Haven of Darkness

Chapter One

Delusia came unexpectedly so that she continued riding towards the north, forgetting the passage of time in the stimulating conversation with Charles. He looked well as he rode easily at her side, his clothes the same as she remembered him wearing when, shortly after they had first met, he had attended her on a hunt. The bag had been negligible; some vermin tossed aside on the homeward journey, but the pleasure had been great. They had wandered, hands touching, talking of a variety of things with a irresistible torrent of words. Normally shy she had found a release in his presence while he, perhaps amused at her young eager attention, had relaxed the guard he usually wore.

Now, riding close to her side, he was the same suave, charming man she had known when little more than a girl. A long time ago now and she had known him when he looked other than he did at the moment. There had been lines tracing the smooth curve of his cheek and a sagging of the flesh beneath the chin. The old, familiar manner had become crusted with accumulated layers of distrust and, when he had finally died, killed in some stupid quarrel, he had resembled an old and tired man rather than the youth she chose to remember.

"Charles!" She lifted her whip and pointed ahead to where a narrow cleft showed in the bleak wall of the Iron Mountains. "That gulley, you see it? The first to reach it claims a forfeit. Go!"

A childish game and one she hadn't played for years now and she had a moment's wonder as to why she should choose to play it now. A return to her youth, perhaps, her childhood? The fiction of a happier time? If so she knew better, for her childhood had not been happy and the things it contained were best forgotten.

Leaning forward, heels drumming, she concentrated on the race. Beneath her she could feel the surge and pulse of muscle as her mount sent iron-shod hooves against the bare rock of the foothills. In her nostrils she could smell the odors of sweat and hair, of leather and oil, catch too the sensual scent of the beast; a mare close to seasonal heat-had that scent triggered her own femininity?

The drumming of the hooves softened as they hit a film of drifted soil; grains carried by the winds and trapped in the shelter of the cleft. Dull echoes rose to be caught and reflected by the soaring walls of either side. Before them shadows lay dense, sombre banks of thickening darkness which hid what lay beyond and seemed to hide the hint of movement.

Abruptly the mare came to a halt, raring, forelegs rising, eyes rolling, foam dropping from bared teeth and muzzle. A move which almost threw her, would have thrown her had she not been about to check the forward motion of the animal.

"Steady, girl! Steady!"

Charles, of course, had vanished, but she thought nothing of him as she ran her hands over the head and muzzle of the frightened beast, soothing the animal with words and touch. And the mare had reason to be afraid. She had ridden too long and wandered too far and now it was dangerously close to night. Looking up she saw the edges of the gulley framing a strip of purple sky palely flecked with the ghosts of stars. The suns were invisible, coming into view only when she had left the mountains and begun the journey home.

They were lower than she had thought and she cursed the delusia which had robbed her of elementary caution. Already the day was dying, the light diffused, the air holding a metallic taint, but with luck, she decided, she could just about make it. If it hadn't been for the stupid race with Charles she would have had no doubt but now, literally, it was a matter of life and death.

"Go!" She snapped to the mare. "Run for your life now, girl. Run!"

She helped, easing the stirrups, loosening the reins, placing her weight so as to help and not to hamper the rhythm of the animal. There was little more she could do. To have halted and removed the saddle would have lost time and the saving of weight was not as important as it would seem. The beast was accustomed to the saddle and she was not skilled in bare-backed riding.

"Move, girl! Move!"

It was no time to be gentle. The spurs she wore more for decoration than for actual use dug into the heaving flanks, the sting of the whip accentuating their message of urgency. Beneath her she felt the animal bound, fresh life sent to tiring muscles, the stride lengthening a little now they had reached flatter ground. Behind them the bulk of the mountains began to shrink as the ground streamed past around and below. The speed of their passage created a wind which thrummed against her face and caught her hair, tearing it free from the golden clasps which held it, fanning the thick, black tresses and sending them to stream like a silken pennant from the rounded contour of her head.

"On!" she urged. "On, girl! On!"

