Reluctant Concubine

by Dana Marton

  “So the legends say. One holds the great sword of Bergan. Another hides a thousand virgins frozen in sleep by a sorceress of old. And there might be more that our story tellers forgot about over the centuries.”

  I sat up straighter. “Could not the great sword of Bergan help Batumar win the war better than I?”

  “The sword is prophesized to unite the world after a thousand years.”

  “A thousand years from now?” That much war I could scarcely comprehend.

  “A thousand years from when the prophecy was made.” He hung his head, his lips in a grim line. “Unfortunately, no two Guardians have ever been able to agree on that date. But we do not think the time is near.”

  All fairy tales, I thought. Especially the thousand virgins. If a cave such as that existed, the Kadar warlords would have been looking for it day and night to claim the virgins for their Maiden Halls.

  The Guardian said, “In any case, those other prophesies have not been entrusted to the three of us. Our duty was to await you.” The lines on his forehead eased somewhat. “Which we did with honor. And should we pass before you fulfill your fate, our sons stand ready to assist you.”

  My throat tightened at his words. For legends and vague prophecies, generations of young men had been forced to sacrifice their lives. “The Shahala value families above all. No office asks its holder to forgo that. Why is it so among your people?”

  “The first Guardians believed the Great War of the prophecies would come soon and their services would be urgently needed. They thought the prophecy would be fulfilled in their own lifetimes and feared a family would distract them from their duties. They forswore it for this reason. The example of the first Guardians was followed until it had become unbreakable law among my people.”

  I thought of those generations of Guardians, their entire lives spent waiting for me to walk out of the mist. I could scarcely comprehend such devotion.

  “Sometimes our worst bonds are of our own making,” he said, his tone glum.

  “But it is not too late. You can still find your son’s mother.”

  He shook his head. “Too late for me.” But then he added, “Maybe not so for my son.”

  Before I could respond, I caught sight of the Guardian of the Cave and the Guardian of the Gate hurrying up the path. “Kadar warriors are all over the mountain,” the Guardian of the Gate said once they were close enough. “Shall we show ourselves? With the Khergi hordes so close to our island, is our time here?”

  The Guardian of the Scrolls shook his head. “I do not want warriors in our city. First, let us speak to their High Lord. We have been isolated too long. Go now, Tera, and tell Batumar we are coming.”

  I nodded, knowing that the High Lord’s anger would be fierce when I faced him. But if the spirits had given me a role in saving our people. I would do what was required of me. “When should he expect you?”

  “For the evening meal,” said the Guardian of the Gate, patting his belly in an absent gesture.

  I rolled up the scroll carefully and left it in their keeping, then said farewell to the Guardians and went to face Batumar, hoping to find mercy in his sight.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  (The Sacred Gate)

  No sooner did I walk out of the valley than I saw Lord Gilrem, his men fanned out behind him in the woods. They looked as if they had been searching the past four full days, tired and rumpled from sleeping on the ground.

  “Lord Gilrem,” I said calmly as if I had gone only for a stroll.

  “Lady Tera.” He rushed to my side, then stared at my short hair. He held up his hand to signal his men to stay back. “How do you fare?”

  “Fine well. And you, my lord?”

  “My son grows and strengthens.”

  “And his mother?”

  He nodded, then asked in a voice low enough so none but I would hear. “Will you return with me to the palace?”

  I searched his face to make sure I did not misunderstand him, but his intent was clear. Now that I had accepted my destiny and the fact that I could never return to the life I had once known, the choice was finally offered to me.

  The spirits were not without a sense of humor after all.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I shall return to Karamur with you, Lord Gilrem.”

  He smiled his relief, then sent some of his men to the other search parties to call them off. “We have been looking for you since your absence was discovered.”

  “I am sorry to have caused so much trouble.” Sorry for the warriors who were about to go to battle and were deprived even of these few days to spend with their families. “I expect the High Lord is angry.” I winced at the thought of an enraged Batumar.

