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

Brennan's face
assumed a grim mask. He glanced down at Kellin as he carried Urchin into the
street. "What did he say to you, Kellin?"
                Kellin shrugged. "I couldn't
understand it all. They were just—words."
                "Tell me the words
anyway."
                Kellin squirmed self-consciously; he
did not want to admit to his fear of the Lion. "Cynric."
                Brennan's mask slipped, baring naked
shock beneath. "Cynric? He said that?"
                "A name." Kellin frowned.
"And a sword, and a bow, and a—knife?"
                "Gods," Brennan whispered.
"Not my grandson, too."
                It terrified Kellin to see his
grandfather so stricken. "Not me?" he asked. "Why do you say
that? Grandsire—what does it mean'?"
                "It means—" Brennan's
mouth tightened into a thin, flat line. "It means we will go visit your
fortune-teller—who speaks to you of Cynric—before we go home."
                "Why? What did he mean?"
Desperation crept in; did it have to do with the Lion? "What does 'Cynric'
mean?"
                " 'Cynric'?" The Mujhar
sighed as he handed Urchin to a guardsman and ordered him put up on his own
mount. "It is a name, Kellin ... an old, familiar name I have not heard in
ten years. Since your jehan first brought you to us—"
                "Before he left." Kellin
blurted it out all at once; bitterness encased it. "Before he left.”
                "Aye." Brennan rubbed
absently at the flesh of a face suddenly grown old. "Before he left."
He looked at Rogan. "Can you direct us?"
                Rogan glanced very briefly at Kellin
before looking back to the Mujhar: a subtle question to which the boy was not
blind, though adults believed he was. "My lord, perhaps later would be
better."
                "No." Brennan threaded
reins through his hand, turning toward his mount. "No, I think now. He has
spoken the name to Kellin without knowing who he was—or so you would have me
believe...."
                He patted Urchin's stiff thigh, then
climbed up easily. "And even if he did know who Kellin was, he also knew
the name. I want to ask him how he came by it, and why he speaks of it now to a
ten-year-old boy."
                "Aye." Rogan moved like an
old man toward his own mount. "Of course, my lord, I can direct you to him
at once. Although I must warn you—" the tutor mounted with effort, as if
his bones hurt,
                "—he smokes husath. It is
possible . .." He made a gesture with one hand that suggested such a man
was unpredictable, and his employment.
                Brennan's face was grim. "Aidan
never did. But he knew the name, also."
                "Grandsire?" Kellin stood
in the street, staring up. It seemed to him Urchin had usurped his place.
"Is there a horse for me?"
                "Rogan's," his grandfather
told him, "so you may say more privately how sorry you are for the worry
you caused."
                Ashamed, Kellin nodded. "Aye,
grandsire. I will."
                Summerfair revelers still gathered
in the streets, making it difficult for a mounted party to pass through;
Brennan gave orders that his presence not be cried, since he wanted to come
upon the fortune-teller unaware, and so the Mujharan Guard merely suggested
people move, rather than forcing it. The journey took longer than Kellin
recalled to reach the faded, striped tent, but then he could not remember for
how long he had run.
                "Here," Rogan murmured.
                The cat and the dog were gone. Flies
sheathed the doorflap. "My lord." One of the guardsmen swung down and
then another. Kellin watched as two of the crimson-tabarded men entered the
tent while the other two stood very close to the Mujhar and his heir,
                One of the men was