I snorted. “Really?”
“I told him he was free to take passage on any Narlahenan trading ship, as far as Narlahena, where he would doubtless be able to find a ship going east into the Middle Sea. He said his money and possessions were lost when his camp was looted. He seemed to expect I would make restitution.”
“Can he know so little about war?” I asked.
Darien shook his head. “Sheer effrontery, I think. But he is a long way from home. If he had known how to build war machines I might have found a place for him.”
“He has surrendered?”
“They have all surrendered, except Morthu and Cinon. Now they have lost, now at last they will talk peace terms sensibly. It is enough to make me tear my hair. We could have been at this stage half a month since if any of them would listen. Though Morthu not being here makes that much easier.”
“It’s Morthu I wanted to talk to you about,” I said, and hesitated.
“Certainly he is the worst outstanding problem,” Darien said. He looked seriously at me, and then suddenly his face changed and he looked ten years younger, no longer the confident young king, only an uncertain boy. “I have not welcomed you back. Where have you been, Mother?”
“It took me a little while to find my way back here,” I said.
“That thing Morthu threw at me—” he began.
“I was caught up in it,” I said, without explaining what it was. “The gods helped me find my way back.”
“Great thanks to them,” Darien said. “And thank you,” he added.
“I should have blocked it with the spear, if I’d been quick enough,” I said awkwardly. “But Morthu, who sent that thing, is still there, still in Caer Tanaga and still making trouble. I have heard that you have been negotiating and he may escape?”
“He has offered to go to Narlahena and not come back,” Darien said. “He has refused to fight a single combat. He has the Queen, and the people of Caer Tanaga as hostages.”
“He must not escape,” I said. “He must be brought to trial. I am glad he refused the single combat, because that would not do either. It wouldn’t be much better than sneaking in and murdering him, now that we have won and we must rebuild the Peace. He must be tried for his sorcery and his treason in public. His poison can’t be allowed to spread, and if he lives or if he dies quietly then it might not die with him. It’s not just his curse that is still killing people; it’s the lies he’s told and will still tell. You know how insidious they are. You know how much he can harm the Peace. He has to stand trial, and soon.”
Darien’s eyes gleamed. “But how could we make him stand trial?” he asked.
“Make him,” I said. “Take Caer Tanaga, and capture him, and force him to come to trial, quickly, while everyone is still here.”
“But how can we take Caer Tanaga?”
“The same way Arling did. Quickly, and from the water, when it is lightly held. This is Thurrig’s idea, he suggested it to me the night after the battle. Amala is there, and Gomoarionsson, and what’s left of Arling’s house lords. Amala has been writing to Thurrig, asking him to come and take her back to Narlahena. If Thurrig’s fleet came, or some of Thurrig’s fleet that is here, with Thurrig visible, then they might think they were friends and let them get close and dock. And then we would have people inside the defenses and could take the city.”
Darien raised a hand and one of the waiting messengers came up. “Find Admiral Thurrig and ask him to come here,” he told her. She ran off, her loose hair flying about her face. Everyone’s hair seemed to be loose or cropped, according to their custom. There were few enough in camp with nobody to mourn, after Agned. “If that worked, it would get us inside the defenses, but not inside the citadel,” Darien said. He started scratching lines in the dust, ships and numbers of fighters they could carry. “And they will know that Thurrig fought on our side in the battle.”
“They will, yes,” I said. “But it might still work. He could fly his own banner, which would confuse them. It doesn’t need to fool anyone for very long. As for the citadel, I have just been reminded that Garah got out. Someone could get back in that way and open the gates, though it would be very dangerous because Morthu may know how she came out. She has insisted on volunteering to go back that way.”
“How long have you been back?” Darien asked.
I stopped, confused, and glanced at the sun. “Two hours, maybe a little more,” I said. “Why?”
He grinned at me. “Because already you have a plan, and not only a plan but volunteers. When were you planning for this expedition to leave?”
“As soon as possible,” I said. “If you agree, tonight. The Agned flows into the Tamer below Caer Tanaga, so we could sail down and then up, and they would not know where we had come from. At the same time the alae could be riding down to go inside and help when they could.”
“It will take longer than that to move the alae up, and they would really be needed,” Darien said. “How many ships were you planning on taking?”
“I think three. More than that would be suspicious, and with three we ought to have just about enough people.”
“I’m not sure how many defenders they have there,” Darien said, frowning. “Cinon’s there, too, and I don’t know how many they left when they came here for the battle.”
“A sudden attack taking them by surprise,” I said. “And the people of the town would be on our side as soon as they saw who we were.”
“Do you have volunteers ready for the ships, too?”
“I have promised Ulf Gunnarsson he can go,” I said. “I don’t have any others.” I hadn’t thought about it in detail, but it came to me as I was speaking. “Perhaps half armigers who have been trained to fight in close quarters, and half Jarnish infantry who had some experience fighting in the Isarnagan war. Atha’s people probably know the most about fighting in towns, but I wouldn’t really trust them to know how to stop.”