  “I shall remain by your side, if you wish, my lady.”

  An offer of protection. A long path we had traveled since we had first met. I had learned much in that time. It should have surprised me not that the High Lord’s young brother had changed as well.

  “I thank you, my lord, but I must face the High Lord alone in this matter.”

  Lord Gilrem would not let me climb the cliff, so we returned to Karamur the long way, his men falling into place behind us. The ones who had caught me on the creek bank were not among his guard now. I did not know whether Lord Gilrem had remembered and ordered it so or if by coincidence. I trusted his offer of protection, and I did not feel afraid in their midst.

  He asked me where I had gone but did not insist on an answer when I remained silent. I asked him about the war effort.

  The city walls now stood finished, he said, and the city gate fully fortified, but all other work had been set aside as Batumar had sent every available man to search for me.

  I asked Gilrem about Leena. He assured me that no servants had been punished for my escape, but the Palace Guard had been disciplined as they had been found derelict in their duty.

  The sun had passed its zenith by the time we reached the palace. Batumar waited for us in his Great Hall, his jaw clenched as he looked me over. His clothes were rumpled as if he had just returned from training with his men. An icy expression sat upon his face, while his dark eyes swirled with fire.

  “The Lady Tera and I have matters to discuss in private.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me after him down the corridor, through his antechamber into his bedchamber, and slammed the door hard enough to shake the torches in their sconces.

  My heart clamored like a small chowa bird trapped in a net. Spirit, be strong. Heart, be brave. I tried to step back, but he would not let me. His hand was an iron band around my arm, although his fingers did not dig into my flesh, and I suffered no pain.

  I took heart from that. Even in his great anger, he would not hurt me.

  He looked me over once more, his gaze settling on my shorn hair, his eyes narrowing with a cold flare of fury.

  “Who did this to you?” Murder rang clear in his voice.

  “None other but I.” I somehow kept my voice from trembling.

  “Why do you test me so?” His voice roughened. “You have not been harmed?”

  I shook my head.

  He let me go at last. But I found I could not step away from him. Something in his gaze wouldn’t let me.

  “When I found you gone…” His great chest rose as he breathed. “I thought…”

  I swallowed. “I won’t leave like that again.”

  He reached forme once more, taking my hand, then drew me closer and pressed his lips to mine.

  He did not stop there.

  So it happened that when most women my age already had children to occupy their time, I was finally kissed, by no other than the Kadar High Lord, Batumar.

  His lips were warm and seeking, not nearly as unyielding as the rest of his body. His mouth caressed mine until my entire body tingled.

  I am not sure how long the kiss lasted; my sense of time left me along with sense of anything but his lips and arms. I had, of course, thought about how it would be, like any young girl, but I had been long since a
woman. And Batumar made me feel like one. When his hand wandered up my arm, I shivered as if with fever.

  Then, at long last, he drew his lips away and touched his forehead to mine. His chest rose and fell heavily.

  “Shall we go to the evening feast?” he asked in a raspy voice, speaking with effort. Or shall we stay, I guessed the unspoken second part of his question.

  Stay, I wanted to say, not ready to see the heady feeling end, but I suddenly remembered the Guardians and jumped back. “You have visitors coming, my lord.” Then I told him in a rush about my days at the Forgotten City.

  “I should go and change, my lord,” I added once I finished my tale.

  He frowned, but he granted me leave.

  Leena waited for me in front of his door and threw herself at my feet in tears of joy as I stepped out of the chamber. I pulled her up into my arms, and for once she forgot herself and freely returned my embrace. We hurried to Pleasure Hall while Batumar strode straight to the feast, bidding me in passing to hasten after him.

  Once in my chamber, Leena, beaming with relief, pinned my hair back and attached a gossamer arrangement of veil in such a way as to cover my shorn locks.

