The men around the fire sang ballad after ballad. At last the fire sank down and was covered, and the men, in groups of two or three or four against the cold, settled down into their blankets. Bard went quietly to the tent shared by the women and now by the wounded laranzu.
“How does Master Gareth?” he asked, stooping close to the entrance.
“The wound is greatly inflamed, but he is sleeping,” Mirella whispered, kneeling at the doorway. “I thank you for inquiring.”
“Is Melora within?”
Mirella looked up at him, her eyes wide and serious, and suddenly he knew that Melora had confided in her—or had the younger girl read Melora’s mind and her thoughts?
“She is sleeping, sir.” Mirella hesitated, then said in a rush, “She cried herself to sleep, Bard.” Their eyes met, with sympathy and warmth. She touched his hand, lightly. He found that he spoke through a lump in his throat.
“Good night, Mirella.”
“Good night, my friend,” she said softly, and he knew that she did not lightly use the word. Filled with a strange mixture of bitterness and warmth, he strode away, back to the dying campfire and the darkened half-tent he shared with Beltran. In silence, he drew off boots, sword belt, unstrapped the dagger at his waist.
“You are bredin to a Dry-town bandit, Bard.” Beltran laughed in the darkness. “For you have exchanged daggers, one for the other. . . .”
Bard hefted the dagger in his hand. “I doubt I shall ever fight with it, for it is too light for my hand,” be said, “but it is marvelously ornamental, worked with copper and gems, and it is a legitimate prize of war; so I will wear it upon great occasions, and excite the envy of all.” He slid the weapon under the flap of the tarpaulin. “Poor devil, he lies colder than we do tonight.”
They stretched out, side by side. Bard’s thoughts were with the woman who cried herself to sleep, across the camp. He had drunk enough to blur the worst of the pain, but not all.
Beltran said into the darkness, “I was not as much afraid as I thought I would be. Now it is over, it does not seem so frightening. . . .”
“It never does,” Bard said. “Afterward it is simple—even exhilarating—and all you want is a drink, or a woman, or both. . . .”
“Not I,” Beltran said. “I think a woman would sicken me at this point; I would rather drink with my comrades. What have women to do with war?”
“Ah, well, you’re still young,” Bard said affectionately, and his hand closed over his foster brother’s. Not knowing whether it was his own thought or Beltran’s, a vagrant thought floated across his mind, I wish Geremy were with us. . . . He remembered, at the edge of sleep, nights when all three of them had slept together like this, on hunting trips, fire-watch; fumbled, childish experimentation in the dark; memories pleasant, kindly, soothing the raw edges of his pain over Melora; he had loyal friends and comrades, foster brothers who loved him well.
At the edge of sleep, half dreaming, he felt Beltran’s body pressed tight against his, and the boy whispered, “I would—would pledge to you, too, foster brother; shall we exchange knives, too?”
Bard, shocked awake, stared and burst out laughing.
“By the Goddess!” he said coarsely, “you are younger than I thought, Beltran! Do you still think I am boy enough to take my pleasure with boys? Or do you think because you are Carlina’s brother I will take you for her?” He could not stop laughing. “Well, well, who would have thought it—that Geremy Hastur is still young enough to take field-license with his playmates!” The word he used was a coarser one, army gutter slang, and he heard Beltran’s choked cry of shame and shock in the darkness. “Well, whatever Geremy may choose to do, Beltran, I am not fond of such childish games. Can’t you behave like a man?”
Even in the dark he could see that Beltran’s face was flooded with angry color. The boy choked, half crying, and sat up. He said, through a sob of rage, “Damn you, you whoreson bastard! I swear, I will kill you for that, Bard—”
“What, from love to hatred so quickly?” mocked Bard. “You are still drunk, bredillu. Come, little brother, it’s only a game, you’ll outgrow it someday. Lie down and go back to sleep now, and don’t be silly.” He spoke kindly, now that his first shock was past. “It’s all right.”
