“Get away from me!” she shouted. In her panic, all her training with Bannord went from her mind and she shoved ineffectually at Darrasind. His smile turned maudlin.
“No need for that, sweetheart,” he said. “Only a kiss, please. I’m sick of the sight and smell of men. I want to smell a woman.”
He lunged awkwardly for her, dropping his rifle in the process. He stumbled and slid a few feet from her and recovered with a dopy laugh.
“Making it hard, eh?”
She stepped aside, tried to clear her mind and get herself under control. Her training. She brought Bannord’s lessons to mind. When he came at her again she was ready to fight. He received a punch to the kidney that staggered him.
“Why’d you do that?” he said, genuinely hurt.
Too late Ilona caught sight of a tall pinnacle of ice come sailing from the snow behind Darrasind’s head.
“Darrasind!” she screamed. “Behind you!”
He didn’t turn around. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. Letting me down easy. Go on, just one kiss, then I’ll leave you be, I promise.”
He leaned in. Ilona hooked a leg around his ankle and pushed hard, sending him back into the snow heavy tarpaulin covering the ship’s boat.
“Ice!” she screamed. “Ice to starboard!”
Her cry was taken up. The ship’s whistles cried alarm. Thick clouds of steam pumped from the funnels as more water was introduced to the reaction chambers of the boilers. The port wheel slowed and spun backwards, the starboard turned forward, and the port side increased speed, swinging the ship’s prow to port so quickly Ilona staggered.
The iceberg glided past. Ilona breathed a premature sigh of relief. A roaring grind shrieked out as the ship met the ice. The poles of five of the men snapped against the pack ice they were punting at as it was suddenly crimped by the pressure of the iceberg and the ship. A sixth pole was caught between wheel and floe, lofting its wielder screaming over the gunwales into the water.
The ship juddered as the iceberg ground along the outside of the wheel housing, ripping free half the panels covering the paddlewheel. A final judder threw a second man from the rails and into the freezing ocean.
Darrasind picked himself up. “Now you’ve done it! All I wanted is a kiss. Now we’ve hit a berg. That’s on you, goodmaid.”
Ilona stared at him disbelievingly. The whole ship was in uproar. Men crowded the starboard railing, pointing and shouting. Ropes sailed over the side, only to be drawn in wet with burning cold water. Out they went again, and then again. One dragged taut, and the Ishmalani and marines heaved at it, drawing a sopping, half-dead man up over the side. The rescued sailor was swiftly wrapped in the dry coats of his comrades and bundled inside.
The other rope flicked out again, and again. Each time it came back without a passenger.
The men fell silent.
Bannord dashed around the machinery at the midline of the boat. “What the hells happened here?” he demanded. “You were supposed to be on watch!”
Darrasind stood to attention. “She distracted me, sir. I did my best to resist but,” he shrugged. “She—”
Bannord grabbed Darrasind by the parka and propelled him backwards into the ship’s lifeboat. “You’re lying. I’m going to flog you, Darrasind. Ilona!” he said over his shoulder. “What happened?”
Ilona’s eyes flicked between Darrasind’s face and Bannord’s furious countenance. “I... Do not flog him, I beg you. It is my fault.”
“Your fault how? Did you come on to him?”
Ilona’s face set, she had a choice to save Darrasind, or to tell the truth. “Never. He demanded that I kiss him.”
“Sir, I—”
Cold fury froze Bannord’s gaze. “You what, trooper?” He sniffed around Darrasind’s face. “Is that whisky I smell on you?” He slammed Darrasind against the boat. Darrasind didn’t know where to look. He flushed bright red with shame. “You stupid little prick. Look what you’ve done!” Bannord threw the smaller man to the deck. Darrasind put out his ungloved hand to arrest his fall. The bare skin stuck to the metal, tearing free as he rolled. He yelped, and cradled his bleeding palm.
“I only asked for a kiss, it’s all, I swear. I would never harm a woman that way.”
