Clarice forced out the words, facing the truth. “She loved me best when I was docile. I suppose that is how she wants me to be now. I know it is. I hoped . .. when I heard she wasn’t dead, I hoped for something more.”
Dominic offered the comfort of his arms. Against her hair, he said, “Perhaps the ‘something more’ you seek is immortality?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I could never. ...” But she thought about it, as alluring visions of what she’d seen since entering the Deathless Realm rose up before her.
“It’s tempting, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice a hard whisper. “You have power over the things of the earth. Whatever you chose to do is effortless. Travel where you will on the breast of the wind, walk on the sea-floor without air, fly to the stars or make them dance to your piping. Your deepest longings fulfilled in the blink of an eye. And you dwell forever in the kind of beauty that mortals only see in dreams. Oh, it’s tempting so long as you don’t look past the pleasures of it to the pains.”
“What pains? What pains could there possibly be?”
“This, for one.”
He pushed up her chin and kissed her, driving her passion until she forgot everything except what she found in his arms. His big hands threw back her cloak and he caressed her breasts through the quilted dress. The friction and the pressure heated her blood. It made her restless and eager to have him feel exactly the same frantic yearning that she did.
She slid her hands beneath the tatters of his shirt and ran them over the velvet skin of his flat stomach. He shivered. She smiled against his mouth, taking the thrust of his tongue as a tribute. He tasted of the bitter creaminess of the chocolate he’d drunk as well as his own unique flavor. Between the two, Clarice felt intoxicated.
Behind them, the guttering torch flared, first greenish, then yellow. Now she could see the color of the beard that she’d felt against her cheeks and chin. His eyes were deep-shadowed yet bright with a hunger that her kisses had only increased. His chest rose and fell with panting breaths.
Clarice shook back her hair. “How was that a ‘pain’?” He seemed to have forgotten what he’d set out to prove to her, for he was staring at her without speaking.
He closed his eyes before he answered. “I was told when I was sent out to keep you hostage that the women of your time were meek, modest, and chaste.”
“Am I not so?”
He laughed, an all-too-happy sound in that dark place. She reached out with shaking hands as she said, “Hush!”
Grinning at her, he said, “Meek? Modest. .. well, perhaps. Chaste? By the Stones, never! Mind you, I’m not ungrateful.”
With a proud toss of her head, she proclaimed, “I am a virgin, Dominic.”
“I know it,” he said deep in his chest as he slipped his hands over her shoulders. “There’s never been a chance to set that right. And if you stay here, there never will be.”
“What do you mean?”
‘The Fay don’t make love, Clarice. I’ve dwelt among them for four hundred years and I’m not sure how they have children. I know it’s rare for there to be any children living in the Wilder World at any time. If you stay here, you’ll be a virgin forever. You were not made for that kind of life.”
“I’ve done perfectly well as a spinster thus far.”
"That’s because you never knew me before.” She started to laugh at his masculine arrogance but gasped instead as he pulled her against him again. She couldn’t even pretend to resist him, not with these moments so fleeting. Pressing her face against his neck, she murmured, “I don’t want to be a Fay. I want to be yours.”
“Don’t tell your mother that. Whatever you do, don’t tell her that.”
When she left Dominic’s cell, Corporal O’Hannon was singing an old Gaelic lullaby to the guard. His eyes when he saw her were expressive. Clarice’s heart ached as she slowly closed the cell door. It seemed so final, as though she were bidding Dominic a lasting adieu.
She slipped down the corridor to wait for O’Hannon. He was not long in coming. At first he said nothing, but when they were safely out of earshot of the guard, he exclaimed explosively, “What in the name of the Three took you so long? Did you smuggle him in a five-course meal?”
“I apologize, Corporal. We had much to discuss.”
“You must have! And me runnin’ out of words which is a thing that don’t often happen to one of my ilk, I can tell you.”
