Sorrows of Adoration (57 page)

“You must not retaliate
against him, Jarik,” I said bluntly. I rose and stood beside him to
ensure that he wouldn’t dismiss my words. “I am not excusing what
he has done, but he is the King, and if the people were to learn he
has become such a drunken mongrel, it could be disastrous for
Keshaerlan. Besides, did you not just tell me that violence is
wrong?”

He let go of the post
and stood before me with his arms crossed over his chest. Ignoring
the quip about violence, he said, “Aenna, if your loyal
worshippers—peasant and Lord alike—find out about what he has done,
we could very well find an armed revolt on our hands. The peasants
of Endren alone would demand retribution for their beloved
Queen.”

I nodded and sighed. My
numbness waned, and the frustrated pain came back into my heart. I
stepped up to Jarik and let him put his arms around me. It was such
dear comfort to put my head against his warm chest and to feel his
enormous hand cupping my head gently. I closed my eyes and tried to
banish away my angry and sorrowful thoughts, wanting instead so
much just to enjoy this good man’s kind touch.

Without warning, he
squeezed me tightly to him, lifting me almost entirely off my feet.
His body shuddered as though he were struggling to not let me see
how awful he felt. A moment later he relaxed, letting me back down
to the ground but still keeping his arms around me. I thought for a
moment that I was trembling, but then I realized it was in fact
Jarik—the big, strong, resilient warrior—who trembled in rage and
sadness.

He stepped back
slightly from me, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking at
me very intently. He moved his hands, taking my head in his them
softly and rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks. Then he closed his
eyes and leaned forward, putting his lips tenderly to my forehead.
He kissed me there several times and then wrapped his arms gently
around me once more. I buried my face in his shoulder.

“I will do whatever I
must to make things well again for you, my dearest Aenna,” he
whispered roughly. “I am forsworn to be your Champion in all
things, even if that means dealing with—”

A loud knock at the
door cut him off. He stepped quickly away from me, as though it was
improper of him to be comforting me.

“Come,” I said.

Leiset entered quickly
and said, “I’m sorry, Aenna, I know you wanted to be alone but—”
She noticed Jarik there and seemed somewhat startled. They
exchanged an odd look that I could not interpret. Then her eyes
returned to me, and she said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but Mikel
says there approaches quickly a man on horseback. He saw the lone
rider crest the hill in the distance just moments ago.”

“
It’s Kurit,” I
said, quite sure of it. A surge of emotions threatened my mind, but
I forced them all back with the thought,
He’s a fool to travel without guards.
That alone will cause undue attention.

“I suppose I shall have
to start dealing with that part of being your Champion right away
then,” Jarik said.

Feeling quite exhausted
with the entire situation, I said, “I don’t want to see him. I
can’t bear to hear him tell me yet again how very sorry he is. I
don’t care how sober or drunk or sorry or angry he is. If I see
him, I shall go mad, I swear it.”

“He shall not reach
you,” Jarik declared. “I shall ensure it.” The big man put a gentle
hand on my arm and led me to a chair to sit. Then he beckoned to
Leiset and said, “I’ll handle my cousin. You stay here with Aenna
and lock the door behind me.”

“What about Raelik?” I
said quickly. “I don’t want him near Raelik either.”

“Raelik and Lyenta have
gone down to the lake,” said Jarik. “It is unlikely that they would
return so soon.”

Jarik left, but when
Leiset went to lock the door I said, “No, don’t close it. Keep it
open enough that I can hear them. If Jarik begins to throttle
Kurit, I’ll have to go and get my hands into it. I won’t let this
Kingdom fall apart, even if Kurit deserves the disgrace.”

Leiset nodded. “I shall
stay by the door, then, and watch,” she whispered. “I can see the
stairs well from here and will lock it quickly should Kurit manage
to slip past Jarik.”

“He won’t. Nothing
slips past Jarik,” I said with certainty.

“Well, he’s standing on
the stairs right now and …” Leiset sheepishly closed the
door.

“Don’t close it,” I
repeated.

“I have to. Jarik’s
glaring at me dreadfully.”

A short time later, I
heard the noise of the main door downstairs being thrown roughly
open.

