WindDeceiver (25 page)

Catherine had opened her mouth to scream her vindictiveness out at him, but she had sneezed, instead. Again and again, no doubt from the dust in the tapestry. She had no way of knowing our endearing those sneezes had been to Jaleel.

“Rasheed,” Jaleel had laughed, eying his servant with high humor. “Take Her Grace to her quarters and see that she is made comfortable.”

“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what i am doing here!” the Tzarevna had literally screeched.

“I thought that was quite obvious, Highness,” Jaleel had answered.

“Not to me, you arrogant pog!”

Her pretty face had been a most unbecoming shade of red, but the fire flashing from her angry stare had intrigued Jaleel and he had stepped up to her, cupped her chin in a gentle grip and tugged playfully.

“You are here to become my bride, Catherine,” he had informed her.

Stark disbelief had passed over her face, then building rage, until her words when she spoke were little more than raging bursts of contempt.

“That will be rather difficult for me to do, you sniveling pog, since I am already wed!”

Jaleel had shrugged indifferently. “Oh, you mean the ceremony on board Ben-Alkazar’s ship?” He had waved the fact away, dismissing it as though it were a pesky gnat. “You are on Rysalian soil, my precious. We do not recognize Outlander marriages here.” He had looked pointedly at her belly. “Even if you are carrying that bastard’s whelp.”

Thinking back on it as he resumed his pacing, Jaleel thought his future wife had handled the news quite well. She had spat at him, almost hitting him, but, other than her screams of outrage and her promises of retaliation by Outer Kingdom forces, she had calmed down quite nicely when told there was a life in the balance: Conar McGregor’s.

“Either marry me or I will have him executed,” Jaleel had threatened.

“He will kill you,” she had hissed, but Jaborn had waved that warning away, as well.

“I have eleven of his men in my donjon. Do you think he will risk YOU and them to duel with me?”

The news of the Wind Force’s imprisonment had stunned her, but she had recovered quickly enough. The more he was near her, the more he came to admire her tenacity and courage.

WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 118

The woman was a veritable font of bravery for she had cursed him again, daring him to punish her for her outrageous flaunting of his authority.

“You will make a superb addition to my harem, Catherine,” he had laughed. “I have not had a woman so alive in many years!”

Her shout of fury at that remark could be heard still ringing in the throne room long after Rasheed and Tjorn had manhandled her to her chambers.

“A most challenging female, Jaleel,” Guil had chuckled. “One who, when broken to saddle, should prove highly entertaining.”

Jaleel had not told his friend that he was contemplating putting aside her other wives for this one woman or that he had already set into motion a plan to have his first wife murdered to make way for Catherine. Since Joanna was Guil’s cousin, such news might have proved awkward.

“Will they never get here!” Jaleel snarled, sweeping his arm over the chess board and scattering the men.

“Calm yourself, Jaleel,” Guil answered. “Everything in its own time.” He resumed reading his novel.

Flicking an annoyed look at his friend, Jaleel stalked to the window and glared out of the small oval opening. The throne room was on the third level of the fortress; the sleeping quarters were on the fourth, fifth, and sixth, with Jaleel’s own private chambers on the seventh. There were no windows on the first and second levels, each level twenty foot in height, and only four openings, too small for even a young child to crawl through, on the third level. None of the windows on the upper levels were any larger, but there were more of them. Actually, the windows were little more than oval arrow slits, slanted downward through the granite, and embedded around the circumference with steel barbs. The openings had been set into the twelve foot thick walls for ventilation and protection only. Looking out the openings was like looking through a narrow tunnel and it distorted the vision to a great degree.

“Do you see them?” Guil asked, glancing up.

“No,” came the bitter reply. “Not even a speck of dust is flying out there!”

Guil shrugged and turned the page of his novel. “They will return, Jaleel. Give them time.”

Jaleel snorted with disgust. He wanted nothing else out of life, had wanted nothing else out of life since Cyle’s death, than to exact a stunning, lasting revenge on Conar McGregor. He had long since found the way to do it, but the fates and the Prophetess had not cooperated and now, nearly twenty-two years after Cyle’s death, he was still waiting to take his revenge on the man he held responsible for the death of the only woman Jaleel had ever loved.

