Part 25 (2/2)

”See how quick you are to heal?” he said with empty enthusiasm, then with a hint of accusation: ”The wounds you have laid on me run far deeper and will not repair with such ease. I had not meant you harm. In my suffering a darkness came over me.” He made an effort to put his lips on her shoulder but she withdrew it. He looked on her with impatient imploring. ”Please don't be unkind to me! Let me be punished in some other form. I cannot endure this. Tell me how I can reprove myself in such a manner as will insure me your affection, and I will do it.”

From where he sat, Deacon watched the two converse with eyes of suffering and torment. ”Don't look at her. Look at me,” said Theron; roughly he redirected his attention. ”This is the image you need to be seeing in your head.” He thrust at Deacon the piece of parchment he was sick almost to death of seeing.

Fraomar cast nervous eyes over to the party of men to see if they observed. He tried to coerce her to go even further from camp, but she would not go, convinced of her inadequacy for the struggle should he attempt violence. She had pulled somewhat apart from him, and his despair intensified.

”Why do you not want to be kind to me? I adore you-your hair and your lips. Your skin smells of flowers. It suffocates me. All these years so full of restrained pa.s.sion. I have waited for you. Even now I dare to hope for a return of my love.” His hand sought affection and feared to find contempt. ”If I could be but a.s.sured you would at least try to accept me-this alone restrains me. As it is you who has caused me to love, is it wrong that I should expect you to at least attempt to be receptive to my affections?”

She pushed aside his hand and continued to look him directly in the face.

”Why despise me?” he said. ”The things I have done you have provoked me to with your coldness. Perhaps if you would speak with me reasonably-”

”I can hardly regard you a rational partic.i.p.ant,” she said. ”You have disregarded my repeated refusal, acting on the false impression that I was not in earnest when I gave my opinion of your persistence, and even to believe I had encouraged you-”

”What is a man if he has not hope?”

”Dare not to hope! In your senseless incapability to see reason, you have so obstinately pursued me as to injure and grieve me and any near to my heart. You would try to intimidate me, divide my loyalties, hurt me, and attempt by such means to force my acceptance of you,” she said and told him that after such he must finally consider himself fully and irrevocably cast from her. She would have drawn away, but he pressed her closer, gripping her in his arm.

Her admonishment, instead of dissuading his affections, seemed rather to feed them. He hastened to answer: ”You are a great influence on me. You have convinced me of my injustices. I will reform. It is in your power to help me achieve this. Allow me to amend my past misdeeds. Give me a single chance and I will prove to you I am in earnest.”

When somewhat calmer he pressed her more gently to himself and said, ”If you knew how you tempt me-your hands, I should love to feel their softness.” Reaching down, he took hold of her hand and put it to his cheek, his face almost touching her own, but some inexplicit thing held him from making any attempt, as though he felt threatened by some invisible force. Very slowly, his voice full of supplication, he murmured, ”Let me come to your lips. Allow that I should taste them, and I am saved.”

She distressed him deeply by affecting a pa.s.sive resistance which he detested utterly. Burning with impatience, he said, ”I deserve that you should have me. If ever one showing patient waiting and bitter longing, and such faithfulness as to endure the utmost contempt with one devoted thought, deserved being loved, it is the pitiable fool you see before you. Does my long suffering and loyal adherence not strike some sympathetic chord? Has it all been in vain?”

Caressing her fingers with his lips, he murmured, ”Awake or asleep, it is your face I see.” He brushed his cheek against her open palm, since she would make no effort to caress him. ”There can be no doubt my heart has a capacity for sincere attachment, or I would not have endured all this with such abiding, unalterable love. I have given you all my heart. Will you treat it tenderly, or shall you cast it beneath your feet and tread over it till it is sore and bleeding?”

Magenta gave no reply, averting her face from his pursuing caresses. ”It is not much I ask of you-not much for you, but that little I seek is all the difference between happiness and misery for me. Come, be kind to me, be loving.” He made an attempt to kiss her. ”Tempter!” he said and seized her as she tried to elude him. He could compel her and set about proving it.

