Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05

by A Pride of Princes (v1. 0)

  Coughing, he nearly fell. "Dead," he gasped. "Dead, or dying—gods, all of them—"

  "And most of the street." Hart's voice was clogged with phlegm. He coughed, spat; hugged aching ribs.

  "No reason for us to mimic them or it," Corin said firmly. "We have ourselves and our lir . . . I suggest we go."

  Brennan, moving out into the street, craned his neck to look over his shoulder: "They would have slain us ... they would have had the gold off all our arms, planting steel in our bellies."

  Hart tried to laugh and could not. But the sound was not one of humor. "Justifying their end?" he asked Brennan. "Do not bother, rujho ... no more than anyone will when we are dead."

  "If we do not go now, we may well end up that way."

  Corin's hand on Hart's wrist was not gentle. "Is it left to me, then? Well enough, the youngest to the oldest: run—"

  They ran. And with them ran—and flew—their lir.

  Six

  They were lined up before the Lion Throne of Homana, his sons, in the Great Hall. Like little soldiers, Niall thought, all prepared to accept their punishment. Except he was quite certain they had not even considered the punishment he intended to levy on them.

  The cushion beneath his buttocks did nothing to soften the confines of the Lion. The great wooden throne swallowed him up almost entirely, which was not a simple task considering his size; he reflected it must have been the same for Carillon, his grandsire, whom he so closely resembled.

  He looked at his sons, standing three abreast before the Lion, in front of the firepit that began some six feet from the marble dais to stretch the length of the hall. He looked for guilt, regret, comprehension; he looked for some indication they understood how serious was the situation. But they had practiced for him, showing him stiff Cheysuli masks in place of faces, all of them, even blue-eyed, fair-haired Corin, who lacked the dark skin as well.

  They had practiced, and he could not read their expressions. Until he told them how many were dead.

  "At last count," the Mujhar said quietly, "there were more than twenty-eight bodies. It could be more; they are still searching in the rubble." He paused a moment, looking at his sons. "No one is quite sure; the entire block was destroyed."

  Now the masks slipped. Now the faces were bared.

  Shock, disbelief, denial; a profound, sudden and absolute comprehension of where the responsibility lay, Niall shifted slightly, redistributing his weight within the embrace of the massive Lion. "I think the time for explanations is past. I think the assignment of guilt is unnecessary. Certainly apologies, however heartfelt, cannot begin to replace the lives and property lost. So I will request no explanations, no apologies, no admissions of guilt. I request only that you listen."

  None of them said a word. Brennan, he saw, stood quite rigidly, staring blankly at an area somewhere in the vicinity of his father's left foot. Niall watched a moment as his eldest son tried to cope with the shock, the comprehension, the tremendous burden of responsibility he would, as always, try to assume. Even if it was only partially his.

  Corin was plainly stunned. The color was gone from his face so that his tawny hair seemed a darker gold than normal. All the muscles stood up in his arms, flexing around the lir-bands; behind his back, Niall knew, Corin fisted his hands again and again, as hard as he could until all the muscles burned, protesting; inflicting discomfort to help the comprehension that what he now faced was real, and not some dream of his imagining. Niall had seen him do it before.

  Lastly, he looked at Hart. Hart, whose insatiable taste—no, need—for gambling had, until two nights before, done little more than rob him of his allowance as Prince of Solinde; yet now it robbed people of their property. Of their lives.

  Niall pushed himself out of the throne, bracing palms against the clawed armrests. He felt old, old and stiff, reluctant to rise and face them as a king, a Cheysuli, a father. And yet he knew he must.

  He stood on the marble dais before the Lion Throne of Homana, personifying the strength and authority of his realm, and fixed his middle son with a single hard blue eyes. "I think it is time I stopped looking the other way.

  I think it is time I stopped rebuilding half the taverns in Mujhara with money from the Homanan treasury, and—occasionally—my personal coffers. I think it is past time I forced you to become the man your tahlmorra intended you to be."

  Hart did not flinch. "Aye, jehan," was all he said, and very quietly.

  "I might wish you had been so acquiescent before, Hart."

  The mouth flattened a little. "Aye, jehan."

