The Sacrifice
Page 23
"It has a purpose, this uncomfortable ability we've acquired," he said thoughtfully. "I think it's so we can always know when you're in trouble. In moments of danger or threat, your emotions will be high and we'll all be in your head so we can identify the source of the threat."
I saw the sense in what he said. It was an emergency beacon of sorts. But should it not work the other way, too? Should I not be able to tell when any one of them was in danger? I was as capable as any of them to fight and defend what was mine. I saw myself as their protector as much as they saw themselves as mine.
Mayhap it was a talent that would come to me, the closer our bond became. And it was strengthening. Every day we spent together planning for our move to the Airling Taming Centre, as we were calling it, and every night we slept piled together like baby beastlings, brought us closer. We had even made love as one entity again, once my body had recovered. And it had been amazing, even if I had not been able to keep my shields up.
Calun would teach me, though. And that would solve the problem. And we would have time alone to explore our bond and plan my mother's escape.
The evening before we departed the rebel stronghold, Reia came to me. My men were still about the last minute details of our departure, so I was alone.
"I will miss you, Airsha. You have been a powerful role model for me in the short time I have known you."
I stared up at her in surprise. She was taller than me, as most people were. It rarely fazed me.
"Do not look so surprised. You are the Prophesied One, after all. The Goddess Incarnate. Why would I not model myself on you?"
"How?" I asked curiously, now my initial shock was over.
Reia blushed and swiped her long black hair over her shoulder. "For one thing, I have taken my harem to my bed together. They were surprisingly amenable to the arrangement. I worry sometimes that I am neglecting one or other of them when I am so busy. This way they are all satisfied."
"And so are you?" I asked, worried that I might have encouraged her to do something that made her feel she was there for her men's needs, not her own.
She blushed again and stared at her feet. "Oh, yes. Most satisfied."
She looked up then. "And I treat them better, too. Your comment that we treated our men like the Godling treats his harem stung, because it was true. And I have no desire to be like my grandfather. Or any man who keeps a harem, for that matter. I want to respect my harem as my equals. As you do. And value them for more than just meeting my needs. That is how you are with your harem, am I right? That is how it seems to work. I have heard you all arguing like childlings at play. You do not disregard their ideas, you do not demand their acquiescence. It is a harder way to live, but it is fairer. I am not good at discussing issues, but I will get better."
I felt something shift deep inside me. I was making a difference in the life of this one woman and her men. Just by going about my life, I was changing attitudes and beliefs. Mayhap it was because of who they thought I was, but mayhap it was also because of who I actually was.
"Thank you, Reia. It fills my heart with joy to know you are making changes in your life because of me. Changes for the better. But never copy me blindly. Because I never copy others blindly. You must make your own way, not follow mine."
She smiled brightly at me. "My own path. Yes, I will endeavour to do just that. And the path of my harem. We must share whatever path we follow."
"Absolutely. I imagine, though, that your harem will more often as not agree that your path is theirs. Otherwise they would never have been drawn to you."
She thought about that for a moment. "You may be right. My men are very different to yours. They are not rebels, and freedom is not as important to them as it is to your men. As it is not so important to me. I have no burning need to go my own way. I need to feel my roots in the earth and watch the people I help blossom like flowers. I like to be needed. And so do my men."
I smiled and nodded. Another insight that had come to me and been correct. I wondered just how true my other insights were. Was magical potency really in women, not men, as I had seen? What difference did it make if it was true? None right now. Yet it niggled at me, pulling at me like an insistent child pulls at her mother's gown to get attention.
"Be safe and well in the coming days, my friend. I hope the cause you follow achieves the ends you desire," I said softly, leaning up to kiss her cheek.
"The cause we both follow. And it will. I am sure of it. You will rule in your father's place and magic will be available to all. So it is written, so it will be."
I shuddered inwardly, particularly at the last part, which I had heard many times from the priests who controlled my father. So it is written, they told him, so it will be.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I stood staring out at the empty plains onto which a stark blue sky pressed down. The stone-built homestead behind me was worlds apart from the harem where I had grown up, the hovel where I had found my heart, and the rebel stronghold where I had bound my harem to me. We had been here a quarter moon and I was no more settled now than I had been on the first day. Less, in fact.
It was a large dwelling with five sleeping quarters, a huge, central living area, and a kitchen large enough to feed an army. That kitchen was now home to a sweet old lady who cooked like a goddess. Her husband had been assigned outside duties, but as he was near blind and crippled in one leg, his usefulness was limited. Not that we had much use for him, anyway.
The only reason we had accepted the couple's presence was that neither could hear well, which meant our conversations could remain private. Added to that, neither seemed much interested in our activities. Their only concern was keeping a roof over their heads in their final suncycles. And as the rebels would not hear of us going away on our own, this had been the compromise. We were to see the old couple as assistants, freeing us up to work with the airlings.
I doubt the couple even noticed that we all shared the same sleeping apartment. A huge feather mattress, wide enough for ten people to lie shoulder to shoulder across it, had been in the room when we arrived. It had been covered with silk sheets the colour of the sky and I had felt like I was sleeping on a cloud the first night we used it.
