Selected for Sport Ch. 20

SfS Chapter 20

The night was still. Alanna slid soundlessly out of bed, lifted her wrap from where she had laid it ready, and swathed herself in the folds of cloth before drifting out of the tent.

At the first shift of her weight on their bed, Xanir had cracked his eyes open. He watched her listless movements in the dim light then moved to the doorway to track her solitary shadow until it ducked inside the stable-tent. He let out a long sigh, hand clenched on the cloth.

The guilt dragged at him. She couldn't sleep. Still. Despite how sweetly he had exhausted her, and then cuddled her, his wife's subconscious mind wouldn't relax around him. Pregnant women were not supposed to lose weight.

Kurim slunk to his post on guard outside the stable and nodded across at his Tahl. Xanir sighed again and turned back to his empty bed. He had whipped Lord Merik in the face yesterday for making a coarse joke about horse cock. His household were treating it as commonplace: here in the desert, finding the Tahl-Matla curled up beside her horse every morning didn't really raise eyebrows. But how would she survive when they returned to the palace?

He sat on the edge of the mattress, head in hands. The chief healer, the Shitraz, had told him to make her stay in his bed, that exhaustion would drag her to sleep and in time she would grow accustomed; he should not indulge his wife's megrims. Xanir clenched his fingers in his hair, blood scouring at the memory of trying to soothe her out of a nightmare a week back, the echo of her flinch as she had lunged away, screaming. Shivering, she had cuddled into him once awake. But she hadn't told him what she had been dreaming about.

She told him less and less. Sometimes he could feel her struggling to share something, knowledge behind her eyes, but she would hesitate, wariness closing over her, and the moment was lost.

He clung to the memory of the good times they still shared - exchanging caustic views on the actions of those who came to greet the Tahl - and there were hundreds, on this circuit of the desert tribes to confirm allegiance and thank each for their service in the recent war. She often told him what the lords approaching whispered to each other, and they shared a laugh or a significant look.

And she had let him comfort her when she had wept over the lives she had taken, saving him from Beguine's ambush. She had clung to him.

And the sex, her body still couldn't help but melt in response to his touch.

Unless she was asleep, when she screamed.

And now she just couldn't sleep. The distance, the silence between them had been steadily growing over the last weeks.

Xanir stood, yanked on his clothes, snatched up his sword, and strode off to find Zander. He needed a fight.

In his bleak moments, he wondered if she would have talked to Limaq.

*

Alanna leaned against Rigal, carefully penning her note in the faint light under the flap of roof open to the stars. With this distance between them, she feared Xanir's reaction to what she suspected may be afoot in the palace. She didn't want him to draw even further away. But she had to tell him what she had observed from the Graune Tower. He could draw his own conclusions.

As usual.

Thrice in those interminable ten weeks, one of the Tahl-Mat's attendants had hidden beneath the canvas in her garden, staying behind when the rest of them had left with the lady. At night, they then had climbed the great central tree and harvested the fruits. They hadn't taken them away, instead splitting them open and scooping the seeds out into a pouch similar to the one she had seen Beguine pass to Rebeqa months ago. The pulp and rind they buried in the flower beds.

She didn't know why, what use the seeds were, but the secrecy, and similarity to Rebeqa's actions, had made Alanna watch night after night, and take note. The absentee attendants each rejoined the entourage the following day, but the Tahl-Mat didn't seem to bat an eyelid at their dishevelment.

Which was why Alanna suspected that Tahl-Mat Panya knew why they had stayed.

She had finished her note. Alanna waited for some feeling - of satisfaction, worry, hope, but nothing stirred the dullness. The baby kicked. She looked down at it, a flicker of irritation instantly swamped by guilt. And misery. She was supposed to love her child. Limaq's - Xanir's, whoever was the father, at least she was definitely its mother. She should love it. It.

She feared this resentment: it was unnatural. But if Limaq had impregnated her - the nausea rose in her throat and she stared out into the night, swamped in the dull misery. Everyone believed it. Maybe it was true. Eventually, Rigal nudged her and she struggled to her feet, turning to hug him around the neck and press her face into his hair. The bile made her swallow, again, and she turned and sicked up what little supper Xanir had enticed her to eat, wiping her mouth with hay.

