The King's Peace (22 page)

Tanaga Ayl will cross the Tamer."

It all had a nightmare plausibility. If she'd been lying she'd have said he had an alliance with Cennet as well. Urdo wasn't a fool, and it wouldn't happen the way she thought, but she could well have set up the Jarnish side of it. "What do you get out of it?" I asked.

"Last time you talked about Urdo as a great king."

She laughed. "There are many paths, and I have found a better one. My husband is dead. Did you think I would stay powerless in Dun Idyn where that prating priest won't leave me alone?" It was news to me that the Lord of Angas was dead. No word of it had come to Caer Tanaga before I left it. "I get the western half of Tir Tanagiri to rule through my son. He is ready for it. The people will follow him. What else I get you wouldn't understand. Now go out and strike a bargain with Sweyn—he will let you hold out here until Urdo comes if you let me go."

"Oh no." Even in my state I could see how long she would keep that bargain once she was free.

"If you are a bargaining piece I shall wait and think what I want to trade you for." The only reason I didn't kill her at that moment was that I wanted to do it too much.

I called down the stairs. Geiran and ap Erbin came up from where I had left them waiting.

"Tie her up. Don't listen to anything she says. But she may be useful to us, so we don't kill her yet." I walked over to the window and looked out. The Jarnish army covered the fields outside. It was already reorganized to face the Caer.

"She tortured Osvran to death," said ap Erbin. "The whole fortress heard."

"So if we don't need her as a bargaining piece we try her in Caer Tanaga in front of everyone," I said, miserably. My left leg and my right side and my left wrist were starting to hurt. I was going to have to tell everyone the bad news.

Geiran brought the rope and advanced towards Morwen, who did not move and continued smiling faintly. "We can probably prove that she killed Osvran for sorcerous reasons, and ate his soul," I said. She had tried to do it to me. Geiran stopped and looked at me, eyes wide. Ap Erbin drew in a sharp breath. "She would have needed it to get enough power for her black sorcery."

Morwen looked at me with a momentary hatred, and I knew I was right, I had caught her in a weakness. But when she spoke her voice was calm and almost amused. "Oh no. I killed Osvran because he was my dead husband's bastard. It was an insult to me to let him live."

It was too much. I clenched my hand on my sword. She was completely mad in her self-centered pettiness. How dared she kill a man, my friend, a good man, one of Urdo's best men, not for
Page 79

himself but for an accident of birth? I gritted my teeth. How dared she even lie and so insult his memory. Geiran, beside her, drew back her hand and slapped Morwen across the face. As her hand touched Morwen I felt a wave of heat. Suddenly, Geiran was burning like a torch, all the fat in her body burning at once. I could see her bones through her flesh in that first instant. This was nothing like the spark almost anyone knows how to bring, to start a fire, it was an evil unearthly flame. I took a step towards Morwen, raising my sword. I think I could have killed her. I don't think her sorcery could have hurt me.

Geiran carried on moving forward to touch Morwen, her arms open now. She enfolded her in her arms even as the flesh ran off them, even as she was consumed. Morwen laughed, and I saw her reach out for power. I took another step. The tapestries behind her suddenly billowed forward. Morwen was burning. Ap Erbin was screaming and rushing forward, his sword drawn. Morwen wasn't laughing anymore, and I saw in her eyes that no power was coming, and she knew it. She had burned up her own soul at long last, and now her flesh was burning. She tried to rise, and poor Geiran's bones scattered to the ground as my sword and ap Erbin's met in Morwen's throat. If she wasn't dead already then we were more merciful to her than she deserved.

We stood and stared at each other a moment, as our swords clashed together. Then the tapestry fell and a child hurtled out, running straight towards the burning thing that had been Morwen.

"Mother!" he screamed. I snatched him up only instants before he would have touched what was left of her. He would have caught fire in that unnatural flame and died there with her. He was only nine years old. There were so many times later when I wished I had let him burn.

He struggled and fought me, trying to draw the short sword at his side, trying to bite me. He was hard to hold. Then ap Erbin screamed again, and pointed, and I saw that the wooden floor was burning around her body in a quickly expanding circle of white fire. We turned and ran down the stairs, ap Erbin first and I behind, still struggling with the boy.

