Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven

by Jennifer Roberson

  He turned. In the dullness of late afternoon, ale-brown eyes were dark. His face was expressionless, but she knew how to peel back the mask and look at the man beneath.

  Steadily, he said, "He will make you Queen of Homana."

  Blythe lifted her head. "Will he, then? Even without my permission?"

  The flesh by his eyes twitched. "What woman would not want—"

  She did not let him finish. "The woman who would rather live in Solinde, in the high northern fastness of High Crags."

  He shut his eyes briefly. Fleeting pain ruined his brow; it smoothed almost instantly. "You are Cheysuli," he rasped. "I have heard of the prophecy."

  For a moment, all she could do was stare. Her heritage everyone knew—they had only to look at her father—but it had never been an issue. Not with Tevis. He had come down out of his mountains knowing nothing of her race, and had no reason to fear it.

  Nor to remind her of her duty.

  She controlled her emotions with effort. "I was born in Solinde. I am of Solinde. I would rather serve my home than a collection of foreign words."

  For a moment, he only stared. And then laughed aloud. "A 'collection of foreign words'!" Tevis laughed again. Blue

  and black glinted on his hands; the two rings were his only vanity. "Do you know what your father would do if he heard you blaspheme so?"

  She felt strangely calm. "I imagine he would be somewhat put out with me. I imagine he might even take it into his head to instruct me in Cheysuli history; certainly I would be told yet again about the tahlmorra in us all." Briefly, Blythe grimaced. "But it has nothing to do with me. I am much more than merely Cheysuli."

  Brown eyes were black in the shadows. "Much more," he agreed softly, reaching out to touch her face. The fingers barely brushed the curve of her chin. Another step, and he touched her mouth; a third, the sweep of temple meeting cheekbone with a caress that burned her flesh.

  Blythe leaned into it. Tension sang between them.

  Abruptly he let her go. "I know what I am. Do you?"

  She did not soften it. "The nephew of a traitor."

  The curves of his face hardened. "They will say it is my revenge."

  Blythe smiled. "Perhaps it is."

  "You are the eldest," he said, "and there is no male heir."

  "Within a week, that could change—"

  "And if it does not," he persisted. "If the child is another girl, and the queen bears no more—"

  "There will be no more."

  It stopped him instantly.

  "No more," she repeated. "It has been decided. This is the last, boy or girl… if it is a boy, Solinde has an heir."

  "And, if not—?"

  A bubble of laughter broke. "You said it yourself, did you not? I am the eldest. From me will come the next."

  Bitterness pinched his tone. "They will say I planned it."

  "Does it matter?" she asked. "I must marry someone."

  "Then why not Aidan?"

  "Because, you ku'reshtin, he is not the one I fancy."

  Tevis did not smile. "They could force you."

  She shook her head.

  "If Aidan demanded it—"

  "He is too proud to do it."

  "Pride has little to do with marriage when a prince desires a wife."

  She smiled. "You know nothing about his life. The last thing Aidan would want is a wife who loves another. Believe me, I know."

  His hands closed over her shoulders. "If I lost you now—if they took you from me—"

  "No." She shook her head.

  "But they could. Blythe, have you no wits? You are too valuable to waste on a crude mountain lordling when there is a prince in the offing!"

  Blythe unclasped her girdle. Silver dripped from her hand, then spilled onto the floor. "Then I will rid myself of value. No prince can afford to marry a woman whose virtue no longer exists."

  He caught her hands and held them so tightly she gasped in pain. "Not like this!" he hissed.

  "I want it. You want it; you would not dare deny it!"

  "No," he rasped. "No. You know better than that."

  Blythe pulled her hands free and cupped his jaw in her palms. "Then forget everything else. Set everything else aside. Let this merely be us, because we want it so much."

  "They can execute me for this!"

  One wild laugh escaped her. "In this, I will be Cheysuli. I will invoke my heritage."

  "Blythe—"

  "Clan-rights!" she hissed. "I give them freely to you. Now let them argue with that!"

