Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (35 page)

           
History rose up. So many lessons
learned. The hours and days and weeks and months Rogan had spent with him,
laboring to instruct so that Kellin comprehended the heritage of the races he
represented. He could name all his races, all the Houses in his blood. They
were each of them necessary.

           
So was it necessary for him to have
a lir; to renounce the bond was to renounce his very self and the legacy of the
blood.

           
A lirless Cheysuli had hurled
himself into the Womb. He had placed his fate within the hands of the gods.

           
Kellin's shout echoed:
"Tahlmorra lujhalla mei wiccan, cheysu!"

           
He had invited them to decide. If a
man did not believe, would he risk himself so? If DisBelief ruled him, he would
therefore commit suicide by issuing such a challenge, for a challenge with no
recipient was no challenge at all but the substanceless defiance of an ignorant
child.

           
Suicide was taboo.

           
Paradox, Kellin thought: Suicide was
taboo, yet a lirless Cheysuli undertook the death-ritual. His sojourn in the
forest was meant to find his death however it chose to take him; it was nothing
else but suicide, though a man did not stab himself, or drink poison knowingly.

           
He died because of beasts. He died
as prey to predator, as meat for the gods' creatures.

           
From flesh-colored clay in the hands
of the gods, a man became meat.

           
The Wheel of Life turned so that the
clay was fired in the kiln of the gods and set upon the earth to live as the
clay willed. Believing or DisBelieving.

           
Kellin understood.

           
"Y'ja'hai!" he shouted.

           
Clay without the blood of a lir was
nothing but colorless powder. Unmixed. Unmade. Never thrown upon the Wheel.

           
Kellin understood.

           
Kellin Believed.

           
The image of Sima's face flashed
before blind eyes.

           
"I accept," he said.
"Y'ja'hai." Then, desperately, "Will you accept me?"

           
The words rang in his head.
Ja'hai-na, she said.

           
Y'ja'hai.

           
The lir-link meshed, locked, sealed
itself together. Nothing could break it now but the death of warrior or lir.

           
That knowledge no longer mattered to
Kellin.

           
He was whole. He was Cheysuli.

           
The Womb of the Earth was fertile.
The Jehana gave birth once again after nearly one hundred years, to suckle the
newborn man upon the bosom of his tahlmorra.

           
The Prince of Homana would one day
become Mujhar.

           
He roused to torch-smudged darkness
and the gaze of marble lir. He lay sprawled on his back with arms and legs
splayed loosely, without purpose or arrangement, as if a large negligent hand
had spilled him from its palm onto the vault floor.

           
He thought perhaps one had.

           
"Lir?" He gasped it aloud,
because before he had refused to honor her in -the link. "Sima?" And
then, scraping himself up from the floor, he wrenched his body sideways, to
grasp frenziedly at the cat who sat quietly by the hole into which he had
pushed himself. Lir? This time in the link, so there was no room for doubt.
There would never be doubt again. He would not permit it; could not allow
himself—

           
Sima blinked huge eyes.

           
He scrabbled to her on awkward
knees, needing to touch her fur; requiring to touch the body that housed the
blazing spirit. Lir? Lir?

           
Sima yawned widely to display fearsome
fangs.

           
Then she shook her head, worked wiry
whiskers, and rose. She padded all of two steps, pressed her head into his
shoulder, then butted him down. She was ungentle; she wanted him to acknowledge
the power in her body despite its immaturity. She was lir, after all; far
superior to cat.

           
He could say nothing but her name.
He said it many times despite the fur in his mouth as she leaned down upon him;
despite the weight on his chest as she lay down across him; despite the warping
of his mouth as her tongue reshaped his lips.

           
Lir—lir—lir. He could not say it
enough.

           
Sima kneaded his shoulders. Smugly,
she said, Better now than never.

           
While the tears ran down his face.

           
Kellin clattered down the stairs to
the first floor, intent on his destination. Behind him came Sima, glossy in
mid-morning light; gold eyes gleamed.

           
Daily her gangliness faded and was
replaced by a burgeoning maturity, as if full bonding had at last loosed the
vestiges of cubhood. She would one day, Kellin believed, rival Sleeta for size
and beauty.

           
A month ago you would not have
considered it, she told him.

           
A month ago I was lirless, and
therefore lacked a soul. What man without a soul can acknowledge his lir's
promise?

           
Within the link, she laughed. How we
have changed in four weeks!

           
He left behind the staircase and
strode on toward the entryway. Some would argue I have not changed at all; that
I still frequent taverns—

           
But not those in the Midden.

           
No, but taverns all the same—

           
And the women in them?

