Cheysuli 7 - Flight of the Raven Read online

  For the first time in his life, Aidan cut him off. "I have to have it, grandsire. Do you understand? It is a need as strong as the need of a man for a woman… as the need of warrior for lir. There is no difference, grandsire… it makes me come here. Every time I dream it."

  Niall stared at him, clearly startled by the passion. "If it disturbs you this much—"

  Aidan laughed aloud. "Disturbs me? Aye, that is one way of saying it…" He banished the desperation with effort, striving for equanamity. "Grandsire, perhaps it is better put like so: what if, as you reached to take her into your arms, Deirdre was turned to dust? To nothingness in your hands, even as you touched her, wanting her so badly you think you might burst with it."

  Niall's expression was arrested. Aidan knew, as he always knew, the emotions his grandsire felt. Shock. Disbelief. The merest trace of anger, that Aidan could compare a chain to the Mujhar's beloved meijha… and then the comprehension of what the failure meant.

  After a moment, Niall got up with a muffled grunt of effort and mounted the dais steps. He paused before the Lion, placed a hand upon it, then turned awkwardly and sat down. It was not, Aidan knew, an attempt to use his rank, but the desire of an old man wishing for softness under his buttocks while he contemplated his grandson.

  The Mujhar rubbed at deep scar-creases mostly hidden beneath the patch, as if the empty socket ached. "What happens, then, when you come looking for this chain?"

  Aidan shrugged, trying to diminish the desperation he always felt. "I put out my hand to take it, and the chain is changed to dust."

  "Dust," Niall echoed thoughtfully.

  Aidan extended his right hand. It shook; he tried to suppress it. "I have to have it, grandsire… I have to have the chain—and yet when I touch it, only dust is left." He shut his hand tightly. "But even the dust goes before I can really touch it."

  Niall's single eye was steady. "Have you seen the priests?"

  Aidan grinned derisively, slapping his hand down. "They are Homanans."

  A silver brow arched. Mildly, the Mujhar said, "They are also men of the gods."

  Aidan made an impatient gesture. "They would laugh."

  Niall rubbed meditatively at his bottom lip. "No priest of Homana-Mujhar would ever deign to laugh at the man who will one day rule."

  Aidan sighed. "No, perhaps not… but they would tell those stories. Already people tell stories." He tapped his bare chest. "The servants are full of gossip about the Prince of Homana's fey son—the man who walks by night because he requires no sleep."

  Niall's smile was faint. "Oh, you require it. And they should know it, too—they have only to look at your face."

  "So it shows…" He had known it did, to him; he had hoped others were blind to it. "I have done so many things, trying to banish the dreams. Petitions to the gods. Even turning to women." His mouth twisted in self-contempt. "I have lost count of how many women… each one I hoped could do it, could banish all the feelings by substituting others. It is a sweet release, grandsire, but it gave me no freedom." He sighed heavily. "None of them was ungrateful—it was the heir to the Prince of Homana, grandson to the Mujhar!—and I like women too much to cast them off indiscreetly… but after a while, it palled. Physical satisfaction was no longer enough… all the dreams came back."

  Niall said nothing.

  "Gods—now I am started…" Aidan laughed a little. "And liquor! I have drunk myself into a stupor more times than I can count, hoping to banish the dream. And for a night, it may work—but in the morning, when all a man in his cups desires is for the sun to set again so it does not blind his eyes, the dream slips through the cracks." Aidan smiled wryly. "I'll be telling you plain, grandsire, the dream is bad enough when I've been having no liquor—'tis worse when I'm in my cups."

  Niall's smile widened. "Did you know that when you are upset, you sound very like your jehana?"

  Aidan's mouth twitched. "Or is it I sound like Deirdre?"

  "No, no—Dierdre has been in Homana too long… most of Erinn is banished, in her…" Niall flicked dismissive fingers and straightened in the throne. "But we are not here to speak of accents. Aidan, if you will not go to Homanan priests, what of the shar tahls?"

  Aidan stilled. "Clankeep?"

  "There may be an answer for you."

  "Or no answer at all."

  "Aidan—"

  "I thought of it," he admitted. "Many, many times, and each time I did I convinced myself not to go."

