A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 11

"Now see how it is," she said drearily. "Vadya will not speak to me. He gave me such a look the other day when he came in the sitting-room and found me there with his father. We were not playing cards, just talking. I thought he would come and talk to us but he went straight out again."

Arianna looked away from the castle which she had been contemplating without really seeing. "He is confused," she said in a firm warm voice. "When he has time to think things over, he will love you again. Vadya el Gaiel is not a stupid man, I have so much enjoyed talking with him, my darling. He is well worthy the affection has't always had for him. He knows it is not your fault that he was betrothed to you. He knows it is not fair-minded to say shoulds't not be a soldier just because ar't a woman. Give him some time, he will come to you and be your friend again." She sighed and looked back at the castle with a mournful shade in her eyes.

"He ... he looks on me with eyes!" Tashka said in an anxious angry voice. "He ... he tried to kiss me. Vadya, who has offered to hang men who did the same."

"He did try to kiss you?" Arianna said in surprise. "That is how gots't that cut on your lip?"

Tashka burst out laughing again, saying, "no! he never bit my lip, an el Gaiel van H'las! Their reputation is not for wild lovers. He tried to give me the glove because he kissed me and I ... pushed him away. He looks on me with eyes. He said he felt like it before he found I was a woman. Angels' sake! My senior officer!"

Arianna sighed and generously let go the hope of more details on why Tashka sniggered with pleasure to remember one night with a mere Captain from Thiel. She turned to the young officer whose friendship had become so dear to her although on the face of it there could not have been a woman more different to herself. "I realise it is a serious crime for a senior and a junior officer to have an affair," she said. "I suppose it is like when an high aristocrat loves a servant, how cans't be sure there has been no coercion. However I know ... there have been cases. Your mother's affair, Tashka, there was no coercion in that was there?" Tashka looked off to the side at this, her mouth twisting up, Arianna continued determinedly, "and here in Sietter ... A Commander and a Captain who are more like equals might be lovers. The Generals might let it pass, is it not?" Arianna looked intently at the back of Tashka's dark-haired head which continued to be turned to the side, away from her.

Behind them, their two horses stirred, blowing at each other. The dawn breeze made a wispy curl of Arianna's hair that had slipped out of her plait sway against her soft pink cheek. Tashka looked down the hillside and saw a tiny figure stirring in First H'las' camp, taking bowls of tea and hunks of bread around the night sentries who would soon come off duty. She bent her knees up and rested her chin on them.

Arianna pulled up a blade of grass and examined it closely, pulled it between her long pale fingers and blinked slow tears away from her blue eyes.

"Anna," Tashka said suddenly. "If ... if I ever have a child, can I come home to you to have the thing here?"

Her sister by marriage lifted her fair head with the dark blue hat on, a tear still glistening in her eye, and smiled at the anxious lean face turned to her in the pastel shaded dawn. "I know does't not like to think of carrying a child," she said tenderly, "but it can be a great joy to do so, especially ... I suppose, for a man holdes't in love." Then she became concerned. "Is it likely? Ar't with child?"

"Angels! no," Tashka lay down curled up with her head pillowed on her arm. "I just ... wanted to know. In case," she blushed.

"Oh?" Arianna said, leaning close to her and tickling her face with the grass blade. "Shall't permit Vadya el Gaiel to lie in you naked if he ask it of you?" She blushed as she said it and sniggered, adding: "Only for the sake of the succession in H'las of course!"

"Anna! Vadya is my senior officer!" Tashka protested, giggling and brushing the grass blade aside but her blue eyes were thoughtful and she fingered the healed cut in her lip with a regretful pout.

"He has a fine figure," Arianna said, sitting up and carefully not looking in Tashka's face. "He has those lovely broad shoulders. He has slim hips, his legs are nice, he looks good wearing hose when it is easy to see that he has a big ... muscle."

Tashka's eyes bulged. "Anna!" she exclaimed, wriggling in the grass.

"He has nice hands," Arianna continued. "They are big too. Those truly are sweet big ... muscles he has. I will wager he is a gentle lover, his eyes are gentle but he is strong, he looks well fit, mm-mm! I suppose he does a lot of wrestling? Musts't have enjoyed the wrestling with him, especially when pressing on his big ... muscles."