Deacon rose sharply to his feet. A stab of heat pierced his veins upon the sight of Fraomar forcibly removing her further from view. That he must seek the seclusion of shadows left no doubt as to the nature of his intentions. Theron was on his feet also and said, ”Sit down or I will knock you down!”

”He means to harm her!” said Deacon, going livid with rage, and for a moment he was blind. Two men took hold of him with the single purpose of subduing him, in which they soon succeeded. Next to him his cousins had been battered into submission. For one intense moment Deacon became still as Theron went to interpose himself between Magenta and her antagonist.

The hands that had her seized were ridged with painful veins. Fraomar choked with rage and pain. He did not release her, though the torment in his hands was almost intolerable. Instead he struck her, but with his arms he kept her standing. Deacon flinched as though he had taken the blow himself and struggled so violently that the two men holding him almost lost their balance and fell.

Again Fraomar raised his arm, and with such savage intent that Magenta shut her eyes and waited for the blow to fall. At that moment Theron caught and stayed the raised hand. Fraomar's hold loosened, and she stumbled backward and fell away from him.

”Enough games,” said Theron, throwing down the other man's hand impatiently. ”I don't care what you do when we return, but I suggest you in the meantime take care. I will have to account for your treatment of her.”

He stooped, hauled Magenta to her feet and tossed her back to his friend as a master would toss a favourite plaything back to his dog. When Theron returned, Deacon said, ”If he hurts her you might as well cut my throat this minute, for I will be of no use to you!” He spoke quickly and savagely, his breath erratic and laboured.

Theron gripped the front of his s.h.i.+rt as if he would tear him from the arms that detained him. ”Perhaps you consider yourself in a better position then you are in fact. Threaten me-attempt to go astray-and I will not only harm them myself, I will give you the pleasure of watching them beg for death before I'm done.”

That evening the three young men nursed their injured bodies without word or complaint. Hunched over himself, Derek was very quiet. His face was serious. A few beatings had broken him to obedience. He looked at his brother and knew his mind was ever working on a plan of action, yet it seemed so futile. The four of them were entirely at the mercy of these rough men. Deacon was motionless, as if he was cast in stone. At intervals his jaw would clench and life would momentarily sear his eyes. His single focus was the woman who sat helpless in the hands of the enemy. Once or twice during the evening he feared Fraomar would strike her.

With Fraomar's thick arms around her, Magenta was stifled against his strenuous body. He was bent on making her lean into him. She was tense and held away with contempt and uncertainty, as if she feared what he might next do on impulse. He was unstable and unpredictable, terrifying in his cruel littleness. She became completely silent; he had shown her that any response was but a fresh temptation to him to subdue her, violating her into an isolated sense of herself, where he could hurt her no more.

Her impervious beauty and aloof, conscious inward superiority threw him into a paroxysm of brutal revolt. He could not control her whose spirit no cruelty could subjugate. He wanted to crush her for her cold, sterile beauty.

Intently he watched her, his eyes rarely leaving her face, but she refused to meet his gaze, and always she looked away from him to the other man. Trying to decipher the meaning of their silent exchanges drove him near insanity.

Fraomar looked on her as a cruel, unforgiving creature. He suffered terribly. Coveting an affection denied, cheris.h.i.+ng a hope for a happiness refused, it was enough. His rejected love lay within him as a corpse, embittering and putrefying him, his very soul. A fatal resolve formed in his mind. He thought now to kill her. No longer would she poison his existence. He would be purged of her. But he would do this not before he had made amends for himself. All the pain and misery he had suffered for her would be rewarded in her embrace.

In the night when all but those who kept vigil had retired to their beds, Fraomar left his own. His tempter would be returned home the following morning, and so he no choice but to go to her this hour. Taking advantage of the night's darkness he made his way swiftly. As he neared the desired tent he slowed his steps and approached silently. He saw that the guard who was supposed to keep vigil had abandoned his post and was not to be seen.

