Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05

by A Pride of Princes (v1. 0)

  "You can," Brennan told him. "I came here because I knew better than to let you two go out alone, not because I wanted to go drinking."

  "And yet you are." Hart indicated Brennan's full cup, "Hardly water, rujho—I can smell it from here."

  Corin smiled. Brennan merely shrugged. "All men make sacrifices."

  "And you more than most?" Corin demanded. "Oh, aye—when you will have Homana!"

  Brennan sighed; it was an old bone of contention.

  "You will have Atvia."

  "And I, Solinde." Cheerfully, Hart scooped the dice and sticks back into the wooden casket. "Three princes, we, with glory yet to come in addition to fine titles. But I think, right now, I could do with less glory and more wealth." He eyed the silver royal. "Are you certain you want the girt to have it, after what she said?"

  "I want the girl to have it," Brennan agreed. "And if you so much as try to take it when I am not looking, I will cut a finger off."

  "If you are not looking, how will you know?"

  "Because I would tell him." Corin shrugged as Hart scowled darkly at him. "What would you expect?"

  "A little support, rujho."

  "Brennan is your twin, Look to him for support." Corin downed more usca.

  Hart's scowl deepened. "Why do you resent it, Corin? You have a twin in Keely."

  "Who says I resent it?" Corin retorted. And then, grimly, "Keely is a girl. We are close, aye, as close as you and Brennan—but she is still a girl. It makes a difference, rojho."

  "Keely is a woman," Brennan corrected absently.

  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.

  "Brennan!" Hart called. "The knife—"

  "—did little damage!" Brennan shouted back. "Look to yourself, rujho."

  Hart did, neatly avoiding a sword swung perilously close to his right hand. He immediately jammed the threatened hand against his ribs and kicked out with a booted foot. He stripped the sword from the enemy's grip.

  Corin, outnumbered rather more quickly than he had imagined, dragged himself out from under a senseless Caledonese and slashed weakly at the closest yellow-clad leg he could find. The blade bit into the leather boot sluggishly, doing little damage, but it caught the attention of the wearer. Swearing in indecipherable Caledonese, the guardsman stomped down on Conn's bared wrist and knocked the knife from his hand.

  Pain shot the length of Corin's arm. "Ku'reshin,” he cried, outraged, "let me up—"

  Just as outraged by Corin's attempt to stab through leather to his leg, the guardsman merely put more weight on the trapped limb.

  Corin let out a string of Cheysuli obscenities, then—too proud to lose but not too proud to ask for help—he shouted for his brothers.

  When neither answered, he realized abruptly they had their own battles to fight and he was solely responsible for his. It was not a pleasing thought; he had grown accustomed to shouting for one or the other of his brothers, if not both, whenever necessary. Now, unhappily, Corin came to the disturbing realization that occasionally there was no one to rely on save himself.

  "By all the gods of Homana," he muttered to the floor so close to his face, "why did we leave the lir in Homana-Mujhar?"

  The guardsman glared down at him. "What are you saying, Homanan? Begging my mercy already?"

  Corin, sprawled belly-down with the trapped wrist stretched out in front of him, twisted his head to look up.

  "Mercy?" Astonished, he gaped at the Caledonese. "I will give you mercy—" Abruptly, putting the aching wrist out of his head entirely, Corin lurched up and locked his left arm around the heavy leather boot. Before the guardsman could retreat, Corin had ripped open his knee with a savage bite.

  The Caledonese let out a howl of shock and pain and stumbled back, freeing the wrist, and nearly ripped Corin's teeth from his mouth. Corin, kneeling as he flexed his swelling wrist, was privately amazed at his success.

  Then a hand came down, caught his russet velvet doublet and jerked him to his feet. "You cannot win battles on the floor," Hart said mildly.

  "I won that one." Corin grinned at the cursing Caledonese. And then he stopped grinning, because the man with the bitten knee lunged past Corin and upended Hart entirely. " Ku'reshtin,” Corin cried, and flung himself on the enemy.

  Hart, squashed beneath both of them, tried ineffectively to wriggle free. At last he resorted to swearing at the enemy and his brother. "Corin—get—off—"

  "I am trying . . ." Corin scrambled backward awkwardly, planting a knee against Hart's left thigh, and dragged the Caledonese with him. Hart, wheezing, sat up slowly and clasped tender ribs.

  The tavern door, so very close to Hart, slammed open.

  He winced instinctively, hunched his shoulders and hugged his ribs even harder. Boots thudded against the hardpacked floor and swords rattled out of sheaths. Hart, catching a glimpse of crimson silk and leather-and-mail, felt the beating of his heart abruptly stop.

  He squinted up at the men hesitantly, then closed his eyes. Aye. It was the Royal Mujharan Guard. Part of it, anyway.

  "Jehan will have ou
r heads for this," he commented in cheerful resignation, and smiled innocently at the nearest of his father's men-at-arms.

  Brennan, consumed with gaining a victory over a Caledonese who simply would not go down, felt the lance shaft across his throat. Gently it pressed, so gently, warning him subtly, but firmly enough to threaten the fragility of his windpipe.

  Slowly, Brennan let his hands drop back to his sides.

  In pleased surprise he watched his opponent stagger, straighten, collapse onto the floor. The Prince of Homana nodded, smiled, turned slowly within the cage of the lance to face his new opponent. Abruptly he froze. Leaping out of the crimson tunic over the leather-and-mail was a black Homanan lion, rampant: his father's royal crest. It matched perfectly the black-etched lion in Brennan's ruby signet ring.

  The Homanan guardsman recognized his prisoner at the same time. The lance fell away. "My lord!"

  Corin, as yet unaware of the new arrivals, scrambled out from beneath two now-prone Caledonese guardsmen.

  His face was smeared with blood, but his eyes were suspiciously bright. He grinned, delighted. And then, as he stood up, the grin slipped away.

  Brennan faced a guardsman in the Mujhar's black-and-scarlet livery. Hart, looking none too pleased with affairs, leaned against a table and clasped his ribs. His handsome face was bruised, and one eye—the right—was plainly swelling and would soon turn black.

  Corin looked at his brothers. He looked at the sudden stillness in the tavern. He looked at the four Mujharan guardsmen flanking him. And then he sighed and sat down on a wine-stained bench to cradle his injured wrist.

  Three

  Reynald of Caledon strode stiffly through the center of the common room, stepping over the downed bodies of his royal escort and kicking aside fragments of broken crockery. His foreign face was set in an expression of distaste, irritation and arrogance; his dismay at the results of the fight was evident even as he tried to hide it.

  He drew himself up before the Mujharan guardsman who had set the lance shaft at Brennan's throat. Pointedly, he ignored Brennan altogether. "Your name?" he demanded.