Crystal Rose (52 page)

“You assume much about where Airleas will end up. But, I
don’t understand you. You have made your hatred of me clear. How could marriage
to me possibly benefit you?”

The effigy moved closer to her. “First of all, dear Lady, I
have never hated you. You drive me to fury, to rage, to violence. Must I explain
to you how close to passion those things are? Indeed, they are forms of
passion. Second, is this: I will derive many benefits from marriage to you,
Taminy-Osmaer. Power, safety, satisfaction. But my chief benefit will be the
child you will bear me. A child who will carry the might of our combined
Gifts.”

Taminy came to her feet on a surge of cold, sickening
outrage. “What you suggest is impossible. Unthinkable.”

Feich’s face blanked, a look that was almost distress
flickering across it. A smile that was more snarl followed. “What I am
suggesting, Lady Osmaer, is your only means of ensuring Airleas’s return to his
throne. That is your will, is it not? Is it not the will of your Mistress?”

“You know it is.”

“Now you know my will—to possess you. I realize now that has
been at the root of my thoughts since . . .”

“Since I refused you.”

The effigy’s expression darkened. “Don’t provoke me, Taminy.
Not now that you’re within my reach. Not now that your young disciples and your
beloved little Cyneric and your Hillwild Ren are within my reach.” He cocked
his head to one side, his eyes bright slits. “I assume you care for your
dog-faithful Hillwild. I assume you realize how the cur dotes on you. How he
wants you. But he will not have you. I will.”

A spark of pure anger flared in Taminy’s breast—a flame of
outrage that licked, like a hot tongue, at her soul. “You assume much about
your power, Regent.”

He spread aislinn hands and moved toward her with steady
steps. “I am here. Do I not seem substantial to you? Would a touch prove my
power?”

In the back of her mind, the hatred gained substance and
power; it coiled, straining to be unleashed, to destroy him utterly. She
considered it, fleetingly, a swift slash of fury—surely that’s all it would
take. He couldn’t possibly be as strong as he believed himself. Someone so evil
could never be that strong. She hefted the hatred as a sword, felt its weight
and balance, looked into the aislinn Feich’s pale eyes, prepared to strike.

The impulse died in a choking surge of panic; Taminy cowered
before it—before her own hatred. “Be gone!”

She edged backward, holding up a hand, restrained, the
killing inyx clutched in it like a ball of flame. Feich watched the hand rise;
was that fear in his eyes? Had he read her impulse to destroy him? Did he read
her present shame? She let the destructive Weave unravel, leaving only the
simple Shieldweave.

He laughed. “You’ll have to do better than that, my dear. I
am stronger than you imagine.”

“Leave me!” she told him, voice low, reining in rage. “If you’d
have an answer from me, leave me!”

“I’d have more than an answer.” He took another step,
crowding her.

In the instant Taminy’s shoulder pressed into the stone of
the hearth mantle, in the instant fury threatened to engulf her, the door of
her room thundered and flew open. In its black maw, Catahn poised, sword in
hand.

In a heart’s beat he was in the room, face ashen, eyes
struggling to take in what they saw. The false Feich turned, shedding bits of
his aislinn stuff upon the floor to melt like fiery snow. With a roar of
outrage, Catahn wielded his sword in a singing arc through the ephemeral
figure. The blade passed clean through in a shower of sparks, the image
exploding into a thousand fragments of gleaming, riotous laughter.

Feich was gone, leaving only an echo and an after-image of
ruddy flame.

“Taminy!” Catahn crossed the room to her in two strides,
dropping his sword to pull her into his arms. “Lady! Dear God, how did he come
to be here? Has he grown that strong? What did he say to you?”

She drew away from him, straightening her robe, willing
herself to calm and self-possession.

“In a moment,” she said, turning her face to the fire. “In a
moment, I’ll tell you. Just now I need to pray. Wait for me here,” she added,
and withdrew to her bed chamber.

oOo

It was more than a moment before she came to him where he
paced, back and forth, back and forth across her parlor. She told him, in a
voice like icy water what Daimhin Feich had demanded of her.

Cold rage clawed at his gut. Cold rage and a desire to hack
Daimhin Feich’s smile from his face with a dull blade. How dare he contemplate
marriage to Taminy? How dare he suggest that there could ever be a bond of any
kind between them? That she should bear his child?