  "Well, then, as you are so acquiescent now, I must assume you will start for Solinde in the morning with good heart and good cheer."

  The color slowly spilled out of Hart's face. "Solinde—?"

  "Tomorrow,” Niall confirmed, "where you will remain for the space of a year."

  "Jehan—"

  "You will be sent to Lestra, where you will—I hope, I pray—begin to learn what it is to be a prince ... a man with responsibilities ... a man who cannot afford to drink and dice and brawl." He paused. "Do I make myself clear?"

  "Aye . . .” And then, in shock, "But—“

  Yet again, Niall cut him off. "Your allowance will be strickly administered by the regent who now governs in my name. He will be advised that he is not to underwrite your gambling habit in any fashion . . . that if you somehow lose the last copper penny of your monthly allowance, you will bear the responsibility for repaying the debt. You, Hart. Not Brennan, not Corin, not Ian, Maeve, Keely or Deirdre. Certainly not me. And certainly not the Solindish treasury. Is that clear, also?"

  "A year . . ." Hart's tone was hollow.

  "Aye. You are hereby forbidden your homeland for the space of a twelve-month, unless I send for you myself."

  "Exile." Bitterness, now, beginning to creep in. "First our jehana, now me."

  "The circumstances are unrelated," Niall said coldly, “though I begin to wonder if there is more of Gisella in you than of myself." Abruptly, he stopped himself. "You will leave first thing in the morning."

  Brennan took a single step forward. “Jehan" he said, "no. I beg you. Say you will reconsider!"

  "You are to hold your silence until given leave to speak," Niall said evenly. Brennan flinched visibly and did not move or speak again.

  It was Corin's turn; Corin, who so rarely knew when not to defy his father. "And I am to go to Atvia, am I not?" he asked bitterly. "I am to be exiled too, like Hart. For a year."

  "For a year," Niall confirmed. "The circumstances are much the same, I think, even if the individual problems differ; you need to learn to accept the responsibility for your own actions, and your manners, which can injure others. And if you think to deny me—as I see you intend already, judging by your expression—I suggest you think back to the deaths you caused only two nights ago."

  "It was not entirely my fault," Corin said angrily. "Lay no blame, you say. Well, I will. You may blame the cutthroats who tried to slay us, jehan—the men who were willing to stick us and watch us bleed for the price of our lir-gold!"

  "You will leave in the morning," Niall said quietly. "But before you arrive in Atvia, there is a task I would have you perform."

  "Task?" Corin stared at his father. "You send me away, then ask me to perform a task?"

  "One I think you will be pleased to do, as it concerns the Prince of Homana."

  Corin frowned. "Brennan?"

  "Did you think I would forgo punishing him because he is the oldest? Because he is the heir to Homana?" Niall shook his head. "No. I said I would assign no guilt, and I do not. Neither do I weigh it by the things you have done in the past, all of you. Brennan is equally responsible, and he will share equally in the punishment."

  "Equally?" Corin demanded. "I think not. There is nowhere to send him. Homana is his to rule, one day; you cannot exile the man who will take your throne."

  "I send him nowhere, that is true," Niall said quietly. "But I can still make certain he beg
ins to accept the responsibilities you and Hart must also accept. And it is up to you, Corin, to assist me." He paused. "I thought you might be willing to assume the task, once you realized it was within your province to alter the freedom of your oldest rujholli."

  Corin glanced at Brennan, who stared stoically at the throne, avoiding his father's eye altogether. "How?" Corin asked finally, looking again at Niall.

  The Mujhar turned to the Lion and resumed his seat, sitting back against the ancient wood. "You will stop at Erinn on the way to Atvia and deliver a message to Liam, Lord of the Idrian Isles. You will say to him the time has come for our realms to be formally united in marriage as well as in alliance." The single blue eye flicked to Brennan. "Liam's daughter is twenty-two, now. It is time the Prince of Homana secured the Lion with additional heirs."

  Color rushed into Brennan's face. The yellow eyes were suddenly intent, and intensely feral. "You do not use a betrothal or marriage as punishment!" Brennan snapped angrily. "It does you little honor, my lord Mujhar, and gives none at all to Aileen."

