Retribution (3 page)

There was squealing in the corridor. Val
burst in through the open door, pursued by a maid who was
preventing herself from smacking him only because she knew he was
the future Margrave Aranyi. Val climbed up beside me. “I’ve been
resurrected!” He balanced precariously on the sloping mattress and
stretched his arms over his head like a boxer after achieving a
knockout. “I was dead and now I’m resurrected.”

Lucretia shut her eyes in pain and touched
her forehead and chest, then each shoulder in turn, with the
fingertips of her left hand. The gesture reminded me that she was a
devout Christian and that the entire household followed her
observance.

“Hush, Val.” I bowed my head in Lucretia’s
direction. “I was forced to employ the
crypta-death
on my
son and myself, and I used the word with him the other day. I meant
no offense to your religion.”

Lucretia opened her eyes and looked, not at
me, but at Dominic. “Margrave,” she said, her face rigid with the
effort of speaking so forthrightly, “your lady wife sees the truth.
My faith has been put to the test. Not by the innocent words of a
child, but by the sins of adults.”

She paused. I could feel the strong moral
sense in her, compelling her to do what she saw as her duty.
Confronting Dominic, her overlord and her guest, was a greater
trial than all the uncomplicated dangers she had faced alone in the
last fifteen years. When she spoke next it was in the harsh voice
of conviction. “My faith teaches many things, but the most
important lesson is this: to love our enemies. And I can no longer
ignore what has been going on under my roof, or allow it to
continue.” She heaved a great breath after a strenuous labor
performed, and waited for the explosion to follow.

Dominic was unexpectedly calm. He had been
exposed to the Christian faith as a boy, having endured the
equivalent of a public-school education at one of their
monasteries. Being sent from home at a young age to live in the
freezing cells of the unheated abbey had left Dominic bitter but
well-read, and if he could not adopt so peculiar a religion he had
come not to despise it. “It is a rather limited belief system,” he
had said to me, “with only one god, and it is no faith for a
soldier. But when taught intelligently it does little harm.”

Dominic had risen politely when Lucretia
entered the room. After her outburst he stood looking down at her,
a sympathetic expression on his face. “It’s that thing in the
barn,” he said, one person of sensibility to another. “It would
upset a vulture’s stomach to be within smelling distance of such
filth, and I sincerely apologize for inflicting it on you and your
household.”

Lucretia took another deep breath. She had
already reached a turning point, had chosen the path of
righteousness. There was no going back now; she must forge ahead.
“Margrave,” she said, “that
thing
is a man. Whatever his
crimes, however wicked his deeds, he is a human being. And my faith
does not permit the punishment you have chosen.”

Dominic and I were silent in the face of such
passion.

Lucretia fixed first Dominic, then me, with
her intense gaze. “The Threefold God has shown his everlasting
mercy to that man, the mercy he extends to all sinners. He has
granted him death, the ending of his life in this world, the
beginning of his true life in the next world. Yet you have
repeatedly denied this man what God has given him, forcing him back
into a life that is over. It is no longer his life, and certainly
not yours, to prolong.” She stared bravely into Dominic’s
glass-covered eyes. “I know you do not share my faith, but you are
an honorable man. It is for you to set the example in your own
land, to uphold justice. Yet you, Margrave Aranyi, are guilty of
the greatest crime of all, of playing God. And that is
blasphemy.”

I could never bear to see Dominic criticized.
“Lady Ladakh,” I said, forcing myself to sit all the way up, “that
thing in the barn, man or not, kidnapped me and my children.
My
children
.”

Lucretia watched me with a pitying smile on
her face. Her gift was strong at this moment of high emotion, and
not well guarded. She thought Dominic dominated me so completely I
had no mind of my own, and addressed all her protests to him as the
active member of our partnership.

“My husband is not acting alone,” I said. I
searched her mind for the maternal feelings I knew were there.
“That
man
in the barn starved me, left me and my son to die.
And he told my daughter I was dead.” I nodded at Jana where she sat
cradling her doll. “That her own mother was dead. Can you imagine
the effect that had on her?” I thought of all that had happened,
everything my children and I had endured, that Reynaldo had still
to pay for. I was no longer defending my husband but pleading my
own cause. “He threatened to kill my son, my baby son who is not
yet two years old, to make me obey him.”

