Tani talked of inconsequentials, how unexpected his appearance was and the fine weather of the morning, until a nurse approached, leading a sturdy toddler with dark hair and glowing cheeks. Shrieking with delight, the boy ran to Tani and she caught him in her arms.
“Your son,” Coryn said.
“Yes, I—” She broke off and set the boy on his feet, then lowered herself beside him on the bench. He promptly crawled into her lap.
“I was pregnant with Julian when I escaped. Without you—” Now she lifted her eyes to meet his and when she continued, her voice brimmed with emotion he could not put a name to. “Without you, neither of us would have survived the journey. I owe you my son’s life as well as my own.”
He sat immobile from the Tower-trained habit of avoiding direct physical contact. “You called the King uncle. Who exactly are you?”
“My name is Taniquel Elinor Hastur-Acosta,” she answered. “King Rafael is my mother’s brother. I was orphaned at an early age and fostered here in Thendara and then at Acosta.”
As she spun out the story of her childhood and marriage, it seemed to Coryn that the spirited girl grew into a determined, resourceful young woman before his eyes. He could well believe she had braved such a terrible journey alone.
When she spoke of the assault on Castle Acosta, the toddler in her arms grew restless, as if sensing her anguish. One of the servants brought out a ball and a hoop and stick.
“Come on!” Laughing, she tossed the ball in the air for her son to run after. Coryn felt a pang, remembering such games with Kristlin, but Taniquel’s joy infected him and he soon joined in with a will.
After the child grew tired and was taken away by his nurse, it was time for the midday meal. Taniquel excused herself, saying she had other duties.
That evening, as Rafael had proposed, a feast was held in the great hall, with music and singing. If it was quickly organized, it was no less joyous. Rich food and wine filled each table. After the meal, the entertainment began. Acrobats leaped and tumbled, and climbed on each other in feats of balance. A small troupe of professional dancers executed an elaborate and extremely athletic version of a mountain dance. A minstrel had composed a ballad about Taniquel’s journey to freedom, although Coryn thought he’d taken great liberties with the landscape as well as his own part. He had not, as the song suggested, appeared to the fugitive Queen as an angel surrounded by blue light. Nor had Taniquel borne any marks of physical torture; her outward injuries had been from exposure, not assault. Coryn glanced at Taniquel. Her eyes glittered and a fevered color rose to her cheeks. Invisible wounds often ran far deeper than those which could be bandaged.
Toward the end, the song turned invective rather than narrative, building to a call to arms against the tyrants who had usurped the place of Acosta’s rightful King.
King Rafael was busy with the cortes for the next tenday and Coryn found himself much in the role of a courtier of the household, welcome but his business considered of no particular urgency. It was not until a number of days later that he heard the rest of Taniquel’s story as they walked together, once more in the garden. Her voice never wavered as she told of aircars bombing the gates and the use of mind-compelling laran. An undercurrent ran through her words and he sensed there was much she did not say aloud. Perhaps she could not. She sat there on the bench, with the sun lighting rainbows in the ebony cloud of her hair, her head held so proudly, her hands momentarily still. Her eyes clouded as if she were looking within, at what she could see only in memory, and he thought he had never seen such quiet grace, such courage.
“We have a common enemy,” he said during one of those silences which arose, when feeling took the place of words. “Damian Deslucido, he whom you call Oathbreaker.”
“How did you come to cross his path?”
“Rather ask how he brought sorrow to me and mine,” Coryn said ruefully. “Before he rode on Acosta, he conquered several small mountain kingdoms, Verdanta among them. That was my home.”
“Yes, I have heard of it,” she said, brows drawing together and mouth tightening. “Verdanta, one of the Storn realms, and Hawksflight. He was maneuvering his position to strike at Acosta.”
“His son Belisar was to have married my youngest sister in a peaceful alliance,” Coryn said. “But she died, as did my father, and Deslucido took what he wanted by force. Another of my sisters and my second oldest brother disappeared and I do not know where they are.”
