“You belong to him. We all belong to him,” Arlais said. “We are so fortunate.”
“How long have you been here?” Cinnia asked Arlais. The woman looked no older than twenty-five.
Arlais thought, and then she said, “Several hundred years at least. I was twenty-seven when Ahura Mazda took me. We do not age here in Yafirdom. They say that those who are sent from here grow old immediately.”
“That is true. The stolen women who have been returned are crones,” Cinnia noted, thinking that here was another reason she could not leave Yafirdom now.
“I am the first woman Ahura Mazda took to wife,” Arlais said. “In the many years before he spent his time struggling for the leadership of the Yafir. Once he had a Yafir wife. She died giving birth to his twin sons. They were grown before he took me to wife. Minau has been here for almost three hundred years. Volupia came but seventy years back. Orea and Tyne have been with us over a hundred and fifty years. We all remain the ages we were when we came to Yafirdom. Minau is twenty-three, Volupia, nineteen, Orea, twenty, and Tyne is also twenty. How old are you, Cinnia?”
“I had just celebrated my eighteenth birthday,” she answer Arlais.
“So you are the youngest among us,” Arlais noted, smiling. “Those born Yafir, or with Yafir blood, grow to adulthood, and then do not show their ages for many centuries. Ahura Mazda is at least two aeons old. He is just reaching the prime of his life for which I am very grateful. If I must remain twenty-seven for the rest of my existence I want a vigorous lover in my husband.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“It does not disturb you to share a single husband among you?” Cinnia asked.
“Why would it?” Minau responded.
“Ahura Mazda is kind,” Orea said.
“He is generous to all of us,” Tyne noted.
“And he is certainly Arlais’s vigorous lover with us all,” Volupia said, grinning. “We are glad to have someone else with whom to share his lusty nature. He has been known to exhaust two of us at a time.”
The other women giggled.
“How do you share him?” Cinnia was curious in spite of herself.
“He visits each of us at least once a week,” Arlais explained. “But because you are his new bride, he will spend the next few weeks with you alone. He will want to get you with child quickly so your fertility may be assured. With Orea and Tyne both so great with child, Minau, Volupia and I have had to share the burden of our husband these past two months. We will be delighted for the rest.” She smiled at Cinnia.
After a time a signal was given by Arlais, and they left the scented water to be dried with large warm towels by the impassive eunuchs. Then each woman stretched herself out upon a marble bench and received a thorough massage. At last they departed the baths and returned to their large apartment. Cinnia noticed as they sat together in the dayroom that it was a circular chamber with seven doors. One that led out into the corridor of their quarters, and the six others that led into each woman’s bedchamber.
A silent serving man brought cakes and a crystal decanter filled with a pale gold liquid. He placed the tray carefully on the table around which the six women were now sprawled upon large colorful cushions.
“You have already eaten cakes and drunk wine with Ahura Mazda,” Arlais told Cinnia as she handed her a goblet. “I do not lie to you.”
“It makes no difference now,” Cinnia replied sadly. “I cannot go back even though I long to do so.” She took a deep draught of the liquid in the goblet, and found it oddly soothing. Still she sighed.
Arlais caught the others’ eyes, and they nodded understanding to each other. Every newcomer to Yafirdom felt like this in the beginning. But although Cinnia did not realize it, her sorrow would soon pass, and she would be happy and content once more. She took a tiny iced cake and handed it to Cinnia, smiling. “Eat,” she said. And Cinnia did.
Chapter 10
THE YAFIR HAD been stopped from stealing any more of Belmair’s women. But the young queen was among the missing. Soon all of Belmair knew it, and would have mourned but that Dillon would not permit it. He sent Nidhug with messages to all three dukes, telling them that now the real battle would begin. They had to find where the Yafir were hiding themselves and Belmair’s queen.
After having convinced the dragon that even she could not have been in two places at the same time, and was with her king, which was only right and proper, Nidhug ceased her weeping to everyone’s relief as she had caused her own moat to overflow in her guilt and grief, temporarily flooding a third of the gardens that separated the two castles. Cirillo’s company had helped. He soothed her with especially delicious faerie cakes iced in gold that he conjured from the air, and with his magical kisses, which seemed to melt away her sorrow.
The three dukes were called to the royal castle to discuss the crisis. On this bright late-autumn morning they sat about a rectangular table within a small room with tall windows that looked out over the hills now dressed in scarlet, orange, purple, yellow and several shades of gold and brown against a bright blue sky. A fire in the large hearth warmed the room, the large logs crackling as the flames leaped high up the chimney. At each participant’s place there was a chased silver goblet decorated with green malachite.
In the table’s center was a large decanter of dark red wine.
Dukes Alban, Dreng and Tullio looked curiously, and perhaps a bit nervously, at Kaliq of the Shadows and Prince Cirillo. They had grown quickly familiar with the young king, and they all knew Nidhug well. There was much magic to be found about the table and the dukes were frankly a little bit afraid if the truth had been known. They waited for Dillon to speak first.
