Dark Dreams (45 page)

‘What, sleeping in the middle of the day?’ Tulkhan laughed, rolling to his knees. The movement tugged at the pain in his chest, his muscles ached and his joints popped, but he was determined to wake her.

The man caught the General’s arm, a warning in his eyes.

Tulkhan felt fear, by now a familiar companion. Forewarned, he crawled across the floor to kneel beside Imoshen. His son was asleep at her breast, her nipple still in his mouth. She lay completely still, her face pale.

He knew the signs, but this time he could not call on Reothe for help.

‘How did this happen?’

‘As the colour came to your skin, she grew paler.’

‘But she is a healer. It’s her T’En gift.’

The man shrugged. ‘Maybe even she has limits. Remember in Gheeaba a woman would not rise from her bed for one small moon after giving birth, or take on her normal duties for another moon. She would be waited on by the other wives and her baby brought to her for feeding.

‘This Dhamfeer crossed the ranges barefoot. She walked a day and a night to get here. She reversed the night terrors when the fortress would have fallen –’

‘Then she saved me.’ Tulkhan bowed his head. He had begun to expect the impossible of Imoshen.

The baby woke and opened wine-dark eyes. His gaze travelled up Tulkhan’s chest to his face. There was no greeting, no recognition in those eyes, just impassive interest.

‘Here, General.’ The bone-setter lifted the baby. ‘You’ll have to give him a name.’

‘A name?’ Tulkhan had not thought of that, could not think of it when Imoshen lay so still. He would have to find a wet nurse. ‘How are you feeding the baby?’

‘Her milk flows. She rouses herself to take a little food and water –’

‘What?’ Then it was not the same as the last time. There was hope.

As the bone-setter moved off to clean and change the baby, Tulkhan grasped Imoshen’s hand in his. He stroked her cheek. ‘Imoshen, wake up and tell me what to call our boy.’ Tulkhan grinned. His father would be turning in his grave. A Ghebite father always chose his son’s name. ‘I can’t call him
babe
forever.’

He saw her lips move ever so slightly as if she would like to smile. Elation filled him. Stroking her pale hair from her forehead he leant closer. ‘You can hear me. Is there anything I can do for you, get you?’

With great effort her lips formed the word, ‘Home.’

Tears of relief stung Tulkhan’s eyes and he kissed her closed lids. ‘Rest easy, I will take you home.’

T
HEY RIGGED A
cover over the supply wagon and Imoshen travelled in that. Their progress was slow by Tulkhan’s normal standards, but he was pleased. Every day Imoshen regained her strength and the baby grew.

The day before the Festival of Midsummer they stood on the rise looking over T’Diemn. Tulkhan called a halt to the caravan and climbed into the wagon.

‘We are home,’ he told Imoshen and lifted her in his arms so she could see. ‘There.’

He watched her face as she stared across at T’Diemn. It was one of the loveliest cities he had ever seen. Its spires and turrets shimmered in the rising waves of heat.

Yet Imoshen’s face fell.

‘What?’

She glanced quickly away. ‘The stronghold is my home.’

He understood. What could he say?

‘Where is your home, General?’

He could never return to Gheeaba. He knew that now. ‘My home is with you.’

He saw her register his meaning. Her fierce hug warmed him.

She pulled away. ‘Since we are here we must make the best of it. The people will want to see us and our son, Ashmyr.’

Imoshen had insisted they call the boy Ashmyr. She’d said T’Ashmyr had bound the island to him during the Age of Tribulation, uniting the T’En and locals alike. Only the Keldon Highlands had resisted him. So his son was named after a T’En emperor and Tulkhan did not mind

‘Do you think you should ride?’ Tulkhan was uneasy.

She had hardly so much as peeped outside the wagon except during their night camps.

‘No. But you could carry me and I could hold the babe. The people of T’Diemn would like that.’

As they rode into town they received a rousing welcome. The people were celebrating the birth of the baby and the rout of the rebels, a tale he was sure had grown in the telling. The townsfolk came out of their houses and shops to cheer.

And they cheered loudest of all for Tulkhan’s son.

‘Y
OU WON’T RECONSIDER
?’ Imoshen asked.

Tulkhan looked across at her. They were sharing a rare moment of privacy in the ornamental garden. Delicate blossoms hung from the trellis above them. It was a place of ethereal dappled light and sweet scent.

