Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (2 page)

           
In thread, on cloth, against a
rose-red stone wall gilt-washed by early light: Lions. Mujhars. Cheysuli, and
Homanan; and the makings of the world in which the boy and his grand-uncle
lived.

           
"Magic," the boy declared
solemnly, more intent upon his declaration than most eight-year-olds; but then
most eight-year-old boys do not discover magic within the walls of their homes.

           
The old man agreed easily without
the hesitation of those who doubted, or wished to doubt, put off by magic's
power; magic was no more alien to him than to the boy, in whose blood it lived
as it lived in his own, and in others Cheysuli-born.

           
"Woman's magic," he said,
"conjured from head and hands." His own long-fingered left hand, once
darkly supple and eloquent, now stiffened bone beneath wrinkled, yellowing
flesh, traced out the intricate stitchwork patterns of the massive embroidered
arras hung behind the Lion Throne. "Do you see, Kellin? This is Shame,
whom the Homanans would call your five times great-grandfather.

           
Cheysuli would call him
hosa'ana."

           
It was mid-morning in Shaine's own
Great Hall.

           
Moted light sliced through stained
glass casements to paint the hall all colors, illuminating the vast expanse of
ancient architecture that had housed a hundred kings long before Kellin—or
Ian—was born.

           
The boy, undaunted by the immensity
of history or the richness of the hammer-beamed hall and its multitude of
trappings, nodded crisply, a little impatient, black brows drawn together in a
frown old for his years; as if Kellin, Prince of Homana, knew very well who
Shaine was, but did not count him important.

           
Ian smiled. And well he might not;
his history is more recent, and his youth concerned with now, not yesterday's
old Mujhars.

           
"Who is this?" A finger,
too slender for the characteristic incomplete stubbiness of youth—Cheysuli
hands, despite the other houses thickening his blood—transfixed a stitchwork
lion made static by the precise skill of a woman's hands. "Is this my
father?"

           
"No." The old man's lean,
creased-leather face gave away nothing of his thoughts, nothing of his
feelings, as he answered the poorly concealed hope in the boy's tone. "No,
Kellin. This tapestry was completed before your father was born. It stops
here—you see?—" he touched thread, "—with your grandsire."

           
A dirt-rimmed fingernail bitten off
crookedly in-serted itself imperatively between dusty threads, once-brilliant
colors muted by time and long-set sunlight. "But he should be here. My
father. Somewhere."

           
The expression was abruptly fierce,
no longer hopeful, no longer clay as yet unworked, but the taut arrogance of a
young warrior as he looked up at the old man, who knew more than the boy what
it was to be a warrior; he had even been in true war, and was not merely a
construct of aging tales.

           
Ian smiled, new wrinkles replacing
old between the thick curtains of snowy hair. "And so he would be, had it
taken longer for Deirdre and her women to complete the Tapestry of Lions.
Perhaps someday another woman will begin a new tapestry and put you and your
father and your heir in it."

           
"Mujhars," Kellin said
consideringly. "That's what all of them were." He glanced back at the
huge tapestry filling the wall behind the dais, fixing a dispassionate gaze
upon it. The murmured names were a litany as he moved his finger from one lion
to another: "Shaine, Carillon, Donal, Niall, Brennan . .." Abruptly
the boy broke off and took his finger from the stitching. "But my father
isn't Mujhar and never will be." He stared hard at the old man as if he
longed to challenge but did not know how. "Never will be."

           
It did not discomfit Ian, who had
heard it phrased one way or another for several years. The intent was identical
despite differences in phraseology: Kellin desperately wanted his father,
Aidan, whom he had never met. "No," Ian agreed. "You are next,
after Brennan .. . they have told you why."

           
The boy nodded. "Because he
left." He meant to sound matter-of-fact, but did not; the unexpected shine
of tears in clear green eyes dissipated former fierceness, "He ran
away!"

           
Ian tensed. It would come, one day;
now I must drive it back, "No." He reached and caught one slight
shoulder, squeezing slightly as he felt the suppressed, minute trembling.
"Kellin—who said such a monstrous thing? It is not true, as you well know
. . . your father ran from nothing, but to his tahlmorra—"

           
"They said—" Kellin's lips
were white as he compressed them. "They said he left because he hated
me."

           
"Who said this?"

           
Kellin bit into his bottom lip.
"They said I wasn't the son he wanted."

           
"Kellin—"

           
It was very nearly a wail though he
worked to choke it off. "What did I do to make him hate me so?"

           
"Your jehan does not hate
you."

           
"Then why isn't he here! Why
can't he come?

           
Why can't I go there?" Green
eyes burned fiercely.

           
"Have I done something
wrong?"

           
"No. No, Kellin—you have done
nothing wrong."

           
The small face was pale. "Sometimes
I think I must be a bad son."

           
"In no way, Kellin—"

           
"Then, why?" he asked
desperately. "Why can't he come?"

           
Why indeed? lan asked himself. He
did not in the least blame the boy for voicing what all of them wondered, but
Aidan was intransigent. The boy was not to come until he was summoned. Nor
would Aidan visit unless the gods indicated it was the proper time. But will it
ever be the proper time?

           
He looked at the boy, who tried so
hard to give away none of his anguish, to hide the blazing pain.

           
Homana-Mujhar begins to put Jesses
on the fledgling.

