A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 17

"What of it?" she asked. "We are not writing a book together. It is something to build a companionship on but it does not mean I can trust your kisses that have been given so lightly to so many others. The only difference between me and them, the only true bond between us, is that I bore you your heir. I know not even if there are other ..." she ground to a halt, her head bent over a brown leaf in her hands that she shredded slowly along the veins.

"No," he said. "Think sufficiently well of me for that. I cared nothing for myself at that time but I have never been so careless of a lover in my bed as to do any thing that would place them at risk. And do not make of Arkyll, or Hanyan, a bond, a thing to tie us each to the other. Arkyll is a person, you could not use him to hold me to you. There are many things that might be a bond between us but not Arkyll. You do not care for the housework of the castle but there is our work on the region, for years we have worked together through Laran and Tarra on the region. There is our love of the arts. These things could bring us together."

"Quarrels't with me about how to hang the paintings in the reception rooms," she pointed out grumpily.

He laughed. "Are you still angry about that!" he exclaimed. "You cannot hang Hyaline between two pieces from the Namoon School. You cannot have a painting of harvest coming home in lovely colours between two abstract works - entitled Battle 1 and Battle 2!"

"I just wanted to put one of my paintings in there," she grumbled.

"Well, there it is," he said patiently. "I put it over the fireplace for you; it looks well there, is it not?"

"Namoon School," she grumbled. "Why must they mess with circles and lines. Whenever I look at those paintings I feel uncomfortable because in Battle 1, for example, the line is not properly drawn to the ratio of the diameter of the circle."

He gurgled with laughter. "You silly butterfly," he said softly. "It is a battle! Do you expect to say, How picturesque about the death and terror that is battle?"

"Cans't see that our love of art can be no bond between us," she pointed out.

"Yes it is," he answered. "Is love only cooing each to other like little white doves in a soppy picture by Velor? We can love to argue about art, even as we can love to agree about the need to help the poor of our country."

"How can an argument make a tie between us?" she asked. "Think of your friend: Tarra. His arguments with his Lady wife did not make a marriage with her."

"Oh," he said reflectively, "Tarra and Lallia." He gave a sigh. She watched surreptitiously to see him sigh over the famously beautiful and intelligent Lallia el Farin. "They were friendly enough to begin with and have danced and even flirted together. Yet even now Tarra does not like to hear of her and will tell it people she is a vixen bitch and the like, if pushed to talk of her."

"Oh, why?" she could not forbear to ask. "He is courteous, he is handsome enough. And Lallia el Farin ... She ... she was your particular ... your friend, is it not?"

He raised his head at that and looked round at her with a lifted eyebrow. He saw her take her lower lip up in her teeth and her blue eyes dipped and looked away. "Yes," he said in his firm husky voice. "She is my friend. You have seen that we still correspond. You may read any of my letters from her. I know that you enjoy to read a good account of poetry. Lallia was always devoted in her heart to her Knight lover back in Graiel. We enjoyed an affectionate friendship and I will not pretend that because of my light slut's ways I would not have taken a favour if she had offered it but she is like yourself, my dear. She is a woman of high honour and a sweetheart. She would not give out a favour lightly, even to her married husband."

Arianna's eyes lifted to him again, the blush tinging her cheeks with pink. "Is that why their marriage broke?" she asked.

Clair shook his head. "When she was first bestowed on him she was willing to lie with him for the succession if he could come to an agreement with her," he said, "but Tarra is van Athagine. He would not offer her any reasonable agreement."

Arianna continued to look at him in question. Clair frowned at the leaves that still hung, yellow and brown, from the twigs of trees that were starting to look bare. Finally he burst out, anger and frustration bubbling up in his voice: "How often have I tried to tell it to him! A man like Tarra has no right to ask anyone to live in a marriage. Lallia was willing to excuse the numberless women who fell in and out of his bed but he would not countenance that she should bear him the heir and then go back to her heart's heart, that Knight in Graiel she loved. The el V'lairs are like that about 'their' women. To Tarra women are not people, they are possessions - in Athagine Halls the Girls are chained.

