The King's Peace (60 page)

Elenn had done me a great favor here, in sending them and in not coming herself. Another
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pennon increased my choices greatly—a half ala made a good-sized fighting force against anything we were reasonably likely to encounter. Ap Selevan stood there, stolid as ever, dripping from his riding cape, waiting for instructions. "Set up camp as always: ap Erbin will tell you where," I said. "Oh, and ask Father Gerthmol if he can spare me a moment tonight."

Even ap Selevan knew enough about my relationship with Thansethan to raise his eyebrows at this. "Yes, Praefecto," he said.

"Ask him as politely as you can," I said, and he jerked his chin up and went off.

I would rather have made a forced march across a marsh in midge mating season carrying my own weight in turnips than talk to Father Gerthmol just then, but I had to know about Darien. I paced a little while longer, waiting for him.

He came up to me with a companion, another brown-robed priest. I remembered him from Thansethan, he was Father Geneth. He had told me the grindingly dull story of his conversion four times, sure that it must move me eventually. They both bowed, and I bowed in return. Father Geneth began by asking about Arvlid. We spoke about her for a little while, making arrangements for a funeral the next sunset. He did not take his hand off his pebble the whole time. Father Gerthmol neither spoke nor looked at me but acted as if he were standing alone in a field. I waited for them to mention Darien. I had asked about his safety in the message I had sent to Thansethan. At last, when it seemed they would leave at any moment, I was forced to ask again.

They looked at each other. Father Gerthmol looked back into the distance beyond my shoulder. Father Geneth met my eyes for a moment, then looked down at the hem of his robe and his sandalled feet below it. "Young Suliensson rode out with Sister Arvlid yesterday as usual," he said.

I don't remember what they said next or how they left me. I paced some more until eventually ap Erbin dragged me off to my tent and made me swallow a cup of some vile Demedian drink he had. From the taste it must have been made of mashed turnips and linen-seed oil, but it burned hot all the way down and he meant well by it. I must have slept that night because I remember waking up in the dawn with a raging thirst.

It rained all the next day. I paced again, almost wearing a rut through the mud of the camp. I kept expecting every report to be that Darien's body had been found. Instead the reports were curiously empty. It seemed there was nobody and nothing moving as far as they could reach. A red-cloak came in from Caer Rangor in the late afternoon saying that Luth and Cinon had gone out hunting, separately, and had not returned, but the message would wait their return. I hadn't been on a hunt that lasted more than a day since Angas went back to Demedia. I cursed them for being off indulging themselves when I needed them. The news of Luth would have been a worse blow if I had been without ap Selevan's pennon. I blessed Elenn again in my heart.

At sunset they buried Arvlid in the grove where she had died. There was a stir when I arrived with the others. There were so many of us there who had been her friends that there was no room in the grove, and we had to stand back among the trees. I think Father Gerthmol would have sent me away, but Raul said something to him and they let me stay.

If he was expecting a spectacular conversion, he was disappointed.

It was a calm and quiet service. Father Gerthmol spoke about her— how as a young girl she had warned Thansethan about Goldpate's attack and how she had lived there so long and served the White God. Now, he said, she had been taken to Him and would serve Him in eternal and everlasting worship. Then we sang and everyone piled earth on the mound afterwards, just as if she had fallen in battle. They cut down the grove later, all but the one oak, and built a church and a monastery. Ap Erbin built his house near there, and I hear that now a little town has grown up around it in the river bend, a real town with a school
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and a marketplace and a stable for the red-cloaks to change horses. Everyone calls the place Thanarvlid. It is not such a bad way to be remembered. I think if she had known that in dying she was making a town and a center for the Jarnsmen who lived in those parts, she would have been glad of it. It is true that she loved the White God and served him all her life, but she also loved her people and tried to do her best for them.

That is why she used to ride out among them after all. It wasn't only prayers she took them but medicine and other help. If they were all like Arvlid, I would like the monks much better.

