tales of the latter kingdom 08 - moon dance

by Christine Pope

  “I would rather stay in my room,” I whispered, hating myself.

  “I thought that was what you would say. So come along — I will take you upstairs myself, to make sure you do not get into any mischief.”

  Wrung with guilt, I allowed him to guide me away from the loggia and into the castle, where we went directly to the stairs and from there up to my room. He paused with me outside the door but did not open it. From within, I could hear Tarly humming tunelessly to herself. No doubt his lordship did not wish for my maid to see him with me.

  “Not a word,” he said in an undertone. “I know you like having your maid here with you, so do not say anything to her unless you want her sent back from whence she came. Understand?”

  “Yes, my lord,” I replied. Oh, how I despised the weakness I heard in my own voice! But I knew I could do nothing else, for he had me fairly trapped. Now more than ever I needed Tarly with me, to have her comforting presence nearby when the entire world felt as if it was collapsing all around.

  “Good.” He let go of my arm, but briefly touched one of the long curls that fell over my shoulder. “Delicious. Yes, you would have been wasted on my son.”

  I could not help shuddering. Lord Elwyn must have seen, for he smiled again.

  “Go in, my dear. I may repulse you now, but I think you may change your mind on our wedding night.”

  Oh, I could bear no more. I grasped the door handle and turned it, knowing I must get away from him and that horrible mocking smile he wore. He did nothing to stop me, but instead sauntered off down the hallway, no doubt to attend to the next part of his plan…getting rid of Mayson’s body.

  A sob rose in my throat then, but I choked it back. I knew I must appear to Tarly as if nothing untoward had happened, that I had only spent the last few minutes speaking with my betrothed before I returned to my room.

  I closed the door behind me, and she looked up from where she sat by the window, the stocking she’d been darning laid across her lap. She smiled. “Did you have a nice chat with his lordship?”

  “Yes,” I replied. My voice did not shake. I smiled at her in what I hoped was a pleasant fashion as I went to the mirror and paused in front of it, then fiddled with my hair. My hope was that she would think I was fussing with my curls because they had gotten somewhat disarranged while I was outside. In reality, I needed to see my expression, to make sure my features revealed nothing of the horrors I had just witnessed. And indeed, although there was a certain tightness to my mouth, I could not detect anything terribly untoward. I added, “I think Lord Mayson said he planned to go riding. It is such a fine afternoon.”

  “Yes, it is,” Tarly agreed.

  The sourness of bile rose in my throat, and I forced it back. There. I had just done some of Lord Elwyn’s dirty work for him. The gods help me.

  But in the meantime, I knew I would have to think of something to help myself.

  * * *

  Very late that afternoon, as the day was shading into evening, one of Lord Elwyn’s foresters found Mayson’s body on a path that wound through the forest. His horse stood nearby, as if keeping watch over his fallen master.

  The household became one of mourning, the mirrors draped with dark cloth, the servants all with black armbands to show their grief. Lord Elwyn himself came to bring me the news, looking very sad and dignified. Indeed, he put on such a good act in front of Tarly that I thought he had rather missed his calling, and should have trod the boards down in Bodenskell as one of the king’s players.

  I wept, and Tarly comforted me, and his lordship said I should remain in my room, so I might mourn in private. For some reason, my maid did not see anything strange about this, although she did venture to say that perhaps I should go back to my aunt and uncle’s — a notion Lord Elwyn quashed immediately, telling her that I was certainly in no state to ride, and that I needed time to grieve. These arguments seemed to be effective, for she nodded and said of course, and that she would be here to watch over me.

  In a way, I wished I could have been alone, for perhaps then I would have had a better opportunity to think of what I should do next. Trying to be helpful, she hovered, asking if I wanted some tea, or whether I should lie down, or perhaps read a little to try to take my mind away. At last I did lie down and shut my eyes, but that was more so I might have a moment’s peace.

