Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (6 page)

           
"That depends on what it
is," Corin muttered beneath his breath, as Hart glared at him openly.

           
"It is that I forbid you to
attend the banquet this evening."

           
"That is all?" Hart
blurted, and winced as Brennan kicked him covertly.

           
"In not attending the banquet,
you will keep yourselves to your respective chambers," Niall explained,
"and you will remain in them until I give you leave to go out of them. No
banquets, no taverns, no Clankeep." He fixed his eye on each of his sons
individually. "No horses," he said to Brennan, "No
wagering," he ordered Hart. And lastly, to Corin, "No visits from any
of Deirdre's ladies."

           
"For how long?" Brennan
demanded indignantly, forgoing all the diplomacy he had so carefully
cultivated. "If I leave Bane for even a day, all my progress will be
undone and I will have to begin again."

           
Hart frowned. "And how am I
expected to pass the time, jehan, while I wait for your leave to go?”

           
But Corin laughed. "Enforced
celibacy, jehan! Well, it will only leave the ladies all the more eager for me
when I can share their company again."

           
Deirdre smiled serenely. " Tis
hard for my ladies to be eager when their positions are in jeopardy."

           
Corin stared at her in astonishment.
"You would do that?"

           
"To support the Mujhar, I will
do anything," she said calmly. "Just as all of his children should,
sons and daughters alike."

           
That enforced silence among them as
nothing else had.

           
Niall nodded. "You may
go," he said quietly. "Meals will be sent up from the kitchens."

           
In silence, his three still proud
but decidedly chastened sons filed slowly out of the chamber.

           
Corin shut the door to his chambers
with a resounding thud, knowing it childish, but satisfied with the action
nonetheless. And then he regretted it almost instantly, because he had employed
his right wrist in the motion and the wrist was less than pleased.

           
He cursed, examined it briefly,
decided it was very sore and bruised, but not broken. Still, it would keep him
from arms-practice for a week or more, and that he did not appreciate.

           
Have I only myself to blame?

           
Why? came the familiar liquid tone
of his lir within the pattern of their link. What have you done now?

           
He looked for Kiri and found her
lumped in the center of his draperied bed. She was little more than a knot of
red fur, with sharp jet nose tucked firmly beneath a black-tipped tail.

           
Corin sighed and sat down on the
edge of the bed, staring disconsolately at his wrist as she worked the fingers.
I have involved myself in a tavern brawl, which is beneath me—or so I am told
by my jehan—and have drawn Caledonese blood, which may result in damaged trade
ties between Homana and
Caledon
. He paused. I have also been incredibly rude and disrespectful to my
jehan.

           
Have you?

           
"Aye," he said aloud, with
conviction. "Kiri, why is it I always say things I regret? Especially to
my jehan?”

           
Because your mouth works
independently of your.brain.

           
The vixen rose, shook her glossy red
pelt into order, came over to sit beside her lir. Her expression was made quizzical
by black mask and slanted amber eyes. Lir, one day you will learn,

           
"Will I?" He sighed and
flopped backward, stretching out on the huge bed. "He threatens to send me
to Atvia in two or three years, lir ... and the gods know I have no wish to
go."

           
Atvia is your place, the fox said.
You will be its king. Is that not a fine thing, and worth much pride?

           
"A fine thing, aye," Corin
said on a deeper sigh, "and undoubtedly worth much pride. The trouble is,
I have little enough of that. I look at Hart and Brennan and see real warriors
and princes, while I am left to feel inferior,"

           
All nonsense. Kiri settled her chin
on his muscular thigh, slanted eyes closing. You have a lir . . . you have
me—how could you possibly feel inferior?

           
"A habit that often happens
when a warrior receives his lir late," Corin retorted. "I was
sixteen, Kiri, as you should well recall—both my rujholli were thirteen. I had
three years in which to fear I would never receive one, while Brennan flaunted
Sleeta and Hart learned to fly with Rael."

           
And the Mujhar had nineteen years.
Kiri's tone plainly said
Conn
's complaint had no foundation.