After the service I tried to speak to Raul, but Father Gerthmol would have none of it and almost snatched him away. After that I paced again until ap Erbin asked me if it was helping, and I snapped at him. Then I went and groomed my horses. They didn't need grooming, the groom had taken good care of them. It did calm me enough to sleep.

The next day was the same. I still didn't want to eat or talk to anyone at all. The same thoughts kept going round and round in my head. Every time I saw a party coming back I felt certain the next report would be that Darien's body had been found. Arvlid had been there when he was born; had he been there when she died? Had all that pain and trouble been for nothing, for him to die so young? I had hardly known him. Then I felt angry with myself for being so selfish as to think of my pain and trouble when it was his life that he would have to start all over again after such a short time. Then I would start thinking about revenging myself on whoever had set this up, but being very sure who it was first.

This led me into the other maze of trying to puzzle out who had done this and why.

The only new news to reach us that third day was a message from Penarwen that Ayl was away from Fenshal, hunting. No more news came from Cinon and Luth at Caer Rangor, which suggested that they had not returned.

That evening, as I was sitting on a log grooming my horses and thinking in futile circles, I felt Glimmer move sideways uneasily and I realized someone had come up and was standing a little way behind. I drew my hand across my eyes to block the fire's glare and turned around.

It was Ulf, looming over me in the half-light. I was surprised. I had been expecting ap Erbin or Elidir fussing over me again. Most of the others had been avoiding me.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Praefecto," he said. I stood up; I didn't want him to have any advantage over me.

"What?" I asked, ungraciously.

He took a deep breath. "Whose child is it they are saying is lost?"

"Mine," I said, shortly.

"I knew that," he said. "I have heard 'Suliensson this' and 'Suliensson that' ever since ap Selevan got in. How old is this son of yours?"

I felt a sudden surge of anger. "I don't know what right you think you have to ask me that sort of question?" Glimmer caught my mood and threw up his head and huffed loudly in challenge. The other horses shifted uneasily.

"No right at all," Ulf said, bleakly, as if that were answer enough. It was too dim to make out his features, but I saw him shudder. "But however much Ohtar called me a fool, I think I was right—you are suited to Gangrader and he likes you. I wish he would be content with you and leave me alone."

"Your choice of gods is your own affair, Ulf Gunnarsson," I said. "I don't see why you need to disturb me with it now."

"Because this boy who is lost is your son, you who have never been married, and because you think that the gods are on the side of peace. Gangrader is not like that, he is a god of war-strife and death in battle and vicious jokes."

"It would not be to Gangrader's benefit to have Ayl and his people slaughtered and civil wars come again," I said, quietly. "Even the harvest of the battle crows must grow to ripeness. And
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despite your dedication and whatever you think, I have always served Urdo and the Peace of the High Kingdom."

"Oh well I know that," said Ulf, and there was a catch that was almost a sob in his voice.

"Yours is always the way of honor. But beware of Gangrader's promises, he will twist them. If that certainty that was burning through you in the grove was his certainty, then distrust it."

"If I was in the hand of any god to see clearly the trap laid for me then I do not think it was your Raven Lord," I said, as calmly as I could, wondering if Ulf was drunk. "I will bear what you say in mind, but Gan-grader has never made me any promises, and so he cannot twist them."

"Shall I tell you what he promised me?" Ulf asked, leaning closer and whispering. "He promised me a son of my blood would sit on the throne of Tir Tanagiri. My father was king in Jarnholme, and Sweyn was my uncle, it did not seem so unlikely. So I came here with Sweyn, thinking we had been promised victory right up until we lost. And since that I—well, never mind, but Gangrader twists his promises, and I have a son already, don't I?

They say you and Urdo are lovers. They say this boy is Urdo's son. I may be an idiot Jarn, but they say he is thirteen years old and I can count. I remember what Urdo said on Foreth. This is exactly the sort of joke Gangrader loves, and why aren't we laughing?"

"Because the boy is very likely dead?" I forced myself to say. The words came out sounding harsh and cold. "Which rather spoils any joke. I will say nothing of his father. It is nothing to do with you, you have no claim on him. He was born at Thansethan nine months after I took service with the High King."