           
Kellin grinned; its suddenness
startled a passing serving-woman, who dropped into an awkward, red-faced curtsy
even as he went by. Is there something you have neglected to tell me? Is there
more to a link between warrior and female lir than I have been led to believe?

           
That is vulgarity, lir.

           
Of course it is. You had best get
used to it. No one has ever argued for my kindness and decency—have you not
heard the stories?

           
Sima padded beside him, bumping a
shoulder into his knee. I need hear nothing, lir. What you are is in your mind.

           
So I gave up privacy when I linked
with you.

           
She yawned. When a warrior bonds
with a lir, he no longer desires privacy.

           
It was true. He shared everything
with Sima, save the intimacy his vulgarity implied. And while she did not climb
into the bed he shared with a woman, she nonetheless was fully aware of what
passed within it; she merely curled herself on the floor and slept—or pretended
to. Kellin had gotten used to it, though he supposed there was gossip exchanged
regarding a certain perverse affinity for a mountain cat as onlooker; and he
was not certain he disapproved. Let them wonder about him.

           
He would sooner be of interest than
taken for granted, as he believed the Mujhar was.

           
"Kellin! Kellin?" It was
Aileen, silver threads more evident in fading hair. "Have you a
moment?"

           
He paused as she came down the
corridor.

           
"Now?" He displayed the
warbow he carried, and the suede quiver full of white-fletched arrows. "I
was bound for a hunt with my watchdogs." Kellin grinned. "They
require activity. Of late I bore them, now I am reformed."

           
Aileen arched an ironic eyebrow.
"You are not 'reformed,' my lad, merely diverted. And 'twill only take a
moment; a letter has come from Hart. Brennan wants you in the solar."

           
"Bad news?"

           
Aileen touched a fingertip to her
upper lip. "I'm thinking not," she said neutrally, "depending on
point of view."

           
"On point of—" His
suspicions blossomed as he saw the glint in green eyes. "Gods—'tis Dulcie,
isn't it? Grandsire's put off Hart long enough, waiting for me to measure up
... and now that he believes I've done it, he begins a discussion about
marriage!"

           
"There was discussion of it a
decade ago," she reminded him. " 'Tis nothing new, and should not
surprise you. You are both well-grown."

           
He put up a silencing hand.
"Enough. I will go. Will you send word to the watchdogs I will be
delayed?"

           
" 'Tis sent," Aileen said.
"Now, go to Brennan. Whatever complaint you have to make is better made to
him."

           
"Aye. You argued against the marriage
that decade ago." Kellin sighed. "But now you are for it,
undoubtedly; catch the feckless warrior before he becomes less malleable."

           
"You are not now and never will
be malleable," Aileen retorted, "merely occasionally less inclined to
defy." She pointed. "Go."

           
Kellin went.

           
The solar was less bright now that
the sun had moved westward, but displayed no shadows. The Mujhar sat in his
usual chair with his legs propped on a stool and a wine cup in his hand.

           
Against his thigh rested a creased,
wax-weighted parchment held down by a slack hand-The door stood ajar. Kellin
shouldered it open more fully and crossed the threshold, tapping rattling
arrows against one knee. "So, I am to be wed. This year, or next? In
Homana, or Solinde?"

           
Brennan smiled. He showed more age
now; the healing of his grandson had left its mark. "Have you no
objection?"

           
"A mouthful, but you will hear
none of them."

           
Kellin tapped arrows again as he
halted before his grandsire. "What does Hart say?"

           
"That there is no sense in
putting off what must be done."

           
"How cognizant of tenderness is
my great-uncle of Solinde." Kellin sighed. "I suppose it must, then.
To link Houses, and bloodlines .. . and no doubt beget the child who will
fulfill the prophecy." Irony spilled away. "Neither of us has a
choice, grandsire. Neither Dulcie, nor me. Like you and granddame; like Niall
and Gisella; like Donal and Aislinn."

           
"Nor did Carillon and Solindish
Electra, through whose blood comes the proper match."

           
Brennan's mouth twisted. "So many
years, so many marriages—all designed to bring us to this point."

           
"Not to this point, surely; to
the birth, grandsire. Wedding Dulcie means nothing at all to the gods, only the
son born of the union." Kellin gestured with the warbow. "Have it
carved in stone, if you will, like the lir within the Womb: Kellin of Homana
shall wed Dulcie of Solinde, and so beget the Firstborn."

           
Brennan's fingers creased soiled
parchment.

           
"Left to your own
devices—"

           
Kellin took it up. "Left to my
own devices, I would doubtless waste my seed on a dozen different whores for
the rest of the month, then turn to a dozen more." He shrugged. "Does
it matter? I have known since I was ten it would come to this ... Dulcie knew
it, too. It may as well have been settled as we soiled our royal wrappings;
there never was a chance we could look another way."

