Part 17 (1/2)

”It was kind of you to show me this,” she whispered, looking into his face. She came very near to expressing her adoration of him. He had the most beautiful, rarest of smiles, not frequent nor brilliant, but slowly stealing up, issuing a gentle flame, as deep as it was warm.

”We should return,” he said in a quiet, decided tone. He rose to depart, a.s.sisting her up with him.

”Will you find yourself in trouble, returning at such a late hour?” asked Deacon as they walked toward the cottages. ”It must take several hours to cross that water. I should not have kept you so long.”

”There will be no trouble,” a.s.sured Magenta. ”She'll believe me to have been with my father.”

Pressing her hand, he left her to walk on her own to a dank dwelling by a little wooden dock. An old man lived there who owned a boat. He often took Magenta across the water to the isle when she was alone. Deacon continued on his own through the darkly cl.u.s.tered cottages toward Cade's home. The memory of the evening was like a faded dream.

He reviewed the hours he had pa.s.sed with Magenta with a smile visible on his lips, shaded by affliction. His heart was heavy with a tenderness that verged on grief. He could master his physical self, but his emotional self he struggled with. The knowledge of impending separation was a burden upon him. He knew her heart would break. Deacon pinched his fingers into the corners of his eyes. His head ached, and he wished to sleep, but she occupied his dreams so frequently he no longer wished to close his eyes.

Chapter29.

Coming Apart -t was late morning, yet a chill prevailed as if winter shadows were perpetually cast. In the grove Deacon waited alone. She had not yet come to him. When finally she did, Magenta brought with her another book. He rose to greet her. ”I have something else for you,” she said.

”I see,” he said, smiling. He seemed neither impressed or disinterested; nevertheless she was pleased by his attentiveness and the kindly manner in which he received her. They very soon settled down into their usual way of things. Magenta sat in quiet repose on the cloak laid down for her, Deacon on the fallen tree. He didn't look at the new book but continued with divination. He must very soon give it back to her and wanted to extract as much as he could from it.

”Tell me of your journey here,” she asked at length.

Deacon looked up at her without speaking, as if deep in thought. It seemed he hadn't heard, his mind not yet readjusted. ”What did you ask of me?” he said.

”For you to tell me of your time coming here,” she said. ”I have not ever seen outside the city.”

”I've seen less than I would like myself,” he admitted. ”But we did cover a great deal of land to get here. I think the youngest will be cured of his wanderl.u.s.t for good.” Deacon was a few years younger than Magenta yet had seen more of the world outside in mere days than she had her entire life. He told her of the things he had seen: little villages and rich lands with many farms, woods, and vineyards. He told her the land became distinctly harsher, more dismal, toward Cheydon, the people more intractable, as if the chill of a dark shadow had settled upon the lands.

”I don't know if the shadow lingers because of the darkness here,” said Magenta, ”or whether the darkness is drawn here because of the shadow.”

Deacon noticed she pa.s.sed her fingertips lovingly over the fabric of his cloak. Her face was down and held a soft expression of sadness. He could not look upon her without feeling a stab of tenderness. He bit his lip, brooding over her. ”When at first I saw you in these woods,” he began tentatively, ”what affliction burdened you? I could scarcely recognize your face for grief.”

Her pale cheek and bloodless lip seemed to grow fainter at his words. ”My home is a detestable place,” she said. ”Every chamber encloses some awful thing. In silent places, in a deep darkness where there is no light, my kin commit terrible acts.” For a moment she was motionless, transfixed, staring at her hand. ”There was a boy. I tried to save him, but he died. There is blood on their hands, and no one will prevent them from wetting them afresh. I am one of them. Their poison went deep into my body. Sometimes I feel so contaminated, I feel I am not born to this world.”

Magenta gazed at him with a face that to look upon was to love, full of that calm forbearance which rendered it intensely beautiful to him. He could not bear the look of appeal she directed at him. He sought the ground with his eyes. His first impression was that some cruel force bearing influence over her had deepened. Poison, treachery, evil flowed in her veins. Yet he knew it could not entwine with her spirit.

”A man came here once in service for the arch mage,” she said. ”He went to the temple yet did nothing. He was blind to all that went on there, and when I spoke of it to him, my voice went unheard.”

”People are fools,” said Deacon. ”They see and hear only what they want to, and if they don't see it, it doesn't exist.” He clenched his teeth. ”And evil is cunning. It can take many years to discover it and many more to rectify it. Give it time and changes will be made for the better.”

He spoke with warmth and conviction, and Magenta felt certain he was destined for great things, a latent force which, like a spark, waits to burst forth in vivid flame. They continued to speak, and it gave her great comfort to know that he understood and possessed similar feeling to her. Talking, he found her gaze intently on him, and she saw that for some reason he wished to avoid her eyes. They had become strangely pale in her pa.s.sion, yet it was not this strangeness that filled him with a returning dread, but the kindling affection he knew she harboured for him. He again took up his book but was hesitant to leave her outside of his attention. She saw this and decided to relieve him of the predicament.

”I have occupied your thoughts too long,” she said with something of an apology and rose to her feet. She wandered a little distance, looking away from him into the trees. He returned to his study, relieved her attention had strayed from him. But he was mistaken.

A gentle breeze stirred her dark hair, and Deacon, seeing her from over the book, lost entirely the thread of his thought. He found himself watching her as she drifted, his entire concentration devoted to her. Her beauty and her haunting quality was becoming terrible to him. She seemed to weave a spell upon him, under which he could not long forget he was in a body that required the touch of a tender companion. Endlessly her heart called to him. Her entire being vibrated with an immense longing and travelled toward him wherever he was, drawing him to her. The anguish of her soul's yearning and the radiating force of her love called to him. As if feeling the answer upon her, Magenta turned and looked at him, reflecting her lingering tenderness.

