The Sorceress of Belmair (34 page)

“It is!” Lara exclaimed, smiling. “The chief of the Merfolk, Agenor by name, has agreed to help us find the queen. He will set his people to seeking out any civilization beneath the seas, but he begs you be patient. The seas are vast, and their number is small, my son. I liked this fellow, Dillon. We must do something to make the lives of the Merfolk easier once this is all over. What a wondrous place Belmair is, and the Belmairans, alas, know little of what is here other than themselves.” Lara continued, explaining in careful detail her entire visit to Agenor.

“Do you like Alban?” Dillon asked her.

“Aye, he is a good man. Both he and his wife would appear to have open minds, but restoring Cinnia will not be an easy thing once we are able to locate her,” Lara said.

“I must continue sending out search parties. I do not want Ahura Mazda to consider that I am any less desperate,” Dillon replied grimly. “I am going to have to kill him, Mother. I offered my hand in friendship. I offered to right the wrongs done the Yafir all those centuries ago. His response was to steal my wife so that the Belmairans will consider her
defiled,
and I would be forced to renounce her. I do not see how I can make peace with someone like that. Belmair must have a Yafir lord with whom it can deal. Ahura Mazda has lived too long with anger and bitterness in his heart. We cannot change the past. We can change the present and make a better future. But the past is the past. I will not apologize for it, nor should anyone.”

“Bringing Belmair to a different frame of mind will not be easy or simple,” Lara warned her son.

“If the dragon had wanted everything to remain static in Belmair then she would not have chosen me to be its king,” Dillon said. “She did not need the son of a Shadow Prince and a faerie woman to keep Belmair as it was, Mother.”

“You have become such a strong man,” Lara said. “I hardly know you now.”

“Power is both a gift and a curse,” Dillon noted. “It must be wielded strongly, yet carefully. And no being should ever believe that in possessing power they are either invincible or inviolate. That is the lesson Ahura Mazda will soon learn. I know that revenging myself on him will not bring me peace, Mother. It will just put an end to the chapter for me, but I will never forget that my beautiful Cinnia has been hurt by this Yafir’s selfishness.”

“Perhaps her abduction has a greater purpose behind it,” Lara said.

“Perhaps,” Dillon said. “But what I cannot fathom.”

Chapter 12

T
HE
SUMMER
CAME
,
and Dillon had stopped the incidents of female infant snatching by the Yafir, seeing that each expectant mother was given a charm to protect her newborn daughter. Lara had returned to Terah. For now all they could do was wait for the Merfolk to find out if the Yafir had made a kingdom of their own beneath the sea. But with the warm weather the three dukes came to the king, Dreng and Tullio pressing him to take another wife.

To his credit Duke Alban counseled his fellow dukes to be more patient.

“It doesn’t matter if she’s found or not,” Dreng said bluntly. “She is tainted by her time with the Yafir, soiled and tarnished. She can no longer be considered your wife, or the queen of Belmair, nor will we accept her as such.”

“We have so many lovely young women of good reputation and family, any one of whom would be a perfect mate for you, Majesty,” Duke Tullio added.

“You have already seen two of my granddaughters,” Dreng reminded the king. “And there are several other suitable candidates from Beltran. Tullio has his niece, and at least three other young women. But Alban, it seems, has no one to offer you,” Dreng concluded a trifle sourly.

“The king has said he is not yet ready to pick another wife,” Alban murmured. “When he informs me that he is I will be happy to offer him several young women from my dukedom of Belia. Until then it would be premature to accost him.”

“Bah!” Dreng said unpleasantly. “You are a too-careful old woman, Alban.”

“Your Majesty,” Duke Tullio said, “that you refuse to choose a new wife but frets the people. It keeps the matter of the Yafir in their minds.”

Dillon was astounded by this comment. “Do you think,” he asked them, “that simply because we have stopped the Yafir from taking our females that this is the end of it? That we can go on with our lives as if nothing happened? The Yafir mean to have Belmair unless we can prevent it. Ahura Mazda must be stopped, and a new Yafir lord chosen with whom we can negotiate a peace. And how dare you refer to the queen as
soiled
and
tarnished!
She will never give her heart to the Yafir. All the other missing women, your own granddaughter, Dreng. Are they impure? The mixing of Yafir and Belmairan blood has been taking place for centuries now. The children born of these unions are as much Belmairan as they are anything else. New blood brings new facets to a culture, and Belmair’s is dying even if you cannot admit it. You are stuck in the quicksands of your own selves. Belmair needs to progress, to move forward. And we will, my lords! I promise you that we will!”

The king’s angry outburst left the trio of dukes briefly speechless. Dreng stared angrily at Dillon, but both Tullio and Alban looked away. The duke of Beltran would never change in any way, the dukes of Beldane and Belia knew. But they were both aware that change had already come to Belmair in the person of their new king.