“I know it must have been a strain on your nerves. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“Ah, now . ..” He ducked his head modestly. “Not that I’ve any nerves to speak of, mind you! ‘Tis only for yourself I was concerned. I daresay you didn’t wish to hurry yourself either for the company was pleasant though the room left something to be desired, eh?”
“It is not perhaps the most congenial surroundings.” Clarice tried to memorize the twists and turns of the way back to Dominic. If only she had a piece of paper to mark it down!
O’Hannon broke off in the middle of a complaint
about his erstwhile companion to say, “It’s no good trying to learn the way, my lady. It changes every time.” “Then how do you know it?” “Oh, it’s just a knack. I ask my heart which way to go and it’s never wrong.”
“You are human, aren’t you, O’Hannon?”
“That I am, and proud of it! But any human can do the same with a bit of trainin’.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Now why would I be doin’ that? You’ll never need come down here again in all your long life.”
“Does everyone know what my mother has planned for me?”
“Sure, and isn’t it known to yourself?” “No. I had no notion until Dominic told me.” “He’s a knowin’ one by all I ever heard. I hope it’s me as takes him down when the day of battle comes. That’ll be a day of glory! There’ll be songs sung of the werreour around the Great Fire and the name O’Hannon will lead all the rest.”
“Will you meet me tomorrow night so I can see him again?”
“No. I don’t dare. You’ve relieved him for tonight and the guard promised he’d give him some food tomorrow.
I won’t vouch for the quality but I doubt he’ll be expecting anything like Mother makes.”
“I needn’t ask if you’ll help me rescue Dominic?”
“Rescue him? He’s your enemy now, girl... I mean, my lady.”
“He’ll never be that. I—I love him, you see.”
The Irish soldier whistled low in astonishment.
‘That’s bad, that is. If I’d known that, I never would have taken you along to see him. Don’t curse me for it after, will you?”
“No, of course not. You’ve given me a wonderful gift. I thought he was dead.”
“But he is. As good as dead, so to speak. Your mother’s going to be makin’ an example of him. Throw him back to his own time and place, don’t you know? I’d rather it was me. I enjoy the Living Lands, but they’re not a patch on Dublin.”
He slopped, holding up his hand for her to halt as well. Then he walked boldly out into the courtyard. An instant later, after a quick check around, he beckoned to her. “Here’s where we part, my dear. When you’re happy one day, think of old O’Hannon and bless him, won’t you?”
“I will. Thank you.”
“Ah, run on now. Use that cloak and go silent.”
Clarice was half-afraid she’d find Matilda waiting for her in her room. Knowing that the Fay could render themselves invisible at will, Clarice could not feel herself truly composed until the covers were around her and her head half-buried in the pillow bed. The quiet dark of the night comforted her jangled nerves.
At first, she thought of those stolen moments with Dominic. She hoped O’Hannon would forgive her for being such an unconscionable time but every instant had been too precious to surrender for mere safety’s sake.
Thinking of Dominic, of how he’d touched her, she had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from turning her sighs in
to moans. This feeling of half-desperation, half-desire was new and thrilling. Had she ever thought herself as cold and uninterested in men? In one way, Dominic was right. She’d never met a man who could rouse her deepest feelings the way he could with one touch.
She’d help him escape but first she had to free him from his cell. Without O’Hannon’s help, she’d never be able to distract a guard and help Dominic. If only she had the chance again to see him, to plan. A note through the door would be enough to set a time for him to be ready.
The night brought no counsel except for a daring thought that had come upon her while tossing restlessly in her bed. Her mother had promised to do anything she would ask.
“Be extravagant,” she had said. “The more you demand, the happier I shall be.”
Matilda brought her breakfast on a tray with her own hands. “Here you are, my darling! Everything as you like it! Toast with gooseberry jam, tea, and an omelette with asparagus.”
“I can’t believe you remember that,” Clarice said, pleased despite herself.
“I remember everything about you,” her mother said, beaming. “How did you sleep?”
Clarice sat up, stretching. Her mother watched her with loving eyes. Then she set the tray on Clarice’s lap. “Eat it all up! You need your strength.”
