Tree Of Life Part 25

Chapter39.

Seized -nveloped in a kind of numbness of mind, but beneath the surface seething with tortured rage, Deacon rode for almost an hour without stop. He was exhausted from physical and emotional exertions, and so of the first wayside inn he came across he decided to take refuge from the night. Except for the occasional raised voice, all was quiet. The dark corners held discreet murmurs and those wishing no company beyond their own. A cold breeze came in each time the door opened, which fortunately was not often.

Deacon downed the last remnants of his drink, not lifting his down-bent face. His grim presence accorded with others in the room. Inwardly he struggled as if exerting himself to abide by a dark will that seemed to dominate almost in a separate consciousness. Despite his deeply fixed hate, he could not easily accept the idea of having to leave without the woman whose enduring love was the only source of meaning in a world of pain and fear.

He winced at the memory of her last look of mute pleading. The door opened, and heavy, intrusive boots stepped in and paused at the threshold, as if the man observed his surroundings with focused intent. Deacon, becoming aware of the presence, half-turned, and at the sight of Fraomar, slowly rose to his feet. With a jerk of the head Fraomar gestured for Deacon to come to the door, which he held open. "I have something you may like to see."

His blood burning, Deacon went to the door, paling with fear as that of a man who suddenly wakes to find himself standing on the edge of a precipice. Outside stood a second man, and imprisoned in his arms Magenta slumped forward, her long black hair draping down over her bent face. A muscle flexed in Deacon's jaw. How cowardly it was to use the woman to get at the man.

"Compose yourself and come outside," said Fraomar quietly. For a moment Deacon stood motionless, pain and rage at his heart. Then, slowly, as if against his will, he stepped out into the night and toward the man and his captive. At Deacon's approach, she made an effort to lift her face to look at him. A deep frown gathered on his brow, and his eyes warmed in sympathetic torment, as a new wave of anger coursed through him at the sight of her wounded face. As if the effort was too much, her head again lolled forward. Fraomar took a threatening place at her side, and touching her hair, said to Deacon, "You will accompany us without opposition, or your reluctance will have an unpleasant cost."

His eyes fixed on Magenta, Deacon seemed deaf to the words. He could have wept over her bruised and cut face that was so pale as to be ghostly. The thought of her bandied about between the two men filled him with a violent rage that made him tremble. He feared and dared not anger them. He slowly lifted his eyes to Fraomar, his unsureness plain in his features. "You can go no further," he said, brokenly. "She is a priestess and daughter to-"

"Do you doubt me-suppose that I make false threats?" asked Fraomar, presenting a formed dagger at her throat, which was held exposed by the unkind hand tangled in her hair. He purposefully cut a line deep enough to draw blood.

There was but a faint whimper from the slender uplifted throat. Deacon raised both hands open in a gesture of submission. "Please-" is all he said. A note of desperation broke his voice.

Fraomar put away the dagger and next took his captive round the body, telling his companion to bind the younger man's hands. The man seized Deacon and clamping on the wrist irons, said, "You killed several of my most beloved pets."

"I shall reunite you if that is your wish." Deacon saw him draw back his fist, and then blackness.

Deacon could scarcely recall the blow that had rendered him consciousless. Hanging upside down, suspended under a large tree, he felt blood run down his face, half-blinding him. How long he had hung here senseless he could hardly guess. All the pressure had gone to his head, and he was more than a little disorientated. When he opened his eyes he saw that his cousins were hanging on either side of him, and his heart and hopes sank.

Seized with a violent fear, he cast a wild look about himself. Over by the campfire among several other men he saw, through a blood-red haze, Fraomar with Magenta's head across his knee, gently and insistently wiping blood from her face with the hem of her dress, while she, pa.s.sive and broken, lay listless.

Involuntarily, Deacon uttered a strangled cry and thrashed about with shouts of rageful warning. When at last he was somewhat calmed, a man named Theron came forward. He spoke with a directness and authority which suggested he was the man in charge of the party. There were around fifty men along with the rangers, of which there were nine, each apt at his own particular skill.

