“Why not Atha ap Gren?” Mardol wiped his lips and set down the wineskin. “I’ve heard she’s beautiful, and she fights from a moving chariot with throwing spears and has many followers.”
“The Isarnagans have never had a High King that lasts, and their little kingdoms are always at war with each other or with someone—they’ve been attacking into the west of Demedia recently. I would want to be very careful if I got embroiled there. Such a match would bring its own complications. In any case Eirann is marrying Gwyn of Angas, and I do not want to set Demedia and Cennet against me, to say nothing of upsetting Rowanna and Custennin and the monks of Thansethan.” Both men took another drink and this time Mardol finished the cup.
“Do you think we can win?” Mardol asked, setting the cup down gently.
“Is there any alternative?” Urdo smiled grimly, but his voice was light. “I will say again what I said to you six years ago at Thansethan, and three years ago here to all those who came to the crowning. It will not be easy, and you won’t like everything I have to do to do it, but if we believe we can do it, then we can. The gods of the land are on our side, and the Church of the White God supports me. I even have reason to believe that the gods of my enemies are not quite so implacably opposed as I had imagined. If we fight among ourselves, if we do not tax and struggle to support the alae, then we will lose, and lose forever. If we win it will be a victory for a moment only, maybe a few lifetimes. It is not possible to win forever. But it is possible to lose forever.” Urdo stood up and put out a hand to help the older man up from the bench. “Now if you’ve said what it was you wanted privacy to say, I think it’s time we found our beds.”
I waited until they had gone, then stood up. My foot had gone numb and agonized me with pins and needles. Starlight was asleep. I wondered if poor Urdo had gone through all that with each of the kings. The moon was up when I got outside, and all the walls of the high city were gleaming slightly in the silver light. Caer Tanaga was the most beautiful city in the world. It looked delicate, like an exotic bird or butterfly perched on the hilltop. By moonlight it seemed promising, magical. It was always a sight to lift the heart, to make one believe that peace and civilization were possible things.
Standing there in the deep night I did not doubt even for an instant that Urdo would win.
12
Cold hooves on the highroad
bearing bad tidings
swirling together
There Guth fell
Randwine and Rankin
Edfrith and Egbold
The battlehorsemen
who came by night
leaves on a stormwind
gathered against us.
and Gunulf,
fresh come from Jarnholme
in the far kingdom.
invoking death.
Steady on sea-strand
landlonging took them
longspears found them
shoulder companions
strong sons of Sigmund
far from their hearthhome
red blood in grey morning
won graves not gain.
—“The Winning of Tevin”
Those three years at Caer Tanaga were the happiest my life had yet known. I was young and well and among friends, learning the craft I was born to. We rode, we trained, we fought, we grew, scarcely noticing, a little older, and if things seemed not to be better they seemed also not to grow worse, for the first time in long years. We called it peace, who had never known peace in our lives, or our parents’ lives before us. We drank to peace and spent all our time learning war. Sometimes, when we had a truce with Ayl and winter closed the seas to the raiders, we would go two months together without having to fight. We stayed at Caer Tanaga, for we were Urdo’s Ala. Many of us were promoted away, and with our congratulations there was always a note of commiseration. When Urdo had three pennons and everything else an ala required he would send them where they were needed to build up another three pennons there. He now had eight alae of six full pennons each. We were always taking in new recruits and training, but we knew we were special. Urdo trained with us and fought beside us often, and away from the troops he sat in council, gave judgments, and made laws. He did not call it peace, for he alone of us knew what peace was and why it was worth fighting for.
Training was exhausting. There were times when we were glad enough to hear of a raid, for glorious war seemed almost like a rest in comparison. I had thought I was fit and strong before I came to Caer Tanaga but it was only now that I came into my full strength and stamina. I could practice riding formations to signals all morning and teach swordplay until the light left and fall asleep exhausted to wake and do it all again the next day. On rare days off we drank ourselves silly and got into fights with the other pennons. We played endless games of fidchel or dice. We complained constantly. It was always too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry, the floppy practice lances too floppy, the real lances too hard, the weighted swords too heavy, and we were always tired and muddy. Yet if anyone stopped me to ask, I knew that I was happy.
