“Safe, and practically deserted,” Cynrig reported. “It seems like there’s almost nobody there.”
“It’s creepy,” Elwith said. “I’ve been at Caer Gloran before, and it’s always been quite a busy place, but not now. It’s like a town when people leave because there’s a fever.”
We went in and settled ourselves and our horses in the dusty stables and barracks that had only been used by redcloaks since Marchel’s ala were disbanded. Cinvar must have kept whatever horses he used himself in stables somewhere else. There was almost room, even with three alae. The cooks started making supper for the armigers, but before I could join my pennon a messenger came from Idrien inviting Urdo, Cadraith, Raul, and myself to eat with her. The messenger, who was a child of six or seven, waited for a reply.
“There’s no way to refuse such an invitation,” Raul said.
The meal was one of the most uncomfortable of my life. The food was barely adequate, undercooked roast lamb with herbs and hot bread. The service was appalling and the conversation terribly strained. I would far rather have eaten with the ala, and I was sure Urdo would have. We sat on benches by a table, as the ala often did, but in all other ways it was a very formal meal. Idrien had a priest with her whose name I didn’t catch, and there were no other guests.
“I was hoping to have the pleasure of seeing your daughter, Kerys,” I said, as soon as the first painful formalities were over and we had started eating. This was the most neutral thing I could think of to say. I could quite reasonably have called Kerys my sister; she had been married to Morien long enough, but I did not want to appear to be pushing a relationship Idrien might no longer wish to acknowledge.
“She is in Talgarth,” Idrien said. “Along with the greater part of the people of Caer Gloran, whose absence you may have noticed. Cinvar has made her key-keeper of that fortress and she believes it may be defended if you attempt to reduce it.” Much suddenly became clear. I winced. Had he sent his mother here with no troops to defend the indefensible while leaving his sister in the strong place?
“And Cinvar?” Urdo asked.
Idrien looked at him sharply. “Cinvar?”
Urdo spread his hands. “Your son is in rebellion, you are loyal; it is a difficult situation for us all. But I need to know what the rebels are doing so they can be stopped.”
Idrien’s lips thinned. “This is why I sought neutrality,” she said, looking at her priest, who raised his chin sympathetically but said nothing. “Are you really asking me to betray my son?”
“I am asking you to save your daughter and your grandchildren,” Urdo said emphatically, leaning forward. “You are old enough to remember the civil wars. I know you will have counseled Cinvar against rebellion, and he has not listened. If there is to be any peace it will not be through victory for your son. In such a victory everyone loses.”
There was a long, heavy silence. I drew breath to speak once, though I was not sure what to say, but Urdo, not even taking his eyes away from Idrien, put his hand on mine to silence me and I let the breath go again. After a long time, Idrien spoke again. “I suppose whatever happens it makes no difference what I tell you. Cinvar, yes, acting consistently against my advice, has taken all the militia he can raise and gone to Caer Tanaga.”
We knew this already, of course, but it was good confirmation. “And who are his allies?” Urdo asked.
“Cinon of Nene, Flavien of Tinala, Gwyn of Angas, and Arling Gunnarson of Jarnholme, for sure,” she said, quite calmly. “Some of the other kings were wavering about joining them. Cinvar went off to Caer Tanaga because he heard that Arling had landed and they were all to make an attack on the city.”
“Landed where?” I blurted. Idrien looked at me as if she had forgotten there was anyone in the room but Urdo. He could have that effect on people.
“Where?” she murmured, as if this was an unimportant detail. “Oh, down in the south, I forget where exactly. Othona, would it be?”
Othona, on the coast of Aylsfa. From there it was hardly half a day’s sail up the Tamer to Caer Tanaga if the wind was right. I could remember Ayl telling me so. We had all been so sure Arling would attack Tevin first.
“I will send messengers tonight, and we will leave at dawn,” Urdo said, bowing to Idrien.
“I don’t have many supplies to give you, I told your clerk,” she said, gesturing to Raul.
