Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (61 page)

 
          
She
stopped beside Aidan, but did not kneel. She was very tall in a chamber full of
tall men, and incredibly dominating through sheer force of personality. Aidan,
sensitized to her, still felt the tingle of her strength, and smiled in
bittersweet acknowledgment as he saw the recognition in Niall's eye.

 
          
Shona
wore, as usual, Erinnish tunic and trews, belted and booted. The heavy braid of
intricate double and triple plaiting hung over her shoulder, dangling against
the bedclothes. There was nothing even remotely feminine about her, or subdued.
She burned like a beacon.

 
          
"Keely's
girl," Niall slurred. "Ah, gods, but I knew she would bear one worthy
of the blood and trust and truth…" He swallowed with difficulty. "You
must wait your turn, my bright, brave Erinnish lass, but one day you will grace
the halls even as my Deirdre…"

 
          
Aidan
twitched. "Grandsire—"

 
          
Brennan
touched his shoulder. "Not now, Aidan. Later."

 
          
But
Aidan knew better: there would not be a later.

 
          
"Grandsire,
I bring news from Atvia." He cast a glance at Deirdre, so white and still
in her chair. "What would you most desire in the world?"

 
          
Niall
was visibly weakening. "I have what I most desire."

 
          
"No…"
Aidan caught Deirdre's hand and pulled her from the chair, onto her knees
beside the bed, then placed her hand atop the Mujhar's. "No, there is
more. There has always been more."

 
          
The
dimming eye flared. "Is it true? Gisella—?"

 
          
Aidan
swallowed down the painful lump. "Aye. In my presence." Then, knowing
it would require a formal declaration in front of kinfolk as witnesses before
being accepted by the Homanan Council, he raised his voice. "The Queen of
Homana is dead."

 
          
The
cold fingers twitched. Aidan took his own hand away and left Deirdre and Niall
to share the handclasp. Niall's voice was deteriorating, but he managed to give
the order. "Have the priest fetched at once."

 
          
Deirdre
was shocked. "Niall—
no
… let it
wait—"

 
          
He
summoned waning strength. "If I do nothing else before I die, my proud
Erinnish princess, I will make you a queen."

 
          
Aidan,
at the doorway, dispatched one of the guards for a priest. Then he waited
beside the door, not wanting to intrude on the Mujhar and his
meijha
.

 
          
The
marriage ceremony was necessarily brief. Niall struggled to say his vows.
Deirdre answered quietly but firmly, and when it was done she bent to kiss his
ravaged mouth.

 
          
"Queen
of Homana," he whispered. "It should have been yours from the
first."

 
          
Deirdre,
dry-eyed, shook her head. "I never was wanting it," she answered.
"All I ever wanted was you. The gods were kind enough to allow it… but oh,
my braw boyo, the years have been so short…"

 
          
Niall's
eye did not waver as he gazed at Deirdre of Erinn, now Queen of Homana.
"Better than none…" he whispered. "Better than none at all…"

 
          
She
was queen for the space of a breath. As Niall ceased to live, the title passed
to Aileen, and Brennan became Mujhar in his father's place.

 
          
It
was Ian who executed the custom. Slowly he went to the bed and took Niall's
hand in his, easing the heavy black seal ring from the still hand, and then he
turned. To Brennan.

 
          
"My
lord," he said formally, "you are the Mujhar. Will you accept this
ring; and with it, my fealty?"

 
          
Brennan's
mouth barely moved. "
J'hai-na
,"
he said. "
Tu'halla dei, y'ja'hai
…
Tahlmorra lujhala mei wiccan, cheysu.
Cheysuli i'halla shansu.'"

 
          
Ian
waited until Brennan put out his hand, and then he stripped from it the glowing
ruby signet of the Prince of Homana. He replaced it with the black ring etched
with a rampant lion.

 
          
Brennan,
stark-faced, nodded. "
Y'ja'hai
."
He took back the ruby ring from Ian, and turned.

 
          
Aidan,
still standing by the door, abruptly realized the ceremony included him.
Panicking, he backed up a step, met the wall with his heel, and stopped.

 
          
Brennan
took Aidan's cold hand into his and eased the topaz ring from his right
forefinger. The ruby went on in its place. "
Tu'jhalla dei
," Brennan said formally. "I declare you
Prince of Homana, heir to the Lion Throne."

 
          
Aidan
felt empty. He stared at his father, seeing a stranger; feeling a stranger
himself, defined by a single sentence that did not, he felt, accurately sum up
anyone, least of all himself.

 
          
"
Tu'jhalla dei
," Brennan repeated.
Lord to liege man; they all of them were liege men now, if by definition different
from the Cheysuli custom. That had been Ian's place. And Brennan did not, Aidan
realized in shock, have a true liege man.

 
          
He
swallowed heavily. "
Ja-hai-na
."
he whispered. "
Y'ja'hai, jehan.
Leijhana tu'sai. Cheysuli i'halla shansu
."

