Two to Conquer (24 page)

Being forced to think of the woman he had and did not want reminded him, perforce, of the woman he wanted and could not have. And after a time he thought of a way to use Ginevra and her coming child.

When the countryside was quiet, and the armies had returned home, except for the standing army Bard was training for defense and perhaps conquest (for he knew perfectly well that the Hasturs would someday descend on them, hostages or no) Lady Jerana had lost no time in coming to court. Bard

sought her out in the apartments that had been Queen Ariel’s.

“The lady Ginevra Harryl, who is with child by Hastur—is she healthy and well? When will she be

brought to bed?”

“Perhaps three moons,” Lady Jerana said.

“Do me a kindness, foster mother? See to it that she is housed in comfort, with suitable ladies to care for her, and a good and trustworthy midwife in attendance.

The lady frowned. She said, “Why, so she is, she has three waiting-women known to have Hastur

sympathies, and the midwife who delivered your own son waits on her; but I know you too well to

think you do this out of any kindness to the Lady Ginevra.”

“No?” Bard said. “Have you forgotten that Geremy is my own foster brother?”

Jerana looked skeptical, but Bard said no more. However, later that day, when he had verified for himself that all Dom Rafael’s wife said was true, he went to Geremy’s apartments.

Geremy was playing at a game called Castles with one of the pages who had been sent to wait on him.

When Bard came in he put aside the dice and got awkwardly to his feet.

“You needn’t stand on courtesy, Geremy. In fact, you need not stand at all.”

“It is customary for a prisoner to stand in the presence of his jailer,” Geremy said.

“Please yourself,” Bard said. “I came to bring you news of the Lady Ginevra Harryl. I am sure you are too proud to ask news of her on your own, so I came to assure you that she is lodged in a suite next to that of my father’s wife, and that her own women, Camilla and Rafaella Delleray and Felizia

MacAnndra have been sent to wait upon her; and that a midwife trained in our own household is in attendance upon her.”

Geremy’s fists clenched. “Knowing you,” he said, “I am sure this is your way of telling me that you have taken revenge for some fancied insult by casting her and her women into some dirty dungeon with an accursed and filthy slut to mishandle her in childbirth.”

“You misjudge me, cousin. She is housed in comfort considerably greater than your own, and I will say so under truthspell, if you like.”

“Why would you do that?” Geremy asked suspiciously.

“Because, knowing how a man is troubled for the thought of his womenfolk,” Bard said, “I thought you might be as eager for news of your lady as I for mine. If you wish, it can be arranged for Ginevra to join you here…”

Geremy dropped on his seat and covered his face with his hands. He said, “Do you take pleasure in tormenting me, Bard? You have no shadow of a quarrel with Ginevra, but if it gives you enjoyment to see me humiliated, I will crawl to you on my knees, if I must; do not harm Ginevra or her child.”

Bard opened the door to admit a
leronis
of the household—not Melisendra. When the blue light of truthspell was in the chamber, he said, “Hear me now, Geremy. Lady Ginevra is housed in luxurious apartments, not a stone’s throw from those of Queen Ariel when we were boys. She has ample food for a breeding woman, and such things as she best likes, by my orders. She has her own women with her, sleeping in her chamber so that no one will trouble her, and my own mother’s midwife is within call.”

Geremy watched the steady light of truthspell and it did not flicker. He was still suspicious, but he knew enough of
laran
, himself trained in that art, to know there had been no deceit in the setting of the spell. He demanded, “Why do you say all this to me?”

“Because,” Bard said, “I too have a wife, whom I have not seen for seven long years of outlawry and exile. If you will tell me, under truthspell, where I can find Carlina, I am ready to allow Ginevra to join you here, or to move you, under guard, into her suite, until the birth of your child.”

Geremy threw back his head and laughed, a long laugh of despair.

“Would that I could tell you!” he said. “I had forgotten how seriously you took that handfasting… we all took it seriously then, before your quarrel with Ardrin.”

“Carlina is my wife,” Bard said. “And since there is truth-spell here, tell me this truthfully, too: did not Ardrin repent of his promise and try to give her to you, Hastur-spawn?”