The sound of her voice acted as had the whip and spurs. Foam flew from the muzzle and the lungs strained in the barrel of the chest. A machine, bred and trained for strength, speed and obedience, the animal raced through the thickening darkness towards the haven which alone could save it. On its back the woman, sensing its fear and terror, conscious of her own, bit at her lower lip until blood stained her chin, the gleaming white perfection of her teeth.

Ellman's Rest, a gnarled and oddly shaped mass of wood and stone, the great tree surrounded by the rock which it had shattered by the relentless fury of its growth, appeared on her right. Wisps of night-mist wreathed it, tattered veils which blurred detail so that for a moment she thought it was a creature of the unknown standing with outstretched arms to snatch her from the back of her mount, to crush her, to rend the limbs from her body and to tear free her internal organs. A moment of illusion, then the thing was behind and now only a few miles lay between her and the castle.

"We're winning," she said to the laboring animal. "Keep it up, girl. We're winning!"

The suns were behind her, the magenta and violet, their discs blended, now both below the horizon. Night was closing in, limiting her vision so that it was impossible to make out detail more than a few feet to either side, a little more ahead. Before her the trail wound like a snake, the narrow path curving between boulders, around looming mounds, straightening only to twist again. A bad road to take at speed even in the full light of day. One suicidal to attempt at a gallop on the edge of night.

"On, girl! On!"

The crest lay ahead, beyond it the curve, then the slope and, at last, a clear view of the castle. Once past the crest the road ran downhill and, beyond the curve, it was wide and evenly smooth. A place maintained for racing but never before had she raced with such determination to win. She would, she thought as they neared it, set a new record. Certainly it would be one which she never intended to break under similar circumstances.

Then, as something moved in the dimness, the animal shied.

There had been no warning, no intimation and, lulled by the nearing safety, she had relaxed a little. Too late she grabbed at the reins, felt the animal rear, and then was falling, hurtling through the air to land with a bone-jarring thud, her vision laced with darting flashes. As they cleared she rose and looked around. The animal had fallen and lay, screaming, on the dirt.

"It's hurt," said Charles. He stood at her side and looked at the stricken beast. "A broken leg, see?"

She didn't need the guidance of his pointing finger to discover the injury.

"Something frightened it. An animal of some kind crossing the trail." His voice was soft, even. "Nothing you need worry about. But the animal-you'll have to kill it."

The mare was young, healthy, a magnificent specimen of her species. She could be drugged, the leg mended with internal splints.

"You'll have to kill her," insisted Charles. "It's too dark to do anything else. You know that. You have no choice. At least be kind."

To the animal and then, perhaps, to herself. She looked around, shivering, feeling the skin crawl on her back and shoulders. The pull and drag of her loose tresses felt like hands tugging at her scalp. Their touch rasped dust and dirt over her tunic, little scraping sounds which, because near, rose above the screaming of the beast.

"Steady, girl!" She took small steps forward, talking, smiling as she spoke, one hand behind her, the fingers lifting the compact laser from her belt. "Steady, girl! Steady!"

The animal looked at her, eyes rolling, ears pricked, teeth bared in fright and pain. She stepped closer, kneeled beside the head, lifted the laser to rest its muzzle within the confines of an ear.

"Now," said Charles firmly. "Now!"

A click and it was done, the beam drilling through flesh and bone into the mass of the brain bringing quick and merciful peace.

Rising she looked down at the dead animal. It would be waiting for her and, should she follow it, they could ride again. As Charles would be waiting and so many others. A touch and it would be done.

"Lavinia! Lavinia, don't!"

She heard the shout and the thud of racing hooves, turned to see the dim figure in the dying light. Roland with a spare mount at his side.

"Up, girl!" he said urgently as he drew to a halt at her side. "Mount and ride!"

Delusia? The animals were real and Roland was alive as far as she knew. Quickly she mounted and felt the pound of hooves as the beast carried her down the road. Ahead loomed the bulk of the castle, the gates wide, closing as they rode past them, slamming shut as the great curfew-bell sent throbbing echoes into the air.

"My lady, you are safe!" Old Giacomo, his face creased and seamed like the skin of a dried fruit, helped her to dismount. "The Old Ones heard my prayers!"

"And mine, my lady." A younger man, his son, she thought, touched a finger to his brow with due respect for her rank. Already he had presumed too far. "I also begged for the Old Ones to protect you."