 
          
He
heard Aileen's quiet tears. Saw Deirdre's bone-white, bone-dry face. Saw the
rigidity of Ian's posture; the grief and comprehension in his father's eyes.
Sensed Shona's tangled emotions as painful as his own.

 
          
Something
moved. He looked to the bed. Serri sat up, amber-eyed in the shadows. Then he
jumped down and trotted out of the chamber.

 
          
Aidan
moved.

 
          
"Let
him go," Brennan murmured.

 
          
"But—
Serri—"

 
          
"Serri
is a
lir
."

 
          
It
was, Aidan knew, enough. Sufficient to explanation. And as he nodded,
acknowledging, he heard, as they all did, the single distant mournful wail
keening through the corridors.

 
          
In
chorus, the wolfhounds answered.

 
          
«
^
»

 
          
In
the pale, still hours of dawn, Aidan found himself in the Great Hall. The
firepit coals were banked. Only the merest tracery of first light crept into
the hall through stained glass, muting the colors into unaccustomed pastel
softness. The dawn did not yet illuminate anything below the intricate beamwork
of the high ceiling, losing itself in scrollwork.

 
          
Aidan
stood for a moment just inside the silver doors, listening to the silence, and
then he began to walk.

 
          
He
looked at the walls as he walked: at the faded tapestries generations old; at
the brighter, richer ones worked by Deirdre and her ladies. He looked at the
intricate patterns of weapons displayed on the walls: whorls of knives and
lances, brass bubbles of bossed shields, the gleaming patina of blades. Even
the floors now were not so stark; carpets imported from foreign lands softened
the hard bleakness of stone. Once Homana-Mujhar had been little more than a
fortress, a stone shell; now it was the cynosure in all its magnificent
splendor, the seat of Homana's power. And the font of that power was the Lion
itself.

 
          
Aidan
at last looked at the throne, thinking of the smaller version on the Crystal
Isle. But this one was different. This one was filled. This one housed a
Mujhar.

 
          
Aidan
stopped dead. He felt betrayed, his intention usurped. It did not matter that
he knew the man, or that he was flesh of the man's own flesh, only that he had
come to summon his grandsire, and his father had stolen the chance.

 
          
Brennan
watched him with eyes devoid of expression. He sat slumped in the throne
haphazardly, arms and legs askew. He wore black, as was his custom, and faded
into the dim hollowness of the crouching Lion.

 
          
Kivarna
flared. Aidan sensed grief and
anger and sorrow and pain; the acknowledgment of a new task. And the desire to
abjure it altogether, if it would change the present.

 
          
Aidan
walked. And then stopped. He stood before the Lion and the Mujhar it now
protected.

 
          
Brennan
did not stir, except to move his mouth. "Men covet thrones," he said
quietly. "Men conspire and kill and start wars and destroy cities, all for
the winning of a throne. But rarely do they think of what it means to
sit
in one… or to acknowledge the
consequences, the cause of the change in power."

 
          
Aidan
said nothing.

 
          
"The
firstborn sons of kings know they will inherit, one day," Brennan
continued, "but they never think about how they will get it. They consider
only what they will do when they are kings in their fathers' places, and what
changes
they
might make, and how they
will conduct themselves… but never do they consider how thrones pass into their
hands."

 
          
It
seemed to require a response. "How?" Aidan asked softly.

 
          
"A
man
dies
," Brennan said,
"to make another king in his place."

 
          
Aidan
purposely damped down the blazing of his
kivarna
.
He had no desire to intrude on his father's anguish; and even less to let it
intrude on his. "He would not have wanted to live forever," he said
evenly. "Especially like that. You know that,
jehan
. His time was done. Yours was come."

 
          
"Too
glib, Aidan."

 
          
"But
the truth." Aidan glanced behind, judging the coals, then sat down on the rim
of the firepit, balancing carefully. "When did it happen?"

 
          
"Two
days ago. At midday." Brennan scrubbed a hand across his weary face.
"He was with Deirdre, in her solar… they were discussing the need for
refurbishing guest chambers. Nothing of any consequence…" He sighed,
expression bleak. "One moment he was fine, the next—as you saw him."

 
          
Aidan
nodded. He had heard of it before, though he had never seen the results.

 
          
"We
were not at war," Brennan said. "And most likely never to go to war
again, so that he could die in battle… but somehow I always thought it would
come upon him another way."

 
          
Aidan
thought of something he had heard once, and repeated it, hoping to soothe his
father. " 'A warrior can predict his death no more than his
tahlmorra
.' "

 
          
Brennan
grimaced. "Too glib, again. But then you have always had smooth words when
everyone else had nothing." He moved, putting order to his limbs.
"Why did
you
come?"

 
          
Aidan,
hunched on the rim of the firepit, stared blindly at the dais through eyes full
of unshed tears. "I wanted to bring him back."

 
          
Brennan
said nothing at first. And then he released an uneven sigh that bespoke the
grief and understanding. "I wish there were a way—"