The King's Peace (5 page)

"Well there's no doubt at all that you fought with us and not against us—" Marchel began.

"Why do you seek the High King?" the man interrupted.

I looked at him. He had not identified himself. I did not even know who these people served, only that they had come from Caer Gloran. Nothing bound me to answer him. But for that moment we had shared in the fight I somehow trusted him.

"Raiders attacked my father's land at Derwen, and my mother insisted I go to Caer Tanaga to seek help."

"We may be able to help, depending on what sort of help you need." There was no smile on his face now. "How many raiders? From where? Jarnsmen? Derwen—that is down on the south coast, yes?" He frowned as if trying to remember. "Derwen—yes, Gwien ap Nuden, and his heir is... Darien?"

"Darien is dead," I said, feeling a lump in my throat as I said it as I had not had when I gave the same news to my mother. "And my father Gwien is badly wounded and may not live.

The heir now is my brother Morien. Derwen is two days' ride from here across country the way I have come. We need help rebuilding and also knowing what to do if the Jarnsmen come again. There are not very many of us." I tried to remember the rest of his questions as he stood there looking patient and worried in the fading light. "I think there was only one ship's worth of them, by numbers, but they took us by surprise. I did not see the battle myself, but I met some of them, and they were definitely Jarnsmen.

They took all they could take in goods and people and horses and left."

"Raiding season," said Marchel, as if continuing a long debate.

The man raised his chin absently, then looked at me straight. "What is your name, daughter of Gwien?" He had no right to thus ask for proof of my words by asking me to put my name to them. His eyes were compelling, and we had spilled blood together, and if he wished me harm, he need not go to this trouble.

I raised my arms, palms open upwards, and then downwards. "I call all the gods of Earth and Sky to witness that my words are true and my name is Sulien ap Gwien."

He smiled again as I brought my hands back to my sides. "It is as well you found us.

You would not have found any help in Caer Tanaga; there is nobody there but the townsmen and traders at this time of year. We do need to arrange for defenses in the south.

We will ride to Derwen and see what can be done." He turned to Marchel decisively.

"Will we need to go back to Caer Gloran first?"

She considered a moment, glancing at the prisoners and around at the rest of the cavalry. The people who had been holding spare horses out of the battle were mingling with those who had fought, some were binding up wounds and singing charms to keep away the weapon-rot.

"Unless the report from the ships is other than I expect, it would seem to me most sensible to go back for tonight, have the wounded seen to, and leave the prisoners there to be sent on to Thansethan. Then we can set off fresh in the morning with supplies and rested horses."

"Yes. We do that then. Arrange it." Marchel raised her chin definitely and swung back into the saddle. He turned to me.

"You fought well, Sulien ap Gwien. If they can spare you in Derwen, I would be very happy to offer you an armiger's place with me." He clapped me on the shoulder and turned away, leaving me standing there open-mouthed, staring after him.

And that was how I met my lord Urdo ap Avren ap Emrys, High King of Tir Tanagiri, Protector of the Island, War-leader of the Tanagans and the best man of this age of the world.

—4—

"By the Radiant Sun in whom I hold my greatest trust, I swear to take____as my lord, to have no enemies save as they are his enemies, to harm none of his friends, to strike and to go and to do as he shall command me in his service, saving neither House nor Name nor God, until he die, I die, or these words be given back to me.

"By the White God Ever Merciful, I swear to have____as mine to house and horse and arm in my service as befits an armiger and to keep them in their age; a blow struck them is a blow struck me, and their deeds are my deeds, save as they break my peace."

—Tanagan Armiger's Oath

I rode to Caer Gloran among the ala. There was an hour of the long twilight of midsummer left, and Marchel wanted to make the most of it. Most of the armigers were friendly at once. It was some time before I realized how lucky I was to have met these people first in battle. Although few of them were heirs to land, they were almost all of noble blood. They were already, after only two years together, very proud of their skills and position. I learned later that many of them had been sent to the king by their clans as hostages or pledges of support.

