Sweet Love, Survive (29 page)

All his life Apollo had lived with the reality of
kanly
, of blood feuds and retribution for wrongs committed. But no one had ever told him that blood vengeance couldn’t rectify the original sin or destroy the memory, or, curse it, stop this abominable litany that rasped at him from the pits of Hades itself. Child is mine … remember that … Katherine’s child … mine. … When it’s born … remember that … remember … remember …

    Kitty, in sea-green tissue silk, came running down the steps when Apollo rode into the courtyard. His heart leaped and all
his black temper and misgivings were stilled; the sight of her uncontained joy and magnificent beauty conquered him anew.

She tugged at his leg, his
burkha
, even before he could dismount, smiling up at him with tears in her misty green eyes, love shining openly on her fragile face. “I was so worried—” He looked tired. It was clear in his face.

“I’m fine,” he responded, pulling off his gloves.

Kitty noticed with a lurch of concern the ragged gashes across both hands. “You’re hurt! Your hands—”

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Only scratches.” Apollo swung out of the saddle and she threw herself at him. His arms folded fiercely around her and despair, weariness, dark cynicism were gone. Only the moment mattered. Only holding her close mattered. And having her. The future was theirs. … Kitty was his, only his, and nothing else bore thinking of.

“I missed you,” Kitty sobbed softly into his chest. “I was afraid … alone.”

“
Duskha
, don’t cry,” Apollo soothed gently. “I’m back now. I won’t have to go out again.”

Kitty looked up at him searchingly. “No more raids?”

“No more raids.”

“What about the men?”

“Karaim can lead the next one. So dry your tears.”

“Consider it done.” Kitty laughed shakily, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffling softly. Her heart soared with joy. To have Apollo back after almost two weeks of not knowing whether he was alive or dead was like a wish come true, earthly paradise, and the promised land all rolled up into one. He was tall and beautiful, his hair two shades paler, his skin two shades darker after the past days on horseback.

“And how is the baby, Mamasha?” Apollo asked, holding her at arm’s length and gazing at the now obvious bulge of her tummy. In his pleasure at seeing Kitty again and knowing she loved him, he could ask the question with a solicitude untinged by rancor. After all, he had promised many weeks ago on a cold and snowy hillside that he would be the father of her child. Now he only required the sincerity to uphold his vow.

With Kitty soft and warm in his arms, her vivid eyes alight, her lush honeysuckle lips parted in a smile of elation, upholding his vow was no hardship.

“The baby’s fine and I’m fine and I love you,” she said, smiling happily, “more than your great-grandfather loves his collection of paleolithic bronzes.”

“A formidable encomium.” Apollo grinned in return. “I only hope now I won’t disappoint such adoration,” he said in a roguishly husky voice.

Kitty’s hand drifted up the dark silk of his beshmet, ran up his throat, and gently traced the curve of his upper lip. “You never have in the past,” she replied in that particular breathy, teasing tone he always associated with the very happiest of his memories.

“We try,” he murmured softly, lapsing comfortably into the royal pronoun, one eyelid narrowing in a sinfully delicious wink.

Prince Apollo Kuzan, bred to luxury as heir to the vast Kuzan fortune, scion to Iskender-Khan’s mountain nation, young, gifted, handsome, felt himself more truly blessed by the single bounteous asset of Kitty’s love than by the abundant wealth of all his other fortune.

The baby’s paternity no longer signified, liabilities like husbands were effaced, bitter memories of swinish generals disappeared. It was spring in the mountains; he was home after a successful venture. Kitty declared her love in enticingly visual, verbal, and tactile ways, and just as soon as the dirt of the journey was washed away, he’d show her the fullness of his adoration. “I think we’ve given the servants enough to talk about. Shall we go inside? I need food, I need a bath, and I need you—not necessarily in that order.” A broad smile creased his sun-bronzed cheek, and taking Kitty by the hand, he started up the entrance stairs. “I think a bath first—unless, of course,” he teased, his golden eyes alight, “the smell of the stables excites you. There are women with such fetishes. …” His voice trailed off suggestively.

Kitty laughed in her quick, breathtaking way. “After
sleeping alone for two weeks,” she replied with a lighthearted impishness, “I don’t need a fetish to accept you any way at all.”

