by Tanya Huff
“The time . . .”
“It’s late afternoon. Come,” she tucked her hand in his, “we’d best get back if we don’t want to be left behind. Listen, they’re blowing the horns for us.”
Mikhail listened and in the distance he heard the king’s horn.
“I don’t understand,” he began, looking down at Tayer as they started to walk, and then he stopped and grabbed her shoulders. “Your clothes! They were red and brown this morning!”
Both tunic and pants were now a pale green with golden trim.
Tayer smoothed the cloth over her hips and smiled. “He made this for me, out of new leaves and sunshine.”
She had never looked so beautiful, nor, Mikhail realized, so complete. Her eyes shone and there was a gentleness about her that had not been there before. She looked as if a great artist had taken the unfinished canvas of her and made it into a masterpiece.
A little overwhelmed, and not sure he liked the change, Mikhail allowed her to lead him from the forest. He didn’t mention the clothes again and neither did she. No one else noticed, although their absence provided food for the palace gossip mill and evoked more than a few thoughtful glances from the king.
Over the next few weeks Tayer sang around the palace. Nothing could dampen her good spirits. Rumor had it that she was in love. Rumor didn’t know the half of it.
One afternoon, when Mikhail was on duty, for even in peace the Elite still trained and its commander was expected to attend, the ladies of the court went to the forest for wildflowers. They returned that evening so heavily laden, those who had remained behind laughingly accused them of having stripped the Lady’s Wood of blossoms.
Tayer brought back only a single buttercup that glowed with an inner light. A light that endured until Mikhail ground the delicate flower under his heel.
Hanna was at first pleased with the change in her cousin—Tayer had never been less demanding nor more affectionate—but as the weeks passed her pleasure dimmed. Tayer made it clear she no longer needed anyone but the creature of light she carried in her heart. With no real position in the palace beyond that of Tayer’s companion, Hanna found herself completely unneeded and even longed for the days when Tayer had blithely ordered her life. More than ever, she felt mousy and insignificant beside her cousin. Whether this was due to the new depth and gentleness in Tayer’s manner or the sudden mature light of her beauty, Hanna was not sure, but she found she didn’t like it.
SEVEN
As the glorious summer drew to an end, a shadow fell on the kingdom. Word came from Riven and Lorn on the western border that Melac’s raids had begun again.
“Why do they bother!” roared the king, slamming down his fist and causing the Messenger who’d brought the news to flinch and wonder if she was supposed to know.
“It’s fairly obvious, isn’t it, Father?” Davan, the heir to the throne, steepled his fingers in an unconscious imitation of his father’s habit. “Melac’s armies have gotten so large, the Empire’s conquest is moving so fast, that there’s no one left to grow food and they must raid us for supplies.”
“That’s exactly what they want us to think,” said Mikhail shortly, turning away from a detailed map of the west to face his cousin.
Davan snorted. “Are you still on about that?”
The king, who had been asking a purely rhetorical question brought on by frustration, raised bushy eyebrows at the discussion between his son and his nephew.
“They raid to gather information,” Mikhail insisted, “not grain and cattle. Those men are soldiers, not brigands. Our land, our people, our way of fighting, is being studied.”
“Studied?” Davan scoffed. “What for? Melac’s armies move south and west; the emperor has no intention of attacking us. He tried that once, remember, back in the Lady’s time, and was soundly trounced.”
Mikhail shrugged. “We are being studied,” he insisted, wondering why he seemed to be the only one in the country who could see it. “Melac is waiting for something.”
“For what?”
“I wish I knew. Sire,” Mikhail turned to the king, “every year we drive the raiders back, but every year we lose young men and women to Lord Death before their time. The western border is like an open wound that bleeds with the lives of our people.”
“Eloquent,” muttered Davan.
