Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (15 page)

           
And as the tears ran down her face,
I shut my arms around her.

           
My captivity continued. I was
well-treated, honored for my rank, assigned warm, comfortable chambers. I was
allowed to hunt and hawk with Liam and his hounds.

           
Shea taught me of ships and war.

           
But it was Deirdre who taught me
what it was to love a woman.

           
Evenings were spent with the family:
Shea, his wife; his son and daughter; Liana's wife and their two-year-old son.
Sean was Liam's only child as yet, but Ierne had conceived again and was due in
seven months' time. The boy was brown-eyed like his mother, but his hair, like
Liam's, was brassy gold. Shea's stamp was on all of them; Kilore, the Aerie of
Erinn, was home to magnificent eaglets.

           
And Deirdre. Present always, serving
me even as her stepmother served Shea; as lerne served Liam. Making no promises
she could not keep, saying nothing of the future. But wanting as much as I did.

           
I sat before the cavernous fireplace
after dinner and stared silently into the flames. Servants moved softly,
removing platters and empty wine jugs. Shea and his clutch gathered some
distance away; I was treated as part of the family until politics intervened.
Then I was a hostage who must be kept in ignorance of his future.

           
Sean, defying his elders, came
running across the floor to fall against my legs. He hugged one knee and
grinned at me, saying something in what I believed was the ancient Erinnish
language, until I realized it was only his childish mumblings. Obligingly I
lifted him into my lap and settled him there. He squirmed around until he sat
against my chest, head slumped on my collarbone and one fist thrust into my
woolen jerkin. Like me, he stared into the flames in deep, thoughtful silence.

           
I realized I had never held a child
before. I felt distinctly discomfited; did I have the arms and legs settled
comfortably? Sean did not seem to notice my concern, so I assumed he fared well
enough. But I was not certain I liked the responsibility. Children, I had
always believed, were crying, petulant things when they were not shouting and
shrieking in play, and yet Sean was quiet enough.

           
Slowly my unease abated and left me
feeling tentatively contented.

           
I felt her presence before she
spoke, as always. "You are good with him." Deirdre stood behind me,
"He does not always please himself so easily."

           
Having no wish to disturb the boy, I
did not try to turn. "I am a stranger. He will lose interest soon
enough."

           
"Sean is not one for losing
interest in a thing. 'Tis independent he is, like his father."

           
"Like you."

           
Laughing softly, she moved around
the chair and sat down on a stool at my feet. Pale yellow skirts of softest
wool settled around her like a cloud. “Tis a good father you'll be making one
day." Intently, she watched me, waiting; absently, one slender hand
touched the fabric of my breeches.

           
Deliberately, I said: "If I am
ever given leave to wed my betrothed."

           
Her eyes flickered in response to
the wry challenge in my tone. She took her hand away. "Then 'tis still
Gisella you desire."

           
"I do not desire her, Deirdre .
. . only my freedom so I may wed her. There is a difference."

           
The firelight behind her set her
bright hair aglow. Her face was in shadow, but I saw her clearly. I knew her
too well by now. "What of me?" she asked evenly.

           
I looked away. I had to. "What
of you?"

           
Her tone hardened. "Tis so easy
for you, then, this thing between us? This thing that has the binding on us
both?"

           
I drew in a careful breath. Ah gods,
forgive me for hurting her— "There is a prophecy, Deirdre, to which I am
bound more firmly than any woman."

           
"Even Gisella?" The barb
was sharp. "Is she not a part of that prophecy?"

           
"She is a part of my tahlmorra,
my fate, as you would call it. She is half Atvian. It is her blood we need, for
the prophecy of the Firstborn."

           
"Are you forgetting, then? I am
half Atvian, too."

           
She and Gisella are cousins even as
Gisella and I are.

           
Gods, what a tangled tapestry—

           
Scan squirmed, sensing the tension
between Deirdre and me. I set him down and watched him make his way to his
father, still talking with Shea near the door.

