"She is well," he offered quietly, looking for reaction. "She sends her greetings."
"So does Brennan, no doubt." Laughter glinted in Corin's eyes. "I know what you do, harani. Doubtless all the servants fed you the tales… well, I imagine the follies of our youth do make good telling." He shrugged, smiling warmly down at the woman at his side. "But old wounds heal, Aidan. I loved her once, very much; now it is a pleasant, if bittersweet, memory." One hand guided the slender woman forward. "Pay your respects, harani. This woman is Atvia's queen." Corin's brows arched slightly. "In the Old Tongue, my cheysula. Her name is Glyn."
Aidan opened his mouth, then shut it. He wanted to protest that of course the woman was not Corin's wife, because no message had ever arrived announcing the wedding. But who was he to argue? And why? It was well within Corin's power to marry whomever he chose, publicly or privately—and yet Aidan was left feeling oddly flat. After so many years and so many stories, he had come to believe Corin would never marry, because Aileen had married Brennan. It was almost as if Corin had betrayed his mother.
He swallowed heavily and stepped forward, accepting the woman's fragile hand and bestowing the kiss of homage. Her warm smile and eloquent eyes soothed him immediately, dissolving the remaining resentment, until he smiled back at her.
"Had I known, I would have brought a bride-gift." Delicately, he offered Corin reproach, and a chance to explain himself.
Corin, unruffled and unrepentent, shrugged. "It was a private thing. I did not wish to share Glyn with anyone." His tone was very quiet as the woman returned to his side. "Few would have understood the Lord of Atvia taking a woman who could not speak."
Perhaps not at first. But Aidan felt Glyn's muteness beside the point. One had only to look at her expression, as she gazed at Corin, to know what her world was made of.
Corin's beard hid much of his crooked smile. "When a man stops railing at his tahlmorra, often the gods repay him with more than he deserves. After too many years of solitude, they sent Glyn to me. I have learned to leave the past behind, living instead in the present." A gesture dismissed the subject. "Now, I am assuming Keely refused to come."
Aidan nodded. "She said you would understand."
Corin grimaced. "I do. I wish she did…" The dismissive gesture was repeated. "Do you know, I think if Gisella had tried to give her daughter to Strahan as well as her three sons, Keely would be less bitter. But Gisella did not. Keely was dismissed as entirely unimportant, because she was a girl." He smiled faintly. "That is the definition of Keely, harani: she would rather be caught in the midst of some Ihlini vileness than be left out of it merely because of her sex."
"And Shona is very like her," Aidan sighed ruefully, then set the topic aside. "You sent word Gisella wishes to see her kinfolk. Will I do?"
Corin's expression was odd. His tone odder still. "That is the wrong question. It is not simply will you do, but whether you will survive with your dignity intact." He gestured toward the door. "Come with me."
The room lay deep in shadow, for the casement slits were shuttered and only a handful of candles illuminated the bedchamber. The commingled scent of beeswax and death filled his nose as he entered. The door thumped shut behind him as the serving-woman went out, leaving him alone inside the chamber. Corin had said Gisella was not strong enough for more than one visitor at a time. Aidan, lingering uneasily by the door, was not certain he was strong enough to visit.
He had never been so close to death before. He had learned to fight, as he was expected of a man who would be Mujhar, but he had never been to battle. His kin were vigorous and strong; he had never watched the aged wither away until their spirits left them.
He had not anticipated the smell. He had not expected the emotions. He faced the dying woman with a horrified fear of what he would see and feel, because he thought his kivarna might be the undoing of him.
When his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he saw the faint outline of her body beneath the silken coverlet of the canopied bed. The fabric was a deep, heavy indigo, nearly inseparable from the dimness. Only after a moment of concentration could Aidan see the differentiation between coverlet and shadows. Gisella seemed to wear it like a shroud.
She was propped up by bolsters and pillows. At first he could only barely see her face, blending with the dimness, then he saw the shine of eyes. Pale, feral eyes, like his own, fixed on him—on the intruder—with a fierce intensity.
Gods—I see now why the unblessed fear us so much when they see us for the first time—Aidan swallowed painfully and wet dry lips.
