A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 13

"Yes," she said at last. His head swung back, those beautiful slanted eyes looked at her with a tiny frown gathering up his brow. "I am jealous. I ... I want to stay. I thought ... I imagined ..." The tears started forcing their way to her eyelids - yet again! what a baby. She heaved a big sigh and did her best to choke them back. "I prithou pardon me," she said, as slowly and carefully as she could. "I have not been kind to you. I was scared I would be made to go and I pushed you too hard, when has't suffered so much and need kindness."

"Oh, well," he said in an expressionless voice. "We have all suffered."

"No," she lifted her round blue eyes and her wide red mouth opened and he knew, he could feel it coming - one of those things she said, it would throw him as open to the world, as soft and vulnerable to her, as her own soft red mouth saying the words. "Has't grown up always without a parent's love, was't the survivor of so dreadful a rape and losts't your lover. In front of your own eyes! You two had such a passion each for other and he was killed for your sake, before your own eyes. I should know and should be so much kinder to you because it is dreadful to you to think mays't lose someone: Tashka, even me, since losts't Hanya Vashin in such a terrible way."

He stared speechless at her, his brain was frozen by what she had just said. After a moment he got up, crossed the room and stood with his back to her. He stuck his hand into his hair, standing staring at the wall, at a picture of red hands rising up the canvas, into a celestial dance of blue and gold stars and moons.

He swung suddenly back round on her, his face aghast. "How long have you known?" he demanded.

She frowned in puzzlement. "How long have I known what?"

"That Hanya and I ... were lovers."

Now it was her turn to be astonished. "How cans't imagine I would not know?" she asked. "I have always known it. What other reason could there be that Hanyan would call you 'papa'? Of course it is because he is the child of your lover. Since Hanya Vashin was your lover musts't bear a parental responsibility for his child; that is the reason ar't Hanyan's father in duty bound. If were't but a friend - no matter how dear - woulds't be 'Uncle', as Pava and Tashka are, as Flada Clathan is to you."

He gave a hysterical laugh, hit himself on the arm and bit his lip. He heaved a huge sigh, came back to his chair, pulled it in front of hers and slumped into it, letting his hands fall to hold her arms.

"Angels!" he said in a hoarse, trembling voice. "I have been so scared all this time that you would learn of it. And you have always known! Why in Hell did you never speak of it?"

Her face bunched up in a girlish expression of impatience. "Talk to you of the greatest grief in your life!" she repeated scornfully. "Make you suffer by reminding you of that? I have been waiting for you to come and talk to me!"

He laughed a weird breathy laugh, staring into her eyes. "You have been waiting for me to talk to you about it?" he asked. "You imagine that I would come and talk to my wife about my Captain, my junior officer, with whom I was in an affair for seven years? The man whom I went to on our wedding night, you thought I would come and talk to you about him?"

She considered this, turning her head about. Her wide red mouth bunched in a sulky pout. "Why not," she said.

"Arianna!" he cried. "What do you imagine I thought you would feel for it, if you found out that for the first year of our marriage I was living in a love affair with my junior officer!"

"What do I care if he was your junior officer?" she answered. "I know nothing of that. I know he was more your equal, I realise that."

"My equal," he repeated. "Well ... I will tell it you. He was the better officer than I. It should have been him who had the Commander's banner for Fourth but because I am van Sietter, they offered it to me. I was going to refuse the banner but Hanya said to me, if he took the banner for Fourth they would find another troop for me and then we would be parted.

"I was a fool to do it! I should have married him then," the tears rose in his grey eyes. "I should have married him while we were both Captains and equals. Then there could never have been any question of my betrothal to you, perhaps ... they would have let you have Pava." They both knew this would not have been the case, that if she had not been bestowed on Clair, van Sietter would have taken her. "I took the banner and we spent two years working side by side. He made the strategies and I managed the men and the provisions, we were a perfect team," he could not help smiling to remember it, pouting through the tears that had started to roll down his cheeks and into his thin mouth. "The Generals knew we had been both Lieutenants and Captains side by side, equals for the whole of our affair, so they shut their eyes to it."

