"Maybe it is fear that keeps the teeth sharp in the memory of pain."
Now he was sure there was a way.
He knew he would find it.
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When he felt her sleep deepen, he slid away from her and and gently laid her head against the pillows. He pulled the covers over her shoulders. It was time to prepare.
The room was dark and cool now, the voices from the courtyard stilled. He lit the fire in her bed-chamber and brought from the next room the stand that held her royal seals and the jeweled metal pot used for heating the purple sealing wax. He lit the wicks of the oil lamps beneath the metal seals and the pot of wax. He added more sticks of purple wax to the pot and lined them up on the raised hearth before the fire. Next he lifted the padded bench by the foot of the bed and placed it near the fire, covering it with a rough woolen rug. Taking a knife from his sword belt, he reached up and cut the gold satin cords that held open the curtains across the foot of the bed, letting the dark velvet draperies fall together. The cords he tied to each leg of the flat bench.
A tall mirror stood to one side, opposite a high-backed, velvet-covered chair at one end of the bench. He shifted the mirror slightly, glancing at his reflection in the firelit room. He took a long dark velvet robe from a chest in a corner and draped it over the tall chair by the fire. He stroked the soft ermine that outlined the deep opening at the neck and circled behind to form a wide high collar. Farica had done a good job with the furs he had brought back from the North. H opened a small wooden box and lifted out an ornate gold mask he had found among the old tyrant's treasure horde and placed it on the mantelpiece.
Then he lit the tall candles on the mantlepiece and turned back to the bed. The reflection in the mirror of the candlelight on his back and shoulders caught his eye and he stood a moment, studying the long scar from shoulder to hip where his father had slashed him with his sword as a young child. He glanced over the brandmarks from his lower back to his calves, part of his punishment by the dwarves for killing their king. Finally he stroked the recent burns on his forearms that still stung a bit when touched. They were nearly healed. He returned to the bed and slid in next to her, trying not to wake her just yet.
The candlelight shone on her dark cheek, her wildly curling hair, and teased her eyelids open. She yawned and stretched her long arms, her muscles sliding beneath her skin.
"Is it time to get up?" she asked, her voice still thick and soft with sleep.
"Oh no" he replied. "Not for hours yet."
Glancing around the room, she asked "What were you doing just now? I thought I heard something."
" Sorry, I was trying not to wake you."
"You didn't. I heard you moving around and went back to sleep. I feel wide awake now."
"Good. I want to show you something." He stood and held out his hand. She took it and saw the deep purple robe with its fur trim lying over the chair. She reached out to stroke the soft fur.
"Oh, it's lovely! Put it on me?" He was already lifting it over her shoulders, guiding the sleeves up her arms. She watched in the mirror as he fastened the hidden clasp beneath her breasts, lifting them between the soft furs. He stood back to watch her take in her reflection. He smiled as she turned and posed, delighting in her own beauty and in the richness of his gift. "You brought these back with you?" She asked him, her eyes shining.
He nodded. "I gave them to Farica months ago and then forgot, until she asked me about making them into a betrothal gift for you. How do you like it?"
"It's perfect. It makes me look like..."
"A queen. The loveliest queen who has ever lived. As you are. But there is more to the gift. Will you wear this as well, tonight, for my sake?"
He took the intricate gold mask from the mantel and held it before her. The candlelight glanced from its carved scrolls and whorls, dancing off the fine gold chains that fell in wide loops from its center to its corners.
"What ... is it a mask? I...its very pretty, but..." Her eyes looked into his, troubled. "Why?"
He placed the mask on the hearth beside the rack of seals and the pot of molten wax. In the flickering firelight it looked ruddy, almost alive. He took her hand, drew her into the chair and dropped to one knee beside her. He bent and kissed her hand, then turned his forearms up so the scars of the seals she had placed on his arms looked up at her across her lap.
"When you gave me these, I dared to hope that I would one day be able to ask for your seal on my heart as well. You gave me such deep joy when you pressed these marks, the marks of your favor, onto my arms that longed to fight for you, to serve you and to hold you close to me. Today, when we stood together in the public square, we gave our hearts into each other's keeping. That gift is precious to me beyond imagining, the gift of your trust, given in the sight of all the world. I know the risk you took, the damage you accepted to your own prestige and to the trust of your people that you have worked so hard to earn."
She started to speak, but he went on.
"Please, there is more I need to say if you will hear it."
