by YatesNZ, Jen
The intense rush of his own emotions threatened to overwhelm him. There was only one way to overcome that and the instinct to do so was ingrained.
‘What in Cronos are you doing here?’ he roared so furiously the tiny building shuddered alarmingly. The pot Foab was stirring pitched into the fire and the terrified servitor almost fell in after it.
Taur scarcely noticed. The need to touch his woman, check every inch of her to make sure she was all right, ask her how she was, throttle her, and give her the hiding of her life tore through him like a whirlwind. He was a mess and he was shaking with it! It was anger. It had to be. Nothing less would do for a fine Paggi King such as he.
Incoherent in his fury he roared again and strode across to scoop her into his arms. Qerlim, eyes blazing and hackles bristling down her back, sank her teeth into his hand. If it hadn't been fury coursing all through him before, it certainly was now!
Cloaba! He'd given her that wolf, saved it from death, played with it like a puppy and it had bitten him! He was mad now, mad enough to kill and he'd start with that breara wolf—as soon as he could get his hands on it. The animal crouched menacingly on the edge of the rickety cot, muzzle curled back, fangs bared, snarling and growling as if envisaging his flesh stripped and shredded and his bones ground to powder.
He was forced to stand still—long enough for the crazed desire to kill to abate and for his brain to start working again. If he killed Qerlim he knew instinctively he'd create a chasm between himself and Gynevra he would never bridge.
Re-treating a step, he forced himself to speak calmly and asked, ‘Do you have any control over that animal?’
With the merest flicker of the corner of one eye, she answered, ‘If I wish to.’
His eyebrows rose abruptly. There was a strength in this woman he'd encountered in no other and he'd do well to remember he'd not intimidate her as he did any other who crossed him.
Then she added in a cold, hard voice, ‘Just at this moment I'd be happy to see her shred you limb from limb and feed you to the pack.’
The crackling of the fire seemed uncommonly loud in the silence that followed. A muscle worked along Taur's jaw, then he growled softly, ‘Hard words, my Gyn'a.—Will you come home with me?’
‘No.’
Chapter 27
Unconsidered and unemotional, the single syllable slammed like a warrior punch into his gut and he had to fight the natural instincts that demanded he kick the wolf aside and drag his woman home whether she would or no.
A Son of the Dragon, a King, didn't know how to beg, was inclined to be antagonistic about it. He asked, a little stiffly to be sure, ‘Would anything make you change your mind about that?’
‘Yes,’ Gynevra answered promptly and said no more.
‘What?’ he asked between grinding teeth.
‘That you give up contract siring.’
Just like that. She wanted him to give up his life.
‘I earn a huge amount of personal revenue from those contracts. I've now got a Queen to keep who needs silk gowns, gems, and expensive wines. I believe there was even a suggestion I build an oast-house to make the fancy bread she is so enamored of!’
Looking straight at Taur, Gynevra said, ‘You should've thought of all that when you kidnapped me from Qrazil!’
Then settling herself a little more comfortably she placed a gentling hand on the still snarling Qerlim and spoke words which he would later tell her almost startled his Paggi boots off.
‘You see, Taur,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the wolf, ‘every second of my life I commit the un-Paggic sin of loving you. I love you when you smile, when you're happy, when you're teasing me. I love you when you're pontificating and handing out judgements to your people. I love you when you're teaching and playing with the children. I love you when you touch me, when you bathe with me, when you join with me.’ She stopped for a moment to draw in a deep, calming breath and though Taur felt he needed to interrupt the out-pouring of words that should never be spoken, he stood there with his mouth working and his brain not.
‘I love you,’ she went on, ‘when you're angry, when you're unreasonable, arrogant, and Paggically kingly! Whatever you do I love you and always will. That's why I cannot, and will not, watch you fulfil your contracts and give to other women that which should be only mine. If you were serious about abolishing the breeding flabria you would start by setting the example.’
