Wedding Read online

  “If you weren’t Eleonora’s brother I wouldn’t waste another word on you.” Josh answered Dominic in the same manner, before his voice rose again in indignation. “Why shouldn’t Amalie help if she can? Eleonora will be the nucleus of the cell, much as I dislike it, but she’s the logical choice, the best qualified, and I haven’t heard you object to that.”

  Again Eleonora interceded, speaking telepathically to her husband, who flushed as he listened. When she had finished he bowed to me, a rare expression of surprise on his impassive face. Then, with what I could see was great difficulty, he apologized to Dominic and left the room.

  “What in the name of Erebos was that all about?” Dominic said.

  Eleonora looked shocked. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.” She realized Dominic did not. “Tell him, Amalie,” she said. “You have no right to keep that information to yourself.”

  Once again I had to confess to Eleonora that I did not understand her. Famished for the breakfast I could see, and smell, on the sideboards, I could not wrap my mind around another mystery. From the empty dishes on the table, it was clear the others had already enjoyed a hearty meal.

  “Whatever did they teach you at La Sapienza?” Eleonora asked in disgust. As there was no real answer to her question, she supplied one herself. “Very little, apparently.”

  “Eleonora,” Dominic said, with a look that would have flattened me, “I expressly prohibited Amalie from using her gift, or her prism. We were isolated and vulnerable, trapped in a shelter. We could not risk forming communion. If we had attracted the attention of Eris—” He shook his head. “I should not have to tell you the danger we faced. And I should not have to request that you speak more courteously to my—”

  “I’m sorry, Dominic,” Eleonora said, sounding anything but. “But surely, here, in Aranyi, we are safe enough that we do not need to behave like Ter—” She cut off her word, glaring at me. “—like ungifted commoners.” She shrugged and grimaced, taking the responsibility on herself. “Dominic, your—” She was at a loss for the right word, the only time I ever saw this happen to her. “—your woman is pregnant. I assumed that was why you objected so strongly to having her take part in this cell, and I agreed. Since I see you did not know, I can only say your chivalry amazes me.”

  Pregnant? My heart skipped a beat. I had made sure to get a fresh contraceptive implant, good for six months, right before I left Terra. Seven months ago. I took Eleonora at her word, hoping it was safe to use my gift, and, turning away, resting the palm of my left hand on my belly, I examined myself internally as I had wanted to do in the hut. Without the amplification from my prism I didn’t expect to learn much, but as Edwige had assured me I would, I had created a strong field of telepathic energy within and around myself after six months of training and practice. I experienced a moment of quiet jubilation as I discovered that I was, indeed, a few days pregnant with Dominic’s child.

  Dominic’s reaction, once Eleonora’s words had sunk in, was more expressive than mine. “Is it true, cherie?” he asked in a low voice. When I nodded he lifted me up from my chair and kissed me hard on the lips, then put me down carefully and took a couple of steps back in alarm, still afraid of initiating communion. He glanced over at Eleonora, who was pretending not to listen, and turned back to me. “You must stay here and look after yourself while I am gone,” he whispered, trying to sound severe so I would obey him. “I expect to find you safe, and not so thin, when I return.”

  “I’ll be here,” I said, wondering if there was any truth in my words, not wanting to say more in front of Eleonora. I had little choice but to do as Dominic asked for now—it had been difficult enough getting here.

  In my embarrassment I found it impossible to shield my thoughts, either in or out. Shrinking from the mortification of having confirmed all of Eleonora’s suspicions, I focused on Dominic’s thoughts instead. While he liked the idea of becoming a father again, his predominant emotion was relief that my pregnancy ended all debate about involving me in the upcoming expedition. No matter how great the need, a gifted, pregnant woman would never be allowed, much less expected, to endanger herself and her child in this way.