“Shut your fucking mouth and give me your gun, now!”
Darrasind’s ironlock was three feet from his uninjured hand. For a second Ilona thought he meant to go for the weapon and discharge at his superior, but Darrasind did not have it in him. His injured hand pressed against his chest, he retrieved his gun and handed it to the lieutenant.
“Get inside,” said Bannord. “Get your hand seen to by the physic then get to quarters. If I see you outside the barracks, I’ll shoot you myself. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Go. Now!”
Darrasind headed off, pushing through the crowd gathering around the scene of the altercation. Trassan took her elbow to drag her to one side.
“Do you see why I did not bring you, why I could not?” he hissed.
“Trassan, I was entirely innocent. Had it not been for him, I would have seen the iceberg in better time.”
“If you had not been aboard, Darrasind would not have been distracted!” growled Trassan. “Can’t you see what your presence here means among these men? You’ve thrown the fowl in with the dracons, and you, dear cousin, are the damned fowl in this case!”
He looked around at the men. Several still stood by the rail, searching for the lost sailor. A few of them stole looks toward Ilona. Most were curious, more than a few openly hostile.
“Leave it!” shouted Drentz, “he’s dead, he’ll not last more than two minutes in this cold. He’s with the One now.”
One of the men wept at the news. Others shouted at this ruling.
“He’s dead!” bellowed Drentz. “Back to work!”
“Damn it! What is the damage!” shouted Trassan. His engineers and Ishamalani looked over the side of the ship. “How is the wheel?” he said. He turned on Ilona in his anger. “You’re in serious trouble, cousin. Already I have my marine officer playing chaperone.”
“It is not necessary.”
“Apparently it is.”
Tolpoleznaen appeared at the wheelhouse railing. “News from the engine room, we’re clear. No leaks. The wheel turns true.”
“The outer panels have been ripped off, but the wheel’s turning as it should, goodfellow,” confirmed a man at the rail.
Trassan took in the crowded sea, the bergs lurking in the snowstorm. Invisible in the storm, the cleft mountain was nevertheless tantalisingly close.
“This is never going to work. Tol! Tell Heffi to reverse course, we’ll be smashed to pieces if we go on.”
“Then what?” called back the first mate. “We’re nearly there!”
Trassan worried at his lower lip. “I’ve another idea. I’ll be in in a minute. And fetch me Vols! It’s time he earned his keep. You, get yourself back to your cabin.”
“Why should I?” said Ilona.
“Really, Ilona?” he squeezed her arm tightly. “You’re a giant temptation to everything with two legs and a cock on this boat. You are to stay in your quarters from now on.”
“I refuse.”
“You will not.”
“Don’t order me.”
“I’ll order whoever I want,” he snapped. “Go on, get below. Or must I assign more men to protect you?”
“This situation would not have come about if women were accorded a more equal role and you had a few more aboard.”
“From where I’m standing, more women means more trouble,” said Trassan.
“Tell that to your sister,” said Ilona right into his face, “without whose ironworks this vessel would not have been possible.” She yanked her arm free of his grip and walked away shaken.
“A man has died, Ilona!” he called at her back.
His words hit home hard, but Ilona stood tall. If she did not, Trassan would have won.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Room of Time
MADELYNE’S NEXT WEEKS only served to confuse her further. The day after the night in the room with the hands and the mask, the duke came to her contritely while she walked the grounds, the first time he had ever joined her outside. He fell in beside her. They walked side by side for a few moments. Though she was frightened she did not show it, and when she neither spurned him nor fled from him he bowed his head as he spoke.
“I was enraged,” he said. “I apologise. It goes against the spirit of our agreement. You have done nothing wrong. I had no right to punish you like that. You passed the test. In my anger I was sure you would fail. I thought you had opened the door to my fane and let him in. I... Something is happening, something...” He stopped on the path, fists clenched. Madelyne slowed and regarded him. “I am sorry,” he concluded abruptly and departed, and she did not see him again for some time.
