by YatesNZ, Jen
Then handing the gown to Difleer, she stepped into the water and commanded, ‘Now tell me how you came to be here. I was only that minute wishing that you were!’
‘If my Lady wants to adjust the heat of the water just turn the gold rings at the base of the horns.’
‘The water's fine! I want your story. I was worried what would happen to you.’
Gynevra settled herself with a sigh of delight on a ledge that took her under water to her shoulders.
‘Oh Lady! What a commotion there was! At first it was just thought you’d gone off somewhere without telling anyone. I did try to say as my Lady wouldn’t do nothing of the sort but who’d listen to the likes of me? It was nigh mid-day before the Archinus was informed and tuned in to your energy to see where you were. I guess she would’ve acted sooner but there was a great to-do in the city with people rioting and breaking into the granaries. The Archinus was with the King all morning. By that time you were already in a drugged state aboard the ‘Nyalda’, well clear of the canal and flying north.
‘Apparently that was all she was able to glean before her channel was obscured. You were obviously being kept under close guard—physically and psychically. It's the nearest I've ever seen the Stone Lady to losing her temper. There was much to-ing and fro-ing between the Temple and the Palace. King Ahron was like one beset by a swarm of bees.
‘What with King Cadal defecting, the priestesses of Poseidon hurling themselves off cliffs because the mob had over-run their sacred precincts and slaughtered the sacred bulls, the looting of the royal granaries, earthquakes, reports of steam erupting from Mt. Alti, and rumors he'd personally ordered the destruction of Trephysia, he didn't know which one to swat first! Wisely I guess, he concentrated on controlling the biggest threats, the mob and the mountain.’
‘Don't tell me who he sacrificed. I don't want to know,’ Gynevra hastily put in with a shudder. There were several elderly priestesses she knew in the glodad who were considered useless for anything except sacrificing to the mountain. It was a common end for old priestesses.
‘Huh! Old and useless wasn't even considered!’ Difleer scoffed when she voiced that concern. ‘Ahron wanted young and virile. So a lad and maid of the Moera were chosen. They were drugged and forced to join on the altar at the edge of the crater then bound and hurled into the volcano. Or so the story was told around the city.’
‘Diffie,’ Gynevra pleaded, her face paling. ‘No more of that please. Just tell me how you got here.’
‘Well, when things settled down I was sent to work for the High Priestess Deimah. I don't know what happened to your things. I was only allowed to take my own and I didn't enjoy working for that—that—bah!’
Gynevra laughed, relieved at the easing of the tension in her chest. Deimah was known for her airs of grandeur.
‘I didn't think twice when Nyd came to tell me a handsome warrior wanted to meet me secretly in the Military Zone Forest because he had a message from you, my Lady. He was handsome all right but he was also young and inclined to look down his nose at the likes of me. He said Taur had you safe in Nyalda and wanted me to join you. So I agreed to meet Taron at the same place after dark the following night with only as much stuff as I could carry. When he asked me if I could swim because we'd have to cross the Outer Canal, though, I don't mind telling you, I nigh cried off then. But I really wanted to be with you and he said they’d help me—and they did—’
Difleer's voice faded away and she sat with her eyes half closed and a soft smile curving her lips.
‘So how did they get you across the canal?’
‘He—Taron—guided me through the forest. Three more of his men met us at the inner bank of the canal and we all stripped and put our clothes into an elephant's gut-bag and when he tied the end of it, it floated and they made me lie on it and hang on and they paddled me across. I don't know why I had to take my clothes off really ‘cos I hardly got wet.’
Her black eyes danced but her curvy mouth never twitched.
Gynevra chortled.
‘And when you reached the other side?’
‘Taron said we couldn't tarry about to put our clothes on. It was more important to get into hiding. There was no one around but there was no cover near the bank so we ran until he said it was safe to stop. Then I just had to lie down.’
‘Of course,’ Gynevra agreed drily.
‘Well, Lady,’ Difleer said without the trace of a smile, ‘it wasn't just me. The men said they were tired too, for of course they'd had to swim across the canal as well as run—’
‘—and it's not as if they were battle-hardened warriors or anything like that,’ Gynevra interrupted gravely.
