Prophecy, Child of Earth (45 page)

'She's as cold as a war-hag's tit, and twice as ugly. And you know it. Open your eyes, Tristan. See clearly what you are enrolling in, and for what purpose.

Whoever you marry will become Cymrian just by virtue of being your wife, may the All-God help her. It's not as though the line is pure, anyway. Marry someone who will make you happy, or at least who won't make your life a misery. If you are so lucky as to become Lord Cymrian, or king, or whatever, no one will care who she was, just who she is now."

The clarity of her words loosened the muscles in Tristan's forehead, which had been clenched from the moment he had heard of Madeleine's arrival. There was wisdom in Prudence's words, as there always was.

He tore off his knee-length undergarments and grabbed the coverlet, tossing it and the satin counterpane aside, then swept Prudence up in his arms. The warmth of her skin felt comforting against his chest. He had missed her this last month.

'I think I should behead Evans and make you my chief counselor and ambassador," he said, his hands sliding down her back and clutching her buttocks.

"You're infinitely wiser. And far more beautiful."

Prudence shuddered comically. "I should certainly hope so. Evans is seventy if he's a day."

'Indeed. And he doesn't have exquisite golden hair." The Lord Roland ran his hand down her locks, tangling his fingers in her ringlets.

Prudence broke free from his embrace and sat back, pulling the covers up over her breasts.

'Neither do I, Tristan."

'Of course you do," he stammered, lightheaded, his stomach suddenly turning cold. "Red blond, I meant. It's sort of gold."

'Spare me," she said, looking out the window. "You're thinking of her again."

'I was not—"

'Stop. Don't you dare lie to me, Tristan. I will not be played for a fool. I know who you're thinking of, and it isn't me." Prudence smoothed the sheet over her legs.

"And I don't mind, by the way. I just want you to be honest about it."

Tristan sighed. He stared at Prudence for a long moment, his expression flickering between guilt for the hurt he knew he had caused her, and amazement that she was always so willing to forgive him any transgression. In his life there would never again be anyone who accepted him so unconditionally, fully cognizant of his faults, loving him nonetheless.

When he saw a hint of a smüe creep back into her eyes he pulled down the covers, carefully this time, and slid into the bed beside her. Gently he drew her into his arms, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder.

'I really don't deserve you, you know," he said, something approximating humility in his voice.

'Yes, I know," she said, her face buried in his chest. It was smooth and broadly muscled, humming with the youth and vitality that Tristan's Cymrian heritage had bequeathed him, along with an extended life expectancy that Prudence herself would not enjoy.

'There is something I want you to do for me."

Prudence sighed and lay back on the pillow. "What?"

The Lord Roland lay back as well, staring at the ceiling. This was so much easier at night, after lovemaking, the time they usually discussed his obsession with Rhapsody. Then the darkness cloaked the room, held in by the bed curtains, keeping any decent feelings of shame at bay, allowing him the candor he would have had with his confessor, had he been able to talk to one.

But where the royal rank had its privileges, it also had its curses. The only clergyman of suitable station to hear his crimes and channel his prayers for absolution to the Patriarch, other than the Patriarch himself, was his bother, Ian Steward, the Blesser of Canderre-Yarim. It was becoming more and more likely that Ian would be performing the Unification Blessing of the marriage ritual, Madeleine's wishes notwithstanding. As a result he was left with no other confidant to hear his adulterous thoughts than the servant woman in his bed, his childhood friend, his first lover. The only person in the world he was certain he loved.

He covered his eyes with his forearm, affording himself some dimness in the absence of the night.

'I want you to go to Canrif—er, Ylorc, as the Firbolg call it." He could hear Prudence exhale beside him, but she said nothing. "I want you to deliver the Firbolg king's wedding invitation—and, uh, the one for his emissary."

'Emissary? Come now, Tristan, surely you can do better than that."

'All right!
Rhapsody
. Are you happy now? I want you to take the invitation personally to Rhapsody. Gauge her reaction. If she seems open to it, try and get her to come back with you to Bethany, or to at least come soon, so that I can see her once, alone, before I throw my future away, before I wed the Beast of Canderre."