  She spread out a golden cloud of a gown, as soft as a dream, but I shook my head. I had never been a true concubine of the High Lord’s Pleasure Hall, and I felt less so now than ever before. I dressed in my thudi and Shahala tunic, and pulled the brown robe of the Guardians over that.

  I looked around the room and on the top of the wooden chest saw the soft glint of the emerald brooch. I had not worn it since I had received it. But now I fastened the jewel to the brown fabric cascading from my shoulders to better hold the folds together.

  Leena fussed. “We best hurry, my lady.”

  By the time I reached the Great Hall, the feast was underway. Every eye turned upon me as I walked to sit in the empty seat between Gilrem and Batumar. Neither of them commented on my garments as they greeted me.

  As the feast proceeded and the foreign emissary on Batumar’s other side claimed his attention, at last I told Lord Gilrem about the Forgotten City. I think he only half believed me until one of the Palace Guards announced the visitors.

  Batumar nodded, and the guard pushed the door open to allow the Guardians to enter. How odd they looked in this place, more ancient than the walls of the palace, solemn like the forgotten gods of the myths. Their brown robes swept the floor and seemed to glow in the flickering light of the torches. Gasps sounded from all around the room as the very air seemed to thin.

  “Greetings to the High Lord and his esteemed brother and the Lady Tera. Good tidings from the Seela of the Forgotten City,” the Guardian of the Cave said ceremoniously. The Guardian of the Gate held his great carved stick. Even the Guardian of the Scrolls stood tree-straight, and without frowning.

  I knew them to be curious of Karamur and the palace, but they did not gawk like children at the marketplace. They behaved with solemn dignity even as Lord Gilrem gaped at them next to me.

  The murmur of people filled the Great Hall, everyone staring.

  “Greetings, esteemed Guardians.” Batumar bade them to sit, and warriors moved at once to make room at the high table.

  But the feast quickly fell into disarray as people would not eat, too intent on guessing what the Guardians’ appearance meant. They had been but mythical creatures of legends before this moment, the men’s and women’s astonishment as great as if the three-headed talking warthog of Morandor appeared among them, straight from the fairytales.

  And thus, after a short time, Batumar rose and invited the visitors to his private chambers, requesting Lord Gilrem and me to follow.

  “The Lady Tera tells me you are here to discuss the war. Have you any news of Khan Woldrom and his Khergi hordes? Or the Emperor Drakhar who sends them to our distruction?” the High Lord asked once we were all seated in his antechamber.

  The Guardian of the Cave shook his head. “Only what is in the prophecies.”

  Batumar leaned back in his chair. “They are near. Within a day or two, I shall have to leave again. Emmisaries come daily to ask for our help.”

  “Take the Lady Tera with you, High Lord,” said the Guardian of the Cave. “For the prophecies are clear. With her stands our only hope of victory.”

  Batumar gave him a sharp look, his voice even but hard as he said, “I do not need a woman to fight my wars for me.”

  “But it is written—”

  The High Lord lifted his hand. “She will stay here in safety.”

  The Guardian of the Cave would not give up. “My lord, if you would consider…”

  Batumar measured up the three men for some time before he turned to me. “As you give health and life, my lady, can you also take it away?”

  “I do not understand, my lord.” Although I had a feeling he did not mean giving the wrong herb by mistake.

  “If you stood in the battlefield, could you take people’s lives without touching them? From a distance?” His gaze searched my face.

  My breath caught. “I would rather die than ever try such a thing.”

  He nodded as if he had expected that answer.

  “Lady Tera, if it is your destiny—” the Guardian of the Cave began to say, then fell silent as the Guardian of the Scrolls cast him a dark look.

  My destiny.. For war

  My throat tightened. It could not be true.

  I looked from man to man. A swift panic rose to swallow me as the mist sometimes swallowed Karamur. All my trepidations returned.

  “I have no such great power as to save nations.”