Arianna stared intently into his lean face as he spoke. He did not take his eyes from hers. The words poured out of him in a flood, surging free at last since the secret was revealed not to be secret. He had done everything to repress and hide something so precious, so meaningful, that it was an agony to have to treat it as if it were a dishonourable matter of shame. He said much more than he would have thought proper to his own wife.

"I met Hanya when I was a baby Lieutenant. He had already been commissioned Lieutenant a year or so. He was told off to take me under his eye, the future sworn Lord who could not be offered a Lieutenancy in First because his father did not want him about, reminding him of the way his mother had stained the family's honour. I looked in Hanya's eyes the first moment we met and I was his. I felt my heart and my body melt, I blushed. Hanya looked in my face and laughed, he read my love for him so easily in my blushes. I was his future sworn Lord but he saw it straight that to give him any small pleasure would be my greatest happiness.

"We were together seven years, we lived and worked and loved side by side every single day from that moment until he ... died." He could not help it, a great sob burst from him as he said it but he did not take his eyes from Arianna's blue eyes. "He died for me!" he sobbed. "I would have given it all for him, but he threw his life away for mine."

He saw a round tear roll from her eye, she leaned forward and put her arms around his shoulders. He would not hide his face in her embrace, he insisted to continue looking in her face. "You always knew!" he cried. "You knew when you married me that he and I were in an affair."

"Of course," she answered. "It had not been a secret, I mean before becames't his Commander. Of course every 'friend' came to tell me of it when our betrothal was announced." Her fair tear-stained face screwed up in loathing and scorn, to remember those kind people who had rushed to see if they could get a reaction they might gossip about some more by telling her this prize piece of information. "But what was it for me? Ours was a political marriage, not a love match. We married for the sake of our people, well I did. And what I felt ... what I truly felt," she paused, he continued to look into her eyes with those lovely slanted grey eyes out of which the tears rolled down his cheeks. "Well, since has't told me your secret, I will tell it you," she said. She hesitated, her head swung aside and he watched the blush rise in her fair cheeks. She muttered, "I saw you once, the two of you."

"Wh-what do you mean, you saw us?" he asked.

She had taken up her full red lip in between her teeth, she would not look in his eyes.

She had seen them in the van Sietter family rooms at court, not three days after her wedding. For three days she had been waiting for her husband to come and ... something, surely something. That long-legged beautiful young army Commander with the lovely slanted grey eyes on whom she had been bestowed; he had been absent for three days. There was nobody she could ask what this might mean for her future.

She came back through a reception room from sitting with some Sietter Dames, embroidering a shirt for him. She pretended she wanted a different colour of thread. She could not bear their sideways glances, the half-smiles on their faces that meant they knew something they thought she did not about her newly married husband.

The tears clouding her eyes, she walked slowly along the rich pink and gold carpet of the corridor. When she saw the door to her ... their bedroom halfway open she only supposed some servant must be tidying. (Checking the bedlinen for her hymenal blood probably, unless some sneak from the van Iarve household had passed the message on: The Lady Arianna broke her hymen out riding. She is only permitted to ride side-saddle of course but the wild minx would insist on jumping regardless. We said it was too dangerous. She is wilful and needs a firm hand. Because of her mother's behaviours the younger children have been brought up close and we assure you that the first favour Lord Clair collects will be her virgin favour.)

She paused in the doorway to get the tears out of her eyes and heard his voice saying, "Angels' sake, Han! Sevie is a bloody child in the ways of the world and even younger than Tashka. How could you be so cruel?"

He was standing by one of the wardrobes, with a green felt jacket in his hands, staring intently at Hanya Vashin who sprawled over her ... their big bed with a sulky expression on his handsome face. Hanya's beautiful blue eyes were like chips of ice staring away from Clair. Clair was in the magnificent maroon silk doublet and hose with the sleeves slashed with gold which he had worn to their wedding. Hanya wore his red felt uniform with the gold-embroidered collar and the thigh-length brown army boots. He looked superb, lounging over her bed with his tunic buttoned tightly up to his collar and his strong lean legs encased in the highly polished brown leather, his fair head cropped at the back and sides and a sneer on his firm mouth.

"What do you want me to say?" Vashin answered. "I thought she meant more to you than just some kid whose tuition fees you were paying. You spent so much time with her that time we were up here about your betrothal to that other cow. If you were pinning her favours I did not see why I should not sample them."

