The Mages of Bennamore

by Pauline M. Ross

  I turned and fled.

  Mal found me clutching the balcony rail above a courtyard, trying to breathe, trying to make sense of it.

  “Fen? What is it?”

  I could only shake my head, quite unable to speak.

  “For the Gods’ sake, Fen, tell me what the matter is! What is he to you?”

  A deep breath. Then another. I tried my voice. A croak. Tried again.

  “He was my husband once.”

  9: The Holder

  Mal got me back to the house, to my room, somehow. I don’t know how, I remember nothing of that. I vaguely remember him undressing me, murmuring softly as if to a child, then tucking me into bed. He rested a hand on my forehead and I was filled with warmth. Then I slept.

  I woke to the dim light of evening. Mal was sitting on the window seat, silhouetted against the dusk. He’d changed from his guard’s mail and leathers into his off-duty clothes. As soon as I stirred, he crossed the room and placed his hand on my forehead again. There was no warmth this time.

  “That’s better,” he said. “I have some brew on the fire. Would you like some?”

  I nodded, pulling myself up to a sitting position. I felt oddly refreshed, which should have worried me, perhaps, but at the time I was just grateful. I sipped my brew, embarrassed to realise that I was wearing only my shirt, and that Mal must have removed everything else.

  He went back to his seat at the window, folding his arms. He didn’t take his eyes off me, but he said nothing. Perhaps he expected me to explain, but I had no intention of saying anything, so the silence stretched out.

  “Well, that was… interesting,” he said, eventually. “I take it you didn’t expect to see him there?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed. “You’re going to have to be more communicative, you know.”

  My hands shook slightly, and I wrapped them more tightly round my mug. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sure you don’t, but you’re going to anyway.”

  Again I shook my head. He was annoyingly persistent.

  “Fen, you will tell me the whole story.” There was a hard note to his voice I’d not heard before.

  I tried a small joke. “Oh, are you going all outraged husband on me?”

  That raised a fleeting smile, but it didn’t lighten his tone. “Not in the slightest. If you have problems with the Holder, then that affects the mages. It’s my job to eliminate such problems.”

  “Are you going to eliminate me?” I asked in a small voice.

  He laughed at that, and finally his voice softened. “No, but I need to understand what exactly was between you and the Holder. Only then will I know how to deal with this situation.”

  He was right, I realised. I couldn’t slink back to Carrinshar and pretend this had never happened. I couldn’t hide at all. It was out in the open now, and I had to face up to it.

  I got up to put my empty mug on the dresser, then perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed.

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Let’s start with how a humble recorder was once married into a Holder’s family. We can move on from there.”

  “Very well.” I took a deep breath. “I was born Honourable Fendristia of Shannamar.”

  “Ah...” he said, as if that explained everything. Well, perhaps it did at that. He waved me to continue.

  “My father was – is still – Holder there, and I was the youngest child. A late surprise. I had four sisters and two brothers, all much older than me. I was never likely to be Holder. My sisters all married out or took up professions, they signed away or lost their inheritance rights, but that was all right, because I still had two brothers. But one of them ran off, and the other—”

  “Wait – he ran off? Where? Why?”

  “No one knows. He just vanished one day, leaving a note that said not to look for him. They did, of course, but no one ever found out where he’d gone. Or why. And my oldest brother was killed in a stupid accident. Suddenly I was the only heir, officially Designated.”

  “Presumably there are other possible heirs? Your uncles, some cousins?”

  “And aunts, yes, plenty. But it weakens the Holder’s power if the title passes outside the direct line. The existing voting alliances are broken. For Shannamar, being one of the three Greater Holdings, that would have been disastrous.”

  “But they still had you. You could become the Holder, marry and have children.”

  That was like a spear through my heart. I bowed my head, fighting back tears.

  He must have seen my sudden grief, because in a moment he was by my side, his arm tightly around me. “I’m sorry to dig up old misery like this, but I really do need to know.” His voice was gentle, murmuring into my hair.