  Niall frowned. "Why? Clankeep is your home as much as Homana-Mujhar."

  "Is it?" Aidan shook his head. "Homana-Mujhar is my home—Clankeep is merely a place."

  For a moment his grandsire's expression was frozen. And then the fretwork of Niall's face seemed to collapse inwardly. His eye, oddly, was empty of all expression, until realization crept into it. Followed by blatant grief and regret.

  His tone was ragged. "So, it comes to pass… Teirnan was right after all." He slumped back in the throne, digging at the leather strap bisecting his brow. "All those times he said we would be swallowed up by Homanans; are you the first, I wonder? Is this the Homanan revenge; if Cheysuli must hold the Lion, we make the Cheysuli Homanan?"

  Aidan stared in startled dismay. "Grandsire—"

  Niall waved a hand. "No, no, I am not mad… nor am I grown suddenly too old for sense." He pulled himself upright in the massive throne. Now the tone was bitter. "I am speaking of Tiernan, your kinsman—cousin to your jehan, son to my dead rujholla. The one who renounced the prophecy and founded his own clan."

  Aidan frowned faintly. "I know who he is. We all know who Teirnan is—or was." He shrugged. "How many years has it been since anyone has seen him? Fifteen? Twenty? He may well be dead."

  Niall's expression was pensive. "He took his clan into the deepwood somewhere in Homana… he is still out there, Aidan—he still plots to take the Lion."

  Aidan did not really believe his grandsire was too old to rule, or growing feeble in his wits, but he did think perhaps too much weight was given to a man no one had seen for too many years. The Ihlini were past masters at waiting year after year to strike at their enemies, but from what he knew of his kinsman, Teirnan was not that kind.

  "Grandsire—"

  Niall did not listen. He heaved himself out of the Lion and bent to retrieve the candle in its cup. He straightened and looked his grandson dead in the eyes. "Go to Clankeep, Aidan. Discover your true heritage before it is too late."

  Dumbfounded, Aidan automatically gave way to his grandfather's passage and watched him go, saying nothing. Then turned to look at his lir once the silver doors had closed. "What does that mean?"

  Teel observed him thoughtfully. I did not know you were deaf.

  Aidan scowled. "No, I am not deaf… but what good will Clankeep do?"

  Give you ears to hear with. Give you eyes with which to see. Teel rustled feathers. Go back to bed, deaf lir. No more dreams tonight.

  Aidan thought about retorting. Then thought instead about his bed and the sweetness of dreamless sleep. "Coming?" he asked acerbically, turning away from the dais.

  Teel flew ahead. I could ask the same of you.

  Chapter Three

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  The stallion was old, growing older, but retained enough of his spirit to make handling him occasionally difficult. The horseboys and grooms of Homana-Mujhar had long ago learned the tending of the black—appropriately named Bane—was best left to his owner, who had a true gift. They dealt with him as they could, then gave him gladly into Brennan's keeping whenever the prince came down to the stableyard.

  He came now, dismissing the horseboys flocking to offer attendance, and went into the wood-and-brick stable to see the stallion. But a true horseman never merely looks; he can but tie his hands to keep from touching the flesh, from the strong-lipped, velveted muzzle, blowing warmly against his palms.

  Bane, by right of rank, had the largest stall in the stable block; a second block housed the Mujhar's favorite mounts. Brennan slipped th
e latch and entered the straw-bedded stall. The stallion laid back ears, cocked a hoof, then shifted stance to adjust his weight. One black hip briefly pressed Brennan into the stall; automatically slapped, the hip duly shifted itself, ritual completed. Raven ears came up. One dark eye slewed around to look as Brennan moved in close. Bane blew noisily, then bestowed his chin upon Brennan's shoulder, waiting for the fingers that knew just where to scratch.

  The murmured words were familiar. Bane spoke neither Homanan nor the Old Tongue of the Cheysuli; Bane spoke motion and voice and touch and smell, the language of horse and rider. He listened but vaguely to the words Brennan crooned, hearing instead the tones and nuances, knowing nothing of meaning. Only the promise of affection. The attendance upon a king by a royal-born man himself.