Urdo had received them all alike in honor, seen to it that they were appropriately trained, and given them position as his armigers. Most of them were fierce when crossed and slow to accept any outsider until proven. I was lucky to have proved myself to them with no baiting necessary.

As soon as Urdo left me they came up and spoke to me with no need of introductions.

They named themselves to me with their father's names or their land names without even a thought. Some of them even that first night gave their own names, as family do, or those who fight together and may die together. Many of them thought that I must belong to another of the king's alae. I rapidly learned from their talk that he had three already and soon the whole country would have them at every stronghold and the Jarns would be sent back across the Narrow Seas where they belonged. Their horses snorted at Apple, and he snorted back, making friends and finding his place among them.

In much the same way, the armigers asked me ?who I was and how I came to have a fine warhorse, and how I knew how to ride him. They thought me trained because I had fought, although at that time I knew nothing of true lancework beyond tilting at a target. I could not have taken my place in a charge. One of them, older than most, named himself to me the son of Cathvan and said he had known Apple before he was given to my father at the coronation. He was one of the king's horse trainers. The five-year-old he was riding that day was now battle-hardened and ready to be gifted to a lord. He showed some regret at this thought. I knew how hard it was to train a warhorse, having done some of the work myself of saddle-breaking a colt. I had never really thought where all the horses the king had given to those who swore to him had come from. I had given it no thought beyond the old songs of the Emperor Emrys winning a thousand horses for a song in the land of giants, and the even older stories my nurse had told me about the white horses born of the wave that came thundering up the beach to stand whole in the breaking surf draped in seaweed to be caught by heroes.

I told them all my errand, and they dealt with the news exactly as I might have best wished, looking grave and saying that what was done was done, but we would be avenged.

They were for the most part very young, no more than a few years older than I was, though they were battle-seasoned and seemed to me men and women grown. Few of them were women. Besides Marchel, there were only four other women in that ala of sixty. Lancework needs great strength in the shoulders. I looked at Marchel in time to see her mount by straddling her horse's lowered neck and having him toss her back into the saddle. She did this with
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unself-conscious grace, but I saw many envious glances, and one or two attempts to copy her that left the riders lying in the mud or sprawled awkwardly across their horses' rumps behind the saddle.

Marchel gave us a riding order—most of us were to ride on the road, four abreast, which was usual; scouts and outriders were given their positions clearly. The prisoners walked in front with four riders single file on each side of them. I took up a position with some of my new companions towards the middle of the ranks. Ap Cathvan the trainer stayed near me. As we began to ride I asked one of my companions about Marchel.

"Is she a Jarn?"

He laughed. He was a broad-shouldered man who had given his clan name, Angas.

Even I knew that this was one of the great clans of the north. "Marchel? Not a bit of it.

Her father is Thurrig, a Malmish admiral from Narlahena. He serves King Urdo now. He came to Tir Tanagiri thirty years ago with three ships, though they were lost in battle long since. He has fought all that time for one king or another, and Marchel, too. They say she was born in the saddle."

"They say Thurrig got her on a mare, too, but they make sure to say it quietly," put in ap Cathvan. Angas laughed again.

"When we all know her mother? But she's a fine fighter and highly skilled as a rider.

Her father's a good fighter, too, though he's always pining for ships."

"Urdo has promised him some, and I'll be glad to see him get them. That would give us the chance to catch the Jarnish bastards at sea before they do any damage." The two men raised their chins at the thought, and I smiled, thinking of ships. Without knowing it I had caught the infectious hope that ran through the ala, the belief they had all caught from Urdo that we could make a difference, we could change things, we could turn the tide.

"I know very little of the Malms. Are they like the Jarns?"

Angas looked at me, considering. "I can't say I know much about them either. But Marchel and her father are loyal, and she's good to have beside you in a fight, none better.

