Crystal Rose (21 page)

“I have not spoken of this to Catahn,” she said. “I felt no
need—”

Deardru laughed. “Liar.”

Taminy glanced at her sharply. “I felt no need to confront
him with accusations or humiliate him by insisting that he resolve my—”

The older woman’s dark brows flung upward. “Your what,
child? Your fears? Your distress?”

“My unease. I can’t believe Catahn guilty of what you
suggest.”

“That he caused his brother’s death.”

Taminy nodded. “That he deliberately put his brother in
harm’s way. I can believe that
you
believe it. That, mam, is what distresses me.”

“And it distresses me to see you—a young, innocent
cailin—fast in the clutches of this man. A man I know to be guilty. Speak to Catahn—”

“Perhaps you should speak to him, mam.”

She shook her head, dark hair a cloud on the folds of her
woolen cloak. “I have spoken to him, child. Years ago. But you see, I have a
child to think of. A family. To speak further would be unwise.”

“You can’t believe yourself in danger from Catahn.” A
statement of fact. Deardru-an-Caerluel did
not
believe herself in danger.

Still, she pretended, lowering her head and quivering as if
near tears. “If he were to find me here, talking to you . . .”

Taminy rose. “Please, mam, let us stop this dance. You
aren’t afraid of Catahn, but you do hate him—that much is clear. I understand
that you believe he has taken your dead husband’s birth-right—”

Deardru’s head jerked up, her eyes flashing. “He took more
than that, Lady Taminy. Yes, let us now stop the dance. I’ll tell you what
Catahn Hageswode took from his brother—his place in my bed. It was me Catahn
wanted, as he now wants you. And he had me, and fathered a child on me. Eyslk
isn’t Catahn’s niece, she’s his daughter.”

It took all of Taminy’s strength not to thrust her hands
over her ears, not to cry the words that shouted in her head:
Stop! Oh, stop! Take back these things!
Unsay them!
But they could not be taken back nor could what lay beneath
them in Deardru-an-Caerluel’s heart and mind—the memory of Catahn’s
overwhelming presence, the galling hatred at his later betrayal.

So Taminy forced different words to her lips: “Why do you
tell me this? What is it you imagine I should do?”

Deardru moved to stand before her, to take her hands in a
motherly grasp. “Osmaer you may be, Lady, but you are yet a child. I cannot
help but look at you and see my own daughter—
Catahn’s
daughter—not so much younger than you. Again, I look at
you and see myself all those years ago. I cannot stand by and see your life
played as mine was. You think he is a convert to your Cause.” She shook her
head. “He is a convert only to his own cause. As to what you should do—I think
you must free yourself from his grasp. Escape this place.”

“I’m not a prisoner here, mam, and Catahn befriends me in
all sincerity.”

“You forget who you deal with, child. A Hillwild. A
Hageswode. The aidan is strong in these mountains, but nowhere is it stronger
than in the men of that family. They could confound the Meri, Herself, with
that guile.”

Through their clasped hands, messages flowed. This is true,
proclaimed one; that is not, whispered another. Which was which? Taminy, for
all her attention to those messages, could not tell. Not now. Not here. Not
under the barrage of Deardru-an-Caerluel’s regard. She would need to put on
Truth to determine the truth, but first, she must speak to Catahn.

She composed herself carefully, looked the older woman in
the eye and said, “Thank you, mam, for your concern. I will speak to Catahn of
this, if nothing else, for Eyslk’s sake. Does she know . . . ?”

“That she’s Catahn’s child? No. I never told her. For her
own sake, it’s best she believes her ‘Uncle’ is a great man.”

“I see.” Taminy disengaged herself from Deardru’s touch.
“Please, I must excuse myself. Catahn is looking for me.”

Deardru’s face blanched, betraying real fear. “Then I must
go. He must not find me here.” She reached back momentarily to grasp Taminy’s
hand again. “Please, don’t tell him of this visit. With your aidan, you might
have gleaned this knowledge elsewhere. Please, Lady.”

“I won’t betray you,” Taminy said and watched as the other
woman bolted from the courtyard.

