Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (56 page)

           
Abashed, Hart nodded. He looked from
Aidan to Aidan's son. "Brennan is gone, and so I come to you, his
heir." Anguish blossomed a moment, was damped down with effort. "I
had a son once. Owain. Lochiel murdered him. Now I have no son. I have come to
give you Solinde."

           
Kellin was astounded. "You have
daughters!"

           
Hart's voice was steady.
"Biythe has borne only girls, and will bear no more. Cluna bore three
still-born children and will not conceive again. Jennet died in childbed.
Dulcie was wed to the High Prince of Ellas two months ago." Hart's tension
lessened. "She grew tired of waiting for you."

           
Kellin smiled faintly.

           
"And so the sons she bears, if
she bears sons—we run to girls, I fear—will be reared Ellasian."

           
Kellin stood very still. The back of
his neck prickled. He looked sharply at his father and saw the light in Aidan's
eyes. He said he knows things.

           
He is "privileged" to
know. He knew this would come. Realization was a knife plunged deep into his
vitals. And he knows the others will come.

           
He would stop it. He knew the way.
He looked back at his grandsire's brother. "You will not die so soon. This
is unnecessary."

           
Hart said only, "Brennan died
today."

           
After a stricken moment Kellin
turned away and stared hard at the tapestry of lions. He could not bear Hart's
eyes. He could not bear to see his own grief in his great-uncle's face.

           
When at last Ginevra slept, wearied
from long labor, Kellin sat beside her with their son in his arms, thinking
thoughts of wonder, of pride, of relief; of the prophecy of the Firstborn.

           
Lochiel's daughter stirred, then
slid again into sleep. He put one hand into the glorious hair and stroked it
gently from her face. The long eyes were lidded, lost to him in sleep, but he
knew what lived behind them: the blazing ice oflhlini godfire, legacy of
Lochiel's power.

           
Women had swaddled his son in
countless linen wrappings. The child, he thought, was ugly, far uglier than
foal or puppy,-but he supposed time would alter the red-faced, wrinkled infant
into a human child, and eventually into a man.

           
Kellin drew in a breath. What manner
of power will you claim? Will you be human at all?

           
Sima, at his feet, sent a lazy
suggestion through the link that he let the child grow up and discover for
himself what his tahlmorra was. That a father could, if he watered the clay too
much, turn it into sludge so that no one at all could use it.

           
Kellin smiled, is that what I was?
Sludge?

           
Sima blinked. Clay with too much
grit. You cut the flesh of an unsuspecting potter.

           
Ah. He laughed softly. And then he
thought of other children who had no father to water them at all. I will have
them come here.

           
Sima yawned. Be wary of asking too
much. You gave them to those women; if you mean to take them back, you will do
more harm than good.

           
They are my children.

           
Bastards.

           
He heard the echo of his own
arrogance, and knew what Sima intended. He acceded to a greater wisdom than his
own; she was, after all, lir. "Then I will give them leave to come whenever
they like, so they will know their heritage."

           
And?

           
He smiled. And I will go to them, so
I will share their lives.

           
Better. She lashed her tail once.
What will you do with the others?

           
What others? He stiffened. Are there
more?

           
I mean the ones to come later.

           
Later! Sima, by all the gods, do you
think me a selfish, rutting fool? What man in the world would turn to another
woman with this one in his bed?

           
Sima purred more loudly and shut her
golden eyes. She offered no comment. Her work was done.

           
Kellin laughed softly and looked
down upon his son. Where would a warrior be without a lir such as Sima? Or
Sleeta? Or Teel? Or Ion's Tasha? Or Blais Tanni? He touched his son's brow.
What lir will you have—if you have a lir at all?

           
"Kellin."

           
He glanced up. Hart stood in the
doorway. He knew without being told what his kinsman had come to say.
"They are here," Kellin said. "Conn. And Keely."

           
Hart's face spasmed. "Did Aidan
forewarn you? Or have you your own measure of his power of prophecy?"

