Retribution (7 page)

While I pondered, Dominic returned with a
tray of breakfast. Despite the silence, there were clearly cooks on
duty. The food was hot off the grill, the first, hasty products of
the new day’s cooking fire, the pancakes and cured meat that the
servants and local farm workers prefer for their morning meal.
There was coffee, fresh bread, and ripe plums that cooled my mouth
as they dribbled purple juice down my chin. My shrunken stomach
expanded to receive this superior material and I lay back to
encourage digestion.

Dominic repeated his earlier request and,
strengthened from the food, I let him carry me to the bathroom. He
made no sexual overtures, even as he undressed to help me wash my
hair. Dominic is fastidious except when the exigencies of war
prevent it. He understood how degraded I had felt, trapped in the
dirt of more than a week’s deprivation.

When I had patted myself dry, Dominic took
the towel from me and scooped a handful of lotion from the jar. He
slathered me all over, starting at the neck and working his way
down. I inhaled deeply as he cupped my breasts, kneading and
stroking. Still he betrayed no erotic feelings. His hands moved
over my diminished flesh, tracing the stark lines of ribcage and
backbone, finishing with my feet, playing between the toes while I
sat on the lid of the toilet. “You’ll look like them again soon
enough,” he said, nodding toward the mosaic of comfortably rounded
women washing themselves and each other in interesting ways. As he
carried me back to the bedroom, it was I who was breathing heavily,
my mouth open and eyelids drooping, Dominic who was as calm and
expressionless as a statue.

Only when he had put a clean nightgown on me
and laid me back in the bed, one hand supporting my rear, did he
allow himself a quick caress, sliding a finger forward between the
cheeks of my ass. The pad of his finger met the hooded tip of my
clitoris with one teasing flick. It was so light a touch it was
more imagination than real.
Remember who you are
, he thought
to me.
You are my lady wife. No matter what has happened, you
are mine forever, and I am waiting for you
.

He didn’t wait to see my involuntary
response—the slack-jawed intake of breath, the contraction of
vaginal muscles. He had gone before I could answer him, back
through the bathroom to the Margrave’s bedroom, throwing off the
gentleness and kindness of the husband as he tossed away the damp
towels from the bath. I knew of his return to the urgent business
of torture and vengeance by the disciplined focus in his mind. He
dressed in his customary black to resume his dark work and
descended to the dungeon.

I shivered in the cold bed as the last of the
fever worked itself out of my system. Frustrated by the invitation
Dominic had extended, secretly grateful he had not followed through
on it, I pulled sheet and blankets, spread and comforter over me as
if it were the dead of winter. Eventually I dozed again in the odd
silence, dreaming of Dominic above me, face to face, making love.
But I was not aroused, could not respond—I was dry and passive.

You are mine
, he said, as he forced
himself into me, the pain as excruciating as in my dream of rape.
His wild laughter rang in my head.
I have the right
, he
explained, sensing my tearful surrender.

I could only whimper in helpless submission.
He did have the right. His ruined face—the hole in the middle where
the nose had been, the eyes that had become dead and soulless after
so many resurrections—was strangely moving, his red hair and soft
lips almost attractive. Once, I had wanted him, when right and
wrong hadn’t mattered. Now I only wanted to be free of him.

There’s one sure way to freedom
, he
said.
This way
. He showed me my dagger.
Use it. If I
could, I would
.

I groped my way to understanding. Dominic was
forming communion with Reynaldo. Torture and resurrection require
deep communion, deeper in its way than between lovers. Dominic was
pouring his own life and being into Reynaldo to keep him alive, but
he was absorbing the man’s psychoses in return. The madness and
cruelty in Reynaldo were reinforcing Dominic’s own vices. What he
was doing to Reynaldo was causing a terrible shift in Dominic’s
personality, reactivating urges that had been successfully
suppressed in the service of domestic tranquility.

Dominic was too close to it to recognize the
danger, but once I explained it to him he would surely see it for
himself. I struggled to wake from my prescient dream.
Dominic
, I thought to my husband.
Dominic, you must stop
this
. His face came through to me, glassy-eyed, sweaty, in the
throes of the pain-ecstasy he was creating for both him and his
victim to experience.
Stop it
, I warned him again.
Let
him die
. I sounded like Lucretia Ladakh.

Don’t you want revenge?
he said.

Not anymore, Dominic
, I said, ashamed
at my weakness.
I’ve had enough.

No you haven’t
, he said.
You fine
ladies never get enough. But I’ll give you what you want
. His
voice was flat and coarse, had lost the aristocratic pronunciation,
the crisp consonants and rounded vowels, and the deep resonance.
When I’m done here, it’s your turn next
.

I wasn’t really frightened, I assured myself.
It was obvious what was going on. When I did what I should have
done at first, what Naomi had urged me to do, and told Dominic what
I was seeing, he would break off the dangerous communion.

The Dominic-Reynaldo apparition was still in
bed with me.
It’s too late
, he said.
You’re mine
forever
.

Wake up!
I ordered myself.
Wake
up!

W
ake up! Reynaldo’s fiery
hair was in my eyes, his mouth pressed against my ear. Wake up! he
screamed. I sat up in panic, scrambled back and up against the
pillows, away from it—

“Wake up, Mama! We’re resurrected!” Val
yelled in my face, hugging me. He bounced on the mattress to
accelerate my return to life.

“I’m awake,” I said, blinking and stretching.
The contrast between this warm, healthy little body and the image
from my dream was delightful. “Wide awake, back from the dead.” I
smothered Val with kisses until he pushed me away.

Val studied my face. “You’re
not
a mad
Aranyi,” he said, as if continuing an interrupted argument. “You’re
my mama.”

“He didn’t hear it from me, my lady.”
Isobel’s voice, defensive and wary, came from the corridor. “It’s
what they’re saying downstairs.”

“Come in, Isobel,” I said. “What’s going on
downstairs? Where is everybody?”

Isobel’s head appeared in the doorway. Her
eyes were wide with apprehension, her neck muscles taut. “I’m
sorry, my lady,” she said in a low whisper, ignoring my questions.
“The children wanted to see you.”

Val tugged at the front of my nightgown. “Now
we’re home, now you can give me milk.”

“Oh, Val,” I said, sighing. “Don’t you
remember what I told you? At the Ladakhs’?”

Val nodded, a sulky expression on his face.
“I want
real
milk!” he shouted.

Isobel, who must have learned from Naomi of
my inability to go on nursing, backed me up. “No, young master.
You’re too big for that now.”

“I am
not
too big!” Val shouted at the
empty doorway. Most Eclipsian children are nursed well into their
third year, a fact Val had already absorbed. His face was red, a
tantrum visible on the horizon. “Josef gets milk. Pao-lin gets
milk. Olivia gets milk.” He named servants’ children, all older
than him, whose mothers still nursed. “I want milk!” he screamed at
me.

Isobel tried again. “Your mama can’t give you
milk, Val. But if you stop screaming I’ll take you to the dairy
house.” To me she added, “I wanted you to see the children, my
lady, so you’d know they’re safe. Here’s Lady Jana to pay her
respects.” She pushed Jana in.

Jana stumbled forward a few feet until she
caught her balance and stood in the center of the room, her eyes on
me but not meeting mine. Her rough-cropped hair had been trimmed
since our return, making it shorter but of even length. A silver
ribbon was tied around her head, a small bow on top, holding the
front strands away from her face. She was wearing a clean dress and
had a neat, scrubbed appearance, although she still clutched the
ragged doll that Lady Ladakh had given her. Except that her face
was so distinctive, I would hardly have recognized her for my
daughter.

I held out my hand. “Come and give your
mother a kiss. Just one little kiss from such a beautiful girl will
be very restorative.”

Jana watched me through narrowed eyes that
seemed to be constantly in motion, judging distances—between her
and my bed, from where she stood to the door. She looked around at
Isobel, then back to me, and shook her head. “No, Mama.”

I thought I was going to be sick. My own
daughter was afraid of me. I sensed it now, the paralyzing fear
that permeated the household, that had everyone tiptoeing through
corridors and up and down stairs, not speaking, worried that the
slightest whisper could bring the attention of the mistress, the
terrifying ‘Gravina who had raged and fought against her own
husband, her rescuer. What might she do to a mere servant who
disturbed her sleep? Even the children needed protecting, according
to Isobel’s nervous thoughts.

