The False Martyr (75 page)

“
Understand?” Though the
language he used was foreign, Cary had no difficulty translating
the conversation that followed.

Noé nodded again, eyes
locked on the sheets then slipping to Cary’s.

“
Say it,” Zhurn’s voice
turned hard. His big hand clasped her chin and forced her face to
him.

“
I understand,” she
whispered, but he did not release her. He just stared into her
eyes, forcing them back to his, moving her head with his hand every
time she tried to divert her gaze. Finally, he cast her aside,
allowing her to study the mattress. He caressed her unborn child,
whispered a final reminder, then stood, and walked from Cary’s
view.

The door clicked shut a
minute later. Sighing, Noé reached to the bed beside her and pulled
a dress over her head, but not before Cary had developed a whole
new range of fantasies. “You can come out now,” she said, looking
directly at him. “You’ve finally found me alone, so you might as
well come out and tell me whatever it is that brings you here every
day.” She stood from the bed, allowing the pale woolen dress to
fall to her ankles, and walked toward him.

Though it was exactly what
he wanted, Cary’s fear spiked, a combination of honest anxiety
about what he was doing and fear of getting exactly what he wanted
and not knowing what to do with it. At the same time, he wondered
how she could always know when he was there. Did she . . .
.

“
I know you’re at the
Thull meetings,” Noé answered his silent question before he could
finish it. “I have seen you peeking out from your little nook, I
know you are watching me.” She smiled. There was sadness to it, but
it was a dramatic change from their first encounter. “If I wanted
to be rid of you, I’d just have to point. Unlike finding you here,
there would be no suspicion of me then.”

“
So why haven’t you?” Cary
asked as he stepped from the dark passage into the dim room. There
was a single lamp burning beside the bed, but his eyes seemed to
have gotten used to the gloom of the lodge. Reflexively, he checked
the areas outside his vision before he pulled back the hood on his
robe. The room was, as expected, empty.

His attention came back to
Noé. She seemed to glow – white skin, golden hair, pale blue eyes.
She kept her face tilted away to hide her deformity, a natural
reflex built through years of scorn. Her hands held her child. Cary
did not hide the fact that he was studying her, thinking of her as
she had been a minute before, eating her with his hungry
eyes.

“
I . . . I don’t know,”
she admitted and seemed honestly confused. She turned her face
further away, breath quickening. “I should. I cannot imagine how it
is that you have been allowed in the order passages, why you have
been allowed to spy on the Thull. Maybe it is because it is so
terribly strange, but I never honestly thought to do
it.”

“
It’s not because you like
that I watch you, that you long also to see me?” Cary walked toward
her. He reminded himself that this might be his last chance to see
her. He could waste nothing.

Noé tried to laugh, but it
was forced. “You presume too much, guth. I am the Mother of a
lodge. I am joined to a legendary warrior. Even if you were not an
outsider, you would not last a minute in the caratht. Even an order
keeper would be more desirable than you.” She tried to make her
voice sharp, tried to bring her eyes to his, tried to face him
fully. She failed in every attempt.

Cary stepped closer,
keeping her between him and the bed. “I thought Morgs didn’t lie,”
he said with a smirk. “Though you are a Morg and the Mother of a
lodge and wife of a great warrior, you are still a woman, and you
long more than anything to be touched, to be admired, to be
loved.”

“
You are wrong.” She
forced her eyes to his but retreated a step. “You are wrong about
Zhurn. He loves me. He told me so. He was so sorry for his anger
the last time he came. It . . . it was my fault. I angered him, but
still he apologized. He even brought me a gift.” She turned to the
bed and retrieved a stole of luscious mink. She rubbed it between
her hands and against her face. “It is so soft. I could never have
had anything like this before Zhurn picked me. Now, I have a whole
trunk of furs. He knows that mink is my favorite. If he did not
love me, would he remember that, would he bring me such gifts?” She
caressed the fur again, then pulled it around her neck. Cary could
not help but wish that he were that fur, that it was him feeling
her so intimately.

“
So he did not hurt you?”
Cary took another step toward her. He did not fail to notice that
she had changed the subject, that she was trying to convince
herself, not him.

Noé’s face darkened. “He .
. . he is a passionate man. He was not trying to hurt me – I know
he wasn’t – but he cannot always help what he does.”

“
And the last? He
threatened you again. He threatened your child.”

“
No!” Noé shook her head,
but her eyes were on the floor. “He was reminding me of my duty to
him and our lodge. It was not a threat. I was not raised for this
life, and he is just making sure I understand what is happening,
what I am supposed to do.”

Understand what?
Cary’s mind cried. Zhurn was up to something.
Something was not right. Somewhere Cary knew it, but he could not
make himself focus on it. “I would never threaten you, would never
hurt you. You know that, right? You know that it, that making love,
should not hurt? It should be wonderful. You should see your lovers
face. You should see his pleasure reflected in your
own.”

Noé turned away, but her
blood rose, flushing her cheeks, making her even more beautiful.
“Stop,” she whispered.

Cary did not. “I have been
in these halls for weeks. I have seen many women with their men. I
have seen how those men seek nothing but the pleasure of their
wives. It is the same where I am from. When a man loves a woman, he
places her pleasure even above his own. I am only sorry that you
have never experienced that.” He almost felt badly for stoking the
girl’s insecurities with his lies, but he knew that he had only to
plant the idea in her mind. She shifted slightly at the thought,
considering how her husband used her, how she dreaded rather than
longed for his touch.

“
Who is to say that he
does not pleasure me?” she asked to cover what Cary now knew beyond
a doubt to be true. “How can you know what I feel?”

Cary took another step
toward her, coming within arm’s length. “The question answers
itself,” he said softly, seeking her downturned eyes with his own.
“You are praying that Zhurn stop, not that he never stop.” He
reached out a hand and placed it on her cheek. She flinched away,
breath catching.

