Green eyes assessed Aidan. "I am Tye, singer by trade. Ashra dances. And the old man, Siglyn, is a magician." He gestured toward the canopy. "Travel is harsh on old bones; he will be well enough, but he requires rest." Briefly he eyed Aidan's saddle-packs, the travel-stained brown cloak drawn over both shoulders. "Where are you bound?"
"Westward to Andemir."
Ashra laughed. Her voice was low and, to Aidan, attractive. "Andemir for us, also. Perhaps we shall be road-partners."
"Ashra," Tye said quietly, with a quick warning gesture from one hand.
She laughed again, tossing back ringlets and shrugged a supple shoulder. "Your turn to drive, Tye. I will question this stranger, since you are so mistrustful."
"With reason," Tye said grimly, as she handed over the reins. "Which you know as well as I."
Obligingly, Aidan gave them his name, though omitting his rank. He had learned if a man truly wanted to know what others thought, he would do well to keep quiet about heritage and titles. People spoke more freely if they believed themselves of a kind.
He meant to ask them more about themselves, but Teel interrupted by alighting on Aidan's left shoulder. Ashra cried out in delight. "A tame raven!"
Aidan grinned. "Only sometimes."
"And other times?" she challenged.
Tye flicked her a warning glance, which she did not see. Aidan frowned. "For a troupe of players making a living off the road, you seem uncommonly wary."
Tye's austere expression—far too restrictive for the fluid lines of his face—relaxed, but only slightly. "With good reason, stranger—we were accosted three days back by a band of brigands who took what little coin we had. The old man was injured—struck on the head—and I have since learned to be suspicious of everyone." He looked at the raven. "But none of them had a bird, or the likelihood of wanting one, so I doubt you are one of them. Forgive my bad manners."
A line knitted Ashra's black brows. They were heavy and oddly straight, but Aidan found the look exotically attractive. "If the raven is tame only some of the time, as you say, what of the other times?"
"The other times he is most annoying," Aidan answered truthfully. "But to be fair, he is not tame… Teel is a lir."
Black eyes widened. "Lir are blessed of the gods…" She looked more sharply at Aidan. "But you are not Cheysuli. What are you doing with one?"
He felt a brief flicker of surprise that she should know anything about who did and did not consort with the lir, but answered her question easily enough by throwing the cloak back from his shoulders to display the gold weighting bare arms. A hooking of hair behind left ear brought the raven-shaped ornament into daylight.
Even Tye frowned. "A red-haired Cheysuli?"
Aidan smiled. "My mother is Erinnish. This is her legacy… left to my own devices, I might have preferred black." He affected a negligent shrug. "But I do have my father's eyes."
For confirmation, Tye looked. And nodded, patently unimpressed. "Yellow as a beast's—" He grinned. "Aye, aye… no insult intended. I only tease, shapechanger."
Ashra raised level brows. "He would make a most handsome beast."
Tye grunted. "You are a woman. Women are often overly imaginative."
She stroked back a ringlet, retucking it under the chaplet. "Solinde is ruled by a Cheysuli."
"The usurper," Tye agreed, then laughed as Aidan stiffened. "Have you no sense of humor? I tease, shapechanger… does the animal in your blood keep you from enjoying the quips and jests of others?"
"When they are at my expense." Aidan smiled blandly. "Too often such words are meant, Solindish… do you mean yours?"
Tye sighed. "If I meant them, I would not now allow you to ride with us to Andemir." He paused. "If you desire to ride with us."
"He might if you sang," Ashra suggested.
Tye flicked her a quelling glance. Aidan began to wonder if they were brother and sister, or husband and wife. He hoped it was the former.
"When do we stop?" called a querulous voice from within the canopy. "Or will you rattle my bones into dust?"
Teel departed Aidan's shoulder, slapping his face with one wing. Aidan, muttering, rubbed at a stinging eye as Ashra laughed.
Tye nodded. "We stop, old man. Soon." He shot a quick glance at Aidan. "Will you share our food?"
He blinked the sting away and nodded. "My thanks. I have wine."
Ashsra's boldly charming smile flashed out again. "So have we."
