Jennifer Roberson - CotC 5 - A Pride of Princes

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2024-12-04 0 0 706.44KB 398 页 5.9玖币
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Prologue
The cavern was dense with smoke. The woman stepped
through and dutifully it followed, purling in her wake. It
gathered along the hem of her skirts like puppies on a
bitch, suckling at her feet.
She walked from shadow into glare, into the pure
clean light of godfire as it leaped from a circular rent in
the stone floor. A hole, like a wound in the earth itself,
bleeding flame.
Sparks issued forth, fell, formed a glowing necklet on
the nap of her velvet gown. But she did not flinch as they
died; the fire—like the sparks—was cold,
Beyond the flame, she saw her brother. Standing as he
stood so often, for hours on end, and days, at the rim of
the netherworld. Godfire bathed his face in its lurid
lavender glare, limning the magnificent planes of his
bones. A beautiful man, her brother; she might have
been jealous, once, but she knew she claimed more power.
He saw her. He smiled. In the light his eyes were
mirrors.
Briefly the flame died back; was sucked down, with-
drawn, like a tongue into a mouth. But the afterglow
remained, shrouding him in light. A transcendent lumi-
nescence that made her want to squint.
Beneath her feet, the floor was hard and sharp. The
entire cavern was formed of black, glassy basalt, faceted
as a gemstone. There were no torches in deference to the
godfire', there was no need for manmade light when the
Seker lent them his.
2 Jennifer Roberson
All around her columns gleamed. Slow spirals mim-
icked blown glass, delicately fluted; twisted strands, oddly
seductive, stretched from floor to ceiling. Light lost itself
in endless glassy whorls. The world ran wet with fire.
She crossed, hearing the echoes of her steps and the
chime of girdle, silver on black, nearly lost in the weight
of velvet. As always, she smetled the breath of the god.
But to her, it was not unpleasant. The promise of power
was a heady scent that set her flesh to tingling.
She paused on the brink of the orifice. "How long has
it been since you ate?"
He smiled. Trust you to concern yourself with things
such as food."
"How long, Strahan?" ^
He shrugged; smoke shrugged with him. "A day, two, |&"
three—what does it matter, Lillith? I will hardly waste fc.
away in the service of the god." l|
Briefly she glanced down. They stood but six feet apart;
between them lay a world. The world of Asar-Suti.
They had only to open the Gate—
Not yet. There was time. ^
Time for the fruition of their plans. H
"Come up," she said. "You should eat." ^
His hair, like hers, was black. And it flowed back from I"
a brow as smooth and unlined as a girl's, though there
was nothing girlish about him. It cloaked his shoulders
and reached beyond, bound back by a silver fillet wrought
with Ihlini runes. In the glare of the godfire his gray
suede leathers were dyed an eerie lilac, glowing purple in
the creases. The doublet hung open from throat and
chest, and in the gap she saw the white edge of a linen
tunic. Soft gray boots stretched to his thighs. His wide
belt was clasped with a two-headed silver serpent.
Lillith sighed as he did not answer. She was his sister,
not mother or father. But both parents were long dead,
and so this fell to her. "Will you come up?"
"I am hungry," he admitted, "but for something more
than food. And I am thirsty, also, but the wine I want is
blood. The blood of NialFs sons."
His eyes were alight with something more than re-
A PRIDE OF Piimcss 3
fleeted glare. One brown, one blue; even she had diffi-
culty looking past the mismatched pairing to the emotions
in their depths. But she looked, and she saw, and knew
his patience was nearly ended.
"A little longer," she said. "Surely you can wait."
"No. I have waited- I am done with waiting." He
smiled his beautiful, beguiling smile. "Lillith—I am
hungry."
"Time," she said. "We have all the years of our lives."
"They do not. They are human, even if Cheysuli. They
die. They live seventy, eighty years, and they die. While
we are still but children."
"You are still a child." Lillith laughed, and the girdle
chimed. "The last time I counted mine, my years were
nearly two hundred."
He grunted, unimpressed; he was young in years, com-
pared to her, but his power grew every day. "I have need
of them, Lillith. The sons are no longer infants, no
longer boys. They are men. Warriors. If we wait much
longer—"
"But we will." Lillith shrugged naked shoulders. "We
will wait as long as we must, and longer. Until the time is
right."