  I was at last able to help myself to a late breakfast, and I consumed a large bowl of oatmeal and milk, several strips of what looked like bacon and tasted even better, and some delicious juicy, seed-flecked, oddly shaped bright pink fruits while Dominic and Eleonora discussed their plans for the upcoming rendezvous with the other telepaths who would work with them against Eris. Josh, somewhat abashed, returned on Eleonora’s summons now that the news had been imparted, to linger over coffee. Dominic had to muster the rest of his forces, men from the various small-holdings within Aranyi and the neighboring manors. Josh would help him with this, and I was glad to see they were talking now in a more or less friendly fashion.

  Eleonora spent most of the day with me, giving me a tour of the house and grounds, and introducing members of the staff. As a guest who looked like ’Graven, staying on in the family’s absence, I would be the nominal mistress of this enormous establishment. While Eleonora might be tempted to leave me to make the best of it, the household, as I had already seen with Magali, would blame her, not me, for any lack of courtesy.

  As we went from workroom to storeroom to outbuilding, and as people greeted Lady Eleonora and her guest, it became all too clear that “Mistress Amalie from Terra” was taken to be Dominic’s betrothed. Eleonora chatted and joked and passed it off easily, but there was no mistaking people’s perceptions, and no way to change them. Margrave Aranyi would be unlikely to invite an unmarried young woman to his home for any other reason, and I neither looked nor dressed nor spoke like a Terran. Whatever trepidation I felt at the beginning of the tour had changed to relaxed pleasure by the end of it. I had never had so warm a welcome in my life.

  Dominic came to my room after supper to talk about the upcoming conflict. “It’s not really a battle, as you or I think of it. It’s more of a crypta contest between two large cells. Our side will outnumber theirs greatly, but their weapon will more than compensate for their small numbers. And I promise you,” he added, knowing the worry in my mind, “I won’t go in for any heroics.”

  It was a lie, a complete bold-faced lie, the only one Dominic ever told me. He acted the part expertly, convincing me that our recent mishap with the long-distance effects of the telepathic weapon had given him a healthy fear of it up close. The bitterness I detected seething beneath his calm exterior I attributed to the demoralizing scene we had lived through in the shelter. Time, I thought, and the return of our communion, would heal it.

  He would not say the name of Eris, and I didn’t prompt him. “Why are you raising troops, then,” I asked, “if it’s not a regular battle?”

  Dominic smiled, pleased that I had led us away from the topic neither of us wanted to dwell on. He sat on the bed in order to look me in the eyes, and I moved eagerly to sit beside him. “The rebels have brought the blacksmiths and miners into their cause. They work with iron and steel, and they’re a closed community, keeping their knowledge to themselves. After the last uprising, the smiths constructed a container for Er– the weapon, something it could not escape from. We thought they could be trusted not to open the vessel or try to use the weapon, but apparently the rebels found a way to change their minds.”

  “So you’re going to fight a bunch of metalworkers?”

  Dominic shook his head. “Probably not. Although they craft the ’Graven’s daggers and swords, they’re not soldiers themselves. It’s not really their fault that these rebels tricked them into freeing the weapon. But we can’t know what we’ll face when we get there, and I’d rather go in with troops behind me than without.”

  While Dominic talked I had taken the chance to try to revive our communion, not touching him, but passing my hand over his a couple of millimeters apart. The motion stirred our crypta fields, producing the same effect I had experienced at our meeting—the delicious electric buzz, arousing and
soothing at the same time, which was more than the usual static between telepaths. It was the physical manifestation of the love we shared, the precursor to the deep communion that was only a touch and a thought away.

  Dominic shivered at the sensation. He tried to move his hand away, but couldn’t. He wanted to touch me in return, take me in his arms, but he didn’t do that either. “No, Amalie,” he said in a whisper. “Not yet. Wait until this danger has passed.”

  He was shaking with the effort at restraint that was so alien to him. He tried, but could not conceal his thoughts from me. The incident in the travelers’ hut had frightened him more than it had me. I had attributed the problem to the disruption of our communion. Once that was restored, I thought, all should be well.

