The Song of Homana

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Then he does not know we are here,” I said, still thinking.

  “We are in Ellas,” Finn reminded me. “Homana is but a day or two away, depending on the weather, and I do not doubt Bellam has spies to watch the borders. It may well be these men were sent to catch Cheysuli—” he frowned, and I knew he wondered what tokens Bellam required as proof of a Cheysuli kill. Probably the earring, perhaps the armbands as well. —“but it may be they sought Homana’s exiled prince.” He frowned again. “I cannot be sure. I had no time to learn his intent.”

  “And now it is too late.”

  Finn looked at me levelly. “If Tynstar is meddling with Homanans and sending them out against the Cheysuli, they must be slain.” For a moment he looked at the body again. Then his eyes came back to me. “It is a part of my service to you to keep you alive. Can I not do the same for myself?”

  This time I looked at the body. “Aye,” I said finally, harshly, and turned back to retrieve my sword.

  Finn moved to his dead horse and stripped him of the saddlepacks. I mounted my horse and slid the sword home in the scabbard, making certain the blade was clean of blood. The runes ran silver in the white light of the storm. Cheysuli runes, representing the Old Tongue which I did not know. A Cheysuli sword for a Homanan prince. But then that was another thing the prophecy claimed: one day a man of all blood would unite, in peace, four warring realms and two magic races. Perhaps it would no longer be a Cheysuli sword in the hand of a Homanan prince. It would merely be a sword in the hand of a king.

  But until then, the golden hilt with its rampant, royal lion and the huge brilliant ruby in the prong-toothed pommel would remain hidden by leather wrappings. At least until I claimed the Lion Throne again and made Homana free.

  “Come up,” I told Finn. “You cannot walk in all this snow.”

  He handed up his saddlepacks but did not move to mount behind me. “Your horse carries enough bulk, with all of you.” He grinned. “I will go on as a wolf.”

  “If Storr is too far ahead—” I stopped. Though the shapechanger was governed by the distance between warrior and lir, it was obvious this time there was no impediment. The peculiar detached expression I knew so well came over Finn’s face. For a moment his body remained beside my horse, but his mind did not. It was elsewhere, answering an imperative call; his eyes turned inward and blank and empty, as if he conversed with something—or someone—no one else could hear.

  And then he was back, grinning in genuine pleasure and the attack on us both forgotten. “Storr says he has found us a roadhouse.”

  “How far?”

  “A league, perhaps a bit more. Close enough, I think, after days without a roof over our heads.” He ran a hand through his black hair and shook free the powdery snow. “There are great advantages to lir-shape, Carillon. I will be quicker—and certainly warmer—than you.”

  I ignored him. It was all I could ever do. I turned my horse back to the track and went on, leaving behind three dead men and one dead horse—the others had run away. I cursed the storm again. My face was numb from the ice in my beard. Even the wrappings did not help.

  When Finn at last went past me, it was in wolf-shape: yellow-eyed, ruddy-furred, fleet of foot. And warmer, no doubt, than I.

  TWO

  The common room was crowded with men seeking respite from the storm. Dripping candles puddled into piles of cooling, waxy fat on each table, shedding crude light and a cruder pall of smoke into the low beamwork of the roadhouse. The miasma was thick enough to make me choke against its acrid odor, but there was warmth in abundance. For that I would share any stench.

  The door hitched against the hardpack of the frozen earthen floor. I stopped short, ducking to avoid smacking my head against the doorframe. But then few roadhouse doors are built to accommodate a man of my height; the years spent in exile had made me taller than I had been five years before and nearly twice as heavy. Still, I would not complain; did the added height and weight—and the beard—keep me unknown on my journey home, I would not care if I knocked myself silly against Ellasian doorframes.

  Finn slipped by me into the room as I wrestled with the door. I broke it free, then swung it shut on half-frozen leather hinges, swearing as a dog ran between my legs and nearly upset me. For a moment I thought of Storr, seeking shelter in the forest. Then I thought of food and wine.

  I settled the latch-hook into place and marked absently how the stout iron loops were set for a heavy crossbeam lock. I could tell it was but rarely used, but I marked it nonetheless. No more did I have room in my life for the ease of meaningless friendships found in road- and alehouses.

