A Match for the El Maiens

I have been editing the first couple of chapters and have reposted them up here - new versions of the Prologue and Ch.s 1 and 2 should be up by now. If you are re-reading the story, I would really welcome feedback on whether they are better in the new versions, either in comments on the chapters or via the Feedback form. I haven't got round to tackling the names yet, although I know I am going to have to change them. (Aww, I will be sorry to do that as I have lived with them for so many years but I know they make it difficult to follow the story.)

Thank you so much everyone for your support with the votes and feedback, it's meant a lot to me :heart:

*****

Clair walked through the Port H'las streets in the darkness, his head bent and a moody scowl on his face. It was evening but he had not even eaten any dinner, had just slipped out of the castle and down into the town in civilian dress with an old cloak cast around his shoulders. He edged along the streets, kicking a little stone now and then and glowering at the glowing windows of shops and the braziers of coal around which people gathered to buy and eat roasted chestnuts and ask each other what news there might be of the war, which way was it going?

Gradually he worked his way into an area of the port town where there were fewer shops and no braziers of coals with chestnuts roasting. Dark alleyways led off the street he walked down. He was going past a slatternly looking tavern. Clair was hungry as well as sulky by now and this place looked as if there was little chance that any of the Generals he was obliged to work with would turn up in it. Reluctantly he admitted that his bad temper would only be worsened by hunger and that he ought to try to be less angry. He strolled over, his lazy sexy stride and the quality of his clothes and weaponry attracting curious looks from the few passers-by, pushed open the door and went in.

It was a dirty place with tables to either side of the room and a dark wood bar ahead of him. To one side of the bar a rickety wooden staircase led up to the rooms above. There were few people in the dimly lit room, Clair stumbled in the poor light as he went to the glowing red dully flickering fire and sat at a table beside it in the warmth.

A woman strolled slowly over to him, he lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. She was surprisingly pretty for a place of this kind - or rather, he corrected himself, she was exactly the kind of sugarplum one might expect to find here. Her dark hair tumbled careless about a heart-shaped face. He could see the cleft between a pair of breasts like apples and an edge of lace escaping from the neckline of her dress. Her dress curved in tightly to a slender waist and then out to swish playfully about her hips. She was not wearing petticoats so the shape of her legs showed in the skirts as she walked. They appeared to be well-shaped legs. She smiled mechanically at him, not looking in his face. He was piqued by her lack of attention, he put his hand on hers where she had put it on the table and then she lowered her eyes to meet his and her eyes lit up to see him so beautiful before her. Her eyes were the same dark blue as Tashka's although they were round. He gave her the smile he gave to people whom he was seeking to encourage: poets, scientists, his silly Lady wife and she gave him back a sparkling-eyed laugh as if to say:

I know you, my lovely

. He laughed too, then. It was always comforting to get this cheating bit of love and warmth. It was only an acknowledgement of how sexy he was, not real love but it was from someone who was looking on him with eyes not because he was a wealthy aristocrat, someone who did find him in his own self attractive.

"And what might we be able to do for you, your fine Lordship?" the woman enquired.

He was startled then he realised she had no idea who he was, she was mocking him with the title. He grinned up at her, his slanted grey eyes creasing as they looked deep into her dark blue eyes. She put her other hand up to her neck and eased the shoulder of her dirty red silk dress down. The dress was dirty but the edge of lace he saw was crisp and clean, to his pleasure. He liked a bit of lace but he preferred it clean.

"I am hungry," he answered. "For food," he added.

"My honey," she drawled. "If you are hungry, you had better eat."

"Do you have a stew I might have?" he asked.

"If you can spare an half hour, you can have a chop." A flick of the eyes at the ramshackle staircase by the bar suggested the pleasurable way in which he could pass that half hour.

"No, if you have a stew I'll take it now," he answered. "Any thing worth my while drinking?"

"There is a fine brandy," she admitted. "We keep it for one of our regulars. It is the only thing here that is up to your style," she looked meaningfully at the lace which flowed over the fine felt cloth of his jacket at the lapels.

"No wine fit to drink?" he asked.

