Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Prisoners of the Wind (20 page)

“As though I would have allowed that, wench,” he asserted.

“The admiral didn’t help matters when he said the temple was
filled to standing room only.”

“That surprised me, too,” he said, remembering the large
crowd who had gathered to observe his and Marin’s Joining in the Temple of the
Winds. “I couldn’t help thinking they were oozing out of the woodwork, there
were so many.”

“Your entire crew was there. Did you know that?”

“I knew many of them were there but I didn’t stop to do a
head count. There was only one head I was searching for and that was yours.”

“Do you know why they all came to the Joining?” she asked
softly.

“For the free food and liquor at the reception?” he
countered.

She shook her head. “They came, the admiral told me, because
they not only admired and respected their commanding officer, were honored to
have served with him but that they loved him.”

Taegin blinked, staring at her with an odd look on his face.
“The crew was my only family for over a decade,” he said so quietly she barely
heard him.

“Aye, well, they considered themselves such according to the
admiral,” she said. “At the reception, when I was dancing with your best man,
the future captain of the
Revenge,
Kale said to a man, the crew demanded
to be allowed to witness our Joining because they wanted to make sure they sent
you off in the fashion you deserved so you would know to what high esteem they held
you.”

Taegin looked back toward the crashing waves that were
starting to break upon the shore with a soothing sound. “You know we are the
talk of the entire fleet, don’t you?” he asked.

She giggled. “I’ve heard what they are calling you now,” she
said.

“Aye, well you won’t repeat it if you know what’s good for
you, wench,” he warned. He intercepted her mind thought and turned to look at
her with an arched brow and a low growl.

Marin held up her hand. “You just said I shouldn’t repeat
it, Tiogar. You didn’t order me not to think it!” she said, her chin in the
air.

“Pussy Cat Boy,” he mumbled. “By Alel, I could snap Tarnes
in half.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have gone into Conversion as soon as
the Joining was over. That was rather thoughtless of you, not to mention it
scared the hell out of our guests.”

“Like I had a choice of when to go into Conversion? I
thought I had another week, maybe even two!” he complained. “Damned tenerse. I
had to have the med upped and that shit hurts, Marin!”

She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. It wasn’t so
much that he’d gone into Conversion too soon but what had happened afterwards
that had the fleet buzzing.

He had never wanted her to see him in full Conversion but it
had happened so quickly that day with dozens of people milling about that there
had been no time for him to be locked up anywhere to keep from hurting anyone.
The physician said the early Conversion had more than likely been brought on by
nerves—and the Tiogar had been nervous on his Joining Day. The memory of that
day was burned in the minds of everyone who was a witness to it.

There he was, his body contorting, his fur rippling, fangs
growing, claws unsheathed, snarling mad, furious, growling, and his bride had
simply reached out and laid a hand on his forehead, patted him, and told him to
go play somewhere else and leave the nice people alone.

“You weren’t even afraid,” he grumbled.  “You didn’t even
bat an eye!”

“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me, Taegin,” she said. “And
actually, seeing you in Tiogar form really turned me on.”

He snorted. “Aye, I bet it did,” he scoffed.

“It did,” she protested. “You are quite a handsome pussy—”
she stopped, her eyes wide “—feline.”

“Leading me around by my gods-be-damned ruff,” he groused.

“I had to get you to the containment room somehow, Taegin,”
she argued. “Would you have preferred a leash?”

He growled low in his throat at the suggestion. “It was
humiliating. No wonder they call me Pussy Cat Boy now.”

Marin sighed with exasperation. “Let it go, Tiogar.”

“Pussy Cat Boy,” he ground out. “I’m going to gut Tarnes the
next time I see him.”

Marin sighed again, this time with pleasure. “It is so
peaceful here, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Aye,” he replied softly. “It is.”

“I know we’ll be happy here.”

When her husband did not agree, she turned her head to look
at him. She was stunned to see tears running down his cheeks. She reached out
to him. “What is it, dearling?” she asked.