  Finn waited at the table. Like the others, it bore a single candle. But this one shed no light, only a clot of thick smoke that fouled the air where the flame had glowed a moment before. Finn, I knew. It was habit with us both.

  I joined him, shedding furs and leathers. It felt good to be man again instead of bear, and to know the freedom of movement. I sat down on a three-legged stool and glanced around the common room even as Finn did the same.

  No soldiers. Ellas was a peaceful land. Crofters, most of them, convivial in warmth and the glow of liquor. Travelers as well, bound east or west: Ellasians; Homanans; Falians too, by their accents. But no Caledonese, which meant Finn and I could speak Ellasian with a Caledonese twist and no one would name us other.

  Except those who knew a Cheysuli when they saw one, and in Ellas that could be anyone.

  Ellasians are open, gregarious folk, blunt-speaking and plain of habits. There is little of subterfuge about them, for which I am grateful. I have grown weary of such things, though I have, of necessity, steeped myself in it. It felt good to know myself accepted for what I appeared in the roadhouse: a stranger, foreign, accompanied by a Cheysuli, but welcome among them regardless. Still, it was to Finn they looked twice, if only briefly. And then they looked away again, dismissing what they saw.

  I smiled. Few men dismiss a Cheysuli warrior. But in Ellas they do it often. Here the Cheysuli are not hunted.

  And then I recalled that Homanans had come into Ellas hunting Cheysuli and I lost my smile entirely.

  The tavern-master arrived at last, wiping greasy hands on a frayed cloth apron. He spoke with the throaty, blurred accent of Ellas, all husky and full of phlegm. It had taken me months to learn the trick, but I had learned. And I used it now.

  “Ale,” he said, “or wine. Red from Caledon, a sweet white from Falia, or our own fine Ellasian vintage.” His teeth were bad but I thought the smile genuine.

  “Have you usca?” I asked.

  The grizzled gray brows rose as he considered the question. “Usca, is’t? Na, na, I have none. The plainsmen of the Steppes have naught of trade wi’ us now, since Ellas allied wi’ Caledon in t’last war.” His pale brown eyes marked us Caledonese; my accent had won us that much. Or me; Finn did not in the least resemble a Caledonese. “What else would you have?”

  Finn’s yellow eyes were almost black in the dim candlelight, but I saw the glint in them clearly. “What of Homanan honey brew?”

  At once the brows drew down into a scowl. The Ellasian’s hair, like his eyebrows, was graying, close-cropped against his head. A blemish spread across one cheek; some childhood malady had left him scarred. But there was no suspicion or distrust in his eyes, only vague disgust.

  “Na, none of that, either. ’Tis Homanan, as you have said, and little enough of Homana comes across our borders now.” For a moment he stared at the gold earring shining in Finn’s black hair. I knew what the Ellasian thought: little enough of Homana crossed the borders, unless you counted the Cheysuli.

  “No trade, then?” I asked.

  The man picked at snags in his wine-stained apron. He glanced around quickly, judging the needs of his customers out of long practice. “Trade, after a fashion,” he agreed in a moment, “but not wi’ Homana. Wi’ Bellam instead, her Solindish king.” He tipped his head in Finn’s direction. “You might know.”

  Finn did
not smile. “I might,” he said calmly. “But I left Homana when Bellam won the war, so I could not say what has befallen my homeland since.”

  The Ellasian studied him. Then he leaned forward, pressing both hands flat against the table. “I say ’tis a sad thing to see the land brought down so low. The land chafes under that Solindish lord. And his Ihlini sorcerer.”

  And so we came to the subject I had wanted to broach all along, knowing better than to bring it up myself. Now, did I say nothing and ask no questions, I made myself out a dullard, and almost certainly suspect. The man had proved talkative; I had best not disabuse him of that.

  “Homana is not a happy land?” My tone, couched in Caledonese-tinged Ellasian, was idle and incurious; strangers passed time with such talk.

