Gomoarionsson just sat there with his mouth slightly open, looking ridiculous. When I think of all the trouble we went to with him it makes me want to weep. He never amounted to anything after all, and was killed at a banquet twenty years later by his sister’s husband, who is king in Narlahena still.
“It can all be part of the White God, too. It can,” Darien said, sitting down again. But Veniva shook her head, and I didn’t understand what he meant then.
— 10 —
“Before setting out on a journey, pack supplies, check the map,
and make sure you know why you’re going.”
—Tanagan proverb
Not even oracles know what’s going on somewhere else, only what happened to people in other worlds. I asked ap Fial about this, afterward, when “if was drilling into my head over and over like a demented woodpecker on an iron bar. He told me that nobody could change the past, and the only way to change the future was by changing the present, one day at a time. After that he relented a little, drank some blackberry wine with me, and became slightly more human. He told me that he had been taught to be wary of thinking he knew the future because the many futures oracle-priests can see are other worlds, more or less like our own, and bound to our own by the great events, but not by the lesser events, nor even by the significance of those great events. He said it’s hard to tell which are the great events.
When he was quite drunk he told me that some oracle-priests are surprised when things come out differently from the way they expected, and others are surprised if they come out the same. I suppose the Vincans were right to ban them. I don’t know how they can bear it, even after training for twenty years. He told me then what Morwen had told me long before, that I was not in any of those futures, those other worlds he could see; there is only one of me. I find that comforting sometimes. It would be too painful to think that there are worlds somewhere where I got everything right.
We left the next morning and rode uneventfully through the hills all day. It was not all uphill, no matter what Masarn said, but each ridge was higher than the last, and as the day went on we saw more trees and fewer farms. For all that, there was more cleared land than there had been when I was first Lord of Derwen. Some fields were planted with crops, but as we got higher more of them were dotted with sheep. Some of the farmers waved, and their children came running to watch us go by. Some of them cheered and called my name. I always waved back. When we had passed one group of children, watching the sheep far out of sight of any farmhouse, Urdo smiled suddenly.
“I wonder what they will say when they get home,” he said. “Do you think they will say to their parents that they saw two alae of armigers with bright banners go riding up the track this morning?”
“And if they do will their mother scold them for making up stories?” I said.
“Or will they tell stories when they are old and bent, and say that they remember when they were children and they saw the High King Urdo go up the hill with the Praefecto Sulien at his side, and the sun shining out of a cloudless sky? Then their grandchildren will laugh at them,” Masarn said. The sun was indeed shining for once, though there were a few clouds around the western horizon.
“Their grandchildren will not laugh,” Darien said. He was absolutely in earnest; nobody can be so serious who is not also young. The rest of us just smiled, and rode on.
We were not riding fast, to spare the horses. We came at last to Nant Gefalion in the long twilight. We had long since lost the sun behind the hills we had been climbing all day, but back at Derwen he would still be slipping into the sea. High summer had crept up on me; it was only two days before midsummer day.
Nant Gefalion was quiet. Hiveth had the place well in hand. Nobody at all had come down the track from Caer Gloran, and nobody had come up the track from Derwen except my own scouts and messengers. The forges were quieter than normal, but the smiths I spoke to were not disturbed. They were glad to have a pennon to protect them in case of trouble. “Thank you for taking thought of us,” one old fellow said, speaking for them all and bowing in Jarnish fashion. He was the carpenter who had moved here from Caer Segant, I remembered. They wanted me to leave Hiveth with them. It was hard to explain that they would be better defended if my ala was whole even if it was elsewhere. Everyone can understand a pennon in front of their eyes.
The next morning we set off north and east again toward Caer Gloran. We crossed into Tathal almost at once. The border was clear to me though there was nothing here to mark it. Urdo set an easy pace again, although now we were over the watershed and headed downhill. We reached the highroad in the afternoon. Every time I came over the little rise there I remembered the first time I had ridden this way and the skirmish I had interrupted between Marchel and the Jarnish raiders. This time, despite all reports, I half expected to see Cinvar’s militia drawn up to meet us, but I was disappointed. The highroad was empty in both directions, and there was no army between us and the river.
