Daughter of Lir (66 page)

“Pray the Goddess it be so,” Emry said.

o0o

To be bathed, fed, dressed in clean clothes—Emry had
dreamed of this. And to go out of the room, that was beyond blessed; to walk
where he pleased within that house, and out into the garden again, and no walls
to close him in.

He could not rest. He had had nothing to do but rest for
three days and three nights. He found a servant who would fetch the others, and
waited for them in the orchard by the horses’ pen. While he waited, he prowled
among the trees, inspecting the green fruit and regretting, a little, that none
of it was ripe enough to eat.

Only his brother Gerent came, of all of them, and Modron,
whom he had not presumed to summon. “They have duties, which they must be seen
to do,” she said. “They’ll come when they can.”

“And you have none?” Emry asked them both.

“Ours is to look after this house,” she said smiling, though
Gerent looked as if he might have silenced her, had he dared. “And, of course,
you. At nightfall there will be horses ready. You'll go to Larchwood. The
defense of this country can continue there. The Mother has already asked for
you—for the young king of Lir.”

“And Lir itself?” Emry demanded.

“That one is trading the rest of our country for it,” Modron
said; for the first time there was no warmth in her voice. “She has sent an
embassy to the king of chariots, to bring him here, and give him his brother
and all our people, so that she may keep Lir.”

“I don’t suppose she was planning to trade me as well?”
asked Emry. He was not shocked, at all, or surprised. He knew Etena well enough
to have expected this of her; Goddess knew, the temple would stand with her.
Even before the Mother died, it had concerned itself with nothing but its own
preservation.

“You were to be traded in whatever manner was most useful,”
said Modron. “The king of chariots might want his charioteer back, after all,
if only to make an example of him.”

Emry regarded her with newborn respect. “You do understand
her,” he said.

“One does not need to be a thing in order to comprehend it,”
she said: gentle, but unquestionably a rebuke. “We are not all fools, my young
lord, though it may have seemed so.”

“Not fools,” Emry said. “Innocents. Strangers to the kind of
war that these people fight—in spirit as well as body.”

“It has been difficult,” she admitted.

“Well then,” he said. “What’s being done? Once the king is
in the city, if we hold him hostage we may win a little time, but his tribes
will fight. Even she may fondly imagine that she has preserved Lir; but she
only postpones the inevitable.”

“Yes,” said Modron. “Therefore we continue to arm the
defenses. Once you’re safe in Larchwood, the army can rally to you there, and
the cities look to you for leadership. Lir is our sacrifice, if there must be
one.”

Emry nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, that’s wise. But I’m not
leaving Lir tonight. Send Conory—I’ll name him my heir, king by right if I
don’t come out of this alive. Let him take the rest of our brothers and go.”

“And you?”

“I am warbrother to the king of chariots,” Emry said. “I was
his charioteer. And . . . by the law of the tribes, I am
father-by-right of the king’s best-loved brother. The ties of kin are strong
among the tribesmen. I may be able to strike a bargain that will save Lir.”

“Or he’ll put you to death as a traitor.”

“That is possible,” he said calmly. “But if Lir can be freed
of her, that’s worth the price.”

She bent her head. “You will do as you see fit. You are
king, after all.”

Emry’s stomach tightened. He had not been thinking of that,
of how it had happened, or of what it meant past the most obvious. He had
deliberately and cravenly turned his back on it. A king could command even
women, even elders, save only the Mother and the highest of the priestesses.

If he went to Larchwood, all that power would be his. If he
stayed in Lir, it was considerably more likely that he would be killed before
he could be of any use. And yet he could not change the words he had said, now
that they were spoken. “It would be safer for you,” he said, “if I hid
elsewhere.”

“And unsafe for someone else,” she said. “These houses are
large and full of hiding places. The river is close; we have boats, if any or
all of us needs to escape. Rest assured, young king, when I chose myself to be
your protector, I thought long and hard on all that that would entail. I’m
content with the choice. So therefore let you be.”

“Very well,” Emry said. He spread his hands. “Who am I to
gainsay a woman of such rank and wisdom?”