Their eyes met and both fell to giggling.
‘Ah, Diffie, it's wonderful to have you here,’ Gynevra said at last, relaxing back against the edge of the bath. ‘I assume the time of rest had to be long enough for four, Taron of course, manfully overcoming his aversion to mature flesh?’
‘Of course, Lady! Then they had to carry me for I didn't feel rested at all!’ Difleer dissolved into giggles again.
‘And so to the ship?’
‘Ta’a. I was ever so relieved to find it was a warship, ever so much bigger than the trader I came from Trephysia on. It was hidden in a tiny cove and when we came to the top of the bluff, Taron signaled the captain and he sent a boat for us. I don't think I was ever in any danger but it was a magnificent adventure,’ she said, her eyes shining with the memory of it.
‘What was the voyage like?’
‘Nothing like yours, my Lady. The people here were still talking of it when I arrived, and my Lady quite the hero!’
Gynevra sighed.
‘I should've apportated back to Qrazil while I had the chance—but I couldn't leave him to die.’
‘I should hope not! In my mind that would be wastage on a parallel with deliberately dumping a ship-load of grain in Fyr Poseidyr harbor at the moment.’
‘Mmm. Mine too, I fear. So you had an easy voyage?’
‘The weather was reasonable and the seas were never anything more than passably rough though the same can't be said for all sailors! Nevertheless, I guess one could safely say I enjoyed the experience. Now, Lady, if you're not to look like a wrinkled old crone when the seamstresses come we'd better have you out of there.—Oh, and I was to tell you there is to be a banquet in your honor in the Great Hall after sunset. The King will come for you.’
Gynevra stood up and as the water drained off her body, looked at Difleer and said, ‘The King—is a conceited ass—and I'm thrice times a fool for being delighted that he thinks of me. But for all he is the epitome of Dragon's Spawn I believe he cares about me.’
Difleer raised her eyebrows and said, ‘I’ll admit I like men but I'll never believe they’ve aught to think with.’
Gynevra sent her a rueful grin.
‘Ever the cynic, Diffie. But you must admit he can only have sent for you because I complained of your absence.’
‘True,’ Difleer allowed, ‘but ‘Once Dragon born, hoist with the Dragon horn’ as the saying is.’
‘Cloaba, Diffie! Why couldn't I love someone ordinary and uncomplicated like—like one of the Temple giants?’
‘Uncomplicated, un-everything. Would you really want to?’
With a frustrated sigh of concurrence Gynevra stepped out onto the drying mat Difleer had placed for her.
The sun had vanished behind the dense forested mountains to the west of Heceuda Harbor when Taur returned to the royal apartments. The seamstresses had departed, leaving the Queen with three complete outfits ready to wear and several more planned. Difleer had helped her dress in a gold silk undergown with a soft woolen overdress of deep rose. As she fastened it beneath her mistress's breasts with an elaborate jeweled clasp chosen from a casket of exquisite pieces which the King had provided even Difleer allowed he'd taken thought for his Lady's every need and been exceedingly generous.
Difleer was brushing her mistress’s hair into
a shining cascade of gold over her shoulders when Taur peered around the door curtain like a child unsure of its welcome.
‘Is it safe for a man to enter here or is he likely to be castrated with a stitching needle?’
Chapter 23
‘It's fortunate the seamstresses have left, my Lord,’ Gynevra said, trying to sound haughty and failing hopelessly. One glance at the glistening black curls flowing about the brawn of his chest and shoulders and her face was glowing with appreciation and her fingers had started an agitation in her lap. Then he smiled and her inner being became as mulled honeymeade, hot and sweet and arousing to every sense. ‘But I'm sure an implement could be brought to hand.’
His mouth curved in a devilish one-sided grin, stealing every lingering vestige of her pique from the morning. How she'd longed for him through the business of the day. She raised a hand and with swift steps he was at her side, drawing her upright. Holding her at arm’s length, his eyes kindled.
