Page 13 of Besieger
That night at dinner, her master kept urging her husband to drink. Rorgon had chased the servants out of the room and taken the flagon. He poured cup after cup of wine, praising the Count on the product of his vineyard.
“Your neighbour—Emil Hébert,” Rorgon’s voice was deafening. Dulior had never heard him speak like this. It worriedher. “Your neighbour’s wine cellar is as exquisite as your own, Count.”
“Is that where you have been, sir?” her husband humoured him, raising his glass in a toast to sir Hébert.
“He has a son, does he not?” Rorgon asked, lowering the flagon. The red liquid overflowed from the Count’s cup and dripped on the table. Neither man took notice.
Dulior continued to watch in horror, her hand gripping the knife. If she moved to pull it under the table her master would see.
“Yes, Elay. Elay Hébert,” The Count nodded, and frowned trying to picture the young man in his mind’s eye. “A brave man. Very talented. Good with the pike. Fought at Cassel.”
“Ah,” her master inhaled sharply. Dulior could see his tongue running over the fangs.
“That explains the scars.”
“Yes, yes. He was twelve. That is why they gave him the pike—for a longer reach,” the Count laughed and made a stabbing motion with his fork towards Rorgon’s chest.
Both men burst laughing. Rorgon made little attempt to hide his fangs, his mouth stood open wide like a gaping wound. A gash with teeth.
Then, with a sweeping motion, he reached out—too fast for a human to follow—and snatched the fork from Gustave’s hand.
“The Flanders nicked him, here and here.”
He pressed the fork tip against Gustave’s chest, to the right, and jerked his hand upwards towards the shoulder.
“Nasty scar,” Rorgon shook his head and let the fork clatter to the table. “Not married, is he?” he asked with such genuine concern that Dulior could not hide her confusion.
“No. Wants to be a knight, I think.”
“Yes, he did mention,” Rorgon conceded, rubbing his chin. He made a face and looked at his hand, the sleeve of his tunic was wet. The wine spill had gotten to his side of the table. “He is young. He can still marry.”
The Count nodded in agreement.
“You would marry a knight, wouldn’t you?”
It took Dulior a few beats to realize Rorgon was talking to her. She looked up—her fingers unclenching from the knife—her gaze shifted first to her husband, then to her maker. The mortal man sitting at the head of the table was drunk but otherwise in good health. She put much effort in ensuring that the Count was well fed and dressed. Sometimes she wondered if giving him a little of her blood would make him age slower, but she never dared this sacrilege. Gustave was the first husband she ever took precaution in keeping alive.
Rorgon continued to stare at her, his light eyes drilling into hers, impatient. A deadly stillness had fallen over, slowly devouring the rest of the room. She could no longer feel or see the light of the candles and the flickering flames in the fireplace.
“You would marry a knight, my flower” her master repeated, no longer framing it as a question.
The Count laughed, his hand clasped Rorgon’s shoulder and shook him playfully. There were traces of good humour in his voice but Dulior sensed how his hospitality had reached its limit. The desire to rid himself of this man—this stranger—was simmering on the surface of his mind.
The daemon who presides over our marriage bed.
“My friend,” Gustave di Flaviari smiled and the smile never reached his eyes, “do not give my wife ideas. She is lost in the beauty of simple things as it is. Only last night she lulled me to sleep by describing a tapestry she saw while visiting her friends. A tapestry!”
But the damage was done, as Gustave’s thoughts betrayed him. He had never questioned his wife’s late night walks, nor her need for solitude. She had her maids to tend to her, and dozens of little embroidery cushions to prove the amount of time she spent indoors. No young lover or misguided fool had ever come calling. No servant talked ill behind her back.
Yet now, like a nail scratching at a scab of flesh, Rorgon was silently urging the Count to dwell on new suspicions—of his wife being with another man. The mention of Elay Hébert had ignited the flame of jealousy into the Count’s heart and mind, and Dulior quickly closed her eyes, refusing to see more of herself in the arms of a lover.
A lover conjured by him.
“My love,” Dulior lifted a napkin to her mouth, feigning exhaustion. Rorgon was the first to look in her direction, putting a stop to the cruel game. “I’ve had too much to drink. I shall retire for the night.”
Instantly her husband rose and came to pull her chair. He held her hand a little too tightly and when he kissed her knuckles his mind cried out loudly for her:I love you!
Ignoring the guest, Gustave led her to the door, and called for a servant to escort her.