"I can send out for a bottle from the merchant's," she offered.

"I may as well wait here for the chop, then," he said. "Give me some bread and sauce, and you will let the wine breath, my Angel, will you not?" She laughed and promised to do so.

When she had fetched his bread, he sat with his head bent towards the warmth of the dully glowing fire, sulking.

That day he had received a long letter from Arianna. It was all about her work and how Arkyll Inien had done this and her other student had done that and she thought they might write a scroll to send to B'dar, perhaps he would arrange a conference at which they could present these wonderful brilliant findings which were utterly incomprehensible to Clair. There was nothing about the children. In her last letter she had said something about Hanyan's drawing, he had written to beg her to say more but she had not troubled to reply to his request. There was nothing about the servants. Had she made it clear to Fiotr and Petra that they were not to race their wheelchairs in the snow and risk sliding down the hill, injuring themselves and damaging their wheelchairs? Had she made proper provision for young Lallia who had foolishly gone and got herself pregnant in spite of his making sure all the maids and men understood how to avoid having a child? Was Petra the steward suffering from his chest as usual in winter and if so had she made sure he went to see the doctors?

There was nothing either about the enormous box of chocolates he had been to such phenomenal trouble to send her. Bloody Angel of Baya, to write himself to Lady Maive el Vaie van Soomara and beg her, of her indulgence, send his Lady wife - his own wife - a box of Soomara chocolates across land and sea and all the way up through the Maier Pass in a state of siege. Maive had sent him a hilarious letter in reply, promising him that the biggest and most luxurious box ever created had been put into a special carriage and taken to Sietter. She had tried to refuse to let him pay for it but he insisted and added a pair of earrings for herself,

just a friendly token, sweet friend, hope it will not make trouble for you with your latest bit of trimming - or your proposed betrothal to el Wyming. Tell it him from me he will be a lucky dog if he can get himself bestowed on you

. And that indifferent mathematical brain could not even trouble to write and thank him but must send some great screed of stuff about her wretched partial differentials.

A self-indulgent tear slid through Clair's lean fingers. He stared into the fire, not even raising his head when the woman came back with a bowl and the bottle of wine he had ordered. Then he felt bad to be so ill-mannered and said in a husky voice strung with tears, "have a bowl yourself, my pretty."

She reached over and ran her warm fingers down his cheek. "Ah, she is not worth it," she assured him. "Have yourself a bit of fun and forget the maid." She gave a throaty sexy chuckle.

He lifted his head and smiled mechanically at her. Their eyes met again and hers smiled into his, promising at least half an hour in which he would forget his half-thawed Ice Queen of a wife, his lost lover, his brother and his brother officers out in the wintry weather dying in a war he would have given his own life to avoid. Just half an hour? those breasts like apples would be fun to the touch. She would probably give him a real favour not pretending to moan and rise to his cock sinking into her cunt. He would be able to get her going, she was eager for it already, leaning hopefully towards him. A small voice in his head said,

Are you crazy? to risk losing the love of that splendid beauty, Arianna. She is not like Hanya, she has a rigid moral framework, she will never forgive it you if you take an one-day-one-night after offering her a complete marriage of mind and body and heart

. He kicked the voice down, saying to it:

She would never know

.

There was a stamp of feet on the floor of the room above the bar. The woman lifted her head and frowned. She flashed Clair a saucy wink from an eye as jewel-like and blue as his beloved sibling's and went back to the bar to take some bottles out from behind it which she put on a tray and took up the rickety stairs.

Clair stared after her. He was remembering how he had wept, the few times Hanya Vashin had come back to him with the scent of some other man's perfume on his lean neck. He had not said any thing, he had not blamed Hanya for being tempted by some lovely he had picked up who knew where, he had known that he was the only serious lover Hanya would ever take but it had pierced him to the heart. He had shed his soft tears in Pava el Jien's warm nonjudgmental embrace, trusting to Pava never to mention them either to Hanya or to that fierce killer in defence of his honour, his young sister. In spite of the many eyes that looked on him - the beautiful future sworn Lord, he had been entirely true to his lover for seven years, had never felt tempted as he was now to throw a casual favour to someone outside his lover's bed. He bowed his head down.

