Part 52 (2/2)
She shuddered, gulped again, pushed at his chest. ”Let go, I-I'm going to-”
The symptoms were too familiar; he held her shoulders and steadied her as she was sick. Afterward, he wiped her sweaty forehead and her mouth with his handkerchief, scuffed sand over the mess, and led her a few steps toward his house.
”Don't,” Freia said, pulling weakly away. ”Please don't. Please stop. Please.” She was weeping again, not the great wracking sobs but a steady tremor this time.
432.
'EdzaBetfi ”Let me help. Freia, it is my fault. I shouldn't have left you. I'm sorry you got hurt. You need help. 1 want to help you, and I can help you. Let me.”
”Don't. Leave me alone. You can't help. You can't. n.o.body can help.” She shook her head emphatically.
”I can. I know I can if you'll just let me try,” he insisted.
Freia tossed her head back and glared at him, streaked and reddened with salt tears and sun. ”How do you know you can help?” she demanded. ”You don't even know what's wrong!”
”If you'd tell me, I'd know, and then I'd help you,” Dewar said reasonably, squelching annoyance again. Her contrariness was enough to provoke a stone.
”You want me to tell you this and tell you that and I don't trust you,” Freia said, the hysterical edge coming to her voice again. She yanked her arms away from his hands. ”You can't help and you don't believe me and why can't you just leave me alone?”
”Because I'm your brother,” he shouted back at her.
The color drained from her face and her eyes grew wide and dark, staring up at his face, disbelief fading into shock. He seized her arm, steadied her.
”How-” she whispered.
”Prospero is my father,” Dewar said.
He had said it to Lady Miranda, still stunned by the revelation, and sworn her to silence. He had not said it, even to himself, since then.
”But-” Freia couldn't make words fit her tumbling, shattering thoughts. She closed her eyes.
”Now will you let me help you?” Dewar pressed her, exasperated. ”What ails you?”
She looked at him again, cold in the hot sun. ”I'm pregnant,” Freia said.
Prospero's sweeping cloak was the color of the twilight sky, its lining midnight-black. Head low, he galloped on tireless Hurricane through the vast forest called Herne's Riding, hypnotizing himself with the beat of the horse's four hooves on the cold road. The obsessive rhythm crowded out other ^ Sorcerer and a (jentkman <^-- 433=”” thoughts,=”” doubts,=”” and=”” the=”” gut=”” urge=”” to=”” turn=”” around=”” and=”” get=”” out=”” of=”” here,=”” to=”” consider=”” himself=”” lucky=”” to=”” have=”” what=”” he=”” did=”” and=”” live=”” without=”” more.=”” he=”” carried=”” his=”” d.a.m.nation=”” in=”” a=”” rolled=”” tube=”” in=”” the=”” saddlebag-d.a.m.nation=”” and=”” a=”” fragment=”” of=””>
He congratulated himself on his forethought in emanc.i.p.ating Freia. He had not intended that the doc.u.ment should be used, but had done it, four years before he'd opened his war, out of a sense of justice; it was the closest he had come to contemplating defeat. Were he to go down, she'd not fall with him, remaining free of the claws of the Crown. Or so he had hoped. Had the disobedient chit but obeyed him, neither of them would have come to the present pa.s.s.
The existence of the emanc.i.p.ation invalidated, he thought, the treaty-clause in which Avril claimed the right to bestow Prospero's daughter. That Avril would have thought of it at all, Prospero thought, showed what a base mind the man had, and that he had insisted on it showed him mean and subhuman. Gaston was less than he made himself seem, to serve such a worm.
Hurricane leapt a creek without losing the beat of his gallop.
Thus, to frustrate some of AvriPs desire to grind his allies, Prospero had made the lands over to her. She would keep them for him, and he would still have sway in their governance-not that he cared for any but Argylle. The others were all smoke, veils of dust to conceal the gem that was Argylle.
He could not contemplate it further. He returned to counting hoofbeats.
Freia's revelation eclipsed his own. Dewar felt his face go slack with shock, his jaw drop to a graceless gape. Memory tumbled incidents together.
”-rape,” his lips shaped voicelessly. No marvel now her distraught thras.h.i.+ng, her desperation. Golias-it had to have been the sham-b.a.s.t.a.r.d Golias. Otto had no taste for force, and Gaston was a true Prince and a man of honor.
434.
TtizaAetfi 'Wittey Dewar looked away, ashamed to have badgered and baited her. ”Did the Emperor know? Or Gaston?” he asked. ”Are you certain?”
She snorted.
”No.”
Freia shook her head.
”Freia.” He put his hand on her shoulder. ”If you are not sure-”
”Dewar, don't say anything else stupid. Please. I cannot bear it,” she said in a taut, high voice. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
Irked, he began to retort, ”I'm sorry for you-”
”I don't want your pity.” She pulled back again, distracted from one pain by another.
”You have my compa.s.sion and my earnest desire to do you good, if you can bring your pride to accept them. We are bound at least by blood, at best by more.”
Freia said, a quaver in her voice, ”I find it hard to believe you.”
”He said it himself.”
”Oh, well, a man would know, wouldn't he.”
Dewar took a moment to hear this as sarcasm, and then he flushed. ”I a.s.sume he has reason to know,” he said coldly, ”and I am inclined to believe him.”
”What has your mother got to say about it?”
”I don't know. I have not seen her in many, many years, and she hates me with all her heart. She is a dangerous and evil woman. And yours?” he added.
Freia shrugged.
Dewar decided it was a poor subject for conversation now. He drew his breath in, let it out slowly. The straightforward task of rescuing Freia from the Emperor had just become a maze. ”Come with me,” Dewar said gently, ”and let us talk somewhere quiet out of the sun, where we may sit and be easy. And it may be you think I have no business with you still, but if you will let me I'll help you.”
”Avril,” Gaston said, ” 'tis less than manly and less than kingly to wittingly seal a false bargain.”
Sorcerer and a Cjzntteman 435.
”If he returns and says he will covenant with us, then it is of no concern-”
”You have nothing to return to him. His daughter's gone. You'll stoop to fraud? A market-charlatan's pea-and-sh.e.l.l game's more honorable than this,” said Gaston.
”So, Gaston, we should let him go free. Scot-free. Not a mark on him. To draw back and plan another strike. We should shake the serpent and drop it on our foot to bite or not as it chooses. We find these sentiments difficult to believe, coming from our Marshal,” the Emperor hissed, twisting and staring back at Gaston.
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