A spark of pure anger flared in Taminy's breast-a flame of outrage that licked, like a hot tongue, at her soul. "You a.s.sume much about your power, Regent."

He spread aislinn hands and moved toward her with steady steps. "I am here. Do I not seem substantial to you? Would a touch prove my power?"

In the back of her mind, the hatred gained substance and power; it coiled, straining to be unleashed, to destroy him utterly. She considered it, fleetingly, a swift slash of fury-surely that's all it would take. He couldn't possibly be as strong as he believed himself. Someone so evil could never be that strong. She hefted the hatred as a sword, felt its weight and balance, looked into the aislinn Feich's pale eyes, prepared to strike.

The impulse died in a choking surge of panic; Taminy cowered before it-before her own hatred. "Be gone!"

She edged backward, holding up a hand, restrained, the killing inyx clutched in it like a ball of flame. Feich watched the hand rise; was that fear in his eyes? Had he read her impulse to destroy him? Did he read her present shame? She let the destructive Weave unravel, leaving only the simple Shieldweave.

He laughed. "You'll have to do better than that, my dear. I am stronger than you imagine."

"Leave me!" she told him, voice low, reining in rage. "If you'd have an answer from me, leave me!"

"I'd have more than an answer." He took another step, crowding her.

In the instant Taminy's shoulder pressed into the stone of the hearth mantle, in the instant fury threatened to engulf her, the door of her room thundered and flew open. In its black maw, Catahn poised, sword in hand.

In a heart's beat he was in the room, face ashen, eyes struggling to take in what they saw. The false Feich turned, shedding bits of his aislinn stuff upon the floor to melt like fiery snow. With a roar of outrage, Catahn wielded his sword in a singing arc through the ephemeral figure. The blade pa.s.sed clean through in a shower of sparks, the image exploding into a thousand fragments of gleaming, riotous laughter.

Feich was gone, leaving only an echo and an after-image of ruddy flame.

"Taminy!" Catahn crossed the room to her in two strides, dropping his sword to pull her into his arms. "Lady! Dear G.o.d, how did he come to be here? Has he grown that strong? What did he say to you?"

She drew away from him, straightening her robe, willing herself to calm and self-possession.

"In a moment," she said, turning her face to the fire. "In a moment, I'll tell you. Just now I need to pray. Wait for me here," she added, and withdrew to her bed chamber.

It was more than a moment before she came to him where he paced, back and forth, back and forth across her parlor. She told him, in a voice like icy water what Daimhin Feich had demanded of her.

Cold rage clawed at his gut. Cold rage and a desire to hack Daimhin Feich's smile from his face with a dull blade. How dare he contemplate marriage to Taminy? How dare he suggest that there could ever be a bond of any kind between them? That she should bear his child?

She was watching him. Watching him clench and unclench his fists, fight to control the breath that wanted to come out in a roar. Words flew from his mouth before he could drag them back: "You should be no man's wife!"

She was silent for a long moment and, when she spoke, her words jolted him. "Why should I not? Can I not be loved?"

He sucked breath into his lungs. "Loved, yes. Adored. Obeyed. But wanted, never! To tie you in such a profane bond-!"

"How, profane? The Spirit made us this way-male, female, capable of generating new life through our union. He asks only that that union be one of love."

"You'll get no love from Feich. He desires only to conquer and possess. There is no love in that man. None."

"No. But there is love in another."

"What are you saying? Of whom do you speak?"

"What man loves me, Catahn? What man puts me before life itself? What man's life is tangled in mine so that we might never untwine?"

She gazed at him with those extraordinary green eyes and he knew that none of his anguish, and none of his weakness, had gone unnoticed. Well, he should have known that. To be close to Taminy was to expose oneself completely. He was daft to have thought he could hide his feelings from her.

Shamed to the depths of his soul, he lowered his eyes, unable to stand her scrutiny.

"Forgive me," he said.

"Forgive you? Never."

His head jerked up and fear, abject and paralyzing, wrapped itself around his soul. Compared to this, he had never known fear. Now, it gutted him.

She came to him, then, taking his huge hands in hers, pulling his gaze down to her face, denying him escape. "I will never forgive you if you don't speak to me plainly from this moment on. What am I to you, Catahn?"

