Lara (21 page)

“What is the matter, Lara?” Og demanded, seeing her lovely face with its tearstains. “What has happened to make you weep? Faeries rarely weep.”

She told him, the tears coming again, and to her surprise he lifted her up, and cradled her against his shoulder. It was an incredibly comforting gesture, and leaning her golden head against the giant’s shoulder seemed to renew her strength. “You can put me down now,” she said finally, and he gently set her on the floor.

“How typical of Enda,” he said scornfully, “to go off without telling you his brother would come to your bed. He is the more beautiful of the two, but he has less character. They are unique, you know, for they share not only a father, but the same mother as well. Before Durga was weaned from her teat and given to the lady Ida, the slave who bore Durga managed to lure his father into her bed again, and conceived Enda. I think she had discovered what was happening, and tried to save herself that way. Of course, they killed her after Enda was weaned. Her master never visited her bed after Enda was born.”

“Poor girl,” Lara sympathized, “but for Enda to go off and not tell me what to expect was more than unkind. It was cruel!”

“It was,” the giant agreed, “but typical. Enda is a beautiful weakling. Durga is a crude fellow, but he is proud of his family, and desperate to maintain the fiction of their heritage. For centuries, each of the clans in the Forest have only intermarried with one other family. The bloodlines have never varied. They were becoming very inbred, and in a way, Maeve actually did them a kindness. But Durga and his generation have only a quarter pure Forest blood in them. Their children will have less. They know it, and fear if their secret is revealed they will be considered weak enough to be attacked. Still they maintain the old ways, and keep to their traditions and customs. But times change, Lara, and nothing remains the same forever, even if we might wish it so,” Og said. “I had thought you would be given more time, but Durga has always been an impatient man. You must escape the Forest, and very soon, I think.”

“I will be considered a runaway slave,” Lara said.

“Nay, for the law gives you some small protection. Once you have crossed the border into another province without being caught, and can live free for a year and a day, you are legally free, Lara. The only place to which you may not return in safety is the Forest or the City. But live free a year, and you can return to the City.”

“But if I cannot return to the City now, where can I go?” she queried him.

“Ask Ethne,” he told her with a smile. “She is your guardian and your guide. Now, you must bathe before they wonder why you are gone so long,” the giant said with a smile. “Ethne will have some of the answers that you seek, Lara.”

“Ethne once told me I should find a good friend here in the Forest. I believe that friend is you, Og. You must come with me. I cannot go without you.”

“I have often thought of travel,” Og said. “I am told there are other races of giants on Hetar, but I have always been afraid to probe my memory too deeply for fear of what I would find. Perhaps now I should. I owe the Forest Lords nothing.”

“We must make a plan,” Lara said.

“The best plans are those carefully considered,” he advised her. “I know what you must bear now can only be difficult, but if we are hasty, we could fail, and that would be far worse.”

Og was right, of course, and Lara knew it. And now that Durga was certain that he could satisfy himself on her body at will, Durga came only in the night to grunt and strain over Lara. But her life grew no easier. Enda’s bride, Tira, was open in her hatred. Truda, her belly growing larger by the day, could scarce contain her jealousy. Even the soft-spoken Sita avoided her unless there was no other choice.

Enda returned from his hunt six days later. He brought a great deal of game with him, and was welcomed joyously. Now the hall’s larder was full for the long winter ahead. Lara was mending a piece of clothing when he swaggered into her chamber and, sweeping her into his arms, kissed her heartily.

“Did you miss me?” he demanded with a boyish grin.

“I had no time with your brother between my legs every night,” she returned angrily. “You could have told me, my lord!”

“But you knew he would come eventually.” He attempted to excuse himself. “He owns you, too. I thought it a good opportunity as I had to be away, and his woman has a big belly now. Did you please him?”

“He thinks your seed too weak,” Lara said cruelly. “He says you have rendered it impotent running between your wife and me, which is why I remain barren while Truda burgeons with his offspring.” She smiled, but it was a cold smile.

He slapped her hard, and Lara’s head snapped back. “Be careful, faerie girl,” he warned her. “If you do not continue to please me you could become a Pleasure Woman in the hall, servicing any man who desires you.”

“It would be a most generous gesture, my lord, considering the price you and your brother paid for me. More than generous,” Lara said, ignoring the stinging in her cheek. “You would probably do better to sell me and recoup some of your loss.”

“Never!” he snarled. “You will continue to be seeded by both my brother and me until you produce the child we desire of you, or I will kill you with my own two hands. I will share you with my brother, but no other, Lara.”

Lara said nothing more on the subject, nor did she bait him again; but turning away from him, she concentrated on her sewing once more. Enda slammed from the room angrily, and she did not see him again until the evening meal. He came into the hall arguing with his wife, and Tira, spying her rival, gave a shriek of outrage.

“You went to her first! I am your wife, but you went to the Pleasure Woman first! I will not stand for it! I will not! How dare she come into the hall when I am here?”

“Be silent, Tira, you do not understand,” Enda said.

“No, I do not! I want my own hall, and when I have it I will allow none of your Pleasure Women in it. My sister may put up with it from your brother, but I am not Sita!”

Lara gathered up her food and quickly exited the hall. Obviously Enda’s wife was not aware of the situation regarding the Forest Lords. Until she understood, she would accept no child of another woman. Behind her, Lara heard Tira cry out in pain, and the slap of flesh against flesh. Tira was being beaten for her rebellion. Poor girl, Lara thought. But even she knew enough not to argue with a man in a public forum.

Each night from then on both Durga and Enda came to Lara’s bed. The two men took turns using her until they all would finally fall asleep. At first she hated them, until the night she realized that they bored her in their competition to get her with child. After that she lay placidly thinking of her escape, moaning now and again, thrusting up to meet their downward rhythm, and they were content with her.

