The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection Page 7

  ‘If you can pull yourself out of the center of things,’ he said tenderly, ‘I’ll take you home.’

  The drive back was almost silent. Marianne was deeply content, more than a little drunk without knowing it, warmed by the wine, unsuspecting of danger. As for him, he was no less moved than he had been hours earlier, but that early impetuous anticipation had turned to something deeper and more bittersweet, something like the pain of a mortal wound gained in honorable battle by a fanatical warrior. Heaven was guaranteed to such a sufferer, but a kind of death was the only gateway. ‘Death of what?’ he fretted, ‘of what? I have never been one to attach great esoteric significance to such matters!’ He refused to answer his own question. Such metaphors were merely the results of wine-loquacity, a kind of symbolic babble. He concentrated on driving.

  When they arrived, he took her to the door and entered after her, saying, ‘I’ll hang those pictures before I leave you. No! Don’t object, Marianne. I want to do it,’ riding over her weak protests to come close to her, making a long business of the stick-on hangers, standing back to see whether the pictures were straight, putting them where those others had been meant to go, one in her living room, the other by her bed. And she there, watching, bemused, almost unconscious, eyes fixed on the picture of the maidens setting out their lights, stroking her own face with the fluffy eagle feather tassel of the medicine bag he had brought her, as a child might stroke its face with the corner of a loved blanket, her whole expression dreamy and remote as though she merely looked in on this present place from some distant and infinitely superior existence. Then she turned to him, and her eyes were aware, and desirous, and soft…

  He groaned, the man part breaking through his self-imposed barriers, groaned and took her into his arms, putting his mouth on hers, feeling her half-surprise, then the glorious liquid warmth of her pressed against him in all that silken flow as she returned the kiss. He dropped his lips to the hollow of her throat, heard her gasp as he pressed the silk away with his mouth to follow the swelling curve of her breast…

  And heard her cry as from some great distance, ‘Oh… not that way… chaos will win… all my battles lost… Oh, tomorrow I will want to die.’

  The words fell like ice, immediately chilling, making a crystalline shell into which he recoiled, immobilized, the Magus within him seeing her face, the mouth drawn up into a rictus which could equally have been passion or pain, so evenly and indiscriminately mixed that he could not foretell the consequence of the feeling it represented.

  So then it was Magus, cold, drawing upon all his powers of voice and command, who took the feathers from her hand and drew them across her eyes, forcing the lids closed, chanting in his hypnotic voice, ‘Sleep, sleep. Dream. It is only a dream. A little, lustful dream. It will be forgotten in the morning. Order rules. Your battles will all be won. Makr Avehl is your friend, your champion, your warrior to fight your battles beside you. Sleep…’ All the time afraid that the voice would fail him, that his man self had so undermined his Magus self as to make his powers impotent.

  But they were not. She slumped toward him, and he caught her as she fell, placing her upon her bed. When he left her a few moments later it was with a feeling of baffled frustration and disoriented anger, not at her, not even much at himself, but at whatever it was, whoever it was who set this barrier between them. He mouthed words he seldom used, castigated himself. ‘Fool. You knew there was something troubling her, something you have no knowledge of, but you tramp about with your great bullock’s feet, treading out her very heart’s blood…’ For there had been that quality in her voice which had in it nothing of coquetry but only anguish. ‘Idiot. Get out of here before you do any more damage.’

  But he could not leave until he had written her a note, folding it carefully. When he shut the door behind him, he turned to push it under the door, as though he had returned after leaving her. She would not remember anything of his – of his importunate assault. He had never felt so like a rapist for so little reason, and his sense of humor began to reassert itself as he went down the stairs. She might accuse herself in the morning, but it would only be of drinking a bit too much. She could accuse herself, or him, of nothing else.

  ‘And I will find out, will find out what it is that makes her act like this.’

  A voice hissed deep within. ‘Of course, it may be she simply does not find you attractive.’

  ‘Be still. It isn’t that. It isn’t that at all. What it is is a threat. Desire – sex – a threat. Not merely the usual kind of threat which any intimacy makes to one’s individuality, to one’s integrity, no. More than that. Something real is threatening her, and I am walking around the edges of it.’

