The Sorceress of Belmair

by Bertrice Small

  The king’s angry outburst left the trio of dukes briefly speechless. Dreng stared angrily at Dillon, but both Tullio and Alban looked away. The duke of Beltran would never change in any way, the dukes of Beldane and Belia knew. But they were both aware that change had already come to Belmair in the person of their new king.

  Finally Alban spoke up. “I think we should allow the king a full year to mourn his tragic loss. Had our young queen died a natural death we certainly would give him that time. Why do you persist in rushing him, Dreng? The purple sands in his glass have barely drizzled away a grain. The dragon also grieves the loss of Queen Cinnia and she is not ready, either, for the king to remarry. We have had several kings without queens, my lords,” Alban reasoned, his words being meant more for Dreng than Tullio.

  “I am willing to wait until the autumn,” Dreng said, “but only if a Summer Court is held, my lords. There has been no death here. Let the king open the castle to the noble and wealthy families of Belmair. They will bring their unmarried daughters, and while he may sorrow for Fflergant’s daughter in private, he will be surrounded by youth and beauty. Surely it will help to ease his grief, and bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind,” the duke concluded with a sickly smile.

  “We have not had a Summer Court in many years,” Tullio noted.

  “An excellent idea, Dreng,” Duke Alban said, turning to Dillon. “It really is, Majesty,” he appealed to the king. Their eyes met, Alban’s begging the king to agree.

  “Very well,” Dillon said quietly. “I will hold a Summer Court.” And afterward when he was alone with the duke of Belia, he asked him, “Why did you want me to acquiesce, my lord? You know I will have no other than my Cinnia.”

  “By agreeing, you have silenced Dreng, my lord. I will speak to my sister, and she will see that Dreng keeps his distance. You will allow yourself to be surrounded by young women, which will give you time to continue your search. It will also prevent Dreng from nagging you. By the time his patience runs out we may have found the queen, and then the difficulty of keeping her by your side will fall to you. However if the queen has not been found by then—” he paused “—I think we must leave the decision not just to you, Majesty, but to the Great Dragon of Belmair, for she will know what must be done. She has known Cinnia longer than you, and will do what is right.”

  “Would you accept Cinnia back?” Dillon asked Duke Alban.

  “I would if you would,” Alban replied without hesitation. “You are right when you point out that Yafir and Belmairan blood has been so mixed over the centuries that there is little difference now between us. And if we may unite as one people in another few generations we will all be one.”

  “How in the name of the Great Creator was a mind like yours born in Belmair?” Dillon wondered aloud. He shook his head.

  Alban laughed. “I was the elder of two sons. My brother is more like the average Belmairan. I believe my father would have given him the duchy but for my mother. She told him I would outgrow my foolish thoughts, and I think she believed I would. It is better, I think, that neither of them lived to see I did not. In fact, I have become more liberal in my thinking. There are others like me in Belmair. Mostly we keep silent lest we be accused of being like Hetarians.”

  Now it was Dillon who chuckled. “To hear Hetarians being called liberal thinkers is most amusing,” he said. “They are even worse in their stubborn behavior than Belmairans but for a few differences. We do not eschew passion or pleasures in Hetar. The Hetarians, whose deity is called the Celestial Actuary, have actually made a very profitable enterprise of our mortal lusts and behaviors.”

  “They are not spoken of except in hushed whispers of disapproval, and the simple folk know little of them except as a threat to bad children,” Alban said with a smile. “What are they really like, Majesty, if I might ask?”

  “Hetarians are an orderly people with rules and customs. Like Belmairans. They are a people for whom profit and status are everything. My mother’s father was a farmer’s lad from the Midlands province. One summer’s night my grandmother, Ilona, lured him into the woods, and he was not seen again for some months. When he returned he had an infant, my mother, with him. His father had died in his absence, and his elder brother did not want my grandfather, or my mother in what was now his house. So my grandfather took his child into The City, and his mother went with them. My grandfather became a member of the Mercenaries Guild. He was a famous swordsman. Eventually he was allowed admittance into the Crusader Knights. With each step he took he rose socially, and gained in both stature and importance, which is, as I have said, paramount to Hetarians. He was killed in the great battle between darkness and light that was fought over ten years ago before the gates of The City. My mother killed one of the Dark Army’s top commanders herself. Like her sire, she is a famous warrior, and a great swordswoman. My stepfather is very proud of her.”

  “Hetarians allow their women to fight?” Alban was not certain if he should be shocked. Women warriors? He shook his head.

  “Nay, Hetarians do not allow their women to fight, but my mother’s destiny was to become, among other things, a famed swordswoman. The women of the Outlands clans fought with her. And now in Terah there are small brigades of women who train in the martial arts. If war should ever come again to Hetar, the females of the Outlands and Terah will not suffer the fate of the women of Hetar,” Dillon told his friend.