Cedrik and Derek had not yet regained consciousness but beyond a few abrasions, had received no serious injuries. Cedrik had taken the greater beating; his forehead was bruised and had bled. Theron came to stand near Deacon, whose self-control was hanging by a thread. The veins stood out on his strained neck.

"You know why you are here, do you not?" Theron asked his vengeful prisoner. Although there was no response beyond heated silence, he continued as if he had received an affirmative answer, and among other threats against Deacon, told him those he loved would die if full cooperation and compliance was not abided by. When he was satisfied the message rang clear, Theron ordered them to be cut down. "Don't let him fall on his head." He pointed to Deacon and stood back and watched as they did this. "We shall talk more in the morning," said Theron, before his men took the captives and chained them to a picketed post.

All the while Deacon's baleful eyes were fixed on Magenta. She was still with Fraomar, who was forcing upon her some liquid. As he watched Deacon was motionless. It was the stillness of white-hot wrath. He had a painful sense of her being tortured by Fraomar's attentiveness. The way he held her was very familiar and possessive. And Deacon was powerless, bound and defenceless in the hands of ill-intentioned men.

When Magenta had somewhat recovered she sat upright, pa.s.sive in her captor's arms. She offered little resistance to his overbearing attentions. To do so would be futile and only result in further humiliation. She endured the crude, frightful jokes about pa.s.sing her round and the hostile, superst.i.tious looks of the other men. Despite Fraomar's cruel conduct she remained mute, without moving, her eyes unseeing. She was as if violated into senselessness, but though outwardly she was broken and listless, inwardly she was beyond him, closed off. Nothing he did could touch her.

When he left her alone a moment, turning his attention to a man next to him, she blinked and slowly dared to look over at Deacon, who was already looking at her. He gave her a sorrowful glance profound in its meaning, and it needed to be, for it had to do the work of many words. In a deep, subtle way Magenta was sustained by his reflective wretchedness, a sense of suffering together, his eyes never leaving hers.

Fraomar at once felt the hot sting of jealousy when he saw that which they shared unspoken. He would not let her go to him but kept hold of her.

Presently Theron came to Magenta and as a plain command told her to come with him. She very hesitantly, very reluctantly arose. She looked over to where Deacon sat.

Fraomar rose to his feet also. He seemed reluctant to part with her. "You keep the priestess beside you tonight?"

"She will sleep in one of these tents, under guard."

Magenta looked back at Deacon and the brothers with deep longing. "I will remain out in the night with them," she said.

"No," was Theron's blunt reply, holding out his hand for her to come.

"It would be my preference."

"Nevertheless ..." He motioned for her to come with him. When she did not, he reached out an ungentle hand and took her by the arm. He began to lead her away, but with imploring hesitance she resisted, looking back over her shoulder all the while. The thing she dreaded most was separation from him, to be kept from him. Deacon watched and could see that in the next few moments she would be in tears. It tore at his heart. When she was gone from view he let his head hang in despair. It was a relief when his cousins came to. They remained subdued and defeated, but their presence and comradeship somehow encouraged him. A single guard surveyed them.

Fraomar did not go to his own bed but stood at a distance from Deacon and watched with jealous eyes, half-believing it was because of him that she was not already and long since his own. Theron, pa.s.sing, said, "There is not much of the night left. Get yourself some sleep. Tomorrow I send some men into the village to retrieve supplies."

He went away into his tent and left Fraomar in his hatred, nursing his spite. Jealousy excited within him the fiercest savagery of his nature. He could feel it in his blood, taste it in his mouth, and now he had the desire to regard Deacon more closely. He strode over to him, and without a word, struck Deacon a blow with his fist, so forceful he made himself reel as if drunk.

Deacon managed to remain on his feet, but his mouth was filled with blood. Discontented, Fraomar followed directly with another, which felled his hated friend to the ground. Cedrik and Derek both leapt to their feet, anger welling up inside, but could do nothing. Before Deacon had a chance to recover, he was kicked onto his back and felt a heavy knee planted on his chest.

"That woman is bound to me and I to her. What right have you then to come between us?" said Fraomar, his voice trembling.

