Taminy (55 page)

“Aye,
well I don’t recall, sir. I ain’t that old.” He glared at Colfre, then took a
stroll from one end of the Cyne’s dais to the other.

Bristling
, Daimhin thought.
A Claeg through and through
.

“Tell
me why my House should support this Osric nonsense. What do the Claeg—or any
other House,” he added, glancing at Daimhin Feich, “have to gain by your
becoming divinity?”

“Not
divinity, Claeg,” Colfre corrected, rolling the chalcedony ring about on his
finger. “No, sir. The only divinity at Mertuile is Taminy-Osmaer. I’d be merely
Cyne by Divine Right.”

“Merely,
eh?” The Claeg Chief cocked his greying head. “By her say-so?”

Colfre
nodded. “By her say-so. If I am Osric, she will be at my side. With her at my
side, it will be springtime in Caraid-land eternally. Miracles, by God, every
day of the year.”

“Why
should the Claeg support such an idea? If you mean to disband the Hall-”

Colfre
raised his hand. “Not disband it, merely limit its capacity to advisory. And
the Claeg will forever be represented on the Privy Council, which will retain
its consultative status.”

“The
Hall and the Osraed were for checks and balances, Cyne Colfre,” Iobert reminded
him. “What’s going to check you if you get some squirrel-brained notion about
warring on the Deasach or taxing the breeches off the Houses?”

“Taminy-Osmaer.”

Daimhin
watched the Chieftain’s face as he chewed that idea. Love-struck old fool.
Softening that iron heart is one of her finer miracles.

“Why
are you in such a hurry with this, Colfre?” the Claeg asked finally. “Why can’t
the Hall wait until a new Osraed has been elected to Apex?”

“What?
Shall Caraid-land hold its breath while every Osraed within its borders is
visited by dreams and visions? While the Osraed Council sifts and ponders and
prays itself to a divine revelation? Shall Taminy go unvindicated while they
regroup? Do you not understand what is happening, Iobert? The cup of revelation
has passed from their withered lips to her young and vital ones. She—and not
the Osraed—represents the Meri in Caraid-land. There is a new order coming into
being and Taminy-Osmaer is its mother.”

Iobert
Claeg snorted mightily, but Daimhin could tell he was not unimpressed. “Making
you its father?”

Colfre
merely inclined his royal head.

“Aye,
well, you are the Malcuim. I suppose we can do no better.”

“I
was the first to recognize her,” Colfre reminded him. “Except of course for
Osraed Bevol.”

“Aye.
And he’s dead, most likely. Meanwhile, you’ve let someone’s henchman get a shot
at her, too.”

“My
Durweard was there to protect her. The would-be assassin paid with his life.”

The
Claeg glanced at Daimhin, then, a wry twist to his mouth. “Your Durweard
protect Taminy-Osmaer? I saw that woman straighten a man whose back was
crippled with pain. I saw her ward off that idiot Cleirach, Cadder. I heard
what she did to him in the Shrine. I’d not be too sure your Durweard had aught
to do with it.” He made a gesture of dismissal. “Nevertheless, I’ll carry your
politicking to the Houses. Good luck with the Osraed.”

The
Claeg had nodded a curt dismissal and turned to leave when a lackey in Malcuim
colors scurried into the room with tidings that obviously could not wait. He
spilled them before he’d even come to a stop before the throne.

“My
lord, there’s an Osraed Wyth just outside in the vestibule. He claims he’s the
new Apex of the Triumvirate.”

oOo

The
Hall was to reconvene. With a new Apex, duly confirmed in a testament produced
by Taminy herself, there was little that could be done to stall. The unexpected
appearance of the young Osraed put Colfre in such a high state of nerves,
Daimhin could scarcely maintain his patience. It was idiotic; barely a month
ago Colfre had assured him the young Counselor was too uncertain of himself to
warrant worry, and now he was mumbling about acts of God and watchful demons.

“Did
you not dream?” Daimhin asked him the eve of the Assembly. “You told me you
dreamed that you were to be Osric. If that’s so, then why should the appearance
of this boy unnerve you?”

“The
circumstances,” muttered Colfre. “He must have started from Nairne the very
moment that Bevol ... went missing.”

“Sire,
he is endorsed by Taminy. As are you. How could he be a threat to you? Surely,
if she is an ally, he is one also.”

