"Conceited, but in love."
Adalginza laughed down at him, where he now lay with arms folded under his head.
Remembering his promise, her heart beat wildly in anticipation of their future together.
"And a man of your word, I hope. You will stay with me? As you vowed last night?"
"I have pledged myself to thee forever, my lady."
Kalos leaped to his feet, and reached down a hand to help her to her feet. Then, he began to don his clothing.
Adalginza gathered up the heavy skirts she had shed the night before, and also finished dressing.
"It will be a fine life," she said, chattering like a child. "I know much about the frontier. I know which herbs have medicinal qualities. I know which plants to gather for food that can last us the winter. I know where the animals go to water. And I know how to avoid the savages."
Kalos was now brushing down the Golden, inspecting the animal's cuts and bruises. He reached down the leathery right front leg and pulled out a thorn triumphantly.
"I thought the animal was lame," Adalginza said.
"Not lame. Just hurting. He should be fine now."
"I have a salve. I'll put it on the wound." Adalginza reached into the pack, and then joined Kalos to apply the ointment.
"One of your secret potions from being a child of the wilderness?" Kalos asked teasingly.
Adalginza smiled in return. "I have many skills that will keep us alive."
"And I admire you for them," Kalos said. He gave her a puzzled look. "But despite your enthusiasm, I do not see much need for them in Sola Re."
"Sola Re?" Adalginza asked, shocked.
His words punctured her joy, as surely as a village water bladder where well rations were stored had been punctured by sword. Kalos was now watching her curiously over the back of the Golden.
"What is wrong?"
"You — you promised me," Adalginza said.
She backed away from him a few steps.
Kalos walked over to her and gently took her hand, leading her to the symbols that had been drawn in the earth prior to the passion of the previous night. He carefully removed the Crescent sword from where it had been so deeply embedded in soft ground.
"You are not familiar with the bonding ritual of the Ninth House?" he asked.
"No. I am not."
Kalos laughed gently, and wrapped one arm around her to bring her close to him.
"The ritual of bonding is a private ceremony performed only between the two people involved. Afterwards, the pledge is formally announced and celebrated. I asked your consent. And you gave it."
He grinned at her.
"I would not be surprised if after this past night you were with child. And I would not give you a child, without willingness to take my share of the responsibility for it."
"A child?" Adalginza repeated dumbly.
"Did your mother not teach you anything?" Kalos asked lightly. "No. Please. Do not look so offended. I did not mean it in that way. We are scholars in the Ninth House. Rationalists. Perhaps not as romantic as the men of some of the other Houses. But we believe strongly in commitment. In the marriage vow."
"Vow?" Adalginza was still trying to grasp what had just happened here.
Kalos regarded her with growing concern.
"It is not proper that child rearing fall strictly upon the shoulders of the woman alone. The burden is too heavy. Adalginza, had we not exchanged vows, I would have made sure that we were more careful. Understand? I am sorry. I thought you knew the mating customs of the different Houses."
"We are married?" Adalginza dabbed with the back of her hand at the tears now streaming from her eyes.
Kalos looked worried.
"You are happy about this? Are you not? Please tell me this is why you are crying."
"Of course I am happy!" Adalginza sobbed. "I love you!"
Kalos sighed, as if in relief, and then leaned the sword carefully against a nearby tree before wrapping her in both arms.
"We will have a good life. And many children."
"We will?"
Adalginza whispered the question, wondering if now was the time to tell him the awful truth that children for her could never be.
"I will be proud to bring you home upon my arm. My mother — and Kalos — will be honored to accept you into our House."
Adalginza pulled away from Kalos, regarding him as though he had suddenly grown fangs.
"What's wrong now?" Kalos asked worriedly. "What did I say? I know Lady Redolo can seem fearsome at times, but be assured that there is a very soft place in her heart for you. You will never replace the daughters she already lost, but you will become another for her. She will share the household with you quite willingly. She is a very generous person."
"But you promised me that we would stay here together. Just the two of us. Forever."
"But, my love, the words we exchanged last night. The idea of being together forever. I didn't think you really meant here. At this very spot."
"But I did mean that! It's exactly what I said!"
Kalos held out both hands in a gesture symbolizing an effort at reasonableness.
"You and me. Here? Eating herbs and flowers and seeds. Making love day and night. Raising a family. Never returning to civilization. Never seeing our own friends and family again. Ever? This is what you meant?"
"Yes!"
"That is the most utterly ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Get your things. We're leaving."
He walked back over to the sturmon and began saddling the animal.
Adalginza placed both hands on her hips.
"Do not take that tone with me. You are leaving. I will stay."
"You are my wife."
"I have changed my mind."
"It doesn't work that way. We made a vow."
And so, just like that, the fantasy was already over. Reality rushed in, like a flood gone wild.
"You don't understand."
"What is it I don't understand?"
Adalginza decided it was time for at least part of the truth.
"If you take me with you, you will die. You, your mother, and your nephew. All of you will die. And all because of me."
"Nonsense."