  The Ellasian guffawed. “Happy? Wi’ Bellam on her throne and Tynstar’s hand around her throat? Na, not happy, never happy…but helpless. We hear tales of heavy taxes and over-harsh justice. The sort of thing that troubles us little enough in Ellas, under our good High King.” He hawked and turned his head to spit onto the earthen floor. “They do say Bellam desires an alliance with Rhodri himself, but he’ll not be agreeing to such a miscarriage of humanity. Bellam’s a greedy fool; Rhodri is not. He has no need of’t, wi’ six fine sons.” He grinned. “I hear Bellam offers his only daughter to the High Prince himself, but I doubt there will be a match made. Cuinn has better thighs to part than Electra of Solinde’s.”

  And so the talk passed to women, as it will among men. But only until the Ellasian left to see about our food, and then we said nothing more of women, thinking of Homana instead. And Bellam, governed by Tynstar.

  “Six sons,” Finn mused. “Perhaps Homana would not now be under Solindish rule, had the royal House proved more fertile.”

  I scowled at him. I needed no reminders that the House of Homana had been less than prolific. It was precisely because Shaine the Mujhar had sired no son at all—let alone six of them!—that he had turned to his brother’s only son. Ah, aye, fertility and infertility. And how the issues had shaped my life, along with Finn’s. For it was Shaine’s infertility—except for a defiant daughter—that had left an enormous legacy to his nephew, Carillon of Homana, and the Cheysuli shapechanger who served him. The Lion Throne itself, upon the Mujhar’s death, and now a war to fight.

  As well as a purge to end.

  The tavern-master arrived bearing bread for trenchers and a platter of steaming meat, which he set in the center of the table. Behind him came a boy with a jug of Ellasian wine, two leathern mugs and a quarter of yellow cheese. I saw how the boy looked at Finn’s face, so dark in the amber candlelight. I saw how he stared at the yellow eyes, but he said not a single word. Finn was, perhaps, his first Cheysuli. And worth a second look.

  Neither boy nor man lingered, being too pressed by other custom, and Finn and I set to with the intentness of starving men. We were not starving, having eaten at the break of day, but stale journey-loaf eaten in a snowstorm is not nearly as toothsome as hot meat in a warm roadhouse.

  I unsheathed my knife and sliced off a chunk of venison, dumping it onto my trencher. It was a Caledonese knife I used now in place of my own, a bone-handled blade wrought with runes and scripture. The hilt had been cut from the thigh of some monstrous beast, or so the king of Caledon had told me upon presentation of it. The blade itself was bright steel, finely honed; the weight of it was perfect for my hand. Still, it was not my own; that one—Cheysuli-made—was hidden in my saddlepacks.

  I ate until I could hardly move upon my stool, and ordered a second jug of wine. And then, even as I poured our mugs full again, I heard the hum of rising conversation. Finn and I both looked instantly for the cause of the heightened interest.

  The harper came down the ladder with his instrument clasped under one long arm. He wore a blue robe belted at the waist with linked silver, and a silver circlet held back the thick dark hair that curled on his shoulders. A wealthy harper, as harpers often are, being hosted by kings and gifted with gold and gems. This one had fared well. He was tall, wide-shouldered, and his wrists—showing at the edges of his blue sleeves—were corded with muscle. A powerful man, for all his calling was the harp instead of the sword. He was blue-eyed, and when he smiled it was a professional smile, warm and welcoming.

  Two men cleared space for him in the center of the room and set out a stool. He thanked them quietly and sat down, settling harp against hip and thigh. I knew at once the instrument was a fine one, having heard so many of the best with my uncle in Homana-Mujhar. It was of rich honey-gold wood, burnished to a fine sheen with years of use. A single green stone was set into the top. The strings glowed gossamer-fine in the smoke and candlelight. They glinted, promising much, until he touched them and fulfilled that promise with the stroke of a single finger.

  Like a woman it was, answering a lover’s caress. The music drifted throughout the room, soft and delicate and infinitely seductive, and silenced the voices at once. There is no man alive who cannot lose himself in harpsong, unless he be utterly deaf.

  The harper’s voice, when he spoke, was every bit as lovely as the harp. It lacked the feminine timbre of many I had heard, yet maintained the rich liquid range the art requires. The modulation was exquisite; he had no need to speak loudly to reach all corners of the room. He merely spoke. Men listened.

