Donal looked down on Rowan. “Then I will have to get it back.”
Rowan’s voice shook. “I served him for twenty-five years.” He spoke with a dry factuality, as if that would somehow hide his grief. “I was twelve. Did you know that? Twelve. He was only eighteen himself, but he was so far above me I could hardly see him for the brightness of his spirit. And he saw to it I was saved…he saw to it I was rescued, while he remained in iron.” His smile was bittersweet. “I swore then I would do what I could to serve him. Even while he and Finn kept themselves in exile, I did what I could to serve him. I kept his memory alive.” The smile faded away. “And when he came home, he took me into his service—my tahlmorra, if you will—” He smiled no longer. “And now it comes to this.” He nearly crushed the silver cup. “That service is ended by Osric’s arrow.”
And that arrow makes me king. Donal turned away from Rowan. He could not bear to look at his face.
On the table he saw the ring, still stained with Carillon’s blood. His ring, now. Slowly, with a dreadful fascination, he drew off the one on his forefinger and set it down beside the other. His son’s, if Aislinn ever bore one.
And I pray the gods she will…I am in need of an heir, am I to be Mujhar. His inward smile was ragged with irony.
Donal took up the heavy black ring with its incised rampant lion. Carefully he pushed it onto his naked forefinger and felt his flesh form itself to the metal.
He turned to Evan. “See to it the general has food and rest. Then find Finn and have him wait for me here. I will come to him when I can.”
“But—how long should he wait?”
“Until I have come back.” Without picking up his woolen cloak he went out into the rain.
He ran. He thought it might ease the pain. But it only deepened it. He felt it fill up his belly until he wanted to vomit onto the ground. But he was empty. He was empty of all save grief and fear.
He ran—
—and when he stopped, it was because he knew he had to. Because his lungs burned and his belly ached and his soul had shrunk up within his chest. There was nothing left but breathlessness and sorrow, and a wild, wild rage.
He stood upon an escarpment. Below him lay the valley and the encampment. The sky was brackish with clouds; neither moon nor stars shone against the darkness.
He clenched his right fist and felt the heavy ring bite into his finger. “You take them all,” he said aloud. “My jehan, my jehana—the boy…now Carillon as well. You take them all from me—and you thrust this upon me too soon!”
Do you think yourself unworthy? Taj, spiralling in the misty drizzle.
I am unworthy.
You are a Cheysuli warrior. You are worthy of anything. Lorn’s tone was inflexible. It sounded like Carillon’s.
Donal shook his head. “I am afraid,” he said clearly. “Do you understand that? Afraid. Because I cannot begin to rule as he has ruled. I cannot be Carillon. I cannot take his place!”
Lorn’s eyes glinted. You are not meant to take his place. You are meant to make a new one.
Taj circled closer. In death, as in life, he served the prophecy.
“He was Homanan, not Cheysuli! Why did he have to take the risk?”
A life without risk is empty, Lorn retorted. A life not risked for something as high as the prophecy of the Firstborn is not a life at all.
“And mine?” Donal demanded. “What is mine to be?”
Lorn pressed against his leg. Why not have the Ellasian dice you your destiny?
Donal’s laugh was bitter.
Taj circled more closely. Who is to say he will be wrong?
Donal stared across the soaked plains. He saw the guttering sparks of reluctant firecairns built beneath fabric rainbreaks. His army—his army—spread across the land like a silent tide.
And it was time he returned to it.
* * *
When he ripped aside the doorflap on his pavilion he found it empty save for Finn. For a moment he thought perhaps his uncle did not know, but then he saw past the subtle control.
The scarred face was perfectly blank. But the fury and grief in his posture was such that it struck Donal like a blow.
Donal drew in a slow, even breath. “I go to Homana in the morning.”
Finn, half-hidden in the shadows, did not move at all. “You have an army here.”
The flat impersonality of the tone shocked Donal. Their eyes met across the pavilion. Then Donal made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Solinde, for the moment, is quiet. I will go to Homana.”