She looked back at the bench where she had sat. The spot of
sunlight was gone. Reaching to the Meri for warmth, marshaling her composure,
Taminy went to meet Catahn.

oOo

In the aislinn world of Catahn’s aidan, Taminy’s distress
had sounded as loud as the fortress’s alarm bell. He had no way to interpret
its meaning or determine its source, he knew only that it was. Before he even
knew where it had arisen, it was lidded.

He feared a physical attack on her, but couldn’t imagine who
might perpetrate such an attack. Then he thought that she must have received
some disturbing news from Iseabal or Aine.

He searched the fortress from bottom to top, checking her
favorite haunts, asking every waljan he encountered where their Mistress might
be. It was Wyth Arundel—as ever, slaving over his manuscript—
who said he thought Taminy might have gone up to her garden to meditate. Catahn
was headed there when he saw her coming down the stairs from the upper reaches.

She hesitated when she saw him and there was no welcoming
smile on her lips when their eyes met. Instead, she searched him inside-out
while he, astounded, let his guard fall open and waited, daring to think
nothing.

At last, he dared speak. “My Lady, what’s happened? I felt . . .” He wasn’t sure what he had felt, so the flow of words stopped.

She beckoned him to accompany her and he did, moving in
silence beside her to her private rooms. He did not come here often, had never
stayed more than a second or two. It seemed inappropriate for him to see the
place where she slept and bathed, where she walked clothed for sleeping . . . or
unclothed. He set a guard on his thoughts, afraid what they might betray.

Once inside, he stood uncertainly by the door while she
moved to rouse the embers sleeping in her hearth. She seemed preoccupied, her
movements stiff and tentative. The empty time gave him a chance to study
himself as he stood there, waiting. He could almost laugh at what he saw; Ren
Catahn Hageswode, Chieftain of the most powerful of the Hillwild clans reduced
to a large, uncertain puddle by this lowland woman.

The smile that tugged at his lips ossified. No, not a woman,
a girl. Not merely a girl, but Osmaer. The Meri’s Essence, Firstborn of the
Spirit, had resided in that pure form. She was a walking beam of light,
compared to which he was a clot of filthy clay.

She turned to look at him, her green eyes filled with what
he could only take as great sorrow.

Impulsively, he started forward. “Lady! Taminy! Please
speak. You wither me with such looks.”

She did speak, then, and the words that came out of her
mouth struck him all but dead. “Desary is not your only child.”

Somehow his dead husk produced a voice. “No.”

Taminy nodded. “Eyslk is also your daughter. Out of your
brother’s widow, Deardru.”

He closed his eyes. Dear God, surely he would be permitted
to die now, but he doubted even that would provide escape from this. What must
she think of him?

“Yes.”

“Catahn, answer me plainly. Did you keep your brother up at
Moidart in the hope that he would die?”

Eyes open now, Catahn, felt a roil of anger surge beneath
his shame. There was only one place she could have heard that tell. His fists
clenched hard on his growing rage.

“Deardru. Only she would have laid that blame at my feet.
No, Taminy. I did not deal my brother into death’s hands. I loved Raenulf, and
were I not the village Father, I would have happily gone up to Moidart myself.
I even offered—and I say this with shame—that I would ask one of our cousins to
go in his stead. He refused. With him it was a matter of family honor, of duty
to our southern kin. Only when he found his wife pregnant did he ask to return,
and I agreed, gladly. I can only believe—and I’ve never understood this—that it
was the will of God that he die before he could return home. Days, Lady. Mere
days and he would have been home. Safe again with his wife and unborn child.”

“With his child? You said Eyslk was your daughter.”

Catahn’s face reddened. “Eyslk
is
my daughter—I admit that—but the child Deardru carried then was
Raenulf’s, not mine. God take my soul if I would lie with my brother’s wife
while he lived.” The anger turned another time, trying to unseat shame.
“Deardru led you to think I coveted her and made her an adulteress. I did not.
She was not. She was true to my brother’s love as I was true to my wife’s,
until Raenulf died.”

Taminy sat down on a couch near the hearth.

He sensed that, heard it rather than saw it, for he could
not bear to look at her. He listened to the fire whispering in the hearth, the
wind prodding the windows. In a moment, he began to fill the silence with
words. They were difficult words, each a sliver of shame, extracted with pain.