           
A fist banged on the door. Corin
knew the sound extremely well. "Keely," he called, "now is not
the time to gloat."

           
There came a muffled shout from the
other side. "I am not here to gloat—" His sister's voice broke off a
moment, then renewed itself. "What have you done now, Corin, that would
cause me to gloat?" Without waiting for his leave to enter, she pushed open
the heavy wooden door and slipped through, shutting it decisively. She stopped
dead; elbows jutted out as she locked hands on hips. "Oh, rujho . . . not
another fight."

           
"No." Corin struggled up.
"I am in this state of disrepair because Deirdre's ladies could not keep
themselves from me." He looked down at his torn, soiled russet doublet- He
smelled of wine, smoke and lantern oil.

           
"Did you win?" Keely
asked.

           
"All three of us won."

           
"Three . . ." Her blue
eyes, so like his own, narrowed.

           
"Hart, of course . . . and
Brennan? Brennan?"

           
"Brennan." Corin began to
work at his right boot, desiring to strip it off. "He came with us to keep
us from trouble, he said—and then promptly began the fight with Reynald."

           
"Reynald? Einar's
brother?"

           
"Cousin." A twinge of pain
shot through his injured wrist, and he swore. "The ku'reshtin tried to
force himself on a wine-girl, and then when she refused his attentions he
slapped her. She broke a jug and cut her hand."

           
"And Brennan came to her
rescue." Keely's tone was dry; her expression indicated she, as much as
Corin, was less than enamored of Brennan's status as eldest—and favorite—son.
"How like him."

           
Corin swore again as he wrestled
with the recalcitrant boot. "Keely—come and help me with this."

           
She swept across the room, shaking
her head, and bent to catch the heel and toe of the brown boot in both hands.
Only then did he realize she wore a rich copper-colored gown of silk and velvet
instead of customary leathers; her tawny hair was braided Cheysuli fashion,
pinned against her head and all achime with golden bells, A topaz and garnet
torque clasped a slender, elegant neck.

           
Keely grunted, tugging on the boot,
then caught his eye. Instantly color flared in her face. "Must you stare,
too?" She was clearly annoyed as well as flustered. "Deirdre
insisted—she said I could not attend the banquet in leggings and jerkin."

           
"Well, no," he agreed.
"Keely—" He grinned, shrugged, laughed aloud. "So much for the
independent rujholla I know so well."

           
“Ku'reshtin" she muttered,
tugging on the boot again. "They will have you bathed and oiled and
perfumed before you know it, and where will you be then?"

           
His mouth twisted in a grimace of
disgust. "No," he said. "I am banished to my chamber."

           
The boot came off. Keely straightened
stiffly, gaping at him as she clutched the leather in both hands. "What?
You—banished? Who has banished you?"

           
"The only one who can," he
answered wryly.

           
"He did not." The bells
chimed as she shook her head in disbelief. "Why?"

           
"I am in disgrace."

           
"Because of the tavern
brawl?"

           
"Aye. He was—less than pleased."
Corin sighed. "He has every right to be, I think. We did bruise Reynald's
pride a little." He smiled. "We bruised it a lot."

           
"Reynald deserves it," she
said flatly, bending to remove his other boot. "Einar as well—do you know
I have to be his partner at the banquet?” In disgust she jerked on the boot,
which elicited a curse from Corin because it jarred his wrist. "Let him
have Maeve, if he requires a princess to prop up his foreign pride."

           
"I think his pride will be
propped up enough when he sees three empty chairs," Corin muttered.
"He will know why, and doubtless he will gloat."

           
"Then I will see to it he
cannot," Keely said firmly. A final twist freed his foot. She dropped the
boot to the floor and sat down at his right side, leaving his other to Kiri.
"Let me see your wrist."

           
He held out his arm. Keely carefully
peeled the sleeve of the velvet doublet and the silken undersleeve back, baring
the swollen wrist. Her fingers were gentle but matter-of-fact; like a warrior,
she had little patience with injuries.