           
"But you have no Cheysuli
blood," I said finally. "Deirdre, I have told you what I lack. No lir,
no gifts, no strength as the warriors know it. I lack even the color—"

           
I stopped. It would do no good to
expose my insecurities and resentments. "One day a man of all blood shall
unite, in peace, four warring realms and two magic races," I quoted.
"All blood, Deirdre. If I cannot hand on the proper gifts to my children,
the prophecy will not be properly served." I drew in a breath through a
painfully constricted throat. "Gisella is half Cheysuli. What I do not
have, she does. I need her, Deirdre, for that."

           
She sat before me, rigidly upright;
rigidly proud. "And I need you."

           
I reached out and touched her
glowing hair. Beneath my hand she trembled with the strength of her conviction;
with the strength of her desire. Even as I myself did.

           
Dry-mouthed, I said: "There is
nothing I can do."

           
And hated the man who said it.

           
The old lord called me into his
personal chamber weeks later. I went with foreboding in my soul, for hope had
been banished months before. I found Liam present as well.

           
Shea waved me to a chair. "Sit,
sit, lad ... what I have to say is better heard in private."

           
I watched Liam's face for some hint
of what was to come. He gave nothing away, nothing at all, save the gravity of
the matter.

           
Shea sat down also. " 'Tis word
from Donal, your father." His mouth, behind the beard, twisted in a
grimace. "Alaric at last sent word of your presence with me, saying other
messengers must have gone astray." He grunted. "I think Donal is no
fool, lad. He'll not be believing that."

           
I felt light-headed with relief.
"What does my father say?"

           
"He inquires after your health.
I told the Homanan messenger it was excellent. He'll be taking that back to the
Mujhar already."

           
All the relief fell away. "You
have sent him away?"

           
"The messenger? Aye. I saw no
reason to have you trade words with him, lad. I was not wanting you disturbed."

           
"Disturbed!" I overturned
the chair as I jumped up unsteadily. "By the gods, you pen me up for five
months and then send away a man who bears word from my father?"

           
Shea's thicket of eyebrows jerked up
into his hair.

           
"Has it been that long? I'd be
saying three months, I think, not five." Frowning, he turned to Liam.
"Five months, he says. Truth?"

           
"Truth," Liam answered.

           
Shea glanced back at me. "Sit
down!” he roared. I righted the chair and sat down. Appeased, he rubbed
thoughtfully at his beard. "I let him see ye, lad, to know how you
fared." His faded green eyes were oddly watchful. "You were with my
daughter, lad. . . . Liam says you looked well content."

           
I felt heat and color spill into my
face. I shut my mouth on a curse, but sent Liam an angry glance. He smiled
crookedly and shrugged.

           
"He's wishing to send a
personal envoy to Kilore," Shea said. "To negotiate for your
release."

           
My hands closed over the arms of the
chair. "Well?"

           
"I have agreed."

           
"To my release?"

           
"To his coming. No more than
that, lad—'tis all I can give you, for now."

           
I pushed myself out of the chair and
faced the old man. "My lord—"

           
"You'll be staying here till I
see fit to let you go."

           
I drew in a careful breath.
"And if the Mujhar sends forces with that envoy?"

           
"I'm thinking he will not,"
Shea remarked. "He is well occupied with Solinde at the moment."

           
"Solinde," I echoed
blankly.

           
"The Ihlini have risen,
lad."

           
Oh gods—it is Strahan— "My
lord," I begged, "let me go home to my father."

           
"Until Alaric gives in, you go
nowhere." Shea glared at me and shifted in his chair. "There's a
thing I must ask you, lad. Will you give me honest answer?"

           
"Ask me." I was too
overcome to dissemble.

           
"Would you be in mind of
breaking your pledge to Gisella?'

           
I stared at him in shock. "I
could not."

           
"And if I offered you your
freedom?"

           
I looked at Liam. I saw compassion
in his eyes; he knew what the answer cost me. "No," I said again.
"I—cannot." But I would not cite the reasons. I thought Shea would
not understand. And I thought I might not, if I ever spoke them aloud.

