‘I fear your food may contain a substance that is not wholesome to the mind, My Lady,’ he said, and even as he observed it, the smoky upper layer faded. Yet before it could, he laid hold of it and drew it from her mind, bringing to the surface a deeper layer which he also removed.
‘Talis,’ she said, as though surprised. ‘I feel like I just woke up.’
‘You are well and whole, My Lady,’ he said, ‘as is your child. However, I fear a drug in your food has influenced your judgement.’
Her hair slid out of his hand and the door moved, as though she now sat against it. ‘Talis.’
‘Yes, My Lady.’
There was a pause before she said, ‘You’re supposed to call me Khatrene.’
He smiled. ‘Khatrene,’ he agreed, feeling the familiar tingle that came to his skin when he said her name aloud.
‘I’m not mad.’
‘I know this. It was the drug that bent your mind.’
‘How long has he been feeding me that? Only since we got here? Or before, in the Volcastle?’
‘I remember a dark fragrance …’ Talis cast his memory back to the infrequent times he had seen her during her forty day courtship. ‘Yet I detected no drug within your body at the time. Perhaps its ability to be discovered fades, even as it did now.’
‘Ghett used to give me a drink every morning, first thing,’ she said, her voice growing firmer. ‘It would be hours before I saw you.’
‘And Ghett comes from the House of Be’uccdha.’ Talis knew real concern then, remembering the meeting Pagan had witnessed between Ghett and Kert Sh’hale.
‘I want to go back to my brother,’ Khatrene said before he could speak of those suspicions. ‘Can you take me? Can you get me out of here?’
Talis did not know how to reply. The chances of success in such a venture were slight indeed.
Yet before he could speak, she said, ‘Even if you could get me out, we wouldn’t get far, would we?’
He softened his voice. ‘No, My Lady.’
‘Djahr won’t kill me yet,’ she said. ‘He wants the child. But he might hurt you.’ A pause. ‘We have to think of something else. Can you get word to Mihale? If he knew what Djahr was doing I’m sure he’d send help.’
Would he? Though his Princess had been drugged, there was little else to incriminate The Dark in a plot to kill his wife. Talis did not know what the connection was between Sh’hale, Ghett and The Dark, but he doubted that a brother so far away and with no proof of wrongdoing would be prepared to battle Be’uccdha for the possession of his unharmed sister.
Daylight had faded and it was now almost fully dark in the stairwell. Lae would be waiting at dinner with her father, and both perhaps wondering at his absence.
‘I will do as you ask, My Lady,’ Talis promised. ‘And I will return to you as soon as I can.’
‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t come again until you hear back from Mihale. If you get caught coming here Djahr might move me somewhere else. Assuming he doesn’t just kill you to shut you up.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘I don’t want that,’ her voice softened. ‘I don’t want you to die.’
Her words would have woven around his heart if he had not enough sense to put them into their proper frame of friendship. ‘Neither, I’ll warrant, does my uncle,’ Talis replied.
‘Not until you’ve fathered a dozen Guardian sons.’ There was no smile in her voice, but he took heart from the fact that she could joke in the face of her fears.
‘I will do as you wish, My Lady, and I will bring news as soon as I can. I will not abandon your cause.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘That’s what has kept me from despair. I trust you, Talis.’
Her Champion was humbled and no words came to him.
‘Keep that trust in your heart if you like,’ she added, ‘just don’t die, okay?’
‘I can promise you that,’ he said, then before other words, foolish words, could fall from his lips he turned and felt his away down the unlit stairwell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Pagan walked with his cousin along the cliff beside Castle Be’uccdha. A howling wind rose off the Everlasting Ocean as though to drive them onto the Plains, yet the sun beat down upon them. While Talis wore only a work-shirt and breeches, Pagan suffered in his dress uniform which had been required for his earlier meeting with The Dark.
Having delivered the King’s blessing for The Dark’s child, Pagan was now at leisure to spend several days in Be’uccdha before he needed to return to the Volcastle. He wished it could be longer. In fact, he wished never to go back. At least here he would not be reminded daily that the woman he desired lay with another.
‘Our meeting here is hidden,’ Talis said, glancing back at the castle rising from the cliff-top behind them.
Pagan, too, glanced at the castle which faced into the wind, all dark angles and menacing shadows. As always, a shiver of apprehension gripped him when he viewed Be’uccdha from outside its boundaries. Each time he visited Lae’s birthplace he felt a strange disquiet, as though even she who had been born here might require protection from its hostile vapours. Though surely he would be the last warrior to step towards that duty, however noble it may seem.
Talis seemed only able to think of The Light. ‘Tell me of the King’s reaction,’ he said. ‘Did my secret message get through?’
‘With the same Guardsman who brought The Dark’s message that The Light was indisposed.’
Talis frowned at this. ‘So the King has heard of his sister’s plight? Is he sending forces to secure her safety?’
‘Her plight?’ Pagan shook his head, looked at his cousin afresh. ‘She is safe in her husband’s care. The Dark told me this not an hour ago.’