Her hair was mostly gray, dark, mottled gray, but her face was outlined by silver-white. She wore it loose over thin shoulders; twin ropes of cord against indigo silk. Her skin, once Cheysuli-dark, had yellowed with age and illness, her face was all of hollows. Aidan, unsettled, wondered what illness would take her to the grave. Mere age only rarely ravaged a Cheysuli so virulently. Generally his race died gracefully.
Aidan stopped at the foot of the bed. She is mad, he reminded himself. A sick, dying, mad old woman—
The pale eyes did not so much as flicker. "Which one are you?"
The flat tone was colorless. Aidan did what he could to put life into his own. "Aidan," he told her. "Aidan of Homana; Brennan's son.'"
Gisella smiled. Her teeth were displayed in a feral clenching. "Yet another son I have not seen."
He was careful. "You have Corin."
Her voice rasped. "Who?"
"Corin." Aidan drew in a breath. "Your third-born son. Corin, now Lord of Atvia—"
"My father is Lord of Atvia. Is Corin my father?"
Oh, gods—"Corin is your son."
Querulous, now. "Who are you?"
"Aidan." He began it yet again. "Aidan of Homana—"
"Brennan's son; I know." Teeth showed briefly. "They tell me things, all of them… and then tell me again and again and again—do they think I am a fool?"
"No." Aidan briefly sought a chair out of the corner of his eyes, then dismissed the impulse immediately. He did not wish to remain with Gisella that long. He wanted to leave as soon as he decently could.
"And will you be Mujhar?"
It snapped his attention back. "Aye. One day."
Pale eyes glittered. "But Niall still lives. Still rules. Niall still rules…" Gisella put thin fingers to her mouth and stroked withered lips, as if recalling all too graphically once she had shared a man's bed. "Niall," she said softly.
"My grandsire." Aidan surreptitiously glanced back toward the door. "Perhaps I should come back another time—"
"Come here. Come here. Come closer. Come here."
Against his will, he responded.
Gisella stared up at him. He stood there, letting her look, and fought down the impulse to run. His kivarna was afire with the confused welter of her emotions, so tangled and black and incomprehensible. She was mad, all too obviously mad, but there was more to her than that. Underneath the layers of confusion was the girl she might have been, once, had Lillith not twisted her. A childlike, innocent girl, trapped in a woman's body, but nonetheless innocent. She was not and never had been fit to be queen. But neither had she deserved the meticulous, deliberate reshaping of her spirit. Lillith had destroyed the innocence. Lillith had destroyed Gisella in a quest to destroy Homana.
Gisella pointed to him. "You."
He waited.
"Cheysuli," she said. "They told me. Lillith. My father. They told me—" She smiled. "Cheysuli, Atvian. Erinnish, Solindish, Homanan. All necessary to complete the prophecy."
She was, uncannily, lucid. Aidan stared at her.
"They bind the Houses and mingle the blood—my blood, your blood, their blood… to make the proper child. The child. The boy who will become king over all the lands; a man combining the blood of two magical races and—and—" She tilted her head, frowning faintly. "Peace."
Aidan nodded. "The prophecy, granddame. Two magical races and four warring realms, united in peace."
"Tah
lmorra," she murmured.
Again Aidan nodded. "We each of us have one."
Her eyes sharpened. "Do you?"
"Of course."
Slowly, she shook her head. "No. No. No."
"Granddame—"
Gisella glared at him. "Lillith told me about it… a tahlmorra is nothing more than a binding made up long ago by men calling themselves the Firstborn so they could make people think them greater than everyone else."
"Granddame, Lillith lied—"
"Give them a prophecy, she said. Give them a fate and call it tahlmorra, something to bind them so strongly they will never break away… something to turn them into nothing more than servants, but leave them their pride so they will believe themselves better, better… better than everyone else so they will keep themselves bound—"
"No granddame—"
"Lillith told me," she said plainly. "She told me the truth of it: the Cheysuli have been made what they are by the connivance of the Firstborn, who saw the power of the Ihlini and feared it. So they fashioned themselves an army—Lillith said—but called it a race, to use the Cheysuli as their weapons. They turned warrior against sorcerer; child against child—"
Aidan overrode her. "Granddame, she lied." He waited until she stared at him, outraged. More quietly, he went on. "You are ill and angry and confused… granddame, Lillith did naught but lie to you, all these years ago—"
"You are lying to me now."