           
It hurt, but he knew the pain was
shared. It goaded all of them. "I have no power at all, save what any of
us do. I know only what we all do—that the Lion shall swallow the lands."
He beckoned one of the women, gave her Cynric, and rose.

           
"You came to give me Solinde. I
think we will find they have come to do the same with their own realms."

           
In Hart's eyes was a measure of
quiet respect.

           
"Brennan wrote me of his fears,
of his frustrations. He knew very well what you could be, if you permitted
yourself to achieve it, I see now he was not wrong." He nodded slightly.
"A fitting legacy for my rujho. He wrought well, did Brennan. And Homana
shall prosper for it."

           
Kellin paused in the doorway; it was
Corin he saw first. The Lord of Atvia stood with his back to the deep-silled
casement. A ruddy fox sat beside one leg: Kiri. Midday sunlight glinted off lir-gold.

           
The once-tawny hair had faded,
intermixed with silver, and the beard Corin yet wore showed traces of white,
but no sign of age softened the tension in his body or the pride in his stance.
For all he had none of the color, he was Cheysuli to the bone.

           
Kellin was aware of them all within
an instant of entering the chamber: Aileen's solar, with Aileen in it, seated on
a chair; near Corin stood a dark-haired woman with eloquent brown eyes he knew
was Glyn, Conn's cheysula; a second woman in a chair with hair a pristine white
and eyes like ice—Ginevra's eyes—was lisa, Hart's Solindish queen; and Keely,
Corin's twin, seated nearby with Scan of Erinn at her back. The Erinnish lord
was huge, dominating the chamber. Even in quietude his presence was of the kind
another man, even a king, could not ignore.

           
And lastly Aidan, his father, who
stood quietly behind his mother with a raven close at hand, watching the
tableau as if he knew very well what was to come.

           
No doubt he does know. Kellin looked
back at Corin even as Hart moved by him into the chamber to join Lisa. He
wondered what had passed among his kinfolk as they awaited his arrival.

           
They had spoken of Brennan
certainly; a quiet grief lingered in Keely's eyes. Her face was tautly drawn
over high, pronounced cheekbones. The stubborn jaw was set. But Kellin saw a
softness there that she might not acknowledge; she was, they all said, a very
proud woman.

           
He smiled faintly to see her in
skirts. He had heard the stories of her tempestuous youth. She belongs in
jerkin and leggings, with a sword in her hands. Shona, they said, had been very
like Keely.

           
In the face of his granddame, he
looked for his mother. In the face of his grandsire, he looked for himself.

           
But Sean was all Erinnish, bred in
the Aerie's mews; Kellin was Cheysuli. As well as other things, which bring me
to this point.

           
Sean's rumble broke the silence.
"Lad," he said, "we've come for other things, but we owe our
respects to the Mujhar of Homana."

           
"Leijhana tu'sai," Kellin
said, and saw the startled speculation in Keely's eyes; had she heard that
Brennan's heir repudiated his race? Well, it was time they understood. "In
the name of my other grandsire, I welcome you to his home."

           
"Yours," Keely said
softly.

           
Corin's smile was grim. "I came
to speak with Brennan on a matter of some importance. I find instead I must
speak to his heir. It may be—difficult."

           
Kellin nodded. "You none of you
know me." He looked at Keely; at Sean. "Not even you, who raised a
proud daughter well worthy of my jehan. And I, am I fortunate, will be worthy
of them."

           
He stepped aside and beckoned Sima
in. The cat slid through with a rub against his leg, then padded to a
deep-silled casement aglow with
midday
sun. She leapt up, curled herself, and
settled on the sill, "You may have heard nonsense of a young, foolish
prince desiring nothing of a lir for fear he would lose her, or himself if she
were killed. But that man was ignorant. He did not know what manner of gift the
gods offered." He looked at Sima and saw they did the same. "In time,
he came to see that a warrior without a lir is not a man at all ... and wholly
unfit to inherit the Lion Throne."

           
Tension fled
Conn
's shoulders. His smile widened. "News
travels slowly."