  Bane did not mark the underlying anguish in Brennan's tone, the soft subtleties of despair. He was horse, not human; he did not answer to anything unless it concerned his few wants and needs. But even if he were human, even a Homanan, the emotions would escape him. Cheysuli-born were different. The unblessed, regardless of bloodlines, of humanness, were deaf to things unsaid. Blind to things suppressed.

  But Ian was not unblessed. Ian was Cheysuli. His own share of anguish and despair, though mostly vanquished by time, made him party to them in his nephew.

  He moved close to the stall, pausing at the door. Briefly he watched Brennan with his stallion, noting tension in the movements, marking worry in the expression. Seeing such indications was what he had learned to do as liege man to the Mujhar, and as kin to volatile fledglings not always cognizant of caution.

  "I have," Ian began quietly, "spent much of my life offering succor—or merely an attentive ear—to those of my kin in need. You have always held yourself apart, depending in great measure on a natural reserve and full understanding of your place. But I have never known a Lion's cub to be beyond the need of comfort."

  Brennan, startled, stiffened into unaccustomed awkwardness, then turned. One arm rested on Bane's spine, as if maintaining contact might lend him strength. The other fell to his side. The gold on his arms gleamed in a latticework of sunlight, vented through laddered slats in the outside stable walls. "Did jehan send you?"

  Ian, hooking elbows on the top of the stall door, smiled with serene good humor. His arms, like Brennan's, were bare of sleeves, displaying Cheysuli gold. "I am not always in his keeping, any more than you. Give me credit for seeing your pain independent of the Mujhar."

  Brennan grimaced, looking away from his uncle's discerning eyes to the black silk of Bane's heavy rump. Idly he smoothed it, slicking fingers against the thin cloak of summer coat. Thinking private things. "It was always jehan you went to, or Hart—then Keely, when Hart was gone. There were times I wanted to come, but with so many others to tend, I thought your compassion might be all used up."

  Ian's eyes were on Bane. He was, like the stallion, past his prime, with hair more gray than black, and white creeping in. By casual reckoning, he was perhaps fifty; in truth, nearly seventy. It was the good fortune of the Cheysuli that age came on them slowly, except for prematurely graying hair. The bones and muscles stiffened, the skin loosened, the hair bleached to white. But nothing about Ian's manner divulged a weakening of spirit any more than in the stallion.

  He shifted slightly, rustling boots in straw and hay and bits of grain dropped by Bane over the door. "Niall's children cannot escape the often too-heavy weight of tahlmorra, except perhaps for Maeve." Still-black brows rose in brief consideration. "But even then, I wonder—who are we to say there is no magic in her? Niall's blood runs true… even in Aidan."

  Brennan winced. And Ian, who had baited the hook with quiet deliberation, saw it swallowed whole.

  "Oh, aye," Brennan sighed wearily. "The blood runs true in Aidan… including Gisella's, I wonder? It is what everyone else wonders, regardless of the truth." Brennan turned again to the stallion. A lock of raven hair, showing the first threading of early silver, fell across a dark brow deeply furrowed with concern. "You know and I know my jehana's madness is not hereditary, but the Homanans overlook it. All they see is his difference, then they mutter about Gisella."

  "You cannot ask a man to hide his true self," Ian said gently, "and yet Aidan does so."

  Brennan's mouth tightened. "You refer to what jehan told me. About Aidan's dreams."

  "There was a time he would have told you himself."

  Brennan's expression was bleak. "Not for many years. He changed, su'fali… somehow, somewhen, he changed."

  "Perhaps he believed he had to."

  The tone now was anguished. "I did not want him to! Why would I? After so many years of sickness… after so much worry and fear…" Brennan sighed, shutting his eyes. "We thought he would die, su'fali. In fever, he often babbled. We learned not to listen."

  "Because what you heard made no sense."

  Mutely, Brennan nodded.

  "And so now he does not speak." Ian shook his head. "Aidan is perhaps not what you expected… but trying to reforge a sword will only make the steel brittle."

  Brennan swung abruptly from the horse. "Have I tried?" he cried. "He is as much a man and warrior as you or I. There is nothing in him I would curse, wishing for alteration… he came through a sickly childhood in better fashion than we hoped for, and now there are no doubts he will live to inherit the Lion. But I cannot say what he thinks—" Brennan broke it off. The stallion shifted restlessly, disturbed by the raw tone. "Su'fali, have you never seen him look through you? Not at you, but through. As if you were not present. As if he were not, but in another place."

