Bertrice Small - Lara

“Let me kill him, too, my lord Kaliq,” Lara said, and was pleased to see the Forester grow pale beneath his sunburnt skin.

Kaliq laughed. “So, my love, the warrior’s blood now sings in your veins. But nay. We will not start a war over you, as flattering as I am certain you would find it. Hetar must remain at peace for now. Soon enough the clouds will gather.”

“Very well,” Lara agreed. She smiled at Enda. “I will not kill you, though it is tempting, my lord Enda, and your neck is not quite as thick as your brother’s was.”

To her surprise he answered her, “I am sorry you could not love me, Lara. Even though I understand what you have said is the truth. The purity of the Forester’s blood is a thing gone, yet I would have liked to have had a son by you.”

“Go home, my lord,” she told him. “Be thankful that my lord Kaliq has stayed my hand. Never again will anyone use me for their own advantage.” She bent, picking up Durga’s head by its hair. She stared into his face briefly, saying as she handed it to Enda, “And take this with you.”

He recoiled, forcing back the bile that rose in his throat as he was forced to stare into his brother’s dead face. His legs felt weak, and he slipped on the bloody floor.

“Lara, my love, do put the head down. We will dispose of it. You really are frightening the new Head Forester. My lord Enda-” he now directed his speech to the Forester “-Zaki will lead you back to the village where you will find the gold already waiting for you. Use the lemax your brother rode to carry it. You will depart this evening. Our moon is now full, and you will find traveling at night is more comfortable in the Desert. I bid you a safe journey.”

Enda nodded, bowed, and turned about to follow the headman. His last glimpse of Lara caused an icy shiver to ripple down his spine. She was industriously cleaning his brother’s blood from her sword. Once he wanted nothing more than to possess her totally. Now he prayed to the Celestial Actuary that he never had to see her again.

“I CANNOT BELIEVE that I killed him,” Lara said afterward as they ate their evening meal in the private garden that separated their individual quarters. “I don’t know what happened, but I was suddenly filled with an anger such as I have never known, my lord.”

“Blood lust,” he said dryly. “And now perhaps you are beginning to understand, Lara. In your life you have been a good daughter. Then you were to be a Pleasure Woman, but that is not the destiny fate meant for you to follow. It is not written that your beauty be used just for the gratification of others. You are meant to be strong. To lead.”

“But women are subservient, my lord. It has always been that way,” she replied.

“Not everywhere,” he told her. “Only in the provinces.”

She looked puzzled, and he further explained.

“In the provinces, women have been kept obeisant for a reason. It is believed women cause disorder, for they are known to question, protest and dispute if permitted. Men, however, accept what is told them, if it is told to them by someone they respect and trust. The High Council wants no difficulties. They want peace. They want industry and trade to continue as they always have. They want profit, and profit does not necessarily come with social change. The High Council wants everyone to keep their place, and those who are allowed up the social ladder come only in the prescribed way, as did your father. But change is coming, Lara. It must come if Hetar is to survive. The old ways are coming to an end, and you are to be part of that change.”

“I hear your words, my lord, but they make no sense to me. I don’t even know where I will go when I leave Shunnar, but I know I must go,” Lara said. “I sense my time with you is coming to an end, Kaliq. Part of me is saddened by that knowledge, yet part of me looks forward to leaving this peaceful haven you have provided me these past months. I cannot hide away from the world forever. I find to my surprise that I am curious to see all the wonders in all the lands Master Bashkar has described. I feel I am changing once again. It is both a little frightening, and yet very exciting.”

She was very confused by everything that had happened today. She had taken a life, and yet she felt absolutely no guilt over Durga’s death. Indeed she felt a strange pride in her skills at removing his head in a single swift stroke. “I wish Lothair had been there,” Lara said aloud.

Kaliq laughed, knowing what she had been thinking. “Yes,” he acknowledged, “he would have been very proud of you, and of himself, too, I think. He has been your instructor, but your skills, he tells me, come to you naturally. He says he has but refined them. Durga’s death was a far more merciful one than he deserved.”

“You say change is coming to Hetar. Tell me, I beg of you!” Lara pleaded.

He shook his head. “You have a destiny to live out, my love. You must follow your own path, not one that is set out for you. You will make errors, Lara, for that is part of the learning process, but you will survive. That much I will tell you. And you will triumph.”

“But where am I going?” Her look was distraught.

“Pick a direction, my love. You do not want to go back, for the Forest lies in that direction. So the Midlands and the City are forbidden to you for now. You can go toward the sea, or you can enter the Outlands. One way will serve to interrupt your journey. The other will bring you closer to your fate,” he told her. “Think carefully before you choose.” He took her small hand in his, comforting her confusion.

“Must I decide tonight?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said, “for tomorrow you will be gone.”

Lara gasped. “So soon? Oh, please, my lord, a few more days with you!”

“No,” he said. “Your time here with me is over, Lara, so think on it for a few more minutes, and then tell me. Would you like Noss to make the decision with you?”

She nodded. “It is her destiny, too,” Lara said, and called for her friend to come and join them.

The prince explained the dilemma, then rising said, “I will leave you to discuss what you will do. Call me when you have decided, and I will return.” He bent and kissed Lara’s lips softly. “Choose carefully,” he repeated. Then he was gone.

“We go tomorrow,” Lara told Noss. “But where? To the sea, or to the Outlands? I do not know what to do.”