  "You have at least a six-month, if not more, in which to arrange your affairs and learn what it is to be a prince," Niall said. "Until Aileen arrives, you will attend me in all council sessions, at all trade negotiations, during the hearings when I entertain petitions put forth by Homanan citizens. I think you will be too busy to concern yourself with what does and does not constitute honor, in Mujhars or other people."

  "After twenty years and more, you separate us so easily," Hart said blankly. "I cannot believe it."

  "Together, you have done little more save drink and brawl and bring disgrace to your names as well as this House,” Niall answered. "Apart, perhaps, you will learn what it is to be a man. To be a Cheysuli warrior." As one, in stunned silence, they stared at him, Niall abruptly stood up from the throne. "I do not doubt there are things you wish to say to one another without benefit of my presence, so I will take it from you."

  Niall's sons watched in silence as he strode stiffly from the Great Hall. But as the silver doors thudded closed, the silence was ended most distinctly.

  "Did you hear him?" Corin asked in angry astonishment. "Did you hear him? 'I think the time for explanations is past’ " He swore loudly, with great eloquence. "We were given no chance to defend ourselves, no chance to tell him precisely what happened—he merely stands before that travesty of a lion and tells us what we are to do with our lives, as if he has the ordering of them?"

  "He does," Hart said remotely. He walked to the dais, turned, sat down upon the top step, propping booted feet wide on the second one. "He is the Mujhar of Homana, and our jehan."

  "Aye, he is Mujhar," Corin snapped, "and, as Mujhar, one of his responsibilities is to hear both sides of the story." He swore again and kicked at the gold-veined marble dais. "You would think we planned the fire, they way he talks."

  Brennan stood at one of the stained-glass casements, staring blindly through colored glass to the bailey outside. He seemed oblivious to Corin's rantings.

  "Gods," Hart murmured. "Solinde—"

  "—and Atvia." Corin kicked marble again, as if he meant to dislodge a portion of his father's skull. "What do I want with a lump of rock in the middle of the Idrian Ocean?"

  Brennan's hand traced the outline of one of the patterns in the glass. "Twenty-eight lives," he said. "Twenty-eight."

  "You would think he considers himself one of the gods, the way he stands before us and pronounces how we will spend the next twelve months of our lives," Corin said in disgust. "I think—"

  "Do you think I care what you think?" Brennan abruptly spun from the casement and, before Corin could blurt a protest, crossed the hall to grab the front of his jerkin.

  "Do you think I care that you feel inconvenienced by having to accept your title in fact as well as name?" He pushed his brother back two steps, forced him up the dais, planted him solidly in the throne. "Twenty-eight lives were lost, Corin ... it should not matter to you that those lives were spent in the Midden instead of Homana-Mujhar or Clankeep. It should not matter! They are dead. Corin . . . dead because of us!"

  Corin inched back into the Lion, trying to escape Brennan's hands. "Rujho—"

  "No," Brennan said tersely. "No explanations. No defense. In this I will be like our jehan." He took his hands from Corin's jerkin as if he could not bear to soil them. "We went there against our king's express orders, defying our jehan as well, and because of us an entire block was destroyed. Twenty-eight lives were lost, perhaps more. By the gods, Corin, how can you sit there and rail against our jehan with that guilt on your shoulders?"

  "Let him be," Hart said wearily. "Oh, let him be, Brennan. I can think of better ways of spending our last day together than trying to levy even more guilt upon our youngest rujholli."

  "Not more," Brennan shot back, "Some guilt ... because I think otherwise he will dismiss this tragedy as not worthy of his time, his concern, simply because he has more important things to consider." Brennan's tone was filled with eloquent contempt. "Such as which of Deirdre's ladies should he seduce next."

  "I care!" Corin cried. "I care, Brennan—more than you can know. And aye, I do have something else to consider . . . something that may not have occurred to you. And even if it had, likely you would not consider it worth the worry."

  "What?" Brennan demanded. "What else is there to consider?"

  Corin's lips drew back briefly, baring teeth. In his anger, his ferocity, he was suddenly more animal than man, though he remained in human form. "I am afraid," he said through gritted teeth. "Afraid."

  "Afraid?" Brennan stared at him in astonishment. "Aye, it will be different in Atvia, and will take time to adjust, but—afraid?"