“I was teasing, about volunteers,” Darien said. “I’m amazed you even have one. Is Ulf still looking for death? I was surprised he survived the battle. He can certainly go if he wishes it, he deserves it. He took a blow meant for me just after poor Rigol fell, and we might have all gone down to be Urdo’s honor guard if not for Ulf.”
“That was a bad moment there,” I said.
“I didn’t get a scratch from it,” Darien said. “I think you and I and Father Cinwil are the only people on either side who didn’t get at least a minor wound in the battle.”
I shook my head at the thought of it. “As for Ulf,” I said, after a moment. “I don’t think he’s looking for death so much as wanting to kill Morthu. Mostly I think he just wants to be doing something, anything. I feel some of that myself, but that’s not the real reason why I want to go on this expedition. I feel as if there’s something I need to do, something the gods made sure I would be here to do, and this is it.”
“If Masarn were still alive I’d make you stay back,” Darien said. “You’re needed, and this is dangerous. But there is nobody else capable of commanding a force like that, unless Thurrig takes charge of it all himself, and he’s an old man now. Sending any of the other kings would be as bad as sending you. The new decurios are too new to send. And of course poor Luth needs a month to get hold of a new idea.”
“Who will bring up the alae?” I asked.
“I’ll do that myself,” Darien said off-handedly.
“What about the peace talks?” I asked.
“It’s almost all agreed, and Raul can cope,” he said. “In any case, we will want the kings at Caer Tanaga for a trial, if we can capture Morthu alive.”
“What about Cinon?” I asked. “Dead or alive?”
Darien paused. “Dead might be better,” he said softly. “He is a fool from a line of fools, he has a daughter who is about two years old and no other heir, and it might be better to put all of Nene under Alswith’s rule, along with her own land. Her son could marry Cinon’s daughter when they are both old enough,
if they can bear each other, to make it formal. He hates anyone with Jarnish blood beyond reason, and many of them are his own people now. Urdo has heard so many appeals from the Jarnish farmers of Nene this last five years. I would rather do without him if I can.”
Before I could say anything more I caught sight of Thurrig, coming up the slope toward us.
“I am glad to see you better,” he said to me, before he bowed and greeted Darien.
“My mother is well, and has a plan,” Darien said, and explained it briefly.
Thurrig smiled at the thought of taking the city quickly, and grunted at Darien’s figures, but roared with outrage at the thought of getting there that night. “Impossible,” he said. “The wind, the tide, the currents at the confluence with the Tamer! Have either of you ever been in a boat? They’re not like horses that you can just point the right way and get there, or change direction on a knife edge. With a fair wind a ship is the fastest way to get anywhere, but without one it’s slower than walking. And if the wind is with us for going down the Agned, it will be against us when we go up the Tamer, or the other way around, which is more likely at this time of year. I could get to Caer Thanbard faster than Caer Tanaga, from here. Dusk! We would be lucky to get there at sunset tomorrow.”
“Sunset tomorrow it is, then,” Darien said. “When will you start?”
Thurrig stopped, in mid-rant, and spluttered wordlessly for a moment, so much he almost choked. I laughed. “Oh, laugh, will you,” he said, when he had his breath again, laughing himself. “I have been too much with Custennin, I had forgotten what a king’s decisions sound like.”
“You do understand the danger?” Darien said. “They may know at once you are loyal to us.”
Thurrig gave him an appraising glance. “I knew that when I suggested it, Suliensson. It seems like a good chance. As for when we should start, I will answer decision with decision and say we should start as soon as we can get everyone ready to leave. I have taken on water already.”
The spear seemed to move a little in my hand, as if eager for the fight to come. “Shall I gather up volunteers?” I asked.
“In a moment,” Darien said. “I want to speak to you about another matter.”
“I’ll leave you to that and see you at the ships,” Thurrig said, and bowed to us both.
I smiled, watching him go.
“He has served four generations of us now, and remains his own man,” Darien said. He was smiling too.
“He is a good man and an honest one,” I said. Then I turned to him. “What did you want to discuss?”
“If I am moving the alae, I shall break this camp and have everyone follow us to Caer Tanaga,” Darien said, sounding very sure. “If we take the city, good. If not, then it will mean a tedious siege, and better conducted from as near as possible. There is the question of Urdo.”
“He’s dead,” I said.
“Dead, but with no body to bury or burn.” Darien looked as if he was looking at something far off. “People think they see him, still, as we saw him in the leaves. He speaks to me sometimes. He is one of the powers now. Nobody seems to question how he can stay near death so long. But we need to bury him or do something so that everyone knows he is gone. Do you think I should do that here and now, or at Caer Tanaga? And what happens if people see him in the land after they know he’s dead?”
I opened my mouth to say that the longer it dragged on the worse it was, when suddenly Urdo was sitting there with us. I could tell that it was just the shadow of the tent and the rise of the hill, but at the same time I could see his face in the shifting light and the way his knees bent as he sat. What I felt was contradictory, as it had been when he gave me the sword. There was so much to say that I couldn’t speak, and instead I felt my mouth close with all of it unsaid. He was looking at me as if he knew it all anyway, all the things I could never find a voice to say. He did not speak to me, but turned to Darien, who was watching him silently.