In utter desperation the brothers strained against their restraints with rageful shouts at their hara.s.ser, who with blind recklessness vented his pent-up aggression. All the animosity and all the insane jealousy that had been burning in him was now focused in rage on the single object of his hatred. Deacon raised his arms over his face in a burrowing motion, in a feeble attempt to protect himself. Fraomar struck him again and again. He was savage and unsparing in each blow and inflicted on him a punishment that would kill a weaker man.

"d.a.m.ned b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" cried Cedrik, making violent efforts to disengage himself. The guard did nothing to intervene but stood watching. Roused by the commotion, several men came out and beyond revelling with ill-humour in the shameful brutality, did nothing.

"None of that!" broke in Theron's voice of authority. "Back away! Back away, I say!" Fraomar begrudgingly ceased his battery, choking still with rage. Theron pushed him apart, shouting, "He will be of little use to us dead!" With reluctance Fraomar stepped back from his victim. He blinked the sweat from his eyes. Theron shouted, "Move off-all of you!"

Muttering their amus.e.m.e.nt, the men dispersed and went away. Only when he was certain Fraomar had truly taken himself off, did Theron return to his own confines. Cedrik and Derek sat mute, their eyes fixed on Deacon who lay curled in agony. His heart was wounded more than his body. He could not keep Fraomar from hurting her, and it was killing him. All the night he feared that Fraomar might seek to lie down beside her. In torment and wretchedness, Deacon pressed his face into the cold dirt. He almost choked at the thought of the brute approaching her, his hands over her body.

Morning came. Deacon lay on the very same spot, his arm folded across his eyes. The first sight that met his blurred vision was Theron standing over him. With the tip of his boot, Theron gave the limp form a nudge in the side, as if to see if it was still alive. "How's your head?" he asked and stooping down, dragged Deacon to a sitting position. "Have yourself some food and we will talk more." Derek, his nerves raw, was ready to p.r.o.nounce some words against the man but was cautioned by his brother to remain quiet.

Theron left them and returned to the campfire to have breakfast. When he returned he brought a stool for himself to sit upon. He handed to Deacon a piece of parchment with strange runes and diagrams. "I need you to look at this," he said, seating himself opposite.

Deacon was vague and unresponsive. Distractedly he looked at the sheet as if he could not focus, his eyes constantly looking up to find Magenta. He had not yet seen her, nor had he seen her antagonist. "To bring down the obstruction," said Theron, "you must solve the combination just as of any lock. When your mind is concentrated, you can feel the energy and solve the puzzle."

Theron's words were lost on Deacon. He was subdued and distracted. At the sight of Magenta he straightened as if coming awake and watched her keenly. She was with Fraomar. He sat her down and took a place at her side. Her look at Deacon, though brief, was rea.s.suring, and he felt an ache of relief that seemed to extend beyond his heart and made his head light as if faint.

Fraomar put his arms about the slender figure of his captive, making her sit pressed against his body. He took a mouthful of food himself, then put some to her mouth, aggressive in offering his unrequested and unwanted a.s.sistance. Deacon watched, and the sight of it pounded his head till scarcely could he see straight.

All the while Theron continued speaking: "If you can't sustain the energy until completion, the lock releases and reverts to its former state, and you'll have to start again, so it's very important that you not break until the task is completed. Do I have your attention?" Deacon was looking past him over to Magenta, a distracted and raging frown on his brow.

"You said no harm would come to her." He spoke quickly with accusation and question.

Theron turned on his seat and looked over his shoulder to observe what the issue was. He then turned back to Deacon. "She's fine. Now worry about your own well-being. If you don't pay attention and focus, you'll find yourself to be the one hurt." He thrust the sheet of parchment at him again. "If you break for even an instant, you will have to start over again."

Fraomar took it upon himself to watch the more delicate captive. All throughout the day he tended to her with officious attentiveness. He was manipulative in the way he handled her, as if a.s.serting his right as the more dominant. Yet inwardly she resisted him in a way that maddened him. He had her within his grasp, yet still she seemed so untouchable. "Will you come walk with me awhile?" he asked. "It is long since we have been together alone. There are things I must say to you."

"There is nothing for you to say that I wish to hear."