“Why?” Finn demanded.
Rain ran from Donal’s soaked leathers and spilled across the floor. “You were his liege man for nearly ten years. You commanded Cheysuli and Homanan alike in the wars that won Homana back from Bellam’s tyranny. I need you to command this army while I fetch home my sword.”
Finn smiled tightly. “The Homanans will never suffer a Cheysuli in command.”
“They have suffered me these past months!”
“At Carillon’s behest.”
“What of Rowan?”
“At Carillon’s behest!”
Donal brought his right hand up into the light so that the ring was clearly visible. “At their Mujhar’s behest, surely they will accept you as temporary commander.”
Finn moved forward until he stood no more than two paces away from Donal. His breath hissed through his teeth as he spoke. “I will go to Homana and slay the Atvian serpent. I will take his life. Not you. I am owed this death!”
“Are you?” Donal held his eyes. “You said once I must choose my own path. I have done it. You will remain here and command the army, as once you did for Carillon, and I will go to Homana.”
Finn bared his teeth. “I am owed that death!”
“I,” Donal said. “I am his heir. I will do it. Osric will die by my hand, and I will bring home the sword again.”
Finn spat out something in the Old Tongue that set the hairs to rising on the nape of Donal’s neck. He felt color drain out of his face. “Insult?” he asked, and heard the waver in his voice. He fought to steady it. “I am your bloodkin, su’fali! I have spent my life honoring you for wisdom, strength, and power, and now you offer insult—”
“Aye!” Finn snapped. “And will again, do you mean to deny me this.”
“I am your Mujhar!” Donal’s voice was hoarse with the effort of swallowing the shout. “Do you fail me in this, think you the Homanans will accept me?”
Finn’s hand spasmed as he closed it on his knife. “I want only the life of a single Atvian lordling—”
“Shansu, su’fali,” Donal said gently. “Do you think I do not grieve at least half as much as you?”
The scar writhed on Finn’s dark face. For a moment there was such grief and anguish in his eyes Donal feared he might go mad. But Finn contained his emotions.
When he could, he drew in a slow breath and released it carefully. “Duncan would say I am a fool…too impetuous for my own good—he told me so often enough—and perhaps it is the truth.” Finn’s voice was hoarse. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I must recall all the good advice he gave me and let his son offer it as well.” The sigh was ragged around the edges. “I suppose—so long as Osric is slain—it matters little who has the doing of it.”
Donal reached out his arms and waited, and at last Finn accepted the brief clasp that sealed their bond again. “Osric will be slain,” Donal told him clearly. “That I promise you.”
He thought it a little like the Womb of the Earth. The walls were intaglioed with marble carvings, but the stone was pale pink and the shapes were not lir but men instead: the sarcophagi of kings.
Effigies and marble coffins filled the shadowed vault. Donal stood in the half-open doorway and looked in on the silent dead. It was a Homanan thing to carve likenesses of the dead into polished stone. A Homanan thing to hide them away in privacy. A Homanan thing to store them all together in the bowels of Homana-Mujhar, which was a Cheysuli place. To Donal, the practice was abhorrent.
Aislinn was within. She was alone, unaware of his presence. Grieving by herself. Of all the candleracks only one was lighted, throwing the intaglios and effigies into stark relief. The illumination emphasized the sepulchral silence of the mausoleum. But Aislinn did not seem to care. She held a single candle over a plain, undressed marble coffin.
Donal moved through the doorway. His step sounded, loud in the vault; Aislinn spun around with a gasp and dropped the candle onto the coffin. It rolled, snuffed out; spilled hot wax across the stone. A curl of smoke drifted upward and filled Donal’s nose with the odor of scented beeswax.
“Donal!” Aislinn gasped, one hand clutching at her robe.
He moved into the vault, a fat candle clenched in his hand. The flame flared and guttered as he moved, striking odd shadows across the pinched face before him. He saw the glint of tears and the lines of bitter grief.
“They have put him here?” he asked. “Why here? Why not above the ground, in freedom?”