Camp was established off the road in a cluster of sheltering trees. The sun, sliding down the line of horizon, painted slats of light and shadow across the canvas canopy. Aidan thought it much like the pavilions at Clankeep, bright blue painted with equally vivid figures: a dancer dressed in red and green and gold; a singer with wooden lute; a magician conjuring smoke and fire from the air. The wagon itself was of dark wood, but its wheels were painted red, lined with yellow on inner rims and spokes. Altogether it provided a most tempting—and visible—target to brigands.
Tye tended the horses as Ashra assisted the old magician from the wagon and escorted him to the patchwork cushion by the fire Aidan had laid. He was a very old man dressed in gray wool robe over time-faded indigo linen draperies. A plain leather belt with tarnished silver buckle snugged a narrow waist. The robe hung loosely, swirling a half-torn hem about swollen ankles. His feet were shod in crushed leather slippers. He scuffed through turf and fallen leaves as if movement were very painful.
Aidan went to him at once, offering a second arm. A pair of rheumy blue eyes fixed themselves on his face, weighing him against some inner measurement. But they were proud eyes, and freely disdained Aidan's arm. The thin mouth tightened as his grip on Ashra increased.
Aidan relinquished his offer at once, stepping away with a slight inclination of his head. Ashra helped the old man sit down on the cushion, then pulled his robe closed.
"Siglyn," she said softly, "his name is Aidan. He is bound for Andemir, as we are."
"What is that on his arms?" the old man asked harshly. "He carries enough wealth to bribe all the brigands in the world away from us."
"Hush," she chided gently. "He is Cheysuli, from Homana. That is the lir-gold a warrior receives when he becomes a man." Black eyes flicked in Aidan's direction, silently apologizing. "He is not a brigand come to rob us, or a man offering unwanted charity. Look at him again; you will see what he is, merely by looking into his eyes."
"Faugh!" The old man glowered as she bent to make certain he was comfortable on his cushion. His hair was white, very thin, very long. A matching beard straggled down the front of his robe. But his eyes, for all their agedness, were sharp as he glared at Aidan. "Come, boy," he ordered brusquely.
Aidan bit his tongue. Never in his life had he been treated so rudely or disrespectfully. Nevertheless he did as ordered and moved closer. He stood quietly, unwilling quite yet to bow, though undoubtedly it was what the old man wanted.
Siglyn eyed him. "Shapechanger, are you?" The flesh of his face creased. "Aye, perhaps you are, for all the fire on your head… you have the look in your eyes."
Aidan blinked. "The—look?"
"The wildness, boy! The feyness. Arrogant as an eagle, in its aerie above the world… and a wolf at bay betimes, mistrusting the selfsame world." Siglyn bared yellowed teeth. His fingernails were clean, but cracked; idly, he chewed them. "I've lived a long time, boy. I've seen many things. Not so long ago your race and mine were at war."
Aidan smiled; the old so often shortened time. "Long enough."
Siglyn frowned and removed fingers from mouth. "I fought in the wars with Carillon… you lack the accent, boy."
Ruddy brows rose. "Which one?"
"The one I heard, when we took prisoners." Nastily, the old man grinned. "You speak it differently."
Aidan shrugged. "I am from Mujhara. There are dialects—"
"Hah! Mujhara is the king's city." Siglyn sighed thoughtfully. "Never been there… never been out of Solinde. Been to Lestra, though, and she's a king's
city." Blue eyes sharpened once more. "Why are you come to Solinde?"
Inwardly, Aidan sighed. But he had been taught to treat the elderly with great respect, regardless of the treatment received in return. "I am on my way to Erinn. To Kilore. I will take ship from Andemir."
Siglyn gifted him with a malignant stare. "You could have done that from Hondarth. Why are you come to Solinde?"
Aidan cleared his throat, maintaining a neutral tone. "I have kin in Lestra."
Tye came back from hobbling and graining horses. He pushed an arm through thick black hair and dropped down to tend the fire Aidan had been called away from. "Lestra," he said lightly, as if tasting the word. "Shapechanger kin in Lestra." He fed in a length of wood, then slanted a glance at Ashra and the old man. "Not many can claim that."