"Twenty years, Lillith!" His shout reverberated in the
hidden shadows of the cavern. "Twenty years since Niall
thwarted me."
"Twenty years is but half a day to us." But she saw his
frustration and felt a measure of her own. "I know. I
know, Strahan ... I weary of it, also. But we are close.
The game begins—all of the pieces are in place. As you
say, now they are of an age to make a difference."
"Of an age to serve me well." In the light, his mis-
matched eyes were eerie. "I want them. I want them
here, within the walls of Valgaard, so I may make them
mine. Mine to rule, as I will have them rule." He laughed
suddenly, and their eyes locked in perfect accordance
across the Gate of Asar-Suti. "When they are mine,
Niall's sons, I will set them on their thrones, all three of
them ... I will take their lir and take their minds, all
three of them, making them faithful Ihlini minions—" He
4 Jennifer Koberson
broke off a moment, considering his words; continued in
quiet, abiding contentment, "—and then / shall rule
through their empty bodies in the name of Asar-Suti."
Lillith smiled, nodded, sketched an idle rune in the air
between them that pulsed with purple godfire. It spun,
whirled, twisted; tied itself in knots, was gone. "Of course.
It is to be expected; we have laid our plans." She paused.
'Wow will you come up?"
"Up," he echoed. "Aye. In a moment- There is some-
thing I must do."
And in the eerie lurid light, Strahan the Ihlini knelt in
deep obeisance to the god of the netherworld.
One
The sun hung low in the west, painting the city rose-red,
ocher-gold, russet-brown. Sunlight, trapped and multi-
plied by mullioned glass, made mirrors of countless win-
dows. Mujhara was ablaze with gilded glory.
The one-eyed man stood alone upon the curtain wall
surrounding the massive palace of Homana-Mujhar. Spill-
ing in all directions from the battlements was the royal
city, home of kings and queens; home of the Mujhars of
Homana. Home to countless others of lesser birth as
well; he could not even begin to estimate Mujhara's
population. He knew only that the number had increased
one hundredfold, perhaps one thousandfold, over the
past two weeks. The festival was even larger than his
brother had predicted.
"Everyone will come, lan had said, from everywhere,
even the other realms. Scoff if you like, Nialf, but it
is past time the Homanans paid homage to their Mujhar.
More than past time they showed their gratitude for twenty
years of peaceful rule."
Twenty years. It seemed longer than that. And then,
at times, it seemed only days since he had assumed the
Lion Throne from his Cheysuli father, Donal, who had
given himself over to the death-ritual on the plague-bora
deaths of his lir. With Taj and Lorn gone, there had been
nothing left for Donal, save madness. And no Cheysuli
warrior willingly gave himself over to madness. Not when
there was a choice. Not when there was the death-ritual,
which was surely more merciful than madness.
S Jennifer Roherson
Niall sighed deeply, frowning down at the street far
below the curtain wall, and the smooth earthwork ridge
that girded the lower portions of the thick wall. He could
hear the distant sounds of celebration: faint ringing tam-
bors of the street-dancers; cries of stall-merchants; shouts
and screams of children in their finery, turned loose to
play in crowded streets and alleys.
Dead so long, my jehan. He readily acknowledged the
still familiar pain. There was grief. Regret. Even bitter-
ness, that a man so strong and healthy as his father
should throw his life away.
Homanan thinking, he told himself wryly, made aware
yet again of the division in his attitudes; how pervasive
that division could be. Have you forgotten the oaths you
made when you accepted the responsibilities of the lir-
bond before Clan Council?
No. Of course he had not forgotten. But it was difficult
to be two men at once: one, born of a Homanan mother,
who was the daughter of a king; the other born of a
Cheysuli shapechanger, a warrior with a lir, and claiming
all the magic the gods had given the race.
Automatically he looked for Serri, but the wolf was
not with him. His lips tightened in annoyance. How
could he have forgotten Serri was in the royal apartments?
Because, he told himself ironically, in a spasm of de-
fensiveness, with all the toasting going on, it is fortunate
you can remember your own name, let alone Serri's
whereabouts.