"Lallia was willing to wear Tarra's ring but not to be chained in Athagine. I and her aunt, Lady Hartha, who is the sworn Lady of P'shan, supported her in asking for a legal agreement that she could be free to be herself but Tarra refused it. Then it was clear that he expected her to belong to him as the Girls chained in Athagine do to the sworn Lord, his father. What a thing to ask of Lallia el Farin van Graiel! How could that pig van Graiel have picked out Tarra of all men to throw Lallia away to? There were so many of the oldest sons of the high nobility who would have gone on bended knee for her hand and he had to bestow her on an el V'lair. He did it for the wine trade. Bloody bird-brain. Tarra of course was well content to have Lallia el Farin to his bride, when first I met them he had a kind of pride in her and I thought they would make a match of it but the stupid fool, to treat a woman such as her like a pet animal or a jewel to show off on his arm!

"van Athagine women belong so absolutely to the el V'lairs that they do not expect marriage estates to be settled on women bestowed on their oldest sons, financial security if their marriage should fail. That selfish swine van Graiel had gone along with this and left Lallia wholly dependent on Tarra. Tarra started to hold back the money she needed, to tell it her to give him a kiss or caress if she wanted whatever. It was a disgusting way to treat her, if she would not he gave her what-for, to refuse her own husband a kiss - as if that would make her the more inclined to favour him.

"Finally Lady Hartha and the brothers made van Graiel pay to break the marriage. Old van Athagine agreed because the el V'lairs had the succession to think of - and he wanted the cash, he is a profligate swine even more expensive than Tarra. Tarra ... well he was very angry. It is sufficient indication of how unfit he is to attempt to live in a marriage. He did not love Lallia in herself and he has a collection of ladybirds to rival his father's, yet he was angry that she managed to break free of his possession and he accuses her of all sorts."

Arianna thought of the louche saturnine Commander-Lord el V'lair van Athagine. He had always treated her with a proper courtesy as his hostess, coming to sit and talk to her when Clair had had hunting parties in the past with people she did not want to know and who treated her with a slighting disdain. She did not quite understand what Clair meant, that he treated women as possessions or that van Athagine women belonged to the el V'lairs. The recipient of an exceptionally generous marriage settlement which she had astutely deployed in collaboration with her brother, whose husband was dependent on her, she could not imagine being without financial means.

She had thought Clair and his friend were alike, lady-hunting officer-aristocrats living for pleasure, but what Clair said suggested that her husband had at least some dark streak of morality on which a lover might build trust. She turned it over in her mind whether to ask more about el V'lair's women, what did it mean to be a girl "chained" in Athagine Halls? but to know what the traditions of the el V'lairs van Athagine might be would not give her any more understanding of el Maien van Sietter. Although he had once threatened it, he had never actually attempted to keep her in the region. He had thrown to the wall the only legal agreement which could have bound her to Sietter. He offered her freedom to think about equations, to work with the merchants, to leave him with their children or leave the children to his loving care if she wanted to be completely free to do the work she loved.

"You will not permit any bit of trimming if I offer you a true marriage?" Clair enquired. There was a lurking humour in his voice, she turned her head with her blue eyes creased up in annoyance and embarrassment behind the eye-veil of her hat.

"How cans't have turned to such lightness after hads't had such a love for Hanya?" she demanded. "That time I saw you," he was looking at her in question, she blushed and tried not to remember in too explicit detail what she had seen. "Such devotion! He loved you as he loved nothing else in his life."

"My dear," he said softly. "I loved Hanya for seven years with my whole heart and body. I never strayed from his bed but Hanya sometimes ... found pleasure elsewhere. I knew it did not mean a thing, it never came near his love for me, and I let it pass."

Those naive round blue eyes, crumpled in incomprehension. He could have laughed, to see his Lady wife so indignant that his lover had occasionally strayed from his bed and that after losing his lover he had betrayed their passionate commitment with a string of casual favours he had picked up as carelessly as she had picked up brown leaves she was unwittingly shredding in her long fingers. He felt actually apologetic to have spoilt the beautiful vision of devotion she had imagined he and his lover had shared. He thought it would be impossible to explain to her how pure had been the hot animal passion they had enjoyed or how meaningless had been the careless slut's progress he had made through swathes of bodies at court.