Her eyes were black in the muted light. “This—this is where all the kings are placed.”
“Shaine too?”
“Sh-shaine?” She stared at him in amazement, as if she could not believe he would speak of such inconsequential things in the face of her father’s death. “No. When Bellam took the palace, Shaine was already dead. He was not entombed with honor. Bellam disposed of the body; no one knows where those bones lie.”
“Good,” he said quietly. “Shaine was not deserving of any honor.”
“Donal—!”
He looked at her levelly. “Shaine was a madman and a fool. Carillon deserves better company.”
She turned from him then, lurching back to face the marble coffin. Her hands went flat against the undressed lid. Fingers splayed out. She bent her head, and Donal saw how her shoulders trembled. “I saw him,” she whispered. “I saw him. They told me I had to see him while they prepared him for entombment—so that no one could claim the Mujhar yet lived, and use that for some purpose.”
He heard the note of horror mixed with anguish. “But he does,” Donal told her. “The Mujhar does yet live.”
She spun, pressing her back against the coffin. “What—”
He overrode her unfinished question. “I am Carillon’s heir, Aislinn…I am Mujhar of Homana.”
Color drained from her face, but her voice was surprisingly steady. “You do not waste time.”
“I have none.” The light from his candle played on the red of her heavy braid, turning it to gold. “Do I falter now, the war may well be lost. There is no time for a leisurely expression of royal grief. Not even for Carillon.”
“Then why do you come here?” She was wrapped in a robe of cerulean velvet. It slid off one shoulder and displayed the linen of her nightshift; he had thought to spend his time in the vault alone, since his arrival was quite late, but Aislinn did not look as if she had slept at all.
“I came to see how you fared,” he told her, “and to bid my good-bye to Carillon.”
Tears glittered in her eyes. “I fare well enough—for a woman who has lost both unborn son and father.”
He wanted to go to her, to take her into his arms and offer the comfort she needed. But he was afraid. Cheysuli honored the dead with deep respect and solemnity, and the keening of women was abhorrent. He dared not sacrifice his own tenuous control to acknowledging Aislinn’s need.
“I am alone,” she said. “I have no one in all the world.”
He held himself very still. He felt the pain blossom in his chest, then slowly rise to fill up his throat. He found he could hardly breathe.
Slowly, he set his candle down on the coffin. Then he touched her fingertips. When he felt their trembling he knew he was undone.
Aislinn moved into his arms. She clung but she did not break down. She cried but it was silently, with a sort of dignity he had not expected. Somehow, it made the moment more poignant.
“How long do you stay?” she asked at last, when the tears had dried on her cheeks.
“I do not stay,” he answered. “I must go on to the Keep.”
Aislinn stiffened. “You go to her?”
“Aye, there is Sorcha,” he admitted, “but also there are my children.”
She stepped back from him, leaving his arms empty again. “Then—you will not spend the night with me?” He saw how she twisted the fabric of her robe. “You—forgo a husband’s responsibilities?”
“Aislinn,” he said gently, “you recall how it was last time. Are you prepared for that again?”
“I think—I think there will be no need.” Color flared in her face. “I think you will find me a willing wife instead of a lunatic girl.”
He looked at her. It was true there was greater awareness in her eyes. Save for a natural embarrassment and proper modesty, she appeared to lack the fear she had shown before.
Perhaps—now that Tynstar and Electra are dead—she is free of the link entirely.
After a moment, he shook his head. “Aislinn—I am sorry. But tonight there is no time. I must go on to the Keep, and then I will join the army. There is a death I must mete out.”
“Osric’s?”
He nodded.
“I thought it might be that. Well then, I will not keep you. It is not my place to reprove you for avenging my father’s death.” She turned, reaching for his candle. “Will you sup with me? You look weary. After that, I will not gainsay you.”
Somberly, she led him from the vault.