The Winterfest was coming, but there had been no snows yet. A Winterfest without snow was unusual, but they prepared for it anyway. Og had reasoned that the night of Winterfest would be a good time to make their escape. Durga and Enda would be celebrating with their wives, as Winterfest was considered a prime occasion for conjugal bliss. They had already told Lara she would be left alone, and should seize the opportunity for rest. She thanked them, and wished them good fortune with their wives that night.

“If one of your men should come to my chambers, shall I allow them in?” she asked innocently.

“No!” Both Durga and Enda spoke with one voice. It would be unthinkable if Lara was successfully seeded by one of their clansmen when she had not been seeded by one of them. “And all will be told you are off-limits to them. You are to rest. The winters in the Forest are long, and we will want you to ourselves,” Durga said.

Lara gave them a smile. “I am grateful for your kindness, my lords.”

“At least there is no snow on the ground now to show the direction in which we go,” Og told Lara. “I will carry you so we may make better time. You are lighter than a feather, my faerie friend.”

“Where will we go?” she asked him.

“I am not certain yet. There are faeries yet in the Forest, although I am not certain where. But perhaps it would not be wise to seek them out. We could flee to the Midlands, but then we are caught between there and the City, where you could be reclaimed by the Forest Lords. I think we have but two choices. We must either go into the Desert realm of the Shadow Princes, or into the Outlands. Perhaps Ethne will advise us if you ask her.”

“My father used to tell me that the Outlands are a dangerous place, filled with war and tribal rivalries. The Outlanders are not civilized at all. I will ask Ethne, but I think we must go into the Desert. I am sure we can find shelter and work. You are strong, and I can earn my bread with my sewing. We will survive, Og.”

“Lara, you are far too beautiful to go unnoticed. You will not have to survive as a seamstress. One of the princes is certain to favor you, and want you for his lover.”

“I will never be a slave again!” Lara said fiercely.

“The women who give pleasure to the Shadow Princes are all free,” he told her. “The Shadow Princes want no woman who does not come to their arms willingly.”

“How do you know this?” she asked.

“My people have traveled Hetar for centuries, and learned many things. I have known them all since my first moments in my mother’s womb,” he explained. “We have nothing to fear from the Desert peoples, Lara.”

“How do they live there?” she said.

“T
HE
COMMON
FOLK
LIVE
in tents, and travel the surface of the Desert trading with the caravans that pass through. The Shadow Princes live in great palaces carved from the tall Desert rocks. They raise horses.”

“How will we cross the border without being caught?” she wondered.

“The road is not the only place to cross the border,” he told her with a wink.

T
HE
HALL
of the Head Forester was decorated for Winterfest with pine branches and holly. Outside in the clan villages, great piles of wood were raised for the bonfires that would be lit at the exact moment of sunset. The fires would burn high and strong until the dawn, when they would be extinguished with the sunrise. There would be feasting, dancing and drinking the night through. Songs of the old days would be sung, and scarce a girl of marriageable age would be left untouched. For a full week before, the women in the hall cooked and prepared for Winterfest.

Og revealed to Lara their method of escape on the day the Winterfest dawned. “You must not go through the hall tonight, for you must not be seen at all,” he said. “You are slender enough to get through the window in your bedchamber. Climb onto the great tree branch outside of that window. I will guide you to the branch below from where I may pluck you down. I will put you into a pouch on my back, where you will be safe and hidden. No one will pay a great deal of attention to me, if indeed they even notice me in all the celebration. With my long stride we can be over the border before moonset. Dress warmly, and eat as much as you dare without attracting attention,” he advised her.

Durga came to Lara’s chamber in early afternoon, but he had not come to couple with her. Neither he nor Enda would touch her until Winterfest was over and done. By ancient tradition, husbands seeded only their wives during Winterfest, and among the Forest clans tradition was always observed. The Head Forester had come to tell Lara to bar her door from her side of the chamber. “I will bar it from the outside as well. It will not be opened until tomorrow, when I come to tell you that I have unbarred my side,” he said. “Go to the hall now before sunset, and fetch the food and drink you will need, faerie girl. I likely will not come until midday tomorrow, as I will eat and drink well tonight—and of course, seed my wife as much as I can, which I think you know will be many times.” He leered at her wickedly. Then giving her a hearty kiss and smacking her bottom, he went off laughing.

She did not see Enda, to her relief, when she went out to fetch her food and drink for the next day. Lara filled her tray with as much as she dared, knowing she could claim Durga had told her to as she must remain in her chambers. Placing the food in her day room she returned to the hall, seeking out Sita to ask if there was any mending she might do while she remained locked away.

“You must not work during Winterfest,” Sita said quietly. “Tradition dictates it is a time of celebration. You look tired, faerie girl. Eat and rest, for the winter will be particularly long for you until you bloom with a child.” She appeared almost sympathetic, Lara thought.

“Thank you, lady, for your kindness,” Lara told her. “And I wish you a joyous Winterfest.” She gave Durga’s wife a small smile and then returned to her own quarters.

Darkness fell quickly that day, and the moon would not rise until late. From her windows through the bare branches Lara watched the red-gold sunset, and then the fires began to spring up as if the light had been transferred. Soon Lara could hear the singing and carousing from both Durga’s hall and the village below. She ate what she could, and wrapped bread, cheese, apples and pears in a napkin which she tied up carefully. Next she transferred the wine from her carafe into a water skin that Og had given her. She dressed herself in all three of her chemises and gowns, tucking her pearwood brush into the pocket of her cloak, which lay across the foot of the bed. As an afterthought she added her sewing implements. Then she lay down to rest, and slept for several hours until she was awakened by the sound of pebbles being thrown at her window. Rising, she went to the window and opened it.