He stared at the dancing firelight in her hair, his chest heaving, his head wagging disbelievingly from side to side. Suddenly he turned and began pacing, almost instantly fetching up against a wall, and he hurled about to face her again.
‘Love is not supposed to be a part of any Paggi sacred partnership—for this very reason—it cuts across the very fabric of the system!’ he threw at her, completely ignoring her salvo about the breeding flabria.
Gynevra had been staring unseeingly at her hand buried in the thick white fur on Qerlim's back. Now she lifted her eyes and looked directly into Taur's.
‘So return me to Qrazil,’ she said, ‘for my heart will break and I will surely die if I have to watch you join with another woman.’
‘Never!’ he erupted, and began pacing again in tiny circles. Foab, who all this time had been crouched by the hearth, now scrambled quickly across the room in response to a glance from his mistress and vanished out the door.
‘What about altar duty? Virgin initiations?’ Taur asked, stopping to confront her, his face a contorted mask of confusion.
A spasm of pain crossed Gynevra's face and she said, ‘You are the King and those are kingly duties—and I don't have to watch. I can pretend it's not happening. But there are plenty of Sons of the Dragon only too anxious to pick up the contracts and it's accepted by most who take sacred partners that they cease their siring activities.’
‘I don't have a sacred partner,’ he snapped back at her smartly, his jaw jutting with belligerence.
‘Nor will I ever consent to be such while you continue to accept contracts—and since I'm not your sacred partner, I don't have to watch—and I choose to be elsewhere while you perform!’
Finally her iron control was breaking and the last words were a bitter cry from the heart.
Taur dragged in several rasping breaths, then asked, ‘Why couldn't you have stayed in the Temple?’
‘Because then everyone would've known how I felt! It's enough that I'm a foreigner in this place without also being known as an ignorant barbarian who feels love and jealousy!’
Still steeped in his own anger, Taur barked, ‘Well, the whole cloabad city knows now. We've searched every house and questioned every citizen.’
Gynevra went very still, her eyes widening and her lips beginning to tremble as she absorbed the full import of what he'd said. Her face crumpled, tears spurted from her eyes and Taur folded into an importuning mess on the cot beside her and drew her unresistingly into his arms.
Qerlim, her all-seeing golden eyes sliding from one human to the other with a look of intense relief, dropped her head on her paws to rest with one eye partially open.
Suddenly begging was easy. With immense relief, Taur found himself pleading.
‘Gyn'a, please—please—come home with me.—Will you come if I promise to honor no more contracts in the meantime?’
Sniffling, and burying her head in deep embarrassment, she muttered, ‘Your mother will be vindicated in her opinion of me and all those others who think you a fool for bringing home a foreign Princess.’
Clutching her close against his chest, Taur gave silent thanks to the Gods he had this precious woman safely back in his arms. There was a tacit awareness he had very little resistance left in his Paggi heart to doing whatever was required to ensure he kept her there but he welcomed the excuse to put those heavy thoughts aside for a while. He needed a little more time, a little more space to crystallize such a total change of philosophy.
‘I think Movuon will surprise you,’ he said slowly.
‘How?’ G
ynevra hiccupped.
‘The same way she surprised me,’ he responded ruefully. ‘After I announced to the court my intention of honoring the contract with Lady Pulina, she ladled me every foul epithet she could dredge up, including that I was just like my Paggi demon kapi of a pavuon! Why bother taking a sacred partner if I was going to go about scrogging everything else that moved? And that was before you went missing! Once that came to her ears I was in deep mire! I didn't deserve a beautiful woman like Gynevra of Poseidonia and it'd be my fault if you'd lost your mind and something terrible had happened to you and our wee bull calf. I'm a scurrilous oaf and those are strong words from my sainted mother, I can tell you.
‘As for the rest, I've been betrayed on every side. Pog let me know in pure Pog-fashion that I'd been sitting on my crown instead of wearing it, but that it was the horn rather than the horns making me uncomfortable! He also made sure I understood you had, and I quote, `left castle round about same time Bull of Nyalda, greatest contract sire of all time you understand, announced intention of scrogging ve-ery beautiful Lady of Poseidonia'.’
