Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (3 page)

           
Hart laughed. "Aye, she is. Or
would you name yourself a boy, Corin, even now at twenty?"

           
"She does not see herself as a
woman," Corin stated flatly.

           
"No." Hart's brows climbed
beneath raven hair. "No, she sees herself as a warrior." His smile
was amused.

           
"The only trouble with that is,
the gods saw fit to give her a woman's body."

           
Corin frowned. "She has no
desire to be a man. She just prefers to be something other than a fragile thing
like Maeve."

           
"Keely is nothing like
Maeve," Brennan agreed. Hart snorted indelicately. "No. And I will
lay a wager on it that Sean of Erinn, when he claims our warrior-sister, will
have a difficult time taming her."

           
"Keely will never be
tamed," Corin said plainly, "and you will lay a wager on
anything." He scowled blackly at Hart. "As to that, I would trust my
life to Keely sooner than most men."

           
"Aye, aye, so would I."
Hart set the casket down in front of Brennan. "Care for a game, rujho?”

           
Brennan's eyes narrowed. "I
thought you had no coin."

           
"I have what Corin owes
me." Hart looked at his astonished younger brother. "I won
twenty-five crowns off you last week."

           
"When?"

           
When we wagered on how soon Brennan
would be thrown from his new stallion." Hart grinned at his older brother.
"The third jump, remember? I won the bet."

           
Brennan glared back. "You bet
against me?"

           
"No. I bet on the horse."

           
Brennan slapped his hand down as
Corin reached toward his belt-purse. "Do not put a penny on this table.
You know better than to encourage him."

           
"But he won," Corin
protested.

           
Brennan leaned toward him across the
table. "Not a penny, Corin."

           
Hart patted the casket. "A
suggestion, rujho—let the game decide. I win: Corin gives me the money. You
win: Corin gives you the money." He grinned, blue eyes bright. "Surely
a fair way to decide."

           
Brennan sighed and leaned his face
into one hand. "One day," he muttered, mostly against his palm,
"one day, Hart, you will regret ever learning how to play these
games,"

           
Hart rattled the casket. "Care
to wager on that?"

           
"Care to wager on that?"
Corin looked past them both to a table just beyond their own.

           
Accordingly, Hart and Brennan turned
to see what had caught Corin's attention. It was Rhiannon, Rhiannon and a young
aristocrat who obviously wanted more from her than wine.

           
As he grabbed her, pulling her onto
his lap, Rhiannon cried out and tried to lurch away. The wine jug she carried
slammed against the edge of the table and shattered, spilling gouts of
blood-red liquor across the table and onto the young nobleman's fine clothes.

           
He shoved her away, swearing as he
leaped to his feet.

           
Rhiannon stumbled against the table
and thrust out both hands to keep herself from falling. As she clutched at the
wine-soaked wood, a shard of broken crockery cut her hand.

           
Even as Rhiannon, trembling, backed
away from the furious lord, he followed her. He seemed not to notice that the
hand she clutched against her breasts left blood smears on her apron, nor that
she was plainly mortified by what had happened and terrified of him. He spoke
to her angrily in a foreign tongue, then slapped her across the face so hard he
sent her staggering into another table.

           
But his move had been anticipated.

           
Brennan caught her, steadied her,
held her.

           
Rhiannon sucked in a frightened
breath as she saw who had rescued her. And then she saw how she had smeared
blood on his black velvet doublet. "Oh, my lord—I'm sorry—"

           
"You should not be. Not
you." Gently he set her aside and rose to tower over her. She had not
thought he was so tall, but then she was quite petite. "It is his place to
apologize."

           
Rhiannon shot a startled glance at
the foreign lord, No, she thought, it was her place to say the words. "My
lord—"

           
"No." The shapechanger
shook his head and stirred black hair against his shoulders, against the nap of
his matching doublet. His hands fell away from her waist and Rhiannon saw the
black leather belt at his, weighted with plates of hammered gold. On his left
hip a knife was sheathed. The gold hilt was smooth, shining and lovely; its
shape was of a mountain cat. But even as she opened her mouth to protest yet
again, he looked at the foreign lord. "Apologize to her."

           
The young man's hair was curly and
dark, oiled with a scented pomade that turned it glossy black. His nose was
slightly prominent, with a crooked set that made his brown eyes appear set too
far apart. His fine silk-and-velvet clothes, once pale cream and jonquil, were
now variegated a sickly purple-red.

           
Rhiannon nearly giggled.

           
The bent nose made it difficult for
the foreigner to look down it in a straight line, but his attitude was made
plain nonetheless. In accented Homanan, he said, "I apologize to no
tavern-drab."

           
"Apologize," Brennan
repeated. "You frightened her, struck her, hurt her. It is the least you
should do."

           
"By Obram, I will not!"
the other cried. "Do you think I am required to do such a thing? I am the
nephew of the King of Caledon!"

           
"Prince Einar's cousin?"
Brennan nodded as the other stared. "It means you are Reynald, then; I
thought you looked familiar." His smile was neither friendly nor amused.
"My lord, I suggest that while you remain in Homana, you subject yourself
to Homanan custom. Apologize to the girl."

           
Reynald plainly was unintimidated.
"I will not," he stated flatly in his accented Homanan, and made a
gesture that brought the others at his table filing out to flank him. Knives
and swords glittered with gems, but the weapons were clearly lethal even in
their ceremonial flamboyance.

