WINDWEEPER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "I will see her wed to no other man but you. I will have no other man touch her, but you."

  "Conar, I care for her. I think I may well be in love with her."

  "I've known that all along, Legion."

  "Are you sure this is what you want?"

  "Aye, I am sure."

  "Then I will gladly accept her to wife if she will have me."

  "Liza will be yours," Conar prophesied.

  Legion opened his eyes and stared at the thorn bush by the seagate. The twisted branches looked so forlorn.

  "I will take good care of her, Coni," he whispered. "On my honor, I swear to you, I will make her a good husband."

  Although his heart was filled with absolute joy at having Liza as his mate, he could not help but feel Brelan's pain. He knew the man loved Liza. Truth be told, so had Galen.

  "She is an easy woman to love, Coni."

  * * *

  A light snow had begun to fall in the garden of Boreas Keep. The willow was bare, the shrubs denuded of leaf and bloom. The fieldstone pathway crunched beneath Brelan's boots as he stalked in a near rage to the fountain, his home away from home, and sat down, mindless of the accumulating snow. This was the only place he felt safe anymore. The only place where he could have peace of mind. He could feel the treacherous tears beginning again.

  Angrily he swiped at them and ground his teeth in impotent fury. What good are tears, anyway? They'd never helped before. He threw back his head to make them stop.

  "Is there no end to this?" he hissed. "Am I destined ever to lose her?"

  He could almost hear the roll of thunder, see the flash of lightning on the rain-drenched sky above Ivor Keep, even smell the sharp, acrid stench of the storm from long ago. He could see the gown she'd worn as she ran headlong down the corridor toward him. He could still smell the lavender scent of her perfume, feel the warm rush of her arms as she grabbed his waist to plaster her body against him. He could hear the wailing wind as it pushed against the mullion windows, could feel the cold draft sweeping around his legs.

  He looked around, half-expecting the snow to have turned to rain. He sighed. Memories could hurt worse than reality. He buried his face in his hands, his memories stronger than the pain he felt in his heart.

  "I love you, Elizabeth," he whispered as he remembered pulling her into his arms that night, lifting her, carrying her to his room. He could feel her tears on his neck, see himself placing her on his bed, lying beside her. It was there, near dawn, that his wildest dreams had been fulfilled. "Did I make you love me, Elizabeth?" he asked, his eyes opening to the quietly falling snow. "Even just a little?"

  He remembered sighing against the sweet tumble of her raven hair, wiping the tears from her face—tears for her loss, for her stolen child, for her dead. And when he filled her with his seed, she had called to him, but it had not been his name that had fallen with such sweetness from her lips.

  It had been Conar's.

  He knew she would never love him as he wished. He could see himself through her eyes and those eyes looked at him as she looked at Grice and Chand: as a brother, perhaps nothing more than a dear friend.

  For the rest of his life, he would hold sacred the night he had consummated his love for her. Though it meant little to her, it meant all to him. It was the one bright, shining joy of his otherwise lonely life and it would keep his love for her alive even after death had sealed his eyes.

  "I will love you as I will never love another. I will be yours for eternity." His gaze fell on the thorn bush by the seagate. The legend of the foolish lovers came back to him.

  "Are you punishing me for loving her, Alel?" he asked his god. "Is this my atonement for coveting my brother's wife?"

  A single tear drifted down Saur's handsome face and froze beside his lips.

  "Legion coveted her, too, and yet you gave her to him. You gave her to him, but would deny me. What kind of god are you that would love one brother over another? Don't I deserve happiness as much as Legion?"

  The thought of Legion lying beside Liza, holding her, making love to her, giving her children, hurt so badly, cut so deeply, Brelan could not stop the moan of hopelessness. He wrapped his arms around his chest, hung his head and wept bitterly for what would never be.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  "Brelan?" Teal asked.

  Saur looked up from his woodcarving. Teal Du Mer never looked at him with kindness, never smiled at him, but now he was smiling and his face was filled with happiness. "Have you been drinking, du Mer?"

  "I've had a quaff or two of some very fine Chrystallusian plum wine."

