Darkover: First Contact (39 page)

“
A ves ordras, domna
,” be conceded, “but only if you will dance with me.”

It was a couple-dance again, and, with the license allowed to a handfasted pair, he could hold her tightly, not at the decorous distance required of most couples. Geremy, he noticed, had been given the privilege of dancing with Queen Ariel, at a most respectful distance indeed. Beltran had (probably at Carlina’s request) chosen to dance with the ungainly Lady Dara. She too was graceful on her feet, as much as Melora, was it so common for ladies who were over-plump to dance so gracefully? Damn it, he would not think of Melora now! She might dance with the fiends from Zandru’s hells, for all he cared! He drew Carlina vengefully close to him, aware of her thin, bony slenderness in his arms. A man could be bruised on those bones!

“Not so tightly, Bard, you are hurting me . . .” she protested. “And it is not suitable. . . .”

He let her go, stung with compunction. He said, “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, Carlie. Anyone or everyone else, but never you.”

The dance ended. The king and queen, with the more elderly and dignified ladies and lords of the court, were withdrawing, so that their presence might not inhibit the younger people at their revels. He saw that the young son of Hammerfell was being taken away by his governess, and that the pretty Mirella was being folded into her cloak by Master Gareth. King Ardrin made a little speech, wishing the youngsters a merry festival and bidding them dance till dawn if they wished.

Carlina stood beside Bard, smiling as her parents departed. She said, “Last year I, too, was taken away at mid-night when the elders and children were sent to bed. This year, I suppose, they think that as a handfasted bride I am in no danger, with my promised husband to guard me.” Her smile was merry.

And, in truth, Bard knew that midwinter revels sometimes grew a little rowdy. They were certainly noisier, after the old people and children departed; there was more drinking, many boisterous kissing games, and the dances grew wilder and less decorous. As the night moved on toward dawn, more and more couples slipped away into the gallery and side passages of the castle, and once Bard and Carlina, dancing past a long passage, saw a couple closely embraced, so intimately so that Carlina quickly turned away her eyes. But Bard steered her into the galleries.

He murmured, “Carlina, you are promised to me already. I think already most of the couples here who are pledged or handfasted have gone apart—” He drew her into his arms, straining her close to him. “You know what I want of you, my promised wife. It is midwinter, we are handfasted, why not make it complete now, since the laws permit?” His mouth fastened over hers; when she twisted away to breathe he murmured thickly, “Even your father could not protest!”

She said softly, “Bard, no, no.” He could sense the rising panic in her, but she spoke in an undertone, trying desperately for calm.

“I have resigned myself to this marriage, Bard. I’ll honor my father’s wish, I promise you. But not—not now.” He sensed, and it struck pain deep into him, that she was fighting hard not to show her dismay and revulsion. “Give me time. Not—not now, not tonight.”

It seemed that he could hear again the threatening words Beltran had hurled at him:
roses will grow in Zandru’s ninth hell before you take Carlina to bed!

He snarled at her, “Has Beltran made good his threat, then?”

Melora had refused him, too, though a scant forty days before she wanted him. Melora was a telepath; she must have been aware of the quarrel with Beltran, knew Beltran could poison the king’s mind against him; a liaison with an out-of-favor courtier could do Melora no good . . . . Beltran had turned Melora against him, too, and now Carlina. . . .

Carlina said, her voice shaking, “I don’t know what you are talking about, Bard. Have you quarreled with my brother?”

“And if I had, would that change your mind about me?” he demanded, bitterly. “So, you too are like all women, you will tease me as if I had no manhood! You are my promised wife, why do you draw away from me as if I meant rape?”

“You just now said,” she replied, staring up at him with bitterness as great as his own, “that you would never want to hurt me. Does that hold only when I agree to everything you want of me? Do you think it would not be rape because I am your promised wife? I love you as foster brother and friend, and if the Goddess is merciful to us both, a day will come when I will love you as the husband my father has given to me. But that time is not yet; I have been promised that I shall have till midsummer. Bard, I beg you, let me go!”

“So that your father may have enough time to change his mind about me? So that Beltran may poison his mind against me, have you given to his own minion?”