“She’s here, isn’t
she?” I heard Kurit’s voice echo through the house.

“Open the door, Leiset,
and tell me what you see,” I said quietly. She nodded and slowly
opened the door just enough that she could peer through the crack
with one eye.

“Where is she?” Kurit
said loudly. “Is she up there?”

“He’s trying to get
around Jarik, but Jarik won’t move,” whispered Leiset quickly.

“She’s here and she’s
safe,” I barely heard Jarik growl. “And she shall stay that
way.”

“I want to talk to my
wife,” Kurit shouted.

Leiset looked to me and
shook her head. “Jarik’s blocking the stairs,” she whispered and
then looked out again.

“Curse it, Jarik, I
want to see Aenna.”

“I can’t let you do
that,” my Champion declared.

“I must speak with
her!”

“She’s not ready to
speak with you.”

They were quiet for a
moment, and Leiset whispered that Kurit had backed away from the
stairs such that she could no longer see him. But I knew what he
was likely doing. He would be standing there awkwardly, running his
hands through his hair, feeling sorry for himself and wanting to be
forgiven yet again. I felt my blood boil at the thought.

“Jarik,” I heard Kurit
say, “I realize that you’re protecting her, and believe me, I
appreciate that. But I’m cold sober right now. I haven’t had a
drink since before I …”

There was a pause, and
then I heard Jarik say, “Before you struck her?”

There was another long
pause. “I want to apologize to her, Jarik. Please, just let me see
her for a moment. Stay in the room with us if you like. I wouldn’t
dare harm her. I couldn’t bear to hurt her again. I’d rather take
my own life.”

“Kurit, she clearly
said that she doesn’t want to see you. She knows you are here. If
she wanted to hear your apology, she’d come down from her room to
listen to you.”

“Fine,” Kurit said
unhappily. “I do not wish to upset her further. By the Gods
themselves, I can’t believe I’ve done all of this to her. When do
you think she’ll come home?”

“I cannot say. But I do
know that she intends to keep herself hidden here until her face no
longer bears your mark. She is adamant that no one in Endren must
know what you have done because she fears your rule will crumble as
a result.”

“Indeed. I’ve broken
the very law she fought to have established. I suppose by rights I
ought to order myself to the dungeons for it.” Kurit was quiet for
a moment and then asked, “Is it bad? The mark you of which you
speak, is it awful?”

“Yes. Half of her face
is swollen and purple. You must have struck her very hard,” Jarik
said with a brutal tone.

Kurit said something
very quiet that I could not hear, though it sounded perhaps as
though he were weeping. Then I barely heard his distraught voice
say, “I don’t know what to do now.”

“Go home,” Jarik said.
My Champion’s voice lost its hard edge, and I suspected Kurit’s
emotional state had affected the big warrior. “Kurit, go back and
think. Think long and hard and look inside yourself to determine
why in the name of the Temple you would do such a thing. Figure out
why you have been such a drunken fool these past years and do
something about it. This won’t happen again. I won’t let you do
this to her anymore.”

“I know. Neither will
I.”

“Good. So go home and
look inside yourself to determine why you’ve sunk so low.”

“I can’t imagine why
I’ve been so stupid. And worse, I’ve known all along I was being
stupid.” Kurit’s voice changed, becoming angry again, and he said,
“I can’t believe what I’ve done, Jarik, but ever since she was
abducted I just don’t know who I am or where I stand.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, I don’t
know,” Kurit said, his voice falling back to sadness. “Everything
has just been thrown into disarray, and nothing I did fixed
anything. It just got worse.”

Leiset looked at me and
whispered, “Jarik has gone down the stairs. I can barely see him
now.”

“Is it perhaps that you
resent her for being so popular amongst the people?” Jarik
asked.

“No,” Kurit scoffed. “I
may have said things of that ilk to her, but that’s not it. Not
really. I was actually quite proud of her.”

“Then why didn’t you
just say so?”

“I don’t know, Jarik. I
was already too far gone by then. I love her. That never changed.
It just became, I don’t know, something terrible instead of
something wonderful.”

“How could loving that
woman ever be terrible?” Jarik asked incredulously.

