PRINCE OF THE WIND (3 page)

"You care for this man?"

Gunter nodded eagerly. "We were suckled at the same teat, Milord—"

When Riain blushed, the prince was quick to amend his remark.

"I mean, Gerry and I were born three days apart and his mother was my wet nurse." He smiled affectionately. "She was truly more a mother to me than my own dame. I have always thought of Gerry as the brother I never had."

"Be glad you didn’t have one," Riain muttered.

The prince seized upon the remark. "You are the youngest of nine, are you not, Milord?"

Riain snorted. "Actually, the youngest of twenty-two."

Gunter shook his head with obvious amazement. "I had heard Chalean men are allowed more than one wife."

A snort of derision brought on a fit of coughing, but Riain waved away the prince’s help. He struggled up, feeling better by the moment, and folded the sheet down to his lap.

"I will tell you what my mother once said to my father—‘Any Chalean male foolish enough to dally with more than one woman at a time would not be dallying long. Nor would a Chalean woman so betrayed leave him anything to dally
with
when all was said and done.’"

"Yet you are one of nearly two dozen. Surely your mother did not breed you all!"

"Eighteen were born ere my father wed my mother. To twelve different servant girls."

The prince nodded as if satisfied by the answer, although he likely found such behavior appalling. Riain had heard that, in the Zones, the warriors practiced restraint in the begetting of offspring.

"Is it true your raiders take women captives?" the prince asked. "We have all heard tales of Chalean sea raiders who rape and ravage their way along the coast."

Riain clucked his tongue with annoyance. "You have us confused with those bastard Viragonians. The only women our raiders bring home are those willing to wed their raider and live in Chale."

"Ah," the prince commented, looking somewhat disappointed, probably because the wild, ugly tales of Chalean buccaneers were exaggerated. He leaned back in his chair. "Has your father betrothed you, as yet?"

"No!"

"But don’t the Chales betroth their children at a young age in order to make sure the bride remains pure and chaste?"

"Sometimes, but not always." Riain thought of Riordan, his nineteen-year-old brother who was about to marry an Ionarian lass.

The prince cocked his head. "Your eldest brother is…?"

"Tiernan."

"Aye. He is joined to one of the Wynth girls, is he not? A princess of the house of Oceania?"

"Her name is Rebecca."

"And that brother will be king."

"When my father goes to make his Peace with the Wind," Riain said.

Gunter de Viennes scowled. "He is a Windwarrior?"

"Every Chalean male takes the vow when he reaches the age of reasoning." Riain thumbed his chest. "I am to be inducted into the Society this year."

The prince got up from his chair and went to the window. His scowl grew darker as he pushed aside the curtains and stared out. "We are at war with the Windwarriors."

It was the first Riain had heard of it. "
All
of the Windwarriors, Your Grace?" he asked, suddenly feeling somewhat uneasy.

"Do you remember that we asked certain questions of you the day you were brought here?"

Riain remembered all too well, and at the time, the questions had made no sense to him. "You asked about an attack and wanted to know how many men would be coming."

De Viennes looked at him. "You know nothing of such things? Of an invasion planned by Hesar and the Windwarriors?"

Riain fisted his right hand and placed it to his heart in the Chalean pledge of one warrior to another. "As Alel is my witness, I do not."

"Alel. Your god?"

"The god of us all," Riain corrected, as sure of it as any priest or brother in the Order.

"Sometimes," the prince said, looking out the window again, "I wish I could make myself believe in the existence of a benevolent supernatural deity." He lifted a hand and plowed his stubby fingers through his graying brown hair. "Our gods are Destroyer-Gods. The only benefit we may draw from Them is revenge."

"Then perhaps you should investigate other gods, Your Grace. Ones who help instead of punish."

"Perhaps we should," the Northwinds prince said.

Riain tucked his bottom lip between his teeth and drew his brows together. "
Have
you sent word to my Clan?"

"We dared not send a ship to Chale for fear of being blown out of the water before they knew what we were about. Instead, we sent a ship to Oceania to let them know you are safely out of Hesar’s hands."

At the mention of the man who’d had him kidnapped and held for more than a year, Riain’s voice sharpened. "Now, they can attack the fool without worrying for my safety."

A hard look passed over de Viennes face. "I am told Hesar asked five-hundred thousand gold sovereigns for your safe return, but I’ve heard nothing of the Cree clan having paid the ransom."

"My father would have never paid that robber one thin copper, for he knew the ransom was only a blind. It was never Hesar’s intent to return me. I was to be held there until of age to marry one of his gods-be-damned ugly little haglets so he would have a hold over our Clan. My father and his men knew that. The paying of a ransom was merely to insure that I was not mistreated, but Papa knew he could never trust Hesar to keep his word on that account, either."

"I have seen the marks on your flesh."

"The whippings, aye," Riain acknowledged. He ground his teeth. "For that alone, Hesar will rue the day he ever laid leather to a Cree back!"

"I have no doubt of that," the prince replied with a smile.

"I don’t believe my father would cause you grief if you sent a ship to Briarcliff under a white flag."

"Even white flags are not safe in this day and age, young sir. I would be suspicious of a Chalean ship flying such a banner." He cocked his head. "Perhaps a personal signal from you?"

Riain pondered a moment. "There is a signal the Clan will recognize. It is never to be used unless there is an emergency." He hesitated, knowing such a secret could be used dishonestly, even cause massive problems for his people, if Gunter de Viennes was not the man Riain thought him to be.

"On my honor," the prince said, bringing his right fist up to his chest as Riain had done earlier. "I understanding your hesitation. But I have no sinister motive. I wish only to return you to your father—safe and sound—and not have him an enemy."

Riain had been taught to be a good judge of character, and he trusted this Northwinds prince. "Do you have paper and quill? I will draw you the emblem. I cannot wait to get home."

* * *

In the corridor outside the sickroom, Suzanna de Viennes drove her nails into the palms of her hands. Her lips pursed tight, while her eyes squinted in anger.

"You’re not going anywhere, my precious," she whispered. "I will never allow you to leave Northwinds!"

Sir Duncan Brell took the stairs two at a time, his boot heels slamming hard against the rough stone. Without bothering to knock—a social amenity he found ridiculous—he threw open the heavy mahogany door and burst into his Overlord’s bedchamber, startling the king out of a sound sleep atop the creamy peaks of his wife’s bosom.

"We’ve found the brat!" Duncan bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Christina Cree was more awake than her husband, and she threw back the covers, heedless of her nudity and Duncan’s quickly averted eyes.

"Where?" she demanded. "Tempest Keep?"

"Nay," Duncan murmured as he dared to look around. He relaxed when he saw his queen wrapping herself in a sturdy quilt robe. "Vent du Nord."

"The demons you say!" Aidan Cree snorted. "They wouldn’t have dared!"

"Nor did they," Duncan agreed. "They found the boy on one of Hesar’s frigates. He is well, although he was near death when they took him in."

A whirlwind could not have moved as fast as Christina as she rushed to Duncan. She grabbed the warrior’s arm in a grip that made him wince and shook him hard.

"What do you mean? Tell me, man! Do not stand there with your thumb up your coosit and let me have to wonder at your meaning!"

"Christy," Aidan cautioned.

Duncan knew that his Overload wished his Oceanian lady would behave with more decorum and cease using vulgar epitaphs. He pulled his arm away from his queen’s fierce grip. Although Duncan loved the emerald-eyed beauty as much as did his Overlord—though he would have never admitted such feelings even under penalty of torture—he was not so enamored of her he did not feel her barbed insults to his very core.

"The brat came down with Labyrinthian Fever somehow," he snapped.

"The Labyrinth!" Christina growled, sounding like a mother panther protecting her young from poachers. "That may well have been where they were hiding him." She turned venomous eyes to her husband. "I want Hesar’s head on a pike, Aidan Andrew!"

"I’ll see what I can do, Sweeting." Aidan turned to Duncan. "You are sure Riain is well?"

"The captain of the ship who brought the news swears he is." He withdrew a sealed note from his tunic and held it out to his Overlord.

Christina snatched the note, looked at the childish scrawl across the face, touched the writing, then tore open the envelop, much to the obvious chagrin of her husband and the annoyance of the Master-at-Arms. She hastily perused the note, then thrust it at her husband. "It is from my son. He says he is being cared for ‘most strenuously.’"

Both king and knight took in the savage look on her face, then glanced at one another. The lady had made spiritual contact with her son through his writing and whatever was in the note had angered her.

"You don’t believe what he says?" Aidan asked.

The queen jabbed a hard finger into her husband’s chest. "It is not what he says! It is what he doesn’t say!"

Aidan read the note, then handed it to Duncan, who did the same. The queen paced, the hem of her robe swishing like the tail of an enraged reptile.

"What is it he doesn’t say, Christy?" Duncan inquired.

"Fool!" she threw at him. "It is
who
he doesn’t say is caring for him ‘most strenuously’!"

* * *

Aidan shook his head to rid if of his wife’s assessment of the situation. Would he never understand women like Christina? Women who it was rumored "knew" things others could not. His own mother had been such a woman—though in her time they had called her a witch—and he had never understood her, either. This thing his wife had gleaned from their son’s writing, absorbed from his personal touch of the paper, had somehow triggered feelings in Christina that neither he nor Duncan could experience.

"Who do you think is caring for him, then?" Duncan asked.

"A woman who has designs on him, obviously," Christina snarled. "Can you not hear it in my baby’s words? The Northwinds princess thinks to join him to one of her beldames, and him, only two years out of knee pants! I’ll not have it, Aidan Cree!"

Aidan’s brows drew together. "De Viennes’ wife died in childbirth and he has not remarried. There was only the one issue and she must be close to thirty."

"And surely married," Duncan said.

Christina stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face her husband. Her face was chalk-white. "A spinster," she whispered in a voice that shook. "It is she who wants my son’s hand in Joining."

"What difference does it make?" Duncan demanded. "Surely de Viennes knows there can never be an alliance between Chale and any Zonelander. They are not of our belief." His upper lip lifted with contempt. "They believe in false gods."

"A union between our houses is absurd," Aidan proclaimed. "I’d never permit it."

"Aidan?" Christina questioned, fear making her emerald eyes wide and stark. "We cannot let this happen!"

Cree had never seen terror in his stalwart wife before. If anyone had ever asked, he would have sworn it was impossible for any Wynth woman to feel fear of any kind. Yet here was proof positive that Christina Elizabeth Wynth Cree shivered with fear.

"Why are you so worried?" he asked, gathering his wife’s trembling body into his arms. "Do you think I would let some heathen hag lay claim to our son?" He pulled her tighter into his embrace. "Have you no more faith in me than that?"

"Or me?" Duncan growled.

But Christina did not seem to hear. "How long has our son been with that woman?" she asked in a tiny, hoarse whisper.

Duncan shrugged when Aidan looked to him for an answer. "It took two weeks for the ship to reach us from Vent du Nord."

Aidan blinked. "The ship came from the Northwinds? How can that be? I did not heard shots fired this morning in the harbor."

Duncan chuckled. "The brat set the emergency standard upon the mast. He remembered what I had told him and reckoned on what we’d do when we saw that shamrock—"

"How long?" Christina shouted.

"Three weeks, perhaps," Duncan answered. "A month, at the most."

The queen brought her hands up to her face; they trembled. She stared at them as though they belonged to someone else. Tears filled her eyes. "Get him home, Aidan. Go. Now. Today. Before she has time."

"Time for what?" Aidan questioned.

But Duncan seemed to understand. "She would not. He’s just a boy!"

"Aye, she would," the queen whispered. "And will, if you do not hurry."

"Do what?" Aidan queried, suspicion nagging at his heels.

"Go!" Christina Cree ordered. "It may already be too late!"

* * *

Even as the Cree’s personal flagship,
The Banshee
, sailed from Meiraman with Aidan Cree and Duncan Brell on board, Christina Cree was well on her way to that mystical place where her kind journeyed when trouble brewed in their lives.

In the vast arid wasteland called the Shadowlands, the emerald obelisk of the Great Lady rose out of the amber bedrock and pierced the rose and violet sky.

Although the Chalean queen made this journey only in her mind, she could smell the dust of the Vanishing Plain. She felt the grit beneath her feet as she walked to the silver-finished fourth side of the obelisk, the Crossing Path, and began a plea to be allowed entrance to the inner sanctum of the Daughters of the Multitude.