A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  The man nodded patiently. “Come along, then, and I’ll see to it you have a decent meal and a place to sleep. I’ll free you first thing in the morning if anyone comes to fetch you.”

  The furious challenge was immediate. “If I had a lir—”

  “What? Cheysuli, too?” The giant laughed, though not unkindly. “Well, I’m thinking not. I’ve never yet seen one with green eyes, nor leathers quite so filthy.”

  Three

  Kellin did not know Mujhara well. In fact, he knew very little about the city he would one day rule, other than the historical implications Rogan had discussed so often; and even then he was ignorant of details because he had not listened well. He wanted to do something much more exciting than spend his days speaking of the past. The future attracted him more, even though Rogan explained again and again that the past affected that future; that a man learning from the past often avoided future difficulties.

  Because he was so closely accompanied each time he left Homana-Mujhar, Kellin had come to rely on others to direct him. Left to his own devices, he would have been lost in a moment as he was lost now. The big red-haired man led him like a leashed dog through the winding closes, alleys, and streets, turning this way and that, until Kellin could not so much as tell which direction was which.

  He felt the heat of shame as he was led unrelentingly. Don’t look at me— But they did, all the people, the Summerfair crowds thronging the closes, alleys, and streets. Kellin thought at first if he called out to them and told them who he was, if he asked for their support, they would give it gladly. But the first time he tried, a man laughed at him and called him a fool for thinking they would believe such a lie; would the Prince of Homana wear horse piss on his clothing?

  Don’t look at me. But they looked. Inwardly, Kellin died a small, quiet death, the death of dignity. I just want to go home.

  “Here,” his captor said. “You’ll spend the night inside.” The giant opened the door, took Kellin inside, then handed over the “leash” to another man, this one brown-haired and brown-eyed, showing missing teeth. “Tried to steal a goodwife’s basket of ribbons.”

  “No!” Kellin cried. “I did not. I fell against her, no more, and knocked it out of her hands. What would I want with ribbons?”

  The gap-toothed man grinned. “To sell them, most like. At a profit, since you paid nothing for them in the first place.”

  Kellin was outraged. “I did not steal her ribbons!”

  “Had no chance to,” the redhead laughed. “She saw to that, with her shrieking.”

  Kellin drew himself up, depending on offended dignity and superior comportment to put an end to the intolerable situation. Plainly he declared, “I am the Prince of Homana.”

  He expected apologies, respect, and got neither. The two men exchanged amused glances. The gaptoothed Homanan nodded. “As good a liar as a thief, isn’t he? Only that’s not so good, is it, since you’re here?”

  Courage wavered; Kellin shored it up with a desperate condescension. “I am here with my tutor and four guardsman, four of the Mujharan Guard.” He hoped it would make a suitable impression, invoking his grandfather’s personal company. “Go and ask them; they will tell you.”

  “Wild goose chase,” said the redhead. “Waste of time.”

  Desperation nearly engulfed injured pride. “Go and ask,” Kellin directed. “Go to Homana-Mujhar. My grandsire will tell you the truth.”

  “Your grandsire. The Mujhar?” Gap-tooth laughed, slanting a bright glance at the giant.

  Kellin bared his teeth, desiring very badly to prove the truth of his claims. But his leathers were smeared with filth, his bottom lip swollen, and his face, no doubt, as dirty. “My boots,” he said sharply, sticking out one foot. “Would a thief have boots like these?”

  The redhead grinned. “If he stole them.”

  “But they fit. Stolen boots would not fit.”

  Gap-tooth sighed. “Enough of your jabber, brat. You’ll not be harmed, just kept until someone comes to fetch you.”

  “But no one knows where I am! How can they come?”

  “If you’re the Prince of Homana, they’ll know.” The giant’s eyes were bright. “D’ye think I’m a fool? You’ve my eyes, boy, plain Homanan green, not the yellow of a Cheysuli. Next time you want to claim yourself royalty, you’d best think better of it.”