  Brelan turned back to the duck decoy he was carving. "I thought so."

  "Aren't you going to ask why I'm here?" Teal looked around at the hut where Brelan spent much of his time of late. The one room shack stood deep in the forest outside the keep, near Lake Myria. It wasn't a bad place, but it smelled of wood chips and damp rushes. Teal found it oppressive.

  Brelan shrugged. "I'm sure you'll tell me without me having to ask."

  Teal's face lost some of its happiness. "I'm offering you peace."

  "Why?"

  "Why not?"

  Brelan glimpsed up at the man and snorted. "Because you don't like me, du Mer."

  "That's because I didn't understand why you hung around Liza after her marriage to Galen."

  "And you understand why I did that now, eh?"

  Teal nodded. "Legion told me long ago who Corbin's father was. I can see why you wanted to be near her."

  "Do you, now?"

  "You're not making this any easier for me, Saur."

  "Life ain't easy, du Mer." He dug the knife into the tail section of the decoy and made a long, wavering line.

  "Maybe I shouldn't tell you what Legion sent me to tell you."

  "I didn't think you'd come here on your own," Brelan retorted.

  "Liza had your babe this morning."

  The blade slipped, ran down Brelan's thumb, and cut deep. He stared at the gypsy. Blood dripped to the rush-strewn floor, stained the wood carving, but he didn't seem to notice. "She…she…" He couldn't seem to get past that one word.

  "It happened so fast we barely had time to fetch Cayn. One moment she was standing by the window, the next she was bent over. Legion was going to carry her up to the bedroom, but he got no further than the settee in the library. Legion and Cayn delivered the babe about twenty minutes ago. We sent men looking for you, but I figured this was where you'd be. After a glass or two or three, I forget, of that very fine Chrystallusian plum wine, I came looking for you."

  It was the most words Teal du Mer had ever spoken to him. Brelan could only stare at the twin dimples indenting Teal's cheeks. He certainly couldn't have moved if his life depended on it.

  "Is she…is the babe…"

  "Both doing well. Cayn said it was the easiest delivery he's ever been a part of. Mother and child are sleeping right now, but I would think you'd like to take a peek at your babe."

  Brelan felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him. He laid the knife and decoy on the table, becoming aware that his hand was bleeding. He looked at it as though it were alien.

  "Well?" Teal prodded, "aren't you going to see your new daughter?"

  Brelan's head came up. "Daughter?"

  "Six pounds or thereabouts. She's got a head full of curly black hair. Prettiest little girl I've seen in a long, long time. Liza named her Ceara." Teal smiled. "I like that, don't you?"

  "Daughter?"

  Teal laughed. "Go see your little girl, man!" He held out his hand to help Brelan up.

  Brelan took hold of du Mer's hand. He felt himself drawn up from the bench, but Teal didn't let go of his hand right away.

  "Congratulations, Brelan," the gypsy said.

  "Thank you?" Brelan managed to whisper.

  "That's usually the correct response, aye!"

  On his walk back to the keep, Brelan's mind was filled with wonder. He had always taken extra precautions to kee
p his seed from ever blossoming in his mistresses, wanting no child of his to come into such a foul world. He had always thought a child would be an encumbrance, an impediment to his carefree style, for he knew if one should ever be born, he would marry the woman. Now he wondered why he had been so careless with Elizabeth.

  He stopped still in his tracks.

  The Tribunal had set a length of time they had considered appropriate for Liza's supposed mourning of Galen, but when she had become pregnant, they extended that time.

  Tomorrow, he thought with sudden, dawning hopelessness. Tomorrow would be her wedding day. Tomorrow she would be forced to wed Legion.

  The Tribunal wanted nothing to alienate the populace. Consequently, as far as the people of Serenia knew, the child that had swollen Elizabeth's belly these past months was Galen's.

