“Yes,” Amien said finally, closing the distance between them. “Well done.”
She smiled and offered him the knife; he sheathed it. She cast a smoldering glance at me. “My lord, will you play?”
The need in me flared higher. Hadn’t I been doing essentially the same thing Amien just did, when I gave her my own power yesterday? It could be of no possible importance that the energy had flowed between us on a telepathic link rather than through the aether.
Using a different conduit wouldn’t make it a violation of my vow. It should be my energy making her skin flush and the hair fly around her face. I couldn’t stand by and watch Amien do these things that should be my prerogative, not when her eyes said she’d rather have me.
To hell with caution. I could remember how far I could safely go.
“Take off your mail.” My voice sounded like I felt; Letitia drew in an audible breath and glanced at Amien. But he was a wizard: he had seen far worse than anything we might do here committed in the name of magic, had done far worse himself. I refused to follow her gaze. “Come on.”
She looked at me again, the flush on her cheeks competing with the slow burn in her gaze, and reached for the clasps. I stood and watched, hands held firmly at my sides but already itching for what would come next. Amien was profoundly still; I pushed my awareness of him aside.
She pulled off the mail shirt; my heart thundered inside my chest as I closed the distance between us, stood close enough to feel her breath on my skin.
“Well, then,” I said, forcing the words past the sudden tightness in my throat. “You know I won’t draw power. But I will give you what I’ve got. And you will ground.”
Letitia nodded; the mixed hunger and trepidation in her gaze made my breath hitch again. I stretched out my hand, still holding her gaze, and touched the fingertips of my right hand to her palm, sending a little rush of energy into her. Breath shuddered out of her, feathering my lips and firing me with deeper need; through the contact between us I felt the energy pour straight through to the ground. I realized that wasn’t what I wanted at all.
“Yes,” I said, and smiled for her anyway. “The next one may or may not carry a charge.”
“Ready,” she said, still breathless.
I withdrew my right hand, grasped her elbow in my left. The gentle power beneath my fingers and against my palm was a feather caress; I sent a broader charge into her, everything inside me protesting when she channeled it to ground rather than bouncing it back to me. Her gaze felt like fire in the hands; my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest. But a hollow disappointment was developing beneath it.
“No matter,” I said softly, willing myself to believe it, and shifted to caress the back of her neck. No charge this time, just to keep things interesting. She shivered and drew in an audible breath at the touch, but her eyes reflected a thirst for more. I settled my palm against her chest and answered that desire with a cascade of energy that made her stagger for balance, made her wards arc briefly with rainbow hues. She grounded it, just as she should, eyes shifting into the wide half-emptiness of the power-drunk; but the transfer left an ache of incompletion inside me, even while I tingled for more. Without thinking I leaned in until I felt her ragged breath on my lips, and sent the next charge into her with the barest brush of my mouth against hers.
She staggered backwards. “Stop. Stop.”
I found myself staring at her, bewildered.
*I will disgrace us both,* she sent.
Desire blasted through me. I could barely remember, much less care about, Amien’s presence here: she filled all my awareness, and the need to shift this senseless grounding into play that would satisfy both of us made the blood roar in my ears. But if my honor was merely a distant memory, hers was still worth protecting: I stepped back.
Amien stirred, suddenly registering in my peripheral vision. I glanced at him, seeing a hunger I couldn’t quantify overlaid with things that troubled me more: burgeoning triumph, plans for using both of us, the beginnings of conversations in which he would use the word fate. It would be only a matter of time before he renewed his demand for me to step up as his War-Lord. Before he persuaded me to abandon my vow.
Before I admitted I had only been waiting for an excuse.
“We need to get back, my lords.” Letitia still sounded breathless. “We haven’t much time.”
There was no time to bathe before dinner. I washed as well as I quickly could and dressed in clothing a servant had somehow restored to freshness in my absence. I didn’t feel clean, though I was presentable: I promised myself a bath before bed and went down to the drawing room in which the Taidgh family and their guests were to assemble.