It was at times like this that Adalginza found the captain's arrogance beyond infuriating.
"You must believe me. It may not happen right away. But eventually. If you value your life and theirs, forget you ever met me."
He patted the Golden's shoulder and gave her an odd, fond smile.
"There will be no forgetting you, Lady Adalginza."
"If you have never believed me before, please believe the truth of what I am telling you now."
Kalos gave her a pitying look.
"I know you better than you think. You are saying these things only because of your past. You fear that you are a curse upon the people you love."
"No. That is not it!"
"Of course it is," Kalos replied confidently. "You are fearful about commitment. And loss. But what you believe about yourself is not true. And no matter what you say, there is no way I am leaving my new bride behind and alone in the middle of the wilderness to fend for herself."
Adalginza cast wildly about in her mind for words — any words — that would so disgust Kalos that he would be forced to abandon her to her freedom, lonely as it might be.
Impulsively, she reached for the first desperate lie that occurred to her, and one that Kalos had hinted at earlier.
"Benfaaro was my lover! I really did have his child!"
The look of profound shock on the captain's face encouraged her to plunge forward with the ridiculous tale.
"I was very, very young. Just as you said. So you see? I am not the pure virgin you thought you saw floating in the moonlight. It was all an illusion, a trick of the light. I am more despicable than you could ever imagine."
Because she so passionately believed the last part of the words she spoke, they carried the ring of truth. And she saw that Kalos
believed her.
First, he looked stricken. Then enraged.
"What about the child? Girl or boy?"
He asked the question hoarsely, as he moved toward her from the other side of the sturmon.
"A little girl. He took her. And kept her with him to raise." She gave Kalos a beseeching look. "Now. You know the truth at last. You are released from your vows, for no one knows they were ever exchanged except you and me. Go. Or kill me. I do not care which."
"This is why you ran away from me."
His voice was toneless, though his face was still blanched with anger.
Adalginza said nothing.
Kalos could barely choke out his next words. "You thought yourself unworthy of my love. You thought yourself tainted. By Benfaaro."
Adalginza dropped her head in shame, regretting her lie and wondering what to say next.
"If you had been interested in me only as a bedmate, I could serve this purpose for you. But what has transpired between us — this sacred vow of yours — must be undone. It is wrong. It is a mockery."
This, at least, was the truth.
When she saw Kalos take the sword in his hand, she wondered if her fate now was death. Death for her betrayal. Death for all her lies.
She knew she deserved whatever he intended, and she steeled herself for it. As Kalos raised the sword, Adalginza could not help but flinch away from the steel blade.
"Look at me!" he shouted.
Adalginza gazed into dark eyes so crazed with rage that she felt genuine terror. But then Kalos lowered his voice.
"This sword is not for you. Understand me? This sword is for a man who takes a girl who is not even of an age to be wooed, and who then rewards her for the child she gives him by trying to murder her."
"Kalos…"
"No, let me finish." He fiercely interrupted her before she could correct her lie, as she intended to do. "This sword is for a man so much the coward that he kills an innocent woman, your mother, who is ill with madness. And then he also murders his friend and teacher, a revered gnostic, who trusted him."
"Please just leave it be."
With a growing sense of horror, Adalginza realized that her fabrication had made things far, far worse for her brother.
"No. I will not leave it be. This sword is for Benfaaro. And I swear by every breath that I take, by every plan that I make, that I will avenge you. Do you hear me, Adalginza? I will avenge you and your family. And my family."
"Very well," Adalginza said wearily. "Do what you must. Now will you just take the Golden and go?"
"You are still not hearing me. I hold you blameless for all that has transpired before. You are my bride. You are under my protection now and forever."
He lowered the sword to the ground, and then reached out his hand.
"Come, my love. It is time for us to go home."
***
Adalginza was sure that Kalos misunderstood the tears of despair she cried on most of the journey back to the Place of the Circles. He, instead, suffered under the delusion that she had been purged by the truth.
He spoke to her soothingly a time or two, but mostly just held her in front of him on the Golden. Though the sturmon limped slightly, his leg had recovered enough to carry them at a slow pace.
After a while, the tears dried. And emptiness took their place.
Emptiness then was replaced with a grudging sense of obligation as the familiar environs she saw reminded Adalginza of her duty to her brother.
Somehow, some way, she must see this travesty through to the end.
"I must stop and reapply my masque," she said dully. "The knights cannot see me with such a plain face."
"A beautiful face," Kalos insisted.
"To you, my husband. But a lady of the Fifth House without her masque is viewed the same as a lady without her sash. She would be seen as lewd, and without modesty. Especially here in the frontier."
Kalos sighed. "You are right."
He stayed seated atop the Golden, both legs thrown over the side as he curiously watched her careful attentions to the cosmetics.
She then did what she could to smooth the folds of the heavy skirt, and scrape off the dirt from the trail.
When she again resumed her position in front of him, she felt fortified somehow — as though the falseness of the masque somehow excused the falseness of her own heart.
"You will win no compliments from me," he said, as he wrapped his arms around her again. "I think the masques are hideous."
