Crystal Rose (51 page)

And you, mine
, she
thought, but did not speak it.

Did he know he had reached her? She thought he must, and
must take perverse delight in the fact. But now, facing him, looking into his
eyes, she could not be sure. As always, he seemed . . . shielded from her in some
way she had yet to comprehend.

Here, now, face to face with him, she felt of his aidan and
was puzzled by it. There was something . . . uneven about it.

“You bring me here to offer me flattery?” she asked. “I
thought you meant to speak of important things.”

“These things are important to me. But let me be frank. I
have resources and forces enough to hold Airdnasheen and lay siege to
Hrofceaster indefinitely.”

“We have the resources to withstand such a siege.”

“Indeed? You have ample food? Water?”

“What do you think Hrofceaster is about, sir? It’s a
fortress. A stronghold. Intended to withstand the siege of seasons year after
year.”

“And Airdnasheen? Will it withstand the abuses of battle?
The Feich and Dearg are civilized men. The Deasach corsairs are hardly that.
Will you subject Catahn’s citizens to their outrages?”

“What citizens are those, sir? The mice and owls?”

He started, feeling her amusement as a tickling veil drawn
across his face, and looked away down the slope toward the village. Though it
was broad daylight, it lay as if asleep. Nothing stirred in its streets, no
smoke curled from its chimneys, no livestock moved through its paddocks. Feich
swiveled his head back to Taminy, who continued to regard him expressionlessly.

“Empty.”

“A Hillwild fortress is always ready to receive refugees
from the holt,” she said. “There was a time when Mertuile could take in all the
citizens living outside her gates.”

“I’ll burn the village to the ground.”

“You would not be the first to do that.”

He fumed now. “I have other means of laying siege, Lady. I
will not hesitate to use them. Against you, against your followers. I suspect
an aislinn siege might be more effective than a physical one. You may have
observed my siege engine.” He glanced up at the standard that bore the Chalice
and casket.

“The Osraed Bevol’s crystal, Aiffe?”

His face stilled. “You call my bluff. Very well. Then know
that Ochan’s Crystal is part of what I seek here. Don’t imagine that because
that box contains a lesser crystal, I am powerless. As I said, I have
resources. I think you know this.”

She refrained from answering, but waited for him to come to
his point.

He leaned toward her, eyes intent, aidan focused.

“I want Airleas—at Mertuile and with myself as Regent. Sole
Regent. I want you there, as well, to satisfy the people, to ensure Airleas’s
cooperation, to be my . . . confidante, my instructor.”

“To be a trophy.”

“Ah, more than that, dear Lady. Much more than that. Cyne
Colfre was right in thinking you a superb symbol. I would make you a virtual
goddess. Your word would be theological law.”

“My word?”

He smiled. “When it agrees with mine. When it doesn’t . . .” He
shrugged.

“You would make us figureheads, then—Airleas and I.”

“I would spare the Cwen, your followers—who, by the way, are
suffering greatly in Creiddylad—and your Hillwild protector.” He turned a
baleful eye on Catahn, who stood some yards away, watching. “Though I would
take great pleasure in ending the nuisance he represents. I would even leave
Halig-liath under your control. Of course, the Osraed must not be permitted to
obtain the sort of power they’ve traditionally wielded.”

“For my cooperation and Airleas’s you would do all this.”

“Aye. For that.”

“Will your allies agree?”

“Eventually . . . Let me remind you again, that this will be
more than a physical siege. Let me remind you of Iseabal.”

The chill that Taminy had felt hovering about her now
wrapped its frigid arms around her soul. She knew her face betrayed her.

Feich nodded. “Yes . . . I suspected you knew. Give in now,
Lady. Save yourself.”

“You attack at the wrong point, Regent Feich.”

“I think not.” He rose. “I
know
not.”

He escorted her back to the gates of Hrofceaster, back to
their hovering audience, and took his party down the narrow, sloping road to
his siege camp.

oOo

The fire was warm and, in its glow, Daimhin Feich basked
and contemplated his situation, his options, his desires. Lilias Saba was
seeing to the last of these, massaging him with scented oils while his mind
turned in lazy spirals. He did not doubt that he would force Taminy to
capitulate eventually. Then . . . then what?

