A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  Kellin cut it off with a firmer pressure against the heavy belly. “Cheysuli as well, Homanan. Tahlmorra lujhala mei wiccan, cheysu.” He laughed, delighted to see the comprehension in Luce’s face. “Now, perhaps we should discuss your thumb.”

  “Gut me, then!” Luce roared, and brought his knee up sharply.

  The knife did not by much beat the knee to its target, but Kellin’s thrust was almost immediately rendered ineffective. He intended to sheath the steel in Luce’s belly, but the man’s upthrust knee, driving home with speed and accuracy, deprived Kellin of everything except a burst of incredible pain, and the knowledge—even as he collapsed—that he had made a deadly mistake.

  —never hesitate— But he had. Now he lay writhing on the filthy floor of a dirtier tavern, wondering if he would survive long enough to find out if he could bed a woman again.

  He had cut Luce, perhaps deeply, but not deeply enough to kill; he heard the man shouting orders to his confederates. Hands closed on Kellin even as he groaned and tried to swallow the usca that threatened to exit his body. Bile burned in the back of his throat.

  Teague. Somewhere. But they were two against too many.

  For a fleeting moment Kellin wished he had not been so adamant about posting the remaining watchdogs outside, but there was no time for recriminations. He had lost his knife on the floor and had only his wits and skills with which to save his life.

  Hands dragged him upright. Kellin wanted very badly to lie down again, but he dared not if he were to preserve his life. So he tapped the pain, used the pain as a goad, and channeled it into a weapon.

  He tore loose of the hands holding him, jabbing with elbows and stomping with booted feet. One man he butted so firmly beneath the chin that teeth crunched. Something sharp sliced across his outflung hands, grated across knuckles; a second knife jabbed him in the back. But its tip fouled on the heavy winter doublet as he spun away.

  Kellin lashed out with a boot and smashed a knee, then jammed an elbow into the man’s face as he doubled over. Blood spurted as the nose broke, spraying Kellin as well as the Homanan.

  Teague. Near, he knew; he could hear the guardsman swearing by the name of the Mujhar. Kellin hoped Teague was armed with more than oaths. If I could find the door—

  A table was shoved into his path. Kellin braced, then swung up onto it, kicked out again, caught one man’s jaw flush. The head snapped back on its neck. The man fell limply even as another replaced him.

  Someone slashed at his leg. Kellin leapt high into the air and avoided the knife, but as he came down again the flimsy table collapsed. In a spray of shattered wood and curses, Kellin went down with it.

  Something blunt dug into his spine as he rolled. Wood, not blade—

  “Mine!” Luce roared. “He’s mine to kill!”

  “Teague!” Kellin shouted.

  “My lord—” But the answering shout was cut off.

  Kellin thrust himself upward. Arms closed around his chest, trapping his own arms in a deadly hug. His spine was pressed against the massive belt buckle; his head beneath Luce’s chin. The Homanan’s strength was immense.

  A sharp, firm squeeze instantly expelled what little breath was left in Kellin’s lungs. The human vice around his chest denied him another. Speckles crept into the corners of his eyes, then spread to threaten his vision.

  Kellin writhed in Luce’s grasp. He kicked but struck air, and the big man laughed. “Boy,” Luce said, “your gods can’t hear you now.”

  He had not petitioned the gods. Now he did, just in case, even as he snapped his head backward in a futile attempt to smash Luce’s face. He struck nothing but muscled neck. Luce’s grip tightened.

  Frenziedly, Kellin fought. His breath was gone, and his strength, but desperation drove him. He would not give up. A Cheysuli warrior never gave up.

  Luce, laughing, shook him. A rib protested. “Little prince,” he baited, “where is your liege man now?”

  Blais would not permit this— Kellin arched his body in a final attempt at escape, then went limp. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. He hung slackly in thick arms.

  Luce squeezed him a final time, threw him down. “I’ll have that knife now.”

  Kellin’s breath came back in a rush. He heard himself gasping and whooping as his lungs filled slowly, then understood what Luce intended to do. “No knife—mine—” And it was there, kicked beneath shattered wood; Kellin clawed for it, touched it, closed trembling fingers upon it even as Luce saw his intent. But before the big man could react, Kellin’s hand closed over the hilt.

