“Harus.” Bellasteros sighed, as if his thoughts, too, stumbled across uncertain ground.
The fire burned down to glowing embers and they made no move to replenish it; the night was warm, held suspended in a memory of summer. The tree rustled, tiny nameless insects chirped and skreeked to themselves, a dove cooed a sleepy duet with its mate and then fell silent.
“Marcos,” Danica said quietly, tasting his name as a liquor on her tongue.
His solemn aquiline profile did not turn toward her, but at her voice it softened, its sharpness blunted.
“Marcos,” she said again.
Then he did turn, his dark eyes holding a pool of the night and a distant gleam of starlight, withdrawing from some depth of the sky to take her in a perceptible embrace. “Danica,” he said.
Her senses quivered, plucked by his look into a deep resonant chord. His stillness, she realized, was deceptive. His body was tautly coiled, its energy barely suppressed, held ready for her word, her movement.
She smiled, marveling at how well she had learned to read him. How well, obviously, he had learned to read her. They were alike, intensity matched by intensity, the same song sung to different melodies.
In spite of herself she reached out and laid her forefinger along the curve of his chin and throat. The quickened beat of his pulse reverberated through her hand. No, she would not goad him; the time for that was long past. She touched him because the touching was a joy. The skin of his throat was a smooth, tight bronze, the pulse bared so vulnerably to her fingertips.
Danica leaned forward, pressing her lips to the hollow in his throat, breathing in the faint salt-tanged, spiced taste of his flesh. And his scent flooded her memory. She seemed to have no will of her own, no strength to resist; she was drawn to his shielded flame like a moth to a candle. She lay against him, absorbing his essence in one long shuddering breath.
And yet it was her will, her strength, to so lose herself in this man, to seek from him a nourishment more essential than food or water … Mother! But that pulse deep in her mind that was the goddess was beating in the same rhythm as his heart.
Bellasteros’s arms came around her, not claiming her as a prize, but hesitantly, giving her every chance to pull away. He did not try to raise her face; he waited, until inevitably she looked up. And only then did he set his lips on hers. His body trembled, his breath rasped in his chest, but still he held himself checked. She kissed him greedily, aching for the warmth of his flesh against hers, knowing even as she felt the desire that it would be unfulfilled. The kiss in itself would be enough, an intimacy as deep as any sexual coupling.
At last she withdrew, slowly, reluctantly. He made a quick movement as if to follow, then halted himself, eyes slitted in a grimace. Instead he caught her hand and held it on his face. Her image was reflected in his pupils, as his image was in hers. The words were unspoken. You have ravished my heart, you have stolen my soul. Somehow, with repetition, the words became much easier to bear.
That power she bore hummed in her veins, inseparable from her desire. Ashtar, she sighed deep in the recesses of her mind, Ashtar, this is what you destined for me, for Sabazel …
His eyes stopped her breath in her throat, but he only touched her hand. “There is no moon here,” he said. His voice caught, choked, and he shook himself. “There is no moon here, it seems. How can you tell the turning of the year when summer blossoms in midwinter? What if it is, now, here, an eternal solstice?”
“Or what if the year turns not at all?” she responded gravely, “and this land is never blessed with solstices or equinoxes?”
“In this timeless place, beyond the circles of the moon and the sun, where the stars shift themselves from their appointed patterns and the seasons merge—where you, I think, could shift the year at will …”
“Yes?”
His voice grew, if possible, even huskier. “Would it break your laws …” He turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm. His mouth branded her skin.
“But the rites can be celebrated only within the borders of Sabazel.” Her voice, too, was choked, and she tightened her jaw. It was useless, though; he could sense her yearning as easily as she sensed his.
“Is this place not Sabazel? We carry Sabazel with us, Danica.”
She inhaled deeply, calming herself, and eyed him with brows raised until at last the intensity of his expression melted into a rueful grin. How attractive, she thought, was that broad smile on his face. Doubly attractive, because it was so seldom seen. “So the warrior,” she said, “does not take what he wants but becomes a sophist, and seeks to reason his prey into submission?”
