Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (13 page)

           
"Against my wishes, aye."

           
She folded her arms beneath her
breasts, tucking hair out of the wind's insistent fingers. "He did not
tell me why. Will you?"

           
Liam reached out a booted foot and
gently tapped the toe of her slipper. "If he was not telling you, lass,
there is a reason for it."

           
"I am a woman. Shea forgets I
am his daughter with as many wits as you." Her teasing smile was fleet and
fading; she reserved most of it for me. "Why are you here, Niall of
Homana?"

           
I wanted to answer sharply,
bitterly; to strike out at another of Shea's proud eagles. But I did not. This
one was not deserving of it.

           
"I was shipwrecked. Shea keeps
me because of my value to his enemy.”

           
Her brows quirked. "To Alaric?
What value would you be having? “

           
In her the lilting cadence was
softer, more attractive, though I did not doubt women longed to hear Liam's as
well. "I am to wed his daughter."

           
"Ah," she said softly, as
if in discovery. And then she laughed aloud, turning into the wall to stare out
at Atvia.

           
"So, my kinswoman will precede
me into the marriage bed after all."

           
"Were you expecting
otherwise?" Liam asked in affected irritation. "You send all the
suitors away."

           
"Are you formally
betrothed?" Deirdre asked me, plainly ignoring her brother.

           
"I am proxy-wed."

           
She nodded thoughtfully. "I was
betrothed, once. When I was very young."

           
Liam growled deep in his throat.
"You should have let me kill him, lass, for breaking the betrothal."

           
"I wanted him to break it. His
heart was lost to another." She shrugged. "He went home to Ellas
perfectly happy to leave me far behind."

           
"Ellas? I looked at her
sharply. "He was Ellasian?"

           
"Evan," she said.
"Brother to High King Lachlan. He came here because his brother sent him,
hoping to make an alliance. But there was another woman for Evan. He wanted
none of me."

           
"Evan wed a kinswoman of
mine!" I told her. "Meghan. Daughter to Finn, my father's
uncle."

           
Deirdre watched me over an angled
shoulder. She frowned a little, then shrugged. "I'm not knowing the names.
Someday you will have to tell me a little of Homanan history."

           
I laughed. "Lady, there will be
no 'someday' if I have any say. I intend to go to Atvia."

           
Deirdre smiled sympathetically.
"A futile intention, I'm thinking. Shea will never allow it."

           
"There is an alternative."
Liam turned to face me squarely with the wall at his back. "Make a new
alliance, lad. One with Erinn instead."

           
I sighed. "I am proxy-wed,
Liam. In Homanan law, it is the same as being truly married . . . and we do not
end proper marriages. If I did not wed Gisella now, having already been
proxy-wed to her representative, it would be justification for Alaric to cry
war and sail to Homana with every soldier he can muster." I shook my head.
"I am not a fool, Erinnish."

           
Besides, there is the prophecy . . .
if I were not to wed Gisella, what would become of my tahlmorra? Would I forego
the afterworld?

           
Liam squinted in consideration and
scratched at his brassy beard. "Neither is Alaric. He would be thinking
more than once about sailing to Homana while Erinn sits on his flank."
Nodding a little, he smiled. "If he goes to Homana, lad, it will be with
no more than half his army. The rest he would leave behind. Because if he were
foolish enough to take everyone, Atvia would be mine."

           
I shook my head. "Half a warhost
or not, there is no reason to plunge Homana back into war. Even with victory
guaranteed."

           
Liam shrugged. "An idea, lad,
and worth the trouble to think it. I only meant there are other princesses in
the world besides Gisella of Atvia."

           
As he meant me to, I looked
immediately at Deirdre.

           
Her back was to me. But she spun
around to face us both. "I am not a piece in one of your foolish
games!" she cried. "D'ye think I never wed because I waited for
him?"

           
"Deirdre, I'm wanting less
noise from you." He smiled winningly. "Twas only an idea."

           
"Put it back in the acorn you
call your head," she told him crossly. "Leave my marriage to
me."

           
"Then you'll never be wed at
all."

