Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05

by A Pride of Princes (v1. 0)

  And yet he had contributed.

  "To save my life," he said aloud. "They would have slain us all."

  Kiri caught up and trotted next to his left leg. Briefly she pressed a shoulder against him, then dropped aside again. Courage, lir—the Mujhar disputes your self-defense less than the reasons for your presence in the tavern. All of you disobeyed orders—that is the bone of contention.

  Had you not, no one would be dead. She paused thoughtfully. Or at least they would be dead by their own murdering hands, and not by careless fire.

  "No one meant it to happen," he murmured unhappily. "And yet jehan refuses to listen to that, hearing only that his sons were involved in yet another tavern brawl." Corin shrugged a little, rolling shoulder blades uncomfortably in an attempt to assuage his guilt, or to push it away. "Had he given us the chance, we might have been able to help. He might only have stripped us of our allowances, giving them to the survivors, rather than of our freedom."

  Lives cannot be bought. Kiri's tone lacked even a trace of sympathy. As for freedom, you would not know it if it bit your nose from your face. A man can only know true freedom when he understands or experiences its loss, so the value becomes greater.

  Corin slanted her a resentful glance beneath half-shut lids. "Are you finished?" he asked grimly.

  Are you?

  Corin sighed heavily, expelling acknowledgment along with breath. "Aye," he said unevenly, "I am. One way or another, I will have to learn to depend only on myself. And right now, that does not please me. Another man would not depend on me—how can I? I know what I am as much as anyone else." He kicked a stone out of his path and watched it skitter across the road into the turf of the meadowlands. The stallion was so winded he did not even notice. "I am, betimes, sullen and resentful, selfish and moody, unresponsive and angry. Or so my jehan has said, and Deirdre, and Ian, over the score of years. No doubt others have said more, and worse." He sighed. "I like it no more than they, but I cannot help myself."

  You are already helping yourself.

  Corin drew in a breath that filled his belly with doubt.

  "And you? What of you, Kiri? Do you stay with me only out of duty to the gods, and not through loyalty to me? Do you dislike me for my temper?"

  I dislike your temper, not you, the fox said quietly. As for staying with you, what choice have I? I was chosen for you and you for me... there is a purpose in all things the gods do. As for personal loyalty, why question it? I would not leave you even if you beat me.

  "I would never beat you!"

  Yet you beat the horse in the name of your fear and anger.

  Corin looked at the stallion. The roan breathed more easily and was no longer wringing wet, although he was hardly fully restored. Corin stroked the blue-white nose again, scratching the heavy jaw, and promised he would never ride him so hard again.

  Lir.

  Corin glanced around. Kiri had stopped, standing in the center of the road, and stared upward into the sky.

  Corin did likewise, holding the stallion back, and lifted a band to shield his eyes against the sun.

  "Hawk—" he said. His puke quickened; was it Hart sent to fetch him back? Corin had left a day early. Had his jehan repented of his sentence?

  But he knew better. Niall had made it a royal decree as well as a parental one; the banishment would hold for the precise number of days it took to fulfill twelve months.

  The hawk spiraled, drifted, floated down, and Corin nodded as the blur of the shapechange swallowed the raptor. His senses, as always, reeled momentarily, then settled; the disorientation faded quickly as the hawk exchanged bird-form for human.

  Keely grinned. "Did you think I would let you go out of Homana alone?"

  He stared at her. "You cannot mean to come with me!"

  "Why not?" She spread her hands. "There are no duties incumbent upon me except to give my rujho whatever aid and support he requires.”

  Corin looked at her. She was slim and wiry in snug Cheysuli leathers, dressed like a warrior though there was no doubting she was a woman; the brass-buckled belt hid nothing of slender waist or the smooth swelling of breasts and hips. Gone were the days she could stuff her hair beneath a huntsman's cap and swagger like a man with impunity. Now she did neither, for her tawny hair hung free in a plaited braid, and she made no attempt to swagger. She had no need of it; as much as any of them, Keely claimed inbred pride and confidence of carriage.

  He smiled, and the smile spread slowly into a grin.

  Trust Keely. . . . "You should not come," he told her, though it lacked true conviction. "The banishment is my punishment, not yours. In this we need not share."

