Aine folded her arms and shifted impatiently. “And our refugees?”
“Would be welcome among the Graegam.” That Chieftain stood at The Claeg’s shoulder. “Graegam is the closest stronghold. From there, you could make your way to Halig-liath.”
“We? You think I should go with them?”
“It would be safest for you, Alraed.”
Aine glanced from one Chieftain to another, her eyes finally coming to rest on Iobert. “You also wish me to go up to Graegam with the others?”
“Karr Graegam is right, Alraed. It would be safest for you.”
For us as well, Saefren thought, watching Aine return to her tent. Anger and impatience radiated from her in waves he could almost see.
Fire-pot. No matter how acquiescent she might pretend to be, he suspected sending her to Graegam and getting her there would be two different things.
Chapter 20
If I speak sweetly as an aingeal and have no wisdom, my speech is not more than the noise of a brass bell. And if I have the Sight of prophecy, and comprehend all secrets and all knowledge and hold the power to move mountains, and have no mercy, I am nothing.
—Utterances of Taminy-Osmaer
Book of the Covenant
In the arid foothills of the Southern Gyldan-baenn, the weather was brisk, but not chill. They slept comfortably by night and their breath did not hang on the air by day. Daimhin Feich found the journey exhilarating. Riding, he dreamed of holding the true Osmaer in his hands. Sleeping, he dreamed of other things.
He saw little of the Banarigh Lilias their first week on the trail. By day, she was a wind-blown wraith. Garbed in red (the color of mourning among the Deasach), she sat a black horse at the head of her corsairs, head and face obscured by yards of skillfully wrapped and draped cloth. By night, she took to her tent, alone. Feich wove secretly to draw an invitation from her and consoled himself with Coinich Mor.
At the end of the week the invitation came, and he went to the tent of the alien goddess to receive her favors. He could not, somehow, make her become Taminy in his heated moments. She was Lilias, always, seductive and sultry. He had no complaints about that, but merely thought it odd that his aidan should be so circumscribed in her presence. He attributed it to her excessively strong will and accepted her passion happily.
There was, after all, always Coinich Mor, who left her husband’s bedroll late nearly every night to seek out his. Their Weaving exhausted him, but she could always be bent to his whim. If it was Taminy he wanted, Taminy she became.
He had expected them to dislike or even hate each other, these two women who shared his attentions, but they seemed quite at ease in each other’s company. They seemed, in fact, to like each other, and often rode side-by-side, chatting, laughing, even bathing together in the Raven’s red tent. Feich chuckled over that development and decided he must have secretly willed it to be so. He might have been uneasy about their friendship had he given it much thought, but his thoughts had flown ahead to the passes south and east of Baenn-an-ratha and carefully worked out what he must do when they arrived there.
Another week, he figured. Another week and he would stand siege against the gates of Hrofceaster. And though he had arrayed about him many men, he knew it would be, first and foremost, a siege of spirit.
oOo
Aine-mac-Lorimer had no intention of going to Graegam, but she had pretended acquiescence anyway. So she was surprised when, on the day the Madaidh arrived with Iseabal, Saefren Claeg took her aside for a forest walk and asked a blunt question: “All right, Aine Red. What are you planning?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not going to Graegam, I think.”
She studiously avoided his gaze, staring instead at the leaf-strewn ground. “Where else would I go?”
“Hrofceaster.”
“Ha! Now that’d be foolhardy . . . according to some.”
“Aye. But you wouldn’t let that stop you.”
“Alright.” She stopped kicking acorns about and crossed her arms, tight, over her breasts. “Let’s say I’m planning on going up to Hrofceaster. What then?”
“Who were you planning on taking with you?”
She chewed her lip, wondering how honest she could afford to be. “Leal. Fhada wants to stay with the children. I think that’s wise.”
“Only Leal? And the Stone, of course.”
“That’s the whole purpose of the journey.”
“And Iseabal?”
“I hadn’t asked her. She’s not well enough to make such a trek. She should go home to her family.”
