Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 Read Online Free PDF Page B

that while you remain in Homana, you subject yourself
to Homanan custom. Apologize to the girl."
                Reynald plainly was unintimidated.
"I will not," he stated flatly in his accented Homanan, and made a
gesture that brought the others at his table filing out to flank him. Knives
and swords glittered with gems, but the weapons were clearly lethal even in
their ceremonial flamboyance.
                As one. Hart and Corin rose.
                Reynald smiled. "You are three.
We are eleven."
                "He counts," Hart observed.
                "He smells," Corin added.
"What is that oil on his hair?"
                At that, the tavern-keeper came out
from behind a cask of wine. "Please," he said, "this is not
necessary. I will recompense you for your clothing, my lord."
                Reynald stared down his crooked
nose. "And for the Insults from this man?"
                The tavern-keeper looked at Brennan
helplessly. "My lord, please—"
                "Please what?" Brennan
asked irritably. "It was his fault; you saw it. He deserves no
recompense."
                "He deserves to be booted out
of here and back to where he came from," Corin announced flatly. "Are
you forgetting, my foreign lordling, that you are in our land?"
                "Precisely," Reynald
agreed coldly. "Is this the way you treat your guests? Is this the way you
treat a man who is to play host to the Mujhar himself this very night? Is this
the way you treat a member of the Caledonese royal family?"
                Hart smiled. "Does Einar know
you are here?"
                "My tavern," the
tavern-keeper moaned.
                Brennan placed a hand on Rhiannon
and thrust her gently toward the man. "Bind her wound, if you please. This
should not take long."
                Reynald snapped something in
Caledonese to his nearest guardsman. The man drew a knife and lunged.
                Brennan avoided the Caledonese
smoothly enough and let the man's momentum carry him through his initial lunge.
On the way by, Brennan planted clasped hands in the back of the guardsman's
neck and smashed him to the floor. The man went down and did not move.
                Brennan's brothers looked down on
the body at their feet. Hart nodded sagely; Corin merely grinned.
                A blood-red ruby set in gold glowed
on Brennan's finger. He smiled at Reynald and hooked thumbs in the plated belt
that clasped lean hips clad in raven velvet. He was considerably taller than
Reynald. Behind him, Hart matched him in height and weight; Corin was shorter
and slighter, but looked tenacious as a terrier.
                "Now will you apologize?"
Brennan calmly asked.
                For answer, Reynald cried out
angrily, snatched up a cup and hurled the contents in Brennan's face. As
Brennan swore and wiped his eyes, the nine remaining Caledonese guardsmen
spread out to encircle the three Homanan princes. Brennan abruptly found
himself pressed back against his own table. As his eyes cleared, he found a
knife blade at his throat and felt the prick of a sword tip in his spine.
                "Still unconvinced?" he
said in passing to Reynald, and lifted a wrist against the knife as he spun to
dislodge the sword.
                Corin, closest to the door, ducked
yet another knife as it slashed toward his face, and quickly drew his own.
                Blades clashed, caught, were
twisted; Corin's hilt remained in his hand while the other man's did not. The
Caledonese stared in consternation at his empty hand.
                Pleased, if a trifle surprised—it
was his first encounter in anything other than practice—Corin grinned happily
and turned to seek out another foe.
                Hart, caught between Brennan and
Corin, almost immediately found