"A few." Aidan, glad to turn from Siglyn, knelt also and added wood.
The old man had not given up. He raised his voice preemptorily. "How is the Mujhar?"
Aidan laughed and dropped another faggot on the flames. "The last time I saw him, he was quite well. But you will not trap me like that, old man… I am not in hiding. You have only to ask, instead of wasting your time—and mine—hinting."
The magician laughed unpleasantly. "I like hinting," he said. "Not much left for an old man's nights."
Ashra knelt down next to Aidan and put a hand on his arm. "Who are you?" she asked. "Siglyn is not usually so bad… are you someone he knows?"
Aidan laughed once. "Only someone he thinks he knows, because he is a busybody." He looked at Ashra. In firelight, her bold features were softened. "I am grandson to the Mujhar."
Her mouth slackened slightly. Then she threw back ringlets with a toss of her head. The hand was gone from his arm.
Tye grunted. "I thought you looked too soft for a man of honest blood… and yet you ride with no servants."
Aidan sighed in resignation. "We do not all move about the countryside with great trains of servants in our wakes." Although his mother would have liked it. "It is not a Cheysuli custom to be dependent on others."
Tye laughed, one winged black brow rising. "Is that so? Well, I am surprised. I had thought all of royal birth had blood so thin they required propping up by the labor of others considerably less blessed."
Aidan grunted. "There speaks ignorance. Had you met your own lord, you would never say that."
Tye's tone was dry. "People such as we only rarely meet his like."
Aidan's tolerance was gone. He rose, wrapping the cloak around his arms. "I offered you wine; you may have it. But perhaps you would be more content without my company."
Ashra was at his side instantly. "Oh, no!" she cried. "Forgive him, my lord… Tye is often overhasty when he speaks, but never when he sings. Only wait, and you will hear." She cast a glance at the magician. "As for Siglyn, he is old. He forgets what he says. Bide with us the night."
The old man, thus invoked, stirred testily. "Don't speak for me when I have a tongue yet in my head! I say what I wish, and to whom I wish, no matter what they like."
Ashra grimaced, then smiled tentatively at Aidan. "Will you stay? You would be safer with a group… and we would no doubt be considerably safer with a Cheysuli."
Tye grinned. "Prove to us I am wrong. Show us you are worthy of our respect."
Aidan opened his mouth to refuse, but Teel was in the link. Why not? he asked. It might prove less tedious than a night without argument.
I have you for that.
One bright eye glinted. A lir is many things, but a lir is not a woman.
Aidan very nearly laughed aloud, but good manners kept him from it. It was discourteous to stay in the link any longer than was necessary, with the unblessed around.
He looked at Ashra. He thought about Teel's comment. And smiled. "I will stay."
When Aidan discovered the Solindish entertainers had little enough to eat, he offered to share his own rations in addition to his wine. The offer was accepted only after a brief discussion—in Solindish—that Aidan barely followed because of the dialect: Tye was uncertain they should place themselves so heavily in a stranger's debt, while Siglyn muttered about brigands who starved an old man by stealing food from his mouth; Ashra, who was hungry, said both of them were fools and she would eat shapechanger food even if they would not.
Scowling, Tye gave her leave to accept the offer. Ashra thanked Aidan prettily, black eyes flashing beneath lowered lashes as she dipped a graceful, if unstudied, curtsy, but it was Siglyn who ate more and faster than any of them. Aidan wondered idly where it showed itself on the old man, for he was thin and stringy almost to the point of emaciation.
When the food was gone, the wineskins were passed more frequently. Siglyn had his own and was disinclined to share, saying the vintage was a personal favorite, but Tye was companionable enough as he handed his skin to Aidan. Ashra drank sparingly, but high color came into her face as she stared transfixed at the fire.
Tye settled himself more comfortably against a rolled blanket thrust beneath his neck. "What is it like?" he asked, when he was done swallowing wine. "What is it like to take on the shape of an animal?"
