Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven

by Jennifer Roberson

  He found them, as Sean had said, on the south side of the fortress wall. Three of them: Riordan, Shona, and a stranger. Their backs were to him as he approached. Shona's thick blonde braid divided her back in half, dangling to her thighs, and Riordan's unruly shoulder-length hair tumbled in the wind. But the stranger's hair was very black, also long—though not nearly as long as Shona's—and also braided. For a moment Aidan believed the stranger a woman, until he looked beyond the hair and saw height, shoulders, stature.

  He wore Erinnish clothing: long-sleeved wool tunic, dyed dark green, with copper-bossed leather bracers snugged halfway up his forearms; leather over-tunic, belted with copper platelets hooked together by copper rings; and green woolen trews tucked into low-heeled calfboots. Although most Erinnish were light- or red-haired, Aidan had seen some with near-black hair. But there was no doubting the stranger's heritage, regardless of where he was or what he wore. . His eyes, when he turned, were pure Cheysuli yellow.

  Aidan's kivarna tingled. Recognition, acknowledgment; his blood knew perfectly well even if he did not.

  The stranger smiled. The hair, though braided back in an Erinnishman's warrior plait, looped through with cord, was also held from his face by a slender leather thong.

  This man looks more Cheysuli than I do, even without the gold… It was an unsettling thought. Aidan did not know him. Neither did his kivarna.

  But then Shona turned, and Aidan forgot all about strange Cheysuli warriors. So, clearly, did she; her color drained away, leaving her gray as death, then rushed back to splotch her cheeks and set brown eyes to glittering with a vibrant intensity. In loud silence, she held the bow. A compact Cheysuli warbow once refused to her brother.

  Now apparently not. Riordan, deaf and blind to the sudden tension—which betrayed the absence of kivarna in Sean's son—impatiently tapped the bow. "Shoot it, Shona—or let me shoot it!"

  Aidan approached steadily, taking care with each step. He was not purposely delaying the moment, but his nerves screamed with acknowledgment of her nearness. He refused to give into emotion, or physical sensation, merely to please a gift he did not fully understand. His kivarna needed training. He was prepared to instruct it.

  Riordan now tugged at the bow, but Shona was unmoved. She clung to the weapon with steadfast determination, ignoring her young brother's muttered threats. She was as intense as Aidan; he wondered if she, too, fought the silent battle with her senses.

  He meant to speak to Shona. But the stranger, standing beside her, beat him to it. "Aidan, it is?" he asked. "They said you'd be coming—but not so soon, I'm thinking… unless Gisella died."

  Distracted, Aidan spared only a quelling glance for the stranger. His world was alive with Shona's nearness, and yet something about the stranger snared his attention as well. It was more than a little astonishing to hear a Cheysuli warrior speaking pure, fluent Erinnish with a broad Erinnish accent.

  His command of the tongue and its nuances was expert enough to mark him islander-born, except that he was so blatantly Cheysuli.

  And then Aidan knew. Not islander-born, but almost. As close as one could come, while drawing first-breath in Homana. "Blais?" he asked tentatively, recalling Sean's brief mention.

  The other nodded, grinning. "Half-cousins, we are. Maeve is my mother. And the Redbeard, well…" Blais shrugged, gesturing oddly. "In spirit if not in blood, Rory is my father."

  In spirit only. Aidan recalled, with unsettling clarity, precisely who Blais was.

  Yellow eyes narrowed assessively. "If you're not minding, cousin, I'll be sailing back with you."

  "Back?"

  "To Homana." The faint smile was ironic. For all his accent was Erinnish, Blais' attitude was Cheysuli. "You will be going back, I'm thinking… who would turn his back on a throne like the Lion?"

  Who indeed? Certainly not Teirnan, Blais' true father. Teirnan still fought for the throne, with his treacherous followers.

  Blais' eyes glinted. In fluent Old Tongue, he said, "I think it is past time I met my jehan. I have a lir, but no gold, no Ceremony of Honors, no proper shu'maii. I am as Cheysuli as you, cousin… do you not think I am due what other warriors are given?" He paused delicately, then added in Homanan, "A warrior should know his own bloodline. It is easier for the gods to keep track of us."

  A well-schooled tongue… But Aidan, looking from Blais to Shona, forgot his kinsman almost at once.

