The Song of Homana

by Jennifer Roberson

  The lion of Homana.

  It leaped. It gathered itself and leaped directly at the horse, and took him down with the swipe of one huge paw. I heard the dull snap of a broken neck, then saw the beast turn toward me.

  I dropped my bow. I ran. So did the lion run. It was a huge flash of tawny golden-yellow; black-maned past his shoulders, tail wiry as if it lived. I ran, but I could not outrun it. And so I turned, unsheathing my sword, and tried to spit the lion on it.

  It leaped. Up into the air it leaped, hind legs coiling to push it off the ground, front paws reaching out. My ears shut out the fearful roar so that I heard only the pounding of my blood as it ran into my head.

  One paw reached out and caught me across the head. But I ducked most of the weight; in ducking, I saved my life. The blow, had it landed cleanly, would have broken my neck at once. As it was, part of the paw still caught me, knocking me down, so that I feared my jaw was shattered. Blood ran freely from my nose.

  Even as I went down I kept my sword thrust up. I saw the blade bite into the massive chest, tearing through the hide. It caught on bone, then grated as the lion’s leap carried it past.

  I was flat on my back in the snow. I was up almost at once, too frightened to take refuge in the pain and shock. My head rang and blood was in my mouth. My sword was no use against the lion unless I hit a vital spot. To try for that would put me too close, well within its range. I did not relish feeding it on my flesh.

  The lion’s snarl was a coughing, hacking sound. Its mane stood out from the hide, black and tangled. But the muscles rippled cleanly against the tawny-gold; the wound had done nothing to gainsay it. Blood flowed, but still it came on.

  I knew, instinctively, it would not die. I could not slay it by conventional means. The beast had been summoned by a sorcerer.

  My foot came down on something hard as I backed away from the lion. I realized I had run in a circle, so that I was back where I had begun. The horse lay where the lion had put it. And the bow lay under my feet.

  I dropped the sword at once and caught up the bow. I snatched an arrow from my quiver. As the beast leaped yet again I nocked the arrow and spun—let fly. But not at the lion. At the man.

  The shaft went home in the sorcerer’s chest. I saw him stagger, clutching the arrow, then he slumped down to his knees. He was abruptly haloed in a sphere of purple fire that sprung up around his body. And then the arrow burst into brilliant crimson flames and he was dead.

  I swung back. The beast was nothing but bone. A single, hilt-shaped bone, lying in the snow.

  I sank down to my knees, slumping forward, until only my arms braced stiffly against the snow held me up. My breath came from deep in my chest in wheezing gasps, setting my lungs afire. Blood still ran from my nose, staining the snow, and my head ached from the blow. I spat out a tooth and hung there, spent, to let my body recover.

  When at last I could stand again I weaved like a man too far gone in wine. I shook in every bone. I stumbled to the snow-melt stream and knelt there, scooping cold water and ice to cleanse my face and mouth of blood and filth and my mind of the blanking numbness.

  I pushed to my feet again. Slowly, moving like an old, old man, I gathered up bow and sword. The knife hilt I left lying in the snow. That I would never carry again.

  The Ihlini was quite dead. His body was sunken within his clothing, as if the arrow had somehow loosed more than life, but a force as well; released, its shell had shrunk. It was a body still, but not much of a man.

  The Ihlini’s horse stood part way down the backside of the ridge. It was a dark brown gelding, not fine but good. An Ihlini’s horse, and ensorcelled?

  I caught the reins from the ground and brought the horse closer. Taller than the dun. Shedding his winter hair. He had kind eyes, clipped mane and short tail. One spot of white was on his face. I patted his jaw and mounted.

  I nearly fell off again. My head spun and throbbed with renewed ferocity; the lion had rattled my senses. I huddled in the saddle a long moment, eyes shut, waiting for the pain and dizziness to diminish.

  Carefully I touched my face and felt the swollen flesh. No doubt I would purple by nightfall. But my nose, for all it ached, was whole. And then, done marking my numerous aches, I turned the horse and rode eastward.

  Torrin’s dog ran out to meet me. In the weeks since we had come he had grown, now more dog than pup, but his ebullience was undiminished. He loped along next to my horse and warned Torrin of my presence. It was not necessary; Torrin was at the well fishing up the bucket.

