Enchantress Mine (21 page)

He took her into his arms, and kissed her. “You are delicious,” he murmured against her mouth. “I think I am mad to make such a sacrifice as separating myself from you.”

“Perhaps,” she teased him, “it would be better if we began our celibacy now, my lord.”

“Oh no, my fair enchantress, you shall not escape me this night!” he laughed. Then sweeping her up into his arms he carried her to their bed, and they lay naked together.

Ardently they caressed one another with hands and lips. He suckled upon her breasts and she sighed with contentment as the now familiar darts of excitement raced through her eager body. Then his hand was stroking the soft insides of her half-parted thighs. She quivered as for the very first time his fingers moved up to slip between the tender folds of pink flesh.

He felt her stiffen with resistance, and his voice soothed her. “No, Mairin, do not be afraid. I would only explore your sweetness a bit.” A gentle finger rubbed her, and then was delicately inserted into her trembling body. “Ahh, my love, how I wish I might pierce you with my love-shaft instead of a finger,” he whispered to her.

He moved the finger rhythmically within her and as her fear dissolved she felt a new excitement. Her body would not stay still, and she thrust her hips up to meet the movement of his hand. “Oh, Basil! It is good!” she sighed as suddenly a hot melting feeling suffused her entire being.

He bent his head, and kissed her passionately. He was pleased that this first serious penetration had not frightened her. He had learned what he needed to know. Her maidenhead was lodged tight, and would, when the consummation of their union took place, require all his skill and patience to breach. Raising himself up he said, “As always, my love, you are perfection. How I adore you!”

Her spirits soared. She loved and was loved. She was desired and she desired in return. During the next few days there was a glow and an excitement about her that had not been there before. Eada saw it, and unable to help herself, questioned Mairin.

“Are you happy, my child?”

“Oh, yes, mother!”

Eada debated with herself a moment. Then she said, “Have you yet . . . ?” She hesitated, but Mairin read her mother’s thoughts.

“Not yet, but I am ready, and Basil agrees, mother. We have decided to wait, however, until we move across the water into our own home. I want my son conceived beneath his own roof where he will first see the light of day.”

“I have not yet spoken to you on what you should expect, my child,” said Eada. “I would not have you unprepared now that your time is near.”

“I do not think there is anything I have not already learned, mother. It is true we have not yet consummated our union, but Basil and I have played at all manner of bedsport these past months. I have found everything quite wonderful,” Mairin said somewhat smugly.

“But has he warned you of the pain?” Eada asked her daughter.

“Pain?”
Mairin looked somewhat startled. “What pain? There has been no mention of pain!”

Eada smiled softly. How just like a man, she thought, to stress only the pleasures of an initial encounter. “You could, Mairin, experience some pain upon first becoming a woman,” she told her daughter. “It is nothing to be fearful of for it is quite natural, and to be expected. There will also be a slight bleeding when the virgin shield is pierced. It only happens the first time. After that there will be neither pain, nor bleeding. There should only be pleasures for you and Basil for you love one another.”

“Is there still pleasure for you and father?” Mairin asked boldly. Then she blushed, and lowered her eyes.

Eada laughed. “Yes!” she said, and her blue eyes twinkled. “Even after all these years there is yet pleasure in the coupling for your father and me. We love each other, Mairin. There is the difference. One cannot sustain joy where there is no love. May there always be love between you and Basil as there is between your father and me.”

“Oh, there will be, mother!” said Mairin with the deep assurance of every bride who can see no further than tomorrow. “He says that his every thought both waking and sleeping is of me! I am so very fortunate that he loves me!”

“You love her?”
Bellisarius’ usually controlled voice sounded strangely high-pitched in the prince’s ears as with his habitual restless energy he prowled about the magnificently furnished anteroom of his private apartments in the Boucoleon Palace. As Byzantium’s most famous actor of the times it was his privilege to be housed there at the emperor’s expense.

