Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (33 page)

           
"Come up from there, my
lord."

           
His grandsire had offered him no
honor in manner or words for a very long time, nor the deep and abiding
affection that now lived in his tone.

           
Kellin looked at him. "I am not
. . . not . .." He was still too close to the cat. He wanted to wail
instead of speak. "Am. Not. Deserving .. ." He tried again in
desperation, needing to say it; to recover the human words. "—not of such
care—"

           
Tears shone in Brennan's eyes.
"You are deserving of many things, not the least of which is care, Shansu,
my young one—we will find a balance for you. Somehow, we will find a proper
balance."

           
Torchlight streamed closer. Kellin
looked beyond his grandfather and saw the royal guard.

           
One of the men was Teague.

           
Their faces had been schooled to
show no emotion. But he had seen it. He had seen them, and the fear in their
eyes as they had looked upon the cat who had been to all of them before nothing
more than a man.

           
Kellin shuddered, "I was—I was
..." The wail was very near. He shut his mouth upon it, so as to give them
no more reason to look upon him with fear and apprehension.

           
They were the elite guard of a
warrior who became a mountain cat at will. It was not new to them, who had seen
it before. But Brennan was nothing if not a dignified man of immense
self-control. Kellin was not and had never been a dignified man; self-control
was nonexistent. In him, as a human, they saw an angry man desirous of shedding
blood.

           
In him now, as a cat, they saw the
beast instead.

           
They know what I have become. What I
will always be to them. It spilled from Kellin's mouth, accompanied by blood.
"Grandsire—help me—"

           
Brennan did not shirk it. "We
will mend the body first. Then we shall mend the mind."

           
He was but half conscious, drifting
on fading awareness that told him very little save his wounds were healed at
last, his broken bones made whole—yet the spirit remained flaccid. He wanted
badly to sleep. Earth magic drained a man, regardless of which side he walked.

           
His eyes were closed, sticky lashes
resting against drawn cheeks. Earth magic reknit bones, but did not dissipate
bruises or prevent scarring from a wound that would otherwise require
stitching. It merely restored enough health and strength to vanquish immediate
danger; a warrior remade by the earth magic was nonetheless well cognizant of
what had occurred to require it.

           
Kellin's face bore testimony to the
violence done him. The flesh across the bridge of his nose had been torn by a
thorn; welts distorted his cheeks; his bottom lip was swollen. He had drunk and
rinsed out his mouth, but the tang of blood remained from the cuts in his lip
and the inside of his cheek.

           
A hand remained on Kellin's naked
shoulder.

           
Fingertips trembled against smooth,
freshly sponged flesh; Aileen had seen to the washing.

           
"Shansu," Brennan murmured
hoarsely, lifting the hand. He, too, was drained, for he had undertaken the
healing alone. It would have been better had there been another Cheysuli to aid
him, but Brennan had not dared waste the time to send for a warrior. He had
done the healing himself, and now suffered for it.

           
Kellin was dimly aware of Aileen's
murmuring-The Mujhar said something unintelligible, then the door thumped
closed. Kellin believed himself alone until he heard the sibilance of skirt
folds against one another, the faint slide of thin slipper sole on stone where
the rug did not reach. He smelled the scent she favored. Her presence was a
beacon as she sat down by his bed.

           
"She is lovely," Aileen
said quietly. "This must be very much what Sleeta looked like, before she
and Brennan bonded."

           
He lay slumped on one side with his
back to her- A shoulder jutted skyward. Along his spine and the curve of his
buttocks lay warmth, incredible warmth; the living bulk of a mountain cat.

           
Kellin sighed. He wanted to sleep,
not speak, but he owed Aileen something. Into the limp hand curled against his
chin, he murmured, "I would sooner do without her, lovely or no."

           
"D'ye blame her, then? For
being what you are?"

           
It jerked him out of lassitude into
startled wakefulness. He turned over hastily, thrusting elbows beneath his
spine to lever his sheet-draped torso upright. "Do you think I—"

           
"You," Aileen said
crisply; she was not and had never been a woman who deferred, nor did she now
blunt her words because of his condition.

