Nancy Berberick - Prisoner of Haven

Tamara drew a quick breath and found another smile. “You’re right. Of course we’ll be fine.”

She glanced out the window again. In the street below, the sound of a horse shaking its bridle mingled with the scornful grunt of a man replying to a low-voiced request. A knight waited below, looking up and down the street, then up at the window.

“And there. See? Radulf has sent an escort for me. I won’t wait for Rowan. I’ll see you at home.”

Tamara turned quickly, kissed Usha’s cheek so suddenly that Usha hardly felt it before she saw the hem of the gray and purple skirt vanish out the door.

Usha touched her cheek, and she thought of the girl who’d eyed her with sullen suspicion in Lorelia Gance’s garden. That child had watched a woman she’d thought a rival, and with the supreme confidence of arrogant youth had gauged Usha and decided she needn’t be overly concerned. What had happened to put the girl with the white roses in her hair into clothing the color of bruises?

On the street, Tamara stood talking to a knight, a stocky man darkly armored, obeying his master and damning the discomfort. He held two horses, one a tall red gelding, the other a small dappled mare dressed in fine gear, its pretty mane threaded through with blue ribbons. They spoke-by the tense look of them, they argued-and suddenly the knight took Tamara’s arm, gripping the elbow. Tamara hung back, perhaps to protest. She turned and looked up at the window.

Hiding anger, Usha leaned on the window sill, eyes on the knight, and called, “Did you need something, Tamara?”

The knight loosed his grip. He sketched the barest of bows. “Mistress Usha, good day. I’ve come to see Sir Radulf’s betrothed safely home.”

“How good of you. And your master. Tamara? Did you need something?”

Tamara lifted her hand to her neck. “My scarf. I’ve left it behind. Will you-”

Toss it down…

“Of course I’ll look for it. Come back and help me. It’s all over paint and charcoal up here, and we don’t want to keep your escort waiting long while I plow through it all.”

Usha turned her head as though to leave the window. She did not, however, turn her back until she saw Tamara slip away from the knight and run into the inn.

Anger at the thought of the real bruises that knight’s grip must have left and cold fury at the idea of such blatant intimidation stormed in Usha’s heart. She looked around the studio for the missing scarf-on the tables, the floor, near the stool where Tamara had been sitting to pose. No sign of the filmy yellow scarf the color of almost-healed pain. She passed the table where she’d put the failed sketches, the ones she’d felt she had to hide. Listening for Tamara’s footsteps on the stairs, Usha slipped the pages toward her. Chilled, she saw that the images continued to shift and change. Sometimes they moved subtly, sometimes obviously.

Usha’s heart tripped again, swift in her breast. She’d known since first she’d felt the rush of her art in her blood that magic could also enter in. She’d become used to it, and though she never could call it, she often looked for it. Something was different now. These sketches were not trying to find a way, if it even could be said that her magic did seek a way to express itself. These sketches did not want to settle, and to look at them now made Usha’s stomach turn.

Knees weak, she leaned against the table and closed her eyes against the sight. Still she saw the writhing. Image piled upon image, lines and curves, circles and collapsing angles all in a slow demon-dance. There were ravens, sometimes swords and a great battle rushing. Now a wolf, then a streak across free space, a furious black lightning bolt. Her ears roared, her chest grew tight. As if from a great distance, she heard an anguished cry.

“ How could you? ”

Usha shuddered, opened her eyes, and pushed away from the table. Shaking, she turned and saw Tamara standing behind her, the yellow scarf balled up in her fists, her face white.

“I thought you were my friend! How could you-?”

Usha looked at the sketches under her hands. The images of fear and death had finally resolved so that she could not look at even one without being certain that what she truly saw was the tall, perilous shape of Sir Radulf.

Tamara saw it too.

“Tamara-”

The girl flung away. “Get away from me! You never liked him. You and my father, you’ve always suspected him.” She sobbed again. “You’re jealous.”

“Tamara, stop it! You’re wrong about Sir Radulf. He isn’t what you think he is.” Usha took a step closer, reaching to calm the girl. “He couldn’t be. He never was. He’s-”

Blue eyes flashed, as much in panic as anger. Tamara raised her fists to strike or ward off. Usha never learned which. A slim, swift figure darted into the room, and Tamara cried out, rage and terror as Dezra pinned her arms and turned her.

Half laughing by the flash in her eyes and wholly annoyed, Dezra said, “Enough of that! What-”

Tamara yanked back, kicked Dez’s shin hard, and wrenched out of her grip. Dez cursed. Usha reached for Tamara. On a storm of weeping and fury, the girl was gone.

Twisting Tamara’s fallen scarf in her hands, Usha looked around the studio. No different in appearance than moments before, still it felt as though lightning had lashed through.

“Well,” Dez drawled, “it’s certainly heartening to see you getting on so well with Loren’s daughter.”

Usha eyed her sister-in-law, looking for anger or bitterness. She found none. Dezra seemed even paler than when Usha had last seen her. She was grieving Caramon, the father with whom she’d often had a thunderous relationship, yet the father she’d so loved.

“Well,” Usha said, thinking of fathers and daughters, “things have been better.”

Dez jerked her head toward the window. “I saw her going off with one of Sir Radulf’s knights. What’s going on?”

Usha had a hundred questions for Dezra about what had been going on-where had she been, how was Aline and what had become of Madoc-but she let them stay unspoken. The tidy silver braid she’d made of her hair was fraying. She pushed back stray wisps from her neck. “What’s going on? Pretty much what it looks like-a trapped woman screaming for help.”

“And it all comes out sounding like curses.” Dez picked up the fallen sketches. She looked narrow-eyed at one and then the other. “She see this?”

“Yes. She didn’t like it much.”

“Can’t blame her, but-” an awkward pause then-“she shouldn’t blame you. Not for seeing what’s there to see.”

That wasn’t peace, but it could be in time. Usha felt tensions fall away she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

“I’m not sure she really blames me. She blames…” You never liked him! You and my father! “She doesn’t know who to blame, and she’s certainly not going to blame herself for getting what she wanted. I don’t know. It’s complicated with girls that age.”

Dezra laughed, a sudden explosive sound that had nothing to do with merriment and much to do with understanding. “You’re telling me? I used to be a girl that age.” She stepped out the door and came back in with a pack. She shoved the two stools to the window and lifted her face to a small breeze as she set the pack on the sill.

“Come over. It’s cooler here.”

Usha did. When she was comfortable, Dez took a leather bottle out of the pack. She pulled the stopper, and the sweet scent of blond elven wine drifted out. Usha’s eyes went wide. The scent was almost taste.

“Where did you get that?”

“Let’s say I got it and leave it there.” She dipped into her pack again and came up with a heel of bread and a fist-sized chunk of cheese.