Retribution (41 page)

There were dreams. The scents of the forest,
night sounds, the touch of a man’s body in the dark. Naomi’s life
before she came to Aranyi had been spent in the isolation of the
other
. Gifted, daughter of a sorceress, latest in a line of
independent women, she had never belonged to any village or mixed
with its people. But she had had lovers, faceless and
nameless—husbands with pregnant wives, young boys eager for their
first experience of a woman. Even at Aranyi Naomi had found no one
worthy of a real memory: guards and grooms, and few of them.
Loneliness and loss, the watchfulness of the wild animal caught but
not domesticated. A human woman with the strength of the alien
blood, schooling herself to patience and control, waiting for her
chance...

You gave him to me
, she thought in our
dreaming communion.
You gave me my love, the father of my
child
.

No
, I said, answering her honestly,
wanting her trust, knowing a lie would divide us forever.
You
got him yourself. It was no doing of mine
.

More dreams. Memories of Terra, heat and
harsh light, the gift of
crypta
, but with no comprehension,
no training, like a curse. I too had existed in the isolation of
the
other
, a telepath with only human strength, small and
easily tired, alone among the ungifted. I knew their every secret
yet to them I was a stranger. Love was not possible for the
solitary telepath on Terra. Love had come unexpectedly here, with
great force, to me and my husband. By luck I had won for myself the
man Naomi had hoped for.

You are right for him
, Naomi said.
And you gave me Niall instead
.

Niall was never mine to give
, I
said.

No,
Naomi said,
but you found the
way to him for me. Here in his own land, where he must have the
child. As I must have the child
.

When I woke, late in the day, Naomi was
already slept out. She had stayed beside me in the bed, like a cat
that can lie still as easily while awake and alert as when it
dozes. She smiled into my sleepy eyes as I blinked and stretched,
recalling our shared dreams.
Lady Amalie,
she thought to me
in surprise,
your life was no better than mine
. She
shuddered with the realization of what she had experienced through
me.

We embraced and kissed. We had shared the
communion like love, which starts with familiarity and creates
intimacy. We had been one mind, as a married couple is one flesh.
There would be no more judging and disapproval between us, only
understanding and acceptance. The strong, hard woman who had grown
like a creature of the forest embraced the soft, weak woman who had
lived in a foreign city. We shared the gift, its powers and its
price. We recognized in the other that quality which made us no
longer enemies, nor strangers, nor opposites.

We were friends, and we had each found the
right man. If the men we loved were also lovers, if we shared a
taste for
vir
men, it was but another bond between us,
although with one difference. Dominic’s love for me had come to him
naturally, when he was ready. But Niall had decided to make love to
a woman before he had developed any desire for the opposite
sex.

You used a little sorcery
, I said,
admitting to myself what Dominic had accused Naomi of in his
jealousy.

Only for Niall’s sake,
she said.
To
give him pleasure, make it easy for him
.
I promised him he
would not regret what we did, if he chose it freely.

Naomi had seen Niall’s fate in her flare of
second sight, had known what she must do. At supper, when they had
looked like a courting couple, she had told him only enough of the
future to show him the urgency with which he must act. “You will
never marry,” she had said, believable to a young man who knew that
only his own sex excited him.

“If I do not marry,” Niall had said, “and if
I have no heir, I cannot return to Aranyi with my lover, not with a
clear conscience.”

“Here is the way,” Naomi had said, and made
her proposition. “I will give you your son, and you will give me my
daughter.” There must be another wise woman, just as there must be
another master of Galloway.

Niall had accepted her offer with gratitude.
And when they were alone in the room, when he had seen so strong
and slim and beautiful a woman, had touched her to know how fierce
she was in her love and how controlled in the expression of it, he
had not needed much sorcery after all.

