The Sacred Hunt Duology (132 page)

Gilliam nodded gruffly, pulling the sealed letter closer to his chest before he thought to offer thanks.

“Do not thank me,” Zareth Kahn said gravely. He started to speak again, to offer his condolence or his gratitude, to praise the dead—and the living—but Gilliam of Elseth, very much the Hunter Lord, had already turned his full attention to the scroll.

And Zareth Kahn well knew why. Lord Elseth had missed the call to the Sacred Hunt in the King's Forest, and by Breodanir law—a law more ancient than
the founding of Averalaan—the Elseth name should be no more. It was Zareth Kahn who had insisted that a message be sent to Lady Elseth, and in haste; it was Zareth Kahn who had supplied the power necessary to bring her response back. It was the only gift he had to offer.

Because in Averalaan, death on the First Day was merely a death, perhaps even a blessed one; because, in Averalaan, the festival of lights would go on for two days yet, and the bards were filling the common streets with song and story and embroidered, simplified history. Nowhere was the somber respect, the sense of mutual loss, that the Hunters had grown up with; nowhere was there the weeping, the mourning, the gratitude that came from the common peasants to the noble families who year by year fulfilled their duty by sacrificing one of their own.

“If you would have it,” the mage said softly, uncertain as to whether or not he was heard, “I would be pleased to travel with you when you return to Breodanir.”

“If,” Gilliam replied, but the there was no bitter force in the word, and his fingers traced the unbroken seal as if he was afraid that to break it was to destroy the last vestige of a family he had thought lost.

Zareth Kahn withdrew quietly, to give the Hunter Lord peace, thinking how very changed they had both been by their windows into each other's world.

• • •

She knew the sound of his footfall; knew it better than the sound of her own. The air was still and carried no scent, but she turned her head to watch the heavy door hanging as he moved it to one side and stepped out beneath the open sky. She was afraid to move; curling her arms around her legs, she rested her chin on the rounded shelf her knees made.

He came not in the robes and silks of the Essalieyanese, but rather in the dark, deep green of the Breodani Hunters. His eyes were red, and his hair a little wild; the lines about his jaw were tense. But his hands hung loose as he looked into the midday sky.

Ashfel appeared from the north, followed in short order by Connel, by Salas. They were frenzied in their greeting, making enough noise to be heard in the streets beyond the palace grounds. He let them come for the first time since the Mother's daughter had called him back; even let them leap up and place their large paws on his shoulders, chest, back—anywhere they could find purchase.

Oh, she wanted to join them. She wanted to jump up and run and leap about his feet in their dance of joy, to butt his chest with her head and listen to his thoughts and know that she belonged to his pack, that he loved her, that above all people—if not Ashfel—she was valued. She had known that once, but she was not the same.

And because she was not, he could not be.

You are not an animal, Espere
, Stephen had told her—and he was right. She was the daughter of Bredan, and without his presence as anchor and influence she was
no longer chained to the ebb and flow of his will, his season; the two weeks of clarity that followed the Sacred Hunt, the two weeks in which he, as father and not Hunter beast, had taught her speech and oath and honor, could continue for the rest of her natural life. Her father would no longer descend into slow forgetfulness, and thence to wild hunger, dragging her down in his wake; the Heavens held him.

I wanted this.

But as she watched the dogs, as their scents rolled into each other, becoming one, she knew that it was not enough. Because if she was not animal, she was not human either. On the day that she had first found Gilliam—and Stephen—in the streets of the King's City, she had found the only Lord she wanted; pack leader, Hunter.

Her cheeks were wet; lifting her hands, she touched them. Curiosity stayed her fears a moment as she stared. And then another's hands touched her very gently.

Before he could pull them back, she caught them and held tight. She was Espere, and knew no guile, no pretense of strength or independence. What she wanted, she wanted, as unfettered in desire as a child.

Still, she was afraid to meet his eyes, so she pulled his hands close to her face, and cupped them round her cheeks for warmth; the tears had cooled her skin. “I didn't mean forever,” she said, into the palm of his hands. “I didn't mean you to set me free forever.”

He did not speak, and she did not expect it; he had rarely used words with her and she didn't want them now. But he pulled her face up, and because she rested in the palms of his hands, her gaze rose as well. His eyes were all pupil, and hers, the night; they met, as they had in the streets of the King's City at journey's beginning.

Contact.

More. He lifted her into the curve of his arms, and she came, releasing his hands long enough to throw her arms tightly around his neck. His chin touched the top of her perfect hair.

“Ashfel,” he said, “come. It's time to go home.” His arms tightened. She felt what he did not say, and her tears fell again.

13th of Veral, 411 A.A.

Breodanir

T
HE MASTER GARDENER TOILED
in the heart of the Maubreche labyrinth, beyond the roses and the flower beds and the ancient trees that wore spring's first colors. The Sacred Hunt had come and gone, and life had taken the land in its strong grip; only winter would loose it.

But winter was not the gardener's concern. He labored, as he had always labored, in the green, alone. Many were the people who had marveled at the gardener's art, but few indeed were those who had seen him at his work—and of those, each and every one had been born to the Maubreche responsibility.

He was a watcher of life; over the years, his understanding of its physical nuance outstripped the inborn talent of the Makers, and to his private satisfaction, among the most ardent of his admirers had been Ovannen the Artisan. But it was not for the regard of strangers that he worked now.

For, having completed the foundation for this season's living sculpture, he now approached the tapestry. Hands shaking, he set aside his tools a moment to better examine the hedge that never wintered. His gift kept it alive, when so much else had withered and died at time's march, or worse.

The past glory and tragedy of the Maubreche line had been detailed here by his hands from its beginning; it was time—at last, time—to draw that story to a close. To fulfill an oath, and have peace.

Was it dawn? Had he looked so long, worked in such distraction, that he had failed to note sun's rise? Yes, he thought, picking up his shears and watching the matted reflection of early light on the leaves. But he had hours yet before the grounds were no longer his canvas. Quietly, as he did all things, the master gardener began to clip.

• • •

This season, Cynthia of Maubreche was to have accepted the suit of one of four Hunter Lords; to have brought that chosen Hunter, and his huntbrother, into the heart of Maubreche, where both might serve her family's name and duties. She had decided upon Corwin of Eralee, the third son of a shrewd and capable mother, a
man known for honor, if not intellect. His huntbrother, Arlin, was a soft-spoken, quiet man six years her elder, who understood her well enough to know when to leave be and when to press suit. Or perhaps it was Lady Eralee's advice that guided Arlin. It mattered not—for the ability to take good advice was also both rare and an asset. His hair was dark where Stephen's was fair; he wore a beard, where Stephen's chin was smooth; his face was long and perhaps a little plain, where Stephen's . . . Stephen.

Of the four suitors, it was Arlin who best understood that her heart, not in the match, was elsewhere. He did not speak of it, not to offer comfort, not to chide or show largesse, not to pity; duty was duty, and she by birth, he by young boy's choice, were Breodani.

But not even Arlin could ignore her outburst at the end of the Sacred Hunt, and although the suit and offer still stood, Lady Eralee thought it best to bide the year, and to come again in the spring.

As if time could somehow make whole what the Hunter had broken.

• • •

Cynthia wore black, edged in Hunter green; she covered her hair with the hood of an ancient robe of mourning that had been a part of her family for generations; it was taken out and worn by the Lady of the manor when the Hunter's Death cast his shadow upon Maubreche. Lord and Lady Maubreche said nothing at all when she had ordered the keykeeper to bring it out of its place of honor. She almost wished they had, because she had a great desire to fight for Stephen—for his name, his honor, if not his life—and no one at all to fight with.

She sought solace in the garden, following the labyrinth out of habit, searching for peace although she was quite certain she would never know it again. In the isolation of the new green, she let the facade crack, and the tears—for they never seemed to stop—came. Yesterday she had almost thought she could survive his loss; the morning was bright, the sun warm, the sky clear. She heard birdsong, the buzzing of early insects; she felt the life of the estate in spring buoy her.

But this morning, it was gone; this morning she could not stop saying, over and over again, all of the good-byes that his death had precluded. At last, drawing her robe about her, she left the house.

Left it to stand in front of the still back of the master gardener at the end of the tapestry that his hands had made of Maubreche history.

“Lady Cynthia,” he said, without looking up.

She did not know his name—and it had been years since she had asked it, for he never answered, and as she left childhood behind, she came to understand that he never would.

“What are you doing?”

He said nothing, and she watched him in the silence. Then, as her eyes focused on his hands, on the clipped and perfect curve of the hedge beneath them, she
said, “what are you making?” For she saw that his shears were shaping the wild hedge, and suddenly, although she could not say why, she was afraid.

“Lady Cynthia,” he told her softly, his back still toward her, his adept hands still clipping and trimming and changing the hedge, “go to the God.”

But the God had taken Stephen from her, and she did not wish to see His graven face. She moved quietly, stepping across the early grass to better see what the master gardener had shaped.

And she saw her own face in the leaves, emerging from nature to take her place with her forebears. She did not speak, but only because she could not.

“Cynthia,” the gardener said, turning from his task. His eyes, steel-gray, seemed almost silver in the early morning light. “Go. Now.”

She stepped back, stumbling on the hem of her robe. Righting herself, she made haste to the heart of the maze without another word. She had never been afraid of the master gardener before; she had always considered him the quiet, reclusive bringer of life. Yet there was death in those eyes, and not a little of it—how could she have missed it, all these years?

Her feet carried her automatically to the center of the labyrinth, for she had come to it, time and again, all of her life. It was in the fountain beneath the God's eye that she had first been washed after birth.

And it was beneath the eye of God that Stephen had sworn to return to her.

The morning mist that often crossed the lowlands was thick and heavy, something almost unseen in the high city. Looking up, she realized that clouds had rolled in—although from where, she could not say—to turn the sky a hazy shade of pale gray. Slowing to a walk, she began to listen for the sound of birds at the fountain.

But silence reigned instead, and it was such that she was afraid to break it with the sound of her voice. This was not the labyrinth of her childhood games or adult musings. The master gardener had sent her on—but to where, and for what purpose, she did not know.

And then she heard it for the first time, although it would not be the last: the voice of Bredan, Lord of the Covenant. Her memories did not hold the multitude of voices, but her heart did, and before she could stop herself, she had folded at the knee in the deepest of the Breodani bows, drawing a cloak-draped arm across her chest as she lowered her head into the smoky mist that lapped like dream's waves at her feet.

“Cynthia of Maubreche,” He—they—said, and although she was afraid, she lifted her head as if the words were a command. The God's eyes were luminescent, but of a color, of a brilliance, that she could not even name. Yet she found that she could meet them, and trembling, she did.

“Do you know me?”

How could she not? He dressed as a Hunter Lord, and not the robed statue of the God in the garden; He carried a bow across his back, a sword at his side, and
although no pack attended him, she felt that, in the distance, the
Bredari
waited his will. “You are the Hunter,” she said.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, if a hundred thousand voices could be said to speak softly. “But I am more than the Hunter, or I was, and when the Breodani remembered, Maubreche was the family that served me best.”

She felt pride, fierce and sudden, at his words, and swallowed as the blush rose in her cheeks. Where was her anger now? Where was her sorrow?

As if he could hear her thoughts, he smiled sadly. “You will have cause to remember it throughout the years to come. As will I.” He held out a hand to her, and after a moment she took it, rising.

His hand felt like a man's hand, no more. Looking again into his eyes, she felt her awe diminish, although she could not say why, for they were still the essence of divinity. And then she noticed that beneath the heavy green cloak he wore, his tunic was slashed.

“You're wounded,” she said, eyes widening.

“Yes,” he said. “And the recovery will be long and difficult. If I could, I would tell you that it is not of your concern.” But his eyes lost a little of their light. “I have never lied to Maubreche, nor it to me.”

“Why—why have you come here?”

“A thousand years and more have passed since my worship was practiced in the world of man,” he told her gravely. “It is said that Gods, unworshiped, die—and this, at least, is false. But Gods unworshiped have no power to influence the course of the world of man.”

He raised his face, looking into the cloudy distance as if a storm was on the horizon. “A darkness has entered the world, just as I have left it. Measured against the strength of a God, it is weak and crippled—but measured against the races of the Covenant, it is strong.” Lightning arched in the skies above. “Had I understood the need, I might have asked for more, who had already taken too much from my people. I did not see—I could not understand—” He paused, and lowered his gaze to once again meet Cynthia's.

“My Lord,” she said, touching his shoulder softly, “what would you have of us?”

“Of Maubreche? Tend my sanctuary, follow my ways.”

“And of me?”

Like a Hunter—the very Hunter—he answered bluntly and without guile. “A child.

“Through my children, my influence is strongest; they are the vessels for some part of my power.” He paused, turning away from her paling face. “If I listen, Cynthia, and my child speaks, I will hear him across the divide. And if I speak, and he listens, he shall hear me.”

Minutes passed before Cynthia spoke, and when she did her voice was laced with bitterness. “Is there no one else you can ask this thing of?”

“If there were, I would. And if you had the time, I would wait—for I know the price that you have paid.” He turned back to her, his face grim. “But you are Breodani. Understand what it is I ask of you, and why. Because when you make your oath, I will take it, and it will be fulfilled.”

When
, Cynthia thought. Not if. The shadows beneath her eyes deepened as she opened her mouth and paused in silence, weighing caution against growing anger. At last, she gave in to the desire for words, although her voice was a Lady's voice, quiet in its sharpness. “You accepted Stephen's oath.”

“Both of them,” the God said gravely.

She made fists of her hands, and held back the tears that threatened to fall. “No,” she said, the word a low growl in the back of her throat. “He promised to return to me. He gave his life to you instead.”

“He was no oathbreaker,” the God said sharply. “Nor would he have returned to you had he been.” The storm in His eyes ended abruptly as he stared down at her; He had grown in stature, although when she did not remember. “But I knew what his end would be, and I accepted his oath.

“Cynthia, when my cloak of flesh was destroyed, the souls of my dead were free to walk the Halls of Mandaros, to meet him, to be judged, and to return to their birthworld if that is their fate.”

His hair began to soften, his shoulders to shrink in. Even his height dwindled as he spoke, and the voices of the multitude began to fade and dim, until only two voices remained.

She raised a hand to cover her mouth.

“But one soul alone, I did not release, nor would he have it any other way.”

She reached out to touch the face of the God, stopping a hair's breadth from the contours of his cheek.

“I will not lie to you, little one,” the Hunter said, although she was barely listening. “The spirit alone is the man that you knew; the flesh that is wrapped around it is my own.”

All the words made sense, but dimly and distantly; she began to cry in earnest, and the tears obscured his face, his blessed face.

“I can return nothing else to you,” the God said. “Except this: the knowledge that Stephen of Elseth is no oathbreaker; nor was his Lord. Or Lady.” And as he spoke the last word, the two voices became one.

And that voice was Stephen's.