He thought of the new life he had slowly made in Castle Sietter. He thought about taking the children to school and standing waiting for the tutors to open the doors of the castle schoolroom in the morning. He did not of course talk to the other parents waiting there patiently who were all sworn to his service and could not but have treated it as an opportunity to seek advancement but he used to enjoy standing and overhearing their parental gossip, the complaints of cheekiness or naughtiness which made him realise how normal his little Arkyll was - and how lucky he was in the exquisitely good behaviour of Hanyan. They would sometimes spontaneously break out into praise of Hanya's extraordinary beauty, making him glow with happy anxious pride.

He had missed picking fruit in the orchards. When he left, the apples and pears were not ripe yet, he had missed the golden autumn days with apples hanging red and russet, pears with the silvery-grey tracery over their skins. He missed the trees with big gnarled boughs along which the children climbed and sat and played while the gardeners, some of the maid- and men-servants and he picked the fruit and put it into the big wicker baskets. Later the cooks would come to set a hearty meal on trestle tables under the orchard trees, with weak ale and cider to drink, and he would feel content after a long hard day's work in the gentle autumn sunshine.

He thought of cooking in the castle kitchens; quietly absorbed in turning a perfect omelette out of the pan, completely focussed on cooking it just so - a little bit liquid still in the middle. If he were cooking himself some breakfast he would not think about any of the irritating business which his day would bring, just enjoy preparing his food while drinking his coffee from a child's bowl which that old dear Flada Clathan gave him.

He thought of working with Tarra and Laran, of telling Ladda off when she wanted new this and that or tried to persuade him - yet again, to enclose the veranda and the walkways around the inner courtyard. He thought about Fiotr and Petra racing their wheelchairs in the big dim hallway and about the guards flirting with maid-servants and about Ria the children's nursery-maid, standing in the stable doorway sheltering from the rain and enjoying a kiss and a cuddle with her lover the stablemaid.

He thought about his last night in the castle and waking in the morning: the two children, Arianna and himself all curled together in the close warmth of the sheets and blankets and quilt in the chilly autumn air; blond and dark hair scattered over the pillows, their faces so soft in sleep, their big red mouths bunched up in the dim morning light as if for his kisses.

He thought about Arianna el Jien van Sietter, so tall and plump and fair, moving through his castle like a candle-flame lighting up the old dark corners and driving out the wounded secrets, staring at them with her terrible rational mathematical brain to say:

that is not a problem

, and they could straighten up and walk free in the light and the air.

He loved it so much, the quiet domestic life that he enjoyed with all the passion he could feel in his hot passionate heart.

He hated the work which was keeping him from that life: the long meetings in the Generals' offices, where he was frequently praised for the excellence of the lines of supply he managed. He suspected (quite wrongly) that they only tolerated him for his wife's money, which poured in to pay for the excessively expensive arms they had to buy. (The merchants looked so queerly at van H'las when he placed the orders that Vadya had to do it, van H'las' open face gave it away that there was money coming from somewhere-else for their supplies.)

Clair hated eating in the First H'las and strategic staff mess hall surrounded by the men and officers. Occasionally there was a flirt going on that he enjoyed surreptitiously watching but mostly it was just bluff men talking about war and weapons and horses. He avoided the parties, particularly since quite often an officer would look on him with eyes; he had that thin gold band on his finger but his reputation was notorious and he was not a senior officer of theirs, not even of their army. At least they would leave it at looking on him since he was the brother by marriage of their future sworn Lord, and since they knew that the hero they worshipped more than they did the Angels, Commander-Lord Tashka el Maien, would give them a glove as soon as a look if they caused her brother any embarrassment.

If he could have been out in the field at least although he knew he could never have raised his arm the signal to take men to their deaths again and would certainly not have been able to take arms against those like Caja Nain, his beloved junior officer who had remained locked to the hoop of the Sietter Generals' rings. To be stuck back here trotting to and fro his desk in the strategic staff offices and going back at nights to a bare big guest room. He hated the boyish bachelor life he was obliged to lead with all his fine mind.

