Two To Conquer ELF Read online

  “We would all have been kind to you,” Beltran protested, “but you would not speak to anyone and threatened to fight us—”

  “Still, Carlina made me feel that perhaps, for once, someone cared whether I lived or died,” Bard said, “and I would not fight her. Now your father has chosen to give her to me—which I never thought I could win, being bastard born. Lady Jerana may have driven me from my home, and from my father, and from my brother, but now, perhaps, I have a home here.”

  “Even if you must take Carlina with it?” Beltran mocked. “She is not what I would choose for a wife; skinny, dark, plain—I’d as soon bed the stick-poppet they mount in the fields to scare away the crows!”

  Bard said genially, “I wouldn’t expect her brother to be aware of her beauty, and it’s not for her beauty I want her.”

  Geremy Hastur, who had the red hair and the laran gift of the Hastur kin of Carcosa, the gift to read thoughts even without the starstones which the leroni or sorceresses used, could sense Bard’s thoughts as they went up toward the great hall for the handfasting ceremony.

  There are plenty of women in this world for the bedding, Bard thought. But Carlina is different. She is the king’s daughter; wedding her, I am no longer bastard and nobody, but the king’s banner bearer and champion; I shall have home, family, brothers, children someday… for a woman who can bring me all this, I shall be grateful to her all my life; I swear she shall never have cause to reproach her father that he gave her to his brother’s bastard….

  Surely. Geremy thought, this was enough reason for a marriage. Perhaps he does not want Carlina for herself, but as a symbol of all that she can bring him. Yet marriages are made in the kingdoms every day, with less reason than this. And if he is good to Carlina, surely she will be content

  But he felt disquiet, for he knew that Carlina was afraid of Bard. He had been present when King Ardrin mentioned the marriage to his daughter, and had heard Carlina’s shocked cry and seen her weeping.

  Well, there was no help for it, the king would have his way, and surely it was right that he should reward his banner bearer, who was also his nephew, though a bastard, with honors and a rich marriage into his household; this would cement Bard to King Ardrin’s throne as champion. Perhaps it was a pity for Carlina, but all girls were given in marriage, soon or late, and she might have been married to some elderly lecher, or some grizzled old warrior, or even to some bandit barbarian from one of the little kingdoms across the Kadarin, if her father found it expedient to seal an alliance with another kingdom. Instead he was giving her to a close relative, one who had been her own playmate and foster brother and had championed her in childhood. Carlina would resign herself to it soon enough.

  But his sharp eyes spotted the reddened eyelids, even behind the careful touch of powder and paint. He raised his eyes and looked compassionately at Carlina, wishing she knew Bard as well as he did. Perhaps, if she understood her handfasted husband, she could lessen his bitterness, make him feel less withdrawn, less outcaste among others. Geremy sighed, thinking of his own exile.

  For Geremy Hastur had not come willingly to King Ardrin’s court, either. He was the youngest son of King Istvan of Carcosa; and he had been sent, half hostage, half diplomat, to be fostered in King Ardrin’s household as a token of friendly relations between the royal house of Asturias and the house of the Hasturs of Carcosa. He would have wished to be his father’s counselor, a sorcerer, a laranzu—he had known all his life that he had not the makings of a soldier—but his father had found him one son too many and had sent him away as a hostage, as he might have sent a daughter away to marry. At least, Geremy thought, Carlina would not be sent away from her home for this marriage!

  The court rose for King Ardrin’s entrance. Bard, standing beside Beltran, listening to the crying of the heralds, still found that he was glancing about the crowd to see if, perhaps, his father had come at the last moment, wishing to surprise him; desisted and angrily faced forward. Why should he care? King Ardrin thought more of him than his own father did, the king had decorated him in battle, given him lands and a rich estate, and a warrior’s red cord, and the hand of his youngest daughter in marriage. With all this, why should he worry about his father, sitting home and listening to the poison that filthy hag Jerana poured into his ears?