  I needed Reynar. Where was he? I tried to tell myself that of course he could not appear here in my room in the middle of the day, even wearing one of his magical disguises. No, he would have to wait until the quiet hours of the night. Then he would come to me just as he had the evening before, and we would devise a plan together. In that moment, I did not much care how good that plan might be, only that we must have one. He would take me away, and then we would tell everyone of Lord Elwyn’s perfidy.

  These thoughts calmed me somewhat. I pretended to sleep, and nibbled at the tray of food Tarly brought up around dinnertime. And after that, I did sleep, but fitfully, starting awake at every sound, certain it must be Reynar come to save me.

  Only…he did not. I awakened in the depths of the night and saw the waning moon as it slipped just beyond the window during its journey to the west. Everything was utterly still. I realized I was the only one in the room, and tears of despair stung my eyes. I had no idea where Reynar was or what had happened to him, but clearly he would not be coming to my rescue this night.

  And I cried myself to sleep just as the sky began to turn pale grey with the coming of dawn.

  * * *

  The next morning, I did what I could to cure my puffy eyes, dabbing them with cold water. Tarly made no comment about my appearance, for of course what young woman would not weep in the night when she had just lost her betrothed?

  Everything I had brought with me was utterly unsuited for mourning, since they were all summery gowns of pale blue or green or pink. Drearily, I told my maid that I did not much care what I wore. With a frown, she brought out the blue and silver dress I had worn at Adalynn’s wedding.

  “If it is all right, my lady — ”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I suppose blue is a slightly soberer color than green or pink. It will have to do.”

  She laced me into the dress and then fussed with my hair. I could tell she kept herself busy because she did not know what to say to me. Indeed, I hardly knew what to think. Some of the night’s terrors had fled with the coming of morning, but I knew my time was running out. Tomorrow Tarly would put me in the borrowed wedding gown with its pearl trim, and I would be married to Lord Elwyn.

  No. I knew that would not happen, just as I knew the sun would rise in the east every morning. And yet…with no word from Reynar, and no one else to help me, how could I possibly secure my freedom?

  Someone knocked at the door, and Tarly went to open it. Outside was one of Lord Elwyn’s footmen, although I could not recall his name.

  Well, I thought drearily, you will have plenty of time to learn all their names if you do not somehow manage to extricate yourself from this horrible situation.

  “His lordship wishes to see Lady Iselda,” the footman said.

  “Lady Iselda is not well this morning,” Tarly began, but I forestalled her by rising from my chair.

  “I will see his lordship,” I said calmly. I knew I could not create a scene. The best thing to do was to make Lord Elwyn think he had me beaten, that I was cooperating with him. “We have both suffered a loss. It is only natural that we should meet so we might commiserate.”

  “Of course, my lady,” she replied at once, but I saw the way her brows pulled together, as if she was trying to determine whether some subtext to my words existed, some hidden meaning she could not quite decipher.

  Head held high, I went out to meet the footman, who led me downstairs. I could not help but think of the last time I had descended this staircase. Oh, if only I had not goaded Mayson the way I had during our meeting! Perhaps then he would still be alive. Better a sham marriage with him than this travesty which Lord
Elwyn wished to foist upon me.

  We walked down a long corridor, one hung with forbidding portraits of generations of Bellenders. Or perhaps it was only my own gloomy state of mind that made them seem so brooding, for in general, they were quite handsome men. I refused to think of the earl as one so favored, however, for his evil deeds quite canceled out any beauty that might be seen in his features.

  I had never been in this section of the castle before, and I wondered where the footman was taking me. But I did not dare to ask.

  We stopped in front of an imposing set of double doors, fashioned from dark oak and carved with patterns of oak leaves and acorns. They were part of the sigil of the Bellender family, and so it did not surprise me to see them here now.

  “He is waiting for you, my lady,” said the footman as he opened the right-hand door for me.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, and went in.