He had gone there ruined in spirit, angry with the world, careless of anyone - except to get as far as possible from the soft warm hope in her horribly candid blue eyes. One night after ploughing his favour into the warm big body she brought to him, ignorant and submissive in her ignorance but soft and gentle too, he nearly kissed her and was so angry about it that he nearly struck her. He waited two nights in a stricken paralysis of hope and terror but she stopped coming to him. He knew she was waiting for him to go to her.

He told his servants to pack and he fled, carrying the memories of what he had suffered in warfare like festering wounds in his mind. He went in search of some place where he could not harm those who were innocent, hoping she might find happiness without his disgusting stricken presence to blight her life. He did not know where to go, other than back to court and the King's University where he thought he might get some sense of purpose by going to a course of lectures, any lectures. A life of the mind, he would forget what his heart had suffered in that.

When he arrived at court, he heard that his old friend, who was the son of the infamous el V'lairs van Athagine, was throwing a party. He knew it would be an iniquitous and outrageous affair. Miserable with his own self, he thought he would feel at home there. He strode angrily in the door and saw a bejewelled bird of paradise on the arm of his friend lift her eyes to him and narrow them and pucker her lips in unmistakeable appreciation. el V'lair saw her do it and snarled round eagerly with his hand on his gloves. When he saw Clair stepping back into the doorway to leave he grinned as eagerly in welcome.

It was not just el V'lair's scantily dressed companion that had caused Clair to suddenly realise he was in deeper than he had expected to be. There was a boy dancing on a table in the middle of the room in a manner which made Clair feel at the same time horribly pure himself and a bit sick. The wine was running freely in a silver fountain; there was already an officer in Athagine parade silks lying unconscious at the side of the room with the servants going resignedly to clear him away.

el V'lair was coming himself to the doorway and offering his sword arm. This was a high distinction and Clair could not refuse it. The scantily dressed beauty had come with el V'lair, he took her by the arm and shoved her at Clair, laughing and saying in a slurred drunk voice, "give her back to me the morrow, after what I had from one of your women you may have any of mine howsoever you wish."

Clair did not know what he meant and he was not sure he wanted to know. He tried to laugh it off, he just wanted to go back to his room now but the woman had draped herself around his shoulder and hip. He could feel one of her breasts against his back. Her arm wrapped around his shoulder and one of her hands came negligently brushing over his groin, making his cock stir. He tried to push her hand away but it had already gone back round to squeeze his buttock. el V'lair was saying, "give me the one hand of cards at the least of it. Let me win back some of what your brother took off me."

"You have seen Tashka?" Clair asked eagerly but el V'lair said, "not recently." He took hold of Clair's arm, insistently, and said, "tell me any news you have of Lieutenant-Lord el Maien. Your ... your brother is dear to my heart." Clair was surprised to hear this. He had not realised Tashka had even met el V'lair, who was a kind of man he would have been scrupulous not to introduce to her notice. He looked suspiciously at el V'lair, who had once said something about Tashka's resemblance to their mother which had caused Clair to punch him in the face but el V'lair had only laughed this off as a champion blow. el V'lair was smiling softly with a respectful affection he never showed women so Clair relaxed and followed el V'lair to the cards, trying surreptitiously to push the bird of paradise off his hip and escape the embarrassing arousal of her gently caressing hands.

"Get off him," el V'lair said crossly, seizing her arm and dragging her away so hard that she gave a small cry. When Clair looked at her she was holding her arm where el V'lair had twisted it with tears glistening in her exquisite dark blue eyes. "Do you want another one?" el V'lair asked. "Take your pick," he waved a negligent hand at a sofa piled with women all leaning on each other in a casual friendly way, their bodies stretched out to display the curve of their breasts and hips, slender ankles and soft-skinned necks and one was showing her lovely plump leg up to the knee.

