"Droit du Signeur 7"( Mf MF 1st hist )[7/7]

      Kirsten sat up suddenly and looked to her right, where Heinrich
lay between herself and Lady Esmerelda.  "What happened?  I mean, I
know it obviously turned out all right, because you're both here.  But
did Assan find out?  How did you get back home?"
      Tears pooled in Heinrich's eyes as he stared at the ceiling.
Esmerelda's eyes were closed, but tears flowed freely down the side of
her head, wetting her black hair. "Yes, Assan found out."  Her voice
was husky, her throat sounded full of fluid.  "He did not examine my
maidenhead for months.  I managed to keep the morning sickness hidden,
as well as the other symptoms.  Beatriz, my maid and dear friend, wore
some of my undergarments during her cycles, for mine had stopped of
course."
      "But you began to show."
      Esmerelda nodded, and Kirsten saw Heinrich grip his wife's hand
tightly.  "Assan did not believe me when I told him it was just too
much rich food.  He..."
      Her voice broke.  She let out a tiny sob.  Her shoulders began
to shake, and with a gesture of her hands, signaled she could not
continue.
      Heinrich broke in, and his voice betrayed his efforts to control
his emotion.  "He called in an abortionist.  We don't know if he
botched the job on purpose or not.  Now, Esmerelda cannot... can never
have children."
      Esmerelda let out another small cry.  Kirsten rushed around the
great bed and knelt on the floor by her side.  "I'm sorry,"  she said,
over and over again.  Sorry for what you have lost, for what you can
never have, for asking you to relive it all.  She wiped the tears from
Esmerelda's face and lightly kissed her cheek.  She hugged Esmerelda's
shoulders and held the woman's face against her.  She could say
nothing but "I'm sorry" so she whispered it differently each time,
venting all her emotions, sympathy and sorrow and anger and pity and a
hundred others, and hoped Esmerelda could hear them all.
      After a time, Esmerelda was able to compose herself.  The wound
was still tender, but time had distanced her enough that she was able
to cope with the pain.  She washed her face in the basin under the
window.  Then she put on her gown and headed for the door.
      "Are you sure you're all right, my lady?" Kirsten asked.
      She stopped and smiled a sad smile at Kirsten.  "Yes, Kirsten.
But I know what comes next in the story, and I am afraid it is too
horrible for me to bear, even now."  Then she went out the door and
closed it silently behind her.

Heinrich's Tale:
      I did not know it, but I was the only real suspect in
Esmerelda's pregnancy.  I rode in at the head of my men, glad in my
heart for the first time in months, for I would once again set eyes
and hands and lips on my love.  We had collected the legal amount of
tax from Assan's lands, and forced out as many of his underlings as we
could determine to be dishonest.  We had even confiscated enough
silver from one of the more unscrupulous administrators to cast a
silver medallion for each of my men, a leaping cat to remind us of our
bond, each to the others.
      Assan himself greeted me in the courtyard of his townhouse.  His
smile was wide, as wide as a snake's, I should have realized.  He
flung open his arms as I walked up to give him my final report and
collect our bonus (another reason for my light heart: we were that
much closer to home).
      "Welcome, welcome, Sir Heinrich.  It is a glorious day.  Doubly,
no, trebly glorious!"
      "How so, sir?"
      He placed an arm around my shoulders and led me across the
courtyard.  I heard Lothair's boots stepping lightly up the short
stairway from the stables.  "First of all, my dear Heinrich, you have
returned with more of what is due me than any other tax collectors I
have ever sent out.  You are to be congratulated."
      "Thank you, sir.  We did our best."
      "And your best was marvelous!"  His manner was more cloying than
was his habit, and I should have been suspicious, but I was too eager
to see Esmerelda alone, to touch her again.  But Assan went on.
"Secondly, I have the greatest pleasure to tell you that one of my
wives -- your own nurse, Esmerelda -- has conceived a child."
      I stopped dead in my tracks.  Probably the child was Assan's, I
thought, but the possibility was there that it was mine.  "Th-that is
good news indeed, sir.  You have my congratulations."
      His teeth gleamed inside his dark face.  "Thank you, Sir
Heinrich.  But I have yet to tell you the best news of all."
      "Sir?"
      He put both hands on my shoulders and pulled his face close to
mine.  "The child is WHITE!"  His hands gripped my throat for a split
second, his soft hands crushing in his rage.  He thrust me away from
himself, and immediately dozens of his household guards appeared from
nowhere, nocked arrows pointed directly at me.