  Aidan shed himself and flew. Each time he exulted, as he exulted now, in the magic that gave him another form and the chance to ride the sky. He could not comprehend what it was like to be earthbound, tied to the ground with so much freedom all around, and no chance to know it. Even the other warriors, gods-gifted all, were trapped by earth-bound lir.

  He had asked his father, once, what it was to be a mountain cat, trying to understand that a lir was a lir and none of them better than another. But he had failed. Brennan's explanation had been salient enough—only another Cheysuli could fully comprehend the all-encompassing joy of lir-shape—but somehow lacking. No man, Aidan believed, could truly experience freedom without the ability to fly.

  What was it like for Hart? Once lord of the air, even as Rael: now trapped forever by the loss of the hand that destroyed his raptor's balance. In human form, merely hindrance; in lir-shape, absolute prevention. Too much of him was missing.

  Was it one reason, Aidan wondered, he loved Ilsa so? Did he compensate the loss by turning to wife and children?

  The denial was emphatic, much as he longed for its absence. Deep in his soul he knew nothing could compensate a warrior for losing the gift of lir-shape. Rael lived, and therefore Hart was in no danger of going mad, but the inability to fly must come close to causing madness. He was whole, and yet not. Aidan could not begin to imagine what such torture would be like.

  Be grateful, Teel said. Do not take for granted what the gods give you.

  The raven, he knew, could be referring to Hart's loss and Aidan's wholeness. But he might also be referring to the task set for him, mentioned by the Weaver. A task he could yet refuse.

  He had not, since arrival, been troubled by dreams of the chain. He wondered if it had anything to do with holding two of the links. They were real now, tangible evidence of gods; their presence could mean he did have a task, or that he was going mad. Even with a lir.

  Air caressed his wings. He adjusted them slightly, dropping down through sky to enter another layer of the air that carried him. Tiny muscles twitched and flexed, altering his flight. Beside him, Teel followed.

  If I could share this with Blythe—

  He cut it off instantly.

  Tevis cannot give her this.

  He twitched in irritation. Neither could he.

  Why would you want a cheysula who wants another man?

  Why did his father?

  It hurt. It hurt so sharply he stopped breathing. Lir-shape, abruptly, was threatened; with effort, he found his balance.

  Down, he told Teel.

  Aidan stumbled on landing because he took back human form more quickly than usual. Booted feet struck earth and he fell, digging an elbow into turf. For a moment he held his position, awkward though it was, then rolled over onto his back. The day was temperate and bright, the turf immensely comfortable. He was sleepy and disinclined to get up quite yet. So he linked hands across his abdomen and stayed where he was, casually crossing ankles.

  "I am a fool," he said aloud. "I set out to look for a wife, and decide I want the first woman I see. I think nothing of asking, because I have never needed to ask: I am, everyone tells me, destined to be the Mujhar of Homana."

  Teel perched on Aidan's boot toe, saying nothing.

  "She is beautiful rather than plain, which only sweetens the cookpot. I look at her and see a woman I would like to take to bed, which makes her more attractive. And then, in addition, she is a woman I could li
ke… a woman I do like…" Aidan sighed deeply. "It is too much to hope for a cheysula I could like and love, and a woman who pleasures my bed. Princes and kings only rarely find such things . . Hart did, with Ilsa, and I assume Keely as well, from what they say of her… but what room is there for me? Blythe loves Tevis."

  "Blythe loves Tevis." He realized, as he said the words, the pain was already less. It had been foolish of him to care so much, even though that care had been more for finding a woman whose potential suited him. Blythe would have been perfect, but Blythe was no longer free. And that, he realized unhappily, had made him want her so much. Had she been free of Tevis, it might not have been the same.

  He had wanted the unattainable, which had made him want her the more.

  Some men, he knew, would hunt her nonetheless, counting the game much sweeter for her unwillingness to be caught, and the fillip of competition. But that was not Aidan's way.

  To Teel, he grinned sardonic amusement. "I want it simple," he said. "Of all the royal fledglings hatched in fifty years, I may be the most suited to an arranged marriage. And yet I am left free to choose." He laughed aloud. "How many of my kin would have traded places with me?"

  But the amusement faded quickly. He knew at least one: his mother. Left to her own devices, she would have married Corin. And he, born to them, would have been heir to Atvia instead of heir to the Lion.

