cadet, grandson to the Viceroy, born to rule,
following his planned future under duress. Dominic had offered
genuine sympathy for a situation he had endured in his own youth,
but the promising friendship was poisoned by Dominic’s misdirected
lust, first at Roger, then as abuse of Tariq Sureddin, who became
Roger’s companion. With Dominic’s adoption of Tariq as his son and
heir, and with Roger’s maturity, the enmity has slowly healed,
until friendship has again become possible.

Dominic must adjust to the new relationship,
the equality between them—more, that Roger, now the acting Viceroy,
is his overlord in fact, not merely in name. For Roger, it is
another rite of passage, that this man who had wanted him with a
fierce, predatory passion, then had befriended him, is now offering
a combination of casual sex and comradeship, natural in the adult
male world of
vir
society.

I sit in the easy chair in my room, the book
Dominic has given me, his own peace offering, lying untouched on
the table. My hand rests on my distended belly, sliding over the
wool of my dress that prickles like the hay. Hoping for Dominic’s
success, a sign of our reconciliation.

“She’s very gifted, your lady,” Roger
says.

Does Roger know it
, I wonder,
that
I’m there in mind, with my husband?

Yes, Amalie
, Dominic says.
He
knows
. Dominic holds me in the communion as I start to
withdraw.
It’s always better when my lady wife shares it with
me
. His arm is around Roger’s shoulders, his mouth swoops for
the kiss, and I gasp with the unexpected pleasure as Roger, also
taken off guard, responds to the man who has fascinated and
frightened him for so long.

Three hearts beat in rapid, thumping
arousal.
Tariq!
Roger thinks of his own lover in one
panicked moment, before Dominic’s hand is unbuttoning Roger’s
breeches, his tongue is in Roger’s mouth, and thinking is no longer
possible.

This is no betrayal
, Dominic assures
him in their communion.
This is only Midwinter delayed
. To
himself he thinks,
Years delayed,
sighing as he releases
Roger’s swollen cock from its imprisonment.

***

We were well into harvest season when Dominic woke
one morning, cursing in his thoughts. Dawn, with a steady rain and
Dominic’s angry words drumming into my brain. “I’m going to miss
the opening of ‘Graven Assembly, that’s what,” he said, when I
asked him what was the matter. “And the Military Academy. Darkness
and damnation! They’ve probably given up on me, appointed someone
else.”

He was up and bathed, shaved and dressed,
while I tried to figure out what day it was.
Oh, gods. What
month?
Eclipsis’s calendar isn’t Terra’s. Ordinarily I didn’t
think about it, just followed everybody else. There are no
weekends, the weeks are eight days long, summer and winter are more
similar in climate than on Terra—I gave up. Dominic came back into
the bedroom. “Shit, Amalie!” He had never spoken so harshly. “Still
in bed? We must leave in half an hour.”

“Half an hour?” I said. “It’ll take me that
long in the bath. And what about packing, breakfast?”

“We can eat on the trail. The servants will
pack our things, send what we need after us.” He pulled my hand.
“Now get up.”

I slapped his arm with my right hand. No
effect. “Let go! I’m not going anywhere in half an hour.”

“Twenty minutes by now!” Dominic said in his
officer’s roar of command.

“In twenty minutes,” I said, “if you shut
up, I should be back asleep.” I turned on my side, away from his
angry face, and pulled the furs up over my shoulder. “I’ll follow
you to Eclipsia City if you like,” I mumbled into the pillow.
“Tomorrow, after a decent bath and a sit-down breakfast.”

***

Roger is torn between lingering guilt and immediate
pleasure. Dominic’s lovemaking is both forceful and sensuous; he
overcomes reluctance by pushing on then drawing back, so that at
the moment of surrender it is the other who pleads, “Don’t stop.”
Roger knows only that he enjoys being the one pursued for a change,
instead of the hunter, that he likes being fondled to hardness,
handled and mastered by this man who has had hundreds of lovers,
who knows what pleases another man—and what secretly excites and
scares him. Roger can’t resist the allure of passivity, the luxury
of lying back and letting this virile, dangerous man do what he
likes, of not knowing exactly what will happen. Afterward will be
time enough to think. Now it is important only not to miss this
great chance.