Retribution (23 page)

Beloved
, Dominic thought to me.
My
own dearest love
. He lifted me up, tightened his arms around
me, and I fainted against his chest.

I resurfaced briefly a minute or two later in
Dominic’s arms as he carried me up the stairs to the ground floor,
Naomi lighting the way. “Why?” I said. “How did he gain such power
over you?”

Dominic shook his head. “I’m sorry, my love,”
he answered me sadly. “I couldn’t help it. He was my lover.”

I saw the black spots again, felt the
whirling of faintness in my head. My husband was not free of the
possession that had gripped him. He was mad, worse than before, for
now he looked like himself, spoke to me in his usual affectionate
manner, but he was lost.
My companion.
He had called
Reynaldo, that human excrement, his lover. I could fight it no
longer. I slumped in his arms, insensate, and let him take me, to
do what he would.

W
hen I woke again it was
late morning. I stretched, rubbed my eyes, enjoying the luxury of
lying awake in bed. How delightful, to sleep out from drunkenness,
to be fully rested.
Such dreams, though
. The stink of the
grave penetrated my nostrils, tickled the lobes of my brain with
morbid fantasies. I would not let myself go so far again, I
resolved with Sunday-morning virtue, would drink only water and the
occasional glass of wine.

Dominic lay snoring beside me, one long arm
flung over my ribs. We were in the Margrave’s bedroom. Yet I was
sure, could have sworn, I had gone to bed in my own room last
night.

He was my lover
. It came back in a
rush of terror, the whole dreadful scene, and the unbelievable
words Dominic had offered by way of explanation. I edged cautiously
away from my husband, letting my shrinking flesh slip out from
under the heavy arm, my eyes fixed on his open mouth, his
fluttering eyelids, hoping not to wake him. Like any child
convinced there is a monster in the closet or under the bed, I
wanted the safety of my own room.

No, my lady wife, you heard wrong
.
Dominic sat up, his silvery eyes and predatory smile more
reassuring to me than any words as he snorted with disgusted
laughter. “Bad as things are, I have not sunk as low as that, to
take so debased an object for a lover. No, Reynaldo was my brother.
My half-brother.”

The Eclipsian word has various meanings,
indicated by slight differences in pronunciation or emphasis. Most
of the time people get the sense from the context. My ear, after
six years with Dominic, who had only a sister so far as I knew, but
who had had many lovers, was attuned to the one meaning of the
word, not the others.

Dominic and Reynaldo, half-brothers
.
Dominic’s mother, the beautifully, genetically-altered “alien,” had
died when he was five—at least that’s what he had been told. The
loss had been so great he had never been able to talk about it, to
mourn her properly, even with me.
Had she been the captured
gifted woman?

“No, Amalie,” Dominic said. There was a catch
in his voice. We were in our communion of touch; Dominic knew all
my thoughts as I had them. “Don’t make things worse than they are.
It’s my father we had in common, the shithead and I.”

“But– but—” I had a hard time articulating
all my questions and doubts. “His mother was gifted. She had a
prism-handled dagger, but she was captured anyway.” It was too
close to my own fears to say aloud.
Raped and controlled by the
man who had confiscated the object that enhances ‘Graven
power.

“Yes,” Dominic said. “Reynaldo’s mother was
gifted too. But his father was my father.”

“He said his father was a bandit.” I couldn’t
let it go. The captive ‘Gravina obsessed me, yet every time I asked
about her Dominic steered away from the subject.

Dominic sighed. “Even among bandits there
would be a polite fiction maintained. If they have the great good
fortune to capture a gifted woman, and if she turns out to be
pregnant, they would be ecstatic at the added value of their catch.
The leader, the one who would take her for his captive, would be
only too happy to call himself the child’s father, whatever the
truth, just as he would call himself the owner of the rest of the
loot he steals.”

“But how do you know Reynaldo’s father was
your father?” I asked. “What makes you so sure?”

“Look at him.” Grief and shame roughened
Dominic’s voice. “Go take a look, if you haven’t recently.” Before
I could spit out my resentment at so cruel a suggestion, Dominic
spoke more gently. “At my father, you beautiful termagant. Stop
arguing with me for one second and look at his picture, tell me
what you see.”

