WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (12 page)

The nomad Prince flung himself down in a chair. He eyed the table across the room with Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 53

disdain. "Does that woman really think we can eat at a time like this?"

Azalon glanced at the array of foods spread across the black planking and his mouth watered. He knew he couldn't be the first to try the wonderful smelling variety of food sitting there, but he hoped someone soon would put worry aside and grab something. He was famished.

Balizar sauntered over to the table and looked down. There was a whole ham, sitting in its juices. There were rolls and breads and sweetmeats. There was roast beef and fried chicken and broiled sea bass. He licked his lips, then resolutely made himself walk back to where Rupine was sitting on a low divan.

It was going to be a long wait, he feared, before any of them got to eat.

Not even a flutter of lashes answered her gentle summons and she straightened up, looking down at his relaxed face. She put her hand on his arm and stroked the powerful biceps. Her fingers encircled that strength and stayed.

"He but sleeps, Catherine."

Catherine McGregor turned and found the most beautiful woman she had ever seen

standing only a few feet away. Beside her was a young child, a boy of two or three. The boy bore a striking resemblance to the man lying so still on the table.

"His son," the woman said, coming forward. She held out her hand. "I am Raphaella."

Conar's wife took the proffered hand and was surprised to feel the icy coolness. There was no warmth in that polite grip nor in the smile that slipped into place on the woman's sensuous lips.

"I am Raine," the little boy said, holding up his own hand.

Catherine took the small hand in her own and felt the same coldness, the same lack of emotion in the touch. She could not wait to release that little hand. Every instinct screamed at her to wipe her palm down her skirt to rid herself of the unwanted touch, but she forced herself not to.

"Many find our touch repulsive," Raphaella laughed as she put her hand on Conar's scarred cheek. She looked up at Catherine. "Some do not."

"How do you know my husband?" Catherine asked, detesting the intimate way this woman was touching Conar.

Raphaella's smile widened. "He was my son-in-law," she answered. She arched one thick black brow at Catherine's gasp. "Aye. Liza was my daughter."

Catherine's gaze slid to the little boy who was looking at her with curiosity.

"Raine is my son," Raphaella told her. "Mine and Conar's." Her eyes went to the bulge of Catherine's belly. "His seed is most prolific, don't you agree?"

Despite the heavy blush that flamed her face, Catherine held the other woman's amused gaze. "You slept with your daughter's husband," she accused. "And the Daughters have not censored you?"

Raphaella flung out a negligent hand. "Oh, they did that long ago when I slept with my own brother!" she laughed. "Surely you have heard of World's End, girl. That is where they sent me."

"The Windweaver!" Catherine breathed in disbelief. She backed away from the woman.

"The Keeper of the Loom."

Startling emerald green eyes flared wide. "You have heard of me."

Fear and absolute horror filled Catherine and she whipped her gaze about the room. Before she knew what she was doing, she had run to the door and pulled at the latch. Finding it locked, barred, she flung around and stared with mounting terror at the smiling woman standing beside Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 54

Conar's inert body.

"Don't worry, Marie Catherine," Raphaella laughed, the little boy joining with her. "You are not in my keep at World's End. When the time comes, you can leave here."

"And Conar?" Catherine spat. "Can HE leave?"

"If he is of a mind to," Raphaella answered. She stroked the bright gleam of his golden hair. "As I understand it he has unfinished business in Rysalia." She turned the force of her emerald gaze on Catherine. "And another woman to satisfy, as well."

A cold shaft of fury impaled Catherine's heart and she took a few steps forward, intent on wiping the smug smile from the other woman's lips, but the little boy blocked her path.

"You brought my sire here to be helped, did you not, Catherine?" the little boy asked, looking up at her with eyes centuries beyond his tender years. "You called my dam from her abode to help him, did you not?"

Catherine tore her gaze from that ancient stare and looked into Raphaella's face. "I called on the Healer's help, not the Weaver's!"

Condescension flitted over the lovely features of Raphaella Chastayne. "I AM the Healer, Marie Catherine."

"I don't believe you!" Catherine snapped. "I ...."

There was a low groan, a slight gurgle of sound from Conar and both women's attention was diverted from one another to him. Catherine rushed to the table and drew in her breath as she saw the awful agony stamped on her husband's face.

"Conar!" Catherine cried out, reaching down to grasp his arm.

"How long has this pain been with him?" Raphaella demanded. She ran her hands along the strong column of his neck.

"Too long," Catherine answered. She ached to snatch the woman's hands from Conar's flesh. She yelped as Raphaella lashed out and gripped her wrist in a clutch that made Catherine's bones grind together.

"How long?"

"The headaches have become steadily worse since he went to Rysalia," Catherine gasped, her knees growing weak with the agony in her hand. She tried to pry those relentless fingers from her wrist, but the grip tightened.

"How long has that been?" Raphaella hissed.

"Over seven months," Catherine told her, clutching her injured hand to her as the other woman let go.

"Too long," Raphaella mumbled. "Much too long."

"He's been bleeding ...."

Raphaella snarled, bending down to put her ear to Conar's chest. "From his nose?" she questioned. "His ears?"

"Yes," Catherine replied. She chewed on her lower lip. "Do you know what's wrong with him?"

"Can she help?" the little boy answered for his mother. "Isn't that what you mean?"

Catherine spared him a glance. She hated the child. His knowing little face, too similar to Conar's for her liking, and his steady gaze unnerved her. She somehow understood the boy was much more than a precocious offspring of an illicit union. The boy was a budding sorcerer with an intelligence and ability to match his father's, if not exceed it.

"Has he had problems with his vision?" Raphaella asked as she straightened up.

"Blurriness? Dimness?"

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Catherine shook her head. "I don't ...."

"Blackouts?" Raphaella demanded. "Periods of unconsciousness before now?"

