Authors: L. M. Roth
On a day when
the last of the leaves drifted down gently and dreamily from the trees and all
were preparing for the advent of winter, Cort returned with Siv and Brit.
It was to a
family that was greatly changed, and not for the better. He had no sooner returned
and opened the door of his mother’s hut when he felt the hidden animosity
between Nolwenn and her brothers; and the bewilderment of Judoc astounded him.
Always she had been as busy as a beaver building a dam, with a sense of purpose
and an efficiency of execution that left others breathless at her industrious
nature. Yet now, she was apathetic and exuded a sense of defeat.
And where were
Dag and Maelys? Cort felt a wave of guilt wash over him when told that Maelys
went in search of him. He chided himself for having so worried his sister. And
yet, if he had not gone to Gaudereaux he would not have learned the truth about
Melisande and the plots she had conspired against the Adalbart family. He
realized that he needed to forgive himself for what, on the surface of it,
seemed a lapse of judgment on his part for leaving at a critical time. No; he
had been led to Gaudereaux by the hand of Dominio in order to discover the
truth that he might protect his family.
And he
intended to confront Melisande at the first opportunity.
Cort soon
became aware of how Dirk had matured. In the absence of Dag and himself he had
become the man of the family. The boldness of his nature was now tempered to a
steely resolve, and that resolve was to use it in the service of Dominio. Dirk
now conversed with Cort regarding matters of the spirit in a manner that he had
not been capable of six months before.
He had taken
on a new gravity of countenance as well. Cort realized that all of the
tragedies and bewildering events of the past year had sobered the high-spirited
lad, turning his thoughts to more serious introspection, and brought him into
manhood years before its time. This new maturity pleased Cort: for he would not
always live in Eirinia, and Dirk must become to their father what he had always
been.
His travels
had awakened the old love of adventure in Cort, but also the desire to journey
and take new territory for the Kingdom. He knew that to stay in one spot
forever would not only bring stagnation to himself, but to the Kingdom as well.
For how could it spread and grow if the knowledge remained only in a few
places?
He reflected
that even the persecution in Valerium that had forced the Alexandrians into
exile might yet prove to be beneficial to the cause of Alexandros; for as His
servants scattered throughout the Valeriun Empire, they scattered also the
seeds of His Kingdom, planting new colonies wherever the soil might prove
receptive. And Cort knew that it was time for him to become part of that
scattering after he had gone to Valerium to search for Dag.
Right after he
spoke to Melisande and confronted her with the knowledge of her wicked scheme…
He did not
wait to leave it to chance but knocked on the door of her hut on the afternoon
of the second day of his return.
Her eyes
widened when she answered his knock. For a moment she was so surprised that she
left him standing where he stood as she stared at him. Something told Cort that
she sensed something awry, and had not planned on his return to Eirinia…
He finally
addressed her, as it was soon evident she would not begin the conversation.
“Hello,
Melisande,” he stated, and gently pushed her aside.
He placed
himself in the center of the room, and he noted that the window that she always
opened during the day to allow the fresh air to circulate through the hut was
open as usual. Although it was now late October, the weather was still mild,
and by afternoon was very warm indeed.
Melisande was
now shaken out of her amazement and expressed indignation at his audacity.
“Well, I see
that foreign travel did nothing to polish your manners, Cort. I do not recall
inviting you to come in to my home.”
Her eyes
flashed green fire and she placed her hands on her hips. He knew that fury was
rising in her like lava to the top of a volcano. This was exactly the response
that he wanted.
“Oh, I
apologize dear sister,” he mocked. “I thought with family it is permissible to
just enter in; especially as I know you must have missed me while I was gone.”
Cort flashed a
brilliant smile at her, and she frowned in return. Now to spring the trap…
He strode over
to her, taking slow measured steps, his eyes never leaving her face. She
watched his approach with widened eyes that blinked rapidly. He heard her short
gasps of breath, as though alarmed at the sudden change in his manner toward
her.
He reached her
and stood very close to her, and took a lock of her golden-brown hair in one
hand, stroking it very gently. She appeared to panic and moved backward away
from him, only to end up in the far corner of the room. He pushed her back into
it and stood so close to her that he could feel her breath on his face. He
placed his hands on her arms and forced her to look up at him.
“I missed you
Melisande,” he whispered. “I did not expect to feel that way, but I missed
you.”
He removed one
hand from an arm and stroked her hair gently. By now her eyes were so huge that
he wondered they did not pop out of their sockets altogether.
“Tell me,” he
whispered as he kissed a strand of her hair, “did you miss me while I was gone?
Are you very lonely with my brother gone?”
Melisande
suddenly found the strength that had seeped out of her and pushed him away from
her as hard as she could. She whirled away from the corner and stood in the
center of the room, her arms folded protectively in front of her body, and
stared at him with a white face and staring eyes.
“What are you
doing?” she screamed. “How dare you touch me like that?”
Cort strode
over to her once again, but she backed away from him, careful to avoid the
corner.
“Oh but Melisande,
this is what you have been wanting is it not? Haven’t you been longing for me
to say these things to you, even when my brother lived? Did you not tell me
then, even when you were newly married, that you loved me and that your
marriage was a mistake?”
“No, no!” she
shook her head violently and continued to back away from him. “I did not say
that!”
“Oh but you
did, Melisande! It was the reason I left Eirinia remember? Brenus found you
kissing me, have you forgotten? And here I am now, saying all that you have
longed to hear! Does it not please you? Does it not make you happy?”
