She gazed at him with those extraordinary green eyes and he knew that none of his anguish, and none of his weakness, had gone unnoticed. Well, he should have known that. To be close to Taminy was to expose oneself completely. He was daft to have thought he could hide his feelings from her.
Shamed to the depths of his soul, he lowered his eyes, unable to stand her scrutiny.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“Forgive you? Never.”
His head jerked up and fear, abject and paralyzing, wrapped itself around his soul. Compared to this, he had never known fear. Now, it gutted him.
She came to him, then, taking his huge hands in hers, pulling his gaze down to her face, denying him escape. “I will never forgive you if you don’t speak to me plainly from this moment on. What am I to you, Catahn?”
“You are my life,” he moaned. “But the thoughts I have had. The dreams I have dreamed . . .” Tears started from his eyes.
“Feich’s nightmares? Forget them.”
He shook his head, miserable. “No, no! My own.”
“I dreamed them with you,” she said. “Every night praying that you would wake the next morning and bring them to me to share.”
What was she saying? He shook his head and the bells braided into his hair whispered an unbelieving duan.
Taminy’s grip on his hands tightened, feeling like fingers of flame. “Catahn, I love you. I would be your wife.”
God, but he’d never been so cold—a column of ice with a soul of fire. He would melt. “You can’t mean it.”
“Why?”
“You’re Osmaer. The Shadow of the Meri. Your purity—”
“I’m human, Catahn. A woman. I have a mission, but the mission is not me. What is impure in our love?”
He groaned, finally tearing his eyes away from her perfect, gleaming face. “I!” he said. “I am impure. My hands are soiled. I’ve stolen, killed, betrayed my wife, fathered a child on a woman who was not mine—”
“You love me.”
“I could be your father.” He laughed—a sharp, humorless bark. “My own daughter is two months older than you are.”
“Your love for me is not a father’s love for a daughter,” she observed, and he melted further. “My love for you is not a daughter’s love for a father.”
He closed his eyes and imagined flame danced behind them. “But to be your husband—”
He could feel her eyes on his face, feel her aidan probing his soul. She let go of his hands suddenly and released him, body and spirit. He nearly collapsed in a swift agony of aloneness.
“I have laid myself open to you, Catahn Hageswode. Not as Taminy-Osmaer, but as Taminy-a-Cuinn. I have confessed my love for you—my desire for union with you. I cannot demand your heart or order your soul—”
“Lady, you have both my heart and my soul.”
She put up her hands then, palms out, as if pressing at the invisible barrier between them. Her expression was agony itself. “Then why do you hide them from me behind this wall?”
His heart broke, and the wall with it. He swore he could hear the cracking of them as he bore through and pulled her up into his arms. His hands dared to tangle themselves in the long, golden banner of her hair; his lips dared to taste hers. He was consumed at once by glory and self-loathing. Then, the loathing was itself consumed in a swell of light and heat.
“I would be your husband,” he murmured against the warmth of her neck, and shivered at the significance of the words.
“I would be your wife,” she answered, and turned her head for his kiss.
oOo
Deardru was part of the cold that emanated from the stones of Hrofceaster; her breath was the chill draft that eddied in its halls. No, the stones beneath her feet had never been and could never be as cold as her heart was this moment. Her eyes blurred, making chaos of the framed scene—the fire-lit sward of carpet, the massive hearth, the two forms melded in a haloed silhouette, their shadows lying suggestively across the floor.
Forcing down the bile that rose to her throat, Deardru backed silently away from the open doorway and lost herself to the darkness.
Chapter 22
How can a man banish hate if he thinks, “He mistreated me, he beat me, he defeated me, he dispossessed me?”
How can hate touch a man if he does not think, “He mistreated me, he beat me, he defeated me, he dispossessed me?”
Here is an eternal law: Hate does not defeat hate; only love does.”
—The Corah, Book I, Verses 50-52
“Ah, here you are, lord!”
Airleas left off his morose contemplation of the plumes of smoke from his enemy’s campfires and turned from the narrow window to see Deardru-an-Caerluel step up into the small, dark alcove behind him. He couldn’t hide his surprise at seeing her there; he’d thought himself well hidden.