She smiled at that and took her leave. But Gerent stayed. He
had been sitting on his heels, listening like the child he still nearly was,
while his brother and Modron spoke. Once she had gone, he went on sitting,
staring hard at the ground. His shoulders were tight. His jaw was set.

“Well, puppy,” Emry said. “What is it?”

“I’m not going to Larchwood,” Gerent said to his fists.

“Of course you are,” said Emry.

“What will you do if I don’t go? Kill me?”

Ah, thought Emry. “It’s not just that I’m sending you away,”
he said. “Is it?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“It would seem not,” Emry said.

Gerent shuddered so hard that he nearly fell over. “That
guard. She wasn’t even awake. And you snapped her neck like—like—a rabbit you’d
trapped.”

“She could tell the others who was with me,” Emry said as
gently as he could. “They’ll hunt me—that’s expected. It’s fair. But I won’t
have them hunt you and Mabon.”

“You committed murder!” Gerent cried. “Cold-blooded,
hardhearted, ice-eyed—”

“This is war,” Emry said. “What, did you think it was just
like arms-practice? Hacking at one another with wooden swords, and pretending
to be dead, and getting up at the end and clasping hands and going in to
dinner? People die in war, puppy. That’s what war is.”

“I don’t know you,” Gerent said—if he had known it, just as
Dias had, and Aera. “The brother I knew, the one I loved—he would never have
said such things.”

“I am what the Goddess has made me,” Emry said. “May she
preserve you from any such thing. You will go to Larchwood, my brother, and you
will do as Conory tells you, until I come there.”

“Yes, I’ll go,” Gerent said angrily. “I hope I never see you
again!”

He did not mean it, Emry thought as he fled. Gerent was
wounded, and striking at the one who had hurt him. But it was necessary. Emry
could not bear to lose any of his brothers—and that one least of all, whom he
had always loved best.

Dias brought his army within sight of Lir and arrayed it
on the broad green field between the river and the hills. While he rode under
the sign of truce, none of the towns had come against him. He stood safe before
the heart of this country, the city that ruled all the rest.

As his warband mounted to ride into Lir, Aera was with it.
That was not Dias’ will. When it came time to ride to the city, Rhian said to
Aera in his hearing, “You go. Find your son. Bring him out if you can. No
matter what else happens—keep him safe.”

That was Aera’s intention exactly, but when Dias turned to
expostulate, both Rhian and the white mare had vanished.

He had given her to Rhian; therefore he could not in honor
forbid her to do this. He kept her by him. “At least then I can keep my eye on
you,” he muttered. When they rode out, they rode so, with Aera at Dias’ side.

They had not taken chariots. Ridden horses were better for
cities, quicker and lighter, and better able to fend for themselves than pairs
in harness.

Aera could not tell if the messenger was disappointed. These
people had chariots; Rhian had said so. But none of the People had yet seen
them. They were being kept in reserve, Aera supposed. She would have done that,
if she had been the ruler of Lir.

The city was open to them, waiting for them. There were
figures in armor on the walls, standing still, spears at rest. Many of those
were men, though there were a fair few women. People lined the streets:
children, unarmed women, men with infants in their arms. No one of age or
condition to fight. Was that a sign of trust, or a sign of contempt?

None of the people made a sound. Even the infants were
silent. They watched the riders, staring blandly at their armor, their
ornaments, their horse-trappings. They showed more interest in the horses that
Aera and Dias were riding: widened eyes, a murmur of voices.

Greys were sacred here. But it was more than that. Had they
not known that the grey herd had come to the People?

Etena would hardly lower herself to meet them at the gate,
still less to wait for them outside the house she had claimed for her own. That
was a king’s courtesy. Etena, in her mind, was higher than a king.

They were received at the gate of the city by a woman in
armor, to whom the envoy bent her head in respect, and at the gate of a tall
house—taller than most of those near it—by one dressed with shocking immodesty
in a skirt or kilt of scarlet cords, and a mask without nose or mouth, only the
slits of eyes. The hair that flowed loose to her massive buttocks was threaded
with grey. Her belly was heavy, and her breasts, as if she had borne many
children. But she was light on her feet as she turned without a word and
entered the house.

“You are to follow,” the armored captain said as the warband
sat motionless on their horses, the eyes of even the veterans nigh starting out
of their heads.

“That is a priestess,” Aera said so that they all could
hear. “We’re being honored, I think. Come, my lord. Let’s see what further
delights our host has prepared for us.”

As she spoke she dismounted. The grey mare stood where Aera
had left her, beside the likewise motionless stallion. When one of the warriors
ventured to take their bridles, they pinned ears and snapped. The rest, wiser,
let them be.

Most of the warband stayed outside, by Dias’ command. A
dozen went in with him, all those he most trusted, with Aias looming behind his
king. They entered the hall of the fallen king of Lir.

They had prepared with great care for this, and Rhian had
warned them what to expect. But these walls, this place loftier than any
temple, the way echoes played among the beams of the hall, were like nothing
they had ever known.

They were brave men. They kept their heads up, their backs
straight. They fixed on the one who sat in the tall chair by the hearth, in
which a fire burned even in the warmth of the day.

She was tiny in that chair, hardly larger than a child,
wrapped and veiled in black. She had not taken to the fashion of the women who
served her, all of whom, ranked behind her, were dressed as their guide into
the hall had been.

It was meant to shock. Aera leveled a glance at Dias, and at
Aias beyond him. Both of them steadied under it. They kept their eyes on Etena.
Cold eyes, with a fire of hate beneath. It burned deep and it burned strong.

She did not flinch from it. This was her place, the lift of
her head said. She ruled in it. She needed no man to rule for her. Everyone,
man or woman, did her bidding.

“I accept your bargain,” Dias said abruptly. “Keep the city;
I will take the rest. Give my brother to me and I go.”

“You shall have him,” she said. “But first, break bread with
me. Seal the pact with the wine of the south.”

Dias growled in his throat. “I will not break bread with
you. Where is my brother?”

“First we seal the pact,” she said.

“And sup poison?”

“By the womb that bore you,” she said, “there is no poison
here. Shall I be your taster? Will you trust me so far?”

“I trust nothing,” Dias said, “that is not purely of my
People.”

“Then you do not even trust yourself. For,” she said, “you
are half of Blackroot tribe, and only half of the People you rule.”

Dias stood rigid. Aera bent toward his ear. “Do as she bids.
Pretend to endure it. I’ll see to the rest.”

She had attracted Etena’s notice, but that was a risk she
had taken. That one could hardly have failed to see her: a woman in armor among
the king’s warband. But Etena did not speak as Aera had expected. The hate in
her glance was strong enough to rock Aera where she stood.

Aera had known herself hated. But this was like a blast of
icy wind. She held her ground for pure pride, and for love of the young king
who so mastered himself as to say, “Let it be done, and quickly over.”

Which of course it was not. Servants had to come, raise
tables and spread them with a feast. There was bread and wine, of course. A
dozen kinds of each, and meat and fish and cheese and herbs and green things
and cakes both savory and sweet, early fruit of the meadows and the last of the
winter’s store. It was outrageous, extravagant. It was meant to mock Dias with
the wealth that he was bargaining away.

Tribesmen learned from their mother’s breast never to refuse
a feast. Dias would not sit beside Etena, nor at the same table, but she,
expecting as much, had ordered a table set in front of hers. They were face to
face across a brief expanse of floor.

Aera took a place at the end of the warriors’ table, close
by the door, and kept quiet and kept her head down. Rhian had taught her how
this place was made, and where a prisoner was likely to be. Aera told over the
lesson in her head, while eating what she needed for strength: bread, meat, a
little cheese. No wine. When she was sure of herself, and reasonably sure that
she was not watched, she slipped away.

There were servants in the passage, men as well as women,
trotting back and forth with platters and jars and bowls. They eyed her
curiously but said nothing.

Except one. It was a man, and rather an odd one at that. He
wore a servant’s tunic, but with an air of one playing a part. He was plump,
and smaller than many of the men here, but broad and sturdy. The men here all
wore their beards cut to the shape of their faces, but his was long, all the
way to his breast, and meticulously curled; and his upper lip was shaved clean.