Rohini’s men were already there, barely recognizable with faces shaven and hair hanging free. Rohini herself looked lovely dressed for dinner, with dark-red hair streaming more than halfway to her ankles, but she seemed as odd as a mummer playing a woman in her dress. Another wave of loss at the absence of my Tanaan friends washed over me; I shoved it aside and greeted Suibne.
“Well, you look better,” he said warmly. “A decent dinner and a good night’s sleep and you’ll be yourself again.”
I bowed. “Thank you for your help this afternoon. The mora found that space invaluable.”
He smiled, but his eyes saw far too much. “I wonder whether she recognizes the magnitude of her good fortune.”
He wasn’t talking about his hospitality, I realized: after a moment of puzzlement I understood who he meant, and a wholly different flavor of confusion came over me.
“When do you leave for the Moot?” I said, buying space in which to recover.
Suibne’s knowing smile deepened. “In the morning. Flying with my parents, my brothers, and their wives.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s seven hours of Why don’t you settle down, already with no way to leave the room.”
I chuckled. “You have my sympathy. Feel free to compare yourself favorably to me.”
Suibne laughed. “Oh, I plan to. Let me introduce you.”
“Ah, your hospitality is legend.”
A force on the tournament field in his youth, Muiredach Taidgh now sported steel-grey hair and the thick layer of hard fat around the middle to which so many warriors run in later years. I had long since learned better than to underestimate the battleworthiness of a man so adorned.
“We met at Teamair, sian,” he said, shaking my hand. “At the last Moot, when Conary Mourne was elected.”
“I remember.” I should have expected this. I wished I could invent some excuse why I couldn’t dine with them, after all.
“I was saddened to hear about your father’s loss,” Muiredach pursued. A fist closed painfully around my heart. “What a good man.”
“Oh, and Orlais was just lovely,” his wife Emer interposed. “She was always kind to everyone.”
If we were going to have to discuss my mother as well, I might find it necessary to flee without any excuse at all. I bowed to buy myself time.
“What happened?” Óengarb was older than Suibne, I knew, but apparently he had never developed discretion. I hoped their eldest brother had more sense.
“Óengarb!” Emer said.
“An accident,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster.
“I am sorry,” Emer said, with apparent sincerity.
I bowed again, casting about for some new topic.
“Suibne says you were on the upper Ruillin this twelvenight,” Muiredach said; I relaxed, just a little. “What’s the mood?”
“Ugh, politics,” Emer groaned. “Must we?”
“Indulge me for five minutes,” Muiredach said.
“I will be brief, Lady,” I said. “We were only there a few days. Sian, we saw—” I hesitated, trying to find words that would make sense to a royal. “It’s not easy to distill in just a few words. Ballarona fell the night we passed through. Because we were trying to protect the mora’s identity, we traveled among commoners and stayed in inns that aren’t… lo
yalist haunts. I was—surprised to see how many among the common folk still worship the old gods. I don’t have full intelligence on this, but there may well be a sense that… the Bard of Arcadia is in harmony with those old gods, and Their followers see the Bard as their ally.”
Muiredach frowned, as thoroughly puzzled as if I had begun speaking the Tanaan language. “But what about—Brion Cuilean, for instance, or the Mumhan tiarna?”
I shook my head. “Sian, we saw none of them. I suspect Cuilean had already left for the Moot by the time Ballarona fell.”
“Hm,” Muiredach said, thoughtful. “Chalk one for Conwy, then, I suppose.”
As if the only issue the Moot must address was choosing the next ard-righ. I restrained a sigh and left them to fawn over Letitia, crossing the room to examine the harp that stood in the far corner. It was a beautiful instrument: a standing four-octave triple harp, richly carved and solid of construction.
“You have an interest in the harp, Lord?” someone behind me said.
I glanced up, seeing a man so gangly and light of bone it seemed as if he might be capable of flight. This must be the Taidgh House Harpist: he was certainly no warrior. I wondered that we had never met.
