Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (54 page)

           
Ian nodded. "I sent Tasha to
Clankeep with the news, so you may expect Maeve home by evening."

           
"Maeve is at Clankeep?"
Brennan asked in surprise.

           
Niall frowned a little. "She
wished to see the shar tahl. She swore the vows of a meijha, Brennan, in good
faith, even if in poor judgment. Now that Teir has renounced his clan, she
wishes to formally renounce the vows."

           
"Teir is a fool," Hart
declared.

           
"Teir is more than that,"
Keely said grimly. "He is kin-wrecked—proscribed by the shar tahl, by the
clan-leader ... he is forbidden Clankeep, Mujhara—not that he would wish to
come here anyway—and all the other clans." She grimaced. "Though he
goes where he will, in truth, gathering other warriors."

           
"How many?" Brennan asked
bleakly.

           
"Unknown." Ian moved aside
as a servant came in with wine and goblets. He took them from him, dismissed
the man, set everything on a table and began to pour, handing out the cups.
"There are rumors one day he has seven men, the next day seventy."

           
"He is shrewd," Niall
said. "Much smarter than I believed. But Ceinn has suckled him on tales of
the old days, when the race was exquisitely pure . . . Teirnan is now dedicated
to the restoration of the old ways without benefit of the prophecy."

           
Brennan shook his head as he leaned
forward to take the cup from Ian. "How can a warrior who has been raised
to respect the prophecy turn his back on it? I admit that I am less than
enamored of the need to cohabit with Ihlini, but to deny myself the afterworld?
No." Brennan shook his head. "Teirnan must be mad."

           
"Not
mad.
" Ian carried the requested usca to
Corin.

           
"Determined. We have been
blessed, as a race, with a consuming dedication—to the exclusion of all else—to
fulfillment of the prophecy. We have been accused, on more than one occasion,
of being blind and deaf to the truth, locking ourselves away in insular
arrogance, believing we know the only way." He looked at his brother.

           
"Some might name us
cursed."

           
Niall nodded thoughtfully.
"Once, we believed no Ihlini could intend anything but harm to us. We
learned differently from an old woman, an old Ihlini woman, who lived in Homana
out of choice. And from an ageless harper, who showed me that an Ihlini
formerly sworn to the Seker could renounce that allegiance in the name of peace
and coexistence, and actually work for the prophecy."

           
"And still does so." Hart
reached for wine with his left hand, stopped rigidly, put out his right.
"It was Taliesin who gave us refuge from Strahan."

           
"And Taliesan, with Carollan, who
gave us back our youngest rujholli." Brennan smiled at Corin. "If you
do not tell him all that you accomplished, even in front of Strahan, I
will"

           
Corin shrugged. "Another
time."

           
Niall smiled. "That, too, has
changed." His eyes glinted.

           
"No more resentment of your
oldest rujholli."

           
Corin stared. "You knew?”

           
Silvering brows rose. "How could
I not? Do you think I am blind? I knew very well how much you wanted what
Brennan had. As for now?" Niall smiled. "I think you have learned
there are more important things to concern yourself with than what your rujholli
has."

           
"Such as survival," Hart
said dryly. "The gods know we could have died a dozen times."

           
"I did." Brennan's tone
was hollow as, for the moment, he was back in the tiny cell. He shivered, rose
abruptly, put his unfinished wine down. "Jehan, there is more to tell you.
But I think it will wait for another time." He straightened his jerkin.
"There is something I must do ... someone I must come to terms with."

           
Corin, thinking of Aileen, thrust
himself to his feet.

           
And checked as Brennan turned to
look at him. Uncomfortable, he shrugged. "I—I intend to have a bath. I am
filthy."

           
"'So are we all." Hart
rose as well, sucking down the last of the wine in his cup. "I think I
will catch up on lost sleep."

           
In silence, Niall's sons filed
slowly out of the solar, automatically sending lir ahead to bedchambers. Intent
upon their thoughts, they paid no attention to one another. Not even Corin to
Brennan, as much as he wanted to. Like Hart, he turned away, and Brennan went
on alone.

           
It was midmorning. Sunlight spilled
through stained-glass casements and painted the Great Hall a mass of liquid
colors. But Brennan ignored the light, ignored the Lion, moving instead to the
end of the firepit. He cleared wood and ashes, gripped the iron handle, peeled
back the lid.

           
He stared down into the hole,
watching the stairs fall away into darkness. One hundred and two of them. Far
fewer than in Valgaard on the way to the Gate of the god.

           
Time enough for such foolish fear as
I have known . . . never again will I give over such a weapon to the enemy.

           
But sunlight, however bright, did
not touch the darkness. And so Brennan turned away, intending to light a torch,
and saw her standing inside the hammered doors.

           
Red-haired. Green-eyed. Supple as a
willow. She carried her head high on a slender neck; brilliant hair fell to
curl around her hips.

           
"They were saying you were
back." He heard Erinn in her voice, far more lilting than Deirdre's
accent. This woman, this girl, whom I am to wed, nearly cost all of us our
sanity, because of Corin.

           
But he could not tell her that. Not
yet. Perhaps not ever; too much, at this moment, lay between them. Because of
Corin. "Back," he said. "Aye." Not knowing what else to
say.

           
"And safe."

