Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (7 page)

           
"Ah, I am set at ease.” Ian
grinned. He was five years older than his brother, the Mujhar, but like most
Cheysuli he did not show his age. His hair was still black, save for a single
silver forelock that fell to hide his left eyebrow, and his flesh still taut
over pronounced musculature, with only the faintest of creases fanning out from
yellow eyes.

           
In blue-dyed leggings, boots and
jerkin, as well as lir-gold at left ear and on his bare arms, Ian was all
Cheysuli physically, though he claimed a splash or two of Homanan blood.

           
"You have seen my jehan,
then." Hart sighed. "He told you it was my idea to go to the tavern,
I am sure."

           
"No." Ian shut the door
and leaned against it, folding his arms. "He did not need to tell me—when
I heard a tavern was involved, I knew it was your idea." He smiled in
response to Hart's grimace. "Corin may be the impulsive one, rebelling
against this or that, but he follows more than he leads. Brennan, of course,
knows better than to leave Homana-Mujhar when his jehan has asked him expressly
not to, unless given a very good reason for disobedience. And Keely was here;
had it been her idea, she would have gone." He shrugged. "Whom does
it leave. Hart? Maeve?"

           
Hart's response was a snort of
derisive amusement. Then he sighed and scratched absently at his bandages.

           
"I am so obvious, then."

           
"To me, aye," Ian agreed.
"To others, no. You have the odd ability to hide yourself even as you
stand before numerous people. I think it is something you enjoy."

           
"No, no, not always." Hart
shook his head. "I do not hide myself from you, su'fali."

           
"Only because I have watched
you do it, and know how you do it." Ian smiled. "Even Niall does not
see it."

           
"Because he sees little of any
of us."

           
"You discredit him, harani. He
sees Brennan, because Brennan is his heir, and he must. He sees Corin because
Corin is frequently contentious, often purposely. And Keely, of course, because
Keely stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that others perceive her as a woman,
when she would rather be perceived as a Cheysuli."

           
"And in Maeve he sees
Deirdre." Hart sighed. "Favorite son, favorite daughter."

           
"I did not think it bothered
you."

           
Hart looked at him in surprise,
"It does not, su'fali. I am content enough with my lot—more than content
with it. I only meant he makes no secret of his prejudice."

           
"When you are a jehan—and a
king—you will see why it is difficult for him to reconcile affection with
authority," Ian told him. "It was so with your grandsire, and now
your jehan."

           
"I do not see you reconciling
such things with children, su'fali," Hart shot back. "Where is your
cheysula. Where is your meyjhia? Are you so inspired by your rujholli that you
neglect your own responsibilities?"

           
Ian, unoffended, merely smiled.
"I am not dead yet, harani. There may well come a time I bestow a lir-torque
on one particular woman. But until then—"

           
“—until then, you leave half the
women in Clankeep yearning for you." Hart grinned, "Not to mention a
few of Deirdre's ladies."

           
"That, I think, is Corin's
province rather than mine."

           
"Not all of them, su'fali. I am
not blind."

           
"No. Only distracted by the
lure of the fortune-game, and other such profitless time-wasters." Ian
shook his head. "Do you wonder why the Mujhar grows impatient with you?
You act as though you have no concern for the blood in your veins. You are as
much a part of the prophecy as the Mujhar, my young harani; as much as Brennan,
Corin, and Keely. If you think to shrug it off with games, you will soon learn
that a tahlmorra can make itself known at a very inopportune time."

           
"As with you?" Hart faced
Ian squarely, all the levity banished from his bruised face. "As it did
with you, when the Ihlini witch took your lir and your will and forced you to
lie with her?"

           
At once he regretted the words. The
story was one few people knew of, and fewer spoke about. No Cheysuli
warrior—least of all the Mujhar's brother and loyal liege man—wished to admit
he had been ensorcelled by an Ihlini. Knowing that the ensorcellment had
involved sharing Lillith's bed—against his will, made powerless through
temporary lirlessness—was a wound that did not heal.

           
Even a yearly i'toshaa-ni ritual had
failed to cleanse him of the humiliation.

           
And now his favorite nephew had
thrown it in his face.

           
"Su'fali—" Hart took a
step toward Ian, then stopped. "Su'fali—forgive me. I should not have
spoken." In disgust, he scraped a splay-fingered hand through drying hair.
"There are so many things I should not say or do."

           
"Aye," Ian agreed grimly.
"And one day, perhaps, you will learn to say and do none of them."

           
Hart watched his uncle go. And then
he roundly cursed himself, with elaborate eloquence.

           
The Prince of Homana stood by his
great bed and looked down on the sleek black mountain cat sprawled across it
with an elegance only her kind knew. The heavy rope of tail curved around one haunch.
It did not twitch, nor did her tufted ears, but Brennan knew she was awake.

           
He had sensed it within the link the
moment he entered the room.

           
"I should have taken you with
me," he said in weary disgust. "I should have taken you to keep me
from trouble, even as I went with my rujholli to keep them from trouble."
He sighed again. "As you see, the results were less than
spectacular." He reconsidered. "No. They were spectacular. I should
say, less than satisfactory."

           
The cat opened one golden eye. It
was not you, lir. It was your rujholli.