Taegin was staring at the coming storm clouds. He felt his
wife’s hand on his arm, sensed her concern for him. “I’ve never really had a
home of my own,” he said quietly. “This will be my first one and that’s why it
meant so much to me that it be just as I had dreamed.”

She stroked his arm, feeling he needed to talk about
whatever was causing his tears. “Did your family travel that much?” she asked
to encourage him.

He nodded. “My father was a captain of his own ship when I
was born. The military was his life and it provided government quarters for
him. By the time I was five, we’d lived at four different operational bases.”
His chin trembled as some distant memory touched him and his voice went lower.
“I was never allowed to have a pet, never made any friends because there
weren’t many children in senior officer quarters.”

“That must have been hard on you.”

He shrugged and another tear slid down his cheek. “My mother
tried to make up for there being no one for me to play with. We spent a lot of
time together.”

“And made a lot of memories, no doubt,” she said, but he
didn’t seem to hear her.

“When I was five, I was sent away to boarding school—just as
all the sons of military members were.”

“Where was that?” she queried.

“At Scoil,” he answered. “Five thousand miles away.”

Her heart ached for him for she could hear the loneliness
and fear in the voice of that five-year-old child from years before.

“I remember my mother crying as I was being led away by the
headmaster’s representative,” he said, reaching up to swipe at his own tears.
“My father was standing there as I will always see him in my mind’s
eye—military straight, stern, irritated that my mother was disgracing him with
her quiet sobbing, hissing at her to be quiet. I can still feel the pressure on
my upper arm like a shackle as the representative pulled me toward the
transport. All I wanted to do was pull out of his grasp and run back to my
mother. I didn’t want to leave her, for she’d been my world, the only constant
in that world I’d ever had. Quarters came and went. Neighbors came and went.
Friends came and went. My father was rarely home and when he was, he never
found time for me, but my mother had always been there.”

Taegin was silent for a while and when he began to speak
again, there was brittleness to his tone.

“At Scoil, students were allowed to go home only once a
year, in high summer and just for one week. That was harsh enough, but one of
its ironclad rules was if a boy cried on his first night there, he would not
only receive a caning on his bare ass, he would not get to return home for two
years. If he cried the second night, another year would be added onto his
punishment and the caning would be doubled from five to ten passes. If he dared
cry on the third night, he would not be allowed to go home until he was ready
for the military academy when he turned thirteen and he would receive twenty
passes of the cane. It was a punishment designed to make gods-be-damned sure a
boy towed the line, acted like the man he was expected to be.”

Marin tightened her hold on his arm but she didn’t think he
felt it. He was lost in the memories of that long ago time.

“I was eight when I saw my mother again. My father—because
I’d been one of the caoiners, a weeper—had come to escort me home. From the
moment I saw him standing in the headmaster’s office I knew he was furious with
me. His jaw was set, his eyes boring into me as though I was a worm to be
stepped on. I had dared to disgrace him. By crying those two nights I had made
it appear that he had not been a stern enough father, had not taken his
position seriously enough.”

“He sounds like he was a very demanding man.”

“He was a bastard,” Taegin said through clenched teeth. “He
didn’t speak to me on the way to his runabout that day. He was as rigid as a
steel rod when he took the controls. Not one word did he say to me until we
landed at the base where he was then stationed.”

“What did he say when you landed?”

Her husband’s voice went even lower.

“That when I left the runabout I was to remember whose son I
was. I was to act according to the correct military protocol and if I—in any
way—deviated from that protocol, he would turn around and take me straight back
to Scoil.”

Marin was almost afraid to ask what protocol. Taegin’s face
was creased with hurt. “How were you to act?”

“I was to snap to attention, salute my mother then extend my
hand in greeting, politely wishing her a good day, madam, and immediately
inform her that I would be spending every available moment of my time in my
room, studying.”

“Oh, Taegin, how cruel!” Marin couldn’t stop herself from
saying.

