Valdemar 05 - [Vows & Honor 02] - Oathbreakers

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You were doing just fine a moment ago,” she interrupted him gently, then prevented further protests by embracing him and resuming the kiss where it had been left off.

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind all in an instant, and returned her embrace with a fervor that at least equaled her own. He pulled her down beside him; she did not resist in the least, that being exactly what she wanted from him.

  For a very long time, all they did was kiss and exchange halting, hesitant caresses, almost like a pair of naive youngsters. But when she returned every tenderness with more of the same, he grew braver, daring to undo the lacings of her dress, daring to touch her with fingers that slowly grew bolder.

  He frequently stopped what he was doing for long moments, just to look at her, his eyes full of wonder, as if this was something more magical for him than all the exercising of her powers as a sorceress. As if he couldn’t believe that she was returning touch for touch and emotion for emotion. When he did that, she had to fight to keep back the tears of sympathy—the only way she could was to keep a little corner of her mind free to concentrate on the hatred she felt for the women who must have treated him with coldness or indifference, so that this experience was such an unexpected revelation for him.

  He stroked her with hands so gentle that she could hardly credit it. He was by no means the best lover she’d ever had; he was, perhaps, a little clumsy, and as he had confessed, not at all practiced—but his gentleness made up for that, and more.

  And besides, she rather figured that she had experience enough for both of them.

  When they finally joined together, it was like nothing she’d ever dreamed of, for her heart was as involved in the act as her body.

  “Kethry—” he whispered hoarsely as he started to sit up—whispering into the darkness, for the candle had long since burned out. She could hear the beginnings of an apology in his voice, and interrupted him.

  “Don’t you dare,” she replied, reaching up for him and pulling him toward her so that his head rested on her shoulder. “Don’t you dare spoil this with any of your nonsense about being old!”

  “Then I—didn’t make a fool of myself?” he asked shyly. “You don’t want me to go?”

  “You weren’t making a fool of yourself any more than I was,” she told him. “If showing how you feel is so very foolish. I don’t think it is. And no, please, don’t go. I want you to stay. I’ve had my fill of nights spent alone.”

  He sighed, and relaxed into her arms. “Kethry—I care for you, maybe more than I should.”

  She reached into the darkness, and brushed strands of damp hair from his forehead. “Don’t think you’re alone in caring more than you should.” She let him take that in for a moment, then laughed, softly. “Or did you think I was only after you for your book collection?”

  “Gods—Keth—” He who was usually so glib was once again at a loss for words, then he joined in her laughter. “No—I didn’t; Tarma, on the other hand—”

  They held each other for another long moment, until he spoke again. “Kethry, what we’ve got ahead of us—”

  “—makes promises foolish,” she interrupted him. “We’ve already made all the promises either of us dare to for now. Let’s just enjoy what times we have, and worry about staying alive, shall we?”

  “That’s probably wise,” he replied, with a reluctance that made her heart race.

  He raised himself on his elbow for a moment, and cupped her face in both hands, and kissed her—kissed her in a way that made his words about not making promises a lie.

  And eventually he fell asleep with his head cradled on her shoulder.

  Kethry held him, her heart full of song.

  Oh Windborn, this is the one, she thought, before she joined him in slumber. He‘s—he’s like something I’ve always missed, and never known I missed it until now. But nou—I could never be content with anyone but him.

  Not ever again.

  Eleven

  Kethry sighed, rose from her chair, and went once more to the window. She stood there restlessly, leaning on the sill, with her chin in her hand, watching the street below; a dark silhouette against the oranges and reds of a spectacular sunset.

  More than a hint of weariness in that sigh, Jadrek thought sympathetically, rubbing his tired eyes. Last night was yet another late night, with both of us too exhausted at the end of it to do anything other than sleep. Tonight looks to be the same. There’s never a moment to spare for simple things like food and sleep, much less anything else. I want to tell her how I feel—that I—I love her. But there never seems to be any time, much less the right time.

