Mala

Anastasia has to wait a long time before going to him. First, the uproar touched off by their return to the palace, and having to tell the tale half a dozen times. Then, shedding the attentions of her servants, who make much more of the incident than they should. They wanted him, not her, she tells them over and over, but they will not hear it. They dare not speak their opinion that she ought have nothing more to do with him, ought not to have even spoken to him in the first place. She lets them bathe her, salve her scrape, and prepare her for bed. Then, she pleads the need for rest and forbids them to disturb her till she calls them.

   Even when finally alone, and sure she can slip out unseen, she hesitates. She has more at stake here than a pleasant dalliance, more risk than a minor scandal. Against all expectation, she knows that the barbarian has assessed her situation correctly. Someone has designs on her land. They expect to get it through marriage - they waited for her to finish her widow's year of mourning so as not to raise any comment. They expect to keep her here until she has yielded, or until circumstances overtake her.

   They laid a trap, in the form of an invitation to the palace, and she walked into it. Without the King's knowledge, surely, and in enough secret that she cannot level any accusation. If she makes too much of the matter without hard evidence, she might play into their hands. She would have realized too late, if not for Vardigan Kull. I owe Aphrodite an offering, she thought. I would have taken no notice of him if he did not provoke my lust. Whoever lay at the back of this did not anticipate the barbarian, and she feels sure he offers the key to escaping the trap.

   She leaves her bed, puts on thick slippers and a robe worked in wool and velvet, and takes a single candle in a holder of crystal and gold. Nighttime sojourns by guests are unremarkable here - the layout of halls and chambers might have had trysting in mind. She sees no one on her way to his door. The normal etiquette for these affairs calls for slipping quietly into the room and into the bed, but she does not know for certain how he will receive her. He enjoys her company, he finds her beautiful, but she senses something dividing them. After the events of the evening, he might answer an intrusion with violence, so she knocks softly.

   "Who knocks?"

   "Anastasia."

   "Enter."

   She goes in, closing the door behind her, optimistically sliding the bolt into place.

   Neither he nor his chamber show evidence of the fussing of servants. Fine wines and brandies wait in decanters with unbroken seals, fruits and sweets remain piled on trays. He sits in a chair, stripped to the waist, parts of his kit hanging from bedposts. Only one of the braziers still glows dull red, leaving the room colder and darker than the hall. Her flesh rises, despite the warm robe. Her single candle does little to brighten the room, because of the blade.

   He holds it casually in his right hand, probably having lowered it on her entrance. She has heard a great many stories about enchanted weapons but this does not seem to fit in any of them. It drinks whatever light comes near it. Whenever he moves it there is a momentary darkness left in its wake. The thing has power. She has seen it. The net the press gang tried to throw over him did not just part beneath a cut. It unraveled, as did some of the hands holding it.

   It has power, and he does not completely understand it.

   "You've come out of it all right," he says. He has a single cut on his left arm and the beginnings of bruises, but they do nothing to mar his appearance, which still steals the breath away.

   "And you. Another lift for your star. The whole city will talk of it."

   "I care not. I saw the King and brought my message, though he might not wholly believe me. His trouble, not mine. I did what my friend asked of me." Now he holds the blade up, looks into its depths.

   "They will not try that again. One man fights off a dozen bravos, it gives the others pause."

   "Something sneakier, then," he growls. "Not unless they work quickly, though. The day after tomorrow, I am quit of this place."

   "Where will you go?"

   "Back into Doria. Falstaff expects me in Mardin at the equinox."

   It would have surprised her two days ago to hear him speak casually of meeting the likes of Falstaff, but now she knew something of the amazing breadth of the barbarian's acquaintance. The press gang had attacked them as they were walking home from the Tower of the Stormwarden.

   "You could stay here," she says. The day after tomorrow leaves no room for dissembling. "With me."

   "You have troubles enough."

   She recalls the things he has said about how women fight like men where he comes from. "Women with troubles in this kingdom seek the aid of champions."

   "I do not know how to champion," he says. For a moment he has the look of someone holding an animal and expecting a bite. "I tried it before."

   "What happened?"

   "She died."

   Ah hah. "Does this have something to do with that city in the desert?" The one you sacked for trying to keep you in a dungeon. I must remember that. He did that without the sorcerous blade.

   "It came after. She died to teach me a lesson."

   "Hard won learning."

   "I thought I did right, at first. She needed someone to look after her."

   "Who was she? Where did you meet her?"

   "A girl called Mala, the daughter of a merchant. A place called Talleth. A city in Doria destroyed by the Fire Lord."

   Something in his expression tells her he feels responsible for the city, too. "Tell me about it."

