Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (47 page)

‘Difleer too has not seen Queen since this morning,’ Pog called above the slapping of his fiadi as he hurried back into the bathing cavern. ‘Difleer say Queen go Temple for healing with Archinus. Not returned yet.’

A prickle of unease ran down Taur's spine. A chill autumn wind was rising and making its presence felt in open places. Rain-clouds were banking up in the north.

‘What in Cronos does she mean by staying out this late? Scrub my back so I can get out of here.’

Dried and dressed Taur entered the sacred alcove carved into the mountainside off the Queen's solar. Quieting himself and focusing all his psychic energy he sought to telondem Gynevra but received no response. She’d deliberately blocked him out. Fear curled its ugly tendrils through his belly. Cloaba! Where was she?

Switching his concentration to Archinus Varia he strove to keep calm enough to hold the connection. Moments later he opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ornate gold glyphs painted on the wall before him.

Varia hadn't seen Gynevra at all but she would make inquiries and get back to him. The waiting was interminable, his mind a festering mire of thoughts he refused to entertain. When Varia reported there was no sign of Gynevra, Foab or Qerlim, and that the Queen's bearers and personal guard were gambling in the outer courtyard and had been waiting there for her since late morning, pain ripped through the core of him almost bringing him to his knees. Terror followed so swiftly it pinned him to the chair. He began pleading to Ist and Asar, to Great Ra and even Ancient Cronos in fear for his Golden One, and cursing the emptiness of his arms and whatever it was that made women want to bed him, and he them. In a massive leap of consciousness, Cadal Isidor II of Nyalda admitted to himself he didn't care if he could never physically join with her again or if his people jeered at him for a clod, he wanted, needed, to hold her in his arms, forever.

The child was due to be birthed in a matter of days. Where was she if not in Hecanil? Where else would she go? Should he be grateful Qerlim and Foab were with her? What use were a mute Qeggi and a wolf if she went into labor?

Cronos! Why was he sitting here babbling to the Gods when he should be out searching for her?

In minutes he had the Castle in an uproar, with people darting in all directions at once, scouring every chamber, alcove, vault and adjunct to the massive cliff-side sprawl of Heceuda Castle. When this proved unproductive the entire Castle Guard was roused and sent down into the city to search every house and question every citizen. There was much muttering among the ranks, especially among those who'd just come off day duty and were looking forward to a night's relaxation. But the King's orders were succinct.

‘No one rests until the Queen is found.’

Taur discovered that keeping people's eyes, ears and legs busy searching didn't still their tongues. Some were heard to comment they'd always thought the Queen strange and unstable—just like all foreigners. Many of the women took care the King should know he was at fault going against custom and agreeing to siring contracts while his partner was pregnant. He found himself beset on every side and often surprised at who supported Gynevra in what many were calling her protest against his decision to honor the contract.

Even he couldn't pretend her disappearance was anything else, though at first he tried. Pog's snide little innuendoes and Difleer’s fuming black looks, he understood and accepted. His lovely Gyn'a had stolen both their hearts and if they had to choose between King and Queen, Pog at least would be sadly stretched. Over and over through the night there were incidents and comments Taur found himself wanting to share with Gynevra just to hear her droll observations and her laughter. She'd have been intrigued by the berating Maden gave him on her behalf, and quite startled to discover that ‘starchy, oily Maden’ as she was wont to call him, was oddly sensitive to her feelings in this matter.

But it was Movuon's bitter invective he wanted most to share with her, for it had been directed against himself and not Gynevra as they both would have expected. He knew she'd been sorely troubled by Nudon's continued hostility and he'd privately considered his mother's attitude a contributing factor to her low spirits.

The exchange between mother and son, the second for that evening, was dramatic and public. Taur was still smarting from it when day dawned with blustery winds and showers scudding across the harbor, a reminder that winter was but a breath away. Following his men from one ever more dingey Qeggi habitation to another in the lower city, despair edged into his heart as he waited outside yet another meagre hovel, while one of the men questioned the inhabitants. He'd not stop until they'd questioned every citizen and turned out every dark corner of every structure in the city. What he'd do after that if they hadn't found her he could scarcely begin to think.

His only comfort was that she had to be in Fyr Heceuda somewhere for even without the Energy Web, she’d not have risked her unborn child to the intense energy of an apport.

Dragging a hand through the beard stubble on his cheeks, he gazed about at this unfamiliar part of his city. The Qeggi might be dogs according to Paggi lore, and be content to live in one-roomed hovels like animal shelters, but they kept their surroundings impressively clean. Perhaps he should—

‘Sire! This man has news of the Queen!’

