Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05

by A Pride of Princes (v1. 0)

  "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.

  It was stiff, and very cold. "Maeve, you know them. Corin resents the world, I think, for making him third-born instead of first; Keely resents that she has no voice in her disposition." He pulled her more closely to him, until a fold of her skirts brushed against one knee, "You are free of a cradle-betrothal. You are free of the responsibilities of helping
to fulfill the prophecy. You are free of the need to prove yourself able to live up to self-expectations. But mostly, you are free to be yourself, which is what Keely wants more than anything."

  "She is herself!"

  "No. Corin understands this better than I—Keely and I do not agree on much, as you know—but I think Keely desires to be more than cheysula, princess, jehana ... I think she wants to know the freedom most men have, to be whatever they choose to be, and do what they wish to do."

  "You do not. You were cradle-betrothed. By the gods, Brennan, you will marry Liam of Erinn's daughter just as Keely will wed his son! How can she say you have more freedom than she does? How can she resent me simply because I am not discontented by my place in this life?"

  Maeve pulled her hand out of his and turned her back, skirts swirling. And then she swung around to face him once again, brass-bright hair whipping in its loose net of gold wire and glittering topaz gemstones. "Would she trade places with me, I wonder, in her desire for contentment, if she knew she would be called the bastard daughter of the Mujhar and his Erinnish whore?”

  "Who calls you that?" Brennan was abruptly on his feet. The tears that glittered briefly in Maeve's eyes were enough to make him long to take his sword from its rack upon the wall.

  "No one. Everyone.” Maeve gestured sharply with both hands, expressing helplessness. "No one to my face, of course. They value their lives too much, knowing better than to say it near members of the House of Homana. But—I have heard it. Muttered. Whispered. Sometimes said quite clearly, when I go to Market Square."

  "Maeve, you know he would wed her if he could. You know he would make her Queen of Homana, and you legitimate. And he will—when Gisella no longer lives."

  "You speak of your mother, Brennan."

  “I speak of the half-breed Cheysuli witch he married,” Brennan said plainly. "I speak of the madwoman who bore him children, then tried to give them over to Strahan the Ihlini—and would have, had jehan not caught her at it, preventing the travesty." He shivered in distaste. "Gods—when I think of what I might have become had she succeeded. . . ."

  "Dead," she said hollowly.

  "Or worse." Brennan wanted to spit.

  "Worse?" Maeve stared at him. "What could be worse?"

  "We would be made minions,” he said flatly. "Minions of Strahan; of Asar-Suti, the Seker, who made and dwells in darkness," He could not help-the instinctive movement of his hand toward his knife. "He would cause us to be minions, Maeve, and to sit as puppets upon our respective thrones, allowing Strahan to rule in our places. To rule—and to destroy."

  Five

  "Two days," Hart said emphatically. "How much longer do you think I can last, mewed up in my chamber like a disobedient child?"

  Corin, seated cross-legged on the floor of his chamber with Kiri in his lap, upside down so her belly could be properly scratched, looked at his brother expressionlessly.

  "For one, you are not in your chamber, you are in mine—and I think the idea was that you were a disobedient child."

  "Aye, well, enough is enough," Hart said crossly. "I think he has forgotten us. Surely he could not expect us to remain night and day in our chambers."

  "Sure he could," Corin corrected. "I am no fonder of my chamber than you of yours, but there appears to be no solution—" He stopped short. "I know that expression, Hart—what are you thinking?"

  Hart grinned. "That we are Cheysuli warriors, and there is indeed a solution. That it is time we employed it." He scratched idly at his sleeveless Cheysuli jerkin, dyed a soft amber brown; the bound flesh beneath it itched. "That it is time I found a game before I lose my wits."

  "I thought you had no money."

  "There are the twenty-five crowns you owe me."

  Corin grimaced. "Aye, that again." He waved a hand. "There, in the brass-bound casket—I think there are twenty-five."

  Hart crossed to a table. He tipped the lid of the casket and nodded, eyebrows raised; there were considerably more than twenty-five. Supple fingers dipped in, deftly counted out twenty-five pieces of gold, tucked them into a leather belt-purse already tied at his right hip. "Thank the gods for a thrifty rujholli"

  "No more thrifty than the next man," Corin retorted, scrubbing affectionately at Kin's belly fur. "It is only that I avoid the games you thrive on."

  "Aye, well . . . shall we go find one?”

  Corin's hand stopped moving. "You are serious."

  "Aye." Hart nodded. "Shall we go?"

  "Now?" Corin glanced out the nearest casement and saw the sun was already down. "Our jehan has expressly forbidden this sort of thing, Hart."

  "Aye."

  Corin studied him. "That does not bother you in the least."

  "Aye, it does. But not enough to gainsay me." Hart grinned and patted the now-filled belt-purse. "How will he know, rujho? We will go out like thieves and come back like thieves. Only wealthier."

