Retribution (31 page)

Dominic emerged naked from the bathroom. The
lutist gave a soft little yelp. “Now I can die happy,” he said, his
eyelids fluttering. His companion simply stared.

Dominic echoed my welcome to the men, putting
their excited distraction down to my presence. “‘Gravina Aranyi
will also wish to hear your news,” he said. The musicians, I was
certain, had completely forgotten my existence.

In the awkward silence, Dominic grew
impatient.
Put something on
, I thought to him,
before
these poor men die of unrequited lust
.

“Forgive me,” Dominic said, smiling at his
guests, unconscious of his beauty, nakedness natural to him in his
own room. “It has been far too long since I had visitors in my
bedroom. I have forgotten my manners.” He wrapped a blanket around
his waist like a sarong, an outfit which, to me, seemed even more
provocative.

The men sat down with gratitude in the chairs
Dominic pointed them to. Their news, when they could manage to get
it out, was neither hopeless nor encouraging. Sir Nicholas and Lady
Galloway had responded to Dominic’s message with every conventional
phrase. They were “flattered” by so “unexpected” a proposal. They
were “honored at the prospect of forming a connection between
Aranyi and Galloway,” and assured us that, whatever the
“misunderstanding” between their son and Margrave Aranyi, we would
be welcomed in peace to discuss the particulars of the offer.

“The gates are opened, the horse inside the
walls,” Dominic said. “What of our objective?”

The lutist took his time. He had regained his
performer’s poise, and he smoothed back his long hair in an
elegant, studied gesture, before rhapsodizing over Niall, referring
to him as Dominic’s “intended,” calling him a “vision of
loveliness,” like the beloved in the song Dominic had helped him
with.

Dominic accepted the compliments as
preparation for bad news to come, as they were offered, and let the
man tell things in his own time.

The lutist searched for the right way to
phrase things but gave up the effort, reporting Niall’s exact words
for us to construe as we would. “The young man said, ‘They may
travel where they please. We have neither the right nor the
manpower to prevent Margrave Aranyi from entering Galloway.’ ”

Dominic’s demoralization seeped into me where
I sat, unnerving me. He had thought himself prepared for Niall’s
rejection, but when it came he was as defeated as by a surprise
attack.

“There’s something else,” the lutist said.
“When the family was together that evening at supper, Clara, Lady
Galloway, looked at her son and winked. I swear it, my lord.” He
spoke directly to Dominic, suddenly not so mannered, a man of the
world speaking to a less experienced friend in need of advice. “His
mother winked at her son and said, ‘What did I tell you? Everything
comes to him who waits.’ ”

Dominic was pensive when we went to bed. He
gave up pretending to read and lay on his back, hands behind his
head, his mind working over every possibility. I stayed on my side
of the bed, reading and rereading the same paragraph, knowing he
needed to think things out for himself.

I thought longingly of those nights—it would
be two years at Midwinter—when Dominic and Niall had first become
lovers. After the ecstasy of the meeting, the joy of recognizing
true communion, the frenzy of lovemaking every night and most of
the days, Dominic had reached saturation. He needed his wife again.
With Val beside me, I shared my husband’s pleasure in the new love
that replenished and strengthened his constant love for me.

It was like an innocent prelude to tragedy.
How I had teased Dominic, in retaliation for the way he had upset
me when he had announced his plan to marry Stefan. I had twitted my
usually keen-eyed husband for overlooking such a pearl among the
swine of cadets he had so recently dismissed as insipid and
unattractive.

“Three years,” I said. “Every day of every
semester for three years you saw Cadet Galloway at roll call, you
inspected him on parade, you even instructed him in
swordsmanship.
” I touched Dominic as only a wife or a lover
ought, in the time-honored metaphor of the sword. “Surely in all
that time you must have noticed—”

Dominic caught my hand and held it captive
where I had so brazenly put it, while his other hand found my
sheath to his sword. “Not swordsmanship,” he said, laughing. “I
noticed immediately that Cadet Galloway needed little instruction
from me in swordsmanship.” He kissed me, the movements of his
tongue and his hand in me, and of my hand on him, all mimicking the
motion of sword in sheath soon to follow.
But perhaps you would
like some
.

