The Gambler's Fortune (Einarinn 3) (50 page)

“Keisyl! I saw you arrive,” he said with restrained enthusiasm. “I wish you were returning under better circumstances.” His voice trailed off as he saw the smoldering destruction within. “What do you think you are doing?”

“No fire will burn here,” Keisyl snarled, face haggard. “Not while my brother’s body lies waiting for due ceremony.”

“The fess is full and the men have to be fed,” objected Jeirran with rising irritation. “We’re all upset but life has to go on. What of dinner?”

“Cook yourselves eggs over skillets in the forge,” spat Keisyl. “This is a house of mourning.”

“This is a time of war,” Jeirran retorted. “We are up in arms to avenge Teiriol and those who died with him. We will claim double payment in blood from those lowlanders responsible.” He marched into the room and looked around for agreement.

“It’s you who are responsible,” said Keisyl softly. “It’s you who tempted Teiro with your false promises, your fool’s ambitions, your faithless Sheltya. You owe this soke a life, Jeirran!”

“You cannot see beyond the walls of your fess, can you?” sneered Jeirran. “Teiriol believed in what I am doing. He knew the time had come to set the record right. He wanted—”

“Teiriol wanted to please.” Keisyl shook his head in abrupt denial. “That’s the only reason he ever paid heed to you. He just wanted to please, to live a quiet life, someday with a contented wife and children, trusting to a modest patrimony under the hearth. You robbed him of that, Jeirran, just as surely as you robbed your children of their birthright to buy yourself out of prison down in Selerima!”

Jeirran paled and could not stop himself glancing at Eirys, whose shock was absolute. “What is he saying, Jeir?” she asked in a wretched voice.

Jeirran lashed out to punch Keisyl, taking him completely by surprise. He stumbled backward, split lip bleeding. Jeirran looked defiantly around at Eirys but before he could speak Keisyl surged forward, an upper cut shutting Jeirran’s mouth for him with a teeth-rattling snap. Keisyl’s other fist drove into Jeirran’s gut, doubling him over, but Jeirran recovered fast enough to bring his head up into Keisyl’s face, butting him but just missing his nose. Keisyl’s sweeping blow landed on Jeirran’s ear, forcing an exclamation of pain from him. As Keisyl hesitated, shocked at his own actions, Jeirran backhanded him across the face, a ring scoring an angry line across Keisyl’s cheek.

Cursing, Keisyl grabbed both of Jeirran’s shoulders and forced him backward, running him into the stone wall of the rekin, lifting him forward to smash him back again and again. Jeirran brought his forearms up hard to break Keisyl’s grip and tried to butt him again, but Keisyl’s fury was too strong. He stamped down hard on Jeirran’s feet, raking his own metal-capped boots down the man’s shins. Jeirran struggled, spitting in Keisyl’s face, trying to bring up his knee but only managing to reach Keisyl’s thigh. He managed to wrestle himself away from the wall and tried to snatch up a stool, but Keisyl pulled him away with an oath.

“Stop it, stop it, the pair of you!” Ismenia sprang to her feet and seized the poker, hammering on the hearth with it, halting them both with the shock of the noise. She tried to no avail to shift the corner of the grimy plinth. Fithian came to her aid, working a fire iron to lever aside the stone. “Eirys! This is for you to do.”

“Just leave it, Eirys. Don’t believe what they are saying.” Jeirran tried to get free but Keisyl would not release him. “It’s about time she saw you for what you are, you slime,” he growled through the muck and spittle disfiguring his face.

Eirys reached into the hollow beneath the stone to take out an iron-bound casket. Her hands were trembling so much she couldn’t get the key in the lock but her face was a frozen mask of disbelief. Ismenia stood beside her but did not offer to help, expressionless as Eirys finally opened the box.

“There was gold in here at Solstice,” She looked at Jeirran, incredulous. “I saw it, we all did. Where has it gone? What have you done?”

“Was there gold at Solstice?” demanded Ismenia. “Was it gold or deception woven by that sister of yours? Where’s your good faith now, Jeirran?”

“You’re worthless!” Keisyl threw Jeirran back against the wall, hands flung wide in a gesture of utter contempt.

Jeirran rubbed a hand over his beard. “There are more important things—”

“Not to me.” Keisyl stepped forward. “Not to me and not to my blood. One of our own is dead and we will honor him.” He stopped on the threshold, nose to nose with Jeirran. “You are not of his blood. There is no child to link you to this soke. You have forfeited your oath to my sister. Neither you nor any of your band of misbegots will set foot inside this rekin while my brother’s body lies here, do you understand me?” His voice was menacing.

