Darkover: First Contact

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Beltran drew him into a kinsman’s embrace and said, “Now you are truly my brother!” and Bard sensed that somehow Beltran had always been jealous of his friendship with Geremy, too; now the tie with Beltran was so strong that Geremy had nothing to equal it. Beltran and Geremy had sworn brotherhood, exchanging daggers, before they were out of childhood. No one, Bard thought with a brief surge of resentment, had ever asked him to swear the oath of bredin; not him, bastard and outcast.... well, that was over, over for his life-time. Now he was the king’s son-in-law, Carlina’s pledged husband. Brother-in-law, even if not sworn brother, to Prince Beltran. Somehow it seemed to him that he walked taller; catching a glimpse of himself in one of the long mirrors adorning the Great Hall, it seemed that he looked handsome for once, that he was a bigger and somehow a better man than had ever looked into that mirror before.

  Later, when the minstrels struck up for dancing, he led Carlina out. The dance broke couples up and recombined them in elaborate twisting measures, brought them together again; as they passed and re-passed in the dance, joining and loosing hands, it seemed to him that Carlina was less reluctant to take his hand. Geremy was dancing with one of the queen’s youngest ladies, a red-haired maiden named Ginevra—Bard did not know her other name; she had played with Carlina when they were little girls, then become a waiting-woman. Bard wondered briefly if Ginevra shared Geremy’s bed. Probably; what man would spend so much time and trouble on a woman if she would not? Or perhaps Geremy was still trying to persuade her. Well, if so, Geremy was a fool. Bard himself never bothered about high-born maidens, they tended to want too much in the way of flattery and promises of devotion. Nor did he care for the prettier ones; they promised more, he had found, and yielded less. Ginevra was almost plain enough to be properly grateful for masculine attention. But what was he doing, thinking of such things when he had Carlina?

  Or rather, he thought sullenly, as he led her toward the buffet for a glass of wine after the hearty dancing, he didn’t have Carlina, not yet! A year to wait! Damn it, why had her mother done this?

  Carlina shook her head as he would have refilled her glass. “No, thank you, I don’t really like it, Bard—and I think you have had enough,” she said soberly.

  He blurted out, “I would rather have a kiss from you than any drink ever brewed!”

  Carlina looked up at him in astonishment; then her red mouth crinkled in a small smile. “Why, Bard, I have never heard you make a pretty speech before! Can it be that you have been taking lessons in gallantry from our cousin Geremy?”

  Bard said, abashed, “I don’t know any pretty speeches. I’m sorry, Carlina, do you want me to learn the art of flattering you? I’ve never had time for such things.” And the unspoken part of that, with resentment, Geremy has nothing else to do but sit home and learn to say pretty things to women, was perfectly audible to Carlina.

  Suddenly she thought of Bard as he had been when first he came to be fostered there, three years ago, and he had seemed to her a great countrified sullen lout, refusing to use the manners he had, sulking, refusing to join in their games and play. Even then, he had been taller than any of them, taller than most men, and more broadly built. He had little interest in anything but the arms-play of their lessons, and had spent his playtime listening to the guardsmen tell tales of campaigns and war. None of them had liked him much, but Geremy said he was lonely, and had gone to some trouble to try to coax him into joining their games.

  She felt, suddenly, almost sorry for the boy to whom she had been pledged. She did not want to marry him; but he had not been consulted either, and no man could be expected to refuse marriage to a king’s daughter. He had spent so much of his life in war and preparation for war; it was not his fault that he was not gallant and a courtier like Geremy. She would rather have married Geremy—although, as she had told her nurse, she would rather not marry at all. Not because she had any great fondness for Geremy; simply that he was a gentler boy and she felt she understood him better. But Bard looked so unhappy.

  She said, drinking the last unwanted drops in her glass, “Shall we sit and talk a while? Or would you like to dance again?”

  “I’d rather talk,” he said. “I’m not very good at dancing, or any of those courtly arts!”

