Duainfey, page 29
She was not prevented from leaving the table afterward, though she was guided away from the library, and down a hall she had not previously traversed, to a strong wooden door at the end of it.
As upstairs, the door misted into nothing when she approached and she stepped out into a garden.
The garden.
The glimpse in the wine cup had not been the half of it. She had never seen such a multitude of flowers, all in full rioting bloom. There was a narrow pathway, but it had been ceded reluctantly; there were portions only a few steps beyond the door that were covered in flowers. Among the flowers grew trees, noble branches arcing against the flawless pale sky, casting shade and shadow amidst the crowds of color. The air was rich with the perfume of growing things and there was a constant murmur of sound—bees and birds, surely, gilding another, deeper sound, which might have been the voices of the trees themselves.
Her spirit rose. She stepped onto the path, moving carefully lest she crush a blossom. The gradials, sunbursts, and other tall sun-lovers for which she had no names, bowed their heavy heads as she passed, chickadees came to her shoulder and exuberantly declared themselves, their sharp toes pricking through the thin fabric to her skin, and flew off again, calling out to their less bold kin. Low-hanging branches stroked her sleeves as she walked, and she heard a murmured low welcome . . .
Her senses reeled, but she pressed on, deeper into the riot of growing things, and eventually she came to a bench. She sank onto it with gratitude and never a thought for her fine dress or fragile sleeves, closed her eyes and listened to the voice of the garden.
The birds, the bees, the wind, filtered through green leaf . . .
Welcome, Ranger.
"I thank you," Becca murmured, "for your welcome. But I am no Ranger."
Indeed she is not, a different voice said.
Or not precisely, a third put in, while the first asked, How shall we call you?
"I'm a gardener," she whispered, feeling her throat close with longing for her own dear wild garden, never—not a tenth!—as wild or as glorious as this!—"An herbalist."
Gardener, she's a gardener, the trees told each other, the words moving on the breeze.
Becca smiled and took a breath, drawing the scents and the strength of growing things deep into her lungs.
Possibly, she dozed. Certainly, the chickadee that landed on her shoulder and shouted into her ear thought so.
One comes, the deep voice that had first spoken to her said, seeking you, Gardener.
Altimere? Her heart pounded and she rose, turning—and froze, her body no longer her own.
The garden had gone silent; she heard the quick, light step clearly. The flowers parted and she came forth, long, white hands outstretched.
The soft-voiced Fey from the evening before; she who had not wished her name to be recalled.
Her eyes were so blue that they seemed purple, there in that place awash with color, and they crinkled at the corners when she smiled.
"In the heart of the garden, I find the bloom that puts the rest to shame," she said, with the air of one quoting poetry.
Becca lifted her chin. "Pretty words," she—she, herself!—said. "From one who did not trust me with her name."
The Fey's smiled deepened as she stepped forward. "What can my excuse be, but that at the beginning of the evening I did not know who you were? By the end of the evening, precious flower, I regretted my lack of courtesy very much indeed."
"And so you have come to make amends?" Again, her own words, spoken by her own will. A wild flicker of hope sprang up in Becca's breast as she gazed into the pale and lovely face. Surely, so noble a woman, gifted with so quick an intellect, surely, were she appealed to directly . . .
"I have come," she murmured, her blue, blue eyes intent on her face, "to propose that we two share kest."
Becca opened her lips, "Help me," she said—rather, she willed to say.
"You have Altimere's permission, of course," her voice said haughtily, and the nameless Fey laughed.
"Altimere is thought to be the deepest and most powerful of all the Queen's Constant," she said, bending down to take Becca's left hand. "It is a reputation not undeserved. But if he will leave a treasure so lightly guarded, then he must pay the consequence. Do you not agree?"
She pushed the sleeve up off Becca's ruined arm, her breath quickening as the damage was fully revealed.
"Enchantress, tell me that we may share, now, here, and fully. We will both be the stronger for it, and I swear to pleasure you as no other."
"There is," Becca murmured, her knees trembling as cool fingers continued to caress her arm, "a toll."
