by YatesNZ, Jen
His face darkened again. The thud of her heart took on an uneven pace. She said no more. If he wanted to dispute her performing as Adonai, he must do so with Darlen. He continued to tease her nipples, only a little less cruelly than before.
‘Yadu said he came to you for healing and indicated you were the best breara healer he'd ever found and he was definitely going to be sick regularly from now on.’ A low rumbling snarl emanated from him, and his fingers tightened on her breast once more. ‘You follow me, Princess?’
Gynevra couldn't believe she could feel so sated yet so cold, all at once. Nor could she believe only moments before she'd been so delighted to see, to hold, this angry stranger.
‘The General came for healing,’ she said slowly. ‘It wasn't precisely healing he wanted. Difleer dealt to his needs the first time. The second time I had the guards remove him.’
‘Arabo! That's it! Difleer. Get rid of her.’
Fire flared in Gynevra's belly. Attacking her was one thing. Attacking those she cared about was another entirely.
‘You have a reason?’ she asked, flinging her body away from him, and leaning up on one elbow to glare at him.
‘It's obvious,’ he hissed. Following her across the bed, he thrust his face close to hers and said, ‘Yadu came for healing. He wanted you. He got Difleer. He came back again—didn't he?’ he snarled. ‘Where there's one delilah men will expect to find another.’
The mask-face of contorted fury above her was totally alien. Her body, her heart, were as cold and rigid as the polished granite statues lining the Great Way in Fyr Poseidyr.
‘Difleer—suits me—very well,’ she said slowly and clearly so Gotham couldn't mistake her stand.
Suddenly he was up and pacing in long, violent strides back and forth beside the bed, skin highly flushed, eyes wild.
‘You'll get rid of that woman, Princess. Cronos—while I waited all that infernal time for you to find time for me, she was ogling me like she'd not had a decent scrog in her life—and we both know that's not so. Don't we, Princess?’
He loomed over her, gripping her upper arms and pulling her to her feet. His eyes were wild and little flecks of foam appeared at the corners of his lips. Gynevra stayed absolutely still in his hands. He shook her, suddenly, viciously.
‘I'll not have men coming here and scrogging her in this room, or wherever, and then thinking they can come and scrog with you too. Next thing they'll be queuing up and who in Hyades will know who's sired your first child?—She goes. Where is she?’
‘You have no jurisdiction over me or anything I choose to do while I'm in the Temple, Gotham. Now get out or I’ll tell Difleer to call the guards to throw you out.’
He shook her hard. Fearing he’d lost all rationality Gynevra used a move Dogon had shown her to break from his grasp. Grabbing for the fighting stick leaning against the wall, she swung round in one movement and whacked him solidly in the solar plexus. It was like hitting a slab of rock, and almost jolted her off her feet.
For the merest breath of time he stared at her in surprise, then before she could recover her balance, he wrenched the stick from her hands, threw aside the heavy curtains of the gerlain and thrust it into the back. There was a pained yelp from among her gowns and before Gynevra's horrified eyes he delved in and hauled out a struggling Difleer. With a grunt of animal fury he threw her across the floor into the common room. Gynevra was only dimly aware that while Difleer's body lay still where she'd fetched up against the leg of the table, her mouth was not. She had some very choice animal analogies for the great Prince of Trephysia.
All Gynevra's attention was on Gotham as he followed Difleer as if intent on further injury. There were no other weapons in the room and if there had been she probably wouldn't have thought to use them, so great was her fear for Difleer in that moment. Leaping through the door, she launched herself at him, teeth bared, nails raking, knee aiming for that part of him he was most in tune with. Words ground between her teeth, incomprehensible and ugly.
As her nails opened up a livid rake down the side of his face he plucked her off his body and threw her like a cloth doll back into the bedroom. Her head smacked with a dull thud against the corner of the gerlain and she crumpled into a heap on the floor.
Gotham followed her across the room, smashed a fist through the thick oaken wall of the gerlain, then stepping over her back into the common room, slammed the leathern door aside and stormed out into the corridor.
Neither woman had time to draw breath or move before he was back, striding once more over Gynevra where she lay, to snatch up his clothes. To Gynevra's horror, Difleer sat up and leaning against the table leg began to laugh, a raw ghastly sort of a cackle.