'For what purpose, Tristan?" Prudence's voice was soft, without a hint of accusation. "What do you hope to gain?"

He sighed again. "I don't know. I only know that if I don't I will live in agony for the rest of my life, wondering what she might have said. Wondering if there had been a chance that I never took, that I never even knew about."

Prudence sat up in the tangle of sheets and pulled his arm away from his eyes.

'A chance for what? Do you love her, Tristan?" Her dark brown eyes searched his face, interested but otherwise expressionless.

He looked away. "I don't know. I don't think so. It's more—more—

'Desire?"

'Something like that. An overwhelming, inexplicable need. Like she is a bonfire in the depths of winter. It's like I'm wandering, shirtless, in the snow, and have been since I first beheld her. You've been right about my attraction to her all along, Prudence. I lost my head and committed a full brigade of my own soldiers to a grisly death rather than let her walk away from me. And, if you can believe this, she doesn't even know it; at least that's what the Firbolg king said.

'You knew better, of course, Pru, but I couldn't let myself believe you. Poor Rosentharn had orders to bring her back with the army when the Firbolg were crushed." He blinked rapidly at the memory of the Firbolg warlord, sitting on the edge of this very bed, playing with the crown of Roland like a child's toy, calming dispensing the news of the slaughter of Tristan's army.

Don't worry;
the cloaked monster had said in a sandy voice that whispered of death.
She has no idea that she was the one who inspired they massacre. Of course,
I do. Why do you think I sent her to you'? You are a man of free will. If you had
genuinely desired peace, you would have greeted my offer, and my emissary, with
open arms, no doubt. Any man, especially one who is betrothed, with less-than-honorable intentions toward a woman, would be untrustworthy as a neighbor as
well. It's just as well that you threw two thousand lives away trying to win her
attention now. You learned your lesson early. The cost would have been far greater
later on
.

The man-shadow had risen silently from the chair as the Firbolg king prepared to make his exit.

I'll leave you now to get ready for the vigil you will no doubt want to hold for
your men
. The Lord Roland saw no more of the monster's departure than he had of his arrival.

It had taken Tristan Steward almost twelve hours before he was able to speak again, another six before his speech was even vaguely coherent. A caustic, burning sensation had ripped through his gullet, swamping his mouth, with acid he could still taste now, these many months later. The death of his army had left him terrified and aghast.

But not aghast enough, apparently, to shake loose the image of the woman which still clutched his mind. Tristan lay back against the pillows and let out a painful sigh.

'I don't know what it is, this hold she has over me, this craving that makes me stupid, incapable of sensible thought," he admitted. He closed his eyes, blocking out the image of his tertiary infantry and horsed crossbowmen, and the poor unfortunates that had been unassigned to other duties that morning, their bodies never found, rumored to have become a grisly feast for their monstrous vanquishers. "It's more than carnal, but I don't know that it's love, either. I think part of what's driving me is the need to find out just exactly what it is."

Prudence watched his face a moment longer, then nodded.

'All right, Tristan. I'll go. That bonfire must be spreading; now I have an inexplicable need as well. My curiosity won't be satisfied until I see this creature for myself."

He grasped her face and pulled her to him, kissing her gratefully.

'Thank you, Pru."

'As always, anything for you, m'lord." Prudence twisted free from his hands and rose, walking to the dressing table where she had left her clothes, ignoring the look of blank shock on his face.

'Where are you going?" he stammered.

Prudence slid her dress over her shoulders, then turned to face him.

'To make preparations for my trip to see the object of your erection. Where else?"

'That can wait. Come back to bed." He opened his arms to her.

'No." Prudence drew on her undergarments, then turned to the looking glass, running her fingers through her tangled curls.

'I mean it, Prudence, please come back. I want you."

The servant woman smiled. "Well, had it occurred to you that perhaps the feeling is not mutual, m'lord? And if you're mortally offended by my rejection, perhaps you should considering beheading me and taking Evans to bed."