           
"Much more slowly than
rumor."

           
Ruefully, Corin laughed. "I
know your birthline as well as my own, as I am in much of it ... I have no
quarrel with it. But you are young to be Mujhar."

           
"I am the age you were when you
sailed away to your island."

           
Corin looked at Keely. "A long
time ago, rujholla."

           
Keely's hair also had begun to
silver, altering the gold of younger years. "Much too long, I fear, for
either of us to recall the feelings of youth, and why we did what we did."
She smiled at her brother, then looked to Keltin. "We are informed there
is a new Prince of Homana."

           
Kellin saw no reason to rely on
courtesy, or the traditions of a culture that now would be altered.

           
"More than that," he said
easily. "Cynric is the Firstborn."

           
Tension reinfected the chamber. He
wondered if they believed he would not acknowledge such a thing; that he would
deny sleeping with an Ihlini despite what it had produced.

           
Kellin understood; it would be so
for years, until old prejudices died. "Her name is Ginevra. Among the
Houses in her blood is our own: she is, as am I, a grandchild of Brennan."

           
The silence was heavy. Keely broke
it. "We do not question that. The gods made it clear that one day it would
happen, though I admit none of us believed you might marry an Ihlini." She
slanted a troubled glance at Aidan, who had served as Cynric's prophet.
"But it is difficult for me to reconcile her as anything other than
Lochiel's child. He killed my daughter—"

           
"—and nearly his own."
Kellin saw it register; marked startled attention. "When he learned the
child she carried was Cynric, he tried to murder her. Ginevra refused to submit
to the sacrifice he and his god required. With my help—and the help of her unborn
child—she killed her father. She destroyed him in the Gate of his own
god." He looked at each of them, one at a time, until he knew he had them.
"We have fought the Ihlini forever. It was Ginevra's choice that this war
be ended."

           
Keely's gaze did not waver. Her
smile was bittersweet. "If it is possible for you to care so much for her,
then perhaps I should take instruction in the art of forgiveness. I would like
to forgive; she is, by marriage, my granddaughter. But such things do not come
easy to a childless woman."

           
"Childless!" Kellin looked
at Scan and saw anguished affirmation. "But—you also had a son—"

           
The upstanding veins of Keely's hand
knotted.

           
"Sean and Riordan went to Atvia
to visit Corin and Glyn. This time, I did not go." A spasm of grief
wracked her face. "This once, I did not go—"

           
"Keely." Sean put a big
hand upon her shoulder. " 'Twas a storm in the Dragon's Tail. I was
injured ... in saving me, my son risked himself."

           
His eyes glazed abruptly though the
voice remained steady. "In Erinn, men rule. There is no one else left of
my line."

           
Kellin drew in a breath. "Will
Erinn have me?"

           
Aileen laughed softly. Grief had
deeply marked her, but she was still profoundly Erinnish in coloring and
speech. "With your eyes, my lad? They'll be needing no kivama .. . there's
no mistaking your blood! They'll be having themselves an Erinnish lord even if
he is Mujhar of Homana."

           
"As for me," Corin said,
"I have always known I would go elsewhere for my heir." His hand
enfolded Glyn's. "A barren queen is worthless, some men might declare—but
I know better. I would trade her for nothing, and no one." He exchanged a
smile with the woman who could not speak, and looked back at Kellin. "It
seemed natural to me that Brennan be my heir should I predecease him, despite
the arguments of our youth. He was withal a supremely compassionate and
competent man, a man who understood responsibility; he was far better fit to
rule than I." For a moment his voice faltered, "That now is moot, but
there is another man to whom I might entrust my realm."

           
Kellin did not immediately answer.
He was intensely aware that all of them looked at him expectantly, awaiting his
response. He knew what it would be, but he wondered if they did; if they
understood at all what was about to happen in the ordering of their world.

           
It has nothing to do with me. But
they do not see it; they see only me, and think of immediacies instead of the
future. They have not yet reconciled what it is I have done by siring a son
with Ginevra.