           
"Aye," he agreed,
"and safe." Then, giving in to it, "So is my youngest rujholli."

           
She did not flinch, though clearly
she had heard him.

           
Nor did she answer, though she
calmly walked the length of the hall from doors to firepit. And then she stood
before him, considerably shorter than he, and he found, oddly, he wanted to
apologize to her. Corin had said little enough of Aileen on the journey home
from Solinde, shying away from the topic as if fearing Brennan might be further
insulted by his words.

           
But Brennan was not insulted. At
this moment, facing the stranger he would marry, he did not know what he was.

           
He drew in a breath. "You are
in love with Corin."

           
"Aye," was all she said.

           
"And he in love with you."

           
Her lips tightened minutely.
"Once," she said quietly. "I'm not knowing how long it
lasted."

           
Resentment rose, then faded. Brennan
smiled wryly. "It lasted," he told her sardonically. "I can
assure you of that."

           
She said nothing. She was no beauty,
he saw, and certainly not the kind of woman Corin generally sought for
companionship. What she was, he realized, looking at her without benefit of
prejudice, was proud as a Cheysuli, with a spirit that blazed as brightly. And
he knew, seeing that pride, that spirit, Aileen of Erinn was as trapped by
circumstances as the Prince of Homana himself.

           
How do I deal with this?

           
But there was no answer, not in her
face. Nor, he knew, in his own.

           
Brennan sighed. "Corin is
different," he said. "I saw it at once, when I coud see again, but I
did not recognize it. The circumstances did not, quite, lend themselves to
contemplation." She gazed at him steadily, hands folded primly in the
folds of her gown. And yet, somehow, he knew better. This was not Aileen he
faced, but another woman entirely. A woman who knew how she felt no more than
he himself did. "Different," he repeated. "Not all of it, I
think, is from imprisonment. I think most of it is from you. And so, in the
end, instead of blame, I must offer gratitude; it was what saved our
lives."

           
She did not avoid his eyes. "It
was not intended, none of it. I was meaning it no more than Corin. It—"
she checked, sighed, went on quietly, "—just happened.

           
Brennan thought of Rhiannon. None of
that had 'just happened,' being carefully designed, but he understood what
Aileen meant. And knew he could lay no blame. "I admire your
honesty," he said abruptly. "I have had little of that, of late, from
women." He paused. "You do know the story."

           
"Aye. Keely told me."

           
Trust Keely— But now was not the
time. Now was the time for honesty. "Aileen—I cannot promise it will be
easy. Arranged marriages are difficult enough, particularly cradle-betrothals,
but now, with this—"

           
Her cool voice interrupted.
"I'm knowing it as well as you, Brennan. D'ye think I've not spent my
nights thinking about it, wondering what I would do when you and Corin came
home?" A trace of inner fire lighted Erinnish eyes—green as emeralds, he
thought—and he saw a hint of Aileen's passion. " 'Twill be as hard as we
make it, I think."

           
Brennan did not couch his words in
diplomacy. "And if Corin stays here? What then? Am I expected to
share?"

           
The fire caught and burned, blazing
in her eyes. " 'Tis between Corin and me, I'm thinking."

           
He laughed once, incredulously, on a
gust of air. "Is it? Am I discounted so easily?"

           
Her skin was very fair, and he saw
the bloom of color in her cheeks. Bright scarlet, competing with the brilliance
of her hair. "He left me," she said. "He left me, my lord
husband-to-be, because he would not steal his brother's betrothed. An honorable
man, your brother; d'ye think he'd discard that honor here?"

           
It was a new light she cast on
Corin. A few weeks before Brennan might have protested she did him too much
credit; now, he did not think so. He had seen Corin's unexpected sense of honor
on dramatic display in Valgaard.

           
"No," he said quietly.
"No, I was wrong to imply it."

           
Some of her vitality drained away.
"Were you? No. I'm thinking not. You believed what any man might, faced
with such a coil." Aileen shook her head, wide mouth twisted. " 'Tis
sorry I am, Brennan. We none of us asked for it, but it has all been spilled
into our laps by your gods ... by your capricious Cheysuli destiny" She
sighed. "Keely told me you are a good man, if a trifle unimaginative."

           
He considered it thoughtfully a
moment. Discarded the idea; he was whatever he was. "And did she tell you
of my fear? The flaw in the Prince of Homana?"

           
Aileen stared back at him. And then
she smiled a little. "If you're meaning he could put a cask of hot water
and scent to good use, then aye, I see—smell—flaw. But otherwise—no. Keely said
nothing of a flaw. Nothing of a fear."

           
"Then I should tell you of
it." He went to the wall, took a torch from the bracket, lighted it from a
candle and returned to the firepit. "Come down with me," he said.
"Come down with me, meijhana, and tell me how it was a bad-tempered,
impetuous Cheysuli princeling won the heart of Aileen of Erinn." He
smiled. "And I will tell you how it is Corin's oldest rujholli means to
face his fear and destroy it."

           
Green eyes widened in surprise.
"Are you really wanting to know?"

           
"No," he said truthfully,
"but it will give me something to listen to instead of chattering
teeth."

           
She frowned. "My teeth are not
much for chattering."

           
"Mine are." He took the
first step into the stairway.

           
Turned to look back at the woman his
brother loved, knowing, one day, he might learn to feel the same. "Will
you come, Aileen?"