  “I know.” I straightened a little, took a long breath. “It’s… it’s the other way round. You have to marry and have the children first, only then can you become Holder.”

  “Ah...” he said again, understanding. He gave me a sympathetic squeeze. “So you married him, but...?”

  I bowed my head again, tears trickling down my face, and he rocked me a little until I was more composed.

  “I could have married anyone, but Dristomar had a similar problem. Ish was the only child. His father and mine saw an opportunity for both Holdings. A… a treaty marriage.”

  “What’s that, an alliance between the two Holdings?”

  “Yes, but not just a voting alliance in Convocation, an actual tax-sharing, trading alliance. Dristomar and all its subordinate Holdings joined to the Shannamar orbit. They would still be separate Holdings, but would act together, as one unit. The most powerful unit on the coast. It would put Dellonar permanently in the shade.

  “So Ish came to Shannamar, and… we married and...” I gulped, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “We had a year to produce a baby, by the terms of the treaty. The first child would be for Dristomar, the second child for Shannamar and so on. Everyone was so pleased about it. And Ish—”

  How could I explain how much I adored him, the passion that swept all reason out of my head? He was so beautiful, so sweet and loving, so intelligent and well-read, so much everything I could ever wish for in a man. So different from Mal.

  “It was perfect. But...” I couldn’t go on.

  “But no baby.” Mal’s embrace tightened, and he began to stroke my hair. “My poor, poor Fen.”

  He held me for a long time, shushing me as if I were a small child who’d fallen over, while I wept uncontrollably in his arms. Eventually, the tears dried up but neither of us moved. His presence reassured me, for some reason, and made Ish seem far, far away, like a bad dream.

  I don’t know what went through his mind, but for some reason Mal shifted and pulled me closer, his hand running down my back like a lover. Was that what changed things? Or was it that long kiss in the weapons room at Carrinshar? Or perhaps it was just seeing Ish again that day that awoke something in me, something long dormant. Dragon’s breath, I’d been alone – lonely – for such a long time, being held in a man’s arms was wonderful.

  I turned my face up to Mal and pulled him towards me, my lips hungrily finding his. He made no protest, responding with just as much passion. Tongues were involved this time, and his hands began to roam. I had one arm round his waist and the other behind his head, pulling him into me as if I’d never let go.

  When I fell back onto the bed, we were so entangled he couldn’t help but fall too. A quick shifting of position, so that he was pressed alongside me, one leg lying between mine, one hand sliding under my shirt to find my breasts. I could feel him, hard against my thigh, could hear his ragged breathing in my ear.

  A minute of flailing limbs as we hurled clothes away, and then there was nothing in the world but the two of us, his lips hot against mine, my skin tingling at every touch, his hands sure and steady. I surrendered to that raging furnace without a thought.

  Goddess, but it was so good. I’d forgotten just how
wonderful sex could be on occasion, or perhaps those memories, like so much else, had been pushed beneath the surface, so that I could pretend to feel nothing.

