Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven

by Jennifer Roberson

  In silence, Aidan nodded. And then he went out the door.

  The family gathered in the Great Hall: Deirdre and Aileen in embroidered Erinnish gowns unearthed from their trunks; Ian and Brennan in soft, dyed leather and clan-worked gold. Others were present as well, powerful Homanan nobles and others from the clans, but Aidan felt the absences of far too many people: Niall, Hart and his kin, Keely and Sean, Corin.

  But there was Shona. And as she joined him at the silver doors to walk the length of the Hall, he knew the absences filled.

  She wore green. Rich, Erinnish green, unadorned save for intricate stitching done in delicate gold; and bright Erinnish emeralds spanning a burgeoning waist, laced into unbound hair that brushed the hem of her skirts.

  He took her to the dais, where the priest waited for them. Aidan said his vows quietly, damping his kivarna so he could last the moment, then listened with great pride as Shona also said the words. The priest was Homanan, the language was Homanan; in the Old Tongue, and then in Erinnish, Aidan repeated the vows. And then placed around her throat the torque of interlocking repeated figures: a raven in liquid flight, a wolfhound leaping after.

  Shona's eyes were bright. And then the moment was past; they were, in the eyes of gods and men, husband and wife, cheysul and cheysula, Prince and Princess of Homana.

  Duly presented by the Mujhar of Homana, Aidan and Shona were free to mingle with the guests. Shona almost immediately declared her longing to be back in trews and boots so she could stride about the Great Hall like herself, instead of a mincing maiden; Aidan informed her he had yet to see her—or anyone—mince, and she was obviously no longer—and had not been for some time—a maiden. Shona flashed him a baleful glance, but it was ineffective. The kivarna told him the truth: she was as moved as he by the knowledge of their future, bound together forever by something far stronger than vows.

  All too quickly the women dragged Shona away from him. Aidan found himself momentarily alone, holding an untouched cup of wine someone had thrust into his hands. Smiling faintly, he looked across the hall and saw Deirdre, elegant in her gown, but hideously apart from the frivolity around her. Grief had aged her in the nearly three months since Niall had died, dulling her hair and etching shadows beneath her eyes. The flesh of her face was stretched taut over bones showing a new fragility.

  Aidan was abruptly assailed by the fear she might soon follow Niall. He knew of men and women who, left alone after so many years of companionship, dwindled and died. He had always known her as a strong, spirited woman, conducting herself with becoming decorum in view of her unofficial status, yet knowing far better than most how to run a household as large and diverse as Niall's.

  Apprehension increased. He could not sense her, could not read her; it was not a gift he could control. Aidan abruptly crossed the hall to intercept her as Deirdre moved from candlelight into shadows.

  "Granddame." He presented her with the cup of wine, pressing it into rigid fingers. She thanked him and accepted it, but clutched the cup too tightly. He feared she might spill the wine. "Granddame," he repeated, "I have been remiss. I have not seen you lately."

  Deirdre's smile was gentle. "You have had much to contend with of late. A new title, new honor, new wife… and soon a new child." Briefly green eyes brightened. "You'll be seeing what your grandsire and father have had to contend with all these years: a proud Erinnish woman with the freedom and facility to speak her own mind."

  She had lost much of her Erinnish lilt over the years spent in Homana, but he heard the underlying echoes of Aileen and Shona in her tone. Suddenly he was fiercely proud of the island realm—and the Aerie—for rearing proud, strong women. And for sharing them with Cheysuli.

  He took one of her hands and kissed it. "You outshine them all today."

  She smiled again; this time it touched her eyes. "How gentle you are, Aidan… I forget how little you resemble Niall's children in temperament."

  "Gentle!" It was not how he would characterize himself. He was not certain he liked it.

  "I think it must be the kivarna in you. You understand too well how other people feel, how the slights can hurt. Brennan was always much more reticent to say anything without thinking it over—the diplomat in him!—but Hart and Corin and Keely always said whatever they wished whenever they wished to say it, and suffered the consequences." Deirdre smiled. " 'Tis a trait of Erinn, as well… Aileen and I both share it—and Shona, no doubt!—though not so much as Niall's children." Her eyes were very kind. "But you have always been different. From the very first. And I have always been grateful for it."