To Taur's intense satisfaction a watery gurgle of merriment erupted from Gynevra. His accurate mimicry of the tiny man never failed to touch her sense of the comical and he hugged her close.
‘Difleer of course, is like to kill me by looks alone. As for ‘starchy, oily Maden’, he looked down that long nose of his and told me it was time I started acting as one who desired a sacred partner instead of some impoverished and oafish Son of the Dragon desperate to build a stadrag.’
‘Didn't anyone support you?’ Gynevra asked and Taur was certain he heard a teasing note in her voice.
‘Mmm,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Lady Verana and Lady Tulini both offered whatever comfort I had need of in my dire extremity. Ladies Ginefi and Fruina were also very sympathetic. Indeed, Fruina went so far as to avow she would take her loyalty to the crown so far as to ‘stand in’ for the Queen whenever she went missing!’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ Gynevra demanded caustically.
‘Yes, actually,’ Taur said, grinning down at her before touching his lips to the tip of her nose. ‘I promptly demanded Verana and Tulini massage my feet while I sat on the throne directing the search. To Ginefi I assigned the important task of trimming my fingernails and Fruina I sooled onto Maden, thus removing them both from my presence and killing two birds with one stone!’
‘Your kingship is awesome,’ Gynevra offered with a small laugh, and sighing within herself at how easily she'd fallen for the teasing gentleness in his voice, the caring strength of his arms. She feared it would always be so.
‘I have to admit,’ he concluded ruefully, ‘that most of the women gave me a terrible dressing down. You have a strong following within the Queen's court, alara, whether you know it or not. I also need you to know that when I couldn't have you, you were the only woman I wanted in my arms. I fear my reputation as an oaf is forever ruined for I made that fact very clear—like maniacally clear,’ he finished in a disgruntled mutter.
Gynevra wrapped her arms around his chest and squeezed.
‘Will you come home with me now?’ he asked huskily.
‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.
It was a long, cold and uncomfortable ride home. Rain sleeted in from the northern sea and notwithstanding the extra cloaks and crystal lanterns the farmer had provided, all were intensely miserable by the time they reached the castle.
For Taur, used to being physically in control of whatever activity was afoot, having nothing more to do than try to keep himself and Gynevra warm and comfortable, the journey was hard indeed. Through the long dark hours huddled under cloaks smelling of wet wool and goat, his mind wouldn't be still. She'd mentioned love once before but on that occasion he'd thought they were about to die together and he'd put the memory aside, believing it only words uttered in extremity. Her impassioned declaration of love for him this night was like a recurring dream, playing through his mind, demanding he confront his own feelings.
Love. Since Isidor's time, high Paggi men and women had almost made a religion out of denying this most uncomfortable of emotions. Men in particular, eschewed it, and rudely derided any who became enmeshed in its toils. Thus, he simply couldn't love her. Which set him searching for other reasons for his need to kidnap her in the first place. By such reckoning any woman of high standing would've served for his sacred partner and there were several suitable—and willing—candidates right here in Fyr Heceuda.
Could this ugly, very un-Paggic emotion of love have sneaked up on him without him realizing it? Had he been ambushed by an emotion he hadn't seen coming, and not even tried to take evasive action? Like a seasoned warrior caught with his weapons down, he knew he'd be judged harshly.
Gynevra, held close against his chest, tensed and cried out suddenly, and all other concerns fled his mind.
‘Alara, what is it?’ he asked urgently.
‘A pain.—I think—no—it's too early.’
‘Is the baby coming?’ he asked sharply, terror striking to the bottom of his heart.
‘It can't be. It's too early,’ she muttered again.
‘What sort of a pain is it?’
‘It's all right. It's gone now.—Where are we?’
‘As far as I can make out we've just passed Labon's chicken farm so there's still a little way to go before we reach the outskirts of the city.’
‘It didn't seem to take so long on the way out. My backside hurts and I've got cramp in my leg.’