“We will not wait for supplies,” Urdo said. He turned and looked at me, and at the same time made the hand signal that meant I should take care of things. Of course, he could not leave the table without giving Idrien insult, but I could.
I rose and bowed to Idrien. “If you will excuse me?” I said, putting my hand to my stomach as if I were unwell. She bowed to me, and smiled. She knew perfectly well what I was doing, leaving the table when my food was not half finished.
“How many troops did Cinvar take?” Urdo was asking as I left the room.
As soon as I was outside I ran, as if I could make up for lost minutes. Masarn saw me and followed. He assembled the messengers, not red-cloaks but reliable scouts from our alae. I wrote the messages, to ap Erbin, to Luth, to Alfwin in Tevin, and to ap Meneth, who I guessed must be somewhere between Caer Rangor and here, urging them all to come with all speed to Caer Tanaga. Then, when they had set off, I gave orders that everyone was to be ready to start at dawn.
By the time I was done I thought Urdo would probably have finished eating, so I went to his room. He was there, with Raul and Cadraith. I explained what I had done, and Raul went off to send more messages to Thansethan, and to Custennin and Rowanna. Cadraith went with him; he wanted to make sure his ala understood the orders, and would be packed and ready to leave. Urdo and I sat for a while, looking at the map. Maps and papers were already spilling out of the box he used for them when traveling.
“She cannot possibly hold off Arling and all those infantry,” Urdo said. Gormant was in charge in Caer Tanaga. I knew Urdo meant Elenn.
“They can hold the citadel for as long as they have supplies, unless there is treachery inside,” I said, as confidently as I could.
“They are very few to do it against a really determined assault,” Urdo said. “Cinvar could not take them, but Arling has war machines.”
Just as we were starting to discuss how we would take Caer Tanaga if we were Arling, with or without machines, there was a slight scratch at the door and a young girl slipped in. She was perhaps sixteen or seventeen, and she was wearing only a thin linen shift. “Excuse me, Lord, my lady sent to ask—” she began, then caught sight of me and stopped.
“Yes, what?” Urdo asked gently. But she tossed her head and ran out of the room.
“Idrien sent her to ask what?” I said, walking to the door and watching her run down the corridor. “What could she want?”
“To know if I am cold in bed, no doubt,” Urdo said, laughing. “Well, whatever shreds of reputation your mother has left us, that will be the end of them. Elenn is going to kill me.” Then he stopped laughing and, looking at the map again, he spoke quietly. “If she is safe, I will be happy to take whatever insults and hard names it pleases her to throw at my head.”
I did not linger long after that, but found my own bed and slept until it was time to be on our way again.
— II —
My skill in arms grows great,
I make war on whole hosts,
fine armies cower away.
I crush the heroes one by one
until I weary of fighting.
One stick can’t make a fire
let me have a battle-companion
a shield-strong warrior,
a friend to watch my back,
a wife to bear me sons.
—”Black Darag’s Lament”
We rode down to Caer Tanaga as fast as the horses would take us. In some cases we went faster. Darien’s new Narlahenan horse foundered and I left one exhausted riding mare at a farm. She survived, by Horsemother’s blessing, to bear foals for the farmers’ children who nursed her
back to health. She would never have had the wind to carry my weight again, even if I had had the heart to take her away from them. I hate to think how many horses our three alae left behind us, dead or half dead in a trail down the highroad from Caer Gloran. Nobody rode their greathorses; they came along as lightly burdened as possible. They needed to be fresh to fight, so we were careful with them. Often, as we rode down the highroad, one of the stallions would put his head back and issue a great challenging huff. We were going to war, and we were going as fast as anyone could.
We passed Emer and her troops on the first day. We had sent messages to her so she knew what was going on, and had changed the direction of the Isarnagan march so that they, too, were heading for Caer Tanaga. They drew back from the road and cheered as we passed through them. It put heart into us to see them, after the cold welcome at Caer Gloran. “I liked your barbarians,” Cadraith said to me when we stopped at noon to rest the horses and to eat. “I would never have guessed that their leader was the queen’s sister. She looked so grim and scarred, like a real veteran.”
