Two to Conquer (15 page)

“I’ll speak as I choose, and no woman shall prevent me,” he flung at her.

“Bard, you are still drunk; the wine cup speaks, not you,” she said, and his own fury blazed up, the last vestiges of his self-control flaring. He had let Melora go out of respect for Carlina! How dared she refuse him now, as if he were nothing to her? He would not be un-manned twice on midwinter night by some damned woman’s whims! He dragged her into the gallery, gripping her so hard that she cried out, and forced his lips down on hers, ignoring her struggles. Mingled wrath and desire flamed high in him; for the second time, a woman he wanted and felt he had a right to have had denied him, and this time he would not submit to her meekly, but he would impose his will on her! Damn it, she was his wife, and tonight he would have her, willingly if she chose, but in any case he would have her! She struggled in his arms, in growing panic, exciting him unendurably.

“Bard, no, no,” she pleaded, sobbing. “Not like this, not like this… oh, please, please…”

He held her, fiercely, knowing that he was hurting her with the violence of his grasp. “Come to my room, then! Don’t make me force you, Carlina!” How could she possibly be indifferent to this raging torrent of desire in him? Somehow, he must
make
her feel it! What he wanted was for her to want him as fiercely as he wanted her, to match his own desire and need with her own, and here she was fighting and struggling against him as if she were an unkissed child who did not even know what he wanted of her!

A hand alighted on his shoulder; tore them apart.

“Bard, you are drunk, or completely out of your mind?” Geremy asked, staring at them in dismay.

Carlina covered her face with her hands, weeping with relief and shame.

“Damn you, how dare you interfere, you half-man—”

“Carlina is my foster sister,” Geremy said. “I won’t have her raped at a party, even by her promised husband! Bard, in the name of all the gods, go and slosh your face with cold water and apologize to Carlina, and we’ll say no more of this; and next time, stop drinking while you can still master

yourself!”

“Damn you—” Bard advanced on Geremy with fury, his fists clenched; Beltran seized him from

behind. He said, “No, you don’t, Bard. Carlina, you didn’t want this, did you?”

She sobbed, “No, I didn’t,” and Bard said angrily, “She is my promised wife! She had no right to refuse herself to me this way—you did not hear her crying out, certainly! By what right do you assume she wishes to be released from me? She liked it well enough, until you came along to interfere—”

“Now there you lie,” Beltran said in a rage. “For everyone in this hall with a scrap of
laran
must have heard her cry out against you! I’ll see that my father hears of this! Damnable bastard, trying to take by force what he could never have had willing—”

Bard whipped his dagger out of its sheath. The green gems glittered in the light. He said low, between his teeth, “You meddling catamite, don’t presume to interfere in what you don’t know the first thing about! Get out of my way—”

“No!” Geremy grabbed his wrist. “Bard, you are raving mad! To draw steel at midwinter, before your prince? Beltran, he’s drunk, don’t listen to what he says! Bard, go and sober up, and I’ll give you my word of honor, the king will hear no more of this—”

“So you’re in this against me too, you filthy boy-lover, you and your minion,” Bard yelled, and sprang at him. Geremy stepped aside, trying to avoid the thrust of the dagger, but Bard, beside himself with rage, hurled himself at Geremy and they slammed to the floor, struggling. Geremy twisted his body, grabbing his own dagger. He was still begging, “Bard, no—foster brother, don’t—” but Bard did not even hear, and Geremy knew that he must fight in real earnest now, or Bard would kill him. They had fought before this, as boys, but never, before this, with real weapons in their hands. Bard was stronger than he was. He thrust up, trying to knock the dagger aside, to shove his knee between himself and Bard’s descending blade. He felt his knife go into Bard’s arm, slit the leather and scrape flesh; and in the next moment Bard’s dagger went deep into his thigh, high up near the groin. He cried out, harshly, in agony, feeling the leg go numb.

Then a dozen of the king’s men were dragging them apart, and Bard, abruptly sobered by the flood of adrenalin, like a cold wash over him, stared at Geremy, rolling about in convulsive agony on the floor.

“Zandru’s hells!
Bredu
—” he begged, dropping to his knees beside his foster brother; but he knew Geremy did not hear him. Carlina was sobbing in Beltran’s arms.

Beltran said to one of the soldiers, “Escort my sister to her apartments, and find her maids; then go and awaken my father. I will be responsible.”

