The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

“Yes,” Trevelyan said softly. “I knew it was time. The Pearl of the Moon performs her dance of death no more than three days before she dies.”

Claire turned away from him to look at Nyssa. If possible, she was more beautiful in death than she had been in life. Claire turned back to Trevelyan. “How could you have allowed this?” she whispered. “How could you have stood here and allowed this to happen?” Her voice was growing louder. “You could have stopped this. You could have done something.”

“I do not decide other people’s lives for them,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

Claire knew he was referring to the two of them as well as to Nyssa. “You don’t care, do you? You don’t care enough about me or about Nyssa. You let her die because you don’t care about anyone or anything except your precious books.”

Behind her the flute had stopped playing and the two men were beginning to move. Claire turned and when she saw the men, with their hideous blue stripes painted on their dark bodies, she couldn’t bear to see them touch Nyssa. It was these men and their primitive religion that had persuaded a simple girl like Nyssa that she had to die for their beliefs.

“Get away,” Claire screamed at the men. “Don’t you touch her. Do you hear me, don’t touch her!”

The two men stepped back, not understanding Claire’s words but understanding her tone. One of the men reached for the cup, but Claire grabbed it first. She held it and looked at it, set with its crude rubies, and she hated the cup. She saw a rock nearby and she thought she would smash the cup.

Like a sleepwalker, she stood up and walked toward the rock, the cup held in her outstretched hand. She raised her arm to bring it down against the rock but Trevelyan caught her wrist and held it.

“You cannot,” he said quietly. “It was Nyssa’s wish that the cup be taken back to her people.”

“So someone else can die from it?” Claire half yelled at him.

Trevelyan still held her wrist and locked eyes with her. “Yes. The cup is older than we can imagine.” He looked at the cup, his eyes sad. “They put a ruby on it for every Pearl of the Moon who has drunk from it and died.”

With horror on her face, Claire looked at the cup she held, at all the many, many rubies on it. She opened her hand to let the disgusting object fall. Trevelyan caught it before it hit the rock.

Claire took a step away from him, looking from him to the cup then back to Trevelyan’s face. “You knew all of this and yet you allowed it to happen,” she whispered.

Behind her the two men were again moving

toward Nyssa’s body. “Get your filthy hands off of her!” she shouted then moved between Nyssa and the men.

Trevelyan walked to Claire. “They will take her now and care for her.”

Claire looked up at him. There was no disguising the anger, the hatred she felt for him.

Trevelyan’s dark eyes did not change. He looked down at Nyssa. “There is a ceremony they must perform, then the body will be cremated and her ashes taken back to Pesha. It is a long journey for the men and—”

Claire could bear no more of his coolness. She stood up abruptly, then turned on Trevelyan and began to beat his chest with her fists. “I hate you, do you hear me? I hate you. You killed her. You may as well have shot her. You killed her!”

Trevelyan made no attempt to stop her from hitting him. He just deflected her fists when she started to hit his face. He stood where he was, allowing her to vent her rage. And when Claire’s strength left her and she began to cry, she turned away from him, but he made no attempt to touch her.

When she looked up she saw the two dark men walking away. One of them was carrying Nyssa’s limp body and the other was holding the horrid cup.

Claire lifted her skirts and ran to the men. “You can’t put another ruby on there for Nyssa,” she said to the man.

He neither stopped walking nor looked at Claire.

“Rubies are for blood. Nyssa wasn’t just one of the women you’ve killed; Nyssa was special.” Claire grabbed at the necklace at her throat and tried to wrench off the emerald that hung down from it, but she was too weak to tear it off and her eyes were too full of tears to be able to see clearly. She started becoming frantic. The men were walking away with Nyssa.

Trevelyan was beside her. “What do you want to do?” he asked softly.

“Get away!” she said, tearing at the emerald and scratching her skin at the same time. “Nyssa will have an emerald for her life. This emerald. It’s called the Moment of Truth. She can’t have a ruby. I don’t like rubies. I have never liked rubies.” She started crying again.

Trevelyan brushed her hands away from her necklace, then with a quick, hard twist, he broke the tear-drop-shaped emerald away, then strode ahead to the two men. Claire followed him and listened while he talked to the men. They shook their heads.

“They have to take the emerald,” Claire said. “They have to.”

Trevelyan began to argue with the men and she could hear the growing anger in his voice. The men, for the most part, were silent, just standing there, Nyssa draped across the arms of one of them, and shaking their heads no.

Trevelyan’s voice grew more urgent; he began motioning toward Claire. Still the men shook their heads no. Trevelyan’s voice lowered into a tone that could only be a threat. After a few more words, one of the men held out his hand and took the emerald, then they started walking again.