Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (12 page)

           
Maeve. She stood in the stableyard
amid the grooms and sweepers and lads, clad in blue woolen skirts,
close-fitting leather tabard belted snug, and soft house boots.

           
Carefully, he eased the mare in his
sister's direction.

           
With gentle persuasion, the gray
tapped delicately across the cobbles and halted. Brennan looked down on Maeve,
whose brass-bright hair, loosely braided, shone brilliantly in the sunlight.
"Aye?"

           
She smiled, thumbs hooked into her
belt in a distinctive imitation of Brennan's habitual stance. "I was sent
to give you your freedom.”

           
"Freedom?" He brightened.
"Jehan sent you?"

           
"Aye." Maeve did not use
the Old Tongue except on rare occasions. "He said I was to tell you he has
rescinded his orders against you working your horses." She grinned.
"Probably because he looked out a casement and saw you doing it
anyway."

           
Brennan scowled. "This is not
precisely working—at least, not when one trains a racing string. This was
little more than making certain I would not be killed when jehan finally said I
could start working them again." He sighed. "Thank the gods he has
come to his senses ... it has been four weeks since I touched any of them, let
alone ridden them, and you just saw the result yourself. Now perhaps I can set
my racing string back into order and begin winning again."

           
Blond brows rose. "I thought
races were Hart's purvue."

           
"Wagering on races is,"
Brennan agreed. "Racing for purses is different. I do not bet. I
ride." His face was grim; Hart had been gone a month, and the separation
made Brennan irritable. "Gods, if only I could go to Clankeep—" He
broke off and looked down at Maeve sharply. "I will go. I should have gone
before. Even jehan cannot deny me a part of my heritage."

           
"No," Maeve agreed calmly.
"Keely wondered how long it would take you to realize that."

           
Heat rose in his face. Leave it to
Keely— "Aye, well, now I have. And so I go. The mare needs work." As
if in answer the mare stirred; Brennan leaned forward to stroke the glossy smoke-pale
neck. "Shansu, shansu . . ." He straightened as she settled once
more. "Come with me, Maeve. How long has it been? A month? Two? Too long,
whatever the length of time; you used to go all the time."

           
His sister's expression was
curiously arrested, as if his suggestion and accompanying question had caught
her entirely off guard. Then she twisted her mouth briefly, hiding most of her
emotions behind a carefully blanked face, but Brennan saw the glint of
something in her eyes, Regret? Resentment? Fear? He could not be certain, even
as she answered.

           
"No, no—I think not," she
said easily. "There is much here for me to do."

           
Brennan heard an underlying note of
tension in her tone. He reacted accordingly, as he did without fail where Maeve
was concerned. "What has Keely been saying?"

           
"Keely?" Maeve frowned
briefly, then shook her head.

           
"Oh, no, no, not Keely.
'Twas—" And abruptly, she snapped her mouth shut. "No more of it,
Brennan, I'll be staying here."

           
"'What is so pressing that you
willingly forgo a visit to Clankeep?" he asked in bafflement. "You
used to nag me to go with you all the time."

           
"The tapestry," Maeve
answered at once, too quickly. "The tapestry of lions my mother has begun.
I promised I would help."

           
"Tapestry?" Brennan
shrugged, bemused. "Maeve, I am sorry— "

           
"No, no, I do not expect you to
know anything about it. It is a woman's thing, why would you? But, well... it
will be beautiful, and glorious, and a thing our descendants will prize
forever. . . ." She paused as her words trailed off and frowned a little,
as if troubled by the faint forlorn note in her voice, then self-consciously
tucked a loose strand of bright hair behind one ear. " Tis a thing of
pride, Brennan, in race, heritage, tradition ... a history woven of all the
bright colors of our people; Cheysuli, Homanan, Solindish, Erinnish—"

           
Maeve stopped short, seemingly
lacking the proper words. Brennan saw the turmoil in her face. And then, more
quietly, controlled again, she went on. But he knew the lightness of her tone
was little more than a well-practiced facade. "Well, 'tis a thing of
magnificence, and I thought perhaps I should help. Tis nothing of the magic in
me, but the pride is there regardless."