He just wanted to go home: to his children; to the people who served him and who were under his loving care. Home, where sometimes he could have a party and invite his brother and brother by marriage van H'las, his wife's cousin and his own brother officer Pava el Jien, his scandalous sister's scandalous one-day-one-night el V'lair van Athagine - no not el V'lair, since he had proved unworthy Clair's trust around the women of his family, maybe a friend or two like Lady van P'shan or Maive el Vaie - although unfortunately Maive would not come if Pava were there.

He just wanted to go home to that secretive sly animal, his Lady wife. She did not keep ordinary secrets like an affair with a junior officer or a servant, oh no, she kept it secret that she was involved in a splendid humanitarian project with merchants, that she corresponded with highly respected scientists about a mathematical theorem, that she was in love with her own husband.

She was not even ready to lie with him in passion, perhaps she would always be too chaste and shy to enjoy the kind of sexual games he could enjoy with this pretty bit of trimming in a tavern bed. But she was at the heart of his home, his domestic happiness. She might never know of it, if he did chuck out a favour to a stranger like one of the piles and piles of kerchiefs he had in his drawers. She would probably even forgive it him, she was a rational mind and would understand if he said:

I was far from home and from you; I was lonely

. But he would never forgive himself for soiling that honour that had been bestowed on him to hold at his heart, the shining bright chastity of his storming intelligent beauty whose happiness he had come to care about so much.

He put his hand to his eyes and the tears slid slowly through his fingers. After a few minutes he fetched a big sigh and wiped them away and sat on there, staring sulkily into the sullen fire.

The prostitute was coming back to Clair with his food, still smiling that lovely smile that curled up to eyes that were the same colour as Arkyll's. He smiled mechanically back at her, pouring a bowl of wine for himself. She saw that his mood had changed and good-naturedly she left him to himself to eat his dinner although she was disappointed. It was not often she had a client who suited her eye as well as her pocket.

The food was quite good - for the kind of place this was, and he was hungry so he enjoyed it. As he was finishing, the door opened, he turned his head and saw to his great annoyance his brother by marriage, el Gaiel van H'las. 'What?!' he thought, 'has she got him following me now, to make sure I stick to my vow to her! She is so unreasonable jealous.' In thinking this he conveniently put to one side the fact that he had challenged men to put their lives in the hazard over completely absurd suppositions that her honour had been compromised.

Vadya did not look at him nor at anyone-else in the room. He stamped off to a table in an alcove on the other side of the room, where it was even darker than where Clair was sitting, and disappeared into it. As soon as she had seen him coming in the barmaid had reached under the bar. She poured out a small bowl of brandy which she put on a tray and brought to this latest customer.

Clair realised in astonishment that Vadya was a regular customer in this dreadful place. Considering the pretty face of the woman serving, he was inclined to be suspicious then he remembered whom it was he was suspecting of soiling their honour with a barmaid in a tavern. The husband of that killer Tashka el Maien van H'las! he would be worse than dead if he ever gave her the go-by. Clair got up and went over to Vadya, calling to the barmaid to bring him a bowl of that good quality brandy that they kept for this regular customer.

Vadya lifted his head as Clair came up to his table and looked out of the darkness at him with no friendly eye. "What are you doing here?" he asked in a sulky voice.

"It looked like a place where there would not be anyone I would know," Clair answered with a wry smile. Vadya gave a nod of comprehension. "Would you rather I let you alone, el Gaiel?"

"No no," Vadya said with a sigh. "Bear me company if you wish, Clair. I am not very good company, though."

"None of us are, just now," Clair said sympathetically.

"To lose all the foreground to the Maier Pass," Vadya grumbled, "after the troops had won it with such valour."

"Well, we have held the Maier Pass," Clair pointed out. "Never mind all that. We can talk about that in the Generals' strategic gossip-chamber." He characterised the strategic meetings to which Vadya and he had such privileged access in the scornful tones of a field officer. "You did not come here to talk about military strategy," he cast a meaningful eye round the dark corners where there might be any sort of person sitting with their ears waggling. "Why have you come here?"