“How dare you say that of Geremy,” she demanded furiously, and somehow the name ignited the last reserves of Bard’s wrath.

“So, you are so careful of
his
honor, that
ombredin
, that half-man—”

“Don’t speak that way of my foster brother,” she said in a rage.

“I’ll speak as I choose, and no woman shall prevent me,” he flung at her.

“Bard, you are still drunk; the wine cup speaks, not you,” she said, and his own fury blazed up, the last vestiges of his self-control flaring. He had let Melora go out of respect for Carlina! How dare she refuse him now, as if he were nothing to her? He would not be un-manned twice on midwinter night by some damned woman’s whims! He dragged her into the gallery, gripping her so hard that she cried out, and forced his lips down on hers, ignoring her struggles. Mingled wrath and desire flamed high in him; for the second time, a woman he wanted and felt he had a right to have had denied him, and this time he would not submit to her meekly, but he would impose his will on her! Damn it, she was his wife, and tonight he would have her, willingly if she chose, but in any case he would have her! She struggled in his arms, in growing panic, exciting him unendurably.

“Bard, no, no,” she pleaded, sobbing. “Not like this, not like this . . . oh, please, please. . . .”

He held her, fiercely, knowing that he was hurting her with the violence of his grasp. “Come to my room, then! Don’t make me force you, Carlina!” How could she possibly be indifferent to this raging torrent of desire in him? Somehow, he must
make
her feel it! What he wanted was for her to want him as fiercely as he wanted her, to match his own desire and need with her own, and here she was fighting and struggling against him as if she were an unkissed child who did not even know what he wanted of her!

A hand alighted on his shoulder; tore them apart.

“Bard, you are drunk, or completely out of your mind?” Geremy asked, staring at them in dismay. Carlina covered her face with her hands, weeping with relief and shame.

“Damn you, how dare you interfere, you half-man—”

“Carlina is my foster sister,” Geremy said. “I won’t have her raped at a party, even by her promised husband! Bard, in the name of all the gods, go and slosh your face with cold water and apologize to Carlina, and we’ll say no more of this; and next time, stop drinking while you can still master yourself!”

“Damn you—” Bard advanced on Geremy with fury, his fists clenched; Beltran seized him from behind. He said, “No, you don’t, Bard. Carlina, you didn’t want this, did you?”

She sobbed, “No, I didn’t,” and Bard said angrily, “She is my promised wife! She had no right to refuse herself to me this way—you did not hear her crying out, certainly! By what right do you assume she wishes to be released from me? She liked it well enough, until you came along to interfere—”

“Now there you lie,” Beltran said in a rage. “For everyone in this hall with a scrap of
laran
must have heard her cry out against you! I’ll see that my father hears of this! Damnable bastard, trying to take by force what he could never have had willing—”

Bard whipped his dagger out of its sheath. The green gems glittered in the light. He said low, between his teeth, “You meddling catamite, don’t presume to interfere in what you don’t know the first thing about! Get out of my way—”

“No!” Geremy grabbed his wrist. “Bard, you are raving mad! To draw steel at midwinter, before your prince? Beltran, he’s drunk, don’t listen to what he says! Bard, go and sober up, and I’ll give you my word of honor, the king will hear no more of this—”

“So you’re in this against me too, you filthy boy-lover, you and your minion,” Bard yelled, and sprang at him. Geremy stepped aside, trying to avoid the thrust of the dagger, but Bard, beside himself with rage, hurled himself at Geremy and they slammed to the floor, struggling. Geremy twisted his body, grabbing his own dagger. He was still begging, “Bard, no—foster brother, don’t—” but Bard did not even hear, and Geremy knew that he must fight in real earnest now, or Bard would kill him. They had fought before this, as boys, but never, before this, with real weapons in their hands. Bard was stronger than he was. He thrust up, trying to knock the dagger aside, to shove his knee between himself and Bard’s descending blade. He felt his knife go into Bard’s arm, slit the leather and scrape flesh; and in the next moment Bard’s dagger went deep into his thigh, high up near the groin. He cried out, harshly, in agony, feeling the leg go numb.

Then a dozen of the king’s men were dragging them apart, and Bard, abruptly sobered by the flood of adrenalin, like a cold wash over him, stared at Geremy, rolling about in convulsive agony on the floor.