           
The mare tapped one hoof against a
loose cobble. It rolled, clinking faintly; the mare bobbed her head and snorted
down delicate, velvet nostrils. Brennan, tightening reins slightly in automatic
response, looked down on his older sister and regretted more than ever that she
had none of the gifts of their race. With them so evident in Keely, who took
such great pride in her Old Blood that fact was nonexistent, it was harder than
ever for Maeve to deal with her lack.

           
Perhaps if she did not live in a
palace full of Cheysuli kin— But he let the thought die away. It would be no
better at Clankeep, where only Cheysuli dwelled, Brennan sighed. "Well
enough, Maeve. Stay here and help Deirdre with her tapestry of lions. But I
think you are a fool to turn your back on your heritage, no matter what the
reason."

           
Brilliant color suddenly flamed in
her face. "What would you know of it?" she cried. "You with your
lir and your gold and your yellow eyes—you with honorable welcome wherever you
go—" Maeve clapped hands over her mouth as the hectic color drained out of
her face and left it strained and pallid. "Gods," she blurted,
"I did not mean to say that. Oh, Brennan, you know I do not mean it. Not
for you. Never—" And she turned so abruptly, skirts swirling, that she
startled the mare into a sideways leap that nearly unseated Brennan.

           
By the time he had recovered his
balance and had the mare settled again, Maeve was gone. He saw startled eyes
and perfectly blank faces, knowing each stable lad busily tried to name what
ailed the Mujhar's daughter.

           
He would give them more to talk
about if he hastened after Maeve. And so he did not. He soothed the mare
carefully, summoned Sleeta through the link, and rode out of Homana-Mujhar.

           
But not without worrying.

           
Home. The word reverberated through
the link from Sleeta to Brennan clearly. Equally clear was the big cat's
satisfaction and pleasure as she lashed her tail to and fro and rubbed her jaw
against his kneecap. Home, lir. . . at last.

           
He had tethered the gray mare at the
indigo pavilion the Mujhar claimed, as Brennan had none of his own.

           
For a moment, he lost himself in the
sensations of being in Clankeep again, surrounded by folk who felt as he did,
thought as he did, believed as he did. In Mujhara, things were different. There
he was a" prince, the heir to the Lion Throne, and that knowledge altered
perceptions of him. Here he was nothing more than a fellow warrior, though that
was more than enough.

           
Pavilions surrounded them, huddled
in clusters of dyed and painted hides stretched over poles. Nearby a flank of
the gray granite wall curved its way through the wood, bedecked in its
ivy-and-lichen cloak. Smoke from cookfires drifted, tendrils rising to catch on
tree limbs, tangling, like skeins of yam; once freed, the tendrils were torn
into the hint of a haze that drifted on the breeze. Brennan smelted roasting
venison, boar; the tang of honey brew. His mouth watered in response.

           
Home. To Sleeta—to any lir
perhaps—it was the closest thing to a home any of them claimed. And yet Brennan
knew a brief inward stab of guilt. Clankeep was not home to him. It was a place
of dreams, of his past and his future, the womb of his race, the security of
his kin, and yet it was not quite a home, because he had not made it so.

           
You could, Sleeta said. It is not
too late. There is much time for you to reacquaint yourself with our heritage.

           
She was warmth engulfing his leg, one
sleek shoulder pressed against a legging-clad knee. He could sense her
anticipation singing through the link, nearly drowning him. K n pleased Sleeta
so much, he would not deny himself the chance to spend time in his people's
place.

           
Home, Sleeta purred.

           
"Well," said a quiet voice
behind them, "which of the royal get is it? Corin? No—the color is wrong.
Hart, perhaps—no, no, as you turn I see your eyes are yellow, not blue. Well,
then, it must be—Brennan?" The tone was eloquently ironic, and yet it lacked
the note of friendly raillery someone else might have used to underscore the
words, if only to make certain Brennan understood it was a jest. "I see
any of you so rarely, it is difficult to know which princeling is which."

           
Brennan knew better than to laugh or
smile or clap the speaker on the back, accepting the jest in good-natured
competition. Because the speaker was Teirnan, his cousin, and Teir's irony—as
well as the competition—was meant in deadly earnest, if cloaked in velvet
instead of steel.

