WINDWEEPER (42 page)

"What was that?" he asked, removing his finger.

"Quarter, Milord. Quarter!" she screeched.

"I thought you'd never ask!"

He positioned his manhood at the doorway of her sweetness, then stilled. "And what was it you decided about my weapon, Milady?' he asked, straining to keep from ramming into her as hard as he could to satisfy the building passion in his loins.

"Huh?" she asked, arching up her hips as much as his heavy body would allow. "Legion, come on!"

"What was it you decided about my weapon?"

"That it was the most awesome broadsword this woman had ever seen!"

"And?" he probed, placing the tip of him against her.

"And that is was all mine."

Legion smiled and reached up to remove her blindfold. "Let's see how well I can ply this weapon then, shall we?"

The legend of Legion A'Lex's prowess as a swordsman of note was proven well to the satisfaction of his lady-wife that morn.

"Your heart is in the right place, Liza, but I'm not sure there's anything any of us can do," Cayn took his queen's hand in a light grip. "What you're asking may well be impossible."

"But Cayn, if we won't at least try, nothing will ever get done!"

Legion put his hand on his wife's pale cheek. "We can try, but I can't promise anything will come of it."

"I want my brothers back, damn it!" she snarled, jerking away from them. She turned her furious gaze to a third man. "We've bided our time since they were caught! We've sat and twiddled our thumbs while they were sent to prison! Three months, Teal! They've been gone three months and not
one
single word from Hern!"

Sir Hern Arbra, the Master-at-Arms of Boreas Keep, had gone to the Labyrinth Prison not long after Sentian Heil had been sent there. He had promised to send word, but other than two short, cryptic messages written en route to the colony where he had volunteered as a guard, no other word had reached the palace.

"He never reached the Labyrinth." Teal flinched as her stormy green eyes impaled him. He ducked his head.

"What?" Her voice was soft, deadly.

Teal looked at Legion. "Marsh found out only this morning. It seems one of the captains on the dock told him he had seen Arbra at Ghurn."

"What the hell is he doing there?" Cayn snapped.

Teal had not been considered a threat to the Tribunal, so had been spared imprisonment. With a stern warning from Tohre that, should he suddenly develop a backbone, he would be summarily hanged, the gypsy had kept a low profile, even going so far as to forgo gambling.

"Answer him," Liza demanded. "Why is Hern at Ghurn?"

Teal shrugged. "He got into a fight on the docks. Apparently the man he fought was important at Ghurn Colony and Hern wound up being sent there."

"Not as a guard?" Brelan asked.

Teal shook his head. "As a prisoner."

"And he's been there all this time?"

Teal nodded. "The captain Marsh spoke with said he could get Hern out of there without any problem if that's what we want."

"What did you tell him?" Liza inquired in a voice tight with anger.

"I told him we did. Did you think I'd do otherwise?"

"I'm not sure what any of you will do next!" she replied and turned her back on them.

Legion looked at Brelan and then Teal. He shook his head, but remained quiet.

Du Mer took a deep breath, folded his hands in his lap. "I have a solution if you'd care to—"

"Faith!" Liza stormed. "When
you
solve problems, du Mer, you usually create worse ones! But anything's worth discussing. What is your solution?"

Teal shifted in his chair. He didn't like it when she snarled at him, and he didn't like it when she reminded him forcefully of her first husband. Of late, a lot of what she said parodied Conar's exact words. It was unnerving.

"
Well?
" she yelled.

Teal pursed his lips. "One of us is going to have to go to the Labyrinth. We can't trust anyone else. Legion can't go; Cayn can't go. That leaves either Marsh, Brelan, or me. Since Marsh's wife is expecting, that leaves me and Bre."

"Just how the hell are you supposed to get there?" Cayn snarled. "And just why the hell can't I go?"

Teal swung his annoyed gaze to the court physician. "Despite the fact that you think like a man fifty years your junior and act like a man sixty-seven years younger, you are a bit old to go gallivanting half-way around the globe on such a dangerous mission!"

Cayn's eyes narrowed; his lower lip thrust outward. "You saying I act like a five-year-old?"

"If the tantrum fits!" Teal wondered why Cayn was so uncharacteristically rude.

"Besides," Legion said quietly. "You have to be here to deliver our babe."

Everyone turned to their King. Only Brelan did not offer congratulations. Instead, he walked to the window and eased aside the curtain to stare at the whipping post.

"How would you explain why you're there once you get to the Labyrinth?" Liza asked.

"We don't tell them anything," Teal said.