Colfre
could not dispute the logic of that. “You’re certain she will endorse me? She
will confirm that I am to be Osric?”

Daimhin
smiled a smile that went all the way to the core of his being. “I’m certain,
lord. I have spoken of love to her—of spending eternity at her side. I have all
but worshipped her. And I now know that we possess no unnatural saint. There is
fire in that young body and I have warmed myself in it.”

To
his surprise, Colfre paled. “What have you done? You haven’t ... violated her?”

“My
lord! I merely courted her. I saved her life, regardless of what the Claeg
would have you believe. We’ve kissed, nothing more. Rest assured, I will not ‘violate’
her, as you so politely put it. When she capitulates to me, she will do so of
her own free will. Where is the victory, otherwise?”

“Victory?”
Colfre clutched at the collar of his tunic as if it had suddenly grown too
tight. “She is Osmaer,” he whispered. “You cannot mean to-to conquer her.”

“Is
that not what you meant to do, sire?”

“No!
Never that. Never!” Agitated, the Cyne paced away from him down the length of
the Taminy mural he had recently begun. He paused below the panel wherein she
emerged from the Sea, naked and streaming ocean froth.

Daimhin’s
eyes were drawn to the half-finished likeness and he wondered how close Colfre’s
imagination came to reality. Shaking off the heat that evoked, he dragged his
eyes back to his lord’s ashen face.

“I
meant to gain an alliance,” Colfre was saying, “a meeting of minds and hearts.
My intention was friendship, not conquest.”

“Ah.
Forgive me. I misspoke. But no matter.” He smiled brightly. “We have a friend.
And we have made friends for her, too, have we not?”

Colfre
nodded. “Yes. Yes, and she will remember that, won’t she? There are those who
hate her, but surely she realizes we did not mean to make enemies for her-”

“Sire,
she understands that the enemies she has made are enemies because she threatens
their authority. She doesn’t blame us for Ladhar’s implacability or Cadder’s
histrionics. After all, look at her claims.”

Colfre
visibly calmed himself. “Yes. Yes, of course, you’re right. She knows what’s in
our hearts, after all. She knows I love her. As flesh may love the divine,” he
added.

Daimhin
smiled indulgently. So much for his fear that Colfre would be jealous of his
own dealings with the lady.

Your flesh may love the divine as deeply as
it wishes. Mine desires its like.

It
was desire that led him to Taminy’s door later that same evening. That and a
hope that she might capitulate to his desire. He found her with company. Not
only Desary Hillwild, but the Osraed Wyth and Skeet and, most surprising of
all, the Riagan Airleas. There were candles and tiny lightglobes set in a
circle about the carpet of her room and he thought they must have been praying
for their lost Osraed.

After
a moment of discomfiture, his composure returned and he begged the lady’s
indulgence and a brief audience with her. Her eyes like jewels in the unsteady
half-light, she bid her companions leave her. He waited, smiling, looking like
a young man in the throes of first love. He watched his own reflection in her
mirror and was pleased by what she would see when she closed her door on the
others and turned to look at him.

Heat
licked up his spine when her eyes touched him. It was the light. It spun a
sun-halo around her head and made her face seem gilded. She was dressed in a
soft robe not fit for day wear; gone were the layers of skirts and laced up
sous-shirts. He could make out her form beneath the fabric and it prompted the
absurd thought that Colfre’s paintings were products of cowardice. A man with
any blood in his veins would choose to sculpt.

He
took her hands. “I had to see you once more before the great and glorious day.
Tomorrow, Caraid-land receives direction.”

“Yes.”
She nodded, her eyes never leaving his face.

He
smiled. “I thought your eyes were jewels. I was wrong. They’re seas. Let me
drown in them.”

“I
drowned once,” she told him, “in the will of the Meri. In the glory of God. I
live to immerse myself in that. I am immersed in that at every moment.”

He
kept his smile in place, though her words annoyed him. “Of course.”

“Of
course,” she repeated. “Of course, he says, as if he understands what he does
not believe.”

“Believe?
Taminy, beloved, I believe in you.”

“And
do you then believe in the Meri? You once seemed unsure.”

“I
suppose I am coming to belief.”

“I
tell you She exists and that She expresses Her will to me now, as we speak. Do
you believe?”