           
Brennan sighed, turning to face his
cousin, and heard Sleeta's low-pitched, throaty growl. Teirnan was without his
lir, so the hostility was clearly directed at him, not at the small-eyed boar
Sleeta abhorred. And Teirnan knew it.

           
His mocking smile altered, but only
briefly. He made a rude gesture of dismissal that Sleeta ignored, as he knew
she would, but he followed the ritual all the same. Sleeta hunched down, tail
thumping the beaten ground, and stared at him out of implacable golden eyes.
Watching.

           
Waiting. As if she counted the hours
until she could kill him with impunity.

           
Brennan drew in a weary breath. The
confrontation was only the latest in a long series. "Teir—"

           
"What is it this time.
cousin?" Teiman forbore the Old Tongue, as if to emphasize Brennan's
frequent separation from the clan. "Do you require additional assurances
that you are indeed the man intended for the Lion?"

           
"No. You require those,"
Brennan said bluntly. "Teir, are you still convinced that you would do
better than I? I thought the last time I came, when the shar tahl spoke to us
both, we settled all this nonsense of bloodlines and legacies."

           
"I am no more convinced you should
inherit than you believe I should," Teir answered flatly. "Why should
I be? Shar tahl aside, facts are facts: I claim all of the rootstock bloodlines
you do, but mine are untouched by Solindish or Atvian taint. There is Old Blood
in me, and Cheysuli blood, and Homanan. Enough, I think, to fulfill that part
of the prophecy pertaining to proper heritage."

           
"I think not," Brennan
said gently. "Solindish and Atvian taint notwithstanding, it is
required." Gritting his teeth, he managed to smile with infinite patience,
though he was fast losing his share. "We have been through this time and
time again, Teir—even when we were children! Look to the clan for your legacy.
The Lion will be mine."

           
"My jehan says—"

           
"Your jehan is an empty,
embittered man," Brennan declared shortly, forgoing his usual tact.
"Ceinn worked against my Jehan just as you work against me, and all out of
a perverse desire to be someone he is not meant to be. Since he no longer has
the option of thwarting my jehan through a disbanded group of Cheysuli zealots,
he uses you. He twists you, Teir, like a green willow bough. And one day you
will break."

           
"Disbanded, are we?” Teir
retorted. "I think not, cousin. I think the a'saii live again!"

           
Brennan stared at him in
astonishment. He thought first to charge Teirnan with a bluff, but Teir's tone
was too thick with triumph, too assured. His pupils had shrunk so that his eyes
were mostly yellow, intently cunning and feral as a wolfs; Brennan knew better
than to discount him or his words. Not in something this important; something
that could have an incredible impact upon the future of Homana,

           
Slowly, Brennan was able to pass
words through the constriction of shock and growing anger in his throat.

           
"You ku'reshtin," he said
softly, "do you mean to say there are Cheysuli who work to bring down the
prophecy?"

           
"Not bring it down. Serve
it." Teir's face was shaped much like Brennan's, reflecting shared
ancestry, but his bones were a trifle sharper, more predatory; his flesh was
more accustomed to settling itself into expressions of calculation and ambition
than anything more sanguine.

           
"Only a fool foments rebellion
out of simple greed," Teir said quietly. "My jehan and the a'saii
desired Ian to hold the Lion. They still do—Ian lacks the Solindish and Atvian
taint—but there is no more hope that he would assume the throne if the Mujhar
were slain. So I tell you this, in preparation: we intend no harm to befall
Niall or his sons, any of them, or his daughters, even his bastard girl."
Something flickered faintly in his eyes, was gone.

           
"Without bloodshed, we intend
to take the Lion and give it over to the warrior whose blood best deserves to
rule."

           
"Without bloodshed."
Brennan wanted to spit. "Do you think any of us would politely step aside
and let you have the Lion?"

           
"Aye," Teir said, "if
Clan Council told you to."

           
"Clan Council—" Brennan stared.
"Have you gone mad? Cheysuli Clan Council supports our right to
rule!"

           
"Only so long as the members believe
that right is yours," Teirnan said. "But if they no longer believed
it, cousin, and bestowed that right upon another branch of the bloodline, what
would you do? Fight? Become kinslayer in the name of greed and power?"
Teir's voice was steady and quiet, lacking the fanaticism Brennan might have
expected. In its place was a calm matter-of-factness as he spelled out the
consequences of such an action. "You would divide the world, cousin, and
make it a place of two races yet again. Cheysuli-Homanan. Set again at each
other's throats."

