“That’s very good, Tess!” he applauded.
He was my shadow, appearing at my side almost the minute I stepped out of the door of the royal chambers, and seldom did he leave me during the day. On the day after our first meeting, I accepted his presence without question. He was undoubtedly satisfying his natural curiosity about his father’s new wife. Then I had the thought that perhaps this was his means of further apologizing for the one-man charade he had staged for my benefit at our first meeting. Besides, his mother had died at his birth and women were probably a bit of novelty, other than Kiera who was always so busy her shadow couldn’t keep up with her.
When Dal showed no signs of leaving my side after several days, I felt I ought to reassure him that much as I enjoyed his company, which I honestly did, he was under no obligation to serve as my constant escort and that I more than understood he had his own friends and his own social life.
His face grew very thoughtful, and as I listened, I understood for the first time that the leaders of any world, and the children destined to be the leaders of any world, were the loneliest of all individuals.
“Not really,” he said, with a sigh. “I can only be myself with Crayton and Cretor, and they won’t be home, probably not till the next night patrols are over. And besides, they’re both Warriors now, Cretor started training last month. I don’t see ’em except in the evenings anymore. It’s boring, lessons without him. I wish I was already twelve.”
I was beginning to get some sense of geography, and I knew that Krenor, where Johnny’s sons were visiting Kiera’s family, lay some donas to the east, a dona being roughly the equivalent of a mile. It was the next largest city of Trusca. And I had ascertained that formal schooling was the norm for Truscan children, especially nobility, from the ages of roughly five through twelve, when the boys entered the exalted gates of what was known as the Warrior’s Training Field, where the emphasis shifted toward the physical. From what I could gather, it was extremely reminiscent of West Point and Annapolis.
“But you have other—”
“No. Not really, I don’t. The only nobles that Abba really trusts are the Tornans, and they’re all—”
“The Tornans?” That was a new one for me.
“The night riders. The ones who ride night patrol. Not everyone does. Not everyone can. They’re special.” Oh, yes. Dalph’s elite.
“But surely some of them have children your age, and I don’t really understand why you feel funny around the other nobles’ children.”
“Well, right now Johnny says the Tornans are like a baseball team… Do you know baseball?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I know baseball, sweetie. What about it?”
“He says that when a baseball team loses, the coaches usually say it’s because they’re a young team. He said most teams stay young so long they never grow up. And then as soon as it’s not young anymore, it’s too old.”
“But what does that have to do with the Tornans?”
“All of them are really young right now. Most of them don’t have children at all and if they do, they’re all babies. And the other noble families, you never know what’s going on behind their heads. They could be plotting, scheming, in league with Baka for all I know. And I worry that I’ll—I don’t know much about what Abba and Johnny do, not the specifics, you know, I’m just a kid. But still, I hear things. Or I could get careless. And I could say something I shouldn’t say that I don’t even know I shouldn’t say. So I don’t like to—”
I interrupted him by pulling him into a hug.
“Growing boys shouldn’t have to worry about things like that,” I said, surprised at the fierce rush of emotion I felt at this confession of the degree of alienation that Dal felt from the other children around him. Delayed maternal instinct, I supposed. And there was nothing to be done about it, either. The child was absolutely right. He was wise beyond his years. And so must his father have grown up, I thought suddenly, though at least he had had his brothers.
“But I have to worry about it,” he said, hugging back with a warmth that astonished me.
“Yes. I know you do.”
“It would be nice to have a brother, Tess. But he’ll be so much younger than me that I guess it wouldn’t do me much good for a long time, huh?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” I agreed. “Not for a good while. But you have me now. Don’t you?”
He drew out of my arms. “You don’t mind? Me hanging around? I thought when you said that I had my own friends you meant I was being a pain and I don’t mean to be.”
“You are anything but a pain. I was only thinking that I couldn’t be much fun for you.”
“Oh, but you are. You’re not like all the other ladies I know—”
“So your father tells me,” I said dryly.
“Sometimes,” he pronounced solemnly, “Abba surprises me. I didn’t think he had this much sense.”
Having established that Dal enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed his, I settled back and proceeded to enjoy it. The days flowed into an easy pattern, and Dal and I would spend the morning roaming the Rata, checking out the day’s menu in the kitchens, making sure the horses, and especially the faltons, were living in their usual state of accustomed luxury in the stables.
“I can’t wait to hit strena,” Dal said with a sigh as he stroked Pegasus and Andromeda’s noses.
“Pardon?”
“That’s sixteen. In English. I can’t have a falton till I’m sixteen.”
I smiled. An American teenager couldn’t wait to hit sixteen so that he could drive. This Truscan prince couldn’t wait to hit sixteen so that he could have his own falton.
“Who says?”
“Abba. He had to be sixteen.”
Somehow, I sensed the fine hand of Madeline and her constant juggle of cross-cultures.
Every other day or so, he would take me out into the town itself, and lead me down the streets, introducing me to his favorite stands and the various vendors. He seemed to think nothing of it, and charged out of the boundaries of the Courtyard.
“Are you sure your father doesn’t mind? You don’t have to get one of the guards to go with us?”
“Whatever for?”
“Because you’re the Crown Prince and all this hoopla with Baka—”
“Hoopla. I like that. That’s new. Johnny calls it Baka’s shit.”
I roared.
“But don’t worry about Baka or his people. Not here, not in the city walls. He wouldn’t dare touch me. Or you. Oh, look! Wranton is opening his stall. He sells the very best fruit in Trusca!” Dal plunged forward, dismissing all thoughts of Baka and the House of Canor, and I followed. His foot certainly didn’t slow him down much.
In the afternoons, after the noon meal, he and I would ride, but not alone. Outside the gates of the Rata an escort service of at least two Tornans was mandatory, unless Dalph joined us, which he did at least every other day. I almost never saw him in the mornings, because that was heavy-duty time at the Warriors Training Fields. It had separate divisions, twelve years old and up, with the boys moving up the ranks as they matured. I was advised that twelve was the ideal age as the muscles simply weren’t ready to start intensive training any sooner, though every Truscan boy was already a master at the actual sword moves by that age through life-time use of a wooden toy sword, with a switch to a light sword based on that particular child’s maturity and skill.
Dal and I had watched proceedings on several mornings. The program was brutal, not because Dalph or any other instructor intentionally made it so, but because the weapons were so heavy, accuracy so important, physical conditioning so absolutely vital. Any of the older teenagers on the field looked like they were training for the Mr. Universe contest, but not because they just wanted to look good. I dreaded the time Dal would enter the ranks, which was only two years away, though Dal couldn’t wait and took every opportunity to slip into the back lines of the twelve-year-olds when he thought no one was looking. Dalph told me
he and his brothers had done the same thing.
On the afternoons that Dalph did not ride with us, he closeted himself in a large chamber on the ground floor of the Rata and reviewed strategy. He always knew what troops were where, when they should be brought in, when others should be deployed. He seemed to carry a running, programmable, and changeable inventory of all the troops, all the equipment, all the horses, all the battlements of all the cities, around in his head and I admired both the intelligence and the diligence that this entailed. The large table at the center of that chamber was always scattered with maps and diagrams, which were carefully locked away when Dalph vacated the chamber. I wasn’t surprised, though I was somewhat amused, to see that the table was round.
After lammas, we usually retired as a family to what rapidly became my favorite room, a huge chamber on the ground floor of the Rata. Occasionally Johnny and Kiera joined us there, and I thought of it as the equivalent of the American den, which is how it had so obviously been designed. Games lined shelves against one wall, Truscan games, and Truscanized versions of American games which I knew Madeline had introduced. Dalph was very good at poker, which didn’t surprise me. But the best thing about that chamber was the portraits, and there were many of them. If no camera was available, then Madeline obviously intended to use what was available. She was stunning, and of course, I’d expected no less. It wasn’t so much that she was classically beautiful; it was the force of her fierce intelligence and strength shining through, the will that had enabled her to take an alien world and make it hers. And without benefit of another living soul who understood English, either, as she was the first of the three of us to come through. Brentar was, however, classically handsome, but that wasn’t what you noticed in his pictures, either. You saw the strength to hold a country, the intelligence to appreciate the possibilities provided by the fates when they opened the doors between the worlds, and most of all, you saw how much he loved Madeline and his sons. I wouldn’t have expected it, but it was there, in every picture, as he gazed at them.
There were small portraits and large portraits, the whole family as it grew, the boys individually, Madeline with the boys, Brentar with the boys. I stared at the images of Dalph and his brothers, handsome blends of both Madeline and Brentar, fascinated by the juxtaposition of features. Dalph had his mother’s eyes and his father’s nose and jaw; Brenden had his father’s eyes and the shape of his mother’s face; Madison had the shape of his father’s face with his mother’s eyes; Gareth, the youngest, was still shifting, and you couldn’t tell at the time of his last portrait exactly what the adult combination would be.
I was only uncomfortable when the door closed on our private chambers and there was no one present but me. And Dalph. And the bed.
True to his word, he made no overt moves during the first few nights and I was grateful. When he remained true to his word during the next few nights, and I realized that he was honestly waiting for a signal from me, I ceased to be grateful and became, in all honesty, somewhat irritated. I was even more irritated when I realized that during the day, when our paths crossed, I savored his occasional swift kisses, his arm around my waist, the touch of his hand on my arm. He was easy and affectionate with these gestures, and my thoughts began to turn to what his touch would feel like when it passed affection and turned to passion, the way it had the first morning I had woken in his bed. Then I realized that he was never in bed when I woke up anymore, but was always sitting at the small table before the windows, going over the endless diagrams and strategies.
“Do you always get up this early?” I demanded. Sunrise was only then breaking through.
“Sometimes.”
“All the time.”
“I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“You’re not getting enough sleep,” I nagged, for all the world like an overbearing wife.
“Tess, you expect too much. I’m only a man, and I can’t wake beside you and just turn over and go back to sleep,” he said shortly. “If I’m disturbing you, I can work elsewhere and see you at breakfast.”
I felt a flash of guilt, and felt even guiltier as I realized this was not a manipulation, but a statement of fact. And I kept him out of his own chambers enough as it was; he’d surrendered them to me exclusively for the hour or so prior to lammas when I customarily bathed. Where he was bathing and dressing, I didn’t know and was scared to ask.
“You don’t disturb me. I was just—”
“Then don’t try to change an arrangement that’s obviously making you so happy!” he exclaimed even more shortly, and I said no more.
At the end of the second week, I felt it was time to have a long talk with myself, and one afternoon, I excused myself from Dal’s company by pleading a headache, and went out the private door in the royal bedchamber down into Dalph’s private courtyard, and sat down on the same bench whereupon we had held our first war games.
How did I feel about the Truscan king? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t in love with him. Yet. I knew that. But I was so close. I knew that, too. I was old enough to realize that although one could not fully control one’s emotions, it was possible to keep them in check, and that was exactly what I was doing. I had not relaxed my guard and allowed my feelings free rein, and if I did, I’d be in love with him. Maybe even the minute I first relaxed that guard.
And though I wasn’t actually in love with him, at least at the moment, I loved his company, I loved his looks, I loved his wit and his strength, the way he carried this country on his shoulders, I loved him with Dal. Even more important, I liked him. I just didn’t want to make the first move, even though I’d been most emphatic that I would be most upset if the option of the first move wasn’t mine. Somehow I couldn’t shake the irrational feeling that by giving in, I was losing a private war. I couldn’t, in short, be as honest with him as he had been with me, as he talked of his dreams of walking in my world without Trusca on his shoulders.
He had not been afraid to share with me, not personally, not the greatest state secret of Trusca. And I was afraid that sharing with him would somehow make me the weaker, put me in a position of inferiority, and be a betrayal of all that I had made myself. In short, I did not know how to share; I only knew how to control or submit. But it was about time to learn.
I grinned suddenly and stood up. The King would be most pleased this night. I could almost feel the strength of his arms now, sense his body heat. I could almost taste how good he’d feel. And congratulating myself that I had finally come to my senses, I stood up. Good thing I’d had this talk with myself this afternoon, before he left on his infernal night patrol next week, and before I was curtailed in my plans by the untimely intervention of Mother Nature. I’d—
I stopped in mid-stride and walked slowly back to the bench, where I sat down again. Mother Nature. She wasn’t due any day now; she was past due. By several days. Be honest, Tess. By a week and a half. And I’d been with Carlos four days before the plane crash. I tried to calm myself down and think this out.
I was, of course, on the pill. No question there. Or I had been. And I had taken them faithfully for years and there had never been a slip-up or a scare. I knew I hadn’t forgotten one. Ergo and therefore, there was no way I could be pregnant. I certainly didn’t feel pregnant, but then since I never had been, I didn’t know how that would feel.
My system was merely out-of-sync. That was all. It took a while for women who had been on the pill, especially for extended periods of time, to regulate themselves normally when they came off of them. I knew that. And I had never been regular anyway, and had taken the pill almost as much for the convenience of having a regular, expected period as for birth control. And emotional stress and turmoil and change played havoc with a woman’s hormones and therefore with her monthly cycles. I knew that, too. God knows my body had ample reason to scream in rebellion and refuse to conform to expectations.
But just suppose I was incorrect. Suppose somehow there had been a slip-up or an accident? I was not just a woma
n; I was the Queen. Dalph was not just my husband; he was the King. I could not risk this, I could not take the chance. If there had been a slip-up, if I was, in fact, already pregnant, I had to know whose child it was. I had to be able to tell Dalph the truth. I absolutely could not follow my now-admitted desire to pull my husband into bed and rape him, because if a child resulted, I would spend the rest of my life wondering whose it was.
And what would we do if I were? Dalph had already firmly established me as his queen and his wife, waving the banner of my “virginity” over the battlements of the castle. What a tangle. The fact that I had neither created this tangle nor lied to him about any of my past was irrelevant. However, the odds were more than on my side that all of this was moot anyway. I merely had to sit back and wait for my body to regulate itself again and prove to me that I wasn’t, in fact, pregnant, which of course, I couldn’t be. And I would be a basket case until such time as it did, which would pour additional stress and strain on my system and probably delay the process even further.
I sighed and went back inside to lie down, as the headache I had pled to Dal was now actually pounding in my temples. It looked to be a long few weeks.
Chapter Fifteen
Prior to that afternoon in the garden, I had looked forward to each day, and the highlights of that day were always the times when Dalph slipped away from his troops and joined us, his swift kisses and the touch of his hands in his casual gestures. Now, having acknowledged to myself that I was ready to engage in more than casual gestures but was constrained by circumstances from doing so, I dreaded being near him. The hours in our chamber were the worst, and I retired to bed almost immediately upon clearing the door and feigned sleep. After he came to bed and I could tell from his rhythmic breathing that he was asleep, I lay beside him and kept myself from tossing and turning by sheer force of will alone. I slept badly when I did sleep, and always knew when he rose, but I would pretend to remain wrapped in slumber until our breakfast arrived and I had no choice but to get up.
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