The Sorceress of Belmair (36 page)

“Then we shall dispense with this law as soon as possible. It has outlived any usefulness it once possessed. While the Yafir may have retained their magic, their blood is now so mixed with the Belmairans that they have become a different race.”

“The dukes will fight you on this,” Nidhug said.

“Alban will stand with me,” Dillon replied confidently.

“Dreng will not, and with Sapphira in your bed it is unlikely that Tullio will, either,” the dragon told him.

“I shall do this
before
the girl becomes my mistress,” Dillon told the dragon. “Then we shall see just how ambitious that duke really is. It is my feeling that he does not approve of what Sapphira does although he has negotiated with me in good faith in order to protect his niece as best he can. I think he will stand with me in hopes of dissuading her from her course. And if he does Sapphira may choose not to come to my bed.”

“She will come anyway,” Nidhug said dourly. “The girl is ambitious, and believes she can win your heart.”

“Cinnia has my heart,” Dillon said, “and Sapphira cannot have what I no longer have. I will have my beloved back if I have to wait a hundred years.”

“To be loved like that…” Nidhug said a trifle enviously.

Dillon smiled. “My uncle loves you,” he murmured. “And you, my beautiful, scaly friend, love him. It is a most interesting pairing.”

“It is an impossible pairing,” Nidhug replied, “and I am foolish, like all females in love. But I cannot help myself. I adore him in his faerie form, and when he takes my dragon form he is equally magnificent.” She sighed. “I miss him.”

“He will return as soon as we have some word from the Merfolk,” Dillon reassured her. “He is clever to remain in his mother’s forest for now. It allays my grandmother’s suspicions that her son has given his fickle faerie heart to a dragon.”

Nidhug could not refrain the chuckle that issued forth from her throat. “Ilona of the Forest Faeries is a most formidable creature,” she admitted.

“She is indeed,” Dillon replied with a smile. “My mother grows more like her than she would want to know.”

Using his magic Dillon brought the three dukes to his castle the following day. They met in a small paneled counsel chamber with Nidhug in attendance. “I am removing from Belmair’s laws the one that forbids the return of women taken by the Yafir.”

“Never!”
shouted Duke Dreng jumping up, his face puce with outrage.

“The blood of Yafir and Belmairan is so mixed now that the law is foolish,” Dillon said. “I want peace with the Yafir. This is the first step I will take to make that peace a reality.”

“I like this proposal,” Duke Alban said quietly. “It makes sense. It is hundreds and hundreds of years since Napier IX caused this problem for all of us. Let us end what has been a great mistake. I stand with the king.”

“And what of you, Tullio?” Duke Dreng demanded to know. “Will you betray our land at the behest of this
Hetarian
king who has been foisted upon us?” he asked rudely.

Duke Tullio was silent for several long moments. His eyes met Dillon’s, and then he said simply, “I, too, stand with the king, for he is right, Dreng, whether you like it or not. Times have changed while we have remained static.”

“Traitors! You are all traitors,” Dreng yelled at them. “Take the law from the books if you will, but in Beltran the law will stand! No woman taken from my dukedom, even my granddaughter, will be allowed to return to my lands.”

“While I do not need your permission to remove this law from our legal books,” Dillon said, “I am grateful to you, Alban, and you, Tullio, for your support. As for you, my lord duke—” and Dillon fixed Dreng with a hard look “—do not think because I deal lightly with you now that I will continue to do so. The law of the land will be enforced throughout Belmair even if you do not like it. Do you understand me?”

In response, Duke Dreng angrily threw over his chair, and stalked from the small counsel chamber where they had all been meeting.

“I can see he will take some winning over,” Nidhug murmured drily.

“I will tell Sapphira,” Duke Tullio said to the king with a small smile.

“Our agreement will stand if she wishes it,” Dillon replied. “If she does not I shall pay you damages for your trouble.”

Duke Tullio nodded, and then standing, he quietly left the room.

“What agreement?” Duke Alban said. “If I may be so bold as to ask,” he amended his query politely.

“I need a mistress, for I have not taken a woman in almost a year now. As a man both Shadow and faerie, this has been difficult for me. Sapphira of Beldane pleases me, for she is so much like Cinnia, and she had indicated her desire to come to my bed. Of course I would not just use her without a proper agreement with her family,” Dillon said.