The warrior who'd gone into the hovel at his back, emerged now, hauling a large, dark Qeggi after him whose features were disturbingly familiar. Taur was more interested in what the man could tell him than in who he was until the warrior introduced him as Goma, brother of Foab.

Excitement fizzed through him and for the first time through that long night he felt a sliver of hope.

‘Foab, the mute, is your brother?’

‘Ta’a, Sire,’ the man whispered, eyes wide with apprehension.

‘There's naught to fear, man,’ the King said gruffly. ‘Would you know where Foab is?’

‘Nay—but—’

‘Just tell the King what you told me,’ the warrior coaxed him. ‘Likely there'll be a reward in it for you.’

Taur immediately dug into the small pouch secreted in the belt of his kirt and produced a handful of gold.

Never taking his eyes from the gleam of the gold, Goma said, ‘He came—yesterday—to Fabo the Ostler's—where I work—he had a bag of money—to hire a horse and cart—he showed me two fingers—could be he wanted it for two hours or two days—he can't talk no more—but he gave me enough money to buy the horse—so I don't worry! I understood it was for the Queen.’

‘What color horse?’

‘Black with white nose and one white front hoof.’

‘The cart?’

Goma shrugged.

‘Small—two-wheeled—with a couple of sacks of chaff in it to sit on.’

Taur winced. The picture of his Gyn'a in such a conveyance was too vivid. Where the hell was she? Where would she go?

He tossed the coins to Goma and with a gruff word of thanks, strode back along the street to where they'd left their own horses. At least he now knew where to look. If she wasn't in the city and she wasn't in the Castle and she'd hired a horse and cart, the only place she could be was out along the inner harbor road somewhere. The more he thought on that, the more sense it made. How often had she talked of visiting the far green fields and farms at the head of the harbor? How often had he promised to take her there, one day?

Dismissing all but the Captain and two volunteer warriors, Taur set out at a steady pace along the harbor road questioning at every house they passed. Several reported seeing the cart and had recognized the mute Qeggi driving it, but not the woman passenger concealed by her cloak. Always the cart had been moving towards the head of the harbor.

Where in Hyades were they? He'd make the Qeggi arabo wish he'd received the death sentence at Lomy's hands. And in the next breath he knew he wouldn't. His Golden One would never forgive him. More than anything he wanted her forgiveness—after he found her safe. A clod he was for sure, which thought only added to the grimness of his silence.

The rain had eased with the deepening of night over the land but the wind sliced down from the mountains with an edge bitter enough to chap skin and numb fingers. Cold, hunger and weariness was starting to take its toll when they approached Randa’s goat farm in the hills above the south end of the harbor. Elbow on his knee and head propped on his hand Taur sat and waited for the Captain to make enquiries of old Randa. His heart was a great raw lump in his chest and he was finding it more and more difficult to breathe. He was aware many of the men, especially other Sons of the Dragon, had looked askance at him for making such a fuss, believing if one woman didn't want him there were many more who did. Just so would he have felt himself had it been any woman other than Gynevra.

He was just thinking about sending the men home ahead so he could follow and not be seen if a tear should slither down his cheeks, when the Captain came running from the house, grinning and shouting, ‘They're here, Sire! They're here!’

Heart leaping in his chest with a great thud, he started upright, the horse prancing beneath him.

‘Where?’

The Captain pointed to a group of goat-herder's huts above the track around the distant hillside.

‘The farmer says a woman with a mute servant came looking for somewhere to stay late yesterday. He rented them the hut at the top end.’

For a moment Taur grinned stupidly back at the Captain in the dim light of their crystal lantern, savoring the moment of relief. Then jabbing the horse with his heels before the depth of his emotion became evident, he galloped into the darkness towards the hut.

The animals at the Castle were housed better, he thought with dismay. Either Gynevra had lost her mind to come to such a place, or she really did have strong feelings about him taking other women. He could see a rush light burning through the small, unglazed window as he approached and could hear the peculiar rasping, vibration of Foab humming.

Leaping from the horse, hunger and cold forgotten, he flung aside the hessian door curtain and stooped into the room to stare around the interior. Stirring something in a small blackened pot over the tiny hearth, Foab looked up and his hand stilled. If Taur had been in a mood to notice, there was relief in the black depths of the Qeggi's eyes. But in that moment the great Paggi King had eyes only for the woman on the squalid little sling bed in the corner with the wolf curled up beside her. Tiny fire devils danced in her hair from the flickering rush light and her eyes were wide with a gamut of emotions from truculent fear to tremulous delight.