She was watching him. Watching him clench and unclench his
fists, fight to control the breath that wanted to come out in a roar. Words
flew from his mouth before he could drag them back: “You should be no man’s
wife!”

She was silent for a long moment and, when she spoke, her
words jolted him. “Why should I not? Can I not be loved?”

He sucked breath into his lungs. “Loved, yes. Adored.
Obeyed. But wanted, never! To tie you in such a profane bond—!”

“How, profane? The Spirit made us this way—male, female,
capable of generating new life through our union. He asks only that that union
be one of love.”

“You’ll get no love from Feich. He desires only to conquer
and possess. There is no love in that man. None.”

“No. But there is love in another.”

“What are you saying? Of whom do you speak?”

“What man loves me, Catahn? What man puts me before life
itself? What man’s life is tangled in mine so that we might never untwine?”

She gazed at him with those extraordinary green eyes and he
knew that none of his anguish, and none of his weakness, had gone unnoticed.
Well, he should have known that. To be close to Taminy was to expose oneself
completely. He was daft to have thought he could hide his feelings from her.

Shamed to the depths of his soul, he lowered his eyes,
unable to stand her scrutiny.

“Forgive me,” he said.

“Forgive you? Never.”

His head jerked up and fear, abject and paralyzing, wrapped
itself around his soul. Compared to this, he had never known fear. Now, it
gutted him.

She came to him, then, taking his huge hands in hers,
pulling his gaze down to her face, denying him escape. “I will never forgive
you if you don’t speak to me plainly from this moment on. What am I to you,
Catahn?”

“You are my life,” he moaned. “But the thoughts I have had.
The dreams I have dreamed . . .” Tears started from his eyes.

“Feich’s nightmares? Forget them.”

He shook his head, miserable. “No, no! My own.”

“I dreamed them with you,” she said. “Every night praying
that you would wake the next morning and bring them to me to share.”

What was she saying? He shook his head and the bells braided
into his hair whispered an unbelieving duan.

Taminy’s grip on his hands tightened, feeling like fingers
of flame. “Catahn, I love you. I would be
your
wife.”

God, but he’d never been so cold—a column of ice with a soul
of fire. He would melt. “You can’t mean it.”

“Why?”

“You’re Osmaer. The Shadow of the Meri. Your purity—”

“I’m human, Catahn. A woman. I have a mission, but the
mission is not me. What is impure in our love?”

He groaned, finally tearing his eyes away from her perfect,
gleaming face. “I!” he said. “I am impure. My hands are soiled. I’ve stolen,
killed, betrayed my wife, fathered a child on a woman who was not mine—”

“You love me.”

“I could be your father.” He laughed—a sharp, humorless
bark. “My own daughter is two months older than you are.”

“Your love for me is not a father’s love for a daughter,”
she observed, and he melted further. “My love for you is not a daughter’s love
for a father.”

He closed his eyes and imagined flame danced behind them.
“But to be your husband—”

He could feel her eyes on his face, feel her aidan probing
his soul. She let go of his hands suddenly and released him, body and spirit.
He nearly collapsed in a swift agony of aloneness.

“I have laid myself open to you, Catahn Hageswode. Not as
Taminy-Osmaer, but as Taminy-a-Cuinn. I have confessed my love for you—my
desire for union with you. I cannot demand your heart or order your soul—”

“Lady, you have both my heart and my soul.”

She put up her hands then, palms out, as if pressing at the
invisible barrier between them. Her expression was agony itself. “Then why do
you hide them from me behind this wall?”

His heart broke, and the wall with it. He swore he could
hear the cracking of them as he bore through and pulled her up into his arms.
His hands dared to tangle themselves in the long, golden banner of her hair;
his lips dared to taste hers. He was consumed at once by glory and
self-loathing. Then, the loathing was itself consumed in a swell of light and
heat.

“I would be your husband,” he murmured against the warmth of
her neck, and shivered at the significance of the words.