  "You will make no mention of this," Kaileel Tohre had warned him when he was called before the Tribunal. "If one word of the child's true parentage is leaked to the people, you will spend the remainder of your days with the other rebels on Tyber's Isle and the queen will be beheaded. Do I make myself clear, Lord Saur? It doesn't matter what happened after the woman was widowed, although promiscuity is frowned upon as you know. By law, we could have the child taken at birth, but we will not do that. It is in our best interest to let the people think their queen is a virtuous woman." Tohre's hooded lids slitted. "Even though we know her for the whore she is!"

  "She is no—"

  "Don't cause a scene here. I assure you, we will not take kindly to it." The new Arch-Prelate leaned forward in his chair and fixed Brelan with a cold, hard stare. "You men of the McGregor family lack restraint. Shall we send you somewhere where you may learn it?"

  Brelan's blood had run cold. He had to clamp shut his jaws to keep from yelling. He knew these bastards weren't playing games. They were deadly serious.

  "What do you want me to do?" he finally asked.

  "It's what we don't want you to do, Lord Saur," one of the other Tribunalists answered. "You will never claim the queen's child as your own."

  Now, standing under the canopy of a huge spreading oak, Brelan took a long, wavering breath. He would go in to see his child, his daughter, but he could not claim her as such.

  To the world she was Galen's, just as Corbin was Galen's.

  * * *

  Legion opened the chamber door and smiled. "They are sleeping," he whispered.

  Brelan started to turn away, but his brother took his arm.

  "Come and see the baby, Bre."

  As unsure of himself as he had ever been, Brelan entered the room, his gaze shifting quickly to the big oaken bed. "I'll come back. I…"

  "Brelan?"

  The men turned to see Liza watching them, her hand held out.

  "I'll leave you two alone," Legion said.

  "No," Brelan replied, shaking his head. "She is your lady. You have the right to be here."

  Legion dug his hands into his pockets and said nothing, as if he knew how hard this was for his brother.

  Brelan squared his shoulders and walked to the bed, smiling gently. "You are well, Milady?"

  "Aye." She eased aside the blanket that covered her newborn. "May I present to you the Lady Ceara, Milord?"

  Something moved in his soul, and reached out a trembling hand to touch the infant.

  "Would you like to hold her, Milord?"

  Brelan laid the tip of one finger on the infant's crop of fuzzy dark hair. "I'd better not."

  "I wish you would."

  He wanted so badly to kiss Liza, to hold her. If not the mother, then the child. He reached for the infant. Liza helped him to lift their daughter and sighed when Brelan settled the babe in his arms.

  "She is the most beautiful baby in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms," he declared, his voice filled with awe.

  "How could she not be with a mother such as Liza?" Legion commented.

  Brelan nodded. His eyes were locked on his daughter, and gently kissed her head. She smelled of her mother's perfume and soap, a pleasant combination that he would forever associate with innocence and promise.

  "Ceara," Brelan whispered, then looked at Liza. "It suits her, Milady."

  The baby squirmed. Brelan felt wet heat down the front of his shirt. He held the infant away from him a little ways.

  "Did she do what I think she did?" Liza asked.

  Brelan was relieved when Liza held out her arms.

  "Do you want me to change her?" Legion asked.

  Brelan turned a fierce expression to his brother. "I can do it!"

  "Have you ever changed a baby, Brelan?" Legion challenged.

  "I can learn. She's my d…" He stopped, realizing his mistake, seeing the fear on both Liza's and Legion's faces. "My niece…so I had best learn, don't you think?"

  Legion started to protest, but Liza stopped him. "The diapers are over there," she said. "Legion, show him what he must do."

  As she watched the brothers changing her daughter's linens, Liza settled more comfortably in the bed and closed her eyes. She was tired, her body sore, and her heart aching.

  "Nadia," she whispered, thinking of her firstborn daughter and its father.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the two men arguing over how the pin should be placed on the diaper.

  He would be so amused, she thought, remembering the first time Conar had changed Nadia. The diaper had promptly fallen off the child when Conar lifted her.

  She put a hand on her belly and thought of her happiness on the day she had given birth to Conar's daughter. But now that happiness was gone, though being replaced with a quiet contentment that was slowly growing.