The intense rush of his own emotions threatened to overwhelm him. There was only one way to overcome that and the instinct to do so was ingrained.

‘What in Cronos are you doing here?’ he roared so furiously the tiny building shuddered alarmingly. The pot Foab was stirring pitched into the fire and the terrified servitor almost fell in after it.

Taur scarcely noticed. The need to touch his woman, check every inch of her to make sure she was all right, ask her how she was, throttle her, and give her the hiding of her life tore through him like a whirlwind. He was a mess and he was shaking with it! It was anger. It had to be. Nothing less would do for a fine Paggi King such as he.

Incoherent in his fury he roared again and strode across to scoop her into his arms. Qerlim, eyes blazing and hackles bristling down her back, sank her teeth into his hand. If it hadn't been fury coursing all through him before, it certainly was now!

Cloaba! He'd given her that wolf, saved it from death, played with it like a puppy and it had bitten him! He was mad now, mad enough to kill and he'd start with that breara wolf—as soon as he could get his hands on it. The animal crouched menacingly on the edge of the rickety cot, muzzle curled back, fangs bared, snarling and growling as if envisaging his flesh stripped and shredded and his bones ground to powder.

He was forced to stand still—long enough for the crazed desire to kill to abate and for his brain to start working again. If he killed Qerlim he knew instinctively he'd create a chasm between himself and Gynevra he would never bridge.

Re-treating a step, he forced himself to speak calmly and asked, ‘Do you have any control over that animal?’

With the merest flicker of the corner of one eye, she answered, ‘If I wish to.’

His eyebrows rose abruptly. There was a strength in this woman he'd encountered in no other and he'd do well to remember he'd not intimidate her as he did any other who crossed him.

Then she added in a cold, hard voice, ‘Just at this moment I'd be happy to see her shred you limb from limb and feed you to the pack.’

The crackling of the fire seemed uncommonly loud in the silence that followed. A muscle worked along Taur's jaw, then he growled softly, ‘Hard words, my Gyn'a.—Will you come home with me?’

‘No.’

Chapter 27

Unconsidered and unemotional, the single syllable slammed like a warrior punch into his gut and he had to fight the natural instincts that demanded he kick the wolf aside and drag his woman home whether she would or no.

A Son of the Dragon, a King, didn't know how to beg, was inclined to be antagonistic about it. He asked, a little stiffly to be sure, ‘Would anything make you change your mind about that?’

‘Yes,’ Gynevra answered promptly and said no more.

‘What?’ he asked between grinding teeth.

‘That you give up contract siring.’

Just like that. She wanted him to give up his life.

‘I earn a huge amount of personal revenue from those contracts. I've now got a Queen to keep who needs silk gowns, gems, and expensive wines. I believe there was even a suggestion I build an oast-house to make the fancy bread she is so enamored of!’

Looking straight at Taur, Gynevra said, ‘You should've thought of all that when you kidnapped me from Qrazil!’

Then settling herself a little more comfortably she placed a gentling hand on the still snarling Qerlim and spoke words which he would later tell her almost startled his Paggi boots off.

‘You see, Taur,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the wolf, ‘every second of my life I commit the un-Paggic sin of loving you. I love you when you smile, when you're happy, when you're teasing me. I love you when you're pontificating and handing out judgements to your people. I love you when you're teaching and playing with the children. I love you when you touch me, when you bathe with me, when you join with me.’ She stopped for a moment to draw in a deep, calming breath and though Taur felt he needed to interrupt the out-pouring of words that should never be spoken, he stood there with his mouth working and his brain not.

‘I love you,’ she went on, ‘when you're angry, when you're unreasonable, arrogant, and Paggically kingly! Whatever you do I love you and always will. That's why I cannot, and will not, watch you fulfil your contracts and give to other women that which should be only mine. If you were serious about abolishing the breeding flabria you would start by setting the example.’

He stared at the dancing firelight in her hair, his chest heaving, his head wagging disbelievingly from side to side. Suddenly he turned and began pacing, almost instantly fetching up against a wall, and he hurled about to face her again.

‘
Love
is not supposed to be a part of any Paggi sacred partnership—for this very reason—it cuts across the very fabric of the system!’ he threw at her, completely ignoring her salvo about the breeding flabria.

Gynevra had been staring unseeingly at her hand buried in the thick white fur on Qerlim's back. Now she lifted her eyes and looked directly into Taur's.

‘So return me to Qrazil,’ she said, ‘for my heart will break and I will surely die if I have to watch you join with another woman.’

