The King's Peace (51 page)

—30—

"Peace in this hall."

"And a welcome to you who keep the peace within it."

— Ritual Guesting Greetings

"If this goes on much longer, I am going to strangle Cinon of Nene," Elenn said, storming in and slamming a double-handled welcome cup down towards the table. At the last moment she stopped and set it down gently so there was barely a click as the gold met the board. Even so, I could tell it was empty; she wouldn't have done that if there had been wine in it.

"Not Custennin?" I asked, as she came over to the fireplace where I was trying to help Garah make lists. It was late, after that night's feast.

"Custennin? Definitely not. What's he done wrong? He's happy as long as he can pray with Father Gerthmol every day and dither about the place the rest of the time." Elenn looked surprised as she moved from the shadows into the good light.

"It's the dithering I can't bear," I said, putting down my tablet wax side up and rubbing my hands together. "Never hunt boar with someone who dithers."

Garah was adding a column of figures, her face set with concentration and the tip of her tongue out. She spoke without looking up. "Did you really yell at him?"

"Yes. He was unnecessarily endangering my people's lives, and I told him so. I didn't call him half the things the armigers are saying, but that was only because anger was limiting my
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imagination." I pinched out my candle. My mother had sent a cask of linen oil with Morien's party with a note to Elenn explaining that it burned well in lamps. Elenn had asked me to read her the note. She had learned her letters but still knew very little Vin-can. Everyone was always happy to speak Tanagan with her so she never had the chance to pick it up. Once she understood the note she was delighted and sent the maids down to the storerooms to bring out all the lamps we had to light the banqueting room.

The oil did not burn as cleanly as olive oil, so the lamps needed frequent cleaning. It did have the great advantage of not needing to come all the way across the sea from distant Narlahena. Even so, there was only so much of it, and in our own rooms we were still managing with candles for work and firelight for talking.

"Well I'm quite happy with dithering, that just needs coaxing along." Elenn said, settling herself on a low stool. "Custennin's not all that different from my father. Anyway, Linwen and Bishop Dewin are used to managing him. But I'm not sure how I've kept civil with Cinon this far."

"There's only so long we can count on Alfwin's politeness lasting, too," Garah said. She made a mark by the column of figures of food for armigers and horses she'd just been adding, and looked up at Elenn. "Cinon keeps on saying how he's left Nene undefended, which is true I suppose, but he keeps on making out it's Alfwin he's afraid of."

"The man's a fool," Elenn said shortly. "We can't let Alfwin kill him even so; apart from the hospitality issue, his family have been kings since the flood."

"Nobody was a king when the Vincans were here," I said.

Elenn waved that objection away and looked annoyed. "They held the land, they were kings, whatever they were called. Cinon though—it takes a lot to get to the end of my patience, but he's managed it. Constant snide whining is unendurable, and keeping him away from Alfwin is the most I can do."

"Nobody would know," I said. Before I had left the feast I had seen Elenn sitting and talking to him with that friendly attentive manner of hers, as if enthralled by everything he said. I would never have guessed she dis-like him.

"Nobody is supposed to know," Elenn said, as shortly as I had ever heard her speak.

"That's part of the burden of diplomacy. My mother taught me when I was a girl to keep my own feelings right out of the way of men, smile, and then talk to them the way they like. That way they'll listen to what you want them to hear." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Usually it's nothing like this difficult. Between Lew calling me sister every sentence and dealing with Cinon, I'm worn ragged."

"It's a good thing I'm not a king or a queen," I said.

Elenn and Garah both laughed. At that moment Glyn came in, stamping and shivering.

"Sixty-two, and-three," he said to Garah, and she scratched it in. "And by Turth's tusks it's cold in those storerooms!" Then he greeted us and came and sat down on the other side of the fire beside Garah.

"Was that another tactless remark they were laughing at?" Glyn asked me. I just grinned at him; I knew how to get along with him now.

"We were just saying which of the kings we want to strangle," Garah said.

"Flavien of Tinala," Glyn said, without hesitation. "He seems so smooth, but he's going against everything we want. And with Urdo—" he tailed off. We were not using the word late.