"You waltz in and
happen
to bring thirteen back for show and tell?" Cayn quipped.

"Fourteen," Liza said quietly.

Brelan and Teal looked at one another, mentally calculating the men who would have to be rescued: Grice, Chand, Sentian, Thom, Storm, Chase, Rylan, Paegan, Ward Summerall, Teal's brother, Roget, Tyne, and the two sons of the Emirate of Dahrenia, whatever the hell their names were. That made thirteen.

Teal nodded. "I had forgotten about Hern."

"Aye, but you'll have him before you go to the Labyrinth," Legion said. "Who else, Liza?"

"Jah-Ma-El," Liza said firmly.

"
Who?
" every man shouted.

"You will not leave him there!" Liza's firm voice brooked no argument. She dared the men to contradict her. Her temper was playing havoc with her normal good sense, but on this she was adamant. "You will bring Conar's brother home!"

Legion changed the subject. "How will you get there and who's going to go?"

Liza cast him an annoyed look. "Ask Teal. Something tells me he knows a way."

"I do have a plan that will work."

"You'd better hope it does," Cayn warned.

"The captain Imentioned is named Holm van de Lar. Do you remember him, Legion?"

"He used to take us sailing when we were boys." He looked at Brelan. "Remember him?"

Brelan's eyes narrowed in thought. "Go on," he told Teal.

"Holm told Marsh he could take a man to pick up Hern. If we ask him, he'll see to it we get on the right ship for the Labyrinth."

"The
Vortex
," Brelan said quietly, a long-ago conversation coming back to him. Pieces were falling into place.

"I don't know what the ship's name is, but he can see we get on the right one. At any rate, whoever goes will need a direct order from Legion. They are begging for guards at all the prisons, especially so at the Labyrinth because they now have five times more men incarcerated than they can handle. Since the tour of duty there is for at least three years, most men don't care to spend that much time in a place with a bad reputation."

"It's not as bad as people make it out to be," Brelan said cryptically. He waved his hand for Teal to go when those gathered looked to him in surprise.

"Anyway," Teal continued, eyeing Brelan suspiciously, "most who volunteer for duty go because they can't find work elsewhere, they've had a run-in with the law, or somebody's after them. But Legion can send one of us there by royal decree."

"Why would I?"

"What if either Brelan or myself got on your bad side? What if we did something annoying?"

"You do that all the time, but I'd never send you there! Though I've been tempted, of late."

"But what if this time it was so bad you couldn't overlook it?" Teal asked, refusing to rise to the bait. "What if you had no recourse but to send us there?"

"Like what?" Cayn interrupted. "Most crimes that carry a sentence to the Labyrinth are serious enough to warrant such punishment. You can't kill somebody, for heaven's sake! You can't rape somebody! They'll hang you! If you steal something, they'll whip you! I don't think either of you want that to happen!"

"But we can get into an argument with Legion. He can threaten us with a tour of duty at the Labyrinth if we don't toe the line. We won't be repentant, either, when he gives us one last chance to apologize."

"We'll be downright surly." Brelan chuckled. "Rude! Obnoxious!"

"I get the picture!" Legion told them.

"It'll work," Brelan promised, "but only if I'm the one to go."

"I should be the one!" Teal corrected. "I'm always getting into trouble and Legion's always yelling at me!" His voice turned bitter. "And my brother's still there."

Brelan looked at Liza's expectant face, then shook his head. "I'm the one with all the contacts." He turned to Legion. "Didn't you tell me the warden of guards died not long ago?"

"I'm sure the Commandant has already chosen a man to replace him. I don't have to send someone there for that."

"But you could. A just punishment for annoying you, wouldn't you say?"

Legion followed his line of reason. "So you would have some authority instead of just being a guard?"

"It should work," Teal said grudgingly. "No one would believe it if you made me a warden."

"No one but Holm van de Lar should know of this. He can be trusted." Brelan saw Liza looking at him.

"You are sure?" she asked.

Brelan weighed what he was about to say, gauging the effect it would have, loath to see the grief it might cause. "He loved Conar." It was all he needed to say. He saw her nod.

"And what happens when you get there? How do you get the men out of there and how the hell do you get back?" Teal asked, not having thought that far in advance.

Brelan took a deep breath. "I'll find a way. I have before."

Everyone turned stunned faces to him.

"It was about twelve years ago," was all he would say, no matter how hard they tried to pin him down. He had taken another man there with him, brought two out, but that was his business.

"You can't bring them home, Brelan," Liza told him.

"But I can take them to Chrystallus. They'll be safe there with Aunt Dyreil. Or Necroman."

"I'll sign a deportation order for, say, a week from now," Legion said. "You can start pissing me off first thing in the morning. I'll also sign that wardenship for you to take." He smiled. "When you're put on the ship, I'll not even bother to come say good-bye."

"I hate to wait even a day longer to get Grice and the others freed," Liza said softly. She smiled at Brelan. "Please piss him off well."

"I'll bring them home, Elizabeth."

"Even Jah-Ma-El!" she ordered. His sad, woebegone expression at the mention of his next eldest brother made her giggle.

After the others had left, Legion and Liza sat with their hands entwined, staring into the fire that tried hard to dispel the sharp April winds howling around the eaves.

"He'll do everything he can, Liza."

"I know." She stared into the leaping flames. "He feels he has to atone."

"Atone?"

"To Conar."

Legion understood. After all these years, she still mourns, he thought. Even after all this time, she daily thought of the man. Everything that was done, every word spoken by the men who had known and loved him, she saw as a tribute to Conar McGregor. He also felt the same heart-rending pain when that beloved name was spoken.

It lay like an unburied ghost between them. Sometimes he saw it hovering and it bothered him, made him just a little bit crazy, fiercely jealous. He would watch her and watch her some more until he saw that ghost waver and die once more. Then he could relax.

He wondered if the ghost of Conar McGregor would ever be laid to rest.

* * *

Brelan wondered the same thing as he sat in the tavern of the Green Isle that was now owned by two of the most gregarious and welcoming people he had ever known: Harry and Meggie Ruck, a middle-aged couple known by the McGregors. He looked up as Meggie brought him his meal.

"Well, Meggie? Have you decided to leave him and run off with me, girl?" he asked, winking at her, laughing as her heavy jowls jiggled and her round, immense face broke into a shy blush.

"Now go on with you, Lord Brelan!" she admonished. Her saucy grin regarded him. "You'd fare wear a little girl like me down with your appetites, I'm sure!"

He smiled at her. "There's more of you to love than that piece of fluff." He nodded at the voluptuous tavern wench who always tried to get his attention when he came to visit.

Meggie turned a frown to the girl. "That Dorrie be a piece of work! Her skirts been up more than they be down since she came to work for us!"

"Why do you keep her on?" Brelan asked, shoveling a mound of crisp fried okra into his mouth. "Harry and her got something going?"

"The hell you say!" Meggie snorted, giving him an evil look. "Harry likes his women pleasing plump, not pumped to please!"

Brelan nearly choked on his food. He looked into Meggie's militant face. "You are a piece of work, Meggie Ruck!" he mumbled around the food.

Meggie shook her finger in his face. "You be good, Brelan Saur."

One dark brow rose in a leer. "I'm better when I'm bad, Meggie."

Meggie swatted him with her dishtowel and hurried into her kitchen, her apron thrown up to her blushing face. Brelan could hear Harry's raucous laughter as she no doubt told him what Brelan had said.

"You have a way with the ladies, don't you, Milord?"

Brelan turned as the chair next to him was pulled out. "Only the ones who pay attention to my blarney."

"I heard you wanted to see me," Holm van de Lar said, sitting down.

Brelan finished his meal and pushed away the plate. As he wiped his mouth on his napkin, he looked at the man beside him.

Holm hadn't changed any in four years. Perhaps a little more of his hair was gone from his high forehead. Maybe his gut was a bit more ponderous, his nose a tad redder. His bulk still filled the chair to overflowing. His eyes were still the same intense orbs of honesty that Brelan now remembered from their conversation four years earlier.

"How have things been with you?" Brelan asked.

Holm shrugged. "Could be better."

"Are you still loyal to the family?"

Holm didn't need to ask what Brelan meant. "Aye."

"How much did you care for my brother, Holm?"

Holm sat back. His stare bore into Brelan, gauging the depth of the other man's sobriety. When at last he was satisfied Brelan was no worse for wear, he asked, "Why?"

Brelan's eyes fastened on Holm. "Because my life may depend on your answer."

A shaggy white brow leapt upward. "Is that so?"

"You spoke to a former Elite the other day. Marsh Edan?"

"I recall him."

"You told him you knew where Hern Arbra is."

"I did."

"And you said you could get him back to us."

"I can."

"Will you?"

"Aye."

Brelan leaned forward. "I may have been drunk when we last talked, Captain, but I was sober enough to see the loyalty when you spoke of my brother. I'd like you to tell me just how loyal you were to him."