We came out into the cobbled courtyard. The tower fire rose up from the top of the tower, sending up a high plume of greasy black smoke. The stone would not burn. I handed the child to ap Erbin, who sheathed his sword and held him with both arms, making comforting noises. The boy bit him. People were coming out to see why the tower was burning. Ap Erbin called over Celemon ap Caius, his sequifer, and gave the struggling boy to her.

"Put him with the prisoners," he said. "Have him watched. He is the son of a traitor, but only a child, and he is an orphan." He was screaming curses and the names of gods as loudly as he could as Celemon took him away.

"Shall we try to put it out?" asked ap Erbin, staring up at the black smoke twisting unnaturally in the dusk.

"No. It's Geiran's pyre. And Osvran's, too." I stood and sang the Hymn of Returning then, pulling off my helmet and cutting my hair with my sword, as I had for Darien my brother. Ap Erbin sang with me, and the others who were there were quiet, listening. I prayed with all my heart that Osvran had passed into the quiet halls of Death to speak for his life and go on to make new choices. I feared very much that he had not, that she had stolen his soul and he was gone forever. At least she was gone, too. Morwen had unraveled her own soul for power until she came, unexpectedly, to the end of it.

When we had finished ap Erbin turned to me. "What in Coventina's name are we going to tell Angas?" he asked softly.

"If I ever see Angas again I will be so pleased I don't care if he kills me," I said, putting my helmet back on. It had acquired some new dents and a nasty crease, no wonder my head hurt so.

She had said she was going to rule through Angas, but I knew he would never betray Urdo.

"The first thing is what we're going to tell Sweyn. How defensible do you think this place is?"

"We can hold it for a few days. Do you know a well blessing? If we had a clean well we could hold it longer." Garah knew a well blessing. But I'd sent her off into who knew what danger. I'd heard her give it. She would be furious with me for letting Apple die.

"I can try one."

"We need to talk to Glyn about supply. But I think we can hold out until Borthas gets here."

"Borthas is dead." Ap Erbin gaped at me. "Get Galba. Get Glyn. Get Masarn, I put him in charge of the other pennon I brought in. Get someone else fit to be a decurio who can lead First." Osvran's pennon. "We need to have a council and decide what to do. Get—" I remembered with a start and a warm glow of strong relief that Galba would be in charge.

I gave sincere thanks to all the gods of war. He was highest-ranking survivor, and Urdo had promised him command of an ala. He was just getting it sooner than he expected. He could make the decisions, which was good, as my head felt as if it had been stuffed with wool. It wouldn't be up to me to decide what to do next. I didn't want to be a praefecto after all.

I wanted to get very drunk and sleep for a week and after that do something simple and boring like days and days of lance-drilling exercises where the worst of my worries was getting Apple to change feet at the right time. Except that Apple was dead. I rubbed my eyes with my raw hands. My gauntlets had vanished somewhere.

"What shall I get, and where shall I get them to?" ap Erbin asked. He had been waiting while I stood with my mouth open.

"The praetorium, I think. I can't remember what else I was going to say. Galba can decide what we're going to say to Sweyn. Oh, and tell Galba he's in charge, will you? Don't get someone for First Pennon. Galba can do that."

Galba blinked at me when he saw me in the praetorium. "Are you hurt, Sulien?"

"A few scratches I think. I haven't looked yet. It's mostly Apple's blood, and Jarnish blood. Yes, one of these years I'll have time to wash all off it off. There are things you need to know."

I waited until everyone was there, then told them everything Morwen had said and done. Ap Erbin confirmed the way she had died. I told them the titles Sweyn claimed and the surrender terms he'd offered before the battle.

"Let us assume," said Galba, "firstly, that Urdo will not fall into the trap. If he comes, he will come with sufficient force. He may not come. He may assume we're all dead."

"If ap Gavan reaches him he will know more than they think," Masarn pointed out.

"Sulien sent her via Caer Avroc. It'll take her six or seven days to get to Urdo."

"The immediate problem is what to say to Sweyn now. We have his family, he has us trapped,"

said Galba.

