“Have you found love with Prince Cirillo?” Cinnia said slyly.
“He is faerie. I am dragon,” Nidhug replied. “And we are speaking of you, not me, my child.”
“Is it forbidden somewhere that you cannot love one another simply because of your differences?” Cinnia asked softly.
“We take pleasures together,” Nidhug allowed.
“Is not love required for pleasures?” Cinnia probed.
“You know from your own experience that it is not,” the dragon said sharply.
“I have heard the rumors since my return. Rumors of a passion shared by both you and my husband’s uncle,” Cinnia murmured. “Are they truth?”
“We take pleasures together,” Nidhug said stubbornly.
“Dragon, answer me! Remember who I am,” Cinnia said.
“Sorceress of Belmair, remember ’tis I who have taught you what little you know,” the dragon responded. “Now let us return to your problem.”
A light knock sounded upon the privy chamber door.
“Come in!” Nidhug called. “Ah, Tavey, bless you. I am just in the mood for a light repast. What has Sarabeth sent us?” The dragon viewed the tray eagerly. “Meat pies! A roasted duck! Fruit jellies and a bowl of baked apples! Did you bring something for my guest, Tavey?”
“I have brought Queen Cinnia a little plate of iced cakes and camomile tea,” Tavey said with a little bow.
“The lady Sapphira, Tavey,” the dragon corrected her servant.
“If you wish, mistress,” Tavey replied.
“What do you mean, if I wish?” the dragon demanded to know.
“Mistress, I have served you several hundred years, and I believe I have come to know you well,” Tavey said. “Even if you had made your peace with the lady Sapphira you would not allow her the privilege of your privy chamber. Nor would that lady have known you well enough to instruct me to bring refreshment as she entered your house.”
“You’re a busybody!” Nidhug said.
“I am observant as a good servant should be,” Tavey said with a small smile. “And I understand the king’s need for secrecy, given the narrow minds in Belmair.”
“You are not repelled by me?” Cinnia asked him.
“I see nothing repellent,” Tavey replied. “I see only my queen.”
“Thank you,” Cinnia said, and tears filled her eyes.
“I will withdraw now, and continue my duties,” Tavey told them, and departed the dragon’s privy chamber.
“You see!” Nidhug said triumphantly.
“He is your dear and loyal retainer, and has known me my whole life,” Cinnia responded. “His heart is good, but even he knows the dangerous path we travel.”
“And he will keep the secret. Cinnia, my child, aye, the path is fraught with peril, but believe me when I tell you that there are more folk like Tavey in Belmair than there are those with closed minds. But the king is right. Now is not the time to put them to a test of faith. You are home safe. The king has played the game well with Ahura Mazda. He does not need the world to know it. He wants peace between the two races inhabiting Belmair. If Ahura Mazda will not make that peace then a new lord will be found who will. What is past cannot be changed. We must all move forward, my child.”
“You speak to me, don’t you?” Cinnia said.
“Aye, I do,” Nidhug said. “You are not impure. You never gave your heart to the Yafir lord. He took your body, but that is all he was able to take from you, Cinnia. It cannot be changed. Now you must move on. Dillon could have deserted you, left you with the Yafir, and no criticism would have been leveled at him. But he did not. He sought for you. Brought you home. Has protected you. Now give him what he needs to know that all is well again between you. Give him your heart, for you have his, my child.”
“It is so hard for me to put aside the old ways,” Cinnia replied. “I want to, but it is so very, very difficult, Nidhug.”
“I know,” the dragon agreed. “Sadly there are things that even magic cannot help, change or cure, and your dilemma is one of them. But you are strong, Cinnia, and I know you want to be happy again. You can be if you will let go of the misery surrounding you,” Nidhug said. “Each time it rises up in your memory, force it back with another and more important thought.”
“It is so difficult for me to put away the pictures in my head of taking pleasures with Ahura Mazda. He aroused me, Nidhug. I cried with the delight he gave me.”
“’Twas only your body responding to the stimulus of his passion,” Nidhug said drily. “It was nothing more, my child.”
“I feel guilt for the enjoyment I gained with him,” Cinnia answered.
“I will wager that Dillon feels no guilt for the enjoyment he gained from Sapphira’s ripe body,” Nidhug said wickedly. “And do not, my dear child, tell me that because he was a man it was his right but that you must suffer. Or worse yet that women should only enjoy pleasures with their husbands.” The dragon made a moue with her mouth and gave a delicate shudder.
“That is the kind of talk that got the Hetarians banished,” Cinnia half teased.
“Well,” the dragon huffed as she popped a meat pie into her mouth, “I am the Great Dragon of Belmair, and I cannot be banished.” Reaching for the duck, she tore it in two and ate half. “Delicious! Sarabeth always flavors her duck with orange and plum.” Nidhug smacked her lips, and quickly devoured the other half of the bird.
Cinnia reached for one of the little pink iced cakes and took a bite. Then she sipped at the camomile tea, which had been flavored with honey, and was very soothing. “I suppose since there is really nothing I can do to change any of this I had best accept it, and as you have advised me, move on with my life. But I really do hate being called Sapphira,” Cinnia said.