  Kellin gaped. “My granddame is Erinnish, with hair red as yours—redder! I have her eyes—”

  “Your granddame—and your mother to boot—was likely a street whore, brat…no more chatter from you. Into the room. We’re not here to harm you, just keep you.” The red-haired giant pushed Kellin through another door as Gap-tooth unlocked it. He was dumped unceremoniously onto a thin pallet in a small, stuffy room, then the door was locked.

  For a moment Kellin lay sprawled in shock, speechless in disbelief. Then he realized they’d stripped the rope from his wrists. He scrambled up and hammered at the door.

  “They won’t open it. They won’t.”

  Kellin jerked around, seeing the boy in the corner for the first time. The light was poor, admitted only through a few holes high up in the walls. The boy slumped against the wall with the insouciance of a longtime scofflaw. His face was thin, grimy, and bruised. Lank blond hair hung into his eyes, but his grin was undiminished by Kellin’s blatant surprise.

  “Urchin,” the boy said cheerfully, answering the unasked question.

  Kellin was distracted by newborn pain in his cut hand, which now lacked Rogan’s bandage. He frowned to see the slices were packed with dirt and other filth; wiping it against his jerkin merely caused the slices to sting worse. Scowling, he asked, “What kind of a name is that?”

  “Isn’t a name. Haven’t got one. That’s what they call me, when they call me.” The boy shoved a wrist through his hair. His eyes were assessive far beyond his years. “Good leathers, beneath the dirt…good boots, too. No thief, are ye?”

  Kellin spat on the cuts and wiped them again against his jerkin. “Tell them that.”

  Urchin grinned. “Won’t listen. All they want is the copper.”

  “Copper?”

  “Copper a head for all the thieves they catch.”

  Kellin frowned, giving up on his sore hand. “Who pays it?”

  Urchin shrugged. “People. They’re fed up wi’ getting their belt-purses stolen and pockets picked.” He waggled fingers. “Some o’ them took up a collection, like…for each thief caught during Summerfair, they pay a copper a head. Keeps the streets clean of us, y’see, and they can walk out without fearing for pockets and purses.” Urchin grinned. “But if you’re good enough, nobody catches you.”

  “You got caught.”

  “Couldn’t run fast enough with this.” Urchin extended a swollen, discolored foot and puffy ankle. “Dog set on me.” He was patently unconcerned by the condition of foot and ankle. “If you’re not a thief, why’re you here?”

  Kellin grimaced. “I was running. They thought it was because I was stealing.”

  “Never run in Mujhara,” the boy advised solemnly, then reconsidered. “Unless you be a fine Homanan lord, and then no one will bother you no matter what you do.”

  Kellin glanced around. On closer inspection, the room was no better than his first impression, a small imprisonment, empty save for them. “Not so many copper pieces today.”

  Urchin shrugged. “The other room is full. They’ll put the new catches in here. You’re the first, after me.”

  Kellin peeled a crust of blood from his chin. “How do we get out?”

  “Wait till someone pays your copper. Otherwise we stay here till Summerfair is over, because then it won’t matter.”

  “That’s three days from now!”

  Urchin shrugged, surveying his injured foot. “Be hard to steal with this.”

  Kellin stared at the swollen limb, marking the angry discoloration and the streaks beginning to make their way up Urchin’s leg. It was a far worse injury than the few slices in his hand
. “You need that healed.”

  Urchin’s mouth hooked down. “Leeches cost coin.”

  Morbidly fascinated by the infected limb, Kellin knelt down to look more closely. “A Cheysuli could heal this, and he would cost nothing.”

  Urchin snorted.

  “He could,” Kellin insisted. “I could, had I a lir.”

  Urchin’s eyes widened. “You say you’re Cheysuli?”

  “I am. But I can’t heal yet.” Kellin shrugged a little. “Until I have a lir, I’m just like you.” The wound stank of early putrefaction. “My grandsire will heal you. He has a lir; he can.” And he will heal my wounds, too.

  Urchin grunted. “Will he come here to pay your copper?”

  Kellin considered it. “No,” he said finally, feeling small inside. “I think Rogan will do that, and I doubt he will like it.”

  “Few men like parting with coin.”

  “Oh, it is not the coin. He will not like why he has to do it, and it will give him fuel to use against me for months.” Kellin cast a glance around the gloomy room. “He would say I deserved this, to teach me a lesson. But it was the Lion—” He looked quickly at Urchin, breaking off.