She nods. "Go on. I am listening." He lays his head in her lap and she strokes his hair. He looks up at her again.
"Those terrible memories that rose up between us tonight... I dread they will reappear. Do they come before you often in that terrifying way?"
"Not so very often now. At first, yes. I dreamed them all night, every night, over and over. I seldom slept, and they came out of nowhere when I worked, even in the daylight. I thought they were almost gone, but just lately...they have come back sometimes. As they did tonight."
He sank onto his heels, looking down at his hands. "I have been thinking, trying to find a way to help you banish them. To drive away that monster who haunts your memory."
"Oh Murtagh. What can either of us do but wait, and build happy memories that in time will overcome those horrible ones? I won't have my past stolen from me, no matter how painful. I think you know that already. "
"I know. I would never ask that of you."
"Then what do you ask of me? I would do what you ask, anything that I can. You know that. "
"Your seal on my heart. Your Great Seal. And for you to wear the gold mask, and, if you can, to let me touch your mind as you give it. I know it is a lot to ask."
"It is a strange gift. How will it help us?"
"Thorn gave me the idea. Indirectly, I mean. He said that fear is what keeps the teeth of memory sharp. I hoped I could draw those teeth. Not to remove the memories, only to lighten them so they no longer tear at you so."
"Fear. To draw out the fear and leave the remembrance. Is that what you propose?"
"That's the idea. I think it might actually work, but I can't be sure."
"I would like to try it then. Why the mask, though? Is that part of the magic?"
"I think you will soon know, if you don't already."
"Then let us begin." She stands and takes the mask, examines it, and places it over her face. While she looks in the mirror, he lies on his back on the bench and speaks a word in the Ancient Language. The cords rise and tangle themselves over his wrists and ankles, knotting themselves tight.
"I am bound here until you release me."
She looks from him to the mirror and back to him. "You are sure about this? "
"I am sure. I am ready."
She takes up the jeweled pot of wax and touches the side. She gasps and draws back her hand.
"May I now touch your mind?" he asks. She nods. He closes his eyes and the image of the monster with the shiny silver mask appears in the mirror. She looks away, then back to the mirror, where her own reflection now stares back at her, the pot still in her hand. She looks down and sees the monster, his red jacket torn wide open, his wrists and ankles bound, his burning brand lying half- extinguished on the hearth. She reaches out to tear off his silver mask, but seeing herself reflected, in regal robe and her own golden mask, she leaves it in place. She looks into the tall mirror and and sees him lying bound and helpless before her. She has him in her power. He lies at her feet, helpless. Her anger rises within her and she tips the hot wax onto his naked chest. She reaches for the Great Seal of her reign, its surface smoking hot, and takes its smooth wooden handle in both hands. Its reflection fills his silver mask as she drives it down hard onto the pool of wax on his chest. He writhes and screams in agony as she, laughing, tears off his mask.
The monster is gone. The shiny mask and burning brand are gone. The reflection in the tall mirror shows her to herself as his masked and robed conqueror. She smiles, triumphant, the Victorious Queen of the Varden, no more a victim of her fears.
The man on the bench, naked and stamped with her royal crest, is quiet now, though he writhes still, struggling against the gold cords. She regards him coolly. "This is empty," she says, placing the wax pot back on the hearth. "Take the candle," he gasps. She reaches up and removes one of the lighted yellow tapers from its holder. She studies herself in the mirror once more. Holding the candle over him, she says "Raise your chin to me." The conquered man, monster no more, tilts his head back as far as it will go and waits for her. She drops a trail of wax across his throat. "Turn your head." As he complies, she tips the candle over his neck, watching the drops fall, and continues to the other side as he turns his head again. Good, she thinks. He anticipates. He lies quiet as she drops the hot wax over his chest, only uttering a gasping moan as she circles each nipple. "Shall I continue?" she asks. "Yes, please, my lady." His voice is husky, almost hoarse, as he searches her masked face with his wide-open eyes.
The candle holds a great dollop of molten wax in its hollow now. It is enough to cap each nipple, causing him to writhe and squirm, and drawing muffled screams from his clenched jaws. She chuckles to see his shaft begin to fill and rise as the hot wax traces its way down his belly to his groin. "A brave soldier! " she coos. "He rises to meet his liegelord, not knowing what his fate will be. Shall we grant him a bright new helmet perhaps?" Now his gasp sharpens and his eyes open wider. "Please, my lady, not there! I beg you... I'll do anything, but please not there!" He is not playing now, and he is not sure if she is.
