Crystal Rose (2 page)

The child twitched as if Feich had poked him. He glanced
from his mother to Taminy, then set his gaze on Feich’s face.

“If we deny Taminy-Osmaer, we’ll live horribly. A Malcuim
does not poison himself.”

“Your father did. Day by day his soul writhed in torment
because he believed in
that
.” His
finger pointed at Taminy again. “It tore him asunder in the end.” He glanced at
the Ren Catahn, standing just behind the three. “Perhaps it was the Hillwild
blood in his veins that made him susceptible to pagan goddesses—that made him
weak of will and shallow of mind.”

“Or perhaps it was having a fox for a Durweard,” Catahn
growled.

“My father worshipped power,” said Airleas. “That’s what
made him weak. And you knew it. I don’t care if you call me a Wicke or a
heretic. I love Taminy and I love my mother. I won’t leave here no matter what
you say. Go away, Durweard Feich, and leave us alone. You can have the Throne
and the Circlet if you want them so much.” He looked up at his mother. “Can I
go now? I don’t want to talk to him any more.”

Toireasa smiled into Daimhin Feich’s face. It was a smile
fierce with pride. “You’ve heard The Malcuim. Leave us.”

She turned her back on him then, and prepared to usher
Airleas away. Desperate, he leapt forward. “Airleas! Come to me! These women
deceive you! They’ve poisoned your mind. Your father made me your Regent. Trust
me, Airleas, and come to me!”

Airleas turned back to give his father’s Durweard a scathing
look. “You stink,” he said.

Feich made a move to draw his sword and follow the royals
into the courtyard. Before he had tightened his grip on the hilt, the
portcullis crashed down again, digging its sharpened tines into the earth.
Feich jumped clear, swearing. When he regained his poise, the Cwen and Airleas were
gone and only Taminy faced him from the other side of the grille, Catahn
hovering warily behind her.

“You—!” Feich moved forward again. He stopped at little more
than arm’s length from her, the portcullis bars creating a thick frame about
her head and shoulders. “You are a dagger in the heart of this land.”

“And you are the man who directs the blade. Stop this now.
Let Airleas and Toireasa return to Creiddylad free. Let me pursue my mission in
Caraid-land and the wound will quickly heal.”

He gazed at her a long moment, then nodded. “All right. I
see that what you say is true. My actions are a determining factor in what
happens here. Yes. You may return to Creiddylad a free woman.”

Taminy smiled while, behind her, the Ren Catahn laid a hand
to his sword hilt.

“I have changed since we last spoke, Daimhin. Then, I was
caught at a crossroads, stranded in a state of transition. Powers ebbed and
flowed, awareness informed me only fleetingly. I am past that now. And because
I am past that, I know that you lie. If Airleas were to pass into your hands,
Regent Feich, he would become, as his mother said, a pawn. As it seems his
father was, as you intended me to be. There is still pain in that memory. How
close I came to allowing my purpose to be consumed by yours. And for what—a
flash of white heat, a touch of warm flesh? That was an ordeal by fire,
Daimhin. And I still ask, ‘Did I pass?’ Or did Osraed Bevol rescue me?”

Feich jerked. “Bevol? Bevol is dead.”

“After a fashion. And yet, he lives, after a fashion. You wouldn’t
understand.” She shook her head and he felt her sigh rush through him like a
cool breeze. “I want so to appeal to your spirit. I want so to speak to your
conscience. But by all the powers that vibrate in this great rock, I cannot
reach either.”

Talk of spirits and consciences made him squirm. “Enough
nonsense. I have no choice but to return to Creiddylad and have myself declared
Cyneric.”

“You already think of yourself as that.”

Feich hurled himself against the barricade. It rattled only
slightly, though he threw his whole weight into the motion. “Bitch! Stop
pretending to read my mind!”

Catahn’s sword was out as he came to Taminy’s shoulder,
ready to run Feich through—if Taminy would allow such a thing, which she
wouldn’t.

“Afraid of me, Wicke? Does your trained bear dance
attendance because you fear me?”

“Lady?” Catahn’s intent was clear in his voice. He wanted to
put an end to Daimhin Feich. Yes, of course—he wanted to keep the Crystal Rose
for himself.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Taminy said, and Feich scoffed.

“Then send your bear away.”

Taminy apparently felt Feich’s demand posed no mortal
danger. She looked up over her shoulder into Catahn’s dark face. “It’s all
right, Catahn. Stand down. He can’t harm me.”