She left the room, Tristan's astonished face vanishing from view as she closed the door soundly.

cXhapsody slept beneath lacy shadows cast by the moon through the leaves of a brindled alder, the tallest of the trees in the thicket where she had sought shelter for the night. The wind rustled through the thicket from time to time, and the chestnut mare snorted occasionally, but otherwise there was silence at the western edge of the Krevensfield Plain.

A sweetness was carried on the wind that cleansed her dreams, making them more intense in the summer heat. Rhapsody turned on her side and inhaled the scent of the clover beneath her head, breathing in the fragrance of the green earth.

It was a scent she remembered from childhood, when on nights like these she and members of her family sometimes fell asleep in the pasture under the star-sprinkled sky.

She sighed in her sleep, wishing that the memory would turn to dreams of her mother, but Rhapsody had not been able to conjure up her image since before Ashe came to the mountain. Her mother had come to her then, one last time it seemed, and showed her a vision of her birthstar, her Aria, the star called Seren.

She relived that dream again now, though without her mother's soothing voice narrating it as she once had. Rhapsody sat up in her sleep and stared through the slender trees to the Plain beyond them. In the darkness of the field she could see a table, or an altar of some kind, on which the body of a man rested. The figure was wreathed in darkness; she could discern nothing but his outline.

Above her in her dream Seren winked in the night sky, shining large as it once had on the other side of the world. A tiny piece of the star broke off and fell onto the body on the altar, causing it to shine incandescentiy. The intense brightness gleamed for a moment, then resolved into a dim glow.

That is where the piece of your star went, child, for good or ill
, her mother had said in the dream.
If you can find your guiding star, you will never be lost. Never
.

Other voices filled her head. She could hear Oelendra speaking, the sadness permeating her words.

In tke end, when nothing was working, and Gwydion was in mortal agony, I
took a piece of a star from the sword's hilt and gave that to the Lady Rowan. I
offered it to them in the hope they could use it as a last effort to save him, and they
did, but he was too far gone. 'Twas a desperate gesture, and one that did not work,
but I don't regret trying.

'Oelendra, is that what I'm seeing?" she murmured in her sleep. "Was it the attempt to save Gwydion's life?"

That is where the piece of your star went, child, for good or ill.

Above the image of the body hands appeared, disembodied hands she had seen in a vision while in the House of Remembrance. They folded together, as if in prayer, then opened as if in blessing. Blood poured from between them into the lifeless form, staining it red as it filled.

Words, absent of any voice, spoke in her ear next to the ground.

Child of my blood.

The multitoned voice of the dragon spoke in the other ear, the ear turned toward the wind.

A Rakshas looks like whatever soul is powering it. It is built of blood, the blood
of the demon, and sometimes other creatures, usually feral animals of some son. Its
body is formed of an element, like ice or earth; the one made in the House of
Remembrance was made of earth frozen with ice. The blood animates it, gives it
power. If the demon is in possession of a soul it can place it within the construct
and the Rakshas will take the form of the soul's owner, who of course is dead. It
has some of the knowledge that person had. It can do the things they did. It is
twisted and evil; you must beware of him, Pretty.

With a shudder Rhapsody woke and sat upright. She was still in the thicket, the mare beside her, alone and unnoticed except for the touch of the night wind. She shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm herself.

'What are you, Ashe?" she asked aloud. "What are you really?"

The only answer was the warm breath of the wind. She could not make out what it was trying to tell her.

^eventy leagues to the west, the wind blew warm through the open gates in the ancient stone walls of the House of Remembrance, rustling the leaves of the tree that stood in the center of its courtyard. A figure, garbed in a heavy gray cloak with the hood pulled close about the face, stood at its base, gazing thoughtfully up into its branches.

At eye level, planted resolutely in a crotch above the first hollow of the trunk, was a small musical instrument that resembled a harp. It was playing a roundelay quite unlike any he had ever heard before, a simple melody that filled the entire courtyard, humming through the age-old stones. The man reached up to touch the instrument, the cloak falling away from a hand whose newly formed thumb bore only the slightest sign of red, healing skin. The fingers of the hand hovered for a moment over the strings, then withdrew quickly.