           
"Perhaps 'tis what I
prefer." She smiled, curtsied, gathered up her skirts. "I'll be
leaving you now, my lord, if you'll be having no objection."

           
He sighed. "Go, Deirdre. Take
your babble to our father." She went, green skirts swinging, and Liam
shook his head. "Wild, too wild, my father's lass. But our mother died ten
years ago, when Deirdre was only eight. Shea took a second wife—and a good
woman, she is, but too timid in the ways of raising children. Even I can make
no headway, no matter how hard I try."

           
I thought of Isolde, wild in her own
way. Ian knew—had known—her better than I, being full-born brother instead of
half, yet even he had muttered about her recklessness. But 'Solde, I knew, was
harmless. I thought Deirdre was as well.

           
"She is not beautiful,"
Liam said bluntly, "but she has a way about her. Your visit will be more
comfortable now that Deirdre is home."

           
"Why?" My tone was equally
blunt. "Will she be sharing my bed?"

           
Fast, so fast, he caught me by both
arms and lifted me off my feet, pressing me up and over the crenel. Parting the
veil of beard and mustache were taut lips and gritted teeth.

           
"Say it again," he invited
softly, "and I promise you the rocks below will be your bed."

           
I did not have to look. I did not
have to speak I merely nodded to him.

           
Liam let me go. I slumped back
against the crenel, clutching one of the merlons next to it. "You chafe
" he said. "I know. It would drive me mad as well. But do not make my
sister the target of your anger."

           
Slowly, I rearranged my clothing. I
could think of nothing to say.

           
Liam shook his head. "Do as you
wish. If you choose to make an enemy of my sister, you make one of my father.
As for myself, I care little for what becomes of Donal's yapping puppy."

           
He left me alone on Kilore's windy
battlements. As he went, I was aware of genuine regret.

           
On his part as well as my own.

           
Liam's anger did not last. He was
too fair a man, too content with life to allow darkness to possess his soul for
long. His empathy for my plight surprised me with its depth; be seemed to
understand what I felt better than I did myself. And so we made our peace
without passing a word between us, and life became infinitely easier.

           
As the days passed, the shackles
were loosened a bit. I was given a horse out of the royal Eriimish stables, a
pale gray gelding, and told I might ride whenever I chose. I chose to often,
galloping across the endless heights and headlands. Liam assigned a six-man
contingent to ride with me when he himself could not, and so I learned what it
was to be a hostage to hospitality; on my honor as a prince—with no complaints
to voice concerning my treatment—I could not attempt escape.

           
Often I sought refuge in solitude on
the windy headlands overlooking the Dragon's Tail. This morning I watched what
I always watched: fisherfolk, Atvian and Erinnish alike, sailing out with the
tide into the Idrian to work the waters until the tide brought them back again.

           
The morning mist had lifted, but the
brassy sun could not quite dispel the chill of approaching fall. I pulled my
fur-lined cloak more tightly about my shoulders and halted my horse, staring
bleakly at the beaches below.

           
Nearly fall. It has been months
since 1 sailed from Hondarth. Three, they say, from Homana to Atvia. I swear it
has been twice that, and my father in ignorance.

           
The distant jangle of trappings gave
away an approaching rider. In irritation I looked up, prepared to order my
human watchdogs farther away; they knew better than to bother me with close
surveillance. But the words died in my mouth when I saw Deirdre, crimson cloak
whipping as she came riding across the headland. A single braid slapped her
back as she rode, all bent over in the saddle to let the dark gray gelding
gallop on unhindered.

           
She rode straight at me, straight at
the end of the headland, at the edge of Erinn itself. She was laughing. I saw
crimson-dyed doeskin boots shoved into iron stirrups and the cloak went
flapping, flapping as she galloped, laughing in joyous exultation. I had known
the feeling myself, but not since my imprisonment.

           
Not since Ian's death.

           
She bobbed upright in the saddle and
set the reins, calling something to the gelding. I watched him tuck dark
haunches and slide, plowing through damp turf so that it flew up behind him
like muddy rain. But he stopped. At the edge of the world; he stopped.

