The King's Name (42 page)

Darien's face fell. "I heard," he said. "I shall miss her. She was always here, until last year. When I first came to Caer Tanaga she was very kind to me when I was lonely. She taught me a lot about horses. She was a good friend. But she knew the risk when she volunteered to open the gates.

That is why she wrote down a sworn statement and had it witnessed by Luth and Cadraith."

"I have just been reading it," Veniva said. "It could not be better put. Did you really teach her to read, Sulien?"

"Yes," I said. "But that was such a long time ago I'd almost forgotten. She's been reading and writing for years." Making lists, I thought, remembering her crossing things off them decisively in this room.

"There are also the servants," Darien said. "We have plenty of evidence."

"And Elenn?" I asked.

There was an awkward little silence. "She wanted to speak to Urdo," Veniva said. "She did not seem herself."

"Morthu had her under an enchantment," I said. "She is only halfway back from it. Where is she?"

"She went to see Urdo," Darien said, frowning a little. "Halfway back? I have never heard of such a thing. I

thought the spell might not be broken until Morthu died. Do you think she will feel better tomorrow? Far enough back to speak against Morthu?"

"I don't know," I said. "I wouldn't count on it."

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"We have plenty of evidence even without her," Darien said. "My concern is why he agreed to be tried. Do you think he has some trick prepared?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," I said. I walked over to the window seat and sat down. I was more tired than I had thought. "He kept asking if you would be there and if all the kings would be there. He may mean to bewitch you all."

"Teilo will be there, and Raul," Darien said. "And his, too. He must be tried before the- Law and seen to be guilty, and then executed for his crimes."

"I know," I said. "Inis said there is a charm against sorcery, but he did not seem very sure of it.

Will Angas be here, too?"

"He is here already; his ala came up with us," Darien said.

"It has been very complicated fitting everyone in. Dalmer and Celemon have been rushed off their feet. And as for the citadel it has been a nightmare, without Garah or the queen to set it in order. I need a tribuno to see to it for me."

"You need a key-keeper," Veniva said crisply. "Which is more like a quartermaster for your fortress than a tribuno. And you are getting one, getting a wife indeed, who will also be here tomorrow if the wind stays good for boats coming up the Tamer."

"Tomorrow?" Darien said blankly. "Even if Angas had sent to Demedia the moment we agreed, the message could scarcely be at Dun Idyn yet, let alone the girl returned."

"If she had been in Dun Idyn, you would be right," Veniva said. "But she was in Cennet with the grandmother she is named for, and you will have the two Ninians here tomorrow, by the news I had at Caer Segant. So you can be crowned and married, and begetting great-grandchildren for me and heirs for the kingdom."

"She has been key-keeper of Dun Idyn for Angas, but she will have to learn the ways of Caer Tanaga," Darien said, sensibly ignoring the last comment.

"She is only just eighteen," Veniva said. "Don't count on her being good at it straightaway. All the same, I

think of the available princesses she was a good choice, even considering she is your cousin."

"Yes," Darien said. "I was thinking mostly about settling the north."

Veniva began to go into a long genealogical digression. I yawned, and she interrupted herself immediately.

"You should be in bed, Sulien."

"I think I will go to the baths," I said, deciding as I spoke. "I am stiff and tired and dirty from being on the boat.

Afterward I will sleep. Where am I sleeping, do you know? In barracks?"

"You should be here in the citadel," Veniva said.

"I think Govien has already taken your things to the barracks," Darien said. I embraced them both and left them.

The baths were deserted. There were a few candles lit but no attendants. The water was pleasingly hot, and there was a whole rack of dry towels. I looked into the weapon room. It was empty and there was nobody there. I took the spear into the baths and left it on top of my clothes and armor, plainly in my sight, and only an arm's length from the pool. I did not want to take risks with it, even for the marvel of hot water.