“Mistress an-Caerluel! How did you find me?”
She smiled. “You wear Raenulf’s amulet. I can find you anywhere.”
Airleas felt for the little stone catamount, warm beneath his woolen tunic. “I thank you for it, mistress. It helps me focus my thoughts.”
“What were your thoughts just now, Airleas?”
He turned his eyes back to the slitted window. “How near he is. I can feel him out there, scheming. Plotting to lay hands on me and drag me back to Mertuile as his puppet.”
Deardru’s face darkened. “Aye. Plotting to lay hands on your poor Mistress, as well. God knows what he will make of her once he has got her.”
Airleas glanced at her sharply. “He won’t get her. She won’t let him. He’d make her a prisoner.”
“Nothing so simple as that, I fear. No, I overheard his plans for her, Airleas. He is a vile man. No, not a man—a monster.”
“What plans? What have you heard?”
“He would force her to marry him to assure her submission.”
“Submission?” Airleas cried. “She would never submit to him! How can he imagine she would? She’s Osmaer!”
Deardru shook her head, eyes sad. “It pains me to see how your innocence will be sacrificed to this siege, child. Feich has made Taminy’s submission to him the price for your life and freedom.”
Airleas thought the entire fortress trembled about him.
“No,” he whispered. “Taminy must never have to make such a choice. She won’t make it. Feich could never convince her. He hasn’t the strength—”
“I pray you are right. But, in my heart—in my soul—I fear you’re wrong. You are Taminy’s greatest concern. She has made herself responsible for you. She loves you. I suppose, in a sense, she has taken the place of your father—watching over you as if you were her own child. As to Feich . . . well, it seems he has more power than we had thought. There are rumors . . .”
Airleas prodded her with his eyes.
“There are rumors Feich has allied himself with some Dark Force, some evil spirit he has conjured.”
“I don’t believe in evil spirits. They’re just excuses we make for our own weaknesses.”
She clucked at him in motherly concern. “It’s never wise to taunt things we don’t understand, child.”
“I’m sick of being a child!” Airleas exploded. “I want to be a man! I should be watching over her! I should be protecting her from-from that demon!”
Deardru uttered a soft, sighing laugh. “How much like Raenulf you are. If he were alive, he’d call you a man. I call you one. Catahn should have required your Crask-an-duine long ago.”
Airleas was silent, fuming, impotent. God, how he hated this feeling. If he were only a man—truly a man—then he would . . . he could . . .
“Aye. Raenulf would have felt the same, in your stead. Oh, he would have been aflame with the passion to act.”
“What would he do, in my stead?”
Deardru smiled wistfully. “A big question, that. “Well, knowing my Raenulf, if he were here, I think he would sneak himself outside these walls, find his way to the rainbow colored ten
t of Daimhin Feich and kill him. Yes, I’m certain that’s what he’d do. Raenulf was no more a coward than you are. I was right to give you his amulet.”
Airleas glanced at her, found her black eyes on him, hot and intense. Did she expect him to—? A chill seized him—a chill of pure exhilaration. Hadn’t he daydreamed of doing what Deardru suggested—of confronting Daimhin Feich in his own territory?
But sneaking into his tent, killing him by stealth . . . “No. No, that wouldn’t be right,” he murmured. “I need to meet Feich face on, and not in secret.”
“Noble,” said Deardru. “But if you wait for that time, Taminy will fall into his hands. Can you allow that?”
“Maybe Raenulf would do as you say. Maybe he would seek Feich out and kill him. But I . . . I can’t do that. If I did that, I’d be no better than Feich. I’d betray all Taminy has taught me. All she intends for me.”
Deardru’s eyes were shadowed now—guarded—Airleas could not read them, but only feel their pressure. “Yet, if you do nothing, do you not betray Taminy, herself? Do you not betray all those who look to you as their Cyne? Do you not betray the honor of your House? Feich spits at the Malcuim; he defiles your father’s throne; he would defile your own dear Mistress. Are these not things that cry for vengeance? For sacrifice?”