If Thurrig had some reason for leaving Narlahena in a hurry, as some say, then for my part I suppose he was justified in it. If I remember my history right then the Malms were the first of the barbarians to win a battle against the Vincans, years and years ago, away somewhere off in the east." The direction he waved his arm was south rather than east, as we were riding northwest, but I said nothing. "They may well plague the civilized people in some parts of the Empire much as the Jarnish raiders plague us, I don't know.

But in the alae we don't judge people by the color of their skins but by who they are and how they themselves behave. When Marchel was first put over us there was some dispute over that, but as the king himself says, we should judge people each by their deeds, by the color of their blood, by who they are willing to shed it for and by the strength of their arms." He was looking at me very seriously.

I raised my chin. What he said was sense. "I hate the Jarns though," I said.

"The raiders yes, and so do I. We all do. They will destroy everything we want to build.

But there are Jarns living among us, in the east, who live in hamlets and have settled lives.

Some of them took up arms beside us and fought their cousins who came raiding last spring, when I was at Caer Tanaga with the king. Not many of them it's true, but some, and there will be more, Urdo says."

Ap Cathvan spat aside. "Take them by the each, you say, Angas, and that's fair enough, that's the king's wisdom, and the teaching of the White God. But when you see them ready to kill you that speaks pretty plain. Nothing against Marchel to be sure, but the Jarnish farmers who've sworn to the King's Peace, well, say what you like, but I'd not sleep the night among them and be sure to wake up with my horse and my throat whole.

They're mostly thieves when all's said and done. Sure there's good people among them, same as there are bad ones among us. But we're mostly to be trusted and they're mostly not." This, too, sounded like wisdom. I wanted to believe the Jarnsmen a different species from myself so I could hate them cleanly.

"Nonsense!" I was surprised how vehemently Angas spoke. "You must have extremely honest farmers at home, and I'm glad to hear it. But the Jarnsmen are no different from us in kind, once they leave off worshiping their blood-loving gods." I looked from one to the other of them, uncertain. The older man laughed a harsh bark and looked over at me.

"Angas is talking like this because his father is giving him one of them to wife."

"A Jarn?" I found the idea revolting.

"A Jarnish princess," said Angas, looking at me and ignoring ap Cathvan. "And it was not my father's idea but the king's, and the girl is kin to the dowager Rowanna, the king's own mother."

"I say an Isarnagan alliance now and push them back to the sea," said ap Cathvan.

"And what would you pay for that alliance?" asked Angas, suddenly leaning forward in his saddle. "What do you know about the Isarnagans? I fought against the Isarnagans at home in Demedia every year until I came down here. Believe me, a burned harvest smells the same whoever fired the corn. You should see what the Isarnagans have done in the north, and whether the people there welcome them as cousins."

"And what will you pay for your Jarnish princess?" ap Cathvan sneered back. "The same as King Avren did for Rowanna? Land for her relatives to settle, a truce for a term of years, and then more of the maggots eating away at the island from the inside? And what gods will your children pray to? The Isarnagans are wild people, I agree, like we were before the Vincans came, but they know our gods, and when they give their word before an altar we can trust them, not like the oathbreaking Jarns."

"If it were not for Rowanna and Avren's Jarnish alliance, we would have no High King now!"

retorted Angas passionately. "What happened to his elder brothers when Avren died, Queen Branwen's sons, the heirs everyone acknowledged?"

Ap Cathvan shook his head, and I raised my eyebrows. If I had heard any tales of them I had not paid attention.

"Young Emrys died in battle, yes," Angas said, lowering his voice a little, "but some say it was a blow from behind. My mother told me it was not the Jarns nor a fever that killed Bran. Rather it was King Borthas at Caer Avroc, though he had given them all his protection. She herself was in fear for her own life if she tried to claim the crown, and very glad to be given to my father even though she was but thirteen years old. What sort of ally kills the king's sons and uses the daughters to make alliances?"