Pride of Princes - Part Two, Chapter Five

[kalinara]

So last time, Brennan's impulsive bout of white-knighting has apparently gotten him into a shit ton of trouble. And we learned that Homana really is not any safer a kingdom to inherit than Solinde or Atvia after all.



So we're back with Brennan, and Rhiannon has decided to pay him a visit. If you recall, Brennan has overheard Rhiannon and Jarek talking. She's involved too.

Eventually, Rhiannon came. She set the place alight with a single candle and knelt by him in shadows. Her palm was cool on his brow. Gently she parted sweat-stiff hair, pushed it back to bare the wound.

He jerked away from her.

She drew in a startled breath, twitching in shock.

Yeah, Brennan, rather understandably isn't feeling terribly social. He demands, emphatically, to know what happened to Sleeta. He can't feel her in the link. Ooo, well, that probably doesn't help matters. Thanks to Track of the White Wolf, we know how rough it is when someone's cut off from their lir.

Rhiannon thinks it's the drug. Jarek had drugged the wine jug, to dull Brennan's magic. That's pretty interesting in its own right. How does Jarek know how to DO this?

Brennan's not buying this shit:

  The candlelight was kind to her face. Black hair, fair skin, long-lashed eloquent eyes— Inwardly, the fear and fury rose. "By the gods, woman, you tricked me! You sucked me into this madness of Jarek's making."

"No! Oh, no, I swear . . ." Tears welled up into her eyes. "I knew noth—"

Brennan's mocking laughter cut her off. "Oh, aye, give me tears! No, no, woman, not again ... I will not succumb to your posturing of innocence yet again."

"My lord—"

"I heard you," he accused. "You and Jarek, discussing my health and welfare, and the plans for my demise. Do you think I am a twice-born fool?" Iron chimed as he fisted grimy hands. "Go, woman. Hie yourself back to the man who is so kind, so generous, so—"

I mean, yeah. Kinda hard to blame him here. But maybe things aren't as simple as they look. Rhiannon desperately pleads her innocence.

  "What do you want me to say?" she demanded. "Shall I swear by your gods? By the Mujhar? By this?" Light caught the sapphire ring dangling from its thong and set the gemstone aglow. "Then I will swear by you, my lord prince—by Brennan of Homana, firstborn of the Mujhar's sons, and destined one day to sit upon the Lion Throne."

"So glib," he retorted. "You spew out titles and destinies like a shar tahl, woman, but I will not be suborned by you again."

Rhiannon briefly bared small white teeth in a feral display of frustration. "You fool—I came here to give you what aid I can, and you spend your strength on insults!"

Gosh, Rhiannon, sorry that the dude who is IN CHAINS and ABOUT TO BE SACRIFICED isn't terribly friendly.

She says she's here to help. She starts by telling him that Jarek has the key to his chains.

Okay...and...? What is the chained up guy supposed to do about that?!

He wanted to strike the innocence from her face. "Are you not his whore, then? Have you no bed skill, that you cannot tease the key from him? Better yet, steal it!"

Color flamed in her face to rival the candlelight.

"Jarek—is my first man," she said stiffly, with an odd integrity. "It has only been but a month . . . teasing is—not something I do very well." Her knuckles were white on the smoking candle.

He wanted to shout at her, to shake her, to force the truth from her. And yet, against all odds he believed her.

"And if you do not try to tease, cajole, steal, Jarek will have me slain." He saw how her chin trembled convulsively. More quietly, he said: "Do you want that knowledge to compete with the memory of the ring I gave you?"

One hand closed over the ring and clenched it so hard the sinews stood up beneath the flesh. "If I am caught—" She stopped. "If I am caught, three will be sacrificed."

I'm giving Brennan a pass for the mild misogyny here, because he's literally chained up and about to get murdered. If you're going to help, Rhiannon, you're going to have to do something. The dude in chains is not going to be able to save himself.

Brennan does have to acknowledge her point that, if she's caught, she's going to be murdered too.

Brennan closed his eyes and felt the sweat sting the wound on his forehead. He would not deny the truth, even if he thought she might believe him when he told her Jarek would never consider such a thing. Jarek might.

Once again he tested his bonds and found them firm as ever, biting into weals and making them bleed again. He turned his head from her and ground his teeth, trying to keep himself from begging. If asking were not enough, begging would merely diminish what little pride he had left.

"My lord—" This time when she touched him, he did not pull away. "My lord, Jarek said you were afraid of places like this."

All the breath spilled out of his mouth. "I am." It was easier than he had believed; the fear did it for him. "This place—this weight—" He stopped short, shut his eyes, smelled the fear-stench again. "When—when I was but a boy, very small, I was trapped in a place not so different than this—all stone, cold stone, so much darkness and all the weight—“ He swallowed, nearly gagged. “I had forgotten, thank the gods, forgotten . . . until now. . . ."

