The King's Peace (43 page)

"That's fairly told," I said. "So, it seems it must be war, and I am back to wondering what I am to do with you two."

She drew breath. "Lew will not pay a great ransom for me. In some ways he might be glad to be rid of me, I have given him no children yet, and I represent for him an alliance that he has repented of. If you want a ransom you would get more from my sister. I would say from my father and my brother, but it would be wrong. Though they value me they have little enough wealth these days. I am speaking of myself as your captured piece on the fidchel board." She smiled as she said this last.

"Captured pieces can not change color," I said, "but people may and sometimes do change sides. You have been honest with me. If you would rather be sent to your sister than handed back to your husband that is within my power. Nor would I ask for a ransom from my Queen. I think you misunderstand the situation in Tir Tanagiri." To say the least. I wished I was better at putting things delicately. "I am neither tyrant nor bandit. I am not working for my own personal gain in this situation, although this land is held by my family. I serve the High King Urdo and the High Kingdom. I am Praefecto of his own ala. I can have you sent to Caer Tanaga. I will see that it is done as soon as I can spare an escort. What happens there will be up to Queen Elenn and the High King, but I would think it very possible they would help you put aside your marriage so you two can be together—" I thought Elenn might be more ready to forgive an ancient bloodfeud for her sister's happiness than their father.

Also by that time Lew would most likely be dead, which would make the situation much less complex for Emer.

"No." Fishface raised a hand and spoke passionately. "You misunderstand. We cannot be together. We are not together now. We have never been together. We do not wish to be together. If you could forget that you ever saw us together we would be grateful. Nor do I have any desire to be sent to Caer Tanaga. Do with me what you would do with any prisoner."

"Very well," I said. "Though I cannot ask Black Darag for a ransom for a nameless man of Oriel.

And a prisoner would usually be sent to Thansethan to labor, and to take an oath of peace you would have to give your name." I sighed. He appeared to be an almost insurmountable problem. I almost wished he had been killed rather than captured. Emer was a problem, too, but once I could get her to Elenn she would be out of my hands. "You can't spend the rest of your life refusing to tell anyone your name," I added.

He shrugged. "Maybe I had better take a new one and start going by Fishface," he said, unblinkingly. "I admit it is a very vexing problem. Twelve of your horsemen have seen me ?with my lady, so has the healer, the two of you, the guards, Tia alone knows how many others among the camp here. Maybe I can find a childless rider to adopt me in the sight of the gods and give me his name?"

"If it is death for you two to be together," said Emlin, crisply, "As I have little doubt you are telling the truth, then why did you leave your people and go wandering in the woods together in the first place. Neither of you seems like a fool to risk so much for a moment's pleasure."

I looked inquiring as the two Isarnagans exchanged uneasy glances.

"We had no idea you would be here so suddenly," Emer said. "We thought there were no enemies around. We would have been back in plenty of time." I have never understood that kind of passion.

"And I was to return to Black Darag in the next day or two, as soon as the town fell,"

Fishface added, "It might have been our last chance to see each other for some time." He smiled at Emlin with easy charm, "I am flattered not to seem like a fool, but I will have to admit it is all illusion."

"It would have been such a long time apart," Emer added.

He looked back at Emer and smiled. She took his hand and looked up at him with an expression that would have made honey seem sour in comparison. I rolled my eyes, thinking that not even incest or bloodfeud was enough of a barrier to that sort of thing.

"And if I don't believe that, what?" Emlin asked. "You weren't running away, you could have got a lot farther before you stopped." I don't know if they would have told us, but it came to me suddenly.

"Did they actually have a blanket?" I asked Emlin. Before he could answer I turned to Emer. "No blanket, eh? Was it the old kingship rite to claim the land?"

"What are you talking about?" Emlin asked.

"When the king is crowned with a circle crown it is a ritual enactment of marriage with the land," I said, thinking how recently Urdo's own marriage with Tir Tanagiri was consummated. "Long ago it was done less symbolically."