   He is not much of a storyteller, this outlander with the visage and physique sculptors bestow on gods, but Anastasia listens with the ears she once had, the ears of a romantic young girl.

   The woman is dying, and all of them know it. The woman, Mala, knows it. Vardigan Kull, her young barbarian lover, knows it. Even the beasts know something is amiss. When the Sun Warrior shakes his head and rolls from his knees to his heels, he only acknowledges what he knew when he knelt in the snow beside her.

   "If I were a priest, or a paladin," he says, supplying unnecessary explanation, offering a reason for something quite beyond reason. The barbarian did not anticipate that the ebony blade he claimed as prize would have guardians that would pursue it beyond the catacombs beneath Qasiradam. The thing could not hurt them directly, any more than they could hurt it, so it had resorted to this indirect attack. There would be a reckoning, the Sun Warrior thought, and it came to him that even a thing without a body to wound should pause at the thought of Vardigan Kull's wrath.

   "C-c-c-cold," the woman chatters, a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth, one more step on her trail to infinity. Kull whips off his outer garment and wraps it around her, his pain a temporary bulwark against the wind and cold and snow.

   The woman worships Dao-Pen. The Sun Warrior does not recall what the followers of the Father of Dragons expect to find beyond this world, but neither does he recall clearly much of the faith of his youth. A grave in the permanently frozen ground of the mountainside seems unlikely. Finding enough stone beneath the snow for a proper cairn will take a long time. He dwells on the funeral logistics because it keeps him from dwelling on the hard truth of the young woman with her belly cut open.

   "Are you… still there?" she cries into the darkness.

   "Yes," Kull answers, cradling her on his knees after wrapping the heavy cape around her. His black scimitar lies near by, a gleaming scar on the stirred-up and trampled snow, drinking the moonlight the snow reflects.

   "So cold." She has to draw a rattling breath before going on. "Cold and dark and quiet."

   Kull looks bemused by this, with the wind whistling, but he says nothing. She hears the other side, the Sun Warrior thinks. Not long now.

   "Do you know any songs?" she asks. "It would be nice to have a song, instead of all this sad quiet."

   The barbarian's handsome face twists in further anguish. He does not come from a musical people. The Sun Warrior can almost read the thoughts behind the black eyes. You promised to take care of her, and now you can't even provide a song to send her into eternity.

   "Pity we left that strange man that sang everything," she croaks.

   "I never thought I would miss that crooning lummox," Kull says, trying to make a light remark in a voice with the very weight of the world in it.

   "What about you, Sun Warrior? You have traveled to many lands. Sing me a song of some far off place." Her face turns toward him, and he can feel a gaze on him even through her closed eyes.

   He is not much of a singer, though he knows plenty of songs. As he brings them to mind he is gripped by a strange fear, something stronger than anything he has known before any desperate battle. All of a sudden, he feels that what he does with this moment is more important than any deed done with sword and shield. Not so much for her, who stands on the border of a land beyond pain and care, but for Kull. Despite all the mayhem in his history he does not quite know how to deal with this kind of death. If this goes badly, the Sun Warrior knows, the barbarian will be undone, and the Sun Warrior knows the future has many calls on the beautiful savage from the steppes.

   "One from my homeland," he says, going back to his knees to make it easier for her to hear him over the wind. The last song she hears should come in a language she knows. He does not know how much of a song it will be changing from Frankish to Dorian, but he takes a deep breath and dives in.

   Remember

   I will still be here

   As long as you hold me

   In your memory

   "Oh, I know that tune!" The exclamation of joy costs her more blood and choking. "That's a pretty one."

   "Shhhhh," says Kull, drawing her closer. He rocks her as he might a child, while the Sun Warrior sings on, raising his voice above the wind.

   Remember

   I'll never leave you

   If you will only

   Just remember me

   I am the one star that keeps burning

   So brightly

   It is the last light

   To fade into the rising sun

   I'm with you

   Whenever you tell

   My story

   For I am all I've done.

   Remember

   I will still be here

   As long as you hold me

   In your memory

   Remember me

   I am that one voice in the cold wind

   That whispers

   And if you listen

   You'll hear me call across the sky

   As long as

   I still can reach out

   And touch you

   Then I will never die

   Remember

   I'll never leave you

   If you will only

   Remember me

   Remember

   I will still be here

   As long as you hold me

   In your memory

   Remember

   I'll never leave you

   If you will only

   Remember me

   Remember me

   Remember me

   For a moment after he stops singing, the Sun Warrior thinks she has gone, but then she draws one last breath. She turns her face to Kull, and her eyes flutter open.

   "Will you?" she asks.

   "Will I what, Mala?"