“Perhaps they perished with the rest.”
Coryn shook his head. “I would know, just as I know Eddard and Tessa still live. They are hidden from me, which is probably for the best, for if I cannot find them, neither can Damian’s laranzu brother. But whether they have found their way to freedom or outlawry or languish in some dungeon, that I do not know.”
Taniquel reached out and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. “We are all of us in the hands of the gods.” Then she added, with a bitter laugh, “You know, for one so handsome and full of himself, not to mention heir to a great kingdom, Belisar seems to have unusually bad luck in finding a bride. I almost feel sorry for him. Now his father has fomented a border squabble with my uncle, although I do not for a moment believe it is me he wants.”
“The more fool he,” Coryn murmured.
“No,” she continued, getting to her feet as if she had not heard, “his ambitions have grown so grandiose as to encompass half the Hundred Kingdoms and more. We will have great need of your skills in the times to come, you and your comrades at Neskaya.”
Coryn did not want to set himself against Taniquel, but he could not let her continue in the assumption he was there to offer help. “That is what I have come to Thendara to speak with your uncle about,” he said slowly, “to ask him not to involve us in any argument with another Tower.”
Taniquel continued pacing, gesturing, not looking at him. “In warfare, against such an enemy, one cannot afford the loss of such a valued weapon.”
“But to set Tower against Tower—”
“Or soldier against soldier, what difference is there?” She whirled to face him. “Each of us is duty bound in one way or another. No one is exempt. It feels so odd saying these things to you, for usually it is men explaining the ways of war to women.”
“You do not understand. Each of us has kin or close friends at the other Towers. In the relays, we speak to each other, mind to mind, far closer than any words.” He saw from the shift in her expression that his words had struck some chord within her. “I was trained at Tramontana. I would not make war on the people I love.”
“I am sorry,” she said in a low voice. “but it cannot be helped.”
“Surely there must be another way. Negotiations. Treaties—”
“We tried that in the Comyn Council and he set them against us.” Now she sounded angry, her hands jabbing the air, eyes flashing. “Do you know what they are calling our stand against his aggression? The Hastur Rebellion, as if we were the ones who had started all the trouble. I do not much care how history regards our cause, but I would not see our own people—or our allies—turned against us through misunderstanding.”
“Then why bring the Towers into it at all? Why not fight your own accursed wars?” he asked, hearing emotions strident in his voice. He reined them in, for they did not belong here in this garden, spoken to the lovely young Queen before him, but to the Hastur lord, the only one who had the power to act. “I, too, am sorry. I spoke out of turn. You are not the one responsible for these decisions.”
She flushed, a wave of anger and something more. “Let us not quarrel,” she said, her voice shaking. “Coryn, I never thought to see you again. This short time the two of us have together is a gift. I would not let our common enemy come between us.”
She put her hand out and grasped his in a gesture of impulsive warmth. Her touch burned along the nerves of his arm. Through the physical contact, he caught the edge of her mind, half thought, half emotional memory. An instant of utter revulsion,
the dizzying moment when her world and everything she believed in turned inside-out, the cold-iron taste of desperation driving her through the storm, a vision of her uncle’s face, gray with horror. And in the heart of it, like a spider lying in wait for its prey, Deslucido.
She must hate him very much.
Deslucido, for all his greed and ambition, was only an ordinary man.
Rumail . . . But Rumail was outcast from the Towers. Rumail could do no more harm.
And yet . . . Blue flames leaped hungrily behind Coryn’s eyes, part memory, part mirror to the fear he sensed in Taniquel.
In his mind he saw her, turning toward him, eyes filled with light, hair a corona of spun black glass framing her face. She lifted her arms toward him even as the flames rose higher, an incandescent barrier.
Through water you have come to me, he thought. Through fire I must come to you.
