Warrior's Lady (2 page)

After serving the Gamesmen, the Giant smeared a sticky green salve over Jarrett’s wounds to stem the bleeding and then left the room.

Over a glass of yellow Freywine, Siid complained that his companions were not playing fair.

“Surely it is my turn now,” he said, and Gar and Thai willingly agreed.

For another hour, they sat at the table, speaking of distant battles as they stuffed themselves with bread and cheese and sweet Freywine.

Gar mentioned there was word of discontent among the Giants who worked in the lower dungeons, keeping the cells clean, keeping the prisoners in line.

Thai shrugged. The Giants were always disgruntled, but too lazy to do anything about it other than complain from time to time.

Jarrett lay where they had left him, his eyes closed as he gathered his strength to face the afternoon Games. It was hard to breathe, hard to think of anything but the steady, monotonous pain that pulsed through him.

Too soon, they were ready for him again. Gar and Thai forced him to his feet. Shoving him against the wall, they stretched his arms to their limits, holding him immobile while Siid locked the heavy shackles in place.

Jarrett pressed his cheek against the cold stone, his heart pounding in dreadful anticipation of what was to come. He was tired, so tired.

“What about the hood?” Thai asked.

Gar shrugged. “It won’t hurt to leave it off this time,” he remarked, and Siid agreed.

Jarrett drew a deep breath as he heard Gar shake out the deadly whip. He stifled a gasp as the lash bit into his flesh, the weighted leather tip dancing across his bared skin in an endless nightmare as Gar displayed his skill. A one-inch cut here, a narrow incision there. Here only an angry red welt, there a shallow gash.

Jarrett’s heart beat in time to the crack of the lash. He pressed his forehead to the damp stone, stared in horrified fascination at the crimson pool gathering at his feet. So much blood, he thought dully. Surely even she could not heal him this time.

He opened his mouth to cry out. Surely he had given them enough entertainment for one day. Surely it would be permissible to give utterance to the first cry now and thereby signal that he was near the end of his endurance.

And then he saw Siid standing beside him, his red-rimmed eyes filled with warning.

Scream now,
Siid seemed to say,
and I will leave you to hang there, as you are, until morning.

Jarrett understood. Today whoever had drawn First Cry would be the winner. Gar had won the Games the day before when he had drawn Longest Cry, and Thai, the day before that, when he had drawn the Beg card. Siid did not wish to lose again.

Jarrett bit down on his lower lip, choking back the cry in his throat.

Only when Siid rubbed a handful of raw salt into his torn flesh did he give voice to the awful agony that engulfed him.

“I couldn’t let you two have
all
the fun,” Siid remarked, slapping Gar on the back. “I declare myself the winner and the Games over.” The darkness came then, hovering at the edge of Jarrett’s vision, promising peace, promising oblivion. With a hoarse cry of surrender, he plunged into the abyss, falling, falling, into nothingness.

Chapter Three

“Jarrett. Jarrett? Jarrett!”

The voice called to him, softly pleading for his return, beckoning him to come back from the Dark Beyond. It was her voice, and he could not deny her.

“She?”

He mouthed the word, but no sound emerged from his throat.

“I am here.”

He choked back the bile in his throat, moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Let me die.” He opened his eyes to the eternal darkness of the hood. “For the love of the All Father,” he rasped, “let me die.”

“I cannot.”

She was weeping, he thought, dazed. Weeping for him. He could feel her silent tears as they fell on his mutilated back, as soft as the raindrops of First Month. It was incredible, he thought. Women had desired him, they had fought for his favors, they had cheered for him in tournaments, but they had never wept for him.

He tried to lift his arm, wanting to touch her, but his hands were cuffed together, fastened by a short length of chain to an iron ring set in the floor.

“Please,” he begged. “Let me die.”

She shook her head in helpless frustration. Even if she could, she would not let him die, not now, not when she had seen his face.

He had been lying on the floor, unconscious, when Thai had sent for her. His head had not yet been covered with the hood, and she had seen him for the first time, the fine straight nose, the shape of his mouth, the faintly arched black brows, the straight black hair that reached his shoulders. He was beautiful, like the marble statue of a young Gweneth warrior she had seen long ago.

Swallowing the nausea that rose in her throat, she knelt beside him. Then, taking a deep calming breath, she placed her hands on the torn flesh of his back. His skin was hot and damp beneath her palms. A tremor raced up her arms as she drew his pain into herself, feeling each stroke of the lash, each drop of blood.

“Thee must turn over,” she said when his back was healed.

With an effort, he did as bidden, exposing the shallow cuts that covered his chest and shoulders.