  Corin scratched slowly at his jaw, considering. "What of Brennan?"

  "I asked." Hart shrugged. "He swore, called me a fool and every other name he could think of, Homanan and Old Tongue alike—and said he would leave us to our folly."

  "Us." Corin scowled. "He was so certain I would go?"

  "Quite certain."

  "Ku'reshtin," Corin commented without heat. "Well, I think he has the right of it." He let Kiri get out of his lap, then stood. "Where do we go, rujho? Not The Rampant Lion again."

  Hart laughed. "No, no, even I am not so foolish. No, I think we should go to a different part of the city, just to be safe in case our absence is discovered, and jehan sends the Guard again." One finger caressed the heavy knife hilt at his left hip. "I thought we might try the Midden."

  "The Midden!" Corin, aghast, stared at him. "That is hardly our part of Mujhara, Hart. The Midden is infested with thieves, cutpurses, assassins. . . ." He shook his head. "No wonder Brennan said you were a fool."

  Hart grinned his lopsided grin. "I did not precisely tell him that is where we are going."

  Corin grunted. "The Midden is dangerous."

  "Aye, it is." Hart merely continued to grin, and caressed his knife again.

  After a moment, Corin's answering grin banished the scowl. He nodded. "But let me shed these useless velvets, rujho. If I go to the Midden with you, I go as a Cheysuli." He stopped short of the nearest clothing trunk.

  "You do intend to take Rael."

  "Of course. He is even now perched on the curtain wall, awaiting our arrival"

  Corin glanced at Kiri. For a moment his eyes were oddly detached, as he went into the link. Then he sighed.

  "Kiri says we are every bit the fools Brennan claims, but she will come. If only to protect me from myself."

  "Rael said something very similar," Hart reflected. The lir-gold gleamed on his arms. "Hurry, rujho. I need a game."

  Hart and Corin slipped down the spiraling stairs in a tower near the back of Homana-Mujhar. The staircase was only rarely used by any member of the family, being primarily intended for the household staff; Hart was certain if they met anyone, they could bluff their way past.

  It might have worked, except Corin—in the lead—ran smack into a shadow-shrouded body at the bottom, near the door that would pass them out of the palace proper into the inner bailey.

  Corin swore, fell back a step; Hart bumped him and jostled him forward.

  "I knew you would come this way." Brennan's voice; he opened the door partway and let the diffused light of bailey torches spill into the tower. Corin blinked. Kiri's eyes reflected oddly in the distorted light. Sleeta was a plush velvet shadow in the darkness, golden eyes staring fixedly at Hart and Corin.

  "Are you here to try and gainsay us?" Hart demanded. “Rufho—"

  "No," Brennan said clearly. "Have I ever been able to stop you before?"

  "Once," Hart said. "You tripped me; I hit my head and was knocked half senseless."

  Corin snickered. Brennan nodded reminiscently. "But I caught you off-guard then, and I have not been abl
e to do it since. We are too well-matched, now, in size and experience." He peered out the door. "I think the way is clear."

  "You are coming?" Corin was patently astonished.

  "Lir or no lir, I can trust neither of you to look out for your welfare. Aye, I am coming."

  "And if jehan catches us?"

  "He will no doubt have us executed," Brennan said lightly. "Now, where is it we are going?"

  Corin glanced over his shoulder to Hart, who shrugged a little.

  "Where?" Brennan asked suspiciously.

  "The Midden," Corin said. Hastily, he added, "Hart's idea."

  Brennan looked at his blue-eyed twin in silence a moment. And then he said, very quietly, "You are even a greater fool than I thought."

  "I need a game," Hart said. When Brennan only stared at him, he slipped past both brothers and stalked outside, lir-gold agleam in the torchlight.

  They went horseback to the edges of the Midden, the border between lesser and greater Mujhara in attitude as well as advantages. The mounts they left at a small livery, then went ahead on foot. They walked the narrow, night-blackened streets like shadow-wraiths, moving through the depths of the moonless night. Sleeta padded silently at Brennan's side, only her great golden eyes betraying her presence. Rael was a faint shimmering blur overhead; Kiri, quick, delicate Km, trotted at their backs.

  Others moved in the darkness as well, soft-footed, silent, silk-smooth; men well-versed in the art of deception and subterfuge. No one spoke a word.

  The cobbles under their boots were muffled beneath layers of dirt and the remains of old droppings, packed into the seams and hollows formed by rounded, time-worn bricks. The winding street smelled of old ale, urine, the close confinement of people unused to washing. In comers they heard scuttling and squeaking; occasionally the yowl of a torn cat protecting his territory.

  The dwellings themselves were all of wood, set cheek-by-jowl in crooked comers and dogleg turnings. Candles glowed here and there, a lantern, occasionally a torch.

  But the night held dominance.

  Corin twitched his wrist experimentally. A shiver of anticipation coursed down his spine; he felt the sting in his armpits. "Where do we go?" he asked quietly.