  But I would not have been me. I would have been different—and therefore my tahlmorra, and the prophecy as well.

  It sobered him. Unsettled, Aidan sat up even as Teel lifted from his boot toe. He had managed, in contemplation, to remind himself of things too great for him to ignore.

  Of Hunters in the woodlands and Weavers at the loom. And gold links on his belt, growing heavier by the day.

  Aidan pressed himself up from the ground. Time he went back to Lestra.

  He blurred into lir-shape. Time the baby was born, so I can go on to Erinn.

  Chapter Six

  « ^ »

  Aidan knew it the moment he saw them. Kivarna or no, he knew. They gave it away in the tiny intimacies of bedmates: a brief, burning glance exchanged, a lingering touch, the small alterations in movement. In Tevis he saw a muted victory, the pride and satisfaction of a man who has won the woman he wanted; in Blythe, the languid, sensual movements of a woman now truly a woman, and the soft new warmth in her eyes.

  He sat down at the common table, troubled, and looked at once to Hart. This was no time to speak of it—all kin, save for Ilsa and Dulcie, were present at the meal—but then he was not entirely convinced it was his place to speak of it at all. Nothing official had been said regarding his potential suit, and therefore Blythe's virginity did not really concern him as a successor to the Lion. But as a kinsman, it did.

  With a flicker of disgust, he reached for cider. Even as a kinsman it was not his concern; Blythe was a free woman unbound by betrothals and arrangements, as well as a Cheysuli. It was her parents' place to determine the rightness or wrongness of her actions, and even then she remained Cheysuli. Hart would be denying one of the foremost tenets of the clans—that of free choice in bedpartners—if he protested. And Ilsa had made it plain Tevis met the requirements for marriage into royalty. They had done nothing wrong, only precipitated the ceremony.

  Cluna and Jennet sat down on either side of Aidan. Warily, he kept an eye on both; they giggled, paid him elaborate courtesies, attempted to play the part—albeit shared—of chatelaine in lieu in Ilsa, whose place it properly was. In Ilsa's absence the role fell to Blythe, but her attention to duties was sorely preempted by Tevis.

  Hart seemed oblivious to it all, and there was reason, "Ilsa believes the child could be born tonight or tomorrow—she should know, after six children—so I have set in motion the preparations for a proper celebration. The gods willing, we will be swearing homage to a new prince of Solinde before the week is out."

  Aidan raised his cup. "Gods willing, su'fali."

  Tevis and Blythe, most conspicuously, did not look at one another.

  Aidan cleared his throat. "Where is Dulcie?"

  It was Jennet who answered for her father. "Oh, she cannot come to meals yet. She makes too much of a mess."

  "So do you," Hart said mildly. "You have just spilled jam on your tunic."

  Jennet, undismayed, scooped it off with a finger. "When are we going hawking?" she asked. "I heard you speaking about it last night."

  Hart sipped cider. "I thought after the meal. I have already ordered the horses and hawks prepared." He glanced at his eldest. "I do not mean to rob you of the day, but perhaps it is best if you stayed with your jehana. She may have need of you."

  Blythe opened her mouth as if to protest, but closed it almost immediately. Aidan saw the glance at Tevis, the dusky color in her face. Had she thought to spend the day in bed with the man?

  "Not fair," Cluna put in. "Rael always sees the game first, and always makes the first kill."

  Hart smiled, eyes bright. "Then I will tell Rael not to stoop, and let the rest of you compete."

  Tevis, who sat directly across from Aidan, smiled. It was a strangely triumphant smile, full of subtle nuances and knowledge, but Aidan understood it. As Tevis met his eyes, he understood it all too well. The competition for Blythe, though unacknowledged, was over. Whose hawk killed first was of no importance to Tevis, who had already won the hunt.

  In silence, Aidan lifted his tankard and slightly inclined his head. Something flickered briefly in Tevis' eyes—surprise? disbelief?—and then he smiled, lifted his own tankard and acknowledged the salute. Beneath the table, Aidan knew, fingers touched, then linked.