  But I wish my brother were here. I wish Alaric could know I am the king’s champion and his son-in-law … he would be seven, now.…

  At the appointed time he stepped forward, prompted by Beltran and Geremy. Carlina was standing at the right hand of her father’s seat. Bard’s ears were ringing, and he hardly heard the king’s words.

  “Bard mac Fianna, called di Asturien, whom I have made my banner bearer,” Ardrin of Asturias said, “we have called you here tonight to handfast you to my youngest daughter, the lady Carlina. Say, Bard, is it your will to enter my household?”

  Bard’s voice sounded perfectly steady; he wondered at that, because inside he was shaking. He supposed it was like riding into battle, there was something that steadied you when you had to be steady. “My king and my lord, it is my will.”

  “Then,” said Ardrin, taking Bard’s hand in one of his, and Carlina’s in the other, “I bid you join hands before all this company and exchange your pledge.”

  Bard felt Carlina’s hand in his; very soft, the fingers so slender that they felt boneless. She was icy cold, and did not look at him.

  “Carlina,” said Ardrin, “do you consent to have this man for your husband?”

  She whispered something Bard could not hear. He supposed it was a formal phrase of consent. At least she had not refused.

  He bent forward, as ritual demanded, and kissed her trembling lips. She was shaking. Hellfire! Was the girl afraid of him? He smelled the flowery scent of her hair, of some cosmetic that had been dabbed on her face. As he drew back, a corner of her stiff embroidered collar scratched his cheek a little. Well, he thought, he had had enough women; soon enough she would lose her fear in his arms, they always did; even if now she was a dressed-up doll. The thought of Carlina in his bed made him feel dizzy, almost faint. Carlina. His, forever, his princess, his wife. And then no one could ever again call him bastard or outcast. Carlina, his home, his beloved… his own. He felt his throat thicken as he whispered the ritual words.

  “Before our kin assembled I pledge to wed you, Carlina, and to cherish you forever.”

  He heard her voice, only a whisper.

  “Before… kin assembled… pledge to wed…” but try as he might he could not hear her speak his name.

  Damn Queen Ariel and her idiotic plans to rid herself of him! They should have had the wedding and the bedding tonight, so that Carlina could quickly lose her fear of him! He was trembling, thinking of that. He had never wanted any woman this much. He tightened his hand on her fingers trying to reassure her, but felt only her involuntary flinching of pain.

  King Ardrin said, “May you be forever one,” and he loosed Carlina’s hand, reluctantly. Together, they drank from a wine cup held to their lips. It was done; Carlina was his bride. Now it was too late for King Ardrin to change his mind. Bard realized that until this moment he had felt that something would come between him and his good fortune even as they stood together for the handfasting, that his stepmother’s malice, or Queen Ariel’s, would come between him and Carlina, who meant to him a home, a place, honor… damn all women! All women except Carlina, that is!

  Beltran drew him into a kinsman’s embrace and said, “Now you are truly my brother!” and Bard sensed that somehow Beltran had always been jealous of his friendship with Geremy, too; now the tie with Beltran was so strong that Geremy had nothing to equal it. Beltran and Geremy had sworn brotherhood, exchanging daggers, before they were out of childhood. No one, Bard thought with a brief surge of resentment, had ever asked him to swear the oath of bredin; not him, bastard and outcaste… well, that was over, over for his lifetime. Now he was the king’s son-in-law, Carlina’s pledged husband. Brother-in-law, even
if not sworn brother, to Prince Beltran. Somehow it seemed to him that he walked taller; catching a glimpse of himself in one of the long mirrors adorning the Great Hall, it seemed that he looked handsome for once, that he was a bigger and somehow a better man than had ever looked into that mirror before.