  Again she smiled at him, showing her dimples. She said, “If you are light enough on your feet to be a swordsman—and Beltran tells me you are unequalled—then you should be a fine dancer too. And remember, we used to dance together at lessons when we were children; would you have me believe you have forgotten how to dance since you were twelve years old?”

  “To tell you the truth, Carlina,” Bard said hesitantly, “I got my man’s growth so young, when the rest of you were all so little. And, big as my body was, I felt always that my feet were bigger still, and that I was a great hulking brute! When I came to ride to war, and to fight, then my size and weight gave me the advantage . . . but I find it hard to think of myself as a courtier.”

  Something in this confession touched her beyond endurance. She suspected he had never said anything like this to anyone before, or even thought it. She said, “You’re not clumsy, Bard, I find you a fine dancer. But if it makes you uncomfortable, you need not dance again, at least not with me. We will sit here and talk awhile.” She turned, smiling. “You will have to learn to offer me your arm, when we cross a room together. With the help of the Goddess, I may indeed civilize you one day!”

  “You have a considerable task on your hands, damisela,” Bard said, and let the tips of her fingers rest lightly on his arm.

  They found a seat together at the edge of the room, out of the way of the dancers, near where some elderly folk were playing at cards and dice. One of the men of the king’s household came toward them, evidently intending to claim a dance with Carlina, but Bard glowered at him and he discovered some urgent business elsewhere.

  Bard reached out with the hand he thought was clumsy and touched the corner of her temple. “I thought, when we stood before your father, that you had been crying. Carlie, has someone ill-used you?”

  She shook her head and said, “No.” But Bard was just enough of a telepath—although when the household leronis had tested him, at twelve, he had been told he had not much laran—to sense that she would not speak the true reason for her tears aloud; and he managed to guess it.

  “You are not happy about this marriage,” he said, with his formidable scowl, and felt her flinch again as she had done when he squeezed her hand.

  She lowered her head. She said at last, “I have no wish to marry; and I wept because no one asks a girl if she wishes to be given in marriage.”

  Bard frowned, hardly believing what he heard. “What would a woman do, in the name of Avarra, if she was not married? Surely you do not wish to stay at home all your days till you are old?”

  “I would like to have the choice to do that, if I wished,” Carlina said. “Or perhaps to choose for myself whom I would marry. But I would rather not marry at all. I would like to go to a Tower as a leronis, perhaps to keep my virginity for the Sight, as some of mother’s maidens have done, or perhaps to live among the priestesses of Avarra, on the holy isle, belonging only to the Goddess. Does that seem so strange to you?”

  “Yes,” Bard said. “I have always heard that every woman’s greatest desire is to marry as soon as possible.”

  “And so it is, for many women, but why should women be any more alike than you and Geremy? You choose to be a soldier, and he to be a laranzu; would you say that everyone should choose to be a soldier?”

  “It’s different with men,” Bard said. “Women don’t understand these things, Carlie. You need a home and children and someone to love you.” He picked up her hand and carried the small soft fingers to his lips.

  Carlina felt sudden anger, mingled with a flood almost of pity.

  She felt like giving him an angry reply, but he was looking at her so gently, with so much hopefulness, that she forbore to speak what she thought.

  He
could not be blamed; if there was blame, it was her father’s, who had given her to Bard as if she were the red cord he wore about the warrior’s braid, a reward for his bravery in battle. Why should she blame him for the customs of the land which made of a woman only a chattel, a pawn for her father’s political ambitions?

  He followed some of this, his brow knitted as he sat holding her hand. “Do you not want to wed with me at all, Carlie?”

  “Oh, Bard—” she said, and he could hear the pain in her voice—“it is not you. Truly, truly, my foster brother and my promised husband, since I must marry, there is no other man I would rather have. Perhaps one day—when I am older, when we are both older—then, if the gods are kind to us, we may come to love one another as is seemly for married people.” She clasped his big hand in her two small ones, and said, “The gods grant it may be so.”

