Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WindTales 02 (33 page)

Standing, Syn-Jern lifted his chin. “Where am I to dress, Your Grace? Am I to wed your daughter

clothed in what I wearing?"

Montyne sighed heavily then stalked to the door and yelled, “Playe!"

The older servant who had kept Syn-Jern from climbing the stairs appeared in the doorway almost as

though he knew he would be needed.

“Aye, Your Grace? What is your pleasure, Milord?” Playe inquired.

“Take this bastard to the garçonniere then fetch his Joining togs. I'll not have him in my home one

moment longer than is absolutely necessary!"

“As you wish, Your Grace,” the servant said, bowing. He turned his insolent eyes on Syn-Jern. “Well,

do not dawdle, Lord Sorn. Come with me!"

The door of the Duke's study slammed behind Syn-Jern's departure and he stopped, looking back with

complete confusion.

“Pray do keep up else I will leave you here!” Playe grated as he continued down the corridor.

The garçonniere was in actuality only a one-room shack about a quarter of a mile from the manse. The

place had few amenities and smelled of neglect and mildew. Other than a tarnished brass bed with a

sagging mattress and well-worn coverlet, there was a porcelain chamber pot, a straight back chair,

wobbly table with a chipped pitcher and ewer, and a single window sans curtain.

“If we'd known you would be staying here,” Playe sniggered, “we would have spruced it up a mite.” He

folded his arms over his chest and glared at Syn-Jern. “What's your pleasure, Milord?"

Syn-Jern would not give the old bastard the satisfaction of knowing he was not only angry about the

accommodations, but also heartsick that he was being treated as he was. “If you'll just bring my—"

“I'll have my son drop them off,” Playe interrupted. His left eyebrow crooked in challenge. “Sometime

today."

Syn-Jern's nails were digging into his palm, but he managed to nod his head politely. “That will be fine.”

Then his own little demon raised its pointed head in kind. “They won't be able to start the Joining without

me, now, will they?” When Playe's superior grin slipped a notch, Syn-Jern's smile could have lit the

darkest room. “Whenever you get me the clothes, I'll get dressed and we can get the ball rolling, eh?

Don't want her to have the brat without benefit of a name, now, do we?"

Playe narrowed his mean eyes, curled his lip, then spun around, slamming the door behind him.

“That entire family was hard on doors,” Syn-Jern chuckled and his wife wondered how he could

possibly find amusement in the way he had been treated. Left up to her, the entire Montyne family, and

every one of their insolent servants, would be tarred and feathered for having treated her husband so

rudely.

They listened to the rain pounding against the palace windows for a bit, then Syn-Jern turned on his side,

the back of his head against his wife's belly. Genny could not help but wonder if that was because he did

not want her to see his face as he finished his tale.

“I must have been tired,” he said, wedging his right hand under his wife's thigh and draping his left over

her leg. “I remember stretching out on that lumpy mattress, but then the next thing I remember, it was ten

of the clock and I could hear laughter and music coming from the lodge."

“They started the party without you?” she gasped.

“That is the Viragonian way,” he said with a shrug. “The bride and groom don't show up until a few

minutes before midnight, the traditional hour of Joining."

“Humpf,” was his wife's comment, her usual answer to statements that annoyed her.

“Anyway, I got up and looked around, thinking Playe's son had brought my clothes to me while I slept,

but they weren't there. I was furious, but what else could I do but go looking for them? So, I left the

garçonniere and started back through the woods."

She stroked his shoulder in an attempt to relax him for his body was suddenly tense.

He walked in the direction he thought they'd come earlier, but soon found he was hopelessly lost in a

maze of shrubbery. Frustrated, he met dead end after dead end, cursing each time he stumbled into a

thorny hedge. Able to hear the music and laughter clearly off to his right, he stopped, took a long, deep

breath, then tried another pathway, only to come up against still another blockage.

“How the hell do I get out of here?” he growled. He started back the way he'd come and tried one more

pathway. This one led him to the back of the stables. He could hear the snort of horses and smell the ripe

stench of fresh manure. Trying to fan the thick branches apart to crawl through did him no good. The

thorns of the bayberry poked into his flesh and he gave up, determined to find his way out of the labyrinth

no matter how long it took him.