‘My Queen found something to please her in the meagre offerings of the primitive north?’
Because she simply couldn't resist it, Gynevra reached up and kissed the harshly sculpted yet beautiful masculine lips.
‘In truth,’ she whispered against his mouth, ‘all I want stands before me right now.’
In a trice his arms closed about her and everything that wasn't of their two beings melted into nothingness. Neither was aware of Difleer's tactful disappearance nor the twitching of her lips as she left.
‘That color,’ he murmured against the softness of her mouth. ‘I've not seen it on you before. You're like a perfect rose I saw once in Fyr Trephyr that had been dipped in molten glass and gilded. Thank Cronos you're not so delicate. I need you with a fierceness that is quite painful, Golden One.’
His words shot a quiver full of flaming arrows deep into her belly and with a soft moan her body flowed into his. When he finally brought her into the Great Hall his movuon commented peevishly on her Qeggic manners in wearing her hair loose and with only a modest emerald-studded headband on her brow. Others complained in bantering fashion, of hunger and overdone food. Taur led her to two gilded thrones at a table on a dais at the top of the room. When she turned to face the people, he stood at her back, his hands on her shoulders.
‘Paggi of Nyalda, I give you Queen Gynevra, formerly Princess Gynevra of Poseidonia and Trephysia, now Queen of Nyalda. All hail the new Queen!’
There was an immediate chorus of shouts from men all around the room, ‘Will she be Adonai in the Spring Festival?’
‘Ta’a,’ the King answered, and the Hall erupted into a frenzy of bidding, men shouting across the room to best one another with their offers for the right to stand as Rafid.
‘We might as well start eating,’ Taur said. ‘They'll happily outbid one another for the rest of the night.’
A servitor hastened to hold the chair for her but Gynevra ignored him, turning to Taur, her face white and set.
‘I've not agreed to stand as Adonai.’
‘No, but you will,’ he said blithely.
‘No, Taur, I won't,’ she said evenly and walked away.
Apparently Queens were different to contract siring partners or delilahs. Taur almost shook his head with the suddenness of the revelation. She demanded too much of him! First it was to give up contract siring. Now she expected to be consulted about performing as Adonai. She was a priestess and a Queen. It was a given that she would perform this role. She’d not even sat on the high throne and she was already making laws! Reveling in the heady rush of DragonBlood anger, he surged to his feet.
With a flash of golden fire from her hair and a sensuous undulation of rose silk, she vanished through the only door that was unguarded because it led to the cellars and storerooms hewn from the inner rock walls of the Castle. With a predictability he’d come to expect, his anger became passion of another sort and his body relaxed into the easy prowl of a predator sure of its game. None could doubt the virility of their King even if they were becoming concerned with his fixation on Gynevra of Poseidonia. He’d allay their concerns by constant performance of Dawn Ritual and offering highest bid at Spring Fertility, whoever lay on the altar as Adonai.
But as he swung through the door into the dimly lit corridor he acknowledged he wanted it to be Gynevra. They’d never shared a ritual and he deeply desired they do so.
She’d come to an uncertain halt facing the vast dark maw of the store-caverns. Turning tensely this way and that, she sought a way out of the trap she’d set for herself in her haste. Even in the dim light of the cellars her hair was a sheened cascade of bronze down her back. His fingers itched to tangle in it, to draw her head back for his kiss. Then he would punish her for her infraction against his majesty—
She turned and he thought he saw fear flash in her eyes. He didn’t want her to fear him. He wanted her to want him, to stay with him, join with him, rule with him. Cloaba! He just wanted her. He was King. He’d have what he wanted.
Abruptly she turned her shoulder and stepped beyond the light. Lengthening his stride he caught her easily as she hesitated again, unsure of where to step in the darkness.
This woman risked her life to save yours.
The words were as loud in his mind as if someone had spoken them. His grip on her shoulder softened as he turned her towards him. He’d not addressed that act of mercy with her yet—but he was about to. Meantime—
‘Woman,’ he growled, ‘the food in this cellar is nigh on frozen. I assure you what's on the table, albeit overdone or cold, will be a damn sight more palatable.’