“She’s had the scar since I’ve known her” I replied. “I think she got it in the war between Oriel and Connat.”
“All the stories about that war are about Atha and Black Darag, but I suppose some other people must have fought,” Cadraith said, indistinctly, around the piece of cheese he was chewing. “They looked ready for a fight anyway, enthusiastic. That’s what I like to see in allies.”
“Oh, Isarnagans are always ready to fight,” I agreed.
Then the signal came to remount, and we rode on again. The highroad unwound before us like a skein of yarn. It is not possible to ride hour after hour and day after day at white heat. All the same, so far as we could we did. Caer Tanaga meant something to all of us. Not even Masarn joked the way he usually did. He was one of the many of us who had families there.
The second day we found the body of a red-cloak, hung in a tree at the side of the road. We were out of Tathal, in the eastern part of Magor, almost in Segantia.
“Someone in Caer Tanaga wanted to give us news Cinvar didn’t want us to have,” Urdo said grimly, looking at the dangling body as I came up.
When they cut him down I saw that it was Senach RedEye, who had fought in my pennon long ago. He was ironhaired and iron-bearded now, and all his face was purple and engorged, not just his wounded eye. He was carrying no messages now; whatever he had been bringing us had been taken from him.
“It is Senach,” I said. “I remember him interrupting Galba’s funeral to bring me word that the Isarnagans had invaded.”
“He brought me the news that Elenn’s mother had died,” Urdo recalled. “He served well, as an armiger and as a redcloak. We cannot wait until sunset to send him back, and he would not have wanted it. Red-cloaks know the meaning of urgency, none better.”
“He worshiped the White God,” I said. “He will not mind if he does not lie where he fell. Isn’t there a shrine along this highroad somewhere where he could be buried tonight?”
So we took up his body on a packhorse, and left it a few miles on at a little place at the roadside where there was a little square church of the White God, a priest’s house, and a cluster of farmhouses. Raul spoke to the priest, who promised to do what was needful for Senach. He took his name and some clippings of hair from those of us who had been his friends. That was where I left my poor, exhausted mare. The last time I had news from there, they were calling Senach a saint. No doubt he would have been surprised to hear it. We didn’t guess that then, we just rode on, swearing to revenge Senach on Cinvar when we caught him.
On the morning of the third day, we gave the horses oats and dried fruit that Celemon had brought us from a supply cache near where we had camped. “I’m worried that we have heard nothing from ap Meneth,” Urdo said, when we had heard the scouts’ reports. “Nobody we have sent looking for him has come back. I know Morthu has been subverting my messengers. I wonder how long Cinvar has been hanging them?”
“And who else he might have hanged?” Cadraith muttered into his beard, only just loud enough for us to hear.
“Ap Meneth has an ala,” I protested. “Senach was one man on horseback. If there had been a battle we would have seen signs.”
“If it had been here,” Cadraith countered. “Ap Meneth was off in Caer Rangor.”
I suddenly remembered my fears for Emlin and the ala in Magor, the terrible thought that Aurien might set fire to the stables. An ala is a very good weapon in the field, but dismounted and unwarned ap Meneth was as vulnerable as anyone else. Some of this dismay must have showed on my face, for Urdo patted my shoulder. “Nothing we can do about it for now,” he said.
We caught up with Cinvar late on that third day, well into Segantia. We were past the turning on the highroad that leads southwest to Caer Thanbard, in a region of gently rolling and well-grazed downland. We were perhaps three or four hours easy ride from Caer Tanaga, and it was early afternoon. Our scouts warned us in plenty of time, so we were not at all surprised. He had five thousand troops under arms, or so Idrien had told Urdo. But most of those were farmers who fought in his militia, not real warriors. We had three alae.
He knew we were there. The scouts said he had his forces drawn up on a rise at the side of the road, threatening the road and threatening us. I talked to my groom about the horses. Brighteyes seemed the most eager to fight, so I decided I would ride him and keep Evenstar armored and ready in reserve in case of a second charge. I tightened my wrist straps and went to get my orders from Urdo.