  In five years, Torrin had not changed much. His gray hair was still thinning, still cropped against his head. He still bore seams in his flesh and calluses on his hands. Crofting had changed his body from the bulk of an arms-master’s to the characteristic slump of a man who knew sheep and land, but I could still see his quiet competence. He had been born to blades, not the land, and yet for Alix’s sake he had given all of that up. Because Shaine had wanted to be rid of her, and Torrin could not bear to see the infant left to die.

  I rode up slowly. The horse made his way to the well and put his head into the bucket Torrin held. Torrin, looking up at me from brown eyes couched in fleshy folds, shook his head. “Was that Solindish-done?”

  He meant my face. I touched it and said no. “Ihlini. He summoned a beast. A lion.”

  The color changed in his leathered cheeks. “Bellam knows—”

  I shook my head before he could finish. “He may not. The men who sought to slay me are dead. I have no doubt he knows I am back—most people do—but there is no one left to tell him where I am. I think we will be safe a little longer.”

  He looked troubled, but I had no more time to wonder at it. I bent forward and swung off the horse slowly, wincing from the bruises. I left the horse with Torrin and slowly made my way to the croft. Wood smoke veiled the air.

  “My lord, I think—”

  I turned back before the door, interrupting in my weariness. “You have a half-cask, do you not? Clothes I left with you. Soap and water? Hot. I wish to boil myself free of this stench.”

  He nodded, brow furrowed. “Do you wish me to—”

  “No.” I lifted a hand in a weary wave. “I will see to it myself.” It was something I had learned in exile. I needed no servants to fetch and carry.

  “My lord—” he tried again, but I went into the croft.

  And stopped. It was Alix.

  She stood by the table before the fire, with her arms plunged into a bubble of bread dough set out on a board. Flour reached to her elbows. I saw at once her dark brown hair had grown long enough to braid, pinned against her head with silver clasps that glittered in the sunlight slanting in the open door.

  I saw again the girl I had befriended, when a prince had so few real friends. I saw again the girl who had been the reason for my capture by Finn and his raiding party. I saw again the girl whose Cheysuli tahlmorra was so firmly linked with my own Homanan fate.

  But mostly I saw the girl who had become a woman, and I hated the time I had lost.

  There was a question in her eyes, and bafflement. She knew me not, in my foul and filthy state, bearded and greased and bruised. I thought of what kind of man I had been five years before, and what I was now, and I laughed.

  And then, as her mouth shaped my name, I crossed the tiny room and caught her in my arms.

  She hugged me as tightly as I hugged her, saying my name again and again. She smelled of bread dough and wood smoke, and laughed as if she could not stop.

  “So filthy—” she said, “and so humble—”

  I had never been that. But I laughed with her, for what she saw was true if, perhaps, to a lesser extent than she thought. Or for different reasons. I was humbled, it was true, by the very thing that elevated so many men: I wanted her. And so, unable to help myself, I cupped her head in my hands and kissed her.

  Only once had I kissed her before, and under such circumstances as she could claim it a token of my thanks. I had meant that, then
, too, but more as well. But by then, when she rescued me from the Atvians, she had already pledged herself to Duncan. She had carried his child in her belly.

  Now, she did not rescue me. There was nothing of gratefulness about what I was feeling; she could not construe it as such. In five years I had had time to think of Alix, and regret what had not happened between us, and I could not hide my feelings.

  And yet there was Duncan, still, between us.

  I let her go. I still longed to touch her, but I let her go. She stood quietly before me, color high in her face, but there was a calmness in her eyes. She knew me better than I did.

  “That much you may have, having taken it already,” she said quietly, “but no more.”

  “Are you afraid what might grow up from this beginning?”

  She shook her head once. “Nothing can grow up from this beginning. There is nothing—here.” She touched her left breast, indicating her heart. Her gaze was perfectly steady.

  Almost I laughed. It was so distinct a change. She had gained understanding and comprehension, aware of what she was. Gone was the virgin, confused by body and emotions. Now she was woman, wife and mother, and she knew. I was not enough.