           
The old man nodded slowly, as if the
answer was precisely what he expected. "Well," he said, "Deirdre
told me what you would say. But 'tis sorry I am you cannot be my son."

           
I could not speak. Obscurely
touched, I could only stare at the man.

           
Liam shrugged broad shoulders.
"You'll be doing what you must. Tis what makes you the man you are."

           
I turned my back on them both,
intending to walk from the room. And then I turned back again to face them.
"Wait. Wait—perhaps there is something." I drew in a breath. "I
cannot be a son or brother, but I can be a kinsman."

           
Shea glared. He tapped the arm of
his chair. "Set it out here, lad, where grown men can see it plain."

           
"I will wed Gisella," I
declared, "and when we have a daughter, I will offer that daughter to
Sean. He will be lord of this island one day—and Lord of the Isles, no
doubt—but my daughter will be a princess of Homana. Would that be enough for
you?"

           
Shea grunted. "For myself, aye,
'twould. But I'll not be here to see it. Tis for Liam to say whom his son will
be taking for a wife."

           
Expectantly I looked at the Prince
of Erinn. His smile was crooked, half-hidden in his gilded beard. "I'm thinking
Sean is a bit young, yet, to have his marriage settled for him, but I'll be
considering it." He nodded, "If you get a daughter on the lass."

           
"Gisella and I were
cradle-betrothed," I pointed out. "At least Sean is walking."

           
Liam laughed. "But Gisella is
not even bedded."

           
"She will be. Once I am free of
here."

           
Shea grunted. I saw affection and
amusement in his eyes. "Take yourself away, lad, and leave me to my
son."

           
I took myself away feeling oddly
liberated.

           
Liam sent word for me to meet him in
one of Kilore's audience chambers, but when I went I found myself alone. No
doubt important business kept him: one of his wolfhounds was due to whelp, or a
mare to foal, or perhaps even Sean demanded his attention. Wryly, I reflected
that the Prince of Erinn's priorities were different from those of most men.

           
The chamber was cold. The fire had
been allowed to die, or else a servant had neglected to light it. Tie sunlight
coming in one of the deep, crudely-cut casements hardly reached the center of
the room. Kilore was not a luxurious aerie for the Erinnish eagles, being more
fortress than palace, but it served well enough. It did not matter to me that
the rush-strewn floors were uneven, the tapestries faded and threadbare, the
furniture but crudely made of knotty greenish wood. It was here Deirdre had
been reared; that was all that counted.

           
I slumped against the edge of the
casement sill and stared out. From here I could see neither the Dragon's Tail
nor Atvia. All I could see was the green Erinnish turf stretching forever and
ever to the edge of the world, where the wheel of life continued turning for
everyone save myself.

           
The door creaked open (none of
Kilore's heavy leather-hinged doors were silent) and I heard Liam's bootstep.

           
"Niall."

           
Not Liam— I turned, then thrust
myself off the wall.

           
A stranger faced me, except he was
no stranger at all. He had been a part of my life since birth.
"Rowan!"

           
My father's closest companion—and
Cheysuli general of all the Homanan armies—stared at me as if he distrusted his
eyes. I did not doubt he did, after nearly a year. And then he smiled a smile I
feared would break his face, so broad and transparent he was in his relief, and
I met him halfway across the chamber in a bearhug that required neither apology
nor explanation.

           
The rampant black lion on Rowan's
crimson tunic clawed silk impotently as I stepped back from the embrace. In the
months of my absence the general had aged. Cheysuli do not show the years as
easily as Homanans, but Rowan was no longer young. I could not number his years
precisely, but he claimed several more than fifty, I knew.

           
And it had begun to show.

           
"The gods have been kinder than
we expected," Rowan said on a sigh of relief. "I thought to find you
weak and wan as an albino calf."

           
"No." Emotion welled into
my chest with such intensity I feared I might shame myself. It is rare for a
Cheysuli to show precisely what he feels. Oddly, I saw the same struggle in
Rowan's careworn face.