"And I, my lady! And I!"

A sussuration, a chorus of voices, muttering, blending into a drone, turning words into things without meaning. For a moment she swayed, seeing the great courtyard filled with a great assembly, the host dotted with familiar faces. Fan de Turah, Ser M'tolah, Chun Chue, Tianark L'ouck- uncles and cousins and forebears whose portraits now hung in the galleries. Nobles who had come to stay and fight and die for the Family. Strangers whom she had never known but who now filled her castle. Generations which had lived and died before her own parents had been conceived.

"Lavinia!" Roland was at her side, his hand on her arm, his face anxious. "My dear, are you ill?"

"No."

"You look so pale." Gently he pushed back the thick strands of hair which had fallen over her cheek. "And your tunic is soiled. Did you fall?"

"Yes." She anticipated his concern. "It was nothing. Some bruises, perhaps, but nothing more."

"Even so a physician should examine you. Tomorrow I will send for one or, better, accompany you into town."

"No!" Always the tone of authority irritated her and yet she realized her sharpness had been uncalled for. He meant well and, of them all, he alone had ridden out for her. "No, Roland," she said more gently. "I'm not hurt. A hot bath and some massage is all I need."

He said, stiffly, "As you wish, my lady. I have no right to order, and yet I think you are being unwise."

"My lady?" She smiled and shook her head. "Roland you are my cousin and my friend. What need of such stiff formality? And where would I be now if you had not come to rescue me?"

A question he chose not to answer. Instead, as they walked from the courtyard towards the inner chambers, he said, "You were late, Lavinia. I was worried. What happened? Delusia?"

"Yes." She threw back her hair as they entered the corridor leading to her apartment. "Charles came to ride with me. He looked as I remembered him when we first met. Do you remember?"

"I was off world at the time," he said. "A business trip to Olmeyha."

"But you remember Charles, surely?"

"Yes." He looked down at his hands. They were thin, the knuckles prominent, the fingers too long for perfect symmetry. Only the nails, carefully polished and filed, revealed the fastidiousness of his nature. "Yes," he said again. "I remember him."

"The way he talked," she mused. "He opened doors for me which I didn't even know existed. The things he had done and intended to do. Had he lived I think I would have shared them."

"As the consort of an aging degenerate?" His tone was sharp, savagely dry. "Charles was older than you suspected, Lavinia. You were young then, little more than a child, trusting, impressionable, a little-"

"Foolish?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you meant it." Anger glowed in her eyes and turned the dark orbs into pools of smouldering fire. "Is that what you think of me?"

"No. Lavinia, don't jump to conclusions."

"Young," she said. "Little more than a child. Trusting. Impressionable. Well, perhaps all that is true, even though I was more than a child. But foolish? No. Not unless it is foolish to ache to learn. Stupid to want to be a woman. Do you still think I was a fool?"

"To be charmed by Charles, yes." Stubbornly he refused to yield. "I knew him, perhaps not too well, but better than you did. He was a lecher, a gambler, a degenerate. Think, girl, it was written on his face. You saw him at the last."

"He'd been ill!"

"Yes." Roland looked again at his hands. "Yes, he'd been ill."

Wasting from the effects of a corrosive poison fed to him by an outraged husband, but what need to explain that? The girl was enamored of a dream, the slave to memory.

She said, gently, "Roland, my friend, we have been quarreling and that is wrong. I owe you my life. Between us should be nothing but harmony. If I have offended you I beg your forgiveness. You will give it?"

He took her extended hands into his own, feeling their soft firmness, their grace, their warmth. Tilting his head he looked into her eyes, deep-set under high-arched brows, studying the glow of light reflected from her cheekbones, the line of her jaw. The mouth was full, the lower lip, swollen from the impact of her teeth, a ruby pout. Her ears were small and tight against the curve of her skull. The hair, disheveled now, was an ebon mane streaked with a band of silver.

"My lady!" He stooped so as to hide the worship in his eyes.

"Roland!" Her hands freed themselves from his grasp, one touching his hair, running over the thinning strands. "My friend! My very good friend!"

"Lavinia!"

