Read Online Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 by A Tapestry of Lions (v1.0) - Free Book Online

why
do you stay in it?"
                "No choice." Urchin picked
at his threadbare tunic. His thin face was pinched as if his leg pained him.
"No mother, no father, no kin." His expression hardened. "I'm a
thief, and a good one."
                He looked at his swollen ankle-
"Sometimes."
                Kellin nodded. "Then I will
have Rogan pay your copper, too, and you will come back with me."
                Urchin's dirt-mottled face mocked.
"With you."
                "To Homana-Mujhar."
                "Liar."
                Kellin laughed. "As good a liar
as a thief."
                Urchin turned his shoulder: eloquent
dismissal.
                With his pallet nearest the door,
Kellin awoke each time a new arrival was pushed into the room throughout the
night. At first he had been intrigued by the number and their disparate
"crimes," but soon enough boredom set in, and later weariness; he
fell asleep not long after a plain supper of bread and thin gravy was served,
and slept with many interruptions until dawn.
                The commotion was distant at first,
interesting only the few recently imprisoned souls who hoped for early release.
That hope had faded in Kellin, who found himself reiterating to a dubious
Urchin that indeed he was who he said he was, and was restored only when he
heard-the voice through the door: the red-haired man, clearly frightened as
well as astonished.
                Kellin grinned at the young thief
through pale dawn. "Rogan. I told you, Urchin."
                The door was opened and a man came
in. It wasn't Rogan at all, but the Mujhar himself, followed by the giant.
                Kellin scrambled hastily to his
feet. "Grandsire! You?"
                The giant was very pale. "My
lord, how could we know? Had we known—"
                Stung by the outrage, Kellin turned
on the man. "You knew," he declared. "I told you. You just
didn't believe me." He looked at his grandfather. "None of them
believed me."
                "Nor would I," Brennan
said calmly. He arched a single eloquent brow. "Have you taken to swimming
in the midden?" Yellow eyes brightened faintly, dispelling the barb-
"Or was it an entirely different kind of Midden?"
                Kellin recalled then the whore's
words, her mention of the Midden. It basted his face with heat. Such shame
before his grandsire! "My lord Mujhar . . ." He let it trail off.
Part of him was overwhelmed to be safe at last, while the other part was
mortified that his grandsire should see him so. "No," he said softly,
squirming inside filthy leathers. "I fell ... I did not mean to get so
dirty."
                "Nor so smelly." Brennan's
gaze was steady. "Explain yourself, if you please."
                Kellin looked at the giant.
"Didn't he tell you?"
                "He told me. So did the other
man. Now it is for you."
                Kellin was hideously aware of
everyone else in the room, but especially of his grandfather, his tall, strong,
Cheysuli grandfather, whose dignity, purpose, and sense of self was so powerful
as to flatten everyone else, certainly a ten-year-old grandson. The Mujhar
himself, not Rogan, standing in the doorway with the sunrise on his back,
^r-gold gleaming brightly, silver in his hair, stern face even sterner. The
wealth on his arms alone would keep Urchin and others like him alive for years.
                In a small voice, Kellin suggested,
"It would be better done in private."
                "No doubt. I want it done
here."
                Kellin swallowed heavily. He told
his grandsire the whole of it, even to the woman.
                Brennan did not smile, but his mouth
relaxed.
                Tension Kellin had been unaware of
until that moment left the Mujhar's body. "And what have you