The alae were drawn up already; they had eaten in position and by numbers. Urdo was dismounted and standing next to Thunder, with the standards set up around him. He smiled at me as I slid down beside him. Darien was there, with his summerhorse, frowning at a blemish on his sword. Cadraith and Masarn came up almost as soon as I had dismounted.
“So, have you sent Raul out?” Masarn asked, looking around for him.
“There’s very little point,” Urdo said. “It’s well past noon already. Cinvar’s got his militia drawn up on the top of a rise just ahead. He’s sitting there threatening the road. He’s in open rebellion. There’s nothing to talk to him about. We want to kill him and get to Caer Tanaga today.”
“We don’t just want to hammer into his people,” I said. “He’s got what has to be pretty much all the able-bodied people in Tathal with him. They’re farmers, not warriors. If they’re dead, nobody will be getting the harvest in.”
“I know,” Urdo said. “They also have what high ground there is, and we don’t know for sure how many of them there are. The land tells me there is a great weight of strangers, but cannot count numbers. We don’t know where Cinon and Flavien are; it’s possible they may have come this far this quickly if they wanted to join up with Cinvar.”
“Surely if they have any sense they’d go straight down the highroad that runs pretty much straight from Caer Avroc to Caer Tanaga?” Cadraith said.
“If they had any sense they’d have stayed at home,” Masarn said, rolling his eyes. “If you could count on people acting as if they have sense the world would be much easier to understand.”
Urdo laughed. “Indeed. I think all we can say is that we don’t know where anyone is beyond the three alae in our sight. We could wait and send out more scouts, but there isn’t much cover for them to get around behind Cinvar. The lie of the land isn’t conducive to seeing clearly—all these rolling downs. We could easily waste hours, and this is not a comfortable place to delay.”
“Our three alae are ready now,” Masarn said.
“So how shall we attack? Straight up the hill will kill a lot of Cinvar’s troops but risks getting bogged down among them,” I said.
Urdo smiled. “Cinvar does not respect our honor either. My ala will go past him on the road.”
Masarn frowned. “Farmers or not, there are a lot of them.”
“There are,” Urdo said, still smiling. “Which is why we will run away, half a mile or so, unt
il we are well clear and the ala can wheel out of column into line.”
“To face a great confused mass of farmers out of their lines and off their hill.” I did not say this loudly; I was thinking that perhaps even Cinvar was not so much a fool as that.
Urdo shrugged. “Or we will be behind them, and Cinvar will be trying to decide what to do with foes on two sides. If that happens, we will all ride north, and turn up onto the down well north of Cinvar, then charge south. My ala will curve north, whether or not we are running away, once we are past Cinvar; Cadraith’s ala will start north as we start down the road. With any luck, Cinvar will be so certain I am a coward and trying to escape him that he will not think about what to do for long enough.”
“So we go off the road, and far enough that we have the slope with us rather than against us?” Cadraith asked.
“Yes” Urdo agreed. “If the militia chase us, Galba’s Ala charges down the road into their flank and rear; if they don’t break, pull back. Don’t risk getting stuck in among them, Sulien. Cadraith, if they charge off the hill, don’t wait for us; sweep up onto the down-top, then charge Cinvar from behind. Tell your people to kill him if they can, anyone who has not broken bread with him and can do so in honor. As for his people, all of you tell your armigers that any of the militia who throw down their weapons and run, let them run. Anyone in arms, kill.”
We all raised our chins in agreement. Urdo turned to Darien. “You will take the great banner,” he said. “We want speed at first, and then once we get through, what happens depends very much on whether Cinvar is fool enough to chase us.”
Darien drew out the great purple banner. “I carried that at Foreth,” I said, looking at it. It seemed very long ago and in another world, and at the same time as if it had been mere hours ago.
“I know,” Darien said, and laughed a little. “Everyone knows that! I wish I could have been there.” Cadraith looked from Darien to Urdo, and then to me, and smiled. I laughed with Darien, and embraced him, and then Urdo, and went back to my own ala, passing on Urdo’s orders to my decurios.