CHAPTER SIX
At that very moment, however, Dursoris’s loyalty to his brothers was not his chief concern.
Orain murmured and nestled herself more securely in his arms, and Dursoris pressed his lips to her hair, inhaling the good perfume of her. “Happy?” he whispered.
She smiled at him.
The cushions rustled as he rolled onto his back, threw a hand behind his head, and stared upward.
Orain grunted in her throat, moved and laid her cheek on Dursoris’s chest, and blew softly on his belly. The dark hairs around his navel fluttered like wheat in a field. She tickled Dursoris’s navel with her thumb, then reached below; she held his damp penis in her fingers and stroked it.
“Don’t. Please, Orain.”
She dropped her hand to his thigh and asked in a disappointed tone, “What’s the matter with you? We haven’t seen each other in two weeks.” Resentful, she kissed his chest, lifted her head, and tongued one of his nipples.
Dursoris sighed heavily.
“You don’t expect Cyrodian to come through the door, do you? I haven’t seen the sharp side of his sword in more than seven years.”
“It’s not proper,” Dursoris admitted in a low voice. “Not at a time like this.”
“That’s not it, either.”
“No. No, it’s not,” he admitted, and told her, “Tomorrow, Elad will make his bid for the throne. You realize that, don’t you?”
Orain frowned. “But it’s already decided. It was decided months ago. Even if Yta fights him, the council will try to overrule her. She can ask for a Vote of Reprimand—is that what it is?”
“Yes.”
“But Elad will still go after her with the council’s approval. Or they drag things out until Yta gives up.” She said, with disgust in her voice, “That’s how they all think. It’s a game for them. All of them against one old woman.”
“And Cyrodian controls the army, and the council is afraid of what the army might do. Which means I’m the only remaining uncertainty.”
Orain stared at him. “You’re not serious! You’re going to try to fight him?”
“Mine is the only sensible voice remaining.”
“Dursoris!”
“Keep your voice down, you’ll—”
“You’ll destroy us!” Orain exclaimed. She sat up, flushed, pushing back the loose hair that had fallen into her face. Then she grew a smile. “I know what you’re going to do,” she guessed. “You’re going to goad Elad just enough, just to remind him that—”
“I’m going to fight him to the death if that’s what it takes.”
“You can’t—”
“Orain, it’s the law. Am I the only one who remembers what law is?”
“He’ll get the throne anyway!”
“If Yta abdicates, yes. But if she decides to continue her rule and he and Cyrodian try to force his succession…that’s punishable by death. The law doesn’t exclude firstborn princes any more than it does anyone else, no matter what Cyrodian and the army and Elad think.”
“But all you’ll do is put yourself in danger!”
“Orain, I intend to enforce the law, and I don’t care how many purses Elad has filled full of money just to get whatever he wants.”
She tried to put all of this into perspective. She told him, “Then it’s only symbolic. Yta doesn’t want the throne.”
“We don’t know what Yta wants. But if Elad makes a motion in council tomorrow to protest her continuation as the crown, then I’m bound by the code to call him down.”
“And he’ll fight back! He and Cyrodian both will!”
Dursoris put a hand to her shoulder. “Orain.…”
“Your hand is cold.”
He removed his hand, letting the fingertips linger on her soft shoulder. “Orain, the right of the nation is stronger than the right of blood. You know that. If I were to sacrifice everything we’ve fought for merely on the grounds that Elad would get the throne anyway—Orain, I’d be betraying myself and everything we’ve been taught. Whether or not Elad and Cyrodian believe that the right to rule belongs to the strongest man, those days are done. We have laws. We have laws, and laws are history, and history is justice. We’ve learned that. Haven’t we?”
She waited a long time before answering. Dursoris watched the tapers on a table as they glowed in the heavy darkness of the chamber. He watched the back of Orain’s head, marveling at the silken texture of her golden hair, and sought to look inside her skull, into her brain, to see the mechanism of her mind—stared at her lovely hair and sought by some power of will to influence the working of the mind beneath.
Finally, she said to him, “It’s late. I have to go.”
“Orain, heart—don’t you understand?”
She faced him. “I made one great mistake in my life,” she admitted, “and that was marrying your brother. I’ve rectified that by trying to raise Galvus into everything his father isn’t. Now I’ve made another mistake: I’ve fallen in love with you.”
“Orain—”
“And I do love you because you’re so…idealistic, and you’ll stand up in council tomorrow and fight Elad, and I understand that, I know that. It’s why I love you. I admit it. That’s the man you are. But then what? Cyrodian’s assassins will hunt you down in some alley somewhere and kill you, Dursoris, and then what do I do? I’ll wonder for the rest of my life whether I was a wise woman or simply foolish to love a man who loves his damned ideals so much that he couldn’t even feel any satisfaction in finding a moment’s happiness for himself!”
“Orain, please! That’s not fair!”
“Look out there. Look! Evarris’s ashes are still on fire, and jackals are fighting for his seat! They’re nothing more than animals fighting over his body! Dursoris, they’re going to kill for the throne! So who gets murdered? Elad? Cyrodian? You? Yta? I think you should all draw knives and fight in the arena! See who gets the throne then!”
Trembling, she got up from the bed, stood, and began to dress. Dursoris watched her, his pain mixed with utter affection. He had to watch her, the fall of her hair, the trembling of her small breasts, the outline of her slender body against the lamplight.…
“Orain, we can—”
“I’m afraid! Don’t even talk to me anymore!” Sobbing, she pulled on her boots, ran across the chamber, and went out.
Dursoris wanted to go after her. He began to move but then lay back and swore quietly, thinking. He looked again at the warm tapers burning lower, flickering, and then, as he stared at them, burning out.