“Do I?” As always in the Realm of Eternity, the food was a spiritual experience. “Have you eaten, Mother?”
“Yes, hours ago, sleepyhead. But if I may have a slice of your toast?” She took it between her fingers as she sat down on the edge of the bed. “One of the best things about being Fay is that one can eat and eat without ever gaining an ounce. Why, in ten years, I have not gained a pound! I’m sure if I’d stayed human, I’d be waddling like a plump duck!”
Clarice laughed with her, wishing Matilda could be like this always. “I notice that the Fay eat no meat. Why?”
“Some promise made in the Long Ago Before, when Boadach, Forgall and the harpist Cuar first emerged from nothingness. We take vows very seriously here.”
“Dom ... someone told me that it is possible for a Fay to study human behavior. Did you have to study how to be a Fay?”
Matilda shook her head and looked thoughtful. “That’s strange. I never thought of it. When I changed, Forgall just turned his head and glanced at me and I knew. I knew the speech of animals and the words of the wind. I could transform myself, go anywhere, do anything, but no one ever taught me how. I had never known such freedom.”
“Freedom?” Clarice echoed. “I always thought that adults did exactly what they pleased at all times. I’ve since learned differently.”
“I’m sorry you had to learn that. I would have given anything to keep you free of the burdens of your position. At least you have had enough sense to steer clear of one snare that awaits women. You didn’t marry.” Matilda’s sharp brown eyes studied her intently.
“I never met someone I could see spending my life with.”
“And I was not there to arrange matters. Perhaps that is as well, now.”
“I should like to marry one day.”
“Don’t think of it, my dearest. Take the advice of the one who loves you best. Whether you marry for property or for ‘love’—as the modern mind conceives it—the married state leads only to inevitable disillusionment. A man is never what he seems.”
Thinking of the several roles Dominic had played since she’d met him, Clarice couldn’t conceal her smile. “Sometimes that doesn’t matter, surely? If you can see past what he appears to be and find the man inside....”
“What hope can an innocent child like you have of stripping away a man’s deceptions? Their lies are like the skin of an onion. Peel one away and there’s another beneath it and thus until you find nothing at the heart. Better still to stay free forever. I learned that too late.”
“I know that Father loved another, but at one time did he not.,.”
“I was not speaking of your father. I would never be so disrespectful of his memory. But, as you raise the point, your father made every effort to offer me the forms and shows of the marriage tie. For a time, I even hoped . . . but I knew that his heart remained with the woman who’d borne him Felicia. Once she came to live with us, I could no longer carry on the pretense.”
Clarice, who remembered how little pretense of affection there’d been between her parents even before Felicia’s advent, wondered if her mother was fooling herself or trying to make her marriage sound better than it was for her daughter’s sake. “Mother, I loved my father dearly but I knew his faults. I cannot be sorry that you were married to him for where would I be otherwise? Yet I can imagine that he was not easy to live with.”
“That was the difficulty. He was too easy. Anyone might impose upon his good nature, even I. When Felicia came...”
No one could miss the sharp rancor in her tone whenever Clarice’s half sister’s name was mentioned. Clarice said, “I must tell you that I have come to rely greatly on Felicia’s judgment and that her husband is as dear to me as a brother.”
“Oh, yes. Blaic. He threw away a princehood for a girl of no fortune and less name. I met his father, you know. The poor fellow could scarcely raise his head for the shame. How seldom do children repay a loving parent’s care.” Matilda patted Clarice’s knee through the blankets. “I’m sure you would never prove so ungrateful.”
“I am very fond of Blaic,” Clarice repeated. “He and Felicia are so happy together. They have a son, you know. They named him for his grandfather. He was staying with me when ... when all this happened.”
“My poor darling! Dwindling into a lonely, put-upon maiden aunt with no future but to be used! What a dreadful fate!”
