WINDKEEPER (57 page)

"Come on, little brother," Legion answered. "Let’s get you out of this tunic before your new mother-in-law soaks it with you in it!"

* * *

Medea jumped as a resounding crash, followed by an equally resounding curse, accompanied the shutting of the bedchamber door. The tinkle of breaking glass made the Queen bolt the door into the bathing chamber.

"Your new husband will have a lot to answer for, daughter," she snapped as she turned the young woman around to unbutton her bridal gown.

"I wonder what they’re doing to him," Anya said, worried, as another expressive curse echoed through the door.

"Probably mauling him," Medea tittered, "and with good cause."

* * *

A wildly struggling young Prince was trying his best to knock away the hands that seemed to be all over him. As Teal and Legion pushed and pulled him this way and that in their effort to undress them, he fought as best he could in his drunken state.

"Sit on him," Legion demanded as Teal scampered up to straddle Conar’s rear end and leaned forward to pin the Prince’s arms to the bed. "If I lay hands to the little bastard again, I’ll break his neck. You get the gods-be-damned robe on him," Legion hissed as he kicked Conar’s boot across the room.

"Just stay calm," Teal cautioned.

"Aye, A’Lex!" Conar snorted. "Stay as calm as your mama did while Papa was poking her!"

"That’s enough!" Legion snatched Conar’s robe, shoved Teal out of the way, flipped his brother over, and yanked the robe on him before Conar could react. He would have throttled Conar if the door to the bathing chamber had not opened and Queen Medea stepped out.

"Is he dressed?" she inquired, one fine brow raised in silent disgust.

"Almost, Highness," Teal answered as he battled with Conar to belt the silk robe around his nude body, but Conar was repeatedly knocking away Teal’s hands, giggling the entire time. "Will you stand still?" Teal asked with rancor and looked to Legion for help.

"I’m not going to touch the little bastard again!" Legion snarled.

"I’m no bastard, you unwanted piece of shit!" Conar snapped. "You’re the bastard, one among many my father got off one of his whores!"

Conar was so drunk he didn’t see the look of intense hurt cross his brother’s startled face. Not once in his entire life had Conar ever said such a thing to Legion. He had taken great pains not to, even when they were little and fighting and name-calling as brothers will. The humiliated look on Legion’s face didn’t register, nor did the deep wounded pride in the older man’s eyes.

"He doesn’t know what he’s saying, Legion," Teal defended.

"Oh, but he does," was the stiff reply. "He knows perfectly well what he’s saying."

"And he will apologize for having said it," the Princess said as she came into the room behind her mother.

Both men looked to her and stilled. She was gowned in a pale peach silk shift that accentuated the lush curves her bridal gown had only hinted at. Her face was hidden behind a matching net of thick gauze, but her hair now hung free and it was as blue-black as her mother’s and hung well past her waist. Her tiny feet were bare, the delicate toes peeking from beneath the gown.

A faint scent of lavender drifted from her and, as she put out a slim arm to show her mother the broken pier glass in the corner, neither man could see what difference it would make if her face was the ugliest in the land. Her body certainly wasn’t.

"How did that happen?" Medea asked, frowning at the broken glass.

"He stumbled into it," Legion answered.

"Didn’t like the gods-be-damned thing, anyway," Conar mumbled as he fumbled with the belt of his robe. Not looking at the others, he continued to mumble. "Don’t like The Toad, either; nor her dam; nor A’Lex or du Mer or anybody else."

"He’s had too much to drink, Your Grace," Legion explained. "Ordinarily, he wouldn’t be so—"

Medea put up a restraining hand. "My daughter understands how it is with him, Lord A’Lex. I think it is time we left the two of them alone." She took each man by the arm to propel them from the room.

Legion took one last look at his brother as Conar half-sat, half-reclined on the edge of the mattress, his fingers fumbling with a knot he had made in the robe’s belt as he grumbled about vicious tortures he would like to perform on everyone present, starting with du Mer.

"Perhaps you should just let him sleep it off," Legion suggested.

"I think not," the Princess said. "He is overdue for a set down, Lord Legion."