Naomi and I dressed and came downstairs,
ravenous for supper after our sleep. Dominic and Niall had preceded
us, were waiting for us as we reached the hall. They had settled
all their differences as I had hoped, were in the stage of sublime
oneness that follows reconciliation. The gleam of silver on Niall’s
left hand was the ring I had last seen among the pile of discarded
objects in Dominic’s room, the ring that had their initials
engraved on the inner surface. Dominic had brought it with him, in
hopes of placing it a second time on Niall’s finger.

The men welcomed us to supper. Dominic
demonstrated his return to health by attacking Naomi. “You have
lost,” he said. “You have forced yourself on Niall for nothing, you
man-eating forest witch.”

Naomi faced Dominic unafraid, green fire in
her eyes. “My lord,” she said, “no woman can force from a man what
he is not willing to give.”

Niall woke from his dream of love to
intervene. He put his arm on Dominic and led him aside.
She
offered herself to me
, he thought to his companion,
but I am
the one who took her
. He and Dominic had made up so completely
that they exchanged words and thoughts as easily and as naturally
as breathing. The break had healed, leaving the mended part all the
stronger. They could put all the weight of their love on it and it
would hold. They had no residual fears, even about quarreling.

“Dominic-Leandro.” Niall spoke aloud, calling
my husband by his full name, which I used only in our most intimate
moments. He squared up to the task he would face, helping his two
lovers, man and woman, accept each other. “Dominic-Leandro, my
love, you must promise me never again to speak like that to Naomi.
She is my woman and, with the gods’ help, will bear my child. We
will not marry, by her choice as well as mine, but you may no more
insult her in my presence than I would dare insult Amalie in
yours.”

Dominic laughed at the passion in his lover’s
voice. He hugged Niall to him as if they were alone, pulling him
into a breathless embrace. “Or else? Will you fight me again?” He
kissed Niall’s open mouth. “If it is your wish, beloved, then it is
for me to obey,” he said when they broke the kiss.

Dominic released Niall and made a mocking bow
to Naomi. His body spoke as plainly as any words.
You see, it is
because Niall is mine, not yours, that I accept you.

“No, Papa!” Jana ran to Dominic from Clara’s
side as they entered the hall. “Don’t fight Niall!” Another soul
had heard the exchange, did not recognize the bantering tone in
Dominic’s words. She wedged herself between her father and his
beloved, leaned back to stare up at the faces of the two tall men.
“Niall’s your companion.”

Dominic stooped and lifted Jana in his arms,
sighing with pleasure. “Yes, cherie, he is. My favorite daughter.”
He laughed in a shaky voice, registering Jana’s fright.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Jana said in her
little-girl’s hurt voice that broke my heart. “I’m sorry I made you
angry. I’m wearing my dress now, see? You don’t have to fight
Niall.”

Dominic winced. “You have nothing to be sorry
for, little one.” His voice deepened as he remembered what had been
the pretext for the nearly-fatal duel. “And Niall and I have had
our last fight. It is your mother who must answer for her poor
judgment.” His eyes, like frozen water, cut into me as I watched
from across the room. He had lost nothing of his righteous
masculine anger throughout all his ordeal and recovery.

Jana looked fearfully back at me from her
high vantage point in her father’s arms, decided to enjoy the
return to paternal good graces and let me look after myself. “We’re
girls,” she said, preaching to me from her improvised pulpit. “We
shouldn’t wear men’s clothes. Papa and Niall rescued us because
they’re men.” There was something pathetic in her voice, the
child’s pedantic tone sounding crushed and trampled by a truth she
had been forced to accept against her own instincts.

I was the only one who heard it. “That’s
right, little Amazon,” Sir Nicholas said. “Let the men wear the
breeches and carry the swords. That’s the way the world works.”

Other voices chimed in to smooth things over,
Clara and her daughters, even Niall, who offered the generous
opinion that no doubt I had been too frightened in captivity to
think clearly. Only Naomi kept her natural silence of voice and
thought. When I turned to her for support, she shook her head ever
so slightly.

It’s not worth losing your temper over
such a small thing, Lady Amalie
, she said.
You will only
weary yourself for nothing, battering your head against a stone
wall. Your skull will crack long before the wall gives way
.

