Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (12 page)

           
"I tied you on because I
thought you might fall off."

           
Undoubtedly I would have. I blinked,
squinting, and peered around the cobbled bailey of a castle. The eleven
soldiers—a prince's guard, I realized—arrayed themselves around me.
"Kilore?" I croaked.

           
"Kilore. The Aerie of Erinn, my
lord." Liam grinned and swung his cap by its leather strap. "Before
you ask; I looked at that gaudy ring. I know the rampant lion, puppy, as well
as I know my dogs." He rumpled brassy, tumbled curls. "Are you really
Cheysuli, then? You lack the yellow eyes."

           
A chill washed over me. Even here
they know the difference. "I am Cheysuli," I muttered, "but I
look like Carillon."

           
Liam's heavy brows rushed upward to
hide under hair that needed cutting. "Carillon, is it? I have heard of
him. Was he not one of your heroes?"

           
"A man," I said crossly,
having no desire to debate my grandsire's merits in Erinn any more than in
Homana. "No more than that; a man."

           
Liam eyed me without expression.
"A man who hacks away at legends builds little of his own.”

           
"I have no wish to build a
legend," I said in weary disgust. "All I want is a lir." I shut
my mouth almost immediately; was Liam a sorcerer to bewitch such admissions
from me?

           
"Ay?" he asked; no
sorcerer, then, or surely he would know. "A charm, is it? A spell?"

           
"Animal," I answered.
"A gift from the gods themselves. Without them we cannot
shapechange."

           
Liam's escort muttered among
themselves. Liam himself stared intently up at me. "And you are missing a
lir."

           
"I am."

           
"So you lack all Cheysuli
magic."

           
"I do." I said it between
my teeth.

           
Grimly, he shook his head. "Not
a wise admission, lad. Some men might be wishing to use you for their gain.
Twould be better you made them think you have the magic."

           
" Twould be better you let him
get off that horse," said a resonant, growling voice, "before he
falls on his head."

           
I looked toward the castle and saw a
tall, big-shouldered man in fine woolen dress descending the steps of the
cavernous entrance. He was considerably older than Liam, but his manner and
movements were those of a younger man. His blond hair and beard had silvered
heavily, but still showed signs of the richness of youth. Green eyes were
bright beneath an overgrown hedge of brows.

           
"Shea," I mumbled,
"at last."

           
"Have him down," the old
man said. "Unless he be Atvian, he is due some words to me."

           
"Homanan," Liam told him,
moving forward to help me down. The dismounting was painful. I shut my mouth on
a curse. "He says his ship went down in the storm."

           
"Accursed Ihlini storm,"
Shea growled. "Alaric's witch, again." He looked more intently at me.
"Homanan, are ye? What word have you for me?"

           
"Nothing prepared, my lord. I
was not originally coming here." I managed a weary smile. "Still, I
have no doubts my father would wish you well."

           
Shea glared. "Why would your
father wish me well, and who is he to wish it?"

           
"Donal," Liam told him.
"Donal the Mujhar."

           
Shea's heavy brows jerked upward.
Strip from him, forty years, and he could be his son. "Truth?"

           
"Truth." Liam pointed at
my ring. "The lion, my lord. The one in my grandmother's tapestry."

           
"Bring him in!" Shea
bellowed. "See he is given food and drink!"

           
Fatuously, I smiled. Liam merely
grinned. "The royal welcome, puppy. Shea himself has spoken!"

           
Food: rare beef, hot bread, sweet
cheese. Drink: a powerful smoky liquor, as much as I could swallow. I ate as
much as I could keep down on my brutalized belly, and drank too much of the
liquor.

           
Shea sat in an iron-bound chair in
the center of the hall. Liam paced silently, head bent as he turned the cap
over and over in his callused hands. I watched him closely,
wondering—uneasily—why the Prince of Erinn was not at home in his father's
hall.

           
"Are you done?" Shea
growled. "Have you slain the hunger and slaked your thirst?"

