She jumped up and swept out through the arches into the garden, shivering as the cold air struck her heated skin. He was sitting with his knees up and ankles crossed, huddled in a dark blanket, almost invisible under the leaves.
"Just what do you think you are doing?"
"Waiting."
"Get up!"
He rose, big and sheepish. The blanket cape did not quite conceal the shape at his side. Ingeld peeked and confirmed that he was armed with a dagger. A dagger with a jeweled hilt, no less.
"Where did you get that?"
He pulled the cloth from her fingers. "Borrowed it. How long until he gets here?"
It was so pathetic she wanted to wrap him in her arms and comfort him like a child. Benard as killer? "Who told you?" she said.
"Guthlag. The whole palace knows."
"The whole palace knows my husband goes to his wife's bed? Is that so extraordinary in Kosord? Come inside before you catch cold."
Benard said, "No!"
"Sit here, then. You'll have a long wait. Horold has gone hunting. He won't be back before morning." She stepped over to a bench by the pool.
He sat beside her, wrapping a meaty arm around her, so the blanket enclosed them both. "I am serious, Ingeld. I know you aren't accepting him voluntarily."
"And you really think you would have a chance against him? Oh, Bena, Bena! Even if you could creep up on him when he's—busy, let's say—which you couldn't, and even if you stuck that knife in his back, it would not kill him. He'd battleform, heal the wound, tear you to pieces, and go back to what he was doing." She felt him shudder.
But it was wonderful to have that arm around her, someone who really cared. Cutrath was long gone. The man she had married had been transformed into an animal. Bena was all she had left.
"Surely your goddess doesn't expect you to endure that monster!" he said. "Can't you curse him—burn him or something?"
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "My holy mistress would not approve of husband immolation as proper wifely behavior. Horold is within his rights and Veslih is on his side. No, listen!" she said as he tried to protest. "I'm getting old, Benard, but I still owe my city and my goddess a daughter to rule after me. Horold remembered that, or someone reminded him, and he wants to be her father. The seers will tell him whose child I bear."
"Will they tell you what it's going to look like? Will it have hooves? Claws?"
"If you're going to shout you'd better come inside." Ingeld rose and headed back to the hearth. She knelt on the rug, and a moment later Benard's big shape settled beside her. The firelight made him seem haggard, as if he had not slept for days.
"If you won't kill him or let me do it," he said gruffly, "I know how he can be distracted so he won't bother you."
"How?"
"I have a friend who's a Nymph. She says she can handle any Werist, no matter what it looks like."
Now Ingeld was on safer ground. "Yes, I know all about your cuddly pet. Fortunately she cannot get into the palace. If the guard didn't stop her, holy Veslih would. I've been meaning to have a talk with you about her, Benard."
"You needn't lecture me," he said grumpily. "It isn't what you think."
"Yes it is. She's one of the nastiest gold diggers I've seen in all my years as dynast. She bleeds men dry. Believe me, Mistress Hiddi is going to be heading downriver very shortly."
He sighed. "I know she's greedy. So let her loose on Horold! Let her loot the palace. At least your bedroom won't smell like a pigpen."
"Stop that! You have no right to speak to me like that!"
"Yes I do. I love you."
"Benard!" Not daring to stay close to him, Ingeld scrambled to her feet and began to pace. If Horold asked the Witnesses what men had been in his wife's bedroom, what they had done, what they had said—they would tell him. "You love Hiddi, remember? And Horold would kill her!"
"She swears he wouldn't. She says she's tamed much worse."
"She's a Nymph, Benard. She's enthralled you."
He snorted, a sound of exasperation. "She's done nothing of the kind! Hiddi is in love with me."
"Grow up, Benard! Don't you know her corban is to forsake love? Unlimited lust, but no love; that's the bargain she made with her god."
"Ingeld!" He spoke softly, but he was wearing his stubborn expression, watching intently as she circled the hearth. "I've never known you to be wrong like this before. Hiddi's corban is that she can never be loved, but she can love. She knows I can never love her. I'm sorry for her. We're good friends. I'm probably the only friend she has. Yes, we do what lovers do, but she knows it doesn't mean to me what it does to her."
"Indeed? And do you still have that gold Horold gave you?"
"Don't be absurd! I couldn't keep that. Wealth is my corban. I gave it to the goddess."
"Which goddess?" Ingeld demanded triumphantly.
"Mine, of course! I cast a hawk."
"You did what?" Her confidence wavered.
"I made a rough clay likeness of a hawk, her symbol," Benard explained happily, "and coated it with wax. I carved the wax to show the details, covered it with more clay and baked it in my kiln, so the wax ran out. Then I poured the gold in and cast the hawk. I gave it to Anziel at her shrine. It was very good."
A masterpiece, no doubt, hidden in some secret chapel, never to be seen by extrinsics. "I suppose you visit Hiddi just so the two of you can be sorry for her together?"
Benard shrugged. "I've been redecorating her house, replacing a mosaic, organizing—"
"At night?"
"I can't paint by candlelight, but mosaic's easy because I remember what color the tiles are in daylight. I get a lot more done when Hiddi isn't there." He smiled apologetically. "I'm an initiate, Ingeld. I bed her, but I don't worship her goddess with her. I couldn't even make love to you in this room anymore—because of that." He pointed to Eriander in the frieze of the Bright Ones.
It was almost unknown for a man to resist a Nymph, but perhaps Benard's unshakable innocence could impress even the likes of Hiddi. His haggard look came from working day and night.
Ingeld had wandered too close. Benard caught her wrist and pulled her down into an embrace. She was much too aware of his strength, his maleness. He kissed her and she did not resist. It was not a sisterly kiss.
"Run away with me, Ingeld. Go tonight. By the time he gets back tomorrow, we could be long out of the seers' seeing range."
Merciful Mother! Had she been misreading the auguries? All her training, all her experience, taught her that the city's welfare must come first. Kosord was everything; her own comfort or preferences counted for nothing. Was the goddess offering to make an exception now?
He felt her shock. "What's wrong?"
"I tried to send you away once and you couldn't bear to leave your precious statues."
He scoffed. "Statues? Statues? You think I care about the statues? We'll stop by the yard on the way and I'll smash them to gravel for you. It was you I wouldn't leave, and if you won't leave with me now, or can't leave, then I am going to kill Horold."
"You mean this, Benard? You really, truly still want an old woman like me? You haven't grown out of it?"
His response was to kiss her again, even more thoroughly. He needed a shave, but he kissed very expertly. She could not have broken free of his embrace had she wanted to. She didn't want to. His strength was gentle, nothing like Horold's brutality. It was years since she had been kissed like that. She had forgotten how sweet it was, but her heart had not forgotten how to respond.
"Oh, this is crazy!" she muttered when it was over. She did not want it to be over. "Horold will send Werists upstream and downstream. Anyone who looked at me would know I'm a Daughter. We'd never get away, love." She would be dragged back and Benard would die.
"Tomorrow night!" Benard said firmly. "I'll hire a fast boat. No, I'll get Guthlag to do it—I'm hopeless at haggling. We'll slip away during the feast. No one will know I've gone, because Guthlag won't be there to tell them, and we'll get Hiddi to distract Horold. It'll be a sixday before anyone dares tell him."