  Afterwards, as we disentangled sweaty limbs and straightened blankets, he said not a word. I was grateful for that. What was there to say? We lay, my head on his chest, his fingers wound through my hair, and gently drifted into sleep.

  ~~~~~

  I woke before dawn, famished. I’d missed two tables yesterday, and I wasn’t accustomed to missing even one meal. As soon as I’d rummaged round for a nightgown, I noticed a tray sitting on a dresser, loaded with cold meats and cheese, and a pot of brew to reheat. Probably Mal had brought it up at midday yesterday, but I had slept all afternoon, and then we’d been too distracted to eat. I wasn’t distracted now, so most of the food had vanished before Mal came round.

  Supplied with some brew, and a plate with a few of my leftovers, he ate and drank in silence. I sat on the window seat, arms round my knees, watching the sea, calm and flat under puffy clouds.

  A cough. “Fen...”

  I turned to look at him.

  He seemed embarrassed, if such a thing were possible for Mal. Sheepish, perhaps. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to take advantage of you. I just… wasn’t expecting...”

  The man never ceased to astonish me. Apologise because I jumped on him? What was he thinking? “I can’t imagine why you’d be sorry. I’m not. It was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes! Gods, yes!”

  “Well then.”

  “Oh. Then you won’t... I mean, you’re not going to banish me to the attic?”

  I couldn’t help laughing at his woebegone face. “No. But this doesn’t change anything.”

  “Doesn’t it?” He quirked an eyebrow at me.

  “No. The rules stay the same. Look, I’m not really sure how it happened. I was upset, I suppose. Not myself. But it doesn’t change the way things are.”

  A long silence. “We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m very good at pretending things didn’t happen.”

  He laughed at that, and shrugged. “I suppose. I’d better go, then. Leave you in peace. Have you seen my shirt?”

  I retrieved it from the floor, and while he scrambled into it rather awkwardly under the blankets, I gathered up the rest of his clothes.

  “I can’t find your belt anywhere,” I said, reversing out from under the bed. “Did you have it on?”

  “Belt?”

  “Mmm.” I tossed blankets around randomly. “The one with the green stones in it. It doesn’t seem to be here.”

  He’d gone very still, his face frozen. Then he gave a rather strained laugh. “No, I don’t always wear it.”

  I remembered then that he might be embarrassed for me to know about it. “There you go, then.” I deposited a muddled heap of clothing into his hands. “Sorry. Everything’s a bit crumpled.”

  “It’s fine,” he muttered, and strode off to his room, leaving me relieved that he wasn’t going to insist on sharing my bed from now on. I had enough on my mind with Ish, without fending off Mal as well.

  ~~~~~

  “You will have to see him sooner or later,” Losh said, in his mild way.

  “That’s what I’ve been telling her,” Mal said, standing glaring at me, arms folded.

  “I don’t see why,” I said mulishly.

  I reached for another piece of cheese. We were at morning table, and, as usual, I was the last one eating. Losh sat at the head of the table, looking worried. Kael was opposite me, chewing his fingernails, moon-faced. If the man had any brain at all, it wasn’t obvious.

  “Because he is the Holder,” Losh said patiently. “He has come here every morning to ask after you. I really do not think you can ignore him.”

  “He’ll get bored eventually.”

  “He only wishes to talk to you,” Losh said. “There can be no harm in that, can there?”

  His voice was so reasonable, his arguments so sensible. I felt petty and childish for refusing. The truth was that I was terrified of meeting Ish again. He’d had such power over me once. It had taken me years to excise him from my mind, from my very bones, and I’d never been quite sure if I’d succeeded. Now here he was again, and married to someone else. No possible good could come of seeing him.

  “Look.” Mal pulled up a chair beside me and sat down. “He’s very persistent, and he’s an important man. If you keep refusing to see him, he could make life difficult for all of us. Half an hour of polite conversation, and you’d be rid of him. Isn’t that worthwhile? I can be there with you.” A hesitation. “If you like.”

  I did like. That would make it easier. There could be no intimacy, nothing private if Mal was there.

  So later that morning when Ish arrived, just as he had for the last five days, at precisely the same time, he was shown into Losh’s study. Mal and I were summoned to see him.

  He was alone, standing at the window with his back to the room. His retinue waited in the yard outside. I could hear the distant jingle of harness, and a murmur of male voices talking quietly.

  He spun round when the door opened, and his face lit up. Oh Goddess, his face, as familiar to me as my own. The hair was a little shorter, perhaps, and there were a few new lines around his eyes. The small beard was the same as ever, kept immaculate by his own personal barber twice daily.

  He crossed the room in a few strides, his hands out towards me, his face filled with affection, and I was almost undone. My mouth was dry as the beach, my heart flipping about like a landed fish. If he’d opened his arms wide just then I’d have run straight into them.

  But then his eyes slid past me, glancing over my shoulder, and his face hardened as he saw Mal. “You surely have no need of a guard to protect you from me?” I knew him too well to mistake the annoyance in his tone.