I scrubbed myself all over with soap, rinsed, then got down into the water to soak my aches away. I did not swim, just lay back in the running water with half an eye on my spear. I felt my aches melting away. When I

heard someone coming I tensed immediately. I was standing up in the water with my hand on my spear when

Emer came in. She snorted.

"You Vincans. You really don't seem to notice that you don't have a stitch on, as long as
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you have your weapon ready."

I laughed, and lay back again. "The weapon is the important bit. Come on in."

She took off her clothes and slipped into the water. "This is truly one of the great blessings of civilization,"

she said as she relaxed into the warmth.

"You weren't wounded at Agned," I noted. She had the old scar on her face, the scars on her foot from the wound she had taken when Conal had been killed, and nothing else apart from two or three pale seams on her arms and legs, also clearly very old, and the dark lines of childbearing on her stomach.

"I'm the only one of my people who wasn't," she said. "I could feel bad about it, five hundred people coming to war so I could die, and here I am, alive and untouched while half of them are dead and the other half wounded."

"Do you really think anyone needs to go out of their way to make Isarnagans fight?" I asked.

She laughed. "You have a point," she admitted. "They wouldn't have come if they didn't want to."

"And you fought in a good cause, whatever your personal reasons were for fighting," I said.

She ducked down under the water for a moment and then came up again. "The trouble is that it doesn't make any difference to how I feel," she said.

"Do you really think that you're the only person who has lost someone?" I asked.

"It isn't the same," she said. "I met Conal when we were both eight years old. There had never been anyone else."

If you didn't count her husband and daughter, of course. "I've been mourning Garah this evening," I said. "She came away with me when she was fifteen years old and I was seventeen. She lived her own life and died her own death, and they were both good ones. Without me she might have stayed in Derwen and been quiet, and that might have been good as well, who can tell? She has been making my life better for twenty years, twenty years of friendship. And the same with Masarn, and ap Erbin, and—" I paused a little. "And Urdo. You miss him, yes, of course you do, you will never forget him, but you can go on and live your life."

"You are speaking of my husband," Elenn said. I jumped. She was standing against the back wall of the room, next to the candle sconce by the door to the changing rooms. I had not heard her coming. She was wearing the same stained shift and her face looked ravaged.

"I was speaking of my friend," I said. I wished the words back as soon as I had impulsively uttered them. I

knew Elenn didn't understand friendship between men and women. As smoothly as I could, I brought my feet under me so that I could reach my spear immediately if I needed it. It seemed ridiculous to think I would have to defend myself against Elenn. I was more afraid she might grab the spear and hurt herself with it by mistake than that she might hurt me.

"My husband," she said again, sounding both bereft and angry.

"Come into the water, Elenn," Emer said.

"With two women who hate me and mean me harm? I think not." She sounded imperious.

"Morthu has cast a bewitchment on you," I said. "He has been lying to you. We don't hate you.

I certainly don't."

"I don't either, sister," Emer said.

"Everyone has been lying to me," she said. "Why did Ulf tell me Urdo was near death, when he is dead already?"

"Death has two sides to be near," I said. Emer choked back a horrified laugh. "And Ulf didn't know. Near death is what we have been saying, because although he is dead he has been talking."

"He talked to me," Elenn said, shifting uneasily and most uncharacteristically. "He said he had
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not talked to you."

"Not talked, no, not since he died," I said, choosing my words carefully. "He has spoken to other people when I was there."

"I asked him if Darien was his son," Elenn said. "Morthu told me he was not, that he was the product of your incest with your brother."

"He told Angas that as well," I said. "I really don't know how people can think of these things. It's so far-fetched that I didn't think anyone could believe that one."

"Do you know what Urdo answered me, about Darien?" she asked.

"No, I don't know," I said, honestly. Darien was Urdo's son in every important sense except that of blood. I

spared a thought for poor Ulf, lying cold, waiting for burial. The part he had had in Darien seemed to me the least important, over in minutes, bound to flesh only by Gangrader's will.