“We have contained the Yafir as you know,” he began. “Now we must find them, and take back those women who wish to be repatriated to Belmair. And we must rescue the queen, my wife.”
“Surely, my lord, many of the women stolen over the years are now dead,” Dreng said. “And as for the others it is unlikely their families will want them returned now that they have been tainted by the Yafir. The threat is contained. It is no more, and our women are safe again.”
“The women stolen over these last centuries are very much alive, my lord,” Dillon told him. “Mortals living in the faerie world do not age. They remain as they were when they were stolen away. These are women of childbearing age. Many were married. Those stolen in the past few years may well wish to return to their husbands and homes. As for the others, the families that they knew are long gone. They will undoubtedly remain with their Yafir husbands and children.”
“It is unlikely their families will receive them back,” Duke Alban said quietly. “Dreng is sadly right. Those kidnapped will be considered tainted. I will, however, welcome back any citizen of my duchy of Belia who wishes to return. And I will provide for them if their family do not want them.”
“I want my wife back,” Dillon said quietly.
“My lord!” Now it was Duke Tullio who spoke. “You cannot accept Fflergant’s daughter back as your wife, as your queen. She has been taken by the Yafir. She is tainted! It is all well and good of Alban to offer sanctuary to those from Belia who wish to return. Those women are for the most part the wives and daughters of fishermen and herdsmen. But Cinnia was a king’s daughter, a king’s wife. You cannot take her back! Belmair’s queen must be above reproach, and even a minute spent in the Yafir lord’s custody makes her unfit to be our queen. I am sorry for I know you had come to
love her, but this is not Hetar where a woman may dabble with many lovers, and still be considered a proper matron. This is Belmair. Dreng, Alban and I will carefully make up a list of maidens from among our families who would be suitable as your queen.”
“Do not bother,” Dillon said coldly. “I will have no one but Cinnia for my queen. I know, my lords, that you mean well. But I want no other but Cinnia to be my wife.”
“What if the Yafir gets a child on her?” Dreng asked in a tight voice.
“I cast a spell on my wife when we were first wed to prevent her from conceiving a child until this business with the Yafir could be settled,” Dillon told them. “Our child could have been used against us, against Belmair,” he explained. “My spell cannot be broken or reversed by any but me, my lords. She will not give Ahura Mazda a child.”
“My lords,” Kaliq said quietly, “you argue about something that can be settled at a later date. Let the king continue on with the purpose of this meeting.”
Dillon nodded a thanks to his father. “Our first goal is to ferret out the Yafir’s hiding place. Every inch of each duchy must be searched carefully, thoroughly. They will probably have set up their world in a maze of connecting caves, or beneath the earth, or perhaps inside the hills themselves. They will be hidden where you would not expect them to hide. Once we have found their hidden place we will decide how to approach them. This business between Belmair and the Yafir does not have to end badly.”
“They were told to leave aeons ago,” Dreng said belligerently. “They have remained in defiance of our laws. The Yafir need to be wiped from the face of Belmair!”
“If my ancestor, Napier IX, had let them have one hundred women to help them survive, none of this would have happened. As I understand it, the Yafir were good neighbors, Dreng,” Alban said. He enjoyed reminding the duke of Beltran that his ancestor had been a king of Belmair, for Dreng could make no such claim. No king of Belmair had ever come from Beltran, and Alban couldn’t resist reminding his fellow duke of that.
“It is true,” Tullio said thoughtfully, “that they lived peaceably here for many years, but they were also called the wicked ones, for they loved playing tricks on those who offended them. Still, Dreng, if we may come to an understanding with the Yafir it would be better for us all. Since being visited by our king I have considered this matter most carefully. I do not want to see our young men lost to war.”
“If we are not firm with the Yafir,” Dreng said, “they will think us weak!”
“We need not fight a war to convince them of our strength,” Dillon told the trio of dukes. “First we find them. Then we deliver a single hard blow that will gain their attention, and bring them to the bargaining table. With the decline in population that has occurred on both sides perhaps living together peaceably is better than perishing. But make no mistake about it, I can and I will win this struggle.”
“I still think we should find them and wipe them out like a nest of hornets,” Dreng said. “But I will obey your directive, Your Majesty. I will return home, and set my people to seeking out the place where the Yafir hide.”
Dillon nodded. “I appreciate your cooperation,” he told Duke Dreng. But, he thought, I do not trust you, Dreng of Beltran. I will be watching you to make certain you stir up no more trouble than we already have. He turned to the others. “Will you also return to your homes and send your people out to search for the Yafir?”
“I will, Your Majesty,” Alban said.
“And I also, Your Majesty,” Tullio promised. “I am comforted that you would seek peace over war. The people of Hetar are not usually a peaceable folk.”
“Indeed, in the land called Hetar, there has been much war until ten years ago,” Dillon said. “But there has been peace ever since.”