           
His speech, at times, was almost
archaic. In my muddled mind, I had trouble deciphering the dialect. "For
the moment," I answered at last- "My lord—"

           
"A shipwreck, you say. That I
believe; what could survive that accursed witch's meddling?" He swore in a
language I did not know. "If you were not coming here, where were you
going, lad?"

           
"I was on my way to
Atvia." I glanced sidelong at Liam.

           
Shea frowned, fingering the hilt of
the massive knife at his belt. "What business have you with my
enemy?"

           
Again, I said, "I thought there
was a truce."

           
Briefly, Liam paused in his pacing.
He looked intently at his father.

           
Shea buried bearded chin in the heel
of his hand as he leaned upon one arm. He watched me silently, green eyes
mostly hidden in lowered brows. I waited uneasily for his answer.

           
"Why were you
Atvia-bound?" the Lord of Erinn inquired, and I realized that was my
answer.

           
"I am to wed Alaric's
daughter."

           
Shea's eyebrows shot up again.
"The Cheysuli lass?"

           
Guardedly, I watched him. "She
is my cousin, my lord. Her mother was my aunt."

           
Shea shifted in his chair. "I
saw Bronwyn, once, before she died. The lass, I am told, resembles her mother,
not her father. Yet you resemble neither."

           
Liam was pacing again.
"No," I agreed. 'The heritage is mixed. If Gisella resembles her mother,
she shows her Cheysuli blood. I—do not."

           
"Why do you wed the lass?"

           
The liquor was making me sleepy on
top of all the food. "
Alliance
," I said succinctly, because it was all I could manage.

           
Liam strode between his father and
me and faced me directly. "Alaric of Atvia calls my father usurper and
outlaw. He claims the title Lord of the Isles for himself, when he has no right
to it at all. Why is Homana desiring an alliance with the jackal of Atvia?"

           
After a moment, I nodded.
"There is no truce, I see."

           
"Alaric believes there
is." Shea displayed yellowed teeth. "Betimes a lie or two will help
to win a war."

           
I stared at Shea a long moment. Then
I looked at

           
Liam. Neither man was a fool. Neither
man was a friend.

           
My fingers and toes were numb. I
nibbed distractedly at salt residue in my hair. Weariness made me dangerously
frank. "Truce or no, it does not matter. It makes no difference to Homana
who claims this island title. We have our own concerns."

           
Shea sat upright in his chair. "A
petty feud between petty kingdoms. Is that what you are saying?"

           
"No." It was all I could
do to mouth it.

           
"Then what are ye saying,
pup?"

           
Liam gets it from his father. I
licked my lips and tasted the smoky liquor. "My father defeated Alaric in
battle nearly twenty years ago. Since then, Alaric has paid Homana tribute twice
a year. Atvia is our vassal." I struggled to speak sensibly. "My
lord, outside of accepting tribute, we hardly know what Atvia does. Your
battles are your own."

           
"I have seen the tribute
ships," Shea mused. "Twice yearly, as you say." His eyes
glittered shrewdly. "As vassal to Homana, Alaric has the right to request
Homanan aid."

           
"He would never get it." I
tried to sit upright in my chair. "My lord—my father loathes the man. It
was Alaric's brother, Osric, who slew Carillon—my grandsire—and made my father
Mujhar."

           
"He was not wanting the
title?"

           
"Not at the cost of Carillon's
life."

           
Shea nodded benignly. "Then why
does he wed his son to Alaric's daughter?"

           
My good eye insisted on closing. My
wits were failing too quickly. "My lord—?"

           
'"Why does Donal wed Niall to
Gisella of Atvia?"

           
The deceptively gentle tone woke me
as nothing else had done. I looked at Shea more clearly. "For the
alliance," I said. "We need no trouble with Atvia. We have enough
with Solinde and Strahan."

           
"Ihlini," Liam said.
"Kin to Alaric's witch."