  "We share in everything, rujho." Her blue eyes were very steady. "Everything—except, perhaps, your taste for bedding women." Her mouth hooked ironically. "That I leave to you."

  "Your taste runs to bedding men?"

  The humor slipped perceptibly. "My taste runs to belonging only to myself," Keely said grimly. "If that means I keep myself apart from men, so be it. I am willing."

  He grunted. "Sean of Erinn may have something to say about that."

  "Sean of Erinn will have nothing at all to say." Keely was very calm, too calm. "Sean of Erinn will take what he gets—or look to wedding another woman entirely."

  Corin laughed. "If he does get you, Keely, be certain he will take you." He used the word in the crudest sense, knowing it might be the only way she would hear what he had to say. "Aside from needing an heir for Erinn, he might wish to enjoy his cheysula."

  " 'Enjoy,' " Keely said grimly. "Indeed, 'enjoy.' I hope he will enjoy a foot of steel in his belly if he presses me when I have no desire for it."

  He shouted aloud with laughter. "Since I think you will be naked in your marriage bed, Keely, it might be difficult to hide a knife." Corin raised a hand as she started to protest. "Have you come to discuss your personal dislike for the betrothal, or my own banishment? You will forgive me, I trust, if at the moment I am less inclined to sympathize with your plight when I have my own."

  Abruptly she was contrite. "Oh, Corin, I know. It is so unfair! Jehan had no right to do it, no right at all ... how can he do it? How can he send two of his sons out of Homana into things they cannot know?"

  There were times he wished he shared more of Keely's temperament in addition to coloring. She was outspoken and high-spirited, and equally subject—as he was—to outbursts of hot temper, but she was more charitable, more generous in her feelings. She thought less of herself than of others, and always supported him without thought for what such support might mean to her father's opinion of her.

  "He can do it," he said, "because he is our jehan, and because he is the Mujhar."

  "Rank excuses nothing," she flung back instantly.

  "Aye," Corin agreed wryly, "and jehan would say it certainly does not excuse the behavior of his sons."

  Trapped, she glared at him. "Do you want to go?"

  "No," he said succinctly. "Do you?"

  Keely opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. After a moment she shook her head a little. "Defy him. What could he do to you? You are his son. Moreover, you are a part of the prophecy."

  "A dutiful son does as his father commands. A part of the prophecy knows better than to defy him."

  "But you have never been dutiful," Keely retorted, "and who is to know what your tahlmorra is but you " She shrugged. "Come back to Homana-Mujhar and face him down, Corin. Defy him. Refuse to go. He cannot have you tied up and hauled bodily to Atvia. It would soil his own honor as much as yours." Keely grinned. "If we both faced him—"

  "If we both faced him, it would only underscore the need for discipline," Corin said grimly, "and all the while Brennan would be standing there like the dutiful son-nodding, agreeing, supporting our Jehan—because that is what he does best. Jehan need only look at his heir to see the sort of son he desires, and then he would order me tied up and hauled bodily to Atvia."

  Exasperated, she glared at him with rigid hands clamped on hip
s. "Then what do you intend to do?"

  "Go to Atvia." He sighed and rubbed the roan's muzzle. "With a stop in Erinn, as jehan has ordered."

  Keely's eyes narrowed. "You would do well to listen to yourself sometime, rujho. On one hand you blow and bluster and threaten to do this or that ... on the other you meekly give in and do what you have been asked—or told—to do. If you intend to do as told, why make so much noise in the first place?"

  For an answer, Corin turned sharply and walked on, taking the stallion with him. And then he stopped short, swinging to face her again. "Listen to yourself," he suggested curtly. "It is no wonder Deirdre despairs of ever making a woman out of you."

  "Oh?" Her tone was infinitely deadly.

  Corin indicated her clothing. "Do you ask why? You are in leggings every time I see you, disdaining skirts or gowns . . . you talk our su'fali into teaching you the knife and sword and bow when the Homanan arms-master will not. . . you absent yourself from Homana-Mujhar to run wild in the wood . . . you spend no time with Deirdre's women, learning how to behave as the Lady of Erinn must . . ." He shook his head. "You drink usca, Keely, and dice nearly as much as Hart—"

  "—and nearly as well." She smiled grimly. "Go on, Corin. Do not stop now."

