by Karen Miller
“You’ll have a queue of farmers and suchlike bangin’ on the door with complaints.”
Gar frowned. “The WeatherWorker’s word is law. If I can adjust the rain and snowfall frequencies without adversely affecting the crops ...”
“Try,” he said. “Please?” It shamed him, begging, but the magic was breaking him. He could feel the fissures spreading.
The gentle shush and splash of snow and rain on the relief map was easing. With a sharp, deep breath he pushed himself away from the wall. Made himself stand up straight.
“I’ll do, now. You should get on back. I’ll wait a bit, then follow.”
Gar shook his head. “You’re in no fit state to walk alone. And we shouldn’t risk you falling asleep in here. We’ll go back together. It’s late enough now that no one should notice.”
It wasn’t a good idea, but he didn’t have the strength to argue. “Fine,” he said. “You’re the king.” And even let Gar help him down the stairs, one arm strong and steady about his shoulders.
They returned to the Tower in silence. Gar went on up to his apartments and Asher, reluctant, headed for his office. The worst of the pain and nausea had passed, he was mostly tired now, and light-headed. An hour longer, he’d work, and that should keep nagging Darran satisfied.
Light spilled from beneath his closed office door. He opened it, and there was Dathne. “What are you doin’ here?”
“You and that damned WeatherWorking. I couldn’t sleep,” she said, apologetic and truculent at once. “And there was work to do. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
He came inside and closed the door. Shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the coat rack. “No. I don’t mind.”
“Good,” she said, and smiled. Then relief faded as she looked more closely at him. “Asher—there’s blood on your weskit.”
He looked down. Damn. So there was. “It’s nowt.”
“Nowt?” She came round from behind her desk. “Since when is blood nowt?”
Barl save him, he was too tired for this ... “Dath, don’t fuss. I got a bit too near to Gar when he was WeatherWorking, is all. I told you, it’s a bloody business.”
“His bloody business. So how is it you’re the one looking half dead?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
She stepped back. “No. You’re not. There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
The hurt in her eyes was like a knife wound. “Don’t do this, Dath,” he whispered. “Please. Can’t you understand? I’ve made promises.”
She was silent for a moment. Staring. Thinking. Then she moved close to him again and touched her fingertips to his weskit, where blood had turned cream to crimson like magic. “You should go to bed. You really do look dreadful.”
He felt dreadful, all his sleeping pains rewoken. “Can’t. Glospottle’s hearing is the day after tomorrow and I ain’t nowhere near ready. I still got a pile of books to read through and make notes on.”
“Then I’ll stay and help,” she said, smiling. “Two heads are better than one.”
A tempting offer, but it was late and his defenses were weakened. If she asked him again to confide in her, he might not have the strength to resist. Especially since he was feeling so desperately alone. “Dath—”
She rested her palm above his heart. “Let me stay. Please?”
He shouldn’t... he shouldn’t... “All right,” he said. “But only for a while.”
———
At her suggestion they took the books he needed up to his apartment library, which had sofas on which they couk comfortably recline. She took one half of the pile, he took the other, and they settled down to reading.
Time passed. Soon he forgot about “just an hour” and “only for a while.” It didn’t matter that he was weary or that his eyes felt gritty. Scented pine burned cheerfully in the fireplace and it was so cozy, so domestic, to be sharing silence with her in his private apartment, working.
Curled up on the other crimson leather sofa Dathne sighed, used a finger to mark her place in the book she was studying and scratched some more notes on the already crowded piece of paper beside her. Her expression was one of grave concentration. The very tip of her tongue poked out from the corner of her mouth as she wrote, and there was an ink smudge on the end of her nose. He felt his heart turn over.
She looked up, sensing his regard. “What?”
He couldn’t say it. Said instead, “I been thinking. Don’t reckon I can do this.”
“What? Preside over the hearing?” She returned to her notes. “Of course you can.”
“No, I can’t. It’s Justice Hall, Dathne! Legal folderol and footlin’ about! I don’t understand that claptrap!”
