Daughter of Lir (22 page)

“That makes him even more dangerous,” said Bran. “Don’t
reckon him innocent because he keeps no secrets from you. He’s no child or
simple fool.”

“Oh, no,” she said, “he’s not either of those. He’s beyond
even arrogance. He can’t imagine that anyone might be stronger or more clever
than he is.”

“Nor can you,” Bran said. He gripped her arms—the first time
he had wittingly touched her since she left Long Ford—and shook her lightly,
careful of his strength even then. “Watch yourself! Guard your back. I’ve been
listening—I talked to Conn and the traders. These tribesmen will take whatever
they want. They will force a woman to lie with them.”

“No man would dare that,” she said.

His fingers tightened almost to pain. “These men will.
Believe it, Rhian! They are conquerors. Yes, even that one, with his pretty
face and his fine manners.”

“Oh, he’s dangerous,” she said. “But he won’t force himself
on me. Do you think the Goddess would allow it?”

He barely hesitated. “She might, if it served her purpose.”

“I think not,” said Rhian. But because he would not let her
go, she added, “I’ll be careful. Will that satisfy you?”

“No,” he said, but his fingers slackened. He let her go. “If
he harms you, I’ll kill him.”

She took his hand and kissed it, quickly, and let it go just
as quickly. “You’ll have to wait till I’m done with him first.”

She doubted she had comforted him, but it was the best she
could do.

o0o

Emry was still bathing when she came to the little river.
He had gone well upstream of the camp, where the water was clean. Conn was with
him, but had finished, was out and dressed and plaiting his greying black hair.

Rhian sat a little distance from him, drawing her knees up
and clasping them. The water looked cool and pleasant, but she was not in the
mood to bathe just then.

“You are the child that Anansi brought back from Lir.”

Rhian started. Conn’s eyes were steady on her. “How long
have you known?” she asked him with careful calm.

He shrugged a little. “Long. Your name, Long Ford . . .
who else could you be?”

“You never said a word.”

“I couldn’t find the word to say.”

She hugged her knees tightly and began to rock. “Nor could
I,” she said. Then: “You’re not the father of my body.”

“No.”

“Did she know you knew?”

“She told me,” he said, “not long after she brought you
back.”

“And she was not the mother of my body.”

He shook his head. “Our son died in the birthing. You were a
gift—a blessing.”

“Or a curse?”

“No,” he said. “No, never. Never that.”

“You went away when she died. You never came back.”

His face was too still. “I was weak. I paid for that. I’ll
go on paying for it till the Goddess takes me into the earth.”

“Why? I’m no blood of yours.”

“You were the child of my heart.”

“Was I?”

There was such pain in him, such deep anguish, that she knew
a moment’s remorse. But only a moment. Her mood was strange. She was no more
merciful than the gods were, and rather less inclined to take pity on him.

“I know who I am,” she said. “The priestess who refused me
the temple—she told me. Did you know? Did she tell you everything?”

“Mother’s child,” he said. “Destroyer. You were not to know.
You were never to know. I left because I might not be strong enough—I might
betray secrets.”

“You were weak.” But she was not condemning him. Men were
not strong in things that mattered. The Goddess had given them strength of body
to console them for their lack of strength in every other respect. “I’m safe
here—for Lir and for the people. The temple need have no fear of me, now the
mare has claimed me.”

“I do hope so,” said Conn.

Rhian looked past him. Emry was standing there. His face was
completely unreadable. She could have no doubt that he had heard. “Surely you
guessed,” she said to him.

He shook his head. Was he a little rueful? It was hard to
tell. “Men aren’t told such secrets,” he said.

“We can have no secrets here,” said Rhian. “If we’re to do
what we came to do, we must know who we are, and why we were brought to this
place.”

“Maybe we were simply brought to die,” Conn said, but not as
if the thought frightened him.

“I won’t believe that,” said Rhian. “The Goddess isn’t
capricious. She meant us for something. To learn the ways of chariots. To take
their secrets home with us.”