“Please, darling,” I said. “Come here.” My
voice, in my own fear, took on a peremptory, commanding tone.

Jana’s hands squeezed tight around her doll.
She backed away until she bumped into the doorframe. Her inner
eyelids lowered involuntarily, turning slowly, as Dominic’s would,
from milky white, to silver, to the clear glass that provided both
protection and maximum light absorption. “Are you angry with me,
Mama?” she asked in formal speech. Translated literally, she had
asked whether she had grossly offended her lady mother. Her fear
made her turn to the ceremonial language like an incantation or a
ritual, just as Naomi and the guards had made the sign against evil
to shield themselves from Dominic’s power.

If it gave Jana confidence, I would answer
her in the same language. “No, worthy daughter,” I said, “thou hast
not offended me. Wherefore should I be displeased with thee?”

“My lady mother, I know not,” she said,
frowning at the effort required to conduct a conversation in this
complex language. She took a deep breath and broke into ordinary
speech. “You’re angry at Papa. You fought him. With
crypta
.”
Her reasoning was clear. She had seen what I had done to Dominic.
If I could attack him, what guarantee did she have of her own
safety?

“I was sick when I fought Papa,” I said,
addressing my words to Jana, but speaking loud enough for Isobel to
hear also. The sooner I made a favorable impression on someone as
to the return of my mental stability, the sooner word might get out
to the rest of the household. “When a person’s as sick as I was, it
disrupts the mind as well as the body. I would never attack Papa on
purpose. It’s just that I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Jana thought my words over in her sensible
way. “Are you sick now?” She was ready to run, her feet bracing in
the jumping-off position to leap through the doorway.

“No, darling,” I said. “Only a little tired.”
I tried to smile. “Much too weak to use
crypta
at all.
You’ll have to tell me everything you’re thinking, I won’t be able
to hazard a guess.” The attempt at mild humor was a dud. “Please,
darling. Please don’t be afraid of me. You can’t really believe I
would hurt you.”

The sadness in my voice made Jana pause in
her retreat but didn’t fully convince her. With her old familiar
scowl of jealous contempt she studied the tableau on the bed as Val
whined and fussed for my milk. Worried by the passive, feminine
child Jana had become, I was oddly grateful to see my daughter’s
fierce look.

Val laughed at Jana’s hesitation. He was the
only person in the whole house, it seemed, whose feelings for me
hadn’t changed after last night’s display. My rage meant little to
him when directed solely at others. Light dawned in his mind as he
grasped a fantastic truth. “You’re scared,” he said, his voice
filled with wonder, like an old man witnessing, at the end of his
life, the long-prayed-for miracle he has lost hope of receiving.
“Jana’s scared!” he shouted, the bearer of glad tidings to a
despairing world. “Jana’s afraid!”

The fraternal taunting was successful where
my motherly coaxing had failed. Jana’s face contorted in fury. She
took one hand off her doll and balled it into a fist. “I am not!”
she screamed at Val, as if he were a mile away, and deaf. “I’m not
afraid, you– you– shithead!” She hurled herself at her brother and
pulled him from me, holding him fast in her right hand while she
used the poor old doll as a weapon, swinging it like a sword in her
left hand, banging it down on Val’s head. The force was too much
for the tired fabric; the doll came apart at the seams, sending a
spray of musty straw stuffing into the air. Jana continued the
attack with fists.

Isobel, her sense of responsibility as
nursemaid overriding her own fears, ran in to save the children
from my Aranyi madness. At first she saw my attempts to separate
the combatants as the source of the violence, and she fended me off
with admirable lack of concern for her own survival. “No, my lady,”
she said in her husky voice, blocking my grasping hands, “not the
children.”

“Oh, shit,” I said in Terran. “Get real.”
Isobel shot me a hopeful look. My tone of voice was familiar, even
if the words were not. I sat back so she could see the onslaught
continuing without my mad Aranyi influence. “It’s Jana, as usual,”
I said in Eclipsian. “If you want to help, stop her from killing
Val.”