  He sat for a long time with his head resting on the wheel, continuing the mood of part castigation, part determination. At last, when he was more calm, he drove away. Behind him in the lower window of the house, Mrs Winesap twitched the curtain back into place, an expression of sadness on her face. She had been sure that this man would not have stayed so short a time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  If it had not been a working day, she would have slept until noon. Since it was a working day, she struggled awake at the sound of the alarm, conscientiously set before she left her room the evening before. There was something hazy, misty in her mind, the lost feeling one sometimes gets when a recent dream departs, leaving a vacancy. She shook her head, trying to remember. There had been a good deal of amusement and laughter the night before, a good many soft-shelled crabs, pâté, wine … oh yes, wine. Her head ached a little, not badly, as though she might have slept with her neck twisted. She rubbed at it, noticing for the first time that she was naked among the sheets. Good lord, there must have been a lot of wine. Her clothing was laid across the chair. At least she had had the wits to undress. She couldn’t remember anything about it. Wrapping herself in a robe, ignoring the protest of bare feet on the cold bathroom floor, she brushed her teeth, drenched her face in a hot towel, pulled a brush through her hair. Thus fortified, she had the courage to look at herself in trepidation. The feared bleary eyes and reddened nose were not in evidence. Well then, perhaps she had only been what Cloud-haired mama was wont to call ‘being a little tiddly.’

  She was still half asleep when she went to the front window to begin her daily monitoring of conditions of order and disruption. The white square on the carpet brought her fully awake.

  Marianne, my dear: I forgot to tell you that my driver, Aghrehond, will pick you up on Saturday morning, about 9.00. My sister, Ellat, conveys her delight that you will be with us. She will be your chaperone and constant companion. No one will be given any excuse to criticize. All will be very proper. If you do not have riding clothes, Ellat can provide them. I look forward to the weekend with much pleasure. Thank you for a lovely evening.

  She read this twice, confused. So she had agreed to spend the weekend in Wanderly after all. How could his sister have known, if he had left this note just last night? Last night? She shook her head again, so confused that she did not see the last word on his note. He had thought long before adding it, not truly sure that he meant it. He would have been much discomfited to know she did not even see it. She crumpled the note. Lord. Riding clothes. Of course, she did have Mama’s. And riding clothes didn’t change from generation to generation. She would have to do some washing – and then there would be dinner. They would undoubtedly dress for dinner – if not formally, at least up. Could she wear the silk again? She stood, lost in thought, only reluctantly realizing that the phone was ringing.

  ‘Marianne?’ Harvey at his most charming. Everything within her leapt up and assumed a posture of defense. ‘I wanted to thank you for telling me about Zahmani. I knew my aunt, that is, Madame Delubovoska, was in the States, but I had no idea that anyone would be here from Alphenlicht. I went down to New York to see her yesterday, and I met him. Evidently he’s taken a country place not far from you while he’s here in the US. I’ve been invited for the weekend.’ The voice w
as gloating a little, oleaginous.

  ‘Yes,’ she stumbled slightly. ‘I know.’

  Silence. Then, ‘Oh? How did you know?’

  ‘I’ve been invited as well. Did you accept the invitation?’ Dangerous ground. She could feel his attention hardening as he fixed it on her. Until this conversation she had never heard him mention his aunt from Lubovosk. The silence stretched, almost twanging with strain. ‘I’m going, of course,’ she said, more to break the silence than for any other reason.

  ‘Marianne, you’re obviously not awake. I dislike it when you sound muddled. I think you should take a few minutes to discuss this.’

  She was honestly dumbfounded. ‘What is there to discuss? I’ve already accepted the invitation. It was very nice of him to ask me.’

  ‘We have to discuss,’ he said in a voice of ice, ‘whether it’s appropriate for you to go at all.’