           
"No," Brennan conceded.
"We are so very close, Kellin—"

           
"Then be done with it. Have her
come here, or I will go there. I do not care." He waved bunched arrows.
"Write it now, if you will. Let me be about my hunt. My watchdogs
wait."

           
Brennan's mouth compressed though
the faint displeasure engendered by flippancy was less pronounced than
resignation. "Be about it, then. I will have this sent tomorrow."

           
Glumly, Kellin nodded. "My last
hunt in freedom."

           
Brennan barked a laugh. "I
doubt Dulcie will curtail your hunting, Kellin! She is very much Hart's
daughter, in spirit as well as tastes."

           
"Why? Does she wager? Well,
then, perhaps we will make a match of it after all." But levity faded in
the face of his future now brought so near. Kellin shrugged. "It will do
well enough. At least she is half Cheysuli; she will understand about
Sima."

           
"Indeed," Brennan said
gravely; a glint in his eye bespoke the irony of the statement because but four
weeks before Sima was sheer impediment rather than half of Kellin's soul.

           
Kellin, who knew it; who saw the
look in his grandsire's eye and colored under it. lifted his arrows. "I
will help replenish the larder." Erinn slid into his words. " 'Twill
take a day or two—don't be expecting me back before then." He grinned,
"And aye, I'll be taking my watchdogs; they'll be hunting as well!"

           
Spring had arrived fitfully, turning
snow to slush, slush to mud, then freezing it all together in a brief defiant
spasm before resolving itself to its work. Kellin felt an affinity for the
season as he rode out with Teague and the others; now more than ever he longed
to remember winter, because then there had been no cause to concern himself
with a wife.

           
"Cheysula," he muttered.

           
Teague, next to him on a red roan,
lifted inquisitive brows. "What?"

           
Kellin repeated the word. "Old
Tongue," he said, "for 'wife.' "

           
"Ah." Teague understood at
once. "That time at last, is it?"

           
Kellin knew the incident in the
Midden tavern had sealed their friendship, though Teague was careful to keep a
distance between them so familiarity did not interfere with service. The others
also had relaxed now that their lord was easier in himself; he knew very well
the prevailing opinion was that Sima had worked wonders with the prince's
temperament. For all he had initially disturbed them the night he was trapped
in cat-form, they did not in any way indicate residual fear.

           
"That time," he agreed
glumly. "I hoped it might wait a year or two more—or three, or four—"

           
"—or five?—"

           
"—but they'll not wait any
longer. I'll be wed before summer, I'll wager."

           
Teague laughed. "Then you know
nothing of women, my lord. She will be wanting an elaborate wedding with all
the Houses of the world invited so they can bring her gifts."

           
Kellin considered it. "She did
not appear to be much concerned for such things when I saw her last."

           
"How old was she?"

           
"Twelve?" He shrugged.
"Or thirteen; I have lost track."

           
The young watchdog grinned. "Then
she'll be just the age to demand such elaboration! You will not escape, my
lord. But it offers you respite; it will take at least until next winter to
prepare for such a feast!"

           
Kellin slanted a glance at Sima
across one shoulder. "I do not know which is worse: wedding immediately
with little ceremony—" he turned back to guide his mount, "—or
putting it off a year so that so much can be made of it!"

           
One of the others joined in: a man
named Ennis, who was Teague's boon companion. "Better now than tomorrow,"
he offered. "That way we can be done with our duty that much the
sooner."

           
Kellin looked at him blankly.

           
Ennis grinned. "Do you think
the Princess of Homana will desire our company?"

           
He had not considered that. Perhaps
his marriage would offer him respite from the watchdogs, but Kellin was not
convinced trading one for the other would prove so good a thing.

           
They left Mujhara and headed
directly north, toward the woods that fringed the road. Because not so many
people traveled the
North
Road
, hunting was
better. It did not take long for Kellin and his watchdogs to flush game. He
hung back slightly, letting the Homanans do much of the work, and waited until
they were so caught up in chasing down a hart that they forgot about him
entirely.

           
Satisfied, he glanced down at Sima.
Now we can test it.

           
She fixed him with an unwavering
stare. Best to know now what the last four weeks have wrought.

           
Kellin dismounted and dropped reins
over a limb thrust slantwise from a tree. He left the horse, quiver, and warbow
and walked farther into the woods, conscious of the anticipatory flutter in his
belly.

           
Be not so fearful, Sima suggested,
following on his heels. We have time.