That was the fear. Limaq would never have done anything that the Great Tahl didn't want - but Xanir had said it himself, he had wanted to keep her, by whatever means. He was promising to rewrite the law that enforced the Tahl to repudiate fruitless brides, so that no descendent of his would have to live as he had, but now - had Xanir told Limaq to impregnate her? Had her friend drugged her one night, his loyalty to his Tahl eclipsing her trust in him? Gemma shivered, the sickness surging in her again.

Xanir needed a son. She feared having a girl. Had nightmares where she was asleep, and Zander was rutting on her while Xanir watched, making sure she was impregnated by his chosen surrogate.

Weakly, Alanna turned and retched again, although nothing came up.

God, she missed sleeping.

If only she wasn't pregnant, she could go home to her father. Safe. The tears leaked again, while she stared out into her bleak future. Xanir had claimed the child, so she would be taking war with her if she returned home now. She had to stay.

More tears. She wanted to stay. Wanted the old days, before the pregnancy - to laugh with Xanir, tease him, play. She wanted Xanir. But the Great Tahl needed a son.

Resentment surged again, the fear swamping her: even if it wasn't a girl, he refused to name his firstborn as heir. What if he didn't like the second one either?

Her breath was shortening into hoarse pants, gulping back sobs.

Stop it, she told herself. You're getting hysterical. Nonsensical.

She did this every night now. Worked herself up to the point where she was hyperventilating, spraying sobs, until she eventually exhausted herself and fell asleep with the dawn, curled against the only protection she had in this damn camp.

Rigal nudged her.

They would wake her scant hours later, to sponge and dress her for the first tribesmen who would come to congratulate Xanir both on his victory and his impending child. The interminable hours of smiling and murmuring thanks for well-meaning advice from the women as she sat a little to his left, beside him, in the place of honour.

Honour. Hah.

A noise outside the canvas walls, someone walking past. Alanna staggered, realising she'd been sinking into a stupor leaning against Rigal, mind blank, for far too long. She shivered, glancing around the quiet stable. She could cry a bit more. Maybe she would then fall asleep.

But she was tired of crying. Tired of everything. Her head ached so: an incessant, dull band of fire crushing around her skull. She looked down at the note by her foot, Xanir's name printed across the front. She didn't want to be here when he read it. Didn't want to see more disbelief, more distance.

She felt so icky. Unclean. Maybe if she could bathe, fully immerse, her head might clear. But here in the desert-.

They were encamped near the great river now. She would feel so much better if she washed. Maybe she would be able to think again. Feel clean.

Dazedly, Alanna led Rigal over to the mounting block, heaved a light ladies' saddle onto his back and tightened the straps before carefully arranging herself aboard.

This was so not allowed. Xanir had not tried to take her horse away from her again, but she was only permitted to ride sedately beside her husband from camp to camp.

So?

Nudging her eager horse out into the moonlight, she met the incredulous eyes of Kurim and leaned over to pass him the note. "Please see that Xanir gets this." Good manners had been engrained since early childhood.

Rigal reared when Kurim tried to grab his mane, and the next second he had whisked around and was carrying her away into the night.

"Not again!" hissed the boy behind her, exasperated. Then he yodelled a shout of alarm.

Alanna leaned forwards across Rigal's neck, feeling a distant happiness at the familiar rhythm as he lengthened to full gallop while rounding the last tents.

"Get me out, my friend," she whispered.

Rigal cleared the surging sentries with a hunch and thrust of his powerful legs, landing lightly on the far side of the line at full gallop, veering away from the pursuing horse-sentry into the darkness.

A second shout echoed behind them, and she glanced back. Her heart thudded.

The foot sentries parted for a second horse in pursuit, the green tunic of the rider achingly familiar to her. The mounted sentry pulled up his mount as his Tahl overtook.

Something stirred in Alanna, a smug determination piercing the dull depression. Xanir wasn't going to catch her on that skinny horse. "Fly," she whispered, leaning forwards again.

*

An hour later, Alanna was a little disappointed. Still smug: she had known her horse was better than Xanir's. For the last half-hour, since they had dropped down the steep escarpment towards the river bed, she hadn't seen any sign of pursuit. The trees were thick in the valley bottom, meadows glades lush, but even though she couldn't see far behind, she knew she had lost him. This was the only trail along the Mehuin, and she hadn't seen any movement behind her on the long descent down the stony cliff-face, even once they had reached the bottom.