  “I have thought of you for years,” I said. “All those nights in exile.”

  “I know.” Her tone did not waver for an instant. “Had you been Duncan, I would have felt the same. But you were—and are—not. You are yourself. You are special to me, it is true, but it is far too late for more. Once, perhaps…but all of that time has passed.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to regain my composure. “I did not—did not mean to do this. I meant only to greet you again. But it seems I cannot keep my hands from you now any more than I ever could.” I smiled wryly. “An admission few men would make to a woman who will not have them.”

  Alix smiled. “Finn said much the same. His greeting was—similar.”

  “And Duncan?”

  “Duncan was—elsewhere. He is not an insensitive man.”

  “Nor ever was.” I sighed and scratched my jaw beneath the beard. “Enough of this. I came in to wash, as you see.”

  “Good.” Some of the tension vanished and the light came into her eyes. The warm, amber eyes I recalled so well—so perfect a melding of Cheysuli and Homanan, more beautiful to me than either. “I doubt I could stand your stink one more moment.” She turned away at once to the fire in the low stone fireplace, kneeling to add wood, then glanced over her shoulder at me. “Perhaps you would fill the cauldron with water?” And then color blazed up high in her face, as if she recalled I was royal and above such lowly things.

  I grinned. “I will fetch it and set out the cask. Do you forget?—I have been with Finn all these years. I am not quite the same as you knew me.” I left her then, having caught up the heavy cauldron, and went out to fill it with water.

  Torrin sat on the edge of the stone-ringed well, smoking his clay pipe. His grizzled eyebrows rose. “I thought to warn you she was here,” he said around the stem.

  I grunted as I began to crank up the bucket. “I had not thought it was so obvious to everyone.”

  “To me.” Torrin got up to steady the bucket as it came up from the water. He caught it and poured its contents into the cauldron. “She was so young when first you met her. Then so new to her heritage, knowing little of royal things. And finally, of course, there was Duncan.”

  The name dropped into my soul like a stone. “Aye…he had more sense than I. He saw what he wanted and took it.”

  “He won it,” Torrin said quietly. “My lord—do you think to win her back from him, think again. I was her father for seventeen years. Even now, I feel she is mine. I will not have her hurt, or her happiness harmed. She loves him deeply.” He dropped the bucket down when it was emptied and met my eyes without the flicker of an eyelid. As he had, no doubt, met my uncle’s unwavering stare. “You are the Mujhar, and have the right to do what you will, even with the Cheysuli. But I think you have more sense than that.”

  For most of my life I had been given what I wanted, including women. Alix I had lost before I knew how much I wanted her. And now, knowing it keenly, I knew how much it hurt to lose.

  Especially to Duncan.

  Alix came to the door of the white-washed, thatch-roofed croft house with its gray stone chimney. “The fire is ready.” Around her neck shone the golden torque made in the shape of a flying hawk, wings outspread and beak agape, with a chunk of amber caught in the clutching talons. A lir-torque and Cheysuli bride-gift. Made for her by Duncan.

  I hoisted the cauldron and lugged it inside, hanging it from the iron hook set into the stone of the blackened fireplace. I sat on a stool and waited, aware of her every movement, and stared at the fire as she kneaded the dough again.

  “When did you come?” I asked at last.

  “Eight days ago. Finn brought us here.” A warm, bright smile shone on her face.

  “He is back?” I felt better almost at once.

  “He brought us down from the North.” The silver pins in her coiled braids glittered in the sunlight as she worked. The folds of her moss-green gown moved as she moved, shifting with the motion of her body. The overtunic, with sheepskin fleece turned inward, was dyed a pale, soft yellow, stitched in bright green yarn. It hung to her knees, belted at her waist with brown leather and a golden buckle. Cheysuli finery, not Homanan; she was all Cheysuli now.

  I scratched at my itching face. “He is well?”

  “Finn? Oh, aye—when is he not? He is Finn.” She smiled again, beating the dough with her hands. “Though I think he has another thing to occupy himself with, now.”

  “A woman,” I predicted. “Has he found someone among the clan?”