Airleas pushed back against the weight of Deardru’s regard. “If I murdered Feich in such a way, I’d sacrifice my soul. Where would be honor then? Or vengeance? No. Taminy would never wish me to do that.”
Deardru shook her head, spraying him with impatience and contempt. “Perhaps you are not so much like Raenulf as I thought—nor so ready for manhood. No, poor Airleas, you are still a little boy, after all.”
When she was gone, he could still taste her disappointment as something bitter and acrid in the damp chill of the alcove. It seemed excessive and the excess bemused him. Why should her disappointment be so deep? Could she harbor such a hatred for Daimhin Feich, a man she had never met, that she willed him dead?
He rubbed the little jet catamount between thumb and forefinger. Futile to wonder. Yet flowing back to him through the little effigy, he could still feel her anger, her contempt, and a cold current of resolve.
oOo
They were headed straight east through the foothills now, funneling up from the Vale of Orian. From the verdant lowlands patterned by crops and orchards, through forested grasslands, they had emerged at last onto a rocky heath—a place of twisted trees and patchy wetlands. The ground beneath them sloped increasingly upward and now their horses’ hooves met the first dusting of snow. The setting Sun gleamed rose-gold on the mountains before them, showing the pass as a dusky violet slash. Sunlight was withdrawing rapidly from the floor of the narrow valley, leaving the travelers in a bowl of unrelieved gray.
Gazing up at the distant crags of Baenn-an-ratha, Aine thought she had never seen a more desolate setting. She had once thought Hrofceaster to be desolate, but now, it pulled at her, like home. As she pictured the place, sitting high up on its craggy scarp, she saw tents scattered on the slopes below its walls. In their midst, a standard bore aloft an object that flashed fire into the violet bowl overhead and, near that standard, in a small, guarded tent . . .
“Aine, what is it?” asked Iseabal. “What’s wrong?”
Aine shook the vision away, realizing she’d stopped her horse in the middle of the rock-strewn track and had frozen there, mouth and eyes agape.
“Airleas,” she whispered. “We must hurry, Isha. Airleas will be betrayed.”
oOo
Airleas stood on the parapet looking out over the forecourt of the fortress. Under a layer of moon-washed mist, the angles and planes of Airdnasheen glittered with a fine layer of frost. Odd, he felt no chill, nor did his breath cloud the frigid air.
Before he could contemplate that, his eyes were drawn to the courtyard below. Furtive movement roiled the mist—may have even been part of the mist. In moments, the movement took on form, coalescing to become colorless cloaked and hooded figures—a trio of satellites orbiting a central point.
Airleas frowned. No, not satellites, shepherds, and the single charge was obviously captive. Cold panic flushed through him. He tensed to run, but found himself unable to move. He tried to cry out, but his throat failed him. His fingers gripped the parapet; they were numb to the freezing stone.
It could only be a Weave. But, dear God, so powerful?
The fleeing figures were almost to the gates when he remembered his own aidan and marshaled it. Though his body seemed incapable of movement, surely his spirit could fly. He barely had the thought when he found himself soaring over the parapet, swooping into the dark recesses of the forecourt.
Before the scurrying figures, he lit, bird-like, and braced himself for their attack. The wraith-forms did not even pause in their advance. It was as if he were invisible to them.
“Stop!” he shouted, but no sound came from his lips. The dark shepherds pressed on, and now the one they herded raised her head as if she alone had heard him. It was Taminy’s face he stared into, Taminy’s eyes that gazed blankly into his own.
Panicked and befuddled, he could only gape while sheep and shepherds bore through him as if he were composed of mist.
Behind him the gates of Hrofceaster rattled and the invaders passed out into the night. Sluggish now, Airleas struggled to turn, to follow the men who had taken Taminy. Why had no one been aware of them? Why had no one raised the alarm or stopped them? Were all as bewicked as he was?
He floundered over the questions; his mind obeyed no better than his body had done. Clarity would not come. The gray world around him became black and close. He gasped, afraid he must suffocate.
He shocked to complete awareness in his bed, up to his ears in blankets and fleeces. Quaking, he struggled to orient himself. Had he been dreaming? Was he now awake?