  The chamber within was quite large, with an enormous fireplace of gold-veined black marble at one end. On this warm summer day, it sat cold and unused, although garlands of roses had been draped over the mantel. I realized that large urns of roses and trailing vines of ivy stood sentinel at the room’s four corners, their scent filling the air. Otherwise, the place did not seem to contain much in the way of furniture, save chairs carved of oak with the same leaf-and-acorn motif as on the doors, placed at regular intervals between the mullioned windows. Half of the draperies on those windows were pulled shut, and so the chamber seemed dim and somehow stifling.

  Lord Elwyn stood by one of those windows, but he came toward me as soon as the footman shut the door, leaving us alone. His lordship wore somber black, but a heavy gold chain set with the green tourmalines mined in the Daleskeld Hills gleamed from around his neck.

  “Lady Iselda.”

  “Lord Elwyn.”

  He paused a few feet away from me and smiled as he seemed to inspect me from top to toe. “You are looking very well, my lady. No one would think to look at you that you had just lost your lover a day earlier.”

  “He was not my lover,” I said calmly. “A fact which you knew all too well. What is it you want, Lord Elwyn?”

  This question seemed not to discomfit him at all. “You are a very direct young woman, Iselda. I appreciate that. So many girls your age are all simpering and coyness, with not a brain to them.”

  “If you are attempting to flatter me, you are not doing a very good job of it,” I replied. “But that is no matter. I do wish to know why you have brought me down here for this interview.”

  “Is it flattery to tell you the truth?” he inquired. Again he gave me one of those searching looks, and I felt warm blood rush to my cheeks. Something about his gaze made me feel as if he was trying to determine what I looked like under my gown and chemise, and my flesh positively crawled. “By the way, that color is very becoming to you. I am glad you wore that dress, on this most special of days.”

  “And what is so special about it, pray?” I attempted to keep my tone cool and almost uninterested, but my heart began to beat faster for all that. Something about this meeting had begun to feel horribly wrong.

  “Why, it is the day when I will marry you, Iselda.”

  CHAPTER 17

  I stared at him, aghast. “You are mad.”

  “No, I think not.” He turned away from me and made a sort of “come here” gesture with his right hand. A door at the far end of the room, one I hadn’t noted previously because it was cunningly hidden in the paneling, opened, and an elderly man wearing the grey robes of one of Inyanna’s priests emerged.

  No. My mind rebelled, even as I realized how neatly Lord Elwyn had trapped me. I had thought I had another day to make some sort of attempt at escape, but he had never planned to give me the leisure of that much time. A hidden ceremony, and then everyone who arrived for the wedding the next day would be presented with the deed already done. The marriage made…and consummated. And no one would question a thing because of the way Lord Elwyn could manipulate all their minds.

  Bile rose in my throat. “I will not,” I choked out, and took a step backward.

  But he had anticipated that maneuver as well, and grasped me by the wrist before I could move any farther away. “Oh, yes, you will,” he replied. “You will stand there, and you will repeat the words of the vows. And you will kiss me at the end…and tonight you will share my bed.”

  Not caring what the approaching priest might think, I sought to wrench my arm from Lord Elwyn’s grasp. Unfortunately, my struggles accomplished very little, except to increase his determination. He held on, his grip tightening so much that I gave a gasp of pain.

  “This is what happens if you fight me,” he said, his voice an ugly rasp. “You might as well bow to the inevitable, my dear Iselda, for there is nothing you can do to stop me, or to prevent this marriage from happening. I won’t say I will not enjoy your struggles, for they are rather enticing, but the end result will be the same.”

  “You’re a monster,” I retorted, beyond caring what I said. As his lordship had just informed me, there seemed to be little I could do to change the inevitable outcome of this horrible day. I might as well tell him precisely what I thought of him.

  “No, I am not. Merely a determined man, no more.” He turned toward the priest, who had paused a few feet away. “We are ready, your honor.”

  Up close, the priest appeared even more aged and decrepit than he had seemed at a distance. His dark eyes were rheumy and tired, and his grey beard reached almost to his waist. It also appeared stained and yellow around the mouth. I wondered where on earth Lord Elwyn had dug up this specimen. But then, I supposed it served his purposes to use a down-on-his-luck priest for this ceremony, someone who had no real connection to the estate and who would disappear after he had done what the earl requested.