* * *
He ate. He drank. He told her what he could of the battles in Solinde. She listened attentively, and he found she had gained a new maturity in the months since he had left her. The shape of her face seemed different. Excess flesh had faded so that he saw the line of her bones clearly, as he had seen them in Electra. No more the young woman who only hinted at adulthood; conceiving the child and then losing it had done much to banish her girlhood.
They were alone. They dined in her chambers; the servants she had dismissed, saying she and Donal would tend to themselves in privacy. His lir were in his apartments in another wing.
Now, as she set her goblet down, she regarded him more closely. “You look so weary, Donal.”
He leaned against one elbow. “I came directly from Solinde. It is taxing to hold lir-shape so long without proper rest, but—I felt the circumstances warranted the sacrifice.” He sipped from his cup of wine. “That is partly why I am out of sorts. If I was cruel to you in the vault, I am sorry for it.”
“You are unhappy.” She poured more wine for him. “I see it clearly. The heirship has been a long one, and now that it has ended and the throne is truly yours, you find you do not like it.”
“I never wanted it,” he said wearily. “I told you that, once. But—Carillon needed an heir, and I have a drop or two of royal blood.”
“More than a drop,” she retorted. “For all you flaunt your Cheysuli blood, there is Homanan in you as well. And, as for heirs—we should make some of our own.” Her long-lidded eyes flicked a slanting glance at him. “Do you not agree?”
He smiled. “I agree. And when I am done with this war, I shall do my best to sire some.”
“Will the war take so long?” Reddish brows knitted together over her lambent gaze.
Donal scratched an eyelid thoughtfully. “Osric has entrenched himself in the plains just north of the fenlands. Mujhara is not precisely threatened…but it might be if we do not continue to hold him. While our strength is split, there is little we can do. Carillon meant to stop him permanently—now it is up to me.”
She reached across the table and caught his hand before he could withdraw. “Donal—stay with me this night. Delay a day or two.”
Her flesh was warm against his. “I have said why I cannot. And you agreed you would not gainsay me.”
“I lied.” Her single braid had loosened so that her bright hair tumbled around her face. Deftly she undid the lacing until the hair fell free of its confinement. The robe slid off her shoulders; thro
ugh the thin fabric of her nightshift he could see the lines of her breasts.
“Aislinn,” he said, “enough.”
“No.” She rose, pressing her hands against the table. She shook back her hair and smiled. “I am free, Donal. No more Ihlini magic. I can be what you wish me to be.”
He was not indifferent to her. But in his weariness, in his single-mindedness, he thought he could refuse her. “Aislinn, please be patient. We will have our time.”
Slowly, she rounded the table and stood behind his back. Her hands settled on his neck. “That time is now.”
“Aislinn—”
“Do you think I play a game?” She bent forward and pressed herself against his rigid back. Her hair hung down to fall across his shoulders. “This is not a game. This is my retribution.” Abruptly she caught two handfuls of his hair. “Do you know what it was like?” she demanded. “Can you conceive of what it was like? Can you consider what it is to know such utter helplessness as what you gave to me?”
He caught her hands and rose, stepping free of the stool beside the table. “Aislinn—this is nonsense—”
“Is it?” Her wrists were trapped in his hands. “I say it is retribution.”
He shook his head, baffled. “Aislinn—are you mad—?”
“You will stay the night with me.” He saw the intensity in her clear gray eyes. “I want you to know what it is like. I want you to feel the helplessness, as I did, knowing I could do nothing!”
He wavered. A shudder coursed through his body. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. “Aislinn—what have you done?”
“Sought power where I can get it.” Her long eyes were wide and watchful. “You have drunk much wine, my lord. You are weary. You require rest. But when a husband is stubborn, a wife must make shift where she can.”
“By the gods—you are your jehana’s daughter—”
“I am what I must be.” Her image wavered before him. She retreated. He followed, trying to catch a hand so he could hold her still.
She said nothing as he fell against the bed. He struggled to push himself upright, clinging to the carved tester and heavy tapestries. His clawing hand pulled down the silken folds.
Legacy of the Sword Page 30