I didn’t have to. Zoltan-Valentine’s portrait
hung near the end of the long gallery. Because it was next to a
breathtakingly beautiful picture of Dominic as a young man, I had
seen it frequently. The red hair, the face, even the height and
build, were unsettlingly similar to the bandit’s. Shave off
Reynaldo’s beard, wash and comb his hair, put decent clothes on
him, and the resemblance would have been striking. Now that it had
been pointed out, I wondered that I had not seen it for myself.

“But you did see it.” Dominic addressed my
thoughts. “You saw it immediately, although your mind could not
accept it.” He spoke in a whisper, pride in my perceptiveness mixed
with mortification at what I had perceived.

And what had I seen? Reynaldo’s red
hair
—
like Val’s. Like Dominic’s father’s, Val’s
grandfather
. But all ‘Graven families produce some individuals
with that bright color. Reynaldo’s ‘Graven heritage had been
obvious from the beginning, and I had not looked closer to connect
him with any particular house or realm.

“Well, so what?” I said. I was sorry for
Dominic, with his ‘Graven pride, that so meaningless a fact of
biology could be responsible for so much misery. It seemed
anticlimactic somehow, unworthy of such attention. It wasn’t
something Dominic or I had actually done. It wasn’t even something
Reynaldo had done. “Why does it matter?” Fatigue and irritation
made me speak in Terran, with a Terran accent. “The shithead is
your half-brother.
Was
your half-brother. So fucking
what?”

“So fucking articulate, Amalie.” My Terran
vocabulary and way of speaking has always amused Dominic, even as
he has not always been able to disguise his contempt for its lack
of Eclipsian dignity. He lay back on the pillows and snorted at the
ceiling.

I turned my back so as not to give him the
satisfaction of seeing how he enraged me. His arm tightened around
me, pulling me deeper into the communion. Our love rose up around
us, its warmth and comfort soothing me, but it could not yet melt
the frozen center of my anger.
Never contempt for you,
beloved
, he thought to me.
You cannot help where you were
born. And your voice is elegant, your formal speech fluent, when
you trouble yourself to use it
. Coming from him, who valued
these things so highly, it was a rare and precious compliment.

Slowly I began to soften. Dominic’s hand
traveled up my body to my breasts, feather-touches teased my
nipples into stiffness. A sigh escaped my lips before I could
suppress it, as moisture spurted between my legs without volition.
Long, slender fingers slipped into me, moved languidly in the
wetness, until my sighs became moans.
I was helpless at his
touch
, I thought, angrier than ever,
absolutely
helpless
.

As I am helpless at yours
, Dominic
thought to me, removing his hands.
Absolutely helpless in the
grip of our communion
.

I opened my eyes and turned around. Dominic
had not moved. He lay supine as he had been, his arm loosely
encircling my waist. The touch of his hands had occurred only in
our minds, although the very real arousal it had caused had
extended to my body. “That’s what,” he answered my Terran question
in the same language, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “That’s
so fucking what.”

“You fuckhead.” I wouldn’t use a literal,
Eclipsian insult. The memory of what had happened the last time I
had used words against Dominic was still fresh.

Dominic sat up and rubbed his beak of a nose
against my face. “Tell me what that really means: ‘fuckhead.’ It
sounds interesting.”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just a stupid,
inarticulate, Terran insult. But not stupid enough for you.”

“I’m sorry, beloved. What Naomi said last
night was the truth.” Dominic answered what he thought was my
complaint. “You caused these latest transformations in me.” At my
denial, he touched my lips to silence me. The cuts on the fingers
proved it was the abomination’s hand, the same one I had attacked
with my dagger. But this was Dominic’s hand, his touch as gentle,
as stimulating, as comforting as ever. I swallowed my intended
indignant words.

