“But how can I move the ala at dawn if I go with you now?” he asked.
He couldn’t, of course. “You stay and move the ala,” Conal said. “We’ll go with her. Could you get another horse for me? The queen of Dun Morr can ride yours.”
I had told him to obey Conal. Conal, for all his faults, was quick-witted and good in an emergency. Emlin dismounted hesitantly, looking at me and up at Conal. Conal lowered Emer out of the window into the saddle of Emlin’s horse. Garian steadied her. She muttered something under her breath that included the word “greathorses,” then straightened in the saddle. Emlin went back toward the stables. He came back much more quickly than he had the first time, when he must have had to wake Garian. It still seemed like a long time, slumped and still on Beauty’s broad back. The night air seemed to be doing me good. I was breathing more easily. I struggled to straighten myself but I still couldn’t manage it. Beauty stood without complaint. He was too good-mannered to object if I’d decided to sit on his back like an awkward parcel.
As Conal jumped down into the saddle, people carrying torches came running around the corner of the house. “Stop thief!” they called. I could see the light shining on weapons.
“Come on, ride for your lives!” Conal shouted. I could only see behind, not in front. I caught sight of Emlin running back toward the stables. They had no chance of catching us. We were mounted and they were on foot. He was a different matter. I hoped the darkness would cover him. I managed to nudge Beauty with my knees and we went off after the others as fast as a lightning bolt.
— 2 —
When putting a traitor to the question, banish all emotions and pay close attention.
— Caius Dalitus, The Relations of Rulers
I knew we could make it home to Derwen in a night without killing the horses. I had done it before. I sat in the saddle and let Beauty carry me after the others through the night. We rode as fast as we dared, and for the most part in silence. Garian didn’t ask a single question. I think he was born without any curiosity. After we had left the pursuit far behind, Emer and Conal sang together quietly for a while. They sang old Isarnagan songs about feuds and battles and impossible quests. Their voices blended well together. Then they trailed off and we rode on in silence again.
I could have slept if I had let myself. I did not seem to be getting any worse, but nor could I detect any improvement. I hated being carried along like a sack of turnips. From time to time I tried to sit up and failed. Occasionally I coughed. I could twitch my knees and move one hand, the whole arm if I tried really hard. It was horrible to be so weak. The worst of it was not being able to talk at all. I had always been well until then, and had suffered no more hurt than battle-cuts and bruises, which soon healed. I had thought aging meant being slower at thirty-eight than I had been at eighteen, which could be made up by having better technique. That poisoning was my first taste of real infirmity. I hated it. I tried not to think what I would do if the land could not help me and if I must live in this state forever. The Vincan answer would have been to kill myself. I could not take that way out. I had responsibilities; I had made promises to Derwen, to my people, and to Urdo. There was nobody else ready to care for the land. It would be five years before Gwien was old enough. Five years of only being able to twitch my fingers, grunt, and drool seemed a daunting prospect.
We were near the borders of Derwen but not yet over them when we heard the pursuit. They were mounted and noisy. I could see nothing but dark branches, but they sounded to me like half an untrained pennon crashing along, ten or fifteen people. Without discussion we all put on a spurt. They continued on after us. After a while I heard a voice calling out: “Who rides in Magor?”
That was not an ala challenge. “I think the truth will serve best,” Conal said. “That way it will be more difficult for them to say they took us for brigands or raiders in the dark. In any case, it may be Emlin and his people.”
“We are not at war with them, and you are a herald from Atha,” Emer agreed. I tried to shout a warning and managed a few strangled syllables, but it was too late.
“Ap Gaius, armiger of the ala of Magor, Emer ap Allel, the queen of Dun Morr, Sulien ap Gwien, praefecto of the High King and Lord of Derwen, and I am Conal ap Amagien, herald of Oriel, called Conal the Victor.”
I could hardly believe that he had forgotten the prohibition Emer had placed on him, that to give any part of his name when he was with her would mean death. I tried to spur Beauty on, and he found some more speed from within him somewhere as a shower of arrows fell around us. One of them skittered off one of the shoulder plates on my armor.
“Annoying,” Conal said.
“I do wish there had been time to go for my sword,” Emer said.
“Take Sulien’s, she can’t use it at the moment,” Conal said. Then Emer was beside me, drawing out my sword. I grunted permission, but when it was gone I felt naked and disarmed. My shield was on the side of the saddle, but she didn’t take it. I hoped she had Emlin’s.
Then the first of them were among us. That is the only battle of my life in which I did nothing. I gave no orders, killed nobody, and suffered no wounds, I simply rode straight on as fast as I could. I caught glimpses of Emer and Garian and Conal fighting. Conal leapt from the saddle straight at one of them, knocking him back onto the ground. That trick would never have worked on an armiger who was used to his horse, and only a madman would have tried it. Conal laughed and brandished a sword he had acquired in the encounter. He must have been practicing riding since that duel at Thansethan. I saw him take down another man with the sword. He had no shield, and of course he was still wearing the tunic and breeches he had worn for dinner in the hall.
None of the pursuers seemed confident on their horses. Some of them had bows, and most of them had swords, but none of them seemed to have spears. They were not armed like armigers. They did not give the battle cry of our ala, “Galba!” but rather called “Magor!” to let each other know where they were. I worked out after a while they must be Aurien’s household guards got up on greathorses. Garian seemed to be doing particularly well against them. He was the only hale and trained armiger there. I saw him take down two of them, and then Beauty jumped a stream and we were in Derwen.
It was like falling into dark water. The land came over me like a wave. It was not just the sense of being home, known and knowing. There is a sea tide and a land tide, and it was the land tide that drew me down to where the trees and I are brothers and the slow shifting of the rock on the world’s skin makes a song I can hear. I did not ask for strength or reach for strength. What charms could there be against poison? But the land knew me and recognized me. There was a moment of deep belonging there, and for the instant between the drifting of a dandelion seed and the growth of an oak tree I sat straight on Apple’s back in deep forest in the first glimmer of spring dawn and knew the land as the land knew me. There was a great disturbance along the borders of Magor, and distant rumblings of disturbance mixed with a new song from the waterwheels grinding at Nant Gefalion. Still, all grew as it should and the land was well. As for me, something was choking me. I hawked and spat, and all the poison that had been running through my veins fell from my mouth in one sour, twisted lump. A tingling pain ran through my body, followed by agonizing cramps as I sat up. Poor Beauty stopped as I did so. He was sweating and trembling and his ears were flat against his head. I felt more thirsty than I have ever been in my life. My strength was back, and I thanked the land spirits of Derwen with all the words I knew.
The sounds of pursuit had fallen behind. I spoke to Beauty reassuringly and reached down for my waterskin. I drained it in one draft. The sky was graying in the east but it was still very dark under the trees. I untied my legs from the saddle. Then I turned Beauty’s head and let him walk back slowly to where we had last seen the others. I did not know what good we could do. He was almost at the end of his strength and I had no sword.
I found Conal first. He was lying at the brook,
filling a helmet with water. His eyes widened when he saw me sitting up in the saddle. “You made it into Derwen, I see,” he said. “Then this expedition was not entirely futile.”
“You saved my life,” I said directly. Beauty forded the little stream and halted beside him. “Thank you.”
“It was only polite,” he said, and smiled. “I should have done it rather better had I known what I was getting into. Whatever have you done to anger your sister so much that she is poisoning you and sending armed men after you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t understand this at all.”
“What a shame,” Conal said. “It would have been nice to know what was going on. I’m very sorry to tell you that ap Gaius is dead. He and I were fighting the last of them.”
“Turth’s tusks!” I swore. Garian had been a good armiger. “You’ve killed them all?”
“None of them will be going back to tell tales,” Conal said. “Do you think you could take this water to Emer? She’s a little way down the track back there.” He gestured a little with the helmet, spilling some of the water.
“Of course,” I said, dismounting. My legs felt very wobbly. I wanted to drink more water myself. Beauty put his head down to drink as soon as I was down. “But why don’t you take it yourself?” Then I saw that his other arm, the one not holding the helmet, was barely attached to his shoulder. “Oh, Fishface, you idiot!” I said. “You’ve got yourself killed! Where’s the weapon that did it?”
Conal snorted. “I am dying with a woman who despises me,” he said. “That is about what my father and my uncle always thought I would deserve. The weapon is back there near Emer. I already sang all the charms I know, which is what has kept me alive this far. Beyond that the gods are laughing at me. I broke the curse, and I will die for it. I should have told them my name was Fishface.”
“I’ll carry you back there and try my charms,” I said. It must have been a heavy blow from on top after he was already unhorsed. It could have been a sword or an ax, there was no way to tell. Armor might have helped, but probably not very much. “And anyway, I don’t despise you. You infuriate me a lot of the time but I’ve never despised you.”
“That’s good to know,” he said, and smiled, gathering together all his charm. “I’d really much prefer it if you took the water to Emer. She may be destined to die as well, but her foot appears to be reattached so there is likely hope for her. Do tell her—well, tell her I love her more than breath, if you would. She will know that I am dead, if she is alive to know it. I grant you it would make a better song if we both die, but I’d really rather she didn’t. I suppose as far as songs go it should have been the three of us. Strange that you should be here, after all these stories of terrible debauchery you and I are supposed to have committed. But you prefer leprous female dead cod, I recall.” He smiled at me again.
“You’re babbling,” I said, gruffly, to hide the lump that had come into my throat. “Hold onto that helmet, I can carry you and it.”
“If you like,” he said indifferently. The dawn birds were starting to sing loudly all around us. I took Beauty’s head to stop him drinking too much too soon. “When I told my father Black Darag was dead he asked me why, in that case, I was still alive,” Conal said meditatively as I bent down toward him. I hoped it wasn’t far to where Emer was. I wondered if I could put him up on Beauty.
“You told me that at Thansethan,” I said, getting my arms underneath him.
“Well, if you get the chance, let him know that I managed to die in a not unworthy cause, nor entirely without dignity.”
“If I have to,” I said, and lifted. Conal laughed and drew breath to say something. Then his bad arm flopped away from his body and a tremendous amount of blood ran out of it, all down my armor and into the stream. Beauty made a little whuffle of disgust. I set him down again, gently, though there was no need. He was unquestionably dead.
I took the helmet and set it carefully on a stone. Then I wiped my armor as clean as I could with the flowing water. Then I filled up my waterskin. There would have been enough water in that for Emer, but somehow taking the wretched helmet had become an obligation I owed to Conal. I led Beauty back down the track. That left both my hands full so I had to let my tears run unchecked. It was strange that I wept for Conal; I had not even known I had liked him.
Emer was sitting propped against a bank. She appeared to be alive but very weak. I gave her the helmet of water.
Garian’s horse was cropping the grass nearby. Garian himself lay on his back. His eyes were wide open, staring at the sky. He had been stabbed through the thigh and his life had run out of him. There were six other bodies in sight, and four dead horses. I looked at the bodies one by one. I recognized all of them as Aurien’s people. The last of them was Cado, whose father Berth was my trumpeter and whose daughter Flerian was one of my scouts. It seemed terribly wrong that he should have been trying to kill me. I stared at him for a moment and then looked back at Emer. She lowered the helmet.
“Conal?” she asked, as if she already knew the answer.
“Dead,” I confirmed. She closed her eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath. “It was as good a death as any warrior could wish,” I said. “He told me to tell you he loved you more than breath. He said it in that way of his but I know he meant it.”
“Much good it does me,” she said bleakly. Then, while she wept, I caught Garian’s mare. There didn’t seem any point in the two of us making a pyre now. If we rode on a few hours to Derwen we could come back with plenty of people. Besides, if anyone else was going to approach from Magor I wanted the troops behind me.
I helped Emer onto Garian’s mare and got back up on Beauty. We went on together in silence. When we came to the stream Emer drew in her breath but did not dismount. We went on, into Derwen. The trees and the track were no different, yet everything was different, because I knew it and it knew me.
After a while Emer wiped her eyes. “I killed him as sure as if I’d held the sword,” she said. “Don’t ever curse anyone unless you know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t know any curses,” I said.
“They’re not like charms you have to learn,” she replied. “There are so many things you don’t seem to know in Tir Tanagiri. I suppose it comes of having no oracle-priests.”
“Tell me how to curse, then,” I asked, less because I wanted to know than to distract her from her grief.
“You can only give a prohibition to someone who is close to you; a lover or a relative, or a personal enemy. They have to be there in front of you; it is better if you are touching them. Then you reach out to the gods and set a prohibition on them that if they break it they will die. If the gods will have it then you can feel it become part of the way the world is. It binds you to them, and you will know when it finds them. It is warding as well as curse, because they will not die of other things that might have found them. Some people set prohibitions on their children to protect them. There is a story of a mother who set a warding curse on her son that he could not be killed indoors or out of doors, by weapons or of any sickness. He died when the house collapsed as he was in the doorway. The whole family was crushed.”
“You just reach out?” I asked.
“Perhaps it is better that people don’t do it so much here,” she said. “Conal—” Her voice broke.
“Or I might have killed him that morning before the walls of Derwen,” I said harshly.
“I should have trusted you,” she said.
“You had little reason to,” I said.
I was worried about Emlin and the rest of the ala in Magor. As soon as I got home I would have to send word to Urdo, making sure the messenger went through Nant Gefalion and Caer Gloran, not the faster way through Magor.
I had filled and emptied my waterskin four times before we came to the town walls, and still my thirst seemed never ending. I was also exhausted and had no expectation of sleep. I told the gate guards to close the gates and send the decuri
os to me. Then Emer and I rode up and dismounted at the stables by the house. I wanted to talk to Veniva before doing anything.
Daldaf ap Wyn, my mother’s steward, came forward to greet me. “Welcome home, Lord; you have come earlier than we looked for you?”
I didn’t want to tell him anything at the moment, so I just said, “Yes.” He handed me and Emer steaming beakers of hot apple juice. This was faster than he normally managed a hot drink, even on a cold day. I thought that he must have started heating them when he heard we were at the gates.
“Peace in this hall,” he said to Emer. I raised my beaker to my lips, then, despite my thirst, waited as she murmured the response, to drink with her. Then I caught the smell and dashed it down, knocking Emer’s from her hand. My cup was copper, it dented and rolled, making a ringing sound. Emer’s was my mother’s precious red Vincan cup, and it broke into many pieces. I grabbed Daldaf by the upper arms and lifted him off the ground.
“Nobody plays that trick twice!” I said. His look of terror was enough to convict him in my eyes. “Who told you to poison me and why are you doing it?”
Just then Veniva swept into the hall. She smelled of rosemary, and had green stains on her apron; she must have been making up a salve. She took in the scene in a moment and raised her eyebrows. “Whatever are you doing to Dal?” she asked.
“Stopping him from poisoning me and my guest,” I said. It was only then that it struck me that if Emer’s drink had also been poisoned then he had actually poisoned the guest cup. It was an enormity that made Aurien’s attempted kin-murder at her own table look almost acceptable.
Veniva came forward quickly. Daldaf was struggling in my grip. I had thought I was weak and tired, but I had no trouble keeping him pinned. “Did you do that?” she asked. He said nothing. I shook him, and he still said nothing. Veniva stooped to the broken pieces of her precious red cup and sniffed at one. “Henbane?” she said, in a horrified voice. “Daldaf? Why?”