He dropped to his knees beside Geremy, shoving Bard viciously aside.

“Don’t touch him, you—! You’ve done enough! Geremy,
bredu
, my beloved brother—speak to me, I beg you, speak to me—” He sobbed, and Bard heard the anguish in his voice. But Geremy was beyond hearing.

One of the soldiers grabbed Bard, not gently, and took the dagger, “Poisoned,” he said. “A Dry-town dagger.” And Bard, in horror, recalled, for the first time that evening, that it was the dagger he had taken in the fight. The slightest wound from a Dry-town dagger, poisoned like this, had meant that Master Gareth had been lamed, probably for life. And he had struck Geremy, in his rage, deep into the hamstrings. Shocked, too horrified to speak, he let the soldiers take him away and place him under arrest.

He spent forty days under house arrest, and no one came near him. He had plenty of time to regret his rashness, in drunken rage; but there were times, too, when he blamed Carlina for it all. Food was brought to his rooms by soldiers, who told him that for a week Geremy had raved in delirium and hung between life and death; but they had sent for a
laranzu
from Neskaya who had saved his life and even his leg. But the leg, they had heard, envenomed by the poison, had withered and shrunk, and he would probably never walk again without support.

In a cold wash of terror, Bard wondered what they would do with him. To draw steel at midwinter

Festival was a crime enough; to wound a foster brother even in play was a serious offense. Beltran had broken Bard’s nose once, at one of their games, and he had been severely beaten, prince or no, by their tutors, had been forced to apologize at dinner time before everyone in the king’s household, and had been required by the king to give Bard, in fine, his best hawk, and his finest cloak. He still had the cloak.

He tried to bribe the soldier who guarded him to smuggle out a message to Carlina. If she would

intercede for him— she was his only hope. The least he could expect would be a year’s exile, and forfeiture of the king’s favor. They could not void his marriage to Carlina, but they could put some trouble in his way. If Geremy had died, he would have faced three years exile, at least, and blood-money to Geremy’s family; but Geremy was not dead. But the soldier curtly refused, saying the king had forbidden any messages to be carried.

Wholly alone, thrown on his own resources, Bard’s bitterness washed away his remorse. It was

Melora’s doing; if she had not refused him, he would not have had to take out his rage and frustration on Carlina, he could have given Carlina the extra half-year she wanted, until their appointed time.

Melora had led him on, then refused him, damned tease!

And then Carlina! She said that she would love him as a husband, yet she put him off this way! And how dared Geremy and Beltran, damned
ombredin-y
, to come interfering? Beltran was jealous, damn him, because Bard had refused him, and he had called his minion to fight him… It was their fault! He had done nothing wrong!

Rage hardened his remorse, until the day, with soft spring rain flooding the castle roofs and the spring thaw at hand, when two soldiers came into his room and said, “Best dress yourself, Dom Bard; the king has called you to audience.”

Bard dressed carefully in his best, shaving himself closely and braiding his hair into the warrior’s braid, twisting the red cord around it. When the king saw it, perhaps he would remember how well Bard had served him, and for how long. If he had killed or maimed the king’s son, he knew, nothing could have saved him; he would count himself lucky to be allowed a quick death and not be torn on hooks. But Geremy was a hostage, son of the king’s enemies—

Geremy was the king’s foster son and his own foster brother. It would not save him.

He came into the king’s presence-chamber with a defiant stride, standing tall, staring down everyone in the room. Carlina was there, among the queen’s women, pale and drawn, her hair dragged back from her face into a thin knot, her eyes huge and frightened. Beltran looked angry, defiant and would not meet Bard’s eyes. Bard looked for Geremy. He was there, leaning on crutches, and Bard noticed that the wounded leg still bore a slipper rather than a boot and that Geremy did not set it to the ground.

He felt his throat tighten. He would not have harmed Geremy. Damn it, why hadn’t Geremy kept out of it, why had they insisted on interfering in what was between Bard and his promised wife?

King Ardrin said, “Well, Bard mac Fianna, what have you to say for yourself?” The name of a bastard

—the name of his unknown mother, not the
di Asturien
he was called in courtesy, boded ill.

Bard bent the knee before his foster father. He said, “Only this, kinsman; the fight was not of my seeking, but they forced it upon me. And that I have served you for five years, and I think I have served you well. With your own hand you commended me at Snow Glens and gave me a red cord, and I

captured clingfire for your armies. I love my foster brother well and I would never have harmed him willingly; I did not know the dagger was poisoned, I swear it.”

