Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2)

by Nilsen, Karen

  He muttered something in Numerian as he stared at me. He glanced at Falken. “Whose seed is she ripe with?”

  “My husband’s,” I said hoarsely.

  “Fire selkies don’t have husbands.”

  If I hadn’t been so scared, I might have rolled my eyes. These damn southern men and their selkies. “There is no such thing as a selkie, fool.”

  “Don’t you call me a fool, heathen wench.” He stepped towards me, and my hand tightened on the dagger.

  Falken grabbed him. “All right, you’ve seen her, Kelzar.”

  “And Iwant to see more. For a bad-mannered heathen slut big with child, she’s quite fetching. Who is she?”

  “The wife of a friend who’s got himself in a bit of trouble.”

  “What friend?”

  “One of my spies in the Cormalen king’s guard.”

  “Ah.” Kelzar turned his attention back to me. “With that hair, she’d fetch a pretty purse of diamonds from our southern friends. Perhaps your spy’s gotten himself into too much trouble and wouldn’t miss his wife . . . and what’s she been doing here?” For the first time, he noticed my paints and easel. His eyes narrowed as he took in the rest of the chamber, my charcoals and sketches scattered everywhere, my fine books, the seal rings on my exposed hand. “You lying prince’s bastard,” he said to Falken.

  “Accuse me of lying again, and you’ll face the red brotherhood.”

  “You’ll face them, you mean. You’ve lied to all of us, every day you’ve kept her here--she’s the one, the heathen artist Her Majesty’s men have spent the last two months searching for . . .”

  “Of course she is.” Falken smiled. “You’re a quick one when your temper’s out of the way, Kelzar.”

  “Don’t use your false flattery on me, ill-begotten. We need to regain Jazmene's favor now, before Tivon or that Cormalen snake Segar steal Esme for themselves. I'm taking this little peace offering to the palace tonight.”

  “Patience, my friend, patience.”

  “To hell with your patience--the patient get stabbed in the back by you.”

  Falken‘s smile grew strained. “I’ve never stabbed anyone in the back, even for our cause.”

  “What are you to our cause--you understand our cause no better than the lying Sarneth cur you are. Who cares who got you on the wrong side of the sheets? You’re not Numerian just because your traitor father took a fancy for some tinker’s whore,” Kelzar said, his hand forming a fist.

  Kelzar punched Falken in the jaw. Falken stumbled back, letting go of Kelzar‘s arm. Kelzar punched him again. Falken tried to retaliate, knocking over a chair as he charged Kelzar. Kelzar sidestepped Falken and tripped him, hitting him in the stomach. Falken fell to the floor with a groan.

  Kelzar leapt across the chamber, reaching me in two bounds. He paused an instant to touch my hair, then grasped my shoulder. “Come on,” he said, starting to drag me after him. I resisted, and he cuffed me. “Hurry up, wench, lest you want to lose your babe.”

  Rage crested inside, a deadly wave of fire that tingled in my veins, and before I could think, I brought my hand up, the one that had been hidden in my skirts, and jammed the dagger into his midriff. It went in harder than I expected--Merius always made such things look so easy on the dummies in the practice salon. However, sheer rage must have given me strength beyond my natural limits, for when Kelzar staggered away, groaning, the blade was in his flesh up to the hilt.

  “Bitch!” he hissed.

  I swallowed, my arm dropping stiffly to my side. Kelzar lurched back in my direction, his hand clenched around the dagger. Blood bloomed crimson on his shirt, so much so fast that all I could do was stare at it in numb horror. The rusty odor of it filled the air, mingling with turpentine in a nauseating marriage. His aura, dark as a storm cloud, flickered, contracting and shrinking with each step he took toward me. Toward me . . . he could still hurt me and the baby. My frozen brain absorbed this with agonizing slowness, the thought one drop of boiling water falling on a block of ice. Suddenly, my feet, faster than my brain, jerked me aside, and I stumbled away from him, stubbing my toes against the trunk at the foot of the bed as I headed for the open door.