  "Now, then." Blais, smiling privately, switched back into Erinnish as he took the warbow from Shona. "We'll be letting me show the boy, while you two take a walk."

  Shona made no protest. She walked to Aidan, then by him toward the headlands, out beyond Kilore.

  She stopped at last, pausing on an overlook above the Dragon's Tail. Wind whipped them both, dragging at Aidan's hair, but Shona's was safely confined in a network of complex braids, small ones wrapped around big ones, then joined into a single thick plait that hung like rope from her head. She still wore trews and tunic, but the wool was very fine, the pale yellow dye very good, the embroidery exquisite. Her throat was naked of ornaments. Aidan longed to touch it, to put a torque upon it in the shape of his own lir.

  Or one perhaps incorporating a wolfhound as well, to show they shared the bond.

  Shona's voice was tight. "I thought you would stay there longer."

  It was not quite what he had hoped for. "She died yesterday, at midday."

  Shona shrugged slightly. "I thought you might stay with Corin, for whatever ceremony is due her." She paused. "She was my granddame, too."

  He had not thought of it. "Did you ever see her?"

  Shona's laugh was a blurted, breathy exhalation. "My mother would never let me. But then, I never asked." At last, she looked at him. Something flickered in her eyes. " 'Tis sorry I am, Aidan. For you, if not for her… my mother never allowed me to think of Gisella without thinking of what she did, but 'twas probably different for you. Your father likely didn't hate her so much."

  "My father only rarely spoke of her. There was no hatred of her—just an absence of thought." Discomfited, Aidan shrugged. "Deirdre was there. No one wanted to dishonor her. So no one mentioned Gisella."

  "And now the Mujhar is free…" Shona smiled a little. "D'ye think he'll marry her now, and make her a queen at last?"

  Aidan laughed. "The moment he hears the news, the Mujhar will summon a priest." Then the humor died. "No, perhaps not—Gisella was the queen, and there are proprieties…" He sighed. "Deirdre will have to wait. But she has already waited so long, I doubt this will disturb her."

  "And Maeve will be a princess, true-born and legitimate." Shona laughed. "A bit too late for my mother… she said she resented Maeve's bastardy for a very long time, since it made Keely of Homana something to be prized for other than she was. She told me if Maeve had been true-born, she would have had more freedom."

  "And likely she would not have married your father, and you would not be here." Aidan paused. "I am going home to Homana."

  Shona nodded. "I know."

  "Alone."

  Her color drained. "Why?"

  "Because I am going to die."

  Anger. Resentment. Her kivarna, and his, was ablaze. "How can you know?" she snapped. "How can you think such a thing? And how can you be such a fool as to think I will believe you?"

  "Shona—"

  "If you're not wanting me, say it. Stow this blather about dying, and say it. I'm not needing lies made up to hide the truth, merely to spare my feelings." Her brown eyes were nearly black. "D'ye think I can't tell, with the kivarna? D'ye think—" And then she broke off, eyes widening. "By the gods of all the oldfolk, you do believe you're to die!"

  Aidan turned from her. He could not bear to look into her eyes and see the shock, the comprehension, that reinforced his own. Shona more than any might understand how he felt, and that doubled comprehension frightened him even more. He could, when he tried, ignore it, shunting aside the gnawing fear, but Shona brought it back. Shona deepened it.

  "Aid
an."

  He walked rigidly to the edge of the cliff and stared down at the turbulent sea.

  "Aidan—" And then she broke off, muttering in swift, disgusted gutter Erinnish he could only barely understand, because his mother had never taught him.

  "Go back," he said roughly. "Blais might suit you better."

  The muttering stopped. Shona's voice was dry. "Blais is sailing with you." She came up and stood beside him. Wind whistled across the headlands, curling over the lip of the cliff. "Why are you dying?" she asked.

  Deep inside, something knotted. "Because I think I have to."

  "Have to! Why? What man has to die, except when he's grown old?"

  He did not know how to start. "There is this prophecy."

  "I'm knowing that."

  "And there are gods."

  "That, too."

  "And then there is this." He gripped the chain on his belt.

  Shona did not answer.

  Aidan clamped folded arms across his chest, to hold himself together. From head to foot, a shudder wracked him. "I killed a woman," he hissed, "without even touching her!"