She grinned. “Which is why we’re sitting here in the small hours of the night studying when all sensible people are in their beds. Have you finished Tevit’s Principles of Jurisprudence yet?”
Tevit’s tedious bloody Principles of Juris-bloody-prudence lay open and abandoned on his chest. The first three paragraphs on page one had given him a thumping headache and it had gone downhill from there.
“No.”
“Asher...”
He pushed the book to the carpeted floor, where it landed with a satisfying thud. “Can’t I just throw Glospottle and the rest of the Dyers’ Guild into prison instead?”
Another grin. “I’m sure Pellen Orrick would love that.”
“I know I bloody would,” he said, glowering. A yawn overtook him; when it was done twisting his face inside out he let his head thud onto the sofa’s padded arm roll and closed his eyes. Exhaustion was like a blanket of warm snow, weighing him down. “I just reckon the world’s gone mad if a no-account uneducated fisherman from Restharven can sit on that throne in Justice Hall and tell folk he hardly knows what they can and can’t do with their own urine.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” said Dathne, her voice coming closer. “Next to our king you’re the most important man in Lur.” She was bending over him. He could feel her soft breath fanning his face. “I thought you’d realized that by now.”
“What I realize, Dathne, is that I—”
Her warm, soft lips suffocated the rest of his sentence. Shocked silent, he lay there drowning in exquisite sensation. After an age she released him, and he breathed again. He opened his eyes.
“Now who’s takin’ liberties?”
“Me,” she whispered and kissed him again, smelling of passion and perfume. Tasting of the honey-mints she liked to nibble when she thought no one was looking. He lifted his hands to the nape of her neck and unpinned her thick black hair. It fell about his face in lavender-scented disarray. Her fingers were framing his face, holding him, caressing him. Shivering his skin and setting it on fire. Even through a barricade of brocade and silk he could feel her breasts against bis chest. All the blood left his head in a dizzying rush, making a beeline south.
“Asher? What is it? You’re not enjoying this?” she murmured against his mouth.
“Yes! Yes!” he whispered frantically.
Her fingers tightened. “Then kiss me back, damn you!”
He was her obedient slave. His arms crept around her back, encircling the fragile ribcage, home to her thundering heart. At last they broke apart, sobbing for breath. Her stunned eyes were enormous, her lips wet and swollen. He pressed his fingertips against them and shuddered as she touched him with her tongue.
“Don’t,” he groaned, and captured her hand in his. “If you do that again I might—”
“What?” she whispered, and trailed her other fingers across his bare chest. Bare? When had his shirt come unbuttoned?
“You know what! Dathne, we can’t do this!”
“But I want to do this,” she said, and kissed him yet again.
Head swimming, senses blazing, he let himself respond. Let the whirlwind take him, blind him to sense and reason. Her skin was silk and cream beneath his questing fingers. She moaned his name, trembling at his touch. He felt li
ke a king.
They slid from couch to carpet and she fell beneath him, crying aloud as he kissed her breasts, a small shocked sound of pleasure.
He stopped, panting. “We can’t. We mustn’t. We’re not married, Dathne.”
Her scented skin was damp, her hair the wildest tangle. She smiled. “Then marry me.”
Disbelieving, he stared into her passion-blurred face. “What?”
“There must be a Barlsman awake somewhere in this City.” She smoothed his cheek with her fingertips. “Let’s go find him.”
She was serious. Closing his fingers around her wrist he tugged her free. “You said you didn’t love me.” She wouldn’t look at him. “I lied.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
She sat up. Buttoned her blouse, her fingers unsteady. “Nothing. Everything. It doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to me.”
She touched her lips to his, lightly. “It shouldn’t. What’s important is that I’ve come to my senses.”
“Why now?”
“I realized I could lose you.”
“Lose me?”