“My sophistry is weak, it seems, since it does not move you. And I could never think you my prey.”
“You would not try to force me?”
“Why? It is not your flesh that I crave but the woman who dwells within it. You will only give that woman freely; she cannot be taken.”
“And if I submitted meekly, like those women trained to serve your pleasure … what then?”
He shook his head. “Then you would not be Danica.”
“Ah,” she said quietly. Her fingers stroked the clean line of his cheek and jaw, soothing the troubled flame within. “Have I earned your respect, my king?”
“Indeed. As I have earned yours, I think.”
Yes, he deserved that … They looked at each other, searching, questioning. At last she sighed and released him, lying back amid the folds of her cloak. It seemed as if the stars had shifted again, dancing about the tree in yet another pattern. The stars, it seemed, were the whirling impulses of her own mind. “Yes,” she whispered. “Marcos Bellasteros has earned my respect. And I would give him a gift; not an amulet to bind him, but knowledge of my weakness. Never have I been tempted by any man save him.”
He nodded soberly. “My thanks, my queen, for such a gift. I shall honor your confidence.”
“And Bellasteros is a man of honor,” she added. A quick smile tickled the corner of her mouth and she hesitated only a moment before releasing it.
He fell into his cloak, laughing. “Once I thought I knew the meaning of such a word. Now—I learn at your knee, like a child. And there you have my weakness.”
“Is learning a weakness, my king? Would you choose ignorance?”
“Would you?”
But she had no answer. For a time they lay silent, watching the slow yet perceptible spinning of the stars across the depths of the sky as if years passed before their eyes, bearing them away from the nets that held them trapped in the present of their lives.
“Do you suppose,” Bellasteros murmured, “that we shall return to find the Empire fallen of its own weight, Ilanit ruling Sabazel, our names only legends told around the winter fires?”
A wind stirred the night, an urgent breath that bore with it the faint suggestion of the stench of the battlefield, horses, men, blood; Danica tensed, opening her senses—no words formed in her mind. But that second heartbeat drummed on, and she knew that the nets waited open. Soon she and Bellasteros would once again be ensnared, not quite enemies, no longer friends; this moment of peace would soon run its course and be forever lost.
So grasp it, then, she told herself. Grasp fate, instead of waiting for it to be presented to you, by the gods, by men— now, reach out …
“Marcos,” she said again.
He raised on one elbow to look at her, inclining his head with an extravagant courtesy.
Wordlessly she took his hand and brought it through a fold in her cloak to rest on her belly. She was a tall woman, and well-knit, but she was now well past the midpoint of her pregnancy and her abdomen stood up as taut and hard as a melon.
She forced herself to look at his face, watching as his slightly affable, slightly mocking expression faded into puzzlement. And then the child moved, thrusting itself upward against the barrier of time and flesh that kept it from its father’s touch. Danica winced at the blow, and at the expression on Bellasteros’s face as it darkened
with comprehension.
He jerked his hand away, turned, sat up with his back toward her. The child stretched again, desperately, kicking Danica’s breath from her lungs. But even as she gasped and retrieved that breath, and reached to pat the curve of her belly soothingly, the child quieted, fluttering into stillness, coiling into its warm nest beneath her heart.
She set her teeth deep into her lip, waiting for Bellasteros to speak. Perhaps she had been a fool, to break that moment of peace, to remind him that the world outside crouched like a great hunting beast, waiting. But she would have been more foolish not to tell him the truth, to let his enemies discover it first and fill his ears with lies.
“My child,” Bellasteros stated, brittle.
“Ours,” she replied. “Ashtar’s gift.”
“Indeed?”
Nettled, she went on. “Did you think only of the spending of our passion, and not of the consequences that might well follow? Did you not once wonder what you left behind in Sabazel?”
His shoulders were shaking. With anger, she thought, and she groped for the will to hate him again.
“Did I not once wonder how much of myself I left behind?” he choked. “Of course. Of course, it would have to be, such a fruit from such a passion. And yet I had thought to wake and find it a dream.”