           
Why not? He and I share the same
capricious gods.

           
Lirless, both of us. Cheysuli born
and bred, and yet we neither of us claimed a lir. Rowan's explanation was
straightforward enough: orphaned in Shaine's purge of shapechangers some
forty-five years before, he had been taken in as a foster son by immigrant
Ellasian crofters who did not know he was Cheysuli. In those dangerous days no
shapechanger was safe; he did not dare divulge his heritage, or he would give
himself over into certain death. And so he had been reared Homanan, growing into
Homanan habits and traditions; when the time come for him to go out and make a
bond with the lir intended for him, he did not. Lirless he was and would remain
so, until the day he died.

           
And I? Perhaps it is time I learned
to live with it, even as Rowan has.

           
I motioned with my head. "What
you see has been my prison. Kilore is not an unpleasant one."

           
Though the black hair was graying to
a decided silver, his yellow eyes were sharp and steady as Ian's or my
father's. The netting of sunlines and silvering scars in his face only
underscored the years he had spent at the side of Homana's Mujhars, insuring domestic
and personal security.

           
He frowned, just a little; enough to
crinkle eyelids and pull at the weatherburned flesh over angular cheekbones.

           
I thought he listened to my tone
more than he did to my words.

           
"Have they suborned you with
this?" In his tone I heard tremendous restraint, and yet I also heard a
multitude of emotions. Traces only, but enough to emphasize what my
disappearance had meant to my father and mother. And, perhaps, to Rowan.

           
I wanted to laugh at him and clasp a
shoulder and lead him to a chair, to pour the smoky Erinnish liquor and laugh
with him, that he could ask such a thing of me. But I did none of those things.
I looked at him steadily as I had looked at no man before and told him the
truth.

           
"No. But I will not lie and tell
you Shea has been a harsh lord or inhumane when he has offered me honor and
affection."

           
"Eight months of it?—assuming,
of course, the voyage took you the three months it took me." Rowan's
posture was the rigid stance of a longtime soldier and officer at rest, which
is to say he was not precisely resting. And his elaborately casual tone was as
inflexible as his spine. "I think perhaps we misjudged your reaction to my
coming; Aislinn said Carillon's grandson would devise an immediate means of
departure. Donal said it was more likely you would leave the devising to
me." The general did not smile. "Yet you say nothing at all of
departure."

           
Carillon's grandson. Even now she
does not refer to me as her son, only heir of her legendary father, one
generation removed.

           
"There is no need to say
anything," I told him curtly.

           
"Shea will not let me go. Not
until Alaric grants the concessions he demands."

           
"And what are those
concessions?"

           
I shrugged. "He does not tell
me such things."

           
Rowan looked away from me briefly,
toward the casement. Then he turned and went to it, staring out even as I had
before his entrance. "It is unlikely Alaric will grant Shea anything. He
is too concerned with mustering men to aid Strahan against Homana."

           
I started. "But—the alliance—?"

           
"Contingent upon you making his
daughter Princess of Homana." Rowan's tone was distant. "Oh, aye, the
proxy ceremony makes you husband and wife in Homanan law, but until she is
properly wed and acclaimed Princess of Homana, the alliance does not exist. And
now it seems impossible that it ever will exist, does it not? At least, while
Shea keeps you here." He turned to face me and the lion rippled, clawing
at his right shoulder. "Eleven months ago you left Homana to fetch Gisella
home to a Homanan wedding. Circumstances aside, Alaric has every right in the
world to declare the proxy wedding invalid and the cradle-betrothal
broken." His face was a mask; his tone was not so well-schooled. "A
broken betrothal and an invalid proxy wedding taints a woman as well as a man,
Niall. A father would be justified in levying war in his despoiled daughter's
name. And as for you, who would you find to wed? Who would have you?"

           
Deirdre would—

           
"Who would bring the proper
blood to the prophecy?"

           
Deirdre would not— Angrily, I glared
at him. "I did not put myself here!"

           
"No." Frowning, Rowan
stared down at his boot toes.