“I had his man killed,” Jaleel muttered to himself. “What was his name, Guil?”

Guil looked up. “Who?”

“The Elite Captain our men killed at Rommitrich Point!” Jaborn growled.

Guil’s brows drew together as he thought, then relaxed. “Loure, I believe. Rayle Loure.”

“Loure,” Jaleel said on a long sigh of agreement. He nodded. “I remember now.” He ran his index finger along the opening of the window. “And I killed his daughter with my own hands.”

A frown of pity crossed Guil’s face. “I told you that was a mistake when you did it, Jaleel.

The child was innocent. You know how I hold with killing children.”

Jaleel turned and glared at his friend. “How innocent could she be having sprung from that infidel’s loins?”

The murder of Conar McGregor’s infant daughter had been a bone of contention between the two men for many years. Guil felt strongly about it and was not loath to say so.

WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 119

“You could have brought the child back here. Given her to a childless couple to raise. He would still have suffered, Jaleel, for the child’s disappearance. Not knowing whether she lived or not would have been a terrible burden on him.”

Jaleel turned back to stare out the window opening. “Not nearly as terrible as holding his dead child in his hands and knowing he was the cause of it!”

Guil shook his head. “You hurt many people when you hurt that innocent child.” He closed his book, too distracted to read any more. “You nearly destroyed Elizabeth McGregor.”

“So?” Jaleel sneered. “Was not my Cyle destroyed?”

His face turned cold and as emotionless as stone. “Was I not nearly driven insane when Cyle was killed by McGregor’s kinsman?”

Prince Guil stood up and laid his book in his chair. “I can understand you hating McGregor. I have no love for the man, either. But to blame him for something his brother did seems unjust somehow, Jaleel. To my knowledge, Conar McGregor never met his sister-in-law.

He wasn’t even in Serenia when Cyle died, was he?”

“Don’t start with me about this again, Guil!” Jaleel spat, turning to glare at his old friend.

“Cyle’s death is McGregor’s fault. Not Duncan’s!”

“But Duncan poisoned her, Jaleel!” Guil protested. “You know that, now!”

“Aye,” Jaleel hissed. “Jale told me, but it just makes my case against McGregor that much stronger!”

“How?” Guil snapped.

“Duncan killed Cyle at Kaileel Tohre’s orders. McGregor was Tohre’s plaything. Tohre had my woman killed because he could not have Conar McGregor in the way he wanted him.”

Prince Guil stared with incomprehension at the reasoning. “Jaleel, I--“

“He had to settle for McGregor’s twin, Guil!” Jaborn shouted. “Galen McGregor looked enough like Conar to quell the lust in Tohre’s depraved soul, if he had one. A woman, MY

woman, would only have gotten in the way of Tohre having Galen McGregor whenever he was of the mind to do so! If that bastard twin of his had only let Tohre have what he wanted, if Conar had only stayed with Tohre, Cyle would still be alive!”

The ridiculousness of his argument was lost on Jaleel. He saw what he wanted to see; he made of those tragic events of so long ago what he needed to make of them in order to justify the overpowering hatred he had for Conar McGregor. Like Galen, Jaleel was jealous of the Outlander Prince whose star had been set in the heavens brighter than all those that had gone before him.

McGregor was the stuff of legends and his was a tragedy greater still. Guil knew all this, and suspected Jaleel did, too.

But it didn’t matter. Jaleel would have his revenge and it made no difference in his scheme of things how many suffered in the doing.

“I have thought long and hard about this, Guil,” Jaleel said as he squinted through the opening. There was a dust cloud on the horizon. “I shall not kill him.”

“May I ask why not?” Guil inquired.

“Killing would end his pain and I want him to suffer as I have suffered all these years,”

Jaleel told him.

“You don’t think the man has known suffering, Jaleel?” was the astonished reply.