“An excellent piece,” I said. “A Tigernan, is it?”
Astonishment manifested in his dark eyes. “Yes! Do you play, Lord?”
I smiled. “Sian, I’m Ellion Tellan.”
Shock flitted across the man’s face; then he grinned and offered me a bow. “Énna Ualgairg. I missed the conclave at which you were elected.”
I bowed in return: in one sense we were royal and lesser; but Énna was an ollamh, one of the lords of the gorsedd, and in another sense that made us equals.
“If I don’t go back to Ilnemedon soon, there may well be another conclave,” I said, manufacturing a smile. I wasn’t sure I would suffer any loss but pride if they ousted me; the realization confused me yet again.
“You are part of the Lady of Finias’s escort?”
I nodded. “I was out there on gorsedd business when everything fell apart. I’ve just been doing what I must.”
“Gorsedd business?” Enna sounded skeptical.
“You know the Lady Carina Finias once retained a House Harpist?” I said. “This spring seemed like a good time to renew that bond, but it developed she was not in residence.”
Enna gave me a long look. “Indeed.”
Dinner reminded me how far west we had come. The company was seated strictly by rank, with no apparent thought for fostering lively dinner conversation. I settled into my spot between Emer and Suibne, facing Rohini: amusing myself with black imaginings of the torment that must have arisen from trying to balance the Lady of Finias and her consort with the unaccompanied Prince of the Aballo Order; considering the mathematical exercises that must have gone into the placements of Rohini and myself, with both of us once members of the College of Righthe but now deposed, both hailing from countries situated not only west of the Ruillin but west of the Riga. Did the circumstances of my deposement outweigh the fact that I was, once again, technically the tanist of Tellan? How did the handicap of Rohini’s gender weigh against the fact that she had true hope of being restored? Both of us were exiled now, though mine was voluntary. A mad temptation to engage the people around me in an ironic attempt to reduce the equations to something manageable welled within; I fought it down, but failed to contain a smirk at the contents of my own mind.
“What?” Suibne said to me, sotto voce.
I shook my head. “Ask me later.”
“I plan to be drunk later.”
“That’s the smartest thing anyone has said yet today.” I offered him a little salute with my glass, and he returned it, a grin breaking across his face.
After a meal that might have been measured in years, we returned to the drawing room. A footman served brandy, which I accepted with relief; Énna the harpist walked into the room, paused in front of me, and offered me a smile and a courtly bow.
“My lord,” he said. “Never would I ask a guest of this house to play, particularly not after so long a journey. But if it would please you to use my harp this evening, you have only to say the word.”
I glanced past him, at the harp across the room; a sudden, deep hunger to play rose inside me. I probably didn’t deserve the privilege after what I’d done to Bernatel’s harp.
Énna smiled as if he understood, or at least recognized I needed to be persuaded. “It would be our privilege, Lord.”
There was no graceful avenue of escape now: an unwilling smile came over me, and I rose.
“The pleasure is mine, sian,” I said, and returned his bow. “Your hospitality is legend.”
I settled on the chair that stood behind the harp, drew the instrument against my shoulder. A strange mixture of sadness and relief settled over me as it came to rest. I raised my hands to the strings and stroked a few chords to get a sense of its temper; it sang back to me with a rich, satisfying voice.
The harp had probably been tuned for Fare and Fir, a sensible choice for this company; but some of the strings had shifted, as strings will, settling the instrument into something very close to the key of the undeservedly obscure Tílimya’s Well. I had neither heard nor played that song in a long time—but it seemed oddly right tonight. I reached into my pocket automatically: seeking my harp key, laughing at myself for looking for something I had certainly not thought to stow there—and discovered the thing under my fingers. I had been carrying it for all these twelvenights without even being aware of its presence. I adjusted the strings and glanced around the room.
The last time I had performed was Dianann; my audience had been composed almost entirely of the knights who would become so dear. Who would die because of the price on my neck and my lack of the decency to warn them off or withdraw. I forced the memory aside: I had claimed the privilege of playing tonight, and now it was my responsibility to perform. I began playing the themes of this piece the harp and I had chosen: setting the mood, acquainting myself with the strings.
