"My lady?" She smiled and shook her head. "Roland you are my cousin and my friend. What need of such stiff formality? And where would I be now if you had not come to rescue me?"
A question he chose not to answer. Instead, as they walked from the courtyard towards the inner chambers, he said, "You were late, Lavinia. I was worried. What happened? Delusia?"
"Yes." She threw back her hair as they entered the corridor leading to her apartment. "Charles came to ride with me. He looked as I remembered him when we first met. Do you remember?"
"I was off world at the time," he said. "A business trip to Olmeyha."
"But you remember Charles, surely?"
"Yes." He looked down at his hands. They were thin, the knuckles prominent, the fingers too long for perfect symmetry. Only the nails, carefully polished and filed, revealed the fastidiousness of his nature. "Yes," he said again. "I remember him."
"The way he talked," she mused. "He opened doors for me which I didn't even know existed. The things he had done and intended to do. Had he lived I think I would have shared them."
"As the consort of an aging degenerate?" His tone was sharp, savagely dry. "Charles was older than you suspected, Lavinia. You were young then, little more than a child, trusting, impressionable, a little-"
"Foolish?"
"I didn't say that."
"But you meant it." Anger glowed in her eyes and turned the dark orbs into pools of smouldering fire. "Is that what you think of me?"
"No. Lavinia, don't jump to conclusions."
"Young," she said. "Little more than a child. Trusting. Impressionable. Well, perhaps all that is true, even though I was more than a child. But foolish? No. Not unless it is foolish to ache to learn. Stupid to want to be a woman. Do you still think I was a fool?"
"To be charmed by Charles, yes." Stubbornly he refused to yield. "I knew him, perhaps not too well, but better than you did. He was a lecher, a gambler, a degenerate. Think, girl, it was written on his face. You saw him at the last."
"He'd been ill!"
"Yes." Roland looked again at his hands. "Yes, he'd been ill."
Wasting from the effects of a corrosive poison fed to him by an outraged husband, but what need to explain that? The girl was enamored of a dream, the slave to memory.
She said, gently, "Roland, my friend, we have been quarreling and that is wrong. I owe you my life. Between us should be nothing but harmony. If I have offended you I beg your forgiveness. You will give it?"
He took her extended hands into his own, feeling their soft firmness, their grace, their warmth. Tilting his head he looked into her eyes, deep-set under high-arched brows, studying the glow of light reflected from her cheekbones, the line of her jaw. The mouth was full, the lower lip, swollen from the impact of her teeth, a ruby pout. Her ears were small and tight against the curve of her skull. The hair, disheveled now, was an ebon mane streaked with a band of silver.
"My lady!" He stooped so as to hide the worship in his eyes.
"Roland!" Her hands freed themselves from his grasp, one touching his hair, running over the thinning strands. "My friend! My very good friend!"
"Lavinia!"
"I must bathe and change." She turned from him, seeing a figure standing beside her door, waiting. "We shall meet again at dinner. And, Roland, once again my thanks."
Charles accompanied her through the portal and stood watching as she stripped. The bath was hot, the scented water easing aches and pains, a cloud of steam rising to dim the lines of the chamber, the figure of her maid.
"A dreadful thing, my lady," she said. She had heard the news as servants always did. Often Lavinia had wondered just how they knew all that was going on. "To think of you being shut outside! Lord Acrae insisted the curfew shouldn't be rung until he'd brought you safe inside and he set men to enforce his orders. But what if something had happened, my lady? Suppose his mount had fallen? What if night had fallen before you were back inside?"
"If you had wings, girl, you'd be a bird."
"My lady?"
"Forget it." It was cruel to talk in ways the girl couldn't understand. "True night falls when the curfew is sounded," she explained. "Or, to put it another way, only when the curfew bell is rung has true night fallen. Do you understand?"
"I-I think so, my lady."
She didn't and Lavinia waved her away. She was too ignorant to understand the subtle difference between night falling and a bell sounding the falling of night. A bell could be delayed and Roland had done just that. He had been shrewder than she'd known. The difference could only have been in minutes, perhaps, but those minutes would or could have made all the difference. At least the Pact had not been obviously flaunted and the Sungari had no grounds for complaint.
"Charles?" She looked through the drifting steam but the figure had vanished. Delusia had passed. It would return but she missed him.
Would they have married had he lived?
Lying in the steaming, scented water she ran her hands over the curves and silken skin of her body. It was a good one, she knew, even though not as young as once it had been. The time for marriage had come and gone with her father failing in his duty, her uncle more concerned with his own affairs, her mother turning to the past and finally swallowing poison to be with the object of an early passion.
Alone she had worked to maintain the Family estates, the castle, the house in town. Retainers needed money for food and clothing, dowries had to be provided for the female servants, homes and work for the men. Some of the young had become restless and had left to move on and try their luck on other worlds. There had been friction with the Sungari, the Pact barely maintained and lost crops had created hardship. And now Lord Gydapen was turning difficult.
"My lady?" The maid was at the edge of the bath. "Are you ready for your massage now?"
"Later."
"But soon it will be time for dinner and your hair needs to be dressed and-"
"Later." Lavinia stretched, guessing the girl had a lover waiting, not caring if she had. Let the fellow wait, he would appreciate the girl all the more for having his pleasure delayed. And he, the girl also, must learn that, above all, her wishes were paramount. "Later, I said. Argue and I'll have you whipped!"
It was harder to relax this time, the irritation lingered. Gydapen and the irritation, a good combination, one giving rise to the other. Perhaps she should encourage his attentions? His estates were to the south, rich lands providing a fat harvest, a gain for her and food for her people. A marriage would be politically wise if otherwise distasteful. Rich he might be but Gydapen was lacking in certain attributes which would have claimed her attention. His height for one; how could she bear to look down on her consort? His girth could be lessened and his age was no real handicap; the extra years would hasten his natural end. Love, of course, did not enter into it.
Could she bear to marry without love? To allow a man to touch her body as she touched it now? To use her, to breed children in her belly, to make her a thing of his own?
She knew the answer even as she turned in the water, restless, conscious of her needs, the demands of her flesh aroused by the thoughts of desire. If a sacrifice had to be made for the Family then she would make it. If Gydapen could provide peace and security and demanded her body as the price then she would pay it.
But it would be nice to marry for love.
Lying in the water, eyes half-closed, drifting in an ocean of erotic fantasies, she thought about it. A man who would come into her life as Charles had done, sweeping her off her feet, overwhelming her with his masculinity. A man of culture and sophistication, gentle and yet knowing when to be cruel, masterful and yet knowing when to yield. A man she could trust to stand at her side. A father for her children. A lover to be enjoyed.
A dream to be enjoyed as the bath was to be enjoyed. A self-indulgence which must remain limited to a brief duration. Her maid could hope for such a man, every servant in the castle, every daughter of a minor noble, but she stood alone. And, even if she was free to choose, where on all Zakym could such a man be found?
Chapter Two
The guard was neatly uniformed in scarlet and emerald; bright colors which made him conspicuous but which did nothing to reduce his dignity. A man of middle-age, his face round and unsmiling, his voice was firmly polite.
"All persons arriving on Harald are required to deposit the cost of a High passage with the authorities. Exceptions, of course, are made for residents and for those traveling on inclusive tours arranged by reputable companies. Do you fall into either of the latter categories, sir?"
Dumarest said, flatly, "You know the answer to that. No."
"Then I must ask you for the deposit. A receipt will be issued, naturally, and you can claim repayment on departure."