Mikhail ignored him and once again made the plea he’d made yearly since taking up arms. “Melac’s Empire stretches far to the southwest, but it is directed still from the towers of the old capital, not three days’ march from our western border. Let me raise the country, Sire. I’ll destroy the head of the Empire and see that Melac never bleeds us again.”
And, as every year, the king denied the petition.
“If Melac ever turns all of its armies against us, we stand no chance; Ardhan as a country would be wiped from the memory of man. These raids are a small price to pay for the survival of our nation. Someday, Melac will have to be dealt with, but there will be no war in this land while I am king.”
By the time you’re not king, there’ll be no men left to fight, Mikhail thought bitterly. He knew Davan held the same beliefs as his uncle; there would be no war when Davan was king either. It looked as if the wound on the border would bleed for generations more.
“I understand how you feel, Mikhail,” the king said kindly, and he thought he did for his brother and brother’s wife, Mikhail’s parents, had died in a border raid. “I will not risk war, but I do have plans to strengthen our defense.”
Mikhail choked back a final plea, bowed to his liege and left the room. It would, he knew, do no good to argue further. In years of trying he’d convinced neither king nor heir of what appeared so obvious to him. Both had a blind spot concerning Melac that he’d never been able to breach. He could only cause as much damage to the enemy as possible with the relatively few men they’d given him and hope, when war finally came, Ardhan would not be taken totally by surprise.
Leaving his feet to find their own way to the training yards, the Commander of the Elite wrapped himself in battle plans and troop deployments and almost missed seeing Tayer sitting with the Duke of Belkar’s wife in a sunny corner of one of the small gardens.
Almost.
All thought of battle, of war, of Melac, vanished. It had been days, he realized, since he’d seen her and only the Mother-creator knew how long it would be until he saw her again. He stopped and stared, imprinting her on his mind; the sunlight dancing through the gold in her hair, her lips slightly curving, the soft swell of her breasts beneath ivory silk. This would be a vision to carry him through the long days and nights ahead.
Tayer, oblivious, continued dangling a blossom over the chubby face of Belkar’s infant heir. Lady Belkar, perhaps feeling the weight of Mikhail’s gaze, looked up, started, smiled, and beckoned him closer.
“Milord Mikhail,” she greeted him graciously when he approached. “I’d thought you on the border by now.”
“Soon, milady.” He bowed over her hand. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. . . . We’ll miss not having you about the court.” She peered sideways at her companion, her tone carefully neutral. “Won’t we, Tayer?”
Slowly, Tayer raised her head and Mikhail’s heart gave a sudden lurch. He gritted his teeth and forced a friendly smile through the longing.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “it’ll be . . . different . . . around here without Mikhail.”
Different. He could only hope she’d even notice he was gone. Then a sudden flush of jealousy caused his hands to curl into fists—she’d notice all right, for without his watching, who would stop her from riding off to be with . . . Him? The thing she’d met in the Grove. The creature that had bewitched her. The thought had occurred to Tayer as well; he’d grown up with her, he knew the speculative expression she now wore.
Lady Belkar looked from one to the other and felt li
ke shaking them both. Mikhail stood staring down at Tayer, longing, pain, and anger mixed in about equal proportions on his face. Tayer sat staring off into the distance, longing and things harder to pin down mixed on hers. Not being privy to either’s thoughts, Lady Belkar jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion on everything save what Mikhail longed for, and that had been an open secret about the court for almost a year. The tension thickened and she wondered if she should speak, then the baby on her lap suddenly howled and the moment was lost.
“Oh, dear, he’s wet.” Murmuring soothing sounds into the baby’s hair, she stood, and placing her free hand on the rigid muscles of Mikhail’s arm said: “Perhaps you would walk me from the garden, milord?”
With an effort, Mikhail drew his eyes from Tayer and managed a jerky nod.
At the edge of the garden, they paused and looked back.
“You should speak to her, Mikhail,” Lady Belkar said softly. “You simply cannot go on like this. Neither of you can.”
“Speak to her of what?” He was amazed how steady his voice sounded. Surely the turmoil that seethed beneath the surface should show more.