  But Dominic could not share my confidence. He was attracted to lovers who were small, young or vulnerable in some way, inspiring his protective instinct and that other side of him, the one that enjoyed abuse and domination. In the hut, the telepathic weapon had jammed our communion, blocking the gentleness it would have inspired, leaving us at the mercy of desire untempered by love. It had happened so easily, and Dominic had had no warning, no chance to resist the weapon’s influence. Now he was worried he might never be able to touch me, or any lover, without succumbing to the allure of violence.

  I recalled that first time at La Sapienza, when he had been so aroused by looking at me in a dressmaker’s mirror that he could not wait, but had rushed in to make telepathic love to me. And before that, the embrace and kisses we had shared in my apartment. There had been no lurking brutality there, no sense of Dominic having to suppress a part of his sexuality.

  “I don’t want to wait,” I said. “I want to find out, now, if we can be lovers or not.”

  Dominic stood up and moved away from the bed. “Amalie,” he said, “it’s enough that you’re carrying my child. Once this rebellion is put down, the weapon destroyed, then we’ll see.”

  His words only increased my determination. Dominic was riding off into unknown danger in the morning. What if he was killed and we had never come together in love?

  Besides, it was not all up to Dominic to adjust. The communion could make it possible for each of us to attune our bodies and behavior to the other, allowing us to enjoy physical love without having to settle for only tepid sexuality. Dominic would need to use a reasonable amount of self-control, and with the help of the communion I could reach the height of arousal, protecting myself while acting as a full participant in our coupling.

  I was willing to chance it now, see what happened. Eleonora had scoffed at the idea that the Eris weapon would attack us here at Aranyi, with two of Eclipsis’s most gifted seminary staff in residence, and Dominic and me not exactly defenseless. I walked toward him, sending my thoughts in the partial communion I had created between us. You must stop blaming yourself for something a telepathic weapon caused.

  Dominic attempted to free himself from the communion, answering me in speech. “You are too generous, Amalie. You excuse my actions because you think I was overpowered.”

  “Weren’t you? What was all this about, if you weren’t overpowered?” I made the sign against evil, jabbing my hand at his face.

  Dominic stepped back, smiling sadly. “No weapon, however powerful, could compel me to do something wholly against my nature. If the desire did not already exist in my mind, the weapon would have had nothing to build on.” Dominic was not looking at me as he spoke, but at the wall, eyes unfocused, looking into himself, tortured by his accusing memories.

  “But you don’t always have that desire,” I said. “You never even thought about it when I was at La Sapienza.” I remembered it so clearly, the love we had created then for each other in our minds. Dominic had had to do more of the work, as his skill was greater. But my perceptions had been acute, sharpened by my training. What Dominic had wanted then had been simple and unthreatening—sexual fulfillment for both of us. We had achieved that, despite our geographical separation. Surely, now that we were together, we could attain it again, if only he would trust himself to enter communion with me. “Please, Dominic, don’t let this weapon come between us forever.”

  “You’re not listening,” Dominic said, his voice rising with the beginning of anger. “It’s not the weapon keeping us apart; it’s me. If I hadn’t wanted to hurt you on some level of my consciousness, I could not have done it.”

  “But that’s just it!” I shouted. “You didn’t want to hurt me then. All that happened is we didn’t form communion, and you didn’t know when to stop.” I blushed, his self-control having the perverse effect of making me uncomfortable with saying these things aloud.

  “Oh,” Dominic said, “you’ll make any excuse for me, say anything rather than admit—”

  “Admit what? That I love you? That I want you physically? I admit it.”

  “Cherie,” Dominic said, “so do I want you. But you don’t seem to recognize the danger. Our communion was blocked, and you may not have been aware of what was in my mind.”

  I laughed. “Nothing. That’s what was in our minds, yours and mine. Nothing except sex. And it wasn’t in our minds, but in our—”

  “Yes, Amalie, I understand.” Dominic shook his head at my coarseness. “And what makes you so sure we can try it safely now?”

  “Because,” I said, “all that time in the shelter, whatever else I may have felt, I never felt sick. The whole time I never once felt nauseated, that I had to throw up.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Dominic said, giving a harsh laugh. “A real testimonial. I can honestly say that I don’t make the woman I love vomit.”