  He followed me with a roar, clumsy and slow but still lethal as he tried to block me in the corner by the wardrobe. Falken sat up then and rubbed his head, looking around. He jumped up when he noticed Kelzar and me in the corner and rushed at the dying man from behind, knocking him to his knees. Kelzar groaned and fell at my feet. Blood spotted my shoes and the bottom of my skirt. I turned away and retched in the corner.

  “Selkie?” Falken stepped over Kelzar and touched my shoulder.

  “He said he’d . . . he said to hurry up, lest I wanted to lose my baby, and I had the dagger and . . .” I choked, both my hands cradling my belly. “I stabbed him, because of what he said. I didn’t even think about it--I just did it, and now . . .”

  “Good,” Falken said crisply. “He is--was a no good son of a bitch. I was going to kill him myself, when I had my sword back tonight. Come on, Selkie--let’s sit you on the bed. I have to think about this.”

  Falken paced while I curled in a ball on the quilt, shaking, my arms clenched around the baby in my belly. I couldn’t let go of him, it seemed--my body was his last protection, and it had almost failed him. The image of the dagger in my hand, jamming it into Kelzar’s middle, flashed over and over again my mind. I glanced at his body, dry sobs rasping in my throat and burning my tearless eyes. His stormy aura, the dark clouds swirling around him, had completely vanished, and I knew he was dead. I had killed him--I had stabbed a blade in his vitals, and now he was dead. The canaries, tired of their cage being covered in the daylight, began to chirp then, and I raised my head, wondering how they could sound so merry. There was a dead man in the chamber, a chamber that had been peaceful a mere twenty minutes before, and he was dead at my hand.

  Falken finally threw one of the large canvas pieces I had been using to cover my easel over the body, bending down to draw Merius’s spare dagger from the wound. Unblinking and numb, I watched him as he cleaned the blood from the blade. When he approached me holding the dagger with the hilt out, I began to shake my head. “No,” I said, my mouth so dry my voice rasped in my throat. “No.”

  “Take it, Selkie. You may need it again.”

  “No.”

  “Listen, if not for this dagger, you might have lost your baby and been sold like a slave to the queen,” he said harshly. “When Merius gave this to you, he meant for you to use it if you needed it. Which is what you did. Now take it--there are plenty of Kelzars in the world.”

  The hard practicality of his words and tone cut through my shock, and I silently took the dagger with a slight shudder and returned it to its scabbard. Then I tucked it in my skirt pocket, a strangely comforting weight.

  Next, he fetched a couple buckets of water. Then he ordered me to tidy the chamber while he rolled the body up in the canvas. I obeyed him as if in a trance, my movements automatic. My empty stomach did rebel when I scrubbed up the blood, and I gagged several times, straightening with my hand over my mouth before I bent down again and continued with my gruesome work. When I finished, I splashed the remaining cold water over myself, wishing desperately for a bath.

  When everything was clean and I had put on new clothes, I went back to the bed and lay on my side, my knees drawn up and my arms around my belly. Falken had disappeared somewhere with the body. I shivered at the memory of that bloody bundle, the swishy scratch of the canvas against the floor as Falken had dragged it out. Would the other rebels see it?

  A sudden terror descended on me, and the numbness vanished, replaced by the chill of fear. I shivered, my eyes shut tight. I was so isolated, and Falken couldn’t be here all the time. What if another Kelzar decided to come after me? What if Kelzar had a brother who tried to avenge his death? A thousand possibilities raced through my mind, each worse than the last. The final possibility had nothing to do with Kelzar and the rebels at all. In
stead of Kelzar, I saw Whitten, and instead of a locked door, I was locked deep inside myself, my soul struggling, helpless while he had his way with my body.

  I dimly heard the door open and close and the tramp of boots across the floorboards. Then someone touched my hair, and I screamed, my breath hitching in my throat. I grabbed for the dagger. I would kill him this time, that drunken, leering bastard. I wasn’t trapped inside myself anymore, and my arms worked just fine.