           
Deirdre was laughing breathlessly.
The wind and the ride had pulled tendrils free of the single braid; they curled
around her flushed face in gilded disarray. Her green eyes were alight as she
turned the gelding to fall in next to my own. The horses nosed one another,
grays dark and light, blowing, then picked with greedy teeth at succulent turf
in perfect companionship. Bits and bridles clattered a counterpoint to the
shrieking of the gulls.

           
"So," she said, "you
have discovered the peace in turbulence."

           
I looked from her to the
wind-whipped Dragon's Tail.

           
"Are they not enemies to one
another?"

           
Doeskin gloves matched the crimson
boots. She made a sweeping gesture. "You see below us the turbulence of
the wild sea, and feel the cold breath of the dragon whistling through his
teeth. Wind and water have a peace of their own, and balm for a troubled
soul." Her gaze was very green, very dear as she looked at me. "And
are you not seeking that peace?"

           
"Why should you seek it?"
I countered. "You are not a prisoner."

           
Beneath the crimson cloak she wore a
fine white tunicked gown, belted with gold-plated leather. The colors became
her as well as the wild wind that stripped hair from her braid and whipped it
into her face. "Is a woman not prisoner first to her father, and later to
her husband?"

           
I smiled. "If you are a prisoner
to your father, it is the most unbalanced captivity I have ever witnessed. As
for a husband—you have only to tame your tongue, and doubtless you would be wed
within a six-month."

           
Deirdre laughed aloud, unoffended.
"But what would my father do without me?" Abruptly, her laughter
died.

           
"He has wed two daughters into
foreign lands and lost a third to childbed fever. I am his youngest, his favorite
. . . of all his girls. He would rather keep me by him if I choose to
stay."

           
"And do you choose to
stay?"

           
She lifted one shoulder in a
half-hearted shrug. "I would like to see the world. But not at the price
of taking a husband I do not want."

           
"Shea would never force you
into a political marriage."

           
"No," she agreed. "He
is a loving man, my father, for all his gruff words and ways. He is not a harsh
lord, no matter what you believe."

           
"He keeps me against my
will."

           
She did not smile. "You could
escape. Down there,"

           
She did not so much as glance down.
"You could."

           
I could. Here the chalky cliff face
was broken, crumbling downward toward the sea like a spill of riverbank.

           
It was not impossible.

           
And yet it was. "I have given
your father my parole. To break it is to break the honor of my House. That I
would never do." A gull screamed overhead. "I do have some pride,
Deirdre."

           
"Near as much as Liam,"
she said softly. "And as deadly, too, I think." She stared down at
scarlet leather as she replaited her gelding's mane. "He said your brother
went down with the ship."

           
"He did."

           
She looked straight at me, hiding
none of her empathy. "Tis sorry I am, Niall. I lost a brother when I was
very little. To fever, but death is one and the same, whatever face he
shows." She looked at me a moment longer, then twisted her neck to peer
fixedly out to sea.

           
Gazing westward. "Were you in
Homana now, what would you be doing?"

           
I almost told her it was possible I
might be bedding my Atvian wife, but I did not say it. Somehow, before Shea's
gilded, green-eyed daughter, I could not speak of Gisella.

           
"I would be in Homana-Mujhar—my
father's palace—learning statecraft from my father's councillors. The gods know
I have need of such training." Like Deirdre, I stared westward toward
Homana. "Or I would be in Clankeep . . . wishing myself whole."

           
She looked back at me quickly.
"Whole? Are you missing a part of you, then?"

           
I smiled, but it faded soon enough.
"No. Not in flesh and bone. I speak of spirit, of soul ... of the thing
that makes a man worthy of the world. It is a Cheysuli thing."

           
I waited for the familiar gnawing
pain to rise in my belly; when it came, it lacked its normal intensity. Regret,
as always, was present—the longing of a man in need of security, but the lack
was not as painful. "A warrior without a lir is not accounted whole,"
I told her. "Such men do not stay with the clan, but seek death among the
forests as soulless men, until the death is given to them."