He took her arm to pull her back the way she'd come.
‘Leave go of me,’ she said coldly, snatching away from him. ‘I go only where I choose!’
‘That works well so long as you know where you're going,’ he drawled, leaning back against the wall and watching with amusement as she glared back at him with Queenly hauteur.
‘Whatever!’ she snapped. ‘It makes no difference. I'll not be altar meat for that pack of—of—jackals!’
Nor would he allow it. He hauled her into his arms.
‘Would you play Adonai for me though?’ he asked gently, his lips a whisker away from hers.
‘You?’
‘I've already told Varia I'll double the highest bid.’
‘Oh. How come I wasn't consulted?’
‘At the time, I was explaining to the delectable Lady Varia that I was desirous of you playing Adonai to my Rafid rather than herself as she was hoping. The—jackals—who've had to look upon my Lady Movuon for so long were overcome by altar lust as it was borne in on them that their high priestess Queen was so desirable. You make men drool with desire just by standing before them. Cronos! You make me drool with desire and I've just had you! I could take you again, right here, right now.’
‘Can you guarantee the jackals won't come looking for us?’ she asked huskily, tracing his lip with her finger.
He smiled down into her eyes. He would do well to remember she was a Daughter of the Dragon and that her typical dragon-temper would subside as rapidly as it flashed. He looked forward to learning more about how she thought and reacted, believed and felt. Such a cloddish need would have bothered him had he not been distracted by the delicate touch of her finger, the soft full curve of her lip.
‘Mmm,’ he began, sucking the fingertip into his mouth, and the silence was rent by male voices arguing.
‘If he's making like a King again we should start the banquet without him,’ said one.
‘You can't have a banquet to honor the Queen without the Queen!’ answered another.
‘Ah, seems not, my Golden One,’ Taur muttered, reluctantly lifting his head. ‘Shall we put them out of their misery and let them eat?’
‘I guess we must,’ Gynevra sighed, reaching up to touch his lips with hers again.
‘Sire, the people are getting restless and many are muttering of being desirous of following their King's example. Already one or two have left the Great Hall.
There may soon be no one left to honor the Queen.’
Lord Maden, the King’s rabon and the treasurer of Nyalda, stood before them with a straggle of others filling the passage behind him, their eyes bright with a mixture of exasperation and curiosity.
Taur started to speak then stopped and stepping back from Gynevra, asked in a voice loud enough to be heard by all gathered in the passage, ‘What is your wish, my Queen?’
Their eyes met and locked.
Thank you for understanding my need for personal choice. What if I choose to have you carry me off to bed?
The air vibrated with the energy between them.
I'd carry you off without a backward glance but it might not be a good way to start off with our people—and most of them are inclined to be supportive of you after your showing against Movuon yesterday.
Gynevra nodded and placing her hand on Taur's arm, said in clear formal tones, ‘Let us return to the Great Hall.’
The men flattened themselves against the walls and Taur led her back into the Great Hall to a general acclamation. At the table Taur stood with his hand on Gynevra’s shoulder while they waited for their guests to settle.
‘I would speak to our people,’ she murmured.
Looking down into the intelligence shining in those golden eyes he decided he'd lay a stadrag to a single gold breac that few present really understood their new Queen came with a mind every bit as beautifully developed as her body.
Starting at the far left of the Hall, Gynevra let her gaze rest on each person in turn as they waited, gazes expectant. Only when she'd allowed her glance to touch every one of them and the silence in the Hall had reached a finely pitched tension, did she speak.
‘Citizens of Nyalda, I came among you unwillingly. But now that I'm here, I discover this place wherein you live is the best kept secret in Atlantis. Had I known of its beauty I'd have been here much sooner.’ Sporadic clapping and cheering echoed around the room. ‘Life has a curious way at times, of taking us where we've no intention of going. I went to Trephysia expecting to one day become their Queen.’ She fiddled for a moment with the fine linen cloth on the table before her while she settled her emotions and sought the words she needed to make these people understand what their Queen was—and what she wasn't.