He
nodded. “If you say it.”

“If
I say it? Because you believe in me, you will believe in Her?”

“Yes.”

“And
do you then believe in God, the Spirit of This All?”

“I
... if you say it is so.”

“I
say it is so. I am the expression of That Will. I do That Will. Will you also
do it?”

He
wanted to drop her hands but found he could not. “What do you mean?”

“What
if it is not the will of God that there be an Osric this generation?”

“What?”

“What
if I tell you it is not God’s will that Colfre Malcuim be Osric? What would you
say?”

“Why
would it not be God’s will? Colfre has had aislinn visions-”

“Colfre
has dreamed what he wishes to dream. And he plots. And you plot with him.”

“I?
No, Taminy, believe me, I ...You mistake me-”

“No,
but almost.” She let go of his hands, leaving him oddly bereft.

“Tell
me, Taminy, tell me why Colfre may not be Osric. Tell me and I’ll try to
understand.” The anguish he heard in his own voice surprised him. He prayed his
Feich ancestors that it was convincing.

“Colfre
is weak. Weak of spirit and conviction. Weak even, in his own avarice. His mind
struggles against the real and seeks compromise where compromise should not be
sought. He must not be Osric of Caraid-land. To place such power in his hands
would be the undoing of everything that has been accomplished here.”

“You
... you will not confirm him?”

“I
do the will of the Meri and the Spirit. Whose will do you do?”

“Don’t
ask me to betray my Cyne, Taminy. It’s too much, even for your sake-”

She
shook her head. “Not my sake. Yours. You try to seduce me to your will-”

Startled,
he threw himself to his knees before her. “Yes! Even if it damns me, yes! And I’d
do it again.” He held out his hands to her. “I am nothing but desire for you. I
look at you and loyalty becomes only a word, a vague and pious concept, a
shadow. Touch me,” he demanded. “Touch me and feel the truth of my words. Touch
me and your will is mine.”

“I
don’t need to touch you, Daimhin Feich. I can feel you from here, pulling at
me. I’ve never known desire before,” she added, her voice a murmur.

He
smiled, engagingly, he hoped. Was that vulnerability he saw in her eyes? “Am I
to be damned for awakening in you what you also loosed in me?”

She
was silent, gazing at him, her eyes in shadow. She shook her head. “No, not for
that.”

His
hands quivered between them, still reaching for her. She seemed to study them
for a moment and then, with deliberate languor she reached out and brushed her
fingertips across his. The shock that tore through his body stunned him almost
witless. He felt scalded and frozen, certain only that that had been no mere
discharge of stray static. He tried to take her hands again, to drawn her to
him, but she would not allow it.

Instead,
he grasped the folds of her robe and pulled her into his arms, looking up into
her face. “Taminy!” He made the name a duan of desperation, crying it against
her, willing to burrow into her, to strike her core.

Hands
on his shoulders, she pushed him away.

He
was tired. Tired and stunned to have misjudged her attraction to him so badly.
He rocked back on his heels and sat looking up at her, watching her hand find
the place his face had rested, the place where his tears of frustration had
stained her robe.

“Is
this my punishment, mistress?” he murmured. “Do you punish me?”

She
shook her head, no longer looking at him, looking beyond him. “No, Daimhin
Feich. You punish yourself.”

He
pulled himself to his feet then, and found his way unsteadily to the door. In
the mirrors he looked utterly defeated and dejected. That was good.

He
paused with his hand on the door latch. “What must I do to win back your trust,
Taminy-Osmaer?”

She
did the most confounded thing then—she laughed. It was a bright, cold sound
like a shard of crystal, and it cut.

“But
I do trust you, Daimhin Feich,” she said, and turned away from him.

He
watched her in the mirrors until the door closed.

oOo

Osraed
Wyth could not help but be awed by the size and grandeur of the Hall. Floors of
native stone and tile glistened, the wooden galleries gleamed, chandeliers
composed of a myriad lightglobes added their own radiance to the warm splendor
of the waning Sun that cascaded from high mullioned windows.

Everyone
had spent the day in preparation. The servants had scurried and polished and
cordoned and laid out food and drink in the Throne Room for what Colfre
expected would be his very own jubilee. Taminy and her companions had spent the
day in meditation and prayer.