  “I had heard that in Hetar women were now involving themselves in the business of government,” Alban said.

  Dillon nodded. “Women are intelligent, my friend. Their talents should be utilized, and not just in the Pleasure Houses of The City.”

  Duke Alban was fascinated by all his king was telling him. He did not know if he himself was ready yet to embrace quite so much change. But Dillon was certainly giving him food for thought. His dukedom being the smallest, he was more aware than most of the decrease in population in recent years. Changes were going to have to be made if Belmair was to survive. Now if he could only convince Duke Tullio to understand this and stand with him and the king. Dreng was a hopeless case, he knew. They would never be able to bring him to reason until the crisis was upon them, and then only very reluctantly.

  The king called for a Summer Court, and from all of Belmair the noble families and those with wealth came to fill the royal castle. They brought their young daughters, granddaughters, nieces and other female relations. They were not great in number, however. Dreng’s granddaughters, Lina and Panya, were there along with Tullio’s niece, Sapphira. Duke Alban had two nieces, Alpina and Carling, his brother’s daughters. His granddaughters were too young to be considered.

  The Summer Court was lively with games and contests the day long, with feasting and dancing late into the night. The king put in an appearance each evening, and was always surrounded by pretty young women eager to attract his attention. His Shadow and faerie blood was beginning to boil with the warm nights, the sweet wine and the fact that since his wife had disappeared he hadn’t had a woman in his bed.

  Their long hair, some straight, and some with masses of curls; golden, chestnut, black as night, as red as the sunset; and always perfumed, blew in the light summer breeze as they danced the evenings away. Ripe young bodies brushed against him teasingly. Blushes and soft voices assailed him. Eyes of blue, hazel, brown, black and gray met his, some boldy, some shyly with fluttering lashes that brushed their cheeks like dancing butterflies. Some spoke with intelligence to him. Others, younger an
d less sophisticated, marveled to him more times than not on Nidhug’s prodigious appetite as she sat at the high board devouring whole roasted boars, platters of cream cakes, and drinking down huge goblets of wine. He managed to avoid these fair creatures during the day, but the nights were becoming most difficult.

  “What am I to do?” he asked Nidhug one evening when he had escaped to her castle seeking refuge from the gaiety. “I cannot betray Cinnia.”

  Nidhug sighed. “You love her, I know,” she said, “but it is not healthy for a man to be without a woman. Cinnia is certainly in Ahura Mazda’s bed, and has been since he took her. He takes pleasures with her, and she with him. But he can only possess her body, Majesty. He will never have her heart. There is no sin, therefore, in you taking a mistress until your queen returns. Just do not give her a child.”

  “Who?” Dillon said. “The daughters of the noble and those of wealth have been brought to me to choose another queen. I only called a Summer Court in order to silence Dreng and his constant bleating.”

  “The summer is almost at an end,” Nidhug said. “Among those females is one who will give herself to you in hopes of becoming your queen. Seek her out, Majesty.”

  Dillon nodded, and then he said, “If I take that woman to my bed, is there any law in Belmair that would force me to wed her?”

  “Nay, my lord. Not if there is an agreement,” the dragon answered. “I would not betray my child. Oh, the parents or the guardians of she you choose will be at first hopeful, and then when they realize you have no intention of wedding anyone they will become angry. But if there is no child, there can be nothing to hold over you.”

  “You have been with my uncle too long,” Dillon said. “You are beginning to speak with the cold heart of a faerie.”

  “There is much wisdom in your uncle,” Nidhug replied.

  “Where is he?” Dillon asked her. “I have not seen him of late.”

  “He was not needed here in Belmair. Queen Ilona called him home,” Nidhug said in a tight voice. “It is better.”

  Dillon reached out and patted the dainty clawed paw. “Do not love him, I beg you,” he told the dragon. “A faerie love will break your heart.”

  “It is too late,” Nidhug answered the king softly. “But he will be back, Majesty, for you see while he has my heart in his keeping, I have his in mine. Now go and find a nubile young mistress for yourself,” she advised him.

  Dillon announced that the king’s Summer Court would be coming to an end in several days. A great feast was planned. Now Dillon prowled among the young women, who were delighted to preen and flirt with the handsome young king. They knew that sooner or later he must take a new wife, a new queen. And they also knew it would probably be one of them. Each did her best to attract Dillon’s attention.

  Alban’s two nieces, Alpina and Carling, were intelligent young women with much charm, but he had too much respect for his friend to consider them seriously. Dreng’s granddaughters, Lina and Panya, were a pair of delightful minxes who kept him constantly amused with their antics. But Dreng, he knew, would not countenance his taking either of them for a mistress. The other young women were for the most part typical Belmairan virgins, and they bored him although he never showed it.