“He repented it early and late,” Geremy said, “and with Beltran dead, and you fled into outlawry, he held the bond between you forfeit. And, indeed, he offered her to me. But don’t clench your teeth and scowl like that, Wolf; Carlina would have nothing to do with me, and she told him so, though the old king threw a mighty tantrum about it, and swore he would not be so defied by any woman living!”

The light of the truthspell on his face did not waver; Bard knew he spoke the truth. He felt an upsurge of joy. Carlina remembered their bond, she had refused to set it aside even for Geremy!

“And where is she, Geremy? Speak, and Ginevra is free to join you here.”

Geremy’s laugh held the bitterness of despair. “Where is she now? Willingly, willingly I will tell you, cousin! She has sworn the vows of a priestess of Avarra, which even her father dared not gainsay,” he said, “and she has fled the court and the kingdom, and made her way to the Isle of Silence, where she is sworn to live out the rest of her life in chastity and prayer. And if you want her, cousin, you will have to go there and take her.”

Chapter Three

After the conquest of Asturias, Bard’s father had placed him in command of the armies. But Serrais had been subdued, for the moment, and he was not yet ready to take the field against the Hasturs, so he went to Dom Rafael and begged a few days’ leave.

‘To be sure, you have well earned it, my son. Where do you wish to go?“

“I induced Geremy to tell me where Carlina has gone,” he said, “and I wish to take an honor guard and bring her back to me.”

“But not if she has been married to any other man,” his father said anxiously. “I know your feelings, but I cannot in good conscience give you leave to take the wife of any of my subjects! I rule this land under law!”

“What law is stronger than that which binds a man to the woman he has handfasted? But ease your

mind, Father, Carlina is the wife of no man; she has taken refuge where she cannot be forced into marriage with any other.”

“In that case,” his father said, “take what men you will, and when you return with her, we will hold the marriage here in all splendor.” He hesitated. “The lady Melisendra will be ill content to take her place as
barragana
when your wife is here. Shall I send her back to our estates? She can care for her son there and live honorably in retirement.”

“No,” he said savagely. “I will give her to Carlina for a handmaiden!”

Something in him rejoiced at the thought of Melisendra humbled, waiting on Carlina, combing her hair and fetching her shoes and ribbons.

“You must do as it seems good to you,” Dom Rafael said, “but she is the mother of your eldest son, and in humiliating the mother, you belittle the son. Nor would Carlina, I suppose, find much pleasure in beholding, night and day, the face of her rival. I do not think you understand women very well.”

“Perhaps not,” said Bard, “and you may be sure that if Carlina wishes me to send Melisendra away, I will lose no time in doing so. As my lawful wife, it will be Carlina’s duty to foster all my sons, and I will put Erlend in her care.” That, he thought, would be better than letting Melisendra poison the child’s mind against him. He liked little Erlend, and had no intention of being parted from him.

He chose an honor guard of a dozen men; that would be enough to show the women of the Island of

Silence that he intended to have his wife, and that they should lose no time in handing her over to him.

No very great force would be needed against a handful of unworldly female recluses!

In addition to the honor guard, he brought with him two sorcerers; the young
laranzu
Rory, and Melisendra herself. From childhood he had heard tales of the sorcery of the priestesses of Avarra, and he wished to have sorcery of his own to contend with them. And it would do Melisendra no harm to know that he did, indeed, have a lawful wife, and that she could expect nothing more from him!

The Island of Silence lay outside the kingdom of Asturias, in the independent shire of Marenji. Bard knew little of Marenji, except that their ruler was chosen every few years by acclamation from among the rabble; they had no standing army, and kept themselves free of any alliances with kings or rulers nearby. Once Bard’s father had entertained the Sheriff of Marenji in his Great Hall, dealing with him for some casks of their fruit wine, and making an arrangement to guard his borders.