Then the moment of clear vision passed, and together they sat in the miniature walled world of the garden. She still held his hand, her body curving toward his. Rosy color, as clear as a summer’s dawn, tinted her skin. They were so close, he could feel her breath, could taste the faintly spicy scent she wore, could see the faint pulsation at her throat.
With his free hand, Coryn cupped Taniquel’s cheek. She closed her eyes. He realized as his fingers brushed her face that she had some measure of empathy. Untrained, instinctive, it swept all through her senses. She felt not only his touch, the warmth and texture of his hand on hers, the smell of his sun-warmed skin, all the things her body experienced, and she also felt his emotions.
Without thought, he brushed her lips with his, or perhaps it was she who moved to meet him. A feeling he had never known, a tenderness so exquisite it bordered on pain, unfolded in him. Her heart opened to him, a mirror to his own.
Never in all his years of Tower work had he experienced a joining so complete, so uncomplicated, without reservation or condition. She held nothing back, matching his passion at the exact instant it arose in him. Time lost all meaning.
The rustle of a leaf, the snap of a twig brought him back to the day. Coryn opened his eyes to see a tiny bird take wing. The fingers of one hand were still entwined with hers, while the other lay gently along the side of her face.
Dark lashes fluttered open to reveal eyes filled with luminous tears. He had never seen anything so beautiful as those eyes. In some other world, in some other life, he thought, he could drown himself in them forever.
Taniquel blinked, sniffed, pulled away. He straightened up. The muscles of his lower back twinged from leaning forward too long.
“I . . .” Her voice failed her.
Coryn thought that if she reached out to him, he would not be able to refuse her and they would both be lost, all duty forsaken. Instead, she lifted her hands to her hair and drew out a copper pin, gracefully curved and topped with a filigree set with tiny sparkling stones. Around it twined several delicate ribbons of the same russet silk as her gown, ending in tiny knotted rosettes. She held it out to him.
His fingers closed around the pin, still warm. Several long black hairs had been caught in it.
In remembrance of this gift of time . . . Her mind brushed against his.
As Coryn slipped the pin into the inner pocket of his robe, he touched age-worn fabric. Since the day he left Verdanta Castle for Tramontana, there had not been an hour when his mother’s handkerchief had left him. Now he drew out the folded square of embroidery. Without a word, he pressed it into her hand. There was no need to explain, to tell her what it meant to him. She already held his heart, as he did hers. Their bond went beyond words.
For a long moment, an eternity of heartbeats, a single breath, neither moved.
“Lady Taniquel! Vai domna!” A woman’s voice called from a distance. The nurse.
She stirred, and the moment shattered. He sat immobile as she gathered up her skirts and headed back toward the castle.
27
Clouds, layered so thin and fine that the sky itself seemed white, cast a filmy veil over the rising Bloody Sun. Morning mist burned off from the open fields of Drycreek, although the surrounding heights remained shrouded in white. As the night’s chill lifted, the mingled scents of grasses, summer field flowers, and warm earth drifted on the gentle breeze. A hawk hovered overhead while mice scurried for their burrows. In the distance, a family of deer bounded for the safety of the wooded slopes.
Belisar Deslucido sat on his massive red-gold stallion on the knoll which was the highest point of the valley and waited for the battle to unfold below him. As the horse shifted under him, he yawned and rubbed the dregs of sleep from his eyes.
The Ambervale forces had arrived late the night before, with barely enough time to slaughter and cook the livestock seized from the little trading village on the river. They’d been delayed by the guerrilla forces which had lately come down from the Verdanta Mountains, stinging and harrying like a nest of scorpion-ants. Unlike the poisonous insects, they posed no serious threat, certainly not to disciplined troops, but they had delayed his passage.
