WINDWEEPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. Conar's oldest son, Wyn, stood beside her. She put her arm around the lanky young boy's waist and leaned against him.

  Chand was all too aware of Gezelle's presense. He ached to take the slim girl in his arms, and would have if his brother had not been there. Instead, he glanced at Wyn. "Take care of the lady."

  "They're coming," Grice said.

  The door to the Tribunal Hall opened and seven sextets of guards emerged, walking past the guards ranged along the portico. Each sextet carried a rough-hewn casket atop their shoulders. Behind them, Tolkan Coure, the Arch-Prelate and Tribunalist, and Kaileel Tohre, walked, their faces solemn.

  The High Priest and his master had expected no trouble from the crowd. No extra phalanx of men had been rallied. It was perhaps this very disdain for Conar's people's feelings that started the chant, or perhaps it was the black armbands worn around the upper arms of the last unit of pallbearers that caused it.

  Whatever the reason, a low mumble began, the words much like the soughing of trees in a light summer breeze. But as the last sextet cleared the Tribunal steps, the mumble grew more coherent, more cohesive, united, until, without exception, those gathered spoke the words in unison with clear, ringing pride. It was the ancient, time-honored, respectful words of passing spoken at every Serenian funereal since time began.

  "The gods bear you to Paradise, Warriors of the Wind!"

  Legion felt his throat close around the words. All around he heard people saying his brother's name in quiet, emotional tones. His chin trembled with the force of his emotions and he started down the steps.

  "Legion!" Brelan hissed.

  Legion ignored the warning as he made his way to the unit of men carrying his brother's body. Long, rage-filled strides stomped across the courtyard, crunched over the cobblestones as he shouldered everyone out of his path. His mouth was set in a thin line. Tears slithered down his flushed cheeks and he swiped at them with vicious passes of his hand.

  He was dimly aware of people looking at him with both respect and worry. He caught a glimpse of Dyllon's face, knew Coron must be there, too, but didn't break his stride. They couldn't help. No one could. He shrugged off a restraining hand, and wasn't surprised to hear Brelan's angry curse. He roughly brushed past Kaileel Tohre and reached out toward the last pallbearer.

  "Is that your Prince's coffin?" he shouted, jerking on the man's arm.

  Surprised, alarmed at the intensity of the Commander's face, the guard cast a frightened look toward Tohre. The man already knew he and the other five men would pay dearly for the small rebellion of black armbands they had sewn onto their tunics. Tohre would have their hides.

  "Is that my brother's coffin?" Legion shouted louder.

  "Aye, Commander."

  "Then put him down!"

  "Lord Legion—"

  "Put him down!" Legion yelled as loudly as he could. Everything in the courtyard went deadly still. A sudden violence seemed to have swept the air, lurking in wait for a spark to set it aflame. Legion trembled from it. He was barely aware that both Brelan and Teal du Mer now flanked him.

  Kaileel Tohre felt Tolkan's eyes on him and looked to the old Prelate for guidance. It was obvious from the look on Coure's face that he had no intention of interfering. It would be up to Kaileel to handle the situation. He ran a quick tongue over his suddenly dry lips. He, too, could feel the tension.

  "What exactly is it that you want, Commander?" Tohre asked. He could actually see evil in Legion A'Lex's face.

  "I want to see my brother!" Legion growled. "You would not let us see him after you beat him to death. You wanted him dead and you killed him. You mean to take him from us forever, but we will see him now!"

  "Are you insinuating that an injustice was carried out?"

  "I am stating fact!"

  "I cannot allow the coffin to be opened. That is against Tribunal Law." Kaileel flung his hand at the guards. "Proceed."

  Brelan and Teal exchanged a look, then blocked the pallbearers' path, staring straight into the guards' worried eyes.

  "They aren't going anywhere until I see my brother!" Legion faced the crowd. "Are you with me?"

  "Aye!" The sound was deafening.

  Sentian and Hern reached the group of men clustered around Conar's coffin. Thom and Storm were only a few steps behind; Summerall, Matheny, Dixon, Collins, and Blackwell followed. The nine formed a tight flank around the front and left sides of the coffin.