Saefren laughed, sending a family of magpies squawking to higher branches. “Aine, you hypocrite! How can you snarl at the Chieftains for making a decision for your safety, then turn about two-faced and make the same sort of arbitrary ruling for Iseabal?”
Aine flushed hot and cold. “Arbitrary, is it? Well, it’s not! I’m up to this trek, by God. Isha’s not. That’s the difference. The Stone must be gotten to Taminy with all haste. We’ve already wasted enough time waiting on Rodri Madaidh to get here, and for your uncle and his cronies to come up with a strategy for Mertuile. Feich’ll be halfway to Baenn-eigh by now.”
His back against a gnarled oak, Saefren watched Aine with a gaze that only made her flush more prodigiously. “Are you finished?”
She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.
“I agree that the Stone ought to go up to Taminy for safe-keeping, but you’ll need a guide up that icy track. I’m coming with you.”
She gaped now, unable to stifle her amazement. “But won’t your uncle want you here?”
He shrugged. “I’ve done my bit of reconnaissance, and I’m no strategist. But I know my way through those mountains, having grown up at their feet.”
Bluster deflated, Aine could only drop her defensive posture in head-shaking bemusement. “All right, Saefren Claeg. It’s guide you are.” She looked him square in the eye. “And thank you.”
oOo
“Catahn says I’m not to study swordsmanship anymore.”
Airleas took the chair opposite Taminy at the huge eastern hearth of the Great Hall, his sword propped between his knees, his chin resting on the hilt. He was bemused, but there was no reproach in his voice or eyes, nor even in his heart.
“We need the time, you and I, for other things.”
The boy-Cyne sat up straighter, making Taminy realize how much he had grown physically these last months. “Am I to receive my own crystal now?”
“Not yet. Not quite yet. What you must learn now has to do with Weaving only a little. You’ve heard the Tell of Meredydd-a-Lagan.”
“Of course, Mistress. She is now the Vessel of the Meri.”
“Her Pilgrimage is known to you, too, of course.”
He nodded.
“Recall the first task of her Pilgrimage to me.”
“She was to choose, from among three amulets, the most important one.”
“They were?”
“Healing, Clear Sight and Wisdom. She chose Wisdom.”
“Why?”
“Because Wisdom is the foundation of all knowledge. What good is either Healing or Clear Sight if you don’t know how to use it?” He grinned. “It’s like when I first found this sword. I had the thing, but not a clue how to wield it.”
Taminy smiled back at him. “A good analogy. Your aidan, Airleas, is like that sword. The might of Cyneship is like that sword. Possession of either is only the beginning of things.”
“I know this,” he hastened to assure her. “I understand the need for wisdom.”
Taminy sat back in her fleece-covered chair, closing her eyes for a moment and absorbing the movement and chatter in the hall around them.
“Mistress, are you all right?”
She opened her eyes. “Tired, is all. But, better than yesterday.” That was true, she realized. Yesterday, after weeks of near sleepless nights, she had felt transparent, as if every sluggish beat of her heart was visi
ble to all eyes. Last night, she had slept the night through and today she felt merely translucent. Dear Catahn seemed to have found some way to guard her dreams after all.
“Airleas, answer me this: Given a choice, would you choose wisdom . . . or the honor of your father’s House?”
“My father . . . my father dishonored our House—your House. I realize that now. I’m the only one who can restore that honor.”
“How would you do that?”
“By stripping Daimhin Feich of any place or power and taking back the Throne.”
Taminy gazed at her hands, folded upon her lap. “And?”
“Being a better Cyne than my father. I want to be as good a Cyne as Ciarda.”
“You have powers Ciarda saw only in your grandmother, Brann Hillwild. They could make you an even better Cyne than he, or . . . they could make your every act of foolishness, weakness or selfishness a disaster.”
The boy blanched. “I don’t want to be weak or foolish or selfish.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Which would you choose, honor or wisdom?”
He looked very unhappy for a moment—consternated. Then his face cleared. “Why, that’s a false choice, isn’t it? For there can’t be wisdom without honor or honor without wisdom.”