“I've often wondered if losing my way in the maze that night wasn't an omen,” he said, “of things to

come."

“Obviously you escaped that maze just as you did the one on Tyber's Isle,” she replied.

“Aye,” he acknowledged, lifting his hand and looking at the scar in the center of his palm. He flexed his

fingers. His voice was very soft, very thin when he added, “and with just as much pain."

After twenty minutes of bumbling his way through the brambles, he came to an opening behind the

stables. Relieved, he was dusting debris from his cords when he heard Rosa-Lynn's voice. Not having

seen nor spoken to her in the last two weeks, he was eager to hold her, kiss her, and make love with her.

He didn't question why his wife-to-be would be in the stables at that time of the evening. Instead, he

grinned like a child about to be given a treat and headed for the stable doors. When he heard his

half-brother's unmistakable throaty laughter, he stopped dead still in his tracks.

“I crept into the stable, being as quiet as I could, but with all the noise they were making, I doubt they

would have heard an army tramping inside,” he said, his voice filled with hurt. “They were in one of the

stalls, as naked as the day they were born, and she was doing to him the things she had done to me."

Genny closed her eyes to the pain she was hearing. In her mind's eye, she could see Syn-Jern standing

there, spying on the woman he loved and the brother he despised as they cuckolded him. What shame

and humiliation he suffered, she could only imagine. He had grown quiet and she kept the silence between

them, instinctively knowing the worst was yet to come.

“I let them finish what they were doing and was about to confront them with their perfidy when

Rosa-Lynn asked Trace how she was going to be able to deny me my husbandry rights."

“The mere thought of that spineless eel climbing atop me makes me want to puke!” Rosa-Lynn said

fiercely. “Every time he lays his hands on me, I positively cringe!"

“Then don't let him touch you,” Trace replied.

“How am I to stop him, Trace?” she returned. “I will be Joined to the hideous creature."

“Once the deeds are noted in the Tribunal log, we'll have no further use for him, Dearling. You can cry

your pending motherhood. He's such a stupid twit, he'll believe anything you tell him,” Trace laughed as

he stroked his mistress’ breast.

“It takes four months to get the deeds noted,” Rosa-Lynn pouted. “I can not possibly live with that

creature for four months!"

“You won't have to,” Trace assured her. “Go visit somebody."

“Like who?” she flung at him.

“Oh, I don't know,” he drawled. “Mayhaps the father of your babe? Where is it he lives again? Tern

Keep?"

Syn-Jern stiffened. Under Serenian law, Tern Keep would be the inheritance of Duke Giles Sorn's

second born: Trace Edward Sorn.

“We have not picked a name for our child,” Rosa-Lynn giggled. “Do you have a preference?"

As he stood in the shadows of the stable listening to his brother and the woman he loved discussing their

coming child, Syn-Jern felt sick to his stomach. The terrible things the two said about him were nearly as

disabling as the knowledge that the child Rosa-Lynn carried was not his, but Trace's. Knowing if he were

to confront them at that point—after all he had learned—he would kill them both with his bare hands, he

thought it best to leave.

Being as quiet as he could, he left the stable and started walking. It was nearly five miles to Holy Dale,

fifteen to Wixenstead Village.

He opted for the village.

“I had a few coins with me,” he explained. “Enough to get me roaring drunk at one of the seediest

taverns on the waterfront and a bed with one of the whores who worked there."

“Good for you,” his wife said firmly.

Syn-Jern craned his neck and looked at her. “That doesn't bother you, Milady?"

“Not in the least,” she replied. “Go on."

He chuckled, then laid his head in her lap again. “I must have done right by the bawd for she served me

breakfast in bed the next morning, though I didn't have the money to pay for the food or the stomach to

eat it. I had a blazing hangover that was causing me considerable grief when the door to her room burst

open and there stood my father."