           
"The Homanans would have
nothing to do with it," Brennan threw back. "This is a thing between
Cheysuli factions—"

           
"Is it?" Teir smiled.
"So easily you dismiss the very people you intend to rule. Have you
forgotten how we are outnumbered? We always were, always have been—and
Strahan's Ihlini plague twenty years ago stole half our numbers again. It leaves
the Homanans with a vast superiority, cousin. If we took to fighting for the
Lion in the name of the prophecy, what is there to stop the Homanans from
declaring a new qu'mahlin and stealing it back for themselves? Would you risk
that?"

           
"Would you?" Brennan was
so angry he wanted to knock Teirnan's teeth down his throat and make him choke
on them. "If you throw down my jehan—even if you set him aside through
action of Cheysuli Clan Council—you destroy the prophecy. You leave the Lion to
the Ihlini."

           
Teirnan's eyes narrowed. "At
this moment, we are less concerned with the Ihlini than with the proper
disposition of the throne. Strahan has been in hiding for a very long time. Who
is to say he is not dead?"

           
"Who is to say he is?"
Brennan tried to steady his voice. "If you begin to discount the Ihlini,
cousin, you are no warrior at all, but a fool. A dead fool; at least I will not
have to concern myself with what idiocy you may yet attempt."

           
"You had best concern yourself
with your future without a title," Teirnan retorted. "No more Prince
of Homana. Just a man, like any other."

           
"Walk softly," Brennan
warned. "You soil your own leathers with such words; we are cousins, Teir,
and I am as Cheysuli as you. I am not 'like any other,' and never will
be." He smiled as Sleeta rose, stretched, sat down to rest a part of her
bulk against his left leg. " ‘Just a man'? I think not. Not while I claim
a lir."

           
Teiman looked at the cat. Briefly
hostility and acknowledgment warred in his face. And then he masked himself
again, all civility. "I mean you no harm." he said. "We are
bloodkin and more, being children of the gods, but you must understand that it
is only a matter of time. While Niall sits on the Lion parceling out his
children to this realm and to that, dividing Homana's strength, there are those
who will come to see there are better ways of serving the Lion. Of serving the
prophecy."

           
"You serve your own
ambition," Brennan answered curtly. "Oh, I have no doubt there are
others like you, desiring a change no matter what the consequences—there are
always those who thrive on discontent—but you are in the minority."

           
"This year, aye," Teirnan
agreed. "And probably next. But what of the year after that? Or the next
after that?" He smiled. "The a'saii are very patient. That is the
nature of our race."

           
And always had been. Brennan knew
his history well enough: the Cheysuli, warrior-born and bred, were nonetheless
cognizant of how carefully considered, meticulous change was used for the
betterment of a realm. Once his people had given up their claim on the Lion to
the very Homanans who feared them, because they wanted no civil war. And when
Shaine's royal purge had nearly destroyed the race, the Cheysuli quietly,
patiently waited out the qu'mahlin until Carillon united his newly-won realm.
Slowly, so slowly the Old Blood emerged again, and was mixed with Homanan,
Solindish, Atvian. The prophecy was nearly complete.

           
And now it was threatened again.
From within as well as without.

           
"You are a fool." He spoke
without heat, knowing only that he could not allow Teir to comprehend how very
real was the threat of the a'saii. "A fool, and if I could do it, I would
spill from my veins the blood that makes us kin until I was free of you."

           
"Would you?" Teirnan
smiled. "And what would Maeve say, to lose me yet again?"

           
A chill washed through Brennan,
followed by the heat of anger. "Maeve has nothing to do with this!"

           
"Does she not?" Teiman
laughed. "I thought she did. I thought you knew—"

           
"Knew what?"

           
"That the last time she came to
Clankeep, she agreed to become my meijha."

           
Impelled by rage, Brennan moved
before Teirnan could.

           
He was conscious only of clamping
his hands around his cousin's throat and driving him to the ground, where he
nearly crushed the fine bones beneath the flesh so like his own.
Ku'reshtin—"