The Song of Homana (24 page)

“Has he not told you? He means to wed the woman.”

The robe enveloped her in a cloud of bright green wool as she came from the tent to me. Her hair spilled down past her waist to ripple at her knees, and she raised a doubled fist. “You will do no such thing!
Electra?
Carillon—have sense! You have seen what she means to do—Electra desires your death!”

“So does Bellam and Tynstar and every other Solindishman in Homana. Do you think I am blind?” I reached out and caught her wrist. “I mean to wed her when this war is done, because to do so will settle peace between two lands that have warred too long. Such things are often done, as you well know. But now, Tourmaline,
now
—perhaps we can make it last.”

“Alliance?” She asked. “Do you think Solinde will agree to any such thing? With Bellam dead—”

“ —Solinde will be without a king,” I finished. “She will have me instead, and no more Ihlini minions. Think you what Shaine meant to do when he betrothed Lindir to Ellic! He wanted a lasting peace that would end these foolish wars. Now it is within
my
grasp to bring this peace about, and I have every intention of accomplishing it. I will wed Electra, just as you, one day, will wed a foreign prince.”

Her arm went slack in my hand. Color drained from her face. “Carillon—wait you—”

“We will serve our House, Tourmaline, as all our ancestors have done,” I said clearly. “Shall I name them for you? Shaine himself wed Ellinda of Erinn, before he took Homanan Lorsilla. And before that—”

“I know!”
she cried. “By the gods, Carillon, I am older than you! But what gives you the right to say whom I will have in marriage?”

“The right of a brother,” I said grimly, disliking to hurt her so. “The right of the last surviving male of our House. But most of all…the right of the Mujhar.”

Her arm was still slack in my hand. And then it tightened and she twisted it free of my grasp. “Surely you will let me have some
choice
—”

“Could I do it, I would,” I said gently. “But it is the Mujhar of Homana the envoys will approach, not his spinster sister.” I paused, knowing how much I hurt her, and knowing whom she wanted, even as he heard me. “Did you think yourself free of such responsibility?”

“No,” she said finally. “No…not entirely. But it seems somewhat precipitate to discuss whom I will wed when you still lack the Lion Throne.”

“That is a matter of time.” I rubbed at my aching brow and shifted my attention to Finn. “If I give you an order, will you obey it?”

One black brow rose slightly. “That is the manner of my service…usually.”

“Then go to the Keep as soon as you are able.” He opened his mouth to protest, but this time I won. “I am sending Torry, so she will be safe and free of such things as she has encountered tonight.” I did not say she would also be separated from Lachlan, for his sake as well as hers. “You I want healed;” I went on. “Alix will no doubt wish to return to Donal, so she can give Torry proper escort. Remain until you are fully recovered. And there, my liege man, is the order.”

He was not pleased with it, but he did not protest. I had taken that freedom from him. And then, before I could put out a hand to aid him as I intended, he turned and limped away.

The wind rippled Torry’s hair as we watched him go. I heard surprise and awe in her voice, and recalled she knew little of the Cheysuli. Only the legends and lays. “That,” she said, “is strength. And such pride as I have never seen.”

I smiled. “That,” I said merely, “is Finn.”

It was bright as glass as I sat outside my pavilion, and the sunlight beat off my head. I sat on a three-legged campstool with my legs spread, Cheysuli sword resting across my thighs. I squinted against the brilliant flashes of the mirrored blade and carefully checked its edges. From elsewhere, close by, drifted the curl of Lachlan’s music.

Rowan stood at my right, waiting for my comment. He had spent hours honing and cleaning the blade. At first I had not thought to set him to the task, for in Caledon I had learned to tend my weapons as I tended my life, but this was not Caledon. This was Homana, and I must take on the behaviors of a king. Such things included in that were having men to tend my weapons, mail and horse. Still, it had been only this morning that I had trusted my sword to another.