The Fey moved her eyes with an effort, and focused on Becca's face. "A toll?" There was stern pride in her voice, and a certain cool amusement. "Name your toll, fair tormentor, and I will decide if it is too dear."
Becca stepped back, pulling her arm away, and the Fey allowed her to escape.
"I still lack your name," she said sternly. "Is this how the High Fey in Xandurana share?"
The Fey women threw back her head and laughed, then dropped to one knee on the pathway, recapturing Becca's hand, and raising it to her forehead.
"I am Benidik, woman of power. Remember me."
"Certainly," she said coolly, "I will remember your name." But her right hand moved and stroked her pale hair, belying the coolness of her voice.
Benidik laughed again, softly, and raised her head, looking up into Becca's face. "Is that a challenge?"
"If you wish to hear it so," her voice said.
Benidik pressed her lips against Becca's left hand.
Still on her knees, her hand pushing the sleeve back slowly, her lips traveled up Becca's ruined arm, paused a moment to use her tongue on the sensitive skin inside the elbow and continued. Becca shivered where she stood, her head tipped back in pleasure. The garden was gilded in light, as if an aurora danced among the leaves.
Benidik's lips reached her shoulder; she nuzzled Becca's flesh, and looked up, blue eyes dazzled.
"Already, we take fire from each other," she said, her soft voice husky. "I begin to see why Altimere keeps you hard by him." She smiled. "You tremble, woman of power."
"I tremble," Becca answered, and her voice trembled, too, "with desire."
"We are well matched, then," Benidik murmured, and slid her hand slowly down Becca's arm, letting the sleeve fall. "And yet we must be certain that we do not stint each other . . ." Her hands slipped beneath the white skirt, cool palms skimming Becca's limbs, her thighs, lifting the fabric until she suddenly leaned forward, head and shoulders beneath the skirt, hands gripping Becca's buttocks tightly, and her mouth, her tongue—
Becca cried out, and the garden melted away in waves of desire.
They lay tangled among the flowers, Benidik's alabaster skin slick with sweat, her form outlined in a blue as deep and flawless as the sky. Becca kissed her breasts, feeling the other woman's desire as if it were her own. The cool hands were warm now, urgent, but Becca resisted her urgency, teasing, drawing out the moment to the final sharing, feeling their pooled kest build, interweaving into a fabric made wholly of light and spirit.
The garden crackled, green power interweaving into what they made between them, sharing, strengthening . . . strengthening, and it seemed that they would melt together in the conflagration of their need, and from the ashes rise a new and marvelous creature neither Fey, nor human, nor plant, but partaking of the excellencies of all.
In the heart of the conflagration, Becca found her voice.
"You must swear," she said, and there was no pride, but only naked need in Benidik's voice when she answered,
"I swear!"
"When we have shared, you will take me away," she gasped, fighting her desire—her need—for culmination, for union, fighting the will that drove her, and that locked her voice, too late, into her throat.
"I will," Benidik gasped. "On my name, which you know!"
There was no more waiting then. Around them, kest burned the air, and the very ground reverberated with their passion, as they shared, and melded, and shouted aloud with one voice, fulfilled.
Chapter Thirty-Five
One comes, Gardener.
The deep voice roused Becca from her drowse against Benidik's shoulder. She stirred, and was abruptly yanked to her feet, muscles protesting.
"Benidik!" her voice cried. "Altimere is come! You must away!"
The Fey was awake and on her feet between one moment and the next, full clad in the third, her smile in place, and an arm around Becca's naked waist, turning her away from the house, down toward the unexplored bottom of the garden.
"Come," she said. "We shall go through the Queen's Day Garden."
"Rebecca!" Even muffled by leaf and flower, Altimere sounded angry, and it was in Becca's heart to run.
Instead, she shrank from her escort, and pushed her away.
"Go!" she hissed. "I would not have him harm you!"
Benidik laughed and shook her head, silvered hair flying.
