A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

Rogan looked thoughtful. “They say Cheysuli grow up quickly, and there are stories about your grandsire and his brothers….”

  Kellin grinned. “This might be the best Summerfair of all.”

  “Better than last year, certainly.” The understated amusement faded from Rogan’s tone. “You do recall why you were refused permission to go.”

  Kellin shrugged it away. “Punishment.”

  “And why were you punished?”

  Kellin sighed; it was very like Rogan to impose lessons upon a holiday, and reminders of other lessons. “Because I set fire to the tapestry.”

  “And the year before that?”

  “Tried to chop the Lion to bits.” Kellin nodded matter-of-factly. “I had to do it, Rogan. It was the Lion who killed Ian.”

  “Kellin—”

  “It came alive, and it bit him. My harani said so.”

  Rogan was patient. “Then why did you try to burn down the tapestry?”

  “Because it’s made of lions, too. You know that.” Kellin firmed his mouth; none of them understood, even when he explained. “I have to kill all the lions before they kill me.”

  * * *

  Summer was Kellin’s favorite season, and the fair the best part of it. Never searingly hot, Homana nonetheless warmed considerably during midsummer, and the freedom everyone felt was reflected in high spirits, habits, and clothing. Banished were the leathers and furs and coarse woolens of winter, replaced by linens and cambrics and silks, unless one was determinedly Cheysuli in habits at all times, as was Kellin, who wore jerkin and leggings whenever he could. Everyone put on Summerfair clothing, brightly dyed and embroidered, and went out into the streets to celebrate the season.

  Doors stood open and families gathered before dwellings, trading news and stories, sharing food and drink. In Market Square Mujharan merchants and foreign traders gathered to hawk wares. The streets were choked with the music of laughter, jokes, tambors, pipes and lutes, and the chime of coin exchanged. The air carried the aromas of spices and sweetmeats, and the tang of roasting beef, pork, mutton, and various delicacies.

  “Sausage!” Kellin cried. Then, correcting himself—he had taken pains to learn the proper foreign word: “Suhoqla! Hurry, Rogan!”

  Kellin’s nose led him directly to the wagons at the outermost edge of Market Square, conspicuously far from the worst of the tangle in the center of the square. Already a small crowd gathered, Homanans nudging one another with elbows and murmuring pointed comments about the foreigners and foreign ways. That other traders were as foreign did not seem to occur to them; these foreigners were rarely seen, and therefore all the more fascinating.

  Kellin did not care that they were foreign, save their foreignness promised suhoqla, which he adored, and other things as intriguing.

  Rogan’s voice was stern. “A more deliberate pace, if you please—no darting through the crowd. You make it difficult for the guard to keep up in such crowded streets—and if we lose them, we must return to the palace at once. Is that what you wish to risk?”

  Kellin glanced around. There they were, the guard: four men of the Mujharan Guard, handpicked to protect the Prince of Homana. They were unobtrusive in habits and clothing generally, except now they wore the crimson tabards of their station to mark them for what they were: bodyguards to the boy in whom the future of the Cheysuli—and Homana herself—resided.

  “But it’s suhoqla…you know how I love it, Rogan.”

  “Indeed, so you have said many times.”

  “And I haven’t had it for almost two years!”

  “Then by all means have some now. All I ask is that you recall I am almost four decades older than you. Old men cannot keep up with small—” he altered it in midsentence, “—young men.”

  Kellin grinned up at him. “A man as tall as you need only stretch out prodigious legs, and he is in Ellas.”

  Rogan smiled faintly. “So I have often been told,” he looked beyond Kellin to the wagon. “Suhoqla it is, then. Though how your belly can abide it…” He shook his head in despair. “You will have none left by the time you are my great age.”

  “It isn’t my belly I care about, it’s my mouth.” Kellin edged his way more slowly through the throng with Rogan and the watchdogs following closely. “By the time it gets to my belly, it’s tamed.”

  “Ah. Well, here you are.”

  Here he was. Kellin stared at the three women kneeling around the bowl-shaped frying surface. They had dug a hollow in the sand, placed heated stones in the bottom, then the clay plank atop the stones. The curling links of sausage were cooked slowly in their own grease, absorbing spiced oil.