"No." Aidan sighed. "Granddame, I have a task, and a tahlmorra. Repeating lies Lillith told you will not turn me away from what I have to do."
"The throne will never be yours."
It stopped him in his tracks.
Gisella smiled, tilting her head to one side. "Never."
"Granddame—"
"It denies you." She saw his shock, his recoil. "The Lion. I know, Aidan" She gathered the coverlet in thin, sharp fingers and leaned forward. Her voice was very soft; in its quietude, Aidan heard conviction, and the cant of prophecy. "Throneless Mujhar. Uncrowned king. A child, buffeted by fates he cannot understand…" She slumped back against the bolsters. "Touched by the gods, but ignorant… a man so touched, so claimed as one of their own, can never know peace as a king." Gisella smiled warmly, yellow eyes slight. "You will never rule Homana."
Aidan blurted the first thing that came into his head. "Are you saying I will die? Granddame? Am I to die?"
In a tiny, girlish voice, Gisella began to sing.
Chapter Ten
« ^ »
He awoke near dawn, haggard and shaking and frightened. His chambers were cold with the light of false dawn, but even yanking the covers up in a convulsive gesture did not warm him. Aidan sat upright and cursed, rubbing viciously at grainy, burning eyes.
Teel?
But almost at once he recalled the raven was not with him. Teel waited for him in Erinn, near Shona; a sick, uneasy loneliness curled deeply in Aidan's belly. He was quite alone, too alone, even though his own kinsman slept within the fortress.
So did his grandmother.
"Another dream," he muttered in disgust, but this one had been much different.
He recalled only bits and pieces: himself, seated on the Lion Throne in the Great Hall of Homana-Mujhar; himself, dead in the Lion, with blood running from mouth and throat; himself, mourned as a throneless Mujhar, an uncrowned king. No proper monarch, Aidan of Homana; merely a nameless prince all too soon forgotten.
He stripped tangled hair back from his face, purposely pulling too hard, as if the discomfort might alter his memories. It did not. "A witch," he muttered. "An Atvian witch, trained to treachery by an Ihlini…"
He was empty. Unwhole. Teel was too far even for the lir-link.
And Shona too far for the kivarna.
He needed one or both of them. He knew it with perfect clarity as she sat huddled in bed, shivering. Teel for the lir-link and all its gifts; Shona for the physical, the spiritual, the emotional. They were each of them tied into his tahlmorra, into his life; if he neglected either, or dismissed either, he destroyed a part of himself.
Into his head came Gisella's declaration. He heard it again so clearly as if she stood beside his bed, bending over him as a mother over a child; as a grandmother over a grandson badly frightened by nightmares.
But Gisella offered no comfort. Gisella offered fear and self-doubt. "You will never rule Homana."
Aidan tore back the covers and climbed out of bed hastily, finding and pulling on fresh leathers, boots, his belt, a dark blue cloak. Then he paused by the saddle-pouches, reaching into one to draw out the chain of gold. The links were massive, perfect, heavy. Six of them he could name: Shaine, Carillon, Donal, Niall, Brennan, himself. But the others he could not. Undoubtedly one belonged to his son, and the others to the Mujhars after him.
Aidan put a finger on the sixth link, his own, and wondered what sort of king he would be.
And then wondered if he would be a king at all.
Almost viciously, Aidan whipped off his belt. He threaded the leather through the links and put it on again. He could feel the weight and curvature of each link. A man would kill for such a fortune; Aidan pulled his cloak over the belt and left the chamber, pausing in the corridor just long enough to tell a servant he was well, but required air. He had sat up late with Corin the night before, trading news, drinking wine. No one would question a morning ride; likely he needed one.