Moonlight broke over her as Rigal cantered out into the deep grasses of a long, wide meadow between the great river and the cliff to their left. He snorted at the rich scents, nose twitching toward a lush bank of clover and grasses, and Alanna laughed wearily and let him drop to a walk. "You deserve it, old friend," she said, leaning forward to pat his steaming neck as she gave him his head. Maybe here was a good place for a swim.

After one eager stride towards the succulent plants, Rigal halted, head swinging around toward where the cliff curved closer to the water at the end of the glade, ears twitching forwards.

Alanna followed his gaze. In the dim moonlight, movement caught the eye. Ah. A pair of tough mountain goats were defying gravity, jumping down the impossible rock-face, one after the other.

Rigal stamped, taut with challenge. Her eyes narrowed. Heart clenched: they weren't mountain goats. Each of the four-legged beasts jumping sure-footed down the cliff bore a darker lump on its back. The foremost rider was sitting bolt upright, swaying with each spring of the horse beneath him, glancing backwards carefully without shifting his weight too much. The other, five lengths behind, was leaning slightly to the left, bodyweight counterbalancing the sword gleaming in his right hand.

Fear shot through her, and Alanna was suddenly wide awake. She was a reckless idiot. Out alone at night, carrying the heir to the empire? She reached underneath the saddle flap and breathed a little easier at the weight of the throwing-dagger Kurim had given her.

She threw an angry glance over her shoulder. Where was Xanir?

Rigal took a step forwards and stamped again, bunching his shoulders, wanting to fight. Her head turned back and she squinted: he knew one of those horses. Or riders. Heart in her mouth, Alanna leaned forwards over Rigal's withers, hissed, "Go!", and clung on as he bounded into motion towards the horse-goats.

"NO!" shouted Xanir in fury from the cliff.

The foremost horse landed lightly on an invisible outcrop, legs trembling at the sudden stop, while smoothly his rider focussed a short desert crossbow on Alanna and pulled the trigger.

The hiss of the bowstring was accompanied by a thud and a neigh of panic as Xanir landed atop horse and rider, his momentum due to the twenty-foot drop from his own horse slamming all three off-balance over the edge.

"No!" echoed Alanna in despair as three dark shapes plummeted into the shadows at the foot of the cliff. Rigal galloped at full speed and she blenched at the motionless shapes broken on the scree at the base. She could hear her own voice whispering, "No. No. No," as Rigal skidded past the dying horse to stagger to a halt on the slope of loose rocks edging the cliff. Alanna scrambled on up the bank of sliding stones, past the body of the unknown bowman staring glassy-eyed at the sky, his neck bent at an impossible angle.

Xanir's sword lay in the scree, pointing upwards towards the other human shape, draped over one of the spiky hard bushes clinging stubbornly to the rock.

Hauling herself on hands and feet through the sliding shale, Alanna was whispering, "Please, please, please." She was heaving for breath as she scrabbled onto a tiny ledge holding the chest-high bush.

Please don't be dead.

Xanir was draped backwards over the spiky branches, head hanging lowest, nearest her. A dark gash marred his forehead and blood was streaming from his nose and head-wound, dripping from the ends of a sticky matting in his hair. Her heart hammering so fast she felt sick, Alanna pulled herself together and used her dagger to rip strips from her robe. Xanir was still bleeding. Therefore he was still alive - for now. She had to stop it.

"Come!" she ordered Rigal firmly. Quickly, lightly, she ran her fingertips over Xanir's scalp, feeling for further head injuries.

Picking his footing carefully, a quarter way up the scree-slope Rigal whinnied in panic; the small rocks gave way under him and he leapt free to stand trembling at the base again, ears flickering.

Alanna looked up from her desperate knotting of the first bandage.

"Xanir's horse can do it," she snapped unreasonably. Then began edging around the bush, feeling over her husband's body, seeking out further injuries.

Speak of the devil. Trembling in every limb, the lean, rangy desert mount hopped down the last drop to where Alanna was tying a second strip of her clothing tightly around Xanir's thigh, closing another puncture.

She edged back around to Xanir's head, then jumped out of the way as the trembling beast skittered after her, barging she aside.

Rigal called a challenge and started scrambling towards them.

