5
Forfeits
No matter how tired he was, no matter how many hours he trained, still she was always there when he closed his eyes. Her face, her smell, the softness of her.
A searing cool blue flash of the last time they were alone ("perhaps that's why we're fated to live so long," he thought, "because we must wait so long for everything")
It was in the old forest out the Prince's gate below his father's tower.
He sent a note to her.
She hurried a bit as she left the tower, perhaps afraid he wouldn't wait should she be late.
Ha.
He had slept under the great oak that was the meeting place. As she drew near, he stood.
She held the note up, her eyes unsure.
"Why didn't you just call me?" her voice sounded quiet in his thoughts like a small girl at the door of a great hall.
"Because you told me the last time that I had no right to be in your mind."
She blushed, even more beautiful with her cheeks flushed gold. "I was just—"
"Angry with me," he finished her thought. She glared at him for finishing her thought in her own mind.
However, when she spoke her face was blank and cool, "Why did you want to see me?"
He opened his left hand to reveal the knot of ribbons across his palm.
Another blush.
There had been a tournament to celebrate their father's return. He had fought wearing the Princess's colors. He had won every event he competed in—
He thought of the last tourney standing in the hot sand of the arena looking down at the unmoving body of his opponent.
When he looked up he stared out of the hot arena to the shade of a stand of trees.
The man who won the event before this stood with the woman whose colors he wore. Her back against a tree, the man leaned toward her, the two of them making a single shape.
Sweating envy, he stood watching them.
It was the custom that if a man fought wearing a woman's colors—and won—he was entitled to a forfeit. Nuada had fought three times. He now could collect three forfeits.
He knew what he wanted: to kiss her, to hear her say his name, to lie with her as the trees above them filled with night.
But she would never be alone with him. So he tricked her.
Her eyes darted around the grove, looking for places to run.
He saw his three forfeits register on the pale skin of her face.
Her gaze, usually down when they were together as though she feared looking at him, flashed up, her eyes opened wide as she understood why he had wished to see her.
"I must--" she turned,
"No. I must" And he kissed her.
"If I had asked you in our minds, you would not have come, you would have known everything—"
She turned to leave, but stopped at the trunk of the great oak. He put an arm on either side of her, his face beside her left ear. Her voice was so soft, had he been even a few inches further away he would not have heard her,
"I thought we agreed—"
"We did agree. I swore never to come to your bed again, nor even to pass the threshold of your room." He cringed as he heard the pain in his voice as he spoke of it.
"I did not make you swear that—"her voice was warm now, the lover's voice she slipped into when they were close.
"But you were glad I did." His voice fell into the same intimate tone, a deep murmur behind her hair.
She did not deny it, but she leaned into him.
"And now I have two more forfeits to claim."
Her eyes darted over his shoulder, looking for escape.
Then she turned to him, the love he knew she felt shining in her eyes.
"Please," he thought he understood what she was asking. She wanted to stay with him, to not hurt him more, but she needed him not to take more than she offered.
He lowered them both gently to the ground,
For a few moments she lay across him, her hand on his shoulder, her head against his chest.
He sat, his eyes open, his hands in her hair, waiting for her to relax. When, at length, she opened her eyes, he spoke,
"Say it"
She lifted her head from his chest with a start.
"No,"
"For the gods, Nuala—"
His sadness filled her. Her objections forgotten, she lifted her face to his and said, carefully with a rising warmth that rustled through the leaves, "Nuada."
He rolled over, still holding her, so that they lay together in the leaves. The metallic brown smell of the trees washed over them both. He reached down to touch her face.
She was cold, her eyes almost silver with fear.
He sat up at once taking her hands in his, blowing on them, and pulled his discarded cloak over her.
She stared into his face as he tucked the heavy cloth around her.
"You." It was a statement. And a question. He felt her searching his mind
"What?" She had not prowled around in his thoughts like this in so long he had wondered, in sleep-deprived half dreams, if she loved another man.
Her voice inside him was warm as fresh bread, "Is this what you want?" He felt her mind relax into his. He understood she thought he wanted only the warm closeness of their childhood.
The image of the two of them at the highest moment of mating flashed from him to her so fast she gasped aloud
His hands never stopped arranging the cloak around her. Now it was his turn to look away.
She looked up as if she did not understand how long they had lain together, surprised by the darkness above them.
He looked up at the blue darkness thickening to black among the trees, a rare smile on his face.
Her worry, so strong it was almost fear, moved through him.
His eyes hardened, "Is that what you think of me?"
"No," she did not look at him.
Then he was before her, on one knee like a knight swearing his bond, "Would you have me beg?"
"Oh No," her panic and outrage were immediate. "No, no. never. Please no," she pulled him off his knee, her mind barraging his with a torrent of protests that she "would never wish to, he must never—"
In the end he had carried her back to the tower. He brought her to the door of her rooms, set her on her feet, and turned before he could see the slice of light from the passage make a gold path across the rushes on the floor to the fur robes at the foot of her bed.