Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (18 page)

           
Kellin stepped out of the slope-roofed
hovel into the slushy alley and stopped. He stared blankly at the darkened
dwelling opposite and expelled a smoking breath. He inhaled deeply, almost
convulsively, and the cold air filled his lungs with the anticipated burning.
The alley stank of peat, filth, ordure. Even winter could not overcome the
stench of depression and poverty.

           
He heard movement inside the hovel,
through the cracks of ill-made walls: a woman crying.

           
Too harsh with her. Kellin gritted
his teeth. Self-contempt boiled up to replace the thought. What does she
expect? I warned her. I told her not to care.

           
There is nothing in me for anyone to
care about, least of all a father ... f will not risk losing another who claims
to care for me.

           
The sobs were soft but audible because
he made himself hear them. He used them to flagellate; he deserved the
punishment.

           
She was well-paid. That is what she
cries for.

           
But he wondered if there were more,
if the woman did care—

           
Kellin gritted his teeth, fighting
off the part of his nature that argued for fairness, for a renunciation of the
oath he had sworn ten years before.

           
She is a whore, nothing more. They
all of them are whores. Where better to spill the seed for which I am so
valued?

           
Kellin swore, hissing invective
between set teeth.

           
His mood was foul. He detested the
duality that ravaged his spirit. He had no use for softness, for compassion; he
wanted nothing at all to do with the kind of relationship he saw binding his
grandsire and his granddame. That kind of honor and respect simply begged for
an ending, and therefore begged for pain.

           
And what was there for him in a
relationship such as that shared by the Mujhar and his queen?

           
Had they not made it clear, all of
them, that it was not Kellin whom they cared about, but the seed he would
provide?

           
Bitterness engulfed. Let the whores
have it. It will serve them better; expelling it serves ME.

           
But the conscience he had believed
eradicated was not entirely vanquished. Despite his wishes, he did regret his
harshness with the woman; did regret he could not see her again, for she had
been good to him. There had been a quiet dignity about her despite her life,
and a simple acceptance that the gods had seen fit to give her this fate.

           
Self-contempt made it easy to
transfer resentment to the woman. She would make a good Cheysuli. Better than I
do; I, after all, am at war with the gods.

           
It was time to leave, lest he give
in to the temptation to go back inside the hovel and offer comfort. He could
not afford that. It was too easy to succumb, too easy to give in to the
weakness that would lead in time to pain. Far better to keep pain at bay by
permitting it no toehold in the ordering of his spirit.

           
Kellin glanced over and saw the
familiar guardsmen waiting in the shadows between two ramshackle dwellings.
Four shapes. Four watchdogs, set upon his scent by the Mujhar. Even now, even
in adulthood, no matter where Kellin went or what he chose to do, they
accompanied him.

           
Discreetly, usually, for he was
after all the Prince of Homana, but their loyalty was the Mujhar's.

           
As a boy, he had accepted it as
perfectly natural and never thought to question the policy and protection. As a
man, however, it chafed his spirit because such supervision, in his eyes,
relegated his own abilities, his own opinions, to insignificance.

           
Initially his protests were polite,
but the Mujhar's intransigence soon triggered an angrier opposition. Yet the
Mujhar remained obdurate. His heir could not—would not, by his order—be
permitted to walk unaccompanied in Mujhara. Ever.

           
Kellin had tried losing his dogs,
but they tracked him down. He tried tricking them, but they had proved too
smart. He tried ordering them, but they were the Mujhar's men. And at last,
terribly angry, he tried to fight them. To a man, despite his insults, they
refused to honor him so.

           
He was accustomed to them now. He
had trained them to stay out of his tavern brawls. It had taken time; they did
not care to see their prince risk himself, but they had learned it was his only
escape, and so they left him to it.

           
Kellin shivered, wrapping the heavy
cloak more tightly around his shoulders. It was cold and very clear. The cloud
cover had blown away, which meant the nights would be bitter cold until the
next snowstorm came. Already he felt the chill in his bones; mouthing a curse,
he moved on.

           
He did not know his destination. He
had thought to spend the night with the woman, but that was over now. She had
committed the unpardonable; the only punishment he knew was to deny her the
comfort of his body, so that he, too, was denied the contentment he so
desperately desired despite his vow.

           
He splashed through crusted puddles.
It did not matter to him how it damaged his boots. He had many more at home.
This sort of revenge offered little comfort, but it was something. Let the
servants gossip as they would. It gave him some small pleasure to know he was
entirely unpredictable in mood as well as actions.

           
Better to keep them off guard.
Better to make them wonder.

           
As he wondered himself; it was a
twisted form of punishment Kellin meted out to bind himself to his vow. If he
relaxed his vigilance, he might be tempted to renounce his oath. He would not
permit himself that, lest the gods win at last and turn him into a Cheysuli who
thought only of his tahlmorra, instead of such things as a son badly in need of
a father.

           
Behind him, the watchdogs also
splashed. Kellin wondered what they thought of their honorable duty: to spend
the night out of doors while their prince poured his royal seed into a whore's
body-They will get no Firstborn of her, or of any other whore.