  Her marriage to Galen had been a travesty. Her marriage to Legion was a blessing in disguise, for she had always been attracted to the stalwart warrior with his wicked sense of humor so like Conar's. Marriage to Legion would not be onerous, not a chore, and it might one day bring the happiness she had lost when Conar left her life.

  Though she knew both men loved her, she could give her loyalty to only one. Her one abiding love would always be Conar, but life must go on and her children needed a father to look up to and love.

  Legion A'Lex would be that father.

  Her gaze shifted to Brelan. She had hurt him, but there was nothing she could do in that regard. Had the Tribunal given her to him, she would have sworn her loyalty just as easily as she had to Legion. But would it have meant the same? she asked herself.

  Once more her regard returned to Legion. She wondered, if the roles had been reversed and it was Brelan she had been told to marry, if she would still find her heart doing a funny little flip each time she saw Legion.

  She suspected it would. And the future did not seem quiet so unsettled.

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  Her marriage to Legion was already set in motion. It would take place within the hour. She had tried to argue with the Priest, tried to get him to postpone the wedding for awhile. His irrational display had shocked her more than usual. When he had bent over her bed and took hold of her, she thought he was going to strangle her.

  The man was insane, there was no mistaking that. He had taken one man from her and slain him, butchered his children, caused the death of Galen, stolen her son, murdered her parents, imprisoned her brothers. She could not allow him to spread his venom over any more of those she loved. Her acquiescence was the only way to assure no one else was harmed.

  Tohre's ugly glower went to Gezelle, who sat with the baby in her arms near the fireplace. A look of hatred crossed the cadaverous features. "A girl-child. Useless. Utterly useless!"

  Liza shut out his hated voice. Somewhere far off she could hear the spectral strings of a lyre strumming softly to her. It was the tune that held her captivated; the tune that calmed her. It was "The Prince's Lost Lady." A tune that never failed to bring tears to her. Tears for all that had once been. Ghost-like, the melody came to her in the dead of the night, came to her with the voice of the sea that called her name with suc
h forlorn pain. On moonless nights she could almost see the image of the one who called to her as his shadow floated just out of reach over the ocean's sweep.

  "Get that mewling garbage out of here!" Tohre shouted at Gezelle.

  Liza flinched, coming out of her self-enforced numbness. She turned to Gezelle and nodded, then glanced at Tohre's smug face. "Is there anything else?"

  "No," he snapped and spun on his heel.

  She watched his retreating back, her face hard and fierce. "Never again, Tohre," she pledged as the black robes disappeared from sight. "Never again will I allow you to hurt one of mine!"

  "One day," Teal du Mer said softly, "one day he will be destroyed, Liza."

  Liza looked up with surprise. The gypsy stood in the doorway that connected the King's suite to his Queen's. She knew he had been helping Legion to dress for the ceremony. Her smile was warm. She held out her hand.

  He gripped her hand, and brought it to his lips. "I wish there was something I could do."

  "There is, old friend," she told him. "Keep me company for awhile?"

  He sat in the chair by her bed. His instincts told him she didn't want to talk, so he lovingly held her hand and hummed gently to himself. He would be singing the wedding mass that afternoon instead of Tohre reciting it, as he had at Liza's Joinings with Conar and Galen. The tune he hummed was not from the mass, for he knew she wouldn't want to hear that.

  His heart went out to her. The gypsy blood inside his half-royal veins throbbed for vengeance against those who had caused her the grief stamped on her lovely features. He, like Conar and Legion and Brelan and Galen, was deeply in love with her. Her pain touched him in ways he hated to admit.

  He doubled his free fist, dug his nails into his palms, taking his frustration out on his flesh. What he wouldn't give for one man capable of crushing Kaileel Tohre!

  His thoughts rushed back with a suddenness that made him dizzy, lightheaded. He could see Conar in youth: tall and proud, vigorous and brave, sure of himself, sure of his abilities. The bright flax of his hair would shine in the sunlight, the wind catching it and sending that infernal stray lock over his high forehead. A strong hand would sweep the hair from pale blue eyes and the long lashes would close over the bright sparkle with mirth. The cocky grin from full lips, the lone dimple in his right cheek, always seemed to make him look much younger.