“Dear God, Basil! Why do you not simply take a dagger and stab me through the heart? When you announced your intentions to marry you swore to me that you would never stop loving me even if you did intend to wed to beget heirs for your family. In the eight months since that day you have not once visited me as my lover. Still I remained loyal to you for I have never known you to lie.

“Now you come to me and you tell me that you love the bitch! You have but come today to bid me farewell!
I love you!
Does that mean nothing to you at all? You are cruel!
Cruel!
” He flung himself upon a couch that was covered in red satin and cloth of gold. Clutching a green-and-gold-striped pillow to his chest he stared darkly at the prince with a look that was part anger, part jealousy, part hate.

“I am not like you, Bellisarius,” Basil said quietly. “In my entire lifetime I have had but two male lovers. My first lover was as you know my cousin Eugenius Demertzis. We were both only thirteen and fearful of approaching a woman lest we be rebuffed. We experimented upon each other until we had enough confidence to tumble my aunt’s slavegirl. Until you all my other lovers have been women. I have always enjoyed women. You are not like me. You have never loved a woman nor are you even capable of it. How many times have you admitted to me that the idea of making love to a woman repels you? Sometimes I believe you are a female soul caught within a man’s body.”

“Then why did you become involved with me?” demanded the actor petulantly.

“Do you remember when we first met, Bellisarius? I had been involved with three women, and had discovered that each of the bitches had been playing me false while filling her jewel chests with my very generous baubles. Then to add insult to my injury Helena Monomachus attempted to pawn her bastard off upon me. I was angry. Maybe even bored with the female of the species. Perhaps I felt I needed a change, and a male lover was certainly a change. Besides, I liked you.” He reached out and patted the actor’s shoulder comfortingly. “You are my best friend, Bellisarius. Please, I beg you, try to understand my feelings. Mairin is everything I have ever sought in a woman. Oh yes, she is young, but she has such promise! Sometimes in the night I awaken, and fear that I shall not be able to keep up with her one day.” He smiled to himself. “May God help me, but I am so in love with her! Can you not comprehend that, dear Bellisarius?”

“Love?” The actor sneered bitterly, his face a vicious mask. “You do not know how to love, Basil. You know only the pleasure in possessing a new toy, which is precisely what your precious bride is to you, my prince! Once the novelty of fucking her has worn off you will seek another pretty diversion! Poor little girl! I actually feel sympathy for her though I have never met her. They say she is a sweet thing, but when you have drained her sweetness away you will discard her for another new toy even as you are discarding me, Basil, and I hate you for it!”

“You are wrong! I love her!” said Basil, stung by Bellisarius’ unkind words. “We have not yet even consummated our marriage. I believed her too young when we married, but now she is ready for love. In three days’ time we will consummate our love in our own home.”

Seating himself beside Bellisarius he flung his arm about the actor who shrank rather pointedly from this casual embrace. “Oh, come, my friend! Be happy for me! There are many who seek to be your lover. You cannot deny that to me of all people! How many times did we laugh over your lovesick swains? Tell me truly, Bellisarius. Have you not been approached at least a hundred times over these last few months?”

“Of course I have been approached,” sniffed Bellisarius, “and by men of greater importance than you, Basil. I am greatly desired.” He preened, unconsciously arching his neck, a faint smile upon his face which faded as quickly as it had come. “I, however, remained true to our love. You have not! I never even allowed myself one tiny tryst.”

“I am sorry,” said the prince. “You are my friend, and I never meant to hurt you. I thought I could love you both, but I cannot,” he finished honestly.

“And so you chose
her
over me,” Bellisarius said. Suddenly there was a note of deep sadness in his voice as if he had resigned himself to the prince’s words. “Why?” he asked plaintively.

“I could not help myself,” said Basil. “I know now that I was hers from the very first moment I saw her.”

Bellisarius sighed. It was a sound of such infinite pain that Basil felt tears pricking at the back of his eyelids. “All the love I have for you cannot bind you to me if you do not wish to be held, my prince. You have broken my heart as you will one day break hers, but I am no fool. Loving you as I do I want your happiness even if it means that you are leaving me.” He arose from the couch. “Come! We will drink a last goblet of wine together. Then you must go, and return to your innocent wife.” With slow mincing steps he walked across the room. A silver tray with goblets and decanters sat upon a round marble-and-gold table with great claw feet of green agate. “She has never known about us, has she?” he said thoughtfully.