Then came fear. Had the dream been prophetic? Or had he been bewicked and seeing an aislinn vision from the midst of someone else’s Weave?
Rattling. He could still hear the rattling of the fortress gates or . . .
He sat up. No, it was his chamber door that rattled now. He rose unsteadily, pulled on a woolen cloak and stumbled to his door, yet unable to shake the vision. In the hallway, Deardru-an-Caerluel stood, trembling, muffled in an azure cloak.
“Lord!” she cried, seeing him. “Lord, Feich has taken your Mistress away by stealth and by inyx. He’s befuddled Catahn and Desary—even Osraed Wyth. They all sleep as if dead. You must come!”
Airleas shook his head. Befuddled? He had certainly been that himself. How was he now awake? “Bewicked,” he murmured. “But how have I—?”
“The amulet! I was awake when the Weave fell on the fortress. I could wake you only because we are linked by the amulet. Airleas—” She grasped his arm, bent to look into his eyes. “Airleas, you’re the only one who can save her!”
Airleas’s heart seemed to stop, trembling, in his breast. Taminy. Feich had taken Taminy. He had not dreamed.
As he dressed, as he strapped on his sword, he flogged his mind, trying to clear it. Surely, there were questions he should ask. Things he must know before he went anywhere. What should he do when he got outside the gates of Hrofceaster? Would he have to kill Feich? Could he kill Feich? How could he do what Taminy could not? How was it she was disarmed and not Eyslk’s mother?
Head spinning, he followed the Hillwild woman from the room and through the chill corridors of Hrofceaster. Perhaps it was the cold of the hemming stone, perhaps it was the dregs of his aislinn vision, but Airleas’s mind at last grasped at one of the circling questions.
“What must I do? I must know what to do,” he murmured and realized his teeth were chattering. He began to pray, silently.
“You must kill Daimhin Feich,” Deardru said. “You must rescue your Mistress.”
“I . . . I can’t! I can’t kill Feich, I—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, child. You can walk on water.”
“No, I mean
. . .” How could she know? Had she spied on his lesson by the Gwyr’s pool? Why should she do that? He shook his head, wishing the effects of the enemy Weave would wear off.
He grasped at a passing thought. “Taminy would despise me if I killed Daimhin Feich.”
Deardru glanced back at him. “To save her life? Her honor? You are mistaken.”
Not even for that, he thought, and fell silent, trying to decide what he could do now that he had decided what he couldn’t do.
Stopping, going back into the fortress, running to Taminy’s room to see if she was there, none of these things occurred to him. His body followed Deardru as if on a tether, but his mind, pacing its narrow confines, came to a decision; he knew what he would do when he faced Daimhin Feich.
Outside the gates of Hrofceaster, Airleas took the initiative, moving ahead of Deardru down the rocky defile toward the trailhead from Airdnasheen. He had not quite drawn level with the village gate when he sensed the enemy presence and felt of the boundaries of their camp—physical boundaries and aislinn. The first he could circumvent, the second, he did not want to.
He announced himself to the watching, listening aidan and experienced a backwash of surprise. In the middle of the dark trail, he stopped and pulled his sword from its scabbard. Behind him, Deardru-an-Caerluel gasped, pulling up short.
“Run,” he told her. “Hide.” He tossed the sword away from him onto the ground.
After a moment of hush, several figures arose before him as if out of the ground. One of them picked up his sword and moved to stand before him. In the dusky figure’s hands the sword blade flashed with sudden light, glowing a bright and silvery blue. By its light, Airleas could see that the man he faced was Daimhin Feich.
“Is this surrender, Cyneric?” Feich asked him. “I rather expected an attack.”
“I’ve come to offer myself to stand as prisoner in Taminy’s place. Take me back to Creiddylad, but free my Lady.”
Feich smiled. “Oh, I’ll take you back to Creiddylad, rest assured. But I can’t possibly free ‘your Lady.’ I don’t have her.” He glanced up over Airleas’s head. “Thank you, Mistress, your help has been invaluable.”
Crystal Rose Page 40