Apollo raised one dark brow. “So it’s only because you dislike sleeping alone. Will any man do?” Although he was still teasing, the smallest sensitivity stirred deep inside.

“Any man,” Kitty retorted playfully “as long as he’s tall, golden-eyed, and has wild, longish hair like a lion’s mane.
That
sort of man
desperately
attracts me.”

“Desperately?” Apollo asked wolfishly. They had entered the large foyer, decorated with Persian porcelains and carpets, and were heading for the divided staircase leading to the living quarters.

“Absolutely desperately,” Kitty whispered softly. She wondered briefly at the abandon this lovely man provoked in the heart and soul and mind of a genteelly nurtured, reserved young woman who had never, even in marriage, felt this way. She had given up her latent modesty and soul’s silence for him, had given up her marriage vows and husband for him, would willingly follow him to the ends of the earth—and the staggering magnitude of her intemperance awed her. She had always seen herself in practical terms, her soul nourished on the food of reality, not a Stardust; her spirit far removed from exotic dreams of peacock gardens and romance as extravagant as pigeon’s-blood rubies. Yet Apollo had entered her life and in three days had dashed away, without effort or intention, her entire former existence. He had also, with tenderness, joyous spirit, and passion, made her happier than she had ever imagined possible.

She loved him with the blithe, fragile innocence of childhood, she loved with the full-blooded ardor of womanhood, she loved with the balmy indiscretion of a mistress and the dissolute candor of a whore; she loved him poignantly with the inexplicable love of a woman for the man whose child she bears.

And he was home safe. It was all she asked.

A trail of clothes led from the bedroom door to the bed, and the order of events was adjusted to meet the more demanding concerns of passion.

An idyllic spring and summer passed. The two young, golden-haired lovers adored each other deeply, amorously, pervasively, and the revolution-torn, chaotic outside world disappeared for them.

Occasionally, as in any Eden, brief moments of strife would appear, but reconciliation was always swift and enchantingly satisfying.

The blatantly secondary role assigned women in the tribal culture took a certain amount of getting used to. The life of a warrior contributed mightily to the concept, for men only fought or played, they did nothing else, which left all the obligatory tasks of daily living to the female population. Those prosaic duties didn’t affect Kitty, since Apollo’s palace staff was self-sufficient, but she took umbrage at the work burden that befell the women of the aul. The fact that the Moslem religion was nominally supported further weakened the position of females, and Kitty—having acquired a certain independence and self-reliance after years of managing Aladino—was appalled at the submissive attitude of the village women.

Apollo, raised in Dargo, was sympathetic in theory to Kitty’s accusations of blatant inequality—after all, his mother was one of the more unconventional females he knew—but nevertheless he inherently possessed that pervasive air of masculine authority and certainty particular to the mountain warrior.
¹³

Needless to say, such diametrically incompatible stances did create an occasional contretemps, but Apollo, with the indulgent
good humor of a man head over heels in love, was generally acquiescent and obliging to Kitty.

One afternoon, while basking in the sun in adjoining wicker chaises on the newly constructed terrace, the subject of women’s roles came up again. Apollo courteously evaded making any overt judgments that might rankle. He was, in any event, pleasantly content and gratified. He and Kitty had just spent an enticing two hours in bed and sensual indulgence always left him amiable.

“Apollo,” Kitty said, her gold hair hot on her shoulders, “when we get to France, I’d like to go back to school.”

“Sounds fine,” Apollo murmured agreeably, his eyes only slits against the brilliant light. He was fully aware that modern women acquired university educations. The last twenty years had seen much progress in that field. His mother, in fact, was a well-known historian, and Apollo’s family had always encouraged formal education. A variety of tutors had been trekked up to the mountain retreat in his childhood and, as was the custom in the Kuzan family, he had matriculated at the Sorbonne, spending time in the study of economics. “Any special subject?” he asked cordially, enjoying the sound of Kitty’s voice, inclined to consider himself the luckiest of men to have her beside him, and thinking speculatively that the study of literature or painting, or perhaps philosophy, would be a pleasant diversion for Kitty once they settled in France. After all, those unfailingly dull bridge or tea parties women were obliged to spend so much time at must be boring as hell.