The Tzarevna could only look at her. "I'm not sure."

"Any numbness of his face and legs? Stiffness in his neck?"

Catherine could only shake her head. "No one has mentioned it to me if he has."

"He would not have told them if he had," Raine reminded his mother.

"True," Raphaella agreed. She drew in a long breath, held it, then exhaled slowly before turning to face Catherine. "There has been bleeding inside his head."

The words were like a death bell tolling. Catherine's knees threatened to buckle beneath her. "B...bleeding?" she finally managed to ask.

For the first time, Raphaella's face softened. "He was beaten very badly once by a man named Tymothy Kullen. Such beatings may cause problems many, many years later, and if there have been subsequent blows to the head …." She shrugged. "Our beloved Conar has not led a safe life," she finished.

Catherine sagged against the table. "Can you do something?" She reached across the table and clutched the other woman's arm. "Do you have the knowledge to help him?"

"My dam is most knowledgeable in such matters, but there is no guarantee he will survive,"

Raine said in a matter of fact tone.

Catherine's face turned pale. "But you will try?" she pleaded.

"Of course," Raphaella sneered. "I have no intention of letting Conar die if I can prevent it, girl!"

"Just as there is no guarantee what she does will save his life, there is likewise no guarantee he will come out of it intact, either," the little boy added.

"Will you shut him up?" Catherine yelled. She glared down at the child, hating him all the more as he gazed back at her with disdain and more than a little amount of amusement.

"Raine," Raphaella informed her, "is correct. There is no knowing the damage that has already occurred." She glanced down at her patient. "It is not the bleeding that concerns me." The sorceress' mouth twisted with hate. "What concerns me is the fact that he is unconscious. I have a suspicion that what ails him can not be cured."

"We fear he has developed a malady for which there is no known cure," Raine injected.

"You are familiar with tenerse?" The little boy was studying Catherine.

"I have heard of it," Catherine acknowledged.

Raphaella laid her hand on Conar's naked shoulder. "Over the years, he has been given large amounts of the drug. It was used to control him in ways of which he was not even aware. I doubt the man responsible for handing it over to the bitch who gave it to Conar even knew what the drug might do to him."

"Or conceive my sire might be allergic to it," Raine injected.

Catherine looked down at the boy, her entire world shifting off kilter. "Rupine administered tenerse to Conar only a few days ago."

"If what Raine and I suspect is true, the malady which now threatens Conar's life was caused by his allergic reaction to the tenerse." She looked down at her son. "Go find the Kensetti healer, Raine."

The little boy glanced once at the still man on the table, then simply disappeared.

"His father means more to him that he is ready to admit," Raphaella said. "This is the first time Raine has seen Conar."

It was all too much for Catherine. She staggered away from the table and pressed against Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 56

the far wall, sliding down it to bury her face in her hands. She began to cry.

"That will do him no good," Raphaella said in a not ungentle voice. "Your prayers would be of more help, Marie Catherine."

"I don't want to lose him," Catherine sobbed.

Raphaella looked down into Conar's face. "You will not be the first to do so," she said softly. "Nor, I fear, will you be the last."

Looking up through the confinement of her fingers, Catherine watched the sorceress bend over her husband and place a tender kiss on his pallid brow. She wanted to scream at Raphaella, deny her the right to touch Conar, but knew she wouldn't.

"He loved Elizabeth beyond human expression," she heard the sorceress saying. "They were like two peas in a pod, destined to grow side by side, inseparable. I often warned her such love was destructive, but she wouldn't listen." She looked around at Catherine. "She gave her life for him."

"And you?" Catherine found herself asking.

Raphaella looked away. "He is the only man I have ever truly wanted and could never have."

"Yet you had a child by him," Catherine mumbled.

"I stole a child from him," the sorceress answered. "One he unwillingly seeded within me."

"You can't let him die, Raphaella," Catherine said, hugging her knees to her. "You can't."

"I won't," was the vehement answer, "if I can do anything to prevent it."

The door opened and Rupine was ushered into the room. He glanced at Catherine sitting on the floor and frowned. "Has something happened?"

"You have done trephining?" Raphaella asked, not bothering to introduce herself.

Rupine's attention leapt to the woman and held. He felt an immediate lurch of his manhood, a surge of intense lust that nearly staggered him. His face paled, then infused with color and his mouth twisted with passion.

"Oh, hell," Raphaella hissed and waved her hand, shooing away the reaction she caused in any male who looked at her. "I've no time for such things." She walked to the man, annoyed as a small residual amount of arousal still hung in his confused eyes. "Can you work a trephine?" she asked.

Rupine nodded, wondering why he felt so strangely in front of this woman, but no longer suffering from the exacting lust that had all but crushed him.

"We need to make a small opening near the base of his skull to lessen the pressure on his brain. Are you trained sufficiently to help me?"

Rupine nodded again, still too dazed to speak. He cast a quick glance at Catherine, then walked to a table he could have sworn had not been there when he entered the room. Absently, he began to scrub his hands in the disinfectant water in a deep basin.

"Do you stay or do you go?" Raphaella asked Catherine. "I warn you this could be most unpleasant."

Catherine pushed her back up the wall. She shook her head. "I am staying."

Admiration flitted reluctantly through Raphaella's green stare. "Suit yourself, but if you cause even a moment's trouble, I'll pin your ears to the wall behind you. Do you understand, Marie Catherine?"

"Yes." Catherine lifted her chin. "I understand perfectly."

"Then sit down and pray, girl," Raphaella warned. "Pray as you never have before because your lover's life depends on you."

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Hunger had finally won out over loyalty and the men of the Samiel had seated themselves along the banquet table and were just finishing their meal when the little boy appeared once more in the room. Hands stopped short of mouths and utensils slowly lowered.