“I would be your wife,” she answered, and turned her head
for his kiss.

oOo

Deardru was part of the cold that emanated from the stones
of Hrofceaster; her breath was the chill draft that eddied in its halls. No,
the stones beneath her feet had never been and could never be as cold as her
heart was this moment. Her eyes blurred, making chaos of the framed scene—the
fire-lit sward of carpet, the massive hearth, the two forms melded in a haloed silhouette,
their shadows lying suggestively across the floor.

Forcing down the bile that rose to her throat, Deardru
backed silently away from the open doorway and lost herself to the darkness.

How can a man banish hate
if he thinks, “He mistreated me, he beat me, he defeated me, he dispossessed
me?”

How can hate touch a man
if he does not think, “He mistreated me, he beat me, he defeated me, he
dispossessed me?”

Here is an eternal law:
Hate does not defeat hate; only love does.”

—The Corah, Book I, Verses 50-52

“Ah, here you are, lord!”

Airleas left off his morose contemplation of the plumes of
smoke from his enemy’s campfires and turned from the narrow window to see
Deardru-an-Caerluel step up into the small, dark alcove behind him. He couldn’t
hide his surprise at seeing her there; he’d thought himself well hidden.

“Mistress an-Caerluel! How did you find me?”

She smiled. “You wear Raenulf’s amulet. I can find you
anywhere.”

Airleas felt for the little stone catamount, warm beneath
his woolen tunic. “I thank you for it, mistress. It helps me focus my
thoughts.”

“What were your thoughts just now, Airleas?”

He turned his eyes back to the slitted window. “How near he
is. I can feel him out there, scheming. Plotting to lay hands on me and drag me
back to Mertuile as his puppet.”

Deardru’s face darkened. “Aye. Plotting to lay hands on your
poor Mistress, as well. God knows what he will make of her once he has got
her.”

Airleas glanced at her sharply. “He won’t get her. She won’t
let him. He’d make her a prisoner.”

“Nothing so simple as that, I fear. No, I overheard his
plans for her, Airleas. He is a vile man. No, not a man—a monster.”

“What plans? What have you heard?”

“He would force her to marry him to assure her submission.”

“Submission?” Airleas cried. “She would never submit to him!
How can he imagine she would? She’s Osmaer!”

Deardru shook her head, eyes sad. “It pains me to see how
your innocence will be sacrificed to this siege, child. Feich has made Taminy’s
submission to him the price for your life and freedom.”

Airleas thought the entire fortress trembled about him.

“No,” he whispered. “Taminy must never have to make such a
choice. She won’t make it. Feich could never convince her. He hasn’t the
strength—”

“I pray you are right. But, in my heart—in my soul—I fear
you’re wrong. You are Taminy’s greatest concern. She has made herself
responsible for you. She loves you. I suppose, in a sense, she has taken the
place of your father—watching over you as if you were her own child. As to
Feich . . . well, it seems he has more power than we had thought. There are
rumors . . .”

Airleas prodded her with his eyes.

“There are rumors Feich has allied himself with some Dark
Force, some evil spirit he has conjured.”

“I don’t believe in evil spirits. They’re just excuses we
make for our own weaknesses.”

She clucked at him in motherly concern. “It’s never wise to
taunt things we don’t understand, child.”

“I’m sick of being a child!” Airleas exploded. “I want to be
a man! I should be watching over her! I should be protecting her from-from that
demon!”

Deardru uttered a soft, sighing laugh. “How much like
Raenulf you are. If he were alive, he’d call you a man. I call you one. Catahn
should have required your Crask-an-duine long ago.”

Airleas was silent, fuming, impotent. God, how he hated this
feeling. If he were only a man—
truly
a man—then he would . . . he could . . .

“Aye. Raenulf would have felt the same, in your stead. Oh,
he would have been aflame with the passion to act.”

“What would he do, in my stead?”

Deardru smiled wistfully. “A big question, that. “Well,
knowing my Raenulf, if he were here, I think he would sneak himself outside
these walls, find his way to the rainbow colored tent of Daimhin Feich and kill
him. Yes, I’m certain that’s what he’d do. Raenulf was no more a coward than
you are. I was right to give you his amulet.”

Airleas glanced at her, found her black eyes on him, hot and
intense. Did she expect him to—? A chill seized him—a chill of pure
exhilaration. Hadn’t he daydreamed of doing what Deardru suggested—of
confronting Daimhin Feich in his own territory?