“Lords and Ladies, indulge me while I lay the field for our companions from across the mountains,” I said, and shifted to the Tanaan language.
“This is Tílimya’s Well, the story of the hero Gwydion and his quest to retrieve the healing waters of the Well of Tílimya, which lies within the Fortress at Tílimya’s Abyss. I wonder whether you’ve heard some variation on it before: the great Hy-Breasaílian righ Bran has been wounded in the groin by a spear, in the course of battle with the righ of Boreas; and as he wastes without healing the land withers and dies. A seer tells Bran that only the waters of the Well of Tílimya can save him—which I suppose could just as easily have been interpreted as a slap in Bran’s face…”
“I think I’ve heard this, maybe,” Letitia said thoughtfully. “Though our bards tell it somewhat differently.”
I nodded. “Just so. Well, then, here is tonight’s version of the tale: the righ lies a-wasting, and with him the land, and only the healing waters of the Well of Tílimya can restore him. He decrees that whoever can retrieve this elixir will become his tanist and inherit all of Hy-Breasaíl. Gwydion is a young man from some remote place, one of Hy-Breasaíl’s champions but without prospects beyond that; when he asks the seer, the Danaan sorceress Niamh, how to proceed in accomplishing the mission, she favors him and grants him not only the knowledge he needs but certain talismans he will require.
“Gwydion takes the talismans the seer gives him and follows her instructions to reach the realms of the dead. He crosses the Fields of Asphodel and the River Dóiteán, gaining the Fortress at Tílimya by using the seer’s talismans and demonstrating the virtues of a warrior. Inside, he meets the Guardian of the Well and persuades Her to let him bring back the water necessary to heal the righ. He passes Her test, but the outcome is not as simple as everyone expects. She offers him a choice: rather than return with the water of the Well and heal the righ, he may remain as Her Consort. Rather than tanist of Hy-Breasaíl, she w
ill make him ard-righ of all the world—and immortal. But if he returns to Hy-Breasaíl with the elixir, saving the righ and the land, as soon as the injured righ drinks Gwydion will die.
“The choice seems obvious, but Gwydion is a champion, and sworn. He embraces the Guardian, kisses Her, and tells Her he has given his word: he must bring back the water from the Well She guards. This was the true test, after all: immediately Tílimya is revealed as the paradise of Tír inna n-Óc, and the Guardian tells him he may return to Hy-Breasaíl, heal the righ, and claim his earthly prize—or return once the world has been restored to claim Her Love. By now he understands She is the goddess, and he has earned his place at Her side. After restoring the righ to health, he passes beyond the realm of mortals, dwelling in pleasure with the goddess for eternity.”
I allowed my hands to wander over the Guardian’s theme, giving them time to digest. After a moment a shift occurred in Iminor’s face that might have been a smile, except that it held no real humor.
“Perhaps in my next life,” he said thoughtfully, eyes on mine, “I will be Beallan. Beallan men seem to have all the fun.”
I was reading too much into the statement. Surely he didn’t mean the accusations I heard. Nevertheless as I began the song I carried with me renewed regret for my betrayal of the bonds between companions-in-arms—and a strange terror that the depths of my faithlessness would be revealed.
I turned my mind firmly to the song and the performance I must give; but as I unwound the tale, I found Gwydion had become Iminor in my mind. It was not the righ Bran and Hy-Breasaíl who needed healing, but Letitia and Fíana; not a spear that had done her in, but me. On a sorceress’s horse he rode, to a cliff beside the sea, whence he must pass through a cleft in the rock and into the lands of the dead. Tonight that passage looked like the way from Arian to the Devadore in my mind; but beyond the black basalt cavern with its wizard-dream fungus and dark-running streams, he found not the blue-green waters of the Devadore: rather the grey expanse of the Fields of Asphodel.
The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods) Page 59