Urdo and I conferred for a little while, while the alae had a short break; watering the horses, stretching, and working out the stiffness riding all day will cause in even the fittest. “We could camp here tonight and send out more scouts in both directions,” I said. “There is some hope Emer might reach us late tonight, if they have made good time up the highroad. They had fewer miles to cover than we did.”
“I don’t think they are nearby,” Urdo said, frowning. “I want to know what Cinvar is doing.”
“Is there any chance he might be sitting at home waiting until we do something that looks aggressive?” I asked.
“I think the time for scoring that sort of point is over,” Urdo said. “In any case, he killed those two men of Cadraith’s household. We are entitled to come and inquire into his conduct.”
“What are we going to do with him?” I asked. The pennon cooks were handing out cold bannocks they’d cooked before we set off in the morning. Talog brought us one each, and I bit into mine hungrily.
Urdo sighed, turning his in his hand. “Raul and I have been talking about this endlessly. There’s no denying Cinvar is in open rebellion, if he is. Whatever I do, it’s very difficult for me not to look as if I am acting tyrannically, exactly as my enemies say I am doing. I will do as I did at Magor, if I can. Assuming he takes arms against us, Cinvar has to be executed, but his son Pedrog, who is blameless and away in ap Erbin’s ala, can inherit.”
“So what he does now makes no difference?” I said, with my mouth full.
“If he comes and asks pardon without fighting at all, that would make all the difference, but I somehow doubt he will. We are going to have to go to him.” Urdo took a bite of his bannock at last, and chewed thoughtfully.
“There is a problem with riding up to the walls of Caer Gloran and demanding entry,” I said, pulling out the map. “We have nowhere to retreat to if they close the gates, and then they could come out at night and attack us when we are dismounted.”
“We have two alae, and the ironwork for some war machines that could be assembled if needed. We can make a proper camp and sleep by numbers. In any case, he may be in Talgarth.”
“Have you been up there?” I asked.
Urdo shook his head. “Uthbad always came to Caer Gloran to see me, if I was anywhere in Tathal, and so does Cinvar. Caer Gloran is properly one of my fortresses, not one of the king of Tathal’s. Though, since the Peace, since I disbanded Marchel’s ala, I have kept no forces there.”
“I have only been to Talgarth once myself” I said, remembering the winter journey from Caer Avroc with Galba and two pennons. I pointed it out on the map, northwest of Caer Gloran. “It’s not a proper fort, for all that they call it the Fort of Tathal in poetry. It’s an old earthwork fortification on top of a hill. Old Uthbad’s father retreated up there when the legions left, according to my mother. It’s completely untakeable, I should think, but it would be very easy to ignore anyone up there. If he’s there we can safely leave the Isarnagans to besiege him and eat the coun
tryside clean, while we go off to deal with whatever’s happening in Tevin.”
Urdo glanced east as if he could see all the way to distant Tevin, and sighed. Then he saw something close at hand. “There’s a scout coming back,” he said.
It was Flerian who came up to us, looking pleased with herself. “Nothing moving, southeast down the highroad three miles,” she said. Her horse looked exhausted; she must have come back very fast. “But I found a farmer who would talk to me. She said that Cinvar had gone away down the highroad yesterday morning, very early, taking her son with him.” She paused and took a deep breath. “That is, he took his whole army and all his militia, which included the farmer’s son. She said her son said they were going to Caer Tanaga. She said her son hadn’t been expecting to go so soon; a message came the night before telling him to be ready to leave at dawn.”
“Any chance it was a trap, the farmer lying?” Urdo asked.