He rode across the peaceful countryside of Marenji, with its groves of apples and pears, plums and greenberries, its orchards of nut trees and featherpod bushes. In a hilly ravine he saw a stream dammed up to give power to a felting mill where featherpod fibers were made into batting for quilts. There was a village of weavers; he recalled that they made beautifully woven tartan cloth for skirts and shawls.

There was no sign anywhere of defenses.

If this place were armed, Bard thought, and soldiers quartered in the villages, it would make a splendid buffer state to hold off the armies of Serrais when they came down again toward Asturias, and in return the men of Asturias could protect them. The Sheriff of Marenji could surely be made to see reason. And if he did not, well, there was no army to show resistence. He would advise his father as soon as he returned to lose no time in quartering armies in Marenji.

As they rode, the land grew darker. They rode in the shadow of the high mountains, past lakes and misty tarns. There were fewer and fewer farms, just an isolated steading here and there. Melisendra and the boy rode close together and looked ill at ease.

Bard reviewed in his mind everything that he knew of the priestesses of Avarra. They had dwelt, as long as any living man could remember, on the island at the center of the Lake of Silence; and always the law had been that any man who set foot on that island must die. It was said that the priestesses swore lifelong vows of chasity and prayer; but in addition to the priestesses, many women, wives or maidens or widows, went to the island in grief or piety or penitence to dwell for a time under the mantle of Avarra, the Dark Mother; and whoever they were, so that they worshipped Avarra and wore the garb of the sisterhood during their sojourn there and spoke to no man and observed chastity, they might dwell as long as they wished. No man really knew what went on among them, and the women

who went there were pledged never to tell.

But women in grief and despair from the loss of a child or husband, women who were barren and

longed for children, women worn from childbearing who wished to petition the Goddess for health or for barrenness, women suffering from any sorrow, these went there to the shrine of Avarra to pray for the help of the priestesses, or for that of the Mother.

Once an old woman who served Lady Jerana—Bard had been so young then that he was not even

chased away when women talked among themselves—had said in his hearing, “Secret of the Island of Silence? The secret is that there is no secret! I spent a season there once. The women live in their houses, in silence, chaste and alone, and speaking only when necessary, or to pray, or for healing and charity. They pray at dawn and sunset, or when the moons rise. They are pledged to give help to any woman who asks it in the name of the Goddess, whatever her griefs or burdens. They know a great deal of healing herbs and simples, and while I dwelt with them they taught me. They are good and holy women.”

Bard wondered how any women could be good, being pledged to murder any man who set foot on the

island? Although, he conceded, (making a joke of it to himself, to allay his anxiety) they must at least be unlike other women if they were silent! That was always a virtue in women!

It seemed, though, wrong for women to dwell alone, unprotected; if he were Sheriff of Marenji he would send soldiers to protect the women.

They stood now on the lip of a valley, looking down at the wide waters of the Lake of Silence.

It was a quiet place and an eerie one. There was no sound, as they moved down toward the shores of the lake, except the sound of their horses’ hooves; and the cry of a water bird, her nest disturbed, flying up with a sudden squawk into the air. Dark trees bent flexible branches over the dark waters, black against the low sunset light in the sky; and as they came nearer they heard the complaining of frogs.

They picked their way through the soggy swamplands along the shore, and Bard heard sucking sounds as his horse’s feet sloshed in the marsh.

Ugh, what a dismal place! Carlina should be grateful that he had come to take her away from it!

Perhaps she had shown good sense in taking refuge here, so that no other marriage could be forced on her for political reasons, but surely seven years was long enough to spend in piety and prayer, apart from all men! Her life as the Princess Carlina, wife to the Commander of the King’s Armies, would be very different!

And now there was fog, rising in swirls from the surface of the lake, thick wisps of it, swirling and streaming toward them until Bard could hardly see the path before him. The men were grumbling; the very air seemed thick and oppressive! Small Rory, on his pony at Bard’s side, raised a pale, frightened face.

“Please,
vai dom
, we should go back. We will be lost in the fog. And they do not want us here, I can feel it!”

“Use the Sight,” Bard commanded. “What do you see?”

The child took out the seeing-stone and obediently looked into it, but his face was contorted, as if he were trying not to cry,