He realized with sudden dread that the worst had happened. Fearing she would be given to an insensitive brute who would think of her only as a brood-mare, finding that instead he spoke to her as to an equal, the girl was ready to adore him!
If he so much as touched her hand, he knew, his resolve would vanish; he would cover her with kisses, draw her into his arms—if only to wipe out the crowding futures he could see building up from this crucial moment, wipe them all out in a single moment by some positive action, whatever it might be.
His voice sounded strained, even to himself. “You know the curse I bear. I see not the true future alone, but a dozen futures, any one of which may come true, or mock me by never coming to pass. I had resolved never to marry, that I might never transmit this curse to any son of mine. This was why I had resolved to renounce my heritage and become a monk; I can see, all too clearly, what marriage with you might bring about. Gods above,” he cried out, “do you think me indifferent to you?”
“Are your visions always true, Allart?” she pleaded. “Why must we deny our destiny? If these things are ordained, they will come about, whatever we do now, and if not, they cannot trouble us.” She raised herself to her knees, flung her arms around him.
“I am not unwilling, Allart. I—I—I love you.”
For the barest instant Allart could not help tightening his arms around her. Then, fighting the shamed memory of how he had surrendered to the temptation of the riyachiya, he seized her shoulders in his hands and thrust her away with all his strength. He heard his own voice harsh and ice-cold, as if it belonged to someone else.
“Do you still expect me to believe they have not drugged you with aphrodisiacs, my lady?”
She went rigid, tears of anger and humiliation welling in her eyes. He wanted, as he had never wanted anything in his life, to draw her back to rest against his heart.
“Forgive me,” he begged. “Try to understand. I am fighting to—to find my way out of this trap they have led us into. Don’t you know what I have seen? All roads lead there, it seems—that I will do what is expected of me, that I will breed monsters, children tormented worse by laran than ever I was, dying as my young brother died, or worse, living to curse us that they were ever born. And do you know what I have seen for you, at the end of every road, my poor girl? Your death, Cassandra, your death in bearing my child.”
She whispered, her face white, “Two of my sisters so died.”
“Yet you wonder why. I am not rejecting you, Cassandra. I am trying to avoid the frightful destiny I have seen for both of us. God knows, it would be easy enough… Along most of the lines of my future, I see it, the course it would be easiest to take; that I should love you, that you should love me, that we will walk hand in hand into that terrible tragedy the future holds for us. Tragedy for you, Cassandra. And for me. I—” He swallowed, trying to steady his voice. “I would not bear the guilt of your death.”
She began to sob. Allart dared not touch her; he stood looking down at her, heart-wrung, wretched. “Try not to cry,” he said, his voice ragged. “I cannot bear it. The temptation is always there, to do the easiest thing, and trust to luck to lead us through; or if all else fails, to say, ‘It is our destiny and no man can fight against fate.’ For there are other choices. You might be barren, you might survive childbirth, our child might escape the curse of our joint laran. There are so many possibilities, so many temptations! And I have resolved that this marriage shall be no marriage at all, until I see my way clear before me. Cassandra, I beg you, agree to this.”
“It seems that I have no choice,” she said, and looked up at him, desolate. “Yet there is no happiness, either, in our world, for a woman who finds no favor with her husband. Until I am pregnant, my kinswomen will give me no peace. They have laran, too, and if this marriage is not consummated, sooner or later they will know that, too, and the same troubles we foresaw from refusing the marriage will be on us. Either way, my husband, it seems that we are the game who may stay in the trap or walk to the cookpot; either way lies ruin.”
Calmed by the seriousness with which she sought to think about and evaluate their predicament, Allart said, “I have a plan, if you will follow me in it, Cassandra. Most of our kinsmen, before they come to my age, take their turn in a Tower, using their laran in a matrix circle which can give energy and power and a good life to our people. I was excused this duty because of my poor health, but the obligation should be filled. Also, the life of the court is not the best life for a young wife who—” He choked on the words. “Who might be breeding. I will petition for leave to take you to the Tower of Hali, where we will do our share of work in a matrix circle. So we will not face your kinswomen or my brother, and we can dwell apart without provoking talk. Perhaps, while we are there, we can find some way out of this dilemma.”