“I don’t think so,” Flerian said. She took a drink from her water bottle, then retied the top carefully. “She was worried about her son going off with only one shirt, she was worried the wars had come again, but she wasn’t afraid of me especially, and when I said I’d come from the High King she praised the White God and said that you’d bring peace again. She didn’t seem clever enough to be lying that well.”
“Good work,” I said. “Now get a bannock, change horses and rub that poor tired creature down, and make sure he doesn’t drink too much too fast.” She went off to follow orders, smiling. “Who would he leave in Caer Gloran if he has gone off?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Urdo said. “But why would he go? Caer Tanaga? And the night before last—that’s the day we fought Marchel, no, the day after? Too soon for him to have had any news of it, because she didn’t have any rested messengers to send.”
“She didn’t,” I agreed. “There’s only half an ala at Caer Tanaga, you said?”
“Gormant should be able to hold the place against whatever infantry Cinvar can field, and in any case, if he left yesterday morning on foot we can overtake him long before he reaches the city.”
“What if Flavien and the others are going down there to join him?” I asked.
“Much more difficult, but still possible,” Urdo said.
“So what now?” I asked, looking at the alae, who had mostly finished watering their horses. “Camp or go?”
“Caer Gloran,” Urdo said decisively. “I need to know what’s happening in Tathal. We couldn’t catch Cinvar tonight in any case. It’s four days’ ride from here to Caer Tanaga, without killing the horses, call it seven days’ march for him. Caer Gloran and news tonight, then tomorrow we follow Cinvar.”
Before we reached Caer Gloran our scouts reported meeting scouts from Cadraith ap Mardol’s ala, coming down the highroad from the north. We met up with Cadraith just outside the town as the sun was setting behind us in a blaze of red and gold. The great dark walls loomed up ahead, and we followed the road around toward the gates. Cadraith had no news we had not sent him. He had seen nothing of ap Meneth and had suffered no problems except the two men Cinvar had killed. It was good to see him again after so long.
The lookouts on the walls saw us approaching and blew signals. We drew to a halt out of range, unless they had large engines on the walls above, and sent forward the advance party, under herald’s branches; Raul with half a pennon as escort. They rode toward the great closed gates confidently. They were well armored, but no missiles fell on them. As they drew nearer, the gates swung open.
Raul was out in front, ready to do his herald’s duty. He turned to Urdo for instructions. As he hesitated an old woman stepped into the middle of the open gateway, full in the light of a pair of torches set inside the gates on either side. Even at that distance I recognized her. She was Idrien ap Galba, old Uthbad’s wife, Cinvar’s mother. I had not seen her since Morien’s funeral. She looked shrunken and tired. She was leaning on a cane. She bore no other visible weapons, but she was not holding a cup of welcome either. She just stood in the doorway, waiting.
Urdo signaled to Raul to go on. Raul went forward, branch in hand. Idrien said something to him, quietly, and his shoulders stiffened. Then she said something again; maybe he had asked her to repeat it. He said something else and she shrugged her shoulders, wearily, and spoke again. Then Raul rode back toward us. When he came close I could see that he was frowning.
“Idrien ap Galba, Dowager Queen of Tathal, informs us that Caer Gloran is an open city and that we may rest here but may not use it for military purposes.”
“What!” Urdo said. I had never seen him so astonished. I could feel my own eyebrows rising and Cadraith’s were up to his helmet already.
“She reminds us that Elhanen the Great respected the neutrality of open cities,” Raul said, absolutely calmly.
“That being the latest precedent she can remember?” I asked, and laughed. “I don’t think there has ever been an open city in Tir Tanagiri, and it was a very old custom when Elhanen respected it in Narlahena seven hundred years ago.”
“I don’t believe it is even practiced in Lossia these days,” Urdo said. “But we are not living in the pages of Fedra. I can’t imagine what Idrien’s thinking. I will speak to her myself.”