  In Cheysuli leathers, leggings and linen tunics, Cluna and Jennet were towheaded warriors riding out of the Keep; in this case, the Keep was Lestra. Outdoors, well free of the confines of the castle—and the preferences of their mother—they could lose themselves in the freedom of the Cheysuli half of their blood. Both girls reveled in it, shouting aloud their excitement. Both rode spirited horses, managing them with ease.

  Hart, looking after them with Dulcie perched in the saddle before him, smiled as they rode by Tevis to fall into the lead.

  "They chafe at walls," Aidan remarked, "though they may not know it yet."

  Hart nodded. "The Cheysuli in them. Ilsa often forgets—no one thinks of my shapechanger blood with blue eyes and Ilsa's hair—but I never do. They are as Cheysuli as I ever was; they only lack the color."

  Tevis rode abreast. "Will they have any lir of their own?"

  Hart shook his head. "Unlikely. It is mostly a gift given to warriors, though occasionally a woman can speak with the lir, or shift shape. My rujholla, Keely, can, but it has yet to show itself in my line."

  Tevis' eyes were on Dulcie. "What of the smallest one? She, of all your children, most resembles a true Cheysuli."

  Hart laughed. "Aye, she does—even more than Aidan or me. As for the lir-gifts, who can say? She is too young yet to show them, even if they are hers."

  "Would it matter?" Aidan asked Tevis. "What if Blythe were blessed?"

  Tevis did not hesitate. "I do not care what she can do, or what her blood is made of. I do not care who she is, only that she be mine." He paused. "Should the Prince of Solinde be willing."

  Well, Aidan reflected, now it is out in the open.

  Hart's left arm was wound around Dulcie, holding her against his chest. Right-handed, he guided his mount. Not Bane's black son, but a quieter, more mannered bay mare. Faintly, he smiled. "It is for Blythe to say."

  "But—my lord—"

  "For Blythe," Hart repeated. "If you were not worthy of her, you would not be sharing her roof."

  Or her bed? But Aidan shook that off; Hart could not know. And now it is official. If Tevis has been waiting for some sure sign of parental approval, he need not doubt anymore.

  Shrieking, Cluna and Jennet went tearing across the meadow. Aidan nearly winced. "They will scare the game that way."

  "Did you come expecting to catch some
?" Hart asked in surprise. "No… we will see little enough with those two riding free. But it is an excuse to get away. No one begrudges it."

  Aidan nearly laughed. "Then the walls chafe you."

  "Aye," Hart agreed fervently. "I have never become accustomed… a holdover, I think, from the days we lived in Keeps. Walls bind our souls…" He looked at Tevis, riding quietly beside Aidan. "Do the mountains ever chafe you? High Crags is so isolated… do you ever wish for something else?"

  Something indefinable flared in brown eyes. Then Tevis looked at the hooded hawk riding quietly on his saddlebow. "Always," he said quietly.

  For one moment Aidan's kivarna came to life. And then died away to ash, telling him nothing of the man. Tevis was closed to him.

  Why not? he wondered sourly. He has what he wants. What else is there to read?

  "There," Hart said urgently. "Rael has seen something."

  The hawk spiraled lazily, then drifted downward. Aidan was about to remind Hart that the hawk was not to hunt first, but a piercing scream broke the air as Rael abruptly stooped.

  "Cluna!" Hart cried. He caught Dulcie against his chest in one firm arm and set his heels to the mare.

  Teel took to the air as Aidan went after Hart. Tevis brought up the rear, though the hawk he carried on his saddlebow screeched and rang jess-bells in protest. They could hear Jennet shouting.

  Cluna was huddled against the ground, crying. Close by, Rael drove again and again at the speckled snake, dodging the reptile's deadly strikes. The hawk was too large to be maneuverable, but his attempts distracted the snake from Cluna.

  Hart tried to dismount, cursing, but Dulcie's clutching arms tangled his efforts. Jennet, silent now and white-faced, stood nearby with the horses, too frightened to go closer.

  Cluna wailed something in Solindish Aidan did not understand. But he could tell by the way she held her left arm cradled against her chest the snake had bitten her. If they did not kill it and reach her quickly, it could be too late to save her.