He had moved past jealousy—hadn’t lingered long there anyhow—it wasn’t really a part of his nature. He was used to being able to do something, though. He no longer envied Paul or Kim their dark, burdensome powers—Kim’s grief by Pendaran Wood the night before and Paul’s loneliness had wiped that away, leaving a kind of pity.
He didn’t want their roles or Dave’s axe-wielding strength, and no sane person would want any part of what fate Jennifer had found. All he wanted was to matter, to have some way, however slight, of affectuating the heartfelt vow he had sworn.
Two, actually. He had done it twice. Once in the Great Hall when Brendel had brought word of the lios alfar dead and Jennifer taken away. Then a second time, when Kim had brought them home and he looked down at what had been done to a woman he loved and then forced himself not to look away, that the scalding image might always be there if courage ever flagged in him.
It was still there, that image, and—he searched himself for this—he was not lacking in courage. He had no fear of tomorrow’s hunt, whatever the others might think, only a bitterly honest awareness that he was just along for the ride.
And this, for Kevin Laine, was the hardest thing in any world to handle. What he seemed to be, here in Fionavar, was utterly impotent. Again his mouth crooked bitterly in the cold, for this description was especially accurate now. Every man in Gwen Ystrat was feeling the pull of the Goddess. Every man but him, for whom, all his adult days, the workings of desire had been a deep, enduring constant, known only to the women who had shared a night with him.
If love and desire belonged to the Goddess, it seemed that even she was leaving him. What did that leave?
He shook his head—too much self-pity there. What was left was still Kevin Laine, who was known to be bright and accomplished, a star in law school and one in the making, everyone said, when he got to the courts. He had respect and friendship and he had been loved, more than once. His, a woman had told him years ago, was a face made for good fortune. A curious phrase; he had remembered it.
There was, he told himself, no room for maudlin self-pity in a curriculum vitae like that.
On the other hand, all the glitter of his accomplishments lay squarely within his own world. How could he glory in mock trial triumphs any more? How set his sights on legal excellence after what he had seen here? What could possibly have meaning at home once he had watched Rangat hurl a burning hand into the sky and heard the Unraveller’s laughter on the north wind?
Very little, next to nothing. In fact, one thing only, but he did have that one thing, and with the pang of his heart that always came when he hadn’t done so for a while, Kevin thought of his father.
“Fur gezunter heit, und cum gezunter heit,” Sol Laine had said in Yiddish, when Kevin had told him he had to fly to London on ten hours’ notice. Go safely, and come safely. Nothing more. In this lay a boundless trust. If Kevin had wanted to tell, Kevin would have explained the trip. If Kevin did not explain, he had a reason and a right.
“Oh, Abba,” he murmured aloud in the cruel night. And in the country of the Mother his word for father became a talisman of sorts that carried him in from the slash of wind to the house Diarmuid had been given in Morvran.
There were prerogatives of royalty. Only Coll and Kevin and Brock were sharing the place with the Prince. Coll was in the tavern, and the Dwarf was asleep, and Diarmuid was God knows where.
With a mild amusement registering at the thoughts of Diarmuid tomorrow night, and the deeper easing that thoughts of his father always gave to him, Kevin went to bed. He had a dream but it was elusive and he had forgotten it by morning.
The hunt started with the sunrise. The sky was a bright blue overhead, and the early rays of sunlight glittered on the snow. It was milder too, Dave thought, as if somehow the fact of midsummer was registering. Among the hunters there was an electric energy one could almost see. The erotic surges that had begun when they had first entered Gwen Ystrat were even deeper now. Dave had never felt anything like it in his life, and they said the priestesses would come out to them tonight. It made him weak just to think of it.
He forced his mind back to the morning’s work. He had wanted to hunt with the small contingent of the Dalrei, but horses weren’t going to be much use in the wood and Aileron had asked the Riders to join the bowmen, who were to ring the forest and cut down any wolves that tried to flee. Dave saw Diarmuid’s big lieutenant, Coll, unsling an enormous bow and ride over the bridge to the northwest with Tore and Levon.
It left an opening for him, he supposed, and somewhat reluctantly he walked over with his axe to where Kevin Laine stood joking with two other members of the Prince’s band. There was a rumor going about that they had gotten an early start on the midsummer festival last night, defying the orders of the two Kings. Dave couldn’t say he was impressed. It was one thing to carouse in town, another to be partying on the eve of battle.
On the other hand, none of them seemed the worse for it this morning, and he didn’t really know anyone else to join up with so he awkwardly planted himself by the Prince and waited to be noticed. Diarmuid was rapidly scanning his brother’s written instructions. When he finished, he looked up, noting Dave’s presence with his disconcertingly blue gaze.
“Room for one more?” Dave asked.
He was prepared for a jibe but the Prince said only, “Of course. I’ve seen you fight, remember?” He raised his voice very slightly, and the fifty or so men around him quieted. “Gather round, children, and I’ll tell you a story. My brother has outdone himself in preparing this. Here is what we are to do.”
Despite the frivolous tone, his words were crisp. Behind the Prince, Dave could see the eidolath, the honor guard of Cathal, riding quickly off to the northeast behind Shalhassan. Nearby, Aileron himself was addressing another cluster of men, and, past him, Arthur was doing the same. It was going to be a pincer movement, he gathered, with the two hosts moving together from southwest and northeast.
The archers, about two hundred of them, were to ring the wood. The Cathalians were already along the line of the Kharn River, on the eastern edge, and across the northern boundary as far as the Latham. The bowmen of Brennin were posted from the Latham as well, in the north and then, at intervals, around to the south and west. The thinner copses east of the Kharn had already been checked and found empty, Diarmuid explained. The wolves were within the circle of Leinanwood itself and, if all went according to design, would soon be within the circle of the armies. The dogs were to be set loose to drive the wolves toward the forest center.
“Unless the perfidious wolves have the temerity to disobey the High King’s plans, we should meet Shalhassan’s forces by the Latham in mid-wood with the wolves between us. If they aren’t,” Diarmuid concluded, “we blame anyone and everything except the plan. Any questions?”
“Where are the mages?” asked Kevin Laine. He always had questions, Dave thought. One of those. Couldn’t just get on with it.
But Diarmuid answered seriously. “We were going to have them. But something happened last night in the Temple. The sources are completely drained. Swords and arrows are all we can use this morning.”