But Beltran was sitting bolt upright in the darkness, his whole body stiff with rage. He said between his teeth, “You taunt me, you—! Bard mac Fianna, I swear to you, roses will grow us Zandru’s ninth hell before you take Carlina to bed!” He got up and strode away, snatching up his boots and thrusting his feet into them; and Bard, shocked, sat staring after him.
He knew, sobered as if by a dash of the still-falling snow, that he had made a grave mistake. He should have remembered how young Beltran really was, and refused him more gently. What the boy wanted, no doubt, was only affection and closeness; as Bard himself had wanted. He need not have taunted the youngster’s manhood. He felt a sudden impulse to scramble up and run after his foster brother, apologize for mocking him, make up the quarrel.
But the memory of the insult Beltran had flung held him motionless. He called me whoreson, Bard mac Fianna, not di Asturien as is my right now. Although down deep he knew that Beltran had simply spoken the first insult that came into his head, the truth of it hurt beyond enduring. Angrily, gritting his teeth, he lay down again. Let Prince Beltran sleep in the wagons, or among the horses, for all he cared!
CHAPTER FIVE
At midwinter-night, Ardrin of Asturias celebrated his victory over the Duke of Hammerfell.
The winter was unusually mild, and folk came from far and wide. The son of the duke was there; Lord Hammerfell had sent him to be fostered at the court of Asturias—so it was said. They all knew, as the boy himself knew, that he was a hostage for peace between Hammerfell and Asturias. Nevertheless, King Ardrin, who was a kindly man, introduced the boy as his fosterling, and it was obvious that he was being well treated and given the best of everything, from tutors and governesses to lessons in swordplay and languages, the proper education for a prince. The same education, Bard thought, looking at the child in his elaborate festival clothing, that he himself had had, at the side of Geremy Hastur and Prince Beltran.
“Still,” Carlina said, “I feel sorry for the child, sent so young away from his home. You were older, Bard. You were turned twelve, and already as tall as a man. How old is young Garris—eight, or is it nine?”
“Eight, I think,” Bard said, thinking that his own father could have come, or could, if he wished, have sent his young legitimate son Alaric. He could not count bad weather an excuse, and Alaric was old enough to be sent for fostering.
“Would you like to dance again, Carlina?”
“Not yet, I think,” she said, fanning herself. She wore a green gown, just a little less elaborate than the one she had worn at midsummer to their handfasting; he felt that the color did not suit her, making her look pale and sallow.
Geremy came toward them and said, “Carlie, you have not yet danced with me. Come now, Bard, you’ve had your share, and Ginevra is not here. She has gone to stay with her mother for the holiday, and I am not sure she will come back. Her mother has quarreled with Queen Ariel—”
“For shame on you for gossiping, Geremy!” Carlina struck him playfully with her fan. “I am sure that my mother and the Lady Marguerida will soon make it up, and then we shall have Ginevra back with us. Bard, go and dance with one of my mother’s ladies. You cannot stand here all night beside me! There are many ladies eager to dance with the king’s own banner bearer!”
Bard said sullenly, “Most of them don’t want to dance with me. I am too clumsy!”
“Still, we cannot spend all evening here! Go and dance with Lady Dara. She is so clumsy herself that you will be graceful as a chieri beside her, and she will never notice if you step on her feet, for she is so fat she has not been on speaking terms with her own feet twenty years. . . .”
“And you reprove me for talking gossip, Carlie?” Geremy chuckled and t
ook his foster sister’s arm. “Come and dance, breda. So already you are giving Bard orders as if he were your husband?”
“Why, he is all but so,” Carlina said, laughing. “I think we have the right to give orders to one another already!” She smiled gaily at Bard and moved away on Geremy’s arm.
Left alone, Bard did not take her advice, or go and offer himself to the ungainly Lady Dara as a partner. He went toward the buffet and poured himself a glass of wine. King Ardrin and a group of his councillors were standing there, and amiably made room for Bard to join them.
“A good festival to you, foster son.”
“And to you, kinsman,” Bard said—he called the king foster father only in private.