"Stand!" Alanna ordered both horses. Heaving Xanir's hanging head and shoulders over his horse's back took time and more tears - damn he was heavy - then she managed to roll him onto his front, laboriously and with many curses as she had to edge her off-centre bulk around the bush to his legs and back again to shift him. But try as she might, she couldn't scrape his dead weight further over the horse. Why was he so damn muscular? Weeping, suspended by her firm grip with full weight planted through her soles against the incredibly patient horse's flank, she tightened her fingers in his waistband and heaved again, head spinning.

She cried out in shock when teeth closed in the back of her desert robe, heaved, and Xanir suddenly moved, sliding rapidly forwards over his horse. She let go and fell backwards but the grip on her wrap steadied her, swinging her carefully to land sprawled on the skittering scree below Rigal's nose. Her horse was braced on the slope, trembling, but reaching high enough to help her pull.

"Thank-you," she laid a hand on his nose, stroking the silky skin, feeling sick and exhausted.

Casually, Xanir's horse hopped down the slope past them, riding the small river of stones that spread around him, then trotting to a halt in the meadow, turning to look back up at them.

"See?" whispered Alanna, and used Rigal's leg to pull herself back to her feet. She ran easily enough down to the base and smiled weakly at her horse's indignant snort as he slithered in an ungainly fashion in her wake, snorting again when he landed safe and unbroken in the grass.

She made him help unload Xanir, then cleaned her husband's wounds and broken nose and bound them up again as best she could, laying him on a slight slope so his head remained higher. Fear subsiding as he continued to breathe, nestling in against his side for warmth, checking the bandages, Alanna found her head was so heavy it was filled with a kind of static roaring. She couldn't move. Her limbs were trembling too. She should unsaddle the horses.

*

Alanna woke to find searing black eyes staring down at her, under the bandage she had bound across Xanir's brow. "So you can still sleep in my arms," he greeted her, frowning.

Picking up his waterskin he bent over her again, the nozzle to her lips. "Why don't you normally?"

Alanna's breathing shortened as he helped her to sit up so she could sip, staring into those black eyes, throat tightening.

"You're welcome," she side-stepped sarcastically, flicking her gaze up to the bandage while he put the waterskin aside.

Xanir's eyebrows snapped together. "Alanna, if you hadn't ridden off like a reckless idiot without a single guard," his voice was searing. "Then I wouldn't have gotten injured. I am not giving you a bead for keeping me alive for this - I'm more inclined to spank you."

She was shuddering. Anger, fear, reaction, she was leaning forwards over her bent knees and wrapping her arms around them, staring at him. Looking at all that poised muscle balanced just in front of her. So nearly lost. Words tangled in her mind but didn't make it out.

His eyes snapped to her hair, back again, and voice became dangerously silky, "Where is the Imperial bead I gave you?"

Her eyes leapt back to his. She swallowed, her eyes blanking to hide the roiling misery that swamped her.

His flashed, and suddenly he was squatting in her face: Xanir, not the Great Tahl. "Talk to me!" he demanded.

She shoved him back.

"It's not your child," she hissed. "The Imperial bead is as fake as everything else." Xanir gaped at her in shock, and pain twisted his face before he dipped his head and rasped, "So you did love Limaq?"

"Did you order him to?" suddenly Alanna was on her feet, glaring down at the man frowning up at her. Her face creased in misery, and there was a sob in her voice as she yanked her gaze away swallowing.

"What?" Incredulous.

Alanna was crying now, the misery of pent-up weeks erupting. She pointed accusingly at him. "I don't remember it. But it would be easy enough to drug my nightly drink. And he was the one who gave it to me every night." Her arms wrapped around her midriff, so tightly she was gasping for breath. "Did you tell him to do this to me?"

Xanir surged to his feet, eyes blazing.

"Limaq would never do anything so dishonourable!" he spat.

"He would if you ordered him to," she cried, turning away, shaking in the cold, the fear, skin prickling with disgust. She swung back, flinging out her arms. "Nothing else makes sense. You said it yourself: Limaq would never betray you. I thought he was my friend." The tears were breaking her and she spun away again, trying to supress the rising gasps. Arms closing around her from behind made her scream and then she was out of control, fighting hysterically until he released her. She stumbled yards away before spinning to face him, rasping for breath.

They stared at each other. Xanir's face was white, but Alanna's was dark with anger. The darkness in her thoughts swirling to the surface.