"Foolish child," she said fondly. "But go I shall, remembering my promise. I will return, precious flower, and bear you away. You have my oath and my name on it!"
She bowed, kissed her fingers to Becca and was gone, vanished into the garden like one more blossom.
"Well," Altimere said from quite near at hand, "that went . . . differently than I had planned."
Because she must, Becca turned. Fear thrilled through her, and the garden went grey around her.
Courage, Gardener, the tree's raspy voice said. We will keep safe what is yours.
Altimere strolled into sight down the reluctant path. He paused to gaze down upon the flowers that had been their bed, and Becca felt her heart quail in her breast.
"That was . . . rather surprising," Altimere said to the crushed and fragrant flowers. He raised his head and looked into Becca's eyes, and if not for the grip of his will she might have swooned at the anger she saw there.
"Would you abandon me, Rebecca? You find the noble Benidik more to your taste? Now that she has what she desires from you, do you imagine she would treat you as well as I do? That she would treasure you and hold you as closely?"
She stared at him, shaking, her skin pebbling in the breeze.
"You make a fine picture," he commented coldly, "smeared with leaves, crushed flowers, and berry juice. If my patronage wearies you, perhaps I will give you to my good friend Venpor." He cocked an eyebrow. "Well? I give you leave to speak."
It was true; her voice was her own.
"Altimere," Becca gasped. "For the love of breath, what is this if not domination? You make me a stranger to myself; my actions are not my own! I bear the burden of deaths I never desired! I am nothing more than a knife to your hand, a—"
"Silence."
The collar tightened around her throat; her voice choked out.
"I see my error," Altimere continued. "I have assumed that you might hold the goal as high as I did, myself. You gave your power into my hands, you retained your own name. By these actions, I chose to see that you had the ability to understand what must be accomplished, and the courage to sacrifice yourself to necessity."
Becca struggled. The collar was uncomfortably tight, but not so much that she could not breathe. And if she could breathe, then surely—
"Altimere—" she said, her voice a thin croak.
His eyebrows rose. "This is extraordinary. Last night, you challenged my dear friend Venpor, provoking an incident. This afternoon, you plead with the so-noble Benidik to bear you away. Even now, you defy me. I am impressed, Rebecca Beauvelley."
Hope stirred. Perhaps, Becca thought, he would forgive her. Perhaps—
Altimere stepped forward; at the same instant, Rebecca crashed to her knees, her head wrenched back on her neck until the muscles screamed. He looked down on her, his face devoid of expression.
"You will surrender what was harvested in my name," he said. "It need not be as pleasant as a kiss."
Trapped on her knees, unable to move, she stared up into his face, seeing a mist of pale gold rise, and take shape—a scythe, or a hook or—
The hook plunged, set into the core of her, and began to pull. Pain threw the world into blackness. She bled joy, love, memory as the burnished fire at the base of her spine was dragged out, thread by fiery thread.
Becca screamed and pushed, fighting the loss as she had fought Jandain's domination. She screamed again—and could not. The collar was tight, tightening; she gasped for breath, and still it tightened, her body's anguish overriding the horror. Names swirled away in a blood-red mist, faces, once dear, faded and were lost. She pushed again, with everything she had left—
The pain ceased. She lay in the dirt, twisted, naked, and sobbing for breath. Altimere was gone.
Be at ease, Gardener, the tree murmured. Slowly Becca caught her breath, though the collar remained too tight around her bruised throat, while around her the garden took up its interrupted rhapsody. She lay where she had fallen, and could think of no reason to rise. Surely, she thought, she was bleeding; impossible that the rape she had just suffered had left no mark upon her.
The lightless ones approach, Gardener. The tree's voice roused her from a dream or hallucination in which she wandered the night-time streets of the city, ragged and miserable, only to spy Irene being handed down from her carriage before a brightly lit house. Strains of music came from the windows, and the sounds of animated conversation. She rushed up to her friend, knowing that she had found the one person in the world who would not shun her, who would love her and care for her, no matter what she had done.