I could see Lucretia softening and spoiled
things by pushing too far. “Your god is obviously a man. Only a man
would expect a mother to love the enemy of her children.”

Lucretia stiffened like a front-line soldier
preparing to receive the charging enemy ranks on his spear point.
“I see yours is a true marriage of minds,” she said, speaking now
to us both. Her voice deepened to a command. “Let him die. I am not
asking you to forgive him. Just let him die.” It was easy to see
how she had held Ladakh Fortress all these years on her own.

“My lady,” Dominic said, using formal,
courtly speech, a warning of his serious purpose. “My lady, that
man, as you charitably call him, is indeed my enemy. He stole my
family from me, would have killed my wife, and my son and heir.”
Dominic could barely bring himself to think of the danger Jana had
been in, would not refer to it in her presence. “According to my
faith, and I do have one, that man is now mine, to dispose of as I
see fit.”

Lucretia Ladakh shed unconscious angry tears.
“Please, Margrave,” she said. “You attended our schools. You know
the teachings even if you do not follow them. ‘Vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord.’ You must have heard that many times.”

Dominic chose not to understand Lucretia’s
words. He showed the same icy smile I had seen when he learned that
Reynaldo had been communicating with me and said, “Yes, I am lord
here, as you point out. The safety of all law-abiding inhabitants
in my land is my responsibility. Vengeance is mine, and I am taking
it, in my own way, in my own time.”

Dominic reached for my hand again, presenting
a united front. “‘Gravina Aranyi is indeed my true wife.” His
undisguised pride in me was exhilarating. “What I do is dictated by
her wishes, and mine, no one else’s.” He inclined his head in a way
that, while courteous, was a dismissal. “If my treatment of my
enemy offends you, we will leave as soon as ‘Gravina Aranyi can be
safely moved. We will not trouble you any more than is necessary,
and I thank you, and your entire household, for the forbearance you
have shown up to now.”

Lucretia blinked several times, her eyes made
more beautiful, magnified by her tears. Her lips trembled, but she
stayed true to her resolve. “Since I cannot change your mind, my
lord,” she said, “then I must accept your offer to leave.” The
Eclipsian tradition of hospitality is sacred. It was unheard of to
ask even the poorest, most unpleasant guest to leave before he was
ready to go. By practically throwing a ‘Graven lord and his family
out of her house, Lady Ladakh had demonstrated the strength of her
religious convictions in a most dramatic fashion.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “We will all be gone at
first light.”

“By the balls of Erebos,” Dominic whispered
when Lady Ladakh had left. “That was a rash promise to make.”

“Nothing could keep me here any longer,” I
said. “I would go now if we could.”

Dominic stroked my cheek. “But at first
light? The strain of such early rising might give you a
relapse.”

I kissed his fingers one by one. “No,” I
said. “It is you who must rise early, to carry me out. I intend to
sleep all the way home.”

D
ominic sat with me, saying
little but comforting me with his presence, until it was time for
supper. We were both disturbed by the confrontation with our
hostess. We need fear no opinion but that of the Viceroy, ‘Graven
Assembly, or the Sibyl of a seminary, and Lucretia Ladakh could
claim none of this authority. Yet we sat, I propped up on pillows
in the bed, Dominic in the hard chair beside me, like two unruly
Christian novices awaiting the Abbot’s verdict.

When supper was brought I was too upset to
eat. Dominic sampled the meal off my tray, tempting me occasionally
by holding a few choice bits to my lips. Only to please him, I
accepted the juicy morsels, keeping his hand at my mouth while I
licked and sucked his fingers. In a short time his face was
flushed, his chest heaving with deep breaths, but he said nothing,
kept his thoughts neutral. He suspected I was not yet strong enough
for lovemaking, would not give in to his desire, no matter how
suggestive my actions.