“Zandru’s hells!
Bredu
—” he begged, dropping to his knees beside his foster brother; but he knew Geremy did not hear him. Carlina was sobbing in Beltran’s arms.

Beltran said to one of the soldiers, “Escort my sister to her apartments, and find her maids; then go and awaken my father. I will be responsible.”

He dropped to his knees beside Geremy, shoving Bard viciously aside.

“Don’t touch him, you—! You’ve done enough! Geremy,
bredu
, my beloved brother—speak to me, I beg you, speak to me—” He sobbed, and Bard heard the anguish in his voice. But Geremy was beyond hearing.

One of the soldiers grabbed Bard, not gently, and took the dagger, “Poisoned,” he said. “A Dry-town dagger.” And Bard, in horror, recalled, for the first time that evening, that it was the dagger he had taken in the fight. The slightest wound from a Dry-town dagger, poisoned like this, had meant that Master Gareth had been lamed, probably for life. And he had struck Geremy, in his rage, deep into the hamstrings. Shocked, too horrified to speak, he let the soldiers take him away and place him under arrest.

He spent forty days under house arrest, and no one came near him. He had plenty of time to regret his rashness, his drunken rage; but there were times, too, when he blamed Carlina for it all. Food was brought to his rooms by soldiers, who told him that for a week Geremy had raved in delirium and hung between life and death; but they had sent for a
laranzu
from Neskaya who had saved his life and even his leg. But the leg, they had heard, envenomed by the poison, had withered and shrunk, and he would probably never walk again without support.

In a cold wash of terror, Bard wondered what they would do with him. To draw steel at midwinter festival was a crime enough; to wound a foster brother even in play was a serious offense. Beltran had broken Bard’s nose once, at one of their games, and he had been severely beaten, prince or no, by their tutors, had been forced to apologize at dinner time before everyone in the king’s household, and had been required by the king to give Bard, in fine, his best hawk, and his finest cloak. He still had the cloak.

He tried to bribe the soldier who guarded him to smuggle out a message to Carlina. If she would intercede for him—she was his only hope. The least he could expect would be a year’s exile, and forfeiture of the king’s favor. They could not void his marriage to Carlina, but they could put some trouble in his way. If Geremy had died, he would have faced three years exile, at least, and blood-money to Geremy’s family; but Geremy was not dead. But the soldier curtly refused, saying the king had forbidden any messages to be carried.

Wholly alone, thrown on his own resources, Bard’s bitterness washed away his remorse. It was Melora’s doing; if she had not refused him, he would not have had to take out his rage and frustration on Carlina, he could have given Carlina the extra half-year she wanted, until their appointed time. Melora had led him on, then refused him, damned tease!

And then Carlina! She said that she would love him as a husband, yet she put him off this way! And how dared Geremy and Beltran, damned
ombredin-y
, to come interfering? Beltran was jealous, damn him, because Bard had refused him, and he had called his minion to fight him. . . . It was their fault! He had done nothing wrong!

Rage hardened his remorse, until the day, with soft spring rain flooding the castle roofs and the spring thaw at hand, when two soldiers came into his room and said, “Best dress yourself, Dom Bard; the king has called you to audience.”

Bard dressed carefully in his best, shaving himself closely and braiding his hair into the warrior’s braid, twisting the red cord around it. When the king saw it, perhaps he would remember how well Bard had served him, and for how long. If he had killed or maimed the king’s son, he knew, nothing could have saved him; he would count himself lucky to be allowed a quick death and not be torn on hooks. But Geremy was a hostage, son of the king’s enemies—

Geremy was the king’s foster son and his own foster brother. It would not save him.

He came into the king’s presence-chamber with a defiant stride, standing tall, staring down everyone in the room. Carlina was there, among the queen’s women, pale and drawn, her hair dragged back from her face into a thin knot, her eyes huge and frightened. Beltran looked angry, defiant and would not meet Bard’s eyes. Bard looked for Geremy. He was there, leaning on crutches, and Bard noticed that the wounded leg still bore a slipper rather than a boot and that Geremy did not set it to the ground.