  And then someone came up to claim Carlina for a dance; and though Bard glowered again, she said, “Bard, I must; one of the duties of a bride is to dance with all who ask her, as you very well know, and every maiden here who wishes to marry this year thinks it lucky to dance with the groom. Later we can speak together, my dear.”

  Bard yielded her, reluctantly, and, recalled to his duty, moved about the room, dancing with three or four of Queen Ariel’s women, as was suitable for a man attached to the king’s household, his banner bearer. But again and again, his eyes sought out Carlina, where her blue robe, pearl-embroidered, and her dark hair, drew his awareness back again.

  Carlina. Carlina was his, and he realized that he hated, with a violent surge of loathing, every man who touched her. How dare they? What was she about, flirting, raising her eyes to any man who came to dance with her, as if she were some shameless camp follower? Why did she encourage them? Why couldn’t she be shy and modest, refusing dances except with her promised husband? He knew this was unreasonable, but it seemed to him that she was trying to win the approval and the flirtatious smile of every man who touched her. He restrained his wrath when she danced with Beltran, and her father, and the grizzled veteran of sixty whose granddaughter had been her foster sister, but every time she danced with some young soldier or guardsman of the king’s household, he fancied that Queen Ariel was looking at him triumphantly.

  Of course what she had said about not wanting to marry at all—that was girlish nonsense, he didn’t believe a word of it. No doubt she was cherishing some girl’s passion for some man, someone not really worthy of her, to whom her parents would not give her; and now that she was handfasted, and old enough to dance with men who were not her kinsmen, she could seek him out. Bard knew that if he found Carlina with another man, he would tear the man limb from limb, and Carlina herself he would—would he hurt her? No. He would simply demand of her what she had given the other man, make her so much his that she would never think of any other man alive. He scanned the ranks of guardsmen jealously, but Carlina seemed to pay no more attention to any one than another, dancing courteously with all comers but never accepting a second dance with any.

  But no, she was dancing again with Geremy Hastur, a little closer to him than she had been to any other, she was laughing with him, his head was bent over her dark one. Was she sharing confidences, had she told him that she did not want to marry Bard? Was it Geremy, perhaps, she wished to marry? After all, Geremy was of the Hastur kin, descended from the legendary sons and daughters of Cassilda, Robardin’s daughter . . . kin to the very gods, or so they said. Damn all the Hastura, the di Asturiens were an ancient and noble lineage too, why should she prefer Geremy? Rage and jealousy surging in him, he crossed the floor toward them; he still had enough awareness of good manners to refrain from interrupting their dance, but as the music halted and they stepped apart, laughing, he moved toward them so purposefully that he shoved another couple, without apology.

  “It is time again to dance with your promised husband, my lady,” he said.

  Geremy chuckled. “How impatient you are, Bard, considering that you will have the rest of your lives together,” he said, resting an affectionate hand on Bard’s elbow. “Well, Carlie, at least you know your promised husband is eager!”

  Bard felt the twist of malice in the taunt and said angrily, “My promised wife—” he put heavy emphasis on the words, “is Lady Carlina to you, not Carlie!”

  Geremy stared up at him, still not believing he was not making a joke. “It is for my foster sister to tell me when I am no longer welcome to call her by the name I called her when her hair was too short to braid,” he said genially. “What has come over you, Bard?”

  “The Lady Carlina is pledged as my wife,” Bard said stiffly. “You will conduct yourself toward her as is seemly for a married woman.”

  Carlina opened her mouth in amazement, and shut it again. “Bard,” she said with careful patience. “perhaps when we are truly man and wife and not merely a handfasted couple I shall allow you to tell me how I am to conduct myself toward my foster brothers; and perhaps not. At the moment, I shall continue to do exactly as I please in that respect! Apologize to Geremy, or don’t presume to show your face again to me tonight!”

  Bard stared at her in dismay and anger. Did she intend to make him crawl before this sandal wearer, this laranzu wizard? Was she willing to insult her promised husband in public over Geremy Hastur? Was it really Geremy she cared for then?