What does fear smell like?

But yeah, the reminder really isn't helping. He actually does start begging her here. She tells him that she'll do what she can do. And leaves. At least he can cry in private now.

We're not told how much time passes, only that she doesn't come back. Brennan mentally curses Carillon's loins for fathering a bastard son at all. He admits that without Carillon's loins, he himself wouldn't exist. But that's not much comfort when you're waiting to be sacrificed. And indeed, he hears footsteps. Jarek. It's time for the sacrifice.

Brennan doesn't want to cooperate, but Jarek's got a few threats: Sleeta, for one. But Brennan's not stupid, he knows that they're going to murder Sleeta too. (We learn that the drug cutting him off from his lir is made with deadly tetsu root. That was the herb that Finn gave Carillon. It's apparently not always deadly, when mixed with other herbs in proper proportion. I kind of love that commoner Jarek has all this knowledge.)

But if Brennan chooses to stay in the cell, Jarek will brick him up and let him die a madman. And, well, there are other "princely" sacrifices, that he could get. And...well...why limit himself to the Mujhar's sons. He has daughters too.

That gets Brennan. Is it terribly realistic that this guy could get near Keely or Maeve? Maybe, maybe not. But he's understandably not really in a state to be rational. When he emerges from the cell, he's not chained, but there's still too much of the drug in his system to allow him to fight back.

It sounds pretty scary:

Behind the flames, he saw faces. Strangers all, ten, twenty, thirty or more of them, but he knew them. He knew them by their avid eyes and feral expressions; their commitment to Jarek's cause.

Nowhere did he see Rhiannon.

The men closed on him. "Come, my lord," Jarek said, as they forced him to the altar.

It was old, dark stone, stained black with the blood of murdered Cheysuli. Beyond the flames of the torches his captors carried he saw other torches, ten of them, thrust into the earth to form a ring around the stone. All the earth was beaten into dust beneath the trees around the altar; now his blood would muddy it.

He does try to struggle, but they hold him down. He tries to argue with their claims of "restoring the rightful line", but it doesn't really help. This bit does hit though:

"The Lion shall have a Homanan Mujhar again . . ."

Brennan writhed; they held him down. "I am Homanan!" he shouted. "I am the Lion's get!" And he thought in sudden, ice-cold clarity. But if they succeed—if I am slain—there is still my rujho . . . Hart can be Mujhar. . .

And the prophecy perpetuated.

That's something to think about. Donal was chosen by Carillon. There was no other legitimate relative of the right gender and age. Niall is the only legitimate son of Donal, the only one descended from Carillon and with the requisite Solindish blood too. They were irreplaceable in the prophecy. But Brennan is a twin. He has a younger brother too. Each one of the three has the exact same bloodlines.

Brennan is replaceable in a way that his father and grandfather aren't. And now is not the best time to come to that realization.

So they strip him of his arm bands. The earring is harder. Brennan starts to curse Jarek, and we get our first real inkling of the Cheysuli pantheon, five books in:

Brennan spat at him. "In the name of the sun and the wind and the rivers, the earth and the sky and the seas—"

Jarek laughed.

"—name of the Hunter, the Weaver, the Cripple—"

And Jarek laughed.

"—I curse you, Jarek son of Elek—I curse you to die the death of a lirless man, beneath the jaws and claws of a beast— "

I apologize for the ableist slur, but that's actually interesting, given the Cheysuli intolerance for disability that we're going to touch on more and more in this series.

So Jarek gave us a motivation speech earlier. His speech now contains lots of references to Elek and Carollan. But, maybe he's playing a role after all. Maybe his weird knowledge of herbs and Cheysuli weakness has a source...

His eyes were black in the whipping torches, but the rims were a clear, eerie gold. "What I do, I do in the name of Asar-Suti, and he holds precedence over all your petty Cheysuli gods!"

"Ihlini!" Brennan cried.

"Now!" Jarek roared, overriding Brennan's shout.

Oh dear.

So now things happen very fast. Because even as Jarek shouts (and his knife slices through the weighted flesh of Brennan's ear), the link with Sleeta IMMEDIATELY comes back into effect. He tears himself free with a rage.

It really is interesting, the way Brennan's shapechanges are described. Carillon had said something, in Song of Homana, about the possibility of Finn losing himself in lir shape. We never saw anything like that with Donal or Niall. But Brennan...

He did not know his name. He did not know her name, only that she was there, here, lending him needed strength, giving him what he needed; what he had to have, to use, to wield in the name of his anger.

Anyway, the chapter ends with Brennan, as a tawny mountain cat, shredding Jarek's throat.

Nice.