For the rest of that day she wandered around the house, debating whether she should leave now before it was too late. The duke’s residence showed no sign of the previous night’s occurrences. No scorches marred the walls or carpets. Nothing was out of place, everything was like it had been before the night of the hands. Only the bruises on her back and deep lassitude told the truth of what had occurred. She expected every twinge from the bruises to be reminder of her ravishment, but they were worse, for instead she remembered the pleasure of the hands, and it awoke in her a hunger for more. She grew fretful when the duke did not reappear. She disturbed herself by wishing to see him. The feeling only grew, and her thoughts strayed often to the ecstasies she had experienced. The duke was not the first male to abuse her, but he was certainly the first to apologise afterward, and none had lifted her to such peaks of sensuality. The more she thought on it, the more she became troubled. She should hate the duke, but she did not. Quite the contrary.
She decided to go the next morning, packing her things in preparation. But when the morning came, she went for breakfast, and then the library, sure she would depart. It was evening by the time she admitted to herself that she was staying another night. The next day, the same thing happened, and the next, and the next. When a week went by, she conceded she was staying, and abandoned the pretence.
One afternoon she sat in a window seat, staring out over the rose garden where Gaffne worked, through the fence to the Place. Madelyne was a woman who understood her mind. Her self realisation had kept her well, sane and alive. She unpacked it to examine the contents. Her life she portioned up into tiny crates full of memories, that when stacked in the warehouse of her mind made her who she was. That was how she envisaged it. She went within this construct, to try to understand.
There was her time as a child in the poorhouse orphanage with Harafan, where authority was to be feared, and the time after, when no authority had led to disaster on more than one occasion. After she had grown too old for the orphanage she had felt lost without the harsh rules that set the tempo of her early life. In the first part, there was no love save that of her Harafan, the little boy who had become dearer to her than a brother. In the second she had a surfeit of affection, not understanding until later so much of it was the false love bestowed by selfish men on pretty girls. In that time she had done so much she wished she had not. With the duke, she had a good measure of both affection and boundaries, for he was affectionate to her, she could not deny that.
All her life she had run from rules—she had been a gambler, a thief, a fighter, and more than once a whore. Had she been mistaken, and fled from the thing she craved the most? Here she knew what she was to do, and would be punished if she did not. The duke’s punishments were trying, but so were those in the poorhouse. Here there was no arbitrariness, no going back on promises. His desires were odd but by no means unique. He was kind to her when she pleased him, and above all he was honest.
She sighed, looking down at the needlework in her hand, the rich dress. This wasn’t her. She hadn’t thought it was, at any rate. Was this who she was? Needlepoint? Mooning over a man who wanted to spank her bottom like some dirty old man paying a coin per slap? She put it aside. Best go read instead, she thought. These questions were not the right questions. She should be trying to figure out how to extract the information she needed from him. Her mind was dulling from lack of use.
But though she waited outside at noon every day for a half hour, when Harafan finally sent her a message she pretended she had not received it, and buried herself in the library.
On the fourth day the duke returned. For a week, they spent most of every day together, talking about this and that. The duke had researched her background thoroughly, and with a few well timed questions he had her opening her heart to him. She surprised herself by discussing her life in a way she had with no one else, not even Harafan. He was sympathetic and helpful, offering his advice and wisdom.
One night he told her, “It is time,” and he took her back to the second room. He restrained her again, and whipped her, but gently, enough to bring the blood to the skin and excite the flesh. Then he pleasured her until she thought she could take no more. In between surges of physical ecstasy, she anticipated him going further with trepidation. But he made no move to undress, and demanded no pleasure for himself. For four nights he did this, until every movement during the day brought tiny bursts of pleasure and she began to long for the night.