           
"No, you did not. Alaric is
aware of that; no doubt more aware than we are, being so close to Erinn, but .
. . regardless—" He looked at me again, and I saw a weariness of spirit so
totally alien that it brought me striding across the room to him.

           
"Rowan—"

           
His raised hand stopped me short.
More intensely aware of the man and his feelings than I ever had been before, I
marked the callused palms and battered knuckles, ruined nails and crooked
fingers, all badges of his profession. His life. And I saw the bleakness in his
eyes.

           
"Niall, there is trouble at
home. Serious trouble."

           
Fear flared. "My father?
Mother? Rowan—"

           
"Both well," he said at
once. "No, it has nothing to do with their welfare. It is—"

           
"Strahan," I finished,
"is it not?"

           
"Not—entirely." He
straightened and thrust himself away from the wall, pacing away from me toward
the cold fireplace. I noticed for the first time he limped, though only a
little, as if his aging bones and muscles reminded him he had fought in too
many battles. Most of them with Carillon, whom he had served for nearly twenty-five
years. The last twenty had been with my father, but I knew the bond was not the
same.

           
And now he must fight another.

           
He turned. I saw him muster the dry
factuality necessary to a competent, effective general. Necessary to a ruler,
for that matter. One day, I would have to find the same within myself. "It
concerns you," he said flatly.

           
"And—Carillon."

           
"Carillon!" I stared at
him blankly. "How can this concern a man who has been dead for twenty
years?"

           
"Because while he lived he
sired children," Rowan answered in the same even tone.

           
Baffled, I nodded agreement with the
obvious. "How else would I be his grandson?"

           
"I did not say child,
Niall."

           
No. He had not. He had said
children.

           
Suddenly, I was very cold. The
chamber darkened around me. "A son," I said distantly. "A
son."

           
"A bastard." Rowan's voice
was very quiet. "We know very little. His age: thirty-five. His mother: a
Homanan woman who followed Carillon's rebel army as he made his way from Ellas
to Mujhara." He shrugged. "I remember her myself. Carillon was not
the sort of man who wanted or needed a woman with every meal, and when he took
one, he kept her. Same was—worth keeping."

           
"But he did not keep her, did
he?" I was detached from the man who asked the questions. "No. Once
she carried a bastard—"

           
"No." The word cut through
my rising bitterness. "Once Electra came."

           
Of course. Electra. The witch who
had bound even Carillon the Great into a web of deceit and encorcellment until
he nearly fallen victim to Tynstar himself. Electra the witch.

           
Electra: my mother's mother.

           
I looked for a chair. Found one;
collapsed into it.

           
Rubbed absently at my scalp; it
itched from the sudden prickling of trepidation. "Well," I said at
last, "he must have sent her away."

           
"She asked to leave. She came
to me and said she had conceived. She no longer wished to remain with the army;
she would go home."

           
"With Carillon's bastard in her
belly."

           
"I gave her money. A horse. A
soldier went with her."

           
Rowan's smile was very faint.
"A crofter-turned-soldier, who discovered he was much better at wielding
scythe than sword. He married her."

           
I looked at him sharply, frowning,
"Then how do you know it is Carillon's son? If she married the
crofter—"

           
"He is the image of an older
you, Niall. Or a younger Carillon, before the disease aged him. As testified by
a Homanan priest and a Cheysuli shar tahl."

           
Like Shea, he stamps his get—
"They have seen him? Is he so bold as to press his claim based on bastardy
when I am legitimate?"

           
Rowan did not avoid my eyes.
"There are Homanans in the world who would prefer a descendant of Carillon
on the throne who is not Cheysuli."

           
My laugh was a bark of sound.
"How can they call me Cheysuli? I have no lir, no magic, no shapechange.
... I am more Homanan than anything else."

           
"It is said you hide your magic,
so as to trick the Homanans into believing you are wholly Homanan, and less of
a threat than a man who assumes the shape of beast or bird." A muscle
jumped in his jaw. "I repeat what is said by the zealots."