Still, it displeased him that he could forget for even a
moment, A sign of age, he wondered?
Niall abruptly laughed aloud. Perhaps. No doubt his
children would agree he was aging, but he thought not. At
forty, there were decades ahead of him still.
And then he recalled that his own father had not been
so much older than forty when the loss of his lir had
ended his life. His mother as well was gone; Aislinn,
Queen of Homana, had died ten years after Donal. Some
said of grief that grew too strong.
He stopped the laughter. Memories welled up. Most of
them Niall had believed buried too deeply to trouble
A PRIDE w PRWCES 9
him. The gods knew he had tried to bury them; with
drink, with daily council sessions lasting from dawn till
midnight, with abrupt departures—escapes—into the wood-
lands with Serri, seeking respite in his fir-shape. But
Deirdre had made him realize none of those things held
the answers; that he would have to find a place for each
memory and let it live there, where he could look at it
from time to time and know what was lost, was gained,
was learned.
Deirdre. The memories of her were fresh, beloved,
cherished, and very near the surface. But there were
other ones as well, buried more deeply: of guilt, of fear,
of self-hatred, because once he had believed her mur-
dered by his own unintended instigation. No matter how
helpless, how unknowing he had been, trapped within
the Ihlini web of madness, deceit and sorcery, he could
not think of that time in his life without experiencing a
fresh burst of shame, guilt, pain.
"So." She approached from his right side, his blind
side; he had not heard her, either. "With all your great
palace in an uproar, you'll be coming out here to escape
it." Deirdre smiled, glancing over the nearest crenel to
look upon the crowded city. "Peace in turbulence, then?"
Though she had been with him twenty years in Homana,
she had not lost the lilt of Erinn. He smiled, "Aye,
escape, except there is no escape. Everywhere I turn
there is a servant telling me I must go here, go there—
even lan. Even you."
Deirdre laughed, green eyes alight, and moved in close
to his side. His arm settled around her shoulders automat-
ically. She wore green, as she so often did, to play up the
color of her eyes. It suited her, as did the torque of
braided gold and carved green jade he had given her the
night before. "But 'tis for you all of this is being done,"
she reminded him tartly. "D'ye wish to disappoint so
many people who have come here to pay their respects?"
He grimaced. "You make it sound like I am dead."
Deirdre leaned her head against his chest. She was
neither tall nor short, but he was head and shoulders
above most men, even the Cheysuli. "No, not dead," she
Jennifer Kohersw
said cahnly. "Very much alive—or so you would have
me thinking; I who share your bed."
Niall laughed and hugged her against his chest. "Aye,
well, there is that." His fingers smoothed the weave of
her braided hair. A year younger than he, she looked no
more her thirty-nine years than his daughters. The hair
was still thick and brassy gold; the skin still fair and
smooth, with only a shallow threading of lines by her
eyes; her hips and breasts, respectively, still slender and
firm as a girl's.
"What were you thinking?" she asked.
"Remembering," he answered. "The night I stood atop
the dragon's skull in Atvia. and lit the beacon-fire."
Deirdre stiffened. "Why?" she asked. She pulled away
and faced him. "Why, Niall—why that? Twas more than
twenty years ago."
"That is why," he told her. "Twenty years. The
Homanans are even now celebrating twenty years of my
rule, and all / can see are the memories of what I nearly
did that many years ago." His voice was unsteady; he
steadied it- "I killed your father, Deirdre. And nearly
the rest of the eagles.'*
His pain was reflected in her face. "You fool," she
said softly. "Oh, ye great silly fool. Liam would be
taking his fist to you, he would. I should." She shook her
head and sighed. "Aye, Shea died, but he took the
assassin with him. Else we would all be dead, and you
could be blaming yourself for that." Firmly, she shook
her head. "You lit the fire, 'tis true, but 'twas Alaric's
doing. Thanks to his addled daughter."
Addled daughter. Gisella of Atvia, half Cheysuli her-
self, and Niall's full cousin. Poor mad Gisella, who had
married the Prince of Homana; Niall, now called Mujhar.
The Queen of Homana, who now resided in Atvia in
permanent exile from the land of her mother's birth.