As always, there were many wounds, inflicted with great care and great skill. She placed her hand over the worst of the lot.

“She…tell me…your name.” It was an effort to breathe, to speak.

“No.” She shook her head.

“Can you not…give me…that much of yourself?”

“I give thee life.”

“I do not ask for my life,” he said bitterly. Months of anger and frustration boiled up inside him. “If you had the compassion of an Orvan Redsnake, you would let me die!”

“Thee does not mean that.”

“No,” he admitted contritely. He didn’t want to die. He could stand the pain. But the constant weight of the heavy chains shriveled his spirit; the eternal darkness dragged him deeper and deeper into despair. He was vulnerable, helpless to fight back, and he was tired. So tired of it all.

“How can I explain it to thee?” she asked, her hands moving soft as a shadow to the wound on his right shoulder. “I do not want to know thee. I do not want thee to know me.” She drew a harsh, sobbing breath. “When they tire of thee, they will kill thee and move on to another. I do not want to know thee! Can thee not understand? I do not want to grieve for thee. I do not want to remember thee when thou art gone.”

He gazed into her eyes, his own grief and pain forgotten as he heard the anguish in her voice.

He understood then, understood clearly for the first time that she felt more than his pain. She felt his fear and his despair—she would feel his death. It would hurt her all the more if they became friends instead of strangers trapped in a nightmare.

“Forgive me, Maje. I was wrong to ask it of thee.” Unconsciously, he used her quaint form of speech.

“There is nothing to forgive.” She groaned softy as she rose to her feet, her gaze moving over him. His body was whole once more, hard and well-muscled, perfectly formed, without scar or blemish.

The weariness overcame her then and she left the room, her steps slow and heavy, her heart aching for Jarrett. She would not forget him when he was gone, she thought. She would never forget him, for she had seen his face. But, more than that, she had seen his heart, and his soul.

Week after week, the Games went on. Sometimes they used him for target practice, making him run the length of the long, narrow corridor outside his chamber while they hurled rocks at him. Sometimes, when they had no wish to play, they let Gar whip him a few times, then they tied him by his wrists and left him hanging from the rafters like the carcass of some dead animal while they played cards in a corner of the room, not caring that the shallow cuts ached unceasingly, that great horned flies came to bite him, gorging themselves on his blood, not caring that the quivering muscles in his arms and shoulders screamed for relief.

Sometimes they tied a cord around his neck, securing the hood in place, and then they bound his hands behind his back, lashed his feet together, and lowered him into a deep pool of dark water. Up and down, they played him like a fish, leaving him under the water for longer and longer periods of time so that he barely had time to draw a breath from one submerging to the next.

It was that Game that terrified him the most. Though he was always helpless against them, always at their mercy, there was something about being bound and lowered into the pool—weightless, sightless, with nothing but the pounding of his blood in his ears—that reached into the very depths of his fears.

There were always nightmares after a trip to the pool, nightmares more frightening than the hell in which he lived, more terrifying than the thought of being denied the healing powers of the Maje, of being left alone to die slowly, immersed in never-ending darkness and pain.

Fortunately, they did not play the Water Game often, for there was no way to hear his silent screams, and it was his screams that drove them on, that made the Games worthwhile.

On this day, they had been even more enthusiastic than usual, their spirits high as they discussed the possibility of war with Aldane.

The talk of war overrode their fascination with the sound of his cries and some of their blows were careless, striking places that were taboo, sometimes cutting deeper than usual, the sight of his blood less interesting than the prospect of shedding the blood of the Aldanites.

Jarrett closed his eyes and prayed for war, knowing only something as urgent as war could bring an end to the Games, for the Gamesmen would all be called to fight. Strange, he thought, that only something as awful as war between Aldane and Fenduzia could deliver him from the horror in which he lived.

They left him early that night, eager to go to the Hall and hear the latest news.

Spread-eagled on the table, hooded and alone, he closed his eyes, waiting. Waiting for she who had no name.

Hours passed. His wounds ached, throbbing to the beat of his heart. Had they forgotten to send for her? He tried to think of home, of his life before the Pavilion, but the pain was constant, robbing him of coherent thought. Where was she?

When he had given up hope of her coming, he heard the heavy door slide open.

“She?”

“I am here.”

His relief was almost painful. A sigh of gratitude whispered past his lips as she laid her hands upon him, healing his hurts, quelling his pain.

“Something troubles you,” he remarked as she lifted her hand for the last time.

She did not want to tell him the truth, but it was beyond her power to lie. “Yes.”

“What is it?”

“It is said that war with Aldane is imminent. Preparations are already being made.”

