The Fall of Neskaya by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online

looking out over the empty courtyard and wondering when he would see it again. It seemed a century ago that he’d watched the frenzied activity of the firefighters. Here Padraic had shouted out orders in that bellow of his, and there Kristlin had fallen on her backside, almost trampled by Beltran’s unruly bay stallion.
    Kristlin . . .
    He’d hardly recognized her when she’d come downstairs for the handfasting ceremony, wearing a dress that rippled as she walked, blue trimmed with ivory lace at the high neckline and tied about her slender waist with a matching ribbon. Ruella had brushed her unbound hair until it shone like polished brass. At least, Kristlin looked like the child she was, although a pretty one. No one could reasonably assert that she was old enough to be married.
    Tessa had worn her good dress, the same as at the banquet after the fire, but she wore no jewels, looking more like a somber young matron than a still-eligible damisela. Margarida practically giggled with relief that she had not been chosen. She wore her hair in a child’s braids over a smock she’d embroidered with her own designs of butterflies and windflowers.
    Unlike the previous celebration, there had been little rejoicing past the simple proxy ritual. Petro disappeared into one of his black moods and Tessa refused to sing without him, claiming a delicate voice. Eddard’s wife excused herself early to take to her bed. Although she had not complained, her skin was ashen with the fatigue of her pregnancy. Coryn worried that Kristlin would mind, but she seemed happier to have the whole thing over with.
    “Brother . . .” She’d come up so silently he hadn’t heard her. “Are you sad?”
    He shook his head, startled. Had she sensed his mood? “Not sad, just—just wanting to remember this.” He swung his arms wide to the yard, the estate grounds, the mountains with their forests and wild streams beyond.
    He hugged her hard, feeling her wiry arms tighten around him.
    I’ll miss you. The words formed in his mind, so that he could not be sure who had said them. In their separate ways, they were each bidding good-bye to childhood. She would stay at home for a handful of years and then go on to her place as di catenas wife to a king, maybe the mother of kings even greater. His way led to a Tower, to Tramontana, to the secrets of the starstone and clingfire and things he could not yet imagine. He shivered, wondering if he would ever see her again.

4
    C oryn would have preferred to leave for Tramontana without either breakfast or fuss, but Dom Rumail departed the same day, so the household stayed up half the night preparing an unusually elaborate meal, everything from cinnamon-flavored apple twists to fat sausages. He’d eaten far more than he wanted, mostly because Rumail kept lecturing him that loss of appetite was one of the danger signs of threshold sickness. He would rather have Tessa fussing over him with her herbs.
    Then, while still at the table, Beltran gave yet another speech thanking Rumail, and then one for Coryn’s special benefit. Coryn had heard all the phrases before: “family honor” and “noble deportment.” His body wouldn’t sit still, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to be away, off to the adventures which surely must await him.
    Kristlin sat at her usual place, having defied Ruella and dressed in an old smock and underskirt. Her eyes looked red and she sniffled. Rumail took her small hand in his and said, “Let the joining of these children bind our lands in enduring goodwill and prosperity. May this union be a harbinger of a new world, one in which brothers no longer make war upon one another, but live together under one King, all obeying the same just rule.”
    “Peace and happiness for our children and their children is our dearest wish,” Beltran replied.
    “The question is,” Petro muttered as they left the table, “which King and whose version of justice?”
    Coryn, his stomach churning with