Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (21 page)

           
And then Gisella was back, still
crying. In her hands was the glint of gold. "Do I lie?" she asked.
"Do I lie?"

           
She threw down the gold. It rang and
thudded against the decking: a cat-shaped earring and two massive spurs.

           
Alaric's rune-worked spurs.

           
Ian did not move. I did; I knelt.
Picked up the earring and then the heavy spurs with their leather straps dyed
black. Looked up at Gisella in amazement.

           
She rubbed the back of her hand
across a sweat-sheened brow. "He melted them," she explained.
"The bracelets. He wanted them for himself."

           
"Not bracelets," I said
numbly. "Lir-bands. The mark of a boy become man." Gods, what I would
give for gold of my own—I rose, turning to Ian. In shaking hands I held them
out. "Rujho—?"

           
He did not move. "That is gold.
That is not my lir."

           
"I could not carry her,"
Gisella said tearfully. "Not while I carry the child."

           
Ian's head snapped up.
"Her?"

           
She scrubbed tears from sunburned
cheeks. "Below," she said. "Below."

           
I hooked the straps over my wrist
and grabbed her arm before lan could. "Where?" I asked. "Show us
where."

           
Gisella showed us. She took us below
to the hold where the cargo was carried, where we had no cause to go. To the
back, near the bilges.

           
"Wait," she said sharply,
pushing through the chests and other gear. At last she bent over a
canvas-shrouded crate. She plucked something from the crate and turned, hiding
it behind her back. "You may come now."

           
Spurs clinking, I caught Gisella and
dragged her hand into the open. "Gisella, let me see.”

           
She resisted. Gave in. Opened her
hand as I told her to. In the palm was the withered foot of a predator bird,
curved talons spread as if to strike.

           
Gisella shrugged, twisting shoulders
defensively, "She told me it was from a lir. A hawk, she said. She said
she needed it for the spell." She glanced sidelong at Ian. "So you
would not know the cat was in Rondule."

           
"Rondule!" I cried.
"All this time Tasha has been in Rondule?"

           
"Lillith wanted to keep her. So
she could keep him."

           
Again, she looked at Ian. "But
then—she said she did not care to keep him any more; that he had given her what
she wanted. She said now it would be sweeter to know he gave himself over to
death while his lir was so so close at hand."

           
I looked at the thing in her hand.
But even as she spoke, the withered foot and curving talons fell away into
grayish dust.

           
Gisella sucked in her breath.
"No more spell!" she cried in despair. And then, singing softly,
"All gone away. ..." She turned her hand palm down and poured out the
grayish dust. "All—gone—away. . . ."

           
Ian tore open the crate as I stared
at the girl who was my wife. My poor, fragile-wilted wife.

           
Whispering, "All—gone—away.
..."

           
"Gisella—"

           
"Gods, it is Tasha. It is!” Ian
was almost incoherent.

           
"Rujho, help me—"

           
He had not asked it for so long. I
turned from Gisella to Ian and helped him lift the slack body from the bottom
of the crate. We dragged Tasha free of the crate entirely and settled her on
the flooring. She was alive, but only just. Still, her eyes knew us both. One
paw reached out weakly and patted Ian’s foot.

           
He sat down awkwardly, as if he
could no longer stand, and pulled what he could of the cat into his lap. I
could tell by the look in his eyes that he spoke with her in the link. Once
more, I was shut out. But this time I did not care.

           
"Whole," he whispered.
"No more a lirless man—"

           
This time—this time only—it did not
seem to matter to me that I still was.

           
When he had assured himself, or been
assured by Tasha, that the mountain cat would survive, Ian looked up at
Gisella. In his eyes I saw the tears. "Leijhana tu'sai" he said
unevenly. "Leijhana tu'sai, Gisella."

           
I rose. I caught her shoulders in my
hands. "Those words are Cheysuli thanks," I told her, when I could.

           
"You have made him whole
again."

           
"But not you" she said
obscurely.

           
And then she sat down and drew
pictures in the dust of a murdered lir.

           
She sang a song I did not know and
hardly heard. It was not meant for me, but intended only for herself. And
perhaps for the child.

           
"Gisella," I said gently,
"there is nothing to harm you here. This is Homana-Mujhar."

           
She stood in a corner of the
antechamber, hugging herself. Hugging herself, rocking herself, singing to
herself. Softly, so very softly; she meant to disturb no one.

           
She meant only to lock herself away
from the fear of what must come.

           
I stroked the hair from her eyes.
She had gone away from me to that very private place she had sought more and
more the closer we came to Mujhara. I had lost her somewhere on the road from
Hondarth. Physically she was with me, but otherwise she was not.

           
She sang. She hugged. She rocked.

