Part 43 (2/2)

After about an hour, Marianna looked at her husband and said through the fixed smile that she had acquired, ”If we don't get out of here, I'm going to scream.”

”I doubt if anyone would hear you, but I agree.”

He took her hand and led the way through the Jos- tling throng. No one seemed to notice, much less try to stop them. The noise of the revelry pursued them down the corridor, but once they had turned the second cor- ner, it died mercifully away.

”They're going to be angry when they look around to escort us to the bridal bed and find us gone,” Jarrod said.

”They'll b.l.o.o.d.y well have to lump it,” she replied.

”It's a barbaric custom. I've been through it once and I've no intention of doing so again.”

”They'll come banging on my, er, our door and cre- ate a rumpus. They'll all be drunk and they may well break it down.”

Marianna groaned. ”You're right, of course.” She stopped and tugged him to a halt. ”Tell you what,” she said decisively, ”I'm going to my room to change. You do the same and meet me at the stables. Father keeps a

238 mare for me to ride and if Nastrus isn't there, you can borrow one of Daddy's hunters.”

”We're going to the Outpost?” Jarrod asked.

”Well, we've agreed that we can't stay in your room here.” A hint of her old grin appeared. ”We couldn't get married there the way we wanted to, but I don't see why we shouldn't spend our wedding night there, do you?”

”I married a very intelligent woman,” Jarrod said.

He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. ”I'll see you at the stables in half an hour.”

So Jarrod spent his wedding night in his own bed, a bed that had never had a woman between its sheets before. Marianna had gone to sleep almost immedi- ately, but the headache he had acquired at the feast kept Jarrod awake awhile, curled protectively and content- edly around his wife. He smiled at the word- He was aware that he did not love her as he had loved her when he was a boy, but, he decided, he did love her. He knew, too, that she had never been in love with him. She was fond of him, of that he was certain, and they had been good together in bed. She would come to love him. He hugged her gently and drifted off to sleep.

ChAptCR 21

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e are informed that you demanded an au- dience, Revered Mother.” The Emperor's voice, manip- ulating the cadences of the Formal Mode into sarcasm, emphasized the ”demanded.”

The Mother Supreme compressed her lips. She had taken a risk in forcing this meeting, but Varodias had given her no other option. She had been pet.i.tioning for an audience for a fortnight and his refusal to see her was both a personal slight and an insult to the Church.

That could not be tolerated. She felt the anger rise in her again and pushed it away. She could not afford to be emotional with this man.

”Access to Your Majesty's presence is one of the tra- ditional privileges of my office,” she said quietly. ”I do no more than claim what tradition has sanctified.”

Varodias turned to stroke the feathers of the gyrfal- con that sat on the perch to his right. Let her stand and wait, he thought. She may have coerced my Chamber- lain but she will not coerce me.

”We have been much preoccupied of late,” he said lazily, his attention still on the raptor. ”The times are unsettled. There are a great many things that demand our attention.”

”Oh, I am aware of that,” Amulpha replied. ”I did not return to Angorn in search of frivolity.” She kept her voice pleasant. ”It is precisely the troubled times that I wish to discuss.”

240 Varodias turned his head back slowly. ”Indeed?”

She put on her professional smile. ”It was my im- pression that the last time we spoke we had reached an agreement.” Her knees and her ankles hurt. The Em- peror had yet to descend from the throne as custom required and did not appear to be ready to offer her a chair. Blast the conceited little man, she thought, but she was not about to give him satisfaction.

”An agreement?” Varodias was enjoying himself and he let it show.

”As I recall, I agreed to dismiss the Church's retain- ers and you agreed that Imperial troops would be de- ployed to protect Church property. I was to encourage our priestesses to preach support for the Imperium and you were going to open the Alien Plain to settlement, with a provision for the establishment of new churches in the conquered lands. I have kept my part of the bar- gain, but you have not kept yours.”

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