“He's not going to be pleased that we found no priest on the island,” Gilly stated.
“Why can't His Worship perform the Joining?” Traer asked.
Gilly shook her head. “He will not. We have asked him. I believe it has something to do with him not wanting the Tribunal to know he sanctioned our Joining.” She looked out over the waves. “It would not be safe for him."
“Well, don't worry about it, milady. They'll fetch one to you as soon as they can,” Traer replied.
“I hate to wait,” Gilly said dejectedly. “Anything could happen."
“Why don't you just get the Cap'n to marry you?” Taylor spoke up.
Traer's face lit up. “Of course!” He slapped his leg. “Why didn't any of us think of that before?"
“Nick?” Gilly questioned. “How can he marry us?"
“Maritime Law!” Traer replied. “On the High Seas, a captain is like a magistrate. He can marry the two of you and it's as legal as a Joining by a priest."
“And when we bring you back a priest from over Oceania way,” Taylor put in, “the Joining can be re-done and there ain't a blasted thing the Tribunal of any country can do about it!"
Gilly's eyes filled with tears. She had thought herself Joined to Kaelan Hesar from that very first night, having no way of knowing that the Viragonian King had married her by proxy in absentia to the dreadful Rolf de Viennes. Once she found that out, she had been terrified the pompous libertine would come for her some day, to make good on their Joining. Occultus had assured her no such thing would ever happen, but Gilly hadn't wanted to take any chances. She had been counting on there being a priest on Montyne Cay, and when she had found out that the priesthood had been banned from the colony back in the time of the Outlaw, she had been sorely disappointed. The thought of losing Kaelan because of a lack of a Joining Seal had worried her greatly. But if Nick could marry them....
“We'll have a grand party of it,” Traer was saying. “Won't we, men?"
Tyler and Taylor bobbed their heads in unison.
“Joined,” Gilly said wistfully. “I'm going to be Joined.” Her face took on a defiant light. “And this time, it will be gods-be-damned legal!"
* * * *
This time around, it was Nick who performed the Joining ceremony. Thècion was the best man and, much to his chagrin, poor Diarmuid had been commandeered as the maid of honor.
* * * *
Quinn could barely tolerate the noise coming from above deck as he lay perspiring in Nick's bunk. The tropical weather was especially humid this eve and with all the commotion going on above him, he was unable to slip into sleep to relieve the heat on his face and the pain on his back. He turned his head so he could blot the sweat on his forehead on the damp pillow. He laid like that for a moment, staring at the sheet beneath him.
The shrill of a pipe and the bang of a drum served to irritate him further, but when the stamping feet began right over his head, jarring the cabin wall, he wished he had the ability to pull the pillow over his head and blot out the merry sounds.
Quinn Arbra was a very intelligent man. He had been born of royalty and had married into royalty. He had attended the Wind Warrior's school on Ionary, where he had been raised, although born at Holy Dale as all his mother's people had been since the Outlaw's time, and had graduated at the top of his class. He had taken his vows to the Wind Temple at the appropriate age, but had not gone away to the Temple in Corinth, in Serenia, for the special training those young men who would one day become the rulers of their kingdoms had had to do. He was well-versed in poetry and the celebrated books of the world. He had a keen, analytical mind and was especially good at trading. His father had sent him to Rysalia, to the Court of Halim Ben-Alkazar, to purchase a fine Rysalian stallion, and it was there he had met Nialah, a cousin of the Rysalian King, and fallen deeply in love.
Having no objection to the match, both Quinn's father and Nailah's had sanctioned the Joining and given the young couple their blessings.
But Nailah's brother, Xavier, had been another situation altogether.
Xavier Rahshobi had been vehemently against Quinn's marriage. If truth were told, the Rysalian knight would have preferred to make the beautiful eighteen year old beauty his own wife. That there was something unnatural about the way Xavier looked at his sister, even a blind man could see; you could feel the perverted vibrations quivering on the air whenever he spoke to the girl. But no one in the family thought too much of it. After all, Xavier loved Nailah and wanted only the best for her.
From the moment Quinn had been introduced to the petite woman, he had known he would have to have her or never marry at all. She had looked at him with doe-like brown eyes and he was lost.
“You have done well for yourself, Quinton,” his grandmother had stated, giving her own blessing. She had honored the union by making the trek to Rysalia, herself.
Quinn could not believe his good fortune. The entire family loved Nailah from the very start and as he waltzed with his intended at their engagement supper, his feet had barely touched the mahogany floorboards. He had been deliriously happy until the moment Xavier had broken in to take Nailah away from him.
“It is not proper to look upon a young girl of the royal house of Ben-Alkazar with such vile purpose” Xavier had hissed as he took his sister tightly in his arms.
“He is my betrothed, Xavier,” Nailah had protested.
“I have not agreed to that!” the Rysalian knight has snarled. “He is a Ionarian. You should be betrothed to your own kind."
Quinn's fury had come at him like molten lava and he would have snatched Nailah out of her brother's arms had it not caused a scene. “I have her father's permission,” he grated, “as well as her King's. We do not need yours!"
Xavier had turned venomous eyes to Quinn. There had been the promise of retaliation in that searing look and Quinn wondered if the man would call him out. He had almost hoped he would, for Quinn justifiably knew there was no greater swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms than he, himself.
But Xavier, too, had known that and the man was not a fool. He had merely grunted away Quinn's words and swung his sister out onto the floor, monopolizing her for three dances before their own father butted in and returned Nailah to Quinn.
Mercifully, Xavier had taken himself away from court that night and had not come to the Joining two months later. Quinn, unbelievably happy with his bride, had hoped the knight would stay away forever from Resuello, the manor house given to Nailah and Quinn upon their Joining; but once news had been sent to the Court at Asaraba that Nailah was with child, Xavier had shown up in a drunken stupor, enraged that his beloved Nailah had been violated.
“She is my wife!” Quinn had thundered at the accusation that he had forced himself upon a defenseless woman.
“You are an infidel!” Xavier had thrown at him. “Not fit to wipe the mud from her slippers! And now you have soiled her for all time!"
The man's words were insane, mindboggling, and Quinn had ordered Xavier Rahshobi from his home. They had fought brutally, but a lucky punch had spun Quinn around so hard he had collided with a marble column. The impact had bounced him back and before he could react, Xavier had hit him over the head with an iron sculpture, sending Quinn to the floor unconscious. When he came to, Nailah was lying beside him in a pool of blood, her skull caved in from a fall from the balcony above him.
Quinn had roared with desperation and had lifted his wife into his arms, stumbled out into the storm. He had carried her all the way to the village, kicking savagely at the Healer's door; until the man's wife had opened the portal to him. There was nothing to be done for the dead woman so the Healer had sent for the casket maker to come to the house. Quinn had gone berserk with his grief and would not let the undertaker near his beloved wife. It had finally taken the constable and two of his deputies to pull Quinn away so the body could be taken care of.
It was later the next morning that the Tribunal Guard had come for Quinn with a warrant for his arr
est.
“What did he do?” the constable inquired having sat with the grieving man all night as he sobbed out his sorrow. “It was an accident. The mistress fell."
“She was pushed!” the Tribunal Sergeant declared. “We have a sworn statement to that effect by an eyewitness to the deed."
Quinn had not cared what happened to him. He had not resisted the manacles that had been snapped into place around his wrists. Inside, he was as dead and as cold as his lost wife. He had uttered no word in his own defense at his trial. He had listened to Xavier's accusations and lies and had calmly accepted the verdict that was handed down. None of his family—grandmother or sister—had come to the trial so no one who knew him well had been there to tell the court that his silence was unnatural. That the blank look in his eyes was a quiet insanity that had him fiercely in its grip.
It was not until he came to himself on the prison ship Vortex that he began to fight the injustice that had been done him. By then, it was too late.
But he had escaped.
And he had been caught; taken back to Ionary where Xavier, himself, had watched as Quinn was strung up in the Tribunal Square and whipped until his back was a tattered ruin.
“You will rue the day you ever put hands to my sain'ted Nailah” Xavier had sworn.
A loud crash overhead brought Quinn back to the here and now. He squeezed his eyes shut as feminine laughter rang out. There was only one woman on board the Revenant and tonight was her Joining night.
“Why?” he asked the gods who had long ago abandoned him. “Why did she have to belong to another man?"
When he had been told that Gilly would be Joining with Kaelan Hesar that evening, Quinn had been inconsolable. It was almost like losing Nailah all over again. Not that the two women looked anything alike, but there was the same glow, the same demure fire, the same wondrous quality. He wondered idly if Gilly were a Daughter of the Multitude and decided she probably was since most women of the noble classes were.
Lying there, the pain in his back nowhere near the stubborn pain in his heart. Quinn felt the wicked betrayal of tears easing down his cheeks.
“I fought a man who wanted to take my woman away from me,” Hesar had told him.
Aye, Quinn thought, she was worth fighting over. He, himself, would gladly lay hand to sword to have her. She had saved his life and his life was hers to do with as she pleased. Whatever she asked of him, he would move heaven and hell to do. Whatever he had was hers. It was the custom of the Chrystallusian that a life saved was a life owed. She might belong to another man, but Quinn Arbra made a solemn vow that night to be her sworn protector for as long as he lived and, if he could, to provide for her even after his death.
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Chapter Seven
Diarmuid Brell was duly impressed. As he lazed in his hammock, coconut shell filled with mango wine in his hand, he watched the sword lesson taking place on the beach and
mentally applauded the teacher.
Quinn Arbra was a swordsman of the first rank. The man was lightning quick, deadly accurate, and his footwork was dizzying. Even barefoot in the dense sand, the man was a marvel to behold as he lunged and parried. His riposte was a thing of beauty.
“Touché!” Diarmuid called out, slapping his free hand against the coconut shell in applause. “I couldn't have done it better, Arbra!"
“You can't touch his expertise, Dear Mutt,” Thècion drawled. The Serenian prince was leaning back against the base of a swaying palm, his legs crossed.
“I am a swordsman of note, Thècion,” Diarmuid snapped.
“Aye, but you are not in Quinn's league,” Thècion reminded his friend.
Diarmuid sniffed, but he knew Thècion was right. Few men were as good as Quinn and from the looks of Arbra's opponent, Kaelan Hesar had just discovered it as well.
“You're not bad,” Quinn commented, “though you still aren't quick enough."
“I'm out of practice,” Kaelan grated out through clenched teeth.
“So am I,” Quinn chuckled. He flexed his blade, then walked over to take up its scabbard.
“Who taught you to fight?” Kaelan asked. He, too, was re-sheathing his weapon.
“My fencing master was an exiled Hasdu sheik. His name was...."
“Vashir,” Kaelan finished. A spark of challenge entered his steady gaze. “I trained under him, too."
Quinn's mouth dropped open. “And you can't fight any better than you did?” he queried.
Kaelan glared at the other man. “I said I was out of practice.” His mouth twisted. “Not only with the sword, but also in the ability to move without the impediment of a crippled limb."
Quinn accepted that explanation. He had been told of the circumstance behind Hesar's being an exile. What he would not accept was the man using his old injury as an excuse not to fight any better than he had. “Then I suggest you practice until you can hold your own with me,” he declared.
“Hold my own?” Kaelan saw red. To his way of thinking, he had held his own. Before he knew what he was doing, he was dragging his sword out of the sheath and backing away.
Quinn understood the challenge. He unsheathed his own weapon and brought it up.
“No more today!” Occultus called out.
“We have unfinished business!” Kaelan disagreed.
“No more!” The unmistakable warning in the priest's voice was there for the dullest man to hear.
Kaelan scowled, but lowered his blade; Quinn did the same. Now that the ransom had come from the Tribunal for Occultus’ safe return, the sorcerer would be leaving on the Lady Morgaine, another pirate ship, on the evening tide and he had demanded a moment of time with Kaelan and Quinn together.
“Another time,” Kaelan snapped as he turned away from Quinn.
“Any time, Stormy,” Quinn returned, grinning as Kaelan scowled at the nickname.
Occultus watched the two men striding angrily up the beach toward him. He looked first at Kaelan, the dark one, then to Quinn, the fair, and thought they were both extraordinarily handsome men. Kaelan's eyes were tawny-brown; Quinn's eyes were a pale sky-blue. Of an identical height and weight and breadth of shoulder, both strutted when they walked: a sign of supreme assurance in their own abilities if not arrogance in their appeal. Both were very smart men, good warriors, dedicated to helping those who could not help themselves. They were extremely knowledgeable about horseflesh and were expert riders. Each was more than efficient with a blade and equal when it came to shooting a crossbow. Under other circumstances, they would have become fast friends. Instead, they were fast becoming mortal enemies.
And that, Occultus could not allow.
“Come inside,” the priest demanded as the men joined him. He turned, his tall, lean frame perfectly straight, and walked toward the house.
“I never thought I'd take orders from a priest of the Brotherhood,” Kaelan quipped.
“At least we agree on one thing,” Quinn grunted. “I could never imagine myself doing it, either."
Occultus was seated on a cushion in the center of the room he had commandeered as his study. The room was bare except for a stack of plump cushions piled near the door and two brazier that were lit at all times, making the small enclosure stifling in the tropical heat.
“Sit,” Occultus commanded and waited until the two men had lowered themselves to the cushions he had provided for their use.
Quinn armed the sweat from his forehead. The room was suffocating and there was an aroma that made him a bit nauseous. He glanced over at Hesar and saw that he was also being effected by the room's heat.
“I will be leaving in a few hours,” the warriors heard Occultus say and looked at him. “But I will not go until I have assured myself there will be no death dealt here because of the woman."
Kaelan flinched.
Quinn looked down at his hands.
“It will stop,” Occultus warned.
“We haven't been fighting over Gilly,” Kaelan said.
<
br /> Occultus lifted his head and looked down his hawk-like nose at the young prince. “have you not?”
Kaelan risked a glance at Quinn, but the other man was still staring at his hands whose fingers were threaded together in his lap.
“Lord Arbra?” Occultus inquired, switching his scrutiny to the quiet man.
Quinn shrugged, but didn't look up. Didn't reply.
“Look at me,” Occultus commanded.
Arbra slowly raised his head and locked his attention on the priest. He knew what was being asked of him, but he was loath to express the way he felt. He understood that when he did, there would be more than just blatant antagonism between him and Hesar. There would be out and out war and he didn't think that would serve anyone's purpose.
“Tell him,” Occultus demanded.
A sharp frown creased Quinn's brow for he knew he'd been read as easily as an open book. He shook his head.
“Tell him!” The annoyance in the sorcerer's rebuke left no room for denial.
Kaelan sensed something was about to be said he knew he wasn't going to like. To forestall what he suspected was coming, he smiled, although the smile never reached his eyes and barely hovered on his lips before it was gone. “I think Arbra and I know what the other one..."
“TELL HIM!” Occultus bellowed, cutting Kaelan off in mid-sentence.
Quinn's head snapped toward Kaelan. “I am in love with your wife,” he said boldly. “And I aim to take her away from you."
A strangled roar of pure rage burst from Kaelan's throat and he lunged at Quinn, toppling the man sideways as he fell on him.
Occultus did not move the entire time the two warriors tumbled arse over elbow on the bare floor. He never winced at the vicious hits, the knees which drove brutally into groins or fists which broke skin and bloodied noses. Not once did he demand they stop, only using his magik to keep them from rolling into the braziers, knocking them down, and setting the room on fire.
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