“Oh, Thurrig,” I said, knowing how much he cared, however lightly he spoke. “I saw your grandsons at Derwen half a month ago. They are fine men, sensible men, and one of them might have a child of his own by now, from the way his wife looked then. I saw Amala, too; she looked well.”
“Amala is in Caer Tanaga,” Thurrig said. “She’s been writing to me, telling me to come and join her and bring the ships so that we can go off to Narlahena. She thinks that because she’s been forgiven there that I will be, forgetting how long memories can be.”
“I’ve always wondered what you did to be exiled there,” I said.
“It’s been almost fifty years, and I haven’t told anyone; do you think I’ll tell you now?” Thurrig asked. He grinned. “I didn’t even do what they think I did. Or, at least, I did half of it. I went against orders and won a sea battle against the Skath. The other half, killing king Thudimir, I didn’t do, but I know who did, and I’ve always let everyone think I did.”
“Who did?” I asked.
He gestured to me to lean over, so I put my mouth to his ear. “Amala!” he whispered. I looked at him skeptically. I could not imagine her killing anyone. Thurrig chuckled. “Talk to me if you’re thinking about a way of getting into Caer Tanaga, because if Amala is expecting me to come, that might be one.” We exchanged serious looks and he moved his eyes to indicate the people around us. “I’m very sorry to hear about Urdo,” he said. “I served his father and his grandfather and I’ll be glad to serve his son.”
Then Darien came through the press of doctors and wounded to stand beside me. “You have served my house and my country well, all these years, and never better than today,” he said, taking Thurrig’s unwounded hand. “Has my mother sung the charm over you?” he asked.
“I have,” I said. “We were just talking.”
“There is nobody else waiting,” he said. “I want to talk to you for a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Where?” I asked. We had set up camp on the hillside. The camp was, of course, full of people.
“Let us go out among the trees,” Darien suggested.
“I’ll speak to you soon, Thurrig,” I promised. Then I followed Darien out. The moon was only a day or so away from full, but clouds scudded across her face, making the light change from moment to moment even before we came to the trees.
“What is it?” I asked.
Darien stopped. “I just feel so strange,” he said. “Being the heir is different from being the king, and it’s really hard to understand what’s happened to Urdo.”
“He’s dead,” I said, feeling the weight of it. “You’re the High King, and everyone wants you to be.”
“There is so much I still had to learn,” he said. “But I have to decide what to do. Angas wants peace. Angas always wanted peace. Morthu inflamed him against Urdo. He was quite happy to agree that Morthu should stand trial for sorcery. But he wants me to forgive him for killing Urdo, and he wants me to marry his daughter. In effect he wants to say he was justified in fighting, and his grievances have been settled. Can I forgive him?”
I hesitated. I knew I ought to say that he should forgive him and make peace. Angas could keep it, if Morthu were dead. I had always liked Angas. I couldn’t think straight on about Urdo’s death yet, but even though the killing tide that had risen in me was stemmed for now, and I might let him live, I could never forgive Angas myself, never again embrace him as a friend. “I can’t,” I said, at last. “I understand what Morthu did. I know why Angas was fighting against us. I pity him. But I can never forgive him.”
“I don’t know,” Darien said, very quietly. “I have to marry somebody, and soon, and it would be a very good way of settling the north, although the girl is twice my cousin.”
“Twice your cousin?” I asked.
“Missing a generation both times,” Darien said, and the moonlight let me see him smile. “Eirann was Rowanna’s niece, and Angas is Avren’s grandson.”
He sounded like Veniva, who I knew would approve wholeheartedly of such a match. Also, as he was not Urdo’s son, there was no relationship at all. I couldn’t say that. “I think it’s sufficiently far,” I said.
“Raul thinks so, too,” Darien confirmed. “Marriage is such a big thing, as well. Why didn’t you marry Urdo?” he asked, abruptly.