"Prithou!" Tashka squealed. "Anna, shut it! That is my ... betrothed you are speaking of!"

They looked at each other. Tashka had her hands over her mouth, her eyes were staring with laughter over them. Arianna was grinning mischievously. They fell back in the grass beside each other and giggled till they were nearly crying with laughter, the rising sun washed suddenly over their wriggling bodies and sparkled in the dewy grass all around them.

Arianna rolled over and poked Tashka in the stomach and said: "Tashka, come on, tell me about your first lover?" Tashka grinned, sitting up and sniggering. "He was experienced and he taught you how to make love?"

"A bit," Tashka said with another snigger. Arianna's eyes crumpled in a frown, Tashka said: "Well, Lady el Jien, there are many men willing to help you practise and learn if you wish it, is it not so?"

"Must one learn?" Arianna asked thoughtfully.

"What!" Tashka said, "you were born the most accomplished harlot that the Angels created, is it?"

Arianna turned an amused blue look at Tashka and shrugged one shoulder. "Does one not ... naturally," her voice trailed away. She looked back down the hillside at the castle.

"Of course," Tashka answered lazily, putting her arms behind her and leaning back on them, "but there are some things it is fun to learn."

"Like what?" Arianna asked. Tashka was still sniggering and wriggling at Arianna's description of her commanding officer's endowment. "Why should anyone want to teach me," Arianna added. "When they can go with some pink-fingered Lady and have all that ... fun without troubling."

"Oho!" Tashka cried, sitting up again. "Do you ask it? You as lovely as a summer dawn and el Parva writ you hundreds of lines of poetry and the duels that have been fought over your honour!"

Arianna looked annoyed. "Duelling is wrong!" She snapped. "What craziness, for a man to risk his life because some other man said a few silly careless words ..."

"Give me peace!" Tashka interrupted. "We have promised not to quarrel about duelling. As you love me, do not give me grief about duelling." Her warm slanted blue eyes looked affectionately into Arianna's round eyes, she put her scarred fingers out to hold Arianna's hand.

Arianna nodded, biting her full red lip. After a while she said: "Tashka, men have tried ... to take your favours by force, is it not? How cans't enjoy to lie with a man when has't suffered that?"

"Gracious Heaven!" Tashka exclaimed. "What do the two have in common? Truly, I would not seek to lose the memory of an attempted rape in love-making but because some men are scum I will not forswear the pleasure of a man's body when I have freely chosen him. I am not such a poor victim, on any road. I can be confident of fighting off any man who tries to take my favours without my consent. It is not so bad for me as it is for Clair."

"Clair?" Arianna said, turning to Tashka in puzzlement. The sunlight fell in a golden haze through wisps of hair sticking out around her face.

Tashka raised an eyebrow at her. "Of course Clair has trouble," she said in her husky voice that was so like his. "What, you think men smell I am a woman and jump me for that? Clair and I look the same, we are too pretty and we look as if we could not defend ourselves. I am a better swordsman than Clair so he has more trouble than me. And there was that time someone took him sleeping, he has never been quite easy since then."

Arianna stared, her brows were wrinkled in a tense frown of astonishment and pity, her usually bland fair face was full of what she felt to hear this of her own husband. "Someone took him while he was sleeping?" she repeated incredulously. "He has never said any thing of it!"

"What, do you expect him to make it the subject of idle conversation?" Tashka laughed. "He had rather forget it of course. But he is still sometimes scared in the nights. What for do you think I killed that evil scum Darien? I would do it again, for what he did to Clair back in the encampment while we were all out in the tavern. Bloody scum! He could not be hung immediately because Clair could barely talk when Commander-Sir Stariel tried to ask him of it. One of that scum's scum friends lied for him and said he was with him so Stariel said we would wait till Clair was clearer in his mind and then hang him. But I knew and I gave him my glove."

"But," Arianna said with a frown, "was this when Clair was a Captain?"

"No no," Tashka replied. "He was a Lieutenant."

"But how old were you?" Arianna asked, staring into her face with wide round eyes.