  The Guardian of the Cave, who sat by my side, covered my hand with his on the table as he turned to me and spoke to me in a low voice no other would hear. “Perhaps you fear not the lack of powers, my Lady Tera, but that you might be indeed powerful beyond all that you have thus far imagined.”

  A strangled sound of distress escaped my throat. How little, after all this time, he knew me. “I have no great power but the gift of some healing.”

  “Does the thought of power worry you? Do you think it might corrupt you as it corrupted your great-grandmother?”

  I did not want to answer, but then I recalled the flawed crystal that had shattered into sharp, dangerous shards, and I nodded, moisture filling my eyes.

  “For some, their endless potential can be more frightening than their shortcomings,” he said with understanding. “You have not been called to be a simple healer, Tera.”

  I had been trying to accept that. Had read the first scroll, even if I felt unworthy. And I planned on reading the others as they opened. I would do whatever they required of me. But as I looked around, I realized that all those around me believed I would save them through war.

  How could I take lives instead of preserving them as was my sacred duty? Even for the sake of multitudes, I could not.

  I stood with determination, feeling the weight of the men’s gazes upon me. “I will not aid in killing.” My voice rang strong and clear. “I refuse my destiny.”

  Silence met my declaration. A hard tension crackled through the room.

  “The prophecy says you are our only hope of defeating the enemy,” the Guardian of the Gate reminded me.

  A stunned expression came over Lord Gilrem’s face as he looked at me, then at his brother. “Who is she?”

  “The One Foretold,” Batumar said with a frown, as if not the least pleased.

  “The One Foretold?” Lord Gilrem paled.

  “I refuse my destiny,” I repeated, standing firm.

  More silence followed my words.

  “But then how will she lead the Kadar to victory?” Lord Gilrem asked once he recovered.

  “Through peace,” I said, suddenly inspired, and felt the horrible weight lift.

  The Guardians exchanged glances. My heart filled with hope. They were considering my suggestion.

  Batumar shook his head. “There can be no peace with this enemy.”

  “How do we know?” I forged
on. “I shall go as an ambassador and plead a treaty.”

  “No,” the men around the table said as one, truly exasperating in their stubbornness.

  “Empires rise and fall, for such is the way of the world,” I said. “Dahru is precious to us, but it must be of small value to this giant enemy. It is better to have a treaty and live than to fight and perish. The First People fought, and they are no more. The Seela are fewer and fewer with every coming year. They might not last through a long war. The Shahala do not know how to fight, many would die. The Kadar are strong but outnumbered—”

  “I will not crawl to the enemy as a coward.” Batumar’s voice held thunder.

  “Then you put your pride before the life of your people, my lord.” I could think of nothing else but those wounded warriors I had treated, the pain in their bodies and the death in their eyes, and the cry of the widows whose men had not returned.

  Batumar looked at me, his gaze sharp as a sword. “A treaty would not work. The Kerghi are hungry for blood.”

  “But they conquered many lands. Their army must be stretched far and wide. What if we offered tribute? What harm can it do to try? If the spirits meant to save us through war, why would they choose me?” I looked around at the men who had grown up with and believed the prophecy. But did they believe strongly enough to accept what I had to say?

  Silence enveloped the room, my words left hanging in the air.

  “If she is The One Foretold…” Lord Gilrem rose. “I shall go. The Khergi khan, Woldrom, is said to be in the city of Mernor, his latest conquest. I shall leave tomorrow.”

  The Guardian of the Scrolls stood as well, and to my surprise, he said, “And so shall I.”

  “With a large contingency of guards,” Batumar added, the lines on his forehead turning into deep furrows, his mouth drawn tight.

  But the Guardian of the Scrolls shook his head. “If Woldrom is open to peace, we should not need more men.”

  “And if he is not”—Lord Gilrem smiled with bravado—“a unit of guards will not mean much.”

  They both looked at Batumar, and after a while, he reluctantly nodded. “But the Lady Tera stays.”