W
e went in to supper, no
longer in pairs but one big friendly, noisy group. The mood of the
wedding feast still held. Dominic and Niall at supper were like the
new couple at breakfast the morning after their first night.
Intensely in love, delighting in the intimacy they have just
experienced, they would like to stay wrapped up in each other
throughout the honeymoon that has officially begun. Tradition,
however, forces them to participate in the group and they make the
effort, glad to do it, because of their own great happiness. All
the Galloways joined in the festive feeling, as Niall’s excess of
joy in his reunion with Dominic overflowed. He looked for Naomi and
made certain she sat on his other side on the long bench. He could
spare a little of his pleasure—and more—for the woman who had made
it possible.

Everyone participated, except me. My anger
grew greater as my hunger was appeased. I ate rapidly, the
insatiable famine in me from the
crypta
work and the day of
rest without dinner leaving me so empty I thought I would never
feel full again. If anyone spoke to me I pretended to listen, my
mouth full, chewing and swallowing. If anything required an answer,
I pointed to my bulging cheeks. Most people were too impatient with
festive merriment to wait for the unnecessary reply.

So this is what it all comes down to, I
thought, all the tragedies so narrowly averted: my death, and that
of my children; Dominic losing his entire family, wife and children
and companion; our household thrown into turmoil, Dominic’s and my
innermost beings warped into psychosis by inflicting torture on a
fellow telepath. So much great drama, yet it all boiled down to one
outdated, tired taboo. At forty-two I was a girl just like my
five-year-old daughter, and we must not wear breeches, even to save
our lives.

It was so unbelievably stupid that my mind
just shut down. My cheeks grew flushed and hot with the exertion of
eating. My rage, with fuel to keep it burning, sparkled in my eyes
and dampened my underarms with sweat. I noticed Dominic’s eyes on
me more and more as the meal progressed. He was staring at me from
across the table, his hand on Niall’s thigh but his mind attempting
to make contact with mine. I stared back impassive. What could he
possibly want with me tonight? He had his companion, and I was only
the wife with poor judgment.

I shut him out easily enough the first time
and the second, then the third. By the fourth time I was beginning
to feel satisfied from the food. Not full, but I could imagine the
possibility of someday having enough to eat. If not tonight, maybe
tomorrow, assuming I rose early and had a large breakfast. I looked
around for dessert.

“Amalie.” Dominic’s voice was low, intense
with passion. He put his hand on mine as I reached for a bunch of
dark blue grapes. The electric current of our communion burned into
my flesh. Dominic desired me. Despite all her faults, perhaps
because of them, my husband wanted his erring wife this night.

“Dominic-Leandro,” I said, seeing his eyes
widen—was it with pleasure or suspicion?—that I would use his full
name in public, as Niall had. “Dominic-Leandro, if you want the
grapes I will eat something else. It is the wife’s duty to
submit.”

Dominic’s hand lifted from mine as if I had
stabbed it. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Grapes,” I said. “I was going to eat those
grapes. But if you want them, you have only to say so. Or you can
simply take them. If you prefer, I will go without and watch you
eat. You may find that my deprivation increases your pleasure.”

Dominic stood up, pushing with his thighs
against the bench on which he and Niall and Naomi sat, so that it
almost tipped them over on their backs. Niall and Naomi grabbed the
edge of the trestle table in an attempt to remain upright and the
whole top surface slid precariously along the supports beneath.

“Amalie! What the fu—” Dominic remembered he
was in polite company. “What is the matter with you?” His good
manners went unappreciated as the rest of the supper party
struggled with the overloaded, wobbling trestle top, pushing on it
or lifting it to keep it flat, trying to prevent dishes from
sliding to the floor.

I stood to answer my husband, hiking my
skirts up indelicately as I stepped back and over the bench I
shared with Sir Nicholas and his daughter. “What’s the matter with
me?” I flung the question back at Dominic. “Do you really want to
know?”