Urdo had set no time for his arrival, but it was now only two days before the full moon. The days since the message arrived had passed in a blur of preparations and preliminary feasting. All the kings were present except Mardol, Angas, Ohtar, and, of course, Urdo himself.

"Flavien is very polite at table," Elenn said. Her voice seemed different somehow.

Glyn shrugged. "Better a man who speaks the unpleasant truth than hides it."

"Cinon spends a lot of time with Flavien," Garah said, frowning.

"Oh, that reminds me," Elenn said. "I've persuaded him to go out for a few hours tomorrow by going hunting with whichever pennon is crossing the river into Aylsfa. You'll need to assign an armiger to be his guard."

"I don't suppose I could send Ulf Gunnarsson?" I suggested. They all laughed.

"I'd like to see his face," Garah said.

"He can't stop seeing every single Jarn as the enemy," Glyn said. "That's stupid, and it won't do, but he's not as bad as Flavien even so."

"Not Ulf, unfortunately," Elenn said. "It's not just the honor, it's someone to make sure he's safe, so it has to be someone who can ride well. Ulf strikes me as a very courteous fellow and quite suitable, apart from the Tarnish issue, but he's still in training."

"Terrible shame Alswith's not here, then. Fully trained, war hero—" Garah wagged her pen at me, and leaned too far towards me over the fire so the tip was caught by a spark and started to smolder. She sighed and dropped it into the fire, where it burned with a horrible smell of singeing feather.

"Oh well, no shortage of quills at the moment," she said, shrugging and giggled. As well as sending the pennons out boar hunting to distract the kings and to add to the food supplies, we had sent one out fowling on a backwater of the Tamer above Caer Tanaga.

They had been very lucky and netted a flock of geese making their way south for winter.

Goose and turnip soup thickened with barley is wonderfully warming. Elenn had seen fit to serve it to the kings only once. The rest went to the ala, who were delighted to be able to eat their fill of something good for a change.

"I'll give him someone reliable, even-tempered, and not Jarnish," I said, relenting. "I'll be there myself tomorrow anyway, it's so good to get out and do something in what daylight there is. At least all this hunting is keeping them fed as well as occupied and apart."

"For the feast last year when all the kings came, we were preparing for three months,"

Garah agreed. She had set her tablets down and was rubbing her fingers free of wax.

"And Dalmer said for Angas's wedding they were preparing half a year and had honey sent from Demedia and wine from Narlahena."

"We have some wine, fortunately," Elenn said. "I agree that the hunting is helpful."

"And going over the river and hunting in Aylsfa makes Ayl feel as if he's doing something for us, which cheers him up," Glyn said.

"His brother has been helping me in the hall," Elenn said. I looked at her, frowning, trying to work out what had changed about her. She was sitting up straight, and her voice was more formal. I realized she wasn't prepared to be relaxed in front of Glyn. I could see the uses of diplomacy with the allied kings, but did she need to extend it to everyone male? It seemed unnecessary and a little sad, but I didn't say anything.

"Helping you with the flowers?" Garah asked.

"Where do you get flowers a month before midwinter anyway?" I asked, idly.

"Most of them I dried in the summer and arrange with bare branches and sprays of evergreen,"

she said. "Sidrok Trumwinsson has been carrying branches for me. He seems to enjoy it."

"He's besotted with you is what it is," Glyn said. "I've seen him making sheep's eyes and sighing.

He's enraptured to be in the presence of such beauty. He dreams about you at night."

"Honestly, Glyn, you read that sort of thing into absolutely everything," I said, annoyed.

"Maybe it's because I'm in love," he said lugubriously, pulling a face at me. "I've been meaning to say for a while, Sulien, I don't need to ask your permission, but will you give your blessing to Garah and me getting married?"

I thought at first he was still joking, but when I looked at Garah she was blushing. "Is this what
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you want, Garah?" I asked, and my voice sounded strange in my ears. She raised her chin and looked at me seriously. I've never understood why anyone gets married if they don't have to produce an heir. But I didn't feel I could tell Garah how awful it was, and perhaps it was easier to endure if you truly wanted children. And they were working together so much, it wasn't surprising they didn't want to say good-bye at night. Garah was looking nervous. "Of course I give you my blessing!" I said, "If you're sure it's what you want."