"I must bathe and change." She turned from him, seeing a figure standing beside her door, waiting. "We shall meet again at dinner. And, Roland, once again my thanks."

Charles accompanied her through the portal and stood watching as she stripped. The bath was hot, the scented water easing aches and pains, a cloud of steam rising to dim the lines of the chamber, the figure of her maid.

"A dreadful thing, my lady," she said. She had heard the news as servants always did. Often Lavinia had wondered just how they knew all that was going on. "To think of you being shut outside! Lord Acrae insisted the curfew shouldn't be rung until he'd brought you safe inside and he set men to enforce his orders. But what if something had happened, my lady? Suppose his mount had fallen? What if night had fallen before you were back inside?"

"If you had wings, girl, you'd be a bird."

"My lady?"

"Forget it." It was cruel to talk in ways the girl couldn't understand. "True night falls when the curfew is sounded," she explained. "Or, to put it another way, only when the curfew bell is rung has true night fallen. Do you understand?"

"I–I think so, my lady."

She didn't and Lavinia waved her away. She was too ignorant to understand the subtle difference between night falling and a bell sounding the falling of night. A bell could be delayed and Roland had done just that. He had been shrewder than she'd known. The difference could only have been in minutes, perhaps, but those minutes would or could have made all the difference. At least the Pact had not been obviously flaunted and the Sungari had no grounds for complaint.

"Charles?" She looked through the drifting steam but the figure had vanished. Delusia had passed. It would return but she missed him.

Would they have married had he lived?

Lying in the steaming, scented water she ran her hands over the curves and silken skin of her body. It was a good one, she knew, even though not as young as once it had been. The time for marriage had come and gone with her father failing in his duty, her uncle more concerned with his own affairs, her mother turning to the past and finally swallowing poison to be with the object of an early passion.

Alone she had worked to maintain the Family estates, the castle, the house in town. Retainers needed money for food and clothing, dowries had to be provided for the female servants, homes and work for the men. Some of the young had become restless and had left to move on and try their luck on other worlds. There had been friction with the Sungari, the Pact barely maintained and lost crops had created hardship. And now Lord Gydapen was turning difficult.

"My lady?" The maid was at the edge of the bath. "Are you ready for your massage now?"

"Later."

"But soon it will be time for dinner and your hair needs to be dressed and-"

"Later." Lavinia stretched, guessing the girl had a lover waiting, not caring if she had. Let the fellow wait, he would appreciate the girl all the more for having his pleasure delayed. And he, the girl also, must learn that, above all, her wishes were paramount. "Later, I said. Argue and I'll have you whipped!"

It was harder to relax this time, the irritation lingered. Gydapen and the irritation, a good combination, one giving rise to the other. Perhaps she should encourage his attentions? His estates were to the south, rich lands providing a fat harvest, a gain for her and food for her people. A marriage would be politically wise if otherwise distasteful. Rich he might be but Gydapen was lacking in certain attributes which would have claimed her attention. His height for one; how could she bear to look down on her consort? His girth could be lessened and his age was no real handicap; the extra years would hasten his natural end. Love, of course, did not enter into it.

Could she bear to marry without love? To allow a man to touch her body as she touched it now? To use her, to breed children in her belly, to make her a thing of his own?

She knew the answer even as she turned in the water, restless, conscious of her needs, the demands of her flesh aroused by the thoughts of desire. If a sacrifice had to be made for the Family then she would make it. If Gydapen could provide peace and security and demanded her body as the price then she would pay it.

But it would be nice to marry for love.

Lying in the water, eyes half-closed, drifting in an ocean of erotic fantasies, she thought about it. A man who would come into her life as Charles had done, sweeping her off her feet, overwhelming her with his masculinity. A man of culture and sophistication, gentle and yet knowing when to be cruel, masterful and yet knowing when to yield. A man she could trust to stand at her side. A father for her children. A lover to be enjoyed.

A dream to be enjoyed as the bath was to be enjoyed. A self-indulgence which must remain limited to a brief duration. Her maid could hope for such a man, every servant in the castle, every daughter of a minor noble, but she stood alone. And, even if she was free to choose, where on all Zakym could such a man be found?