  He came up from the floor in one awkward lunge, still gasping for breath, still doubled up from the pain of his bruised ribs. But to hesitate or protect himself guaranteed death; Kellin slashed out repeatedly, carving himself a clearing. He saw the glint of a swordblade—no, two—and realized the watchdogs were present at last. Teague had reached the door, or else they had heard the commotion.

  Luce?

  The man was there, armed as well. The knife he held was not so elaborate as Kellin’s but its blade was equally deadly. Near-black eyes were fastened on Kellin’s face. “I’ll have that long-knife yet.”

  Blood trickled into Kellin’s right eye as he sucked at air. He scrubbed a forearm across his brow, shook back damp hair, then grinned at the big man. Without the breath to answer, Kellin beckoned Luce on with the waggle of one hand.

  By now most of the fighting had been stopped, or stopped of its own accord. It had come down to Kellin and Luce. The silence in the tavern was heavy with expectation.

  Luce still watched him, judging his condition. Kellin knew it well enough: he was half-sick on usca and the blow from Luce’s knee, as well as bruised about the ribs. He was stippled by half a dozen nicks and slices, and a cut across his brow bled sluggishly, threatening his vision.

  Kellin forced a ragged laugh. “Are you truly the king of the Midden? Do you think yourself fit to rule? Then show me, little man. Prove to a Cheysuli you are fit to hold his knife.”

  Luce came on, as expected. Kellin stood his ground, watching the man’s posture and the subtle movements of his body; when Luce’s momentum was fully engaged, his intent divulged, Kellin slipped aside and thrust out a boot. Luce stumbled, cursed, then fell against a table. His hands thrust out to brace himself.

  With a single definitive blow of Blais’ knife, Kellin chopped down and severed the thief’s remaining thumb. “There,” he said, “the debt now is paid.”

  Luce screamed. He clutched his bleeding hand against his chest. “Shapechanger sorcery!”

  Kellin shook his head, still trying to regain his breath. “Just a knife in the hand of a man. But enough for you, it seems.”

  The conquest of Luce ended the fight entirely. Kellin saw bloodied faces and gaping mouths, torn clothing and gore-splattered hair. The crimson tunics of the watchdogs glowed like pristine beacons in the smoky shadows of the tavern.

  He ached. His profaned manhood throbbed. He wanted no more than to lie down in the slushy snow and cool the heat of pain, to drive away the sickness, to regain in the bite of winter the self-control he had forfeited to a despised desperation.

  Kellin wanted no one, thief or guardsman, to see how much he hurt. Without a word, without an order, he turned and walked through the crowd and pushed open the cracked door, taking himself from the tavern into the cold clarity of the alley. The stench was no better there, but the familiar glitter of stars was an infinite improvement over the opaque malignancy of Luce’s enraged stare.

  Kellin looked at the horses and very nearly flinched. He could not bear the idea of riding.

  “My lord?” It was Teague, exiting the tavern. He was bloodied and bruised and very taut around the mouth. “We should get you to Homana-Mujhar.”

  The response was automatic. “If I choose to go.”

  Teague neither flinched nor colored. His tone was pitched to neutrality. “Are you done for the evening, my lord?”

  Kellin gifted him with a scowl
as the other guardsmen filed out of the tavern. “Is there something else you wished to do?”

  Teague shrugged. “I thought perhaps you might desire to find another game.” He paused. “My lord.”

  As he collected breath and wits, Kellin considered any number of retorts. Most of them were couched in anger or derision. But after what Teague had done, he thought the guardsman deserved better.

  He blew out a frosted breath, then drew another into a sore chest. He wanted to lie down, or bend over, or lean against the wall, but he would do none of those things or risk divulging discomfort. Instead, he asked a question. “Was the die improperly weighted?”

  Teague grinned. “As to that, I could not swear. But when Luce spread his hand down across the pile and challenged you to the final throw, I saw one die replaced with another. It seemed logical to assume it was weighted to favor Luce.”

  Kellin grunted agreement. “But it was not replaced before.”

  “No, my lord.”

  “You are certain?”

  “My lord—” With effort, Teague suppressed a smile and did not look at his companions. “I am moved to say your luck was bad tonight.”