  Gezelle felt Wyn's arm drop from around her waist as he ran down the steps. Reluctantly her feet took her toward the gathering. People moved out of her way as though she was one of the nobles and she lifted her head a little higher. By the time she reached the coffin, she could clearly hear Tohre's angry whisper.

  "Do you want a reprimand from the Tribunal, Commander?"

  "Tribunal reprimands don't mean a damned thing when they're handed out by crooked bastards like you!" Legion turned his hard gaze back to the guard. "If you don't put down that coffin, I swear before every man and woman present, I will slit your throat!"

  "There are four other McGregor men here who will gladly draw blood, too, if need be!" Prince Dyllon spat as he and Coron joined Brelan and Wyn.

  Seeing the determined glower on A'Lex's face, as well as the stony and equally vitriolic stares of those watching, Tohre looked to Tolkan.

  Tolkan shrugged. "I see no harm in it, Kaileel. Let them see their traitor."

  Legion started forward, but Brelan caught his arm. "Not here! Not now!" Saur warned. "This isn't the time."

  Kaileel could sense the ugliness brewing like an overheated pot. He ground his teeth and motioned the guards to set down the coffin. "If you must, then look until you have your fill! As for myself, I do not wish to ever again set eyes on that bastard!"

  "I am sure, if he could, my husband would voice the same sentiment about you!" a weak voice called from the keep's steps.

  "Oh, hell," Brelan sighed, his gaze on Liza being led by her brother to the place where every eye was centered. He had thought Legion had men guarding her. He should have known better. He groaned as he watched her struggling vainly to remain erect under Grice's comforting hold.

  The crowd drew in a collective breath as Liza's soft voice rang out. As she passed, they began to drop to their knees in love and respect, in sympathy with her grief. They tried to meet her tremulous smile as she looked at them, but could only bow their heads in acknowledgment of her courage.

  Legion's heart went out to her. She walked as though in her dotage, her shoulders bowed beneath the enormous weight of her sorrow. Dark smudges stained her cheeks and her long, black hair was pulled back so sharply, so severely, her pale, wan face looked even more strained. Both of her arms were now being held firmly to steady her, Grice on her left, and Sadie MacCorkingdale on her right.

  Her shambling walk seemed to suggest that, without the hands on her, she would not have remained erect. Her bleak eyes finally swept over the last of those kneeling and settled on the rough coffin. It was her beacon in a world of turbulent feelings and drowning grief. She stumbled as she neared the coffin.

  Hern reached out a gentle hand to help steady her. "Milady, please don't…"

  "I will bid my beloved Conar farewell, Sir Hern."

  Easing her arms from the hands that held her, she stood straight and proud, waiting, expecting. She looked at Legion.

  Teal took Gezelle's arm as the servant girl came abreast of him. He pulled her gently against him. His gypsy intuition made him turn and he glanced at Chand Wynth and caught the flare of pain at the intimacy. He met Chand's gaze and nodded, understanding.

  Legion hunkered beside his brother's coffin and took hold of the lid. The new hinges didn't make a sound. The ripe smell of the rough cedar filled the air, and an undersmell of something more sinister, more mysterious, dark and foreboding, oily, eased out of the oblong box. As the lid was gently laid back on its hinges, more than one pair of eyes closed in deep regret, more than one head turn
ed away in grief.

  Liza tried hard to keep her tremors from showing. It had not been that long ago since she had buried her child; now, she was being forced to say goodbye to her child's father. She grasped her hands together in front of her as she stared into the opened coffin.

  Legion dug his fingernails into his palms and, with an effort, kept the scream of hopelessness from leaving his dry mouth. He gazed at Conar, feeling a grief so great his entire insides quivered.

  Brelan looked quickly away after assuring himself it was Conar who lay within the confines of the coffin. His breath was too rapid, his heartbeat too erratic, his palms too wet for his liking. He truly could not understand why he felt such overpowering loss. The man inside the coffin, even though of his own flesh and blood, had meant little, if anything, to him during their lives.

  He was sorry Conar was dead, more for Elizabeth's sake than anyone's, but even that puzzled him. The way might well be open for him now to take her as his wife. Why should he feel as though that were a great betrayal of the first magnitude?