“I suppose that depends on your definition of honor.”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. How many definitions of honor can there be?”
“When you know, tell me,” she said and sent him to study with Wyth.
No sooner had Airleas left the hearthside than Catahn took his place. He said nothing for a moment, but only studied her, eyes troubled. “You slept well, Lady?” he asked at last.
She nodded. “But you did not. Were you guarding my dreams?”
He shifted uncomfortably, turning his eyes to the flames within the cavernous fireplace. “I . . . Wove an inyx of my own device. I am pleased it worked.”
She leaned toward him. “Catahn, you can’t do that every night.”
“Nor can you protect yourself as you sleep. Someone must guard you from such . . . horrors.”
She glanced up at him sharply, sensing his uneasiness as something heavy and dark. “What have you done?”
“A simple channeling Weave. I thought that if the inyx could not be blocked at its beginning, it might be turned aside at its end.”
Taminy’s hands gripped the arms of her chair. “You took the nightmares upon yourself, you mean. You absorbed them.”
His eyelids fluttered and swift color flooded his face. She put her hand on his to claim his attention, but he flinched away and rose, turning his back on her.
Stunned, wounded, she said, “Catahn, you can’t do this. I won’t have you . . . I wanted no one to know what those nightmares were. They were between me and him.”
“There should be nothing between you and him!” Catahn growled, still not looking at her. “Nothing but six feet of earth.”
He strode away from her then, across the Hall, and would not let her call him back.
oOo
The air at this altitude was chill and brittle; it entered the nose and lungs sharply, as if made of invisible shards of frozen glass. A light powder of snow dusted the ground under foot, but did not slow the advance of the multitude at Daimhin Feich’s joint command. They climbed easily through the dry valleys, Feich blessing the rain-shadow each morning when he rose to clear skies.
“This won’t continue indefinitely,” Ruadh told him one morning, as he squinted up at the shrouded bulk of Baenn-an-ghlo.
To the east the so-called Wailing Mountain, Baenn-eigh, towered, flanks gleaming with snow. “When we get up there”—Ruadh nodded at the shadowy pass between the two giants—“we’re going to have to fight the storms.”
Feich let out a streamer of breath. “Then we’ll fight the storms. Or perhaps I shall fight them myself. We will not be beaten.”
“So certain?”
“Ruadh, you are such a pessimist. The pass is low and sheltered. We shall come upon Hrofceaster from the southeast—also sheltered. Only the last miles of the journey will be as dangerous as all that. When it’s over, we shall have the Ren Catahn’s back to the ice. There will be nowhere for him to run.”
Ruadh shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if you know who or what it is you’ve come after out here, or what you hope to get out of all this. How hard would it have been for you to have compromised with Claeg and Jura? It would have put you close to Airleas, given you some control over him, over Creiddylad—”
“Some control? Not enough, Ruadh. Oh, for you perhaps, for my father, for all the other complacent elders of the House Feich. But I see a way to have complete control.” He laughed. “My God, more control than any Cyne has ever wielded in Caraid-land. Not just temporal power, cousin, but spiritual power.”
“You believe your . . . your aidan is that strong?”
Feich pointed a finger at his cousin’s nose. “Colfre thought he was fey because of his Hillwild ancestry. I thought he was, too. It wasn’t until the end—until just before his death that I realized the truth.” He laughed again. “It was me, Ruadh. I was the one with the Gift. Oh, he had some ability, true enough, but it was weak. Enough for me to make use of, fortunately.”
Ruadh made no reply to that, but only stared at him in wide-eyed amazement.
“You ask me why we come here. The reasons are not as simple as you would have them be. I’ve come here for Airleas, obviously. But yes, I want Taminy in my grasp, as well, for she is the key to spiritual power.” He paused, wondering how honest he could be with his cousin, then said, “You’ve noticed my . . . ways with women.”
“I’m not blind.”
“Practice. For the time when I have Taminy-Osmaer at Mertuile. You understand, of course, that it’s not mere physical gratification I seek—and get—from them.”