I blinked. It had never crossed either of our minds, but I could hardly say that without telling him that Urdo wasn’t his father. All the same, I didn’t want to lie to him. I thought back to the night in the stables in Caer Tanaga when I’d heard Urdo talking to Mardol. “Urdo wanted to make a diplomatic marriage,” I said. “And I wasn’t really anybody.”
“You were the daughter of the Lord of Derwen!” Darien said.
“Well, yes,” I said, feeling myself on safer footing. “But that didn’t mean then what it would now. Derwen was a tiny, insignificant place back then. A lot of the growth it’s had since is a consequence of Urdo’s Peace. Back then almost nobody had heard of it. Urdo himself had to stop and think for a minute the first time I told him where I came from.” I smiled at the memory. “Now, Derwen is a kingdom worth mentioning. We have a large ala, and a militia; we have trade.” I bit my tongue to avoid going on to explain all the things we made and shipped. I didn’t want to sound too much like Veniva, even if I was proud of how Derwen had grown. “But back then, we were nothing, really, out of the way down there. I wouldn’t have had an alliance to bring to Urdo. And he was very young, and he had a lot of lovers.”
“All the same, having a child means something,” Darien said.
“Yes, but I didn’t have any idea what,” I said truthfully. “I was very young, remember, younger than you are now.” Hard as it was to believe. But he was twenty, and I had been eighteen when he was born. “And Urdo was young, too, he thought he had plenty of time. And even more than Urdo’s need for a diplomatic marriage, he needed a queen. When he found Elenn he had that. He loved Elenn, I know he did. She has been a really good queen for Tir Tanagiri, while I would have made a really dreadful one. Also I didn’t want to be one. I wanted to be what I am. Oh, not Lord of Derwen, I do that as well as I can because it’s my duty. But I wanted to be an armiger, to ride for Urdo. If I had ambition, I wanted to be a praefecto, and I wanted to be the best.”
“You are,” Darien said seriously.
I stopped and looked at him, but the moon had gone behind a larger cloud. “I am what?”
“You are the High King’s Praefecto, and you are the best.”
“One of the best,” I agreed cautiously. It was true that there weren’t many people who could touch me at practice.
“You killed three kings today,” Darien said. “I would say you got what you wanted. You didn’t have to be queen. You got to be the best.”
“Sometimes when you get what you wanted it turns out not to be what you want anymore,” I said, heavy-hearted. I wanted Urdo to be alive again, and I wanted to be riding free with a spear and a sword and companions around me.
“I know,” Darien said. “I wanted to feel as if I was unquestionably Urdo’s heir, not the second-best choice, not a bastard. We talked about proclaiming it in a few years when all the kings knew me, when I was a praefecto. He made me feel there wasn’t any question he would have chosen me even if there had been a choice, but I wanted everyone to feel like that. I wanted you to feel like that,” he said, in a lower voice.
“But I do!” I said. “I’m so proud, Darien!”
“But now I have that, it isn’t anything because what I want now is to talk to Urdo. But he is—” He choked.
“He is dead, and you are High King,” I said.
“He is dead, but there is no body, and he is lying there with his bones sunk into the land but still speaking sometimes. I am not High King yet, I have taken nobody’s oath,” he said. He looked so young, biting his lip in the moonlight.
So I knelt to him there in the moonlight and made him my oath for Derwen. I did not make my armiger’s oath again.
Although it, too, is ended by death, I still feel bound by it in my duty to Urdo.
When Darien had spoken, I stood again, and then, as a cloud moved away from the moon, I saw Darien’s face, transfixed. “Mother, the trees!” he whispered, as if he hardly dared speak.
I turned to see what he was looking at. The trees were moving; one of each kind was growing taller. They formed a circle around us and bowed to Darien. There was a music rising and growing around us that was the song of the green and growing things of the island. I could feel the land then, as I could at home in Derwen, but this was the whole island speaking to Darien, the mountains of Bregheda and of Demedia, the fens of Tevin, each river and forest and rock and farmstead making itself known to him as part of the pattern, part of the music of the island, whether he had known it before or not.