“
You shouldn’t,” she
begged.

“
Does he touch you like
this?” Cary ran his hand down her cheek to her neck and arm. His
other found her hip as he drew closer. “Even when he is gentle?
Even when he is sorry?”

Noé was lost for words.
She gulped, caught between what she dreaded and what she
wanted.

“
I can show you.” He
allowed his other hand to find her back, pulled himself in so that
he was almost touching her, so that his lips were close to hers. He
looked into her eyes, ran his hands on her back, to her hips, to
her rear.
This is it. She’s mine.
He brought his lips up to meet hers, felt her
trembling.

Cary was on his ass. He
landed with a thump on the boards below and barely kept from going
to his back. His eyes bounced to Noé, saw her arms stretched out
from where she had pushed him. “Don’t ever touch me again,” she
warned. Her breaths were pants but not from the effort of pushing
him to the ground. “You . . . you have gotten all of this wrong. I
allowed you to watch me because I had no other option. If I had
said something, I, my child, would have suffered as much as you. I
have spoken to you because . . . because . . . I don’t know why,
but it was a mistake. The fact that you watched me should have told
me everything I needed to know about you.”

Cary forced himself to
look hurt by the rejection. He was. He had wanted this, had wanted
it now, but he was not defeated. She knew what was possible. When
he returned from his trip, she’d have made up her mind. She’d be
waiting for him, and it would be so much better than having her now
full of doubt.

“
I . . . I cannot . . .
you know I cannot say anything, but. . . .” The admission reminded
Cary of the power he had over her. For a second, he considered how
easy it would be to force her. She would never fight – that had
literally been beaten from her.
She’d
probably even thank you.
Just like your
sister?
The image flashed in his mind, and
he cursed himself for even allowing it to exist, knew even as he
thought it that he could never do it.
The
lesson
, he reminded himself.
You can’t save them, but you’re not the bastards
that abuse them. At least they’ll have that. At least it’s better
than how the other men treat them.
They’ll
give themselves to any bastard. At least you’re the bastard that is
kind to them.

“
I am sorry,” he said,
looking ashamed.
Time to back away. Let
her think that she’s lost her chance. Let her come to you.
“I . . . I knew it was a fool’s dream. I cannot
keep you from my mind, but I should have known that it could never
be. I wanted to give you something wonderful before I was gone.
Something to show you what love is supposed to be, but if I cannot
give you that, can I, at least, give you my friendship? I know I am
a guth, but I hope that we can talk, that I can share your company
and look on your face . . . and have my fantasies.”

Noé eyed him, stare
running across his body. Her pants subsided.
She feels back in control
, Cary
knew.
So let her think she has denied me,
that I have given up, that she has won.
Tonight, in her bed, she will be able to think of nothing
else. She will dream of me, will know I am waiting, will know what
is possible. Day after day, she will think about what she can have,
and eventually she will want it more than anything.

“
Alright. We shall be
friends.” She forced a smile, forgetting even to cover her
lip.

She took a long, trembling
breath and walked across the room, circling wide around Cary, to
sit on a cushion on the floor, legs folded before her. She pulled
her long, fine, golden hair behind her shoulders, and again ran the
stole along her cheek with a melancholy smile, used it to hide the
split ruining her lip. “So, friend, why is it that you have been
allowed to roam the order passages, to spy upon Mothers, to witness
a Thull?”

Cary picked himself from
the floor and took the cushion next to her. The question reminded
him of the ones nagging at the back of his mind. Probably it was
nothing, but since he was here, since he had to back off from his
true pursuit, maybe he could learn something useful.
Broom before beer,
his
dad had always said. “Juhn and Nyel asked me to spy on the other
Mothers,” he admitted. “They seemed to think that I might find
something that would help the negotiations in the
Thull.”

“
And have you?” Noé seemed
unfazed by the fact that an outsider had been sent to spy on her
and the other Mothers. Thrown by the girl’s calm, Cary took a
moment to find his footing. She filled the gap. “I grew up with
Juhn,” she explained. “Nothing he does can surprise me. I was
raised by the former order master, and Juhn was so small that he
was always destined to the Order, but that never seemed to stop
him. He was always smart, bold, scheming.” Hearing her admiration,
Cary felt a stab of jealousy. Was she secretly in love with
Juhn?

“
It sounds like you were
close,” he ventured with a lump in his throat.

Noé laughed. “He was kind
to me, but was also well older. I was just the ugly yuté girl in
the corner of his master’s room. I don’t even know if he knew my
name before Zhurn chose me. No one did. Not even the master paid me
any heed except . . . .” Her voice trailed off, eyes growing
distant. Despite everything he’d planned, Cary’s heart sank. He
knew the look. The abuse had not started with Zhurn, but the old
man knew how to use it. “Except nothing,” she continued with a
smile to hide her pain. “I should not have been alive. I owed
Master Vulcher my life. Still, I spent almost all my time alone – I
don’t think I’ve ever had a friend.” She smiled at him, using the
stole to make it seem normal. Still Cary noticed sarcasm in her
voice. “I cleaned the order keepers’ rooms and stayed out of their
way, but I was still there, and I learned from them. I learned
their language, your language. I learned about the Order and my
place in it, that everything happens for a reason, that we are not
to question those reasons. I also learned to notice things that
others missed – the stone that would catch the bottom of the door
and keep it from opening, the single candle left to burn on a bed
of muslin, the slight change in the keepers’ routines, the silence
between words, the smell of alcohol in rooms occupied only by
women. The smell of a different kind of smoke,” Noé finished. A
tear formed in her eye and trickled down her cheek. She seemed not
to notice it.