"It would spoil the joke entirely, and so I expect he is alive, preserved by some strange chance. I expect I will die tomorrow," Ulf said, entirely calmly. "That usually happens when Gangrader has arranged for someone to see the point of one of his jokes."

"Ulf," I said, wearily, "if we have a battle tomorrow and we get the chance to charge, I'll happily put you in the front, and if you truly feel like dying you can charge naked and painted blue like the Isarnagans. I don't care. It will make my life easier. But I don't think this is the sort of fight where we'll be so lucky as to have the enemies clearly marked out to be hacked to pieces. If my son is alive, I ask you to say nothing to him or to anyone else of any question of his parentage.

We settled our quarrel at Foreth."

"I will not say anything." He trailed off as if he wanted to say something else but could not find the words.

"While you're here," I said, "tell me who might have read your dreams? All the women and half the men in your pennon from what I hear, but who else?"

"Half my pennon if you like to say so, but why would any in the ala wish us harm?" he asked.

Put like that it sounded reasonable. "Before I came to the ala?" He paused.

"Comrades, who are dead or in Jarnholme with my aunt and my brother, or now in Alfwin's service. Servants. It's hard to think that anyone who chose to share blankets with me would do such a thing."

I could see that it might be. "But any of those people might have a grudge against us now, against you, and have no reason to love Ayl."

"Maybe. And maybe enough to have reason to hate you for killing their friends. Who does hate you?"

"I don't know." It was a horrible question. I couldn't think of anyone who hated me personally. I had killed Jarnsmen enough, but never outside the usage of war. I wouldn't be surprised if they came at me with a knife, but this sort of thing meant real malice. And Darien—I bit my lip. I thought again of Morwen, who had hated me and was dead. "How close to you did Morwen of Angas come?"

He shuddered, I could see it clearly though it had grown too dark to see his face. "She could never have come close to me while I slept," he said. "Anyway she has been dead for years."

"It felt to me like her doing. Like Caer Lind," I said. "I know very well she's dead. I had a part in it. How about her son?"

"Morthu?" Ulf hesitated. "Yes, we shared blankets once or twice, when he first came to the ala.

But when he first came from Thansethan Morthu acted like a filly with the spring air in her face; he wasn't always careful about hurting people's feelings. He sought me out, then mocked me afterwards. I don't like him, now that I know him. But why would he hate you?"

"I'm probably being unfair to Morthu," I said, "but I did kill his mother." He was here, he was in ap Selevan's pennon. I had been aware of him watching me pacing several times.

"He's never said anything against you that I've heard," Ulf said, slowly. "Not for his mother's rebellion, nor against the High King. He does speak well of his brother and of Demedia, and he has mentioned that he is a grandson of Avren often enough that nobody's likely to forget it. But what could he want? What could he gain?"

"The grandson of Avren might want the crown of Tir Tanagiri?" I suggested.

"Starting up the War again wouldn't get him that," Ulf said. "Even if he could kill Urdo it would not. He is very young and has less right than his brother. Very few would support such a claim.

He would do better to befriend Urdo and be made his heir."

"Then I don't know!" I said, too loudly. The horses shifted uneasily, and I was aware of the camp beyond them, the ditch, the river. I would have liked to mount up and gallop flat out as fast and as far as I could. "I hate waiting!" I said, with sudden impatience. "I wish there was something to do."

—36—

The Law shall be no one person s tool, to work the will of kings or to thwart it; it shall be the shield of many against one, and the shield of one against many, and the wall between strife of kin. To do these things it must be made so that the law is composed of the best will, the best judgment, and the best wisdom that can be found among many people, and made each time it is made with a clear heart and a choice of what best serves those living and those yet to be born.

— The Law Code of Urdo ap Avren

There were two more days of waiting and pacing and fretting before Urdo came and everything happened at once. I had kept a wide sentry ring out all the time and had news whenever anyone was moving, which was rare enough. There was still no news from Cinon or Ayl or Luth. I had begun to disbelieve the hunting story. It wasn't the weather to linger outside for pleasure. A messenger got in from Alfwin saying that he was on his way.