"Irene!" She thrust past the coachman, leaving the rag she called her cloak in his hand, but she had no care for that because Irene would take care of her. Sobbing with joy, she placed her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Irene!"
The woman turned, there was her dear face, shocked, as of course she would be, but any moment she would realize—
Becca trembled, smiling. "It's Becca," she whispered, and saw horror in her friend's face before she was snatched away among a babble of men's voices and pushed out into the street, while hands groped her nakedness, and patted her head.
She cringed, sobbing, but the Gossamers were stronger than she. They lifted her, gently, despite her struggles and cries, and bore her down the path, into the house and up the ramp to what she groggily realized was her room.
A bath had been drawn. She was slipped into the water, and here came Nancy to undo the braid, while the Gossamers bathed her, their touch as soft and as sweet as any woman's.
Sometime during their ministrations, she lost consciousness, and awoke to her full senses in bed, wrapped in a crisp, white nightgown, reclining in the embrace of a multitude of pillows. The bed was softly illuminated; the room beyond was dark.
At the bottom of the bed, half in shadow, was Altimere.
Becca shrank back against the pillows. He smiled, sadly, and shook his head.
"There, child," he said softly. "I allowed my anger to have its rein, and I have lost your trust. How could it not be so? Truly, you deserve better of me. Now that I am no longer blinded by anger, I see how well you have served the goal. Venpor's set-down, the plea to Benidik—both can be used to advantage. Yes, child, you serve me well, and I am pleased with you."
"You did send Benidik to me," she murmured, and felt some fragile flower she had nurtured in her breast wither.
"I allowed it to be possible for her to think she had stolen access to you." Altimere laughed gently. "There is nothing the noble Benidik loves so much as thinking she has gotten away with a theft." He was silent, then continued thoughtfully.
"She is a Fey of great power, and also of some cunning, to have left so little of her kest to be harvested. She must guard herself more closely than I had thought. Still, the matter is well-ended. I shall put that promise to good use, I think. How clever of you, zinchessa, to obtain it."
As always, his voice soothed her, and his words were fair—but the memory of the garden, the violation of her spirit . . .
"I also see that I have not served you as well as I might." He moved forward and sat on the edge of the bed. Smiling softly, he took her left hand and held it between both of his.
"The plan—the goal—it is complex. Even Fey have difficulty understanding the scope of what I would accomplish. Small wonder that you find yourself adrift, making wild throws that—though they have thus far proved to our fortune—might well endanger everything."
She searched his face, but all she saw there was tenderness, and a lingering sadness. "You have already punished me," she said, and was ashamed to hear how her voice shook.
He bowed his head. "I wish you will forgive me that display. It was ill-done." He looked back to her face. "There is nothing here of punishment, zinchessa. Merely, I wish to take from you that burden which, in my thoughtlessness, I required you to bear. You have been eloquent in your willingness to do your part, and for that I have and continue to honor you. The error lies—again!—with me. Relative to those others I have known across the keleigh, you are strong; your spirit adamantine. But you are not Fey. It is my shame and my sorrow that I forgot that, Rebecca, and so caused you to suffer."
"But," she said, honestly bewildered. "What will you do?"
"I will no longer burden you with these periods of solitary thought during which you weave your own clever variations upon our theme. I had thought that the sleep—but no matter. I am determined to rectify all of my errors and make myself worthy once again of your trust."
Becca licked her lips. Surely he could not mean—but, yes, it was possible. If he could lock her to his will at whim, what prevented him from extending that power?
Nothing, she answered herself. The diamond collar made all possible. And she had willingly accepted it, vain fool that she was.
"Altimere," she said, leaning forward and daring to touch his sleeve. "I—I am flattered by your care and protection, but this—you ask too much of yourself," she improvised wildly, wondering why she had not understood until this instant that he was mad. "To be forever in—in my thoughts. Would it not be better to remove the collar, and allow me to go home? You have made great gains. Councilor Zaldore courts you, little guessing that you are her master. She does not guess that your plan, so carefully made, is the plan that will see success. You are beyond what poor assistance I can give you."