  “And, no doubt, my tavern selection.” Kellin sighed and pressed a hand against sore ribs. “I am going home. You may come, or go, as you wish. It is nothing to me.”

  Teague considered it. “I think I will come, my lord.” The faintest glint brightened his eyes. “I would like to hear what the Mujhar has to say when you arrive on his front step.”

  It was momentarily diverting. “To me, or to you?”

  “To you, my lord. I have done my duty.”

  Kellin scowled. “It is not the Mujhar who concerns me.”

  “Who, then?”

  It was an impertinence, but Kellin was too tired and sore to remind Teague of that. “The queen,” he muttered. “She is Erinnish, remember? And possessed of a facile tongue.” He sighed. “My ears will be burning tonight, as she can no longer redden my rump.”

  Teague surrendered his dignity to a shout of laughter. Then he recalled whom it was he served—the royal temper, Kellin knew, was notorious—and quietly gathered up the reins of his own mount and Kellin’s. “I will walk with you, my lord.”

  The assumption stung. “And if I mean to ride?”

  “Then I will ride also.” Teague lowered his eyes and stared inoffensively at the ground. “But I daresay my journey will be more comfortable than yours.”

  Kellin’s face burned. “I daresay.”

  The Prince of Homana walked all the way home as his faithful watchdogs followed.

  Five

  The Queen of Homana pressed a wine-soaked cloth against the wound in her grandson’s scalp. “Sit still, Kellin! ’Tis a deep cut.”

  He could not help himself; he lapsed into an Erinnish lilt in echo of her own. “You’ll be making it deeper, with this! D’ye mean to go into my brain?”

  “’Twould keep you from further idiocy, now, wouldn’t it?” The pressure was firm as she worked to stanch the dribbling blood.

  “That I doubt,” Brennan said. “Kellin courts idiocy.”

  “’Twould seem so,” Aileen agreed equably. Then, when Kellin meant to protest, “Sit still.”

  Between them, they will slice me into little pieces. Kellin sat bolt upright in a stool in his chambers, bare to the waist. He was not in the slightest disposed to remain still as she pressed liquor into his scalp, because he could not. It stung fiercely. The right side of his chest was beginning to purple from Luce’s affectionate hug, but Kellin was not certain Aileen’s ministrations—or her words—would be gentler.

  “You could bind his ribs,” she suggested crisply to Brennan, “instead of standing there glowering like an old wolf.”

  “No,” Kellin answered, knowing the Mujhar’s hands would be far less gentle than hers. “You do it, granddame.”

  “Then stop twitching.”

  “It hurts.”

  Aileen sighed as she peeled back the cloth and inspected the oozing cut beneath. “For a Cheysuli warrior, my braw boyo, you’re not so very good at hiding your pain.”

  “The Erinnish in me,” he muttered pointedly. “Besides, how many Cheysuli warriors must suffer a woman to pour liquid fire into their skulls?”

  Aileen pressed closed the cut. “How many require it?”

  Kellin hissed. He slanted a sidelong glance at his grandfather. “I am not the first to rebel against the constraints of his rank.”

  The gibe did not disturb the Mujhar in the least. He stood quietly before his battered grandson with gold-weighted arms folded, observing his queen’s ministrations. “Nor will you be the last,” Brennan remarked. “But as that comment was aimed specifically at me, let me answer you in like fashion: dying before you inherit somewhat diminishes the opportunity to break free of my authority.” He arched a brow. “Does it not?”

  Kellin gritted his teeth. “I’m not looking to die, grandsire—”

  “You give every indication of it.”

  “—merely looking for entertainment, something to fill my days, something to quench my taste—”

  “—for rebellion.” Brennan smiled a little. “Nothing you tell me now cannot be countered, Kellin. For that matter, you may as well save your breath, which is likely at this moment difficult to draw through bruised ribs—” the Mujhar cast him an ironic glance, “—because I know very well what you will say. I even know what I will say; it was said to me and to my rujholli several decades ago.”

  Kellin scowled. “I am not you, or Hart, or Corin—”

  “—or even Keely,” Aileen finished, “and I’ve heard this before, myself.” Her green eyes were bright. “Now both of you be silent while I wrap up your ribs.”