  Ordinarily, I would come unhinged at this point, she thought, but this is not ordinarily. I am 1001 points ahead. I had a lovely evening. The girls in the picture on my wall are setting lights in the street. I have a real medicine bag full of good influences protecting my home. ‘I’m sorry you have any concern about it,’ she said in a voice that sounded unflustered. ‘I’ve accepted. Please don’t be disturbed on my account, Harvey. His sister is staying with him, and he assures me that it will be quite proper.’

  Silence.

  Silence.

  Oh, Lord, she thought. I’ve really done it. He will be so angry he’ll cut off my allowance altogether and tell me to give up school entirely. Whoops, there goes the graduate degree.

  Ice voice. ‘I’m sure it will be quite proper. I’ll look forward to seeing you there, Marianne. Try to dress appropriately. I hate it when you embarrass me.’ Gentle return of the phone to the cradle, buzz on the line, Marianne sitting up in bed, staring at the wall.

  ‘Harvey, if you do anything mean about my money, I’ll go directly to the head of your department at the university and tell him you tried to rape me when I was thirteen.’ She said this to the wall, almost meaning it. She did not know where the idea had come from. She had not thought of any such reprisal before. ‘Blackmail Harvey?’ she wondered at herself. ‘I suppose I could try it. Would he tell the world it was all my fault?’

  Well, let him tell the world it was all the fault of a thirteen-year-old girl. Ten years ago people might have believed that. Ten years ago people actually wrote that fathers and older brothers weren’t to blame for sexually abusing six-year-olds because the little girls were ‘seductive.’ Public opinion on the subject of rape and child abuse and incest had changed a lot in the last ten years. She considered. One could make quite a case. His succession of Cheryls and Randis were very, very young. An occasional one might be under eighteen. The question could be asked. It would stir up quite a storm. On the other hand, Harvey would probably devote all his resources to proving that she, Marianne, was a maladjusted, possibly neurotic spinster with an overactive imagination.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to do that.’

  ‘You don’t want to drop out of school, either,’ her inner self replied. ‘One more semester, and the doctorate is yours, Mist Princess. One more semester, and you can go hunting for a teaching job somewhere. Out in public. With people.’

  As always, when she reached that point in her rumination, she stopped thinking about it entirely. It was one thing to get the degree; it was something else to figure out what she was going to do with it. That was what Harvey always meant when he said she was not a serious student. She didn’t really want to teach, or write, or do research. What she really wanted to do was work with horses, or maybe with animals in general. When she had been twelve, she had been sure that she would be a veterinarian. It had been all she could talk about, all she planned for.

  ‘What am I going to do with a degree in ethnology?’ There was no answer. ‘One day at a time,’ she said. ‘Just take it one day at a time.’ This day, for example. A Friday. Which passed, as such days do, interminably but inevitably.

  When Makr Avehl’s driver, a pleasantly round man, arrived on Saturday morning, she gave him her suitcase and followed him to the big car somewhat apprehensively. She had repudiated the blackmail idea, reflecting that she was almost certainly not strong enough to see it through, and she was feeling the lack of any effective strategy to protect herself against Harvey during the weekend. On the other hand, driven by his nastiness on the phone, she had taken most of the money carefully saved for the new kitchen tile and blown it on the two new outfits in her suitcase, both extremely becoming. After all, Makr Avehl had said there would be a lot of other people around, and Harvey might not be able to do to her in public what he invariably did in private. She did not have long to dwell on these various concerns before she was distracted from her worries by the man named Aghrehond.

  ‘You may sit in the back in lonely privacy, miss,’ he said to her gravely. ‘Or you may sit in front with me. I shall ask you very many impertinent questions to improve my English, which as you can tell is already very good, and you shall reprove me.’

  She was amused, as he had intended. ‘Why should I reprove you?’

  ‘I have a curiosity unbecoming a person of lower rank. Here in America they pretend there is no rank, so I can indulge myself with – what is the word I want? – impunity. Faultlessness. Correct? It will give me bad habits, however, when I return to the land of the Kavi. Where you call Alphenlicht.’ He looked at her hopefully, and Marianne gestured at the front seat, indicating she would share it with him.