           
"Not broken," she said,
after a moment, and pushed the arm away.

           
Corin scowled. "And will you be
so solicitous with Sean, when you are wed?"

           
"Sean will take me as he finds
me; he is not marrying a nursemaid," she said darkly. Then she made fists
of her hands and banged the air with them. "Oh, gods, Corin, I have no
wish to go to Erinn! I have no wish to be cheysula to some Erinnish island
princeling!"

           
"Aye, well, our jehan pays
little enough mind to what we do and do not want," her brother said
grimly. "I said I had no desire to go to Atvia, and he said it was my
choice if I went, or remained here and became a dispossessed, disinherited
son."

           
Keely's mouth twisted in disgust.
"But if Brennan were to ask. . . ."

           
"He has no need to ask; Homana
will be his. He goes nowhere." Corin sighed and rose to undo the
fastenings of his ruined doublet. After a moment of struggling with his left
hand, he appealed to Keely once again. As she clucked her tongue over his
helplessness and undid the fastenings, Corin craned his head out of her way.
"But at least Brennan was banished to his chambers, too."

           
Keely's fingers paused,
"Brennan was?"

           
"All three of us."

           
"He was displeased, then."

           
"As he will be if I keep you
here longer." Corin pushed her hands away. "I will call a
body-servant—Keely, you must go. Give Einar a taste of your wit."

           
"With sweet Maeve on his other
side?" Keely shook her head. "He will think me a waspish shrew.”

           
Corin merely raised eloquent tawny
eyebrows.

           
"Ku'reshtin," she
muttered, and took herself out of the room.

           
Hart soaked in a hot bath, drank
half a decanter of wine, then suffered his ribs to be strapped by his
body-servant. Once the man was done and dismissed. Hart went over to the
polished silver plate hung on one of his bedchamber walls, and stared somberly
at the bandages that made it so difficult to breathe. But the linen strapping
did not draw his attention so much as the black eye.

           
He fingered the bruising gingerly.

           
"You," he said somberly,
"are a poor son. A poor son and a poorer prince. You know better."

           
Almost at once he felt restored.
There. He had admitted his shortcomings; now he could get on with his life
without excess guilt. He tried a smile at the battered face in the plate, found
it did not hurt as much as he thought it might, and turned away.

           
You know better, but it does not
stop you, chimed the voice that served as his conscience. All Cheysuli had
them. They were known as lir.

           
"No," Hart agreed lightly.
"Why should it?"

           
The hawk shifted on his perch in the
corner nearest the big tester bed. Rael was white save for the jet black edging
on each individual feather, and his eyes, which were the color of palest ale.

           
It should if it is wrong, the hawk
pointed out.

           
"Was I wrong?" Hart, still
nude from his bath, plucked the clean leather leggings from his bed and very
carefully pulled them on. He grunted, swore, cast aspersions upon the parentage
of the Caledonese who had so squashed him. And then he recalled that Corin had
had as much to do with it as the foreign guardsman, and promptly included his
brother in his deprecations. "How could I be wrong, Rael; I was only
defending myself."

           
It would be redundant to say you
should not have been in the position to have to defend yourself, Rael
commented, having said it regardless of redundancy; it was often necessary with
Hart.

           
"Enough," Hart said
succinctly. He rubbed his hands through heavy black hair still damp from washing.
In the candlelight the lir-gold on his arms, now bared, gleamed.

           
The light lingered on incised lines
of intricate feathering; on the exultation of a hawk in flight, wings spread to
curve around the wide, rune-bordered armband. In honor of the lir, Hart now
attempted to silence.

           
"Do you reprove your own
lir'!" asked Ian from the doorway. "A distinct admission of guilt,
harani. . . you are slipping. And if you tell me you deserve this exile from
the banquet, I shall know you have gone mad."

           
Hart grimaced. Before his uncle, all
his new-found contentment fled. "No, no—I will save you from insanity,
su'fali. What I did was necessary, and certainly not deserving of
punishment."