           
As one. Hart and Corin rose.

           
Reynald smiled. "You are three.
We are eleven."

           
"He counts," Hart observed.

           
"He smells," Corin added.
"What is that oil on his hair?"

           
At that, the tavern-keeper came out
from behind a cask of wine. "Please," he said, "this is not
necessary. I will recompense you for your clothing, my lord."

           
Reynald stared down his crooked
nose. "And for the Insults from this man?"

           
The tavern-keeper looked at Brennan
helplessly. "My lord, please—"

           
"Please what?" Brennan
asked irritably. "It was his fault; you saw it. He deserves no
recompense."

           
"He deserves to be booted out
of here and back to where he came from," Corin announced flatly. "Are
you forgetting, my foreign lordling, that you are in our land?"

           
"Precisely," Reynald
agreed coldly. "Is this the way you treat your guests? Is this the way you
treat a man who is to play host to the Mujhar himself this very night? Is this
the way you treat a member of the Caledonese royal family?"

           
Hart smiled. "Does Einar know
you are here?"

           
"My tavern," the
tavern-keeper moaned.

           
Brennan placed a hand on Rhiannon
and thrust her gently toward the man. "Bind her wound, if you please. This
should not take long."

           
Reynald snapped something in
Caledonese to his nearest guardsman. The man drew a knife and lunged.

           
Brennan avoided the Caledonese
smoothly enough and let the man's momentum carry him through his initial lunge.
On the way by, Brennan planted clasped hands in the back of the guardsman's
neck and smashed him to the floor. The man went down and did not move.

           
Brennan's brothers looked down on
the body at their feet. Hart nodded sagely; Corin merely grinned.

           
A blood-red ruby set in gold glowed
on Brennan's finger. He smiled at Reynald and hooked thumbs in the plated belt
that clasped lean hips clad in raven velvet. He was considerably taller than
Reynald. Behind him, Hart matched him in height and weight; Corin was shorter
and slighter, but looked tenacious as a terrier.

           
"Now will you apologize?"
Brennan calmly asked.

           
For answer, Reynald cried out
angrily, snatched up a cup and hurled the contents in Brennan's face. As
Brennan swore and wiped his eyes, the nine remaining Caledonese guardsmen
spread out to encircle the three Homanan princes. Brennan abruptly found
himself pressed back against his own table. As his eyes cleared, he found a
knife blade at his throat and felt the prick of a sword tip in his spine.

           
"Still unconvinced?" he
said in passing to Reynald, and lifted a wrist against the knife as he spun to
dislodge the sword.

           
Corin, closest to the door, ducked
yet another knife as it slashed toward his face, and quickly drew his own.

           
Blades clashed, caught, were
twisted; Corin's hilt remained in his hand while the other man's did not. The
Caledonese stared in consternation at his empty hand.

           
Pleased, if a trifle surprised—it
was his first encounter in anything other than practice—Corin grinned happily
and turned to seek out another foe.

           
Hart, caught between Brennan and
Corin, almost immediately found himself cut off from either of them, hemmed in
on three sides by Caledonese. His indecision was quickly banished; Hart leaped
up onto the table, cracking rune-sticks and scattering all the dice of his
forgotten fortune-game. A swordblade darted toward his right leg, but he
avoided it easily, skipping over yet another. Four of the enemy approached;
Hart quickly acknowledged the folly in remaining on the table providing an easy
target and sought a quick escape route. A glance upward showed him the only
means.

           
Hart leaped for a low, thick limb of
the massive rooftree. He caught it, swung his body out and over his attackers
easily, and dropped on them like a mountain cat on its prey.

           
Tables overturned as the fighting
spread to encompass the entire common room. Jugs and cups shattered, spilling
rivers of wine across tables, benches, the hard-packed earthen floor with its
carefully stamped insignia of the rampant Homanan lion.

           
Brennan, having dispatched the
Caledonese whose sword threatened his spine, abruptly somersaulted backward
over a table to avoid another swipe and landed on his feet, knife in hand. He
had not meant to draw it, preferring to avoid edged weapons in the midst of
such a stupid, silly brawl, but it seemed he had no choice. And so, shrugging a
little, he threw the knife in a glittering arc at an enemy, and saw the
guardsman fall at Reynald's feet. He was not dead, Brennan knew, because the
knife—though hilt-deep—was in a shoulder, not his heart. Accurate as always; he
nodded in satisfaction.

           
The satisfaction did not last long.
A second guardsman leaped for him, knife in hand. Brennan caught handfuls of
the yellow Caledonese livery, ripping the tunic as he tried to thrust the
guardsman against a table. But he lost his grip as the silk tore, slipped in
spilled wine, and fell heavily to one knee.

           
The Caledonese knife blade sliced
easily through velvet sleeve to flesh beneath, cut deeply, then caught on the
heavy lir-band above Brennan's left elbow.

           
The guardsman tore the knife free to
strike again, scraping steel against gold. The velvet, shredding, gave way; the
rune-worked gold was suddenly clear for all to see, with its flowing mountain
cat clawing its way free of metal.

           
Blood flowed freely to fill the
incised runes. Brennan swore in the Old Tongue, forgoing his Homanan, and made
himself ignore the pain. As the man thrust again, looking for flesh instead of
gold, Brennan pushed himself up from the floor and slammed a shoulder into his
chest.