After two years Osvran was made praefecto of our ala. At that time I was made decurio and given command of the fourth pennon. I was twenty-one then. I felt proud and confident, even though I had shaken in my boots when I’d been picked out to lead a real charge as signifer only a few months before. I swore I would go easier on my armigers than Angas or Osvran had been to me, but after only half a month Masarn was complaining that he knew my face better than he knew his wife’s. I worked us all hard until the Fourth Pennon was the best, and then we worked to make sure we stayed the best.
A year later, Urdo sent us north to Tinala in the autumn.
“It’s not the dead but the fled I’m worried about.” Osvran was tugging his moustache and staring down over the edge of the bank. Down in the reeds at the edge of the river the shells of two Jarnish ships were burning. “We know how many we killed, or we will when Glyn comes up with Borthas and his foot soldiers,” he went on. “I didn’t count them on the field. There wasn’t really time—anyone?” He glanced up at us. I shook my head along with the other decurios.
“Four hundred?” I suggested. Osvran frowned, still looking down at the two smoldering ships. In three years the raiders had learned enough not to let us capture them. Their own boats in Thurrig’s hand were our best weapon against them, and they were coming to know it. Last spring, bold Larig ap Thurrig had even taken the war to them and raided Jarnholme. Everyone envied the troops who had gone with him, even though only two of his eight ships made it back.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t have been after them faster,” ap Erbin said. I agreed that King Borthas had been slow in signaling that we could pursue, but held my tongue.
“They came this far, or some of them. Whether the king and his sworn men were here, who knows,” Osvran said, wisely ignoring this remark. “Maybe they had more ships and went off in them. Maybe they went to ground. I just wish I knew where they were now.”
“If Urdo were here,” said Galba, voicing what we were all thinking. To a king, the rivers and trees will sometimes speak of the passing of strangers, and the abode of men. They had little enough to say to us. If the wind had news, it was only that the grey clouds would send rain again soon.
“Unless the land twists terribly, then this is the Don, and over the river is Jarnish land,” Enid said. “We must be looking at what the map calls the province of Valentia. Tevin, as they call it now.” I looked over at it. It seemed the same rolling grassland with broken woodland we had been riding over since we left the highroad. On a hillcrest stood a crumbling stone tower. There was no sign of life, except for one incurious sheep grazing on the riverbank. They could have been in the nearest clump of trees; laughing at us, or many miles away. It was just before noon, as far as I could tell through the clouds. It was always hard to tell how long a battle had lasted.
“There’s another river four or five miles off away east,” said Rhodren, gesturing. “According to t
he map. The”—he squinted at it—“the Derwent? Then it all becomes fenland, low-lying and marshy, lots of little channels, until you get to the sea. I don’t know if the channels are freshwater or salt. Can’t think why anyone wants this soggy land anyway. It’s unfarmable by civilized methods. Can’t we just let the Jarnsmen have it?”
“Jarnholme was a lot like that.” Enid stared across at the moorland on the far side of the river. “But shut up, Rhodren!”
Rhodren made a face at her and looked back at the map. “Anyway, Caer Lind’s not far downstream on the Don, southeast. Fifteen miles or so. If they’re still living in Caer Lind, which we don’t know. Fifteen years since anyone’s been to see.”
“I don’t envy Raul,” said Galba, looking at the ala where they waited, still mounted, for us to decide what to do next. “I wouldn’t go on an embassy to a new Jarnish king in a country nobody’s been into for a generation for a dozen mares. Has old Borthas found out about that yet?”
“Not as far as I know,” said Osvran. “The High King specifically told us not to mention it. Urdo doesn’t want the Jarnsmen to take Tinala. But we don’t want to help Borthas to Tevin either. Borthas isn’t our friend, in case that’s slipped anyone’s mind.” We laughed. “What we want is peace, not conquests. Nobody much lives in Tevin now except Jarnsmen—it’s wet and boggy, and it gets invaded a lot, and almost everyone from there is dead, living somewhere else, or enslaved somewhere and out of our reach.”
“My old arms master came from Caer Lind,” I said. “But he didn’t talk about it much. He left when it fell to the Jarns.”
“Rhodren’s right in a way,” said Enid. “We did just abandon it to them.”
“That was a long time ago, and that’s not the point,” said Osvran. “Urdo would recognize a Jarnish kingdom of Tevin, the same way he’s recognized Aylsfa and Cennet. He sent us up here because Borthas asked for help. Borthas isn’t warring with either the Jarns up in Bereich or King Penda in Bregheda this year, and Borthas had heard that a Jarnish king has landed in Tevin, and he doesn’t want trouble. He told Urdo he was frightened about an attack. If they’ve a new king, then maybe they’re going to get organized, he said. So we’re here, just for this season, Urdo’s most loyal ala. It has to be admitted that the Jarns were attacking into Tinala today though. We got there in time to fight them in a place of our choosing. We’re going to stop the Jarns, but when Borthas comes up he’s going to want to cross this river and burn hamlets, and it’s my decision whether we do. Now, helpful arguments about where they’ve gone, please.”
“If they’ve gone north there’s at least a shipload of them heading upriver straight towards Caer Avroc,” said Galba. “Let me see the map?”
“That map would be a sight more useful if it wasn’t two hundred years old,” muttered Rhodren. We had already learned that it told the hills and rivers and Vincan towns well enough but gave no indication of Jarnish hamlets. The Jarnsmen seemed to site their settlements with what seemed deliberate willfulness as far out of sight of the highroads as they could. Those we had found on this side of the Don were nominally part of Tinala, but they were little pleased to see representatives of any king.
“North towards Caer Avroc, southeast towards Caer Lind, or overland towards the Derwent into Tevin,” said Galba, looking at the map.
The rising smoke drifted away into the dark clouds. “If they had enough hands to crew even one of these ships, they’d have taken it, even towing,” I said.
“We’ve beaten them on the field. They’ve taken casualties. No question of that. The problem is what to do next,” said Osvran. “There are still enough of them to do damage, we ought to either press them to a more decisive battle or make a truce. If they have crossed the water, they may melt away into the Jarns who live there. They will have kindred and guest-friends enough among the Jarns who are living quietly and doing no harm, no doubt, up here the same as among Ayl’s people. If they have time for that, we will never catch them, and maybe stir up the major war Borthas fears. If every Jarn settled in the east takes up arms it will be a disaster.”
“I think that’s what Borthas hopes for,” said Rhodren, staring out over the sluggish water. “I hate it up here. He wants the Jarns to fight, to fight us.”
“Can I say something?” asked ap Erbin. “It isn’t a suggestion about where they are, but I think it’s relevant.”
“If you think it’s relevant, always say it,” said Osvran. “I know you’ve only been decurio a little while, but haven’t you been to any of Urdo’s strategy feasts yet?” Urdo believed that everyone who was in a position to give orders needed a minimum training in history, strategy, tactics, and knowing when to speak up. His strategy feasts could be both an ordeal and tremendous fun. Everyone above the rank of signifer would be invited, and the conversation could become very testing. He was inclined to assign reading to be done by next time. Enid was given to complaining that I had cheated by reading about the Lossian Wars as a child. I couldn’t see the distinction between being forced to read Fedra’s interminable prose by my mother and being told to read it by Urdo, except that Urdo’s reasons were better. It wasn’t my fault she had a bad memory.
“Just one of them,” said ap Erbin. “Well, this may be silly. But why have they got ships at all?” We all looked at him like an idiot cousin. Jarnish raiders always had ships. He blushed. “I mean, when Ayl crosses the Tamer he doesn’t. These aren’t local raiders. They can’t have got here without coming all the way from the sea, past Caer Lind. Those are big ships. Their king was there. They were fighting quite well, not like pirates. They were disciplined. They were doing ever so well against Borthas’s infantry, and they were really solid against the charge, they stood it as well as I’ve ever seen anyone stand it. They retreated in good order, too. They were a nasty piece of work.”
“They were,” agreed Galba. “Ap Erbin’s right. They’re well-disciplined Jarns, a king and his house lords. They’re not raiders, but they came from somewhere in ships for some reason. Probably they’re going back there, if they have any sense.”
“Or they burned their ships to show they’re here to stay?” suggested Enid. “That they’ll take the land and not retreat, even if they’re retreating right now?”
“This isn’t Aylsfa,” I put in. “We don’t have any truce with these people, or even any habit of having a truce with them. Maybe they don’t know how to ask for one? If we go south along the river, to see if we could cut them off, then Borthas could take his army back to Caer Avroc in case they did go north. If we found them, we could send people back to him; we needn’t engage them straightaway. The same if he found them; he could send a rider and we could come back. If they’re going back and we find them, well, maybe they’d listen to sense if they heard it first. My signaler and a couple of people in my pennon speak Jarnish.”
“That’s not bad thinking,” said Osvran, making my cheeks heat with the unexpected praise. “We have our own supply system, and that way we don’t have to spend more time with Borthas than we have to.” He grinned decisively. “Mount up, get ready, we may as well start moving. Enid, send a messenger to the main force explaining what we’re doing.”
“What if Borthas doesn’t want to?” asked Rhodren.
“That’s why I’m not waiting about to argue with him,” Osvran said. “Send a messenger to Glyn, to Glyn himself, also explaining. Get all our supplies and spares to come after us as soon as they can. Tell Glyn we’ll wait for them within three miles downstream, and we’ll have something to eat and a rest when they reach us.”
I walked back to where my pennon was waiting, smartly drawn up. They’d drilled so much that at last it was more natural for them to be right than wrong. They were all looking to me. We were one man down, poor Senach had taken a thrown spear through his eye. Indeg, my signaler, had a hand to his trumpet already, ready to pass on the orders. I grinned up at them all as I swung myself up on Apple’s back. “We’re going to head downriver, probably camp tonight, find
out what’s going on, no fighting.” There was a satisfying chorus of groans. They’d fought once today already, and we’d come out of it very well, despite the unexpected high quality of the Jarnish troops. Their blood was up. They wanted to go on and do it again.
“At least we’re not going back. I’d much rather fight than face another one of those terrible banquets at Caer Avroc!” said Geiran, pulling a face. Everyone laughed, and there were mutters of agreement.
“Fight?” I said, pretending to be surprised. “I should think we’d all rather fight. Personally I’d rather go on an all-night foot patrol with a forty-turnip pack in deep winter.” They laughed again, good-naturedly.
“Who hasn’t been offered double pay and a promotion to transfer to old snake-face’s personal horse-band?” Bran ap Penda asked.
“Horse dancers,” sneered Masarn ap Sifax. “Did you see them holding back in the battle behind the foot soldiers?”
“He doesn’t have the first idea how to use horses in battle,” said Bran, smiling a little.
“You’d think after the first hundred and fifty times they’d heard no they wouldn’t bother to ask us again,” said Geiran. “What did you say?” They were taking up their right places in the forming ala without my having to say a word. We were used to each other and comfortable together. The column was in fours without anyone giving an order. Geiran and Bran took up position alongside me. Bran was signifer, and he held the pennon banner and the golden charge banner strapped to his saddle. Geiran was sequifer and had the white rally banner safely strapped to hers. I had let them carry them in the charge, though I could have decided to take one of them myself. Indeg rode behind me, ready to catch my signals and relay them. I didn’t even need to glance back to see where he was.