Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (21 page)

 
          
"Oh,
has it?" Aidan's tone was bland. "I'm thinking I might yet have
something to say on that order."

 
          
Jennet
was speculative. "I doubt they will let you. It makes them feel important
to decide how we should live."

 
          
"
Jennet
!" Cluna wailed.

 
          
Her
sister did not respond. "
Have
you come for a wife?"

 
          
Aidan
smiled. "Perhaps."

 
          
Cluna's
face was burning. "He will never have
you
,"
she asserted. "A queen must know her place—"

 
          
"I
do
know my place!" Jennet
snapped. "As any fool can see, we are of marriageable age and excellent
family."

 
          
A
new voice intruded. "But
not
of
excellent manners." A young woman advanced on them quickly, yellow skirts
gathered in both hands. "I could hear you screeching all the way to my
chambers. That is
not
how our lady
mother desires you to behave… you are princesses, not street urchins—though you
look more like the latter with your hair all pulled awry." She glanced
briefly at Aidan, then back to the girls. "Jennet, have you no sense at
all? You tax a stranger with inappropriate talk…" She cast a polite smile
at Aidan, smoothing yellow skirts and the amber-studded girdle binding a narrow
waist. "You will forgive them, I hope, if they spoke too plainly. Jennet
has cost herself more than one friend by such bold talk."

 
          
"Not
Tevis," Jennet declared. "He
likes
such talk."

 
          
Cluna
disagreed. "Tevis is merely polite. He has no wish to offend our
father."

 
          
"Enough,"
the woman chided. "Have you no sense of decorum? This man is a
stranger!"

 
          
"Cousin,"
Janet supplied.

 
          
It
stopped the other at once. For the first time she gave Aidan all her attention.
She was as unlike her sisters as could be, but by color and age he knew her.
The oldest of all Hart's brood: Blythe, only months younger than he himself.

 
          
She
was, he thought, magnificent. The heavy velvet gown, dyed a rich, warm yellow,
set off her dusky Cheysuli coloring, though the eyes were blue instead of
yellow. Her face was much like the faces of the Cheysuli women in Clankeep,
formed of arresting planes and angles. There was little Solindish in her; that
was Cluna's and Jennet's province. Blythe's black hair had been twisted and
looped against the back of her head, showing off an elegant neck.

 
          
She was worth coming for
—Aidan cut it
off. He had spent too much time with women of lower rank, who encouraged his
attention. He had become adept at dealing with them, and at judging their worth
very quickly.
But this woman is not like
them
…

 
          
Blythe's
gaze was level. "Are you truly Aidan?"

 
          
He
gazed back at her.
SHE could make me
forget. All the dreams, the chain
—Again he cut himself off.
"Aye," he offered calmly. "I was not expected, so I hope you
will forgive me for arriving without a warning. My
jehan
did not think Hart would turn me away."

 
          
"Of
course not. You are well come to Lestra." Blythe's Homanan was accented
with the nuances of Solinde. Aidan found it attractive. "But you must
promise me you forgive these little magpies, croaking about private
things."

 
          
Both
magpies glared at their sister, then turned their attention to Aidan. Summoning
gallantry, he assured them he would.

 
          
Jennet
banished contrition. "
Have
you
come for a wife?"

 
          
Blythe's
eyebrows rose. "What has possessed your tongue to be so heedless? Do you
think Aidan came all the way from Homana simply to look for a wife?"

 
          
Aidan
opened his mouth, shut it, scratched eloquently at his scalp.

 
          
"See?"
Jennet challenged.

 
          
Blythe's
eyes widened. "
Have
you,
then?"

 
          
"See?"
Jennet repeated. "You want to know as much as we do."

 
          
Aidan
maintained a neutral tone. "There is some possibility—"

 
          
"Queen
of Homana," Jennet considered.

 
          
Cluna
glared at her. "Not for years and years. First there is
Princess
of Homana—"

 
          
Blythe's
turn. "And
that
not for
years," she declared. "There is one of those already: Aidan's mother,
Aileen."

 
          
Cluna
smiled shyly. "Jennet may be older, but I am nicer."

 
          
Jennet
eyed her askance. "And Blythe the oldest of all.
She
comes first in everything."

 
          
"Enough!"
Blythe cried, before full-scale war was begun. "All of you, come with me.
Aidan must meet
jehan
."

 
          
Jennet
twitched at skirts. "He is playing Bezat with Tevis. He sent us out when
Cluna knocked over the bowl and scattered all the pieces."

 
          
"It
was an accident!" Cluna cried. "And it was
really
your fault—if you had not left the bowl so close to the edge
of the table—"

 
          
"And
if
you
had kept your sticky fingers
out of it—"

 
          
"Never
mind," Blythe said ominously. "I know where Tevis is. I know where
both
of them are. And I know where you
are going." Blythe locked a hand over Jennet's shoulder and steered her
down the hall. "Cluna, you also. And Aidan—" Blythe's smile was both
beautiful and beseeching. "Will you come with us?"

 
          
Aidan
was a man who had grown up with no sisters. He liked women very much, but the
ones he had spent most of his time with had been quite different. Looking at
his kin, allied against refusal, he doubted he could do otherwise. Not in the
face of so many females bent on a single thing that had nothing to do with bed.

 
          
«
^
»

 
          
The
round room was tiny but comfortable, lime-washed white for brightness, and
tucked into a corner tower of the castle. A handful of casement slits let in
the light of a fading day, painting the room in muted stripes. There were
stools, chairs, tripod candle stands; one low table. At the table were two men:
a Cheysuli in indigo leathers, gold gleaming on dark arms, and a younger, more
elegant man dressed in russet velvet doublet over brown hunting leggings.

 
          
Aidan
knew the elder, though they had never met. He was very like his own father.

 
          
Lost
within their game, neither man looked up. Blythe sighed, exchanging an amused
glance with her newly-arrived cousin, then silenced Cluna and Jennet with a
raised finger. With eloquent, purposeful gravity, Blythe made the introduction.

 
          
A
pair of heads lifted and turned, displaying startled expressions. Hart stared,
then abruptly suspended movement in the midst of drawing a bone-colored stone
from a rune-wrought silver bowl. Blue eyes at first were stunned; then
disbelief entered. "No," he said only.

 
          
Aidan,
amused, grinned. "Aye."

 
          
Hart
frowned. His eyes were shrewdly attentive as he made a brief, alert assessment,
marking hair, eyes, gold; the shape of facial bones. Then the frown faded.
Doubt shaded his tone. "Aidan of
Homana
?"

 
          
"Not
Aidan of Falia." Aidan's tone was dry. "Am I to spend the rest of my
life reassuring my kinfolk I am well and truly alive?"

 
          
"Brennan's
son," Hart murmured, the slow smile stretching his mouth. And then he was
on his feet, dropping the forgotten Bezat stone. "By all the gods,
Aidan
!"

 
          
The
fleeting thought was ironic.
By all the
gods indeed
—But then Hart was hugging him, pulling him into a kinman's
proud embrace, and Aidan had no more time for thought.

 
          
Hart
said something in the Old Tongue, something to do with prayers answered for his
rujholli
, then released Aidan. Blue
eyes were very bright. "You must forgive my doubt… all those years
everyone feared for your welfare, and now you stride into my castle every inch
the warrior!"

 
          
Aidan
indicated his hair. "Except, I think, for this."

 
          
Hart
waved a dismissive hand. "Aye, well… you have noted, I am sure, two of my
own
children lack the Cheysuli
color." He grinned at his fair-haired daughters. "It comes from
outmarriage. First Aileen, then Ilsa. If we are not careful, we will lose the coloring."

 
          
But
he did not sound particularly concerned by the dilution of true Cheysuli
characteristics. Aidan, looking at Hart's face, saw the same bones his father
had, and hair equally black—or once equally black; now equally threaded with
silver—but Hart's eyes were blue. Blythe looked very like him.

 
          
Blythe.
Aidan glanced at her. Upon making the introduction, she had crossed the room to
stand beside the young man in russet velvet. He waited in polite silence,
displaying only a profile, and idly stirred the stones. Blythe reached down and
took the wine cup by his elbow, murmuring in a low tone.

 
          
Aidan
felt a flicker of unexpected apprehension. He was very accustomed to seeing
approval or invitation in the eyes of attractive women. Blythe was different,
but he found he wanted the same reaction. Yet her thoughts, clearly, were with
another man. And Aidan, for all his experience, knew the rules were different.
He had come looking for a wife, not a bedpartner of brief duration.

 
          
Apprehension
mounted.
Am I too late for Blythe
?

 
          
Hart's
ebullient voice overruled thinking. "How is my royal
rujho
? And
jehan
? Is
Mujhara the same, or has it grown? Has Deirdre—"

 
          
But
Jennet and Cluna, freed now of requested silence, began chattering at their
father.

 
          
"Not
now," he said above the high-pitched din that was, to Aidan,
indecipherable. "There are too many things I have to ask of Aidan—"
Then, in affectionate exasperation, "Not
now;
I have said. You will have Aidan thinking I spoil you."

 
          
Aidan,
who had already seen he did, smiled privately. Across the room Blythe glanced
up, caught his expression and smiled back. They shared the tiny moment of
acknowledgment, then Blythe set down the cup and came away from the table.

 
          
"Jennet,"
she said, "enough.
And
you,
Cluna. There will be time for your chatter later… for now we must host our
kinsman and treat him with Solindish honor." She flicked eloquent fingers.
"You know where the kitchens are. Send for food and wine."

 
          
Jennet's
mouth pursed mutinously. "If he has come to find a wife, it concerns me. I
should be allowed to stay."

 
          
At
the low table, the young man stopped stirring stones.