  The priest glanced over at me. His eyes, which had seemed so distant a few seconds ago, suddenly grew piercing. “And are you ready, my lady?”

  “I already said we were,” Lord Elwyn responded, irritation clear in his tone.

  “I was asking the lady.”

  “No!” I burst out. “He is forcing me to marry him! He murdered his son and now wishes to make me his wife instead. Please, sir — you must help me!”

  “Ah,” said the priest. He looked back toward Lord Elwyn. “Is this true?”

  “Of course, it’s not true. She is a foolish girl beset by foolish fancies. All will be well once we are wed.”

  “Ah.” Another pause. “Well, that is unfortunate. For I do believe her. And I also believe that you should let her go.”

  And then he seemed to straighten, and grow taller, and in the next instant, it was no longer the tired old priest who stood before us, but Reynar, his silver eyes sparkling with anger.

  “You!” Lord Elwyn burst out, even as my heart swelled with relief.

  Reynar had not abandoned me. He had only been waiting for the right moment to come and take me away.

  “Oh, thank the gods!” I nearly sobbed at the thought of my deliverance, even though I knew I should not be too confident. Not yet. For Reynar was still the apprentice and Lord Elwyn the master, and I truly had no idea how my lover would be able to best the man who had trained him.

  “You have nothing to be thankful for,” Elwyn snarled, then raised his hand, just as he had with Mayson the day before.

  And yet — the effect was not the same, for while Reynar took a few staggering paces backward, he still more or less maintained his ground, and certainly was not flung back against the wall, as no doubt Lord Elwyn had intended.

  “Neither — do — you,” Reynar panted, and made an odd gesture with his left hand, middle and ring fingers held by his thumb as he seemed to flick something away from him.

  An icy unseen wind wrapped around us, breaking Elwyn’s grip on my arm. I stumbled away, not sure what had just happened, but very glad that I no longer was the earl’s prisoner.

  “Ungrateful boy!” Lord Elwyn snarled. “I gave you everything — a ho
me, food on your table, training in magic. And you would take her side? She is mine.”

  “No,” Reynar said calmly. “She is her own. And her heart is hers to give.”

  “You are a fool,” Elwyn replied, jaw clenched. “Do you think I care about her heart? I only care about the sons she will give me, sons whose powers will make yours look as trifling as you yourself are.”

  “I’d rather die first!” I broke in, but Reynar only shook his head.

  “No, my love, there is no need for such sacrifice. You and I will leave his place, and Lord Elwyn will have to get his sons elsewhere.”

  “You think it is as simple as that?” Again Lord Elwyn raised his hands, and this time the blow was much stronger, knocking Reynar backward a good ten paces. Luckily, the center of the room was empty, and so he did not land on any furniture, only the heavy wool rug. Even so, I let out a cry of worry and began to move forward, only to have Elwyn lunge for me and grasp me by the sleeve. I yanked my arm away, and heard the silk tear.

  No matter. The only important thing was that he had not caught me, and I was still free to run to Reynar’s side. He had begun to push himself back up to a sitting position when I came to kneel next to him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  He shook his head, even as I saw him try to hold back a wince of pain. “Not really.”

  But that brief exchange was all we had time for, as in the next instant Lord Elwyn was beside us as well, his face contorted with fury. From the corner of my eye, I saw him reaching for my arm so he might pull me away, and something within me seemed to snap. No, I would not allow him to manhandle me again in such a fashion. He had lost, even if he did not know it.

  For the briefest flash of a second, Reynar’s eyes met mine. I seemed to be drowning in a sea of silver, falling into a moonlit rain.

  And then his voice in my mind, We must do this together, Iselda.

  His hand came out to me, and I grasped it. Quicksilver fire rippled through my veins, cold and hot at the same time, flooding through every limb. I had never experienced such a sensation before, and yet I thought I knew what it was.