Deacon found falling in love with her as inevitable and inescapable as death. It filled him with a rising, suffocating dread. A character such as his was not easily touched, but once roused, he felt with immeasurable intensity. It was not what he wanted.

One morning Magenta, fearing she was to become a burden to him, asked softly, ”Do you tire of my presence?”

”No,” he said, in his dispa.s.sionate way. ”I find it a comfort.” As he spoke his hand worked at the clasp at his throat. He unfastened his cloak and laid it down for her. He never forgot seeing her as she stood there waiting, watching him, her eyes full of love. Her countenance was calm, free from all perplexity and trouble. Without the cloak his throat was bare above the neck-band of his black s.h.i.+rt, strong and smooth.

”Why do you not sit with me?” she asked.

Deacon hesitated a moment, then took a place beside her, his face pale. He didn't want this to happen. He rubbed his thigh restlessly, then lifted the book in an attempt to read. He would not look at her. He felt, sitting next to her on the cloak, that there was something too fatal in the situation, something too intimate. Her scent, like faded perfume, roused his senses. It was tormenting to be with only the trees and her.

He could easily have reached across the little s.p.a.ce dividing them and touched her. He knew she had thought of it almost as often as he had. Against this he struggled but kept his eyes fixed down. Her presence obstructed his concentration. She watched him persistently.

”Are you so inquisitive about my thoughts?” he asked, without looking up. He lifted one of the books. ”Read this and you'll find where they are.”

”I have read it,” she said. ”Yet I cannot move things with my mind as you can.”

She looked at him so reverently that he wondered if her heart was not merely bound to an idea of him. He wondered, also, if perhaps her success in winning his heart would not prove to be her punishment, upon discovering the reality of his evil nature. But then he had so often found her eyes directed at him in such a manner as to suggest she could, in fact, see into his very soul. Perhaps darkness perceives darkness as light.

He turned to look into her eyes. ”Answer me truthfully,” he said slowly. ”Why do you wish my company?”

She could not answer with words but instead reached for him. His eyes, which were so perfectly clear and set on her, fell to where her fingertips lightly touched the back of his hand, asking for him mutely. Something stirred uneasily in him. His lips parted slightly when he felt from her touch a strange influence. His eyes lifted heavily to hers with wordless comprehension. He was fascinated, scarcely able to move, fearful of the unknown ecstasy she concentrated through him, filling into his veins, as if she were some infinitely warm, sweet suffusion.

”You're affecting me,” he murmured, hardly able to keep his voice steady. ”I can feel it.”

She saw enough in his face to impel her to move nearer upon him. Her hands went over him tremulously, gently, with discovering fingers. He felt an appeal coming from her that made him breathless. He watched her eyes, heavily, steadily gazing into his and could feel he was losing himself to her. His heart filled with a hot pain and yearning.

She let her fingers wander over his face like a person with no sight, taking in every detail with exquisite unreservedness. His cheeks and chin perfectly smooth. As she did this, his gaze wandered over her face with a strange blankness. He was gone in a kind of wonder yet concentrated, keenly aware of the nearness of her body, laid against him with gentle pressure. He could feel his heart beating in his throat. She touched his cheek and chin and lips. Her fingers lingered over his mouth. Never before had she touched the lips of a man.

He softened beneath her touch, yielding momentarily to sweetness, burning almost beyond self-control. He could not find the strength to break with her, suffering from the sight of her slightly parted lips, yet a part of him was held away. He wished to subject himself to her utterly, yet he would be free of her. She became overwhelming in her gravity. She was drawing him out when he wanted to be withdrawn, alone in his darkness. A bitterness came up in him that she did not yet feel. Her soul arrested in wonder and awe, she approached her lips to his. He placed his hands on her waist, but instead of drawing her closer, strained his face away.

”Are your lips venomous also, priestess?” he asked bitterly, and slowly too, as if wanting her to feel the full sting of his words.

”No more so than your tongue,” she said in a voice cold with hurt. He seemed bent on wounding her. She broke from him and rose sharply to her feet. He was on his feet also and seizing her by the arm, wheeled her round to face him.

”What am I to be charged with,” he asked. ”Being reckless with your heart?”

Silence was the hurting maiden's only answer. Her breath came quick and short. She remained pa.s.sive in his grasp but intensely withheld. Her eyes were indicative of deep hurt, her face pale as one dying. In his chest Deacon felt a pain deeper than death.

”Have ever words of love pa.s.sed my lips?” he asked brutally.

It was a moment before she answered. ”Sometimes a man's eyes speak as well as his lips.”

He could have, of course, denied it. But he knew she had too true an estimate of his feelings. Presently he released her, and to his dismay, saw the red marks his fingers had impressed on her pale flesh. An apology rose and died on his lips. A helpless silence fell between them. As she made a move to leave, he caught hold of her again. ”Wait.” He stooped down and collected the books, holding them to her. ”You might as well take these with you.”

”When you're finished,” she said weakly, making no move to accept them.

”I'm finished,” he said, putting them into her hands. He would like to have gone through them again and again, but he had taken mostly all he needed, an achievement that was only possible through his bitter determination. He had a great capacity for retaining knowledge, a quickness in learning.

Magenta left the grove more subdued than she had entered it. Deacon watched after her, and when she had vanished, turned his back, hitting his hand against the tree. He let his head hang. For some time he stood torn and miserable, left in silence.

Chapter30.