Darkover: First Contact (67 page)

She sat up in the bed, reaching for the black cloak of Avarra.

He wrenched it away from her and threw it angrily into a corner. “Never let me see you wearing that damned thing again!”

She shrugged, standing in her torn chemise as straight and proud as if she were wearing court dress. The tears were still flooding down her face with their own life, but she brushed them impatiently away. Her voice was still and cold, even through the hoarseness of many tears. “Do you really believe that, Bard? Or is it your way to protect yourself from knowing what a cruel thing you have done, what a wretched, miserable excuse for a man you really are?”

“I am no different from any other man,” he defended himself, “and you, my dear lady, no different from any other woman, except for your pride. I have even known women to kill themselves before they can admit to the man that their desires are no different from men’s—but I had thought you were more honest than that, that you could admit to yourself, now that I have made it inevitable, that you had wanted me. . . .”

“That,” she said, very low, “is a lie, Bard. A lie. And if you believe it, it is only because you do not dare to know what you are or what you have done.”

He shrugged. “At least I know women. I have known enough of them since my fourteenth year.”

She shook her head.

“You have never known anything about any woman, Bard. You have known only what you yourself wished to believe about them, and that is a very long way from the truth.”

“And what in the truth?” His voice held scathing contempt.

“You ask me,” she said, “but you do not dare to know, do you? Have you ever even thought of trying to find out the truth—the real truth, Bard, not the soothing lies men tell themselves so that they can live with what they are and the things they do?”

“Do you suggest I ask a woman, and listen to the lies they tell
themselves?
I tell you, all of them—yes, and you too, lady—they want to be mastered, to have their pride overcome, so that they can admit to their real desires. . . .”

She smiled, just a little. She said, “If you believe that, then, Bard, you will have no hesitation in knowing the real truth, mind to mind, so that neither can lie to the other.”

“I did not know you were a
leronis,
” Bard said, “but I am sure enough of myself, lady, that if you have courage to show me your inner mind I do not fear what I will see.”

Carlina touched her throat, where the starstone hung within its small leather pouch on a braided leather thong. She said, “Be it so, Bard. And Avarra have mercy on you; for I shall have no more pity than you had on me last night. Know, then, what I am—and what you are.”

She unwrapped the stone, and Bard felt a faint sickness at the blueness, the little ribbons of light that curled inside.

“See,” she said in a low voice. “See from inside, if you will.”

For a moment nothing except distance, strangeness, and then Bard knew he was seeing himself, in memory, as Carlina had seen him when he first came to court as their foster brother; big, loutish, a clumsy boy who could not dance, overgrown, stumbling over his own feet . . .
Did she pity me, then? No more than pity?
No, he saw himself in her eyes, handsome, frightening, even a little glamorous, the big boy who fetched down her kitten from the tree—and suddenly, when she was most grateful, threatened to wring its neck, so that her gratitude was swallowed up in sudden fear,
if he would do that to a kitten, what would he do to me?
To Carlina, Bard knew, he had seemed huge, terrifying, big as the world, and when they were to be handfasted, and she had first thought of Bard as a possible husband, he felt, with her, the terrifying revulsion, big arms that would crush her, rough hands touching her, the kiss he had given her there before all, shamed and shrinking; and her anger at him when she had held Lisarda weeping in her arms, the girl not even knowing what Bard had done or why, only that she had been used, shamed, humiliated, and that she could not resist him, even through her hate and sickness at what had been done to her body and how he had made her compliant in her own rape. . . .

And then the Festival, where he had led her into the gallery and she knew that he meant to have from her, willing or unwilling, what he had had from Lisarda; only it was worse for her, because she
knew
what he wanted and why. . . .