This was a cruel rejection for Fraomar, and in the manner of men after his nature, he grasped her arm with a bruising hold. "Nevertheless you shall hear them," he said, but she resisted his coercive grip with unexpected strength. "I don't wish to speak with you before such an audience," he said with a ring of insistence, pressing her arm. "Do not force me to it."

In desperate reluctance her eyes went to Deacon, who was speaking still with Theron.

"We shall stay in view of him," said Fraomar, resentfully, but as the only way he could conceive to persuade her without a struggle, and though it was with great reluctance, she went with him. They stood near a thicket of trees a short distance from camp. He kept a firm hold of her upper arm, so that it felt bruised and sore. With his free hand he pushed back her hair to observe her face, which no longer showed any trace of his brutalities beyond a small cut at the corner of her mouth. Her complexion was again pale as winter. Silently she awaited his words.

He rubbed his brow as if suffering confusion of mind. "I feel misunderstanding has played a part in our ..." He stopped as if searching a word, then said, "Misfortune." The hard lines about his mouth and brow retreated, and in their place came an expression of meekness. "You must give me your forgiveness. The discomfort I imposed on you was necessary-" He seemed uncertain for a moment, her expression unyielding. He touched her with timorous hands as though suddenly fearful of her now in her restored state.

"See how quick you are to heal?" he said with empty enthusiasm, then with a hint of accusation: "The wounds you have laid on me run far deeper and will not repair with such ease. I had not meant you harm. In my suffering a darkness came over me." He made an effort to put his lips on her shoulder but she withdrew it. He looked on her with impatient imploring. "Please don't be unkind to me! Let me be punished in some other form. I cannot endure this. Tell me how I can reprove myself in such a manner as will insure me your affection, and I will do it."

From where he sat, Deacon watched the two converse with eyes of suffering and torment. "Don't look at her. Look at me," said Theron; roughly he redirected his attention. "This is the image you need to be seeing in your head." He thrust at Deacon the piece of parchment he was sick almost to death of seeing.

Fraomar cast nervous eyes over to the party of men to see if they observed. He tried to coerce her to go even further from camp, but she would not go, convinced of her inadequacy for the struggle should he attempt violence. She had pulled somewhat apart from him, and his despair intensified.

"Why do you not want to be kind to me? I adore you-your hair and your lips. Your skin smells of flowers. It suffocates me. All these years so full of restrained pa.s.sion. I have waited for you. Even now I dare to hope for a return of my love." His hand sought affection and feared to find contempt. "If I could be but a.s.sured you would at least try to accept me-this alone restrains me. As it is you who has caused me to love, is it wrong that I should expect you to at least attempt to be receptive to my affections?"

She pushed aside his hand and continued to look him directly in the face.

"Why despise me?" he said. "The things I have done you have provoked me to with your coldness. Perhaps if you would speak with me reasonably-"

"I can hardly regard you a rational partic.i.p.ant," she said. "You have disregarded my repeated refusal, acting on the false impression that I was not in earnest when I gave my opinion of your persistence, and even to believe I had encouraged you-"

"What is a man if he has not hope?"

"Dare not to hope! In your senseless incapability to see reason, you have so obstinately pursued me as to injure and grieve me and any near to my heart. You would try to intimidate me, divide my loyalties, hurt me, and attempt by such means to force my acceptance of you," she said and told him that after such he must finally consider himself fully and irrevocably cast from her. She would have drawn away, but he pressed her closer, gripping her in his arm.

Her admonishment, instead of dissuading his affections, seemed rather to feed them. He hastened to answer: "You are a great influence on me. You have convinced me of my injustices. I will reform. It is in your power to help me achieve this. Allow me to amend my past misdeeds. Give me a single chance and I will prove to you I am in earnest."

When somewhat calmer he pressed her more gently to himself and said, "If you knew how you tempt me-your hands, I should love to feel their softness." Reaching down, he took hold of her hand and put it to his cheek, his face almost touching her own, but some inexplicit thing held him from making any attempt, as though he felt threatened by some invisible force. Very slowly, his voice full of supplication, he murmured, "Let me come to your lips. Allow that I should taste them, and I am saved."