The ruby, the Mujhar’s Eye, glowed brilliantly in the pommel. The gold prongs holding it in place curved snuggly around it, like lion’s claws; a propos, I thought, since it
was the royal crest. The rampant beast depicted in the hilt gleamed with a thorough cleaning, and I thought overall it would do. I touched fingertips to the runes, feeling the subtle ridges beneath my flesh, and nodded. “Well done, Rowan. You should have been an arms-master.”

“I prefer being a captain,” he said, “so long as it is you I serve.”

I smiled and used a soft cloth to rub the oil of my fingers from the glory of the steel. “I am not a god, Rowan. I am as human as you.”

“I know
that
,” Some of his awe had faded, that was obvious. “But given the choice, I would continue to serve the Mujhar. Human or not.” I glanced up and saw his smile.

A thin veil of dust hung in the air to layer the men who caused it. I heard the sound of arms-practice, wrestling, argument and laughter. But I also heard the harp, and Lachlan’s eloquent voice.

I lifted my swordbelt from the ground and set the tip of the blade against the lip of the sheath. Slowly I slid it home, liking the violent song. Steel against leather, boiled and wrapped; the hissing of blade against sheath. Better, I thought, than the chopping of blade hacking flesh or the grate of steel against bone.

“Hallooo the camp!” called a distant voice. “A message from Bellam!”

The dust cloud rolled across the encampment. Four men rode in: three were guards, the third a Homanan I had seen only once before, when I had set him to his task.

The guards brought him up, taking away his horse as he jumped from the mount and dropped to one knee in a quick, impatient gesture of homage. His eyes sparkled with excitement as I motioned him up. “My lord, I have word from Mujhara.”

“Say on.”

“It is Bellam, my lord. He desires a proper battle, two armies in the field, with no more time and blood spent in pointless skirmishes.” He grinned; he knew what I would say.

I smiled. “Pointless, are they? So pointless now he begs me hold back my men, because we have undermined his grip upon Homana. So pointless he wishes to settle the thing at last.” I felt the leap of anticipation within my chest. At last.
At last
. “Is there more?”

He was winded, trying to catch his breath. I had taken up the practice of posting men in relays along the major roads, ostensibly itinerants or crofters or traders; anything but soldiers. Some had even been sent to Mujhara to learn what they could firsthand, and to expand on the insight Lachlan had given us as to Bellam’s mind.

“My lord,” the man said, “it seems Bellam is angry and impatient. He is determined to bring you down. He challenges you, my lord, to a battle near Mujhara. A final battle, he claims, to end the thing at last.”

“Does he?” I grinned at Rowan. “No doubt there were assorted insults to spice these words of his.”

The messenger laughed. “But of course, my lord! What else does a beaten man do? He blusters and shouts and threatens, because he knows his strength is failing.” Color stood high in his face. “My lord Carillon, he claims you fight such skirmishes because you are incapable of commanding an entire army within a proper battle. That you rely on the Cheysuli to ensorcel his patrols, having no skill yourself. My lord—do we fight?”

His eagerness was manifest. I saw others gathering near; not so close as to intrude, but close enough to hear my answer. I did not mind. No doubt all my men felt some of the impatience that nipped at Bellam’s heels.

“We will fight,” I agreed, rising from my stool. The cheer went up at once. “Seek you food and rest, and whatever wine you prefer. Tonight we will feast to Bellam’s defeat, and tomorrow we shall plan.”

He bowed himself away and went off to do my bidding. Others hastened away as well to spread the word; I knew
the army grapevine would do what I could not, which was speak to every man. There were too many now.

Rowan sighed. “My Lord—it is well. Even I would relish a battle.”

“Though you may die in it?”

“There is that chance each time I lead a raid,” he answered. “What difference to me whether I die with twenty men or two hundred? Or even twenty thousand?”

The hilt of my sword was warm against my palm and the royal ruby glowed. “What difference, indeed?” I stared across the encampment with its knots of clustered men. “Is a Mujhar’s strength measured by the number of men whose blood is spilled—or merely that it spills?” Then I frowned and shook the musing away. “Find me Duncan. Last I saw, he was with Finn, now that his brother is back. There are things we must discuss.”