  Later, when the minstrels struck up for dancing, he led Carlina out. The dance broke couples up and recombined them in elaborate twisting measures, brought them together again; as they passed and re-passed in the dance, joining and loosing hands, it seemed to him that Carlina was less reluctant to take his hand. Geremy was dancing with one of the queen’s youngest ladies, a red-haired maiden named Ginevra—Bard did not know her other name; she had played with Carlina when they were little girls, then become a waiting-woman. Bard wondered briefly if Ginevra shared Geremy’s bed. Probably; what man would spend so much time and trouble on a woman if she would not? Or perhaps Geremy was still trying to persuade her. Well, if so, Geremy was a fool. Bard himself never bothered about high-born maidens, they tended to want too much in the way of flattery and promises of devotion. Nor did he care for the prettier ones; they promised more, he had found, and yielded less. Ginevra was almost plain enough to be properly grateful for masculine attention. But what was he doing, thinking of such things when he had Carlina?

  Or rather, he thought sullenly, as he led her toward the buffet for a glass of wine after the hearty dancing, he didn’t have Carlina, not yet! A year to wait! Damn it, why had her mother done this?

  Carlina shook her head as he would have refilled her glass. “No, thank you, I don’t really like it, Bard—and I think you have had enough,” she said soberly.

  He blurted out, “I would rather have a kiss from you than any drink ever brewed!”

  Carlina looked up at him in astonishment; then her red mouth crinkled in a small smile. “Why, Bard, I have never heard you make a pretty speech before! Can it be that you have been taking lessons in gallantry from our cousin Geremy?”

  Bard said, abashed, “I don’t know any pretty speeches. I’m sorry, Carlina, do you want me to learn the art of flattering you? I’ve never had time for such things.” And the unspoken part of that, with resentment, Geremy has nothing else to do but sit home and learn to say pretty things to women, was perfectly audible to Carlina.

  Suddenly she thought of Bard as he had been when first he came to be fostered there, three years ago, and he had seemed to her a great countrified sullen lout, refusing to use the manners he had, sulking, refusing to join in their games and play. Even then, he had been taller than any of them, taller than most men, and more broadly built. He had little interest in anything but the arms-play of their lessons, and had spent his playtime listening to the guardsmen tell tales of campaigns and war. None of them had liked him much, but Geremy said he was lonely, and had gone to some trouble to try to coax him into joining their games.

  She felt, suddenly, almost sorry for the boy to whom she had been pledged. She did not want to marry him; but he had not been consulted either, and no man could be expected to refuse marriage to a king’s daughter. He had spent so much of his life in war and preparation for war: it was not his fault that he was not gallant and a courtier like Geremy. She would rather have married Geremy—although, as she had told her nurse, she would rather not many at all. Not because she had any great fondness for Geremy; simply that he was a gentler boy and she felt she understood him better. But Bard looked so unhappy.

  She said, drinking the last unwanted drops in her glass, “Shall we sit and talk a while? Or would you like to dance again?”

  “I’d rather talk,” he said. “I’m not very good at dancing, or any of those courtly arts!”

  Again she smiled at him, showing her dimples. She said, “If you are light enough on your feet to be a swordsman— and Beltran tells me you are unequalled—then you should be a fine dancer too. And remember, we used to dance together at lessons when we were children; would you have me believe you have forgotten how to dance since you were twelve years old?”

  “To tell you the truth, Carlina,” Bard said hesitantly, “I got my man’s growth so young, when the rest of you were all so little. And, big as my body was, I felt always that my feet were bigger still, and that I was a great hulking brute! When I came to ride to war, and to fight, then my size and weight gave me the advantage… but I find it hard to think of myself as a courtier.”

  Something in this confession touched her beyond endurance. She suspected he had never said anything like this to anyone before, or even thought it. She said, “You’re not clumsy, Bard, I find you a fine dancer. But if it makes you uncomfortable, you need not dance again, at least not with me. We will sit here and talk awhile.” She turned, smiling. “You will have to learn to offer me your arm, when we cross a room together. With the help of the Goddess, I may indeed civilize you one day!”

  “You have a considerable task on your hands, damisela,” Bard said, and let the tips of her fingers rest lightly on his arm.