Elenn was giving me a look I couldn't quite interpret. "Strong children, plentiful crops, good weather," she said, the Isarnagan wedding blessing. Then she got up and hugged Garah and then Glyn. I did the same.

"I shall bake your plait-bread," I said, sitting down again. Garah beamed at me. "If I remember how, and if we have enough honey," I added.

"Shall I ask Bishop Dewin to perform the wedding?" Elenn asked.

"I—" Glyn began, hesitantly, and Garah took over.

"We thought we'd have the Mother's blessing and make vows at dawn in the old way,"

she said, firmly. Elenn opened her mouth and shut it again. Just then there was a scratch at the door.

"Come in," Garah called, as this was formally one of her rooms. Glyn shrugged as if to say he couldn't think who it could be so late.

A gate guard came in. "I'm looking for the queen," he said, and then seeing Elenn, bowed.

"Arrivals, my lady," he said.

"The High King?" she asked, bounding to her feet.

"No, my lady. It's Mardol the Crow, Cadraith ap Mardol and Admiral Thurrig, with some others I don't know. They're waiting."

"Thank you," she said. "I will be down in a moment." The guard went back down the stairs. "Lucky this is here, I suppose," Elenn said, picking up the welcome cup.

"I'll send for the bread," Garah said. "No, I'll go for it, it'll be quicker." Garah ran down the stairs towards the kitchen. Elenn filled the cup from a wineskin that was hanging on the wall. By the time she had finished Garah was back with a plate of salted bread.

"This is all the bread there is until they bake in the morning," she said. "Are their rooms ready? Shall I check them? And ask the servants to bring some food?"

"That would be very good of you, Garah," Elenn said. "Now, will you come down with me, Sulien?" she asked. I stood up, stretched and yawned, straightened my drape and refastened my brooch, then followed her down. As the other kings arrived I had ridden out a few hours from Caer Tanaga to greet them with the whole ala. This served two purposes; it honored them and it made them realize the strength of an ala, and how little they would appreciate being on the wrong side of our spears. Nobody had warned us about Duke Mardol's party. I would have to find out what went wrong with my scouts.

Elenn was still dressed for the banquet. Her overdress was very pale green, embroidered with gold flowers. In the torchlight at the gate it looked white, but the gold shone, as did the gold of the cup. I waited under the arch as she went forward and greeted the armored newcomers individually, offering the plate and cup and then returning their soft words of peace.

Then she led them inside to the hall. Thurrig stopped me as we went in.

"Sulien," he growled. "Good to see you. Let's get a drink, eh?"

"Good idea," I said. I found myself grinning at him.

"Did you miss me?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know how I get by without the sight of your bushy brown beard," I said, though his beard was almost all grey now. "It seems like half an age since I saw you."

"I've been stuck in damned Tir Isarnagin for half an age," he said. "If I never see the place again, it's too soon."

"What's wrong with it?" I asked. "Apart from you and Chanerig stirring up a hornets'

nest?"

"Get me a drink, and I'll tell you," he said.

Servants were bringing out cold roast boar and apples for Mardol and Cadraith and their party. Others were bending down singing charms to light the fires that had been laid for the morning. There was plenty of room. I found space near the end of a table away from the others and liberated a jug of mead and two goblets.

"So, Tir Isarnagiri?" I asked, when we were settled comfortably. Thur-rig had a pig's foot and the jug in front of him.

"They're the most infuriating people in the world. If Elenn wasn't one of them I'd say they were all without exception unbearable, but as it is I shall say that nothing is perfect and so the Isarnagans aren't perfectly dreadful because they have one mitigating good person. All the rest of them are—well, I won't spoil the clean straw on the floor saying what I think of them. They say a thing fifteen different ways but they never say yes or no, they flatter you in the morning and try to have you poisoned at night, they consult their oracle-priests every hour and refuse to do anything. I got there eager to fight the enemy. After a month I was ready to fight our hosts along with them. After six months I'd have set fire to the whole island and laughed as it went up." He took a deep swallow of mead, and I could see his throat working. He set his goblet down empty.