  It was not what he had expected. "Why?"

  "Because this House is made of warriors." Slender shoulders moved in a shrug. "I do not complain—the world is large enough for all manner of men. Niall raised his sons for a purpose: to be strong and fierce and determined, no matter what they faced, because they would face much." She smoothed back from his brow an errant auburn forelock. "You, too, are a warrior, Aidan… but there is more in you than that. You serve your prophecy with less fierceness and more dignity. You do not think of wars with the Ihlini or a treaty with Caledon or a betrothal with this land or that. You think about people, instead. They are human to you, instead of sticks in a fortune-game." Her gaze was intent. "That is important, Aidan. You are not so bound, so driven—be who you are, not what the others are."

  After a moment, he smiled. "I think I am more bound by the prophecy than anyone here, granddame."

  She sighed and removed her hand, cradling the cup once more. "There is more to life than that."

  "It is life."

  Deirdre looked away from him a moment, gazing across the crowded hall toward the Lion. "You are all of you so different."

  "Granddame—?"

  "You Cheysuli." She looked back. "There are times, I'm thinking, you lack any freedom at all."

  "The gods gave us self-rule, granddame."

  "Did they?" Her smile was bittersweet. "If that is true, follow your own intuition. Do not let the history of your ancestors warp you from your path."

  She sounded uncommonly like the Hunter, or Ashra, or any of the oddities he had met in the past year. "What do you mean?"

  "The Cheysuli are so supremely certain that their way is the true way that it is leaving little room for anyone else in the world. 'Tis an insular and arrogant race, because it has had to be." She raised a finger as he began to nod. "But no longer. Now you can loosen the shackles and breathe."

  "Granddame—"

  "D'ye think I judge too harshly because I am Erinnish? That I could not understand?" Deirdre shook her head. "But I do, Aidan. Far better than anyone thinks. I lived with a Cheysuli warrior for more than forty years. I helped raise three more of them—four, if you count Keely with her fir-gifts—and yet a fifth when you were born. Oh, I know, Aidan. I know you very well."

  The summation hurt. "And do you find us lacking?"

  Deirdre's tone was gentle. "Not lacking. Bound. Too bound by customs. There is so little change in the clans… change is healthy, Aidan!"

  His hand dropped to the links at his belt. Change was within him, he knew. Why else would gods speak to him? Why else would they set him a task he had yet to understand? Everyone said he was different. Was he so different he would alter the traditions of his race?

  The response was instinctive, denial as much as truth. "Too much change can hurt."

  Deirdre's hand was cool on his arm. "Nothing is done well if it is done too quickly. But you are less inclined than most to act without thinking. Even Brennan sees himself bound by tradition… I think you will be a different kind of Mujhar when you ascend the Lion. And I think it will be good."

  Aidan's smile was lopsided. "You give my jehan short shrift."

  Deirdre laughed. "Brennan will do well enough; probably better than most. He has waited for this all of his life. And he is what Homana requires now, but not always." Her green eyes were very warm. "Your turn will come, Aidan. When it does, use it."

&n
bsp; Chapter Seven

  « ^ »

  They knelt side by side upon the blue ice-bear pelt from across the Bluetooth River. The shar tahl looked back at them, black brows knitted. "Why did you come to me? I am only one… also the youngest and newest in Clankeep." He studied them both. "You have the right, of course—I am fully acknowledged as a shar tahl—but I thought you might go to another."

  Aidan smiled. "It is precisely because you are not like the others that we came to you."

  Shona nodded. "And because of Blais. You were the only one who wrote him of his father."

  Burr sighed, smoothing a wrinkle from his leggings. The edge of winter was upon them; he, as they did, wore heavier leathers, thicker woolens, furred cloaks. "Aye. I thought the others unjust, in that. But they viewed Blais' request as unanswerable; Teirnan was kin-wrecked, his rune-sign expunged from the birthlines. In their minds, how could they tell him of a warrior who no longer existed?"

  "But you answered," Aidan said.

