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.
Two
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—"
"Ask her!" Teirnan rasped through Brennan's assault. "Ask her, cousin! Do you think she would lie to you?"
Brennan pressed him against the ground. "She would never—she would never—not with you—not with such as you—“
"Ask her," Teirnan challenged. "But also ask her why she will not come to Clankeep. Ask her why she will not honor her vow."
"If she made one—if she made one—I will release her from it—I will release her from it—"
"Freely made—" Teirnan straggled, but fading breath robbed him of his strength. "—freely made, Brennan, and only she can break it. Only Maeve, or me. And I would never do it."
"Why not?" Brennan demanded,
"Because you want me to." Teirnan's laugh was torn from a badly bruised throat. "She never will. She is too honorable to do it. I am not. For a good enough reason, I will. But—for now it serves me ... it serves me to see how angry and helpless you are—"
"By the gods—" Brennan choked. "By the gods, I swear if you ever harm her, by word or by deed, I will soil my hands with your blood. Kinslayer you may make me, but that is a burden
I would gladly bear for the sake of my rujholla—"
"Bastard," Teirnan mocked. "The Homanans call her bastard."
Lir. It was Sleeta, quietly intruding. Lir, if you mean to do it, do it. If you do not, then let him go. Do not be irresolute.
You would like me to slay him, he said. I can tell.
No. But the tone was distinctly reluctant. If you slay him, you take on the responsibility of a fool. And you deserve better than that.
Inwardly Brennan laughed, though it had little of humor in it. And then he released Teirnan and rose to stare down at the gasping warrior. "This will be settled." he said. "This thing between you and me and Maeve. It will be settled for all to know, regardless of the outcome."
Teirnan levered himself up on one elbow. "Ask her," he whispered. "Ask her if she was unwilling. Ask her if she was forced, when she came into my bed."
It cost Brennan dearly to shrug indifferently. "If she was." he said, "you are dead."
As Teirnan glared up at him from the ground. Brennan turned to fetch the mare, who fidgeted by the pavilion. Sleela, he said, we go home.
The cat did not protest against leaving her own so soon. The cat said nothing at all.
Three
At sunset, the gray threw Brennan near the outskirts of Mujhara and left him to lie in the dirt, half-stunned, as she galloped toward the city. After a moment he sat up, spat out blood from a bitten lip, stared after her dazedly and cursed, if none too fluently; his tongue was also bitten.
Your fault. Sleeta sat not far away, tail curled fastidiously around one raven haunch. The tip flicked once, twice, was still. You were paying more attention to your cousin's words and not enough to the mare.
Brennan scowled and glared after the mare, massaging a sore shoulder. He did not look at the cat.
After a moment she flicked an ear. Are you damaged?
After a lengthier moment: "No." Grudgingly.
Embarrassed, then.
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