Jeirran’s chin jutted forward. “You have no right to bar me from this place, nor keep me from my wife,” he said haughtily.

Keisyl raised a fist but lowered it again. Just as smug satisfaction rose in Jeirran’s face, Keisyl seized him by the collar. The shorter man’s struggles were no match for Keisyl’s fury and contempt. Pulling open the door, he flung Jeirran down the steps. Jeirran stumbled and fell, scrambling upright, indignant and red faced. A few onlookers exchanged curious glances and remarks. Jeirran brushed the dust from his trews and straightened his shirt collar but could do nothing about his furious color as he turned his back on the rekin and marched toward the gate-house of the fess.

Keisyl watched him go then closed the great door softly. He leaned back against it and closed his eyes, groaning. “Eirys, my dearest, I’m so sorry. I never meant to say it.”

Eirys was still staring dumbly into the empty coffer that had once held her fondest hopes. “How could he?”

“Because his ambition and his greed have finally outstripped his principles,” said Ismenia with resignation. “Set it aside, my dear.”

Eirys closed the casket with a soft click and laid it carefully on the stone. “I think I’ll go to my room,” she said with brittle calm. “Please don’t disturb me before morning.” She made her way slowly up the stairs, moving like a woman in a walking dream.

Keisyl thumped his fist into the wood of the door. “I couldn’t imagine how this situation could get any worse. Now I know better and that’s all my fault as well.”

“The sooner everyone stops blaming themselves for the lad’s death, the sooner this soke will start healing,” said Fithian unexpectedly. He shoved the hearthstone back with a grunt, raising a cloud of fine ash that hung in the air in a mockery of smoke. “Teiro was the best part grown and knew his own mind. He made his choices and he lived and died by them. We all do that, boy, it’s the way of things. You take this route or that and only Maewelin knows if you’re choosing to step into the path of an avalanche. Two men walk on a frozen lake and Misaen rolls the runes. One man freezes to death when he falls through the ice while another catches the fish that’s the meal to save his life. Teiro could have died in a rock fall and he’d be just as dead, just as young.”

Ismenia nodded in mute agreement, eyes dark with remembered sorrows.

“This is nothing like the same!” Keisyl shook his head obstinately. “This is all Jeirran’s doing. He’s the one stirring up the trouble with all his fine words and promises. He’s the one making war on the lowlanders!”

“Not on his own, he isn’t.” Ismenia looked up from her thoughts. “Look out of the door and see just how many he has following him.”

Keisyl moved instead to one of the narrow windows on one side and peered out at the compound. Knots of men, threes and fives, were staring up at the closed door, heads close in discreet speculation. “He wouldn’t set them on us, would he?” he asked despairingly.

Ismenia came to stand with him, raising herself on her toes to see out. “I’d believe that fool capable of anything,” she said grimly.

Both of them turned at a sudden sound but it was only Fithian unlocking his private chest. He took out a flask and glasses and wordlessly brought each a drink of fine, straw-colored spirit.

Keisyl laid a hand on the heavy latch of the door. “Where are the keys, Mother?”

“Here.” She lifted a bunch hanging from a chain at her waist. “For all the good it would do us.”

Keisyl caught his breath as sudden movement down by the gate turned heads all around the courtyard. Jeirran strode forward, head held high, arms swinging confidently. He marched to the steps of the rekin and looked up at the closed door for a long moment. Even though he knew the darkness within hid him, Keisyl felt as if the man’s eyes were locked on his own. Jeirran turned on his heel, boot nails scraping the stone.

“You all know what has happened,” began Jeirran. He did not shout but spoke with a calm authority that rapidly silenced the speculation all around. “This rekin mourns,” he lifted a hand to the blank stone face, “the soke mourns and so do thrice three more, as Sheltya return their dead sons. We are not unused to grief; Misaen made us a hard land and Maewelin is unforgiving in her trials. But this is more than a fate we must bear as our due. This is not life claimed and paid in return for the gifts of wood and mountain. These lives were stolen. Our parley was dishonored. The bodies of those that offered up their good faith were left discarded like so much rubbish.”

Angry murmurs swelled for a moment and Jeirran fell silent until the noise subsided. The air was ripe with expectation.