  Burr shrugged. "I had to. He was a man in need—a Cheysuli warrior requiring information of his heritage." Yellow eyes were very steady. "Had I refused him the information, I would have renounced one of the foremost responsibilities of my position, which is to serve all Cheysuli in matters of heritage, custom, tradition…" He smiled. "I am not saying the others did. I merely interpreted the custom differently. I no longer believe in the need for kin-wrecking at all; Blais' request, therefore, was one I had to answer."

  Aidan gazed at him. He wondered anew at the man's commitment. Not its quality or depth, but at its ability to be flexible. Part of it, he believed, had to do with Burr's comparative youth. He was, Aidan had learned, thirty-seven, which made him nearly fifteen years junior to the youngest of the other shar tahls. But the rest of it had to do with a different kind of belief system. Burr saw things differently, and interpreted things accordingly. There was room in his world for change, just as Deirdre had suggested.

  "So," Shona said, "we've asked it. Will you be giving us our answer?"

  Burr grinned. "Of course you may set up a pavilion within Clankeep. Would I say no to you, after permitting Blais to do the same?"

  "But he is not here," Aidan said.

  "No. But he will return. There are things he must reconcile with himself… his jehan's withdrawal from the clans is one of them, as well as Teirnan's death." Burr shifted, slipping a hand from his knee to the red dogfox curled by his side. "And have you permission of the clan-leader?"

  Shona laughed. "He gave it instantly. Would he dare do otherwise to the son of the Mujhar?"

  "Oh, he might." Burr's tone was mild. "Aidan is not well-known here, other than occasional visits. And there is talk of dreams, and nights he walks the corridors of Homana-Mujhar, conversing with the Lion." The shar tahl's white teeth flashed as Aidan and Shona exchanged uneasy glances. "But it is thought mostly due to having his spirit chafed by too many walls and Homanan responsibilities. Surely here, in the heart of the land, he will learn what it is to be a warrior of the clans."

  "Surely he will," Aidan agreed dryly.

  "Just as he will surely learn more about his heritage if he studies with a shar tahl."

  Aidan nodded. "And may I choose which one?"

  "Done," Burr said. "Put up your pavilion, then come to me each day."

  "Leijhana tu'sai." Aidan rose, reaching down to help an ungainly Shona to her feet. But before he turned away to open the doorflap, he paused. "There was a time you said I had your sympathy. Do I still?"

  Burr's lids flickered minutely. "You have many things of me, my lord. Among them my sympathy."

  To press him would be futile, Aidan knew. There was a core of quiet stubbornness in Burr he knew better than to test. It was, he believed, much like his own.

  Sighing, he pulled aside the doorflap and gestured Shona to precede him into the chilly day.

  For three days Aidan and Shona cut, dyed, and stitched the pavilion fabric until it resembled the proper shape. Then they designed and painted the black raven on the slate-gray sides, and with the help of three other warriors set up the frame and ridgepole and dragged the oiled fabric over it, pegging and tying it down as necessary. Finally it stood on its own, rippling in the breeze so that the raven's wings moved, and Shona stepped into Aidan's arms as the warriors faded away, tucking chilled hands into his furs.

  " 'Tis ours."

  Nodding, he gazed at the pavilion as he slung an arm around her waist.

  "Ours," she repeated. " 'Twasn't something I moved into when we married, but something we built together."

  With the kivarna, he knew very well what she meant. He shared it. "Aye. Kilore and Homana-Mujhar have housed many kings, many children… but this place is ours."

  She sighed as a chilly breeze tugged at braided hair. "There is such peace about Clankeep—I'm thinking I could stay here forever."

  Aidan smiled. "Forever is a long time, my lass… and you not properly knowing what it is to be Cheysuli."

  "Yet," she clarified. "And I'm knowing something of it. D'ye think I'm lying when I tell you how I feel, surrounded by such history? Such security in tradition?" She hooked a thumb into his belt. "I know what you say about change, my lad, but can it wait? I've only just got here. I'd like to see what being Cheysuli is all about before you begin changing everything."

  "Only some things," he said distantly. "Things such as the abomination called kin-wrecking—" He cut it off. "Enough. I am only a prince, not Mujhar—and even that bears no certainty of power. The Cheysuli have always been subject to the power of gods, not of kings… it would require more than Aidan the Mujhar to convince the clans to change."

