Daughter of Lir (4 page)

He shook off the spell that she had laid on him, and knelt
in front of her, because he could not stand inside the tent. “You chose a lie
today,” he said.

Her eyes came to rest on his face. They were as
expressionless as black stones. “And how may you know that?”

“I can see,” he said.

“You see what a man sees.”

He lowered his eyes as if in submission, but he said, “I see
the truth. You chose in defiance of the Goddess.”

“I chose as I had no choice but to do.”

There was no yielding in her at all. If Emry had been wise
he would have let be, but tonight he had no wisdom in him. “Why? What made you
do it? Why did you turn away from the one whom the Goddess would have blessed?”

“A man’s mind is a simple thing,” the priestess said. “You
believe you understand truth. You understand only the outermost face of it.
When you enter the innermost sanctuary of the temple, when you stand before the
Goddess as her best-loved servant, then you will be fit to judge what I have
done.”

And that, Emry thought without great bitterness, would be
never in this life. A man did not walk in the inner shrine. He would have to
die and be reborn a woman, to gain that grace.

“Go,” said the priestess, not too unkindly. “Rest; be at
ease. Whatever price is to be paid, I will pay it. It will not fall upon you or
any of the warriors who ride with you.”

Emry had had no thought of prices or punishments. She was
sending him away like an impertinent child.

Maybe he was no more than that. He let himself be dismissed,
and went in silence, as one who had submitted to her will.

o0o

They passed through a hand of villages in the next pair of
days. The priestess was not inclined to tarry in any of them. She chose a young
woman from one, a little round dumpling of a child who was, at least, honestly
blessed of the Goddess. There was nothing in any of the villages to match what
she had found and discarded at Long Ford.

On the third day he was sure of what he had suspected
before. Something was following them. It was skillful. If he had not happened
to be riding in the rear the day after they left Long Ford, and lagging a bit
as he gnawed over his troubles, he might not have caught the soft sound that
brought his stallion’s head about. Thereafter he had kept his eyes and ears
alert.

It was human, not animal. It was a hunter: it knew how to
follow softly and not alarm the horses. But it was not perfect in its silence.

Emry should have sent one of his company to capture the
hunter. But he had had his fill of riding on guard against nothing at all. He
left Mabon in command of the guard, shed his princely finery, left his grey
stallion behind and set off afoot, swift and silent as a hunter should be.

He had not hunted alone in a long while. Princes were always
escorted, and warleaders had their warbands. It might not be wise for him to do
it now—what if he walked into an ambush?

This was the Goddess’ country. If there was war, it rumbled
still beyond the borders. Peace ruled here, for a while at least.

He ghosted through the thickets of reeds by the river. His
heart was surprisingly light. He was alone; he was free. For a moment he even
thought, if he tarried, if he let the riders go on, if he needed a day or two
or three to find this lurker in the shadows…

Almost regretfully he thrust the thought aside. He had
marked the last rustle in the reeds, and judged how closely it would follow the
riders. When he had left them, the hunter had been, he hoped, out of sight
round a bend of the river. It would see Mabon riding in the lionskin, and
perhaps not find it suspicious that the commander had changed mounts to a
sturdy dun.

He found the track he was looking for. It was subtle, but
clear enough. The hunter had passed by not long ago. He quickened his pace.

The riders paused as Emry had commanded, where the river’s
bank rose up into a long hill. The road divided there, where was a ruin like
the one above Long Ford. Part ascended steeply to follow the summit of the
ridge. Part ran along the bottom of the hill, alongside the river. This was
passable, though a day or two before it would not have been.

Emry’s following halted as if to debate their course. The
horses straggled somewhat, grazing the new spring grass. The priestess’ boat
curved in toward the bank. They would all rest, eat if they were minded, let
the horses eat and drink.

Emry tracked the spy to the wall that straggled, broken,
along the edge of the ridge. There the track ended, and a figure lay on its
face in the bracken, peering down at the riders by the river.

The watcher was not at all aware of being watched. Emry
barely breathed. It was a young spy, dressed in worn leather breeches that
strained across well-rounded hips. The feet were bare and callused. The hair
was black, long, and rebelling against its single plait. There was a bow slung
across the bare brown shoulders, and a quiver with it. A pack lay beside the
watcher’s hand.

It was a very patient watcher. She—for there was no doubt of
that—never moved, barely breathed, for as long as the riders paused by the
river. When they mounted and the boat thrust off from the bank, she lay still,
but her breathing had quickened a fraction.

She waited till they had gone out of sight before she
gathered herself and rose. Emry’s noose fell neatly round her shoulders. Her
startled leap pulled it tight.

She was wiser than to fight. She stood still, breathing
hard. Emry circled her lightly, warily, but she offered no threat.

He looked without great surprise into the face of the young
woman from Long Ford: the dreamer, the toymaker, the one who should have gone
to Lir. She glowered at him through a tangle of loosened hair. “You had better
kill me,” she said.

His brows rose. “Why should I do that?”

“Because,” she said, “as long as I live, I’ll follow this
riding. You can drive me away. I’ll come back. You can set dogs on me. I’ll
fight them off. You can—”

“Why?”

That stopped her. She blinked, swallowed hard. “Did you
think I could stay, after that?”

“Because everyone saw?”

She shook her head furiously. “Because
she
saw. I felt the Goddess’ hand on me. And the priestess turned
away.”

“You won’t force her to change her mind,” Emry said.

“Stop taking me for a fool!” she snapped. “I know that. Just
as I know that you aren’t simply playing guardsman. You ride with her for
convenience. But when she turns back, you’ll go on. Won’t you? You’ll ride
eastward. You’ll take me with you.”

A woman’s mind was a swift and incalculable thing, but this
was even swifter and less comprehensible than most. Emry’s head ached with
trying to follow the leaps of her logic. “I can’t take you—”

“You’ll take me or I’ll follow.”

“On foot? Once I leave the Goddess’ lands, I’ll ride as
swift as horse can go.”

“I’ll make do,” she said grimly.

“If you are wise,” he said, “you’ll go back where you
belong. Your people will forget, if any of them ever knew or cared. You’ll be
safe. And if the war does come so far—”

“It will,” she said. “Oh, it will.”

“All the more reason to turn back. What use will you be to
your kin if you’re killed on the wild plains?”

“I might ask the same of you,” she said. “Why aren’t you at
home, building forts like the one here, and filling them with fighters?”

His teeth clicked together. This was no simple village
child; she saw what princes and priestesses barely had wits to see. “My father
and brothers are doing that. I have . . . another duty to my
city.”

She narrowed her eyes. Chill walked down his spine. That was
a Mother’s expression, a Mother’s intensity, seeing clear through to the heart
of him—and not greatly approving what she saw there, either. “You need me,” she
said.

“What for? We’re not children. We need no toys.”

Her jaw set, but she kept her temper. “You need a maker, one
who can see how the terrible cars are made.”

“We’ll steal one and bring it back. Our makers in Lir can
make others like it.”

“Will you have as much time as that? Isn’t it better to have
a maker with you? And,” she said, “a trader’s child.”

“Your mother is a potter.”

“My mother was a priestess. Her sister is a potter. The
father of my body was a trader. He traveled up and down the river, and into the
east, and far to the west. He went everywhere. He taught me things, prince.
Things that I doubt a warrior of the city would know.”

Oh, she was clever with her tongue, and headstrong, and
wickedly persuasive. He had to force himself to remember that she was his
captive, with his noose about her body and his knife at her throat.

She met his eyes boldly, as if the keen bronze blade had
never threatened her life. “You will need me,” she said.

“I can’t take you with us,” he said in a kind of despair.
“If the priestess sees you, she’ll have you driven out or killed.”

Rhian blinked, the only sign of dismay that he had yet seen
in her. Or maybe it was anger. “Her journey is nearly done,” she said. “I’ll
meet with you after you’ve parted from her. Don’t think you can evade me,
either. I’ll be waiting for you.”

It was as much a threat as a promise. Emry pondered the
usefulness of binding and gagging her and flinging her at the priestess’ feet.
But he was too soft for that, or too much under her spell. He lowered the
knife. She twitched the noose from his hand with ease that was close to
contempt, flashed a grin at him, and vanished over the wall.

When Rhian had escaped from the prince, her knees gave
way. She sank into the bracken below the old wall, gasping as if she had run a
race. She lay for a long while before a stab of panic brought her to her feet.
The rope about her—it bound her like—

She slipped out of it. She might have left it where it lay,
but she had not grown up in a wealthy house. She coiled it and tucked it tidily
in her pack.

When she had done that, she was calm. Her thoughts were
clear. The priestess would go on down the chain of towns and villages. The
mounted troop would follow her. Rhian could not lose them. Even if they turned
back or turned aside, the wind would tell her where they were.

The wind had led her to this. It had given her the words to
speak. It played about her now, plucking at her, blowing warm breath on her
back.

She started and spun. There was a horse behind her, standing
just above her on the hillside. She had not heard it come, not even a rustle in
the bracken. And yet there, inescapably, it was.

At first she thought it was the prince’s stallion. But this
was a mare, dappled like the moon. She glowed like the moon, too, shimmering
against the green of the grass, which in that instant seemed too bright, too
clear to be mortal.

She was more real, more solid than anything about her. The
world seemed a dim and shadowy thing, like a reflection in water.

Rhian blinked, shivered. The mare snorted wetly and tossed
her head. The vision was gone, if it had ever been more than the eyes’
confusion. The mare stood above her, as mortal as any other daughter of her
kind, with a dark bright eye and an air of conspicuous patience with human
follies. The wind danced in her mane. It seemed to fancy that it had brought
her here, and that Rhian should be delighted beyond measure.

Rhian eyed the mare sidelong. The mare nibbled a bit of
alder-twig. There were burrs in her tail and grass-stains on her pale coat. And
yet she was no wild thing. That coat had been tended not so long ago, those
hooves trimmed. When Rhian raised a hand, she did not shy away.

The prince’s rope, that she had so thriftily kept, knotted
into a serviceable headstall and a loop of rein. The mare accepted it as one
who had been trained to it: thrusting her nose into it, sighing as if in
contentment.

Some signs were as clear as the sun overhead. Rhian bowed to
it and to the Goddess who had sent this mount to carry her. Now she need have
no doubt. This course was ordained. She was meant to continue upon it.

She scrambled and clambered until she sat panting on the
mare’s back. The mare stood motionless through her struggles. Once she was
settled, the mare began to move.

It had been a long while since Rhian pressed the village
pony into service. Her body remembered, vaguely. How to balance. How not to
clamp and cling. How to ride the surge and sway of a horse’s stride—longer,
this, than the pony’s had ever been, but like enough.

There was the matter of direction. The mare happened to take
the path Rhian would have taken, following the track of the riders from Lir.
When Rhian tried to turn her aside, she would not go.

And was this mare, maybe . . . ?

There was only one grey in the priestess’ escort, and that
was Emry’s stallion. This one had come from elsewhere.

The wind hissed in Rhian’s ears. Elsewhere indeed, far
elsewhere, and such a gift as queens would die to win. Whatever priestess or
temple might say, Rhian was chosen. This was a choosing. Let her be properly
glad of it.

Her will had not truly been her own since she stood in the
field and saw the priestess mark another for the temple. At night she would lie
awake and yearn for Bran’s arms about her. But she was never moved to run back.
Not even for him. That cage was open. Her wings had caught the air. She had
flown high and would fly far.

She had given her word to Emry. She would leave the Goddess’
country altogether and go—wherever he meant to go. Out on the sea of grass,
among the wild tribes.

o0o

The mare carried her swifter than she could walk. When the
pain of sore-taxed muscles and raw skin muted to less than agony, riding was
somewhat pleasant. Maybe someday it would be more than that.