‘It is from her husband that she seeks asylum,’ Talis said, his voice low as if to avoid detection, though Pagan could see there was no-one near and the Castle Be’uccdha more than five hundred paces distant.
‘The Dark?’ Pagan stared at his cousin, trying to make sense of their odd conversation. ‘He tells me that his wife is well, and speaks like a caring husband and a happy father-to-be.’
‘From The Light’s own lips,’ Talis said, ‘I have word that her husband does not love her and wants only the child she bears him. Soon after he will kill her —’
‘For what reason?’ Pagan pushed back and looked at his cousin as though seeking madness in his eyes, for indeed his words indicated as much. Either that or he was drunk. ‘The Light worshipped the very ground he trod upon,’ Pagan reminded his cousin. ‘Why should a husband abuse so loving a wife?’
‘Her love was bought with secret herbs,’ came Talis’s reply. ‘And he announced that she was in his chambers when I found her instead locked in his Hightower. He does not love her. He has her drugged even now. This I know to be true.’
‘What drug?’ Pagan demanded.
‘One that addles the brain and causes wild words —’
‘The Light speaks wildly? Cous, listen to yourself.’ Pagan simply shook his head and did not know what to believe.
‘Tell me about the King,’ Talis said. ‘Does he believe what The Dark tells him?’
‘The King —’ Pagan felt familiar anger well inside himself and knew he could not hope to keep jealousy from his voice. He turned to face the Ocean and spoke into the wind. ‘The King lies
in bed all day with Ghett, former maid to your Lady.’ No matter how often Pagan had practised these words he could not extract the bitterness that edged them. Any thought he might have had of winning Ghett from the King had long since fled, and it was with relief that he had left the Volcastle on his father’s command to serve as King’s messenger to Be’uccdha. ‘I doubt he thinks about his sister,’ he added, ‘except to wonder if her infatuation rivals his own.’
‘Ghett?’ Talis appeared to forget his earlier preoccupation. ‘What intrigue is this? You see her in secret conversation with Sh’hale and now she lies in the King’s bed. This same King, who I am sure was not a full man when last I saw him.’
‘He is a man now,’ Pagan said, his words as flinty as the stones beneath his feet.
‘I am much amazed,’ Talis said. ‘And concerned.’ He took Pagan’s arm and turned his cousin to face him. ‘The Princess believes that Ghett drugged her at the Volcastle. Might Ghett not also be drugging our young King at Sh’hale’s instruction?’
‘For what purpose?’
‘The throne,’ Talis replied urgently. ‘You know Sh’hale’s ambition.’
Pagan shrugged his cousin off. ‘I know Sh’hale wishes to serve the King. It is only you he wants destroyed.’
‘What do you make then of this connection between Sh’hale and Ghett?’ Talis asked. ‘I do not like it.’
‘I like less the liaison between Ghett and the King, but nothing can be done. He is smitten by her and spends little time at court, the better to lay in bed with his new mistress.’
‘The noble Houses are already angered by his disbanding of the King’s Council. Many still fear the north.’ Talis shook his head, asked, ‘Does Bhoo advise his King?’
‘Bhoo took the King’s condolences to Fortress Sh’hale and can do little to interfere, should that be his desire, until his return.’
‘Laroque?’
‘Sent on a mission to train his new guard.’
‘That was suggested by Sh’hale, I’ll warrant.’ Talis appeared to think about this, then said, ‘If no help comes from The Light’s royal brother, I will rescue her myself, though it turns The Dark against me.’
Moments passed while Pagan tried to grasp this astounding statement. ‘Rescue?’ He shook his head. ‘What rescue is this? Rescue a wife from her husband?’
‘He has locked her in his Hightower.’
‘The better to protect the babe within her. Her brother finds no quarrel with this precautionary care, and you said yourself that The Light favours an ocean view.’
‘She fears he will murder her when the babe is birthed.’
Pagan tried to see what vapours of fear drove his cousin to such wild fancies. ‘Do you see anything in the manner of her husband to suggest such violent thoughts?’ he asked.
Talis looked at Pagan a hard moment. ‘I have seen none of this. Yet The Light believes it so.’
‘You take a woman’s words above the proof of your own eyes.’
‘The Light has powers to know the future,’ Talis said. ‘This I have seen with my own eyes many times. She fears her husband and calls him evil. Her fear awakens my own.’
‘Have you spoken of this to Lae?’ Pagan asked. ‘Does she name her father evil?’
‘I did not ask her straight, yet I begged her to give me a reason to take her from her father’s house.’ Talis paused and shook his head. ‘She did not speak of evil, yet what she does not say, and the wide and wary pauses in her speech, make me think her manner all concealment and lacking honesty.’
‘Honesty!’ Pagan feared to start, thinking he would never find an end to a speech on the dishonesty of Lae Be’uccdha. Yet even as he looked at Talis, thinking he should not abuse his cousin for his betrothed’s defects, he found an odd instinct surfacing within him. A feeling that everything was not as it appeared. The wind tore at his cousin’s face, whipping back his warrior plaits to reveal a guarded expression.