Finally Alban spoke up. “I think we should allow the king a full year to mourn his tragic loss. Had our young queen died a natural death we certainly would give him that time. Why do you persist in rushing him, Dreng? The purple sands in his glass have barely drizzled away a grain. The dragon also grieves the loss of Queen Cinnia and she is not ready, either, for the king to remarry. We have had several kings without queens, my lords,” Alban reasoned, his words being meant more for Dreng than Tullio.

“I am willing to wait until the autumn,” Dreng said, “but only if a Summer Court is held, my lords. There has been no death here. Let the king open the castle to the noble and wealthy families of Belmair. They will bring their unmarried daughters, and while he may sorrow for Fflergant’s daughter in private, he will be surrounded by youth and beauty. Surely it will help to ease his grief, and bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind,” the duke concluded with a sickly smile.

“We have not had a Summer Court in many years,” Tullio noted.

“An excellent idea, Dreng,” Duke Alban said, turning to Dillon. “It really is, Majesty,” he appealed to the king. Their eyes met, Alban’s begging the king to agree.

“Very well,” Dillon said quietly. “I will hold a Summer Court.” And afterward when he was alone with the duke of Belia, he asked him, “Why did you want me to acquiesce, my lord? You know I will have no other than my Cinnia.”

“By agreeing, you have silenced Dreng, my lord. I will speak to my sister, and she will see that Dreng keeps his distance. You will allow yourself to be surrounded by young women, which will give you time to continue your search. It will also prevent Dreng from nagging you. By the time his patience runs out we may have found the queen, and then the difficulty of keeping her by your side will fall to you. However if the queen has not been found by then—” he paused “—I think we must leave the decision not just to you, Majesty, but to the Great Dragon of Belmair, for she will know what must be done. She has known Cinnia longer than you, and will do what is right.”

“Would you accept Cinnia back?” Dillon asked Duke Alban.

“I would if you would,” Alban replied without hesitation. “You are right when you point out that Yafir and Belmairan blood has been so mixed over the centuries that there is little difference now between us. And if we may unite as one people in another few generations we will all be one.”

“How in the name of the Great Creator was a mind like yours born in Belmair?” Dillon wondered aloud. He shook his head.

Alban laughed. “I was the elder of two sons. My brother is more like the average Belmairan. I believe my father would have given him the duchy but for my mother. She told him I would outgrow my foolish thoughts, and I think she believed I would. It is better, I think, that neither of them lived to see I did not. In fact, I have become more liberal in my thinking. There are others like me in Belmair. Mostly we keep silent lest we be accused of being like Hetarians.”

Now it was Dillon who chuckled. “To hear Hetarians being called liberal thinkers is most amusing,” he said. “They are even worse in their stubborn behavior than Belmairans but for a few differences. We do not eschew passion or pleasures in Hetar. The Hetarians, whose deity is called the Celestial Actuary, have actually made a very profitable enterprise of our mortal lusts and behaviors.”

“They are not spoken of except in hushed whispers of disapproval, and the simple folk know little of them except as a threat to bad children,” Alban said with a smile. “What are they really like, Majesty, if I might ask?”

“Hetarians are an orderly people with rules and customs. Like Belmairans. They are a people for whom profit and status are everything. My mother’s father was a farmer’s lad from the Midlands province. One summer’s night my grandmother, Ilona, lured him into the woods, and he was not seen again for some months. When he returned he had an infant, my mother, with him. His father had died in his absence, and his elder brother did not want my grandfather, or my mother in what was now his house. So my grandfather took his child into The City, and his mother went with them. My grandfather became a member of the Mercenaries Guild. He was a famous swordsman. Eventually he was allowed admittance into the Crusader Knights. With each step he took he rose socially, and gained in both stature and importance, which is, as I have said, paramount to Hetarians. He was killed in the great battle between darkness and light that was fought over ten years ago before the gates of The City. My mother killed one of the Dark Army’s top commanders herself. Like her sire, she is a famous warrior, and a great swordswoman. My stepfather is very proud of her.”

“Hetarians allow their women to fight?” Alban was not certain if he should be shocked. Women warriors? He shook his head.

“Nay, Hetarians do not allow their women to fight, but my mother’s destiny was to become, among other things, a famed swordswoman. The women of the Outlands clans fought with her. And now in Terah there are small brigades of women who train in the martial arts. If war should ever come again to Hetar, the females of the Outlands and Terah will not suffer the fate of the women of Hetar,” Dillon told his friend.

“I had heard that in Hetar women were now involving themselves in the business of government,” Alban said.

Dillon nodded. “Women are intelligent, my friend. Their talents should be utilized, and not just in the Pleasure Houses of The City.”