Lady Belkar sighed. “Speak to her of how you feel. Tell her you love her.” At his sudden startled expression, she added. “Everyone knows.”
“Everyone?” he asked.
She smiled at his tone of stunned disbelief and reached up to pat him lightly on the cheek. “Everyone except Tayer.” Then, under the prompting screams of her son, she left.
Mikhail looked again at the distant figure of his cousin, his love, his brows drawn together as he considered how he felt. Perhaps it was time for him to speak.
But he didn’t. And the next morning he left for the western border.
* * *
Over the last few weeks of summer, and the early weeks of fall, Tayer almost daily answered the call from the Grove. The summons beat in her blood, day and night, and left unanswered too long it grew until it filled her every moment and she thought she would go crazy with need. When she was missed, all assumed she was with Hanna. Hanna, for reasons of her own, kept silent.
The day Mikhail returned, with a limp and a new resolution in his heart, Tayer was not in the palace. Although the need to ride after her beat at his thoughts—and he had no doubt of where she could be found—his duties kept him tied to his men and his reports.
But he was in the stableyard when she rode in.
He opened his mouth to tell her, the words cut and polished over long nights alone in his tent when she was the only thing on his mind, in his dreams. Then he saw her face and the words shattered. He had seen that expression too many times in his mirror to mistake it now. Tayer was a woman very deeply in love. He had waited too long.
He should leave, he knew, hide somewhere and lick his wounds. He hadn’t thought he could be in so much pain and still live. But he stayed. Whether to hurt her in return or hurt himself further, he wasn’t sure.
“Where are your guards,” he growled as she swung from the saddle.
“The guards rode with you.”
“Well then, servants,” he snapped. “You know you’re not to ride out alone.”
“I can take care of myself,” Tayer sighed. “Please, get out of my way.” She pushed past him and led Dancer into the stable. A groom came forward, took one look over her shoulder at the glowering prince, and retreated with the mare as quickly as he was able. Tayer sighed again and slowly turned.
Mikhail noticed that in the two months he’d been gone, Tayer’s face had lost all memory of childhood. Its beauty was startling; the curve of her cheek was a song, but sorrow lay close to the surface and the sparkle in her eyes had been replaced by the reflected glow of another world. With one hand he held her shoulder in an iron grasp and with the other he lifted a red-gold leaf from her hair.
“So, it’s not all happiness in the Sacred Grove,” he snarled, and crushed the leaf to powder.
Tayer met his gaze and he flinched before the radiance.
“No,” she said. “It is not.”
The pain in her voice hit Mikhail like a bucket of cold water, washing his anger away and leaving him trembling. He released her shoulder and took an unsteady step back. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he feared her reaction. He didn’t think he could stand it if she pushed him away.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally.
She touched his cheek gently as she passed.
“So am I.”
He watched her walk away and could think of no reason to follow.
The next morning, a great shouting in the courtyard dragged Mikhail up from an uneasy sleep. Briefly he wondered why he felt so rotten, then he remembered: he’d lost Tayer, lost any hope of her ever returning his love, and had tried to forget in every tavern in the city. The memories of the taverns were dim, but the memory of the pain was still sharp and clear. Holding his throbbing head, he stumbled to the window to see what all the noise was about. From the pennants and the livery, the seething mass of men, women and horses appeared to be a Royal Envoy from Halda, a small country that shared borders with both Ardhan and Melac. As Mikhail watched, the Lord Chamberlain appeared, ushered the men and women ceremoniously inside, and had the horses removed to the stables.
“They arranged it while you were away.”
Mikhail turned. Hanna had come into the room and now perched on the edge of his bed.
“Arranged what?” he demanded, pouring some wine to clear the fog from his head.
Hanna looked down at her entwined fingers.
“Tayer’s joining.”
“What!” Mikhail threw the goblet to the floor, dove across the room, and yanked his sister to her feet.