“Get your ass out of that bed, now!” Duke Sorn bellowed, stomping to the bed and flinging the covers

from his son's naked body.

“Have pity on him, Your Grace,” the whore begged. “He's been sick, he has!"

“And he will be sicker still when I am finished with him!” Syn-Jern's father promised.

The shouts were excruciating stabs of pain in his temples and Syn-Jern tried to hide his head under the

pillow only to be jerked to a sitting position when his father yanked the pillow away, grabbed a handful of

his hair and pulled.

“Merciful Alel, that hurts!” Syn-Jern shrieked.

“You ain't seen hurt yet, boy!” another voice snarled from the doorway. Duke Montyne came into the

room and helped Giles Sorn drag his son from the whore's bed.

They took him down the stairs and through the tavern, ignoring the whistles and hoots of the customers

watching the spectacle. It wasn't everyday a naked man was dragged through the streets of Wixenstead

Village by two members of the royalty then thrown into a carriage and carted out of town.

Twice, he threw up in the carriage for the harrowing ride was torture on his aching head and queasy

stomach. Once he splattered his father's boots and was rewarded by a backhand slap that tore open his

lip.

“I won't marry her,” he managed to say as he huddled in the corner of the carriage, shivering with cold

and humiliation.

“Aye, you will,” his father corrected.

“I will not."

The Duke of Delinshire said nothing. His beady black eyes were fastened on Syn-Jern as he tapped the

riding quirt he carried with him at all times against his dusty boot.

“Have you no shame,” Giles Sorn threw at his son. “Do you have any ken what you have caused by

running out on your Joining?"

“It's not my baby,” he said, swallowing the last of the bile threatening to spew.

Duke Sorn looked to Montyne, but Rosa-Lynn's father ignored him. Sorn had his doubts about the

parentage of the child. He suspected Trace was the culprit, but wasn't about to say so. He had no doubt

between them, Rosa-Lynn and Trace would find a way to get rid of Syn-Jern. Then, after his grandson

was born—he refused to acknowledge that it might be a girl-child—he would find a way to relieve Trace

of his cumbersome wife so Holy Dale would revert to the Sorns.

“I will not marry her,” Syn-Jern repeated stubbornly.

“You aren't being given a choice, young man,” his father grated.

“You can all go to hell,” Syn-Jern told them.

“I bet that went over big,” Genny gasped.

“It got me something I didn't count on,” Syn-Jern replied. His grip tightened on his wife's legs. “I should

have kept my gods-be-damned mouth shut."

The long silence that had settled on the carriage ended when Montyne lifted his hand and rapped on the

partition separating them from the driver. Almost instantly, the carriage ground to a halt and the driver

hopped down, putting a hand to his cap as he appeared at the door.

“Aye, Your Grace?"

Montyne didn't look at his driver. He was staring sullenly at Syn-Jern. “Fetch me the rope you keep in

the boot."

“Aye, Milord!” the driver responded, going for the rope that was used to pull the carriage out of the mud

should it get stuck.

Sorn's eyebrows arched. “What are you planning, Gerry?"

The Duke of Delinshire ignored the question. Instead, he turned the quirt over and jammed the handle

none-too gently under Syn-Jern's chin to lift his face. “You listen to me, boy,” he said, his voice thick with

evil. “I will give you the choice your father will not."

Syn-Jern tried avoid the sharp prick of the quirt's handle, but the Duke of Delinshire had anticipated his

move and slapped the side of the quirt firmly, but now hard, against Syn-Jern's cheek to keep him from

doing so.

“As I said,” the Duke growled, “I will give you the choice of two evils."

“And that being what?” Syn-Jern shot back, his nakedness and his anger making him reckless.

“You can get out of this carriage and walk behind it tied to the axle so every manjack and humping

skack between here and Fairworth can see how little a man you are or..."

He ran the handle of the quirt down Syn-Jern's cheek, over his shoulder and down to his hip. “You can

suffer my anger and be done with it."

“What does that mean, Gerry?” Sorn asked.

Montyne leaned toward Syn-Jern. “You may be right when you say the brat isn't yours. I've no illusions