Legion frowned. He wasn’t sure tonight was a good time to talk to Conar about anything. The young man was still mumbling and his bare thighs and one exposed shoulder where the robe had fallen away were tinged blue with chill. If he didn’t get beneath the warm covers, he might well catch a bad lung cold. He seemed to be ignoring the woman standing next to him, her hands on her hips, her foot tapping out a dangerous rhythm on the carpet, instead of falling asleep as he should have from so much wine consumption.

"Why not wait to speak with him? He’ll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow," Legion said, smiling.

"If he lives through the night, Lord Legion," she whispered in her grating voice.

Legion let the smile slip from his lips and turned cold and hard. "He is dearly loved, Madame. There are many who would take exception to the words you speak, even if they are in jest."

"Who said I was jesting, Sir?"

He stared at her, feeling her mother dragging on his arm. Not being able to see her face, to judge her eyes, he wasn’t sure of her state of mind. For all he knew, the woman could be insane. Conar might well be in danger from the bitch. He politely shook his arm free of the Queen’s hold.

"Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, Your Grace. If anything, anything at all, happens to my brother, you will have me to deal with." He heard her mother’s gasp of outrage, but it didn’t matter. He kept his eyes on his brother’s new wife.

For a moment the young woman didn’t speak, but then her words were low and deceptively polite. "Even after the insults he has thrust at you, you would defend him?"

"With my last breath, Madame."

"I see. And am I to take it you would actually do me harm should I harm him?"

Medea started to speak, but her daughter stopped her. The Queen snapped her mouth shut with a hiss of angry breath.

Legion nodded. "I would."

A stillness entered the room, but then the Princess laughed and her laugh was genuine, full of delight. Her voice cracked as she answered Legion’s threat.

"If anything happens to your poggleheaded brother this night, Lord Legion, it will be at his own hands. Not mine. You have nothing to fear on that account. I love your brother dearly."

"You don’t know my brother, Madame."

She turned her head to one side and regarded him. "Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure, Milord."

"Come, Sirs," Medea insisted. "Let them be alone." She took Legion’s arm and pulled hard enough to make him stumble into the hall. She shoved Teal out to join him. "Out, please."

Legion opened his mouth to protest, but the Queen stabbed him with a flint-like glare. "They will work it out between them." She stood just inside the doorway, blocking the men’s reentry.

Just before the door closed, Legion saw the Princess lifting the edge of her veil. He could see her neck, slim and straight, smooth and creamy; her chin, flawless, slightly pointed, and he craned his neck to see more as the veil moved upwards, but the Queen slammed the door behind him.

Legion was about to knock, to demand the Queen open the door, when his brother’s voice stopped him dead in his tracks. His hand froze in midair; his eyes widened; and the hair on his neck rose.

Teal grabbed Legion’s arm to steady himself.

The last thing they heard was Conar’s agonized shout through the oak portal. "Oh, Sweet merciful Alel! I’m gonna be sick!"

Legion sat with his hands clasped tightly between his knees. He wasn’t even aware of Teal and Thom as the two men flanked him on the wide stairs leading up to the royal chambers. The music and laughter from the Great Hall drifted over and past the men, never lingering to drag their thoughts from the upstairs bridal chamber.

Coron and Dyllon, Hern and Cayn, the Healer, had left their wives and lady friends to the dancing and laughter in the great Hall and stood uneasily at the foot of the stairs, their gazes straying occasionally to the long balcony that ran above their heads. No one spoke. There was nothing to say. Conar’s outburst as the door to his chamber closed had said it all.

Queen Medea’s frowning face as she descended the stairs only a minute or two later had made Teal and Legion intensely aware of the sudden quiet inside the Prince’s chambers. Not a single sound could be heard.

"Have you men nothing better to do than keep a deathwatch?" Kaileel Tohre asked them as he strolled past to return to the Temple. His eyes blazed with obscene glee, his lips puckering to keep the smile of delight from the thin flesh.

Legion glanced at the priest, but said nothing. He looked away, ignoring the man. Teal never spoke to Kaileel, anyway; Thom wouldn’t dare; both Coron and Dyllon despised the priest and Cayn stayed as far away from the man as time and space would allow.

Hern Arbra looked at a point somewhere above Tohre’s head and answered. "What concern is it of yours what we do?" His voice was tight with hate.

Kaileel lifted one shoulder. "It matters not at all to me. Stand your vigil if it pleases you, Sir Hern. It just seems a waste of good entertainment for the lot of you to miss."