  He studied the way she was holding herself, the sagging shoulders, the way she kept turning her head a little to ease the stiffness he knew was in her neck because he had loosened those muscles for her far too many times of late. His own neck felt as stiff, and he felt echoes of those same aches in his own shoulders. Gods. We’re both tired, mentally and physically. She’s spent more hours cajoling stubborn, suspicious merchants than I care to think about; I’ve spent almost the same number of hours dancing around the touchy sensibilities of priests and highborn. Not the way I would have chosen to spend our time, and both of us return from meetings so—completely drained. Conspiracy is for the young. Combining it with a love affair is insanity!

  Warrl gave an amused snort from where he lay curled on his chosen spot on the hearth. :You manage well enough, wise one,: the rough voice in Jadrek’s mind said.

  That is solely, I suspect, because our opportunities have numbered far less than our wishes, Jadrek thought at him, feeeling a little more revived just by the casual contact with the kyree’s lively mind. I fear that even the supposed wisdom of accumulated years fails to keep my desire from outstripping my capabilities. The only difference between my youth and my age is that now I am not ashamed to admit the fact.

  The kyree snorted contemptuously again, but Jadrek ignored him and continued. Furthermore, I shudder to think what Tarma is likely to say about this liaison when she learns of it.

  :You know less about her than you think,: was the kyree’s enigmatic reply. Suddenly the great beast raised his head, and stared in the direction of the palace. :A message—:

  “What?” Jadrek asked aloud, as Kethry turned to look sharply at the lupine creature.

  : Tarma sends her regrets, but Char requires her presence, and she seems to think that the tran-dust he intends to abuse this evening might make him talkative. Needless to say, she does not intend to miss her opportunity.: The kyree turned warm and glowing eyes on the Archivist. :She asks me to come to the stable at dark, so that she can return here afterward without worrying about spies on her backtrail. I would suggest, given your earlier plaint about not having any time to yourselves, that you might take advantage of the occasion that has been presented to you ... unless you have other plans.:

  Jadrek nearly choked on a laugh at Kethry’s indignant blush.

  “I think we can find some way of filling in the time,” he said aloud, as she glared at both of them.

  The hour grew late; the candle burned down to a stub, and Kethry replaced it—and still no sign of Tarma. Jadrek regretted—more than once—that his ability to communicate with Warrl was sharply limited by distance.

  Kethry suddenly dropped the candle end she was about to discard, and her whole body tensed.

  “What?” Jadrek asked, anxiously, wondering if she had sensed some sort of occult probing in their direction.

  “It‘s—anger,” she replied, distantly. “Terrible, terrible anger. I’ve never felt anything like this in her before.”

  “Her? Her who?” She didn’t answer him, and he said, a little more sharply. “Who, Keth? Keth?”

  She shook her head as if to clear it, and resumed her seat at the table, but he could see that her hands were trembling before she clasped them in front of her on the table to conceal the fact.

  “Keth?” he repeated gently, but insistently
.

  “It‘s—it’s the she’enedran bond between us,” she said at last. “We each can feel things the other does, sometimes. Jadrek, she’s in a killing rage; she’s just barely keeping herself under control! And I can’t tell why.”

  She looked up at him, and he could see fear, the mirror to his own, in her eyes. “I’ve never felt anything like this out of her; she’s usually so controlled, even when I’m ready to spit nails. It has to be something Char said or did—but what could bring her to the brink like this? There’s enough rage resonating down the bond that I’m half prepared to go kill something!”

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “And I’m almost afraid to find out.”

  They stared at each other helplessly, until finally he reached out and laid his hand over her clenched ones, offering what little comfort he had to give.

  After that, it was just the deadly waiting.

  Finally, after both of them had fretted themselves into a state of nervous exhaustion, they heard Warrl’s nails clicking on the wooden steps outside. Tarma’s presence was revealed only by the creaking of the two trick boards, one in the fifth step, one in the eighth—otherwise she never made a sound. Kethry jumped to her feet, ran to the door and flung it open.