  "Then be more," she said simply. "Make yourself more, my lad… you have it in you, I'm thinking."

  "Aye. Perhaps." Aidan turned to her, sliding hands down to splay across the mound of her belly. She had given up trews in favor of loose skirts weeks before, for the child had become intrusive. Aidan felt the tautness of her flesh stretched so tightly under the soft wool skirt and loose tunic. He laughed. "We have put up the pavilion just in time."

  Shona cupped his elbows even as he cupped her belly. "He will be Cheysuli," she said fiercely. "Before anything else: Cheysuli."

  Aidan smiled. "Even before his Homanan rank? Or Erinnish?"

  "Even before that." Her eyes were fixed on his in a strange, wild pride. "Gods, d'ye know what it is to come here? To feel so much in my heart? All those years in Erinn, cut off from the place I most belong…" She drew in a breath and released it slowly, audibly. "I have no lir-gifts, but I do have the blood… and it burns, Aidan. It burns so much."

  "I know," he said, "I know. Gods, Shona, how can I not? I feel it the same way."

  "But you've been here," she protested. "You've had this all your life, since the time you were born; and Teel—" She broke off, looking at the ridgepole. "D'ye see? There he is."

  He smiled. "I see."

  "I'm not knowing how to say it, but you should be able to feel it. All my life I knew the freedom of Kilore, the freedom of the headlands, the freedom of the seas, for my father took me sailing… but 'Tisn't the same! Here I feel free. Here I feel whole. Here is where I belong."

  "But there is also Homana-Mujhar—"

  "Oh, aye, I'm knowing we can't always live here. There will come a time… but for now? They've no need of you in the palace, nor the city… can we not stay here as long as possible?"

  He smoothed back a lock of hair pulled loose from the braid. "We will stay as long as we can. Gods willing, we will give our child the foundation you lacked." He smiled. "And I, for that matter; I grew up in Homana-Mujhar."

  Shona looked at the neat stacks of chests, rolled pelts, cairn stones and kindling, set beside the pavilion. Keely's sword, scabbarded, leaned against the pile of stones. " 'Tis time we made it a home. All the gifts the clan and our kin gave us are worthy of being cherished."

  Aidan smiled. Between them flared the powerful pleasure that was more than mere passion, mere physical
satisfaction. It was a deep, abiding contentment akin to exultation; a burgeoning comprehension that what they shared could not be extinguished. He wanted to be inside the pavilion, sitting before the cairn. He wanted to share it with his woman. He wanted to be no one but himself: a warrior of the Cheysuli.

  This pavilion has nothing to do with that, Teel chided. You have been a warrior since we bonded.

  Aidan grinned. Of course.

  The raven cocked his head. You are uncommonly pleased with yourself.

  I am too happy to argue.

  Because of the pavilion?

  Partly. There is more.

  Because of the woman?

  That, too. But more.

  Teel's eye was bright. The child, then. Because there will be a child.

  All of those things, lir.

  The raven fluffed wings. Such simple things, lir: a home, a woman, a child.

  Aidan smiled. Simple and magnificent. And sufficient unto my needs.

  Teel's tone was amused. Not so much, I'm thinking.

  Laughing aloud, Aidan hugged Shona. "Let us begin with the cairn, and a fire. 'Tis cold out here, I'm thinking!"

  Chapter Eight

  « ^ »

  He dreamed. The hammered silver doors of the Great Hall of Homana-Mujhar swung open, crashing against the walls, so that his view was unobstructed. The flames in the firepit died back, sucked away, until only coals glowed. Beyond the pit, crouched upon the dais, was the malevolent Lion Throne, carved of still-living wood. He knew the wood still lived, because he saw it breathe.

  No. He saw the Lion breathe; in his sleep, Aidan twitched.

  Wood creaked. Slowly the toes tightened, claws scraping against veined marble. Wooden flanks tautened, then gave, rippling with indrawn breath. The tail, carved snug against a wooden haunch, loosed itself and whipped, beating a staccato pattern against the marble dais.

  The Lion rose from its crouch. It shook its head, and the great mane tumbled over massive shoulders. The Lion of Homana, no longer a wooden throne, stood upon the dais and surveyed its royal domain. Within it stood Aidan.