I could only assent wordlessly. Dominic is an
excellent teacher, as I’ve said.

We were startled apart as Val, who at three
months was young enough to share my bed along with his father,
howled at the moment of our conjoining. “What’s the matter with
him?” Dominic glared at the red-faced screaming child. “Jana never
behaved like that.”

“Nothing’s wrong with him.” I picked Val up,
offered a breast to quiet him. “He’s not as fond of swordsmanship
as his father is.”

Dominic watched, impatient to resume our
interrupted activity, while I nursed Val. In the forced
intermission, Dominic began to speak seriously of what had begun in
jest. “Niall won’t let me forget it, that I could have had him all
that time. But Stefan was my companion then. It was for me, the
Commandant, to prove that I could choose my companion from among
the ranks without showing him undue favoritism; that I could be
faithful to my choice without neglecting the other cadets. I tried
to shut the sexual part of my mind to them. All I remember of Niall
from those years is a quickness, of intellect and—”

Dominic was silent as his memories cohered.
“I must have guessed Niall could be trouble from the first day, if
I let him. That was the year I began using classes for weapons
training. I matched the most talented cadets with each other
instead of giving them individual instruction.” He kissed me. “You
know me well, cherie. If I had crossed swords alone with Cadet
Galloway all my good intentions would have gone out the
window.”

Val was ready for sleep by now. I lay back in
the open invitation, legs and arms spread wide, that Dominic can
never resist. He studied my plump, soft, forty-year-old body, my
eyes heavy-lidded with fatigue, sleepy but eager for my husband’s
embrace.
Beautiful
, he thought,
and perceptive
.
Overcome with desire for so prescient a wife, he entered me
smoothly, mind and body, in a perfectly-coordinated occupation of
my being.

Val only whimpered when Dominic’s sword found
its sheath again. Locked in love, Dominic thought the question he
had asked me once before, of someone else.
If I were to marry
Niall, would you be pleased?

The answer flowed from my heart.
Yes,
Dominic. It would please me very much.

Yet Dominic again hesitated to propose
marriage. It was too soon, he would say, or Niall was too
sophisticated for such romantic nonsense. Leave it a while and see
how things go. “After all,” he said, “if I had proposed to Stefan
earlier I might have been married to him when I met Niall. Then
where would we be?”

“In divorce court,” I said, “or court
martial.” Since only Terrans used the former, and the entire corps
of Royal Guards would die laughing if anyone brought private
quarrels to the latter, I could make such remarks safely. “But
don’t wait too long. Niall will be getting betrothed any day now.
With his good looks and charm, and an only son, his parents must be
weighing the dowries.”

I had only dimly understood what Dominic was
experiencing, something he had thought to have left behind with the
end of adolescence. He was unsure of himself with Niall. Dominic,
secure in his role as mentor and in his positions of authority as
Margrave and Commander-General of the ‘Graven Coalition, and with
his potent sexuality unflagging, had not doubted his appeal to any
boy who interested him. Now this dazzling and sophisticated young
man was making Dominic feel like a first-year cadet.

My mind, following its own improvised pathway
of connections back to the present, brought up the memory of my
last talk with Niall. Niall was dangerous, as Stefan had never
been. He had power over Dominic, through love, and over me, through
a kind of blackmail. I thought of the kiss we had shared, the
strong desire that had erupted in us, that would have led to
betrayal if not for Niall’s abhorrence, even then, of dishonoring
Dominic.

And you
, Dominic said. I discovered
Dominic in my mind, feasting on the memory.
He would not
dishonor you, any more than he would me
.

“Oh, Dominic,” I said, mortified that he had
to know every detail of our recent trouble, that I could spare him
nothing. “Niall didn’t really want me like that.”

“Yes, Amalie, he wanted you.” Dominic smiled
at my blushing face. “And you wanted him.” His voice was soft and
warm, almost cheerful, as he stated a simple fact, all the more
reason for me to hang my head in shame. If he had made some
outraged accusation I would have been defiant in hypocritical,
self-righteous anger.