“If we’re free can’t we go back to the City, and live with your father? I will be your servant, Lara. I loved the City, and to live in luxury in the Garden District would be wonderful,” she sighed.

“We cannot go back, Noss. We need to go forward, but which direction shall we take? Did not Master Bashkar say that the Coastal Kings are the true aristocrats of Hetar? Yet Kaliq says one way will interrupt my journey while the other will move it forward. I think to go into another of Hetar’s provinces might put a halt to this destiny they all seem to believe I have. While we have never been there, either of us, it is still a place of civilization and order. Everything they tell us the Outlands is not.”

“But the Outlands are an unknown for us, Lara,” Noss noted. “If we are to be safe should we not go to the sea?”

“Noss, both you and I can well defend ourselves,” Lara replied.

“I heard what you did in the reception hall today,” Noss half whispered. “I do not think I could kill anyone, Lara. I think you were very brave.”

“I was never going to be free until Durga was dead,” Lara said. “He would not or he could not understand that no woman with faerie blood can be made to give a child to a man she does not love. He was determined to have me back. He could not be reasoned with, and I had no other choice but to slay him. And when I did, Andraste sang that she drank the blood of the unjust.”

“Did not Enda protest?” Noss asked.

Lara laughed. “I think he was too frightened to, and then the prince reminded him that if Durga had no male heirs, Enda was now the Head Forester. Kaliq gave him the thirty thousand pieces of gold the brothers had paid for me, and additional blood money for Durga.”

Now Noss laughed. “Then you are truly free, Lara! I am so glad!”

“Tomorrow we will leave Shunnar for the Outlands,” Lara said in sure tones. “To remain within our orderly civilization is not my way, Noss. The Outlands are where I need to be.” She touched the crystal about her neck. “Ethne? Do I choose well?”

The flame within the crystal flickered, and she heard Ethne say but a single word to her. Aye.

Lara looked at Noss. “You can stay if you are afraid. I would understand.”

“No,” Noss said. “We have been bound together since we traveled in the caravan of Rolf Fairplay. I sense it. Aye, I am afraid, but where you go, Lara, I will follow. That, it would seem, is my destiny.”

And so it was that they found themselves the following morning bidding the prince and Og a final farewell. Kaliq had not touched Lara as a lover that last night.

“I must learn to live without you,” he said quietly, and she realized she understood.

In the morning he brought her a pair of soft medium-brown leather trousers lined in silk, a natural-colored silk shirt with wide sleeves and a V neckline as well as a pair of fine brown leather boots with a matching vest. He brushed her hair himself, braiding it into a single plait and covering her shining head with a dark green kerchief. Last, he strapped her sword and scabbard across her chest and back.

“Do not,” he advised her seriously, “allow your beauty to detract from your journey. Dress plainly. Keep your hair hidden from strangers as much as you can, lest they realize you have faerie blood and be afraid unnecessarily. You are capable of defending yourself, and you must do so. If you are threatened, act immediately, as you did with Durga. You are not afraid, are you?”

“I am not,” she said, “and yet I am. You have taught me the difference between passion and lust. You have taught me to enjoy and revel in my pleasure as well as that of my lover. Lothair has taught me weaponry. Master Bashkar has taught me about Hetar, so that I am no longer woefully ignorant of our land. Knowing that my mother did not leave me willingly, and that she loves me, has both strengthened and gladdened my heart, although I am saddened by my father’s portion in the deception that kept us apart. Still, he did what he believed best. I thought I was ready before yesterday when Durga came. Yet at the moment I slew him, I realized that I had not really been free to move forward. I want no one protecting me, thinking for me. I want to live my own life, on my own terms.” She put her arms about the prince’s neck. “My time with you, Kaliq, has given me all of this, and for that I thank you.” She kissed his cheek, and then drew away smiling at him. “Now I must go.”

He nodded. “There is one thing I was not permitted to give you, Lara. That privilege belongs to another. I was not allowed to give you my love. But one day you will meet the man who will. I hope you are able to love him back.” And having said those words, the Shadow Prince led Lara and Noss down to the stables. He had quietly secreted her pearwood brush in the pocket of his robes, but within her pack she would find a delicately made gold one to replace it.

In the stables, Og awaited them, holding two horses. Lara was mounted upon a small golden stallion with a creamy mane and tail, Noss upon a white mare with a black mane and tail. Each of the animals had full saddle and water bags. Then to Lara’s surprise, Og took the reins of the two horses. She looked to the prince for an explanation.

“Your decision necessitates you depart a different way from that which you came,” he said. “Og will set you on the right path. The horses are my gift to you and Noss. May the Celestial Actuary guide you well, and keep you both safe,” Prince Kaliq said. Then he bowed to them, and Og led them from the stables.

Lara looked quickly back, but Kaliq had disappeared into the shadows, as was his custom. She turned to look ahead, and was surprised to see Og leading them out into the valley. The horses increased their speed, but he easily kept up. She looked up and was amazed by the height of the great gray stone cliffs surrounding the valley. From the balustrade of the palace they had not seemed so very tall. Before them the herds of mares, many now with their foals, scattered as Og shooed them out of the way. The valley was far wider than she had thought, Lara decided. Finally they reached the other side, and Og began to lead the horses parallel to the steep face of the rock. Then he stopped.

“We are here,” he said.

“Where?” Lara asked, searching the cliff for an opening.