“You make it sound as though I were some penniless dependent, Mother. Besides, Morgain is—"
“Oh, you are a too good to see that you are being imposed upon. They just drop him in your lap whenever they choose, without so much as a by-your-leave I’ll be bound!”
“It isn’t like that at all. He’s my dear nephew. I’m glad to house him whenever his parents wish me to. I could almost wish he were my own. When I do have my own children, I could do far worse than follow Felicia’s methods of child-rearing.”
“Your own children!” Matilda scoffed. “You’re a child yourself! You are too young to even think of such a thing!”
“But I do think of it, Mother.” Clarice wondered whether she would have to be less indirect. Though becoming a Fay held temptations, she hoped she was incapable of being seduced by them. She gathered that Dominic had no interest in changing and she would not go where he was unwilling to follow.
“Is there a man?” Matilda asked.
Remembering Dominic’s warning, she said, “No. I have never seen anyone to marry. Someday, I hope—
“You hope! Meanwhile, the years go racing by. Now that I am immortal, I can see what a swift river is human life. You hardly step in the stream before it sweeps you away to your doom. Fifty years are an eyeblink—an eyeblink! Go on as you are, Clarice, and you’ll be old and ugly before you know it. The best, sweetest moments of your life will be gone beyond recall and what will you do? Weep? Mourn? Repent? All useless!”
“Mother,” Clarice said. “Don’t grow so agitated. I am only twenty-seven....”
‘Twenty-seven .. .” Matilda gasped, as though her daughter has just announced that she’d been poisoned and didn’t expect to see another sunrise. “Twenty-seven . . . As old as that already?”
“I was not quite seventeen when you left. The years do not stop for us all.”
Matilda stood up. “I must speak to my generals. Dress yourself in whatever you choose so long as it is splendid. You will show yourself to them in an hour. There is not another moment to lose!”
“Mother, I don’t understand.”
Matilda glanced at her, with pained eyes. ‘Twenty-seven! My darling, forgive me. I should have acted sooner.”
Distracted, counting what must be done on her fingers, Matilda hurried toward the
door. Clarice called after her. “Mother, will you let Dominic Knight out of prison?”
“Yes, dear, whatever you wish. Provisions... man and horse... a litter for Clarice... I shall ride, of course....”
“At once, Mother?”
“Yes, it’s done. It’s done. Don’t bother me now, my love. Just dress and hurry!”
Clarice was happy to obey this behest. The least complex outfit in her wardrobe was a long tunic of red silk with an overblouse, tied at the waist with a wide teal-colored sash. The blouse was gorgeously embroidered in scarlet with dragons and phoenixes juggling real pearls. Matilda had said something about the Imperial dress of China, but Clarice had looked at so many clothes at that point that she’d even given up nodding her approval. She did not accept the triple-level headdress with the dangling pearl strings, nor did she wear the silken slippers that matched the dress. Rather, she pulled on her own sensible boots with her own hands and traveled down to the courtyard.
Instead of the serenity and silence of last night, the courtyard was overrun by gesticulating, shouting soldiery. It all looked like an ant’s nest broken into by an inquisitive child. It was a measure of the soldiers’ preoccupation that none of them took notice of Clarice, despite the eye-scorching colors of her dress.
She tried to slip around the edges of the courtyard, scanning the crowd for Dominic. If her mother kept her word, Clarice could not imagine him sitting quietly in his cell until she came to him. He must be looking for her too, or she did not know him.
Then she saw him, standing in a doorway, blinking as though even the dim sunlight that filled the courtyard of the Fortress of La’al hurt his eyes. Clarice hurried toward him, hardly noticing the accidental buffets from hurrying soldiers. “Dominic!”
Her voice did not carry above the echoing noises of wagons rolling, men laughing, or the rest of the sounds that accompany an army preparing to march. Yet his head turned, his eyes found her. He started forward, but where was his free stride, the easy swing of his arms? She hurried to him, taking refuge with him in a corner out of the way of the turmoil.
Magic by Daylight Page 25