  The women were black-haired and black-eyed, with skins the color of old ivory. Two of them were little more than crones, but the third was much younger. Her eyes, tilted in an oval face, were bright and curious as she flicked a quick assessive glance across the crowd, but only rarely did she look anyone in the eye. She and her companions wore shapeless dark robes and bone jewelry—necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. The old women wore cloth head-coverings; the youngest had pulled her hair up high on the back of her head, tying it so that it hung down her back in a series of tight braids. Two yellow feathers fluttered from one braid as she moved.

  “A harsh place, the Steppes,” Rogan murmured. “You can see it in their faces.”

  “Not in hers,” Kellin declared.

  “She is young,” Rogan said sadly. “In time, she’ll grow to look like the others.”

  Kellin didn’t like to think so, but filling his mouth was more important than concerning himself with a woman’s vanishing youth. “Buy me some, Rogan, if you please.”

  Obligingly Rogan fished a coin out of the purse provided by the Mujhar, and handed it to one of the old women. The young one speared two links with a sharpened stick, then held it out to Kellin. “Ah,” Rogan said, looking beyond. “It isn’t merely the women, after all, that attract so many…Kellin, do you see the warrior?”

  Tentatively testing the heat of the spiced sausages, Kellin peered beyond the women and saw the man Rogan indicated. He forgot his suhoqla almost at once; Steppes warriors only rarely showed themselves in Mujhara, preferring to watch their womenfolk from the wagons. This one had altered custom to present himself in the flesh.

  The warrior was nearly naked, clad only in a brief leather loin-kilt, an abundance of knives, and scars. He was not tall, but compactly muscled. Black hair was clubbed back and greased, with a straight fringe cut across his brow. He wore a plug of ivory on one nostril, and twin scars bisected each cheek, ridged and black, standing up like ropes from butter-smooth flesh.

  Kellin lost count of the scars on the warrior’s body; by their patterns and numbers, he began to wonder if perhaps they were to the Steppes warriors as much a badge of honor and manhood as lir-gold to a Cheysuli.

  At the warrior’s waist were belted three knives of differing lengths, and he wore another on his right forearm while yet another was hung about his throat. It depended from a narrow leather thong, sheathed, its greenish hilt glinting oddly in the sunlight of a Homanan summer. The warrior stood spread-legged, arms folded, seemingly deaf and blind to those who gaped and commented, but Kellin knew instinctively the Steppesman was prepared to defend the women—the young one, perhaps?—at a moment’s notice.

  Kellin looked up at his tutor. “Homana has never fought the Steppes, has she?”

  Rogan sighed. “You recall your history, I see. No, Kellin, she has not. Homana has nothing to do with the Steppes, no treaties, no alliances, nothing at all. A few warriors and woman come occasionally to Summerfair, that is all.”

  “But—I remember something—”

  “That speaks well of your learning,” Rogan said dryly. “What you recall, I believe, is that one of your ancestors, exiled from Homana, went into the service of Caledon and fought against Steppes border raiders.”

  “Carillon.” Kellin nodded. “And Finn, his Cheysuli liege man.” He grinned. “I am kin to both.”

 
; “So you are.” Rogan looked again at the scarred warrior. “A formidable foe, but then Carillon himself was a gifted soldier—”

  “—and Finn was Cheysuli.” Kellin’s tone was definitive; nothing more need be said.

  “Aye.” Rogan was resigned. “Finn was indeed Cheysuli.”

  Kellin stared hard at the Steppes warrior. The forgotten suhoqla dripped spiced grease down the front of his jerkin. It was in his mind to make the warrior acknowledge the preeminence of the Cheysuli, to mark the presence of superiority; he wanted badly for the fierceness of the scarred man to pale to insignificance beside the power of his own race, men—and some women—who could assume the shape of animals at will. It was important that the man be made to look at him, to see him, to know he was Cheysuli, as was Finn, who had battled Steppes raiders a hundred years before.

  At last the black, slanting eyes deigned to glance in his direction. Instinctively, Kellin raised his chin in challenge. “I am Cheysuli.”

  Rogan grunted. “I doubt he speaks Homanan.”

  “Then how does he know what anyone says?”