In preparation for the campaign, Damian Deslucido had moved his headquarters to Acosta and from there, launched the assault. Belisar should have been much deeper into Hastur lands when this battle occurred, so that even a stalemate would win him miles of borderland. His general, The Yellow Wolf, insisted that it was better to meet the Hastur forces here in the foothills rather than on the rolling plains where their greater numbers and easy supply lines would work to their advantage.
Now The Wolf had ridden down to his army, advancing the left wing, holding men behind the center in reserve. The natural contours of the land gave them partial cover, although they were not yet in the best position. Day and the enemy had come upon them too soon.
A few changes in plans and times were mere details, dependent on chance circumstance. Victory must be his in the end because his cause was just. Over the last few years, the goal of unifying Darkover had taken on a life and momentum of its own, like some raw elemental force.
Belisar felt restless, but perhaps it was only his resentment at being up here, at a safe distance, instead of leading his own men as he had wished.
“With power comes responsibility,” Damian had told him. “A king cannot risk his life like any ordinary soldier.”
“I am not yet king,” Belisar had said.
“And if you are killed in battle, you never will be!” After that, there was nothing more to be said.
Rumail, in the hooded gray cloak which had now become his customary garment, sat on his mule a little apart from Belisar, head bent to speak privately with the two laranzu’in from Tramontana. He’d been fussing over something all morning.
From the fingers of low-lying fog, the Hastur men approached in units, both mounted and on foot. A rider broke away from the foremost troops, white banner held aloft. Ambervale men intercepted him and, after some discussion, escorted him to the hill. Belisar watched them approach, amused.
A parley? What was there to parley about, except to delay the day’s work?
The messenger, an earnest young officer, did not dismount but lowered the white standard in greeting. His mount blew froth from its nostrils and shook its head.
“In the name of Rafael Alar Julian Hastur, King and second of that name, I command you to cease this unlawful incursion of armed forces on our lands and depart forthwith to your own country.” The youthful voice rang out unwavering, a singer’s voice.
Belisar said, “And if I do not? If it pleases me to occupy these lands?”
The officer wet his lips. “Then by strength of arms, His Majesty will enforce the sovereignty of his territory.”
“And we will have a battle? Good!” At the messenger’s startled response, Belisar threw his head back and laughed. “Gods, boy, what do you think this is about? Does your high and mighty Majesty think we came all this way for polite conversation?”
Belisar then sent the signal for The Yellow Wolf to advance to the point of maximum ad
vantage. He added the order to take the young messenger prisoner. “Burn the white flag. Make sure they can see it down below. That will be their answer.”
The boy, to his credit, had enough presence of mind not to make a fool out of himself with useless protest.
Belisar’s horse pranced in place, scenting the rising adrenaline. For what seemed like hours but were actually only minutes, the Ambervale forces crept forward.
The Hastur men held their position. Belisar could almost hear their banners flapping in the wind and the horses whinnying, harnesses jangling. He smelled their rank, intoxicating sweat. Part of him wished he was down there with them, a battle cry swelling in his throat, the reins held fast between his fingers, his mount quivering with eagerness.
Below, a wordless yell pierced the shuddering tension. Belisar did not care which side it came from. It was time; the battle demanded its own birth. Both forces rushed forward like arrows released from bows too long held taut. Within moments, dust churned by the charging cavalry rose in billows. War cries and neighing pierced the clamor. The red-gold stallion snorted and pranced beneath him, pulling at the bit.
Through breaks in the billowed dust, he caught sight of the fighting, colors and banners. Spear points glittered in the sun. One horse ran riderless and another reared so high it toppled backward.
Seen from this vantage, the battle moved with agonizing slowness, although Belisar knew the action on the ground was frenzied. Swords slashing, spears thrusting, horses rearing, death always an instant away, a flash at the edge of vision, that instinct that made a man turn and miss a blow by the breadth of a hair. The music of steel against steel. The mingled taste of dust and blood. The soaring elation which sizzled along every nerve as if lightning laced his entire body. His heart pounded, thinking of it, lusting for it.