She distressed him deeply by affecting a pa.s.sive resistance which he detested utterly. Burning with impatience, he said, "I deserve that you should have me. If ever one showing patient waiting and bitter longing, and such faithfulness as to endure the utmost contempt with one devoted thought, deserved being loved, it is the pitiable fool you see before you. Does my long suffering and loyal adherence not strike some sympathetic chord? Has it all been in vain?"

Caressing her fingers with his lips, he murmured, "Awake or asleep, it is your face I see." He brushed his cheek against her open palm, since she would make no effort to caress him. "There can be no doubt my heart has a capacity for sincere attachment, or I would not have endured all this with such abiding, unalterable love. I have given you all my heart. Will you treat it tenderly, or shall you cast it beneath your feet and tread over it till it is sore and bleeding?"

Magenta gave no reply, averting her face from his pursuing caresses. "It is not much I ask of you-not much for you, but that little I seek is all the difference between happiness and misery for me. Come, be kind to me, be loving." He made an attempt to kiss her. "Tempter!" he said and seized her as she tried to elude him. He could compel her and set about proving it.

Deacon rose sharply to his feet. A stab of heat pierced his veins upon the sight of Fraomar forcibly removing her further from view. That he must seek the seclusion of shadows left no doubt as to the nature of his intentions. Theron was on his feet also and said, "Sit down or I will knock you down!"

"He means to harm her!" said Deacon, going livid with rage, and for a moment he was blind. Two men took hold of him with the single purpose of subduing him, in which they soon succeeded. Next to him his cousins had been battered into submission. For one intense moment Deacon became still as Theron went to interpose himself between Magenta and her antagonist.

The hands that had her seized were ridged with painful veins. Fraomar choked with rage and pain. He did not release her, though the torment in his hands was almost intolerable. Instead he struck her, but with his arms he kept her standing. Deacon flinched as though he had taken the blow himself and struggled so violently that the two men holding him almost lost their balance and fell.

Again Fraomar raised his arm, and with such savage intent that Magenta shut her eyes and waited for the blow to fall. At that moment Theron caught and stayed the raised hand. Fraomar's hold loosened, and she stumbled backward and fell away from him.

"Enough games," said Theron, throwing down the other man's hand impatiently. "I don't care what you do when we return, but I suggest you in the meantime take care. I will have to account for your treatment of her."

He stooped, hauled Magenta to her feet and tossed her back to his friend as a master would toss a favourite plaything back to his dog. When Theron returned, Deacon said, "If he hurts her you might as well cut my throat this minute, for I will be of no use to you!" He spoke quickly and savagely, his breath erratic and laboured.

Theron gripped the front of his shirt as if he would tear him from the arms that detained him. "Perhaps you consider yourself in a better position then you are in fact. Threaten me-attempt to go astray-and I will not only harm them myself, I will give you the pleasure of watching them beg for death before I'm done."

That evening the three young men nursed their injured bodies without word or complaint. Hunched over himself, Derek was very quiet. His face was serious. A few beatings had broken him to obedience. He looked at his brother and knew his mind was ever working on a plan of action, yet it seemed so futile. The four of them were entirely at the mercy of these rough men. Deacon was motionless, as if he was cast in stone. At intervals his jaw would clench and life would momentarily sear his eyes. His single focus was the woman who sat helpless in the hands of the enemy. Once or twice during the evening he feared Fraomar would strike her.

With Fraomar's thick arms around her, Magenta was stifled against his strenuous body. He was bent on making her lean into him. She was tense and held away with contempt and uncertainty, as if she feared what he might next do on impulse. He was unstable and unpredictable, terrifying in his cruel littleness. She became completely silent; he had shown her that any response was but a fresh temptation to him to subdue her, violating her into an isolated sense of herself, where he could hurt her no more.

Her impervious beauty and aloof, conscious inward superiority threw him into a paroxysm of brutal revolt. He could not control her whose spirit no cruelty could subjugate. He wanted to crush her for her cold, sterile beauty.

Intently he watched her, his eyes rarely leaving her face, but she refused to meet his gaze, and always she looked away from him to the other man. Trying to decipher the meaning of their silent exchanges drove him near insanity.