           
"Are you forgetting, my braw
boyo, that I've lived with a Cheysuli longer than you've been one?"

           
It took him aback. He had expected
sympathy, gentleness, her quiet, abiding support. What Aileen offered now was
something other than that.

           
"It is because of Sima that
I—did that."

           
"Did what? Killed a man?
Two?" Aileen did not smile. "I'm born of the House of Eagles; d'ye
think the knowledge of killing's new to me? My House has been to war more times
than I can count ... my birthlines are as bloody as yours." She sat very
straight upon the stool, russet-hued skirts puddled about slippered feet.
"You've killed an Ihlini sorcerer, and a Homanan who meant to kill—or maim—you;
as good as dead to the Cheysuli; I know about kin-wrecking.'' Aileen's tone was
steady, as were her eyes. "The first killing won't be questioned; he was
an Ihlini."

           
His mouth flattened into a grim,
contemptuous line. "But the other was Homanan."

           
"Thief or no," she said,
"some will call you a beast."

           
Memory was merciless. "I
was."

           
"So now you're blaming your
lovely lir."

           
"She is not my lir. Not yet. We
are not fully bonded."

           
"Ah." Aileen's green eyes
narrowed. She looked more catlike for it, with a fixed and unsettling stare.
"And you're for ending it, are you?"

           
She read him too easily. Kellin
slumped back onto bolsters and bedclothes. She was due honor and courtesy, but
he was very tired. Bones were healed, but the body was yet unaware of its
improved condition, save the blazing pain was gone.

           
Stiffness persisted; after all that
had happened in the space of two days, his resiliency was weakened. Youth could
not usurp reality though its teeth be blunted. "I have no choice. She made
me become—"

           
"I'm doubting that."
Aileen's tone was level, unforgiving; she offered no platitudes designed to
ease his soul, but harsher truths instead. "By the gods, I'm doubting that
you're the blood of my blood, Kellin, and I'll not hear a word against you from
others—but I will say what I choose. In this instance, I hide none of it behind
kindness and love, but tell it to you plainly: you've only yourself to
blame,"

           
His protest was immediate, if
incomplete. "Me?"

           
"No Cheysuli warrior alive is
without anger, Kellin. He merely controls it better. You control nothing at
all, nor make any attempt."

           
He had no time to think, merely the
need to fill the toothed silence yawning between them; to fight back with words
from a heart that was filled to bursting with despair and desperation: could
she not understand? She was his own blood. "I did not want to kill them,
granddame—at least, aye, perhaps the Ihlini—he threatened me, after all!—but
not the Homanan, not like that—he was a thief, aye, and deserving of roughness,
but to kill him like that?" He gestured impatiently, disliking his
incoherency; it obscured the strength of intent. "Kill him, aye, because
he meant to kill me, or maim me in such a way as to cut me off from my clan,
but I never wanted to kill him—at least, not as a cat ... as a man, aye—"

           
"Kellin." She cut him off
sharply with voice and gesture; a quick motion of eloquent hand. It was a
Cheysuli gesture. "If you would listen to what you just said—or tried to
say!—you would understand why it is imperative that you fully accept your
lir,"

           
All his muscles stood up inside
flesh in mute repudiation. "My lir—or the beast who would be my lir—has
nothing to do with this."

           
Aileen rose. She was in that moment
less his granddame than the Queen of Homana. "You are a fool," she
declared. "A spoiled, petulant boy trapped in a man's body, and dangerous
because of it. A boy filled to bursting on anger and bitterness can do little
harm; a man may do more. A man who is half a beast may do more yet."

           
"I am not—"

           
"You are what you are,"
she said flatly. "What are we to think? Aye, a man under attack will do as
he must to survive—d'ye think I will excuse a man who means to kill my
grandson?—but a man such as you, gifted so terribly, can never be a man."

           
Gifted so terribly. He had not
looked on it as such. "Grandsire also wears the shape of a cat."

