The Three Sisters - Rebecca Locksley

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woolworkers,' Scarvan shouted. 'It is my right as your liege to have the pick of the captives. How dare you oppose me!'

      Madraga almost struck his lord. The sight of Scarvan's puffy red hand touching her arm made him desperate. Scarvan's bodyguard stopped him. Giron, the Mori traitor, threw himself at Scarvan and by the time he had been cut down, Scarvan was pulling the woman up the gangplank of his ship. The time for rash action was over and sense had stepped between Madraga and his desires.

      All through the arguments, the widow of Eldene Mori had held herself with dignity, her eyes downcast, her child clasped close. She was a paragon of womanhood, like a white swan, like a supple birch tree, a fine jewel… Words could not describe her beauty. No wonder they called her Elena Starchild.

      Wolf could tell she was frightened and repelled by Scarvan from the flare of her nostrils and the quick backward glance she had given him as Scarvan had pulled her away. The thought of her fate tormented him. He knew that rutting bastard Scarvan. Wolf strode up and down among the ruins of the Mori village wishing he could have argued better or that he had the spine to have his men attack Scarvan, or even that he had never attacked Fleurforet.

      Stop being such a fool, he told himself, she's only a woman. There are many others. He could hear their screams echoing across the clearing even as he paced.

      Yet there was no one else who mattered. He clenched his fists and his teeth, trying not to look behind him at the ship, where a rape must now be taking place. Scarvan's puffy red body…

      'Brother Wolf,' said a voice. Jark, leader of his Seagani allies, was at his side. 'That woman. You must save her! You must take her from Scarvan.'

      Madraga turned on Jark. There was no one else to punish.

      'Would you have me attack my liege lord? There is such a thing as honour! Or don't you understand that?'

      Jark Seagani's face showed outrage. He was a noble among the Seagani, and he and Wolf had sworn blood brotherhood when the Seagani had voted to give Wolf their chieftain's crown.

      'Damn you!' he cried. For a moment he seemed about to strike Wolf. Then he said coldly, 'I will forgive your words for I know that it is lust that makes you speak so. But do not press me too far, blood brother.'

      Something in his voice calmed Wolf. He realised what he had almost done and regained control.

      'Do not think the woman is for you,' Jark continued. 'She is Tari - a man might as well lust for a goddess. She is not to be owned by such as us. And definitely not to be owned by such as Scarvan. We must rescue her, lest the anger of the Tari fall on us and they destroy us as they destroyed the cursed ones of Olbia. They will hate for one of their women to be thus used.'

      Wolf was astonished by Jark's words. 'What are you talking about? This is superstition! Twenty years I've been in this archipelago and I've heard Tari this and Tari that, but I've never seen one of these creatures. They don't exist.'

      'You Mirayans,' said the Seagani's senior shaman, who was standing behind Jark. 'Just because you don't see something, you won't believe in it.'

      'Don't try me, shaman!' Wolf snarled. He was usually very polite to shamans. Native religious leaders made bad enemies, as that shitbag Scarvan had found. But shamans were purveyors of superstition, and he disliked them even more than he disliked priests.

      'Wolf! Brother!' Jark said, catching his arm. 'The good Father is right! Did you ever before see a native woman who looked like that? The golden hair, the green eyes - these are marks of the Tari. Believe me brother: they are real. I saw them as a child. And they are dangerous, mighty mages. They threw Olbia into the sea to avenge their dead and it was easy for them.'

      'She is some Mirayan half-breed,' Wolf snapped. 'And I am not going to destroy my honour for her sake. She's only a woman, by Mir's blood.'

      He shook himself. He had to get control. Jark was right in one thing. This was lust - just a stupid animal feeling. He had to get the better of it and try to think clearly.

      'Do not speak to me more, blood brother,' he said, managing with difficulty to speak calmly. 'I am angered and fear to be unmannerly.'

      He strode away.

      * * *

      'We must do something!' cried the shaman, Arak, looking out at the ship disappearing down the river.

      'What?' Jark shouted. The thought of Alexus Scarvan touching that woman horrified him even more than it had horrified Wolf Madraga.. 'What can be done? Look, the ship is already out in the bay. Shall we take to boats? There are no boats! Curse that man!'

      He threw his sword on the ground and turned away, covering his face with his hands.

      Arak tried to calm his own shock and horror so that he could comfort Jark as a spiritual leader must. He put a hand on his arm.

      'Good Father!' Jark said in a broken voice. 'I am a man, and I feel now as any good Seagani must, but I'm not so bewitched that I would attack Alexus Scarvan. It would endanger our people to do so.'

      'I know,' said the shaman, who understood. 'But what of the Tari? What of their just anger?'

      'The Tari have not been seen these past twenty years. Perhaps they are sleeping. Or dead.'

      'Never think it!'

      'What can we do?' Jark asked. 'Surely their wrath will rightly fall on Alexus Scarvan. Think, good Father. What if they destroy him like they destroyed the Seagani of Olbia? Perhaps… ' A savage look came onto his face. 'Think if that despoiler of the sacred groves should be washed into the sea. Think of it!'

      'Yes,' Arak said. The thought soothed him a little, but not enough. The Tari could see beyond immediate cause and effect, and the Seagani had been instrumental in causing the woman to be captured.

      The thought stayed with Arak through the rest of the day, as it stayed with all the Seagani. What should have been a triumphant victory over their enemies had became a kind of defeat, all because of this Tari woman.

      Elena Starchild did not seem to be a mage or they would never have been able to take Fleurforet. Nonetheless she was valuable simply because she was Tari, a conduit of the life spirit and a member of a powerful and unpredictable race. The fact that Eldene Mori had a Tari wife could only mean that the Mori had Tari favour. In order to avoid possible repercussions Arak instructed the Seagani to refuse their fair share of the Mori loot and not to touch the Mori women. His orders were willingly obeyed. After the disaster at Olbia, no one wanted to anger the Tari.

      There was another consideration that preyed on the shaman's mind: Elena Starchild was dangerous in and of herself. The legends had talked about a power some of the Tari had called fatal beauty. He had always thought it a myth but his own senses had been enchanted by her, as had Jark's and those of every man who beheld her. Giron Mori had betrayed his lord to own her. And as for their godless Mirayan lords - they had fallen out over her. The shaman had never seen the pragmatic Wolf Madraga in such a state before. This fatal beauty was truly a power and, like all powers and the Tari themselves, it was able to unbalance the whole world.

      The shamans of the Eastern Seagani recognised that in Wolf Madraga they had a lord who would not interfere with their beliefs. But if he were to fall out of favour with his own liege, or if he were to be killed and replaced by another - Great Stallion, forbid it - another Mirayan might not be so light-handed. And such a replacement would set disastrous events in motion. Many of the clan leaders still cherished the illusion that they had had some choice in electing a Mirayan chief. They would not accept another man without a fight, and they would lose that fight, as native people always lost against the Mirayans. Arak had always seen Alexus Scarvan as a kind of punishment to the Seagani for the impiety of killing the three Tari mages. A precarious, precious balance was in great danger and all because of that woman. It would be a good thing if her people came and took her away so that she was no longer a focus for chaos.

      And if her people decided to punish those who captured her as well? The Mirayans with their godless, life-destroying ways were entirely worthy objects for their anger. But how to be certain that their anger was

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