‘I sense more than duty in this action, Cous,’ he said. ‘You are too eager to obey The Light when good judgement should be used.’
Talis met his eyes, a brooding veiled glance, then looked away, and in that instant Pagan saw the cause of his cousin’s madness. He could not believe it, and yet he was sure.
He raised a wavering finger and pointed at Talis. ‘You love … not Lae.’ he said, unable to speak the words that would lay treachery at his cousin’s feet.
Talis’s voice was calm. ‘I will not let Sh’hale marry Lae’
‘Yet you love … The Light.’
Talis looked back to his cousin, his gaze steady. ‘I will not admit such love to anyone.’
‘Yet it is true.’ These were grievous matters, yet Pagan, so long amazed at the high regard given to Lae, could not help the elation and relief that swept through him. ‘I knew you could not love that shrew. No man could. Sh’hale lies too if he says he loves her. This is true!’
Talis merely stared at him and soon Pagan’s expression grew solemn.
‘Have you admitted this love to The Light?’ he asked Talis. ‘Is this the reason —’
‘I have not. I will not.’
‘Then this is not the cause of her dissatisfaction with her husband. Yet, should we look to your own motives, Cous,’ Pagan said gently. ‘Could this unspoken love be the cause of your desire to “rescue� a wife from her husband?’
Talis held his gaze. ‘You see into my heart. I would do her bidding if the sky should fall around us, yet I wonder if my eagerness to defy The Dark and earn his enmity is not provoked by jealousy, and the unacknowledged desire to escape my marriage to Lae.’
‘In your place I would do much to escape —’ Pagan cut himself short. ‘Do not tax yourself so, Cous,’ he said. ‘You have more honour in your one hand than I have in all of me. Act from your duty and you will do no wrong.’
‘It would be “wrong� to marry Lae when I do not love her,’ Talis said. ‘So to avoid that should be “right�, if it were not that to do so would be to give her into the hands of an enemy who would use her badly.’
‘If you do not love her, what does it matter —’
‘I do not love her as a husband loves a wife, but make no mistake,’ Talis said, his expression now a warning to his cousin, ‘I will not see her harmed.’
‘Do you think Sh’hale would harm her?’ Pagan was not convinced of this, any more than he believed that Kert would conspire against the King. He wondered what fears caused Talis to see danger to these women in his care, when none was apparent. A Champion’s instinct?
‘He will not love Lae,’ Talis replied.
‘Of course he will not love her. Who —’ Again, Pagan stopped himself and forced his attention to the task at hand. ‘Do you mean to take The Light from her husband? Truly?’
Talis stared at Pagan for a long time, as though seeing through him to a future he wished to grasp, and therefore avoid what was to come. His gaze sharpened and refocused on his cousin. ‘I mean to take her from The Dark and secrete her where she will be safe from harm,’ Talis said. ‘At least until the child is born.’
‘Then I am with you,’ Pagan said, without hesitation. ‘Only how shall we breach The Dark’s defences? And once away from Be’uccdha, we will be only two against the Plainsman hord
es.’
‘You will not accompany me into exile, Cousin,’ Talis said. ‘Your good father would not thank me for leading his only son into mutiny against the throne. One extra warrior cannot overcome a hundred of The Dark’s guard.’ Talis paused a moment, then said, ‘However, there is something I would ask of you … though I am not sure you will undertake —’
‘I am yours to command, Cous,’ Pagan declared. To gain a reprieve from the horror of having Lae of Be’uccdha as his cousin, Pagan would undertake any mission. ‘Do not doubt that I will do your bidding,’ he said. ‘The love I have for you is not timid or shallow. Tell me what I must do and regard it as done.’
‘Very well,’ Talis said, placing a hand on Pagan’s shoulder. ‘I will take leave for some days to scout a path through the Plains. You must remain here and entertain Lae with bickering. Make as though nothing was changed.’ Pagan grinned to show his enthusiasm for this particular instruction. ‘When I return, I will find a way to liberate The Light and lead her through the guard.’ Pagan made to speak but Talis shook his head.
‘Here then is your part,’ said Talis, and Pagan nodded eagerly. ‘When I am gone I will be reviled, and my betrothal to Lae annulled.’
‘Happy day,’ Pagan said, then nodded for Talis to go on.
‘You have said you will be instructed by me and that the love you bear me strengthens your will to that end.’
‘This is truth more solid than the ancient rock on which we stand,’ Pagan declared, stamping a boot down on the hard surface to make his point ‘Tell me my part and know I will not baulk at the grisliest detail.’ Pagan even laid a hand on his sword hilt, imagining the assassin’s work his cousin planned, the stealth and strength of purpose required to defy The Dark.
‘With my betrothal annulled, you know Sh’hale will woo Lae …’ Talis said, then paused significantly. ‘… unless he is stopped.’
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