They were not chained, of course, because Tarra was not yet the sworn Lord, but his father used to pass on the Girls to him sometimes and from quite young he had collected a bunch of free Athagine beauties to play with, some of whom went on with his assistance to make spectacularly wealthy careers of a certain kind, to his great pride. "Your preference is not entirely for officers, is it?" he was saying. "You can have a man if you had rather. Have one of my Lieutenants."

Clair turned his head and realised that there were at least five men giving him the eye. Two of them, draped about each other in the pale blue and black diamond patterned Athagine parade silks, looked on him in a manner which made plain that he would be a welcome third in their bed. The thought of the ways in which they would like to enjoy his body and to offer him theirs to enjoy made his cock harden some more.

The bird of paradise was still coming along in their wake, slowly and holding her arm where el V'lair had twisted her away from Clair. Her lovely dark-haired head was stooped down. The thought of the tears glistening in her eyes made Clair feel bad at heart. She was clearly neither ignorant nor submissive, probably not soft or gentle either but Clair felt sorry about her twisted arm so he said, "will you just let me have this one to blow luck on my cards?" At that she lifted her head and grinned, her round dark blue eyes sparkled.

He had never spent much time at court because his father liked to see him and Tashka as little as possible so he was still naive about what a catch he would have been even if he were not beautiful of body and face with the haunting appeal of the war-tormented veteran officer. He was flattered by the experienced seductress's evident wish to be favoured by him. She appeared to be willing even to risk el V'lair's valuable favouritism, although she was that lovely that he probably would still hang her on his arm a while yet. She was a slim tall woman and the blue of her eye reminded him of Tashka, although she was dressed in a manner his sister would have laughed heartily at. She blew softly on his neck and ear while he played cards for the kisses of the women around them with the half-naked dancing going on around the card tables and el V'lair groping a luscious plump brunette in between the hands. She kissed el V'lair with salacious abandon if he won a hand.

She knew just how much of the exceptional brandy which el V'lair made them give him would get him going and when it would be too much for him. She lured him off into the corridors when he was bright with the brandy and the women's kisses, smiling into his eyes. She drew him behind the curtains of a window embrasure and stood looking into his eyes with that knowing smile. If he had been sober he would have given her the go-by but he was exhausted emotionally with what he had been through and physically with the long journey to court.

He leant back on the wall in the narrow space behind the long window curtains, inarticulate and slow to respond when she started unbuttoning his breeches. She had already put a hand on his cock by the time he had a hand up to prevent her. It was filling with arousal but still soft and she murmured into his neck that this would not do. Before he could tell her that he wanted to leave, she knelt down and put her mouth around his cock.

He grunted and tried to push her away. She put up her hands and pushed his back. He leaned back against the wall, grunting and suddenly giving way to her. She was nothing like either his lover or his Lady wife and she was mad keen for his favour and now the thrilling feelings were rising around his loins and his buttocks were squeezing. She started to let his now hardened cock slip from her mouth but he put his hands to her head and grunted to her, "take me like that," fiercely because he was drunk and starting to cry and could not bear it for some pink bird of paradise belonging to el V'lair to see his tears.

She pulled away from him and looked sidelong up at him with a grin, slipping a ring off his finger and saying, "gimme this then." He gasped, he was too far gone now to protest. He put his hand back around her head and pushed it to his cock. Her warm mouth came expertly sucking at his bulging cock's head. Her tongue ran round it, she plunged her mouth down and sucked hard on him. Her fingers came playing knowledgeably with his bollocks, around the sensitive areas between his arsehole and cock. Soon he was spurting off into her mouth. Willingly she held him in her mouth through it.

The tears ran suddenly down his cheeks. He leaned heavily back on the wall. She stood up, swallowing his cum, licking her lips in front of his face to show him how much she had enjoyed him. She ran her hand caressingly down his chest. "My darlin'," she said softly. "Du you not know how precious are yer favours. I would have done it for yer without a bloody jewel. Du not be giving yer jewels away another time." She had the thick accent of the Athagine lower merchant class.

"I do not care for jewels," he said bitterly through clenched teeth. His eyes were clamped shut and the tears trickled slowly through his lids.