He had every intention of making her a spiritual figurehead.
She would be able to keep the Osraed under control, quell their rebellious
arrogance. More than that, she would become his consort. No doubts had he about
that either. Yet now, with his mind floating far afield, he realized he had a
longer-term goal at heart—that a son of his sit on the throne of Caraid-land,
binding it to the House Feich.

He saw his options for power in terms of women: A liaison
with Lilias Saba would unite Caraid-land and El-Deasach. If he was exceedingly
clever he might have two capitols at his command—Creiddylad in the north and
Kansbar in the south—capitols his son would hold after him.

Marriage to Toireasa Malcuim, on the other hand, offered the
obvious benefit of consolidating his legal hold over Airleas, and he had no
doubt that, through artful Weaving, her barrenness might be cured.

Yet, neither Lilias nor Toireasa could give him a son like
himself—a son with the Gift. He realized his own aidan was a fluke and knew
there was no guarantee a woman of little or no talent would bear him a Gifted
child. Only one woman could be counted on to do that—Taminy-a-Cuinn, Osmaer.

He daydreamed of it. Fey son of a fey father and a divinely
Wickish mother.

“I’m pleased my work delights you so.”

Feich opened his eyes to gaze up into the face of Lilias. He
was struck again by her exotic beauty. An embarrassment of riches, he had. It
was a shame Caraidin religious law didn’t allow for polygamy. Perhaps he would
wed Toireasa then have the Osraed allow for two extra wives. That, indeed,
would be the best option of all.

“Or were you thinking about your Dearg Wicke?” Raven pouted
prettily. “I know you will go to her later.”

Feich reached up to run fingers through her glossy black
hair. “Only to Weave, my darling. Only to send aislinn warriors against
Hrofceaster.”

“You believe that will work? That will cause the Sorceress to
let loose of your little Cyneric?”

“I do believe that. Should I not?”

“There is much power there. In her, in the boy, in the
Hillwild. Even that scarecrow of an Osraed who scribbled for them was
powerfully Gifted.”

Bemused, Feich framed her face with his hands and looked
deeply into her eyes, probing. “Who told you that?”

“No one. I sensed it. I’m not without my own aidan, as you
call it.”

“You Weave?”

She shook her head. “Little. But I See. For many years, I
served my father as chief advisor. Only twice did he fail to take my advice.
The first time, it cost him a caravan. The second time, it cost him his life.”
She shook herself visibly, peeling away the sudden melancholy that clouded her
beauty. “Such Sight is a useful talent for a ruler to have.”

“Indeed. Still, I might teach you to Weave. Yes, I’m sure I
could teach you that.”

“When you are still learning from your Dearg?”

“‘My Dearg,’ as you call her, is only a focus and a source
of energy for my own Weaving. I’ve learned all from her that I can. Now, she is
merely a repository of useful energy—like a grain silo or a well.” He chuckled
at the image that evoked. “No, Lilias. Coinich Mor can teach me nothing. It is
Taminy-Osmaer I must learn from now.”

Lilias’s brows winged upward. “Only learn? More than that, I
wager.”

He caressed her cheek. “Does this bother you, my love?”

“Not as long as you answer to my touch. With me, you have no
rivals. For your Golden Wicke’s heart, you must compete with the Hillwild Ren.”
Her eyes held his with a satin grip that infused him with heat and sent his
body, mind and spirit in conflicting directions. “He has her heart, Daimhin.
More, I think he touches her spirit, as well.”

Feich stiffened. “No, but he’d like to, I know. I see the
way he looks at her, the way he guards her.”

“Lusts for her,” added Lilias, mouth curving, eyes glowing.

He shifted uncomfortably. “As well he might. She is, without
doubt, the most beautiful woman in Airdnasheen.”

Lilias traced his lips with her finger. “Ah, but it’s more
than lust, my demon. He loves her. And she, him.”

“Pah!” He twitched away. “She loves only her Eibhilin
Mistress, the Meri. You forget, I know the girl. She cannot be seduced.”

Lilias laughed, a sound Feich found suddenly and
unaccountably annoying. “Not by you, perhaps, but between her and that Hillwild
savage there is a bond. I’ve seen it. Felt it.”

Feich was suddenly in no mood to be petted. Passion dying,
he set Lilias away from him. “I must see to my Weaving,” he told her tersely,
and rolled up from her soft pallet.