"No?" She blows out the candle and drops it on the hearth. She swings over him, the soft robe teasing his legs. She lowers herself until she feels the tip of his shaft and fits it against her warn streaming crease. Stroking him within her vulva, she takes off the gold mask and drops it. She watches his face, ruddy, glowing with yearning and sweat. Her hips rise up as her hunger for him builds into a piercing sweet ache. She fits his warm, throbbing tip against the opening of her sheath and sinks onto him, taking the fullness of his shaft inside her to the root. She says within her mind and aloud, "I release you!"
"Jierda!" At his command in the Ancient Language, the gold cords fly apart. His arms claim her, his legs circle her and he pulls her body close, his legs lifting hers and clasping them tightly around his fullness. Pressed close over him, her legs squeezed together, her soft mound nestles tight against the arch of his groin. She presses herself down on him as a sweet warm glow of pleasure rises within her like a cloud of golden light.
"May I...?" she feels his question in her mind before he speaks it aloud, and she opens herself to him, eager to share with him the sweet warmth of her pleasure. She feels him drinking it in, welcoming her joy. Then she feels him gently guiding her, shifting her focus to his own sensations of the shape and feel of her sheath around him. She follows his thoughts, amazed at the pleasure she gives him, realizing that there is nothing, nothing in the world that he longs for, seeks and strives for, more than this simple act of her presence surrounding him. He shows her his quickening rise to each move she makes, each gentle squeezing clasp of her warm wet sheath, their gasps of shared joy rising together like smoke from a dragon's nostrils. He thrusts into her, slow and gentle, kindling the golden cloud of pleasure into brightening flares.
Now he shares with her the feel of the small rough patch, the low foothills that rise within her like shadows at each golden flare. His thrusts quicken and she feels the glowing heat, the slick wetness, and the roughening of her inner terrain. She arches against him, meeting his thrusts with rolling and grasping moves, feeling the ridges and ravines he plows deep and strokes smooth within her. She quickens her thrusts and he meets her pace, arching up hard against her and bracing into her as she vibrates wildly around him until the rose-gold warmth explodes into shimmering bursts of ineffable sweetness, glowing and receding again and again until she has no more breath to claim them. Utterly spent, soft as down, warm and wet as a winning racehorse, she collapses over him and breathes, gasping, in his arms.
He holds her tenderly, rocking her gently in his arms. "Is it well with you, my lady?"
The quaint formality of his question teases her lips into a smile. "It is very well with me, my lord, my Prince, my lover, my Shur'tugal."
"Lover and Shur'tugal I accept, but those other names..."
"Only when we are alone like this. If you can bear it."
"Call me what you like then, but kiss me now."
The kiss they share lingers long. At last she rocks back and straddles him as before. "Now my lord, let me serve your pleasure." She looks into his eyes and he sees the question in hers. He answers with the touch of his mind against hers. "As you will, my love."
Entering his mind, feeling his thoughts and sensations, she lifts her body gently over him, slow and low, then a little higher, a little faster each stroke until she finds his deepest pleasure in the brisk rocking rhythm of her hips, the clasp and release of her thighs. She hears his breathing quicken, feels his body lift under her, knowing the fierce hot pressure that builds within him, filling his mind, pushing away all other thoughts. She feels his aching need and meets his thrusting rhythm, clasping him within her with all the strength of her love, welcoming his fierce struggle for release.
When he comes, his climax is hard and long, tearing the air from his lungs in a gasping moan, driving his body arching against her and relaxing again and again until he subsides into brief shaking spasms and lies still, his deep chest rising and falling in a heaving, slowing rhythm.
"Gods," he finally gasps out. "Gods and demons above and below." He meets her eyes that glow with love for him. He wipes away the tears of release and joy that are running into his ears, and shows them to her with something like a laugh. "I have needed you so much, for so long, it felt like forever. Promise me you will never send me away... that you will never leave me. "
She laughs out loud, a ringing peal that she stifles quickly.
"I just did that, under the noonday sun of this very day. Have you forgotten already?" Her tone is teasing but her eyes are soft, her lips warm against his. "And I promise now, and will promise again as much as you like. I will never let you go while I have breath in my lungs."
"And i promise you again that I am yours as long as we live. And I believe it was yesterday. Maybe we have a few hours to sleep before they all get up and want to see us."
"I feel I could sleep for days." She rises slowly and gives him her hand, leading him back to the wide soft bed.