The moon shone steadily now, for we were out of the time of clouds. I found myself mounted on Apple, as always when the land saw me, and as always, although I knew he was dead, it felt so right that it did not have time to feel strange. I moved back a little from Darien as they came through the trees, the protectors of Tir Tanagiri, as I had seen them all once before when I went home to Derwen and took up my lordship. Urdo had been beside me then as I was beside Darien now. Turth was there, and Hithwen the white roebuck, Hithun the stag, Hoivar the great owl, Palug the cat, and many others, coming out of the shadows and the moonlight to make themselves known to the new king. I sat there calmly on Apple’s back, looking down at Darien as they came one by one and greeted him. His face shone with wonder in the moonlight and he put out his hand to each of them in turn, before they went back to the trees to wait. Last came Ohtar Bearsson, protector of the Jarnsmen of Tir Tanagiri. Darien embraced him, though Ohtar was taller now than any man or bear that had ever walked the waking woods.
Then Urdo was there, leaning against an oak tree on the opposite side of the clearing from me. I looked again; maybe he was the tree. It was as if the whole wood, the whole hillside, the whole country, was Urdo’s body now, as the lake had been the Mother’s body the night we had visited her. He was not dead, no more than Ohtar was, for he would not return to live other lives. He was Urdo forever, not as a man but as part of the land. It was small enough comfort in my grief for the man who was my friend. He looked at me, but we did not speak. There were no words, there could be no words in this time, only the great chords of the music of the land as his new awareness pulsed into Darien’s veins and moved the air around us. If every musician in the country had played at once it would not have made a harmony like the swelling of the themes of that music.
After a while there was a moment when we were waiting, and then the high gods were there, above the trees, as if they had always been there, as of course they had. Gangrader was there among them, with Heider and Tew and others of the Jarnish gods I did not recognize. Darien bowed to them all, courteously, one by one, and they stood there above the trees, waiting again.
Darien stood alone in the center of the grove, for Apple and I were away toward the edge of the trees. He lowered his head for a moment. Then he touched one hand to his pebble. He reached out his hands, palm down, then palm up. There was a hushed expectancy, although the music neither stopped nor slowed, and then there was the light, limning everything with clarity that was neither sunlight nor moonlight, making everything seem larger, more distinct and more clearly itself. Everything glowed with benevolent light, and the music which had been all the parts of the island became one song, praising the light, the God made Man whose sacrifice had enabled all beings to become more truly themselves. Everything was love and warmth and safety, everything was in its place and growing there. The song was an affirmation rising from the heart and filling the soul.
For a moment I felt it, as Darien raised his arms. The light was made up of all that I loved; the land, the Peace, even my gods were singing. But inside me something was still cold, and my heart said no. It may have been my stubborn nature that would not turn from the old ways. Or it may have been my grief that would not let me wholly give myself to rejoicing. I turned Apple’s head away from the light, and stared out into the darkness behind me. The song was subdued at once, little more than a memory behind me. It seemed I was staring into a desolation, a plain of ashes, and out in that plain I could see a city of darkness, gray against black, a city whose towers were spikes and whose heart was malice. Morthu was out there, and his kind, those who would rather do harm than good. It wasn’t only Morthu and I knew it, but Morthu was the heart of the spite I could see and name. There were dark gods there, too, some formless and some with shapes and names that I feared. I almost turned back to the light. I had no desire to hate and spoil like Morthu. But Apple whickered, and there came an answering sound of crows, and I knew that Gangrader was behind me.
My heart said no again. I absolutely refused to yield Morthu the darkness. This was a false choice and no choice and I would not be forced to make it. I raised Urdo’s sword. Light moved on the blade before me. I drew a deep breath and remembered starlight on the sea. Without the darkness there would be no light. Every light casts shadows, too, and without the shadows there would be no light because everything would be light. I remembered sun through the clouds, and I remembered every dark night I had stood a night watch on a cold camp and the beauty there was in darkness. I remembered the colors of morning when I had come to them through night.