He was laughing, laughing in a black humor very close to despair. She frowned, cautious, her will to hate escaping her grasp once more. “Marcos,” she tried, but he was still speaking.
“All the women I have known, that I have had; the women who knelt before me, asking for my favor, and the women I have bedded to secure the land of Sardis, and the women I sought for a moment’s pleasure—what I thought then to be pleasure—but it is you who would bear my heir …” He turned back as abruptly as he had turned away. “Is it male, do you think?”
“Perhaps.” In his present mood she could no longer read him; if she could not hate him, she could at least guard he tongue.
But still he shook his head, his laughter quieting itself to wry chuckle. “Gods! I am a toy, an object of jest, a piece on game board. Every time I think I have checked my opponent I discover that it is you, Danica, you who have checked me.”
“I am not your opponent. I am also a piece on the board.”
He at last regained his breath and his sobriety. His hand rose tentatively, moved to her cloak, opened it so that the curve of her belly was a smooth mound rounded by the starlight. His fingertips barely brushed the fabric of her clothing, stroking her, patting her like a sculptor shaping his creation. And the child moved again to his touch, gently now, flexing its tiny body as if drawing strength from its father’ care.
“Gods,” Bellasteros muttered. His gaze moved upward to Danica’s face. “No, you are not my opponent. But such an ally … I am indeed a child, thinking that a shining toy of weapon will end the game, not realizing that the game goes on and on.”
She was tired. She was sustained only by the power of the goddess that sang in her veins. How much more? she wondered. How much more desire and pain, fear and love? She closed her eyes and sighed. “We are caught. We have the favor of the gods, but it is ourselves who must play out the game. And Marcos …”
Her lashes parted. His face was close to hers, his breath caress on her cheek. His expression was not, after all, unreadable. “Yes,” he said, when she did not speak.
“It is a game that cannot be won. Compromise, only compromise.”
He lay beside her, spreading his cloak over them both. His hand still cradled the child. She let him settle her head on his shoulder in a protective gesture that only a few hours ago they would both have thought ludicrous. His face in the last red glow of the fire was suddenly gaunt and tight, careworn, but the humor still flared deep in his eyes. “This child,” he murmured, “like his father of uncertain lineage. Poor bastard …”
She smiled, closing her eyes again; sleep ebbed around her, and she let herself float away on its swell. She did not have to will herself to love him, she thought. She had only to keep herself from speaking. The morning would come soon; there had been compromises enough for one night. But no bitterness lingered in her mouth, and his warmth against her was an inexpressible solace. He shared her pain. It was a tiny shred of victory, but it would suffice.
For a time Bellasteros lay awake, watching the night turn above the valley, watching Danica as she slept so trustingly in his arms. His face was bewildered, almost hurt; he touched her lips with his fingertips as if she were some exotic artifact.
Then his expression smoothed, and his mouth set itself with courage, and he, too, slept.
*
The morning came soon. They sat munching a tasteless meal, regarding the ashes of the fire, not each other. The tree sighed, rippling in sorrow beneath a sky misted with steel-gray. Already the enchanted valley turned them away.
“You will ride with me against the Empire?” Bellasteros asked.
“I will throw my Companions onto the board,” replied Danica, “for Sabazel, not for Sardis.”
“Although I am Sardis?”
“Are you indeed? How much Sardian blood, then, flows in your veins?”
He glanced at her reprovingly. “Not a fair blow, my lady.”
“No. Forgive me.” She tried to smile at him, but the smile withered.
After a time Bellasteros said, “It would be better if you waited a day or so to follow me to the main encampment. And I would not think it wise to set up your own camp within my walls …”
“No,” said Danica. “Not wise at all.”
They cleared away the camp, armed themselves, and allowed themselves one moment’s look, one moment to wonder if the night’s affection lingered into the chill light of morning. Yes, it did, but it was a furtive, frightened affection, trammeled by the demands of the living world. Quickly they looked away.