  The King looked at his beloved son and felt his heart dying. The terrible sense of loss he was enduring seemed to be draining the very life from his limbs.

  If only he had been able to save his son from the fury of the Tribunal's wrath, his mind screamed, Conar might still be alive. But inwardly, he knew the outcome would have been the same. His son's destiny had been set years before he had even been born, as was every man's.

  Teal du Mer had loved Conar as a brother for as long as he had been old enough to understand what brotherhood meant. They had played together as children, had gotten into mischief more times than Teal liked to remember. It had been Conar who had sought him out after Roget's arrest; Conar, who had held him as he cried out his anger and hurt when Roget had been shipped to the Labyrinth. And it had been Conar he betrayed not long ago. Teal dropped his head in shame.

  Sentian felt numb. His body was incapable of feeling the harsh winter air, the sting of the sea breeze. He didn't feel the vague warmth of the sun. There was grief, and a despair so deep it kept him rigidly still as he glanced into the coffin and then away.

  Hern, Thom and Storm stood staring into the coffin. Wes, Lin, and Roy had taken one look and turned, unable to hide the tangible sign of their sorrow.

  Neither Dyllon nor Coron nor Wyn were aware of anyone else around them. They weren't even aware of one another. They didn't hear the soft sobbing coming from the crowd; they didn't hear Legion's whispers as he spoke to Liza. Their undivided attentions were on Conar.

  Gezelle stood transfixed, staring with wide, hurt eyes at the man who lay before her. As Conar had done not so long ago when he gazed at his stillborn son in Oceania, Gezelle had to strain to not see his chest rising and falling as if he slumbered. She imagined she saw a faint flutter under his unbleached cotton shirt.

  Her gaze roamed over his face, saw no flicker of eyelid, moved back to his chest, and held. There was no movement now, not even a hint. She looked back at his face with the long, angry red gashes along the left cheekbone and ear, and bit her lip to keep from screaming at the injustice.

  Blood seemed to ooze from those horrible gashes and his shirt was pink-tinted along the sides and shoulders. His hair was unwashed, and she wondered why they had not bathed him. Why let him spend eternity in bloodstained, torn clothing?

  She looked at the strong, capable hands crossed his chest and flinched at the begrimed fingers and torn away nails. Her face filled with pain and she turned her attention to the peaceful quiet of his ravaged face with its long sweep of thick tawny lashes, closed now forever, hiding the blue pride of his beautiful eyes, and she felt her knees give way. Had du Mer not been supporting her, she would have collapsed.

  "Take her back to the keep, Teal," Liza ordered. When Gezelle looked at her mistress, Liza smiled wanly. "Go. You do not need to see him leave us, 'Zelle."

  Chand could not bring himself to look into the coffin. He kept his attention on his sister. He didn't care for the pallor of her flesh. He caught his brother's eye and nodded toward her. Grice stepped closer.

  When Teal du Mer started to escort Gezelle away, Chand eased the girl out of the gypsy's arms and into his own. She turned, shocked, but he would not let go. He held her lightly against him and met his brother's annoyed grimace before leading her back to the keep.

  Liza waited until Legion stood and turned away from the coffin before she sank gracefully to her knees in the red dust, braced her hands on the sides of the wooden box, and bent over her husband.

  She reached out a trembling hand to ease away one stray lock of blond hair from his pale forehead. She cocked her head and wondered, as she had many before her, why she often felt the need to sweep back that recalcitrant lock of hair that persisted in finding its way over Conar's forehead. A brief, wavering smile touched her lips as she remembered his exasperated sigh when people had done just that. She swallowed hard to still the choking grief. No one would stroke away that silken lock of hair ever again.

  She took in every angle, every scar, every mole and imperfection, every freckle and crease in her husband's face. She branded them in her mind and heart. She saw no dirty flesh, no crusted blood, no limp and oily hair. What she saw was the glory of him that first day in the stable at the Hound and Stag.

  She could see him standing there, his grin cocky and sure, as he had faced three men intent on doing him harm. Her smile returned, quivered and then faded. A solitary tear fell onto his neck and she wiped it away with her fingertips, marveling at how warm the late afternoon sun had turned his still flesh. She trailed her fingers along his jaw, felt the bristles of beard, traced them across his lips. Easing herself up and over the coffin's side, she placed her lips first against his scarred cheek and then, gently, longingly, on the firm lips that would never seek hers again.