“Tayer’s joining,” Hanna repeated with remarkable calm, considering that she had just been shaken vigorously. “The king has arranged for her to marry the Crown Prince of Halda.”
“But why?”
“For mutual support against Melac obviously. The crown prince has no sisters and Tayer is the only daughter the king has.”
“Why so quickly? These arrangements usually take months. Or years.”
Hanna looked pityingly up at her brother. “The king has seen the way you look at Tayer. This is a very important state joining and he wants it done before she has a chance to fall in love with you. And she has been acting rather strangely of late.”
Mikhail suddenly remembered the king speaking of plans to strengthen Ardhan’s defense. This, then, was what he had meant.
“What does Tayer say about it?”
“I doubt she was asked. Princesses are expected to go along with this sort of thing as part of their duty to the kingdom. Besides, what could she say; I can’t join with Halda because I’m in love with a hallucination?”
“No.” Mikhail set his jaw and dropped Hanna back onto the bed. “I won’t allow it.” He dug his breeches out of a pile of discarded clothes and yanked them on. “I won’t allow it.” He couldn’t believe he’d almost given up without a fight. It wasn’t over yet, of that he was suddenly certain.
“There’s not much you can do,” Hanna said quietly. “And Tayer’s gone. I just came from her room.”
Tayer had ridden out before dawn according to the stable boy, but he had no idea of which way she’d gone.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he apologized to Mikhail, “but I ain’t the one to be stoppin’ the princess if’n she wants to go, and I ain’t the one to be keepin’ watch of where she went.”
Mikhail knew exactly where Tayer was and he knew if he didn’t catch her before she entered the forest he’d probably never be able to find her. To the Grove, pounded the hoofs of his galloping horse. To the Grove, pounded his heart. To the Grove.
When he reached the Lady’s Wood, Dancer stood grazing in the long grass of the meadow, but Tayer was nowhere in sight.
Leaving his hors
e with the mare, Mikhail drew his sword and stepped beneath the trees. He was no longer truly in control of what he did. A force he couldn’t explain drove him and he only knew that he had to find Tayer.
He began to run, crashing through the underbrush, using his sword to clear a path. All logic, all woodcraft, left him.
Sword first and panting, he stumbled into the Sacred Grove.
The birches wore their autumn dress of old gold and bronze, their leaves whirling free, carried and caressed by the breeze. In the midst of this erotic dance, stood a couple in a close embrace. The woman was Tayer. The man . . . Aware of the intruder, they turned in each other’s arms to face him.
Mikhail didn’t see the hand extended toward him, nor the welcoming smile. All he saw was Tayer gazing up into the leaf-green eyes of the creature who held her. Throwing aside his sword, he charged.
The two men were matched in height, but Mikhail was heavier and fighting from the depths of his pain. The suddenness of his attack allowed him to get his hands around Varkell’s throat and the muscles of his arms bulged as he tried to snap the other’s neck. This thing had taken Tayer from him.
Pushing Tayer to safety, Varkell swept Mikhail’s feet out from under him and they crashed to the ground.
The fall and his own weight broke Mikhail’s hold, but he quickly gained another. From a distance, a saner part of his mind cried out that this would solve nothing, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t stop. Varkell made no attempt to return the attack, merely defending himself against Mikhail’s assaults. A blocking elbow hit Mikhail in the mouth and his lip, caught between tooth and bone, split. As he jerked his head free, six drops of blood arced away—where they landed, the grass died. They thrashed about the clearing, tearing great gouges out of the velvet sod, first gold head on top, then silver.
Finally Varkell gained the top and kept it. Mikhail looked up and fell into, the other world that burned in Varkell’s eyes. Seeing what Tayer loved, and loving it himself, in spite of himself, he turned his head and closed his eyes in defeat. Tears seeped out through his lashes and left glistening trails down his cheeks. There was nothing left but the pain. There would never be anything but the pain.