He sighed. "Aye. Tis done, as you would say. But I
cannot forget it."
"Then don't. Come in, instead, where a bath is being
poured." She took his hand. "Are you forgetting? There
is to be a feast for you in the Great Hall."
A PRIDE OFPHIft/CES
II
"Oh, gods, not again," he blurted. "Who is host
tonight?"
"Prince Einar, heir to the King of Caledon," Deirdre
answered, smiling. "The one you want to make a new
trade alliance with."
He strolled with her along the sentry-walk. "Aye, I do.
The old one is far out of date; there are more conces-
sions to be won. Without them, we lose more money
than we make, which serves Homana not at all. What I
want to get—"
"No," Deirdre said firmly. "No, don't be filling my
ears with that. I've been hearing too much of it these
past two weeks, and I'll hear more of it over my food.
No, Niall—not now."
He laughed. "Well enough, meijha—not now. I am
sick of it myself."
The sentry-walk was not wide enough for two to walk
abreast comfortably, not when one was as large as Niall.
He moved Deirdre away from the edge, closer to the
wall, and assumed the risk himself. Below them, in the
other bailey, men-at-arms in new crimson livery prac-
ticed a close-order drill. The shouted orders from the
captain carried easily to the sentry-walk, though Deirdre
and Niall were still some distance away. It was easiest to
stay on the wall and follow it around than to go down into
the baileys, which were thronged with royal escorts and
honor guards from other realms.
Niall sighed. "I think Homana-Mujhar will burst be-
fore the month is through. Certainly Mujhara will."
Deirdre frowned absently. "Einar," she said. " Twas
him, was it not, so dissatisfied with his chambers?"
Niall snorted inelegantly. "You are chatelaine of this
great sprawl of red stone, meijha, not I."
Deirdre's face cleared. "Aye, 'twas him. He demanded
better quarters."
"Well, he is a king's son—and the heir to Caledon."
"And what of the heir to Ellas?" Deirdre demanded.
"Am I to put Diarmuid out just because Einar wants his
room?"
"What did you do?" Niall asked curiously.
Jennifer Robersou
Deirdre grinned. "Homana-MuJhar is filled to burst-
ing, my lord Mujhar. I made them share."
Niall's shout of laughter erased the lines of tension that
had etched themselves into his face as a result of trying
to juggle multiple princes, envoys, cousins and heirs with-
out giving offense to any. Deirdre felt he needed no
more lines at all, regardless of his responsibilities; Strahan's
demon-hawk had already ruined enough of his face. A
patch hid the empty right socket and most of the scar-
ring, but the old talon weals still scored the bridge of his
nose and much of his right cheek, as well as dividing one
tawny eyebrow neatly in half.
She glanced up at his face. To her, it was familiar,
beloved, unremarkable, save for the unmistakable stamp
of Cheysuli pride, even if he lacked the coloring. But to
others, unaccustomed to the disfigurement, he was note-
worthy only in that respect. She had first known him as a
young man, at eighteen, when the handsome looks of his
maternal grandsire. Carillon, had been fresh, boyish, as
yet unformed by adversity. But the demon-bom hawk of
Asar-Suti had robbed him of his boyhood in addition to
his looks.
For that, if for nothing else, Deirdre hated Strahan.
Through the casements of the palace came the dim
glow of new-lit candles. The rose-red hue of the stone
deepened as the sun dropped down behind the massive
walls, from pink to dull, bloodied gray. Deirdre sup-
pressed a shiver; there were times, she thought, Homana-
Mujhar resembled a monument to war and death, rather
than the home of Homanan kings.
Niall took her off the sentry-walk into one of the
exterior comer towers, then down a coil of stairs to the
interior of the palace. Deirdre had always felt Homana-
Mujhar more confusing than Kilore, the clifftop fortress
her brother Liam ruled from in Erina. Kilore, known as
the Aerie of Erinn, was plainer, more functional, lacking
the multitudinous staircases and tower chambers of
Homana-Mujhar. But then perhaps it was only time and
distance that made it seem so; Deirdre had not been
home in eighteen years.