The scene with Lucretia had had a strange
effect on me. It had produced another resurrection, of all my
original feelings of love for Dominic, my recognition of him as the
only true companion for me. Seeing him attacked, for acts and
thoughts I shared, made me want to support him, to behave as his
wife in every way. I had been touched by Dominic’s emphasis of my
status before Lucretia, his forceful acknowledgment of the equal
partnership of our marriage and my influence over his decisions.
His one slip, with Lady Melanie, I resolved to relegate to the
waste pile of my memory as soon as I could purge it from my active
mind.

I tried to remember the last time we had made
love. It must be over a month ago, I thought with surprise.
A
whole month!
No wonder Dominic resented Val and his demands. No
wonder he had seized the opportunity for a reunion with Lady
Melanie.

If I had been sick, or if Dominic had been
away from home, there would be some excuse. But I had been
perfectly well, and Dominic and I had gone together to visit Stefan
and Drusilla. In their small household, our entire family—Dominic
and Niall, the children and I—had been given one room, like any
other family. Because we are ‘Graven it was the largest room, with
two beds. Some of the less important guests and the servants had to
sleep in bedrolls on the floor in the great hall. In this crowded
setting, I had felt too self-conscious for intimacy with Dominic,
even for mental lovemaking, although Dominic and Niall had managed
a few almost silent sessions, only the rapid breathing and the
shaking of their bed giving them away.

The problem was not due solely to our visit;
in Aranyi Fortress, of course, we had no such crowding. But rich or
poor, a new baby sleeps with its mother. With Jana, the first
child, Dominic and I had handled things in the usual way. At first
she stayed in my bed; Dominic made love to me with the infant at my
side. Later, when she was old enough that I felt uncomfortable, I
would leave her in my room while I went with Dominic to the
Margrave’s bedroom next door, although Dominic as often as not
retrieved her afterwards to sleep the rest of the night with
us.

Weaning marks the beginning of the journey
from infancy to childhood. Once Jana no longer nursed, I tried
taking her to the nursery and Isobel at bedtime. Even when Dominic
spent the night with Stefan, I took Jana to the nursery, not
wanting her to think it was only Dominic’s desire for me that was
forcing her out of her favorite sleeping place. Sometimes Jana
accepted the change, sometimes she fought like a tiger, would howl
and rage. But she had always welcomed the presence of her papa in
my bed, only resented her own banishment.

Val was different. Even at a few months old,
when Dominic entered my bed, kissed me or touched me to arousal
with his long fingers, Val would wake up, cry and complain. We had
tried all the same things that had worked with Jana—leaving him in
my room or taking him to the nursery—but the howls had only grown
louder, driving the entire household to distraction. Dominic and I
made love less frequently in the time since Val was born than in
the previous years. We arranged daytime trysts, meeting in an
outbuilding or a guestroom, hoping to enjoy an illicit, spontaneous
sensation. But Val had the sensitivity common in children of
telepathic parents. He seemed to have a perception of our activity
and, more often than not, would set up his wailing just the same.
Once he could walk it was hopeless. He would give Isobel the slip,
track us down, always coming in on us at awkward moments.

Dominic made his frustration known early on,
needing the physical release more often than I did. “It won’t
last,” I had assured him each time we were interrupted, kissing him
maternally since wifely attentions provoked such a storm of
protest, and sending him off, sometimes willing, sometimes sulky,
to find comfort in Niall’s arms. The demands of motherhood took
enough out of me that I could not be as passionate as my husband.
But for Dominic, the balance between wife and companion is
everything. Being with the one does not substitute for being with
the other, only intensifies his desire.

As Val grew more independent and I had energy
to spare, I had begun to share Dominic’s need. Lying now in
Lucretia Ladakh’s wide guestroom bed, overwhelmed by thoughts of
gratitude and love, temporarily free of my responsibilities as
‘Gravina Aranyi, the children downstairs at the evening meal, I
thought with longing of the last time we had managed a quick
rendezvous: in the clean, sweet-smelling hay already being
stockpiled in the winter barn.

Dominic-Leandro,
I spoke
telepathically in formal speech, the language of courtship and
love,
my lord husband. It has been too long
...