The Song of Homana

by Jennifer Roberson

  As I spread the blankets I heard the muffled movement in the snow. My hand was on my sword instantly, ripping it from the sheath at my left hip. I spun, leveling the blade, and saw the flash of setting sunlight turn the runes to blinding fire.

  Three men before me, running at me out of the thickening shadows. More than that behind me. I wondered where was Finn, and then I did not, for I had no time.

  I took the first one easily enough, marking the expression of shock on his face as I swung my blade and cut through leather and furs and flesh, shearing the bone of his arm in two just below the shoulder. The momentum of the blade carried it farther yet, into his ribs, and then he fell and I wrenched the sword free to use it on yet another.

  The second fell as well, thrust through the lungs, and then the others did what they should have done at the first. They came at me at once, en masse, so that even did I try to take yet a third, the others could bear me down. I did not doubt I would account for at least another death before I died, perhaps even two—Finn and adversity had taught me well enough for that—but the result would be the same. I would be dead, and Bellam would have his pretender-prince.

  I felt the cold kiss of steel at the back of my neck, sliding through my hair. Yet another blade was at my throat; a third pressed against the leather and furs shielding my belly. Three men on me, then; two were dead, and the last man—the sixth—stood away and watched me. Blood was splattered across his face, but he bore no wound.

  “Stay you still,” he told me at once, and I heard the fear in his voice. As well as the Homanan words.

  I gestured toward my belt-purse. “My gold is there.”

  “We want none of your gold,” he said quickly. “We came for something more.” He smiled. “But we will take it, since you offer.”

  I still held my sword in my right hand. But they did not let me keep it. One man reached out and took it from me, then tossed it aside. I saw how it landed across the firecairn, clanging against the stone. I saw how the hilt was in the flames, and knew the leather would burn away to display the golden lion.

  “Whose gold do you want, then?” I spoke Homanan, since they did, but I kept my Caledonese accent.

  “Bellam’s,” he confided, and grinned.

  Inwardly I swore. The Solindish usurper had caught me easily enough. And I had not even reached Homana.

  Still, I forced a bewildered frown. “What does Bellam want with a mercenary? Can he not buy hundreds of them?”

  “You travel with a shapechanger,” he stated flatly.

  Still I frowned. “Aye, What of it? Has Bellam declared it unlawful? I am not Homanan, I am Caledonese. I choose my companions where I will.” I looked at the sword hilt and saw how the leather turned black and crisp. In a moment it would peel away, and I would be unmasked. If I were not already.

  “Cheysuli are under sentence of death,” the Homanan said. “That is one policy Bellam has kept intact since the days of Shaine.”

  I allowed surprise to enter my face. “You welcome Bellam as king, then? Though you be Homanan?”

  He glanced at the others. They were all familiar: I had seen them in the roadhouse the night before. And they had heard Bellam’s message the harper had read. But I wondered how I had given myself away.

  The man spat into the snow. “We welcome Bellam’s gold, since we get none of it another way. While he offers payment for each Cheysuli slain, we will serve him. That is all.”

  I kept my surprise from showing. Once more, it was not me they sought. Finn again. But it was me they had caught, and worth more—to Bellam—than five hundred Cheysuli warriors.

  Except there were not five hundred Cheysuli left in all the world. My uncle had seen to that.

  “You have come across the border hunting Cheysuli?” I asked.

  He smiled. “They are hard to find in Homana. But the Ellasian king gives them refuge, so we seek them here. How better to earn the gold?”

  “Then why,” I asked very calmly, “do you disarm me? I have no stake in this.”

  “You came in with the shapechanger. By taking you, we take him. He will not turn beast with your life in our hands.”

  I laughed. “You count on a bond that does not exist. The Cheysuli and I met on the trail; we owe each other nothing. Taking me wins you nothing except a meaningless death.” I paused. “You do mean to slay me, do you not?”

  He glanced at the others. For a moment there was hesitation in his blue eyes, and then he shrugged. His decision had been made. “You slew two of us. You must pay.”

  I heard the jingle of horse trappings. The blades pressed closer against my neck, throat and belly as the man rode out of the trees. In his bare hands was a harp, and the single note he plucked held us all in thrall.

