Crystal Rose (29 page)

The thought thrilled and chilled him at once, made him
quiver with a dread so delicious it terrified him, excited him.

The Dearg Wicke was shaking her dark head, smiling at him as
any indulgent teacher might smile at a naive pupil. “There’s no such source of
evil, Regent. I know this cleirach you speak of. I’ve known men like him. Men
who must believe in such a power because to do else’d be too terrible a
burden.”

“I don’t understand,” murmured Feich.

The Dearg tapped her breast. “We, Regent Feich, we are the
source of our own dark Weaving. To work what the Spirit abhors, we draw upon
our own forces and on the forces of others.”

Captivated, Feich leaned closer still. Close enough to smell
the scent of her—spicy, smoky.

“Others?”

“The weak. The foolish. The strong, but unaware. You
understand.” She nodded, smiling.

By God, he did understand. It was what he had always
done—used the weakness and foolishness and naivety of others to his own
advantage. He manipulated and, behind each manipulation, put the full force of
his will. But . . .

“You speak of a real drawing of power. How may I—?”

She picked up the red crystal from where it rested between
them on the floor and put it in his hands.

“Begin within. Draw from your own self. Bring to mind that
night at Ochanshrine—how the weakness of the cleirach maddened you. It was your
rage that forced a spark from Ochan’s Stone.”

He did as she said, recalling vividly the scene; Cadder
cringing on his bench, peering about, no doubt praying none would see him
quivering before a Feich. Scorn poured forth. The blithering, pious fool! He’d
wanted to strike Cadder physically, knock him from his perch—but Daimhin Feich
was no bully. So his scorn had turned to rage in the face of Cadder’s obstinate
cowering and, released, had touched the Great Crystal, sparking it.

“Ye-es,” breathed the Wicke, and Feich could feel her rising
excitement. “Good.”

He glanced at the crystal in his hands, saw the light
pulsing within it. No sudden flare, this, no tremulous flame, but a deep, ruddy
glow, constant as the hot emotions that burned in his heart. He thought of that
other Wicke then—of Taminy—and his rage blossomed beyond reason. In his hands,
the red crystal blazed, showering the screened chamber with flaming glory,
catching Coinich Mor in its brilliance and transfiguring her.

“Yes!” she said again, moaning the word as if in some pagan
ecstasy. Her parted lips were blood red in the fey light and her Hillwild eyes
glittered like the sands of Ochan’s Cave. Her scent washed over him
again—hotter than before, spicier.

Shifting the stone to one hand, Feich tangled the other in
the Wicke’s dark hair, drawing those red, red lips to his for a taste of that
spice.

She did not pull away, nor did she demurely yield as the
women of his experience usually did. Instead, she swarmed him, flooded him with
awareness of her. Her hand joined his around the stone and they met at the
center of the aislinn circle, pressing body to body, straining into embrace.

She devoured him, and he, her. They were wildness upon
wildness, bodies tangled impossibly in the brilliance of Feich’s red crystal,
their voices wrenched from their throats in coarse harmony again and again.

He heard laughter more than once, deep-throated, frenzied,
feral. It amused him to realize it was his own.

When exhaustion at last claimed him, he turned his eyes to
the crystal. Clutched still in their joined hands, its radiance was fading. His
thoughts turned, unbidden, to Taminy. Drained by the wantonness of his coupling
with Coinich Mor, he could still hate the Nairnian Wicke, still wish—yes, and
imagine—that it was her body that lay, docile beneath his. The thought filled
him and, gazing down at the Hillwild woman, he could almost see wheat-pale
hair, not black—sea green eyes, not fox-amber.

The Wicke laughed. “You are a troubled man, Regent Feich.”

He laid his head down upon her shoulder and slept, too spent
to decipher her meaning.

oOo

Rain fell in a sullen veil, washing Airdnasheen in moist
shades of gray. Even the pines had surrendered the pretense of color to the
fall of mist. But Eyslk-an-Caerluel could not be sullen, for today she was
moving to Hrofceaster. It was not raining in Eyslk’s world; she looked from her
window and imagined that Airdnasheen existed inside a cloud—a cloud of glorious
silver.

She sang a little as she packed her belongings into a single
large duffel and small, painted trunk. Happy melodies they were, though that
happiness was tinged with surprise and a little bemusement. She had dreaded
asking her mother for permission to move up to Catahn’s fortress—dreaded it
because she had expected to win Deardru-an-Caerluel’s resentment, not the
instant approval she got.

Eyslk had ever been aware of the coolness and alienation
between her mother and Catahn. It had been difficult to gain her permission to
be educated at Hrofceaster. Only a letter from Catahn and the reasonable
arguments of her stepfather had given Eyslk access to learning beyond that of
hearth, home and village.

Deardru had seemed to take an instant dislike to Taminy,
though she had only seen her from afar. And, though she pleaded sympathy for
the Osmaer’s plight, she seemed to take perverse pleasure in mocking her,
making vulgar comments about the nature of her relationship with Osraed Wyth
and the other male waljan. Which was, in part, why Eyslk had beseeched Taminy
to grant her asylum at Hrofceaster. Her mother’s antipathy—the way it was
vented—left her feeling uneasy and depressed.

She laid a pretty purple blanket into the chest and, on top
of it, some books Catahn had given her. She read well now, and loved the
stories of magic and heroism, the little book of duans and scriptures.

“Before you close that,” said Deardru from the doorway of
her daughter’s little room, “I’ve some clothing in my trunk you may have. Come,
take it, if you wish.”

Eyslk followed her mother to her bedchamber, as much
surprised at the smile on her face as she was at the gesture. The clothing in
question turned out to be an array of items from finely sewn undergarments to a
soft velvet cloak lined with fur. There were dresses, too, of beautifully woven
wool. There were leggings and fine hose and shoes.

Eyslk glanced up at her mother from where she sat before the
large chest of keepsakes. “Mam, are you sure you wish me to have these things?
They’re so beautiful. So elegant.”

“Aye. Too much so to be kept in a trunk. I haven’t worn
these things since I lived up at Hrofceaster myself. They’re not suitable for
village life.”

Eyslk ran her hand over a velvet hoodlet. “You wore these
when father was alive.”

Deardru didn’t answer. “You may have whatever you wish,” she
said. “There’s even a small box of jewelry there. That, too, you may consider
yours. I’ve surely no use for it.”

She was gone then, leaving her daughter to wonder over the
treasures she’d been awarded. There were three fine dresses, two embroidered
skirts and a number of delicate sous-shirts. There was a pair of vivid scarlet
breeches and a long, loose, split coat that matched.

Eyslk wondered if her mother had ever worn the outfit to
ride with her beloved Raenulf. She pictured them together, her mother young and
happy, her father tall and handsome and laughing. She imagined he must have
looked much like Catahn, though her mother had said Raenulf Hageswode’s eyes
were dark and his hair a gleaming, lightless, blue-black. She had seen only one
portrait of her father, painted when he had completed the Crask-an-duine at the
age of thirteen.

She had sometimes been tempted to envy Desary her father,
but reasoned that she, at least, had both a mother and step-father while Desary
had only Catahn. Now, of course, there was Taminy . . . for both of them.

That thought shook her from her reverie and set her to
folding her new clothing. It was a tall stack she carried back to her own room,
the small, intricately inlaid box of jewelry balanced on top. She had just
gotten through her curtained doorway when the tower of cloth collapsed,
spilling the top layers and the jewel box. The little casket hit the floor and
broke open, scattering its contents all over the rough planks.

Eyslk felt immediate, sharp remorse for her carelessness.
Dropping the rest of the clothes atop her duffel, she fell to her knees and
scrambled after the spilt jewels.

How stupid! She should never have tried to carry it all at
once. She should have gone back for the box. She tilted it upright, noting with
relief that none of the seashell inlay had been damaged. Her father, Raenulf,
had given her mother that box at their betrothal. It would break her heart to
damage it. She picked up a necklace, a brooch, a pair of silver earrings set
with tiny red stones, a hair clip, and a ring; she started to put them back
into the box.

She paused. Oh, but it was damaged, after all. The side of
the largest of three compartments had broken and stuck up at an odd angle. She
tried to push it back into place, but could not; it was solidly wedged. Maybe
if she could remove it and try reseating it level . . .

She laid the jewels in her lap and grasped the little piece
of wood between her fingers, wiggling it until it worked loose. She tugged and
it shifted slightly. Encouraged, she tugged again. This time, it came free,
bringing the bottom of the compartment with it. Something fell out to plop into
her skirts atop the little pile of jewelry.

It was a packet about the size of her open hand—a packet of
soft, woven paper. She picked it up, surprised at the weight of it, and turned
it in her hands. The paper was yellow with age, though still pliant beneath her
fingers. She toyed with the careful folds, wondering if she might open it and
see what was written.

She felt immediate guilt. This was surely some treasured
keepsake of her mother. She ought to take it to her at once. But, again, the
contents of the jewelry box had been given to her. Surely, that included the
mysterious packet. Perhaps it was another brooch or some other piece of
jewelry.

After a moment of hesitation, she opened it. A lock of dark
hair fell into the palm of her hand; a folded piece of paper fluttered to her
lap. She ignored both, her eyes on the thing that had given the packet its
weight and stiffness. It was a portrait of a young man, and Eyslk could only
believe it was Raenulf Hageswode whose painted eyes gazed at her from the
small, linen-covered slab of wood.

A wave of tenderness engulfed her.
Poor mother
, she thought, and tried to fathom the devotion that had
caused the pragmatic Deardru-an-Caerluel to save and treasure these mementos of
her young husband—to pass them on to her daughter.

Eyslk opened her hand on the lock of hair. It lay across her
gytha, its black-cherry strands catching more light from that than from the
weak fire in her room’s tiny grate. She frowned, rubbing the silken threads
between her fingers, and glanced again at the portrait. The young man’s hair
was the same ruddy black as the lock she held. And his eyes . . .

Putting down the portrait, Eyslk scrabbled amongst the
jewelry for the fallen scrap of paper. She unfolded it and read the faint
writing there, scrawled in ash ink.

My Chieftain. You
think me a woman of duty? You believe I am blinded by my desire for another
Hageswode child? That might once have been true. But it is love that blinds me,
now. It is desire for you that drives me to seek you out. What drives you, my
Chieftain? Pity? Responsibility? I care not. I accept any feeling you may have
for me. If, as you say, there is none, leave this letter where it lies. But if
you would have me again, take it, and I will meet you tonight in the chamber
below the stair.

There was no signature, only a single initial: “D.”

Her mother had written this—to “my Chieftain.” As much as
Eyslk wanted to believe that might be an affectionate reference to the man who
should have been Ren in Deardru’s eyes, she could not believe it. The object of
the letter’s passion was the man whose amber eyes gazed at her from a painted
bit of cloth and wood, and a lock of whose hair curled, silkily, across her
palm. Not Raenulf Hageswode, but his younger brother, Catahn.

Eyslk wallowed in confusion. Had there been no love, then,
between her parents? Had her mother been that faithless, that wretchedly
fickle? Shaking her head, she scanned the letter a second time.

Another Hageswode
child.
That could only mean she had already been born; Raenulf Hageswode
was dead and her mother, widowed. Still . . . still . . . She put a hand to her
head. But her uncle had obviously not taken this missive from whatever place
Deardru had left it. Catahn had refused her advances, had remained faithful to
Desary’s mother, and Deardru, disappointed, had kept this reminder of his
rejection.

Why then, did the letter say—“if you would have me
again
?”

Eyslk turned the paper over; the back was blank. She glanced
at the back of the portrait; only the artist’s signature appeared there. She
looked down at the linen paper that had wrapped it all; there was writing
there—a handful of words in an unfamiliar hand:
It is agreed. I shall give you what you ask, but there is nothing more
I can give.

The signature was a blur of ink, but Eyslk could make out
the letters “C” and “n” at either end.

Confusion spun her thoughts away. Surely, this was not a
response to her mother’s note. Might it have preceded it? That seemed just as
unlikely. She gave up trying to piece the story together. One thing she
understood quite well: In the very act of keeping these things,
Deardru-an-Caerluel had betrayed herself. She did not hate Catahn Hageswode as
Eyslk had suspected; she loved him and had once wanted to bear his child.