Reluctantly, the Hillwild removed himself from Taminy’s
side, fading into the shadows beneath the arch. Taminy moved close to the
portcullis.

“You feel nothing for me, Taminy?”

“I feel pity.”

“Prove that. Give me your hand.”

She put her left hand, palm up, through the grille. The star
there, golden, gleaming, shone at him. He started to take it, hesitated, and
jerked away when their fingertips brushed. His face burned red and he wriggled
as if ants crawled upon him.

She withdrew the hand. “Now who is afraid?”

“I will return to Creiddylad and I will, myself, be set
before the Stone,” he said again.

“While Airleas lives? Then you will be Cyne of a land
divided completely. Your only chance of maintaining Caraid-land’s unity is to
have Airleas at Mertuile.”

“Half a country is better than none at all. I
will
be set before the Stone, and the
Throne and Circlet shall remain in my possession and be passed down to my sons.
The Osmaer Crystal will be in the hands of Feich from this day forth. And no
Malcuim shall ever take it from us. As for you, dear lady, I shall hound you
and yours until I have eradicated every last one of you. These hands—”—he held
them up before him—“These hands caressed you and drew such passion from you not
that long ago. Today I would cheerfully use them to strangle you. But I think
you’re worth more to me alive. The people love you, Taminy-a-Cuinn.”

“And I love them.”

Calm—she was too calm. He spoke to her with passion
threatening to tear itself loose and devour him, and those green eyes gazed
back with the coolness of sea water. He quaked with the effort it took not to
scream at her—not to thrust his hands through the grille and tear at her
throat.

Why did she not love
me?

“You can’t receive what you refuse to give,” she murmured,
and there was nothing left to do but stare at her, hating and wanting, until he
could make himself turn away from her gaze and return to his horse.

When he was Cyne, he thought, as he turned his troops about,
things would change. He would hold the Crystal and, with Ladhar’s help, he
would learn to wield it’s power. He had always been fey, though he’d kept it
well-hidden. Then, as Cyne—no, as more than that, as Osric, Cyne by divine
right—he would let that Gift come to the fore. Caraid-land would find itself
possessed of a very powerful leader. First, the Taminists would be eradicated,
then the Deasach would be made to tremble.

He turned in the saddle just before the trees obscured the
gates of Halig-liath from sight. She still stood there, watching him, looking
small and vulnerable and absurdly young. Heat licked up his spine, irritating
him. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and rode to the head of the long
column.

oOo

Taminy felt Catahn’s presence at her side as a spot of
soft warmth in the cold, iron shell about her. She allowed the shell to melt
away into the earth and sagged back against the Hillwild’s comforting bulk.

There was a creak of leather and one large hand came to her
shoulder. “He will return, Lady.”

She nodded, thanking the warmth that spread from his hand to
suffuse her. “He will return when he realizes that Airleas is Cyne of
Caraid-land’s heart and that to possess that heart, he must possess Airleas.”

Catahn snorted. “He’ll be happy enough with the body for a
while.”

“Not long.”

“When he returns, will he find us here?”

She shook her head. “No. With us here, the people of Nairne
are in danger. We must be elsewhere when Daimhin Feich revisits Halig-liath.”

She turned and re-entered the courtyard, Catahn maintaining
his place beside her. She ignored the questioning faces that greeted them for a
moment, and paused to gaze up and over the high eastern walls. Five of the
seven peaks of the Gyldan-baenn marched away toward the south. Far and away,
she could see the snow-capped thrust of Baenn-Ghlo, for once, not wrapped in
the mists that gave it its name. The smaller summit of Baenn-an-Ratha stood out
in stark relief against its bright, massive flank.

Somewhere among those crags and forested passes Catahn’s
stronghold, Hrofceaster, snuggled in near-inaccessible safety. It would be a
difficult place for those used to milder climes to winter, but there they would
be safe, and there they would not be subject to sudden siege.

Catahn had followed her gaze to look lovingly and longingly
on those same peaks. “Shall we begin preparations for travel, Lady?”

She smiled and squeezed his hand where it still rested on
her shoulder. “Thank you, Catahn,” she said and moved to where Cwen Toireasa
and Airleas waited in the midst of a cluster of other believers.

Catahn watched her till she was absorbed by the group, then
pulled his eyes back to the Gyldan-baenn. His heart swelled with a surge of
something big and fine and warm. He would go home soon, and he would bring the
Lady of the Crystal Rose with him.