Her gaze flickered sideways. “Don’t tell me you’ve not noticed all the fond Olken mamas as you ride through the City. They point you out to their unmarried daughters and tell them to smile as you pass by. You could start a florist’s shop ten times over with the roses that get thrown at you on public occasions. There must be a hundred girlish hearts breaking in Dorana, all for love of you.”
He didn’t know whether to kiss her or shake her silly. “Dathne, since when have I noticed fond mamas or their husband-hunting daughters? For one thing it ain’t been nowt but work, work, work ever since I got to this bloody place, and for another...”
“Yes?” Her voice wasn’t quite steady. “For another?”
“Yours is the only girlish heart I’m interested in.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. This time their kiss was delicate, dulcet. When it ended he folded his fingers around hers.
“But it don’t mean I can marry you. At least not yet.”
Her eyes widened in pained surprise. “Whynot?”
She was a fiercely bright woman. Married to him, living with him, she’d discover the truth. If things went wrong and he couldn’t protect her... “The kingdom’s only just out of mourning, Dath. And Gar—”
“Must marry soon himself,” she said. “Haven’t you heard Darran on the subject?” She pulled a face. “Why should the king care if we stand before a Barlsman and exchange our vows? Or is he so churlish he’d begrudge you a marriage born of love instead of duty?”
Right now, with his own hopes for love and family cruelly blighted. Gar might well begrudge any kind of marriage. And even if he didn’t, it would be equally cruel to flaunt happiness under his nose.
Something else he couldn’t tell her. “Dathne ... it ain’t as simple as that.”
“It could be,” she said, and withdrew her fingers from his. “Perhaps you don’t love me after all.”
He answered her calumny with a kiss that stole all the air from then lungs and left them gasping. “Believe me now?”
With her head on his chest and one hand crept inside his shirt to he against his ribs she said, “Yes. But you’ll put duty first.”
Ever since they’d met she’d been his sympathetic sounding board, bis sage advisor, his blunt and brutal mirror. It cut him to the quick, repaying her honesty with half-truths and lies. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She smiled painfully. “Don’t be.” Bending low, she kissed the ropy scar along his forearm. “I know a little about duty myself.”
He didn’t deserve her. Couldn’t believe he’d won her. What a courtship he’d endured...
She kissed him again. Soaring, he lost himself in sensation. Kissing was so much better than thinking. Or worrying. Or trying to come to grips with Tevit’s Principles of Jurisprudence. Who’d have thought a floor could feel so comfortable? Or a spare and angular body so soft? Kissing Dathne was a homecoming.
Breathing hard, they sat on the floor in tangled silence.
Then Dathne stirred. Her fingernails traced circles on his chest, raising goosebumps. “Do you know how we Olken married before the Doranen came?”
He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “No.”
“We stood together, witness for each other. We declared our desire to be handfast and faithful. And we were married.”
“Just like that?”
She nodded. “Yes, my love. Just like that.”
My love. Dizzy, he tilted her head back with a finger beneath her chin and gazed into her heavy-lidded eyes. “That were a long time ago, Dath. There were reasons things changed.”
She pouted. “I know, I know. Marriages need to be recorded, babies can’t be born willy-nilly. We must never outgrow the land we have here. But I’m not saying we won’t ever stand before a Barlsman, Asher. When you think our public happiness won’t hurt the king we can have our marriage entered in the registry. But why should we deny ourselves our private joy till then? If we were any other people, living anywhere else in Lur, we could marry in a heartbeat. I’m sorry for the king’s sorrow, truly, but why must we suffer because of it?”
Her words struck a deep chord. Unbidden, buried resentment stirred. Why indeed? He was already sacrificing so much for Gar. Risking so much. He deserved something in return, didn’t he? Some small spark of happiness. He and Dathne couldn’t live together of course. Not at first. Maybe not for months. Might only have a handful of stolen moments, like this one. But the moments would be theirs. Joy would be theirs. And in her arms he could mercifully, hopefully, forget his other, unjoyful secrets.