      "HEINRICH!"  I turned in the direction of the shout.  Lothair!
No, Lothair!  He was running toward Assan and me, sword drawn,
ignoring the bowmen surrounding us.  I ran toward him, to knock him to
the ground, or to place myself between my friend and the inevitable.
      But the inevitable must happen, I have learned.  Before he was
halfway to us, a dozen arrows sprouted from Lothair's back and chest.
He twisted on one leg, which collapsed beneath him.  He fell.  He
never let go of his sword.
      I slid on my knees to him and lifted his head to my lap.  His
eyes stared lifeless at me.  His face was smooth and relaxed.  He had
been my dearest friend, willing to face death, and the consequences of
living, with me.  And we did not even have the chance to say goodbye.
      "A pity," Assan said above me.  "You were the only one I wanted,
you know.  I would happily keep your men on as a personal bodyguard."
He tsked a few times.  "A good man, I understand.  Dead, as we all
will be.  As you will wish to be, long before you are."
      I was dragged away from Lothair's body, too stunned to offer any
resistance.  Assan walked behind me, and all the way to the dungeons I
could do nothing but look at the red hatred in his eyes.
      The next days -- or possibly even weeks, I have no way of
knowing precisely how long -- were spent in darkness, eating wormy
bread and drinking washwater.  Then, one day, more guards dragged me
back into the blinding light.  I was dropped on the floor before
Assan's chair.  He looked down at me for the longest time.  My eyes
were still unused to the light, so I was forced to bow my head.
      "We seem to have a problem, German.  Esmerelda claims you were
not the father of her bastard daughter.  She claims, rather, that your
lieutenant was the father.  Rather convenient for the two of you,
isn't it, that he is dead and can say nothing to clear the matter?"
      I had a daughter.  Would have had a daughter.  Should have had a
daughter.  I did not answer the murderer.  Had I been able to, I would
have spit in his satisfied grin, or at least on his silk slippers.
      "Let me explain my problem to you.  Everyone in Cordoba knows
how your whore has betrayed me.  Everyone knows you and she were
lovers.  But there is no proof."  I heard fruit juice being poured, it
sounded pulpy and thick, sweet.  Assan paused for a moment to swallow
a long draught, then let out a sigh of contentment.
      "I need proof," he went on, "if I am to hold a public execution,
which would be much more satisfying than strangling the two of you in
the night."  He drained the rest of his juice.  "It's the bitch I
want, because I can understand you, as much as I can understand any of
your race.  I understand the desires of a man.  If you are willing to
admit that the child was yours, I promise you that you will die
painlessly immediately upon your confession.  No pain, no interminable
waiting.  What do you say, hmm?"
      What do you say, will you buy the horse or not?  Will you betray
your love or not, hmm?
      I said nothing.  I looked in his eyes.  He saw my answer, and
was not impressed.
      He looked almost sad as he sent me away to his questioners.
"But leave his manhood intact," he called after me.  "I want that for
myself."
      I was stretched, I was cut.  I was burned in a hundred places
and had strips of flesh cut from my body.  The poisoned arrow I had
taken in Palestine was as nothing compared to the ministrations of
Assan's toturers.  But I never gave in.  I never told them the truth.
Even in death, Lothair was a friend to me.  I told them over and over
again that he was Esmerelda's lover.  In my less lucid moments, I
almost believed it, and was jealous, but I forgave them both, because
I loved them both.  But the pain always brought me back.
      I was brought again before Assan and made to stand on bleeding
feet, with tatters of my own flesh rubbing against my burns.  I had no
more tears, no more voice after the weeping and screaming of the past
days.
      Assan sat in his chair again.  "You still claim Lothair is the
father of your child."
      I nodded, swaying.
      "Esmerelda maintains the same thing."
      I found a remnant of my voice.  "I'll kill you if you've hurt
her."
      I don't think he heard me, weak as my voice was, but he knew
what I said.  "I have done nothing beyond confining her to a small
room and giving her a diet somewhat less appetizing than your own.
She is still my wife, after all, and her father, while not powerful
enough to personally threaten me, could gather allies for the proper
motive."
      That was something at least.  I would be dead long before he
began to torture Esmerelda.  It was one pain I would not have to bear.
      Assan came to a decision.  "Bind his hands behind him and leave
us."  My dislocated shoulders were jerked behind me and chains placed
around my raw wrists.