Affronted, she hissed at him. “You are in love with her,
yourself!”

“I am in love only with the Throne and Circlet,” he
returned, seeking his clothing.

She found it first and threw it at him. “You want her.”

He gazed at her, even in his impatience, able to admire the
way firelight painted shifting scenes on the gleaming bronze of her flesh. “I
want many things, Lilias—you among them. But now, I must Weave or I shall not
have what I want most—Caraid-land.”

The Deasach was unappeased. Flipping back her tent flap, she
summoned one of her young corsairs and, uncaring of her state of undress,
invited him into the tent. If the young man was surprised by this, or
embarrassed by Feich’s half-clad presence, he hid it completely, and yielded to
his Banarigh’s sudden, fierce advances without comment. Before Feich could even
remove himself from the tent, the two were locked in a fervid embrace.

For the moment, he hardly cared what Lilias Saba did in her
petty disappointment, but hastened to his own tent to summon Coinich Mor. Tonight
she would channel his aidan deep into Hrofceaster where he would strike at its
heart.

oOo

It was pleasant by the fire. Warm. Taminy sat on the floor
before the hearth, forehead resting on her knees. She needed warmth just
now—savored it. Hrofceaster had never seemed a cold place to her until now. Now
he
was camped at her gates. She
despaired of being able to read him adequately, of being able to understand
what she read. Daimhin Feich wore a thick facade of artful design beneath which
nothing was apparent but a constant play of passions. His aidan flowed hot and
cold and hot again. She could neither gauge its depth nor its direction. What
he would do now . . .

Something shifted in the atmosphere of the room around
her—dark ripples on an aislinn pool. She raised her head from her knees,
glancing around. Did that shadow move? Had that curtain shifted? As she turned
back to the fire, her eyes and aidan both caught the presence; motes of fire
and blood spun in a vortex at the center of the room, struggling to unite.

Taminy faced it slowly, pulling herself to her knees,
putting her back to the fire. As she moved, she described a Wardweave, keeping
it tight, close to her, like an aislinn shield. Anger pulsed through the
Weave—anger at having even this, her private sanctum, violated. Laying hold of
her senses, she willed them to calm, to readiness, for the motes were
describing a male form—a form she recognized.

In a burst of ruddy light and hot exultation, it was
complete, and the Daimhin Feich of her nightmares stood before her, gloating.
He was bigger than life, more vivid, vibrating with dark vitality. His pale
eyes gleamed like the steel of a sword’s blade, his shoulders and chest swelled
beneath an aislinn fabric of crimson, and blue fire haloed his head.

This is how he sees
himself
, she realized.
This is his
mirror image.

“I can see!” the effigy exclaimed. “My God, I can see as
if—!” He broke off and stared at her, making her suddenly aware of the state of
her dress and she, in futile defense, clutched at the fabric of her soft robe.

Feich’s image inclined its head. “Lady, as you see, I could
not wait to behold you again. There is a matter of some importance I must
discuss with you. A proposition I must set before you.”

She said nothing, having nothing to say.

“My proposition, simply, is this: That we be allies. No,
more than allies. That we be as one. Therefore, I offer you this—that we be wed
for the greater good of Caraid-land.”

She was stricken with the impulse to laugh, but incredulity
overcame any amusement. “How would our . . . our marriage work for the good of
anyone—even yourself?”

“I’ll refrain, for the moment, from speaking of my own needs
and wants. Let me just say that it would put you in a position of influence and
protection, and return you to Creiddylad, where you can best exert that
influence. The Caraidin would benefit by your spiritual leadership. You would
become . . . a focus.”

“A figurehead, you mean. Yes, we’ve spoken of this.”

“As my wife, you would be more than a figurehead.” His smile
was at once sweetly patronizing and repulsive. “You might even be Cwen, were
you so inclined. And . . . it would guarantee Airleas Malcuim’s continued
existence.”

The blood drained from Taminy’s face, leaving her cheeks
chill. “You make Airleas’s life dependent on my capitulation?”

The aislinn Feich’s teeth gleamed as if moonlit.

“I prefer to think of it as cooperation. But yes, if you
will. Airleas will most assuredly end up in my hands. His survival is now in
yours.”