“Last night you were both sorceress and
savior to me. Your mind had been invaded, confused.” He didn’t say
by what or by whom. “Troubled as you were, you gave me the
thoughts, then the form of our enemy, but you brought me back to
myself in the end. When you put your arms around me, you drove the
demon out.” He demonstrated, hugging me to him. “I think that was
what saved me, by bringing on our true communion. And I think the
safest course is to stay together, flesh to flesh, until we’re sure
we can control this– this aberration.”

My skin tingled as I was enveloped in the
electric buzz of the communion. It was difficult, in the filmy gray
light of an overcast autumn morning, to accept that this man could
be so closely related to the psychopath who had wanted to kill me.
Despite the rousing warmth of the communion I shivered
uncontrollably.

Dominic’s arms tightened around me. “I’m
sorry, Amalie.” Dominic’s apology was sincere, his voice earnest
now, his face stern. “But that’s what this was all about. Our
communion. Because Reynaldo was Aranyi, as I am, he affected us
both, you as much as me. And our communion is too powerful a force
to be disrupted safely.”

“But are you seriously saying,” I asked, the
ludicrous idea making me hesitate, “that because you and Reynaldo
are related, you were forced to behave like him? Or that I forced
you to behave like him?” That made even less sense, yet both
Dominic and Naomi had implied it.

Dominic sighed and stretched, flinging the
covers off our naked bodies. “I’ll explain everything, I promise.”
He stood up to go to the bathroom, but sat back down immediately,
wrapping his arms around me again like a cartoon drunk with a
lamppost. “We must not break communion.” He held my hands, pulled
me to my feet. “We must stay together, skin to skin, like a newly
married couple, until we are certain it is safe.”

With our years of marriage, our two children,
it was as natural as breathing. Linked in communion, hand in hand,
we relieved ourselves in turn, brushed our teeth and bathed.
Dominic’s bathroom has a smaller tub than my great lake, but today
it was just as well we were forced to lie close together or on top
of each other. Afterward I leaned against the washbasin, my arm
circling Dominic’s waist, while he shaved. He did the same to me
while I combed my damp hair. Once finished we ran laughing and
naked back to bed, safe in the immediacy of bare skin, and snuggled
under the covers.

There was no more of the contrived eroticism
in Dominic’s touch. The communion surrounded us like a cocoon, a
cushion of warmth extending a few inches beyond our bodies. He was
mine, my second self, the
other
who yet mirrored me, whom I
trusted and relied on to sustain me. He belonged to me, and I to
him, body and mind, thoughts and emotions. I understood the deep
shame that had forced him to employ casual cruelty and tricks of
crypta
to distance himself from the subject of Reynaldo if
he was to speak of it at all.

Locked in communion, we enjoyed the love that
needs no physical expression, no words or thoughts. It was like
being immersed in warm fragrant water, like eating and drinking
through the skin, a nourishing bath of the most necessary emotion
of all.

“It is unique, our communion,” Dominic said,
once we had drunk our fill of it. “Why do we have this special
communion, do you think? What caused it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It just is.” I
thought back to my arrival on Eclipsis. “Right from the beginning,
it was there.”

Even Edwige Ertegun, the supremely gifted
sibyl who had taught me at La Sapienza, hadn’t known. She had
admitted that something like it occurred every so often between
telepaths, but beyond that she had no other explanation.

Crypta love,
Dominic thought to me.
Isn’t that what she called it?
It had worried her, this
intense connection that could not be accounted for by conventional
measures of attraction.

We recalled that time, over six years ago,
when I had left La Sapienza against Edwige’s judgment to go with
Dominic. “I had no choice,” I said. “She wanted me to stay at La
Sapienza, but I couldn’t.”

“And I could not have left you there.”
Dominic smiled at the memories. “We can’t fight it or change it.
It’s the body’s response to a deep sympathy between telepathic
minds, and it’s no different from any attraction based on physical
characteristics. You respond to my mind, and I to yours, just as
some people are attracted to blondes or to tall people, to men or
women.”

It was lovely to lie in bed and listen to
Dominic. The communion allowed me to hear the deep tones of his
voice, the crisp, patrician enunciation, even when the thoughts
flowed directly from mind to mind. We seemed to have forgotten our
original subject, but I was in no hurry to return to so unpleasant
a topic, and said nothing.