“I have been telling Lord Edelweiss what you told me about the folk who live near Moray’s Mill,” the King said. “It is chaos and anarchy for so many folk to live with no proper overlord. Come spring thaw, I think we must ride out and set things in order there. If every little village claims to be independent and to make its own laws, there will be borders everywhere, and a man will not be able to ride half a day without needing to cope with some new set of laws.”
“The lad has a head on his shoulders,” said Lord Edelweiss, a gray-haired man dressed like an elaborate fop, and behind Bard’s back, he heard the old man say, “Pity your own older son shows no such talent for strategy and war skills. Let’s hope he has some skill at statesmanship, or that boy there will have the kingdom in his hands before he’s twenty-five years old!”
King Ardrin said stiffly, “Bard is Beltran’s devoted foster brother; they are bredin. I need fear nothing for Beltran in Bard’s hands.”
Bard bit his lip, troubled. He and Beltran had been hardly on speaking terms since that battle and its aftermath; Beltran, tonight, had given him no midwinter gift, though he had meticulously sent the prince an egg from his best hunting hawk, to be hatched under a palace hen; a thoughtful gift and one that would normally have brought delighted thanks from his foster brother. In fact, it seemed that Beltran was avoiding him.
Again Bard cursed himself for his own folly in quarreling with Beltran. Raw-edged over his own frustration, the enforced separation from Melora—for he knew that she had wanted him then, as much as he wanted her—he had lashed out at Beltran because the boy was the most convenient object on which to vent his own fury. He should, instead, have taken that chance to cement his own bond with the young prince. Damn it, he missed their old closeness! Well, at least Beltran had not yet poisoned Geremy’s mind against him . . . he hoped. It was hard to tell what went on behind Geremy’s somber face, and although it might only have been that Geremy was missing his Ginevra, Bard found that hard to believe. They were not handfasted, and Ginevra was not really of sufficiently noble birth to be a proper match for the heir to Hastur of Carcosa.
Perhaps tonight he should seek out Beltran, make his apologies and explain to his foster brother why he had been so sharp with him. . . . His outraged pride cringed at that thought. But a serious and unmended quarrel with the prince could damage his own career, and if some of the king’s councillors were already wondering if Bard stood dangerously close to the throne—he was, after all, the eldest son of the king’s own brother—then he had better make sure that Beltran did not perceive him as a threat!
But before he could put his resolve into action, a voice at his shoulder said genially, “A good festival to you, dom Bard.”
Bard turned to face the elderly laranzu. “And to you, Master Gareth. Ladies,” he acknowledged, bowing to Mirella, lovely in her pale-blue gauze draperies, and to Melora, who wore a low-necked gown of green with a high collar; the dress cut as loose as a pregnant woman’s, and indeed, her heavy body made her look very much as if she were pregnant, but the color showed the high color of her clear skin, made her red hair glow.
“You are not dancing, Master Gareth?”
The old man shook his head with a rueful smile. He said, “I cannot,” and Bard saw that he leaned on a stout walking stick. “A memory, sir, of that fight with the Dry-towners.”
“Why, such a wound should be long healed,” Bard said, with concern, and he shrugged.
“I think perhaps there was poison on the dagger; had it not been diluted by many other fights, I should have lost the leg,” Master Gareth said. “It has never healed completely, and now I begin to think it never will. Even laran has not sufficed. But it does not keep me from the festival,” he said, courteously dismissing the subject.
The young son of Hammerfell’s duke came up and said shyly, “Will the Lady Mirella dance with me?”
She glanced at her guardian for permission—Mirella was too young to dance at public balls except with kinsmen—but evidently Master Gareth considered the youngster far too young to represent any threat; they were obviously children together. He gestured approval and they moved away together. The boy was not nearly as tall as Mirella, so they made a somewhat incongruous partnership.
Bard said to Melora, “Will you honor me, Melora?”
Master Gareth raised his eyebrows slightly at the informal use of her name, but she said, “Certainly,” and held out her hand. She was, Bard reflected, probably several years older than he was himself, and he was surprised that she was not yet married or pledged.