“He lies,” Beltran said passionlessly, “for we made jokes about his having become
bredin
to a Dry-towner, and he had heard mistress Melora, the
leronis
, say that her father’s wound was poisoned.”

“I had forgotten it was not my own dagger,” Bard protested angrily. “I admit it, kinsman, I should not have drawn my steel at Festival. I am so far guilty; but Geremy forced the fight upon me! Did Prince Beltran tell you that he was only jealous?”

King Ardrin said, “Was it Geremy who drew his dagger first?”

“No, kinsman,” Bard said, dropping his head, “but I swear I did not know the dagger was poisoned; I had forgotten. And I was drunk; if they are just, they will tell you that, too, and that they forced the quarrel by laying rough hands on me. I drew my dagger in self-defense. I did not want to be beaten by them like a lackey, and there were two of them!”

“Geremy,” asked the king, “did you and Beltran lay hands on Bard first? I will have the truth of this matter, all the truth.”

“We did, Uncle,” Geremy said, “but he had laid hands on Carlina in a way she did not like, and Beltran and I would not have her mauled, or even raped.”

“Is this true, Bard?” The king looked at him with surprise and displeasure. He said, “They had spared to tell me this! Did you so far forget yourself as to mishandle Carlina when you were drunk?”

“As to that,” Bard said, feeling caution desert him with the remembered rage, “Carlina is my pledged wife and they had no right to interfere! Beltran has made a great thing of this because he is jealous, he wants to give Carlina to his
bredu
there, to bind them closer still! He is jealous because I have showed myself his better at swordplay and in war, and with women too—not that he would know what to do

with a woman when he is alone with her! Where was Beltran when I defended you at Snow Glens,

Uncle?”

He knew that he had struck inside the king’s guard there; for Ardrin of Asturias flinched, and looked angrily at his son, then from one to the other of his foster sons.

“Father,” Beltran said, “is it not clear to you that he has plotted to seize the kingdom from your hands, to take Carlina whether she will or no, to win your armies’ allegiance behind your back? If he were still your loyal and obedient subject, would he have drawn steel at midwinter Festival?”

King Ardrin said, “Whether or no, it is clear that I have reared a wolf cub to bite my hand. Was it not enough to you, Bard, that Carlina was pledged to you and should have been yours at the proper time?”

“By all the laws of this kingdom, Carlina is mine,” Bard protested, but the king stopped him with an upraised hand.

“Enough. You presume too much. A handfasting is not a marriage, and not even the king’s foster son can lay a hand undesired upon the king’s daughter. You have broken too many of the laws of this court, Bard; you are a troublemaker. I will have no lawbreaker and kin-maimer within this household. Get you gone from here. I give you horse and sword and hunting bow and armor, and purse of four hundred

silver royals; and thus do I reward your past services to me. But I name you outlaw within Asturias. I give you three days to leave this realm; and after that, if you are seen within the borders of Asturias for seven years from midwinter, no law shall protect you. Any man may slay you like an animal, without blood-guilt, or blood-feud begun, or blood-money paid to your kinsmen for wounding or death.”

Bard stood blinking in outrage at the severity of the punishment. He had expected to lose his place at court—the king could have done no less.. He could have accepted, with equanimity, the usual sentence of a year’s outlawry; had even steeled himself, if the king was in a mood to be severe, to the knowledge that he might have to go into exile for three years. He had also been sure that when next King Ardrin had gone to war and had need of him, he would have been forgiven and recalled to court. But
seven
years’ exile
!

“This is hard,
vai dom
,” he protested, kneeling before the king. “I have served you faithfully and well, and I am not yet even full grown. How do I deserve such hard treatment?”

King Ardrin’s face was like stone. “If you are old enough to behave like a man, and a vicious one,” he said, “you are old enough to suffer the penalty I would lay on such a man. Some of my councillors have thought me over-lenient that I do not order you killed. I have taken a pet dog to my heart and I find a wolf biting my heels! I name you wolf and outlaw, and I bid you begone from this court before sunset and from this realm within three days, before I take second thought and decide I want no such man living within my kingdom. I love your father well, and I would prefer not to have the blood of his son on my hands; but don’t presume on this, Bard, because if I see your face within the borders of Asturias within seven years, I shall certainly strike you down like the wolf you are!”