  They found a seat together at the edge of the room, out of the way of the dancers, near where some elderly folk were playing at cards and dice. One of the men of the king’s household came toward them, evidently intending to claim a dance with Carlina, but Bard glowered at him and he discovered some urgent business elsewhere.

  Bard reached out with the hand he thought was clumsy and touched the corner of her temple. “I thought, when we stood before your father, that you had been crying. Carlie, has someone ill-used you?”

  She shook her head and said, “No.” But Bard was just enough of a telepath—although when the household leronis had tested him, at twelve, he had been told he had not much laran—to sense that she would not speak the true reason for her tears aloud; and he managed to guess it.

  “You are not happy about this marriage,” he said, with his formidable scowl, and felt her flinch again as she had done when he squeezed her hand.

  She lowered her head. She said at last, “I have no wish to marry; and I wept because no one asks a girl if she wishes to be given in marriage.”

  Bard frowned, hardly believing what he heard. “What would a woman do, in the name of Avarra, if she was not married? Surely you do not wish to stay at home all your days till you are old?”

  “I would like to have the choice to do that, if I wished,” Carlina said. “Or perhaps to choose for myself whom I would marry. But I would rather not marry at all. I would like to go to a Tower as a leronis, perhaps to keep my virginity for the Sight, as some of mother’s maidens have done, or perhaps to live among the priestesses of Avarra, on the holy isle, belonging only to the Goddess. Does that seem so strange to you.”

  “Yes,” Bard said. “I have always heard that every woman’s greatest desire is to marry as soon as possible.”

  “And so it is, for many women, but why should women be any more alike than you and Geremy You choose to be a soldier, and he to be a laranzu; would you say that everyone should choose to be a soldier?”

  “It’s different with men,” Bard said. “Women don’t understand these things, Carlie. You need a home and children and someone to love you.” He picked up her hand and carried the small soft fingers to his lips.

  Carlina felt sudden anger, mingled with a flood almost of pity.

  She felt like giving him an angry reply, but he was looking at her so gently, with so much hopefulness, that she forbore to speak what she thought.

  He could not be blamed; if there was blame, it was her father’s, who had given her to Bard as if she were the red cord he wore about the warrior’s braid, a reward for his bravery in battle. Why should she blame him for the customs of the land which made of a woman only a chattel, a pawn for her father’s political ambitions?

  He followed some of this, his brow knitted as he sat holding her hand. “Do you not want to wed with me at all, Carlie?”

  “Oh, Bard—” she said, and he could hear the pain in her voice—“it is not you. Truly, truly, my foster brother and my promised husband, since I must
marry, there is no other man I would rather have. Perhaps one day—when I am older, when we are both older—then, if the gods are kind to us, we may come to love one another as is seemly for married people.” She clasped his big hand in her two small ones, and said, “The gods grant it may be so.”

  And then someone came up to claim Carlina for a dance; and though Bard glowered again, she said, “Bard, I must; one of the duties of a bride is to dance with all who ask her, as you very well know, and every maiden here who wishes to marry this year thinks it lucky to dance with the groom. Later we can speak together, my dear.”

  Bard yielded her, reluctantly, and, recalled to his duty, moved about the room, dancing with three or four of Queen Ariel’s women, as was suitable for a man attached to the king’s household, his banner bearer. But again and again, his eyes sought out Carlina, where her blue robe, pearl-embroidered, and her dark hair, drew his awareness back again.

  Carlina. Carlina was his, and he realized that he hated, with a violent surge of loathing, every man who touched her. How dared they? What was she about, flirting, raising her eyes to any man who came to dance with her, as if she were some shameless camp follower? Why did she encourage them? Why couldn’t she be shy and modest, refusing dances except with her promised husband? He knew this was unreasonable, but it seemed to him that she was trying to win the approval and the flirtatious smile of every man who touched her. He restrained his wrath when she danced with Beltran, and her father, and the grizzled veteran of sixty whose granddaughter had been her foster sister, but every time she danced with some young soldier or guardsman of the king’s household, he fancied that Queen Ariel was looking at him triumphantly.