“Are we to suffer this insult? Is this to be yet one more abuse of our land and our people that goes unchallenged? Are the lowlanders and their Forest allies going to bar us from roads and trade now that we’ve been bold enough to mark our boundaries?” His voice was unexpectedly calm. “Isn’t it time to tell them enough is enough? Mustn’t they learn we will not stand to be so disparaged and denied?” He shook his head. “I’ve been breaking my heart and testing your patience with questions long enough. You must decide what to do. All I know is I have a murder to avenge. I will not cross my wife’s threshold until I have claimed a life to repay the soke for its loss. I will not take food from her hearth until I have lit a pyre to break the bones of that murderer to splinters. I will not return until I can swear to my sons and daughters yet unborn that I have defended their birthright. Misaen and Maewelin both may judge me if I do not spend every last drop of blood in my veins before I abandon this pledge.”

Jeirran did not look back as he walked away from the rekin. He strode forward but eager men shouting their support, reaching forward to shake his hand or slap his shoulder, soon blocked his path. Those who could not get close raised clenched fists in noisy approval, more soon raising weapons in their hands. The crowd moved awkwardly toward the gate, shifting and seething until it emptied through the narrow stone tunnel. Men in twos and threes ran hastily between the workshops and storehouses of the compound, emerging with sacks, bundles, swords and quivers. They halted for a moment as a great cheer boiled up outside the walls, the sound echoing from the cliffs all around, startling birds from their roosts.

“Do you suppose Eirys heard all that?” asked Keisyl despairingly. “She’ll be opening her arms to him soon enough if she did.”

“I don’t care if she was listening,” said Ismenia grimly. “That’s an oath that won’t go unheard where it matters.”

“You don’t believe he means what he’s saying?” Keisyl demanded. “That’s just his way of excusing himself to his rabble, avoiding explanations when they see this door is barred to him.”

“Whether or not he means it doesn’t matter,” said Ismenia with cold satisfaction.

“Misaen and Maewelin will answer when their names are invoked, even in vain,” nodded Fithian.

“He just realized that there were no fancy words he could use to get men to force their way into the rekin.” Keisyl sighed. “When he has them eating out of his hand by boasting he’s their champion for ancient rights, he’s hardly going to risk all by asking them to break down the door and defile custom along with the threshold.”

“None of them would go that far,” nodded Fithian slowly.

“Jeirran’s not got the wit for that,” said Ismenia scornfully. “It’ll be that harlot he’s reclaimed as sister.”

“Aritane may be many things and some of them foolish, but harlot she is not.”

The unexpected voice was rough with emotion and male.

Ismenia whirled around, hugging her arms to her, face ashen. Fithian reversed his grip on his flask and raised it menacingly. Keisyl stepped in front of his mother, fists clenched and scowling. “Theilyn! What do you think you are doing?”

The girl stepped down from the stairwell door and the gray-cloaked figure behind her put down his hood. “I went to find Bryn,” Theilyn said in a shaking voice. “Even if you’ll never forgive me, I wanted to make some amends to Teiro.” She glanced at the corpse and bit her lip but she had shed all her tears for now.

Bryn twisted his large hands around each other. “She has good cause to be concerned,” he began apologetically. “In this season, even salting the body—there is very real danger of corruption.”

“I’ll have no Sheltya dancing to Aritane’s tune saying the rites for my son,” Ismenia told him with simple truth. “I’ll risk the stain on his bones and answer for it if need be.”

“We could argue the rights and wrongs of what Aritane is doing from Solstice to Equinox but that will be of no use to Teiriol. I cannot leave matters like this.” Bryn colored and shifted uncomfortably. “It looks as if we will be leaving within the day. Once we are gone, I can ensure some Sheltya unconnected with all this will come to you, if you wish it. But I would need to have your word that you will not speak of Jeirran’s army or of any Sheltya presence here.”

Keisyl couldn’t ever recall hearing fear in a Sheltya voice before.

“I would not lie to Sheltya, even if I could.” Ismenia shook her head, more puzzled than defiant.

“Do not say how Teiriol died,” pleaded Bryn. “Or rather, just say that he was attacked in the lowlands, not that he was part of a parley or anything to do with Jeirran’s ambitions. Sheltya will respect your grief, you know that.”

“That would surely suffice, Mama. The important thing is to get the rites for Teiro,” said Theilyn. “If we say anything more, then Sheltya will put us all to the test and Eirys will never be able to stand it.”