“I can’t explain it,
Jarik. It’s everything. The abduction. The fact that she had to
save herself while I wept like a child in my soft bed. The fact
that she had the strength to go and do wonderful things and make
people love her while I sat in the palace hearing my mother drone
on about how Aenna was ruining me. Loving her just began to hurt
all of the time.”

I felt a sinking
sensation in my abdomen, and thought I might be sick. My head
reeled. In that moment, all my anger at him became turned against
myself. I was revolted that I had not seen this in him. I felt a
wretched guilt that my presence had, in effect, destroyed his soul.
Now he longed to tell me that he was sorry for what he had done,
and still I could not bear to look at him. I felt as though I could
not breathe and prayed that the Gods would indeed stop my breath in
that instant, that I might no longer be a curse to him.

“And now?” I heard
Jarik ask.

“It’s the worst thing
in the world to know with a clear, sober head what I’ve done. I
loathe myself for doing this to her.”

Hearing that, I loathed
myself in kind. I should not have let him convince me to return
with him from Mikilrun. Kasha had been right after all—I was
destroying this man, though I had not intended to do so.

“Close the door,” I
said to Leiset. “Close it now. I can’t bear to hear any more.”

Leiset closed and
locked the door as I put my face in my hands and wept. She came to
me and put her kind arms around me. “Aenna, don’t cry. It sounds as
though he’s going to make things better now. Kurit’s finally woken
from his drunkenness, Aenna.”

A few minutes later
there came a knock at the door. “It’s Jarik. Kurit has left, so you
can open the door,” came Jarik’s voice from the hall.

Leiset rose and opened
the door to admit him. He glared at her sternly as he entered and
said, “You haven’t fooled me, Leiset. You were told to lock that
door when I left. I could see you peeking through it the whole
time.”

“Don’t be cross with
her, Jarik,” I muttered sadly. “I asked her to keep it open. I
wanted to hear what was said in case things became violent.”

He turned his
frustrated glance upon me, but seeing me in tears, his face quickly
softened to a look of concern. He asked Leiset to leave us alone as
he took my hand. “Come, Aenna. Sit with me.” I rose and let him
gently guide me to the couch. He held me there for a long time, but
I felt no comfort in his touch. Instead, I felt guilt for having so
loved his touch before. I felt that I had betrayed my husband in
such thoughts, and knowing now that Kurit had suffered over me, my
crime seemed enormous.

I reached out in my
mind for that numbness but could no longer find it. I felt empty
and alone. Even Jarik’s obvious adoration could not fill the void
in my soul. He spoke to me with words of kind reassurance, but I
did not hear him. I pretended to respond though I knew full well I
must have made little sense.

When finally I had the
presence of mind to look at Jarik, to really behold him, I saw
before me a strong man weakened by love. There sat a warrior with
tears on his shoulder, when he should have been off on some noble
quest or other. There sat a good man with love in his heart for me,
when he should have been loving a woman who could be with him as he
so deserved.

The notion that I
was ruining his life as well took hold of my mind, and I could not
think it away. The night that I had arrived at the outpost seemed
now a curse on two good men.
I should have gone off on my own after warning
them. At the very least, the arrow I took at the gates of Endren
should have struck my heart and saved us all this ridiculous
performance of love and pain,
I thought.

Emotional and physical
exhaustion consumed me, though my pleasant numbness still could not
be reached. I asked Jarik to leave me alone, and when he honoured
my request, I locked the doors to the bedchamber. I fell into the
bed and drifted into a troubled sleep.

When I awoke in the
middle of the night, it was to a clear, single-minded purpose. I
rose from the bed and, discovering I was still wearing the simple
gown I had put on before Kurit’s arrival, I changed instead into
the finest dress that I had brought with me. It was one of my
favourites, a deep blue cloth with edges embroidered in gold. The
sleeves puffed gently at the shoulders and were cropped just above
the elbow. It was an elegant summer dress, and I felt very regal
when I wore it.

I sat at the dresser
and slowly undid the messed hairstyle. I brushed my hair for a long
time, feeling at ease for the first time in as long as I could
remember. I was not numb, and I was not happy. But I felt a strange
sense of peace in my decision to remove myself from the lives of
Kurit and Jarik as I should have been removed before I had done so
much damage.