Cassandra’s voice was submissive. “Let it be as you will. But our kin will think it strange that we choose this during the first days of our marriage.”
“They may think what they will,” Allart said. “I think it no crime to give false coin to thieves, or to lie to one who questions beyond courtesy. If I am questioned by anyone who has a right to an answer, I shall say that I shirked this obligation during my early manhood, and I wish to satisfy it now, so that you and I may go away together with no remaining unfulfilled obligations overshadowing our lives. You, my lady, may say what you will.”
Her smile glinted at him; again Allart felt the wrench of heartbreak.
“Why, I will say nothing at all, my husband. I am your wife and I go where you choose to go, needing no more explanation than that! I do not say that I love this custom, nor that if you chose to demand it of me, I should obey without strife. I doubt you would find me such a submissive wife after all, Dom Allart. But I can use the custom where it suits my purposes!”
Holy Bearer of Burdens, why could not my fate have given me a woman I would be glad to put aside, not this one it would have been so easy for me to love! Exhausted with relief, he bowed his head, took up her slender fingers and kissed them.
She saw the broken weariness in his face and said, “You are very weary, my husband. Will you not lie down now and sleep?”
Again the erotic images were torturing him, but he pushed them aside. “You do not know much of men, do you, chiya?”
She shook her head.“How could I? Now it seems I am not to know,” she said, and looked so sad that, even through his resolve, Allart felt a distant regret
“Lie down and sleep if you will, Cassandra.”
“But will you not sleep?” she asked naïvely, and he had to laugh.
“I will sleep on the floor; I have slept in worse places, and this is luxury after the stone cells of Nevarsin,” he said. “Bless you, Cassandra, for accepting my decision!”
She gave him a faint smile. “Oh, I have been taught that it is a wife’s duty to obey. Though it is a different obedience than I foresaw, still, I am your wife and will do as you command. Good night, my husband.”
The words were gently ironic. Stretched on the soft rugs of the chamber, Allart summoned all the discipline of his years at Nevarsin and finally managed to blot out from his mind all the images of Cassandra awakened to love; nothing remained but the moment, and his resolve. But once, before dawn, he thought he could hear the sound of a woman crying, very softly, as if muffling the sound in silks and coverlets.
The next day they departed for Hali Tower; and there they remained for half a year.
* * *
CHAPTER EIGHT
« ^ »
Early spring again in the Hellers, Donal Delleray, called Rockraven, stood on the heights of Castle Aldaran, wondering idly if the Aldaran forefathers had chosen this high peak for their keep because it commanded much of the country around. It sloped down toward the distant plains, and behind it rose toward the far impassable peaks where no human thing dwelled, but only trailmen and the half-legendary chieri of the far Hellers, in their fastnesses surrounded by eternal snow.
“They say,” h
e said aloud, “that in the farthest of these mountains, so far in the snows that even the most skilled mountaineer would fail before he found his way through the peaks and crevasses, there is a valley of unending summer, and there the chieri have withdrawn since the coming of the children of Hastur. That is why we never see them now, in these days. There the chieri dwell forever, immortal and beautiful, singing their strange songs and dreaming immortal dreams.”
“Are the chieri really so beautiful?”
“I do not know, little sister; I have never seen a chieri,” Donal said. He was twenty now, tall and whiplash thin, dark-tanned, dark-browed, a straight and somber young man who looked older than he was. “But when I was very small, my mother told me once that she had seen a chieri in the forests, behind a tree, and that she had the beauty of the Blessed Cassilda. They say, too, that if any mortal wins through to the valley where the chieri dwell, and eats of their food and drinks of their magical waters, he, too, will be gifted with immortality.”
“No,” Dorilys said. “Now you are telling me fairy tales. I am too old to believe such things.”