Calun had sent out a call for airlings to come. The fields were rich with late summer grasses and we knew they would do well on it. A small river ran the length of the fields, and even when there had been no rain for many mooncycles the river still ran deep and fast.
Had things been different, I would have been happy in my new home. But things were not different. Every day news arrived from the rebels. Sometimes directly from the stronghold and sometimes from Nouhan, who was monitoring the sealunds for news about the Godling's plans.
It was from this source that I found out that my mother was being exiled. She had been divorced for infidelity, exiled, and would be returned to her sealund in disgrace. The missive that had arrived late yesterday had made the malady I had been suffering from in recent days even more extreme.
'Niece, Beloved of the Goddess,
My father was called to the palace today. I accompanied him, though I was not invited. The King read us the missive sent to him from the Godling concerning your mother. It said her return is to be seen as an opportunity for a disgraced daughter to be punished by those she had harmed the most: her family and her kinglund. The Godling, in his mercy, would not punish her himself, but knew that the King of Westsealund would choose a suitably severe punishment. It said, in the circuitous way of political messages, that my sister should be put to death for her crimes. Nothing else would undo the harm Westsealund had caused the Godling by sending him such a godsless woman.
Therefore, the King has arranged a beheading for the day after my sister's return. My father, your grandfather, is beside himself. Not just at the news of his daughter's sentence, I am sorry to admit, but because of the shame it has brought to our house.
I would try to raise a rescue party, but I have come under much stricter super
vision. It will remain in place, I assume, until after my sister is dead. Although this stain on our house may alter my position at court indefinitely.
The rebels are not prepared to intercede, as they see no strategic gain in rescuing a disgraced wife of the Godling.
I have sent for a man who loved your mother once. If anyone would want to help her, he would. I also know that you will do what you can. I will therefore send Beyen on to you if I believe his loyalties lie with the rebels. If there is anything else I can do, please let me know.
Your devoted uncle
Nouhan, Son of Theyus.'
I had been in a state of shock ever since. If I slept at all, I was unaware of it. Nor had my men, if the restless tossing and turning was any indication. There were problems with sharing a bed with other people, I was discovering.
The outer door of the homestead opened and closed. I did not turn to see who had come looking for me. I knew who it was as soon as he opened the door.
"I have sent Calun out with the airlings," Darkin told me, coming to stand at my back, his big hands resting on my hips. I leaned back against him, drawing on his strength. "He will watch the road the Godling will use to bring your mother to Westsealund. As soon as we have an idea of the size of the party travelling with her we can formulate a plan."
"It is a trap," I said tiredly, knowing it to be the truth as soon as the words left my mouth. I had no idea where the Knowing had come from, but I knew it to be true.
Darkin slid his hands around my upset stomach and drew me closer. "Then Calun'll discover that too."
"He will not put himself at risk?" I was suddenly worried for my silent man. Why had Darkin not told me of his plan first. Did we not make decisions together?
"Once he locates them, which is unlikely to be this soon, he'll send the airlings out as his eyes. He won't fly close to the Godslunder troops himself. If they have their own airling troopers with them it could be too dangerous. But the airlings'll let us know."
I relaxed again. Wild airlings flying overhead would cause no suspicions, even among airling troopers. And from them Calun could learn all he needed to know, without coming to harm himself.
"When will he return?"
"When he has news. He took enough food for several days, as much as a quarter moon'."
"Might I not have been given an opportunity to say goodbye?" I demanded, my stomach twisting painfully.
"You were unwell when we were making our plans. He didn't want to disturb you."
Disturb me? One of my husbands, which was how I was coming to see them, was leaving for as much as a quarter mooncycle and he did not want to disturb me? No, that was not it at all. More likely there was more to it and they were afraid I would see it in Calun's mind. He could block me, but I had learned a little in the last mooncycle about how to get around that block.
I found I could not rise to anger. There were too many people to be angry with. My father, the rebels, my brother, my grandfather, the King of Westsealund and all the other pawns of the Godling. I just did not have the energy to be angry at one of my husbands... or all of them, if they were all involved in keeping something from me.
"You won't let him put himself in harm's way, will you? Not even for my mother would I want that."
Darkin kissed the top of my head. "Darling girl, Calun is no hero. He has no desire to charge in to danger to prove himself to you. He knows how you feel about him. We all do."
My stomach gurgled sickeningly. I wondered if a dry piece of bread might help settle it. In the last few days I had been making regular use of the inside convenience. That was another advantage of my new home over the hovel.
"You need to talk to Rama," he said after a long silent pause.
"About what?"
"About what is making you sick and lethargic."
I frowned in confusion. "Why would I talk to him? He's no healer. If it goes on much longer I'll send word to Reia and see if she has something that would help."
"Airsha, Beloved, you don't need a healer. Not yet. Surely you must suspect. We all do. But Rama refuses to admit it."
