the bed, and immediately collapsed onto the floor. Her legs had simply given out beneath her, she realized, shocked. What was the matter with her? Two women came at once to help her back onto the bed again.
“Where am I?” Cinnia asked them.
“You are in the lord’s castle,” one of them answered her.
Cinnia attempted to move from the bed again but the woman cautioned her.
“Do not. Your legs have been enchanted to keep you where the lord put you,” she explained. “New arrivals are always agitated in one way or another.” She smiled.
“I am Cinnia, queen of Belmair,” Cinnia told the woman. “Your master has erred by stealing me. My husband, the king, is a great sorcerer. He will destroy Ahura Mazda, and all that belongs to him for this.”
“There, there, my dear,” the woman said in kindly tones. “You must not be distressed. Yafirdom is a wonderful world in which to live. You will be very happy here, I assure you. And no one from Belmair will ever find you. ’Tis best to put any hope of returning there from your thoughts quickly. I am Arlais, one of Ahura Mazda’s wives. My companion is Minau, another of the lord’s wives. Are you hungry or thirsty?”
“When will the use of my legs be returned to me?” Cinnia asked them. Arlais was tall with auburn hair that was styled into two braids. Minau was of average height, and had short, white-blond curls.
“I don’t know,” Arlais said.
“I cannot just sit or lie here forever,” Cinnia said impatiently.
“Oh, the lord will be here soon,” Arlais responded cheerfully.
“How long have I been here?” Cinnia asked her.
“He put you here several days ago,” Arlais told her. “We have been watching over you so you would not be frightened when you awakened. Now surely you are hungry or thirsty,” she said again.
“What would you like me to get you?”
Cinnia shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “I want nothing but to go home.”
Ahura Mazda entered the chamber as Cinnia spoke. He was dressed as always in blue and green silks.
Arlais ran to him with a distressed cry. “Husband, she has just awakened, but she will neither eat nor drink. What shall we do?”
The Yafir put an arm about his wife and stroked her face gently. “Bring me sweet wine and the lovely little cakes you make, my love. I will feed her myself. Minau, my heavenly one, go along with Arlais and help her.” He ushered the two women from the room, but not before kissing each of them tenderly. Then he turned, and coming over to Cinnia, sat upon the bed next to her. “You are confused,” he said, and he took her hand in his, turning it to kiss first her wrist, and then her palm. His aquamarine eyes stared into hers, but she saw no menace in them.
“You have kidnapped me and brought me to your world,” Cinnia said, trying to free her hand from his grasp.
“Yes,” he admitted, “but by rights you belong to me.”
“I belong to no one,” Cinnia told him.
“You were marked for me at your birth,” Ahura Mazda said.
“Each female infant born in Belmair is marked by a Yafir male for possible mating at a later date. You bear on your body my mark. A small heart at the top of your cleft is my mark.”
Cinnia grew even paler than she naturally was at his words. But she would not admit to her surprise. “Nonsense!” she said.
“Will you deny that you possess this mark?” he asked her.
“I have never in all my life seen such a mark upon my body,” she replied. “Did you examine my person for such a mark, my lord, that you say I have it?”
He laughed. “I have not examined your
“By placing an enchantment upon my legs so I could not escape you,” she snapped at him angrily.
“I did that for your protection,” Ahura Mazda said. “What was the first thing you did upon awakening? You attempted to leave this bed, didn’t you?”
Cinnia flushed guiltily.
“And if you could have left this room you would have, and gone where? You have absolutely no idea where you are, do you?” he said.
“You are in the kingdom of Yafirdom. You are in my castle, within the women’s quarters,” he told her. “You are safe, and will remain so.”
“Take me back immediately!” Cinnia ordered him imperiously.
Arlais and Minau reentered the room. One carried a small tray of cakes, and the other a decanter and two goblets.
“Put them on the table, my darlings,” Ahura Mazda said. “Then take Cinnia to the baths to be prepared for our mating night.”
“
“Under the laws of the Yafir you are not Dillon’s wife any longer, for I have claimed you. You have become one of my wives. As lord of the Yafir I am permitted to have six wives, and you are the sixth. I have removed the enchantment from your limbs, Cinnia. Now go with Arlais and Minau. I will feed you cakes and sweet wine when you return.” He pushed her gently from the bed, and immediately the two other women took her hands and led her off.
They brought her to a beautiful bath whose walls were covered in pale green tiles, and floors were cream marble veined in gold. They stripped her gown from her, remarking frankly upon the beauty of her body, but gasping in shock at the bush of coal-black curls in the space between her thighs. Working swiftly they slathered the place in a pale pink cream, and when they rinsed it away minutes later Cinnia found herself denuded of the hair. Arlais and Minau smiled, pleased.
But Cinnia’s pulse leaped at the sight of a small heart now most prominently displayed at the very top of her cleft.
“She is ready for you, my lord husband,” Arlais said with a smile.
Minau said nothing, but then Cinnia had quickly realized the girl had little to say.
“Come, and give me a kiss, both of you,” the Yafir lord said to them, and they each came to his side for a tender kiss. “You have pleased me,” he told them. “Now go and spend the remainder of the evening with your sons, my darlings.”
When the two women had gone, Ahura Mazda held out a hand to Cinnia. “Come,” he said, “and let us drink wine together.”
Cinnia shook her head. “Nay, I will take neither food nor drink while I am caught here in your kingdom. We both know that if I do I am bound to this place.”
“You will both eat and drink with me,” he said softly, but there was menace in his tone. “You are mine, Cinnia, and that mongrel that you married, Belmair’s Shadow-faerie-mortal king, will find another wife. Or perhaps if once he learns he cannot find you, his heart will be broken, and he will return to Hetar. Belmair will soon belong to the Yafir anyway. And with you in my arms, and as my wife, perhaps even sooner than I had anticipated. Now, my love, come and join me on our nuptial bed for I should like to become better acquainted with you. Do not be shy. I will be most gentle with you.”
Ahura Mazda looked amazed as his captive disappeared from before his eyes. “Where have you gone, you Belmairan sorceress?” he called to her. He hadn’t heard her spell for she had whispered it too softly.
The tiny flea took several large jumps, and hid itself within the folds of the bed curtains. She was safe for now, but Cinnia knew she could not hold the flea’s form forever. She concentrated upon maintaining it, hoping that he would eventually grow angry enough to leave the chamber. But he did not. Instead Ahura Mazda stretched out upon the bed, his hands behind his head as he waited.