‘Never!’ he erupted, and began pacing again in tiny circles. Foab, who all this time had been crouched by the hearth, now scrambled quickly across the room in response to a glance from his mistress and vanished out the door.

‘What about altar duty? Virgin initiations?’ Taur asked, stopping to confront her, his face a contorted mask of confusion.

A spasm of pain crossed Gynevra's face and she said, ‘You are the King and those are kingly duties—and I don't have to watch. I can pretend it's not happening. But there are plenty of Sons of the Dragon only too anxious to pick up the contracts and it's accepted by most who take sacred partners that they cease their siring activities.’

‘I don't have a sacred partner,’ he snapped back at her smartly, his jaw jutting with belligerence.

‘Nor will I ever consent to be such while you continue to accept contracts—and since I'm not your sacred partner, I don't have to watch—and I choose to be elsewhere while you perform!’

Finally her iron control was breaking and the last words were a bitter cry from the heart.

Taur dragged in several rasping breaths, then asked, ‘Why couldn't you have stayed in the Temple?’

‘Because then everyone would've known how I felt! It's enough that I'm a foreigner in this place without also being known as an ignorant barbarian who feels love and jealousy!’

Still steeped in his own anger, Taur barked, ‘Well, the whole cloabad city knows now. We've searched every house and questioned every citizen.’

Gynevra went very still, her eyes widening and her lips beginning to tremble as she absorbed the full import of what he'd said. Her face crumpled, tears spurted from her eyes and Taur folded into an importuning mess on the cot beside her and drew her unresistingly into his arms.

Qerlim, her all-seeing golden eyes sliding from one human to the other with a look of intense relief, dropped her head on her paws to rest with one eye partially open.

Suddenly begging was easy. With immense relief, Taur found himself pleading.

‘Gyn'a, please—please—come home with me.—Will you come if I promise to honor no more contracts in the meantime?’

Sniffling, and burying her head in deep embarrassment, she muttered, ‘Your mother will be vindicated in her opinion of me and all those others who think you a fool for bringing home a foreign Princess.’

Clutching her close against his chest, Taur gave silent thanks to the Gods he had this precious woman safely back in his arms. There was a tacit awareness he had very little resistance left in his Paggi heart to doing whatever was required to ensure he kept her there but he welcomed the excuse to put those heavy thoughts aside for a while. He needed a little more time, a little more space to crystallize such a total change of philosophy.

‘I think Movuon will surprise you,’ he said slowly.

‘How?’ Gynevra hiccupped.

‘The same way she surprised me,’ he responded ruefully. ‘After I announced to the court my intention of honoring the contract with Lady Pulina, she ladled me every foul epithet she could dredge up, including that I was just like my Paggi demon kapi of a pavuon! Why bother taking a sacred partner if I was going to go about scrogging everything else that moved? And that was
before
you went missing! Once that came to her ears I was in deep mire! I didn't deserve a beautiful woman like Gynevra of Poseidonia and it'd be my fault if you'd lost your mind and something terrible had happened to you and our wee bull calf. I'm a scurrilous oaf and those are strong words from my sainted mother, I can tell you.

‘As for the rest, I've been betrayed on every side. Pog let me know in pure Pog-fashion that I'd been sitting on my crown instead of wearing it, but that it was the
horn
rather than the horns making me uncomfortable! He also made sure I understood you had, and I quote, `left castle round about same time Bull of Nyalda, greatest contract sire of all time you understand, announced intention of scrogging ve-ery beautiful Lady of Poseidonia'.’

To Taur's intense satisfaction a watery gurgle of merriment erupted from Gynevra. His accurate mimicry of the tiny man never failed to touch her sense of the comical and he hugged her close.

‘Difleer of course, is like to kill me by looks alone. As for ‘starchy, oily Maden’,
he
looked down that long nose of his and told me it was time I started acting as one who desired a sacred partner instead of some impoverished and oafish Son of the Dragon desperate to build a stadrag.’

‘Didn't anyone support you?’ Gynevra asked and Taur was certain he heard a teasing note in her voice.

‘Mmm,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Lady Verana and Lady Tulini both offered whatever comfort I had need of in my dire extremity. Ladies Ginefi and Fruina were also
very
sympathetic. Indeed, Fruina went so far as to avow she would take her loyalty to the crown so far as to ‘stand in’ for the Queen whenever she went missing!’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ Gynevra demanded caustically.