A PKIDE OF PRINCES S3
"We should go," she said abruptly, as Niall took her
into his chamber. Protocol required they keep separate
apartments, and so they did—even had they wed, it
would have been the same—but more often they spent
the nights in his. "We should go to visit Liam before we
are old and gray."
Niall bent to greet the black-masked silver wolf who
got up from his place in the huge draperied tester bed to
lean against one thigh-booted, royal leg. Their brief com-
munion was intensely private, intensely singular, but Deir-
dre was used to it. No one came between a warrior and
his lir, not even the woman he loved.
Serri, his greeting complete, went back to the bed.
Niall smiled, brushed back a lock of hair from his brow
and looked at Deirdre in amusement. "The gray begins
already, meijha—perhaps we should leave for Erinn
tomorrow."
"Ah> ye skilfin, you're no more gray than I am!" But
she put a hand to her heavy braid as if to reassure herself
she bore no tainted strands. " 'Tis serious I am, Niall—
how many times must Liam invite us? And I his own
sister?"
"And still a princess of Erinnr" Niall stopped abruptly
as he shut the heavy door behind her. "Ah, Deirdre, will
you forgive me for that? You deserve to be a queen."
Astonished, she stared up at him. One slim hand was
locked in his plain brown doublet. "Niall . . ." Slowly
she shook her head. "Ah, no—d'ye think 'tis what I
want? No, no, my love—'tis nothing to me, I swear, this
thing of titles." Her mouth flattened, then twisted scorn-
fully. "Queen of Homana, indeed. Well, I say let Gisella
keep it—'tis all she has. I have you."
"Not so much, I think," he said mildly, but bent his
head to kiss her.
A knock at the door intruded. "My lord? My lord
Mujhar? Taggart, my lord ... are you there?"
Niall sighed. "A moment," he promised her, and went
to open the door. "Aye, Taggart, I am. What is it?"
Taggart was a slim, wiry man of fifty, clad in Homanan
colors: black tunic with a red rampant lion stitched over
Jennifer Stobersoa
his left breast. His trews were also black, with a gilt-
buckled red leather belt cinching his waist. Graying hair
was trimmed neatly against his head. He bowed briefly.
"My lord—it is the princes."
Niall looked past the man to the empty corridor- "Oh?
Where?"
Taggart was clearly uncomfortable. "My lord—not here.
That is why / am here." He paused. "Because they are
not."
The Mujhar's tawny brows rose a trifle. "Taggart,
what are you trying to tell me? And make haste—my
bath is getting cold."
Taggart bowed again, eloquent apology. "My lord,
I—well—" He paused. "They are missing."
"Missing?" Niall smiled indulgently. "For the moment,
perhaps, but I am sure they are here somewhere. You
might try the stables; Brennan has a new stallion. Or the
guardroom, if Hart has coin enough left for a fortune-
game." He shrugged negligently, patently unconcerned
by the temporary disappearance of his three sons. "And
only the gods know what Corin may have suggested as an
afternoon's diversion."
"Or Keely," Deirdre added dryly.
"My lord, no," Taggart said plainly. "I have looked in
all those places. They are not here. They are not m
Homana-Mujhar."
Deirdre came up to Niall's left side, where he could
see her clearly; it was a habit she encouraged in everyone
so he would not be embarrassed unduly or caught off-
guard. "They knew about the banquet," she said, though
it sounded more question than statement. "I know they
did; Brennan remarked on it. He said he did not think
much of Einar, or Einar's cousin, Reynald." She nod-
ded, frowning a little. " 'Tis what he said, did Brennan—
about the Caledonese princes."
Niall heaved a weary sigh of distracted annoyance and
scratched at the scars in his right cheek. "Well, if Brennan
remarked on it, then it took Hart to persuade him to
leave so soon before a banquet. And Hart, likely, was
talked into it by Corin. Oh, gods—" he cast a long-
摘要：

PrologueThecavernwasdensewithsmoke.Thewomansteppedthroughanddutifullyitfollowed,purlinginherwake.Itgatheredalongthehemofherskirtslikepuppiesonabitch,sucklingatherfeet.Shewalkedfromshadowintoglare,intothepurecleanlightofgodfireasitleapedfromacircularrentinthestonefloor.Ahole,likeawoundintheearthitsel...

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