           
Strength waned. Ian desired to sit
down upon the dais so as to be on the boy's level and discuss things more
equally, but he was old, stiff, and weary; rising again would prove difficult.
There was so much he wanted to say that little of it suggested a way to be
said. Instead, he settled for a simple wisdom. "I think perhaps you have
spent too much time of late with the castle boys. You should ask to go to
Clankeep. The boys there know better."

           
It was not enough. It was no answer
at all. Ian regretted it immediately when he saw Kellin's expression.

           
"Grandsire says I may not go. I
am to stay here, he says—but he won't tell me why. But I heard—

           
I heard one of the servants
say—" He broke it off.

           
"What?" Ian asked gently.
"What have the servants said?"

           
"That—that even in Clankeep,
the Mujhar fears for my safety. That because Locniel went there once, he might
again—and if he knew I was there .. ."

           
Kellin shrugged small shoulders.
"I'm to be kept here."

           
It is no wonder, then, he listens to
castle boys. Ian sighed and attempted a smile. "There will always be boys
who seek to hurt with words. You are a prince—they are not. It is resentment,
Kellin. You must not put faith in what they say about your Jehan. They none of
them know what he is."

           
Kellin's tone was flat, utterly
lifeless; his attempt to hide the hurt merely increased its poignancy.
"They say he was a coward. And sick- And given to fits."

           
All this, and more . .. he has years
yet before they stop, if any of them ever will stop; it may become a weapon
meant to prick and goad first prince, then Mujhar. lan felt a tightness in his
chest. The winter had been cold, the coldest he recalled in several seasons,
and hard on him. He had caught a cough, and it had not completely faded even
with the onset of full-blown spring.

           
He drew in a carefully measured
breath, seeking to lay waste to words meant to taunt the smallest of boys who
would one day be the largest, in rank if not in height. "He is a shar
tahl, Kellin, not a madman. Those who say so are ignorant, with no respect for
Cheysuli customs." Inwardly he chided himself for speaking so baldly of
Homanans to a young, impressionable boy, but lan saw no reason to lie.
Ignorance was ignorance regardless of its racial origins; he knew his share of
stubborn Cheysuli, too. "We have explained many times why he went to the
Crystal Isle."

           
"Can't he come to visit? That's
all I want. Just a visit." The chin that promised adult intransigence was
no less tolerant now. "Or can't I go there? Wouldn't I be safe there, with
him?"

           
Ian coughed, pressing determinedly
against the sunken breastbone hidden beneath Cheysuli jerkin as if to squeeze
his lungs into compliance. "A shar tahl is not like everyone else, Kellin.
He serves the gods ... he cannot be expected to conduct himself according to
the whims and desires of others." It was the simple truth. Ian knew, but
doubted it offered enough weight to crush a boy's pain. "He answers to
neither Mujhar nor clan-leader, but to the gods themselves. If you are to see
your jehan, he will send for you."

           
"It isn't fair," Kellin
blurted in newborn bitterness. "Everyone else has a father!"

           
"Everyone else does not have a
father." Ian knew of several boys in Homana-Mujhar and Clankeep who lacked
one or both parents. "Jehans and jehanas die, leaving children
behind."

           
"My mother died." His face
spasmed briefly. "They said I killed her."

           
"No—" No, Kellin had not
killed Shona; Lochiel had. But the boy no longer listened.

           
"She's dead—but my father is
alive! Can't he come?"

           
The cough broke free of Ian's
wishes, wracking lungs and throat. He wanted very much to answer the boy, his
long-dead brother's great-grandson, but he lacked the breath for it.
"—Kellin—"

           
At last the boy was alarmed.
"Su'fali?" Ian was many generations beyond uncle, but it was the
Cheysuli term used in place of a more complex one involving multiple
generations. "Are you sick still?"

           
"Winter lingers." He
grinned briefly. "The bite of the Lion .. ."

           
"The Lion is biting you?"
Kellin's eyes were enormous; clearly he believed there was truth in the
imagery.

           
"No." Ian bent, trying to
keep the pain from the boy. It felt as if a burning brand had been thrust deep
into his chest. "Here—help me to sit . . ."

           
"Not there, not on the
Lion—" Kellin grasped a trembling arm. "I won't let him bite you,
su'fali."

           
The breath of laughter wisped into
wheezing.

           
"Kellin—"

           
But the boy chattered on of a
Cheysuli warrior's protection, far superior to that offered by others unblessed
by lir or shapechanging arts and the earth magic, and guided Ian down toward
the step. The throne's cushion would soften the harshness of old wood, but
clearly the brief mention of the Lion had burned itself into Kellin's brain;
the boy would not allow him to sit in the throne now, even now, and Ian had no
strength to dissuade him of his false conviction.

           
"Here, su'fali." The
small, piquant face was a warrior's again, fierce and determined. The boy cast
a sharp glance over his shoulder, as if to ward away the beast.

           
"Kellin—" But it hurt very
badly to talk through the pain in his chest. His left arm felt tired and weak.
Breathing was difficult, Lir ... It was imperative, instinctive; through the
fir-link Ian summoned Tasha from his chambers, where she lazed in a shaft of
spring sunlight across the middlemost part of his bed. Forgive my waking you—

           
But the mountain cat was quite awake
and moving, answering what she sensed more clearly than what she heard.