"You have made your feelings known before."
"And the masque changes you. I hate that the most."
"You have such an imagination."
"You will now wear this masque to our bed?"
"I must. It is the law of my House."
"Your voice is cold now. Your heart is distant now. This is not my imagination."
"At least my tears are gone now. You should be grateful for this."
"I prefer the tears. At least they are authentic."
All conversation ceased, however, when the Golden rounded the lane where the abode of her mother at the Place of the Circles came into full view.
What Adalginza saw caused her to leap from the sturmon, with one hand taking charge of the hilt of the captain's Crescent sword in the same motion.
Nausea tore at her stomach as she raced toward the circle of Crescent knights.
They surrounded the young girl, Calasta, who was collapsed on the ground. Nearby was the suckleberry thicket, and Herol's grave.
Adalginza surmised that Calasta must have come back to visit the grave of Herol, and to mourn her beloved pet.
The child had been captured. When? Last night?
As Adalginza ran, half stumbling with the weight of the Crescent sword, her mind replayed the nightmare of Calasta's mother who had been taken as a small child so many years before by another troupe of Crescent knights.
Then, Adalginza saw the fresh blood...
9
An errant gust of wind whipped through the Canyon of Despair, causing the distant campfire to spit angry sparks into the night sky.
Guided by the red glow, Adalginza tied her bonnet more securely around her ears and summoned more strength from her depleted muscles to keep going.
Harsh gusts whipped at her, tearing at her skirt, as Adalginza forced herself to climb over the last of the huge boulders.
These craggy monuments were the remnants of an enormous rock slide that once crushed an entire village of the Tribe of the Sands more than a hundred full seasons ago.
Because the lives here had ended so unnaturally, the Canyon of Despair was rarely visited by her people. Its reputation for hauntings also discouraged the presence of citizens of the Crescent Houses who lived in nearby Sola Re.
It was a perfect hiding place for the clandestine, pre-appointed meetings with Benfaaro and Bruna that Adalginza now so dreaded.
Nearly exhausted from the exertion of her strenuous climb, she at last staggered into the flickering circle of firelight. She wrapped her shawl tightly around her, shivering as she stood before them.
Though it had been almost a quarter season since she had last seen her brother, Benfaaro did not rise to greet Adalginza or show any other sign of affection.
He simply nodded his head toward a flat rock next to him, where Adalginza quietly took her seat.
"What story did you give your captain this time?" he asked.
"He knows I sometimes like to ride alone. I told him that I must do so late at night, when other Crescent House citizens cannot see me."
Benfaaro was dressed in his usual tunic and leggings made of snakeskin. But, this time, his clothing was tattered and unkempt. The red strip of cloth tied around his head and knotted in back was soiled.
Adalginza was struck by how her brother's once proud green eyes, ordinarily full of passion for his cause, were now devoid of any emotion at all.
Benfaaro had been this way, ever since he had lost Calasta.
At the sight of
her brother's hollow expression, Adalginza began to doubt everything she had conspired to do thus far. But her resolve was strengthened when she shifted her gaze to Bruna, who sat at Benfaaro's side.
Bruna's dark, spiteful eyes captured the glitter of firelight as they regarded Adalginza.
"I am surprised to see you here, little one. I thought by now you would forget all about us, now that you are so indulged as a newly married third lady of the Ninth House. And an officer's wife, too. How nice. The lifestyle has no doubt made you soft. And comfortable. Maybe too comfortable?"
"I knew you would come," Benfaaro interrupted.
He reached out to a blackened iron pot and dipper, to pour a steaming brew of herbal tea into a large ceramic cup. He handed it to Adalginza, before speaking again.
"The winds that bring warning of the coming of winter are cold tonight. Drink, and be warmed. We have much to talk about." He must have seen the furtive look she cast in Bruna's direction. "Never fear. I made the tea myself."
Adalginza did, indeed, appreciate the heat of the cup nestled between her trembling hands, almost as much as the steaming brew placed to her lips. The scent of the tea was of an aromatic mint, and the taste was deliciously flavorful.
As she drank deeply from the cup, she was aware that Bruna watched her every move.
"So. Do you miss me?" Bruna asked.
"Not especially."
"Oh, but surely you miss my cooking." Bruna turned to Benfaaro. "I still doubt Adalginza's word that it was Captain Kalos who insisted I be sent away. I think it was Adalginza who wanted me gone. I think she is lying to us about many things."
Benfaaro said nothing in his sister's defense, leaving it up to Adalginza to answer.
"You brought this on yourself. The captain now suspects it was you who breached the net, causing the snake to invade upon the first night of our meeting. Once I joined the household of Captain Kalos as his wife, it was no wonder he banished you. As I told you before, you were lucky he didn't execute you for being caught in the act of spying."
"Would you have protested?" Bruna asked tauntingly.
Benfaaro held up one hand, interrupting the argument. "Little sister, what do you have for us this eve?"
Ten Crescent Moons (Moonquest) Page 16