"What are you saying!" Clair cried. "How could you imagine ... never once did I stray from our bed and you think I would go with Sevie Inien, who is under my eye because I will be the sworn Lord. I told it you plain myself: I tried to help her because I know el Farin, I know he will not be fair-minded to her. Damned Hell, Han! You have never cared a copper coin's curse for any woman, even as a friend. To lure some kid like Sevie Inien to your bed ..."

"Give it peace," Hanya interrupted angrily. "I have begged you to pardon me for it over and over..."

"Begged me to pardon you!" Clair exclaimed. "I am not the kid whose virgin favour you have seduced, and now I find she will bear you a baby because you were too idle to step out the room for ten minutes and give an ignorant young woman you took out of jealousy and spite some protection!"

"Women are disgusting pieces of meat liable to swell at the least provocation," Hanya Vashin said with a delicate yawn like a cat but Clair sprang suddenly on him at that and struck him round the head. Hanya Vashin took the blow without a sound, his head only swinging sideways so that his blue icy gaze briefly crossed Arianna in the doorway.

She caught up her breath but it appeared he had not seen her because he did not speak up. He continued to lie over her bed with his head turned away both from her in the doorway and from Clair standing like an Angel of Judgement over him.

"What will you do for her and the child?" Clair was demanding, hovering over him with his hands on his lean hips. It was plainly apparent that he was a commanding officer and Vashin below him both in the ranks of the army and because he would one day be sworn Lord.

"Angels, my darling, what do you want me to do," Hanya muttered.

"Your child," Clair said intently. "Your own child in blood - mine too, in duty bound. Oh! what would I not give for a child! Surely you wish for the child to have the Angels' blessing, not to grow up a bastard with the whispers there will be around such an one, even if you care nothing for a young girl you seduced without the least compunction, you bloody pig."

"I am not the sworn Lord, to need to fret for the succession and have to give my favour naked to some vixen from the high nobility in order to secure it," Hanya drawled. He suddenly ducked his head as if expecting another blow for this. Clair seized him by the gold-embroidered collar of his tunic and twisted him round, saying, "do not speak of her like so. Pava's cousin whom he loves so much! Angels' sake, Han, have I not suffered enough for us? Having to take the woman Pava loves in order to save you from the Generals' noose. They have winked at our affair all these years but van Sietter has said it, he will force them to hang you if I cannot keep her quiet in Sietter." He started to cry, helplessly, with a sob that made his hands shake gripped on Hanya Vashin's collar. "And her, she will suffer enough - the gossip there must have been because they all know I left her on our wedding night alone."

"And I suppose I have not suffered," Hanya Vashin replied sulkily, "seeing you walk that beauty down the aisle. Because she is a beauty, el Maien, with those big child-bearing hips. You are a fool if you do not pin her favours - since you do care a little for women."

"Han, Angels' sake," Clair sobbed.

Hanya's arms stole around his hips and as Arianna watched, she saw Hanya slowly pulling her husband in to his embrace. Clair's lean tanned fingers let go his collar, his arms hung loose as if he were still too angry with Hanya to embrace him in return. Now Hanya was pressing his head hard to Clair's body. Clair was not pushing him away.

"My heart, my heart's heart," Hanya murmured. "Forgive it me, I beg it of you. You know it, I have never been able to think kindly of women, it is how I am. I am that pattern of the Sietter Knight who only ever cared for one thing in his life. I only care for you. Forgive me, I was so angry. Can you not understand how it was, alone in that hotel with only some wretched kid going on about her studies for company when I thought she was getting your favours and I was not? I was wrong to try to stay in Fourth with you, I should have taken your ring but you said it yourself, you would never be able to ask Tashka to secure the succession.

"It was Tashka we were thinking of, the baby Lieutenant of our hearts: that bloody little sweetheart whom Stariel pinned for the great military mind that he is, so beloved of the other Angels, they would follow him to Hell. You want him to be the Lord General with the Angels at his back to secure the region, not some disgusting brood-mare forced to take the favours of some younger son of the nobility and secure the van Sietter succession. So we agreed it, to live in the troop together and look about for someone who would be willing to bear you a brat or two. Now you have had one bestowed on you, a famous beauty with a bloody fortune dripping from her fingers, but what of me, what of me? Will you forsake me for her, for the sake of a brat out of her big hips, my own, my lover, my secret heart."