  She reached out to him. This time it was Aidan who pulled back, warding away intimacy.

  "No." Shona closed cool fingers around his forearm. "You're needing it, Aidan. Who am I to look away? I'm selfish betimes, when I like, but I'm not cruel. You need me, just now… who am I to shut my eyes to your pain? What reason is good enough?"

  He could think of one: kivarna.

  But then she touched him and the kivarna blazed to life, shocking them both with its intensity, and he was babbling, telling her what had happened and how, except he did not know how, only that it had; only that he had, in his idiocy, in his maleness, allowed himself to be lured and seduced by an Ihlini witch who had done it before, even though he had been warned against it; an Ihlini sorceress who had seen him, seen his lust, seen a way to additional power through him, through his body, and through the child he would give her. He had been warned by Ashra, who was a tool of the gods almost but not entirely human; had been warned by Carillon himself, and Shaine; had been warned by Gisella—mad, dying Gisella, claiming she talked to gods—and who was he to argue? He also talked to gods, and with them, face-to-face. They told him things, he said, clinging to her hands so tightly he feared he might crush them. They told him things, and expected things of him, and he did not think he had the strength to do what they wanted him to.

  Shona's voice was uneven. "And what is it you're thinking they want?"

  "Me to die." He expelled it spasmodically. Then squeezed his eyes tight shut. "Gods, Shona, d'ye see? Do you see what I am? I lay with her even though I had been warned, without even giving it thought, and when I knew what she was and what she could do—what she intended to do—I killed her. I called on the gods, and they answered. Because I asked them to." He could not stop shaking.

  Shona stepped closer. He tried to back away, but she held him, slipping close, wrapping arms around him in a hug intended to offer comfort. And it did, but something more; something he hoped she would not recognize.

  Her smoky voice was soothing. "Hush, my lad, my boyo—you're not knowing what you're saying… you're all bound up inside and out, knotted to death with gods and dreams and uncertainties… 'tis no wonder you hurt so. D'ye think I can't feel it, with or without the kivarna?" She sighed heavily. "And you not knowing a thing at all, I'm thinking… ah, Aidan, how can you be so foolish as to think it's death they want? How can you know they don't mean you for something else?"

  He gave way and hugged her hard, glad of her closeness, grateful to her for staying with him, for touching, for talking, for simply being there, so he was not so terribly alone.

  He had been very alone for most of his life, even when in a throng.

  But not with her. Not with her. Never alone with Shona.

  Aidan clung to her with all his transitory strength. This moment, he needed her very badly. "Why not for something else?" He threaded fingers into the complex weavings of her braid. "Because of the dreams, and the things I have been told…" He was aware, suddenly, how close to the edge of the blade they walked, so tantalizingly near. If they slipped, if they allowed their attention to wander, they could be cut. Even killed. "Gods, Shona—don't—"

  "D'ye think it matters?"

  He was lost, and knew it. "I cannot take the chance. I will not punish you… I will not sentence you to a life of loneliness and abstinence… I will not marry a woman only to die, and make her a prisoner of the kivarna—" He pressed her against him, rocking, rocking, trying to assuage the pain, the longing, the need. "I will not do this to you."

  "Aidan—"

  He set her back, lifting a staying hand between them. He pressed air again and again, keeping her from touching him. "No. No. I am going back. Alone. If I am to die, I will do it without hurting you."

  "And if you're not?" she shouted. "What then, ye skilfin?"

  "No," he said. "No." And then turned from her stiffly, striding back toward Kilore.

  Chapter Thirteen

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  She came as he lay awake in the darkness, wracked by self-doubts and contempt. Who was he to think he was an instrument of the gods, carefully selected for some specific purpose? Who was he to think himself different from everyone else, when each man and woman alive knew doubts and fears and confusion?

  But who was he to deny it when he had proof in the form of a chain of flawless gold, heavy and substantial?

  Who was he at all?

  She came, pulling aside the bed hangings, and he knew her instantly.

  He heard the robe slipped off her shoulders. He slept, as always, with no candle lighted; he required no illumination. In daylight or in darkness, he would know her anywhere.

  Deep inside, he quivered. And then the kivarna awoke.