  The young woman moved slightly, eyes downcast. “I speak.” Her voice was very soft, the Homanan words heavily accented. “I speak, tell Tuqhoc what is said, Tuqhoc decides if speaker lives.”

  Kellin stared at her in astonishment. “He decides!”

  “If insult is given, speaker must die.” The young woman glanced at the warrior, Tuqhoc, whose eyes had lost their impassivity, and spoke rapidly in a strange tongue.

  Kellin felt a foolhardy courage fill up his chest, driving him to further challenge. “Is he going to kill me now?”

  The young woman’s eyes remained downcast. “I told him you understand the custom.”

  “And if I insulted you?”

  “Kellin,” Rogan warned. “Play at no semantics with these people; such folly promises danger.”

  The young woman was matter-of-fact. “He would choose a knife, and you would die.”

  Kellin stared at the array of knives strapped against scarred flesh. “Which one?”

  She considered it seriously a moment. “The king-knife. That one, one around his neck.”

  “That one?” Kellin looked at it. “Why?”

  Her smile was fleeting, and aimed at the ground. “A king-knife for a king—or a king’s son.”

  It was utterly unexpected. Heat filled Kellin’s face. Everyone else knew; he was no longer required to explain. He had set aside such explanations years before. But now the young woman had stirred up the emotions again, and he found the words difficult. “My father is not a king.”

  “You walk with dogs.”

  “Dogs?” Baffled, Kellin glanced up at Rogan. “He is my tutor, not a dog. He teaches me things.”

  “I try to,” Rogan remarked dryly.

  She was undeterred by the irony. “Them.” Her glance indicated the alerted Mujharan Guard, moving closer now that their charge conversed with strangers from the Steppes.

  Kellin saw her gaze, saw her expression, and imagined what she thought. It diminished him. In her eyes, he was a boy guarded by dogs; in his, the son of a man who had renounced his rank and legacy, as well as the seed of his loins. In that moment Kellin lost his identity, stripped of it by foreigners, and it infuriated him.

  He stared a challenge at the warrior. “Show me.”

  Rogan’s hand came down on Kellin’s shoulder. Fingers gripped firmly, pressing him to turn. “This is quite enough.”

  Kellin was wholly focused on the warrior as he twisted free of the tutor’s grip. “Show me.”

  Rogan’s voice was clipped. “Kellin, I said it was enough.”

  The watchdogs were there, right there, so close they blocked the sun. But Kellin ignored them. He stared at the young woman. “Tell him to show me. Now!”

  The ivory-dark faced paled. “Tuqhoc never shows—Tuqhoc does.”

  Kellin did not so much as blink even as the watchdogs crowded him. He pulled free of a hand: Rogan’s. “Tell him what I said.”

  Tuqhoc, clearly disturbed by the change in tone and stance—and the free use of his own name—barked out a clipped question. The young woman answered reluctantly. Tuqhoc repeated himself, as if disbelieving, then laughed. For the first time emotion glinted in his eyes. Tuqhoc smiled at Kellin and made a declaration in the Steppes tongue.

  Rogan’s hands closed on both shoulders decisively. “We are leaving. I warned you, my lord.”

  “No,” Kellin declared. To the young woman: “What did he say?”

  “Tuqhoc says, if he shows, you die.”

  “Only a fool taunts a Steppes warrior—I thought you knew better.” Rogan’s hands forced Kellin to turn. “Away. Now.”

  Kellin tore free. “Show me!” Even as Rogan blurted an order, the watchdogs closed on the warrior, drawing swords. Kellin ducked around one man, then slid through two others. The dark Steppes eyes were fixed on the approaching men in fierce challenge. Kellin desperately wanted to regain that attention for himself. “Show me!” he shouted.

  Tuqhoc slipped the guard easily, so easily—even as the challenge was accepted. In one quick, effortless motion Tuqhoc plucked the knife from the thong around his neck and threw.

  For Kellin, the knife was all. He was only peripherally aware of the women crying out, the guttural invective of the warrior as the watchdogs pressed steel against his flesh.

  Rogan reached for him—

  Too late. The knife was in the air. And even as Rogan twisted, intending to protect his charge by using his own body as shield, Kellin stepped nimbly aside. For ME—

  He saw the blade, watched it, judged its arc, its angle, anticipated its path. Then he reached out and slapped the blade to the ground.