Cort’s blue
eyes blazed in his face as he pounced on her. He grabbed her and spun her
around to face him. She screamed and pushed him away again and ran for the
door. He scrambled to reach it first and blocked her way. Her breath was coming
in ragged sobs, but he showed her no mercy.
“Do you not
remember, Melisande? Do you not love me anymore? What happened; did becoming a
widow finally make you appreciate your husband after you threw yourself at his
brother?”
He held her
arms in a ruthless grip, and she sobbed as she struggled against him.
“No, I did not
mean that. I never loved you, never, never! Leave me alone or I will call the
entire village in here to witness your brutality!”
Cort released
her and laughed at her. His laughter bellowed from somewhere deep within him,
and she was startled by the sound.
“You never
loved me?” he jeered. “And when did you discover that? Why did you tell me you
did if you never had? Answer me!”
He said this
last as he grabbed her again and shook her. He heard her teeth rattle in her
head, so violently did he shake her. Once more she broke his grip and landed on
the floor. There she lay weeping, and for the first time Cort wondered if he had
gone too far in his pretense.
At last she
lay still and rose slowly to her feet, pushing back the strands of her hair
that had fallen over her face when he shook her. She wiped the tears from her
face and glared at him with the ferocity of an animal that knows it is trapped
but is determined to fight its way loose from the hunter’s snare.
“Love you? I
despise you!
You
! A wild and crude savage; how could you ever believe
that I truly loved you. I would not abase myself to fall in love with such as
you!”
The sneer on
her lovely face and the lips curled back in contempt confirmed the truth of her
statement. It was as Cort expected, but he did not hesitate to press further in
his interrogation.
“No, it was
all an act, wasn’t it, Melisande? Right from the beginning, it was all an act.”
She sniffed
disdainfully and shrugged her shoulders. As he remembered Brenus, Cort felt a
flare of outrage.
“And my
brother? Did you pretend to love him also? He was even more of a savage than I,
having never traveled outside of Eirinia in his entire life. I have at least
seen more of the world, probably more than you have, Melisande. I have seen
great cities full of learned men and wealthy merchants, and old civilizations
that have fallen to ruin yet retain their grandeur. I have walked in lands that
few men have ever seen, and tasted fruits known only to a few.
“What have you
ever seen, Melisande? Gaudereaux? I have been to Gaudereaux. Shall I tell you
what that land consists of, Melisande? It is full of drunken men, and women also,
those who do nothing but drink and make merry, because they have not the wit or
the ambition to do anything else. Your mother was like that, Melisande. I knew
her; she liked to drink until she could no longer stand. That is why she broke
her vow to serve Dominio. And that is why Dag left her behind in Gaudereaux; he
was far too fine a man to marry a woman who would turn her back on the God she
vowed to serve because she wanted to waste her life getting drunk.”
As he flung
this last statement at her, Melisande let out a screech and flew at him, her
nails clawed his face and drew blood. Cort twisted her wrist and she cried out
in pain, but let go of him. She bent over her injured arm and glared at him
balefully, but he no longer feared the harm she could do. He knew now what her
purpose had been in coming to Eirinia, and he was determined to expose her and
drive her out.
“As for you,”
he continued mercilessly, “you came to Eirinia with the sole intention of
breaking up my family. You married Brenus as an excuse to get close to the
family, and then you deliberately created discord between him and me by
pretending to love me when you did not. You knew I would leave rather than hurt
my brother or dishonor him in any way, and that my leaving would wound Dag. That
was your intention all along; to separate me from Dag and bring him pain. Also,
you knew that I watched over my younger siblings, and you had plans for them as
well, didn’t you?”
Melisande
gasped and fastened her bulging eyes on Cort. Indeed, she could not look away
from him, and he thought she looked like a snake fascinated by the tune the
charmer plays in order to control it.
“Yes,” he
nodded his head, “you had plans for them as well. Oh not, Maelys, of course, of
whom you were jealous and who had the shrewdness to see through you from the
very first. But Nolwenn: you attached her to you almost as soon as you met her,
and that always disturbed me. Now I know why: you planned to take her heart
away from Dominio, to serve other gods. That is why she stood with you and
Brenus at Spring Festival with the other villagers. You had already emasculated
him with your lies that he wanted to believe because he desired you so much;
and then you began to poison my little sister.
“Witch!
Sorceress! Vixen! You had better hope it is not too late for Nolwenn, and that
she may yet be turned back to serve Dominio. For if any harm comes to her
because of your influence, Melisande, it will go ill with you, just as it did
with Brenus, who married you knowing it was not in the will of Dominio, knowing
you were a pagan, and who was so corrupted by you that he stood with the other
rebels to bow down to another god.”
Cort was spent
with the pent-up emotions released by his words, and he merely looked at
Melisande, whose face suddenly went white. She licked her lips rapidly as if
they had gone dry. Her green eyes were enormous in her face; but she made one
last attempt at bravado.
“My, what a
speech, Cort! However, I do not think that Siv will be pleased to hear how you
threw yourself at me and declared your love to me. That might distress your
little wife, don’t you think?”
She smirked at
him with a triumphant air, only to have her exultation cut short unexpectedly
by a commotion at the opened window.
“Oh, but she
already knows, Melisande,” exclaimed Siv as she climbed over the windowsill and
entered the room. “And she watched a rehearsal of his little act before he gave
what you thought was a private performance. Did you not know? Cort loved the
dramas and comedies at the amphitheater in Lycenium; that’s where this crude
savage was first exposed to the fine art of acting.”