Duke Alban nodded. “My nieces did not please you?”

“Your nieces are hardly the sorts of girls I would ask to be my mistress,” Dillon replied. “They are charming, and amusing, but very respectable. Sapphira, on the other hand, is a bold girl. She thinks she can convince me to desert my wife in favor of her. I have been most candid with her. I have said she will not, but she was willing to come into my bed nonetheless. Tullio has not been happy with her decision, and I cannot blame him. Still, now that I have reversed the law concerning captive women, we will see how Sapphira feels.”

“If she is as ambitious as you believe her to be then she will come,” Alban noted.

Told by her uncle of this new turn of events, Sapphira was furious, even more so than Dreng, but of course for an entirely different reason. But then she said, “It matters not. He will not find her. No one has ever found the Yafir. The king will be mine.”

“You speak confidently for a virgin,” her uncle remarked. He cast her a sharp look. “You do still retain your virginity, Niece, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Sapphira said, irritated that he would doubt her. “But I have been schooled carefully by my mother in what pleases a man. We used one of her handsome young male servants for me to practice upon. His cock was restrained, and bound with leather so he could not harm me. And Mama was with us at all times. My virtue is as tightly lodged as a cork in a bottle of new wine, Uncle. I shall scream when he first pierces me, and the blood of my innocence will stain the sheets beneath us, as well as his mighty cock. The king will not be cheated. He will have my virginity.

“But I know how to love a man well, Uncle. I know the places on his body where my kisses and my touches will be irresistible. I know how to suck a reluctant cock to an upright stance, and how to caress a man’s seed sac until he is on fire. My kisses are said to be like burning honey. Fflergant’s daughter surely never made the king feel the way I will make him feel,” Sapphira concluded with a self-satisfied smile.

Tullio shook his head, surprised. Then he looked to his sister. “You are certain, Margisia, that she is still intact? The king will not like being cheated.”

“She is as pure physically as the day she came from my womb,” the lady replied.

“I am somewhat shocked that you would have imparted so much carnal knowledge to a virgin, even your daughter,” the duke told his sister. “Would it not have been best to wait until she was wed? You did not do these things but recently.”

“Nay, I did not,” Margisia said to him. “When Sapphira turned sixteen two years ago I saw how men were looking at her. I felt she should have all the knowledge I was denied. My wedding night was a horror because of my ignorance. I did not want Sapphira to suffer as I did. And now it seems fortuitous that she is knowing. She will please the king more, and perhaps she will win his heart.”

“Send me to him tonight!” Sapphira said eagerly.

“Nay, tomorrow night,” the duke told her. “You must appear to have considered carefully once again after the news which I brought you.”

“If you think it best, Uncle,” Sapphira agreed docilely, and she smiled her little cat’s smile. “Have my apartments been prepared?”

“I did not think to ask,” Duke Tullio said honestly.

“Then you and Mama must go tomorrow early to be certain all is in readiness for my arrival tomorrow.” Since the end of the Summer Court, the duke and his family had remained discreetly in a guesthouse on the castle grounds while the matter of Sapphira and the king was being arranged.

“I really think we must, Brother,” Margisia said earnestly.

“Very well,” Duke Tullio said. The whole thing was becoming very distasteful to him. That his sister had tutored her own daughter in proper sexual behavior shocked him. A woman should be taught this conduct by her husband. He was eager to have the matter settled, and return to Beldane with his sibling. There was a very wealthy merchant in his dukedom who had expressed his interest in Margisia, and had been shyly courting her for several years. It was time, Duke Tullio decided, to make a marriage agreement for his sister. He did not know if he could tolerate her in his household any longer. If he needed a hostess for any event he would call upon one of his five daughters. The truth was he would welcome the privacy of his solitude.

The following morning, he took his sister and went to the castle, where a disapproving Britto ushered them into a beautiful apartment in the south wing of the castle. There was a gracious entry chamber, a comfortable dayroom, a large bedchamber and a private bath. A small, tiled terrace was set off of the bedchamber. It was furnished with a double couch with a rolled arm at one end, and open at the other. There were pots of rose trees and other flora. The bed was hung with rose velvet. The furniture was white and gold. There were colorful wool carpets upon the wood floor, and tapestries hanging upon the walls. There were hearths in each of the rooms.

