“You’ll have to use more than an order to keep me here,” said Kurt.
Mim put her hand on his arm and looked up at him. “Please, no, no, I will go home. I am so very tired. I hurt, my lord. Please let me go home, and do not quarrel with the Methi for my sake. She is right: it is not safe for you or for Elas. It will never be safe for you. I do not want you to have any grief for my sake.”
Kurt bent and touched his lips to her brow. “I’m coming home tonight, Mim. She only thinks otherwise. Go with t’Udein, then, and tell your father to keep that door locked.”
“Yes, my lord Kurt,” she said softly, her hands slipping from his. “Do not be concerned for me. Do not be concerned.”
She bowed once to the Methi, but Djan snapped her fingers when she would have made the full obeisance, dismissing her. Kurt waited until the door was securely closed, then fixed his eyes on Djan, trembling so with rage he did not trust himself.
“If you ever use words like that to my wife again—”
“She has more sense than you do. Shewould not have a war fought over her offended pride.”
“You held her without so much as a word to Elas—”
“I sent word back when Kta came, and if you had stayed where you belonged, the matter would have been quietly and efficiently settled. Now I have to think of other matters besides your convenience and your feelings.”
“Saving t’Tefur, you mean.”
“Saving this city from the bloodbath you nearly started tonight. My men had rocks thrown at them—at a Methi’s guards! If they’ll do that, they’ll cut throats next.”
“Ask your guards who those men were. Or are you afraid they’ll tell you?”
“There are a lot of charges flying in the wind tonight, none of them substantiated.”
“I’ll substantiate them—before the Upei.”
“Oh, no, you won’t. You bring up that charge in the Upei and there are things about many people,—your little ex-slave wife included—that are going to be brought up too, dragged through public hearing under oath. When you start invoking the law, friend, the law keeps moving until the whole truth is out, and a case like that right now would tear Nephane apart. I won’t stand for it. Your wife would suffer most of all, and I think she has come to understand that very clearly.”
“You threatened her with that?”
“I explained things to her. I did not threaten. Those fellows won’t admit to your charges, no, they’ll have counterclaims that won’t be pretty to hear. Mim’s honor and Mim’s history will be in question, and the fact that she went from the Tamurlin to a human marriage won’t be to her credit or that of Elas. And believe me, I’d throw her or you to the Sufaki if it had to be done, so don’t push me any further.”
“T’Tefur’s city isn’t worth saving.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He had started for the door. He stopped and faced her. “I’m going to Elas, to my wife. When I’m sure she’s all right, I’ll come back and we can settle matters. But unless you want more people hurt or killed, you’d better give me an escort to get there.”
She stared at him. He had never seen her angrier; but perhaps she could read on his face what he felt at the moment. Her expression grew calmer, guarded.
“Until morning,” she said. “Make your peace there. My men will get you safely to Elas, but I am not sending them through the streets with you twice in one night, dragging you past the Sufaki like a lure to violence. So stay there till morning. And if you cause me more trouble tonight, Kurt, so help me you’ll regret it.”
Kurt pushed open the heavy door of Elas, taking it out of Hef’s hands, closed it quickly upon the Methi’s guards, then turned to Hef.
“Mim,” said Kurt. “She is here, she is safe?”
Hef bowed. “Yes, my lord,—not a few moments ago she came in, also with the Methi’s guard. I beg my lord, what—”
Kurt ignored his questions, hurried past him to the rhmeiand found it empty, left it and raced upstairs to their room. There was no light there but the phusa.That light drew his eyes as he opened the door, and before it knelt Mim. He let his breath go in a long sigh of relief, slid to his knees and took her by the shoulders.
Her head fell back against him, her lips parted in shock, her face filmed with perspiration. Then he saw her hands at her heart and the dark wet stain on them.
“No,” he cried, a shriek, and caught her as she slid aside, her hands slipping from the hilt of the dragon blade that was deep in her breast. She was not dead; the outrage of the metal in her flesh still moved with her shallow breathing, and he could not nerve himself to touch it. He pressed his lips to her cheek and heard the gentle intake of her breath. Her brows knit in pain and relaxed. Her eyes held a curious, childlike wonder.
“ Ei,my lord,” he heard her breathe.
And the breath passed softly from her lips and the light from her eyes. Mim was a weight, suddenly heavy, and he gave a strangled sob and held her against him, folded tightly into his arms.
Quick footsteps pounded up the stairs, and he knew it was Kta. The nemet stopped in the doorway, and Kurt turned his tear-stained face toward him.
“ Ai,light of heaven,” Kta whispered.
Kurt let Mim very gently to the floor, closed her eyes and carefully drew forth the blade. He knew it then for the one he had once stolen and Mim had taken back. He held the thing in his hand like a living enemy, his whole arm trembling.
“Kurt!” Kta exclaimed, rushing to him. “Kurt, no! Give it to me. Give it to me.”
Kurt staggered to his feet with the blade still in his hand, and Kta’s hazy form wavered before him, hand outstretched in pleading. His eyes cleared. He looked down at Mim.
“Kurt, please, I beg you.”
Kurt clenched his fingers once more on the hilt. “I have business,” he said, “at the Afen.”
“Then you must kill me to pass,” said Kta, “because you will kill Elas if you attack the Methi, and I will not let you go.”
Kta’s family: Kurt saw the love and the fear in the nemet’s eyes and could not blame him. Kta would try to stop him; he believed it, and he looked down at the blade, deprived of revenge, lacking the courage or the will or whatever impulse Mim had had to drive it to her heart.
“Kurt.” Kta took his hand and pried the blade from his fingers. Nym was in the shadows behind him,—Nym, and Aimu and Hef—Hef weeping, unobtrusive even in his grief. Things were suspended in unreality.
“Come,” Kta was saying gently, “come away.”
“Don’t touch her.”
“We will take her down to the rhmei,” said Kta. “Come, my friend, come.”
Kurt shook his head, recovering himself a little. “I will carry her,” he said. “She is my wife, Kta.”
Kta let him go then, and Kurt knelt down and gathered up Mim’s yielding form into his arms. She did not feel right any longer. It was not like Mim—loose, like a broken doll.
Silently the family gathered in the rhmei:Ptas and Nym, Aimu and Kta and Hef, and Kurt laid down his burden at Ptas’ feet. Ptas wept for her, and folded Mim’s hands upon her breast. There was nothing heard in the rhmeibut the sound of weeping, of the women and of Hef. Kurt could not shed more tears. When he looked into the face of Nym he met a grim and terrible anger.
“Who brought her to this?” asked Nym, so that Kurt trembled under the weight of his own guilt.
“I could not protect her,” Kurt said. “I could not help her.” He looked down at her, drew a shaken breath. “The Methi drove her to this.”
Nym looked at him sorrowfully, then turned and walked to the light of the hearthfire. For a moment the lord of Elas stood with head bowed and then looked up, lifted his arms before the holy fire, a dark and powerful shadow before its golden light.