‘Well, Prince,’ she wheezed. ‘You look like a frigged out prune, or a frizzled lump of meat. Pity you can't scrog worth a damn. Maybe you could take lessons from General Yadu.’
Gynevra held her breath. Sacred Ist, don't let him kill her, she prayed. With his clothes dangling from his hand, Gotham crossed to Difleer, aimed a kick at her head, which barely grazed her ear as she threw herself sideways, then stalked out of the room once more. Later Difleer would speak to her mistress of the comedy of the moment as Gotham strode naked into the Temple hallway where he had no business being, even fully clothed.
But it was a long time before Gynevra could laugh at the events of that day.
Chapter 14
Difleer crawled through from the other room. Gently lifting her young mistress in her arms, she began murmuring soothingly.
Then she broke off abruptly and said, ‘Oh Lady, I've got to get help. Your head is bleeding badly.’
‘No. You fix it, Difleer. I don't want anyone to know.’
‘I'm sorry, Lady, but it's more than I can fix. It's like your head is split open.’
Gynevra groaned, then whispered, ‘Oh Difleer, I don't believe it. How could he behave like that? Not even—Sacred Ist, I've never even seen servitors behave like that.’
‘Hush, Lady. T’is well known here in Trephysia that the Prince don't like to be crossed. He don't deserve such as you, Lady,’ Difleer murmured. ‘Let's try and get you on the bed.’
Fetching cloths from the gerlain she placed them over Gynevra's white clagren. Then with tender hands and grunted terms of encouragement, helped her mistress onto the bed.
‘I can't see, there's so much blood,’ Gynevra muttered.
Bunching another cloth into a wad Difleer pressed it against her forehead.
‘Hold that, Lady. That should stop it.’
She raked the rumpled quilt over Gynevra's naked body, then summoned the guard to call the Archinus. In moments Darlen rushed into the room, flustering and exclaiming at the blood everywhere. Difleer was knotting a bandage tightly around her shin though blood was already seeping through it.
‘What on earth has gone on here?’ Darlen demanded. ‘It looks like a war zone!’
‘You're not wrong either, Lady,’ Difleer responded caustically. ‘T'was that breara Lord High and Mighty Prince Gotham. Comes roaring in here like a rogue stallion cut off from his mares. Takes deep umbrage 'cos my Lady ain't swelling with his child and even deeper umbrage 'cos that dog, Yadu said he's been getting special healing from my Lady. Don't like it, don't Prince Gotham, being fed his own tonic!’
‘That's enough Difleer. How dare you speak about the Prince like that!’
‘I dare, Lady, and I mean no disrespect to you, but I dare 'cos I've seen servitors with more respect for their women than he does! He threw me across the room, after telling Lady Gynevra to get rid of me because ‘where men find one delilah they'll expect to find another’! His words! Then when he made to come for me again, my Lady after him and he threw her across the room too. I ripped my leg on the table but I'm afraid Lady Gynevra has split her head open.’
‘Oh Sacred Ist!’ Darlen began to dither. ‘What a mess! Difleer you'd better get yourself back to my quarters—’
‘No. Difleer stays,’ Gynevra managed weakl
y from the bed.
Darlen pursed her lips and looked offended.
‘I don't think she should if it's going to upset Prince Gotham. I can't believe he’d behave like that without serious provocation.’
Gynevra felt her temper rise, threatening her tenuous grasp on consciousness.
‘Difleer stays,’ she repeated through stiff lips.
‘What’s happened?’ Anya's voice stayed the darkness. ‘Flodon’s babbling about Gynevra being injured.’
‘Difleer tells the most amazing story about Prince Gotham attacking them both,’ Darlen said, still patently unconvinced.
Anya stilled then turned to the housekeeper.
‘Difleer?’
Difleer told her story again and Anya paled with anger.
‘Arabo!’ she whispered as she gently prized Gynevra's fingers away from the cloth on her forehead.
‘Daughter! I never thought to hear such language from you!’ Lady Darlen gasped.