“Before they rescued you, we discussed how you might change your name,” Nidhug said. “Just before Sapphira weds the king have her publicly announce she is honoring her predecessor by changing her name to Cinnia Sapphira. It will be considered a grand gesture worthy of a queen, and if Dillon calls you Cinnia in public no one will be the wiser. And by retaining the name that Tullio’s family gave Sapphira you will not give rise to any suspicions.”
“Convince Dillon to have a small wedding,” Cinnia said.
“Nay, you must have a great celebration in the spring, once the winter has left the land,” Nidhug said. “It would be very much out of character for Sapphira to want a small, discreet affair. She will want to trumpet her triumph throughout all of Belmair.” The dragon reached for the remaining meat pie of the half dozen Tavey had brought her.
“I cannot go about being this woman for the rest of my life,” Cinnia complained.
“You must be her until the wedding. Afterward your change in character will be put down to your happiness,” the dragon advised. She drained her goblet and licked the last crumb of meat pie from her lips.
“The spring is coming,” Cinnia said. “Dillon and I rode out today, and the snows are gone from the hills. We argued, and he rode off.”
“He’ll be home for dinner,” Nidhug said with a chuckle. “They always come home for dinner.”
“Does Cirillo?” Cinnia asked mischievously.
“I would not miss a meal at my beautiful dragon’s board,” Cirillo said as he came without knocking into the room. He took Nidhug’s claw up and kissed it tenderly.
“You are outrageously handsome, Uncle,” Cinnia told the faerie.
“Do not tell him that!” the dragon crie
d. “He is vain enough as it is, my child.”
But her beautiful eyes were devouring him as she spoke, and the looks he cast at her were just as heated and all encompassing.
“I suppose I had best go home,” Cinnia said, but neither of them seemed to notice her at all, and so she departed Nidhug’s privy chamber. In the corridor she met Tavey. “Will you have someone bring my horse back to its stable? I think I shall walk home through our gardens.”
“At once, my lady,” Tavey said, mindful of the other servants bustling about.
Cinnia let herself out through a small door that opened directly into the shared gardens between the two castles. The air was still, and it was quiet. Here and there she noticed that green shoots were making their way through the soil. It all looked dead for the most part, but Cinnia knew within a very few weeks the gardens would be lush and green; that beneath the soil lurked pulsing life in a rainbow of dazzling colors. She had missed this most of all while confined in Yafirdom. From what she had been told of Sapphira she doubted very much that her little garden would be tended.
But it didn’t matter now, and she had to put her sojourn from her conscious thoughts. She had to start living her life once again. She had a man who loved her enough to defy everything in order to restore her to his arms. And she had treated him so badly these past weeks, Cinnia thought. Still he had been patient until today when he had ridden off in anger. Well, she would make it right with him tonight, she decided with a smile. The truth was when she thought about it she had missed taking pleasures.
“Where have you been?” he asked her curtly as she came into their little family hall. “I was worried.”
She went to him and kissed his lips softly. “I was with Nidhug,” she told him.
His arms went about her. “I missed you,” he said, his eyes scanning her face.
“’Twas you, my lord, and not I, who rode away in a temper,” she reminded him.
“You can sometimes be a difficult woman,” he replied. Reaching out, he ran the back of his hand down her cheek.
Cinnia swallowed hard. “It is difficult,” she whispered low, “but I am trying. And I believe we must begin preparing for our wedding, my lord.”
The joyful light that sprang into his eyes almost brought him to tears. “I will do whatever you want!” he told her.
Cinnia smiled, tears pricking at her own eyelids. “Sapphira of Beldane would want a lavish wedding,” she said softly so no other could hear. “It would be out of keeping for it to be any less than grand, my lord. It has not been easy being this woman, but before her happiness turns her into a gentler lady more in keeping with the true Cinnia, she will have her magnificent wedding.”
“You are clever, my sorceress,” he murmured against her mouth, and he kissed her—a slow, deep kiss that set her heart racing.
“Hush, my lord,” she cautioned him. “Do not in your happiness reveal the truth.”
“And this time all those I love will surround us,” Dillon said. “Belmair’s nobility will see a gathering of magical folk such as it has never before seen.”
Cinnia laughed aloud. “They will be both fascinated and repelled at the same time, but it is unlikely anyone asked will refuse to attend. Poor Dreng. He will be so disappointed that your bride is not one of his kin.”
“He knew he had lost that opportunity the moment he saw Sapphira,” Dillon replied wisely. “Still, he is certain to take credit for my giving up Cinnia, and pressing me to take a new wife.” Dillon chuckled. “If he only knew, my love. If he only knew.”
But of course Dreng of Beltran did not know, and while as predicted he was chagrined by Dillon’s choice, he was nonetheless relieved the king had finally made it.