  “Selkie!” Falken yelled from a great distance, and I felt my shoulders being shaken, the dagger being pulled from my grasp. Slowly, I came back to the present, every muscle a taut rope as my body shrank in on itself, flinching from Falken’s touch. My mind knew it was him and that I was safe for now even before I opened my eyes, but my body reacted as it should have reacted months ago when I was in my witch fit and Whitten had taken advantage of my confusion. My body had learned its lesson too well, and now I drew my dagger on friend as well as foe.

  “Selkie, are you all right?”

  “I want Merius,” I whispered.

  “He’ll be here tomorrow night.” Falken sat down on the bed heavily. “Who were you yelling at before I came in the chamber?”

  “I was yelling?”

  “I thought you were dreaming at first, but I’ve never heard anyone yell and scream in their dreams like that and not wake up.”

  “What was I saying?”

  “You screamed and swore and then you told someone to get off of you, that your arms worked and you would kill him this time. Then you pulled your dagger on me.”

  “I’m sorry, Falken.”

  “That’s all right--you’re jittery.”

  “Drawing my dagger on a friend is more than jittery.”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps you had more reason than Kelzar to draw it so quick.” Falken’s eyes were bright and keen, honed by an intense curiosity.

  I shrank under his gaze. “Merius told me if I was to use it in defense to draw it quickly.”

  “Merius himself draws his blade quick and sudden when it comes to defending you. Perhaps he’s a bit jittery as well?”

  “He’s trained that way.”

  “To be jittery? I think not. Experience makes a man like him jittery, not training. If he was naturally that nervous, he’d be that way all the time, not just when it comes to you--I thought he was going to take my head off the first time I said your name to him.”

  “If my love has one fault, it’s jealousy. That‘s why you‘d best watch it,” I said lightly.

  Falken was not so easily misled. “It wasn’t jealousy. It was fear,” he said, his voice quiet. “He’s afraid of losing you, and I think I’ve seen enough to know why now.”

  “Have you? Perhaps he’s afraid you’ll sell me to the queen when his back is turned,” I said, more to distract him than to accuse him. I couldn’t have said why exactly, but I trusted Falken despite his ties to the queen and the rebels. However, I still didn’t want him knowing our deepest secrets. Sometimes his interest in me seemed more than friendly. “Why are you helping us?" I continued. "If you truly are a rebel, it seems more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “I hate the rebels,” he said with sudden heat. “I hate the queen. They helped her assassinate my father. I’ve played along with their game, pretended to be their puppet, the royal bastard who might one day sit on the throne as a figurehead, but all along I’ve secretly plotted against them.”

  “Why did she assassinate your father? Wasn’t he her brother?”

  “Yes.” He barked a laugh. “When I was six, my father King Urtzi found out about Jazmene’s plot to topple him and rule Numer herself. The Numerians eat their own--they still allow duels between brothers to establish precedence and inheritance. She was only dueling in her own fashion, using the rebels as her cat’s paw. She didn’t realize that Urtzi’s young wife bore his heir, the prince Tivon, even as the life’s blood drained from Urtzi’s body. I’d like to have seen her face when she learned that the throne she desired enough to kill her brother for had been taken by an unborn babe.”

  “Doesn’t she suspect your true intentions? You have little reason to love her.”

  “Perhaps, but she thinks everyone thinks the same as her, that coin and power are everything. She doesn’t take into account vengeance. To her, I’m her brother’s bastard, pretender to the Numerian throne and therefore a useful pawn--she’s too self-serving to consider my position except as it relates to her. She's like that with everyone--do you know she was the one who ordered Kelzar and his two rebel friends to attack Lord Rankin?”

  "That she-wolf," I breathed, my hand over my mouth. "Merius and Cedric risked their lives to protect Lord Rankin during that attack. Why would she order the rebels to do that? It seems senseless."

  "To test the rebels' loyalty to her. And she thought it might scare Lord Rankin."

  I glanced down at my clasped hands. “It’ll kill me, if she finds me and forces me to paint for her. I can’t breathe at that court, Falken, not with her and Toscar there. If he had taken me there today . . .” I trailed off.

  He sighed. “We’ll hide you better, Selkie. This won‘t happen again.”

  “How did Kelzar know I was here?”