“Oh, you are so old,” Donal teased. “I look daily to see your back stoop over with age and your hair turn gray!”
“I am old enough to be handfasted,” Dorilys said with dignity. “I am eleven years old, and Margali says I look as if I were already fifteen.”
Donal gave his sister a long, considering look. It was true; at eleven Dorilys was already taller than many women, and her slender body had already some hint of a woman’s shapely roundness.
“I do not know if I want to be handfasted,” she said, suddenly sulky. “I do not know anything of my cousin Darren! Do you know him, Donal?”
“I know him,” Donal said, and his face went bleak. “He was fostered here, with many other lads, when I was a boy.”
“Is he handsome? Is he kind and well-spoken? Do you like him, Donal?”
Donal opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again. Darren was the son of Lord Aldaran’s younger brother, Rakhal. Mikhail, Lord Aldaran, had no sons, and this marriage would mean that their children would inherit and consolidate the two estates; this was the way great Domains were built. It would be pointless to prejudice Dorilys against her promised husband because of boyish differences.
“You must not judge by that, Dorilys; we were children when we knew one another, and we fought as boys do; but he is older now, and so am I. Yes, he is good-looking enough, I suppose, as women judge such things.”
“It seems hardly fair, to me,” Dorilys said. “You have been more than a son to my father. Yes, he said so himself! Why can you not inherit his estate, since he has no son of his own?”
Donal forced himself to laugh. “You will understand these things better when you are older, Dorilys. I am no blood kin to Lord Aldaran, though he has been a kind foster-father to me, and I can expect no more than a fosterling’s part in his estate; and that only because he pledged my mother—and yours—that I should be well provided for. I look for no more inheritance than this.”
“That is a foolish law,” Dorilys said vehemently, and Donal, seeing the signs of angry emotion in her eyes, said quickly, “Look down there, Dorilys! See, between the fold in the hills, you can see the riders and the banners. That will be Lord Rakhal and his entourage riding up toward the castle, come for your handfasting. So you must run down to your nurse and let her make you beautiful for the ceremony.”
“Very well,” Dorilys said, diverted, but she scowled as she started down the stairway. “If I do not like him, I will not marry him. Do you hear me, Donal?”
“I hear you,” he said, “but that is a little girl speaking, chiya. When you are a woman you will be more sensible. Your father has chosen carefully to make a marriage which will be suitable; he would not give you in marriage unless he were sure this would be the best for you.”
“Oh, I have heard that again and again, from Father, from Margali. They all say the same, that I must do as I am told and when I am older I will understand why! But if I do not like my cousin Darren I will not marry him, and you know there is no one who can make me do anything I do not want to do!” She stamped her foot, her rosy face flushed with pettish anger, and ran toward the stairway leading down into the castle. As if in echo to her words, there was a faint, faraway roll of thunder.
Donal remained looking over the railing, lost in somber thought. Dorilys had spoken with the unconscious arrogance of a princess, of the pampered only daughter of Lord Aldaran. But it was more than that, and even Donal felt a qualm of dread when Dorilys spoke so positively.
There is no one who can make me do anything I do not want to do. It was all too true. Willful since birth, no one had ever dared to cross her too seriously, because of the strange laran with which she had been born. No one quite knew the extent of this strange power; no one had ever dared to provoke it knowingly. Even while she was still unweaned, anyone who touched her against her will had felt the power she could fling—expressed, then, only as a painful shock— but the gossip of servants and nurses had exaggerated it and spread frightening tales. When, even as a baby, she screamed in rage, or hunger, or pain, lightnings and thunder had rolled and crashed about the heights of the castle; not only the servants, but the children fostered in the castle, had learned to fear her anger. Once, in her fifth year, when a fever had laid her low, delirious for days, raving and unconscious, not recognizing even Donal or her father, lightning bolts had crashed wildly all those nights and days, striking dangerously near the towers of the castle, random, terrifying. Donal, who could control the lightnings a little himself (though nothing like this), had wondered what phantoms and nightmares pursued her in delirium, that she struck so violently against them.