“Farming,” Kitty declared.

“Good God!” Apollo sat upright and looked disbelievingly at his plumply pregnant sweetheart lying next to him, her skin flushed and speckled with the sun. “Are you serious?” Apollo was more than willing to indulge his Kitty in any of her wishes, but farming? His own cherished notions about the qualities appropriate to the female sex tended to follow the traditional concepts of beauty, availability, grace, elegance, charm. Not that an educated wife wasn’t an agreeable companion,
but … farming? Somehow farming seemed so … masculine.

Kitty stared squarely back at him and inquired sweetly, too sweetly, “What’s wrong with farming?” She was definitely glaring now, he decided, and when Apollo saw the flinty look appear in those wide green eyes, he graciously reconciled himself to a wife on a tractor. “Farming sounds delightful,” he said with a crooked grin.

In a flash the basilisk look changed to a twinkle and Kitty laughed happily, enchanted with Apollo’s spontaneous about-face. He pampered her outrageously, and after Peotr’s indifference she adored Apollo’s casual, unrestrained kindness. Responding to the laughing irony in his crooked smile, Kitty teasingly went on in mild, dulcet tones, “After all,
someone
has to make some money while you’re out spending your time on the polo fields.”

Apollo, his voice redolent with agreeableness, the droll light of mockery shining from between his narrowed lids, replied, “How nice. My fortune will then be intact to squander on my lady friends.” He ducked just in time to avoid a morocco-bound copy of Colette’s newest novel and, laughing, bounded out of range of the next hurled volume.

In those summer days Apollo took delight in showing Kitty the beauties of his mountain valley. They picnicked in lush green glades that were carpeted in mountain gentian, snowdrops, enormous tiger lilies. Apollo fished the cool, clear streams while Kitty lazed on the grassy banks. She was awed by glorious rose-and-coral sunsets, flaming like Renaissance embroidery, as they viewed them from rocky ledges rising high above the valley floor. And they loved each other amidst the splendor of a mountain summer like two passionate adolescents allowed their first freedom, intent on exploring every nuance and magnificent subtlety of their love. They both became golden children of the sun; Apollo deeply tanned, his hair pale white by summer’s zenith; Kitty’s skin a fairer glowing peach bronze, her lemon-bright hair less inclined to bleach to the creamy ice of Apollo’s ruffled curls.

•   •   •

Despite the charming idleness of his summer devoted to Kitty, Apollo was still the leader of the coterie of young, hot-blooded warriors in camp, and he would infrequently of an evening join them in their fellowship.
Aracq
and Khahetian wine flowed, and talk would always turn to the next raid.

Apollo had remained behind on the last two, and while rationally he accepted his temporary constraint, the reminiscing always brought forth a quickening of desire to mount up and make mischief for the new Bolshevik government on the plains below. He gracefully accepted the inevitable teasing that ensued each time he declined a raid—in the warriors’ eyes, a woman’s wishes were no reason at all to stay behind—but he found it much more difficult to ignore the drunken comments that had occurred alluding to Kitty’s sojourn with the general. On the two occasions when too much heated aracq had inadvertently brought forth mention of the general and Kitty, the faux pas had been immediately silenced by an abrupt change of subject.

But one night in August, an intemperate young buck railed at the number of women in the perimeter mountain auls bordering their nation who had been abused by Red swine, and immediately Apollo felt himself the focus of a score of eyes.

Absolute silence descended on the room. Apollo was a chancy bastard to cross. “I think,” Apollo said, putting fifty generations of ice into his voice, “that the subject has been exhausted.” He fixed the group with the kind of look linked with murderous duels. There was a pause, which prolonged itself to uncomfortable lengths. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. “Oh, hell.” His lips twitched into a grin. “Since when haven’t women meant trouble? Pass me the damn wine jug.”

Everyone’s face broke into a relieved smile and four bottles of Khahetian wine appeared simultaneously.

That evening he was perhaps more sensitive because of the amount of liquor he had consumed, or perhaps the approach of Kitty’s confinement brought the old distracting thoughts
into prominence once again. Whatever the reasons, Apollo rode home in a foul temper, black, angry memories of Kitty and the general sharing center stage with a very inebriated sense of affront.