  “Some of them knew I was hiding someone--we hide a lot of people in these rooms, mostly fugitives for the rebellion, and most know better than to ask a lot of questions. A few smelled your turpentine--that’s what upset Kelzar.”

  “I heard that.” I bit my lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t paint anymore. It’s hard to hide the smell.”

  “You could be here for months longer. The turpentine is the least of my worries. What about your babe‘s cries after it comes?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” I glanced around at the walls. When I had first come here, this had seemed a fairly spacious room. Now it seemed small and cramped, as if the walls closed in a bit more every day. By the time the baby arrived, there wouldn’t be a room here, perhaps only a closet, if that. I forced myself to take a deep breath, forced myself not to think of all the dusty moments ahead, moments folded in on themselves to make hours, then days, then months when there would be a door between me and the rest of the world. The weight of all that time pressed down on my shoulders so I could barely breathe without forcing myself.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  After a sleepless night when I fancied I heard the door rattling and footsteps in the hallway outside, I made myself eat a large breakfast from the food Falken had brought: buttered toast and fruit and two boiled eggs. Falken came and watched me eat, so silent that I almost lobbed an egg at his head to see if he was still awake.

  “Will you talk or do something?” I exploded finally. “Unless I’m drawing a portrait, I hate it when people just sit and watch me--Merius does that sometimes, and it drives me mad.”

  “I want to be certain you eat all your breakfast.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Merius thinks you’re not eating enough.”

  “Merius could nag a fish wife to death.”

  Falken grinned. “I thought you said he was a good man, the best husband you could ask for.”

  “He is the best, my warrior poet. But sometimes . . .”

  “He’s only worried for you.”

  “I know that.” I tore a bite off my second piece of toast and took a swig of tea, clunking the mug back down with unnecessary force. How could I not know Merius worried about me? I felt the weight of his worry every day, an itchy blanket that draped itself around me with annoying persistence. I could sense the crackling silver, the distant lightning, of his aura if I sat still and listened to the silence long enough. Lately, I sensed less silver and more pewter, and it took me longer to find him, a sure sign his energy was at a low ebb. Didn’t he know I worried about him as much as he worried about me? And there was no Falken to keep watch on him for me, no Falken to make certain he ate his breakfast and stayed out of trouble.

  “What did you tell the other rebels when Kelzar went missing last night?”<
br />
  Falken shrugged. “Nothing. There was no one here to hear our quarrel aside from you, thank Aesir. I left his body in the gutter--anyone could have killed him down there.”

  I shuddered at the word body, pausing for a moment before I ate the last bite of the second egg. “You’d be wise to let me tell Merius what happened.”

  “No, Selkie. I’m responsible.”

  “You’re a fool then.”

  “No matter which one of us tells him, he’s going to be angry with me. As he should be. Kelzar should never have breached the bookshelf door, much less this one.”

  “Things happen. You did your best, Falken.”

  “Thank you for that.” He got to his feet and threw his cloak over his shoulders. “I must be off. I’ll see you later.”

  “Aren’t you going to stay for my Sarns lesson?” I said. “You promised to help me read Keller’s translation of the myth of the fire selkie.”

  He grinned, and he was the Falken I knew again--not earnest about anything, including me. His laughter held a shiny edge that reminded me of Merius when he was free of worries, not a Merius I got to see very often these days. I sighed--I didn’t get to see enough of any of the Meriuses these days, merry or somber. God, for this wretched waiting to be over! I grabbed for the Keller Book of Northern Myths and reminded myself that Merius would be here tonight. I could bear it till then, especially if Falken stayed awhile longer.

  I opened the book to the place I’d marked and began to read out loud, my voice stumbling over a few of the more difficult words. At least it wasn't written in old Sarns--Keller had taken the old myths and translated them into modern Sarns. Despite this, there were still a few words I didn't know. Falken, a patient tutor, let me puzzle out the pronunciations myself, correcting me only if I reached an impasse. As I read, I became so intrigued by the myth that I found myself faltering and then falling silent for whole passages. Falken poked my elbow, and I continued out loud: