Crystal Rose (11 page)

“What you’ve got,” said Airleas, “is the Cyneric of
Caraid-land.”

“A stowaway, indeed,” said Brunan. “Oddest thing, you know.
I just got this sudden feeling that there was something amiss. It was like-like
a voice whispered in my ear that if I looked, I’d find a stowaway in my wagon.”

“I’m not a stowaway,” Airleas insisted. “I’m Airleas
Malcuim.”

“Oh, aye,” said his rescuer, “and I’m the Ren Catahn in
disguise.” He winked.

Furiously reining in his temper, Airleas pulled the glove
from his left hand and raised his palm to them. Their reactions to the gytha
were mixed, but gratifying; one man simply walked away, another retreated a
step while his neighbor came forward, face screwed up in awe. There were gasps
of amazement, finger signs made to ward off any possible evil.

Behind him Brunan leaned about to see what had his comrades
so addled and swore under his breath.

Airleas glanced up at him. “Well, Ren Catahn,” he said. “Do
you believe me now?”

The man stammered. “I-I—”

“Happens you should believe him,” said a voice from just
beyond the circle of onlookers and Iobert Claeg strode through his men with
Aine and Iseabal in his tracks.

“Airleas!” Iseabal reached him first, taking him in a
fervent embrace, while Aine stood back, scowling her disapproval.

“Airleas, whatever are you doing here? You’re supposed to be
back in Hrofceaster with Taminy.”

Airleas sighed. She would state the obvious. “I was trying
to get to Creiddylad to—”

“To avenge your father.”

The new voice, immediately recognizable to the young
Malcuim, came from the back trail. Everyone turned. Astride a red roan horse,
the slight figure swaddled in green seemed impervious to the wind. She rode
forward, the folds of her cowled cape stirring only slightly.

“Osmaer!” Iobert Claeg dropped to one knee before her, while
Aine and Iseabal sprouted smiles that cut the gray day like spears of light.

The Claeg men reacted as they had to the sight of Airleas’s
gytha; repulsed or drawn, awe-struck or fearful. One young warrior moved
surreptitiously to place a tentative hand on the roan’s steaming flank as if by
so doing he could receive a benediction from its rider. As if she sensed the
gesture, Taminy looked down at him and smiled.

Airleas was sure the young man must’ve nearly swooned. He
remembered what he’d felt the first time those green eyes had caught him
unawares.

Foul luck. No, not luck, he realized as Taminy continued to
regard him. He came forward to stand before her, head bent, hands busy with a
loose close on his coat.

“You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew I meant to leave
Hrofceaster.”

“Aye. So did Gwynet. You put her in a terrible dilemma, you
know. She wasn’t sure whether to tell Catahn on you or not. But then, of course
she realized I must know too.”

Airleas looked up at her, puzzled. “But you let me come.
Why?”

Taminy tilted her head and the Kiss on her brow gleamed in
the semi-dark beneath her cowl. “Tell me, Cyneric Airleas, what was your
opinion of your adventure when you embarked on it?”

“I thought it was . . . necessary.” He squared his shoulders
and lifted his head. “I thought I must do it. That it was the brave thing to
do. The-the thing any Malcuim would do.
Should
do.”

Taminy nodded. “You thought to prove yourself. To be a true
Malcuim, worthy of the throne of Caraid-land.”

“Aye,” Airleas mumbled, melting beneath her eyes. The
murmurs of approval from the warriors around him meant nothing now. Only hours
ago they would have been musical—magical.

“What do you think now?”

Airleas sighed deeply. Galling, this was, to admit this
before men who, in his daydreams, marched behind him into battle. “I committed
an error in judgment, Mistress. I proved nothing but my own lack of forethought
and wisdom.”

“And what do you think of your adventure?”

“It wasn’t adventure; it was folly.” He dared to raise his
eyes again. “I have much to learn about being Cyneric.”

“That is why I let you come.”

Airleas’s world became suddenly very still. His breath stuck
in his throat, hope and humiliation struggled in his heart, and on some barely
palpable level, he felt his hushed soul expand. A smile twitched the corner of
his mouth; despair tugged it down again. He found he had nothing to say except,
“I’m sorry, Mistress.”

“I know,” she answered him and turned her beautiful face
away from him to Iobert Claeg. “We’ll be going now, Chieftain. I don’t want to
slow your progress. Meri’s grace to you, sir.”