‘I only use that word because I don't know anything worse!’ Anya snapped unrepentantly. ‘You don't know my dear brother as I do, Movuon. I've no trouble in believing he'd behave like that. None at all.—Let me look, Gynevra,’ she added more gently. ‘Oh, arabo indeed! Why are you standing here arguing when her skull could very well be cracked?’
Darlen gave her daughter a pained look but immediately sent for the guards to carry Gynevra into the Healing Temple.
‘Oh Lady, 'tis good to see you looking alive. You gave us such a terrible fright! Especially Prince Arabo! It would’ve served him right if you'd died. I'd have been first in line to beat him on the altar before the priests dealt to him. He knew too. You could see it in his eyes. He was already seeing himself going through the tortures of the murderer. For your father wouldn't have let him live if you'd died—’
‘Difleer, back up! You've lost me. You don't die from a bit of a crack on the head!’
‘Oh Lady, that's only the half of it. The Prince came skulking back late the next day. He practically groveled to the Lady Darlen, and she let him in to sit by you. He was abominable, growling at everyone who came to do anything for you to leave you alone. Then he growled because no one came to do anything for you! So it was the next day before the bandage was changed on your head. It was poor Liido who came to do it, and the Prince hovering over her every move.
‘When she finally got the bandage off, it began to bleed worse than at the start! Poor Liido just panicked. She couldn't lift you so she asked your useless breara Prince to carry you into the Healing Temple and he just looked deeply offended. Not even to save your life would he lower his dignity to do the job of a servitor! I have no skerrick of desire left for him, my Lady. I'd rather lie with Flodon.’
Gynevra leant back against the pile of clagrenon and gazed at Difleer. To her dismay silly weak tears filled her eyes, and she didn't have the strength to wipe them away.
‘Oh Lady! I'm sorry to upset you. Please don't cry! Anya won't let me come to see you again. The Prince is lovely, a real gentleman, he's really sorry for what he did—’
‘Difleer, hush,’ Gynevra murmured with a hiccup that was somewhere between a giggle and a sob. She grabbed weakly at Difleer's arm as she brushed the tears off her cheek and said, ‘You're a terrible liar. You don't need to lie about the Prince on my account. I never want to see him again. I don't even know why I'm crying. Likely it's because I'm so pleased to see you. Don't let anyone send you away. I need you.’
Difleer finished wiping the moisture from Gynevra's cheeks then sat back with eyes also suspiciously moist.
‘So, who do I have to thank that I'm still alive, if it's not Gotham?’ Gynevra asked.
‘Flodon came eventually but he was down in the lower courtyard and even though he ran, Liido said it seemed to take forever and the blood was just spurting out like a river and nothing would stop it and the Prince was storming around the room getting in everyone's way and swearing and threatening so that everyone who came to help was a mess of nerves and couldn't even think! Liido said it would've been better than a clown show if it hadn't been so desperate.
‘But eventually it was yourself who stirred enough to tell them to give you syrup of elixir of cherry opal. Lucky for him you did,’ she finished darkly.
Gynevra couldn't begin to sort the welter of feelings that flowed through her with Difleer's colorful narration. There was only one thing that really bothered her now.
‘He's gone, hasn't he?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Lady,’ Difleer reassured her quickly. ‘The Archinus had a private meeting with Judge Fahad in her office and he called on the Prince and gave him orders to be gone for one month. Lady Anya says the Judge merely told him to go roguad a nafli, or fofrac an egon! But either way you won't see him for a month at least.’
‘For one miserable month! And what sort of a punishment is that, to go and find a gold mine or put down a rebellion?’
‘A very diplomatic one, Lady,’ Difleer said with a wise nod of her head, ‘and the word is that the Prince has been sent on an important mission into Cipre. He’s the future King after all but something had to be done. So he's banished, just before the lists are being opened for Rafid. Apparently he left in a very ill humor,’ she finished with relish.
‘Thank you, Sacred Ist, for watching over me,’ Gynevra murmured and closed her eyes. He who'd been top of her list to perform as Rafid now wasn't even on the list at all.
‘I've tired you, my Lady?’ Difleer asked anxiously.
‘A little—but Difleer, please stay. Tell anyone who comes that I want you to stay.’
The housekeeper's face broke into a wide and beautiful grin.
‘Absolutely, Lady. You sleep now.’