           
Shea rubbed his beard. "Alaric
desires this marriage?"

           
"I think he does, my lord. I am
proxy-wed to—" I stopped. I could not bear to say her name: my brother's
murderer.

           
"Alaric desires the
marriage." Shea nodded. "Good."

           
I drew in an unsteady breath and
tried to clear my head. "What will you do with me, my lord? Will you send
me to Atvia?"

           
Erinn's gruff lord rose and walked
to me. He stopped.

           
Smiled down on me warmly, kindly; in
infinite empathy.

           
"You are weary, lad, and
injured. You are requiring rest. I will ask my son to help you to your
room."

           
Shea wavered before my eyes.
"You have not answered my question." I waited. "My lord," I
appended faintly.

           
Shea and Liam shared contented
smiles. But it was the older man who spoke. "If Alaric's wanting this
wedding so badly, then, he will pay for it, will he not?"

           
"Pay for it?" I asked
dully.

           
"Aye," Shea said in
satisfaction. "One way or the other, I'll be getting the concessions I
want from him. In exchange for his daughter's betrothed."

           
The weariness washed out of me on a
wave of comprehension. "And if he is unwilling to grant those concessions?"

           
Shea gestured eloquently. "You
are heir to the throne of Homana, lad. We'll be treating you accordingly. You
need not fear for your life." He smiled. "You will be honored as our
guest ... for as long as Alaric insists."

           
The Aerie of Erinn, Kilore is
called. Apropos, I thought.

           
Surely Shea raises eagles in place
of sons and daughters.

           
Kilore perched atop a chalk-white,
rocky headland at one nubby corner of Erinn, It afforded any long-sighted man a
glimpse of Atvia, to the north across the channel the Erinnish call the
Dragon's Tail, It was only a shadowed view, distorted by sea spray and
distance; distorted also by tears of grief and the bitterness of frustration.

           
I stood on the windy battlements and
glared out at the choppy channel, cursing the dragon whose capriciousness had
stolen away my brother. An Erinnish wind blew in my ears, singing a lament I
knew too well. Each night it kept me awake. Each night it made me dream; dream
of my brother.

           
Grief dulls the pain of physical
wounds and ailments.

           
My ribs knitted, my eye opened, the
scrapes and bruises healed. I was whole again because of Erinnish care, but I
found I regretted it. It gave me time to think of lan again.

           
"Longing for your Atvian
bride?"

           
I turned. The wind dried the remains
of my tears. I saw Liam had exchanged plain soldier's garb for finer garments
of blue-dyed wool, fastened with hammered gold platelets. His shining curls
were brushed smooth, but the wind already whipped them into brassy disarray.

           
"No," I said flatly.
"It is difficult to long for a woman when you have never seen her."

           
Like me, Liam pressed his belly
against the wall and hooked elbows over the top of the crenel, boundaried on
either side by taller merlons. "A striking girl, she is. I saw her once,
when she sailed the Dragon's Tail to get a better look at Shea's unruly
children." He grinned. "Atvia is so close, she might as well have
shouted."

           
I did not wish to talk with him, no
more than I ever did. But Liam was blind to my sullen silences ... or else he
did what he did to ease them. "You want her for yourself." It was
something to say; I said it.

           
Liam laughed long and loud.
"Easy explanation, is it? Another thing to resent me for? Hah' I am
already married, lad; I am wanting nothing of that girl. You may have
her." He looked at me closely out of speculative green eyes. "But you
should not be placing such trust in alliances made in the wedding bed, my lad.
They do not always hold."

           
"What would you know of that?"

           
Liam nodded a little, staring out at
the distant island.

           
"More than you might be
thinking. My mother was Atvian."

           
That snapped my head around.
"Your mother?”

           
Liam picked at mortar with a blunt
finger. The nail was already blackened; this would peel it back. "Aye,
Atvian she was. Shea married her to settle this accursed feud between the
realms. For a while, it did. Then I was born, and Shea desired a title for his
son. So he took back his claim as Lord of the Idrian Isles." He glanced at
me levelly. "Alaric is my uncle."