  “No, Dominic,” I said. “You don’t know what this means. Every other man or woman, no matter how attractive they are or how much I like them, I always feel sick when they try to make love to me. It’s something to do with my gift, I think. That’s why I rejected Tomasz Liang and Matilda Stranyak at La Sapienza. You’re the only person who ever touched me without nauseating me. And that night, all the time we– fucked,” I stumbled over the word but forced myself to continue, “and didn’t form communion, and it was too much for me—I never felt so much as queasy. Not once.”

  “My poor love,” Dominic said. “No wonder you couldn’t enjoy the Midwinter Festival.” He was tempted to comfort me, thought better of it, and stood looking helpless.

  “Don’t you see?” I said. “If anything had been seriously wrong between us, I would have felt sick. But it was just our bodies acting without our minds. Now that we’re away from the weapon’s influence, able to form communion, everything should be all right.”

  “It may not mean that much,” Dominic said. “It might prove only that we share a physical communion, not that we can control it.”

  I approached Dominic while he spoke, reaching up to put my arms around his neck, but he backed away. “No, Amalie, don’t do this to me.”

  Whatever happens, I love you, I thought to him, staring into his eyes. He tried to retreat, to back out the door, but there was still some communion between us, and I held him in it while I wriggled out of my nightgown at the shoulders and pushed it down, freeing my breasts, then my hips, stepping daintily out of the shimmering puddle of silk when it reached the floor. As I had hoped, Dominic became instantly erect, could not contain his reaction to the sight of me.

  “No, Amalie.” It was barely a whisper.

  I took the chance to inch closer, until we were almost touching. “Put your arms around me,” I said.

  Dominic didn’t move. He stood very still, only his deep breaths betraying the strain he was under. He resisted as well as he could, but I used my newly-acquired skills and forced him. It was funny, this tall, powerful man, and small, delicate woman, in a kind of mental wrestling match. Eventually I won a partial victory. Dominic’s arms moved, in the jerky, awkward way of something done involuntarily, and he held me—too tightly. He relaxed slightly, able to laugh as I used my crypta again to loosen his grasp.

  “You see?” I said. “I’
m not completely at your mercy. I think you can make love to me gently, but if you can’t, if you try to hurt me, I can stop you.”

  Dominic was not so easily conquered; he had merely been caught off guard. As I snuggled into his embrace, lifting my face to be kissed, expecting any moment to be picked up, deposited on the bed and ravished, not in an unthinking fog of lust, but with love, I did a stupid thing. I shut my outer eyelids, hiding the inner ones and loosening the tie of communion. Dominic seized the moment of freedom, pushed me away and ran for the door, pulling it shut behind him.

  “We will talk when I return,” he said from the safety of the corridor. “About this, and the child, and—”

  I tugged on the doorknob, but Dominic was holding the door fast shut. A woman’s voice sounded from the far end of the hallway. “Let Dominic go to bed, Amalie,” Eleonora said, her voice rising and falling with the exaggerated emphasis one uses in dealing with a badly-behaved child. “You may sleep in, but the rest of us must rise early tomorrow.”

  Dominic released the knob suddenly and the door flew inward, exposing me, naked and flushed, to Eleonora’s sardonic gaze. Most of my bruises were gone, but my thighs retained the last yellow-green traces of their rough treatment. Eleonora looked me over, seeming to zero in on these areas. “Very lovely, Amalie,” she said. “But not the sort of thing to attract Dominic, as you will discover.” Her tinkling laugh grated on my nerves all night.

  Reluctantly I acknowledged another reason for Eleonora’s dislike. She and Josh had not been able to have children. They had tried for years, every false hope ending in disappointment, her seminary work never quite making up for the deprivation, no child to show for their brave marriage of working partners. My being Terran was not just an excuse for Eleonora’s prejudice. It was the reason for my immediate conception of Dominic’s child. We were not closely related, through centuries of intermarriage between the same few families, and were not cursed with the resulting infertility that had afflicted so many marriages between the ’Graven, like Eleonora’s, and Edwige Ertegun’s.