Fraomar looked on her as a cruel, unforgiving creature. He suffered terribly. Coveting an affection denied, cherishing a hope for a happiness refused, it was enough. His rejected love lay within him as a corpse, embittering and putrefying him, his very soul. A fatal resolve formed in his mind. He thought now to kill her. No longer would she poison his existence. He would be purged of her. But he would do this not before he had made amends for himself. All the pain and misery he had suffered for her would be rewarded in her embrace.

In the night when all but those who kept vigil had retired to their beds, Fraomar left his own. His tempter would be returned home the following morning, and so he no choice but to go to her this hour. Taking advantage of the night's darkness he made his way swiftly. As he neared the desired tent he slowed his steps and approached silently. He saw that the guard who was supposed to keep vigil had abandoned his post and was not to be seen.

"And where go you?" came a careless, unconcerned voice out from the dark. Stepping from behind a tree, lacing his pants, appeared the man keeping watch. "What do you intend that you sweat and grow pale?" he said with an expression of mockery. He was a tall man with a brutally heavy mouth and direct gaze. "Did your previous near-fatal experience teach you nothing?"

Fraomar said in a low voice, "No word of this will be spoken, or you may count upon facing a scene more unfortunate than you can well imagine." But his words, it seemed, were all in vain, for the guard only smiled. Fraomar advanced a step. "Let me render my meaning more specific so there can be no misunderstandings-"

"I don't give a fig for your intentions," said the guard coa.r.s.ely. "I say, d.a.m.n the priestesses, curse every last one of them. I should like to see her thrown facedown into the mud-get that pretty dress dirty." He sat down on the wooden stool and bent and lifted the drink that was between his feet in a brutal, coa.r.s.e fashion. "It's not me who will have to account for any mistreatment. I need only to say you knocked me cold."

"Which will not be a lie, should you provoke me to it," said Fraomar. "Keep your voice lowered."

The guard took a sip and waved his hand dismissively. "Go, be d.a.m.ned." Raising his cup, he said, "Here's to hoping for the best." He gulped down a mouthful, muttering, "Mind nothing falls off in the process-I know it puts me off."

Fraomar, in a sudden, silent fury grasped the man by the scruff of the neck, dashing him against the tree, his forearm pressed against his throat. Though gritted teeth he spat: "Mind your tongue, lest I cut it out." He released the guard sharply and ordered, "Stand away from here."

Fraomar wiped the sweat from his brow, and looking to see none watched, he pushed back the sought canvas flap, and silently as a shadow entered the dark, sweetly-scented confines. Magenta, who had not yet closed her eyes for the night, drew herself up to a sitting position, her hair falling loosely round her. With one convulsive movement he had her seized in a frightful grip, crushing her against his body. Her cry was ended in a stifled scream, his hand round her throat. In his clutches, she felt a pang of hot fear in her breast.

"Hush-no noise." His voice seemed to vibrate fearfully deep inside her. "Remember that you have made an enemy of me."

His breath muted, he settled himself carefully at her side, and when certain he had rendered her voiceless, gradually loosened his hold. His beard was coa.r.s.e and damp, so that she shuddered at the light brush of his face against her smooth cheek.

Having her thus close and in his power sent the blood pounding suffocatingly to his head. He trembled with desire and abas.e.m.e.nt. With a refinement of cruelty he touched her face, brushing his fingers down her white throat, which he thought to be her finest feature. And a horror and dread stirred within her. She strained her face away from him and said, low and tense, "Touch me not." But fear drained the strength from her voice, so that it scarcely reached her own ear as a whispering of a ghost.

He disregarded her warning, and in spite of her frozen resistance, drew the covers down from her body, holding her in her light gown. Magenta, with eyes closed, hardly breathed. Her very soul cringed from this contact with him, against the feel of his arm around her, but though she resisted him, she dared not repulse him for very fear of him. A frantic movement, an utter of repulsion, would have plunged him into a frenzy of pa.s.sion in which he would be unsubduable.

His words were spoken on a shuddering breath. "My mercy shall be as sparing as yours for me." His arm was around her in a fixed position. His chest set against her, hard and unyielding. In this terrible hold he silently, insistently, pa.s.sed an intrusive hand over her.