"Is he an honorable man?" asked ap Erbm.

"He made an alliance with Morwen, and according to her, he needed her," I said. "On the other hand the people of his household I fought today did nothing dishonorable. I think he might not openly break a public agreement before his people."

"So do we ask him to let us go in return for his family?" asked Glyn. "We've supplies for about ten days."

"Six days to Caer Tanaga, six days back here," muttered ap Erbin.

"We can hold out twenty days if we must, but it will be hard going," said Glyn.

"He won't let us go, that will spoil his trap if we get to Urdo and tell him," said Galba. "I think we ask him for supplies in return for keeping his family safe. They need to eat, too, after all. And we tell him that the witch is dead, and so we serve all traitors." We all raised our chins.

"Do we have a herald?"

Glyn started to put forward suitable names of people who were alive, on their feet, and spoke the Jarnish language. It wasn't a long list at all. I stopped listening. It was still a question of when
Page 81

we were going to die. I couldn't even see a way of avoiding taking the kingdom down with us.

The discussion swirled about me like a fog as they thought out loud. I tried to concentrate, but I could feel my eyes closing.

"We need a miracle," said Galba, summing up. "We'll keep going until one happens." He then assigned us a sector of the city each, and work that needed doing. "But get your wounds seen to and sleep first, Sulien," he said.

I agreed, but as soon as he left the room Glyn dragged me off to bless the poisoned well.

"I know it's raining, but the sooner we have a good water source the better," he said.

I remembered the words. I opened my heart to the Mother and addressed her as Garah did, as Coventina, the leaf that floats on the forest pool, Lady of Good Waters.

There was a loud gurgling sound and the well shot up high, soaking the courtyard, then settled back. Glyn sent down a bucket.

"It's sweet," he said, tasting it cautiously. I felt curiously more cheerful myself.

"Good that someone's on our side," I said.

"And good that some people are still teaching their children the old ways," he said.

"That's a woman's blessing. I never learned it."

"I had it from Garah. She uses it to bless muddy ditches when we need water, and it always works. She's a marvel. I do hope she makes it through."

Glyn raised his chin soberly. Though we didn't say anything, we were counting days and food in our head. We had heard the good news that Sweyn had agreed not to attack that day if he could see his wife alive, which was done.

I sat down in the praetorium and went to sleep, knowing Galba would not relax the guard just because we had a truce. Visions of the battle spun in my head, but I kept on counting days and food. To get that twenty days, Glyn must have been counting on eating the horses. We needed a miracle.

The way people tell it now, they say that the miracle was there when we woke the next morning, men sprung from the ground as corn from seed. The timing was not quite as good as that. It was three more difficult days before we saw that incredible army. They passed uncomfortably. Sweyn attacked, feinted, made brief truces, tried to take the city by the secret way, pushed hard at the gate and once almost succeeded in scaling the walls.

On the fourth day of the siege Galba came and woke me at dawn.

"Come and see," he said. I came, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I had slept in my leather armor. I wanted hot water and hot food. On the plain before Sweyn's army stood a host of a size I had never imagined. In the center flew the banners of the ala of Caer Gloran, along with Angas's own banner, the thorn of Demedia, the single great purple silk royal banner of the High King of Tir Tanagiri, the red-and-green kingdom banner and, just catching the light, Urdo's own personal banner, the gold running horse on white and green. So many times I had charged beneath that banner. I felt tears prick in my eyes to see it again. He had come. This sight would have gladdened my heart, but far stranger was what stood to left and right of the ala.

It seemed to all the world an army raised from the warriors of Tir Tanagiri who had been here before the Vincans came. I had no idea how Urdo had raised the dead to come and rescue us, but there they were in great numbers, long beards, blue-painted faces, and arms with swirling black-and-white battle designs. They had little round shields with more such designs on.

They had only one banner, though many of them flew it, a blue background with a black naked man. I had never seen it before. They were armed with short stabbing spears, and some of them even had swords. The wonderful thing about them was that there were so many of them they covered the whole area where we had rallied and fought three days before. In the bare space between the two armies Raul was meeting the envoys of King Sweyn.