Without Teel, he was half a man, a shadow. He felt his spirit cut free from his body like a boat loosed from its moorings. It made him snappish and impatient; the horseboy, startled out of sleep, hastened to ready a mount even as Aidan apologized. When the horses were ready, he swung up quickly and rode clattering out of the bailey, intent on shedding the residual unease and bad temper as soon as possible. It was the dream, of course; he knew it. Since the chain had been made whole in Solinde, he had suffered none, sleeping soundly each night. But the nightmare he had experienced but a half hour before filled him with a nameless, increasing dread.
Aidan left the city as soon as possible and rode up into the hills, skirting the headlands overlooking the Dragon's Tail. Below him the city was quiet. Smoke threaded its way from chimneys and spread a thin haze over the rooftops, but he could see little other activity. Just before dawn, he was truly alone atop the ramparts of the city, riding the back-bone of Atvia. The castle itself perched atop a jagged, upthrust stone formation. The knobby dome was called the Dragon's Skull.
He saw the crumbled headland tower in the distance. It stood alone at the edge of a cliff, sentinel to the sea. Morning mist wrapped itself around damp gray stone, but the rising sun changed silver beading to saffron, altering the pitted, grainy texture to smooth ocher-gold.
Aidan contemplated it, then shrugged. I have nothing better to do…
He thought it a shell, until he rode closer; then saw the bench by the low door and the windows shutters latched back to let light into the tower. It was a curious dwelling. Once it had served as a vanguard against the Erinnish enemy's approach; now it was little more than a crofter's incongruous hut. Aidan, hungry, dismounted and threw reins over his mount's head. He left the horse to graze and went across the hummocky turf to the tower, hoping its inhabitant would share his morning meal.
The door stood open, much as the shutters did. Aidan called out but received no answer; after an indecisive moment he ducked beneath the low lintel stone and went in. He had coin. He did not know a crofter alive who spurned good money, even from a stranger too hungry and impatient to wait for an invitation.
The tower was round. So was the room. The walls were bare of tapestries, but whitewashed. Kindling had been laid in the rude fireplace, but the fire had gone out. Aidan, with flint and steel in his belt-pouch, knelt to tend it properly.
In the gray light of dawn there was an air of desertion in the tower, and yet signs of habitation belied the feeling. A narrow cot was pushed against the curving wall. A table with only the merest slant to its legs stood in the center of the room. A
stool was tucked under it. A rickety bench leaned against the wall by the door; on the other side was a twist of stairway, leading toward the upper floor, and the roof.
Aidan heard a step in the doorway. Still kneeling, he turned. He thought the posture less threatening to the man who lived in the tower, especially with flint and steel in his hands rather than knife or sword. But the anticipated man resolved himself into a woman, Aidan rose anyway, hastily, and tucked the implements away.
Mist was behind her, and sunlight. It clung to her roughspun gray cloak, shredding as she moved, dissipating as she smiled. Her unbound hair, snugged beneath the cloak, was black and glossy as a raven's wing. Something about her reminded Aidan of someone—black hair, wide black eyes; a vivid, alluring beauty.
The thought came unbidden, shredding the residue of his fear. She could give me escape. She could give me release.
So many women had. And this one expected it. He had learned to judge the eyes, the subtleties of movement.
She can give me ease…
He smiled as she came into the tower, and took the bucket of water from her hands. Their fingers touched briefly.
Kivarna—and other things—told him the truth. She wants it as much as I.
He set the bucket on the table, hoping the weight did not prove too much. The table held. So did her gaze, locked on his face. Her own was enigmatic. She did not question his presence in her tower; she did not appear frightened or dismayed by finding a stranger in her dwelling. She merely dropped the cloak from her shoulders and tossed it across the table, next to the bucket, and smiled.
Her gown, incongrously, was crimson, bright as new-spilled blood. It was cut loose at the shoulders, loose at narrow waist. He saw that her hair, now freed of cloak, was completely unbound, falling nearly to ankles. Loose gown, loose hair; moist, smiling mouth. Aidan, drawing a difficult breath, felt the powerful response deep in his belly.
He thought of Shona. Of Ashra. Of Blythe. Of women he had bedded, and women he had wanted to. Before this woman, all of them paled to insignificance.
Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven Page 28