  He signed. "And you persist in denying a willingness to wed a man who will one day be king of Erinn and, through you, a part of the prophecy. You deny your own tahlmorra, and then tell me to do the same with mine."

  "It is hardly a denial of willingness when I do not wish to wed him," she said coolly. "As to the others, I will not deny that I would be as soon forswear womanly things altogether. Given a choice, I would be warrior in place of wife."

  "And man in place of woman?"

  Keely laughed in genuine amusement. "No, you fool—even you seek the easy answer! I have no desire to be a man . . . what I want is to be myself. I want the freedom to choose what I will do instead of fulfilling expectations of my behavior." She shrugged. "I would do better in the clan than at Homana-Mujhar, but even there I would not know the freedom I crave. There are no women warriors . . . and I am the daughter of the Lion. They see that before all else." She sighed and tugged pensively at her braid. "Shall we go, rujho? I ache to see Hondarth. I have never been anywhere but Clankeep or Mujhara."

  Corin considered ordering her home; discarded it at once. He considered suggesting she go home; he knew better. For all she prated of having no freedom, she claimed more than most. It took a stronger man than he to enforce his preferences when Keely's determination was so firmly entrenched.

  I will leave it to Sean. Corin surrendered, nodding. "I am walking, for the moment. The roan needs rest."

  "So I see." Keely shook her head. "Better you shout at me, next time, than burden your horse with your anger. At least I know when to defy you."

  "Defiance," he muttered. "Is that all you know?"

  "Better to ask the same of yourself." Sweetly, she smiled at him. "Shall we go? Hondarth beckons."

  He raised his brows and pursed lips thoughtfully. "Hondarth will never recover."

  But he said nothing more as he started walking and Keely fell in beside him. His lir trotted ahead, head dipping as she sniffed grass and dirt. The day was warm, the sun bright, the sky infinitely blue. Moreover, he was Cheysuli; it made him a man truly blessed.

  Abruptly, unexpectedly, Corin was content. If he had to go to Atvia, at least he had the best company he could think of.

  They sold the stallion in Hondarth, much as Corin hated to part with him. There would be no room on the ship for a mount, and he could get another in Atvia. He would have sent the roan home with Keely, except she refused to go back. And so with their purses considerably plumper, they stopped before a tavern.

  Keely gestured. "As good as another, rujho."

  He looked askance at her. "A waterfront tavern? I think not. We would do better to go farther from the docks."

  She stood with booted feet planted. "I want wine, and I am hungry. If you fear trouble because I am a woman, remember I have a knife."

  "See how I shiver from fear?" Corin asked dryly. "I think the men who frequent taverns of this sort will hardly be deterred by a knife in a woman's hand."

  She shrugged. "Then I will resort to lir-shape, if they force me. Corin—let us go in—" She caught his jerkin and dragged him toward the door, even as he craned his head to look for Kiri.

  Inside, Keely had the good sense to release his jerkin, which he absently pulled back into shape. He thought briefly, in case of trouble, he would claim her his woman; a glance at Keely's face made him think better of it. In sleeveless jerkin, leggings and boots much like his own, with identical coloring and similar features, no one would believe it. Their kinship was too evident.

  Keely sniffed. "Fish."

  "Hondarth is a seaport." Corin glanced around the tavern. He had seen better; he had certainly seen worse.

  The light was dim, but not nonexistent. Nothing led him to believe they courted trouble. There were no covert glances hiding ill will, no rude comments on Keely's apparel, no private jests about the vixen who flanked one side. The patrons looked at the newcomers curiously, as anyone would, then turned back to private business without excess incivility.

  "A table." Already Keely was striding toward it, boot heels thumping against hardwood floor. Men watched her, elbowed partners, made comments, but they watched with an appreciation significantly lacking in rudeness or raillery.

  Corin let out a breath, surprised to discover he had been holding it. All his life he had done what he could to keep his headstrong sister free from trouble, and sometimes he succeeded. But the task was more difficult when she seemed purposely to flout convention. He did not entirely blame her—he himself would go mad as a woman, confined to women's work—but neither did he fully understand her dedication to defiance. She was a woman—should she not behave as one?