           
Her mouth was compressed. She
permitted herself no latitude in the weight of her displeasure.

           
"No man in all of Homana, not
even a Midden thief, need fear that the Mujhar of Homana would ever lose
himself to the point he sheds his humanity and feeds as a beast."

           
It shook him. Her face was taut and
pale; his own felt worse. He felt it would stretch until the bones of his skull
broke through, shredding thinning flesh, thereby displaying the true
architecture lying too near the surface.'

           
Human? Or beast? Kellin swallowed
heavily. "I want nothing to do with it. You are not Cheysuli—surely you
can understand how I feel. Does it not frighten you that the man whose bed you
share becomes a cat at will?"

           
"I know the man," she said
evenly. "I'm not knowing you at all."

           
"But—I am!"

           
"No. You are a bared blade
hungry for blood, with no hand on its hilt to steady its course."

           
“Granddame—"

           
"He is old," Aileen said, and
the cracks of desperation in her self-control began abruptly to show. "He
is the Mujhar of Homana, in whose veins the Old Blood flows, and he serves the
prophecy. There is no doubt in him; what he does, he does for the Lion, and for
the gods who made the Cheysuli. What I think does not matter, though he honors
me for it; he does what he must do."

           
Her hands trembled slightly until
she hid them in skin folds. "How do you think it felt to be given a tiny
infant and told the future of a realm depended on that infant, because the
infant's father was meant for the gods, not men?"

           
Kellin did not answer. There were no
words in his mouth.

           
"How do you think it felt for
him to realize the entire fate of Homana and his own race depended solely on
that infant; that there would be no others to shore up the claim. If that
infant died, the prophecy died with him. Aidan can sire no more."

           
Beside him, Sima stirred.

           
"How do you think it has been
for him to watch what you became? To see you waste yourself on whores, when
there is a cousin in Solinde ... to see you risk yourself in the Midden, when
there are safer games nearby ... to hear you rant about fatherlessness when he
has been a father in every way but seed, and even then he is your grandsire! How
do you think it feels?"

           
He wet dry lips.
"Granddame—"

           
Aileen's face was white and
terrible. "How do you think it feels to know that your grandson—the only
heir to the Lion—lacks the balance that will maintain his humanity; that if he
does not gain it, the beast in him will prevail?" Aileen leaned close.
"He is my husband," she declared. "He is my man. If you threaten
him with this, be certain you shall suffer."

           
It shocked him.
"Granddame!"

           
She was not finished. "I wasted
too many years not honoring him enough. That time is past. I will do what I
must do to keep him from destroying himself because a spoiled, defiant grandson
refuses to grow up."

           
"Granddame, you cannot
know—"

           
"I know," she said.
"I saw his face when he looked at you. I saw his fear."

           
The Erinnish possessed his tongue.
"I'm not knowing what to do.”

           
Aileen stepped close to the bed. Her
hand touched Sima's head. "Be what you are. Be a Cheysuli warrior. You're
in need of the gods' care more than any man I know."

           
It filled his mouth before he could
prevent it, lashing out to punish. The question was utterly unexpected, yet
even as he asked it, Kellin knew he had desired to frame the words for many,
many years. "Does it mean nothing to you at all that your son repudiates
you?"

           
Color spilled out of her face.

           
Kellin was appalled. But the words
were said; he could not unsay them. "I only mean—"

           
"You only mean that he deserted
his mother as well as his son, yet she does nothing?" Aileen's eyes were a
clear, unearthly green, and empty of tears. "She has not done nothing,
Kellin—she has done everything within her power to convince him to come home.
But Aidan says—said—no, when he answered my letters at first. He answers
nothing now; he said I need only ask the gods." Her chin trembled minutely.
"He has a powerful faith, my son—so powerful it blinds him to the needs of
other people."

           
"If you went there—"

           
"He forbids it."

           
"You are his jehana.”

           
Her fingers folded themselves into
her skirts. "I will not go as a supplicant to my own son. I have some
measure of pride."