Jaborn laughed, but it was not a sound of humor but of insidious intent. “What is physical pain, Guil? Nothing but a moment’s intense agony, soon over, and, if not soon forgotten, at least dulled in the memory.” He nodded as the dust cloud neared the fortress and he could see horses galloping at top speed toward him. “Imprisonment? The sentence will one day end and the WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 120

humiliation and the debasement cease. Estrangement from your family? Fences are mended and everything is forgiven.” He could make out the rider in front of the others and he leaned his forehead against the coolness of the stone wall. “Setbacks? Problems? Obstacles? They can all be overcome. But there is one thing, one kind of suffering that is never dulled. It never ends. It never lets go of its hold on you. It never ceases to be there to remind you of its existence. It is a fence that can not be mended no matter the stone you heap upon it. It is the one suffering no man can overcome.”

“Death?” Guil asked.

Jaleel shook his head. “Guilt.”

Jaborn pushed away from the window and walked calmly to his throne. Sitting down, he clapped his hands and a servant appeared immediately, bowing. The man did not look up into the face of his master.

“As soon as the prisoner arrives, I want him brought to me.”

“Yes, Highness,” the servant answered. “Your will be done.”

“Go,” Jaleel ordered and the servant backed out of the throne room, his head lowered, eyes on the floor.

Guil waited until the door had closed before sitting down in the chair to Jaleel’s left, the chair reserved for his first wife.

“If you will not kill him,” Guil asked, “will you torture him?” He rather liked that idea.

“No.”

Guil frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“He has endured physical pain, Guil, and become stronger by it. Look at his face, if it does not sicken you as it does me: such a scar must have been excruciating when given, yet it did not break him. And what of his back? That must have been agonizing, yet he did not crumble because of it. He survived the torture chamber

of his Tribunal; was nearly beaten to death by one of his brother’s men; has been cut and stabbed and shot. Did any of those drive him over the edge of reasoning?”

“Not that one can tell,” Guil complained.

“Yet death, the death of those he has cared for, has brought him to his knees before it.

Death,” Jaleel sighed with a dreamy look on his handsome face, “nearly drove him to madness when Elizabeth McGregor was taken from him. The death of his daughter, at my hands, nearly cost him his sanity, as well.” He turned his head and smiled at Guil. “He was on the very verge of killing himself because one old hag accused him of being the reason all the women in his life have died.”

Guil heard the massive steel door on the first level beginning to crank open. The shrill shriek of the chains which opened the doors and the heavy grind of the pulley taking in those chains made the very walls of Abbadon Fortress tremble. He wondered, as he had for most of his life, how much that ten foot thick steel door weighed.

“Do you not see where this is going, Guil?” Jaleel asked, drawing his friend’s interest.

“Have you not yet figured out how I mean to punish him?”

Guil spread his hands. “I fear not, good friend.”

Jaleel reached over and grasped Guil’s arm. “I intend to drive him mad with guilt, Gehdrin.

I intend to see him a mindless cripple in payment for Cyle’s death.”

“How will you accomplish that?” Guil asked, not sure it was possible. McGregor was a strong man, a man whose life adversities had only served to strengthen him.

“You will see,” Jaleel said, smiling. “You will see.”

WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 121

Conar’s first view of Abbadon sent a chill of foreboding down his spine. The vastness of the place was disquieting, but its position: sat high atop a steeply climbing plateau with a narrow switchback trail wide enough for only one horse at a time, was menacing sight that filled him with apprehension. This was a fortress that would rival the impregnability of Boreas Keep and maybe even surpass that bastion of defense. His heart sank as he gazed up at the windowless wall of sheer granite that rose for over one hundred feet straight up before there was even a break in the stone.

Viewing those tiny oval openings, he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, no human had ever laid successful siege to Abbadon Fortress.

Belial cast sidelong glances to his prisoner as they neared Abbadon in an attempt to gauge the man’s reaction to the fortress. The signs he had been expecting to see were emblazoned on McGregor’s pale face.

There was the nervousness in the way the man constantly licked his lips as he stared at the formidable bulk of the fortress. There was the pallor of his normally ruddy face as the realization began to set in that there would be no chance at all of escape once he was inside the vastness of Abbadon. There was the way he brought up his bound hands to wipe at the sweat that had begun to form on his brow as he understood his situation was desperate. And there was the bleak defeat in his alien blue eyes as the hopelessness of rescue finally entered his mind.