“I said that these were not Fedra’s times, nor Elhanen’s, when a city could declare itself no part of a war,” Raul said. “Idrien replied that whatever times they were, declaring Caer Gloran an open city was the only course she could think of which would not dishonor any of her vows, for her son made her promise not to surrender Caer Gloran as a base, but she has neither troops nor desire to defend it against us.”
I looked at Urdo, who for once was completely at a loss for words. If Idrien’s intention had been to throw us entirely into confusion she could not have done better.
“We could do it, but it would be a very strange precedent,” Cadraith said.
“In either direction,” Raul agreed, and his voice sounded strange in my ears, recalling battles of a war that was won and lost a thousand years ago. “When Petra rose up after declaring itself open, everyone within the walls was killed or sold into slavery, but when the Sateans violated the neutrality of an open city the priests called on the gods to blast them, and they had no victories after. Fedra called Larissa a whore among cities for declaring itself open to each side in turn as the war passed over it.”
This, or something, stirred Urdo into one of his immediate decisions. “Go back to her, Raul, and tell her that open cities are no part of the law of Tir Tanagiri and never have been. Ask her if her son is in rebellion against us. If he is, ask her if she supports him and if the city does. If she does not, and the city does not, then say we will come in for tonight and leave in the morning, taking supplies but neither garrisoning my city nor doing any harm.”
“What’s the difference between that and what she’s asking for?” I asked.
Raul and Urdo both looked at me with identical expressions of exasperation. “We have not accepted the precedent,” Urdo explained.
“And if she should say they are in rebellion,” Raul added, “then we are not obliged to treat them as neutrals. We will have a statement of loyalty from her, if she is not, though she will not have broken her word to her son.”
“I see,” I said, as meekly as I could. Urdo laughed. “Unless it is a trap,” I added. ‘They might mean to lure us in and kill us. We don’t know for sure that Cinvar isn’t there. There seem to be plenty of people on the walls. Inside the town an ala can’t maneuver easily. I remember that nightmare fighting inside Caer Lind.”
“There haven’t been many farmers around in the fields,” Cadraith said, “They could all be inside, waiting to ambush us.”
“Three pennons first to check everything, then,” Urdo said. “Elwith’s and one of each of yours.”
“Cynrig’s,” I agreed, and Cadraith named and signaled to one of his. I gave the orders for the three pennons to be ready as Raul rode back to the gate and spoke to Idrien ag
ain.
“She wouldn’t have got far trying to declare an open city to a Jarnish king,” Urdo said as we watched them talking in the torchlight. It was quite dark now.
“She’d have got her head cut off,” Cadraith said. “I’m not sure she wouldn’t have with some of our praefectos. She was risking it anyway.”
“That’s part of why I’m agreeing, as far as I am agreeing,” Urdo said, watching Raul and Idrien intently. “Though I should think if she knew I was here she’d know I wouldn’t be likely to harm her personally. She was one of my father’s warriors, after all.”
“Nobody tells me anything,” I said. “I wouldn’t be inclined to hurt her either; she’s always been friendly to me and she’s a sort of relative, and in any case her daughter, Enid, was my friend.”
“Enid was a very brave armiger, and as loyal as the day,” Urdo said. “She saved my life once. If she hadn’t died at Caer Lind a lot of things would be different. She might have been able to make her brother see sense.”
“Bran ap Penda too,” I said. “He’d have made a good king, when he’d grown up, if he’d needed to.”
“Ah?” Urdo sounded interested. “I never really knew him well, but he was in your pennon, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. He was one of the first people to fall at Caer Lind, in the ambush.”
“If he’d lived there would have been no pretext for saying you were interfering in Bregheda,” Cadraith said regretfully.
Raul was leaning toward Idrien, and now they were embracing.
“Ah, good, warm baths and hot food tonight,” Masarn said cheerfully, from behind us. We all turned to look at him. “Reporting the three pennons ready when needed,” he said. “And delighted to see that we’re going to be going inside.”
We waited in the cooling evening while the pennons checked that the town was safe.