"He said 'he is now,'" she said. "Even Urdo twists his words so that I don't know what they mean. 'He is now.'

'No mortal woman else.' What can I make of that? Morthu took my will, yes, but how can I trust anyone when

I cannot tell truth from lies?"

I was thinking how to answer when Emer spoke. "Do you remember when we were children?"

she asked, her voice soothing in its cadences. "Do you remember how Maga would command and organize the three of us, and Allel would always be ready with his arms open if we were hurt? Maga would scoff and call him weak and foolish, and he would say 'Yes, my dear, you see right through me, I am weak and foolish and you have caught me with a pocket full of plums I have brought for the children.' Maga would make promises and twist them, but you know you could always trust Allel to do what he said, though what he said would never be as marvelous. And when you were nine years old and I was eight and the fosterlings were come from Oriel, Darag pushed you out of a tree and you had a great cut on your knee. There was a scab on it, and Maga saw it one day when it was nearly healed, and she said you should pull it off because it was hanging loose. And you asked if it would hurt, and Maga said no, it wouldn't. But Allel interrupted and said that yes, it would hurt a little now, but it would be a good little pain to make your knee better."

"I could trust my father," Elenn said, as if discovering something fine and precious. "He is far away in

Connat." Her face had relaxed a little from the terrible twisted mask it had been when she had first come in.

"But I can go home if I want. I can do anything now. I am queen no longer."

"I have sometimes left out parts of the truth when speaking to you," Emer said. "But I have never lied to you. I

told you the truth about Conal when you asked. You know I don't hate you."

I crouched still in the warm moving water and tried to be inconspicuous. This was best left to Emer. I wished I

had gone straight to bed and never been here at all.

"I don't know," Elenn said. "You hated Maga, and she didn't know. You were glad she was dead. You embraced her killer."

"It wasn't like that," Emer said. "I loved Conal for being Conal. You know I always loved him. I just didn't care that he had killed Maga."

"How could you betray the family honor like that?" Elenn asked. "How could you love a man who killed your mother?"

"If we are speaking truth here, then I should say that if not for propriety I would have cheered and given him the hero's portion for killing my mother," Emer said defiantly. "Yes, I hated her.

She used us, you and me, and she was even more cruel to poor Mingor, forcing him to be what she wanted and never what he wanted."

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"You and Min did not know how to deal with her," Elenn said. "I loved her. She never did me any harm. She

taught me a lot about how to deal with men and how to run a court which has been very useful.

She fought you because you fought against her."

"Yes, and even though you were her favorite, you shut everything away inside where she couldn't get at it, do you think I don't know that?" Emer said. "I saw that. I didn't want a shell like yours.

By the Raven, Elenn, she wed you to five men who promised to kill Darag, one after the other.

How can you say she didn't do you any harm? The shell itself is harm, however useful it may have been. It's a defense, yes, wonderful, but how can anyone get close to you? It's cracking now, but the last time before tonight when I saw a human expression on your face was when ap Dair came back and said that Urdo wanted to marry you and you knew you would be getting away from her."

"I was eighteen years old," Elenn said. "Any girl of that age is glad to be married, and I was to be a High

Queen. And there were not five. I was betrothed to Ferdia, but Darag killed him before I could marry him."

"He was too honorable to live," Emer said.

"Yes," Elenn said. Her face was back to normal, as far as I could tell in the candlelight. I relaxed a little. "I

could have trusted Ferdia, if he had lived," she said. She put her hand up to her chest, but it fell away empty.

I looked at Emer, and she gestured to me to speak.

"Where is your pebble, Elenn?" I asked quietly.

"Morthu made me—" she said, and stopped. "I'll get another one. I'll go to Thansethan and get another one. I

can trust Father Gerthmol. I can trust them at Thansethan." She stopped again, and looked down at me. "I

love Darien, you know," she said. "I don't blame him for anything you did."