  She climbed up into the bed. Her fair, free of plaited braids, rippled over shoulders to twine against the bed pelts. She was naked, but for hair; save for anguish, so was he.

  The pain was exquisite; the knowledge bittersweet. Shona knelt beside him, then slowly placed a cool hand upon his chest. Beneath flesh and bone beat his heart. His breathing ran ragged.

  "Ah, no," she whispered. "Don't let it be in fear. Let it be in joy."

  His voice sounded rusty. "You know the truth, meijhana."

  "Do I?" The hand drifted upward to touch his throat, his chin, his mouth. "Do you?"

  Every sense was alive as she touched him. His body rang with it.

  Shona's smoky voice was soft. "If 'tis myth, we'll have shared naught but a night's pleasure. If 'tis truth, then we'll by sharing more of these nights, I'm thinking."

  Against his will, he smiled. And took her into his arms.

  Two months later, at dockside, Keely put a sheathed sword into Aidan's hands. "There," she said firmly. "What excuse do you offer this time?"

  He laughed. "No excuse at all. Aye, su'fala, I will see to it you have no milk-mouthed granddaughter in the halls of Homana-Mujhar. She will have this sword, and the means to learn its use."

  Keely looked beyond him to the ship. Then turned abruptly away, as if she could not bear to look at the vessel that would carry away her daughter. Fiercely, she stared back toward the cliffs. "Where is Shona?"

  "Bringing the dogs," Aidan said dryly.

  Even Keely was startled. "All of them?"

  Aidan smiled crookedly. "The big boyo himself, as well as the bitch from over-island, and the one from Atvia, and the two in whelp, and the one she got last year from the fawn bitch who died, and the pups from the last litter…" He sighed. "Ten or twelve, at least. We will repopulate Homana-Mujhar."

  Keely inspected his expression. "Do you mind? She is headstrong, aye—I made her so—but she knows what she is doing. She loves those hounds…" She sighed. "I think it is compensation for having no lir-gifts."

  "Or perhaps she simply loves dogs." Aidan grinned. "Here she comes now—and Sean. And Blais."

  "And dogs," Keely muttered. "Th
ere will be no room on the ship."

  "Not once those two bitches have whelped. Ah—here is Riordan, also."

  They made their way to the dock, trailing hounds and servants with baggage. Blais strode down the dock first, accompanied by his ruddy wolf, who walked unconcernedly ahead of the pack of hounds bred to kill her kind. She had, as lir were required, made her peace with unblessed animals. Or else she had put the big male in his place, and he the rest in theirs.

  Aidan glanced at the ship. High in the rigging, perched upon a spar, Teel preened himself.

  Sean himself directed the loading of Shona's baggage, calling out orders in his rusty voice. The hounds milled around, getting in everyone's way; Shona's remonstrations did nothing in the midst of such confusion, for half the dogs were too young to have learned proper manners. But when at last the loading was done, Shona sent the dogs up the plank onto the ship—and discovered none of them would go.

  "Agh, gods," Sean muttered, and scooped up one of the bitches. Without further delay he carried her up the plank and onto the deck.

  "There," Shona said, "d'ye see? Will you walk on all your legs, or be carried like a meal sack?"

  The huge dark male, eyeing the ship balefully, leaned against her hip. Shona staggered and nearly fell.

  Aidan fished her out of the pack and pulled her away from the water. "He will go when you go. Get the others on board—we can tend him later."

  One by one the rest of the dogs were led up the plank and onto the deck. When at last only the big male remained, Sean himself knelt down to look him in the eye. " 'Tis a fine, bright boyo you are, my lad, and 'tis sorry I am to see you go. But we've others here—though none as fine as you—and the lass will be needing you. Tend her well, my braw, bright lad, and come back whenever you like. The lasses will be mourning."

  So was Sean. Shona went to him and hugged him, clinging to his big frame, then let go and turned away, putting her hand on the hound's neck. With no more urging required, he climbed the plank to his pack.

  Aidan, looking at Sean and Keely, felt inadequate. He was taking Shona away from a warm, loving family who had instilled her with courage, spirit and determination, along with pride and a powerful loyalty. He could not predict if she would find the same in Homana, or even if they could make it. For one horrible moment he believed he was taking her to a doomed future.