  Ian felt serenity slipping. He was one of those men others spoke to freely, finding him easy to confide in. It was a trait not well known among the Cheysuli, who had, in the old days, forbidden the showing of private emotions before others for fear of divulging a weakness to enemies. But those days were past. Things changed within the clans—some said too many things—and he saw no oddity in listening to the sometimes illogical initial commentary of a man—or a woman—trying to find the proper way. It had been so with Niall, and with Hart, and Keely. Brennan had needed no one; Corin had wanted no one, unless she be twin-born Keely. But even that had changed.

  As everything changed. Now Brennan needed someone to explain a son to his father. And Ian could not do it.

  "So you have," Brennan said dully. "You have seen it as well."

  Ian sighed. "How can I give you an answer? How can anyone? Aidan is like none of us in many ways, while very like us in others. I see Aileen in him. I see you in him. But perhaps all of us look too hard for unimportant things, such as who he resembles or sounds like. Perhaps Aidan is merely Aidan—"

  "That bird." Brennan's tone was intent. "That raven—"

  Ian smiled. "Teel is a lir."

  Brennan shook his head. "More. I swear, he is more. Have you seen the look in Aidan's eyes when he goes into the link?"

  Ian's smile broadened. "If Keely were here, no doubt she could tell us what it is they converse about, but I would imagine what they say to one another—or what Teel says to him—is little different from what we say to our own lir. You should see your expression when Sleeta links with you."

  "Aye, well, she is sometimes difficult to deal with." Brennan's brow smoothed as a faint smile pulled his mouth crooked. "Aidan himself has said Teel hag-rides him unmercifully."

  Ian stepped aside as Brennan left Bane and unlatched the door to exit the stall. "For too many years he was sick, too many times close to death. It marks a man, Brennan. It marked your jehan. It marked you. It marked Hart and Corin and Keely. Did you think your son would escape it?"

  Brennan swung shut the door and slammed the latch into place. "The Lion requires a man who can rule with intellect, not with dreams and fancies."

  "Ah," Ian murmured. "Is that why you allowed yourself none?"

  Brennan's face hardened. "You understand what responsibility is, su'fali. Do you blame me? When it comes to levying war, dare a king think of dreams?"

>   "There is no war in Homana. Nor in Solinde. Nor in Erinn or Atvia. What war are you fighting, harani?"

  Brennan shook his head. "No one understands what it is to look at Aidan and wonder what he will be. To wonder what he is."

  Ian refrained from answering at once. There was wildness in the Cheysuli, for all they practiced control; he knew from personal experience how difficult it was to maintain balance under trying circumstances. Some said it was the beast in the blood. Ian knew better. There was a price to pay for control: the occasional loss of it.

  His royal nephew, for all Brennan's reknowned maturity, was as capable of anger as his volatile brother, Corin, or Keely, his prickly sister. He simply did not show it as much, yet Ian thought it best now to avoid provocation. It was next to impossible to make a man see reason if his mouth was busy shouting.

  He watched Brennan a moment, marking redoubled tension. "Do you wonder, then, why he says nothing to you? Why he goes so often to the Lion? If you have, in any fashion, caused him to wonder if he is—askew—in any way, should he trust himself with a throne shaped like a mythical beast? Or believe it an enemy?"

  "By the gods, Ian, he is a grown man, a warrior."

  "This began when he was a child. Children view things differently."

  "Children are often too fanciful. They frighten themselves." Brennan's eyes, oddly, were black. "Do you think I know nothing of that? Even within Bane's stall, knowing the door is there, I still feel the fear of being closed in."

  "Do you blame yourself for that?"

  Brennan's expression was ravaged. "I was locked in the Womb for a very short time… and yet I believed it days." He raked a hand through his hair. "Gods—how I frightened myself. I made all those lir into beasts… carved marble shapes, I remade into living beasts. And now I reap the reward… shut me up in darkness, and I lose myself utterly."

  Ian nodded slightly. "And so the jehan, seeing a child's fear fed by fancies, told him it was not real. Over and over again, until the child thought it best to keep everything to himself."