Ruadh turned his gaze to the mists crawling their way up Baenn-an-ghlo. “You believe you draw power from them.”
“I do draw power from them. A different kind of power from each. It’s like . . . like a banquet. I wish you could know, could taste, this heady food, Ruadh.”
“Why? Then we’d be in competition. I’d be a fool to want that. Thank God, I’m not a fool. Nor am I ‘gifted.’ But tell me, what will become of these other women when you have Taminy?”
“I’ve given that a great deal of thought, actually, and I think I will take the Banarigh Lilias as my wife. It would seal the alliance between Caraid-land and El-Deasach, and perhaps—who knows—give birth to a new nation.”
“Provided you maintain control of the Throne.”
Feich smiled. “Do you doubt that I can?” He clapped a hand on Ruadh’s shoulder. “Look, cousin, I know you think I’m terribly foolhardy. But if you want something badly enough, you must be willing to take risks. I want the House Feich to be more to Caraid-land than a clan of court minstrels and petty diplomats.”
“There’s nothing petty about being made Durweard to the Cyne.”
“No, but in comparison with being made Cyne—no, no, not Cyne, Osric—it is nothing.”
Ruadh gaped. “Osric? That title would have to be bestowed by the Meri Herself. You’re not even a believer—never mind that you’re not a Malcuim.” He shook his head. “When you spoke of marriage to the Raven, I thought you shrewd and pragmatic, but Osric, for God’s sake . . . An unbelieving Osric of Caraid-land, married to a heathen Cwen and sporting a stable of gifted, wickish paramours? Why do I not believe the Meri will so bless you?”
“She may not, but her Regent on dry land will.”
“Taminy-Osmaer?”
Daimhin nodded. “Taminy-Osmaer.”
“And why will she do this?”
“Because if she refuses, everyone she holds dear will pay the ultimate price for her refusal.”
“You’re not afraid of her power—of its Source? You have no fear of God?”
“Less every day, cousin. Because every day I draw closer to my own Source—my ow
n god.”
“Your god? Does our sanctimonious cleirach know you’ve brought your own god with you? I thought you’d won his allegiance by pretending to worship his.”
“I won his allegiance by whipping him as Ladhar did, as he whips himself. The pathetic creature spends every day in prayer and every night in self-loathing. He knows nothing. Sees nothing but his hatred of Taminy.” He chuckled. “Ironic, isn’t it? He who seeks only to preserve the flame of his religion has unwittingly allied himself with one whose purpose is to snuff it out.”
Ruadh gave his elder cousin an awful glance. “I don’t know whether you’re powerful, shrewd and ruthless or simply mad.”
“I’m as sane as you are, Ruadh. Let that assurance set your mind at rest. I’ll do what’s best for the House. And what is best for the House is what is best for me.”
oOo
“This is taking too long,” Aine complained. “It will take us weeks to get there if we keep angling south.”
“Would you rather have to deal with the inclement weather in the foothills?” Saefren asked her.
“Rather that than deal with the Feich. If we head much farther south, we’ll have to cross Feich land.”
“My intent, lady, is to cross Claeg land, which can be done with complete safety.”
“But we’re over-riding the mouth of Baeg Cuillean pass. We’ll have to turn north again when we reach the foothills.”
“We’re not going to take the Baeg Cuillean, Aine. That would be ridiculous. We’re heading for the Vale of Orian.”
“Orian? That all but borders on the Feich estates! We’ll be riding right into—”
“Will you two please stop?”
Aine turned guilty eyes to Iseabal, who was regarding her with mixed exasperation and weariness.
“Yes,” agreed Leal, reining in his mount beside the Cirkemaster’s daughter. “Will you? Or must I invent a Gagweave?”
“I’m sorry, Isha. It’s just taking so long.”
“Hrofceaster will still be there.”
“Under siege, most likely, by the time we get there.”
“And so?” said Leal mildly. “We can’t fly, Aine. But we can pass unseen.”
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