Chapter 15
AHURA MAZDA DEBATED on whether he should tell his pregnant youngest wife that her rival would soon be marrying King Dillon of Belmair. But finally the streak of cruelty in him that he could never suppress brought him to taunt her one day when she had been particularly difficult with his other women and the servants.
“Dillon of Belmair is well rid of you,” he told her, sneering. “’Tis to be hoped you can birth me a daughter instead of another son. It took you long enough to get with child. Let us hope Sapphira will prove more fertile when she marries the king next month.”
Arlais and Minau looked up, surprised by their husband’s words.
“Dillon is marrying Sapphira?” the false Cinnia said in a cold and deadly voice.
“Aye,” Ahura Mazda said. “It is to be the finest, grandest wedding ever seen in Belmair. The king’s mother, stepfather, his siblings and the Shadow Prince are all coming. And the faerie prince has convinced his own mother to attend. Belmair’s nobility are all agog, and the royal castle will be filled to overflowing with all the guests.”
Sapphira was speechless with her outrage.
“I am told the king’s sisters are very beautiful. Perhaps I shall steal one of them, and take a seventh wife,” Ahura Mazda continued.
“There are seven days in the week,” Arlais murmured drily.
The Yafir lord laughed, giving her a wicked wink.
“Take another woman into this house,” the false Cinnia said angrily, “and you will never enter my bed again! I should sooner end up in the Mating Market than share you with another, my lord.”
“Give me a son, you little witch, and you will,” he threatened her.
Reaching out she grabbed a small brass bowl and threw it at him before bursting into tears. “Oh, how could you be so cruel to me?” she sobbed, her hands going to her distended belly as if she were protecting it and the child within.
At once the other women gathered about her, stroking her, comforting her. Arlais gave their husband an arch look that warned him to cease his torture of his youngest wife.
But then the tears stopped, and the false Cinnia said, “Tell me what you have heard about the wedding. I want to know everything.”
“Will it not upset you?” Minau asked. “You do not want to compare it to your own wedding to King Dillon, which must have been wonderful.”
“It was hurried, in the presence of the dying Fflergant…my father…and there was nothing magnificent about it. And here again I am a wife without any celebration,” she complained bitterly.
“Ceremony is not necessary among us,” Ahura Mazda said. “It is enough that I said I took you for my wife. That is how it is among the Yafir.”
“Well, there should be more, and believe you me if I give you a daughter there will be! No one is going to tell my child that she is a wife because they said so,” the false Cinnia declared. “There is nothing wrong with a little pomp, my lord.”
“Pomp,” he sneered. “How very Belmairan you are, my precious.”
“I did not ask you to steal me away,” she cried angrily at him.
“I took you to spite Dillon of the Shadows,” he replied with brutal frankness. “That idealistic young fool with his bleating for peace! Does he believe that he can wipe away centuries of intolerance and injustice by merely holding out a hand in supposed friendship? I will never make peace with Belmair. Never!”
“I think you are wrong, my lord,” Arlais said quietly.
He rounded on her furiously. “You dare to question my decisions, woman?”
“Nay, my lord, you misunderstand me,” Arlais responded, not in the least intimidated by her husband. “But it grows more difficult to maintain our bubbles as each year passes. And our bu
bbles are overcrowded, and we have not the abilities now to enlarge them or build more. Yafir magic has weakened because of the Belmairan blood running through the veins of our children.
“And the Belmairans’ population has declined with the loss of their women of childbearing age. We could help each other, and there is more than enough land for all. King Dillon holds out the hand of friendship to the Yafir. Why do you slap it away, my good lord? Will you not at least speak with him?” Arlais asked quietly.
“I know the problems we face,” he told her. “But soon we shall be able to take Belmair for ourselves. We will not have to share it. We will drive the remaining Belmairans either into the sea, or to Hetar. I don’t care. Be patient, wife. It will eventually all be ours.”
Arlais said nothing more. Her husband was wrong. The dragon had brought Dillon to Belmair for a purpose. And that purpose was not to lose Belmair to the Yafir. Sadly, Ahura Mazda’s hatred of the Belmairans was such that he could see nothing but his own desires and plans for revenge. King Dillon, however, having decided to bring the Yafir back into Belmair’s society, would not be deterred. Arlais decided to speak with her eldest sons, Behrooz and Sohrab, about the situation. It was time that the other Yafir were asked their opinions about a possible peace and her two eldest sons were the men to do it. Both were respected by their fellow Yafir, and neither sought their father’s high office, but if it became necessary to replace him, Behrooz and Sohrab would not quarrel over the position. Knowing her sons Arlais knew they would probably play a game of chance, the winner taking all. And they would ask their youngest brother, Nasim, to referee. Nasim was considered a great artist by the Yafir. Politics was the furthest thing from his mind. Arlais felt no guilt over what she proposed doing. She was the first wife, and she had loved her Yafir lord for centuries. She wanted what was best for him. For their people. And she would protect their household. If Cinnia would only give Ahura Mazda the daughter he so desired it would be possible to divert him.
The Sorceress of Belmair Page 39