  Tarma/Arton stood in the light streaming from the door, so very still that for a moment Jadrek wasn’t entirely certain she was breathing. She remained in the doorway for a long, long moment, her face utterly expressionless—except for the eyes, which burned with a rage so fierce Kethry stepped back an involuntary pace or two.

  Warrl came up from behind her and nudged Tarma’s hand with his nose; only then did she seem to realize where she was, and walk slowly inside, stopping only when she came to the table.

  She did not take a seat as she usually did; she continued to stand, half-shrouded in shadows, and looked from Jadrek to Kethry and back again. Finally she spoke.

  “I’ve found out what happened to Idra.”

  “... so once Char had downed a full bottle of brandy to enhance the tran, he’d gotten himself into a mood where he was talkative, but wasn’t really thinking about what he was saying.”

  Kethry tensed, feeling Tarma’s anger burning within her, a half-mad fire at the pit of her stomach.

  Tarma spoke in a tonelessly deadly voice, still refusing to seat herself. “Alcohol and tran have that effect in combination—connecting the mind to the mouth without letting the intellect have any say in what comes out. And as I’d been hoping, his suspicious nature kept him from wanting to confide in any of his courtiers. And there was good old Arton, so sympathetic, so reliable, always dependable. So he threw his rump-kissers out, and began telling me how everybody abused him, everybody turned on him. Especially his sister.”

  She shifted her weight a little; the floorboard creaked beneath her, and Kethry could feel the anger rising up her spine. Channel that—she told herself, locking her will into Adept’s discipline. There’s enough pure rage here to burn half the city down, if you channel it. Use the anger—don’t let it use you!

  With that invocation of familiar discipline came a certain amount of relief; the fires were partially contained, harvested against future need. It wasn’t perfect; she was still trembling with emotion, but at least the energy wasn’t being all wasted.

  And there will be future need—

  “Then he told me about how his sister had first supported him, then betrayed him. How he. had known from the first that the hunt for the lost sword had been nothing more than a ruse to get her across the border and into contact with Stefan. He carried on about that for long enough to just about put me to sleep; what an ungrateful, cold bitch she was, how she deserved the worst fate anyone could imagine. He was pretty well convinced she was she‘chorne, too, and you know how they feel about that here—I had just about figured that was all I was going to get out of him, when suddenly he stopped raving.”

  Kethry felt a prickle of fear when the bond of she‘enedran between herself and Tarma transmitted another surge of the incredibly cold rage her oathsister was feeling. I’ve never known anyone who could sustain that kind of emotion for this long without berserking. Had Tarma been anything other than Kal’enedral—someone, or several someones, would be long dead by now, hacked into many small pieces....

  “ ‘I fixed her,’ he said ‘I fixed her properly. I planned it all so beautifully, too. I had Zaras bespell one of his apprentices to look like me, and sent the apprentice off with the rest of the Court on a three-day hunt. Then Zaras and I waited for the bitch in the stables; I distracted her, he hit her from behind with a spell, and when she woke up, her body belonged to Zaras. He had her saddle up and ride out just as if it were any other day, but this time her destination was my choice. We took her to the old tower on the edge of Hielmarsh; it’s deserted, and the rumors I had spread about hauntings keep the clods away.’ ”

  From there, what Tarma told them horrified even Kethry, inured to the brutality of warfare as she was. And she, of the three of them, had been the least close to the Captain; Tarma’s own internal torment was only too plain to her oathsister, who was continuing to share in it—and Jadrek’s expression could not be described.

  Idra’s torture and “punishment” had begun with the expedient most commonly used to break a woman—multiple rape. Rape in which her own brother had been the foremost participant. Char’s methods and means when that failed became more exotic. Jadrek excused himself halfway through the toneless recitation to be audibly sick. When he returned, pale, shaking and sweating with reaction, Tarma had nearly finished. Kethry’s stomach was churning and her throat was choked with silent weeping.