“Caer Tanaga,” he said. “Let the women lay me out.” It was the Jarnish custom for women to prepare a dead body. “Then set me in a boat and let me go.”
“They will say you are not dead,” Darien said unsteadily.
“Some will always say that,” Urdo said, smiling a little. Then he was gone, the sunlight and shadow no more than that.
“That would appear to settle it, then,” I said. My voice sounded a little hollow even to myself.
“People shouldn’t say that,” Darien said, talking to the space where Urdo had been. “It will make them wonder about the White God.”
The White God, of course, who the Book of Memories says came back and walked among his friends after his death, appearing and disappearing when they needed help, until he moved on to become an entirely new kind of god.
“Whatever happened long ago in Sinea, the White God is a real presence,” I said, remembering the light that united everything and made all the music into one music. “I think the priests sometimes sound very sure of things that nobody can be sure of. People who understand the gods sound like Inis, not like Father Gerthmol.”
“Urdo sang with us in the light,” Darien said, as if this reassured him about something. “And Father Gerthmol may sound too sure, but nobody can understand Inis.”
“I think that’s the state you have to get into to really understand the gods,” I said. “And if by then nobody can understand you, that’s how it is. When they have dealings with us they do it at a level we can understand without needing to try to understand them. Their purposes are strange to us.”
“You said they showed you the way back,” Darien said. “Sometimes I feel they want something from me and I don’t know what it is.”
I thought of Gangrader standing leaning against the ash and staring at me in the moonlight. I remembered how he had arranged for Darien to be born. I had stood in the icy stream and scrubbed off the mark Ulf had written on my stomach in blood, yet here he sat, twenty years later, regarding me evenly. I felt an urge to protect him from all of that; absurd, because he was High King and needed to stand between the gods and the people.
“They showed me a path through the wood,” I said. “They gave me this spear. We were standing with them against Morthu. They may know more of things than we can, but we were all standing there together.”
He looked at me solemnly. “I will never forget your darkness. I will keep to Urdo’s Law, that no one god and no one faith shall be set above another.”
“I will never forget your light,” I said, and smiled.
— 24 —
“Our strength is not in stones, but hearts,
but stone-strength shows how heart-strength holds.”
—“The Outwall,” Naien Macsen of Castra Rangor
The first time I ever saw Caer Tanaga, I was riding down from Thansethan with Garah. My breasts had been painfully gorged with milk and she had made me drain them in a ditch at the side of the road where we had been hiding for fear of Morwen’s pursuit. We came out of the ditch and rode on down the highroad looking as dirty and disreputable as any two girls on greathorses ever did. Then we came over a rise in the land and saw Caer Tanaga below us, the glazed walls and towers of the citadel shining in the morning light. I thought from the first that it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. Caer Gloran had impressed me with sheer size. Caer Tanaga won my heart with its red and white towers standing on the hill by the river like banners flying.
Since then I had lived in it and come back to it a hundred times at least, in war and in peace, from the north, from the west, from the east. I had grown used to it, but it had never failed to lift my heart when I first caught sight of it. Whether it was the end of a weary day of training, or to defend it against Ayl in the war, or on a visit from Derwen, coming here had always felt special to me. In all those years this was the first time I had ever come to it by water. It looked very different from below, angled against the hill as we came toward it in the sunset.
I had been bracing myself to see th
e enemy banners flying from the tower. So many times I had looked up to see what alae were here, or if Urdo was back from somewhere. I looked up deliberately, and frowned. I looked at Thurrig, who looked as mystified as I did.
“Arling’s a Jarn, of course; he doesn’t have a banner, only a standard. Banners are a thing for civilized people,” he said slowly. “Maybe they didn’t bother changing it.”
“Then why would they take the kingdom banner down, and why are they flying the Moon of Nene, too?” I asked. “Arling’s standard is up there, anyway. I can make it out.”
It became visible whenever a gust blew Urdo’s gold running-horse banner clear for a moment.
“Maybe they want to surrender,” Thurrig said, but he was shaking his head as he said it. “No. They’d have flown the kingdom flag for that, more likely than Urdo’s horse, I’d have thought.”
“It isn’t Urdo’s horse,” Garah said. She had both hands on the rail and was staring fixedly upward as the ship moved. “The running horse is the sign of the House of Emrys. I expect Morthu’s flying it as his own banner.”
“But he shouldn’t be,” I protested.
“His mother used to have it embroidered on her clothes, don’t you remember?” Garah said.
“Morwen was entitled,” I said. “Well, sort of.” I stopped and thought about it for a moment. “She was Avren’s daughter. Even after she was married she would have been personally entitled to use her own family things. It’s unusual, but she was of higher birth rank than Talorgen. But that doesn’t mean she had the right to pass it on to her children.”
“Was he flying it when you were there before?” Thurrig asked.
“I didn’t see it,” Garah said. “But I didn’t go outside the citadel at all. Nobody said anything about it. But what else could Morthu fly? Angas isn’t there, and doesn’t approve of what he’s doing, so the Thorn of Demedia would be wrong. He doesn’t have lands or a banner of his own.”