Read Online Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 by A Pride of Princes (v1.0) - Free Book Online Page B

tongue over his
helplessness and undid the fastenings, Corin craned his head out of her way.
"But at least Brennan was banished to his chambers, too."
                Keely's fingers paused,
"Brennan was?"
                "All three of us."
                "He was displeased, then."
                "As he will be if I keep you
here longer." Corin pushed her hands away. "I will call a
body-servant—Keely, you must go. Give Einar a taste of your wit."
                "With sweet Maeve on his other
side?" Keely shook her head. "He will think me a waspish shrew.”
                Corin merely raised eloquent tawny
eyebrows.
                "Ku'reshtin," she
muttered, and took herself out of the room.
                Hart soaked in a hot bath, drank
half a decanter of wine, then suffered his ribs to be strapped by his
body-servant. Once the man was done and dismissed. Hart went over to the
polished silver plate hung on one of his bedchamber walls, and stared somberly
at the bandages that made it so difficult to breathe. But the linen strapping
did not draw his attention so much as the black eye.
                He fingered the bruising gingerly.
                "You," he said somberly,
"are a poor son. A poor son and a poorer prince. You know better."
                Almost at once he felt restored.
There. He had admitted his shortcomings; now he could get on with his life
without excess guilt. He tried a smile at the battered face in the plate, found
it did not hurt as much as he thought it might, and turned away.
                You know better, but it does not
stop you, chimed the voice that served as his conscience. All Cheysuli had
them. They were known as lir.
                "No," Hart agreed lightly.
"Why should it?"
                The hawk shifted on his perch in the
corner nearest the big tester bed. Rael was white save for the jet black edging
on each individual feather, and his eyes, which were the color of palest ale.
                It should if it is wrong, the hawk
pointed out.
                "Was I wrong?" Hart, still
nude from his bath, plucked the clean leather leggings from his bed and very
carefully pulled them on. He grunted, swore, cast aspersions upon the parentage
of the Caledonese who had so squashed him. And then he recalled that Corin had
had as much to do with it as the foreign guardsman, and promptly included his
brother in his deprecations. "How could I be wrong, Rael; I was only
defending myself."
                It would be redundant to say you
should not have been in the position to have to defend yourself, Rael
commented, having said it regardless of redundancy; it was often necessary with
Hart.
                "Enough," Hart said
succinctly. He rubbed his hands through heavy black hair still damp from washing.
In the candlelight the lir-gold on his arms, now bared, gleamed.
                The light lingered on incised lines
of intricate feathering; on the exultation of a hawk in flight, wings spread to
curve around the wide, rune-bordered armband. In honor of the lir, Hart now
attempted to silence.
                "Do you reprove your own
lir'!" asked Ian from the doorway. "A distinct admission of guilt,
harani. . . you are slipping. And if you tell me you deserve this exile from
the banquet, I shall know you have gone mad."
                Hart grimaced. Before his uncle, all
his new-found contentment fled. "No, no—I will save you from insanity,
su'fali. What I did was necessary, and certainly not deserving of
punishment."
                "Ah, I am set at ease.” Ian
grinned. He was five years older than his brother, the Mujhar, but like most
Cheysuli he did not show his age. His hair was still black, save for a single
silver forelock that fell to hide his left eyebrow, and his flesh still taut
over pronounced