With every memory I pushed my darkness out onto that plain. My darkness had trees and wind and the splash of the sea. I heard a bear’s low growl behind me. My darkness was a welcome friend, different from the light. I remembered a light seen in a farm window on a night ride long ago, somebody dying or being born. I remembered the dark on top of Foreth. I could smell the water weed of the Mother’s lake high in the hills of Bregheda. I held the sword high and looked at it, knowing that a sword can kill, but that some people must be prepared to kill to keep the Peace. My darkness was not an attack on the light but something else real and good. Lightning split the sky before me and thunder crashed around me, and the lake was in front of me, dark under the sky, between the blue flashes. I threw the sword out into the water as I had promised Urdo. I saw her hand come up to catch it. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and it was not Gangrader’s but the Lord of the Cunning Hand. He pressed a spear forward into my empty hand, and the spear shone with blue light. As I looked at the spear I knew it was a great treasure of the land, as great as Urdo’s sword, and greater in my hand because it had been meant for me.
As I took it I heard the music again, another upswelling behind me, and this time it sounded more resonant, like a light shining in darkness or a harp played in a hall when the wind blows cold outside.
The dark citadel was almost surrounded by my wholesome darkness. It now seemed to stand on a crag far off in the distance. Then I saw Morthu standing on the walls and aiming a war machine at me. Darien moved up beside me, armored in blue and gold, shining. Ohtar was on my other side, a huge bear snarling defiance. Behind me were Urdo and Gangrader, Turth and Bregheda, the Lord of Light, the Lord of the Cunning Hand, Sky Father, Heider, the Lady of Wisdom and all the gods in their ranks, and the White God himself, a slight, bearded Sinean wearing a loincloth.
Morthu’s war machine sent a great ball of dark fire toward us. I raised my spear to block it, but saw too late that it was aimed not at me but at Darien. As fast as thought, Apple and I moved between Darien and the ball and it burst around us.
— 21 —
She rides through battle, dealing death,
choosing which warriors to invite,
steel cold eyes, cold steel sword,
selecting those who feast tonight,
she may laugh or howl as she stalks,
picking the ones she will smite.
— From “Walkurja”
The world around me went out like a blown candle and I was crushed by despair that fell on me like a heavy weight. I was running full tilt through the wood, in the dark, entirely alone and entirely desp
erate. I had already been running for a long time and I was tired. There was no possibility of rest or refuge. It was hard for my thoughts to get any purchase on the surface of my mind. Whenever one did it immediately began to spiral into a terrible, despairing loop. It seems that I went around each loop more than once, some of them many times, so that they were both terrible and terribly familiar. I ran, without really seeing the woods around me, accepting what I saw without thinking about it. There were trees and the shadows of trees stretching out all around me however far I ran. I saw eyes, more than once, regarding me from the undergrowth; a boar, a cat, a great silver hound. I veered away from them less in fear than in self-loathing. I ran heedless for a time without measure, until at last I caught my foot on a tussock and sprawled headlong, bruised and sobbing. I almost poked myself in the eye with the spear. It had stopped glowing. My fingers were cramped from clutching it. I was almost ready to cast it away uncaring, but I knew there was a reason I had to keep it. I looked at it for a while before I remembered that it was given to me in trust.
What had I thought I was doing standing there among the gods, taking gifts from them, thinking myself almost one of them? Alone in the dark, cold wood I knew myself all too human. My mistakes had led to Urdo’s death, and now he was dead and there was nothing in the world worth living for. I could help keep the Peace and rule Derwen, but they would be hollow, joyless things. The weight of my grief and loneliness made me double over. Duty was a thin shield indeed against it. Still, the spear had been given to me and I would guard it. Though their purposes were beyond me, I knew I had been there and I refused to fail in my trust. I had been there, even if it was hard to hold it clearly.