"I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to," he growled in her ear. "Don't bother struggling."
She gagged at the porcine stench of him, although it was mixed with scent, so he had at least tried. He had been drinking, too. She gasped several deep breaths in and out before she could speak.
"So it was yours!"
He grunted. "Been spying on me?"
"You spy on me with your seers!" She tried to pry herself loose and merely confirmed her helplessness. Her head barely reached the middle of his chest. She tried her nails on a hairy thigh, but his hide was tough as pigskin.
"They tell me you still bleed," he said. "You're still fertile. And, as of today, I know I am, too." Still clutching her tightly, he ripped the front of her gown open to the waist and began fondling her breasts. His paw was rough as earthenware. "It has teeth, but it's quite human."
She shuddered. "You are not serious!" Of course he was serious. "The mother died!"
"It was big for a newborn." He had been drinking a lot. "Women die in childbirth all the time."
"I am going to scream!"
"Go ahead. I won't mind an audience." He had both might and right on his side; she was as powerless in his grasp as that newborn baby. "Veslih will help, because this is Her business. You swore to the goddess. And you swore to me, too." He slid his hand lower.
It was true that a dynast owed her city a daughter to succeed her. On the night Stralg took over Kosord, Ingeld had negotiated the terms of her rape, standing between Ardial, her lawful husband, and the Guthlag beast, who had been quietly bleeding to death. She had agreed to bear two sons for that astonishingly handsome Werist at Stralg's side. But her promise to the goddess had come first, and he knew that as well as she did.
"One daughter and two sons, you promised," Horold said, methodically stripping away her clothes without even seeming to notice her struggles. When he had her as naked as he was, he carried her over to the platform. "Cutrath you agreed to later. Doesn't change the daughter. My daughter, to be dynast after you."
He turned her to face him. "So we have unfinished business. You're fertile, I'm fertile, and we're going to settle the matter now. I'm ready; you'll never be. Will you submit or do I force you?"
She gagged at his stench. "Get it over with, then." She lay down and closed her eyes.
♦
It probably did not last as long as it seemed, but it was terrible while it did. When he rolled off her, she lay and sobbed. The humiliation was worse than the pain and the pain had been bad. The worst part was knowing that he was right. She was old for bearing, but not impossibly so, and the goddess would hold her to her oath.
Horold stopped panting. He heaved himself along the platform until they were face-to-face again—face-to-snout. Fortunately it was too dark to see any details, but she could imagine his sneer of triumph.
"I know you have ways, wife. You don't need to hunt out some sleazy old chthonian behind the bazaar or poke around with sticks, but you will only delay the inevitable. You are going to bear me another child. The seers will tell me whose it is, and if it's any other man's, I'll kill it and start over."
She turned her head away. The timbers creaked as he left the platform. She saw his outline against the brighter garden when he went to find his pall and boots. She was still shaking, still close to throwing up, but she must make her prayer soon if she wanted to shed his seed.
Sudden terror drove away the pain: Benard wouldn't come through the garden, would he? But he might be dallying out in the public part of the women's quarters. If Horold ran into him now, in his present drunken state, there would be murder done.
He came back in, dressed. "You're bleeding." He could see in the dark better than any cat.
"What did you expect? When you go out, tell them to send for a surgeon. I need stitches."
"Rubbish. You'll get used to it. The girl did." He stalked across the room to the door. "Tomorrow at the same time." He slid the bolt, then turned again. "And every night until it's done, understand? That's what you tell the brides, isn't it? They owe this to their husbands?"
If their husbands were human. "I tell the men they owe their wives respect."
"If I find this door locked, I'll rip it down." He went out and the anteroom erupted in startled screams. Soon the whole palace would know that the satrap was bedding his wife again.
twenty-six
BENARD CELEBRE
carefully set down the weighty sack he had been carrying on his shoulder. He uttered a moan of relief, hauled on the bell rope, then stood and massaged his cramped hands while he waited, nodding and smiling to passersby. When the little shutter flipped open, the eyes that peered out were as dark as his own, but much less friendly.
He said, "It's me."
"The lady is resting. Go away."
Benard sighed. "You have orders to admit me at any time."
"Not now." Swordsman Nerio shut the cover.
Benard sighed at the unreasonableness of mortals and appealed to his goddess. He had, he pointed out, a work of art at his side that was much too heavy to lug all the way back to his shed and much too beautiful to abandon to the mercies of feral alley brats in this garbage-strewn lane. He heard the bolts click back, one by one. The beauty is in the details. He thanked Her and opened the gate.
Nerio swung around with a curse, drawing his sword. Benard had barely had time to forget Cutrath, and here he had made a swordsman enemy. It must be a character flaw. He put his hands on his hips and tried to look unconcerned. He was, mostly.
"I will kill you!" Nerio said, displaying very fine white teeth.
"No, you won't."
"But I am going to throw you out!"
Several of Hiddi's Florengian slaves were tending the plants. They looked up in alarm, and the one called Cosimo shouted, "No, master! You know what she'll do to you!"
Not caring to ask how Hiddi disciplined her major-domo, Benard wrestled his package in and again set it down carefully. By the time he closed the gate again, Nerio had sheathed his sword, but was within punching range.
"Now go away! She needs to rest!"
Benard peered past him, noting two Vigaelian bearers patiently sitting on a bench beside an unfamiliar carrying chair. Hiddi had company. Apart from them, the yard was greatly improved since he had first seen it. The crude figurines had gone, and the furniture was more tasteful.
"I didn't come to bed her," Benard said, which was true as far as it went. He could always be persuaded. "I brought her a gift."
"I'll see she gets it. Cosimo! Now go."
Benard shook his head as the slave came running. "Cosimo couldn't lift it, and it's fragile. Twelve blessings on you, Cosimo."
"The freeman is kind." The youth winked at him from the safety of his place at Nerio's back. The swordsman was not popular with the rest of the staff now, although he had been once.
"Why carry it yourself?" Nerio snapped. "Why not hire porters?"
"I have no money to hire porters," Benard said patiently.
"Hiddi would pay them for you. They'd be happy to settle for a chance to worship the goddess with her."
"The first time we met, you told me you couldn't speak Florengian." That was what they were speaking.
The swordsman scowled. "I meant not on that occasion. Hiddi was present. She would have suspected I was telling secrets about her."
Poor Nerio! He was tall and dark and trim, handsome in his sparkling-white kilt, with his bronze sword on his back, strong arms folded, golden headband restraining his curls. Hiddi had a superb eye for beauty when it came to men; it was art she failed at. It needed no artist's eye to see the signs of strain in the wild eyes and drawn features. Benard wondered what Hiddi had done to him. She could be as spiteful as a weasel. In theory Nerio was a freeman, but she had him enslaved by other means, chained on a rack of jealousy and, probably, unrequited lust.