She raised her chin defiantly. "Lew is an old fool, but I can rule a land and bring in our gods."

"Did you succeed?" Emlin asked.

"We were interrupted," the man said.

Without thinking I reached out for the land gods that lived in Derwen and felt them respond. I should not have been able to do it. I worried from then until I saw him if my brother Morien might have been killed by the Isarnagans. Only the lord should be able to reach them. Perhaps it was because I had spoken to the Mother. Perhaps it was because I was the heir and reaching in urgency. I found them. Green and growing they were, like the roots of trees and reflections of leaves in deep beds of forest pools. They were quietness and rising sap and rustling leaves and the snow a deer dislodged slipping between trunks was loud as it reached the ground. They were the scents of stone and water running. They did not have human shape or speak in human voices, but I knew them. I knew them as they knew me, as I knew how to run from here to my father's house and never trip and duck under branches without looking, as I could never do in the woods around Caer Tanaga though I should live there all the rest of my life.

They knew me, and I saw myself as I was to them, a moment in a reaching chain of people, feet and flying hair and hoofbeats falling. Apple died at Caer Lind and I never knew what Sweyn's men did with his body. But to the land gods of Derwen he was part of who I was and as they showed me myself I saw him, too. Seated on his back, where I belonged, in the heart of deep forest I reached out to feel disturbances in the land. Emer had not disturbed the balance. She had not had time to reach them. But they were aware of the Isarnagan hordes. I felt them crowded around the town, constricting it, draining the water. Then I was galloping freely on Apple's back away west, to the part of Derwen where hardly anyone lived, the fort of Dun Morr which the Vincans destroyed, the fallen walls open to the sky. Tapit Point was in view in the distance. Apple's nostrils flared, sniffing the sea wind. There were boats far out on the waves. Here, the land said, without words, but I understood, here there is room for these people, who are homeless, who worship our high gods.

I blinked, and reached down to pat Apple's neck, and saw Emlin and Emer and the nameless
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Isarganan staring at me. I could hear the noises of camp around me. Somebody was cooking porridge with milk. I opened my mouth to speak, and shut it again. I did not know how long it had been. There were sudden tears in my eyes. "You did not succeed," I said, at last, and my voice sounded very strange in my ears.

"No," she said, looking at me. "I know."

"Emer," I said, "can you negotiate with your Isarnagans?"

"Negotiate what?" she asked.

"Would Lew ap Ross, would you, be prepared to hold land under the High King, under the King's Peace? A kingdom under Derwen, off near Tapit Point, where the fort of Dun Morr used to be?"

"Do you have authority to offer that?" Emer asked.

"Only from the land," I said. "That land is empty and will take people. And as far as Urdo is concerned, if there are armies of Oriel and Lagm attacking in the north, then I think making a peace with you, a trustworthy ally, our Queen's sister, in the south to free up the ala to fight in the north would be worth some loss of land. The land you have marched across is mostly empty, our farmers mostly live between here and Magor. That is Derwen land, and I am heir to Derwen. I can offer it, subject to the approval of my brother and my king. If Lew would take it and go there and build a settlement and begin to farm, under Derwen and under the High King, and swear to the King's Peace, all will be well."

I held my breath.

"I think he would accept that," she said, at last, her eyes wide. "A kingdom to be had here without fighting."

"It seems your value on the fidchel board has increased again," said Fishface, neutrally.

"Oh indeed," said Emer, not smiling at all. "If Lew is allied to Urdo."

"Do you hate him so much?" asked Emlin.

"I do my duty," she said, grimly. None of us could think of anything to say.

"I will form the ala up," I said. "We may as well give Lew pause before he does something we will all regret. You can tell him you were doing a holy ritual and the land accepts you on those conditions. You must take them west, and I must speak to Morien and send word to Urdo."

"I hate to be annoying," said Fishface, "but what about me?"

"We drop you off a cliff on the way?" suggested Emlin. "Tell us your name, man, and we can work something out."