  “You will slay no one,” the harper said. “Fools, all of you, when you have Carillon in your hands.”

  The Homanans did not move. They could not. Like me, they were prisoners to the harp.

  Lachlan looked at me. “They are Homanans. Did you tell them your name, they might bend knee to you instead of baring steel.”

  His fingers tangled in the strings and brought forth a tangle of sound. It allowed me to speak, but nothing more. “I am a mercenary,” I said calmly. “You mistake me for someone else.”

  He frowned. His eyes were on me intently, and the sound of the harp increased. I felt it inside my head, and then he smiled. “I can conjure up your life, my lord. Would you have me show it to us all?”

  “To what purpose?” I inquired. “You will do what you will do, no matter what I say.”

  “Aye,” he agreed.

  I saw how his fingers played upon the strings, drawing from the harp a mournful, poignant sound. It conjured up memories of the song he had played the night before, the lay that had driven a blade into my belly with the memories of what had happened. But it was not the same. It had a different sound. His Lady sang a different song.

  The blades moved away from my neck, my throat, my belly. The Homanans stepped away, stumbling in the snow, until I stood alone. I watched, mute, as they took up the men I had slain and bore the bodies away into the trees. I was alone, except for the harper, but as helpless as before.

  “Ah,” I said, “you mean to claim the gold yourself.”

  “I mean to give you what men I can,” he reproved. “I sent them home to wait until you call them to your standard.”

  I laughed. “Who would serve a mercenary, harper? You have mistaken me, I say.”

  Quite calmly he set the harp into its case and closed it up, hooking it to his saddle. Lachlan jumped down from his horse and crossed the snow to me. He knelt swiftly, pulled thick gloves from his belt and folded them, then pulled my sword from the firecairn. The leather had burned away, and in the last rays of the setting sun the ruby glowed deep crimson. The lion was burnished gold.

  Lachlan rose. He held the blade gingerly, careful of the heat even through the gloves, but his smile did not fade. He turned to look at me with subtle triumph in his eyes. “I have leather in my packs,” he said quietly. “You will have to wrap it again.”

  Still I could not move. I wondered how long he meant to hold me. I wondered if he would take me all the way to Mujhara in his ensorcellment, so that Bellam would see me helpless. The thought set my teeth to gritting.

  And then I smiled. As Lachlan turned to go to his horse—for the harp, no doubt—Finn stepped around the horse’s rump and blocked Lachlan’s path. Around the other side came Storr. And the ensorcellment was broken.

  I reached out and closed my gloved hand upon the blade of my sword, still in Lachlan’s careful grasp. I felt the heat, but it was not enough to burn me. Simply enough to remind me what had so nearly happened.

  Lachlan stood quite still. His hands were empty of everything now save the gloves he held, folded in his palms. He waited.

  Finn moved closer. Storr followed. I could feel Lachlan’s tension increase with every step they took. My own was gone at last; I felt calm, at ease, content t
o know the confrontation was firmly in our hands. No more in a sorcerous harper’s.

  “The others are dead.” Finn stopped in front of Lachlan.

  The harper started. “You slew them? But I gave them a task—”

  “Aye,” Finn agreed ironically. “I prefer to take no chances.”

  Lachlan opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. I saw how rigid was his jaw. After a moment he tried again. “Then you have taken five men from Carillon’s army. Five men you will miss.”

  Finn smiled. There was little of amusement in it. “I would sooner take five men from Carillon’s army than Carillon himself.”

  Lachlan looked sharply at me. “You disbelieve me when I say I wish only to aid you. Well enough, I understand it. But he is Cheysuli. He can compel the truth from me. I know of his gifts; I have my own.”

  “And, having them, you may withstand mine,” Finn commented.

  Lachlan shook his head. “Without my harp, I have no magic. I am at your disposal. And I am not Ihlini, so you need fear no loss of your own power.”

  Finn’s hands were a blur, reaching to catch the harper’s head before Lachlan could move away. He held the skull between both palms, cradling it, as if he sought to crush it, but he did not. Lachlan’s own hands came up, reaching to peel Finn’s fingers away, but they stopped. The hands fell to his sides. Finn held him there, and went into his mind.

