The King's Name (27 page)

"He was her herald," I said reasonably. I stopped walking, and so did she. "Emer, I know you want to avenge

Conal yourself. I value your troops being here very greatly. The help you and Lew have given me in this time of trouble is beyond reward. I understand that you are from Connat and have a long-standing quarrel with Oriel." I

did not say that she had put aside this, and much greater causes for quarreling, in the case of Conal. "But do not quarrel with Atha now. Urdo needs her."

"I will not quarrel with her if she does not quarrel with me, but do not ask me to eat with her,"

she said. "And when we fight, do not put me next to her in the battle."

"Battle command will not be up to me, but I will tell Urdo what you have asked," I said. "As for eating, that should be easy enough, if there is a bloodfeud between you."

Emer put her hand to her scar. "Does this count?" she asked.

It didn't, of course, as long as it had happened in the usage of war. But she knew that as well as I did.

"Emer—" I began hesitantly.

"Conal would never have wanted Atha to avenge him," she said quietly.

"Conal would not have wanted you getting yourself killed, either," I said bluntly. "He said so to me, when he was dying."

"It isn't his choice," she said, staring straight ahead. "You don't understand. When you love somebody that much and they are gone." She shrugged.

"But you have responsibilities still," I said. "Dun Morr, your daughter, Lew."

She looked at me as if I were reminding her that the floor would need sweeping and the eggs gathering. "Have you ever known someone and when you are with them it is as if the sun has come out?" she asked. "And when they are not there, you are in the shadow? So that a room that does not have them in it is the same as an empty room? And when you see them you know that here the patterns of the world make sense again, because you are together? My whole life—"

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It had been a very difficult day. I was fighting down the urge to tell her she was talking like a spoilt child, and not like an adult and a queen who should understand duty. It was a great relief to me when she stopped talking, in the middle of the sentence, with her mouth still open. I turned around to see what had startled her so much.

Teilo and Inis were walking toward us, talking furiously. Inis was waving his arms about with great emphasis.

Otherwise the camp seemed much as usual. Someone was cooking lamb not far away, and the smell made me hungry.

"Inis ap Fathag!" Emer said, hardly above a whisper.

"He's calling himself Inis, Grandfather of Heroes, now," I said. "He came with Atha."

Emer laughed. "Oh, that is so like him. He's as cracked as a pot; he has been for years, though if you don't ask him questions he sometimes talks sense. I knew him when I was young and was fostered in Oriel, before the war. But I am amazed to see him here. I thought he'd never leave his trees again. Conal told me he hasn't left the grove since Darag died."

They were almost close enough to speak to, and I could hear Teilo's raised voice: "I don't believe that God has turned against the High King, but how can I blame people for questioning?"

They came to a halt next to where we were standing. "Greetings, Mother Teilo, Inis," I said, bowing.

"Well met with the Merciful Lord's blessing, ap Gwien, ap Allel," Teilo replied, bowing to us in turn. She was looking well. She had been lined and ancient ever since I had known her; five years had not made much difference. She looked like a hazel tree, old and gnarled but still capable of standing up to the winter wind.

The brown robe she wore only emphasized the comparison.

"Greetings, Mother Teilo," Emer said. "And a good day and a welcome to the island of Tir Tanagiri to you, Grandfather of Heroes."

"Greetings, Granddaughter," Inis said, smiling at Emer.

"What, will you claim every hero you meet as a grandchild now?" asked Teilo, smiling.

"What about ap

Gwien, here?"

To my surprise Inis bowed deeply to me. "Greetings, hero," he said. I could feel my cheeks heating. "But as for littie Emer," he said, turning back to Teilo, "I am entitled. There are more worlds where she marries one of my grandsons than worlds where she doesn't. Even in this world—" Emer took a rapid breath. I closed my eyes, expecting him to blithely betray all Emer's secrets to Teilo. "—she was betrothed to Darag, before he so rashly married Atha," he concluded, smiling wickedly at Emer.

"Is the Dowager Rowanna here with you?" I asked Teilo, to cover my embarrassment.

"She is here in the camp," Teilo said. "We arrived from Caer Segant only a few hours ago. She is resting from her ride and will greet her son later. I have been to visit some of the wounded." She shook her head sadly.

"Inis and I have been discussing this terrible curse."

"Urdo told me it lay on the whole land of Segantia," I said.

"What curse is this?" Emer asked.

"It is the weapon-rot," Teilo said. "Those who took wounds in the battle are not healing as they should because the charm to protect against the weapon-rot is not reaching the gods."

"All the gods?" Emer asked, clearly appalled.

"Ah, there you have put your finger on it," Teilo said approvingly. "It is not reaching the White God, Ever

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Merciful."

"It is not reaching the Lord of Healing either," I said.

"No?" Teilo looked at me sharply. "And by what name are you calling him?"

"Graun," I said, surprised that she would ask such a personal question.

"Graun," Inis echoed.

"And have you only sung the charm, or tried to reach for him as well?" she asked.

"Yes, both. My way felt blocked. It was very unusual." I did not want to tell them about trying to send Darien back, or when Morwen was trying to kill me, but those were the only other times I had ever met anything that blocked my way to the gods.

"I have been looking for some heathen Jarnsman in the camp who knows enough of healing to do more than sing the charm by rote, and who will speak to me enough to name what god they are calling, but I have not found one yet. Either they clutch their pebbles tightly and ask me to pray for them, or they will hardly speak to me at all."

"Ohtar will know," I said. "I will take you to him and ask him to speak to you."

"But the charm is not working for the heathens, either," Teilo said. "So whatever name they are using, that god is not hearing their request."

"That is much too wide in scope to be a curse," Emer said. "Unless a God has cursed us."

"I don't feel the Gods are angry. And Urdo said it was a spell," I said. Over Emer's shoulder I could see some of Cadraith's ala exercising their horses and laughing as if the world were nothing but sunny evenings on grassy slopes.

"It is some sort of sorcery, clearly enough," Teilo said.

"No spell could close all the eyes of all the gods," Inis said.

"I agree, but why are people's wounds rotting in front of our eyes?" Teilo asked. "The same charm will reach any god, if you weave their name into it. It is rare enough to do it, for anyone.

What use to ask Graun for help fishing when it is Nodens who understands how to fill your nets?

But there are charms I was taught as a girl to sing to Breda, which I have been singing to the White God and having them answered."

"There are a lot of people in Tir Isarnagiri who know all about that, since you sent St. Chanerig to us," Inis said.

"Saint, indeed. I didn't send him, and well you know it," Teilo said, unperturbed. "The dear Lord never spoke a word to me about your island; my concern has always been with my own people."

"Are you saying that it makes no difference what god you worship?" Emer asked.

Teilo and Inis both turned on her so fiercely that she took a step backward. "It makes all the difference in the world!" Teilo said. "When I came to realize that there was one God greater than the others, who we could all worship together, whose mercy and forgiveness could set all things right, it changed everything."

"It is people that are the same," Inis said.

"The charm is the same, you mean?" Emer asked, almost timidly. Hardly like a question at all.

"Yes. The charm itself is the same, except for the name, though the answer may be a little different. How could a charm be stopped?"

"So is the spell stopping the charm?" I asked. "As if it were a spear I reached toward the gods and the spell blocks the spearpoint?"

"If you pray to Graun, and if I pray to the Merciful Lord, and his prays to Miach, and none of the charms are heard, then yes, it seems as if the spell is blocking the charm itself from working,"

Teilo said. She was very free with the names of the gods in her speech. The gods are not people who need to keep their names close, but it made me uncomfortable all the same. It didn't seem polite.

"The charm, or the shape you make in your mind," Inis said, looking sharply at her, more
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focused on the moment than I had yet seen him. "The spearpoint ap Gwien spoke of is the shape your mind makes to reach.

If something is preventing people making that shape, that is just mind clouding."

"If it is clouding minds all over Segantia, why isn't it affecting Cinvar's wounded?" Emer asked.

I had not thought of that before. "Maybe Morthu has taught them a different charm," I said.

"Arling said he was a holy man; he must have done something to get that reputation. If the shape of the usual charm is being blocked then a different charm might work."

"Can Rowanna find a different charm?" Emer asked.

"Rowanna?" Teilo frowned. "It will be very hard for her, but I will help her if necessary. I was hoping we might find somebody who knows a different charm. Do you know any other charms that might work? Do you think

Ohtar might? How about you, ap Allel?"

"I have never made much study of healing," Emer said.

I tried to remember. Every charm I knew seemed so specific, and useless for anything else.

"The elder charm for health," Inis said, his voice remote.

I looked at him cautiously. "The charm that begins 'The elder tree grows near the water's edge'?" I asked, trying not to make it sound like a question. It was a charm Garah had taught me, not one of my mother's.

"But it is no protection from weapon-rot, it is just a charm for strength against sickness. I sing it over people who are ailing, to help them recover."

"It keeps infection from striking when someone is laid low," Inis said.

"I thought you said this was not a disease," Emer said, frowning.

"It is not a disease," Teilo said. "Disease does not strike the wounded. And that we would know how to deal with. Let us try this elder charm and see if it helps the wounded."

We started to walk on down toward the tents ap Darel had set up for the wounded of my ala.

When we got there it was clear that things were worse even than they had been that morning. The moans and restless

cries of the wounded came to us even from outside, and the air was heavy with the smell of sickness.

My trumpeter, Berth, happened to be the first of the wounded we came to. He was lying on a bed of bracken, in a light and uneasy sleep. The gash on his leg was bound up, but his flesh was swollen angrily red, even outside the bandages. "It would take tremendous power to do a spell that affects everyone like that," Emer said, looking at it.

"He has never had any hesitation about killing for power," Inis said.

"Who?" I asked, forgetting not to ask direct questions.

"The black-hearted poison-tongued son of the witch-queen who has courted pus to do this thing," Inis replied, unwinding the bandage to reveal poor Berth's festering cut. Berth stirred and muttered in his sleep, but did not wake. I wished Inis would tell Urdo that it was Morthu who had done it.

I put everything out of my mind except the need for healing. I put my hand on Berth's shoulder and sang the elder charm, which addresses the Lord of Healing as Rhis, planter of the elder tree, most beneficial of all trees for the making of medicines, asking for strength and protection against infection, and a return to ease and health. I put Berth's name into the charm, and my own, and called on the Lord of Healing with all my heart. I felt tired when I finished, but I had felt my call being answered.

Berth opened his eyes and looked at me. "Lord Sulien," he said, and then he yawned. "I am terribly thirsty,"

he said. Emer quickly brought water for him, and as he drank it I looked at his leg. It looked much like the scratch on my arm, a cut that was being slow to heal. The skin was pink and a little
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shiny, but the puffiness and festering had gone out of it.

"I will tell Flerian you are feeling better," I said as we left Berth to move on down the tent.

"She will come to see me later; she is a good girl," he said. "I will tell her you healed me. Thank you, Praefecto."

I got on with singing the charm over the wounded. I realized after a little while that Inis had moved off to sing the charm himself, where he was most needed. Teilo listened to me singing the charm a few more times before she moved ahead to sing it for herself. Emer stayed with me, her lips moving. As I left the side of a woman who seemed to me to be dying she stopped me.

"That is the hardest charm I ever heard," she said. "I am not usually slow at learning such things, but the words and tune of that one seem to run straight out of my head. I am no use here; I will go and see to my troops."

I found it was the same with ap Darel, when he came to me. He tried his best to learn the charm but could not. I sang it over as many of the wounded as I could that night, and then rolled into my tent very late, absolutely exhausted. It was only when I was lying down quietly that I realized I had forgotten to eat.