           
In disgust, I looked away. "My
marriage will make us kinsmen, you and I."

           
"If you wed the girl."

           
"And what would keep me from
it?" I turned to face him squarely. "Do you intend to do it?"

           
Liam smiled. Then he laughed.
"The puppy growls. Then be growling as loudly as you wish; I know better
than to judge a dog by the sound of his voice."

           
Inwardly, I swore. Outwardly, I
showed him an expressionless face. "I am proxy-wed to Gisella. The marriage
will be made."

           
"Proxy-wed to that witch."
Liam swore, spat over the wall and made the ward-sign against Ihlini evil.
"But at least you did not bed with her, or surely your loins would be
cursed."

           
I grunted. "If I had bedded
her, that marriage would be real."

           
Liam went back to picking at the
mortar. "Lad, you must see it. Alaric is unlikely to succumb to Shea's
latest raft of demands. He never has before; they are two old hounds baring
rotten teeth over a bitch who does not care." Sunlight gilded beard and
curls. "No insult to ye, lad, but he can get a man for his daughter
anywhere. Homana is hardly the only kingdom in the world, nor you the only
prince."

           
I reached impotently for the knife
that did not rest in my sheath. Not to harm Liam, whom I judged the better
fighter, but out of an almost insane wish to cut at someone, just to ease the
bitter frustration. "Alaric sends no word?"

           
"None yet, save for that first
one of calculated outrage." Liam's grin was crooked. "Methinks the
value of his daughter's prince declines."

           
My teeth clicked closed. I forced
the sentence through them. "Then let me send word to my father, and you
will see what value I have."

           
Liam, laughing, lolled against the
wall. "I am having no doubts Donal values his heir. But 'twould bring the
entire Homanan army down upon our heads, when 'tis only a dogfight between
Erinn and Atvia."

           
With great effort, I kept myself
from kicking the wall with my boot toe. "How do you know Alaric has not
sent word to my father? He would like nothing better than to have Donal of
Homana needing something from him."

           
"Because I know Alaric's
pride,” Liam answered. "I have a measure of my own, lad; are you
forgetting?" He rubbed distractedly at a sea-filmed clasp. "Alaric
will wait. Alaric will play out the game. For now, Homana is not involved.
There is no need for it."

           
"How is there no need?" I
cried. "My father does not even know his other son is dead!"

           
Liam released the clasp at once and
looked at me in shock. "You had a brother on that ship?"

           
"Had," I echoed numbly.
Gods, why did it have to be fan? "Aye. He went down, like all the others,
swallowed by the dragon."

           
The levity was scrubbed clean from
Liam's face. "You are certain he died?"

           
I shrugged listlessly and turned
away; turned to stare out at the white-capped Dragon's Tail. "How could he
survive?"

           
"You survived, lad. Tis
possible he washed ashore as you did."

           
"Dead," I said.
"Without Tasha. . . ."

           
Liam pushed hair from his eyes.
" Tis hard on a man to lose a woman, but it does not always kill him,
Niall. There is still a chance—" He broke off as I stared at him
incredulously. "Why are ye gaping at me, lad? Tis not foolishness I spout,
but truth'"

           
Slowly I shook my head. "Tasha
was not his wife, Liam, nor even his light woman. Tasha was his lir. Without
her, he is a dead man."

           
"How can you be so certain of
that? Was he a sickung, then? A weakling?" The wind tugged at beard and
hair. "Looking at you, Niall, I think he must be a tougher man than you
think."

           
"It has nothing to do with
toughness." And everything to do with it. I reached out and caught his
wrist, baring the sinewy underside to the sky. "If I took a knife and cut
deeply enough to spill all your blood onto the stone, would you die?"

           
"Are ye daft, lad? Of course
the bleeding would kill me!"