Tashka hesitated then lifted her slanted blue eyes to her sister by marriage's blue eyes. "It was my first duel," she said. "I was fifteen." Her eyes slid aside and her face slid into a vicious snarl that Arianna stared at in astonishment. "That bloody dog," her voice was a low growl in the back of her throat. "He thought he would wipe out the stain in my blood and escape the hanging too but I proved him wrong!" Tashka's rose-petal mouth was suddenly distorted by a lupine smile that turned her eyes as hard as jewels. The light laughing wit, the warm generous heart, the sweet sympathetic temper that had meant Arianna had found at least one heart's companion in her marital family seemed to dissipate like mist from the diamond-hard code of honour at the core of Tashka's being. "I killed him like an animal," Tashka said. "He well deserved it! and I made his brother cry on the Angel of Mercy when the brother came looking for vengeance." Then Tashka shook her head and that extraordinary wolf's smile seemed to fall from her mouth, leaving her usual smiling rose-petal pout slightly distorted by the healed cut in her lip.

Arianna stared at her sister by marriage who was now contentedly drinking hot chocolate as if she had just been describing some new silk she had chosen for a suit. She thought of how Clair must have felt at that time, raped in the middle of his troop. If ever there was a reason to fight a duel, this might be one. But she thought of Tashka's pretty loving features distorted by the jewel-bright joy that had shone in her eyes when she spoke of killing another human being like an animal. She did not want to know what that might mean. She looked away down at the castle, her fair face pensive in the warm sunshine that washed over her. She thought about her husband and how he had been with her and some things she had always blamed herself for were suddenly clearer to her. Her full mouth pouted with regret.

"Does that give you to think so much?" Tashka asked. "Surely you must have known. You have to wake him firmly not gently so he knows he is not back in the tent with that scum holding a dagger to his throat. Surely you knew that?"

Arianna shook her head softly. "I ... no longer wake Clair in the night," she pointed out. She looked down at her hands with the wedding and betrothal rings on her left, lying quietly in her lap.

"Anna," Tashka sat up in the sunshine and reached out to clasp Arianna's arm with one lean tanned hand. "You have never blamed me for it, you have forgiven me? that I persuaded you to stay with him after ... the war."

Arianna looked back into Tashka's anxious face with surprised round blue eyes. She smiled. "Were't so kind to me," she said. "As soon as heards't Clair had married me and brought me here cames't direct from Vail even though Clair had gone straight back to the battlefront and Pava ... must have been angry. I was not sure what to think of it when my brother by marriage first came to see me! Does't remember? I started back from your kiss but calleds't me 'Anna' and insisted we must be friends. Has't been my friend ever since. As soon as heards't I was of a ... bookish mind, tooks't me to Master Inien's shop where I have had an huge account ever since. I was, Tashka, I was the happiest I have ever been, alone here with my new books, able to do whatsoever I pleased. There was no Prianne nor old nursery-maid nor stupid governess to scold me and say sums, er, I mean books are not Ladylike. The castle servants were always kind to me. I could ride out in the hills whenever I pleased. Because of the war they made me take two-three guards but they did not chatter and distract me. I could eat as we did, comfortably in the sitting-room. I was scared at first to do the wrong thing, I thought I had to eat always on high table - alone!" She broke into a peal of laughter ringing like golden bells in Tashka's pleased ears, to remember that painfully shy young woman who had been frightened in case she behaved improperly - towards her own servants. "But you, scallywag, tolds't me: The Lady wife may do whatsoever she wishes."

"But," Tashka scowled, "I did feel badly for it, Anna, after the war, when you were so kind to Clair and he only went back to court and ... and gave you the go-by."

"I know," she said, laying a gentle hand on Tashka's arm. "My sweet brother, musts't not blame yourself. I would not have stayed for all your persuading if I had not wanted to."

"You wanted to stay?" Tashka leant to look into Arianna's fair face, Arianna turned her face downwards, looking at the grass between them but she did not lift her hand from Tashka's hand gently gripping her arm. "Why would you want to stay with Clair?" Tashka's voice became lower, huskier, although there was no one within a mile to hear them. "You had even gone to his bed. I thought you would make a marriage but then he went to court where his bed was never empty of some sugarplum who had ensnared him at a party. What happened?" Arianna's head remained turned down to look at the grass in the sunshine. Behind them the horses cropped the grass with little tearing sounds and Imp lay with his eyes half-closed, curled in a ball. "Do you love Clair at all?"

Arianna lifted her head and her blue eyes looked into Tashka's with the bland expression which hid her feelings like a veil suddenly torn away. Her whole pale face was flushed with emotion, her eyes sparkled with it.