  Only one woman attracted both his attention and his lust, and that was Sapphira, Duke Tullio’s niece. Was it, he wondered, because she was Cinnia’s twin in appearance? Or was it because of the slight air of danger that surrounded her? His wife exuded light. Sapphira was darkness, and the truth was he was fascinated by her. He wondered if Cinnia were here if that would be so.

  On the night of the last great feast of the Summer Court they danced together, and Dillon asked bluntly as he twirled her about, “Are you a virgin?”

  Sapphira never missed a step, nor did she show any sign of shock or fear. “Why?” she demanded of him. And she smiled into his eyes.

  “Because I want to take pleasures with you,” he replied low.

  “When?” she wanted to know.

  “Tonight. After the feast has ended,” he told her.

  “Will you wed me, Majesty?” she inquired coolly of him.

  “Nay,” he responded without any hesitation. “I am not ready to remarry. I want a mistress for my bed.”

  “Then you are asking me to be your mistress?” Sapphira said.

  “Aye, I am.”

  “I will ask my uncle and my mother. They will give you my answer.” Sapphira curtseyed to him as the music ended, and turning, walked away.

  Dillon’s heart was pounding. What had ever possessed him to ask Sapphira such a question? And yet she had not been shocked or dismayed. Was it as Alban had said? Did she believe that by giving herself to him she would eventually become his queen? He watched the sway of her hips beneath the violet silk of her gown as she walked, and felt his cock tightening with his desire for her.

  Sapphira felt his eyes on her as she left him, and she smiled a little cat’s smile. She was shortly going to reap the benefits of a long and most boring summer. She found her uncle first. “I must speak with you, sir,” she said, and walking on found her mother. “Mama, my uncle and I must speak with you,” she said. “I will meet you in our apartments. Please do not delay.” Then Sapphira walked away.

  “Girls!” the lady Margisia exclaimed, rolling her eyes to the other women with whom she had been sitting and gossiping.

  “She was just dancing with the king,” one sharp-eyed woman noted. “You don’t think he has approached her, do you?”

  “I doubt it,” Margisia replied. “My brother says he does not think the king will ever marry again, for he loved Queen Cinnia deeply.”

  “Your daughter looks just like the queen,” another lady spoke up. “We have all noticed it. Do you not think he might wed your daughter for that reason if no other?”

  “I had not really considered it,” the lady Margisia lied smoothly. Then she arose. “I see Tullio has already left the hall so I had best join my daughter and my brother and see what this is all about. Good night to you all, and may you all have a safe journey home, my dears.” Then she left them.

  “That daughter of hers is a sly boots,” one of the remaining women said, and the others nodded their heads in agreement.

  “Do you think the king has approached her?” another asked.

  “Well, if he has it was not with marriage in mind,” the first lady answered. “He has been celibate, I am told, ever since the queen was stolen away, and I must say I admire him for that. But he is a man, and we all know men need to take pleasures or they become almost impossible to live with. Look at how he has behaved for most of the summer until a few days ago. We did not see him during the day, and he would make but a brief appearance each night, and then disappear. The girls have been so disappointed although several have actually made good matches while being here. The king comes from Hetar, and we all know how carnal Hetarians are. I think he wants Duke Tullio’s niece for his mistress, ladies. But we shall soon see if that is it, or something else.”

  In the apartments that had been assigned to them, Sapphira sat with her uncle and her mother. “The king wants me as his mistress,” she told them bluntly.

  “Oh, my darling, how wonderful!” the lady Margisia cried, clapping her hands.

  “It is an arrangement that does not please me at all,” Duke Tullio said. “It must be marriage or nothing, Sapphira, and I am shocked by your words, Sister.”

  “Uncle, listen to me,” Sapphira answ
ered him urgently. “The king is not ready to wed again, but if I can go to his bed, I can make him love me. I look like Cinnia. If I must I will be Cinnia to him. And sooner than later he will want to wed me.”

  “You are being foolish in your ambition,” her uncle said angrily.

  “Nay, Brother,” the lady Margisia said. “My daughter is being wise. The king desires her enough to have asked her to come to his bed. And as long as she pleases him no other woman will attract him. Think! If your niece becomes queen of Belmair, Dreng can no longer lord it over you. The king did not ask his granddaughters or Alban’s nieces to warm his bed. He asked your niece, my daughter. This is a good thing, my brother. We should rejoice in this incredible bit of good fortune.”

  “Is this Hetar that you would have your daughter behave like a common Pleasure Woman, Sister? Our women marry. They do not spread themselves for any man but their husbands. You would risk Sapphira’s greatest marriage value, her virginity, on the gamble that King Dillon might wed her? What if the queen is found and returned?” Duke Tullio asked his sibling. “Do you seriously believe the king will choose your daughter over Queen Cinnia? Or if she is not found, and the king grows weary of Sapphira and sends her away, what happens then?”