  The Homanan boy frowned. “What lion?”

  “Nothing.” Kellin left Urchin’s side and retreated to a pallet near the door. He pressed shoulder blades into the wall. “He will come for me.”

  “That tutor?” Urchin’s mouth twisted. “I had a tutor, once. He taught me how to steal.”

  Kellin shrugged. “Then stop.”

  “Stop.” Urchin stared. “D’ye think it’s so easy? D’ye think I asked the gods for this life?”

  “No one would ask it. But why do you stay in it?”

  “No choice.” Urchin picked at his threadbare tunic. His thin face was pinched as if his leg pained him. “No mother, no father, no kin.” His expression hardened. “I’m a thief, and a good one.” He looked at his swollen ankle. “Sometimes.”

  Kellin nodded. “Then I will have Rogan pay your copper, too, and you will come back with me.”

  Urchin’s dirt-mottled face mocked. “With you.”

  “To Homana-Mujhar.”

  “Liar.”

  Kellin laughed. “As good a liar as a thief.”

  Urchin turned his shoulder: eloquent dismissal.

  * * *

  With his pallet nearest the door, Kellin awoke each time a new arrival was pushed into the room throughout the night. At first he had been intrigued by the number and their disparate “crimes,” but soon enough boredom set in, and later weariness; he fell asleep not long after a plain supper of bread and thin gravy was served, and slept with many interruptions until dawn.

  The commotion was distant at first, interesting only the few recently imprisoned souls who hoped for early release. That hope had faded in Kellin, who found himself reiterating to a dubious Urchin that indeed he was who he said he was, and was restored only when he heard the voice through the door: the red-haired man, clearly frightened as well as astonished.

  Kellin grinned at the young thief through pale dawn. “Rogan. I told you, Urchin.”

  The door was opened and a man came in. It wasn’t Rogan at all, but the Mujhar himself, followed by the giant.

  Kellin scrambled hastily to his feet. “Grandsire! You?”

  The giant was very pale. “My lord, how could we know? Had we known—”

  Stung by the outrage, Kellin turned on the man. “You knew,” he declared. “I told you. You just didn’t believe me.” He looked at his grandfather. “None of them believed me.”

  “Nor would I,” Brennan said calmly. He arched a single eloquent brow. “Have you taken to swimming in the midden?” Yellow eyes brightened faintly, dispelling the barb. “Or was it an entirely different kind of Midden?”

  Kellin recalled then the whore’s words, her mention of the Midden. It basted his face with heat. Such shame before his grandsire! “My lord Mujhar…” He let it trail off. Part of him was overwhelmed to be safe at last, while the other part was mortified that his grandsire should see him so. “No,” he said softly, squirming inside filthy leathers. “I fell…I did not mean to get so dirty.”

  “Nor so smelly.” Brennan’s gaze was steady. “Explain yourself, if you please.”

  Kellin looked at the giant. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “He told me. So did the other man. Now it is for you.”

  Kellin was hideously aware of everyone else in the room, but especially of his grandfather, his tall, strong, Cheysuli grandfather, whose dignity, purpose, and sense of self was so powerful as to flatten everyone else, certainly a ten-year-old grandson. The Mujhar himself, not Rogan, standing in the doorway with the sunrise on his back, lir-gold gleaming brightly, silver in his hair, stern face even sterner. The wealth on his arms alone would keep Urchin and others like him alive for years.

  In a small voice, Kellin suggested, “It would be better done in private.”

  “No doubt. I want it done here.”

  Kellin swallowed heavily. He told his grandsire the whole of it, even to the woman.

  Brennan did not smile, but his mouth relaxed. Tension Kellin had been unaware of until that moment left the Mujhar’s body. “And what have you learned from this?”

  Kellin looked straight back. “Not to run in Mujhara.”

  After a moment of startled silence, the Mujhar laughed aloud, folding bare bronzed arms across his chest with no pretensions at maintaining a stern facade, even before the others. Kellin gaped in surprise; what was so amusing, that his grandsire would sacrifice his dignity before the others without hesitation?