Bard does not want me, only, in his pride, he wants to lie with the king’s daughter so that he will be the king’s son-in-law; he has no identity or pride of his own, so he must have the king’s daughter for wife, to give him legitimacy. And he wants my body . . . as he wants every woman’s body he sees. . . .
Bard felt with Carlina her physical sickness at his touch, the revulsion of his tongue thrusting into her mouth, his hands on her, the dizzying relief when Geremy had interrupted. Through her eyes he watched himself draw that accursed dagger on Geremy, and heard Geremy’s screams and the convulsion of agony—

“No more—” he begged aloud, but the matrix held him, pitiless, dragging him into Carlina’s shame that at one time she had admired him, that at one time she had felt the first stirrings of desire for him. . . . It was as if he had crushed them out with his own hands, so that she felt nothing when she stood and watched him, outlawed, going forth into exile; and it was as if his hands on her had crushed out any desire ever to marry. When Geremy’s hand was offered, she had fled to the safety of the Island of Silence, and there the peace had wiped out the memory . . . or almost wiped it out. Bard felt he would swoon in terror as he felt with Carlina the mortal dread of being alone, bound and gagged . . .
helpless, wholly helpless
. . . in a horse-litter, going in the hands of she knew not whom, toward she knew not where. Every emotion of Carlina’s thrust itself agonizingly into him, the fear of strange hands, the dread when she had seen Bard’s face—as she thought—peering hatefully into her litter—and knew that she could expect no mercy from his pride and ambition. He lived through the gasping struggle when, freed for a moment to relieve herself, she had run like a horned
chervine,
only to be caught and snatched up, fighting and scratching, (in the midst of terror the momentary satisfaction as she felt her nails draw blood from Paul’s cheek) and dumped back in the litter. The humiliation of lying there hour after hour, bound and gagged, the shame of lying in a dress soaked with her own urine. The knowledge, when she had been brought and carried to her own apartments, that she was beaten, that there was no escape; hearing herself, shamed, but too exhausted to do otherwise, give her parole just for the ease of the bonds knifing her flesh, for food and care and a bath and clean garments.
After that, I will never again be able to think myself brave. . . .

When Bard came to her she was already half beaten. Bard felt with Carlina the staccato terror of her frantic prayers,
Mother Avarra, help me now, save me, protect me who is sworn to you, don’t let this happen . . . why, why must this happen, why do you abandon me, I have done all that I vowed, I have served you faithfully as your priestess
. . . and the awful sense of abandonment as she realized that the Goddess would not help her, that no one would help her, that she was alone with Bard and he was stronger than she. . . .

Mortal terror, and awful humiliation, as she lay with her clothes torn off, impaled, tearing pain, but worse than the pain, the horror of knowing herself only a thing to be used. The battering of his body inside her deepest and most secret parts, and a sense of worthlessness, a shamed self-disgust that she could let herself be used like this, self-hatred and horror that she had not forced him to kill her first, that she had not fought to the death; certainly nothing, nothing he could have done would have been worse than this . . . and as his seed spurted into her the fear and knowledge of her own vulnerability, that she would be no more than a womb for his child,
his
. . . a horrid, hateful parasite that could grow in her and take over her clean body . . . but she had let him do this, she could have fought harder, she deserved no better. . . .

Bard did not know that he was on the floor, writhing, that he screamed aloud, in the depth of this violation, as Carlina had not screamed, feeling his teeth bite into his lip, a beaten, battered, outraged thing. The world was darkness and his own sobs as he felt with Carlina the horror of being taken again, used again, that
he
had dared to find pleasure in this horror . . . stillness and self-contempt that she deserved only this and no more....

But that was not all. Somehow, the flood of
laran
had wakened, and he felt other memories, other awarenesses flood through him. He saw himself from Lisarda’s eyes, naked, monstrous, bewildering, dealing pain and violation . . . saw himself through Melisendra’s eyes, hateful compulsion and a pleasure that created self-contempt, the dread of being humiliated and despoiled for the Sight, her terror of punishment and the scornful tongue of Lady Jerana, and worse, Melora’s pity. . . .

He stood again on the shore of the Lake of Silence, and a priestess in a dark robe cursed him, and then the faces of all those he had killed and despoiled drifted in and gnawed at his soul, and he writhed and howled in the grip of self-knowledge so deep that there was nothing left; he saw himself a small sick shameful thing . . .
what a miserable excuse for a man you really are
. . . and knew it to be true. He had looked deep into his own soul, and found it wanting; and with all his heart he longed for death as it went on . . . and on . . . and on....