On the fifth night, he took her to the third room. He did not tell her where they were going, but the way he behaved forewarned her that they might ascend to the next floor, and when he led her with great ceremony past the door of the second room up the flight of stairs, she knew she had been right.
“This is the third room, the Room of Time,” said the duke. He took an iron key from his belt, and inserted it into the lock with a tiny click. “I open it to you now.” He turned the key and pushed open the door. “Take off your shoes, and step inside.”
“Yes your, grace,” she said. He smiled indulgently at her.
The room beyond was bare of all adornment, no windows it had or other exits. The floor, walls and ceiling were covered in firmly padded satin. Madelyne’s feet pressed into it pleasingly when she stepped inside.
“I will not ask you what you think. I do not wish to draw you into a trap.” The duke went to a ring handle set flush into the wall, opening up an inbuilt cupboard. Inside were a collection of his favoured implements, some for pain, other for pleasure, he ran a finger along them idly, sending them swinging on their hooks. “In this room, I might control the flow of time. If I punished you in here, every pain would last an eternity. Or I could make it fly, so that all strokes blurred into one sharp moment, and slow it again that you might enjoy the after-effects of excitation without the initial discomfort. The moment of physical ecstasy can be prolonged to last almost as long as time itself. Here, in this room, you will learn to open your soul to the immensity of creation through carnality, for only from the body can true appreciation of the spirit come. Should you succeed, then you will join me by my side, forever.”
“How?”
“It will take time,” he said earnestly. “Years, maybe. Entering here is but the first step. But it is the first step of the final stage. Well done, Madelyne. Very few women have been permitted in here.” He paused bashfully. “And none so quickly.”
He went behind her, and unlocked the cracked leather collar she had worn since she had come into the house. From his pocket, he took a fantastic collar of bright metal links, studded about with blood red rubies. He set it about her neck and spoke to her tenderly.
“I have given only six of these to my consorts. Each has been unique. All are made of the Morfaan steel. It is impossible for your people to cut or work. But I can.” He closed it. The links fit her neck perfectly. She felt a tiny key slide into the link at the back of her neck.
“But,” she said, touching it gently. “This is priceless. I could buy a duchy in the Olberlands with this!”
He laughed richly
and turned her around. “I would hope my duchy will suffice, and that has bounds far wider than any upon this Earth.” He looked into her eyes, proud and loving. “This is a mark of my commitment to you, not simply a sign of my ownership. You gave yourself to me freely. Freely in return I give you this, and with it my pledge. While you wear the collar, you are under my protection. No harm can come to you.”
“None?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Not the gods themselves or Res Iapetus or the black gulfs of eternity and the things that swim there could touch you.”
He embraced her; she went into his arms willingly, breathing deeply of his hot scent. A intense sensation ran through her, then departed, a slow wash of contentment built in her chest and flowed out into her body, slow and sweet.
“I have slowed the clocks of creation,” he said. He spoke unnaturally slowly. Light took on a queer quality. When she moved, she felt her muscles uncurl and tense, fibre by fibre. The duke’s words hit her one at a time, like warm rain, every syllable a pleasure. “Tonight I shall make love to you for the first time. Tonight, you will experience something only a handful of mortal women have enjoyed.”
He commanded her to undress. She did so gladly. It took forever, the threads of cloth bumping delightfully over her skin one by one as her clothes fell their long way to the floor. When she was finished, he followed suit.
They stood disrobed before one another. He was magnificent to look at, and she was unafraid.
An infinitely slow step brought him to her, and he took her into his arms again. The unnatural heat of his hands bloomed on her skin.
With her collar on, she did not feel naked.
AFTER THAT, THEY made love often. He had no cause to punish her again, but sometimes he restrained her, for the look of it he said, and sometimes he whipped her or did other things that, in her previous life, would have sent her flying out the door, but which she came to desire. With expert application of pleasure and pain, he rose her up to heights undreamed of, and in the nights they spent in the Room of Time, she scaled peaks of sensation as high as the stars.
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