“Oh-h,”
Margisia thrilled, “Sapphira will be so happy here, Brother! Is this apartment not the most exquisite place you have ever seen?” And then she began to weep. “I shall miss my darling girl! I shall!”

“Be silent, Sister,” the duke growled at her. “Your daughter is not marrying. She is becoming a king’s mistress.”

“She will be his queen one day, Brother,” Margisia said indiscreetly.

The duke saw the castle steward stiffen with his outrage at his sister’s words, and was embarrassed for them both. “You have a serving woman for my niece?” he asked in an attempt to avoid future shame.

“I have chosen my own kinswoman, Tamary,” Britto replied. “She is a bit older than the lady Sapphira, and eminently sensible, my lord. She will take good care of your niece, and knows the castle well.”

“Thank you,” the duke said. Then he turned to his sister. “Are you satisfied now, Margisia?” he asked her.

“Only one servant?” his sister said in an unhappy voice. “How many did the queen have?” she wanted to know.

“One, my lady. Anke, by name,” Britto answered her in a tight voice.

“Oh,” Margisia responded. One servant seemed so mean, but she would tell her daughter, and there would be time to make changes once Sapphira was safely ensconced.

They returned to the guesthouse, and the duke was relieved that his sister and her daughter spent the entire afternoon together chattering, leaving him in peace. His niece bathed and prepared herself for two hours. Then at sunset a litter came to collect her. By prearrangement the duke and Margisia walked with the litter to the castle. Sapphira was escorted from her litter by a serving man to her apartments. She was surprised that the king had not come to greet her. Duke Tullio was not. She did not bid either her mother or her uncle farewell. Turning her back on them, she hurried off.

Margisia whimpered, the sound cut off by a sharp look from her brother.

“The king is waiting for you,” Britto said, and he led them from the courtyard to where Dillon awaited them in the little hall.

The king stepped down from the high board, and came to greet them. “Sapphira is now settled,” he said as if he had seen to it himself. “As we sent your vessel home when the Summer Court ended so there would be no gossip, I shall send you both back to Beldane now. Are you ready to go?”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Duke Tullio said.

“My daughter!” Margisia said. “Am I not to see my daughter before I go?”

“I was told you had already made your farewells, lady,” Dillon replied. “Sapphira is safe with me, and shall be well cared for, I promise you. And once she is well settled, perhaps you will return for a visit, if that would please you.”

“Aye,” Margisia said slowly.

“Then it shall be!” Dillon promised her. “Now stand next to one another.” And when they had the king silently said the spell that would transport the duke and his sister back to their own home in Beldane.
Tullio, Margisia, by name. Return now from whence you came.
And they were gone from the king’s hall instantly.

“Nicely done, my son,” Kaliq of the Shadows said, stepping forth from the darkness at the corner of the chamber. “You are eager to go to the girl.”

“Have you ever gone almost a full year without a woman, my lord?” Dillon asked his father sarcastically. “Do not, I beg you, judge me.”

Kaliq laughed heartily. “I do not think I have ever gone a day or two without a woman,” he admitted not in the least abashed by the revelation. “But bide with me for a few minutes more, and tell me of any progress you may have made.”

“None, so far. Agenor has divided the sea into sections, and each section is being searched carefully. So far there is nothing to report. He has not many Merfolk but he is doing his best with the few he has.”

Kaliq nodded. “I’ll not stay,” he said. “You should have a few days of privacy to enjoy your new playmate.”

“Do not tell Mother. She does not like Sapphira,” Dillon said.

“Lara is right in her dislike, but you are safe for now. In any event, I have no intention of venturing to Terah. Your mother stayed away too long last time, and Magnus Hauk was not happy when she returned. It has been years since Lara went off and left her family. He had forgotten his loneliness without her, for he loves her greatly.”

“So do you,” Dillon said softly.

“Ah, but your mother is not mine, though I wish it otherwise. For now I am content to amuse myself with other lovers. I am pleased to see you can do the same,” the great Shadow Prince said. “I know your heart is Cinnia’s, but you are the product of two magical beings. Your lusts run hot, and your juices have been bottled up for too long. Go and enjoy Sapphira of Beldane. Let her passions soothe your troubled spirit.”