  Geremy stared, too, hardly believing what he was hearing, but King Ardrin was looking in their direction, and there was enough trouble in this household tonight—he sensed it—so that a quarrel would not be wise. Besides, he didn’t want to quarrel with his friend and foster brother. Bard was alone here, with no father to stand beside him, and no doubt he was feeling touchy because his closest kin could not be troubled to make half a day’s ride to see him honored as the king’s champion, and married to the king’s daughter, so he tried to ease it over.

  “I don’t need any apologies from Bard, foster sister,” he said. “If I offended him, I’ll willingly beg his pardon instead. And there is Ginevra waiting for me. Bard, my good friend, be the first to wish us well; I have asked her for leave to write my father to make arrangements for a handfasting in that quarter, and she has not refused me, only said that she must ask leave of her father to accept my offer. So if all the old folk are agreeable, I may stand, a year or so from now, where you stand tonight! Or even, if the gods are kind, in the hills of my own country—”

  Carlina touched Geremy’s arm. “Are you homesick, Geremy?” she asked gently.

  “Homesick? Not really, I suppose. I was sent from Carcosa before it could truly be my home,” he said. “But sometimes—at sunset—my heart sickens for the lake, and for the towers of Carcosa, rising against the setting sun, and for the frogs that cry there after the sun goes down, the sound that was my first lullaby.”

  Carlina said gently, “I have never been far from home; but it must be sadness beyond all other sadness. I am a woman and I was brought up to know that whatever happened, I must leave my home someday. . . .”

  “And now,” said Geremy touching her hand, “the gods have been kind, for your father has given you to a member of his household and you need never leave your home.”

  She smiled up at him, forgetting Bard, and said, “If one thing could reconcile me to this marriage, I think it would be that.”

  The words were like salt in a raw wound to Bard, where he stood listening. He broke in sharply, “Go, then, and join Ginevra,” and put his hand, not gently, on Carlina’s, drawing her away. When they were out of earshot he spun her around roughly to face him.

  “So—did you tell Geremy, then, that you did not want to marry me? Have you been babbling this tale to every man you dance with, making a game of me behind my back?”

  “Why, no,” she said, looking up at him in surprise. “Why should I? I spoke my heart to Geremy because he is my foster brother and Beltran’s sworn brother, and I think of him as I would of my own blood kin, born of my father and my mother!”

  “And are you sure it
is so innocent with him? He comes from the mountain country,” Bard said, “where a brother may lie with his sister; and the way he touched you—”

  “Bard, that is too ridiculous for words,” Carlina said, impatiently. “Even if we were wedded and bedded, such jealousy would be unseemly! Are you going to call challenge, when we are wedded, on every man to whom I speak civilly? Must I be afraid to say a pleasant word to my own foster brothers? Will you be jealous next of Beltran, or of Dom Cormel?” He was the veteran of fifty years service with her father and grandfather.

  Before her wrathful gaze he lowered his eyes. “I can’t help it, Carlina. I am frantic with fear that I would lose you,” he said. “It was cruel of your father not to give you to me now, since he had decided on the wedding. I cannot help but think he is making game of me, and that later, before we are bedded, he will give you to someone else he likes better, or who will pay a bigger bride-price, or whose station would make him a more powerful alliance! Why should he give you to his brother’s bastard son?”

  Before the dismay in his eyes Carlina was flooded with pity. Behind the arrogance of his words, was he so insecure? She reached out to take his hand. “No, Bard, you must not think that. My father loves you well, my promised husband, he has promoted you over the head of my own brother Beltran, he has made you his banner bearer and given you the red cord; how can you think he would play you false that way? But he would have cause to be angry if you made a silly quarrel with Geremy Hastur at our festival! Now promise me you will not be so silly and jealous again, Bard, or I will quarrel with you too!”

  “If we were truly wedded and bedded,” he said, “I should have no cause for jealousy, for I would know you were mine beyond recall. Carlina,” he begged, suddenly, taking up both her hands and covering them with kisses, “the law recognizes that we are man and wife; the law allows us to consummate our marriage whenever we will. Let me have you tonight and I will know that you are mine, and be certain of you!”