Rowan nodded and went off at once. I buckled on my swordbelt and turned to go inside my pavilion, intending to study my maps, but I paused instead and lingered.

I grimaced and scrubbed fingers through my beard to scratch my tight-set jaw. It was not Torry who was saying she would not come, but her brother commanding it. And in the eight weeks since I had sent her to the Keep, Lachlan had kept himself to his thoughts and his Lady, forgoing the confidences we once had shared.

“A fool,” I muttered. “A fool to look so high…and surely a harper knows it.”

Perhaps he had, once. He had spent his time with kings. But a man cannot always choose where he will love, no more than a princess may choose what man she will wed.

The harpsong died down into silence. I stood outside
my pavilion and heard the hissing of the wind across the sandy, beaten ground. And then I cursed and went inside.

“Carillon.”

It was Finn at the doorflap, but when I called to him to enter, he merely pulled the flap aside. He stood mostly in shadow with the darkness of full night behind him.

I sat up, awake at once—for I had hardly slept in the knowledge I would face Bellam at last—and lighted my single candle. I looked at Finn and frowned. Of a sudden he was alien to me, eerie in his intensity.

“Bring your sword and come.”

I glanced at the sword where it lay cradled in its sheath. It waited for me now as much as it waited for the morning;
the
morning And, knowing Finn did nothing without sound reason. I put on my boots and stood up, fully clothed as was common in army camps. “Where?” I pulled the sword from its sheath.

“This way.” He said nothing more, merely waited for me to follow. And so I went with him, following Storr, to the hollow of a hill. We left the encampment behind, a dim, smoky glow across the crest of the hill, and I waited for Finn to explain.

He said nothing at first. I saw him look down at the ground, searching for some mark or other indication, and then I saw it even as he did.

Five smooth stones, set in a careful circle. He smiled and knelt, touching each stone with a fingertip as if he counted, or made himself known to all five. He said something under his breath, some unknown sentence; the Old Tongue, and more obscure than usual. This was not the Finn I knew.

Kneeling, he glanced up. Up and up, until he tipped back his head. It was the sky he stared at, the black night sky with its carpet of shining stars, and the wind blew his hair from his face. I saw again the livid scar as it snaked across cheek and jaw, but I also saw something more. I saw a man gone out of himself to some place far beyond.

“Ja’hai,”
he said.
“Ja’hai, cheysu, Mujhar.”

The wolf walked once around the circle. I saw the
amber glint of his eyes. Finn glanced at him briefly with the unfocused detachment of
lir
-speech, and I wondered what was said.

The night was cool. The wind blew grit against my face, catching in my beard. I put one hand to my mouth, intending to wipe my lips clean, but Finn made a gesture I had never seen and I stopped moving altogether. I looked up, as he did, and saw the garland of stars.

Five of them. In a circle. Like a torque around a woman’s neck. A moment before they had been five among many, lost in the brilliance of thousands, and now they stood apart.

Finn touched each stone again with a gentle fingertip. Then he placed one palm flat against the earth as if he gave—or sought—a blessing, and touched the other hand to his heart.

“Trust me.” I realized this time he spoke to me.

It took me a moment to answer. The very stillness made me hesitate. “When have I not trusted you?”

“Trust me.” I saw the blackness of his eyes, swollen in the darkness.

I swallowed down my foreboding. “Freely. My life is yours.”

He did not smile. “Your life has ever been mine. For now, the gods have set me a further task…” For a moment he closed his eyes. In the moonlight his face was all hollows and planes, leached free of its humanity. He was a shadow-wraith before me, hunched against the ground. “You know what we face tomorrow.” His eyes were on my face. “You know the odds are great. You know also, of course, that should we fail—and Bellam keeps Homana—it is the end of the Cheysuli race.”

“The Homanans—”

“I do not speak of Homanans.” Finn’s tone was very distant. “We speak now of the Cheysuli, and the gods who made this place. There is no time for Homanans.”