  “His own sister—” Kethry shuddered, her eyes burning and blurring with her tears. “No matter how much he hated her, she was still his sister!”

  Tarma came closer, looming over the table like a dark angel. She took the dagger from her belt, and held it out into the light of the table-candle. She held it stiffly, point down, in a fist clenched so tightly on the hilt that her knuckles were white.

  “Oathbreaker, I name him,” Tarma said, softly, but with all the feeling that she had not given vent to behind the words of the ages-old ritual of Outcasting. “Oathbreaker he, and all who stand by him. Oathbreaker once—by the promises made to kin, then shattered. Oathbreaker twice—by the violation of king-oath to liegeman. Oathbreaker three times—Oathbreaker a thousand times—by the violation of every kin-bond known and by the shedding of shared blood.”

  “Oathbreaker, I name him,” Kethry echoed, rising to place her cold hand over Tarma‘s, taking up the thread of the seldom-used passage from the Mercenaries’ Code. She choked out her words around a knot of black anger and bleak mourning, both so thick and dark that she could barely manage to speak the ritual coherently through the chaos of her emotions. She was still channeling, but now she was channeling the emotion through the words of the ritual. Emotion was power; that was what made a death-curse so potent, even in the mouth of an untutored peasant. This may well once have been a spell—and it was capable of becoming one again. She knew that even though she was no priest, channeling that much emotion-energy through it had the potential of making the Outcasting into something more than “mere ritual.”

  “Oathbreaker I do name him, mage to thy priest. Oathbreaker once—” she choked, hardly able to get the words out, “by the violation of sacred bonds. Oathbreaker twice—by the perversion of power granted him for the common weal to his own ends. Oathbreaker three times—by the invocation of pain and death for pleasure.”

  Somewhat to her surprise, she saw Jadrek stand, place his trembling, damp hand atop hers, and take up the ritual. She had never guessed that he knew it. “Oathbreaker, I name him, and all who support him,” he said, though his voice shook. “Oathbreaker I do name him, who am the common man of good will, making the third for Outcasting. Oathbreaker once—by the lies of his tongue. Oathbreaker twice —by the perversion of his heart. Oathbreaker three times—by the giving of his soul willingly to dark
ness.”

  Tarma slammed the dagger they all had been holding into the wood of the table with such force that it sank halfway to the hilt. “Oathbreaker is his name;” she snarled. “All oaths to him are null. Let every man’s hand be against him; let the gods turn their faces from him; let his darkness rot him from within until he be called to a just accounting. And may the gods grant that mine be the hand!”

  She brought herself back under control with an effort that was visible, and turned a face toward them that was no longer impassive, but was just as tear-streaked as Kethry’s own. “This is the end of it: he couldn’t break her. She was too tough for him, right up to the last. He didn’t get one word out of her, not one—and in the end, when he thought his bullyboys had her restrained, she managed to break free long enough to grab a knife and kill herself with it.”

  The fire-and-candle light flared up long enough to show that the murderous rage was still burning in her, but still under control. “I damn near killed him myself, then and there. Warrl managed to keep me from painting the room with his blood. It would have been suicide, and while it would have left the throne free for Stefan, I’d have left at least two friends behind who would have been rather unhappy that I’d gone and gotten myself killed by the rest of Char’s Guard.”

  “ ‘Unhappy’ is understating the case,” Jadrek replied gently, slowly resuming his seat. “But yes—at least two. Good friend—sister—please sit.” Kethry could see tears still glinting in his eyes—but she could also see that he was thinking past his grief; something she and Tarma couldn’t quite manage yet.

  As Tarma lowered herself stiffly into her accustomed chair, he continued. “Our plans have been plagued by the inability to bring a force of trained fighters whose loyalty is unswervingly ours into the city. Now I ask you, who served under Idra—what would her Sunhawks think to hear this?”