Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (6 page)

           
With a small, ironic smile, Rogan
acquiesced.

           
The fortune-teller merely looked at
the tutor's hands for a long moment, examining the minute whorls and scars in
his flesh, the length of fingers, the fit of nails, the color of the skin. Then
he linked his fingers with Rogan's, held them lightly, and began to murmur
steadily as if invoking the gods.

           
"No tricks," Rogan
reminded.

           
"Shhh," Kellin said.
"Don't spoil the magic."

           
"This isn't magic, Kellin . . .
this is merely entertainment.''

           
But the fortune-teller's tone
altered, interrupting the debate. His voice dropped low into a singsong cadence
that made the hair rise up on the back of Ketlin's neck: "Alone in the
midst of many, even those whom you love ... apart and separate, consumed by
grief. She lives within you when she is dead, and you live through her, seeing
her face when you sleep and wake, longing for the love she cannot offer. You
live in the pasts of kings and queens and those who have gone before you, but
you thrive upon your own. Your past is your present and will be your future,
until you summon the strength to give her life again. Offered and spurned, it
is offered again; spurned and offered a third time until, accepting, you free
yourself from the misery of what is lost to you, and then live in the misery of
what you have done. You will die knowing what you have done, and why, and the
price of your reward. You will use and be used in turn, discarded at last when
your use is passed."

           
Rogan jerked his hands away with a
choked, inarticulate protest. Kellin, astonished, stared at his tutor; what he
saw made him afraid. The man's face was ashen, devoid of life, and his eyes
swam with tears.

           
"Rogan?" Apprehension
seized his bones and washed his flesh ice-cold. "Rogan!"

           
But Rogan offered no answer. He sat
upon the rug and stared at nothingness as tears ran down his face.

           
"A harsh truth," the
fortune-teller said quietly, exhaling husath fumes. "I promise no
happiness."

           
"Rogan—" Kellin began, and
then the fortune-teller reached out and caught at his hands, trapped the
fingers in his own, and Kellin's speech was banished.

           
This time there were no gods to
invoke. The words spilled free of the stranger's mouth as if he could not stop
them. "He is the sword," the hissing voice whispered. "The sword
and the bow and the knife. He is the weapon of every man who uses him for Hi,
and the strength of every man who uses him for good. Child of darkness, child
of light; of like breeding with like, until the blood is one again. He is
Cymric, he is Cynric: the sword and the bow and the knife, and all men shall
name him evil until Man is made whole again."

           
The voice stopped, Kellin stared,
struggling to make an answer, any sort of answer, but the sound began again.

           
"The lion shall lie down with
the witch; out of darkness shall come light; out of death: life; out of the
old: the new. The lion shall lie down with the witch, and the witch-child born
to rule what the lion must swallow. The lion shall devour the House of Homana
and all of her children, so the newbom child shall sit upon the throne and know
himself lord of all"

           
A shudder wracked Kellin from head
to toe, and then he cried out and snatched his hands away.

           
"The Lion!" he cried.
"The Lion will eat me!"

           
He scrambled to his feet even as the
guardsmen shredded canvas with steel to enter the tent. He saw their faces, saw
their intent; he saw Rogan's tear-streaked face turning to him. Rogan's mouth
moved, but Kellin heard nothing. One of the guards put his hand upon his
prince's rigid shoulder, but Kellin did not feel it.

           
The Lion. The LION.

           
He knew in that instant they were
unprepared, just as the Steppes warrior had been unprepared.

           
None of them understood. No one at
all knew him for what he was. They saw only the boy, the deserted son, and
judged him worthless.

           
Aren't I worthless?

           
But the Lion wanted him.

           
Kellin caught his breath. Would the
Lion want to eat a worthless boy?

           
Perhaps he was worthless, and that
fact alone was why the Lion might want to eat him.

           
To save Homana from a worthless
Mujhar.

           
With an inarticulate cry, Kellin
tore free of the guardsman's hand and ran headlong from the tent. He ignored
the shouts of the Mujharan guard and the blurted outcry of his tutor. He tore
free of them all, even of the tent, and clawed his way out of pale shadow into
the brilliance of the day.

           
"Lion—" Kellin blurted,
then darted into the crowd even as the man came after him.

           
Run—

           
He ran.

           
Where—?

           
He did not know.

           
Away from the Lion—

           
Away,

           
—won't let the Lion eat me— He
tripped and fell, facedown, banging his chin into a cobble hard enough to make
himself bite his lip. Blood filled his mouth; Kellin spat, lurched up to hands
and knees, then pressed the back of one hand against his lower lip to stanch
the bleeding. The hand bled, too; Rogan's bandage had come off. The cut palm
and his cut mouth stung.

           
It smells— It did. He had landed
full-force in a puddle of horse urine. His jerkin was soaked with it; the knees
of his leggings, ground into cobbles as well, displayed the telltale color and
damp texture of compressed horse droppings.

           
Aghast, Kellin scrambled to his
feet. He was filthy.

           
In addition to urine and droppings
weighting his leathers, there was mud, grease, and blood; and he had lost his
belt entirely somewhere in his mad rush to escape the Lion. No one, seeing him
now would predict his heritage or House.