Harsh practicality doused his daydream. “But what about babies? You know there can’t be any babies, Dath, not until—”
“Hush,” she said, and pressed a finger to his lips. “Babies are women’s business. Leave that to me. We’ll have no babies till the time is right.”
Relieved, he gathered her close. “Even married, you know there’ll be things I can’t tell you. Private business ‘tween Gar and me that can’t go further. It don’t mean I ain’t mad in love with you. I am. Reckon I always have been. But—”
She kissed him. “I know. I understand.”
“And we’d have to be bloody careful. There’ll be folks around all the time. Noticin’ types like Darran and pissant Willer. They can’t suspect a thing. Can you hve a secret life like that?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I think so.”
He frowned, then. “And you can’t tell Matt either.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Matt’s the last person I’d want to tell.”
Jealousy stabbed. “So he is in love with you.”
“No. No. But he’d... disapprove. We’d argue. And this is my choice, not his.” She kissed him, hard. “Matt is a friend, Asher. You’re the only man who’s ever moved me.”
The simple declaration stunned him. “You really want to do this?”
Her answer was to break away from him. Bemused, he watched her lock the library door, pad to the fireplace and heave fresh logs into the dying flames, then retrieve a pale gold silk-weave scarf from the depths of her satchel.
“Hold out your hand,” she said, so he did. She sank to the carpet before him and matched his move, palm kissing palm, and laced her fingers with his. Then, frowning lightly, she bound their flesh together with the scarf. He said nothing, feeling giddy, feeling dreamlike. They were getting married.
The ritual binding complete, she sat on her heels and considered him. The heat of her hand was like magic in his blood. “I am Dathne Jodhay, a maid of good con science and unsullied name. I take this man, Asher, to be my husband and swear to him my love and loyalty until die.” She smiled then. “Your turn.”
“I am Asher of Restharven,” he replied. In his own ears his voice sounded ... breathless. “I’m a man of good conscience and unsullied name, except if you
ask Darran or Willer or Conroyd Jarralt and why would you? Dathne Jodhay is my woman, my wife, and if anybody looks so much as sideways at her I’ll knock their bloody bloc] off.”
Dathne was shaking with silent laughter. “Oh, Asher you’re such a romantic!”
“Sink romance,” he growled, and pulled her to him hard enough to make her gasp. “Are we married?”
“Oh yes,” she said, and toppled him to the floor. “We’re married.”
And then there was no more talking, as clothes peeled from flesh like shedding skin. Laughing, groaning their mutual needs, hands roamed, tongues touched, fingertips coaxed forth bonfires of delight.
Suddenly disconcerted, lost in a wilderness of pleasure Asher fumbled to a halt. Lifting his lips from her breast he gazed into her chaotic eyes. “Uh, Dath. You know ain’t never...”
More laughter. Wicked hands, holding. “It’s all right,” she promised him, trembling. “Neither have I. But I reckon we’ll work something out.”
———
The minute he laid eyes on them, Matt knew. Stepping back into the shadows between the stallion stables and the feed room, watching them creep into the stable yard like conspirators, he felt his heart turn over.
Dathne, Dathne, what have you done?
It was early yet, not quite a half-hour past dawn, and the lads were only just rousing from then beds. Smeary with sleep, he’d abandoned his own blankets nearly two hours ago to check on the gray colt, and stayed up to finish mending that broken bridle. To worry about Asher and the rift sprung up between them that he didn’t know how to close. Now his stomach was growling for breakfast and there was a pain behind his eyes and all he wanted was hot tea and sizzling bacon and a moment just to sit, and rest, and not think about anything.
What he didn’t want was another argument with Dathne. But now, having seen her, seen Asher, how could he stay silent? Pretend he’d not seen anything? She’d lost her mind. The strain of being Jervale’s Heir must’ve upset her judgement, tipped her right over the edge of reason. And while he owed loyalty to her, and paid the debt gladly, there was an even greater claim on his conscience. He had a duty to the Circle. To Prophecy.
And somebody had to save her, even if it was from herself.