It was something near revenge to see the shame and powerless hatred worked in her. She remained motionless, benumbed with rage, apparently scarce knowing what he did, for her face was set blank, her eyes fixed on vacancy. The intense feeling of revulsion could not find vent, and so she sat restrained and recoiled inside herself, wavering between immobility and utter torment, sorely dismayed to find how dead her heart was becoming under his treatment of her.

Nothing was too sacred or too inviolable for his rapacious hands. She had no colour, no sound, wilting within herself, she seemed to fade into emptiness. Yet even now he felt she was untouched. He could feel her wilful resistance set against him. Anger pulsed in his veins, and yet his desire mounted with it. "Even now you would resist me," he said with the rancour of incredulous fury. As he spoke he pa.s.sed his thumb cruelly over her lips, sating his eyes on her face which he then turned to press his face into, inhaling the scent of flowers that was uniquely hers, a subtle perfume that sweetened all her body. It made him shudder with an excess of his most violent pa.s.sions. He half-choked, sick with desire. He grasped her arm to turn her, and she felt herself drawn into his stifling embrace. She could not draw an easy breath, stifled by the hot odour of him, of sweat and leather and yearning.

With steady insistence he pressed her into the ache of his heart, his lips brushing her throat beneath the ear, laying moist kisses down her neck, softly, repulsively soft. It would be many hours till morning, and he felt he had leisure to give himself full licence, cleaving to the unliving, unfeeling body, the strength of his arms ever-increasing. She was as if crushed. A terrible weakness overcame her limbs, frozen within herself, feeling her heart being killed within her, smothered by the terrible heat of him, a slow irrepressible force that mounted against her.

She closed her eyes, beginning to tremble. Already she could feel him moving in upon her, silent, intent, his arm enfolding her. There was anger in his hands and a destructive strength. The brute blood smothering his veins, he no longer cared to put off his revengeful desires. He set his mouth against her cheek and drew a long, shivering sigh. He spoke with low-toned fervor: "Perceive it necessary for me to do this-consent or refuse-you will be sparing my life." He clasped her neck and brought her cheek to his and whispered coa.r.s.ely, "Nothing you have ever bled for will be more worthwhile."

Desire took him and he was quick to cover her trembling lips with his mouth to relieve the longing. A man's strength is a terrible and fearful thing when his blood is full of desire and burning inside of him. She made no attempt to struggle nor to prevent him, but even as his mouth moved over hers, his lips and cheek began to turn livid with the hue of death.

With persistent obstinacy he fought through the pain and torment, pushing through the soreness and the burning sweetness that wounded his lips. It seemed the only effect of this act of preservation was to render him more determined in his actions. He put forth every exertion to resist her cruelty, waiting for it to abate. Abruptly, in agony and torment, he suddenly broke from her. Scarcely beneath his breath, he cried with broken frustration, "Cursed woman!" His eyes burned with tears of hate. "You will be the death of me!"

He clamped his hand over her throat, and she was drawn to him in a terrible grip. He regarded the insufferable woman fixedly. Exhausted and defeated, she seemed now to have no power but to look upon his face, which was the image of fury itself, intensified by the emotionlessness of her own expression, which maintained a determined pa.s.sivity enough to madden any lover. His tormented anger quickly gave way to wretchedness, and his manner toward her again changed, supplicating in his words and attentions. With an officious hand he brushed the dark hair from her white face. "Someday you will have me." He panted. He was anxious and determined to be entreated, sickened in his heart with longing. He shifted his weight restlessly and avowed, "Let me come to you, and I will serve you unto death."

As she spoke her face showed plainly her disgust. "Every feeling of my heart revolts-the embrace of death should be more welcome." Her heart was hot and pounding convulsively in her breast. He in an instant became hot all over.

"Those were fatal words," he said, his mouth white. He laid ruthless hands on her and dragged her down to him. In frenzy and agony he clutched at her, without mind, as if driven by some desperate, terrible imperative. Sobs of impotent rage and torment choked her throat and racked her body. His lips breathed wrath, uttering hoa.r.s.e cries of pain.