"Admit what?" I asked in puzzlement, my tired brain not making sense of any of it. My life was already too complicated. I didn't want more.
I heard Darkin sigh heavily. "It's bad timing. Or good, in the sense that the baby'll be here before we have to choose our path."
"Baby? What baby?" I knew of no baby being brought to visit us. Was he saying Mother was with child? But the Godling would not let her go if that were the case. He would wait until she gave birth, and if it was a boy he'd keep it. Only then would he send Mother away.
In one blinding flash the puzzle pieces settled into place. My sickness. My missing courses, which I had put down to my trauma in the pit. They should have been due while I was down that hole. I can still remember thinking I was grateful they had not arrived.
"You think... You think my sickness is caused by a baby?" I asked shakily. The enormity of the news made my legs weaken. I couldn't be with child, could I? I counted back. I had been with Rama, and less than a quarter moon' later I was put in the hole, at the time when my courses should have started. How many days was I in the hole? I didn't want to think about that. I was rescued and near death for another quarter moon' and more. Then the time it took to recover and prepare for our move. And we had been here another quarter moon'. How long since I was with Rama? One and a half mooncycles, or a little more. I knew well enough the symptoms of a seed that had found fertile soil in which to grow. Harem women all knew what to watch for.
I straightened my spine as the suspicion became certainty. I was with child. Rama's child.
"Aye, I do. But Rama refuses to entertain the possibility. You know him. He's convinced he's a bad seed. The healers told him losing one ball meant he'd never be able to father childlings and he was glad of it. He didn't want any more sick bastards like him running around." When I turned to glare at him he clarified quickly. "His words, not mine."
I groaned. I did not need this. Rama had seemed so much more at peace over the last mooncycle. It was hard to put a finger on how or why, but I think we all felt it. Now this? Darkin was right, the timing was all wrong. And having conceived at a time when there could be no doubt it was his, only confounded the problems.
"I'll talk to him," I said on a deep sigh.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
I grinned, though I had no idea where I'd drawn the amusement from. "I think I'm safe with Rama. All he'll give me is a chewing out."
"You've been doing more of that lately," Darkin observed with interest.
"Doing what, getting chewed out?"
"Speaking more like us than them."
The them were the upper classes of the kinglunds. The formal speech patterns I had grown up with. But I had liked the informality and colourful language of ordinary men for a long time, especially my men. It didn't surprise me that I was slipping into their speech patterns.
"I'm one of you now. I'll go find Rama."
"He's in the barn working out ways we can drop rocks from airling backs."
That was a novel thought. Was this part of the plan to rescue my mother?
I trudged around the house and out to the stone barn, which looked like the main house but was half its size. The plan was to extend it for the troopers when they arrived. Of course, there would be no troopers to train to ride airlings, but the rebels didn't know that.
I found Rama stomping around with a black cloud circling above his furrowed brow. I dreaded confronting him when he was in this kind of mood, but putting it off would only extend the temper tantrum, not give it time to blow over.
"Darkin has drawn my attention to something that concerns us both. I hadn't realised it, but all the symptoms are there. Sickness, sore breasts, tiredness, and of course my missed courses." I paused as I saw him stiffen like he had been frozen in place by magic. "I'm with child. Your child."
A buckle of some kind sailed across the room faster than my e
ye could catch it and slammed into the brick wall. The explosive sound was somehow satisfying. I would have liked to throw something too. I felt like a boiling pot about to bubble over.
"Your timing's wrong. I can't be the father," he snarled furiously, looking for all the world like a cornered beastling.
"No, it's not. The only possibility is you. The night you took my virginity. I wasn't with any of you before or after that time, until I recovered from my injuries. That was half a mooncycle and more later. I would not be showing symptoms yet if it happened later."
He charged up to me. I knew he expected me to take a step back when he faced off with me, nose to nose. But he must also have known I would never do such a thing. Back down from aggression? It was not in my nature. So we stood, nose to nose, breathing harshly, glaring at each other.
"I'm not the father! You fucked someone else. One of those troopers on the way to the Godling."
My vision turned red. If I had ever been this furious before, I couldn't remember it. I had expected the temper tantrum. I expected abuse. But to accuse me of being unfaithful to my men... That was impossible to take!
"How dare you! Gods' balls, how dare you!" I screamed into his face.
"I dare! Someone like me always dares. Don't you get that? You don't want my baby. Any woman in her right mind wouldn't want my spawn. I'm as close to a demon as you're likely to get. So it's better if a trooper raped you and got you with child than for me to've done it."
"You would prefer I was raped or unfaithful?" I screamed again, giving him a hard push. I didn't want him in my face anymore. I didn't want him in my space. I wished I'd never come looking for him in the first place. In that moment, I hated him!
"You would prefer I was having a rapist's baby?" I said in utter horror as that idea sank in.
He backed off a little then, his face losing a little of its belligerence. "No, well, no. It was just a way it could've been someone else's, that's all. I'd understand if that happened. We all would. You don't have to hide it from us. We won't think any worse of you."