      "You have no one, you know."  He said to me.  "Esmerelda will
soon be dead, one way or another.  I have paid off your men and they
are on their way home."  He moved closer to me.  "I am the only one
who can release you from your pain.  There is only me."
      Just as I had somehow found a voice, I now found tears.  They
streamed down my face and fell upon the festering wounds on my chest,
adding another small measure of pain.
      "I can give you oblivion.  Why fight it?"
      Yes, why?  I was all but broken.  I just wanted it all to end.
My fire was gone.
      Assan went to his chair.  Beside it, on the floor, was a
cylindrical object covered by a heavy cloth.
      "Just admit.  Just admit you are the father of this!"  And he
pulled the cloth off.  Through blurred eyes and the brine in the glass
jar, I could make out a small arm, floating separate from a tiny body.
Blind eyes in an unformed head seemed to stare back at me through the
cloudy water.
      My fire was back.  I stood a little straighter despite my
agonies.  Assan saw this and realized he had gone too far by trying to
shock me into submission, or perhaps had just moved too soon.  Another
day, and I might have signed my soul to the Evil One.  I don't know.
      Simultaneous to this, something else happened to bolster my
strength.  Swords clashing in the courtyard.  Shouts of anger, in
German and French.  Calls of "Heinrich!"  My men!  They had come back,
or had never gone.
      Probably for the first time in his life, Assan knew fear.  I
could see it in his whole body.  Taste it, I thought.  Savor it, for
it will be the last thing you know.
      My strength must have come from God, for it was not in me or any
other earthly source.  I released my rage, and it swallowed me.  I
shouldered Assan to the floor and fell upon him, kicking him and
butting him with my head.  I had no weapon with which to kill him
except one.  Laughing, I used it.
      I did not worry about Assan's friends  -  no, he had no friends
 -  his allies, rather, taking vengeance upon me.  Even kings fear a man
who will rip out his enemy's throat with his teeth.  With Assan's
blood and flesh in my mouth, I let the darkness take me.

      Kirsten had moved back from Heinrich during his story.  She
stared at his mouth, as though blood still dripped from his lips.
Heinrich was staring at nothing as he talked.
      "Esmerelda nursed me back to health again, physically and
spiritually.  Most of my men remained by my side, preventing anyone
from storming Assan's villa.  Rolfe had taken his brother's death even
harder than I, and had left for the Empire even before my torture
began, taking a handful of men with him.  Assan's other wives divided
his holdings among themselves and left Cordoba as wealthy women.  Only
Esmerelda's personal servants remained behind.
      "I could not comfort her, try as I did.  After I was healed,
there was nothing to occupy her and distract her from her own
emotions.  She was worse off than I was, for she had not had pain to
focus upon.  She had to live, conscious, through the memories of her
horror.  She turned to Beatriz for comfort, and eventually to other
men.  I'm not sure why.  But she returned to my side, sane, and loving
me.  That was all that mattered, all that matters still.  A few years
in the Caliphate, and then back here.  The end."

      Kirsten spoke up, tentatively.  "My lord?  Why did you choose
me?  Really.  You obviously love your wife, and she loves you."
      Heinrich thought for a moment, considering his answer.  "Would
you believe me if I said it was for your own good?"
      "I'm sorry, my lord.  I don't understand."
      "A nobleman must have an heir, Kirsten, even if the child is
bastard.  Otherwise, when I die, the Duke will just pick someone to
whom he owes a favor.  Or the Prince will, or the Emperor.  Probably
this man would not care what happens to you or your family, or to any
of the other families on my lands.  Either that or a dozen second sons
will duel over the right to my holdings.  Nor would they care for the
villagers.  I have always known my duty, Kirsten, but now I know my
responsibility.  Duty ends with my death, but my responsibility goes
on."
      Kirsten took a few seconds to digest this.  "You want me to bear
your son, my lord?"
      "Honestly?  You or someone else.  All Esmerelda asked was that
she be light of hair and skin."
      Kirsten nodded her understanding.  Then, taking a deep breath,
she nodded her acceptance.  She knew her duty as well as her lord did.
She moved closer to Heinrich.  She kissed him, and he kissed her back,
but without passion.  "Tomorrow, love.  I am so tired."  Then he turned
over and went to sleep.
      Kirsten gazed at his bare, scarred back.  She kissed a wound,
covered him up, closed her eyes and slept.  If she dreamed, she did
not remember it.