  “I had expected something else entirely,” Brennan said at last, “but I cannot fault your statement. There is truth in it.” Amusement faded. “But there is also Rogan.”

  Kellin’s belly clenched. He nodded and stared at his boot toes. “Rogan,” he echoed. “I meant not to make him worry.”

  “Tell him that.”

  “I will.”

  “Now.”

  Kellin looked up from the ground and saw Rogan in the doorway just behind his grandsire. The man’s face was haggard and gray, his eyes reddened from sleeplessness. Kellin thought then of the aforementioned repercussions, Rogan’s own question regarding what would become of him and the Mujharan Guard if harm came to Kellin.

  “I am unharmed,” Kellin said quickly, grasping the repercussions as he never had before. “I am whole, save for my lip, and that I got myself when I fell down.”

  “And your cut hand; Rogan told me.” Brennan extended his own. “Let me see.”

  Kellin held out his hand and allowed his grandsire to examine the cuts. “Filthy,” the Mujhar commented. “It will want a good cleaning when we return, but will heal of its own.” His yellow eyes burned fiercely. “You must know not to test others, Kellin. No matter the provocation. If you had not been so quick—”

  “But I knew I was,” Kellin insisted; couldn’t any of them see? “I watched him. I watched the knife. I knew what it would do.”

  Brennan’s mouth crimped. “We will speak of this another time. For now, I charge you to recall that for such a serious transgression as this one, you endanger others as well as yourself.”

  Kellin looked again at Rogan. He tugged ineffectually at his ruined jerkin. “I am sorry.”

  The tutor nodded mutely, seemingly diminished by the tension of the night. Or was it the Lion, biting now at Rogan?

  “Well.” The Mujhar cast a glance around the room. “It is to be expected that you smell like the Midden, or a midden—though I suppose it is less your own contribution than that of everyone else.”

  Kellin nodded, scratching at the fleas that had vacated his pallet to take up residence in his clothing.

  Brennan considered him. “I begin to think you are more like my rujholli than I had believed possible.”

  It astonished Kellin, who had never thought of such a thing. “I am?”

  “Aye. Hart and Corin would have gotten themselves thrown into a r
oom just like this, or worse, for about the same reason—or perhaps for a crime even worse than thievery—and then waited for me to fetch them out.” He looked his grandson up and down. “Are you not young to begin?”

  Ashamed again, Kellin stared hard at the ground. Softly, he said, “I did not expect you to come.”

  “Hart and Corin did. And they were right; I always came.” Brennan sighed. “You did expect someone.”

  “What else?” It startled Kellin. “You would not leave me here!”

  Brennan eyed him consideringly. “I did leave you here. I knew where you were last night.”

  “Last night!” It was preposterous. “You left me here all night?”

  Brennan exchanged a glance with Rogan. “In hopes you might profit from it, albeit there were guardsmen—and a Cheysuli—just across the street.” His eyes narrowed. “You said you have learned not to run in Mujhara…well, I suppose that is something.” His tone was ironic. “Surely more than Hart or Corin learned.”

  “Grandsire—”

  “But whether you learned anything is beside the point. Your granddame made it clear to me that if I did not fetch you out at once come dawn, she would have my head.” He smiled slightly. “As you see, it is still attached.”

  Kellin nodded, not doubting that it was; nor his granddame’s fiery Erinnish temper.

  “So Rogan and I are here to fetch you, very much as you expected, and will now take you back to Homana-Mujhar, where I shall myself personally supervise the bath just to make certain the body in it is that of my grandson, and not some filthy street urchin masquerading as the Prince of Homana.”

  “Urchin!” Kellin cried, turning. “We have to take him with us!”

  “Who?”

  “Urchin. Him.” Kellin pointed to the astonished boy. “I told him you would pay his copper and bring him with us—well, I said Rogan would—” Kellin cast a glance at his tutor, “—so you could heal him.”

  “Volunteering my services, are you, you little wretch?” But Brennan crossed the room and knelt down by the boy thief. “How are you hurt? Ah, so I see. Here—”

  “No!” Urchin jerked away the infected foot.