Jarrett nodded. “Go on.”

“The prisoners…”

He felt the hard, cold hand of fear curl around his insides. “What about the prisoners?”

“They are to be executed.”

Of course, he thought, the Games had been outlawed eons ago. The Gamesmen couldn’t take a chance on having it known that they were still playing the Games, that prisoners were being held captive without the King’s knowledge for the entertainment of a small group of Rorke’s friends.

“How many other prisoners are there?”

“Eleven, as of last night.”

Eleven other men, men he’d never seen, all living in the same hell. They had been culled from prisons in other provinces, men convicted of murder or treason, men without families, who would not be missed.

“Do you heal them all?”

“No. Only you. The others are left to die of their wounds if they are not strong enough to survive.”

He pondered that for a moment, wondering why they had kept him alive so long. “How much longer…when will they end it?”

“I do not know.”

“What month is it?”

“Fifth month.”

Fifth month. The first month of spring.

“There is to be one last Game,” she went on, unable to stay the words. “It will be held in the Great Arena. Lots have already been drawn.”

“Who…?”

“Siid. Gar. Thai.” She hesitated. “It is said the Minister of War himself will participate in the final Game.”

Rorke. It was his worst nightmare come true. Freed from the need to be cautious or to give heed to the basic Rules of the Game, Rorke and the others would be able to use their knives and torches and whips in ways and places they had previously avoided in order to keep him alive.

He fought down the terror that rose within him, threatening to send him over the brink into madness. The aloneness was heavy within him then, and he wished he could hold her hand for just a moment, feel the smoothness of her skin, the gentle warmth of her touch, not in healing, but in friendship.

The thought had no sooner crossed his mind than he felt her fingers entwine with his, felt the gentle squeeze of her hand.

“She.” The word whispered past his lips, a sigh and a prayer.

“I am here.”

He looked into his soul and faced the truth. “I’m afraid.” The words slipped past his lips in a barely audible whisper.
Coward
, he thought, and despised himself for his weakness.

She squeezed his hand a little tighter. “Thee is not a coward,” she remarked quietly. “A coward would have gone mad long since. Thee is a brave man, my Lord Jarrett of Gweneth.”

Lord Jarrett. How long since he had been called by the title of his birth? Once it had seemed important, but no longer. “You know who I am?”

“It has come to me, a little at a time.”

“I would know your name and see your face before I die.”

“No. Do not ask it of me.”

“They will have my life. Never again will I feel thy touch, or hear thy voice.” How readily her quaint speech came to him, he thought, bemused.

“I cannot…” She shook her head, not wanting to deny him anything that was in her power to give, and yet reluctant to give him any more of herself than her power to heal.

“Please.” How easily he had grown used to begging, he thought. Please don’t hit me again. Please don’t burn me again. Please don’t cut me again. Please, please, please. It was ironic that he should have to beg to know a lady’s name, to see a lady’s face, he who had once had women of all ages at his beck and call, vying for his favors.

He felt her fingers slide over his shoulders to rest at the lower edge of the hood.

“Please.” He sensed her weakening and wondered if she could fathom how much he hated the hood that covered his face like a death shroud. It made him feel vulnerable, degraded, to be forever in darkness, to be robbed of his sight for no reason other than that the Gamesmen desired it.

He held his breath as her fingers curled around the heavy black cloth. He raised his head from the table, waiting, hoping, and suddenly, with a sharp jerk, she yanked the hood from his head and tossed it to the floor.

There was only a single candle in the room, but it was enough.

She stared at him for a long moment, knowing it had been a mistake to remove the hood. If the eyes were indeed the mirror of the soul, then Jarrett’s soul was filled with pain. His eyes were green and dark and turbulent—haunting eyes that were filled with the pain he’d endured in the past, the knowledge of the pain that was to come. Eyes filled with weariness and frustration and silent rage.

She wished she had never seen his eyes. She would never be free of them now.

Jarrett blinked against the light, felt the breath rush from his body as his gaze focused on her face. For months, he had been mesmerized by the soft sweetness of her voice, imagining that the beautiful voice resided in an equally beautiful body. Now he saw that his dreams had not even come close to the vision that stood beside him.

She wore a blue gown that should have been ugly, but it caressed her body lovingly, clearly outlining the feminine shape the All Father had given her, the narrow waist, the slim hips, the curve of her breasts. Her hands were small and delicate. Her eyes, wide-set and slanted, were the color of the wildflowers that grew near Greyebridge Castle on the isle of Gweneth, a deep dark-blue that was almost purple. Her brows were delicately arched, her lashes long and thick.