He swiped angrily at his tears, pulling them down his face
and onto his bare chest. “I could see my mother standing on the flight line
waiting for us. Her face was beaming with happiness and she began waving madly
when she saw me, calling out my name. I was her only child and I’d come late to
her in life. I remember her telling me the night before I was sent off to
school that I was her heart, the only reason she was living.”

“She must have loved you very much,” Marin said softly.

“I know she did,” he told her.

“What were you feeling as you sat there watching her?”

“A part of me wanted to throw off the safety harness and
rush to the door, jump off the runabout and race to her, grab her and hold on
for as long as my father would allow it.” Taegin snorted. “Which would have
been as long as it took for him to get his hands on me. He’d have beat me until
I dropped if I’d dared do such a thing.”

“Oh, Taegin,” she said, her own eyes filling with tears.

“Mama was standing there twisting her hands, and when I
stepped from the craft she ran to me despite my father’s warning hiss for her
to stop.” Tears were flowing freely down her husband’s cheeks. “He reached out,
jerked her away from me and shoved her to the ground, yelling at her that she
was even more of a disgrace than her worthless son.”

“What did you do?”

Taegin lowered his head to his knees.

“Nothing,” he replied, his voice muffled, his pain
reverberating in his answer. “Not a gods-be-damned thing. I didn’t dare. I knew
what was expected of me and if I did anything other than what was expected, I
knew my father would make sure I didn’t see her again for five more years,
maybe even longer. I just stood there looking at her as she got to her feet,
her hand out to me in pleading, tears in her wounded eyes, lip quivering, her
smile wavering until it finally crumbled from her face. It is a sight I carry
with me every day of my life.”

Her husband seemed to crouch there on the sand, drawn in
upon himself, his memories tormenting him.

“I snapped to attention like I’d been instructed to do,
saluted her with as stony a face as I could muster although I was dying inside
then recited those hateful words. I watched the light fade from her eyes and
when she hung her head, I felt like the vilest creature on the face of the
planet.”

Marin scooted closer to him and put her arm around him.
“Dearling, you could do nothing else. I’m sure she understood.”

“No, she didn’t. She thought I no longer loved her—that the
love I’d once had for her had been drummed out of me.” He lifted his head and
looked at Marin, his eyes red and swollen. “That was what they did at Scoil,
and she knew it before I was ever taken there. The reason they keep you away
from your mother is so her touch won’t weaken your sword hand or soften your
heart. All they wanted was to turn us into emotionless automatons like my
father. Is it any wonder the Madras rose up and rebelled against such
treatment? That the Madras killed their own sons and grandsons and brothers?
The men of Riochas were unfeeling bastards like Seamus Drae.”

“That may be true, but they didn’t deserve to die,” Marin
reminded him.

“I killed my mother,” he said, his voice breaking. “As
surely as I am sitting here, I killed her.”

“Taegin, no. You—”

“This was the woman who had given me life, who had brought
me into the world after hours and hours of pain, who had rocked me to sleep,
sang to me, tended my scrapes and bruises with tender care, sat up with me all
night when I was sick with a fever. How could I have just stood there and
looked at her as though she meant nothing to me?”

“Did you love her?”

“With all my heart,” he said, tears flowing freely.

“Then I’m sure she knew how you felt,” she said, trying to
soothe him.

“My father ordered me into his quarters and I turned my back
on her and left her to face his rage alone.”

“You were eight years old, Taegin. What else could you have
done?”

He looked away from her, shame filling his eyes. “When they
finally came into the quarters, she went to her bedroom and shut the door. I
never saw her alive again.”

Marin’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

“My father said it was a coronary but, to this day, I
believe she died of a broken heart.” The last two words he spoke brought on a
torrent of sobs, and he leaned against his wife and put his head in her lap,
crying like the child he had never been allowed to be.

Hating Seamus Drae with every fiber of her being for having
hurt his son so deeply, Marin crooned to her husband, stroked his back and let
him have all the time he needed to purge the guilt he felt. She looked out over
the troubled sea. The storm was closer and the freshening winds blew her hair
in waves behind her. She closed her eyes to the fresh scent and felt the first
drops of rain prickle her face.