           
I fully expected her to recoil in
horror, remarking on the barbaric beliefs of the savage Cheysuli, but she did
not. She studied me silently, as if she considered the implications of my
words.

           
"You are here before me,
alive," she said at last.

           
"Why are you still alive?"

           
I looked away from her.
"Because, never having had a lir, I did not lose one. I am not expected to
perform the ritual. But—also because I am two men." Bitterly I defined
them. "Prince and warrior. Homanan and Cheysuli. I am not wholly one or
the other."

           
"And neither accepts you
fully."

           
"No." The breath of the
dragon whistled. I felt the touch of his icy teeth.

           
"What are you, Niall?" she
asked. "Tell me who you are."

           
"What I am. ..." I looked
up into the skies. "I am a vessel the gods would make use of to shape a
prophecy."

           
"Tis the fate of all men, that.
To be part of their own prophecy, regardless of origin."

           
After a moment I reached out and
touched her gloved hand. "I see why your father has no desire to lose you.
Were I Shea, I would never let you go."

           
The wind whipped hair into her eyes
and made them tear. Smiling sadly, she withdrew her hand from mine and turned
her horse from me.

           
I watched her go at a gallop. Then I
turned back to seek the peace in turbulence.

           
And to curse my tahlmorra in
silence.

           
I dreamed. In my dream I was a
raptor, circling in the sky. Below me, in a castle garden, two girls played
with a doll wearing a gilt brooch-crown. Each was the antithesis of the other:
blue-black hair/thick gold hair. Young skin the color of copper-bronze/young
skin the color of cream.

           
And as the seams split and spilled
dried-bean blood onto the ground, I saw Deirdre's tear-streaked face framed by
bright gold hair.

           
But the other girl's face I did not
know.

           
A sound awakened me. I could not put
a name to it, knowing only it had intruded upon my dreams rudely, leaving me
sitting upright in bed in a somewhat befuddled state. A glance at the candle
with the hours marked in it told me I had only barely slept at all; perhaps
half an hour, a little more. Enough only to lose myself so completely that it
was difficult to recover all my senses.

           
There. Again. A voice. Muffled by
the wood of my heavy door, but clear enough for me to identify.

           
Deirdre's.

           
The tone was urgent, both pleading
and exasperated all at once. I heard her call out her brother's name, and then
I could make no more sense of the words at all.

           
I considered trying to go back to
sleep. It was none of it my business. But my curiosity was roused; I slid out
of bed, pulled on trews, shirt, boots, and went to open my door.

           
The hinges creaked. I put my head
into the corridor and saw the guard standing at one end, as he always did, by
the spiral stairway, set there to keep an eye on me. At the other end, as I
turned, stood Deirdre, half in a nightrail, half in woolen trews. She had
stuffed the ends of the nightrail into the waist of the trews, but some of the
linen still trailed over her rump to the backs of her knees. And over the linen
trailed her brass-bright hair, unbound, unkempt, infinitely provocative.

           
"Ye skilfin," she told the
closed door directly in front of her face. "Why, when I'm needing you,
d'ye drink yourself insensible?"

           
The door was opened. I saw only a
portion of the face in the crack between door and jamb, but it was definitely
not Liam's bearded features.

           
Ierne's. Liam's wife.

           
"Aye, he's drunk." Ierne
told Deirdre. "Have mercy on his poor head, Deirdre, and hush your
shouting."

           
"But I need him!"

           
"Are we under attack?" Ierne
asked calmly. "Has Alaric come raiding again across the Dragon's
Tail?"

           
"No, but—"

           
"Then be letting the poor man
sleep, Deirdre. He doesn't do it often, now, does he?"

           
"No, but—"

           
Firmly, Ierne said: "Tis a
wife's prerogative to keep her husband in bed, Deirdre. One day, you'll be
exercising your own." And, as" firmly, Ierne closed the door in
Deirdre's face.

           
"Skilfin," Deirdre
muttered, threatening the door with a fist. Then, sighing, she turned away and
saw me. Her head came up. Her face brightened. "Well, come on, then.
You'll do."