  “I will please you as I please myself,” he said quietly, “by giving you what entertainments I can upon my Lady. But there is a task I must first perform.” From the sleeve of his robe he took a folded parchment. He unfolded it, smoothed it, and began to read. He did not color his tone with any emotion, he merely read. But the words were quite enough.

  “Know ye all men that Bellam the Mujhar,

  King of Solinde and Mujhar of Homana;

  Lord of the cities Mujhara and Lestra;

  Sets forth the sum of five hundred gold pieces

  to any man bringing sound word of Carillon,

  styling himself Prince of Homana,

  and wrongful claimant to the Lion Throne.

  “Know ye all men that Bellam the Mujhar

  desires even more the presence of the pretender,

  offering one thousand gold pieces

  to any man bringing Carillon—or his body—

  into Homana-Mujhar.”

  The harper, when finished, folded the parchment precisely as it had been and returned it to his sleeve. His blue eyes, nearly black in the smoky light, looked at every man as if he judged his thoughts. All idleness was gone; I saw only shrewd intensity. He waited.

  I wondered, in that moment, if he recruited. I wondered if he was Bellam’s man, sent out with the promise of gold. I wondered if he counted the pieces for himself. Five hundred of them if he knew I was here. One thousand if he brought me home to Homana-Mujhar.

  Home. For disposal as Bellam—or Tynstar—desired.

  I saw what they did, the Ellasian men. They thought of the gold and the glory. They thought of the task and the triumph. They considered, for a moment, what it might be to be made rich, but only for a moment, for then they considered their realm. Ellas. Not Homana. Rhodri’s realm. And the man who offered such gold had already swallowed one land.

  The Ellasians, I knew, would do nothing for Bellam’s gold. But there were others in the room, and perhaps they would.

  I looked at Finn. His face was a mask, as ever; a blank, sun-bronzed mask, with eyes that spoke of magic and myth and made them both quite real.

  The harper began to sing. His deep voice was fine and sweet, eloquently expressing his intent. He sang of the bitterness of defeat and the gut-wrenching carnage of war. He sang of boys who died on bloodied fields and captains who fell beneath Solindish and Atvian swords. He sang of a king who hid himself in safety behind the rose-red walls of Homana-Mujhar, half-mad from a crazed obsession. He sang of the king’s slain brother, whose son was trapped in despair and Atvian iron. He sang of the same boy, now a man and free again, who lived his life in exile, fleeing Ihlini re
tribution. He sang my life, did this stranger, and brought the memories alive.

  Oh gods…the memories…

  How is it that a harper can know what was? How is it that he captures the essence of what happened, what I am, what I long to be? How is it that he can sing my song while I sit unknowing, knowing only it is true, wishing it were otherwise?

  How is it done?

  The poignancy nearly shattered me. I shivered once convulsively, then stared hard at the scarred wooden table while the shackle weals beneath the sleeves of my leather shirt ached with remembered pain. I could not look at the harper. Not while he gave me my history, my heritage, my legacy, and the story of a land—my land—in her death struggle.

  “By the gods—” I murmured before I could stop.

  I felt Finn’s eyes on me. But he said nothing at all.

  THREE

  “I am Lachlan,” said the harper. “I am a harper, but also a priest of Lodhi the All-Wise, the All-Father; would you have me sing of Him?” Silence met his question, the silence of reverence and awe. He smiled, his hands unmoving upon the harp. “You have heard of the magic we of Lodhi hold. The tales are true. Have you not heard them before?”

  I looked over the room. Men sat silently on their benches and stools, paying no mind to anyone save the harper. I wondered again what he intended to do.

  “The All-Father has given some of us the gift of song, the gift of healing, the gift of words. And fewer of us claim all three.” He smiled. It was an enigmatic, eloquent smile. “I am one, and this night I will share what I can with you.”

  The harp’s single green stone cast a viridescent glow as his fingers danced across the strings, stirring a sound that at once set the flesh to rising on my bones. His eyes passed over each of us again, as if he sought to comprehend what each one of us was about. And still he smiled.