”And where go you?” came a careless, unconcerned voice out from the dark. Stepping from behind a tree, lacing his pants, appeared the man keeping watch. ”What do you intend that you sweat and grow pale?” he said with an expression of mockery. He was a tall man with a brutally heavy mouth and direct gaze. ”Did your previous near-fatal experience teach you nothing?”

Fraomar said in a low voice, ”No word of this will be spoken, or you may count upon facing a scene more unfortunate than you can well imagine.” But his words, it seemed, were all in vain, for the guard only smiled. Fraomar advanced a step. ”Let me render my meaning more specific so there can be no misunderstandings-”

”I don't give a fig for your intentions,” said the guard coa.r.s.ely. ”I say, d.a.m.n the priestesses, curse every last one of them. I should like to see her thrown facedown into the mud-get that pretty dress dirty.” He sat down on the wooden stool and bent and lifted the drink that was between his feet in a brutal, coa.r.s.e fas.h.i.+on. ”It's not me who will have to account for any mistreatment. I need only to say you knocked me cold.”

”Which will not be a lie, should you provoke me to it,” said Fraomar. ”Keep your voice lowered.”

The guard took a sip and waved his hand dismissively. ”Go, be d.a.m.ned.” Raising his cup, he said, ”Here's to hoping for the best.” He gulped down a mouthful, muttering, ”Mind nothing falls off in the process-I know it puts me off.”

Fraomar, in a sudden, silent fury grasped the man by the scruff of the neck, das.h.i.+ng him against the tree, his forearm pressed against his throat. Though gritted teeth he spat: ”Mind your tongue, lest I cut it out.” He released the guard sharply and ordered, ”Stand away from here.”

Fraomar wiped the sweat from his brow, and looking to see none watched, he pushed back the sought canvas flap, and silently as a shadow entered the dark, sweetly-scented confines. Magenta, who had not yet closed her eyes for the night, drew herself up to a sitting position, her hair falling loosely round her. With one convulsive movement he had her seized in a frightful grip, crus.h.i.+ng her against his body. Her cry was ended in a stifled scream, his hand round her throat. In his clutches, she felt a pang of hot fear in her breast.

”Hush-no noise.” His voice seemed to vibrate fearfully deep inside her. ”Remember that you have made an enemy of me.”

His breath muted, he settled himself carefully at her side, and when certain he had rendered her voiceless, gradually loosened his hold. His beard was coa.r.s.e and damp, so that she shuddered at the light brush of his face against her smooth cheek.

Having her thus close and in his power sent the blood pounding suffocatingly to his head. He trembled with desire and abas.e.m.e.nt. With a refinement of cruelty he touched her face, brus.h.i.+ng his fingers down her white throat, which he thought to be her finest feature. And a horror and dread stirred within her. She strained her face away from him and said, low and tense, ”Touch me not.” But fear drained the strength from her voice, so that it scarcely reached her own ear as a whispering of a ghost.

He disregarded her warning, and in spite of her frozen resistance, drew the covers down from her body, holding her in her light gown. Magenta, with eyes closed, hardly breathed. Her very soul cringed from this contact with him, against the feel of his arm around her, but though she resisted him, she dared not repulse him for very fear of him. A frantic movement, an utter of repulsion, would have plunged him into a frenzy of pa.s.sion in which he would be unsubduable.

His words were spoken on a shuddering breath. ”My mercy shall be as sparing as yours for me.” His arm was around her in a fixed position. His chest set against her, hard and unyielding. In this terrible hold he silently, insistently, pa.s.sed an intrusive hand over her.

It was something near revenge to see the shame and powerless hatred worked in her. She remained motionless, benumbed with rage, apparently scarce knowing what he did, for her face was set blank, her eyes fixed on vacancy. The intense feeling of revulsion could not find vent, and so she sat restrained and recoiled inside herself, wavering between immobility and utter torment, sorely dismayed to find how dead her heart was becoming under his treatment of her.