She raised her hand. The gytha showed clearly in her palm.

Claeg’s men murmured, eyes wide.

Taminy crooked a finger then, and the circling watchers made
way for a second, riderless horse to pass among them. It was Airleas’s own
mare, Shena.

He mounted in silence and, pushing back through the
assembled warriors, clattered up the trail toward Airdnasheen. Behind him, he
vaguely heard Taminy give her blessings and good-byes to The Claeg and her two
other waljan.

He was on the verge of kicking his horse into a dangerous
gallop when she caught hold of his mind, bidding him wait for her. He
hesitated, then obeyed, knowing that anything short of obedience would be
fruitless and stupid. He felt her close regard of him all the way back to the
holt.

Was this what it was to be a Malcuim? he wondered. Was this
what his father had been as a boy—a stew of angers and vanities and false
bravery? Was the essence of The Malcuim a rebellious soul? A soul only
humiliation could impress for good or ill? A soul that could be led about by
its own pride?

“I don’t want to be like my father,” he said to the silence
of the trail.

Taminy’s hand lit on his shoulder, fanning a strange
Eibhilin warmth through his body. “Many people will be eager to tell you that
you are your father’s son. But don’t mistake that to mean you are your father’s
likeness. You are not.”

Airleas flipped the reins against his horse’s neck. “I look
just like him. Just like him. Even mother says so.”

“Appearances are deceiving. Colfre Malcuim may have shaped
your body and your face, but Toireasa has done more to mold your heart and
mind. And your soul has a shape of its own that no man or woman in this world
can mold.”

“Except you, right, Taminy? You can mold it, can’t you?” He
was desperate to believe that.

She shook her head. “Only you, Airleas. Only you can mold
the contours of your own soul.”

Well, now there was an unsettling thought. Airleas let
himself back into the rhythm of his mare’s stride and rode to Hrofceaster in
silence.

oOo

Saefren Claeg stretched out on his bedroll, his eyes on
the leather satchel his uncle had settled gently on the ground-cover of their
tent.

“The Lady’s talismans?”

Iobert nodded. “Aye.”

“What are they?”

In answer, the elder Claeg pushed the satchel toward his
nephew. “Open it,” he said, then lowered himself to his own bedroll.

Saefren tried not to appear over-eager as he picked up the
satchel and flipped back the flap. Inside were a number of soft, dunnish
leather scrolls tied at both ends with twine. Curious, he removed one and
turned it in his hand. Painted on or pressed into the outer surface of the
scroll at roughly its center was the Gilleas crest—a white star on an irregular
field of purple. Inside was a small, hard lump.

He raised questioning eyes to his uncle’s impassive face.
“What are they?”

“The scrolls are messages. As to what’s inside . . .” He
shrugged.

“You didn’t ask?”

“Why should I? I’m not among those who need to see such
talismans.”

And damn proud of it. “May I look?”

Iobert seemed poised for a sharp retort, then merely
shrugged again. “Aye, if you must.”

Saefren untied the twine at one end of the scroll and parted
the soft folds. Light from the tent’s single lamp glittered on something
within.

“It’s a shard of crystal.”

When Iobert said nothing, he opened the scroll further.

“There’s nothing on it. This scroll is empty.” He shook his
head, incredulous. “You said they were letters.”

“I said they were messages.”

“That say nothing.”

“To you, perhaps.”

Saefren laughed, letting a bit of his scorn escape. “And for
these you’d have us travel miles out of our way—to put an empty skin and a chip
of rock into the hands of the Gilleas?”

“We’ll not go out of our way.”

“Uncle, the Gilleas holdings are well away to the
northeast—”

“I know where the Gilleas holdings are, Nephew. We shall not
be troubled to go there. The Gilleas will meet us in Nairne.”

Saefren was dumfounded. “How can you know that?”

“Taminy said he would be there. He and his elders.”

Saefren held up the scroll. “To receive a blank message.”

His uncle rolled onto his side. “Put that away carefully,”
he said, and closed his eyes.

Exasperated, Saefren could only stare at him.

A moment later, one frosty gray eye opened. “And put out the
lamp. Makes it hard for a man to sleep.”

Saefren did as ordered, hoping he’d be around to see the
Gilleas Chieftain’s face when he opened his “message.”