           
I shut her up in my airs and tried
to still the rocking.

           
Her swollen belly pressed against
me, intrusive and unyielding. She was bigger still than before, having two
months less to wait for the birth of the child. Only two, now, before I would be
a father.

           
"Niall? Are you here? I was
told you would be here!"

           
It was my mother hastening into the
adjoining room; I felt Gisella stiffen in my arms.

           
"Wait," I called, perhaps
a trifle curtly. No doubt it was the last word she had expected to hear form
me.

           
"Gisella," I said gently,
"Gisella, I promise you. No one here will harm you."

           
She sang on, rocking herself within
the circle of my arms. And so I left her to herself and went into the chamber
to greet my mother.

           
I said nothing. What she felt was
manifest in her face.

           
I crossed to her and let her put her
arms around me, acutely conscious of how large I was in comparison to her.
"Mother—"

           
"Say nothing." Her words
were muffled; most of her face was pressed against my chest. "Just—let me
hold you."

           
And so I let her hold me, even as I
held her. It was odd to think of her as the woman who had borne me nineteen
years ago, even as Gisella would bear my child.

           
Somehow it was impossible to think
of the Queen of Homana as ever being little more than a woman in travail,
trying to give Homana an heir for the Lion Throne.

           
"Fourteen months," she
whispered. "Oh Niall, I feared I would never see you again! Even after
Alaric sent word that Shea of Erinn held you. Even after Rowan came home and
said you fared quite well in Erinnish captivity." She pulled away and
stared up into my face. "How much was the truth?"

           
"All of it," I told her.
"Never once was I treated with anything less than my rank was due."

           
She sighed in relief. "Thank
the gods!" She hugged me again, then stepped away. "There. Enough. I
have no wish to embarrass you with tears or clinging ways." Laughing a
little, she pressed one hand against her mouth.

           
"You see? Already I cry
again."

           
I smiled. "Embarrass me? No
more than I might embarrass you. Gods, it is good to be home again!" And I
pulled her back into my arms and hugged her one more time.

           
"Then the messenger had the
right of it concerning your arrival," said my father as he came into the
chamber. "His words were worth the gold I spent."

           
I released my mother and went at
once to him, to clasp his arms Cheysuli-fashion and then pull him into an
embrace. In all the years of my life I had wanted to do it, and yet somehow I
never had. He had seemed closed to me, somehow; closed to demonstrations of
affection.

           
"Leijhana tu'sai," he
murmured fervently. "All those months I had to be strong for your jehana
... yet there was no one to be strong for the jehan."

           
I could not imagine my father
needing anyone but himself. And yet, once I might have said the same about my
brother. "You know about Ian?" I stepped back out of the embrace.
"The messenger did tell you he is alive?"

           
"Aye," my mother said
dryly. "Your father made him repeat it four times, just to be
certain."

           
I searched for resentment and found
none; she was genuinely relieved. But I was not certain how much was for my
father's sake rather than my brother's.

           
"Where is he?" my father
asked. "I expected him to be with you."

           
"Ian is—at Clankeep." I
saw the minute twitch of surprise in his face. "He said he
required—cleansing . . . and that you would understand."

           
"I'toshaa-ni." My father
turned away from me as if to hide his thoughts and feelings. But when he turned
again I saw a residue of a fear I could not comprehend. "Is he all
right?"

           
"Well enough," I answered.
"Tasha is mostly recovered and so Ian is more himself, but—" I could
not avoid the truth any longer, and so I would not "—he is not the warrior
I knew before we left for Atvia."

           
"No. Not if he is in need of
i'toshaa-ni." Troubled, my father looked more grim than I could expect of
a man who knew both of his sons were alive when he had believed them lost.

           
"What is it?" my mother
asked. “I know so little of Cheysuli customs ... but what could keep Ian away from
his father when he has only just returned?"

           
"A ritual of cleansing,"
my father said, patently reluctant to speak of it at all. "It—is a private
thing . . . when a warrior feels his spirit soiled by something he has done—or
by what others have done to him—he seeks to cleanse himself through
i'toshaa-ni." He made a gesture of subtle finality and I knew the subject
was closed.

           
It was obvious my mother knew it as
well. She wanted to speak but did not, having learned his moods so well. I
wondered if Gisella would ever know mine.

           
Or if any man can know hers.

           
"Niall," my mother said.
"Niall, is this Gisella?"

           
I turned abruptly. It was. She stood
in the doorway to the antechamber. The curtain was caught over one shoulder so
that half of her was hidden. But not enough. It was obvious she was weary, too
weary; overburdened by the child. I had thought to give her time to rest,
bathe, change . . . but now that time was taken from us both.

           
I went to her at once. She was
quiet, very quiet; no more singing, hugging, rocking. Under my hands she
trembled. "Gisella, I promise you, there is no need to be afraid." I
pushed the curtain off her shoulder and brought her into the room.

           
"By the gods!" My mother's
tone was couched, all unintended, in the brutal honesty of shock. "The
girl has already conceived!"

           
My father was less forceful than my
mother, but his surprise was no less obvious. "Niall—"

           
"She is very weary," I
told them quietly. "The sea voyage was hard on her, the journey from
Hondarth harder. Once she has rested, you will see another Gisella."

           
"Niall," my mother said
helplessly, "what am I to say!”

           
"Say she is well come," I
told her. "Or—is she not?"

           
"Niall." There was no
hesitation on my father's part, no careful search for diplomacy. "She is
as well come as your cheysula ever could be ... but what your jehana means to
say is that the Homanans will claim the child is not your own."

           
"Does it matter what they
claim?" Beneath my hands, Gisella trembled. "When have you ever
cared?"

           
He did not smile, my father, being
less than pleased with me. "On the day when I at last understood what my
tahlmorra truly entailed, I was made to care. But you may not have that
chance." He did not so much as look at Gisella, being too intent on me. "Even
now there are growing numbers of Homanans who rally around a faceless, nameless
bastard, known only as Carillon's son. Not his grandson, Niall—his son. And as
those numbers grow, so does the threat to you. So does the threat to the Lion.
And, by the gods!—so does the threat to the prophecy of the Firstborn!”

           
"Donal." My mother, as
ever, seeking to turn his anger from her beloved son.

           
"No, Aislinn. He will have to
know the truth." He moved closer to me, confronting me squarely, still
ignoring Gisella. "On the day our kinsman has you slain in the name of
Homanan rule, will you ask then if it matters what the Homanans claim?" His
face, like his voice, was taut with suppressed emotion. And now he did look at
Gisella. "Will you ask it when they have slain her as well, because she
bears a child who might become a threat to them? Think of that, Niall, if not
of yourself." He smiled, but there was no humor in it. "And now—ask
me again."

           
"No." Chastened I was, but
I did not look away. "No, there is no need. I spoke too hastily." I
took a deep breath and started over again. "This is Gisella. And aye, she
bears my child." I glanced briefly at my mother, still silent in her
shock, then looked back at my father. "I do not doubt but that the wedding
should be very soon. Not just because of the child, but because of Carillon's
bastard." I shrugged. "How better to secure the Lion for our line
instead of his?"

           
My mother turned away. The line of
her spine was rigid; no doubt it troubled her deeply to know her father had
sired a bastard. No doubt it troubled her more to know that bastard offered a
very real threat to me.

           
"Niall." She turned,
skirts swinging. "Niall—will you forgive him?"

           
Gods, how she needed me to say it;
to say aye, of course I forgive him. As if it might absolve her of her guilt
for believing in him so. So she could believe in him again.

           
"Carillon was not a god,"
I said clearly. "He was a man. A man. And so is his bastard son. So is his
daughter's son."

           
"Niall?" Gisella, breaking
her silence. "Niall, is he the Mujhar?"

           
I laughed aloud, relieved to hear
her voice after she had been so long silent. "More than that," I said.
"He is your mother's brother. Your su'fali, in the Old Tongue."

           
Color came into her waxen face. Some
of the weariness dropped away. "Donal of Homana! My father speaks of
you."

           
My father's smile was wry.
"Aye, no doubt he does. And does he speak of me with kindness?"

           
He did not expect her to answer
honestly. He expected embarrassed prevarication. But then, he did not know Gisella.

           
"No," she said, with all
the guilelessness of a child. "He says you are a leech upon the treasury
of Atvia, and that one day he will squash you."

           
Before my mother could express her
shock, my father laughed out loud. "Aye, well, I imagine he might well say
so. In his position, I might say much the same. But then, it is a position
Alaric himself brought about." No tact from him, not when she gave him
none. "When you see him again, Gisella, you may tell him that for
me."

           
"But I will never see him
again," she told him seriously. "I must stay with Niall. Niall will
be Mujhar. Niall will need me here."

           
"Surely he will allow you to
visit your father." My mother hid much of her growing dislike, but I heard
it plainly in her tone. "He will not keep you chained to Homana."

           
"But he will need me,"
Gisella insisted. "They said he would always need me."

           
I saw my mother begin to frown.

           
"Gisella," I said hastily,
"this is my lady mother, Aislinn, the Queen of Homana."

           
But Gisella was uninterested in my
mother. Her attention was on my father. "I forgot," she told him.
"There is a thing I am to do." Giggling, she tried to curtsy deeply,
offering him what awkward homage she could manage.