  "Aye, afraid!" Corin cried. "Are you forgetting, then, that our jehana is there? Mad Gisella, Queen of Homana, who tried to give her children to Strahan the Ihlini?" He had their full attention now, as he looked from one to the other. "Aye," he repeated, "afraid, because I will have to see her, to face her. . . ." He drew in an unsteady breath. "I will be required to breathe the same air as that half-breed, blood-tainted Atvian/Cheysuli witch, who willingly would have given us over to that Ihlini ku'reshtin, so he could twist us all—so he could turn us into minions for his amusement, to use as puppets!"

  "Enough," Brennan said gently. "Enough, Corin—no more." His anger was banished, his contempt replaced with compassion. "Perhaps I judged you too hastily." He sighed and scrubbed at the lines of tension settling in the flesh of his brow. "Gods, save us from each other . . . save us from sword-sharp tongues."

  "Save us from the Ihlini." Corin shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the throne. "Gods, rujho, I do not want to go. . . ."

  "No," Brennan agreed. "Nor would I, in your place. Not even if you promised a casket of gold."

  "For that much gold, I might." Hart's smile fell away almost at once. "No, no, forgive me for that . . . I am the one who put us in this position. Blame me, no matter what the Lion says. Let me carry the guilt."

  "Would you?" Brennan asked. "No, I think not. It is not in you to accept guilt, rujho, even if you comprehend that you are responsible for it."

  Hart recoiled visibly from the comment.

  "Well," Corin said in resignation, "for all I rail about it—and will—I think the distribution of sentences just. You go nowhere, Brennan; all you must do is wait for a cheysula. Not so bad, I think, but then it was not your idea to go to the Midden, and you did what you could to prevent us from becoming involved in an obviously dangerous situation, A wedding should not be so bad; the gods know Deirdre is bearable. Aileen is her harana, so if they are anything alike you should not find the marriage too onerous."

  "No," Brennan agreed, "though I might wish the time to be of my own choosing."

  "But he has taken that from you." Corin nodded. "He has taken it from us all." Abruptly he shoved himself out of the Lion. "I think I will defy him one last time, just so he does not forget me too easily—"

  "Corin, no," Brennan
cried. "Why make it worse than it is?"

  "Do you mean to refuse to go?" Hart asked in surprise.

  "No." Corin straightened a jerkin still rumpled from Brennan's expression of anger and frustration. "I mean to go, because I must. But I mean to go now, rather than in the morning."

  "Small defiance," Brennan said curtly. "You cut your nose to spite your face."

  "Perhaps." Corin headed down the steps and toward the hammered silver doors at the end of the Great Hall. "But at least it is a decision I can make for myself. Besides," he swung around and walked backward, spreading his hands, "this way I will be home one day sooner."

  And he was gone, running from the hall.

  Brennan said a sharp, brief obscenity in the Old Tongue that still, for all its brevity, managed to express his emotions very clearly.

  "Three become two become one." Hart stood up from the dais. "Not a good wager, rujho, when the point of the game lies in adding, not subtracting." He sighed and walked aimlessly toward the silver doors. "No," he said wearily, "not a good wager at all."

  "Hart." Brennan's voice stopped him at the doors, echoing in the vastness of the hall. "In a year, a year—we will be different people."

  Hart leaned a shoulder against one of the heavy doors.

  "Aye," he agreed, but still Cheysuli. Still rujholli. That is what counts, I think." He smiled sadly, pushed through, was gone.

  After a moment Brennan turned to look at the empty Lion, all acrouch on the dais; the Lion of Homana, deprived of his Mujhar. Brennan looked at the old wood, the fading giltwork, the massive paws with their curving claws. He sighed. "You and I," he said, "will have to come to an agreement. You do not strip me of all my freedom, my good sense, my desire to be a man as well as Mujhar . . . and I will not bring dishonor to your name. To my House. Or to my people." He shook his head slowly. "And never again to my jehan"

  But the Lion made no answer.

  Deirdre was in her private solar, stitching on a tapestry with four of her ladies when Niall came in. She glanced up, saw his face, instantly dismissed the women. Before Niall could say a word, Deirdre was up and guiding him to a chair.