After a moment, as they danced, he put the question, and she said, “I am promised to Neskaya Tower. I dwelt at Dalereuth for a time; but they set us to making clingfire, and I feel it very strongly—that leroni should be neutral in wars. So I am bound to Neskaya, where the Keeper has pledged to neutrality in all wars among the Domains.”
“That seems to me an ill choice,” said Bard. “If we must fight, why should leroni be exempt from battle? Already they do not carry weapons, even in battle. Are they to live at peace when the rest of us must fight for our lives?”
“Someone must begin the fight for peace,” Melora said. “I have spoken with Varzil and I think him a great man.”
Bard shrugged. “A deluded idealist, no more,” he said. “They will burn the Tower of Neskaya about your heads, and go on making war as always. I only hope, Lady, that you may not share in their fall.”
“I hope so, too,” she said, and they were silent, dancing. She was singularly light on her feet, moving like a breath of air.
He said, “Dancing, you are very beautiful, Melora. How strange, when first I saw you, I did not think you beautiful at all.”
“And now that I look at you, I see you are a handsome man,” she said. “I do not know how much you have heard about leroni—I am a telepath and I do not look much at people, what their outward aspect may be. I had no idea even whether you were fair or dark, when I talked with you on campaign. And now, you are the king’s banner bearer and a handsome man and all the ladies envy me because you do not dance often with them.”
From any other woman, Bard thought, this would have sounded unendurably coy and flirtatious. Melora stated it simply, like any other fact.
They danced, silently, the old sympathy beginning to build up again between them. In an isolated corner of the room, he drew her to him and kissed her. She sighed and allowed the kiss, but then, regretfully, drew away.
“No, my dear,” she said, very gently. “Let’s not allow this to go so far that we cannot part as friends, and no more.”
“But why not, Melora? I know that you feel as I do, and now we are not hindered as we were after the battle—”
She looked straight at him. She said, “What we might have done, had occasion offered, in hot blood and after the excitement and danger of battle, is a thing apart; now, in cold blood, you know and I know that it would not be suitable. You are here with your promised wife; and the Princess Carlina has been most gracious to me. I would not step on the hem of her robe before her very eyes. Bard, you know I am right.”
He did, but in his outraged pride, he would not acknowledge it. He flung at her, wrathfully, “What man except some sandal-wearer wishes to be only friend to a woman?”
“Oh, Bard,
” she said, shaking her head, “I think you are two men! One of you is heartless and cruel, especially with women, and cares nothing how you hurt! The other is the man I have seen, the man I dearly love—even though I will not share your bed this night, nor any other,” she added firmly. “But I hope with all my heart, for Carlina’s sake that it is always this other man I know that you show to her. For that one, I shall cherish all my life.” She pressed his hand gently, turned away from him, and quickly lost herself in the crowd of dancers.
Bard, left alone, his cheeks burning with outrage, tried to follow her green-clad form through the crowds; but she had hidden herself from him as completely as if she had vanished right out of the hall. He had the faint prickling sense of laran in use and wondered if she had thrown a mantle of invisibility over herself, as he knew some leroni could do. His rage and wounded pride knew no bounds.
Fat, stupid woman, probably she had cast a glamour over him so that he wanted her, because no man before had ever done so. . . . Well, Varzil of Neskaya was welcome to her, damn him, and he hoped the Tower was burned over their heads! He went back to the buffet and wrathfully drank another glass of wine, and another, knowing that he was getting drunk, knowing King Ardrin, himself an abstemious man, would not approve.
Nor did Carlina; when she met with him again, there was gentle reproof in her voice.
“Bard, you have been drinking more than is seemly.”
“Are you going to make me a henpecked husband even before the wedding?” he snarled at her.
“Oh, my dear, don’t talk that way,” she said, flushing to the neck of her green gown. “But my father will be angry too. You know that he hates it when any of his young officers drink so much that they cannot behave in a seemly manner.”
“Have I done anything unseemly?” he demanded of her.
“No,” she admitted, smiling a little, “but promise me not to drink any more, Bard.”
Darkover: First Contact Page 29