“We will return you to your homes by means of our magic,” Kaliq said, and then before the dukes might speak further he did just that.
“You have said nothing while we met,” Dillon said to Nidhug.
“I had naught to say,” the dragon answered him.
“You do not like Dreng, do you?” Cirillo said to her.
“It was all I could do not to scorch him with my fire,” the dragon admitted, and her nostrils glowed a dark red. “How dare he say my precious Cinnia is a tainted woman! We will find her, bring her back and all will be as it was. She is queen of Belmair. Does Dreng not realize that I know he has two granddaughters of marriageable age? He will set neither of them in my Cinnia’s place!”
“Nay, he will not,” Dillon told her. “For now she is safe, and I have already set our own people to searching every nook and cranny of Belmair province for answers as to where the Yafir have hidden their world.”
In Belmair the trees remained full and bright with color for two full months. And then on the morning of the new year Belmairans would awaken to find the leaves gone, and the trees bare. During those two months the people of Belmair’s world searched and searched and searched for the hiding place of the Yafir, but they could not find it. Finally the icy season was upon them with its heavy snows, bitter winds and brutal cold. The search had to be suspended until the spring.
Both Kaliq and Cirillo remained in Belmair. Queen Ilona had departed soon after she had helped her grandson and his companions set the spell about Belmair’s young women. She said nothing of her son’s obvious affection for the dragon. In time it would pass, and it would pass quicker if she did not disapprove it.
“Send for your mother,” was her last bit of advice to Dillon before she hurried through the glowing tunnel back to her own forest home.
But Dillon did not send for Lara. Instead he grew sadder and sadder as each day passed without finding Cinnia. Cirillo was little help. It was obvious to all but the most foolish of fools that the faerie prince and the dragon were besotted with one another.
Kaliq finally took it upon himself to seek out Lara’s help. One night while Dillon sat staring silently into the flames of the hearth in the little hall, the Shadow Prince took himself to Lara’s home in Terah, appearing in her hall on a winter’s afternoon.
“Kaliq!” It was Lara’s husband, Magnus Hauk, who saw him first. “It has been some time since you have visited us. Welcome to Terah!” The tall, golden-haired man came forward, smiling, his hand held out in friendship, his turquoise eyes warm.
“Thank you, my lord Dominus,” Kaliq responded, grasping the hand with his own. “I have come to bring Lara word of Dillon, in Belmair.”
“Send for the Domina,” Magnus Hauk said to a servant. “Bring wine for our guest. Come, old friend, and sit with me by the fire.”
Kaliq murmured his thanks, thinking that his absence from Terah these last years had mellowed Magnus Hauk’s attitude toward him. He took the wine offered him, and sat with the Dominus of Terah. “It is a complicated tale I have to tell,” he said pleasantly, “and so I hope you will forgive me if I wait until Lara comes so I need tell it but once. How are the children? Have you found a husband yet for Anoush?”
Magnus Hauk rolled his eyes at the mention of his stepdaughter. “Nay. She has been quite outspoken in that matter. It seems she does not wish to wed, or so she says. Lara has suggested, and I agree, that we leave her be for now. One day she may meet a man she can love. Her mystical sight becomes stronger and stronger. Her healing powers are wonderful and other than in the matter of marriage she is a good daughter to us.”
“You are wise to let her be,” Kaliq said. “And the others?”
“Zagir
i is interested in the young men, but she is still too young for me to consider matching. As for Taj and Marzina, they are yet children, thank the Great Creator! We took your advice, and turned down the proposed marriage alliance between Marzina and the son of Hetar’s rulers. They have not accepted our refusal, however, and say they will ask again in two more years. That in itself disturbs me.”
Kaliq nodded, and then sensing her entry into the hall he turned to see Lara coming toward them. He rose and went forward to greet her, taking her hands in his and kissing them. Their eyes met quickly, briefly. “You are lovely as always.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said in even tones, withdrawing her hands from him.
Together they rejoined Magnus Hauk, who said, “Kaliq brings us word of Dillon.”
“Tell me.” Lara said the two words sharply.
“He is totally in love with his wife, Cinnia, but Belmair is beset by an enemy who must be made into a friend,” Kaliq began. “Unfortunately this Yafir has escalated the problem.” He continued on, telling them everything that had happened to date.
“The Yafir haven’t been heard of in centuries,” Lara said.
“Because they had hidden themselves somewhere in Belmair,” Kaliq responded. “Dillon planned to negotiate with their leader, Ahura Mazda, in order to bring the Yafir back into Belmair’s society. It would have allowed Belmairan and Yafir to mingle once more on a daily basis, in a normal fashion. There would have been no need to steal women away. But Ahura Mazda believes he can shortly claim Belmair for the Yafir as his numbers grow while Belmair’s do not due to the lack of females. And just to emphasize the strength of his position he has stolen Cinnia away.”
“Dillon is all right?” Lara asked the Shadow Prince.
The Sorceress of Belmair Page 26