Beloved
, Dominic thought to me,
that is no betrayal, not for us. Surely so perceptive a wife can
tell
. The force of his emotion brought my head up to meet his
eyes. I stared, frightened and excited, into his face that had come
alive with joy. “It would be a great pleasure to me,” he said, so
softly I wasn’t sure of what I heard, “if my companion and my lady
wife filled the cell.”

That was seminary talk. “Filling the cell” is
a way of ensuring full communion among all the participants,
forming sexual connections to break down any mental barriers. For
many people, a physical relationship is the most natural way to
achieve total intimacy. I had failed to fill the cell at La
Sapienza, the reason for my leaving.

“Dominic—” I watched the light of hope
gleaming from his silver eyes. “Niall was hurt and angry when he–
when we– when that happened. It was all tangled up for him with his
thoughts about honor and dishonor, and he said he wouldn’t stoop to
it.”

“If you’re trying to make me hot,” Dominic
said, mixing Terran and Eclipsian words in unconscious imitation,
“you’re doing an excellent job.” He laughed as he shared my
memories. “Niall and I have true communion. What I want, so does
he.” He kissed me on the forehead like a benediction. “And as for
you—you’d stoop to dishonor with Niall in a second, just like
me.”

I was obliged to agree. We were done with
secrets and hiding.

Suddenly Dominic was happier than he had been
in weeks. We talked for a long time as we used to do, about nothing
in particular, things we had read and odd thoughts we had. When we
extinguished the lamps he was playful, tickling me under the covers
until I rose to go back to my own room. “Dominic,” I said, “don’t
start what you can’t finish.”

Dominic stretched his arm out, beckoning me
with a finger. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll start something you
won’t want me to finish.”

I went. He started well and finished even
better. As we settled in to sleep he cupped my breasts, comparing
the diminished present to the fullness of the nursing mother of
memory.
You are still my beautiful Amalie
, he thought to me,
knowing my regrets over my loss of shape.
You have borne and
nursed two children. Surely you would not wish to be childless,
just to have the body of an unmarried woman all your life
.

In the mental silence he tried again. “If you
are a little smaller, at least you are all mine. I no longer have
to share any of you with Val.”

“Val might have something to say about that,”
I said.

Val, Dominic said, had lost the contest. “I
have waited for you, Amalie, while our greedy son monopolized you.
And I have won a war of attrition.” His hands explored the prize he
had gained.

The image was revolting: the devastation of
scorched earth, the masses of men sacrificed in hopeless battles.
Only Dominic would pay his wife so strange a compliment; only I
could appreciate it for the unique love it expressed. The words had
infinitely more value to me than the flowery phrases of other men.
“I am glad,” I said, “there was enough left at the end to make the
fighting worthwhile.”

“Oh, yes,” Dominic said. “Ample stores.” He
stroked belly and thighs that had regained their fullness after the
deprivations of captivity. “Everything comes to him who waits.” He
helped himself to another share of the spoils, having earned it
fair and square.

T
wo days later, Dominic and
I, Ranulf and a couple of guards, Naomi and Katrina, Isobel and
Jana and my greedy son Val filed into the stable after an early
breakfast to make the half-day journey to Galloway. It was a real
autumn day, sleet hissing on the courtyard’s cobblestones, a biting
wind sending the waves of icy rain slanting into the corners of the
windows.

Most of us were in a cheerful mood despite
the weather, although I knew Isobel was unhappy at the separation
from her lover. I had suggested to Dominic that we take Pavel along
as one of our guards, but the sardonic look on Dominic’s face was
answer enough. “It won’t hurt either of them to be apart for a
couple of days. Might be the best thing, let that boy see there are
other women in the world.”

Younger women
, he meant. Isobel was
ten, maybe twelve years older, nothing at all if the sexes were
reversed. Why should it matter so when she was the older one? From
being indifferent, even vaguely hostile to my nursemaid’s romance,
I found myself championing it, hoping I could find a way to bring
it to a satisfactory conclusion—not that the two of them hadn’t
already managed that pretty well for themselves.