           
"Because you require the blood
to live." I let go of his wrist. "Think of a lir as that blood.
Without Tasha, Ian dies."

           
Liam stared down at his wrist. Heavy
blond brows knotted; he resembled his father more than usual. But when he
looked at me, I saw compassion in his eyes.

           
"Tis that, then? The price? The
cost of being Cheysuli?"

           
I met his gaze squarely. "For
every warrior—except, of course, myself."

           
Green eyes narrowed as he studied
me. "Would ye be wanting it, then? This cost? If ye knew the animal, taken
from ye, would result in your death though you be healthy—would ye still be
wanting it?"

           
"Aye," I said. "If a
god came to me and offered a lir in exchange for an eye, I would give him both
of them."

           
"I am sorry," he said
abruptly. "Prince or no, you are an honorable man—and due better treatment
than this."

           
Hope rose. "Then you will let
me send word to my father?”

           
"No."

           
I reached for his throat; closed my
fists on air and shook them in his face. "Gods, Erinnish, do you do this
to torture me? You are worse than the Ihlini!"

           
" Twould not serve my
father," Liam declared, but I saw the glint of anger in his eyes.

           
"Your father!" I spat.
"That old fool? You yourself call him an old hound with rotten teeth."

           
Liam caught my left arm in an iron
grasp and shut off all the bloodflow. "In my place, would you be allowing
me to send to mine? Would you risk bringing an army of shapechangers into your
land? I think not, puppy—I think not at all!" Liam shook me. It was a
measure of his strength. It was a measure of his anger. "Shea cannot be
sending to Donal, or he leaves us open to the arts you shapechangers
claim!"

           
"Gods, I wish I had them!"
I shouted back. "I would break you like a rotten piece of bone!"

           
A quiet voice intruded. But it was
not Shea's familiar growl. "Sometimes I'm wishing someone would break my
brother. His arrogance knows no bounds."

           
Liam thrust me against the wall as
he released my arm.

           
I winced as spine met stone, but
stood upright almost immediately. I tried to ignore the numbness in my arm.

           
Liam laughed aloud as he turned back
to me and slumped against the wall, all his anger banished. "She is back,
lad. We'll be knowing no peace at all." The laughter died away. "She
is Deirdre of Erinn, Niall. My sister.”

           
She was a feminine version of Liam,
but lacking all the rough edges. Like him she was tall, but in her his bulk was
slenderness. The hair was the same brilliant, brassy gold; unbound, the wind
blew it away from her face. She wore green to match her eyes and no jewelry at
all. She did not require it.

           
"Deirdre comes and goes as she
pleases," Liam said casually. "Shea gives her inordinate
freedom."

           
"For a woman?" she
demanded. "He gives as much to you; more, being a man." Her features
were more masculine than feminine, bearing the father's prominent stamp, but it
did not lessen her striking looks. It merely gave them a different quality.
"Why should I remain in this drafty pile of bricks and mortar when there
is a world to see?"

           
"The world being Erinn,"
Liam retorted. "Give it up, lass; while the war lasts, you'll not be
leaving the island."

           
“This war will last forever."
She pulled hair away from her eyes and clasped it, forming a single thick
plume.

           
Her nose bore two golden freckles.
Her cheekbones were sharply angled—as much as Liam's, I thought, but his were
mostly hidden in his beard—and the wind whipped color into her cream-fair
Erinnish skin. She smiled a warm, conspiratorial smile, as if we were boon
companions embarked on a reckless childhood scheme. "Can you really break
Liam for me?" she asked. "like a piece of rotten bone?"

           
"Given the opportunity."
And yet I knew I could not.

           
Defined brows rose consideringly.
"Then I shall be seeing you get it." She glanced at Liam. "This
is the hostage prince?"

           
Liam winced. "Guest, Dierdre .
. . Niall is our guest."

           
She shrugged. "Hostage, guest,
captive. . . ." Deirdre looked at me. "You are Niall of Homana. My
father told me you were here."