           
Ahead in wan moonlight, a placard
dangled before a door. A tavern. Good. I am of a mind to start a game not
entirely like any other.

           
Kellin shouldered open the cracked
door and went in, knowing the dogs would follow along in a moment. He paused
just inside, accustoming his eyes to greasy candlelight, and found himself in a
dingy common room. The tables were empty save one, where five men gathered to
toss dice and rune-sticks.

           
For a moment only. Kellin considered
joining them. But instead he went to another table and hooked over a stool,
motioning with a jerk of his head to the man in the stained cloth apron.

           
The watchdogs came in, marked where
he was, and went to another table. He saw the tavern-keeper waver, for they
wore tunics of the Mujharan Guard and doubtless meant more coin than a lone
stranger.

           
Smiling faintly, Kellin drew his
knife and stuck the point into wood, so that the heavy hilt stood upright. The
rampant lion curled around the hilt, single ruby eye glinting in greasy light.

           
As expected, the tavern-keeper
arrived almost at once. "My lord?"

           
"Usca," Kellin ordered.
"A jug of it."

           
The man nodded, but his gaze flicked
to the guardsmen. "And for them?"

           
Kellin favored him with a humorless
smile.

           
"They drink what they like. Ask
them."

           
The man was clearly puzzled.
"My lord, they wear the Mujhar's crest. And you have it here, on your
knife. Doesn't that mean—"

           
Kellin overrode him curtly. "It
means we have something in common, but it does not mean we sleep
together." He yanked the broochless cloak from his shoulders and slapped
it across the table.

           
He waited. The man bowed and
hastened away.

           
When the usca was brought, Kellin
poured the crude cup full. He downed it all rapidly, waiting for the fire. It
came, burning his belly and clear down into his toes. All at once there was
life in his body, filling up flesh and blood, and the pain that accompanied it.

           
He had fought it so very long.
Because of his oath, because of his need, he had shut himself off to emotions,
severing his spirit from the Kellin he had been, because he could not bear the
pain- He had seen the bewildered hurt in his grandmother's eyes and learned to
ignore it, as he learned to withstand even the scorn in his grandfather's
voice; eventually, in fact, he learned to cultivate that scorn, because it was
a goad that drove him to maintain his vow even when, in moments of despair and
self-hatred, he desired to unswear it.

           
One day intent became habit, despite
the occasional defiance of a conscience battered for ten years into compliance.
He was what he was; what he had made himself to be. No one could hurt him now.

           
Kellin drank usca. He wanted to
fight very badly. When the fire filled head and belly, he rose and prepared to
make his way to the table full of Homanans who laughed and wagered and joked.

           
A man stepped into his path,
blocking his way.

           
"Well met, my lord. Shall we
share a cup of wine?"

           
Kellin's tongue was thick, but the
words succinct enough. "I am drinking usca."

           
"Ah, of course; forgive
me." The stranger smiled faintly. A lifted hand and a slight gesture
beckoned usca from the tavern-keeper, Kellin stared hard at the stranger,
struggling to make out the face. The room shifted and ran together so that the
colors all seemed one. Too much usca for conversation. When the new jug came,
the stranger poured two cups full and offered one to Kellin. "Shall we sit,
my lord?"

           
Kellin did not sit. He set his hand
around the hilt of his knife, still standing upright in the table, and snapped
it from the wood.

           
The stranger inclined his head.
"I am unarmed, my lord, and offer no threat to you."

           
Kellin stared into the face. It was
bland, beguiling; all mask and no substance. Perhaps he will give me my fight.
He wanted the fight badly; needed it desperately, to assuage the guilt he felt
despite his desire not to. Physical pain is easier to bear than emotional pain.

           
For years he had sought it, finding
it in taverns among men who held back nothing. It was a release from
self-captivity more wholly satisfying than any other he knew.

           
This man, perhaps? Or another.
Kellin gestured and sat down, laying the knife atop the table as he took the
brimming cup.

           
"A fortune-game?" the
other man suggested.

           
It suited. Kellin nodded and the man
took from beneath his cloak a wooden casket, all carved about its satiny sides
with strange runic devices.

           
Kellin frowned. Wait—

           
But the man turned the casket over
and spilled out sticks and cubes. The sticks were blank and black. The cubes
turned lurid purple and began a dervish-dance.

           
"Aye," the man said
softly, "you do remember me."

           
Kellin was abruptly sober. He marked
the familiar blue eyes, the russet hair, the maddeningly serene expression. How
could I have forgotten?

           
"Aye," Corwyth said.
"Would you care to play out the game?"

           
Kellin looked for his watchdogs and
saw them spilled slackly across their table. Their attitudes bespoke
drunkenness to a man who knew no better; Kellin knew better.

           
He looked then at the other men who
wagered near his own table, and saw they seemed not to know anyone else was in
the room.

           
Breath ran shallowly. Kellin tensed
on his stool and quietly took up the knife. "You have come for me."