She saw his fingers clench on Clair's lean shapely buttock. Clair's thigh quivered at what must be a familiar move in their long-standing relations with each other.

"You are talking nonsense," Clair sobbed. His loose hands came up. He tried to grasp Hanya's shoulders and push him away.

"I know," Hanya said softly, "but I love you so much. I have never loved as I love you. I behaved badly when I thought I might lose you." His fingers were still insistently kneading at Clair's buttock, his head pressed to Clair's body - to his groin.

"Stop it," Clair sobbed. "Let me just get some clothes and write her a note and we can go."

"Oh-h Clair," he murmured. "Prithou. You are so angry with me. I will do what you will but give me a kiss at the least of it. Days without a kiss, my dear! Days without the hope of your sweet favours. I was so lonely the nights in that hotel without you."

Clair's hands were still trying to get a grip on Hanya's shoulders and push him away. As Hanya's head lifted from his groin, his fingers still flexing on Clair's buttock, Clair seemed to crumple. He almost fell into the kiss.

Arianna watched in silence a kiss of such absolute passion that it was if the memory of the shy childish pressing of one full el Jien mouth to another shrivelled up in its flaming splendour. She recognised suddenly the affectionate kisses she had allowed Pava to take for the friendly salutes they had been. She had thought that she loved him. She had loved him. But not like this. Not to press her mouth demanding, insistent, desperate on his mouth, to moan in a kiss that was evidently one where tongues were twisted into each other's mouths and yet it was not enough.

Hanya had hold of Clair's shoulder and his waist now. He was turning Clair in the bed, rolling him round still pressing the kiss insistently into his mouth. He pressed a hand down Clair's hip to grip on his thigh. Clair exclaimed in the kiss, his thigh opening out to Hanya's hand and Arianna saw the swell of his penis in the tight maroon silk hose. She caught her breath up. Her fingers seemed to creep of their own accord together. She wove her fingers in together and pressed them.

The long legs in the maroon silk hose and the red felt breeches and long brown boots were entangling. There was Hanya's hand on her husband's thigh, gripping the lean muscle of his leg, creeping over towards the swell of his penis. She saw Hanya's fingers press with expert skill on Clair's sex and heard Clair gasp. She saw his head break from the kiss. That head of elegantly cut black curls went back in the bedclothes which had become rumpled from the muscular writhing of the two men's bodies.

"Han, what in Hell," Clair was muttering in a husky voice so charged with passionate desire that she trembled just to hear him speak.

"C'mon, my lover, my heart," Hanya was saying. "Give me one favour to tell it me, you do love me true. I know it, I have been so cruel foolish by you. I am a slut by my nature. You have never complained of it but I saw the tears in your eyes. But I would never have risked our love for it, I'll give it the go-by if it is what you ask. Only tell it me, show it me, that it is me you love." There were tears in his voice.

Arianna bit her lip to hear his voice tremble with tears. She knew a little of her husband's Captain. She realised that there were not often tears in his cold blue eyes.

"If you ask it of me, I'll marry the wench, for the sake of her child, but give me just the one favour, my dear. I will beg it on my knees! show me that you will forgive me, that you do love me."

Clair was trying to push him away and get up out of the bed in which he had been supposed to take the virgin favour of an el Jien bride. "Are you mad?" he whispered hoarsely. "Let us go back to the hotel and discuss it," "No!" Hanya moaned, "oh Clair, I beg it of you, on my knees." His fingers were there on Clair's cock, pressing up to his balls which were already pushing out the tight cloth of the hose. Clair put a hand down to his hand but he was already falling back in the bed, his fingers pushing feebly at Hanya's.

"Ah, you know I cannot resist your tears," he said softly. "You are only using them to trick a favour of me. Yet you know you do not need to trick a favour of me. If you will come back to the hotel and treat poor Sevie half decent you may have one so willingly. What-for do you want my favour here? Because I was supposed to take hers here? You are a fool, Vashin. You know it well that I love you with my whole heart. Will you promise it me, that you will give Sevie Inien the honour of your ring? What is it to you, you will not be able to take mine, you may 's well give Sevie yours."