Kaileel made it clear to the men that it wasn’t the entertainment below stairs that mattered to him, but rather what was happening in Conar’s chambers.

Legion couldn’t keep the sneer out of his deep voice. "My brother is doing just fine, Tohre."

Kaileel’s mouth stretched into a wide, condescending grin. "Is he now? Are you so sure, Commander?"

"I hate to disappoint you, Tohre, but Conar is most pleased with his wife." Legion ignored the startled looks of his brothers and friends.

Kaileel threw back his head and laughed. "Aye, Commander. We all heard how pleased he was as his door closed!" Still laughing, the priest ambled off, sending a look of pure satisfaction over his shoulder.

The others glanced up the stairs.

Coron agreed, "Too quiet and too still."

"What do we do now?" Thom asked, his big, rubbery face drawn into a massive frown.

Legion stared at him. "What do you suggest we do, Thom?"

"We may have to go rescue Conar," Dyllon remarked.

"Aye, and just what the hell would we be rescuing him from?" Hern snapped.

"Her." Coron chuckled, and the others laughed nervously.

"I don’t care for this waiting," Cayn told them.

"Neither do I," Teal said.

"You think maybe he’s unconscious?" Coron asked. "I mean, he could have passed out. He had enough wine to float the Boreas Queen."

"That would explain why it’s so quiet up there," Hern growled. "Either that or they’ve killed one another."

The men became silent again, their thoughts blurring with the images of Conar lying helpless and at the mercy of the woman he had married.

* * *

As his new bride began to lift her veil, Conar had tensed, his stomach heaving with all the wine and brandy he had consumed prior to and after the Joining. He had waited for the horror he knew lay beneath the thick peach-colored net, but as the veil cleared the lady’s chin and he could see the tip of her nose, a violent wave of nausea surged up to his throat at a gallop. He turned, shouting out the words—words meant to ward off the bitch, words that had so upset Teal and Legion—and scrambled off the bed and dropped to his knees, frantically reaching for the porcelain chamber pot. Retching horribly, he lost the contents of his stomach into the gleaming white glare of the vessel. He was totally unaware of the furious young woman who glared at him with lethal intent.

Watching her new husband as he crouched over the pot, hugging it fiercely to him, relieving the sour bile that now permeated the room with a noxious stench, the young woman’s face filled with the unholy light of battle.

"Do you wish for me to stay?" her mother asked.

The Princess silently shook her head, too angry to trust her tongue. She didn’t look her mother’s way as the door to the bedchamber closed silently behind the Queen. Her full attention was sweeping over the robe that Teal had tried unsuccessfully to belt about her husband.

One sleeve had fallen over Conar’s exposed shoulder and the hem was bunched up high on his naked thighs and wedged tightly between his quivering legs. The front gaped open and she could see the sticky red stain of the wine he had spilled blotching his chest.

She made a rude snort as she watched him gag into the pot until there was nothing but dry heaves wracking his miserable body. A piteous moan escaped the Prince’s white lips before he pushed away the pot and laid his head against the edge of the high mattress.

Conar reached up, and behind him, to grab hold of the mattress to keep the room from spinning so crazily. Everything was tilting and he felt as though he were going to slide down the floor and splat against the far wall. His eyes were squeezed tightly closed so he couldn’t see the amphibian he knew was impaling him with her slitted eyes, no doubt licking her gluttonous mouth with a tongue forked and slavering. The image of her brought fresh nausea to his throat.

Anya folded her arms across her chest and glared at her husband. He had drawn his knees up close to his belly, groaning out a godawful moan as he clung to the bed. There was no doubt in her mind that his belly was cramping him with a vengeance, for she could see his stomach muscles contracting, his forehead crinkling.

Conar’s mouth felt encrusted with slime and gritty residue. He swallowed and tasted the bitter acid of bile. He licked his lips, grimacing. "Water," he croaked, not even sure if she had heard his feeble cry. "Madame, please. I need water."

Her face stretched into a purely evil mask of revenge. "As you wish, Your Grace," she said sweetly.

Spinning on her heel, she made straight for the bathing chambers, just off Conar’s room, and slammed the door hard against the wall as she entered. She heard him gasp in pain and her grin widened even more. Furiously looking around, she jerked open the door to the armoire and after pushing aside linens, oils, soaps and towels, she found what she was looking for. The spare chamber pot.