  She laughed. “No, not a woman. My son.” Her smile widened into a grin. “There are times Donal is more like his su’fali than his jehan. And now they have become close friends as well, I have only Finn to blame for my son’s little indiscretions. One was bad enough; now there are two.”

  “Two Finns?” I thought about it, laughing, and saw Alix shake her head.

  “Shall I bid them come?” she asked, still kneading. “I have only to speak to Cai and Storr.”

  I thought again of the power she held, the boundless magic that ran in her veins. Old Blood, it was, a gift reborn of the gods. Alix, and only Alix, could converse with any lir. Or take any shape at will.

  “No,” I said. “I will go up myself, when I have shed my weight of dirt.” I checked the water and found it nearly hot. Then I asked for the half-cask; Alix told me where it was and I dragged it out of the tiny antechamber, if a croft could be said to have a proper one. The half-cask was bound with hammered copper. It still smelled faintly of cider, betraying its original purpose. In Homana-Mujhar I had bathed in oak-and-silver cask-tubs polished smooth, so no splinters threatened my flesh. I doubted this one was as good, but it would serve. In exile I had learned to be grateful for anything.

  I rolled the cask into Torrin’s tiny bedchamber, containing a pallet, chest and chair. There I tipped the cask on its end, then began filling it from the cauldron. When at last it stood ready I went seeking cloth and soap.

  Alix gave me both. “Torrin has changed nothing since I left,” she said with a nostalgic smile, and I wondered if she recalled the day Finn had stolen us both.

  How could she not? I did. Too well. And the changes that had occurred since then.

  I looked at her a long moment, my hands full of threadbare cloth and hard brown soap. I wished there was more I could say. And then I said it anyway. “I will insult neither you nor your husband by pursuing you where I am not wanted.”

  Color flared in her face again. I marked how the years had melted away the flesh of youth, leaving her with the characteristic angular, high-planed Cheysuli face. Her face was more like Finn’s than ever before; the children showing the father’s blood.

  “There was no need to say it,” she told me softly.

  “There was. Otherwise I could not accou
nt for my actions.” Briefly I touched her face with the backs of two fingers. “Alix—once we might have shared so much. Let us keep of it what we can.” I took my hand away and went into the gloomy bedchamber where the water steamed in the air. I pulled the curtain closed and stripped out of my filthy garb.

  I could not put her from my mind. I thought of her in the other room, kneading away, knowing she had Duncan close at hand. I thought of her with him, at night. I thought of her as I had known her: a young, sweet-natured girl with coltish grace and an integrity few men possess.

  And I thought how odd a thing it is that two people can inhabit a single room, each knowing how the other one feels, and knowing there is no good in it.

  No good at all. Only pain.

  NINE

  The half-cask, unfortunately, did not accommodate a man of my size. It was an awkward bath. I sat with my knees doubled up nearly beneath my chin and my spine crushed against the wood. But it was wet and hot and I scrubbed with every bit of strength I had, ridding myself of all the dirt and grease. Even that in my hair and beard.

  When at last I could breathe again, stripped of the stench of my disguise, I relaxed. I hung my legs outside of the cask and sat back, tipping my head against the wooden rim. The flesh of my face still ached from the lion’s blow; the rest of my body hurt as much. I felt older than my years. The lion had drained my strength; that, and the knowledge of Ihlini sorcery.

  The water cooled, but not so fast I could not take my time getting out. And so I did. I let go of all my breath, let my muscles turn to rags, and promptly went to sleep.

  “Carillon.”

  I jerked awake. My spine scraped against the rough wood and I cursed, staring in some confusion at Finn, who stood just inside the doorway with the curtain pulled closed behind him. Thoughtful of my modesty, for once; perhaps it was Alix who elicited such care.

  I sat upright and pulled my legs back in, scowling at him. Finn merely smiled, amused to find me in such a state, and leaned back against the wall with bare arms folded across his chest. He had put off his winter leathers in deference to the thaw; I saw again the heavy gold that banded his arms above the elbows. Wide, beautiful things, embossed with runes and wolf-shape. He wore snug leathers again: leggings and a sleeveless jerkin. At his belt hung the Steppes knife, and I thought again of the sorcery I had seen.