“She wouldn’t say no to that if she were at death’s own gate, and you know it,” said Garah, before I had even opened my mouth to say that I would do it if I had to ride through all the hosts of Jarnholme to do it. I laughed at the two of them.
“I am fit to ride, and I would be honored to ride as signifer.” I said. “Raul has looked at me and seen that my injuries weren’t serious, you told me so yourself, Garah. I was just tired. It would be better if I could eat something first.”
“There might be time for some gruel if you are quick,” Urdo said.
“I’ll get it,” said Garah, sighing. I looked down at myself. I was wearing someone’s brown-wool shift. It was too short for me. My sword leaned on the side of the stool, on top of it my armor lay, in a pile. I had not really looked at it while I had been wearing it. My shield looked as if some great monster had been chewing on it. As for the rest, Garah was right about the sand. I shrugged off the shift and reached out for it reluctantly.
“See if this fits,” said Urdo, looking shyly proud as he did when he made someone a gift. He opened the chest and lifted out some armor. I blinked. It was leather set with metal plates, far finer than in my armor, or even Angas’s enameled armor. These plates were polished so that they might almost have been silver like the scales of a great fish. There were strange hair-fine curling designs inscribed on them, dragons and serpents and strange beasts. It looked as if it had been made for a woman my height. “When my grandfather Emrys returned from the land of the giants, he brought one of the giants with him, as well as the giant horses whose descendants we ride today. The giant was a woman called Larr. The armor was hers. It has been in a chest in Caer Segant for the last fifty years or so. My mother Rowanna found it there and sent it to me, thinking it might fit you. The leather has been well cared for, and this is close to the pattern of all the armor we use today to fight on horseback, as you can see.”
I took it from him. “My thanks, lord. I am honored. And I think it will fit.” I was awed. It was armor that might have been forged on the anvil of Govannen the Smith in the morning of the world.
“I don’t think she can have been such a giant as all that, then,” Urdo said. I began to put it on, carefully joining the beautiful tooled leather and brass connections, smelling the leather and fresh oil.
“Perhaps that’s why she left with your grandfather. Perhaps she was as a dwarf in the land of giants. If they were all so big that our great horses were like ponies to them?” Urdo made an adjustment to the back and I pulled what was left of my hair out of the way. It fitted as if it had been made for me.
“Well, records are terrible for that time when the Vincans were leaving,” he said. “Fascinating as it is. All I know about her is that her name was Larr and she came back with the horses after his famous voyage, and she died in one of the battles my grandfather fought when he made himself High King. She must have been wearing her second-best armor at the time.” Garah came back in with the gruel, and gasped at the sight of the armor. Her eyes widened as Urdo stepped out from behind me to look at the effect.
“Yes, a very good fit,” he said. I couldn’t speak.
“Well it’s clean anyway,” Garah said. I took the hot gruel and swallowed greedily from the bowl. It was marvelous.
“We’re very lucky all the horses didn’t get killed in those battles,” Urdo went on, pensively, turning my new helmet over in his hands. “There weren’t all that many of them then, you know, not really enough for a proper charge. They could all have been lost if not for the monks deciding to breed them. I give thanks to Horse Mother and to the Lord of Moderation for Thansethan.”
“You do what!” I turned to him laughing and took the helmet. “Do they know? Father Gerthmol would turn blue and die.” Urdo laughed his deep laugh.
“I haven’t mentioned it to him,” he said. “He did his best to bring me up to be a good worshiper of the White God, and I am, in my way. But the land will speak to the lord, as they say. Anyway, you look magnificent, the very thing to put fear into the Jarns. Are we ready?” I tightened the buckles and set my helmet on my head. I bent for Garah to straighten the crest, then she handed me the pennon banner and the golden charge banner with a proud smile. Urdo set his helmet on his head and we strode out to lead one more charge.
It was a hard-won fight, especially where the king and his house lords held the field. We beat them, but by the truce terms the people of Bereich kept control of all the northern hills of Tinala.
After the battle Angas came up to me in the bathhouse. He had cut off his hair, the way I had, though his was cut all in one line. The heating system for the baths of Caer Avroc was long since broken, but the clean cold water felt very good to me that day.
Angas came right up beside me as I stood under the falling water and spoke very low, so that I could hardly hear him and there was no chance of our being overheard. “I have to know what happened with my mother.” I would have spoken but he held up his hand. “I’ve spoken to Galba, and I’ve spoken to my brother Morthu, and they tell me completely different things. I won’t pursue a bloodfeud. Whatever you and ap Erbin did there’s no question she deserved to die. She was mad. She was an oracle, you know, and they are often driven mad by seeing the future and then not seeing it. I think she didn’t expect my father’s death, and it drove her mad and then to this treachery.”
“How did he die?” I asked, really not wanting to say anything about how long she had been mad and treacherous. She was dead. It was for Urdo to say if it needed to be said.
“A boar who was stronger than he was made it up his spear.” Angas smiled grimly. “Not an unfitting death. He always enjoyed the hunt. But my mother—even apart from her outright treachery in raising arms with the enemies of Urdo, she killed Osvran, who was my foster brother and her guest-friend. I am grateful to you for making it easier for me in that she is dead already. The law in Demedia would have had her whipped around a birch tree for that. Even by Vincan law she had earned death. But I am Lord of Angas now, and King of Demedia when I go home, which I must do as soon as I can. I will always be your friend, no matter. But I have to know if it would be wrong for me in the eyes of the Mother to break bread with you.”
“I don’t know,” I said, and shrugged, stepping out of the water and wrapping myself in a towel. I sat down on the step beside it, and Angas sat down next to me, the cold water lapped our feet. I spoke quietly in the water’s sound shadow.
“She admitted treachery, and she admitted murdering Osvran.” Angas’s face twisted a moment in pain. “Geiran struck her, with her hand, for an insult to Osvran’s memory. You don’t want to know. I’d have done the same if I’d been closer. She then released a sorcerous fire which burned Geiran, killing her. Geiran touched her, and she began to burn herself. It looked to me as if she had not the power to control the fire. She was burning up in the fire and dying. She may have been dead by the time my sword touched her, I think so. My sword and ap Erbin’s are marked by the blaze and have had a strange blue shine to them since. But if intention counts then I would have killed her, if she had still been alive. I wanted to bring her back for trial, but I was angry. Geiran was my sequifer.”
“I hate all this,” Angas said. “If you had killed her it would have been just. That is what I told Morthu. He’s very young and he adored her. It’s hard for him. It will be hard to tell my sisters. But if that’s the way of it, then by my thinking she died by her own hand, and you and ap Erbin are guiltless even of the action. So I will ask you both to sit with me and Eirann at the feast tonight, as a sign that there is nothing to forgive.”
“Of course I will. I’m just relieved that’s how you want to look at it.”
“So am I,” said Angas, wryly. “But if she went mad before she died better to forget as much of it as possible, I think. That was Eirann’s advice.”
“Eirann’s here then?” Angas stood and pulled me to my feet.
“Yes, and our baby son. We’re on our way to Dun Idyn.”
We walked through the baths and back to the changing room, which was warmed by a cheerful iron stove. “Stopping here and at Caer Lind to fight can be seen as just pauses on the journey. I have to take oath as king, and marry the land in the old way. Eirann doesn’t like that, but there’s no chance of turning the whole of Demedia to the White God in my reign; these things take time. Even Custennin didn’t have it altogether easy in his conversion, and he was king already and most of the land gods and almost all the people were in favor. Which reminds me, have you heard that Custennin has an heir at last? His wife has had another baby, at the age of forty-five. They’re saying it’s a miracle and calling it Gorai, after the apostle of the White God.”
“I’m glad you’re going with tradition and the proper way of doing things,” I said. Angas snorted. He reached into a sack that was underneath his pile of clothes and brought out a leather flask that sloshed.
“Did you know they call your mother the last of the Vincans?” he asked. I did. There was a great deal of truth in it. He drank from the flask and passed it to me. “They don’t mean any harm by it. They like her. I like her. She was splendid when our baby was born. She’s really doing well organizing the town at Derwen, too. The place is thriving.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Did Galba tell you he’s going to have a whole ala down there?” I drank, and blinked. It was good strong mead from the west.
“Now? I doubt it. Urdo’s going to need to keep us very mobile. This is a real war we have coming, not just some cattle raid. We won’t have the Isarnagans forever, and they’ll need paying.” He looked somber, and I passed him back the mead.
“You don’t think it was a good idea?” I asked. I finished drying myself and began to dress.
“What else could Urdo have done? He really needed them just then. I’m afraid he may regret it later. It was lucky in some ways. Their ambassador was there, offering an alliance. A great big war in Tir Isarnagiri has just finished, and the princess’s betrothed was killed in it by Black Darag, one of their maniac berserkers, leaving her conveniently free.”
I pulled my cloak on, and took another pull of mead. “Will I see her at the feast? I expected to see her on the field.”
“She’s in Caer Tanaga. And I don’t think you’ll see her on any battlefields.” Angas reclaimed the leather flask and took a hefty swig. “She’s strictly the decorative type of woman from what I’ve seen of her. She came with a bard’s song saying she’s one of the Three Most Beautiful Women in the Island of Tir Isarnagiri. An extremely pretty face, and good hips as well, as Thurrig would say.” He settled his white praefecto’s cloak on his shoulders, twitching it so the oak leaves were straight.
“I thought she was a warrior?” I stood up, confused, as we made our way out of the bathhouse.
“I don’t know where you heard that. She’s only sixteen or seventeen. Very odd for her if you think about it. Her betrothed killed in battle and apparently at one point her mother was offering her to anyone who could kill Black Darag. Only nobody could. Then suddenly she’s whisked over here, married to Urdo, he spends the ritual night with her, and at dawn he’s away off up here to fight. All of it absolutely necessary and the least much that would do, and I expect she’s been brought up to expect it. All the same I’m ever so glad I had longer to make friends with Eirann than that.”
“Who is she then? You’ve just saved me from another famous howler. I sort of assumed he’d married Atha ap Gren. That’s who everyone’s always mentioned in terms of an Isarnagan alliance. But I know she’s a warrior. There are songs about her.”
Angas laughed. “Well that’s saved you very narrowly from making one of the Three Most Tactless Blunders of Sulien ap Gwien—so sorry, I mean of the Island of Tir Tanagiri.” I poked him. “That would not have gone down well if you’d said that in front of any of our painted friends. Atha ap Gren is married to Black Darag, since last year. We’ve allied with the other side. The new High Queen of Tir Tanagiri is Elenn ap Allel and don’t forget it.”
We came out onto the street laughing together and almost immediately saw Rheneth ap Borthas. She was wearing a dark overdress and had her hair loose around her head in the Tanagan mourning custom. It made her look older, but also more dignified. She was, after all, a woman over forty, twice a widow, not a young girl. Her eyes were red and swollen and there were tracks of tears on her face. I felt real pity for her. Although I had not liked her brother I knew she had been close to him. I hated to think that he had been killed by Morwen and almost certainly lay unburied. Not even Borthas deserved to have his soul eaten. If I had been alone, I think I would have stopped and given her my sympathy. As it was Angas slackened his pace when he saw her, but she almost ran up to us as if she feared we would flee her.
“Laughing, are you?” she said. “Traitor. When your own mother opened the gates to them. You Angarides have always hated us. My brother shouldn’t let you inside the city walls in case you do the same.” I was completely taken aback by her outburst. Angas stood still, rocking back a little on his heels as if struck.
“The High King knows well that Gwyn of Angas has been loyal to him above loyalty to his own family,” I said.
“What do I care about that half-breed coward Urdo,” she hissed at me. “Oh you think yourself so wonderful with your horses, but whose land have you been giving away to the barbarians today? A pox on the whole house of Emrys. My brother held Tinala whole for more than twenty years, three reigns. No matter what anyone did, he held the land that’s always been in our family. Always, since before the Vincans came. Nobody cares about land anymore, except us in Tinala. I hate you all. Thank Riganna Flavien survived. I’ll see you all eaten by serpents before you get any help from me.” She spat suddenly, on Angas’s beard, then ran off quickly down the street.
Angas wiped his face and stared after her.
“She’s been drinking,” I said.
“Oh yes. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t mean it. Borthas never was a friend to Urdo. Well, he’s paid for it. But that did seem rather excessive. All the same it’s impossible to answer. Borthas did hold the land, and we have given some of it away. And my mother was a traitor. I do hope everyone isn’t thinking that about me underneath.” Angas leaned back on the wall and began to laugh. “We have to go to a banquet and appear like reasonable people on good terms with each other when all that’s seething below the surface. It was just like that when my mother’s letter arrived, I felt as if I’d been handed a nest of snakes. Please don’t go mad and start shouting abuse at me, Sulien.”
“Of course not. Come on, get up, we really do have to go. Nobody will be thinking that about you, if they have half a brain. If you were a traitor, you’d have joined with her and the crows would be eating all our eyes this fine night.”
“It’s a horrible thing not to be trusted,” he said. “I’ve never had a problem with it before, I always thought it was like Dalitus says, be trustworthy and you will be trusted, seek out associates that are trustworthy and you will not be betrayed. I always tried to do that, as much as I could, especially once I was an armiger. My father sent me as a hostage in a way, and Urdo treated me with such honor.”
“Come on, Angas.” I wanted to say that everyone trusted him, but it wasn’t a time for comforting lies. “Anyone who doesn’t trust you is an idiot. Urdo understands and trusts you, and all of us in the alae will stand with you. Anyone else will realize what that means.”
“I am going to miss Osvran,” he said quietly, standing up again.
“I am, too,” I said. “Come on now.” We walked off together down the street. “Oh and another thing. About the Three Most Tactless Blunders on the Island of Tir Tanagiri? I’d put what Rheneth ap Borthas said just then pretty high up among them.”
It was a surprised laugh, but it was a real one. The feast was long. I caught some strange looks from Flavien ap Borthas and from King Cinon of Nene, and from some others. I hoped it was because of the colors the bruises were turning my face. Afterwards Angas
and I went off to Urdo’s big tent with Urdo and ap Erbin and Garah and Glyn and Galba and ap Cathvan and drank up all the mead we could find in the camp. We talked about Osvran and our other lost friends and drank until we had all laughed, and all wept, and several of us had lost our dinners. I got to bed when the sky was starting to pale and slept the day through again. When I woke I had a headache, and I knew that Angas would already have left for Dun Idyn. I remembered that Galba was going to lead his ala. Then I remembered that I had promised Urdo that I would do my best to lead what was left of ours.
17
I trust you, don’t you know,
(throw ball to next person in circle)
and I trust you, even so,
(bounce ball to next person in circle)
and I trust you, have a go,
(throw ball to next person in circle)
don’t you trust me, no, no, no!
(throw or bounce ball to an unsuspecting player and run away.)
—Tanagan children’s ball game
I couldn’t make out all the words through the thick wooden door, but Raul was shouting something about “Next year” and Urdo was roaring something about the truce and the thaw. I backed slightly. Being a praefecto might give me the right to approach the High King without permission; it didn’t necessarily give me the right to walk in on him when he and his chief clerk were yelling at each other. Everyone knew Urdo and Raul yelled at each other sometimes. They’d grown up together after all. Walking into the middle of it was another matter. After two months spent mostly in the field pursuing Jarns who never stood to fight, I was still uncomfortable with my new rights and status. Galba and I looked at each other and took another two steps back up the hall.