We waited a moment, but he stayed silent. Emer looked away.

"The lady Emer ap Allel was alone," I said at last. "She was always alone. We found her alone, and she made an alliance with us alone. You don't exist. You're a figment of anyone's imagination who saw you. You can just sit here until we're gone, and find your own way back to the Isar-nagans a lot later and hope nobody notices. I can't guest you or ask your friendship or ask any oath, because you are nameless, so you might just as well never have existed at all."

He stood up, and I scrambled up after him. "Thank you," he said, bleakly, bowed over my hand, and walked away. The nearest guard's spear flashed a warning, and he kept on walking towards it.

"Let him go!" I called, and the guard stepped back. I turned to Emlin. "Get him his weapons back and see he gets out of camp safely," I said. I turned back to Emer. She was watching him out of sight with a very strange expression on her face, as if she was not sure whether to smile or weep. She shook her head a little and looked at me.

"We'd better get on with it," she said.

—26—

"Put no trust in a plan that works too easily."

— Caius Dalitius, "On Military Life"

Emlin was probably the most organized tribuno I ever worked with. In hardly longer than it takes to rub down a horse he had broken camp and got everyone ready. I mounted Beauty and came forward. Some of the armigers were still blinking and rubbing sleep out of their eyes, but they were all mounted and in battle order.

"I'm not expecting to need to fight today," I told them. "But keep alert and be ready, let's give them a show."

We rode over the hill in formation, pennon and ala banners catching the wind, and drew to a creditably sharp halt near the banks of the river. My own ala could hardly have done better.

The mass of the Isarnagans were gathered around the town gate. I gave a hand signal to Berth ap Panon and he gave a great blast on the trumpet. They spun around in a widening wave with a disorganized haste that was almost comical. I sent the heralds forward with branches. The Isarnagans fell back before them and a messenger came out on their side and led them through to their king. Emer came up beside me as we waited for them to return and sat in silence, looking very composed. She was riding a well-mannered dappled half horse that was one of the scouts' spares. When the heralds signaled that I should come forward to meet their leader she rode forward at my side.

As we had agreed, Emlin stayed with the ala. I let him pick out one of the decunos to go forward with me. So three of us went forward, myself, Emer, and Garian ap Gaius. I think Emlin picked him for his lack of curiosity. The heralds had set up their branches at four corners of a square and stood beside them, two of Lew's and two of mine.

We dismounted. Emer slid down with a little difficulty. She managed to land on her feet, but it looked as if it were a close thing. Garian steadied her. I suppose she was used to much smaller horses, because it does not usually take two hands to dismount. Beauty nipped at the dappled mare's hindquarters and she gave him an indignant look over her shoulder. I couldn't help smiling, even as I reminded Beauty of his manners, and so I was smiling as the Isarnagans came hurrying up.

Lew ap Ross was not an impressive-looking man. He was thickset and grey-haired and had grown his moustache longer than his beard in the old-fashioned Isarnagan style. He brought two counselors with him, one a warrior and the other a much older man in a long shawl. Lew's mouth fell open a little when he saw his wife, which allowed Emer to get in the first word, with no time for thought or introductions.

"Good news, my husband," she said. She went towards him and bowed as best she could.

"The gods smile on us this day."

"What is this?" asked the older Isarnagan. He sounded a little indignant, as if anything to do with the gods should have come to him first. I suddenly realized with a shock that he must be an oracle-priest of the old tradition. They had been in many of my old nurse's stories. To meet one in broad light of day was like finding a relic out of the barbarous past.

The Vincans had outlawed the strange practices and education needed to train them more than four hundred years ago. There had been occasional naturally born oracles since, like Morwen, but nobody deliberately set out to become one in Tir Tanagiri. I looked at him with curiosity and apprehension. There was nothing strange about him except the shawl.

He did not have an eagle's beak instead of a nose nor cat's ears. Nor did he not immediately put his hand on anyone's belly and begin prophesying their death conditions.