THE PRISONERS IN THE PALACE

PART TWO:

As awareness came back to her, Brianna felt the curve of arms about her. She lay still, feeling the rise and fall of the breathing of whoever it was who was holding her. Her first thought, a not unreasonable one since she had been seated across the table from him, was that it must be Sid and something in her recoiled that he would be holding her thusly.  Almost reluctantly, she opened her eyes and there above her was the face of Maximus, his head tipping slightly forward, eyes closed.  She blew out short little breaths at the discovery, trying to reduce the swelling that seemed to be rising up her throat.  She knew what it was, knew that if she didn't stop it, if she let it reach her eyes, it would burst forth with the accumulation of tears it contained.  She swallowed hard, but still the swelling was relentless in its rise.  It was the looking at  his face, so quiet in its repose, that was doing it to her...that and the feeling of warmth given by his encircling arms.  She had some odd sensation of having sailed into a harbor after a terrible storm at sea.  She couldn't stop the rising of the swelling in her throat because she could not stop looking up at him. And so it came and when it hit the back of her eyes they began to sting and burn with the pressure of its presence until she could contain it no more and the moisture of her soul leaked forth, swimming across her vision.

His hand was cupping her cheek.  She felt it there and though it was not actually moving, it was somehow a caress, a presence of strength so great in its self knowledge that it could afford to be gentle.  And her lids could not dam the flow of sharp bittersweetness that was piercing her.  Then his eyes opened, looked down at her, seeing her tears and because she could not dam them herself, he did it for her with a soft movement of his thumb. "Do not cry," he said.  "I have you. Do not cry."
 

Her life had been an endless experience of  grief and pain wrapped in a muffler of stoic hardness so that she might endure.  And she had endured. But this...this she could not bear...and a giant splinter of the unbearableness of  his quiet protection pierced her completely through.  Pulling her knees up, she turned her face into him and was awash in all the years of unshed tears.  Some little quiet part of her mind watched herself, amazed, embarrassed, but she had no power to stop.

 

Maximus, too, was startled but wrapped his arms a bit more tightly about her and just held on.  He was here and this was what had been given to him to do in this moment of his life...and he would do it.  When she began to quiet, he combed the fingers of his right hand through her loosened hair and whispered wordless murmurings into the air close to her ear.  His wife's hair had been black like the earth of the fields, but this woman's hair was wheat, golden in the afternoon sunlight. He let a long tendril of it curl over his forefinger, watching the colors change in the play of light.  Yes, very like his wheat. He wondered who she was, why she was here, but the very wondering itself seemed lost in the shifting goldenness of her hair.  He supposed that came because of the clubbing.  He definitely did not yet feel fully restored and did not understand how his whole body could be so affected by a blow to his head.
 

Sid leaned forward, resting his chin in his hand, rubbing his fingers back and forth across his jawline.  "So, his mere presence does that to her," he mused aloud to himself.  "His mere presence."  He leaned back again, cocking his head, watching the screen intently.  "More even than I had expected."  He smiled.  "Yes...good, very good."

Brianna kept her face buried against him.  She was drained.  Entirely drained.  It had been too much.  First the agony of the warp, then being drugged by Sid, and now this bursting apart of the very fibers of her being.  She had no strength left, no shield of her own to hide behind, so she used his own body to hide herself from him.  It was all she had.  If she turned, if she spoke now to him, her words would have to be lies.  There was not one thing in all her life that she had ever wanted to do less than to lie to him.  Why had she not died before this came to her?  She tensed slightly.  Perhaps she could yet die?  That would be preferable.

 

He felt the quick tension pass through her muscles and pushed just enough on her shoulder to make her body turn so that her face was forced away from its concealment.  "My lady...?" he said, his voice low and soft with concern.

 

Oh, God, she moaned silently.  He thought her a slave and yet still he called her 'my lady'.  She felt his fingers on her face, brushing away the remaining tears. Slowly she allowed her lids to lift. He was leaning forward, his own eyes mere inches from hers.  There was no where to go besides those eyes, and so she went into them.  Almost literally she felt herself rise and disappear into them.

His lips parted and a small gasp escaped him. He'd just had a clear feeling of somehow being... entered.  It unnerved him slightly.  Perhaps it was the almost extreme blueness of her eyes? He remembered once as a boy he had lain at midday in one of his father's fields, had looked at the
vault of blue above him so intently and for so long that suddenly it seemed to descend and pour itself into his eyes.  It was like that.  He had never told anyone about how the sky had come to live inside him that day. He knew it had. He could feel it inside himself on days when he was happy. It had been quite sometime now, though, since he had felt its presence.

His forehead creased as the thought came to him that this woman might now be there, too...deep in him where the secret sky lived. He sucked in a deep breath. His brain was addled. A good blow to the head was known to do that to one.  He straightened his torso, pulling his eyes away from hers, looking across the room.  No windows. Just like the other chamber. Not a single window. Wherever they were, they were deep inside some large complex of buildings.  He needed to think about such things. A blue-eyed woman in the midst of blue sky would get him
nowhere. He needed to find out where he was, what had happened.
 

Looking back down at her, he asked, "Do you think you can rise?"

She blinked, physically aware that he had closed some mental door. "I do," she replied, putting down a hand to push herself to a sitting position. Her hand, though, inadvertently came to rest on his thigh. Quickly she pulled it back.  Without looking at him she added, "I think I may need a little help, though."

 

She slid forward, off his lap so that he could get his knees under himself. It was a bit of a struggle for him and she knew he, too, was still feeling the effects of what Sid had done to them. Clamping
his teeth together, he pressed a palm on the top of the leather chest and heaved himself to a standing position. Then he reached a hand down to her. She rose too quickly for her condition and everything blurred. She swayed against him unexpectedly and hard and he, unsteady on his
feet himself, lost his balance. Together they toppled sideways to the floor. He grabbed her upper arms as they fell, twisting his own body so that he could cushion her fall on the marble tile.
 

"Unnnh!" he gasped as his left hip hit the hard surface. He managed to keep  his head up, though, as his shoulders impacted. She was atop him, their arms and legs in a complete tangle. They just lay there like that for a long moment.
 

"Good God!" Sid snorted. "Laurel and Hardy."

 

Brianna was the first to move, concerned that he had hit his head on the flooring. She lifted her cheek off his collarbone, her eyes searching for his face. Somehow her huge blue eyes peeking up over his tipped chin struck him as funny. His chest jerked with a large, suppressed laugh, its movement making her bounce, a long curl of hair falling completely over her nose. She tried to blow it away but it insisted on returning to its ticklish spot. He blew on it and the curl swung wildly under the power of his breath, entangling itself in the lashes of her right eye. A small choking sound he was making rapidly turned into a series of half-strangled laughter then flowed on into something else.
 

Sid stood, his eyes wide, staring at the viewscreen. The Commander of the Armies of the North, the General of the Felix Legions was... giggling??

ON TO PART THREE

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