           
"That changes nothing. I
started the brawl."

           
With reason?

           
"Of course I had a
reason." Brennan scowled at her. "I am not Hart, who does it out of
ignorance while in the heat of greed. I am not Corin, who does it out of
perversity. I am me, remember? The eldest, the maturest, the most trustworthy
of all the Mujhar's sons." He paused.

           
And then he swore. "I should
have let them go alone."

           
And if you had?

           
"Oh, there would have been a
fight regardless, I think. Which is precisely why I did go with them."
Brennan sat down on the bed. "Gods, Sleeta, I sometimes think I will go
mad."

           
It is not your responsibility to be
jehan to your rujholli, she pointed out. They have one already.

           
"Aye, aye, I know."
Brennan picked at the ruined sleeve of his black velvet doublet. Beneath the
blood-crusted fabric, his arm stung. He could not tell how deep the knife wound
was. One-handed, he tried to undo the fastenings and found he could not. He
went to the door and shouted for his body-servant.

           
The man came quickly enough, but so
did Maeve. She dismissed him at once, even when Brennan protested, and declared
she would tend her wounded brother herself. The body-servant accordingly
brought hot water, clean cloths and salve, and Maeve set about stripping the
doublet from Brennan.

           
He helped her as best he could,
shouldering out of the velvet once she peeled if from the silken undertunic,
and perched on the three-legged stool when she told him to.

           
Deftly, she washed the wound with
soft cloth and gentle fingers.

           
"You should remove this
gold." Maeve tapped a fingernail against the lir-band.

           
"No."

           
"I think you will hardly give
up your rank or warrior status if you do," she said absently, dabbing carefully
at the crusted wound. “ 'Tis only one, Brennan."

           
He smiled as he heard the faint
Erinnish lilt in her voice. The oldest of them all at twenty-three, Maeve had
spent all but two years in Homana, but the close relationship between mother
and daughter had resulted in an occasional hint of Erinn in her speech.

           
"You will soil your gown,"
he told her, trying to pull the heavy yellow velvet away from leather breeches
stained with blood and dirt and wine.

           
"I can change it. Wait—forgive
me!—" as he hissed in pain, "—there. Only a little blood."

           
He craned his head to inspect the
wound. The slice divided his flesh with neat precision, ending somewhere
beneath the armband. He recalled the scrape of steel on gold.

           
Brennan flexed the muscle. It hurt,
but seemed unimpaired. "Just tie it up, Maeve. I will be well
enough."

           
"Patience, patience, my lord
prince." She smiled and slanted him a glance out of green eyes. "How
can you go to a banquet with an arm left to bleed all over the guests?"

           
"Easily, as I am not
invited." He worked at the heavy armband a moment; tugged it from its
customary place above his elbow and slid it onto his forearm, where it dangled
like a bracelet. The candlelight caught gold, flashed, washed the bronzed flesh
with an ocher tinge, The flesh that was usually hidden under the band was
lighter, though hardly fair; Brennan frowned and touched it, disliking the
nakedness.

           
Maeve stopped sponging the wound.
"Not invited!"

           
"Let us say—uninvited." He
scratched at the pale flesh above his elbow. "Jehan has decreed we are to
remain in our respective chambers until he decrees otherwise."

           
"Hart and Corin, again,"
she said darkly, and sighed. "Brennan, one day you will come to their aid
and they will get you slain."

           
"Is that a reason to ignore
them, then?" He winced. "Maeve, that is living human skin, not the
tanned hide of an animal."

           
"They take advantage of you,
Brennan. And they always have. Especially Hart." Her lips were pressed
flat as she carefully rubbed salve around the wound, pressed the flesh together,
wrapped it snuggly with linen. He thought the grim expression ruined the
symmetry of her features. Like her mother, Maeve was green-eyed, blonde,
attractive in a bold, handsome way. There was no mark of Niall upon her. Maeve
personified the Erinnish side of her heritage, lacking even the faintest trace
of Cheysuli gifts or coloring.

           
And that is one thing Keely can
gloat over, he reflected.

           
My proud Cheysuli rujholla may lack
the color, but none of the gifts. The Old Blood gives her a distinct advantage.

           
"Well," he said aloud,
"I can hardly let Hart go out by himself when I know he is likely to get
into trouble."

           
"Aye, you can," she
demurred. "He is not your lir, that you have to attend him always."

           
"No, not my lir. But twin-born,
which is a link at least as binding as what I have with Sleeta." Brennan
watched her face. "I mean no offense, rujholla, but you cannot begin to
understand what is between children of the same birth."

           
Her fingers, tying off the linen,
stopped moving. Stiffly, Maeve moved away to stand directly in front of him.

           
"No," she agreed in an
odd, flat voice. "No, I cannot. No more than I can understand why two of
my brothers and my sister resent me so, simply because I had the great good fortune
to be the only child born of the union between the Mujhar and his light
woman."

           
"You cannot accuse Hart of
resenting you," Brennan told her. "He resents no one. All he thinks
about is how best to win his wagers."

           
Her mouth twisted. "Such
consolation, Brennan—that you do not leap to deny the resentment on Corin's and
Keely's part."

           
He sighed and reached out to catch
one of her hands.