‘Yes, actually,’ Taur said, grinning down at her before touching his lips to the tip of her nose. ‘I promptly demanded Verana and Tulini massage my feet while I sat on the throne directing the search. To Ginefi I assigned the important task of trimming my fingernails and Fruina I sooled onto Maden, thus removing them both from my presence and killing two birds with one stone!’

‘Your kingship is awesome,’ Gynevra offered with a small laugh, and sighing within herself at how easily she'd fallen for the teasing gentleness in his voice, the caring strength of his arms. She feared it would always be so.

‘I have to admit,’ he concluded ruefully, ‘that most of the women gave me a terrible dressing down. You have a strong following within the Queen's court, alara, whether you know it or not. I also need you to know that when I couldn't have you, you were the only woman I wanted in my arms. I fear my reputation as an oaf is forever ruined for I made that fact very clear—like maniacally clear,’ he finished in a disgruntled mutter.

Gynevra wrapped her arms around his chest and squeezed.

‘Will you come home with me now?’ he asked huskily.

‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.

It was a long, cold and uncomfortable ride home. Rain sleeted in from the northern sea and notwithstanding the extra cloaks and crystal lanterns the farmer had provided, all were intensely miserable by the time they reached the castle.

For Taur, used to being physically in control of whatever activity was afoot, having nothing more to do than try to keep himself and Gynevra warm and comfortable, the journey was hard indeed. Through the long dark hours huddled under cloaks smelling of wet wool and goat, his mind wouldn't be still. She'd mentioned love once before but on that occasion he'd thought they were about to die together and he'd put the memory aside, believing it only words uttered in extremity. Her impassioned declaration of love for him this night was like a recurring dream, playing through his mind, demanding he confront his own feelings.

Love. Since Isidor's time, high Paggi men and women had almost made a religion out of denying this most uncomfortable of emotions. Men in particular, eschewed it, and rudely derided any who became enmeshed in its toils. Thus, he simply couldn't love her. Which set him searching for other reasons for his need to kidnap her in the first place. By such reckoning any woman of high standing would've served for his sacred partner and there were several suitable—and willing—candidates right here in Fyr Heceuda.

Could this ugly, very un-Paggic emotion of love have sneaked up on him without him realizing it? Had he been ambushed by an emotion he hadn't seen coming, and not even tried to take evasive action? Like a seasoned warrior caught with his weapons down, he knew he'd be judged harshly.

Gynevra, held close against his chest, tensed and cried out suddenly, and all other concerns fled his mind.

‘Alara, what is it?’ he asked urgently.

‘A pain.—I think—no—it's too early.’

‘Is the baby coming?’ he asked sharply, terror striking to the bottom of his heart.

‘It can't be. It's too early,’ she muttered again.

‘What sort of a pain is it?’

‘It's all right. It's gone now.—Where are we?’

‘As far as I can make out we've just passed Labon's chicken farm so there's still a little way to go before we reach the outskirts of the city.’

‘It didn't seem to take so long on the way out. My backside hurts and I've got cramp in my leg.’

He tried to ease her position a little and they travelled a way in silence. Then Gynevra's sharp intake of breath and sudden stiffening in his arms made him exclaim, ‘Is that another pain, Gyn'a?’

‘Yes.’

‘Usod! Qeggi! Whip this cloabad horse up or the next King of Nyalda will be born in a farm cart!’

Gynevra had had several more pains by the time they reached the lower courtyard of the Castle. The guards had ridden ahead to bring the news of the Queen's safety and the imminent arrival of the babe. Notwithstanding it wanted but a few hours to dawn the courtyard was crowded. Foremost among the throng was Lady Nudon with High Priestess Rimona, the Temple midwife. Everyone pressed forward, questioning, all talking at once, wanting to know if the Queen was all right, and vilifying a King who had caused her to run off in the first place. There was scarce room for them to alight from the cart, let alone enter the Castle.

Taur stood up in the back of the cart and shouted, ‘The Queen is all right—and she'd be a cloabad sight better if you all took yourselves off to bed instead of standing around here plaguing and gossiping and blocking the way!’

Jumping down he turned and lifting Gynevra into his arms strode grimly through the parting throng towards the upper courtyard. By the time they reached the King's Presence Chamber they'd amassed a following of concerned and curious courtiers, including Lady Nudon huffing and tutting and asking endless questions.

At the door to the royal apartments, he turned and barked, ‘I found her at Randa’s goat farm. She was and is perfectly safe though likely coming into labor. Now be off all of you—except the midwife!’

Nudon made to push through with High Priestess Rimona but Taur blocked her with his body.

‘Movuon, go to your bed. You will be the first to know when the baby is born.’

Tears flooded the old Queen's eyes.