They bore their weapons back over the rim of the world. No creatures, living or dead, impeded them. They walked stubbornly forward, side by side, but they might as well have been on opposite sides of the Great Sea. And yet there remained the memory of trust; a few times, a very few times, they recognized each other’s presence and exchanged a brief nod. Meager reassurance, but enough.
They returned through a cold, empty land to the ruined village and the separate armed camps of their followers.
Atalia was the first to see them. She rode out to meet them, casting at Bellasteros a stern look that she obviously wished had been a javelin. She pried Danica from his side and set her upon her own horse. “So much for that,” she said, and led her queen away.
Danica, drooping over the horse’s neck in a weariness she could not conceal, had time for one last glance at Bellasteros. This man, she told herself, held her fate in his hands. He held her death, and she trusted him. She was a weak and foolish mortal, suffering some delirious dream of godlike power.
He drew Solifrax, thrusting it upward in a flash of captured sunlight, saluting her, hail and farewell. Then his own soldiers came rushing to his side, clamoring to see the sword, standing open-mouthed in awe of it, and smoothly he directed the salute to them.
She turned away. Tears stung her eyes and she strangled them.
The stocky soldier Hern led his king to his tent, brought food and water, removed his boots. He then took up his post before the doorway, his suspicious eyes never leaving the distant shapes of the Sabazian camp.
The fair soldier Aveyron crouched at Bellasteros’s feet, warily watching a quiescent Solifrax while the king looked through the accumulated dispatches from the main encampment by the Royal Road. The legionaries toiled at make-work tasks, awaiting their king’s return. The scouts of the two armies skirmished bloodily. A raiding party was repulsed, and a caravan of supplies was reported close at hand …
At last Aveyron reached into his tunic and pulled out one more scrap of parchment. Bellasteros, recognizing Patros’s handwriting, took the letter quickly. “To be delivered into my hand only?” he asked. The young man nodded.
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The message was a terse, hurried one:
Mardoc and Adrastes Falco correspond secretly; the priest arrives here with the supply train in two days.
“By the blood of the falcon,” Bellasteros spat between his teeth. “I had expected something of this. No more do I choose my enemies; they name themselves.” He tossed the paper into the embers of a nearby brazier. The sudden flame was only a feeble reflection of the flame in his eyes.
Danica was fed, bathed, massaged by Shandir’s gentle hands. She thought no longer but submitted meekly to the weariness lapping her mind. Ilanit sat by her bed and burnished the star-shield, round and round, until sparks snapped in the dimness of the tent. The sparks were the droplets of the stream, the seeds of the fruit they had shared, blossoms in midwinter, in mind-winter … Danica fell into dreamless sleep, knowing nothing, her senses still.
Atalia stood guard outside, her eyes never leaving the distant shapes of the Sardian camp.
Chapter Ten
The word was passed, from scout to sentry to page, up the flagstone curves of the Royal Road to the hilltop encampment of the Sardians. Patros received the message just as he unrolled yet another untrustworthy imperial map; he released it with an exasperated gesture and the parchment, with many protesting crackles, rolled back up. For a few minutes he cursed, calling on half the deities of the known world and a good proportion of the devils, but he took care to curse under his breath. Then he straightened his back and threw his cloak ceremonially over one shoulder.
Patros found Mardoc organizing an honor guard of soldiers just beyond the gate in the embankment that encircled the camp. The general’s seamed face was set tightly in a grimace he probably took to be a smile. It had been a long time since he had smiled; perhaps he had forgotten how. Patros bowed respectfully and Mardoc acknowledged his presence with a curt nod. The young man stationed himself a pace behind the general.
The horses and ox-pulled carts of the caravan appeared one by one, inexorably, on the horizon where the road crested a low ridge. They plodded down the near side, a thin pall of dust wavering about them, and passed the stark mud-brick walls of an abandoned caravanserai that now supported a tattered collection of huts. Curious faces peered from the ragged doorways. Beyond the ridge the eastern sky filled with hillocks of leaden cloud whose darkness was in no way lightened by the rays of the westering sun.
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