Nothing in Ghebite society was valued for its beauty. They valued wealth and military power, not aesthetics. In his brash youth he would have despised the creation of beauty as a waste of effort, but now he could admire a culture that had time for the pursuit of beauty for its own sake.

‘Now that we’ve hosted the Midsummer Festival, I must return south. The fortress controlling the Greater Pass is almost finished, but I must complete the one sealing off the Lesser Pass before the harvest. Let the Keldon nobles winter in the ranges without fresh supplies.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Imoshen said. ‘It’s a static defence. It gives the rebels a chance to study the fortresses, learn the patterns of your guards. In time they will spot a weakness and strike.’

Tulkhan knew Reothe could not afford to let the Protector General finish the fortresses. All trade and large caravans had to use the passes. If Tulkhan succeeded in barricading the Keldon Highlands, it would be a blow to Reothe’s reputation. His supporters would be prisoners in their own estates.

‘I must go.’ Tulkhan joined her on the seat. ‘I delayed only for the Midsummer Festival.’

She looked down, playing with the baby’s hands. Imoshen never let the babe far from her side. Tulkhan had noticed her waking at night to check on him.

‘Your workers will be attacked,’ she whispered.

‘I don’t expect Reothe to disappoint me.’

‘What will you do without me?’

Tulkhan sighed. Imoshen’s gift had saved him and his men last time. Though she would say no more about that night, she often woke in terror, muttering in High T’En. And he had recognised the High T’En word, Parakletos.

Oh, he needed Imoshen all right, but she would not leave the baby with a wet nurse.

‘I won’t risk you and the baby. You can defend yourself, but my son can’t.’

‘I won’t leave him behind.’ She rose, her cheeks flushed with annoyance. The faint breeze played with wisps of her pale hair so that it seemed to have a life of its own. Anger and the stirring of her T’En powers exuded from her skin, making his heart race.

He ached for her but his bone-setter had warned him that there was good reason the Ghebite men did not touch their women for two small moons after the birth. The bone-setter’s description of the injuries of an ordinary birth had horrified Tulkhan. No, he would not inflict himself on Imoshen until she was ready. But it had taken great self-restraint.

‘You are my bond-partner,’ Imoshen told him. ‘And though I respect your wishes, I will do what I believe to be right. I could not live with myself otherwise.’

‘Then we are at a deadlock,’ Tulkhan said, and he left her.

Imoshen watched him walk away. Only yesterday Ashmyr had looked into her eyes and recognised her.

He had been born a little more than one small moon short of a full year. She suspected the exertion and the danger she faced had brought him on early. Even so, he was doing well and so was she. While she had recovered physically, she felt more vulnerable than ever. Reothe was ready to traffic with the Ancients and call on the Parakletos at risk to his own soul. To defeat Reothe she had to discover his limitations.

The palace library was no help. She had to get into the Basilica to search the archives. Somehow she would translate the T’Endomaz and use the knowledge against Reothe.

It was a cruel irony that he had given her the most valuable thing he possessed – his parents’ last gift – and she hoped to use it to destroy him. Tears stung her eyes.

It was her lot to face terrible choices, just as it had been Imoshen the First’s. Her namesake had bound the T’En warriors to her with oaths that went beyond death.

Pushing such dark thoughts aside Imoshen stretched, arching her back. Tonight was her last night with the General. The soft tug on her nipple as the baby fed made her other breast run with milk. She pressed it to stop the flow. Her body tingled and she thought longingly of Tulkhan’s rough hands. If only he would hold her. She was sure she could overcome whatever scruples were restraining his ardour.

T
ULKHAN SPRAWLED ON
the bed, watching Imoshen feed their son. He and his men were ready to move out. All that remained was this one night with Imoshen. He longed to hold her in his arms, but did not know if he could trust himself to do that without wanting more.

The baby fed eagerly. Tulkhan could hear him gulping milk. He grinned. ‘My greedy son will get wind and keep you up all night.’

‘Oh?’ Imoshen fixed him with teasing eyes. ‘So you’re an expert now. I wager Ghebite men never care for their children.’