  "Sleep well, my love," she whispered to his dear face, her lips tingling with the touch of his as they always had, her tears falling so freely she could no longer clearly see his features. "We will be together again."

  Legion bent down and put his hand under her elbow. She looked into his crying face. "Bid your brother farewell, Legion," she told him and smiled, allowing him to lift her to her feet where she swayed against him for a moment.

  Liza looked at Brelan. "Will you say goodbye, too?"

  Brelan could do no more than nod. A muscle ground in his jaw as he watched Legion kneel and place an awkward kiss on Conar's dirt-streaked hair.

  "I love you, brat," Legion whispered, his lips trembling. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and before he could stop himself, he was sobbing wildly, his shoulders trembling with the force of his grief. "Ah, Conar!" he sobbed as he clutched the coffin's edge. "Conar!"

  Brelan would have gone to Legion's aid, but Liza put out a hand to stop him. She shook her head and looked away, giving Legion as much privacy as he could have at that moment.

  Sitting on his heels, Legion's sobs turned to keening. He rocked back and forth, his pain so intense no one could look at him. Over and over again, he repeated his brother's name, the single word a litany of grief and loss.

  When she could no longer stand the heart-wrenching sound of Legion's sorrow, Liza put her hand on the warrior's shoulder.

  Without looking up at her, Legion covered her hand with his, held it for a moment, then ran the sleeve of his shirt under his nose. Grunting with the effort, he got to his feet and stood, head down, as Liza slipped her arm around his waist and leaned against him.

  Brelan watched Thom, Marsh, Sentian, Lin, Roy, and finally Storm as they, too, knelt beside the coffin and touched the hands that had once brought them all together. The only time he felt like running away was when he saw young Wyn, Conar's oldest son, step forward, tears cascading down his face, go to his knees beside the coffin, and put his trembling lips to his father's still mouth.

  "I love you, Papa," the boy wept, laying his cheek alongside his father's. "I'll miss you." He looked into that still face. "What will I do without you
? Who will I talk to, Papa? Who'll race with me?" His voice broke. "Who will teach me? Papa, who will love me now?"

  Trembling with the force of his emotions, the boy pushed up from the ground and turned around, his expression lost and filled with confusion. His eyes locked with Liza's.

  "Why?" he asked in a pitifully small voice. "Why did they hurt him like that?"

  Liza opened her arms. The boy grabbed her to him like a long-lost treasure.

  "They'll not hurt him again, Wynland," Liza whispered brokenly.

  Brelan closed his eyes, unable to bear his nephew's pain-ravaged face that mirrored so closely his father's at that age.

  Dyllon and Coron came forward, their faces wracked with hurt. They bent over their brother in unison and laid trembling hands on his destroyed face.

  "Goodbye, big brother, " Coron said quietly and had to help Dyllon to his feet. The young man was sobbing so hysterically he could barely walk.

  Cayn touched the once-shiny blond hair and then caressed the prince's chin. "I brought you into this world, son; I only wish to the gods I could have kept you in it." His face twisted and he turned away, stumbled toward the keep, disappearing inside, wanting to put as much distance as possible between him and the courtyard.

  Hern Arbra, his craggy face blank, his eyes dry, knelt by the coffin and bowed his head. His lips moved in a quiet dialogue only the dead man could hear. He seemed to be explaining something that needed to be said. When he finished, he looked at Conar for a long, long time and then, after kissing his trembling fingertips, placed them gently to Conar's lips. "We'll meet again, brat. You can count on that," he said in a husky whisper.

  The old warrior trailed the back of his hand down Conar's still face. "I loved her, you see. With all my heart I loved her, even though she didn't belong to me, brat. I swore to her I'd see you to manhood and on the throne, and now when we meet up again, I'm gonna have to tell her why I let this happen."

  Tears slowly slid down Hern's weathered cheek, but he didn't seem to notice.

  "How am I gonna explain to her that I let them murder our boy? How can I face her, Coni?"