When next Anya looked in, Gynevra told her she wanted to withdraw from performing as Adonai. Anya looked sympathetic but warned Gynevra it would be very difficult as already many wealthy Paggi had offered high money for the chance to prove themselves in the public arena of the Sacred Joining of the Gods. But she promised to speak with Lady Darlen.
Another day passed before Darlen came. Gynevra had been for a short walk in the gardens with Difleer and Dogon. It was Dogon who cut the little jaunt short, insisting she was flagging. By the time she reached the couch in her common room she was glad he'd insisted. Her legs were decidedly wobbly.
The Archinus brought a bunch of tiny flowers exquisitely fashioned from amethyst and white quartz. As Gynevra took them into her hands the pure scent of violets filled the air, all the more amazing for being generated by crystal energy.
‘The Prince brought these last night. He said to tell you he must leave for one month on a mission to the wilderness of Cipre and he hopes you mend quickly and will have forgiven him by the time he returns. He also entered his bid for Rafid.’
‘Oh.’ Gynevra thrust the flowers away from her towards Difleer. ‘Take them out into the Healing Temple will you please, Difleer? I don't want them in here.’
Lady Darlen frowned but refrained from commenting. Instead she asked after her health and Gynevra was quick to take the opportunity offered.
‘I don't want to perform as Adonai,’ she said flatly.
Lady Darlen's face took on an expression like something between a cross monkey and an angry bear cub. Gynevra wished she was in the mood to appreciate the humor of it but needed her strength for argument for as the discussion progressed it became increasingly obvious the only way the Archinus would let her step down as Adonai was if she was at death's door. A vast monetary mountain already lay in the Temple coffers and Darlen did not intend to relinquish a jot of it.
For the first time in her life Gynevra actually wished she'd been born dark and ugly. Bitterly she spoke the thought aloud, bringing a frown of impatience to Darlen's august brow.
‘Princess, there are countless women who would give much to be half as beautiful, and even more to have the two greatest sires in the land paying a vast uson and prepared to fight for the honor of playing Rafid to her Adonai. The bidding has b
een unprecedented with both Gotham and Cadal Isidor determined to outbid all others. Indeed if it weren't for the Prince being banished I don't know how it would end.’
Gynevra heard nothing after Darlen mentioned Cadal Isidor. He'd come and she could no more remember why it was she'd hoped he'd stay safely away. Her determination of a moment before evaporated like mist in the heat of the sun.
‘Very well,’ she said at length, trying desperately to sound ungracious while her heart drummed to a new wild beat.
Cadal Isidor, Cadal Isidor, Cadal Isidor.
The Prince had fought like a madman, showing no sign of the grievous maiming he’d suffered back in the spring. In the first bout of the morning he'd killed Qadar of Trephysia, and now Rodan of Gadeirus lay grievously wounded. It was rare for a warrior to be killed in the Rafid Games for it was only personal vanity or wealth that decreed any one man was better than another to perform as Rafid. The Games were a display of skill, an entertainment for the citizens, and never intended to seriously maim the virile studs who fought for the honor.
Temple servitors removed the stricken warrior from the arena and now Gotham was shouting for Nebon of Trephysia to come and match swords with a champion. From the challenger's rooms in the southwest corner of the arena, a sword clattered across the stones to spin at Gotham's feet. As the gleaming iron blade slowed to stillness a deep hush settled over the crowd. To refuse a challenge was deeply shameful, but Gynevra considered, as she watched Gotham’s reaction from the Adonai's terrace, that the shame was more his than Nebon's.
Picking up the sword, Gotham flung it contemptuously back, then raising his own blade victoriously above his head, he shouted, ‘Cowardly dog! Afraid to die!’
Then he leapt about with a great slash of iron through air and yelled, ‘I challenge Cadal Isidor of Nyalda to face the champion, the greatest warrior and future King of Trephysia! Come out and fight, you great horned braa!’
With bared teeth and a rabid roar Taur leapt into the arena, horned helmet gleaming in the sun and sword slashing through the air with lethal intent. Having won the bid to perform as Rafid he had been waiting to fight the champion of the Games. Unlike Gotham, he was fresh but nor was he driven by inner demons beyond all restraint.