The World of Form and
Shadow is set about by the direst of afflictions and the sorest of trials. It
wastes away of its disease while those who hold power in their hands seek to
treat its ills by their own devices. Yet, they are unable to fathom the cause
of the disease and can only guess at its remedy. Only the Divine Healer can
cure this patient, but these jealous doctors have imagined that Friend to be an
Enemy.

— From the Testament of Osraed Bevol

“A distant ally is better than no ally at all.”

Ruadh Feich raised his finger from the map and looked his
cousin Daimhin in the eye. “You think so, do you? It will take weeks for the
Teallach to assemble even a token force and get them here.”

“Then we can march on Halig-liath in four days with Malcuim
regulars, our own men and the Dearg’s. The Teallach can meet us there in two
weeks—one and a half if the weather holds and the rivers aren’t running too
high.”

“Ah.” The younger Feich traced the march between the
Teallach lands northeast of the port of Eada and the foothill village of
Nairne. “That’s always supposing they don’t have to take the long way around
through the midlands.”

“Now, why on earth should they have to do something like
that? Surely it’s more expedient to cut directly through the hills.”

Ruadh’s finger lit solidly on a green-tinted cluster of
mounds just south of the lands held by the House Teallach. It sat squarely in
the line of march he’d traced the moment before.

“You forget the Cuillean. Intelligence suggests they’ve
shown support of the Taminists. They’re unlikely to let a large force of our
allies cross their lands unremarked.”

Daimhin sat back in his chair and tried to look more relaxed
than he felt. He was damned tired of this sitting around, waiting for the
Houses he had been romancing to come into the fold—the Malcuim fold, he told
them, hoping they would believe him.

Some did. Some didn’t. The Chieftain of the House Gilleas
had told him flat out that he thought Daimhin Feich’s alleged love of his dead
Cyne was a sham and that Airleas Malcuim in any Feich’s hands was as good as
dead. He’d been uncertain if he wanted to return a Malcuim to the Throne of
Caraid-land; he’d been damn certain he’d not help to put a Feich there.

Anarchy. A return to the days when the Houses fought, each
for its own piece of the land. That was what Daimhin Feich faced if he could
not get Airleas Malcuim back to Mertuile—and soon.

“What do you suggest, then, Ruadh?” he asked.

The younger man drew himself up, looking every inch the
young Marschal, every inch a Feich. Daimhin was as proud of him as he might be
of his own son, had he a legitimate one.

“I propose,” said Ruadh, “that we meet the Teallach forces
just south of Cuinn Holding, between the Ead-Tyne and the Bebhinn. That’ll take
them two weeks the long way round—southwest and up the Ead. This I believe they
should do to avoid confronting the Cuillean and the Gilleas. We’ll march our
own forces up the Tuine side of the Halig-Tyne and cut a wide sweep around
Nairne so as not to arouse any notice from that quarter. When we’ve amassed our
army, we split it in two; one half seals off Nairne, the other half lays siege
to Halig-liath.”

“Siege.”

“Aye.”

“And how long do you think that’ll last?”

“As long as it takes to force capitulation.”

“How, force capitulation?”

Ruadh shrugged. “How long can they last sealed off from the
town? When they run out of food, water—”

Daimhin smiled. “Cousin, you underestimate our persuasive
power. With an entire town of innocent hostages at our disposal, the siege will
last only until the first cailin screams. But . . .” Daimhin Feich held up his
hand. “That will be only our contingency plan. I’ve my reasons for wanting to
take Halig-liath in honest combat.” He came forward in his chair, breath
quickening. “There is a great symbology in breaching that sacred wall, Ruadh.
Don’t underestimate it. Halig-liath as an institution, is legendary. The man
who takes it . . .” His sword hand clenched and he paused to savor the sensations
tightening his jaw and burning in his breast. “The man who takes it and
subjugates it, subjugates the religion it represents.”

Ruadh faded back from the table, an odd expression in his
eyes. “Our religion, too, cousin. It is not the sole property of the Osraed you
so detest.”

“Well, of course! That’s exactly it, don’t you see? I want
to take the Faith of the Meri out of Osraed hands and put it into the hands of
the people. And for that reason, I believe we must be able to take Halig-liath
by force. We’ll lay siege only until we can penetrate its defenses.”