"You are my life," he moaned. "But the thoughts I have had. The dreams I have dreamed . . ." Tears started from his eyes.

"Feich's nightmares? Forget them."

He shook his head, miserable. "No, no! My own."

"I dreamed them with you," she said. "Every night praying that you would wake the next morning and bring them to me to share."

What was she saying? He shook his head and the bells braided into his hair whispered an unbelieving duan.

Taminy's grip on his hands tightened, feeling like fingers of flame. "Catahn, I love you. I would be your wife."

G.o.d, but he'd never been so cold-a column of ice with a soul of fire. He would melt. "You can't mean it."

"Why?"

"You're Osmaer. The Shadow of the Meri. Your purity-"

"I'm human, Catahn. A woman. I have a mission, but the mission is not me. What is impure in our love?"

He groaned, finally tearing his eyes away from her perfect, gleaming face. "I!" he said. "I am impure. My hands are soiled. I've stolen, killed, betrayed my wife, fathered a child on a woman who was not mine-"

"You love me."

"I could be your father." He laughed-a sharp, humorless bark. "My own daughter is two months older than you are."

"Your love for me is not a father's love for a daughter," she observed, and he melted further. "My love for you is not a daughter's love for a father."

He closed his eyes and imagined flame danced behind them. "But to be your husband-"

He could feel her eyes on his face, feel her aidan probing his soul. She let go of his hands suddenly and released him, body and spirit. He nearly collapsed in a swift agony of aloneness.

"I have laid myself open to you, Catahn Hageswode. Not as Taminy-Osmaer, but as Taminy-a-Cuinn. I have confessed my love for you-my desire for union with you. I cannot demand your heart or order your soul-"

"Lady, you have both my heart and my soul."

She put up her hands then, palms out, as if pressing at the invisible barrier between them. Her expression was agony itself. "Then why do you hide them from me behind this wall?"

His heart broke, and the wall with it. He swore he could hear the cracking of them as he bore through and pulled her up into his arms. His hands dared to tangle themselves in the long, golden banner of her hair; his lips dared to taste hers. He was consumed at once by glory and self-loathing. Then, the loathing was itself consumed in a swell of light and heat.

"I would be your husband," he murmured against the warmth of her neck, and shivered at the significance of the words.

"I would be your wife," she answered, and turned her head for his kiss.

Deardru was part of the cold that emanated from the stones of Hrofceaster; her breath was the chill draft that eddied in its halls. No, the stones beneath her feet had never been and could never be as cold as her heart was this moment. Her eyes blurred, making chaos of the framed scene-the fire-lit sward of carpet, the ma.s.sive hearth, the two forms melded in a haloed silhouette, their shadows lying suggestively across the floor.

Forcing down the bile that rose to her throat, Deardru backed silently away from the open doorway and lost herself to the darkness.

Chapter 22.

How can a man banish hate if he thinks, "He mistreated me, he beat me, he defeated me, he dispossessed me?"

How can hate touch a man if he does not think, "He mistreated me, he beat me, he defeated me, he dispossessed me?"

Here is an eternal law: Hate does not defeat hate; only love does."

-The Corah, Book I, Verses 50-52 "Ah, here you are, lord!"

Airleas left off his morose contemplation of the plumes of smoke from his enemy's campfires and turned from the narrow window to see Deardru-an-Caerluel step up into the small, dark alcove behind him. He couldn't hide his surprise at seeing her there; he'd thought himself well hidden.

"Mistress an-Caerluel! How did you find me?"

She smiled. "You wear Raenulf's amulet. I can find you anywhere."

Airleas felt for the little stone catamount, warm beneath his woolen tunic. "I thank you for it, mistress. It helps me focus my thoughts."

"What were your thoughts just now, Airleas?"

He turned his eyes back to the slitted window. "How near he is. I can feel him out there, scheming. Plotting to lay hands on me and drag me back to Mertuile as his puppet."

Deardru's face darkened. "Aye. Plotting to lay hands on your poor Mistress, as well. G.o.d knows what he will make of her once he has got her."