“Yes,” Emry said. “Yes, we can do that. There’s no need to
steal a chariot, which would only make us easier to find and kill. If we learn
how they’re made, no one need know; the knowledge will go with us, till we come
home again.”

“We need more than that,” Rhian said. “The horses—”

“We’ll watch,” he said, “and remember. Everything.”

“And if they guess what we’re doing?” Conn inquired.

“I don’t think they’ll believe we can do it.” Rhian shivered
a little even so. “Will you turn coward, then, and run away?”

“No, nor betray you, either,” Conn said. “I may be no prince
of Lir, and no Mother’s child, but I have a little courage.”

Her cheeks flushed. He had shamed her, and properly.

She more than half expected Emry to be grinning at her
discomfiture, but he had not taken his eyes from her. “You really are,” he said
as if to himself. “You
are
. I see . . .”

“Your mother?”

He nodded. “You asked me once about my brothers. Our
brothers. Yes, we all look much the same. I’m blind, not to have seen
before—even not expecting—”

“Who would expect such a thing? The priestesses lied from
the day I was born. But the Goddess brought the truth to light.”

“I always thought,” mused Conn, “that they might have been
great ladies and powerful priestesses, but they were still fools to think they
could lie to the gods. Gods are never deceived. Sooner or later they see
through the ruse—and then the lightning falls.”

“Lightning fell when I was born,” Rhian said. “The priestess
told me. Maybe the gods will reckon that enough.”

Conn snorted softly, but he did not say whatever he was
thinking.

“I think,” Emry said, “that it were best the others not
know. It’s a terrible thing the priestesses did, but it’s not for men to
judge.”

“The truth will come out,” said Conn. “You know that.”

Emry hunched his shoulders as if against a sudden blast of
wind. “I pray it may not come out soon. We’ve enough fear to spare, with what
we’ve seen here. I counted chariots today. There were a hundred and thirty and
four, and three more in the making. They’re lacking the wherewithal to make
more: this land is empty of trees. If they learn of our groves and forests—”

“You think they don’t know already?” Conn demanded.

“They think there is no world beyond the river—they reckon
us gods, or children of gods, because we come from there.”

“That will last,” said Conn, “only as long as it takes one
of us to prove that he bleeds as red as any mortal man.”

“Then you’d best not bleed,” Rhian said. “Tomorrow I’ll
visit the chariotmakers again. They’ll never expect a woman to understand what
they do. Someone should see how they train the horses. If a reason could be
found to set up the traders’ market within sight of the training-fields . . .”

“I’ll find one,” Emry said. “When you go among the chariots,
take the smith with you again. With luck they’ll simply think he’s your
watchdog.”

Rhian shivered with the same chill that had touched Emry a
few moments before. But her heart was light—almost dangerously so. She flashed
a grin at them both. “We’ll see that they never learn what he is. If the prince
knew that he can forge bronze, we’d never be let go.”

“We’d be killed,” Emry said somberly. “They’d keep him
captive—and you, I’m sure, shut up in the prince’s tent.”

“No,” she said with certainty that ran to the bone. “I would
die first. I’ll be no man’s servant, nor his prisoner either. Bran will be safe—and
so will you, and all who travel with you. You have my word on it, in the
Goddess’ name.”

“Be sure you take oaths you can keep,” Emry said.

“I will keep this one,” she said. “We will do what we came
to do. We will escape unharmed. We will go back to Lir and do all that we may
to defend it from these marauders. Did you see how few they are? They have
chariots, but their numbers are much less than we were led to believe. We have
hundreds, thousands more than they do, and our women aren’t kept out of the
fighting, either. We will defeat them.”

They were no more reassured than Bran had been. Men, she
thought, were much given to fretting. It went with the rest of their frailties.

She shrugged, sighed, left them to it. Either they would
discover their courage in the end, or she would find it for them.

Emry slept poorly that night. The worst of it was not that
he had been blind and a fool, but that she had let him carry on in his
ignorance—and he was angry at her. It was unbecoming any man, even a prince in
Lir, to indulge in temper against a Mother, or that Mother’s heir.

Had they chosen a Mother in Lir yet? Had the Goddess allowed
that? Or had the priestesses lied as when Rhian failed the choosing, and chosen
one of their own to hold the office?

He could feel the earth of his old certainty crumbling
underfoot. Priestesses had lied. His Mother had had a daughter. That daughter
was here, on this reckless folly of a venture. They could all die, and she
could die with them.

The priestesses would be glad of that—at least until the
chariots rolled over them and destroyed them.

o0o

He was up in the dawn, dressed in his trader’s simplicity,
pacing through their camp within the greater camp. There were men hanging about
even so early, wild-looking young things with hair that surely had not gone so
white so soon, nor been formed by nature into such jagged eruptions and
uplifted horns. He had seen such extravagances near the king—the king’s men,
then?

The skin tightened between his shoulderblades as he walked
through the casual line of them. None moved to stop him, but one or two
happened to stroll in his wake.

Almost he turned on his heel and went back to his own
people. But he had his own crazy courage, or he would never have come to this
place. He had meant to wander only a little, maybe to see to the horses.
Instead he set his path through the camp of the tribe—the Windriders, they
called themselves.

It dawned on him soon enough that he was being guided,
perhaps herded. Some turns met obstacles, usually in the form of large,
unsmiling young men with hair limed and lacquered into horns.

He was not afraid. If they had meant to kill him, he would
have been dead before he left the circle of the traders’ tents.

He was conspicuous here: taller and broader than most, and
notably darker. Children and dogs ran after him, but at a safe distance. None
of them, it seemed, had any desire to challenge the king’s men.

They were herding him toward the king’s tent. That came as
little surprise. Now he began—not to be afraid, no. To be a little wary. If
they had guessed what he was here for . . .

He went so far as to turn back. He had not known there were
so many men herding him. They closed in a circle, pale eyes level, hands on
hilts of sheathed swords.

He stopped, holding his own hands well away from the hilts
of both sword and knife. “Only tell me,” he said, “where I’m being taken.”

“You are summoned,” said one of the nearest, a young man as
they all were, with a face that seemed somehow familiar. If the hair had been
red-gold and plaited down his back—yes, he would have looked very like Minas
the prince.

“I’m summoned to the king?” Emry asked. “Is it permissible
to ask why?”

“You will come,” the king’s son said.

Maybe he did not understand the subtler nuances of the
traders’ speech.

Emry considered escape, but he was hemmed in. He shrugged slightly
and let them herd him toward the king’s tent.

o0o

They herded him into a dim and whispering world. There was
light here, light of lamps, but it was dark after the sun without. It made him
think of the temple of the Goddess in Lir. But that was high and holy. This was
simply suffocating.

Nor was he in a small room as tents went. This was a grand
hall, as bright with lamps as a tent could be, and gleaming with heaps of
golden spoils.

Here was the king’s lair. Here was the king, sprawled on a
heap of furs and hides and bolts of rich fabric.

He was an imposing figure, even at his ease, in no more
finery than a kilt of fine white leather. His pale skin was laced with scars.
His breast and arms were massive, his legs thick, roped with muscle. He was
like a great white bull, huge and powerful.

And yet he was growing old. His hair was thin. Softness
encroached on his middle. His face was worn, his eyes clouded.

There were women with him, three of them. They sang a
ceaseless, droning song. That, and the air thick with something both pungent
and sweet, dizzied Emry till he thought surely he would faint.

He tried to breathe shallowly. His ears he could not block,
but he could do his best to let the chant run over and not through him.

This was magic, dark and old. Women’s magic. The king was
deep in its spell.

Emry let it lower him to his knees. The earth was buried
under hides and carpets, but he felt its strength beneath. He smiled into the
king’s dull eyes, and said with the ease of prince to king, “My lord, we are
well met. Have you a use for a caravan guard? Or are you simply curious?”

“There is reason to believe,” said a voice in the shadows,
“that you are more than a guard. That you are a prince of a tribe called Lir.”

The voice was a woman’s, and familiar. She had bidden Emry
trade gold for furs and hides and looted treasures, just the day before.