  “By the gods—” Rogan caught his shoulders and jerked him aside. “Have you any idea—?”

  Kellin did. He could not help it. He stared at the warrior, at the Steppes women, at the knife in the street. He knew precisely what he had done, and why.

  He wanted to shout his exultation, but knew better. He looked at the watchdogs and saw the fixed, almost feral set of jaws; the grimness in their faces; the acknowledgment in their eyes as they caged the Steppesman with steel.

  It was not his place to gloat; Cheysuli warriors did not lower themselves to such unnecessary displays.

  Kellin bent and picked up the knife. He noted the odd greenish color and oily texture of the blade. He looked at Rogan, then at the young woman whose eyes were astonished.

  As much as for his tutor’s benefit as for hers, Kellin said: “Tell Tuqhoc that I am Cheysuli.”

  Two

  Rogan’s hand shut more firmly on Kellin’s shoulder and guided him away despite his burgeoning protest. Kellin was aware of the Mujharan Guard speaking to Tuqhoc and the young woman, of the tension in Rogan’s body, and of the startled murmuring of the crowd.

  “Wait—” He wanted to twist away from Rogan’s grasp, to confront Tuqhoc of the Steppes and see the acknowledgment in his eyes, as it was in the woman’s, that a Cheysuli, regardless of youth and size, was someone to be respected. But Rogan permitted no movement save that engineered by himself. Doesn’t he understand? Doesn’t he know?

  Unerringly—and unsparing of his firmness—the Homanan guided Kellin away from the wagons to a quieter pocket in the square some distance away. His tone was flat, as if he squeezed out all emotion for fear of showing too much. “Let me see your hand.”

  Now that the moment had passed and he could no longer see the Steppes warrior, Kellin’s elation died. He felt listless, robbed of his victory. Sullenly he extended his hand, allowing Rogan to see the slice across the fleshy part of three fingers and the blood running down his palm.

  Tight-mouthed, Rogan muttered something about childish fancies; Kellin promptly snatched back his bleeding hand and pressed it against the sausage-stained jerkin. The uneaten suhoqla grasped in his other hand grew colder by the moment.

  Rogan said crisply, “I will find something with which to bind th
ese cuts.”

  Blood mingled with sausage grease as Kellin pressed the fingers against his jerkin. It stung badly enough to make the corners of his mouth crimp, but he would not speak of it. He would give away nothing. “Leave it be. It has already stopped.” He fisted his hand so hard the knuckles turned white, then displayed it to Rogan. “You see?”

  The tutor shook his head slowly, but he gave the hand only the merest contemplation; he looked mostly at Kellin’s face, as if judging him.

  I won’t let him know. Kellin put up his chin. “I am a warrior. Such things do not trouble warriors.”

  Rogan shook his head again. Something broke in his eyes: an odd, twisted anguish. His breath hissed between white teeth. “While you are fixed wholly on comporting yourself as a warrior, neglecting to recall you are still but a boy—I realize it will do little if any good to point out that the knife could have killed you.” The teeth clamped themselves shut. “But I’ll wager that was part of the reason you challenged him. Yet you should know that such folly could result in serious repercussions.”

  “But I could see—”

  Rogan cut off the protest. “If not for yourself, for me and the guard! Do you realize what would become of us if you came to harm?”

  Kellin had not considered that. He looked at Rogan more closely and saw the very real fear in his tutor’s eyes. Shame goaded. “No,” he admitted, then anxiousness usurped it, and the need to explain. “But I needed him to see. To know—”

  “Know what? That you are a boy too accustomed to having his own way?”

  “That I am Cheysuli.” Kellin squeezed his cut hand more tightly closed. “I want them all to know. They have to know—they have to understand that I am not he—”

  “Kellin—”

  “Don’t you see? I have to prove I am a true man, not a coward—that I will not turn my back on duty and my people—and—and—” he swallowed painfully, finishing his explanation quickly, unevenly, “—any sons I might sire.”

  Rogan’s mouth loosened. After a moment it tightened again, and the muscles of his jaw rolled briefly. Quietly, he said, “Promise me never to do such a thoughtless thing again.”