How can a loving heart
conceive that destruction should bring about good? Is wrong made right by
further wrong? Can the slaughter of an innocent atone for evil deeds? Can
religion be furthered by immoral conduct?

Make your hearts pure and
kill not.

Your rituals are empty;
your prayers are silent; your inyx are powerless to save. Rather, you should
abandon envy and passion, to become free from cold and evil zeal, and give up
all hatred and animosity, that is true sacrifice and worship.

— Corah, Book II, Verse 8-10

“Damn you! Damn you to icy hell!” The goblet left Daimhin
Feich’s hand and hit the closed door with a solid, metallic clang. Wine stained
the wood like blood spreading, sudden, from a wound. “A dagger, next time,
friend
.”

The applause of a single pair of hands mocked him. “Bravo,
cousin. An affective speech. A shame the object of your invective wasn’t around
to hear it.”

“Piss ant,” growled Daimhin Feich, but he smiled. He would
tolerate a certain amount of mockery from his uncle’s youngest son; Ruadh was
easily his favorite relation. “He
will
hear it . . . in my time.”

“In
your
time?
Hardly. And that’s Feich hell, isn’t it cousin—to need the Claeg.”

“Hell, indeed. But where the Claeg go, so go the southern
midlands.”

“You’ve already lost old Iobert Claeg to the pretty Wicke.
He’ll no doubt take a large share of his House with him. And more, if you can’t
convince one of the other Claeg elders to take his seat on the Privy Council.”

“The Privy Council is the least of my worries.”

Daimhin Feich lifted himself from the Throne—the Malcuim
Throne, he reminded himself bitterly—and paced to the near door of the audience
chamber. There, he bent and picked up the goblet he’d flung, holding it up to
the light that fell, bright and clear from the high, slanting windows. The Sun
found tiny pathways of silver and gold in the delicately incised bowl and made
them rivers of radiance.

“Things, Ruadh. I have gotten from the House Malcuim its
riches, its possessions, and as much of its territories as Feich forces can
hold from these walls. But I do not have its
people
. If Colfre Malcuim—God damn his spineless soul—had dropped
this cup, it would not have reached the floor but a servant’s hand would have
caught it and whisked it away. Except for a mercenary few and the folk you
brought from Feich, this castle is a spacious, luxurious tomb. You heard the
young Claeg just now.”

Ruadh crossed arms over his chest. “Oh, aye. ‘The Throne at
Mertuile has always held a Malcuim. I doubt it will suffer itself to be sat
upon by a Feich ass.’”

Daimhin gritted his teeth so hard they hurt. “His exact
words. How kind of you to recall them for me.”

“Welcome. And you didn’t drop that cup, you hurled it. Even
a Feich servant would think twice before answering that summons.”

“We’ll bring in more servants. Perhaps we can hire from the
poor neighborhoods of Creiddylad. There should be plenty of those after
Colfre’s years of excess.”

“Aye, and we can bring more Feich men, and hire more
mercenaries, I wager. But never enough, cousin. Never enough to hold
Caraid-land by force. Unless this castle is all you aspire to, we
do
need the Claeg and as many of the
other Houses as they can bring to us. But I fear Saefren Claeg is right; a
Feich on the throne of Caraid-land is not something the Houses will tolerate.
If not for loyalty to The Malcuim, then for envy alone.”

“The Malcuim is dead . . . and I have the Stone of Ochan.”

Ruadh smiled wryly. “Ah, no. The Malcuim is a twelve year
old boy hunkered upriver with a pack of apostates. If Colfre had died
childless, you might rally the Houses to you. But he didn’t. Airleas Malcuim
exists, and as long as he exists beyond your control, the Osmaer Crystal is
useless to you. You can’t set him before it, nor can you use it to place
yourself on the throne.”

Sour, that thought, but true, and Daimhin Feich knew it. Airleas
Malcuim was the key to winning Caraid-land out of its present chaos and into
his hands. Even now, mobs rallied in the streets of Creiddylad, roiled beneath
the castle walls. Their voices and torches kept him awake nights. Their voices
reached him wherever he lay his head. They cried for Cyneric Airleas, they
cried for Feich blood, they cried for Taminy-a-Cuinn, Wicke—or Taminy-Osmaer,
Seeress, Prophetess. He hated her. Passionately. And yet, when he finally
slept, his dreams informed him of a different passion.