  Kellin subsided into glum silence, punctuated only by an occasional hissed inhalation. He did not look again at his grandsire, but stared fixedly beyond him so he would not provoke a comment in the midst of intense discomfort.

  He had told them little of the altercation in the tavern, saying merely that a game had gone bad and the fight was the result. No deaths, he pointed out; the Mujhar, oddly, asked about fire, to which Kellin answered in puzzlement that there was no fire, only a little blood. It had satisfied Brennan in some indefinable way; he had said little after that save for a few caustic comments.

  Kellin sat very still as Aileen worked, shutting his teeth against the pain—he would not permit her to believe he was less able than anyone else to hold his tongue—and said nothing. But he was aware of an odd sensation that had little to do with pain.

  “—still,” she murmured, as a brief tremor claimed his body.

  Kellin frowned as she snugged the linen around his ribs. What is—? And then again the tremor, and Aileen’s muttered comment, and his own unintended reaction: every inch of flesh burned so intensely he sweated with it.

  Brennan frowned. “Perhaps I should call a surgeon.”

  “No!” Kellin blurted.

  “If there is that much pain—”

  “—isn’t pain,” Kellin gritted. “Except—for that—” He sucked in a hissing breath as Aileen pulled linen taut against sore flesh. “Call no one. Grandsire.”

  He held himself still with effort. It wasn’t pain, but something else entirely, something he could not ignore, that burned through flesh into bone with a will of its own, teasing at self-control. Fingers and toes tingled. It spread to groin and belly, then crept upward to his heart.

  “Kellin?” Aileen’s hands stilled. “Kellin—”

  He heard her only dimly, as if water filled his ears. His entire being was focused on a single sensation. It was very like the slow build toward the physical release of man into woman, he thought, but with a distinct difference he could not voice. He could not find the words. He knew only there was a vast and abiding thing demanding his attention, demanding his body and soul.

  “Ihlini?” he murmured. “Lochiel?”

  He need only put out his hand, Corwyth had said, and Kellin would be in
it.

  His ribs were strapped and tied. He could not breathe.

  —could not breathe—

  “Kellin!” Aileen’s hands closed on his naked shoulders. “Can you hear me?”

  He could. Clearly. The stuffy distance was gone. The burning subsided, as did the tremors. He felt it all go, leaching him of strength. He sat weak and trembling upon the stool, sweat running down his face. Damp hair stuck to his brow.

  Gods— But he cut it off. He would not beg aid or explanation from those he could not honor.

  Kellin clenched his teeth within an aching jaw. For a moment the room wavered around him, running together until all the colors were gone. Everything was a fleshy gray, lacking depth or substance.

  “Kellin?” The Mujhar.

  He could make no answer. He blinked, tried to focus, and vision eventually steadied. His hearing now was acute, so incredibly acute he heard the soughing of the folds of Aileen’s skirts as she turned to Brennan. He could smell her, smell himself: the bitter tang of his own fear, the acrid bite of rebelling flesh.

  “Brighter—” he blurted, and then the desolation swept in, and emptiness, and a despair so powerful he wanted to cry out. He was a shell, not a man; a hollow, empty shell. Shadow, not warrior, a man lacking in heart or substance, and therefore worthless among his clan.

  In defiance of pain, Kellin lurched up from the stool. He shuddered. Tremors began again. He felt the protest of his ribs, but they did not matter. He took a step forward, then caught himself. For a moment he lingered, trapped upon the cusp, then somehow found the chamberpot so he could spew his excesses into pottery instead of onto the floor.

  Even as Aileen murmured sympathy, Brennan cut her off. “He deserves it. The gods know Hart and Corin did, and Keely, when they followed such foolish whims.”

  “And what of your whims?” she retorted. “You did not drink overmuch, but you found Rhiannon instead.”

  Kellin stood over the chamberpot, one arm cradling his chest. It hurt to bend over, hurt to expel all the usca, hurt worse to draw a breath.

  He straightened slowly, irritated by his grandparents’ inconsequential conversation, but mostly humiliated by the dictates of his body. He felt no better for purging his belly. Sickness yet lurked within, waiting for the moment he least expected its return.