Fortunately as she grew older she longed for approval and affection, and Lady Deonara, who had loved Dorilys as her own, had been able to teach her some things. The child had Aliciane’s beauty and her pretty ways, and in the last year or two, she had been less feared and better liked. But still the servants and children feared her, calling her witch and sorceress when she could not hear; not even the boldest of the children dared offend her to her face. She had never turned on Donal, nor on her father, nor on her foster-mother Margali, the leronis who had brought her into the world; nor, during Lady Deonara’s lifetime, had she ever gone against Deonara’s will.
But since Deonara’s death, Donal thought (sadly, for he, too, had loved the gentle Lady Aldaran), no one has ever gainsaid Dorilys. Mikhail of Aldaran adored his pretty daughter, and denied her nothing, in or out of reason, so that the eleven-year-old Dorilys had the jewels and playthings of a princess. The servants would not, because they feared her anger and the power which gossip had exaggerated so enormously. The other children would not, partly because she was highest in rank among them, and partly because she was a willful little tyrant who never shrank from enforcing her domination with slaps, pinches, and blows.
It is not too bad for a little girl—a pretty, pampered little girl—to be willful beyond all reason, and for everyone to fear her, and give her everything she wants. But what will happen when she grows to womanhood, if she does not learn that she cannot have all things as she will? And who, fearing her power, will dare to teach her this?
Troubled, Donal turned down the stairs and went inside, for he, too, must be present at the hahdfasting, and at the ceremonies beforehand.
In his enormous presence-chamber, Mikhail, Lord Aldaran, awaited his guests. The Aldaran lord had aged since the birth of his daughter; a huge, heavy man, stooped now and graying, he had something still of the look of an ancient, molting hawk; and when he raised his head it was not unlike the stirring of some such ancient bird on its block—a ruffle of feathers, a hint of concealed power, in abeyance and still there, dormant.
“Donal? Is it you? It is hard to see in this light,” Lord Aldaran said, and Donal, knowing that his foster-father did not like to admit that his eyes were not as sharp as they had been, came toward him.
&
nbsp; “It is I, my lord.”
“Come here, dear lad. Is Dorilys ready for the ceremony tonight? Do you think she is content with the idea of this marriage?”
“I think she is too young to know what it means,” Donal said. He had dressed in an ornate dyed-leather suit, high indoor boots fringed at the top and carved, his hair confined in a jeweled band; about his neck a firestone flashed crimson. “Yet she is curious. She asked me if Darren were handsome and well-spoken, if I liked him. I gave her small answer to that, I fear, but I told her she must not judge a man on a boy’s quarrels.”
“Nor must you, my boy,” Aldaran said, but he said it gently.
“Foster-father—I have a boon to ask of you,” Donal said.
Aldaran smiled and said, “You have long known, Donal, any gift within reason that I can give is yours for the asking.”
“This will cost you nothing, my lord, except some thought. When the Lord Rakhal and Lord Darren come before you tonight to discuss the matter of Dorilys’s marriage gifts, will you introduce me to the company by my father’s name, and not as Donal of Rockraven as you are used to do?”
Lord Aldaran’s nearsighted eyes blinked, giving him more than ever the air of some gigantic bird of prey blinded by the light. “How is this, foster-son? Would you disown your mother, or her place here? Or yours?”
“All gods forbid.” Donal said.
He came and knelt at Lord Aldaran’s side. The old man laid a hand on his shoulder, and at the touch the unspoken words were clear to both of them: But only a bastard wears his mother’s name. I am orphaned, but no bastard.
“Forgive me, Donal,” the old man said at last. “I am to blame. I wished—I wished not to remember that Aliciane had ever belonged to any other man. Even when she had—had left me, I could not bear to remind myself that you were not, in sober truth, my own son.” It was like a cry of pain. “I have so often wished that you were!”
“I, too,” said Donal. He could remember no other father, wished for no other. Yet Darren’s bullying voice seemed as fresh in his ears as it had been ten years ago: