A Tapestry of Lions

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Rhiannon, who later lay with my jehan and bore him a child. Melusine is her name.”

  “You know it?”

  “She is the woman who sleeps with Lochiel. She bore him a child…while she herself, Melusine, was born of Cheysuli blood as well as Ihlini—yet chooses to serve Asar-Suti.”

  It seemed surpassing odd. “How do you know all this?”

  “Lochiel sees to it I know. Lochiel and I—” Aidan’s taut, angled smile was strangely shaped, “—have long been adversaries on more battlefields than the obvious ones. He sends me messages.”

  “Lochiel?” Kellin found it incomprehensible. “Why?”

  “To make certain I know.” Wind ruffled the white wing against Aidan’s temple. “Her name is Melusine, and she bore him a daughter. It was that daughter with whom you shared a cradle.”

  Kellin grunted. “I know something of that.”

  “Do you?” Aidan’s gaze was steady. “Shall I tell you the whole of it, then, so you may have another thing for which to hate me?”

  “What? More?” It might have stung once; it might have been a weapon Kellin took pride in wielding, but no longer. Much remained between them, but some of the pain was assuaged. “Then tell me, and I will decide if I should rekindle my hatred.”

  Aidan looked directly at him. “I bargained for you. It was little more, to him, than a simple trade. I was to choose—” He rubbed briefly at his forehead as if it ached, then glanced away toward distant Hondarth. “There were two babies, as you know: you, and Lochiel’s daughter. I had no way of telling which was which. You were both of you swaddled, and asleep; it is somewhat difficult to tell one infant from another, in such circumstances.”

  “Aye. How did you?”

  “I did not.”

  “But—you chose me.”

  “I left Valgaard with a child in my arms. I did not know which one it was.” Aidan sighed. “Not until I unwrapped you and saw you were male. Then I knew, and only then, that my choice had been correct.”

  “But—if you had chosen the girl….” Kellin let it go. The repercussions he saw were too complex to consider.

  “If I had, you would have been reared as Lochiel’s son.”

  And the girl as a princess within the bosom of Homana-Mujhar, where she might have worked against us. The flesh rose on Kellin’s bones. He rubbed at his arms viciously, disliking the weakness that made his fear so plain. “So.” It seemed enough.

  “So.” Aidan nodded. “You know the whole of it.”

  Kellin stared fixedly across the lapping water. He could not look at his father. He had spent too long hating from a distance to give way easily, to admit to circumstances that might persuade a man to act in such a way as to ignore his son. “You risked a great deal.”

  “It was my only choice. It was Homana’s only chance.”

  Kellin frowned fiercely. “You said—the Lion will devour the House. Is that not the same fate Lochiel aspires to give us?”

  “There is a difference between swallowing the lands, and destroying them. Words, Kellin—symbols. Intent is divulged with words. Think of the prophecy.”

  “Eighteen words, again?”

  “‘—shall unite, in peace—’” Aidan said. “Well?”

  Kellin sighed, nodding. “Then to unite the lands, I must swallow them. Swallowing, one might argue, is a form of uniting.”

  Aidan smiled. “Vivid imagery. It helps a man to remember.” He looked at the waiting boat. “We all make choices. You shall make yours.”

  Kellin saw his father form the eloquent Cheysuli gesture he had detested so long. He matched it easily with his own hand. “Tahlmorra.”

  Aidan’s answering smile was serene. “You have run from it long enough.”

  “So, now you send me to it. To Lochiel and Valgaard—and to the witch?”

  “That,” Aidan said, “is for the gods to know.”

  Kellin sighed disgust. “I have not had much congress with gods. They are, I am convinced, capricious, petty beings.”

  “They may indeed be so, as well as other things perhaps not so reprehensible.” Aidan was unoffended. “The example for all manner of behavior lies before you; we all of us are their children.”

  “Even the Ihlini?”

  “Stubborn, resentful children, too spoiled in their power. It is time they recalled who gave it to them.”

  Kellin chewed his lip. “Why am I to bring you this chain? What are you to do with it?”

  “Tame the Lion.”

  “Tame me!” He paused. “Tame me?”

  “Who shall, in his turn, swallow the Houses—unite them, Kellin!—and bring peace to warring realms.”

  He clamped his teeth together. “All because of a chain. Which you broke. And left, like a fool, in Valgaard!”

  “Aye,” Aidan admitted. “But then I have never suggested I am anything else.”

  “‘Mouthpiece of the gods,’” Kellin muttered. “You claim yourself that.”

  “And so I am. But the gods made all men, and there are foolish ones.” He smiled. “Bring me back the chain, and the beast shall be tamed.”

  “A quest,” Kellin gritted.

  “The gods do appear to enjoy them. It passes the time.”

  Kellin shook his head. There was much he wanted to say, but too little time in which to say it. He had been given his release; time he took it, and went.

  “Shansu,” Aidan said. “Cheysuli i’halla shansu.”

  Kellin’s tone was ironic. “If there is any such thing in Valgaard.” He paused. “You said you would not go to Homana-Mujhar because you feared you would bring me back.”

  “Aye.”

  “I am here now. That risk is gone.” He hesitated. “Will you go home now?”

  The wind teased auburn hair. “This is my home.”

  “Then—to visit. To be hosted by the Mujhar and his queen.” It was hard to force the words past the lump in his throat. “She wants nothing more, jehan. Nor does he. Can you give them that now?”

  Aidan’s soft laugh was hoarse. “You believe me so much a monster as that…” He sighed. “There is still much to be done here.”

  “But—”

  “But one day I will return to Homana-Mujhar.”

  Kellin smiled faintly. “Is that prophecy?”

  “No. That is a jehan who is also a son, and who would like to see his parents.”

  Kellin sighed. There yet remained one more thing.

  He looked away to the distant shore, then turned back and stared hard at Aidan as Sima leapt into the boat. “Fathers desert their children.” He used Homanan purposely; he did not in this moment intend to discuss his own sire, but those of other children.

  The wind stripped auburn hair back from Aidan’s face. It bared, beneath the skin, the architecture of bone that was ineffably Cheysuli, if housed in paler flesh. “Aye.”

  “Other fathers…Homanan, Ellasian, Solindish—they must do it all over the world—” I did it myself. I banished three to Clankeep. “—Is there ever a reason?”

  “Many reasons.”

  It was not the proper answer. Kellin reshaped the question. “Is there ever justification?”

  “Only that which resides in a man’s soul,” Aidan answered. “To the child, bereft of a father, bereft of the kivarna that might explain the feelings that caused the father to leave, there is nothing save an emptiness and a longing that lasts forever.”

  “Even if—” Kellin hesitated. “Even after the father is dead?”

  “Then it is worse. A deserted child dreams of things being put to rights, of all the missing pieces being found and rejoined. A deserted child whose dreams die with the father’s death knows only a quiet desperation, a permanent incompleteness; that the dream, even born in hatred, pain, and bitterness, can now never come true.”

  Kellin swallowed with difficulty. Unevenly he said, “A hard truth, jehan.”

  “And the only one there is.”

  Four

  Kellin bought a horse
in Hondarth, rode it across the city, then traded it for another at a second livery. The second mount, a plain brown gelding disinclined to shake his entire body with violent dedication every four steps, proved considerably more comfortable. The ride commenced likewise.

  It crossed his mind once, as he and Sima neared the turning to Mujhara, that he could go home. What would the Mujhar do, send him away again? But the order had been for him to remain with his father until Aidan saw fit to send him home; Kellin could, he thought, argue that it was done.

  Except he knew better. It most decidedly was not done, it being the ludicrous quest to fetch out of Valgaard two halves of a chain his father had broken, then foolishly left behind.

  He might have kept it for himself and saved me the trouble.

  Sima flanked his horse. Aye. Then we would be where we were three weeks ago: banished to the island. She paused. Where there are dogs.

  Kellin laughed aloud. “Fastidious, are we? Disinclined to consort with dogs?” He grinned at his horse’s ears; he knew the cat sensed his amusement within the link. “They are good dogs, Sima, regardless of your tastes. They do not bark like terriers, snatching at ankles if you move…nor do they bell like hounds on the morning you most desire to sleep.”

  No, she admitted. But I am quieter even than those Erinnish beasts.

  “Usually,” he said. “Your purring, beside my ear, is enough to shatter my skull.”

  You told me once it helps you to go to sleep.

  “If I cannot sleep, aye; there is something soothing about it. But when you sprawl down next to me and take up with rumbling when I am already asleep…” He let her fill in the rest. You are not a housecat, lir. You are considerably larger in many aspects, most markedly in your noise—and in the kneading of your claws.

  Sima forbore to answer.

  * * *

  It grew cold as they drew closer to the Bluetooth River. Kellin was grateful he had thought to buy a heavier cloak in Hondarth; he wished now it was fur-lined. But it was nearly summer, and people in the lowlands did not think of such things when the sun shone so brightly.

  He shivered. If I were home in Homana-Mujhar, or within a woman’s arms— Kellin sighed. That is my favorite warmth.

  I thought I was.

  He grinned. There are certain kinds of warmth not even a lir may provide.

  Then I must assume you would prefer a roadhouse woman and her bed to the cold ground tonight.

  He straightened in the saddle. Is there one?

  One? Or both?

  Either. A woman without the roadhouse would prove warm enough, as would a roadhouse without a woman. But a woman in a roadhouse would be the best of all.

  Then you may rest well tonight. There is one around the curve of the road.

  So there was. Content, Kellin rode up to the stable and dropped off his horse with a sigh of relief. There was no boy to do the work for him, so he led the horse inside the daub-and-wattle building, stripped his mount of tack, then rubbed him down and put him into an empty stall with hay and a measure of grain. He left saddle and bridle beneath drying blankets, then went out into the twilight to look for Sima.

  She waited beneath a tree, melding into dusk. Kellin dropped to one knee and butted his brow against hers. Tomorrow we go on.

  She butted back. Do we?

  You saw the cairn at the turning. It is but three leagues to the ferry. We will cross first thing…by sundown tomorrow, we will be in Solinde.

  Sima twisted her head and slid it along his jaw, so that a tooth scraped briefly. And by sundown the day after that, Valgaard?

  His belly tightened. I would sooner avoid it—but aye, so we will.

  Sima butted his cheek, tickling his left eye with the tuft of an ear. He buried his face in the silk of her fur, then climbed back to his feet. Keep yourself to the trees.

  Keep yourself to one wine.

  Kellin grinned. But not to one woman? So much faith in me, lir!

  No, Sima answered. There is only one woman.

  Kellin did not care. One would be sufficient.

  * * *

  The common room was small but well-lighted, and the rushes were clean. Prosperous place… Kellin glanced around. As well it should be, so close to the ferry crossing and the North Road out of Ellas, frequently traveled by merchants. He made arrangements for a room, moved to a table nearer the kegs than the front door, and looked for the girl.

  It did not take long to find her, nor for her to find him. Even as he hooked out the stool from beneath the small table, she was at his side. Deft hands unpinned his cloak, then stripped it from his shoulders.

  The girl froze. Black eyes were avid as she saw the gold on his arms; a glance quickly flicked at his left ear assured her that her assessment was correct.

  She smiled, black eyes shining bronze in the light as lir-gold glinted. She was young and pretty in a wild, black-eyed way, bold in manners and glances. Content with the weight of his wealth, she eyed the fit of his leggings.

  She was quite striking, though in time her looks would coarsen. For now, she would do. Better than most. Kellin smiled back. It was an agreement they reached easily without speaking a word; when he tossed the silver coin down on the table to pay for his food and drink, she caught it before it bounced. Indeed, she will do—much better than expected.

  “Pleasure, my lord?”

  He grinned briefly. It was a two-part question, as she well knew when she asked it. “For now, usca. If you have it.”

  “We hae it.” White teeth flashed as the coin disappeared into a pocket in her voluminous woolen skirt. She wore a faded crimson blouse and a yellow tabard-smock over it, but both were slashed low to show off small, high breasts. She had pinned her thick black hair at the back of her neck in a bundled mass, but locks had come loose and straggled down her back. Finer strands curled against the pallor of her slender neck.

  Kellin found the disarray, and the neck, infinitely appealing. “And what else?” he asked.

  She showed her teeth again. “Lamb.”

  “Lamb will do.” He let her see his assessment of her; she would mark it flattery, in the glint of green eyes. “What do they call you?”

  “They call me whate’er they like,” she said frankly. “So may you. But my name be Kirsty.”

  “Kirsty.” He liked it. “Mine is Kellin.”

  She measured him avidly. “You’re a shapechanger, are ye no’, wi’ all that gold…?” She nodded before he had a chance to answer. “I ne’er seen a shapechanger w’out the yellow eyes.”

  He found her northern speech as appealing as her slender neck with its weight of hair. He gave her the benefit of a slow, inviting smile he had found years before to be most effective. “Do I frighten you?”

  Arched black brows shot up. “You?” Kirsty laughed. “I’ve been all my life a wine-girl…’tisn’t much a man hae to frighten me!” She paused consideringly. “Do ye mean to, then?”

  Her hand rested against the table. He put out his own and gently touched the flesh that lacked the smooth silken feel of the court women he had known before turning to the Midden; he found her hand familiar in its toughened competence, and therefore all the more attractive. “No,” he said softly. “I would never mean to hurt you.”

  Kirsty promised much with eyes that bespoke experience without prevarication. “I’ll bring your lamb, then, and the usca…but I’m working, now. I canna gie ye my company till later.”

  He turned his hand against hers so she could see the bloody glow of the ring on his forefinger. It was unlikely a north country girl would recognize the crest, but she would know its value well enough.

  Black brows rose again. “You’d nae gie me that for a night, nor a week of nights!”

  “Not this, perhaps—” he could not; it signified his rank, “—but certainly this.” He touched the torque at his neck.

  Her eyed widened. “’Tis too much! For a wine-girl? Hae ye no more coin?”

  “I ‘hae’ coin.” He mimicked her accen
t. “But you hae a pretty neck.”

  She assessed the torque again. “A man’s, no’ a woman’s…t’would lie low—here—” She touched her collar bone, then drew her fingers more slowly to the cleft of her high breasts and smiled to see his eyes.

  He understood the game. “Do you not want it, then?”

  For her, the game was ended. Dreams filled her eyes as the breath rushed out of her mouth. “Wi’ that I could go to Mujhara! Am I a fool? Nae, I’d take it. But what d’ye want for it?”

  “Your company. Now.”

  “Bu’…” She glanced around. “Tam’d turn me out, did I no’ tend the others.”

  “I will pay Tam, too.”

  A smooth brow knitted. “Hae it been so long, then, that ye’re that hungry?”

  “Hungry,” he answered, “for all the things that satisfy a man.” He clasped her fingers briefly, then released her hand. “Food and drink first. Come when you can.”

  Her eyes were on the torque. “Promises made are no’ kept, sometimes. D’ye think I’m a fool, then?”

  For answer Kellin rose and stripped the torque from his neck. He hooked it around her own, then settled its weight low, on delicate collar bones. Its patina glowed richly against the pallor of her skin.

  Her fingertips touched it. “Oh…”

  Kellin grinned. “But you will earn it, my lass, with me.”

  Kirsty laughed aloud, then bent close to him. “Nae, I think not—’tis a gift! I’d hae done you for naught at all.”

  “For naught!”

  “Aye!” Her laugh was throaty. “I’ve no’ seen a man like you in all o’ my days!”

  Chagrined, he clapped a hand to her rump and found it firm and round. “Lamb and usca, then, before I die of hunger.”

  “Won’t be hunger you die of!” She swung and was gone before he could retort.

  * * *

  Kellin ate lamb, drank usca, and laid a few wagers on the fall of the dice in a friendly game at another table. He was marked as Cheysuli, but no one appeared to resent it. Eyes followed the glint of gold when he moved in the lamplight, but the greed was friendly and lacking in covetous intent.

  Kirsty appeared at last and ran deft fingers down his arm. Then she touched the buckle of his belt and tugged. “I’m done,” she said. “Are you?”