‘Not true.’ Tulkhan leaned against the headboard and linked his hands behind his head. ‘When I was six I left the women’s quarters and joined the men’s lodge. There I was reared by the men who served my father. They trained me in the arts of war, preparing me for my role as first son of the King’s second wife.’

She looked horrified. ‘You mean you never lived with your female relatives after that? How sad.’

‘Why?’

Imoshen shook her head. ‘No wonder Ghebite men think women are a race apart.’

She detached the drowsy baby and tucked him into the basket by their bed before moving to sit in front of Tulkhan. A drop of milk still clung to her nipple. He found himself staring at it, unable to think of anything else.

Imoshen rose to her knees, her breasts tantalisingly close to his face. ‘Are you thirsty?’

A shaft of urgent desire shot through him. Surely she wasn’t suggesting? It went against everything he had been taught, yet it was so tempting.

He tore his gaze from the full expanse of her creamy white breast. ‘Imoshen!’

She tilted her head, a smile playing about her lips.

‘Is this how the women of Fair Isle act?’ His voice was hoarse with the effort of denial.

Imoshen sighed and closed the bodice of her shift. ‘I don’t know. It was never mentioned in my lessons on how to share pleasure with a man.’

‘You had lessons on... on –’

‘Physical love?’ Imoshen laughed. ‘Of course. Everyone does. At least all well-educated people. I don’t know about the farmers.’ Her lips quirked. ‘I suspect their education is more practical than theoretical.’

‘How can you jest?’ Tulkhan shifted across the bed, pulling the covers with him to hide his state. ‘Imoshen, that is unnatural.’

‘How can you say that? Didn’t those men who reared you see to it that you learned how to lie with a woman?’

He could clearly remember them bringing a certain type of woman to his chamber when he was sixteen. It had been an enjoyable education, one he had partaken of regularly until he joined the army just after his seventeenth birthday.

Tulkhan folded his arms. ‘That was different.’

‘Different?’

For a moment he thought she was angry. Her eyes glowed like jewels. ‘Imoshen?’

‘How can you deny me when it is plain for all to see that you want me?’

The baby whimpered, responding to her tone. Imoshen glanced into the basket, then looked back to Tulkhan.

‘I don’t understand you,’ she whispered.

He shook his head slowly. ‘Nor I, you.’ But it did not stop him wanting her.

‘You could be killed,’ she cried ‘Reothe wants to lure you into the highlands so he can murder you.’

‘What would you have me do?’ Tulkhan reasoned. ‘If I threaten the Keld to betray Reothe’s hideout, they will grow to hate me. Yet I cannot let him undermine my hold on Fair Isle. I have no choice.’

‘You go to your death!’ Tears spilled down Imoshen’s cheeks. Her balled fists hit his chest, pounding, thudding in time to his raging heart.

He caught her to him, pinning her arms against his chest, and kissed her forehead. He had no more words.

Her body trembled and he felt an answering shudder run through him. He wanted her so badly. He could feel her hot breath mingling with the moisture of her tears on his throat. His need to comfort her went core deep.

‘Make love to me.’ Her lips moved on his skin.

His arms tightened. ‘I can’t. It would hurt you so soon after the birth.’

She laughed and pulled away from him. ‘I’m healed. Besides, do you think I care about a little pain?’

‘I will be careful.’

She smiled and opened her arms in welcome.

Chapter Nineteen

T
HIS TIME WHEN
the General marched out, Imoshen watched from the balcony with Ashmyr in her arms. The tenderness of their lovemaking had left her aching for him, vulnerable to the slightest nuance of his voice.

Sorrow formed a hard kernel in her chest as he gave her a farewell salute. She must not think of what awaited him. The last soldier disappeared from sight and she turned away. There was much to keep her mind from her fears, not least of all discovering the limits of Reothe’s powers.

Imoshen made her way out of the palace and across to the Basilica. With deliberate casualness she strolled through the great double doors with Ashmyr in her arms. The priests clustered around her, delighted and honoured by the visit, fussing over the baby, who watched them all with curious unblinking eyes.

‘So serious!’ they laughed.

Imoshen’s innocent request for a tour of the building was greeted eagerly and they were already halfway through the kitchens and storerooms when the Beatific caught up with them.

Imoshen knew the head of the T’En church probably wished her anywhere but inside her bastion of power, yet protocol demanded she welcome T’Imoshen graciously.