  He didn’t know. The ground, which had tilted under my feet for a moment, righted itself, and I found I was able to speak quite calmly. “You have met Mage Guard Mallaron of Bennamore, I believe? My husband.”

  Mal bowed in the understated Bennamore way. “Very Honourable Holder.”

  Poor Ish. He looked as chagrined as the time my father forbade him the use of our stables after he over-extended one of our best horses. He’d had no idea that I was married, obviously, although he could hardly expect me to remain chaste for twenty years. I had, as it happened – well, almost – but he shouldn’t have assumed it.

  He regained his composure very quickly, and after a curt nod to Mal, turned his attention on me again. He caught my hands in his, and kissed me gently on both cheeks, the proper greeting for a former wife. But my defences were raised against him now, and even the softness of his beard against my skin gave me no more than a momentary tremor.

  “Fen! How are you? I have been so worried about you.”

  “I’m well.”

  “You look it. Goddess and Sprites, but it is so good to see you again! Come and sit down, and tell me everything. Where have you been hiding all these years?”

  What a question! Nowhere you couldn’t have found me easily enough if you’d set your mind to it, I thought with a spurt of anger. I’d left Shannamar in secrecy, but I’d kept my own name, and I’d registered formally at Carrinshar. Anyone could have tracked me down, if they’d looked. But no one bothered. Not Ish, not my family.

  Mal lurked nearby, positioning himself where Ish couldn’t possibly miss him. The contrast between them could hardly be more striking. Mal was a lumbering giant of a man, his dark hair shaggy as a moor pony’s, his chin bristly, his hands as wide as plates and constantly grubby. His clothes always looked slightly rumpled, as if he’d worn them in bed.

  Ish was all breeding and elegance, his hair silky smooth, his fingers as slender as a girl’s, adorned with jewelled rings. He’d filled out around the chest and shoulders since I’d last seen him, his coat stylishly cut and draped to flatter. It gave him a gravitas worthy of his stati
on, and he hardly needed the Holder’s gold brooch gleaming at his throat to advertise it. He was just the perfect height. I was considered tall for a woman, and I’d hardly had to stretch at all when we’d kissed—

  No. Deep breath. I wasn’t going to think about that.

  Ish led me to a small sofa, just big enough for the two of us, and we sat down, knees touching. He took my hands, and I’m ashamed to admit that for a while I was reduced to girlish dizziness. I swear I blushed and stuttered, barely able to string a coherent thought together. My heart hammered in my chest so loudly I’m sure the Defenders outside must have heard it. And every time he said, “Oh Fen…” in that affectionate tone of voice, my stomach flipped over. It was unnerving, and I have very little idea of what we said.

  To focus my mind, I kept my eyes fixed on his Holder’s brooch, engraved with sun, moons and stars in the centre and ringed with the Goddess’s waves. With every little movement he made it caught the light, shimmering and gleaming, keeping my anger hot and saving me from falling in a puddle of tears at his feet. I would resist him, I was adamant.

  The time evaporated into nothing. It seemed only a few moments after we sat down before he rose again, bestowing on me that glorious smile, to take his leave. He kept hold of my hand until the very last second as he backed towards the door.

  “May I come and see you again?” It was hardly a question. He was sure of me.

  “No,” I cried, panic-stricken. I’d barely survived this encounter, another meeting would be fatal.

  For an instant, anger flashed across his face, as quickly vanishing. “Well… perhaps we will meet again at the Hold.” Dragon’s balls! If he invited me formally, I would have to go.

  Then, with a few polite words to Mal and another smile for me, he was gone.

  I collapsed back onto the sofa, hot and sticky with sweat.

  Mal banged open cupboards until he found some wine, then pushed a glass into my hand. I was wound too tight even to protest. As I sipped obediently, I heard a few barked commands outside, the jingling of harnesses, a horse whinnying, and then the sound of many hooves clopping out of the yard and dwindling into the distance.