Nothing was too sacred or too inviolable for his rapacious hands. She had no colour, no sound, wilting within herself, she seemed to fade into emptiness. Yet even now he felt she was untouched. He could feel her wilful resistance set against him. Anger pulsed in his veins, and yet his desire mounted with it. ”Even now you would resist me,” he said with the rancour of incredulous fury. As he spoke he pa.s.sed his thumb cruelly over her lips, sating his eyes on her face which he then turned to press his face into, inhaling the scent of flowers that was uniquely hers, a subtle perfume that sweetened all her body. It made him shudder with an excess of his most violent pa.s.sions. He half-choked, sick with desire. He grasped her arm to turn her, and she felt herself drawn into his stifling embrace. She could not draw an easy breath, stifled by the hot odour of him, of sweat and leather and yearning.

With steady insistence he pressed her into the ache of his heart, his lips brus.h.i.+ng her throat beneath the ear, laying moist kisses down her neck, softly, repulsively soft. It would be many hours till morning, and he felt he had leisure to give himself full licence, cleaving to the unliving, unfeeling body, the strength of his arms ever-increasing. She was as if crushed. A terrible weakness overcame her limbs, frozen within herself, feeling her heart being killed within her, smothered by the terrible heat of him, a slow irrepressible force that mounted against her.

She closed her eyes, beginning to tremble. Already she could feel him moving in upon her, silent, intent, his arm enfolding her. There was anger in his hands and a destructive strength. The brute blood smothering his veins, he no longer cared to put off his revengeful desires. He set his mouth against her cheek and drew a long, s.h.i.+vering sigh. He spoke with low-toned fervor: ”Perceive it necessary for me to do this-consent or refuse-you will be sparing my life.” He clasped her neck and brought her cheek to his and whispered coa.r.s.ely, ”Nothing you have ever bled for will be more worthwhile.”

Desire took him and he was quick to cover her trembling lips with his mouth to relieve the longing. A man's strength is a terrible and fearful thing when his blood is full of desire and burning inside of him. She made no attempt to struggle nor to prevent him, but even as his mouth moved over hers, his lips and cheek began to turn livid with the hue of death.

With persistent obstinacy he fought through the pain and torment, pus.h.i.+ng through the soreness and the burning sweetness that wounded his lips. It seemed the only effect of this act of preservation was to render him more determined in his actions. He put forth every exertion to resist her cruelty, waiting for it to abate. Abruptly, in agony and torment, he suddenly broke from her. Scarcely beneath his breath, he cried with broken frustration, ”Cursed woman!” His eyes burned with tears of hate. ”You will be the death of me!”

He clamped his hand over her throat, and she was drawn to him in a terrible grip. He regarded the insufferable woman fixedly. Exhausted and defeated, she seemed now to have no power but to look upon his face, which was the image of fury itself, intensified by the emotionlessness of her own expression, which maintained a determined pa.s.sivity enough to madden any lover. His tormented anger quickly gave way to wretchedness, and his manner toward her again changed, supplicating in his words and attentions. With an officious hand he brushed the dark hair from her white face. ”Someday you will have me.” He panted. He was anxious and determined to be entreated, sickened in his heart with longing. He s.h.i.+fted his weight restlessly and avowed, ”Let me come to you, and I will serve you unto death.”

As she spoke her face showed plainly her disgust. ”Every feeling of my heart revolts-the embrace of death should be more welcome.” Her heart was hot and pounding convulsively in her breast. He in an instant became hot all over.

”Those were fatal words,” he said, his mouth white. He laid ruthless hands on her and dragged her down to him. In frenzy and agony he clutched at her, without mind, as if driven by some desperate, terrible imperative. Sobs of impotent rage and torment choked her throat and racked her body. His lips breathed wrath, uttering hoa.r.s.e cries of pain.

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