Having done his share of damage to a wineskin, Aidan was not irritated by Tye's disrespect. He lay propped against his saddle and smiled. "You are asking the wrong man. There are others better suited to explaining the lir-shape, which is very personal—and others better suited to understanding."
For a long moment only the crackle of flames broke the heavy silence as Tye considered the irony. Then he smiled, lifted a wineskin in wry tribute, nodded his head at Teel, perched atop the wagon canopy. "Try to explain. I will try to understand."
Aidan shrugged, vaguely discomfited. He did not quite know where to start.
Tye frowned. "Do you not change? Do you not become him?"
Answering was easier. "No, not him. I become another."
"But a raven."
"Aye, a raven. That is how you know the shape we become: by the lir who accompanies us." He shrugged. "No matter what the stories say, we are not free to become anything—or anyone—we desire. We are not monsters, or creatures of darkness. The gods made us, Tye… and they made the lir."
Ashra's tone was detached as she stared transfixed into the flames. "Why did you choose a raven?"
"The choosing was not mine. It is never the warrior's choosing… there is more to it than that." Aidan squirmed into a more comfortable position, hugging wineskin between elbow and ribs. "When I was fourteen I fell sick—the lir-sickness, we call it—and knew only a great and terrible need. There is no cure for the sickness, no relief for the need, except to go out into the forest and find a lir. And so I did."
Tye's doubt was manifest. "Alone?"
Brief irritation flickered. "Of course alone… it is not a thing for another to share."
"They let a fourteen-year-old-boy—one who would one day be king—go out alone into the forest?"
" 'They,' as you call them, are also Cheysuli. No one would stand in my way, least of all Cheysuli kin."
Tye frowned thoughtfully. "And so you found him."
Aidan shrugged. "Teel and I found each other. For the lir it is much the same: they know a need, and they fill it. A Cheysuli with no lir—and a lir with no warrior—is incomplete. Once linked, we are whole."
"With the ability to shift your shape."
Aidan nodded. "But only into whatever shape the lir represents. If I had two lir, as did my great-grandsire, Donal, I would then be able to assume two different forms. But I have only Teel… the gods are sparing with gifts."
Tye's laughter mocked. "The gods, when they do anything at all, are sparing with everything. Especially good fortune. Only the bad flows generously."
Aidan grunted mild disapproval. "They will hear you."
Tye made a derisive sound of dismissal. "The gods hear nothing. Why should they? Do you think they care? Do you think they pay the slightest attention to any of us?"
Ashra stirred. "Hush," she said quietly. "You offer offen
se to our guest."
The singer put out a hand to touch Ashra's arm. She sat close by his side, and Aidan had decided, with regret, they were not brother and sister. "You have already told him I am overhasty when I speak," Tye reminded her. "Why should I hide it now?"
She slanted him a glance from the corners of her eyes. "Offense should never be given a guest. Think what you like in private… there is no need to speak it."
Aidan waved a hand. "No need to bother yourself, Ashra—I think Tye and I will never be reconciled about much of anything."
Siglyn spoke for the first time since the meal. "Do you think only you are right, then, in what you believe? Because of your birth?"
Aidan sighed heavily. "My birth means nothing at all. Why do you dwell on it? In the clans only the blood matters, and its continuation, not in what flesh it flows. Do you see? I am Cheysuli first: child of the gods. I am then a warrior, and I honor my tahlmorra. I am a prince last of all."
"That," Tye declared, "is not possible."
Aidan, sliding into an Erinnish cadence, fixed him with a baleful eye. "I'd be venturing, my pretty lad, 'twould be far easier for me to shed my royalty than for the likes of you to gain it."
Ashra laughed, not in the least taken aback by Aidan's verbal attack on Tye. "Well said!"
"Indeed," Siglyn agreed morosely.
Tye, unaffronted, merely grunted. "Most probably. But I have no wish to be a prince."
Aidan nearly laughed; his kivarna bespoke the lie. "No man never wishes he were a prince, Solindishman. Had you the chance—"
"—he would accept it instantly," Ashra finished. "And you would, Tye."
Tye grunted again. "But it is bootless. There will be no chance for me to find out. I am only a singer, and a poor one."
Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven Page 21