  When they had reached the highway and were headed south at a conservative speed, he said, ‘You may call me Green. This is what part of my name means, and it is much easier to say than Ah-Gray-Hond. Green sounds almost English. Just as Makr Avehl sounds very Scottish when it is said quickly. Macravail. That is a good name for a chieftain, isn’t it? Green is a good name for a butler. I am also a butler and secretary and man who does a little of everything. What you would call…’

  ‘A handyman,’ she suggested.

  He shook his head. ‘No. That is one who does repairing of things. I mean something else. I am not good at repairing things. If this car should stop itself, we would be quite forsaken until someone came to help us. A tiny nail, even, I will hit my thumb instead.’

  ‘Me, too,’ she confessed. ‘I’m always stopping up my garbage disposer. I can’t make staplers work for any length of time. They always jam.’

  ‘Ah. That surprises me. I think perhaps you have been victim of an adverse enchantment, a small annoyance spell perhaps, nothing very dangerous. For me, mechanical things work well, always, it is only I am clumsy with my hands. You, now, will not have such trouble in future. I am sure our Varuna will take care of this.’

  ‘Your – who?’

  ‘Ah. Makr Avehl. The – Prime Minister, they say. Mister-Zah-man-ee. In the land of Kavi we say “Sir” or “the Zahmani.” “Varuna” is like – oh, a powerful priest. Very mighty, and a great man. Good to listen to. But I beat him playing cribbage. He is what you would call a very lousy cribbage player.’

  ‘I don’t play cribbage,’ Marianne admitted.

  ‘I will teach you,’ he said with enormous satisfaction, turning off the highway as he did so. They were traveling between tree-lined fields, white-fenced, velvet green and decorated with horses. ‘When you come to Alphenlicht, there are long winter times with nothing to do. Then we will play cribbage.’

  ‘Am I to come to Alphenlicht?’

  ‘Most assuredly. You are one of the Kavi. One has only to look in your face to see that. Do not all the Kavi come to their own land? Most certainly. Makr Avehl will see to it.’

  She was still amused. ‘What if I don’t want to go?’

  ‘You will want to go. The Kavi always want to go.’

  ‘Is that woman – Madame Delubovoska – is she one of the Kavi?’ she asked, unprepared for his response to this more or less innocent question.

  He screec
hed the car to a halt, wiped his face repeatedly with a handkerchief. ‘Listen,’ he said at last, ‘the Varuna has asked her to come to him for the weekend. This is a very dangerous thing. He knows this, now, maybe too late. That woman, she is … there is a word. Someone who does not care about anyone? Who takes other people and … uses them up? There is a word?’

  ‘A psychopath? A sociopath?’ offered Marianne, doubting that this was what he meant. It evidently was exactly what he meant, for he nodded repeatedly, still mopping his face and neck.

  ‘That is it. Listen to me. Makr Avehl is wise, oh, very wise and great. Truly a Varuna for his people. So wise. But not smart sometimes, I think. Sometimes I think I am smarter. He says so, too. When I win at cribbage, he says so. So, it may be this woman is a Kavi. One time certainly her people were so. Now, is she? Or has she done forbidden things so not to be called Kavi anymore? Makr Avehl, he must know, he says. So, he asks her to come spend the weekend, so he can talk to her, listen to her, find out. Now, listen. I do not think it is smart to have you come at the same time. Not a smart move. So, you be careful. Do not ask any questions where she can hear you. Be a simple, pretty little kinswoman except when you are alone with Makr Avehl. Or me, of course.’

  He had frightened her rather badly, and she huddled in her corner of the front seat while he pulled the car back onto the road and continued their journey. They had entered a forest, and the light splashed through the windshield at them, broken by leaf lace into glimmering spatters. ‘What do you mean, forbidden things?’ she asked at last.

  He shook his head. ‘Do you know Zurvan?’

  She told him what she had heard at the lecture. ‘That’s all I know. Zurvan is your god.’

  ‘More than that. Both male and female is Zurvan. Both dark and light. Both pain and joy. One who includes all. In balance. Now, if somebody tried to upset the balance, to make more dark than light, that would be forbidden. That person would not be Kavi. When you are alone with Makr Avehl, you ask about the shamans. You know that word?’