“When news came to us that Raenulf had been killed, Deardru
fell ill with grief. She lost the child she carried—their first child. It all
but killed her. Desary was above a year old then, and Geatan was pregnant a
second time. I think it was more than Deardru could stand to see our happiness.
She came to me one day and begged me to father a child on her. She’d been
deprived of bearing a child to the Hageswodes; she made it no secret that she
thought I bore some fault for it. It seemed right to her that I should replace
what she had lost. I was stunned mute.”

His face burned now as it had burned then. Then, he had felt
as if the Baenn-an-ratha had heaved beneath his feet—now it seemed to shudder
like a sick dog.

“I could only believe she was grief-kissed. I bid her think
what she was asking. When she pressed me, I told her what she wanted was
unthinkable. I was husband to Geatan; it was Geatan I loved. I had no desire
for Deardru—none. I tried to stay aloof from her—hard, as she lived at
Hrofceaster—and, for her part, she reminded me constantly of her plight.

“Some months after, Geatan sickened. She lost our child and
grief stole away her health. I lived in fear that I would lose her as well. For
a while, it seemed she lingered between life and death. Deardru began to nurse
her then, and was a great help—a great solace to us both. I thought she had
forgotten her desire for a Hageswode child until one day Geatan . . .”

Possessed by a sudden nervous energy, he tugged at his heavy
wool tunic, at his belt. He moved restively to the window.

“Geatan?” Taminy prompted him, her voice gentle.

He closed his eyes momentarily. Such was his shame, even
that gentleness was brutal.

“Deardru had laid her case before my wife. My wife who, in
her weakness, could not fulfill my desires. Spirit! My only true desire was for
her health. But Geatan saw that Deardru was bereft, while she had a husband and
a daughter and her own life, now mending. She saw a family obligation to be
met. And she . . . saw that, in my own weakness, I now found Deardru appealing.
She added her voice to Deardru’s and begged me to give her a child.”

He shook his head, making the silver bells woven into his
hair sing. “Such a twist dance the mind does when it seeks to convince the
heart a foul path is fair. Who was to be harmed? My own wife had given me
leave, my daughter need never know. I was not unfaithful. Deardru needed what I
had to give—a seed, nothing more. Pretty speeches, all, but what it came to was
my own desire. Need, I called it, as Geatan had. I went to Deardru, burning
beforehand, cold as ice, after. I was glad when she conceived. I didn’t touch
her after that.

“Soon, Geatan’s health returned and I thought it was over.
But Geatan’s sickness had ended her childbearing days. She grieved a bit for
it, but we were happy. We had Desary. We were a family. Not long after Eyslk’s
birth, Deardru came to me again and, again, asked me for a child. For my sake,
she said. She knew Geatan could have no more babies; she offered for the sake
of the Hageswodes. I refused. Again, she asked, and again I refused. She began
to hound me, to speak to me of love and desire. I believed she saw my brother
in me and that her grief had overpowered her. I felt pity for her, but when she
tried to get to me once again through Geatan, I sent her from the fortress to
live in the village.”

“And she has never forgiven you.”

“She has never forgiven me.”

“This is your horrible, shameful secret?”

“There is more. When Desary was twelve, Geatan died.” Dear
God, he could still feel the shaft of bereavement. “It was a stupid thing—a
fall from her horse. The village Healer was away at Lac-an-ghlo. On the night
we buried her, Deardru came to me to offer comfort . . . and more. Perhaps I
thought that in the dark I could pretend that Deardru was Geatan. Whatever the
dance my mind did, I took Deardru into my bed. Once. Once was all. In the
morning, she put to me the idea that I should marry her and acknowledge Eyslk
as my own. She was already married to Garradh-an-Caerluel—had two sons by
him—but for me, she would let them go. I put her out of Hrofceaster and have
not spoken to her from that day to this.”

“But you brought Eyslk here to be educated.”

“Eyslk is my daughter. She shouldn’t be punished for the
manner of her birth; for her mother’s willfulness and her father’s weakness. I
sometimes fear that there is a poison in Deardru. If I can keep that poison
from infecting Eyslk . . .”

“Eyslk is a good child, sweet and bright and true. She
doesn’t carry her mother’s poison. Nor do you.”

“I carry my own.”

“Poison? Weakness, you called it. Is it so evil to be weak?
No one is entirely without weakness.”