   Pay heed, young idiot, the Sun Warrior thinks, but he keeps silent, his good nature keeping him from the unkindness.

   "Will you remember me?" she asks. "In amongst your great deeds, the other women you will love, will you sometimes think of me?"

   Kull nods, his black eyes glittering in the moonlight.

   She smiles, somehow managing without showing any more blood. Without any cough or rattle she says, "Then I shall live forever," and dies.

   "I do not ask you to forget her," Anastasia says. "I would not. I need your help, and I ask for that." She takes her first step toward him. "You can get me out of here and back to my land. I know you can."

   He gets out of the chair, puts the blade back in the scabbard hanging from the bedpost. "You do not see," he tells her. "My help could cost you more than any fate your enemies have planned. "

   "I know myself, and do not try to hide it. I am not as hard as the women of your land," she admits freely, moving slowly closer. "I have lived a soft life even as measured by this kingdom, let alone where you come from. I am no warrior. I can pay to raise them, I can hope to inspire them, and in time I may give birth to one or two."

   "You know all that," he says, "yet you still come on."

   "I am not as hard as the women of your land, but neither am I that merchant's daughter. I am older - than she and than you. I know something of the world, and I know myself. I want your strength, your cunning, the powers you command."

   "And other things."

   "And other things," she says, not quite keeping the lilt from her voice. Coyness would not entice him. "If you will have me. If you help me I will show gratitude. Even if you won't help me, I do want you for the other things." I think you need to take up with a woman and have her survive it, or your tribes might wind up with a warlord that leaves no issue. "Not so desperately that I ignore what I know about myself. Nor will we turn our backs on the future. Someday you will go off to fulfill your promises to wizards and your people and I will stay here and find another husband."

   At no time has Kull taken his eyes off her, but she feels him really looking at her for the first time since she came in. Her flesh rises again, not from lack of warmth, but the sudden arrival of it. "When that time comes, we can remember," he says.

   "We can." She is right before him now. "So long as we have something worth remembering. Something besides tedious palace receptions and a double handful of thugs that never really had a chance."

   She lifts her face, in invitation and challenge, expecting the press of a hard kiss or an embrace that crushes her and brushes the robe from her body, but neither comes. He reaches out with one hand and puts two fingers to the angle of her jaw, resting them there for a moment, then tracing a line down her neck. The touch moves into the robe, the pressure loosening the tie of the robe but not undoing it, then a spiral on her left breast, down the center of her belly, along the curved paths down one thigh and up the other, and when his fingers come to rest again she draws in a quick, hissing breath.

   The Countess reaches for the barbarian, but he holds her off for a while, murmuring something about battles lost to impatience, keeping her on the fence between desire and frustration. Her robe and slippers come off, but under his hands and his lips she does not want for warmth. She knows strong men, perhaps even men physically stronger than he, but he couples the strength to grace and balance and that relentless beauty. He needs no help from a bed to hold her, they move about the room as if dancing a pavane, but she finally drags him to the bed because she needs it to help hold him. She loses count of the times he brings her to shrieking ecstasy, but gathers enough wits to drag him to the bed and tear at what he still wears. Nothing will satisfy now but that he takes from her, and to her amazement, as he finally does, she still takes from him.

   They end with kissing, rather than beginning with it, lying underneath the bedcovers he has thrown over the two of them, and holding each other. Enough time passes that it does not seem boorish when he whispers. "They will be watching - the gates and the roads."

   "I should think stealing one pampered noblewoman from a palace lies within your scope," she tells him, still the tiniest bit dizzy from the lovemaking. "Especially when she wants to go." When she feels him tense she adds, "I am not losing my head. I am not forgetting."

   "It means traveling across country," he tells her. "No coach and team. No footmen going ahead to warn the inns. Living rough."

   "Not for more than a fortnight, with a horse for each of us."

   "Storm can carry the two of us. We can put the bags on my pack animal."

   "The winter has not yet set in with force," she says. "We can do it. Then if the fight comes, it will come on my ground, where we can see it, rather than from some shadow in this nest of intrigues."

   "All right." A deep breath, then, "Do you care if the servants find you here?"

   "What could be more delicious?" She trembles at the thought of it. The news will be as good as tossing down a gauntlet. It will tell them she is not afraid of them.

   "I can throw fuel in the braziers, if you feel the cold."

   "No cold can reach me here," she tells him. "Not with you here, too."

   He gives her a squeeze, and one more kiss. The criers call the second hour before dawn before his breathing tells her he has fallen asleep. Once it does, she, too, can slip into slumber.

I picked this because it really was an important moment in the development of the character, and no one else ever saw it. Besides, it makes a nice change from all that mayhem.