  After a moment, when some sense came back to Finn’s eyes, he looked at me. “He is a harper, a healer and a priest. That much I can touch. But nothing else. He is well shielded, no matter that he wishes to claim his innocence.”

  “Does he serve Bellam or Tynstar?”

  “He does not appear to.” The distinction was deliberate.

  I looked upon my sword and methodically rubbed the ash and charring from its hilt. “If he is neither Bellam nor Tynstar’s man, whose man is he? He had his chance to slay me with that harp, or to take my mind from me. Bellam would give him his gold for a body or a madman.” I grimaced. “He might even have used the Homanans as a guard contingent—he has the power with that harp. But he did none of those things.”

  “Shall I slay him for you?”

  I squinted at the ruby, darkening as the sun went down. “Harpers are traditionally immune from such things as assassination. Petty intrigue they cannot help—I think it is born in them even as the harping is born—but never have I known one to clothe himself in murder.”

  “Gold can buy any man.”

  I grinned at him, brows lifting. “A Cheysuli, perhaps?”

  Finn scowled. With the fortune in gold on his arms and in his ear, more would hardly tempt him. Or any other warrior. “He is not Cheysuli,” was all he said, and the meaning was quite clear.

  “No,” I agreed, sighing. “But perhaps he is only a spy, not a hired assassin. Spies I can deal with; often they are useful. How else could we have led Bellam this merry dance for five years?” I smiled again. Bellam had sent spies to track us down. Five had even found us. Those we had stripped of their task, giving them a new one instead: to take word to Bellam that we were elsewhere in the world. Usually hundreds of leagues away from where we were. It had worked with three of them.

  The others we had slain.

  “Then you mean to use him.” His tone was perfectly flat, but I knew he was not pleased.

  “We will take him with us and see what he means to do.”

  “You tread a dangerous path, Carillon.”

  I smiled. “It is already dangerous. This will add a fillip.” I laughed at his expression. “It will also keep you in practice, liege man. You were slow in coming to my aid.”

  “I had five men to slay before I could reach the harp.” But he frowned a little, and I knew he was not immune to the knowledge that he had been slow. Faster than anyone else, perhaps, but slow for a Cheysuli warrior.

  “You are getting old, Finn.” I gestured. “Set our harper free. Let us see what he intends to do.”

  Finn released Lachlan. The harper staggered a moment, then caught himself, touching his head with a tentative hand. His eyes were blurred and unfocused. “Have you done?”

  “More than done,” I agreed. “Now tell us why you wish to aid me.”

  He rubbed his brow, still frowning slightly. “It is a harper’s life to make songs out of heroes and history. You are both, you and your Cheysuli. You should hear the stories they tell.” He grinned, his senses restored. “A harper gains his own measure of fame by adding to the fame of others. I could do worse than to ride with Carillon of Homana and his equally infamous liege man.”

  “You could,” I agreed, and let him make of that what he would.

  After a moment Lachlan gestured. “Your fire has gone out. Do you wish it, I can give it life again.”

  I glanced down at the firecairn. Snow had been kicked into the fire during the scuffle with the Homanans and the weight had finally doused it. “I have flint and steel,” I said.

  “Your kindling is damp. What I do will take less effort.” Lachlan turned to go to his horse for the harp, but Storr was in his way. After a moment a gray-faced harper looked back at me.

  I smiled. “Storr does Finn’s bidding, when he does not do his own. Look to him.”

  Lachlan did not move. He waited. And finally Storr moved away.

  The harper took down his case from the horse and turned, cradling it against his chest. “You fear I will use sorcery against you?”

  “With reason,” I declared.

  “I will not.” He shook his dull, dark head. “Not again. I will use it for you, do you wish it, but not against. Never against. We have too much in common.”

  “What,” I asked, “does a mercenary have in common with a harper?”

  Lachlan grinned. It was the warm, amused expression I had seen the evening before, as if he knew what I could not, and chose to keep it that way. “I am many things,” he said obliquely. “Some of them you know: harper, healer, priest. And one day I will share the rest with you.”