“No,” answered the prince. “Mairin is a true innocent. A love such as is sometimes shared between two men is not within her scope of knowledge. She would be shocked by it. She was not brought up here in Constantinople where such things are not considered unusual.”

Bellisarius had reached the table. He nodded as if in agreement with Basil. Upon the first finger of his right hand was a large ruby. His body shielding the tray with its goblets and decanter from the prince, he flipped open a secret catch upon the dark red stone revealing in its hollowed interior a fine black powder. Skillfully he spilled half the powder into each of the two silver-chased goblets, quickly pouring atop it a blood-red Grecian vintage. The powder instantly dissolved, disappearing into a swirl of sweet wine. The actor swung smilingly about to come forward with the two goblets.

Gracefully he offered one to the prince. “To what shall we drink?” he said. “Since it is to be the last toast we shall ever share between us it should be a special one.”

“Let us drink that we each find true happiness,” said Basil, “for, dear Bellisarius, it saddens me to think that I have caused you any pain. I would have you as happy this very minute as I am.”

Bellisarius smiled broadly. “Suddenly I am, my prince,” he said, and raising the goblet to his lips he drank it down. Basil followed suit.

When the cups had been placed upon the table again the actor said with sudden and surprising venom in his voice, “Your precious princess will soon learn of how easily you betray someone you claim to love, my prince! She will shortly know the terrible pain you have visited upon me, and she will be forced to live with that pain for the rest of her life which I pray will be a long one! When we are found together, Basil, there will be those only too willing to reveal our relationship, and all its attendant gossip, to your wife. For me the greatest revenge I will have upon you both is the knowledge that she will never, ever be completely certain that you really loved her! You see, my prince, you will not be alive to either comfort her, or to deny the rumors!” He laughed a sharp high cackle of mirth. Then he staggered suddenly and fell to his knees.

As he did Basil felt a cruel, sharp pain knife through his own guts.
“Bellisarius,”
he cried,
“what have you done?”
Then he, too, fell to his knees to find himself facing the actor whose face was a mask of vengeful triumph.

“Done?”
Bellisarius was fast growing pale. “I have done nothing more than to insure that you will always be with me, my darling! She cannot have you for you are mine, Basil! Mine for now and all eternity!
Mine!
” And so saying he fell forward into the prince’s arms quite dead. His weight tumbled the weakened man backward onto the magnificent thick red-and-black wool carpet.

Basil’s whole body felt numb. Unable to move he lay upon his back, Bellisarius clasped within his helpless embrace, his blond head as if in sleep upon the prince’s chest. As his murderer’s words penetrated his befogged brain Basil felt his own heart slowly coming to a stop. With a last burst of energy he cried out but one word,
“Mairin!”
and then he died.

For several long minutes there was silence within the beautiful room. Then slowly the door to the antechamber opened, and a young boy hurried in. Seeing the bodies upon the floor he stopped, gasping, then bravely he made his way to where the bodies lay. Being careful not to disturb them, he reached into his tunic and drew out a small mirror which he placed first beneath the prince’s nostrils, and then the actor’s. The glass remained clear.

The boy sighed, and rising left the room to hurry off through the maze of corridors that connected the various sections of the palace with one another. Reaching Basil’s apartments he smoothed his tunic neatly, and boldly entering, asked to speak with the princess.

“She is with her lady mother,” said Nara, thinking this boy seemed of little importance. “She cannot be disturbed.”

“I must speak with her!” the boy insisted.
“I must!”

“Well you can’t, my lad, and that is that,” replied Nara bossily.

Suddenly the boy who was no more than ten began to cry. “My master is dead, and the prince with him,” he sobbed. “I do not know what to do. I thought the princess could help,” he sniveled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.