  She is also a Cheysuli, and gifted more than most, Kiri reminded him. She has the Old Blood in abundance. Do you expect her to behave as a dutiful Homanan woman?

  The thought of Keely portraying herself as a meek, docile woman thinking only of her man's pleasure made Corin grin. But he was doing an injustice to the female portion of Homana's population; they were not all meek and docile. Certainly enough of Deirdre's Homanan ladies were spirited, in bed or out of it.

  Women. Following his sister, he cast an assessive glance around the tavern. If there was a likely wine-girl present, he might pass the night pleasurably indeed.

  And then he recalled Keely. Glumly, he reflected he could hardly tell his sister to hunt up a private room for herself while he disported himself with the wine-girl. It would only invite trouble. He sighed. With Hart or Brennan things were much less complicated; although Brennan tended to keep himself to court ladies, neither he nor Hart were averse to spending time with wine-girls, and they certainly made no protest when Corin did. But Keely might.

  He reached the table. She was already seated, hunched forward on a stool, and looking about with interest.

  Corin could not remember a time he had taken her into a tavern, even in Mujhara;. away from the palace, away from Clankeep, they generally frequented inns or road-houses, where the clientele was different.

  Corin hooked out a stool and sat down slowly, one hand touching Kiri's heavy ruff. Her presence, he saw, had been noted, remarked on, accepted. If there were mutters of beasts and shapechangers, he heard none of them. And yet he recalled the stories of how his grandsire, Donal, had met only hatred and prejudice when he had come to Hondarth.

  A step sounded behind him. He thought nothing of it until he saw Keely's hand slip to her knife, and then he half-turned. He was stopped by a big hand on his shoulder.

  "Be ye Cheysuli?" asked the man with the paw of a bear, or so it seemed to Corin. "Or a Homanan masquerading as such?"

  Corin tried to shake off the paw. Keely, he saw, was leaning forward as if to rise; beside him. Kin's lips peeled back to show sharp white teeth. "Why?" he asked coldl
y. "And why should it matter which?"

  "Because if ye be Cheysuli, I'll be buying you a drink, you and the lass. If ye only play at it, lad, I've no business with either of ye."

  The accent was familiar, though far thicker than Deirdre's fading lilt. Corin grinned, and even Keely began to relax. "Erinnish?" he asked.

  "Aye, lad, name o 'Boyne. But ye have yet to answer my question."

  Boyne was a huge, bearlike man, black of hair and beard, though gray generously salted both. His nose was bent from some accident—or fight—in the far past, and he lacked two teeth to boot. But the smile was genuine, lighting dark eyes as Corin nodded.

  "Aye, Cheysuli, both of us." He gestured. "Will you join us?"

  Keely's jaw was tightly set; he saw the reprimand in her eyes. But it was too late. Boyne had plopped his bulk down on a bench and was shouting for fresh wine.

  He grinned at them both, eyes alight as he looked at Keely. "Captain Boyne," he said, "sailing home to Erinn on the morning tide. But when I saw the fox and all your gold, I knew ye must be Cheysuli, and I said to myself I must buy ye a dram before I sail."

  "Why?" Keely's tone was cool.

  He raised black brows. "Because o’ the ties between our countries, lass, why else? Erinn's own fair Aileen will wed into the House o' Homana, and Prince Sean will take the Mujhar's Cheysuli lass for his bride. Tis good manners to drink to such happiness, lass!" He reared back as a wine-girl thumped down a jug and three cups.

  He poured generous measures, then handed them out.

  "To Aileen and her Cheysuli prince; to Sean and his sweet lass!"

  Following his lead, Corin raised his cup. Keely's motion was considerably slower, but Boyne seemed not to notice as he clacked his cup against theirs.

  " ‘Sweet lass,' " Keely said sourly, and tossed back a gulp of wine as if to wash away the taste of unpleasant words.

  Boyne leaned forward. "Aye," he said, "sweet lass. Would Sean be having any other?" He grinned, guffawed, slapped the flat of one huge hand down upon the table. "Hot for her he is, too, our lusty lord . . . 'twill only be a matter of weeks before he sends for her. He's a man now, our Sean, and of no mind to wait longer for his bride. Tis time he started a son!"