  I lifted my sword. With great deliberation I set the tip against the lip of the sheath and let Lachlan see the runes, hardly visible in the dying light. Then I slid the sword home with the hiss of steel filling the shadows. “Do you admit to complicity,” I said softly, “take care.”

  Lachlan’s smile was gone. Hugging his harp case, he shook his head. “Were I to desire your death, your Cheysuli would give me my own.” He cast a quick, flickering glance at Finn. “This is Ellas. We have sheltered the Cheysuli for some years, now. Do you think I discount Finn’s skill? No. You need not be wary of me, with him present. I could do nothing.”

  I gestured. “There is that in your hands.”

  “My Lady?” He was surprised, then smiled. “Oh, aye, there is her magic. But it is Lodhi’s, and I do not use it to kill.”

  “Then show us how you can use it,” I bid him. “Show us what other magic you have besides the ability to give us our memories, or to lift our wills from us.”

  Lachlan looked at Finn, almost invisible in the deepening shadows. “It was difficult, with you. Most men are so shallow, so transient. But you are made of layers. Complex layers, some thin and easily torn away, but in tearing they show the metal underneath. Iron,” he said thoughtfully. “I would liken you to iron. Hard and cold and strong.”

  Finn abruptly gestured toward the firecairn. “Show us, harper.”

  Lachlan knelt down by the firecairn. Deftly he unsealed the harp case—boiled leather hardened nearly to stone by some agent, padded thickly within—and took from it his Lady. The strings, so fragile-seeming, gleamed in the remaining light. The wood, I saw, was ancient, perhaps from some magical tree. It was bound with spun gold. The green stone—an emerald?—glowed.

  He knelt in the snow, ignoring the increasing cold, and played a simple lay. It was soft, almost unheard, but remarkable nonetheless. And when his hands grew blurred and quick I saw the spark begin, deep in the damp, charred wood, until a single flame sprouted, swallowed it all, and t
he fire was born again.

  The song died upon the harp. Lachlan looked up at me. “Done,” he said.

  “So it is, and myself unscathed.” I reached down a gloved hand, caught his bare one and pulled him to his feet. His was no soft grasp, no woman’s touch designed to keep his harper’s fingers limber.

  Lachlan smiled as we broke the grip. I thought he had judged me as quickly as I had him. But he said nothing; there was nothing at all to say. We were strangers to one another, though something within me said it would not always be so.

  “You ride a blooded horse,” I said, looking at the dapple-gray.

  “Aye,” Lachlan agreed gravely. “The High King likes my music. It was a gift last year.”

  “You have welcome in Rheghed?” I asked, thinking of the implications.

  “Harpers have welcome anywhere.” He tugged on his gloves, hunching against the cold. “I doubt not Bellam would have me in Homana-Mujhar, did I go.”

  He challenged me with his eyes. I smiled, but Finn did not. “Aye, I doubt not.” I turned to Finn. “Have we food?”

  “Something like,” he affirmed, “but only if you are willing to eat coney-meat. Game is scarce.”

  I sighed. “Coney is not my favorite, but I prefer it to none at all.”

  Finn laughed. “Then at least I have taught you something in these past years. Once you might have demanded venison.”

  “I knew no better, then.” I shook my head. “Even princes learn they have empty bellies like anyone else, when their titles are taken from them.”

  Lachlan’s hands were on his harp as he set it within its case. “Which title?” he asked. “Prince or Mujhar?”

  “Does it matter? Bellam has stolen them both.”

  When the coneys were nothing but gristle and bone—and Storr demolished the remains quickly enough—Lachlan brought out a skin of harsh wine from his saddlepacks and passed it to me. I sat cross-legged on my two pelts, trying to ignore the night’s cold as it settled in my bones. The wine was somewhat bitter but warming, and after a long draw I handed it to Finn. Very solemnly he accepted it, then invoked his Cheysuli gods with elaborate distinction, and I saw Lachlan’s eyes upon him. Finn’s way of mocking another man’s beliefs won him few friends, but he wanted none. He saw no sense in it, with Storr.