           
"Rogan?" He turned,
thinking of his tutor instead of the Lion; recalled the fortune-teller's words,
and how Rogan had reacted- And the watchdogs; where were they? Had he left
everyone behind? Where am—

           
Someone laughed. "Poor
boy," said a woman's voice, "have you spoiled all your Summerfair
finery?"

           
Startled, he gaped at her. She was
blonde and pretty, in a coarse sort of way, overblown and overpainted. Blue
eyes sparkled with laughter; a smile displayed crooked teeth.

           
Humiliated, Kellin stared hard at
the ground and tried to uncurl his toes. I don't want to be here.

           
I want to go HOME.

           
"What a pretty blush; as well
as I could do, once." Skirts rustled faintly. "Come here."

           
Reluctantly Kellin glanced up
slantwise, marking the garish colors of her multiple skirts. One hand beckoned.
He ignored it, thinking to turn his back on her, to leave the woman behind, but
the laughter now was muted, replaced with a gentler facade.

           
"Come." she said.
"Has happened to others, too."

           
She wasn't his granddame, who
welcomed him into her arms when he needed a woman's comfort, but she was a
woman, and she spoke kindly enough now. This time when she beckoned, he
answered. She slipped a hand beneath his bloodied chin, forcing him to look up
into her own face. At closer range her age increased, yet her eyes seemed kind
enough in an assessive sort of way. Her hair was not really blonde, he
discovered by staring at exposed roots, and the faintest hint of dark fuzz
smudged her upper lip.

           
The woman laughed. "Don't blush
quite so much, boy. You'll have me thinking you've never seen a whore
before."

           
He gaped. "You are a light
woman?"

           
"A light—" She broke off,
brows lifting. "Is that the genuine accent of aristrocracy?" She
leaned closer, enveloping him in a powerful, musky scent.

           
"Or are you like me: a very
good mimic?"

           
She is NOT like granddame after all.
Kellin tugged at his ruined jerkin, than blotted again at his split lip. She
watched him do it, her smile less barbed, and at last she took her hand from
his chin, which relieved him immeasurably. "Lady—"

           
"No, not that. Never
that." Her hand strayed into his hair, lingered in languorous familiarity.

           
Her touch did not now in the least
remind him of his grandmother's. "Why is it," the woman began,
"that boys and men have thicker hair and longer lashes? The gods have
truly blessed you, my green-eyed little man." The other hand touched his
leggings. "And how little are we in things that really matter?"

           
Kellin nearly squirmed. "I—I
must go."

           
"Not so soon, I pray you."
She mocked the elaborate speech of highborn Homanans. "We hardly know one
another."

           
That much Kellin knew; he'd heard
the horse-boys speaking of whores. "I have no money."

           
Rogan had plenty, but he doubted the
Mujhar would approve of it being spent on women. The whore laughed. "Well,
then, what have you? Youth. Spirit. Pretty eyes, and a prettier face—you'll
have women killing over you, when you're grown." Her eyes lost their
laughter. "Men would kill for you now." The smile fell off her face.
"And innocence, which is something everyone in the Midden has lost. If I
could get some back, steal it back, somehow—"

           
Kellin took a single step backward.
Her hand latched itself into his filthy jerkin; she did not seem to notice her
hand now was also soiled. "I must go," he tried again.

           
"No," she said intently.
"No. Stay a while, Share with me youth and innocence—"

           
Kellin wrenched away from her. As he
ran, he heard her curse.

           
This time when he fell, Kellin
managed to avoid urine and droppings, landing instead against hard stone
cobbles after his collision with a woman carrying a basket. He feared at first
she might also be a whore, but she had none of the ways or coarse speech. She
was angry, aye, because he had upset her basket; and then she was screaming
something about a thief—

           
"No!" Kellin cried,
thinking he could explain and set everything to rights—the Prince of Homana, a
thief?—but the woman kept on shrieking, ignoring his denials, and he saw the
men, big men all, hastening toward him,

           
He ran again, and was caught. The
man grabbed him by one arm and hoisted him into the air so that one boot toe
barely scraped the cobblestones.

           
"Give over, boy. No more
kicking and biting."

           
Kellin, who had not thought to bite,
squirmed in the tight grasp. He intensely disliked being hung by one wrist like
a side of venison. "I am not a boy, I'm a prince—"

           
"And I'm the Mujhar of
Homana." The man waited until Kellin's struggles subsided. "Done, are
we?"

           
"Let me go!"

           
"Not until I have the ropes on
you."

           
Kellin stiffened. "Ropes!"

           
"I and others like me are sworn
to keep the rabble off the streets during Summerfair," the big man
explained. "That includes catching all the little thieves who prey on
innocent people."

           
"I'm not a thief, you
ku'reshtin—"

           
The big hand closed more tightly.
"Round speech for a boy, by your tone."

           
"I am the Prince of
Homana!"

           
The man sighed. He was very large,
and red-haired; he was also patently unimpressed by Kellin's protests.
"Save your breath, boy. It only means a night under a decent roof, instead
of some alley or doorway. And you'll be fed, so don't be complaining so much
when you're better off now than you were."