 

At last it was over, and he lay curled into withdrawal, exhausted, on the floor of the chamber. Somewhere, a million miles away, farther than the moons, the avenging Avarra thrust a matrix out of sight and the world went into merciful darkness.

Hours later, the world began to clear. Bard stirred, hearing a single voice through the torment of hatred and accusation and self-contempt which was all he could hear.

Melora, who had loved him and valued him. Melora, the only woman in whose eyes he had never destroyed himself.

Even my brother, even Alaric, if he knew what I have done, would hate me. But Melora knows the worst of me and she does not hate me. Melora, Melora.
. . .

Like a man in a daze, he dressed himself, looking across where Carlina lay, flung in deep exhaustion across the bed. She had been too weary even to pull her black mantle across her body; she still wore the torn, blood-stained chemise, and her eyes were raw with crying, sunk deep into her face. He looked at her with a terrible fear and dread, and thought,
Carlie, Carlie, I never wanted to hurt you, what have I done?
Tiptoeing for fear she should wake and look at him again with those terrible eyes, he went out into the hallway.
Melora!
Only one thought was in his mind, to get to Melora, Melora who alone could heal his hurts. . . . Yet before all else Bard was a soldier, and even as he longed to hurl himself down the stairs and to his home, he forced himself to take the alternate path, along the hail to his own suite of rooms.

Paul looked up in dismay as Bard came in. He started to say, good God, man, I thought you spent the night with your wife, and you look as if you’d been chasing demons in one of the hells . . . but he held his peace at the look in Bard’s eyes. What had
happened
to him? He saw Bard look at Melisendra, wearing a green chamber-robe, her hair tied loosely up, fresh from her bath, and then look away, in torment.

“Bard,” she said, in her sweet, musical voice, “what has come to you, my dear? Are you ill?”

He shook his head. “I have no right—no right to ask—” and Paul was amazed and shocked at the hoarseness of his voice. “Yet—in the name of Avarra—you are a woman. I beg you to go to Carlina; I would not—not let her be humbled further by—by her own serving-maids seeing her in this condition. I—” his voice broke. “I have destroyed her. And she has destroyed me.” He raised his hand, refusing her ready questions, and Melisendra knew that the man was at the very end of his endurance.

He turned to Paul, summoning a final remnant of his old manner.

“Until I return—until I return, you are Lord General of the Army of Asturias,” he said. “It has come sooner than we thought, that is all.”

Paul opened his mouth in protest, but before he could speak, Bard had plunged out of the room.

As the sound of his booted feet died away, Paul turned to Melisendra, in astonishment and dismay.

“What in hell has happened to
him?
He looks like the wrath of God!”

“No,” said Melisendra gently, “of the Goddess. I think that he has come face to face with the wrath of Avarra; and that she has not been gentle with him.” She put Paul’s hand aside. “I must go to the Lady Carlina; he asked it of me in the name of the Goddess, and that request no woman, and no priestess, may ever refuse.”

All the long road to Neskaya, Bard, clinging to his galloping horse, riding alone, could barely sit in his saddle. He was sick and exhausted, pain and despair pounding in him with the hoofbeats on the road; the agonizing awareness of humiliation, he was not sure whether it was his own or Carlina’s, the ache of a violated body and a shame that went searingly deep into his very soul. He felt her pain, her self-contempt, and marveled at it. . . . Why should she hate herself for what
I
did to her? Yet he knew that she blamed herself for not letting him kill her first. Searing more deeply yet was the memory of Melisendra’s gentle voice as she said,
Bard, what has come to you, my dear? Are you ill?
How could she be so forgiving when he had done to her no less than to Carlina? And yet it was genuine, she felt real care and concern for him; was it only that he had fathered her son? Or did she have some source of comfort unknown to him?
When I had need of the comfort of the Goddess, I was younger and more ignorant than you could possibly imagine,
she had said once to him. She had outlived her pain, or at least survived it, but in Carlina it was all fresh and raw, the memory of the moment when she had cried out to the Goddess and realized that her Goddess could not, or would not intervene to save her.
Yet the Goddess struck through Carlina and avenged her—her and all the other women I have ill-used. But why did Carlina have to suffer so that the Goddess should strike me?