Duke Alban was fascinated by all his king was telling him. He did not know if he himself was ready yet to embrace quite so much change. But Dillon was certainly giving him food for thought. His dukedom being the smallest, he was more aware than most of the decrease in population in recent years. Changes were going to have to be made if Belmair was to survive. Now if he could only convince Duke Tullio to understand this and stand with him and the king. Dreng was a hopeless case, he knew. They would never be able to bring him to reason until the crisis was upon them, and then only very reluctantly.

The king called for a Summer Court, and from all of Belmair the noble families and those with wealth came to fill the royal castle. They brought their young daughters, granddaughters, nieces and other female relations. They were not great in number, however. Dreng’s granddaughters, Lina and Panya, were there along with Tullio’s niece, Sapphira. Duke Alban had two nieces, Alpina and Carling, his brother’s daughters. His granddaughters were too young to be considered.

The Summer Court was lively with games and contests the day long, with feasting and dancing late into the night. The king put in an appearance each evening, and was always surrounded by pretty young women eager to attract his attention. His Shadow and faerie blood was beginning to boil with the warm nights, the sweet wine and the fact that since his wife had disappeared he hadn’t had a woman in his bed.

Their long hair, some straight, and some with masses of curls; golden, chestnut, black as night, as red as the sunset; and always perfumed, blew in the light summer breeze as they danced the evenings away. Ripe young bodies brushed against him teasingly. Blushes and soft voices assailed him. Eyes of blue, hazel, brown, black and gray met his, some boldy, some shyly with fluttering lashes that brushed their cheeks like dancing butterflies. Some spoke with intelligence to him. Others, younger and less sophisticated, marveled to him more times than not on Nidhug’s prodigious appetite as she sat at the high board devouring whole roasted boars, platters of cream cakes, and drinking down huge goblets of wine. He managed to avoid these fair creatures during the day, but the nights were becoming most difficult.

“What am I to do?” he asked Nidhug one evening when he had escaped to her castle seeking refuge from the gaiety. “I cannot betray Cinnia.”

Nidhug sighed. “You love her, I know,” she said, “but it is not healthy for a man to be without a woman. Cinnia is certainly in Ahura Mazda’s bed, and has been since he took her. He takes pleasures with her, and she with him. But he can only possess her body, Majesty. He will never have her heart. There is no sin, therefore, in you taking a mistress until your queen returns. Just do not give her a child.”

“Who?” Dillon said. “The daughters of the noble and those of wealth have been brought to me to choose another queen. I only called a Summer Court in order to silence Dreng and his constant bleating.”

“The summer is almost at an end,” Nidhug said. “Among those females is one who will give herself to you in hopes of becoming your queen. Seek her out, Majesty.”

Dillon nodded, and then he said, “If I take that woman to my bed, is there any law in Belmair that would force me to wed her?”

“Nay, my lord. Not if there is an agreement,” the dragon answered. “I would not betray my child. Oh, the parents or the guardians of she you choose will be at first hopeful, and then when they realize you have no intention of wedding anyone they will become angry. But if there is no child, there can be nothing to hold over you.”

“You have been with my uncle too long,” Dillon said. “You are beginning to speak with the cold heart of a faerie.”

“There is much wisdom in your uncle,” Nidhug replied.

“Where is he?” Dillon asked her. “I have not seen him of late.”

“He was not needed here in Belmair. Queen Ilona called him home,” Nidhug said in a tight voice. “It is better.”

Dillon reached out and patted the dainty clawed paw. “Do not love him, I beg you,” he told the dragon. “A faerie love will break your heart.”

“It is too late,” Nidhug answered the king softly. “But he will be back, Majesty, for you see while he has my heart in his keeping, I have his in mine. Now go and find a nubile young mistress for yourself,” she advised him.

Dillon announced that the king’s Summer Court would be coming to an end in several days. A great feast was planned. Now Dillon prowled among the young women, who were delighted to preen and flirt with the handsome young king. They knew that sooner or later he must take a new wife, a new queen. And they also knew it would probably be one of them. Each did her best to attract Dillon’s attention.

Alban’s two nieces, Alpina and Carling, were intelligent young women with much charm, but he had too much respect for his friend to consider them seriously. Dreng’s granddaughters, Lina and Panya, were a pair of delightful minxes who kept him constantly amused with their antics. But Dreng, he knew, would not countenance his taking either of them for a mistress. The other young women were for the most part typical Belmairan virgins, and they bored him although he never showed it.

Only one woman attracted both his attention and his lust, and that was Sapphira, Duke Tullio’s niece. Was it, he wondered, because she was Cinnia’s twin in appearance? Or was it because of the slight air of danger that surrounded her? His wife exuded light. Sapphira was darkness, and the truth was he was fascinated by her. He wondered if Cinnia were here if that would be so.

On the night of the last great feast of the Summer Court they danced together, and Dillon asked bluntly as he twirled her about, “Are you a virgin?”

Sapphira never missed a step, nor did she show any sign of shock or fear. “Why?” she demanded of him. And she smiled into his eyes.