"He is so beautiful!" she said in a hoarse voice as unlike her usual calm level tones as Tashka had ever heard. "Angels! He is beautiful to die for. The look of his eye and the turn of his head, those legs and the way he walks. When I was young, I thought I would marry Pava. I was happy to think I would marry Pava. Then my brother came to me to say I must take someone for the sake of the region. I resigned myself. I thought I would be marrying ... There was talk of marrying me to van Sietter himself." Tashka gave an exclamation of disgust and outrage. "Now that I know him I cannot imagine ... Yet I resigned myself. When I went to court to be bestowed on Clair I was only thankful to get someone more my age, I thought we might be friends. The first time I saw him was in a room at court, full of other people: my brothers and sister, my mother, van Sietter, other Lords and Ladies. He was so beautiful in his red silk parade uniform that it made my heart melt, I could not bear them all to see how passionate he made me feel.

"But he was only cold and angry at that meeting. Our wedding he was the same and he did not even come to me that night. Then I saw him; I saw him with ... I knew I would not have his heart. He told me he must go back to war." Arianna's head stooped down, her eyes filled with tears that slid down her nose.

Tashka shuffled over to her in the grass and put a strong arm around her shoulders.

"My heart felt as if it were in three pieces," Arianna sobbed. "One belonged to Pava because I was always fond of him, he is ... so sweet at heart. One part was Clair's because he is my husband and he is so beautiful! I ... I wanted him. What is there wrong with that? He is my married husband. There is something, he walks as if he knows life all around him, like he is swimming in it, swimming in life itself. When he laughs, or looks at fields or valleys or rivers - never mind if it is sunny or the rain is falling, he loves it whatever. Even when he just walks through the castle, he opens your eyes to the beauties of the world in which lives't, it is as if he bestows on you the favours of the world just because cans't stand by him and look like he looks at life.

"Yet although I gave up my sweetheart for him, he would not give up his for me. I pretended I wanted only a friendship with him but when it comes to it, I feel so angry. It is so easy for any other to catch his kiss but not for me."

Tashka hesitated, hugging her arm around Arianna's shoulders, before saying, "you must have had his kiss, Anna. You bore him the child."

Arianna looked away down at the castle with the tears running down her face. "I pretended to go to him for the succession," she sobbed, "and for him that was all it was. I have never had his kiss!" She cried heartbroken tears in Tashka's arms and when Tashka tried to ask more she shook her head. She could not bear to speak of it: the shame of going to her own husband in the night, having to dismiss the servants who were sleeping in his room at that time so that they all knew what was about. She had tried to wake him gently and had thought the look of horror on his face when he started awake was at the sight of her. Only now did she understand that if he was woken gently, he woke into the memory of being raped. No wonder then that even when he realised who she was, he took her without compassion or tenderness, in a resigned anger. In her desperation she had accepted it but she came to realise it was worse than the uneasy sexless partnership in which they quarrelled so she accepted that instead. Even now he must be sleeping in that roll of trooper's bedding in their castle home - a roll of bedding so narrow that after he had done with her what she was asking of him there was no room for them to lie together and he got up and walked away from his own bed. The most desirable man at court and she was nothing to him but the mother of his child, she sobbed desperately in Tashka's arms to admit it to herself.

"I wish I had been bestowed on anyone but him," she sobbed. "It is torture! to be bestowed in marriage and cleave to the marriage only for the sake of the regions and my child, when I long to cleave to him for his body and his heart. Oh-h, there is no hope, none. He can have the pick of the pink-fingered set, he comes home only for the children, I know it!"

"Shut it and stop being a bird-brain," Tashka admonished in an unexpectedly harsh voice. She gave Arianna's shoulders a hard squeeze, obliging her to sit up and stop sliding into self-pity. "He cares nothing for any one-day-one-night he has collected ... well, apart from ... and that is over with although they are still friends, but it was completely outwith the bounds of decency. You know that, do you not? He was a mad fool to run away from you but you knew he had gone mad with grief; it was not you. He would have run from the Angel of Virtue at that time if he had been offered any tender love. He is better in his mind now and if you want him, you have a chance at it - why not, you are his Lady wife. He has always had an eye over your honour, y'know."