Airleas glanced at her sharply. "He won't get her. She won't let him. He'd make her a prisoner."

"Nothing so simple as that, I fear. No, I overheard his plans for her, Airleas. He is a vile man. No, not a man-a monster."

"What plans? What have you heard?"

"He would force her to marry him to a.s.sure her submission."

"Submission?" Airleas cried. "She would never submit to him! How can he imagine she would? She's Osmaer!"

Deardru shook her head, eyes sad. "It pains me to see how your innocence will be sacrificed to this siege, child. Feich has made Taminy's submission to him the price for your life and freedom."

Airleas thought the entire fortress trembled about him.

"No," he whispered. "Taminy must never have to make such a choice. She won't make it. Feich could never convince her. He hasn't the strength-"

"I pray you are right. But, in my heart-in my soul-I fear you're wrong. You are Taminy's greatest concern. She has made herself responsible for you. She loves you. I suppose, in a sense, she has taken the place of your father-watching over you as if you were her own child. As to Feich . . . well, it seems he has more power than we had thought. There are rumors . . ."

Airleas prodded her with his eyes.

"There are rumors Feich has allied himself with some Dark Force, some evil spirit he has conjured."

"I don't believe in evil spirits. They're just excuses we make for our own weaknesses."

She clucked at him in motherly concern. "It's never wise to taunt things we don't understand, child."

"I'm sick of being a child!" Airleas exploded. "I want to be a man! I should be watching over her! I should be protecting her from-from that demon!"

Deardru uttered a soft, sighing laugh. "How much like Raenulf you are. If he were alive, he'd call you a man. I call you one. Catahn should have required your Crask-an-duine long ago."

Airleas was silent, fuming, impotent. G.o.d, how he hated this feeling. If he were only a man-truly a man-then he would . . . he could . . .

"Aye. Raenulf would have felt the same, in your stead. Oh, he would have been aflame with the pa.s.sion to act."

"What would he do, in my stead?"

Deardru smiled wistfully. "A big question, that. "Well, knowing my Raenulf, if he were here, I think he would sneak himself outside these walls, find his way to the rainbow colored tent of Daimhin Feich and kill him. Yes, I'm certain that's what he'd do. Raenulf was no more a coward than you are. I was right to give you his amulet."

Airleas glanced at her, found her black eyes on him, hot and intense. Did she expect him to-? A chill seized him-a chill of pure exhilaration. Hadn't he daydreamed of doing what Deardru suggested-of confronting Daimhin Feich in his own territory?

But sneaking into his tent, killing him by stealth . . . "No. No, that wouldn't be right," he murmured. "I need to meet Feich face on, and not in secret."

"n.o.ble," said Deardru. "But if you wait for that time, Taminy will fall into his hands. Can you allow that?"

"Maybe Raenulf would do as you say. Maybe he would seek Feich out and kill him. But I . . . I can't do that. If I did that, I'd be no better than Feich. I'd betray all Taminy has taught me. All she intends for me."

Deardru's eyes were shadowed now-guarded-Airleas could not read them, but only feel their pressure. "Yet, if you do nothing, do you not betray Taminy, herself? Do you not betray all those who look to you as their Cyne? Do you not betray the honor of your House? Feich spits at the Malcuim; he defiles your father's throne; he would defile your own dear Mistress. Are these not things that cry for vengeance? For sacrifice?"

Airleas pushed back against the weight of Deardru's regard. "If I murdered Feich in such a way, I'd sacrifice my soul. Where would be honor then? Or vengeance? No. Taminy would never wish me to do that."

Deardru shook her head, spraying him with impatience and contempt. "Perhaps you are not so much like Raenulf as I thought-nor so ready for manhood. No, poor Airleas, you are still a little boy, after all."

When she was gone, he could still taste her disappointment as something bitter and acrid in the damp chill of the alcove. It seemed excessive and the excess bemused him. Why should her disappointment be so deep? Could she harbor such a hatred for Daimhin Feich, a man she had never met, that she willed him dead?

He rubbed the little jet catamount between thumb and forefinger. Futile to wonder. Yet flowing back to him through the little effigy, he could still feel her anger, her contempt, and a cold current of resolve.