He tried to ease her position a little and they travelled a way in silence. Then Gynevra's sharp intake of breath and sudden stiffening in his arms made him exclaim, ‘Is that another pain, Gyn'a?’
‘Yes.’
‘Usod! Qeggi! Whip this cloabad horse up or the next King of Nyalda will be born in a farm cart!’
Gynevra had had several more pains by the time they reached the lower courtyard of the Castle. The guards had ridden ahead to bring the news of the Queen's safety and the imminent arrival of the babe. Notwithstanding it wanted but a few hours to dawn the courtyard was crowded. Foremost among the throng was Lady Nudon with High Priestess Rimona, the Temple midwife. Everyone pressed forward, questioning, all talking at once, wanting to know if the Queen was all right, and vilifying a King who had caused her to run off in the first place. There was scarce room for them to alight from the cart, let alone enter the Castle.
Taur stood up in the back of the cart and shouted, ‘The Queen is all right—and she'd be a cloabad sight better if you all took yourselves off to bed instead of standing around here plaguing and gossiping and blocking the way!’
Jumping down he turned and lifting Gynevra into his arms strode grimly through the parting throng towards the upper courtyard. By the time they reached the King's Presence Chamber they'd amassed a following of concerned and curious courtiers, including Lady Nudon huffing and tutting and asking endless questions.
At the door to the royal apartments, he turned and barked, ‘I found her at Randa’s goat farm. She was and is perfectly safe though likely coming into labor. Now be off all of you—except the midwife!’
Nudon made to push through with High Priestess Rimona but Taur blocked her with his body.
‘Movuon, go to your bed. You will be the first to know when the baby is born.’
Tears flooded the old Queen's eyes.
‘Please just let me speak to Gynevra.’
‘Gynevra doesn't want to speak to anyone. We're cold, wet, very tired, and she's in labor!’
‘I need to tell her I'm sorry,’ Nudon pleaded.
Gynevra lifted her face away from Taur's chest and whispered, ‘Let her speak.’
Taur tensed his jaw, then ground out, ‘Speak.’
Nudon placed one perfectly manicured hand on Gynevra's arm and said, ‘I wish to apologize. I've not made your life here easy. If I contributed at all to your running away, I'm sorry. I'd like the opportunity to start again and I offer friendship a
nd loyalty to you as Queen. I hope you can accept this and forgive me.’
‘I do. Thank you,’ Gynevra murmured just loud enough for Nudon to hear, then pressed her face into Taur's chest again.
‘Thank you, Movuon,’ he said gruffly and turned and shouldered his way through the door.
At the entrance to the royal apartments they were met by a tearful Difleer and an irrepressibly dancing Pog. The little man hopped round the King's feet like a distressed hen who'd found her only chick in the teeth of a wolf. Taur could only imagine sharing that amusing thought with Gynevra later for she was beginning to shiver violently and he headed straight for the bathing cavern, shouting orders as he went.
Between the priestess and Difleer they stripped Gynevra in his arms then just as he was about to lower her into the water she cried out with a contraction more prolonged and violent than any she'd had so far. Clutching her to his chest, he ordered his boots, cloak and kirt removed and stepped into the bath.
The priestess fussed, ‘Perhaps I should get in the bath with the Queen and the King could leave us?’
‘Over my dead body!’ Taur growled. ‘This is my woman and my baby and she stays in this bath with me until she is thoroughly warmed.’
‘It is most irregular for a man to be present during the birthing process,’ Rimona tried again. ‘I'm sure the Queen would prefer only women present to witness her pain and extremity. Please Sire, leave it to us. I promise your Lady will be perfectly safe.’
Gynevra clutched a little tighter at Taur's wet body and whispered against his neck, ‘Stay—please—if you want.’
A hostile army wouldn't move him now. One priestess didn't stand a chance. It would be another notch against his oaf image, for Paggi sires were traditionally only interested in the seeding process of babies but where once such a thought would have stopped him in his tracks now it scarcely impinged.
